The Devil's Acolyte

by Michael Jecks

  It was maddening. There were pewterers and agents from as far away as London and even Venice, but they could converse with these grubby, leather-skinned moormen. Rudolf had travelled here with his family to buy, but how can a man buy when he can speak none of the local language?

  Although he attempted to offer money for metal, the miners eyed him askance, and when Rudolf tried to push his way in among a knot of buyers who had encircled the first few miners to haggle over the price of their tin, he was rudely shoved out of the way.

  It was enough to drive a free man to draw his knife, and he almost did. Only the sober reflection that he was in a foreign country where the law would hardly miss one Swiss, made him leave it in its sheath.

  In disgust, he spat at the ground and walked from the main square. There was no point in being here, watching while the choicest ingots went to other dealers. He would find the tavern where his son Welf was drinking the strange-tasting English ale, and sample some more himself, before they made their way back to their camp at the outskirts of the town. Later, perhaps, he might find a man with tin to sell, after the initial rush had died down. Tomorrow they would set off again, back to London.

  Entering the alley in which the tavern stood, he found the sun was immediately shut off by the tall buildings at either side. Only a narrow streak of sunlight hit the wall on his left, struggling through from the roofs above. It was a narrow lane, this, with a good-sized kennel in the middle for the rubbish and faeces of men and beasts. Rudolf passed a sow rootling in scraps of waste, then had to follow the lane in a broad sweep around a large house. As he did so, he saw a figure drop from a window high in the wall. Rudolf grabbed at his knife again, stunned. Surely this man had just robbed a house! He was about to leap forward when another man appeared in the window above, a large sack in his hand.

  Giving an inarticulate cry, Rudolf sprang forward, catching the first fellow before he could bolt. One brawny arm went round his waist while the other, holding his knife, went to the fellow’s throat. Only then did he see the tonsure.

  ‘Bruder!’ he grunted, and instantly pulled his blade away. ‘Brother, I am sorry.’

  The lad was up and gone like a rabbit when the hound is after it. There was a clattering noise, and Rudolf found himself staring up at a swiftly falling sack. Too astonished to move, he gaped in horror as it struck him. He tottered, and then a man appeared at his side and grabbed the sack.

  ‘You threw that at me!’ Rudolf declared with rage. He was still in shock, and feeling bruised. The sack had been heavy, full of sharp objects.

  ‘Friend, I am sorry, it fell from my hand.’

  ‘You are a thief!’ Rudolf said. The stranger’s accent was at least easier to understand than the miners’ dialect.

  ‘No! Wait! You have scared off my companion. He’ll be at the abbey now, but let me explain before you do anything.’

  ‘Explain? You steal from a house. There is nothing to explain!’ Rudolf thrust his hand into the sack. To his amazement, it was filled with fine pewter: plates and mazers and bowls were rattling together inside the bag, haphazardly intermingled. ‘You are a felon.’

  ‘No. I have rescued all this. Please – let me explain.’

  The man’s face was filled with fear, and looking at him, Rudolf guessed that he was in no danger from him. A criminal he might be, but Rudolf had seen stronger-looking girls. And better-fed ones, too. That look made him waver.

  ‘Come, you have me,’ the man said persuasively. ‘What harm can it do for us to have a bowl of wine and talk about this? I shall explain everything.’

  As he spoke, Rudolph heard other voices calling. A group of local men had entered the passage, and now stood eyeing the thief and Rudolph with grim-faced suspicion.

  ‘Wally? Are you all right?’

  ‘Look! That foreigner’s got a knife to him!’

  Rudolf’s companion grinned. ‘I’m fine.’ Then, more urgently, ‘Quick! Let’s get away from here. And put that knife away, in God’s name! Do you want us both to hang?’

  Chapter Three

  Early that Friday morning, Hamelin woke with a shock as the tavern-keeper began rolling casks through his doorway. After sleeping all afternoon and night on the bench in the open air, Hamelin’s body had stiffened. His joints and muscles wouldn’t work, and he didn’t want to see what the world looked like anyway, so he lay back with his eyes screwed shut, trying to ignore the row until it was impossible to do so any longer.

