The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) Read Free Page B

Two
    The appearance of the cog as she sailed into Dartmouth’s harbour was so peculiar that the men found their eyes drawn away from the corpse at their feet. Even Hamo, who was no sailor, found himself distracted and turned to stare into the haven with all the others.
    ‘Christ Jesus and all His saints,’ he murmured.
    Everyone had seen ships which had been knocked about in foul weather, but from the look of her, this was no simple disaster of wind and wave. Some other fate had overcome her, and Hamo had an idea he knew what it was. The timbers looked more black than pitch alone could have made them; the rigging, even to the cooper’s untutored eye, was odd, as though it was all freshly replaced, and that in a hurry, while the mast was much too short.
    In front of the cog was the
Christopher
, John Hawley’s ship, and the sight of it made Hamo’s lips twist into a grin. Yes, if Hawley had seen a rich prize like this, he would do his best to rescue her, in the hope of being able to keep her. Never a man to turn his nose up at a profit, was John Hawley.
    ‘Wake up, you churls!’ bawled Ivo le Bel, the local sergeant. ‘Let’s get this over with. Hamo, I know you wantto get down there and sell some barrels, but that can wait, by God’s pain! Sweet mother of Christ, look at his head!’
    Hamo glanced back at the corpse just as Ivo le Bel clambered out of the hole. The sight made him swallow hard to keep his breakfast down. At his side, the scruffy stranger with his leather apron was making a fuss.
    ‘What’s he doing here in the road?’ he whined. ‘I just don’t … Ach, if a man
has
to fall and kill himself, why should he wander up the road until he finds my hole and falls into that? Aren’t there enough damned wells around here to fall into?’
    Ivo le Bel shot him a look. ‘Shut up, Paviour. There’s nothing to be done about this, least of all whining. We’ll have to get the Coroner here as soon as possible.’
    ‘Good. Is there one in this borough?’
    ‘Here?’ Ivo gave a loud chuckle. ‘No, we’ll have to send for one. We’re not big enough to justify our own down here.’
    ‘Oh, no! I’ve got to get cracking with my work, or I’ll be late. This is going to take days!’
    Ivo shrugged. ‘You can do what you want, man. It’s no affair of mine. But if you try to move this body, I’ll tell the Coroner
and
the Sheriff. There’s no getting away from it. This poor fellow fell into your hole last night and brained himself on the rocks.’
    Hamo the cooper peered down again. The trench here was quite deep, it was true. Alred, the paver, was here with his apprentice and labourer to mend several stretches of roadway that had begun to fall apart in the last few years; the burgesses were sick of the complaints from people saying that their carts couldn’t travel up here any more. A sum hadbeen agreed, and this Alred Paviour contacted. The man had travelled all the way down from Exeter. If anyone could mend the roads hereabouts, it was a professional like this Alred.
    However, it had to be admitted, he
had
left the road here in a state last night. The street was in constant use, and yet he’d lifted a large area and left only one wooden trestle at each side to stop people from falling in during the hours of darkness. That was plain foolish, when there were so many taverns along this stretch. Look – the Porpoise was only a matter of yards away!
    His eyes went back to the strange ship in the harbour. He saw the enormous splash as the anchor dropped into the water, even as a rowing boat started off from the shore. It headed for the
Christopher
, at the same time as a boat was launched from John Hawley’s cog. Hamo could hear shouting, for noise always travelled clearly over the water here, but his ears could not discern any words. The little boats rocked on the gentle swell, men discussing the damaged cog, no doubt, and then the
Christopher
’s rowing boat lurched forward to the shore, while the