It was a small chamber in the outer wall, and when Baldwin pushed at the door, it squeaked open easily enough, but then crunched on something. When he peered into the gloom, he saw shards of pottery broken on the floor. There was a rancid stench, as though a man had tipped over a whole barrel of wine on the clay floor. From the feel of it, the fire hadn’t been lighted in a long while, and it was a cheerless little room.
A palliasse lay on the floor near a wall, while some rubbish and bits and pieces of food littered the place, scattered by a scavenging creature of some sort. When Baldwin crouched, the shards were pieces of a broken jug, and he considered them thoughtfully before carrying them outside and studying them in the light.
‘He was prone to heavy bouts of drinking?’ he asked William.
‘It’s no secret that he lost his vocation and sought comfort in whatever he could find inside a jug,’ William agreed.
‘The room stank of it.’
William shrugged. ‘It is a common failing with those who take up the cloth and live in remote places. He’d have had no visitors except occasional pilgrims and sometimes a member of the congregation, like Brosia or Tedia. The women liked to come, to flaunt themselves at him.’
‘There is no sign or smell of blood, anyway,’ Baldwin said. ‘Your church and outbuilding is not polluted with the man’s murder.’
‘That is a relief,’ William said, his eyes on the seas about them. His eyes held a great longing.
‘You didn’t mind the solitude?’
‘Not at all. There are views to compensate.’
‘Show me.’
Needing no second bidding, William led Baldwin up from the church along a narrow path, and up to perhaps the highest spot of the island. ‘Look about you!’
Baldwin gazed about him, and at last he could understand William’s attitude.
St Elidius was a small island, nothing like as large as Ennor or St Nicholas, but it had as much variety as both together. Northwards was a small separate island with a rounded, rock-girt outline called, William said, An-Voth, which meant ‘hump’ in the local language — a very suitable name. The channel from there to St Elidius was covered with water, but Baldwin was sure that he could see the ground beneath, and suspected that it would be accessible when the tide was lower. To the west of it stood the northernmost tip of the island, a promontory which William told him was called imaginatively Men-ar-Voth, which meant ‘rock facing the hump’. Beyond this series of rocks the island spread out farther westwards, Baldwin could see, and there were some inlets, but all looked as rocky and dangerous as the north Cornish coast. It was only as he turned and studied the southern view that he saw that the bays grew more sandy and attractive.
‘I love it here,’ William said. He made a brief sign of the cross. ‘It’s so restful and quiet. I always felt that St Elidius was watching over me. He’s buried here under his own altar, as you know.’
‘It is most soothing.’
‘Not during a storm it’s not,’ William chuckled. ‘I can understand Luke wanting to leave here in the middle of a storm. That sort of weather isn’t easy on a man of weak spirit, and Luke was not a strong-willed man. All he ever wanted was a woman. The fool should have remained a peasant and raised hundreds of smaller Lukes with a woman who was happy to lie on her back for him when he demanded it.’
‘He was unfortunate, then?’
‘Look at this beauty! Not just the island, with the joy of welcoming pilgrims every year, but the delight of living amongst these seafarers. The people here do not welcome strangers open-heartedly, but if you work with them, you learn to appreciate their dedication to work, their strength. But Luke couldn’t do that: he just looked on them as peasants — a class of person he detested, I think because he had once been like them and was revolted to remember it.’
‘Whereas you …?’
William suddenly guffawed. ‘Me? I’m an unrepentant old sinner who’s proud to say that I was a peasant, am a peasant, and will die a peasant! My family came from Cornwall, and if I hadn’t shown a skill at singing and learning my letters, I’d have gone to sea like my father and brothers. I suppose that’s why I like it here. It reminds me of my family.’ He was silent a moment, staring out over the gentle seas. ‘It is a good place, this. Harsh but kindly.’
Baldwin nodded. Glancing to the north again, he was about to speak when he saw a ship’s prow.
The vessel had lain concealed in a bay low beneath them, resting in a natural harbour north of their island. Now that Baldwin saw the ship, he could see that there was a rock or pair of rocks that stood between An-Voth and St Elidius, lumps of black stone that stretched east-west for maybe five hundred feet. Now that the ship had appeared, Baldwin could see the rock as a slightly different colour, maybe a paler grey against the darkness of An-Voth. Before, he had thought that they were a part of An-Voth’s coastline, but now it was obvious that there was a natural cleft between the two.
‘What is that doing there?’ William cried in surprise. ‘I didn’t know there was a harbour up there!’
‘I think,’ Baldwin said, staring hard, ‘that there could be a clue here to the murder of Luke.’
‘What do you mean?’
She was emerging from her hiding-place now, a long, low, ship with her mast slowly rising as men scrambled about and hauled on ropes. Gradually the massive timber lifted upwards to the vertical, and Baldwin could all but feel the strain in their arms as the crew roared commands at each other.
At any other time he would have stood and watched, but not this time. The sleek raider was preparing for sea, and Baldwin knew what that meant. He could see the black-bearded face of the Breton master as the current caught her and swung her head around. The master was at the back, his arm in a makeshift sling, bellowing at the helmsman.
‘Come quickly, William!’
‘Why? What is it?’
Baldwin saw before his eyes the helmsman of the Anne collapsing, gouts of his blood splashing on the deck, the screaming sailor falling from the grapnel he had tried to cut away, the cowering figure of Hamo — and when he spoke he scarcely recognised his own voice, it was so thick with hatred.
‘That ship: it is the pirates who attacked us.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sir Charles stood at the edge of the island and stared out in dismay. ‘Paul, he did say the north-western island, didn’t he?’
Paul nodded. They had arrived here with only one mishap when they had nearly rowed into a rock, but apart from that all was well. They had walked to the north of the castle, swinging around to the east of the marshes, and then northwards again until they reached the coast. By then the sun was already fairly high. When they had found a small beach, they searched but could find no boats. They had been forced to walk eastwards until they discovered this small rowing boat, and then they had set off for the nearest large island.
Their journey had been difficult. When they tried to row about the northern tip of the island, they found their way blocked by a substantial patch of sand just beneath the water. Nothing loath, they set off along the side of this bar, unknowingly following Baldwin’s steps to Bechiek.
Neither man was experienced at rowing. It was surprising to Sir Charles to find out how tiring it could be, merely pulling on a pair of oars, using brute force to haul the things along, and then trying not to make the sea fly on the return stroke. Quite extraordinary. Still worse was missing the sea when he leaned backwards. He did it three times, each time scraping the surface of the water and tumbling backwards into the front bit of the boat. Damn thing. The third time, Paul had sniggered so loudly that Sir Charles forced him to take a turn on the things.