  When his eyes met the daylight it felt as though someone had slammed a ten-pound hammer against his head and he snapped them closed again. Someone must have rammed a woollen mitten in his mouth, he thought, but then he reasoned that it was only his tongue, swollen and befurred. Gradually he dared open his eyes again, and his skull seemed on the brink of exploding. The pressure was awful. His tooth was now only one part of a whole chorus of agony; his head felt like a boil which was ready to be lanced; and Hamelin would have been glad enough to provide a blade to any kindly soul who would be prepared to use it. Death had to be preferable to this.

  It was only after he had drunk two quarts of water that he could think of making his way back to the mine. From the town, the hill looked utterly insurmountable, but the miner knew from bitter experience that the only cure for his particular malady was exercise. He’d feel a lot worse before he improved, but once the sweat began to pour from him, his recovery would be on its way. And then he saw old Wally up ahead, and he tried to shift himself to catch up with his neighbour.

  ‘Wally?’

  The other miner’s face almost made him feel refreshed. Wally had been brawling: his left eye was closing, and he had a cut lip. Fresh blood had dripped onto his shirt. Hamelin was tempted to ask who he had fought, but Wally’s face didn’t encourage an enquiry.

  Wally shot him a look, then grunted, ‘You’re up early, Hamelin.’

  Hamelin gave a sour grimace. ‘Nothing much to keep me. No bed, no money. What else could I do?’

  ‘What of your wife’s bed?’

  ‘Hal bought me some beers and I had to sleep it off.’

  ‘It was me put you on your bench,’ Wally said shortly. He was preoccupied with his suspicions about Joce and what the man might have done to Agnes, all those years ago. He felt the weight of the coins at his belt. He could leave the area, he told himself. Go somewhere Joce wouldn’t think of looking for him. When the receiver learned that his pewter had been stolen, he would go insane with rage – that much Wally knew. Wally also knew what sort of a devil Joce could become when the mood took him: he had seen it happen before. Yet he didn’t want to run away with this money. It felt unclean, like the thirty pieces of silver which Judas was paid. It would be better for him to give the money away, all of it, and build a new life elsewhere. At least he had deprived Joce of it; that was a comfort.

  ‘You, was it?’ Hamelin grunted. ‘Nah, I didn’t want to go to my wife when I was in that state. I’ll go and see her later. We’ll know then.’

  ‘Know what?’ Wally asked. He wasn’t in truth very interested in Hamelin’s stories of woe, he had his own trials to cope with, but talking took a man’s mind from trudging onwards and the length of the journey.

  ‘My boy,’ Hamelin said hoarsely, and then the words stuck in his throat.

  It wasn’t as though he was hugely fond of all the children; Hamelin loved his wife, and that took all the love he had in his soul, but there was something pleasing about Joel, his youngest. He was an affectionate child, mild-tempered compared with some of his siblings when they had been his age.

  To Wally’s astonishment, Hamelin began to sob.

  ‘Christ Jesus! What’s the matter, man?’

  ‘It’s Joel. He’s dying. I don’t think he’ll be alive when I next see Emma.’

  * * *

  That same afternoon, Ellis the barber sucked at his own teeth while he studied Hamelin’s. It was calming to remind himself that he still had almost two thirds of his own teeth in place when he looked into other
men’s mouths.

  This was not going to be an easy one. He could see that right from the start, and was tempted to reach for his little leather sack filled with the tiny beads of lead which he had once bought from a plumber. This was his personal ‘sleep-maker’. That was what he called it, and it invariably lived up to its name, sending off any man against whose head he directed it, and yet this one had such a thick skull, Ellis was a little anxious about using it. He would have to give a hard blow to make an impression on this miner’s head.

  ‘Well?’

  The growled question from the man with the obscenely swollen cheek made Ellis decide quickly. He reached behind him and took his wine flask from the table. ‘Master, it will be painful, so first drink this. It is a good, spiced wine and will soothe your spirits.’

  Sitting in the chair, the man grabbed for it and upended it. Soon his Adam’s apple was jerking regularly up and down. He would finish the whole skin, Ellis thought – but it scarcely mattered. The wine had been very cheap and the miner had paid in advance.

  ‘Ellis?’

  The soft voice came from his room at the back of the little chamber, and Ellis glanced over his shoulder. He could just make out his sister’s form in the darkness of the room and, excusing himself, he left his patient to his drinking and went into her, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Sara, where in God’s name did you get to?’

  Now that he was closer he could see that her happiness and confidence of the previous day was gone.

  ‘Don’t be angry, Brother,’ she begged, and the quiver in her voice told him that she was close to tears.

  He sighed and poured himself an ale, eyeing her resentfully. She had always possessed this fragile quality. Ellis was small in stature, but had the strength of corded leather in his thin arms; his sister had the same build, but with none of his strength, either physical or mental.

  ‘Come, lass, it’s not that bad,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘I… I have been a fool, Ellis.’

  ‘No more than usual, I daresay. Well? Are you going to admit that you’ve been screwing around?’ he demanded bluntly.

  That was when she began to sob, and she gradually told her story.

  ‘I slept with him, yes, but he swore he’d marry me, and that was why I went to bed with him, to cleave him to me. He made his promise, Ellis.’

  Ellis thought of Wally’s expression after she had left him in the crowd the day before. ‘You can’t trust the words of men like him.’

  ‘I went to him as soon as I realised I was with child,’ she continued, not heeding his words. ‘I went to see him, and he took me in when he heard what I said, he took me in and gave me his oath there and then, making us man and wife, and then he sealed his vow by taking me to his bed again, and I stayed there with him until yesterday morning.’

  ‘I saw you with him,’ Ellis grated. His face was growing red with anger that a man might dare to molest his sister.

  ‘But when I spoke to him yesterday afternoon when he was with his friends, he laughed at me and said I was no more than a Winchester goose, a common slut. He denied our marriage, Ellis. He rejected me and laughed about me with his friends. I heard him. He denied me! Oh, my God, Ellis, what am I to do?’

  ‘I’ll see to him,’ her brother said tightly. ‘Leave him to me.’

  ‘Oh God, no, don’t do anything, it’ll only make things worse! I have to try to sort it out myself,’ she wailed. ‘God! What will I do? I thought I had a wealthy husband, someone who could protect me and the children…’

  Ellis would have commented on the wealth of a man like Wally, but kindness made him mute when he saw her despair.

  ‘Instead I shall be known as a whore, and insulted in the street!’

  * * *

  It was some little while before Ellis could return to the miner, and when he heard the man shouting for him he rose with a sense of bone-weariness mingled with anger that this miner Hamelin should interrupt his grim contemplations.

  He climbed to his feet and walked back out into the chamber, and there he produced his pliers with a cruel flourish, pleased to see the fear leap into the miner’s face. A man could brave a sword or dagger in a street, and yet grovel like a coward before the barber’s tools, he reflected.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, taking away the wineskin and walking around behind his patient. ‘This will hurt you much more than me.’

  His sleep-maker struck the man’s head like the clap of doom, and Ellis stood gazing down at the slumped figure for some while before he could bestir himself to remove the offending tooth. He was still thinking about his sister’s words. Although he had hoped he was wrong, she had admitted that she was pregnant. She hadn’t said who the father was, but he knew. Oh yes, he knew!

  ‘The bleeding bastard,’ he said to himself, before gripping his pliers again and opening the snoring Hamelin’s mouth.

  * * *

  Hamelin reached the door of his house in Tavistock some short while after dark. It was quiet as he entered the alley, and he felt that was good. If there had been bad news, he would have been greeted by cries and wailing. Instead, as he walked in through the door, he could see that Emma was so far from being distressed that she had fallen asleep with Joel in her lap. The other children were curled on their palliasse, the dogs on their old rags next to them. Hearing the door, one small dog opened an eye and wagged his tail, before falling to scratching himself conscientiously. Fleas meant that much of his coat had already been pulled out by the roots, and he was bald in many places.

  Hamelin smiled at the dog. All was well in his world. He had a sore head, and a bloody mouth, true, but his son was alive, his tooth had been pulled – thank God! – and he’d had an enormous stroke of luck today. Emma stirred, and Joel grunted in his sleep, and it was that which woke her. Startled, her face showed terror for a moment, but then relaxed, her hand going to her heart. That brief shock made Joel begin to sniffle and wail, a low moaning noise that grew, and Emma grabbed him up and rocked him, the little stool on which she sat squeaking and cracking under their weight.

  It was some while before she could settle him again. She rested Joel in a small crib, and stood, stretching her back; When she turned to face him, her apron awry, her tunic stained and faded, Hamelin thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The warm firelight was kind to her, smoothing out the wrinkles and lines of worry, while emphasising the soft curves of her body. She pulled the hair from her eyes and smiled almost shyly, accepting his hand as he pulled her down onto a rug near the fire, lifting her skirts and parting her legs. Afterwards, when his breathing was calmer again, he kissed her.

  ‘It’s good to have you back here again, love,’ she said simply.

  ‘How is he? I couldn’t stay away, not knowing.’

  ‘No better, I think. We need good beef broth or an egg! Decent nourishing food,’ she said with quiet sadness. Her emotions were worn away with sorrow after so long. It was as though she was already in mourning for her dead child.

  Hamelin felt his heart lurch within his breast, and taking a deep breath, he rolled over on to his back. ‘I had expected to come here and find him dead.’

  ‘I know. There’s nothing more we can do. If he dies, it’s God’s will.’

  They held each other silently. They knew too many children who had succumbed to wasting diseases or who had suffered from that hungry illness over winter when their teeth became loose and their gums bled. Sometimes the teeth would fall out and the child would slowly die.

  ‘I have brought money,’ Hamelin told her tenderly. ‘There’s no need for you to go without for a long while.’

  ‘Money?’ Emma sat up sharply. When she saw her husband’s eyes gleam as they took in her bare breast, she hastily pulled her tunic across and gathered it together with a fist. ‘Where did you get money? There was nothing for you at the coining yesterday. How did you come by it?’

  ‘Calm down, woman,’ he commanded, and with a hand he gently for
ced her fist to open, so that he could cup her breasts. ‘I sold my debt.’

  ‘Who to? No one would be stupid enough to buy that!’

  ‘One man was – Wally. He thought it was a good deal and paid me cash for it.’

  ‘Wally? Where would he get money?’ Emma scoffed. ‘He has no more than us!’

  Hamelin could almost feel her body cooling, as though she suspected that he was a thief. ‘Come, love, I haven’t killed anyone. We were walking back to the mines today when he asked me why I was so glum, and told him about Joel. He already knew about Mark robbing us. He said, “Injustice is terrible. Let me buy the debt to save your son’s life”.’

  ‘Wally never had two farthings to rub together.’

  ‘I know,’ Hamelin said. ‘But maybe he got lucky.’

  ‘You swear you haven’t robbed anyone?’ she demanded.

  ‘Of course not. All I know is, I have a purse full of coins for you.’

  Emma felt herself wavering. She would hate to think that he could have robbed someone – but the thought of money was horribly attractive. It meant life for her child, freedom from fear for a while.

  Hamelin was speaking, and she forced herself to listen. ‘It was odd this morning. I had walked back to my camp, and I saw that fat bastard Brother Mark up there. He was having an argument with Wally. I could see them clearly – it sounded as if he was giving Wally instructions or something. Then old Wally went off eastwards while Mark turned back towards Tavvie. I was coming back here myself – to get my tooth pulled and to see you – so I set off a little while after, just to annoy him. Mind, he kept going at quite a pace without looking over his shoulder even once.’

  ‘He’s allowed on the moors, isn’t he?’ Emma said flippantly.