‘Really? But now I hear that you have a part in the ship yourself. Is this true?’
‘I …’
‘Perhaps we should merely ask the master of the ship who owns his cargoes. That would be easiest, would it not?’
‘It was mine,’ Thomas said quietly. Then he looked up. ‘But I did not kill Luke or Robert, I swear. Prior, I claim sanctuary, and I swear on the cross that I have not murdered either of those two.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
At the very back of the group of men from St Nicholas, Isok stood watching disinterestedly. The worst had happened. He had heard the sniggers from the islanders, seen two boys point and laugh out loud; a girl had eyed him with open amusement. This, then, was the future: He was a figure of utter contempt. A man who was no man.
When the men began to talk, Simon and Baldwin discussing the affairs with the Prior, Isok was aware only of overwhelming depression. His woman was lost to him, and he must face the rest of his life alone. Miserably, while Thomas and David joined the group, he began to walk away. He had no idea where he would go, only that the propinquity of his neighbours was repellent to him, and he wanted solitude.
His boat was out at the beach near his house. He could go to it, fill a skin with water, and sail out to the west. Perhaps he could find a good source of fish, a place that would bring him some fame, make him renowned as a great fisherman. It was possible. That was always one way of getting credit with people. Not that it would work. They would always look on him as the ‘man without balls’, the ‘man whose ballocks were broken’, the ‘man whose tarse was blocked’ — or worse. There would be no end to the humiliation to which he would be subjected.
The boat was not far from where he stood now, and without bothering to fetch a skin, he made for it, his bare feet sinking into the warm sands. The sky darkened momentarily as a cloud passed over the sun, and it mirrored his feelings. The sea took on a grimmer aspect when the sun was hidden, he thought, and he felt a chill in his lower bowels. It was the mark of fear; when he was a child, he had been bullied by bigger boys, because even then he had known that he was different in some ways, and they seemed to sense it.
That was why he had learned to fight: so that he could protect himself. Not that it stopped them from hurting him, but it did mean that some of them realised that they should beware a lad who was prepared to fight with a ferocity that took no account of the risk to himself, only the urgent wish to hurt his tormentors. Then, that coldness between his buttocks and ballocks had heralded a bitter fight, one which he knew he must inevitably lose, but one during which he would make at least some of them regret attacking him. Now he had the same premonition.
It was only as he pushed his boat out to sea and threw a leg over the side that he wondered whether it was a sign from God. God had given him this affliction. Perhaps the kindest thing God could do was take him away from the islands completely, have him sail westwards until the seas and the weather conspired to destroy him. That would be a form of honourable ending. If he sailed away and died, Tedia would be free of him and could seek another man, and his own pain would be gone.
Feeling the boat come alive beneath him as the waves slowly lapped at the sides, he began to row away from the beach. Soon he could drop his sail and start his last journey.
This morning, there had been a crust of dried slime beneath his eyelids, and they felt gummed shut when Jean woke. At last, after rubbing at them hard, he managed to open them and gaze about him.
The strakes had been badly damaged. Two had broken, cracked vertically, and had to be repaired, a new plank laid over, and tar and caulking smoothing the joins and seams. Once that was done, the ship’s carpenter had made some oaken pegs and a baulk of timber, and made the damaged part even stronger with an internal vertical reinforcement. The work had taken them into the night, with most of the crew on alert, listening and watching as the carpenter and Jean stood under a pair of blazing candles, fixing the hull as best they could.
Now, in the open sea once more, the ship was taking on the feel that Jean knew so well. Her bow lifted and fell with that firm power that he had grown to love; the whistle and thrum of the wind in the rigging almost made him forget the agony that was his arm. He daren’t look at it. He knew how bad it was. Strange to think that at first he had thought the damned thing was going to be all right because it hurt. Now he couldn’t remember a time before the pain. It had spread like a liquid fire up the arm, and it had invaded his shoulder, even so far as his ear, which hurt like damnation — and he had a headache. The ship was no longer his own. He was a ghost, for all the good he was doing. His seamanship was no use to his crew; his thinking was too slow, too disorganised. He needed time to consider things.
But one thing he was aware of. The ship might have seen them rounding the island yesterday, but there was a possibility that she was still in the harbour. If he was lucky, he might get to it before anyone expected, win the ship, and take her and her cargo as a massive prize! That would be a feat for which people would remember him. And if he died, no matter. He would have died doing what he loved. Fighting and taking English property.
It wasn’t there. He could have thrown up his arms in impotent fury, seeing the empty harbour, but then he had the idea that it might have possibly gone on to another harbour in the islands. On that whim, he and his men set off to encircle the islands, and it was while they were rounding the western edge of Ennor, that the lookout at the masthead saw the buildings and called down to them.
‘Jean, there is a great house.’
‘What sort of house?’
The man was silent for a while. Jehanin was a cautious man, but he had the best eyes of any of them. ‘I would think it’s an abbey or a priory. Only small, but quite solid.’
Jean felt the blood pass through him in a rush. This was the prize: the sea was still on his side, and had taken away one prize only to reward his patience with another.
They would sack a priory.
Isok had intended that he would ride away in his boat as soon as he could get underway, but then he changed his mind. The little boat was facing north when he first unfurled the sail, but after a moment’s hesitation, he felt it would be good to see his home island just one last time. There was a part of his mind which told him that he would also, perhaps, have an opportunity to say farewell to his wife.
Isok set off and soon was skimming through the waves towards the sand bar, where he turned west and south, through the gap between the Trathen and the island, and along the coast with St Sampson ahead.
That was where he saw the long, low raider turning up into the broad waters from the other side of Ennor.
Isok felt his mouth drop open. This was a strange vessel for these parts. His first thought was that it was a swift ship for the Prior, but then he realised that it wasn’t heading for the priory’s harbour, up at the north-west of St Nicholas. This ship was racing into the beach which joined St Sampson and St Nicholas. Sure enough, soon the great ship was in the shallows, and as her keel grated on sand, the men dropped from her sides, swords, axes, daggers and clubs in their hands. One man, a great bearded fellow with blue-black hair in the sun, and a certain stiffness in his posture, had to be helped down a ladder, his arm in a sling, and then they started off up the roadway towards the priory.
Isok watched them as they went but his hands were already pulling on the ropes and pushing at the tiller. Before many minutes were passed, he was returning at speed the way he had come.
Baldwin was unimpressed by the new gather-reeve. ‘Walerand, I should like to ask you a couple of things, if your master does not object?’
Seeing Ranulph nod his assent, Baldwin continued, ‘On the night of Robert’s death, where were you?’