‘But you were tired. Yes, you did well, master, getting all the way here. You are on the island of Ennor. It’s south and west of your land.’
‘Ennor.’ Simon had heard of it before.
‘It is owned by the Earl of Cornwall,’ Hamadus added helpfully.
It was little help to Simon. The information only made him realise how much further he must travel to get to his home. ‘Christ’s blood, and I have to cross the damned water again,’ he groaned.
‘To get home?’ Hamadus cackled. ‘Of course, my friend. You can go nowhere from here without getting your feet wet, apart from to other islands, when you’re very lucky and the tide’s well out.’
‘I don’t want to go to other islands,’ Simon said. ‘I only want to make my way home.’
‘You’ll have a wait. There’s a boat every once in a while.’
‘What of all the ships based here on the islands?’
Hamadus shrugged with a happy smile. ‘They’re all looking for your ship now. They’ll try to steal everything they can before Ranulph finds it, and then they’ll claim salvage. You know what that is?’
‘Yes. I know,’ Simon said. After all, when he returned home, he was to take up a new post at Dartmouth, under his master, Abbot Champeaux of Tavistock, who had bought the post of Keeper of the Port. The good Abbot hoped to make a profit for the Abbey, so that it would be left with a favourable balance on his death. Simon knew that his master was determined to see the Abbey on a sound footing, and the way that the Abbot had arranged the Abbey’s finances, Simon was comfortably assured that his master would succeed. ‘Who is this Ranulph?’
‘Ranulph de Blancminster, the Lord of the Manor. He owns all these islands, apart from the northern ones, of course. They are the Abbey’s.’
Now Simon remembered the name. Of course! Tavistock Abbey owned property in a place called Ennor. This must be the same place. That was a stroke of luck, since he was himself in the Abbey’s employ. ‘Thank God,’ he breathed.
‘Salvage is the law that means a man can win himself a share of half the value of the ship he finds, if he helps it to be saved. Half of the value of the ship and all the goods inside it.’
‘Yes,’ Simon said as testily as his tiredness allowed. ‘I know.’
‘Better than a wreck, of course.’
‘I know … Why?’
Hamadus grinned, as though acknowledging that he had won Simon’s interest against his will. ‘Because salvage means that they will save lives if they can. They’ll win money anyway, but if it’s supposed to be a wreck, then they have the problem.’
Simon waited impatiently. His head was hurting already, and he had no wish to sit here listening to the old dollypoddle. ‘Well?’
‘It’s not a wreck if there is a man, woman, dog or cat left alive, is it? In the good old days, people would sometimes kill everyone, just to remove witnesses, and then they’d take the ship and its cargo for themselves. It was profitable in those days. Unless the King’s Coroner, or the Earl’s Havener got to hear of it. Many were hanged for taking a ship that wasn’t theirs. The law of salvage is better: a man knows he can go and save a ship and all the souls in her, and be paid up to half the value of the vessel and her cargo. It means losing the whole value and only claiming a part, but at least a man doesn’t risk his neck for the money. Better for all.’
‘They would kill people to prevent witnesses giving testimony against them?’ Simon asked, appalled.
‘Do you realise how much some of these ships can be worth?’ Hamadus asked scathingly.
‘So a King’s Coroner lives here?’ Simon said. ‘A Coroner must view all wrecks.’
‘Not here. We have the earldom’s Haveners to answer to. The money goes to the earldom.’
Simon was frowning. His head ached, and his eyes felt gritty and foul from saltwater, as though someone had thrown a handful of sand into each. ‘That makes no sense. I thought the King owned all wrecks. It’s nothing to do with the islanders.’
‘The King?’ Hamadus laughed aloud. Standing, he walked over to Simon and crouched at his side, eyes gleaming like a demon’s. ‘You think the King’s writ runs here? He’s a clever man, so they say — witty, generous and bold — but that means nothing here. We live miles from him. He would have to cross the seas to find us. We have our own laws.’
Simon felt a sudden shaft of fear as the man lifted his hand to Simon’s face, but there was nothing he could do to protect himself. It was just the exhaustion of the ship’s foundering, he told himself; that and the loss of his closest friend. To have lost Baldwin was appalling. It made him feel a renewed grief, and as though in sympathy, his eyes watered again.
It was good, though. As soon as the old man’s hand touched his face, he felt refreshed. His eyes were less sore, his body a little less worn. Instead he felt overcome with an enveloping lassitude.
‘But the King’s laws …’ he muttered.
‘Here we have the Earl’s laws,’ Hamadus said, his voice showing that he was concentrating on other things. ‘Well, usually. If a ship is wrecked, it’s not the King’s. It may be the Prior’s, and it may be the earldom’s, but if Ranulph claims it, the earldom won’t argue. Ballocks! It’ll probably never even hear of it!’
His voice seemed to come from a long way away. Simon knew that the hand was gone, but he didn’t care. For the first time in weeks he felt secure. In Spain he had suffered from illness and wounds; while travelling he had been constantly on his guard, worried that a sailor might rob him, or a footpad cut his purse, and this felt a soothing, reassuring place in which to rest. ‘Sleep well,’ were the last words he heard.
Chapter Six
There had been no such calm voice speaking to Jean de Conket when he finally felt secure enough to drop exhausted on the thwart and cover himself with a blanket. He was asleep almost before the thick blanket had settled over him.
Waking in the warmth of the noonday sun, Jean stared about him with confusion. His men were still, for the most part, sitting at their rowing positions, backs bent over their oars, snoring, some of them, fit to raise the dead from the deeps. But they were alive. A stabbing pain made Jean wince and snap his eyes shut. It was awful, but he had once been told that the worse the pain, the better the wound. Worst of all was a cut that felt fine, but when you touched the skin, you could feel the fever burning beneath. No, the fact that it hurt like hell was good. It meant that something was going on. The flesh was living still.
It was good, so good, to feel the sun on his face when he had not honestly expected to live to see another morning. Jean stood and peered about him. To one side was a quiet, tiny island, which must surely be uninhabited, except by birds. Southwards the view changed dramatically. Here was a broad expanse of land, a low-lying, flat place with few trees, none of which was more than a few feet tall, and much long grass. The shoreline was all vicious rocks, black with water. They could not go there for provisions. At least the mast could be mended, Jean thought sombrely. Last night it had cracked some thirty feet up with a noise like a cannon, and the top had sagged. It had taken a great deal of effort to rescue it, preventing it falling into the sea and dragging much of their rigging with it. By hard effort and with great good fortune, his men had saved it.
The sooner they were away from here, the better. Jean began assessing the work to be done before he would be happy that his ship was ready for the open sea again. There was no point in a voyage when Jean was unhappy with the ship’s worthiness. He wouldn’t risk her and his men so lightly. First they had to make the mast usable, and Jean wasn’t sure how, yet; there must be some way of strengthening what was left. Arnarld was a competent carpenter. When the man woke, Jean would ask his advice.
Jean himself was a cheerful man. A quirk of nature made him smile at any adversity, and his apparently easygoing character had led some enemies or business competitors to misjudge him. Most of them had later had cause to regret their mistake as they realised that the smile could remain on a man’s face as he killed another.