The Devil's Acolyte

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with a fixed smile.

  ‘It would please me to have your company,’ the coroner said. ‘And of course, the abbot was very insistent. He has some regard for your skills, I think.’

  ‘It is good that someone does,’ Jeanne said.

  Baldwin cast her a glance. She was shaking with suppressed laughter. ‘Very well,’ he said.

  ‘Good, then we can ride for the moors this afternoon,’ Coroner Roger said. ‘For now, may I rest my limbs and head on a bench somewhere? I had to rise early to get here, and a short doze would do me wonderful good.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jeanne. ‘And where is this body you need to investigate, Coroner?’

  ‘Out in the middle of Dartmoor! I am growing heartily sick of the wet, miserable, bog-filled place. It seems as though I must travel there every couple of months to view a corpse.’

  At his words, Baldwin felt his stomach lurch, and when he looked to his wife, he saw her face had paled too.

  * * *

  He had paid well for a mere barber, but Simon was pleased. He felt clean and refreshed by the shave, and had learned a little more about Walwynus, or so he thought. No one else had mentioned that Wally was a man for the girls. It certainly sounded odd, though. Just as Ellis had somewhat cruelly said, most men wouldn’t think a man like Wally could have struck a chord with women.

  Still, for the first time since he had arrived at the abbey and realised that he had left the hammer behind, Simon felt clean and content. The removal of the stubble at his chin had given him a new confidence, and he actually felt capable of finding Walwynus’ murderer.

  Walking along the lane towards the abbey, Simon increased his stride. There was much to do today. He would tell Hugh to remain in the abbey for the forseeable future, exercise their horses and see to their saddles. It was time they were both oiled and serviced. There were plenty of jobs for him to be getting on with, and there was no point in his joining Simon to watch a Commission of Array. Hugh might as well be doing something useful.

  He was considering the idea of sitting all day with an arrayer, a prospect which didn’t appeal, when he almost walked into a man who erupted from a cookshop.

  ‘Mind your step, you arse!’

  Simon smiled grimly at the harsh greeting. ‘Receiver. How very pleasant to see you. I note you are in a hurry, as usual.’

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Bailiff,’ Joce said with no relaxation of his glower. ‘You should be careful where you walk.’

  ‘Have you heard of the murdered man?’ Simon said, ignoring his rudeness.

  ‘Who? I know nothing of this.’

  ‘Walwynus, a miner. He’s been beaten to death. Do you know of anyone who could have done that?’

  Joce chewed steadily on his pie. This needed thought. It would be good to point the bailiff in the direction of someone else, but Joce wasn’t aware of any credible enemy. ‘Could he have died in a drunken attack? That’s what happened to his friend, I believe. Two years or so ago, Wally had a fight with his companion – a fellow called Martyn – and the other died. Maybe this Martyn had another friend or relative who was horrified to learn that Wally was not hanged?’

  Simon nodded. Joce’s voice, even when he spoke rather than blustering, had a grating quality. It was not like those who had lived in Devon all their lives. Joce had left the shire for some years to earn money as a merchant, and he had been successful, by all accounts. ‘Did you know this Wally?’

  ‘I saw him occasionally. No more than that. He was always at the coinings, but I doubt I exchanged more than three words with him in the last two years. He was not of my standing in the world, Bailiff.’

  ‘You were at the coining all day last Thursday, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course – you saw me yourself, I am sure. And then I went to the inn, before returning home. Why, do you suspect me?’

  ‘What were you doing on Friday?’

  ‘I was here most of the day, in town. I had the accounts to write up and check on Friday morning, and then I walked about the streets.’

  ‘Did you see anyone hurrying back from the moors, or acting oddly?’

  ‘Not really. I was closeted indoors most of the time. Sorry, Bailiff. I can’t help you much,’ Joce said with a leering grin. ‘You’ll just have to go and interrogate some other poor bastard!’

  Simon watched him go with a shrug and sense of failing to meet Baldwin’s level of razor-sharp questioning. There was nothing more to be learned by standing in the street staring after him, though, and he bent his steps to the abbey again.

  By the time he had finished his meagre breakfast of bread and thin ale, he had come to the conclusion that he didn’t like the duty imposed upon him by the abbot. The thought that he should support and assist some fool of a recruiter did not appeal to him at all.

