Free The Awful Secret by Bernard Knight

a hand on his forehead. ‘He’s got a burning fever, Crowner.’
    ‘Who are you, boy, what happened to your ship?’ de Wolfe asked. He spoke in English and the youth looked blankly at him, shivering and hugging the rough blanket more closely around his thin shoulders.
    ‘He doesn’t understand a damned word,’ explained Siward. ‘I’ve given him some hot ewe’s milk and a few herbs I have here to try to calm his fever.’
    Suddenly, between a spasm of teeth-chattering, the shipwrecked sailor loosed a torrent of words. De Wolfe and his officer looked at each other in satisfaction. ‘He’s a Breton,’ exclaimed the coroner and changed his questioning to his blend of Cornish-Welsh.
    With a wan smile, the sick youngster responded in his own language and, within minutes, they had the whole story from him. The vessel was the
Saint Isan
, owned by a syndicate of burgesses from Bristol. It made regular voyages from the Avon to the Cornish ports and then across to Brittany. It had a master and a crew of five, two Somerset men and three Bretons. A few days ago, they had been coming from Roscoff via Penzance, back towards their home port, and were running before a brisk wind between Lundy and the mainland.
    ‘Our old tub was always slow, even with a following wind. A couple of hours after noon, we were overhauled by a longer vessel that had half a dozen oars each side, though these were shipped as she easily outran us under her sail.’ Alain, for that was his name, stopped for a prolonged bout of coughing. ‘Before we knew what was happening, they were alongside and a dozen men scrambled over the side,’ he continued, gasping for breath. ‘I remember seeing them almost cut our master’s head off with a sword and throw him overboard as they attacked all of us. Then one came at me with a club – I remember nothing more until I woke up on the deck, clinging for my life, with a dead man alongside me. Then the vessel struck and the last I recall was being thrown into the sea. I came to again in this hut, where this kind fellow has been doing his best for me.’
    ‘You have no idea who these pirates were?’ demanded Gwyn.
    ‘I recollect very little. It was all confusion for the couple of minutes that I remember. They shouted in English, that’s for sure.’
    ‘What was their ship like?’ asked John, standing over the man like a great black crow.
    Alain shrugged under the blanket. ‘Nothing special, though it was not a trading knarr like the
Saint Isan
. It was slimmer and faster, more like a longship – and it had a big sail, as well as a bank of oars on each side.’
    ‘No name painted on the bow, nor any device on the sail?’ grunted Gwyn.
    ‘Nothing. Other than that they used your Saxon tongue, I’ve no idea who they were or where they came from.’
    Gwyn pulled down the ends of his moustache, as if that would help him think. ‘You are a shipman in these waters. Have you heard of any other vessels being attacked in this way?’
    Alain shook his head wearily. ‘It was never mentioned by the other men, God rest them.’
    ‘What cargo were you carrying?’
    ‘It was a mixture – some wine, casks of dried fruit, bales of silk, I don’t know what else.’
    ‘Valuable stuff, a good haul for pirates,’ observed Gwyn.
    After some more questions, it became obvious that Alain had nothing else useful to tell them. Although de Wolfe would have liked him to appear at the inquest to identify the corpse, it was obvious that the young Breton was far too sick to be moved at present. They described the dead man to Alain, who felt sure that it was a Bristol youth called Roger, of mixed Norman and Saxon blood.
    De Wolfe felt in his waist pouch and gave Siward three pennies, with instructions to get some good food for the shipman and to tend him until he was fit to travel down to Ilfracombe, hopefully in a few days’ time.
    Leaving the old shepherd and his patient, they made their way back the several miles to the port,