The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) Read Online Free PDF

place.’
    ‘Use a stone to weight them down, then,’ Simon said unsympathetically, leaning against the window’s frame and listening. The hammering was continual down here, near some of the shipbuilders. At first he had hated the din, longing for the peace and tranquillity of the moors, but now he had grown accustomed to it, and when the men stopped working in the evening, he rather missed it.
    Stephen, he saw, was hunched a little more at his work. It was unkind of Simon to insist on having the shutter open, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. He needed the air. It was just a shame that no clerk seemed able to cope with it.
    His experience of clerks was not extensive, and less than positive, but he was gaining an insight into them and their work.
    The first, Andrew, had been a whining pest; the next had been a weedy, frail man, little better than a boy, really, who’d been sent back when his coughing had grown so insistent that Simon could not concentrate. He secretly believed the lad was faking illness to shirk his work, but the abbot had assured him that the fellow had been sent away to recuperate as soon as he returned because he was ravaged with a fever; the third had been wealthy, and clearly a great deal more fit. He had been sent back to Tavistock when Simon encountered him in a tavern’s bedroom with two women.
    This Stephen was more pleasant than any of the others. Less cocky (in both meanings of the word) than hisimmediate predecessor, he managed to look ascetic, while still reserving some spirit. Simon’s occasional irritable outbursts could reduce a weaker man to tears in a moment, but Stephen would listen, and if there was a rational cause to the explosion, would sometimes offer useful advice. If there was no good reason, however, he would just sit back with a puzzled expression that was somehow amused and condescending at the same time. At first this had made Simon ashamed, then it infuriated him, and now, after some weeks, it actually soothed him.
    The fact was, there were many frustrations to this job. As well as Simon’s anger at being removed from the job he knew and loved, he missed his family. Especially after the return of his old servant, Hugh. And now, of course, he wanted to be nearer home and Tavistock since the death of his patron, Abbot Robert.
    Abbot Robert. There was a man who would be sorely missed. Simon had all but idolised him. To those who knew him, he was a powerful force for good. For those who did not, it was hard to know where to start to describe him: kind, generous, worldly, and a man of business like no other Simon had ever met. He had taken on Tavistock Abbey when it was in a terrible state, and had been forced to borrow heavily to keep the institution afloat. That was many years ago, forty-odd, and in the time since, he had built Tavistock up to become one of the most effective and wealthiest convents in the whole of Devon and Cornwall. Simon had respected him hugely … and loved him. Abbot Robert had replaced the father who had died some years ago, and Simon felt the loss sorely.
    Without a spiritual and businesslike head, the abbey was marking time, and all could feel it. Stephen here was in a similar position to Simon. Both knew full well that their position would be discussed at the highest level, as soon as the new abbot was confirmed in his post, but neither could influence the outcome. It left a man feeling peculiarly isolated.
    If Stephen was not wearing the cloth, Simon could easily believe that his slender frame, large blue eyes and fair hair could be a sore temptation to many of the women about the town. From what he had seen of other clerks, not even the cloth itself would protect them from womanly ways. Not that Stephen’s predecessor had needed much tempting …
    Ach! It was no good. There was too much on his mind to keep him concentrating on his work.
    ‘The ship, master,’ Stephen prompted him now. ‘She was found on the sea some miles out, just over the