  The arrival of other guests to enjoy the abbot’s hospitality reminded Simon that someone among them was an arrayer, and he rose hastily and left the room. Outside in the cool air, he breathed in the freshness that comes only after a good downpour. It must have rained heavily overnight, he thought. He searched about for a place to sit, and finally picked upon the wall of the cemetery.

  It was while he remained sitting there that he saw the abbot’s steward and groaned to himself when he realised that the man was making his way towards him.

  ‘Bailiff? I am Augerus, the abbot’s—’

  ‘I know. What are you after?’

  Augerus smiled thinly. Simon’s irritability early in the morning was known in the abbey, for he had stayed here often enough on his stannary duties, but Augerus was a proud man who was well aware of his own importance. ‘My Lord Abbot has asked me to introduce you to the arrayer, Bailiff. But perhaps you are feeling a little tired still?’

  Simon eyed the man. Augerus’ expression told Simon that confessing to tiredness would be pointless. ‘I apologise for being short, friend. It was just that my mind was on the murdered tin-miner.’

  ‘Walwynus? I suppose you have heard the rumours about the travellers? Everyone remembers the tale of Milbrosa.’ Simon listened as Augerus led the way to the abbot’s lodgings. ‘Some of the monks here believe in that sort of story?’

  ‘Oh yes. Some are quite superstitious. Not me, I have to say. I believe that if God truly wanted to give mankind a message, He would pick a means which would be more easily understood. Surely He appreciates how often His creation manages to misunderstand Him, don’t you think?’

  ‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ Simon admitted. ‘I find it’s hard enough trying to understand what all the men on the moors are doing without worrying myself about His plans.’

  The steward tilted his head as though acknowledging that Simon was probably better suited to the world of men than to interpreting the will of God. He opened a door on the right of the passageway and stood back to let Simon inside.

  ‘Master Bailiff, this is Sir Tristram de Cokkesmoor.’

  Simon held out his hand and forced a smile to his face as he recognised the man with whom he had last night shared his bed.

  * * *

  Hal Raddych heaved himself to his feet, rubbing at his eyes and hawking loudly. Another miner should arrive today, to take his place guarding the corpse, and he squinted in the direction of the camp, searching for a figure that could be heading towards him, but there was nothing.

  He swung his arms and yawned. Holding a finger first to one nostril, then to the other, he blew his nose clean, and wiped it on his sleeve. Thirsty, he smacked his lips. A stream lay a few yards away and he glanced briefly at the corpse before strolling around the hillside to the water.

  A miner all his life, Hal was impervious to the cold. His hands and face might have been carved from an ancient oaken beam, for all the effect that the elements had upon them, and he kneeled at the side of the stream and scooped handfuls of icy moor water over his head and rubbed it into his face. It was his routine, summer or winter.

  His ablutions complete, he s
ucked up a mouthful from his cupped hands, rolling it around his tongue like a spiced wine. Not as brackish as the water nearer his own workings, he decided. A fresher, cleaner taste.

  Once, when he was younger, he had asserted in an alehouse that he could tell where he was in moments, purely by drinking the water. It was a proud boast, and a foolish one, which earned him a swift pasting from an older miner who resented his cockiness, but he still believed it to be true. All the streams and pools about the moor had their own distinct flavours. This, now, this was more like a pure stream with a hint of meat in it. His own was peatier and darker; any clothes put into that would invariably come out brown, no matter what their original colour. The water was filled with the stain of peat.

  Rising, he pulled his hat back over his brow and stared about him. He was tired, after standing awake much of the night at Wally’s side, and the bright morning sun made him wince, peering with his good eye like a sailor searching for a ship.

  He walked back to the body, noting the smell of decay and the way the belly had expanded. If he knew anything, and he had seen plenty of dead men, this body would soon be ready to explode.

  He left Wally’s remains and went to the bush with the bloodstain, picking up the timber and looking at the scratches once more. They were his mark; the timber was from his mine. Any miner would recognise it as his. Some bastard had stolen it from him, hammered the nails into it, and used it to kill Wally. Who could it be, though? Hamelin? Christ’s Cods! The man was a friend. But someone else could have wanted to frame Hal or Hamelin. Who? