It was enough. Baldwin couldn’t watch the last of the pirates being cut down and tossed overboard like lures to attract fishes. He supposed that was all they were now, but he did not like the fact, and he also thought to himself that the idea of eating fish on these islands had grown peculiarly abhorrent.
He was about to walk away from the place when there was a familiar roar, and he saw a strange figure striding towards him with a glowering demeanour and a ferocious appearance, largely due to the dagger gripped firmly in his fist. It said much for Baldwin’s impression of Sir Charles that the streamers of kelp which trailed from his arms and legs — and the air of seedy dampness given off by his filthy and now sodden clothing — did nothing to detract from the awesome power which emanated from him.
‘Where are the castle’s men? I want Ranulph de Blancminster now! Where is the coward? May heaven witness that I intend beating him with this dagger, if he won’t meet me in equal combat!’
‘My friend,’ Baldwin said with some tiredness, ‘I think you are a little too late.’
Simon was desperate to see Hamo and make sure that the boy was all right. As soon as the last of the pirates was captured, he left the men there on the beach and ran up the lane which he thought must lead to the priory.
And then he arrived and found the pathetic corpse, and all thoughts of the murders left him. He knelt, gently picking up the lad, while his eyes fogged and the breath threatened to throttle him. There was no need to check whether he was living. The dent in his skull where a mace had struck was all too obvious, and Hamo’s eyes were almost forced from their sockets from the violence of the blow.
‘Simon?’
Baldwin had been with him all the way back from the beach, concerned about his friend, and now he saw the body in Simon’s arms.
‘It’s ironic. I’d intended to save the boy, sending him away from the developing fight, and in so doing, I sent him into the midst of a more brutal battle. In such a way might a man fail his friends. All I wanted to do was save him from the castle and the bloodshed.’
‘I am sure he knew that,’ Baldwin said. ‘Let us take him into the church.’
Simon nodded. ‘I saved his life from the boat, I thought, when I needn’t have bothered — the thing didn’t sink. Now he’s dead, poor lad, because I wanted to protect him. I couldn’t have served him worse had I intended to.’
‘That is what happens sometimes, Simon. All we can do is treat people in the best way we can. No man can tell the consequences of his actions. We must simply behave as best we can.’
Simon bent his head, eyes closed, before walking on towards the church. They laid the small body by the others which were being brought in: the gatekeeper with his hideous wounds, a young monk found in the Prior’s own room, another fellow cut down by the church’s door. The two knelt in front of the altar in prayer for a few moments. It was only a short while later that the noise of wheezing heralded the arrival of the Prior. Cryspyn nodded to them, knelt, made a hasty obeisance, glanced at the dead, and then motioned to Baldwin and Simon to join him.
Baldwin was soon finished, and stood, a hand on Simon’s back. He left Simon there, walking slowly and contemplatively towards the back where Cryspyn waited.
‘I should like to offer you both wine and food when you are ready. I wanted to thank you for your warning this morning. And your friend for his attempt to warn me about the men from Ennor, of course.’
‘That is most kind. We shall be delighted to join you,’ Baldwin said, but his attention was absorbed by Simon’s distress.
Cryspyn saw his gaze. ‘Do you think we could do anything to help him?’
‘He was truly attached to that young fellow. I heard once that a man who saves another’s life can feel more responsibility than the one who has been saved. It is a great duty. And then to lose the life saved, can make a man feel doubly guilty.’
‘Perhaps. And yet it is a greater thing than killing. Killing can be too easy,’ Cryspyn said.
Baldwin surveyed the rows of dead men with Cryspyn. ‘Yes. And too many men learn that skill too young.’
The Prior bent his head sadly. ‘I fear so. Even I once committed that gravest of sins.’
‘You?’
‘What, you didn’t realise?’ Cryspyn said. ‘You think that only the happy, well-behaved monks would be sent here? I am afraid not. Luke was not the only …’
His voice trailed away, and he winced. Baldwin thought it was at a memory, but in reality, the Prior was merely aware of a fresh twinge of pain in his belly. The acid was stirring in his stomach, and swallowing achieved nothing. It had been the same ever since he had returned to his room and encountered the fresh, sweet odour of blood and something else: the taint of sex. He had been told what had happened to young Daniel in there, and it was as though the air that had supported the men who raped and murdered him had forever stained the room.
‘Not the only?’
‘Sorry?’ Cryspyn was brought back with a start. ‘Oh. I assumed you knew about me — I thought everybody knew why I was sent here. You know Abbot Robert, after all. I was sent here after a fight about a woman. I loved her … so did another man. I killed him. That is all. But it was much at the time.’
‘Homicide is always a terrible crime, I suppose,’ Baldwin said, but without censure. He had killed enough men in his time to know that the mere killing of another was not evil — it was the reason for killing that was foul. Sometimes homicide was necessary.
‘It can be,’ Cryspyn said, as though reading his mind. ‘But when it’s over a woman, the crime is doubly terrible. I killed him just because he had … won her.’
Baldwin studied him dispassionately. Cryspyn did indeed look guilty, as though this murder was weighing upon him. ‘A man who kills because another has stolen his wife … it is understandable.’
‘She was not my wife, Sir Baldwin. Only a woman whom I adored. I had thought she was perfection, and I even considered taking her and running. Consider! I was prepared to leave the Church, renounce my oaths, and live as a felon with her.’
‘What happened?’
‘I heard that she had already taken another man. At first I didn’t believe it, but then I laid a trap for her. I waited in her chamber, resolved to offer myself to her, and if she refused me, I thought I would run away. But when she entered the room, she wasn’t alone. While I watched, he and she … did as a man and woman will. So I took my sword, and I killed him.’
The simple restatement did not do the scene justice, he thought. That terrible headless body marching towards him like a devil’s plaything, then stumbling and falling against him, the penis still erect, he afterwards recalled, the arms reaching as though to clutch at his own life, the blood springing up and blinding him. And he knew that he had lost her for ever.
The long, long months of a penitent’s cell, the shame of the Bishop’s court, and finally the sailing boat which had brought him here. All were so clear in his mind. It still seemed strange and marvellous that any acquaintance of the Abbot’s should not have known of his crime.
‘What happened to the lady?’
‘Sara went on to become a nun until she died,’ Cryspyn said sadly. ‘I killed him with my sword, but I fear that I inflicted a worse wound on her. It turned her mind completely.’ He sighed. ‘So that is why I am here. Men like Luke and me are sent here because of our sins.’
Simon had risen now, and genuflected before the altar as Baldwin asked quietly, ‘What of William? Has he also committed a grave sin?’
‘Why no, I do not think so. I believe he adored these islands when he once came to visit, and chose to remain.’