Gwyn was, of course, delighted with the news and almost fell from his horse in his haste to reach the alehouse for some refreshment. Inside the low taproom of the Ship Inn, they found a group of sailors standing around a large upturned barrel, drinking their ale and cider. One was the shipmaster, Angerus, who looked startled to see one of his employers appear unexpectedly but rallied and introduced his crew to Gwyn and the coroner.
'We made port only on the last tide, sir!' he explained. 'So ale was the first necessity after a trip up from Dartmouth.'
He called for drinks for the new arrivals, as de Wolfe explained what had brought them to the neighbourhood. 'I came hoping to see you or Roger Watts again, to see if I could get any more news of what may have been going on in Axmouth.'
Angerus de Wile, a stringy man approaching thirty, had a prominent projecting lower jaw that made him look a little like a pugnacious bulldog. He had not yet had time to speak to his older colleague, Roger Watts, so did not know of John's previous visit to seek information about smuggling and piracy. When the coroner explained, there were murmurs from his shipmates and Angerus put them into words.
'Crowner, it's damned strange that you should be asking about this, for not more than a month ago we picked up a man floating on some wreckage, nearer the French coast than ours. He was half-drowned and had a great slash across his head. Poor fellow died before we could land him in Rouen, but he was the only survivor — if you can call it that — of a pirate attack.'
The ale-jugs arrived and John waited impatiently while thirsts were quenched. 'Did he tell you anything?' he demanded.
'The man could hardly speak — and that not for long until his wits failed completely. A Fleming he was, crewing a Dunkerque ship, carrying cloth and wine out of the Rhine, bound for Southampton.'
He stopped for a swallow and his ship's mate, a rotund older man, took up the tale. 'Hard to understand, he was, what with the foreign language and his weakness — but it seems that a faster cog had appeared in mid-Channel and boarded them, killing the crew, then scuttling the vessel after ransacking her.'
Angerus nodded. 'This fellow was struck with a sword and thrown overboard but managed to cling on to dunnage boards that floated free when the ship went down. The pirates sailed off without noticing that he wasn't yet a corpse.'
'Did he say what vessel attacked them?' asked Gwyn, wiping ale from his moustache with the back of his hand.
To de Wolfe's great chagrin, Angerus shook his head. 'It was just another cog. He couldn't read, even if he had the time and wits to see a name on the bow. But he said the assailants shouted in English, he was definite on that!'
'Damn it all!' muttered John. 'Have you any ideas where the vessel may have come from?'
The shipmaster looked around his crew, but they all shook their heads dolefully. 'Could be any port along the south coast — or even up the east or west, come to that,' said the mate. 'The worst bastards are those in Lyme, though maybe blaming them first has become a habit.'
'You've never been attacked yourself?' asked de Wolfe.
'No, thank Mary Mother of God!' said the shipmaster fervently, crossing himself. 'But Gilbert here had a narrow escape some years ago.' He prodded his mate in the ribs. 'Tell the coroner what happened.'
The fat man, who had features like a pickled walnut, banged his pot down on the barrel as he prepared to tell his story for the hundredth time.
'Coming over from Barfleur we were, in a cog belonging to a Dartmouth owner. This vessel comes beating up behind us, too close to be normal, and eventually we decided the bastard was trying to board us!' He cowered down and put his hand to shade his eyes in a dramatic reconstruction of the event. 'Our master was a cunning devil, thank Christ, for at the next tack he foxed the other one by going in the opposite direction. We were faster downwind than the pirate and gained on him so that after an hour he gave up and sailed away. Made us a day late getting into the Dart, but saved our necks, no doubt.'
'Did you recognise the other cog?' demanded Gwyn.
'It was English, no doubt of that, not a Frenchie,' replied' Gilbert. 'The cut of the rigging could be nothing else.'
'Any idea where she came from?' asked John.
'Not then, but a funny thing, a year later I saw a vessel berthed in Dover that I swear was the same one. I even went snooping around her and was told she had changed hands several times. You mentioned Axmouth just now, Crowner — well, the owner before the last one had bought her there.'
De Wolfe and Gwyn exchanged glances, eyebrows raised. 'I wonder who had sold her there?' musedJohn.
'Doesn't necessarily signify that she came out of Axmouth at the time she tried to board Gilbert's vessel,' cautioned Angerus. 'She might have been sold before then.'
'Did you get the name of the cog?' snapped the coroner.
'I can't read, but the lad I questioned said it was the Apostle Thomas.'
Most ships had names with religious connotations, as tokens of protection from the perils of the deep, but Gwyn pointed out that they changed these as often as women changed their kirtles. 'Could have been a totally different, name when she was sold from Axmouth,' he grunted.'
Some more discussion produced nothing of help to the coroner, except that Angerus de Wile was of the opinion that Martin Rof, the shipmaster of The Tiger at Axmouth, was 'a hard bastard', to quote him exactly. 'I've heard that he has flogged men in his crew to within an inch of their death,' he said sourly. 'That's no way to get your men to work properly!' There were growls of assent from those around the barrel.
'Could it have been his ship that chased you?' de Wolfe asked Gilbert.
The mate shook his head. 'Impossible to say. I don't know what Rof's cog looks like — and they never got close enough to see faces, thank Jesus. '
'Where are you and Roger Watts taking your vessels next?' asked de Wolfe. Hugh de Relaga and his clerks were the ones who ran the practical side of their business, and John was content to sit back and receive a bag of money at regular intervals.
'Now that April's here, we can start sailing long distance,' answered de Wile. 'Both of us are taking the cogs round to Exeter next week to load. I'm taking finished cloth down to St-Malo, and Roger is hauling tin over to Honfleur for the king's army, then up to Antwerp for more cloth.'
It was an open secret that Richard the Lionheart, hard-pressed for money to pay his troops, was diluting the silver coinage with Dartmoor tin.
Soon, John became restless and, muttering something about conferring with his partner about how the business was progressing, left Gwyn to continue drinking with his sailor friends, all of them following his departure with knowing grins.
At the imposing house behind the main street, John found Hilda on her doorstep, just returning from an errand of mercy. Some months earlier, assassins had slain the whole crew of one of their ships. Since then, Hilda had made it her business to see that the bereaved families of the shipmen lacked none of the necessities of life, and she had just been taking some child's clothing and a few pennies to one of the widows. Her face lit up when she saw John coming along the lane, and when her maid Alice opened the front door she ushered him inside, offering her cheek for a chaste kiss as soon as they were off the street. Though she was now an eligible widow, he was a married man and she did not want to provide scandal for anyone who might be peeping in the street.
'You look well, Hilda,' offered John gallantly as they followed Alice up the stairway to the solar. She did indeed, he thought, seeing her in more formal attire than on his previous visit, a light green mantle over her cream kirtle and a snowy linen cover-chief and wimple framing her beautiful face.
The maid took her cloak and they sat opposite each other, Hilda sending Alice for the inevitable wine and pastries. In spite of John's claim to a business visit, he disposed of his conversation in the tavern in a few sentences and settled down to enjoy her company, free from any need to interrogate or make plans.