The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Read Online Free PDF Page B

blow of any sort, and here he was, about as secure as a man standing on the back of a bucking stallion. No, it was worse. There were ropes of all different thicknesses lying about, and an assortment of boxes of merchandise, all ready to trip the unwary. Fighting here would be very difficult.
    The pirates’ boat was a low, sleek vessel, some sort of keeled ship. Cogs were large, ungainly brutes, to Baldwin’s eye, all huge arse and swelling sides, designed for carrying large amounts of merchandise; keel ships were more suited to raiding parties andpirates. Their low lines were strong, but importantly they gave the master the ability to use oars to propel the vessel those last, crucial few yards. Galley-like, the boat was similar to the ones Baldwin had seen in the Mediterranean: it also resembled the ships used by the arch-enemies of the world, the detested Vikings, whose raids had been made possible by the use of fast, seaworthy ships like this one.
    All at once, he saw the oars breaking out on each side. To the beat of a thunderous drum, he saw them slash into the water. Seeing the young cabin-boy Hamo passing him, Baldwin caught him by the arm. ‘Go below and ask my three friends to come up here –
kick
them up the stairs, if you have to. I will not leave them to die there. Better that we should all die together up here.’
    The lad sniffed and wiped a grimy sleeve across his face before giving Baldwin a duck of his head and darting off.
    The pirates were approaching more quickly now. Their leader stood in the prow, gripping an axe with which he beat the air in time with the oarsmen’s drum. He was a short, burly man with very white teeth all but concealed by a thick growth of beard. Baldwin at that point would have given much for a cross-bow and a well-made bolt. From here he could have pricked that devil without too much effort, he estimated, as the deck beneath him rolled and plunged.
    He heard a stumbling step immediately knew who it was.
    ‘This is terrible,’ Simon said thickly.
    Baldwin gave him the once-over. His friend the bailiff did indeed look awful. His hair was matted and smeared with vomit, his intelligent grey eyes were dulled and bloodshot showing up unnaturally in his waxen face. There was the yellowish cast of a corpse about him, and Baldwin was quickly anxious. ‘Old friend, you are not—’
    ‘Dead – which is a great source of regret to me,’ Simon said shortly. The sight of the horizon rising and falling had a disastrous effect on his belly, and closing his eyes didn’t seem to help. His stomach ached from spewing, he knew he smelled foul, and his mouth tasted like a midden: Christ Jesus, he detested sailing! He detested ships, and right now he detested himself. A liquid sensation in his bowels made him wince and clench his buttocks. ‘Thatgormless youth told us you wanted us. Why? What’s so hellfire important that you forced us— Christ’s pains!’ Leaning over the rail, he caught sight of their pursuers.
    ‘Yes, pirates,’ Baldwin answered as another passenger joined them.
    ‘What is all this? I can’t understand a word that blasted boy says.’
    This was Sir Charles, a tall, fair Englishman who had met Simon and Baldwin in Compostela. His blue eyes were haughty, as though the whole world was an amusement designed to please him, but Baldwin was unpleasantly aware that he was a mercenary, a ruthless and dispassionate killer. The man was a knight whose lord had died, leaving him with no means of support. There were many such knights wandering Christendom now. Some of them ended up in the most peculiar places. Baldwin had even heard of one who was captured while fighting Crusaders on the side of a Moorish Sultan!
    With Sir Charles was his companion Paul – a shorter, Celtic-looking fellow in a faded green jack. Of the three, Paul had the clearest eyes and the fastest mind. ‘They going to board us?’ he asked Baldwin.
    ‘They mean to.’
    Simon grimaced and felt for his sword.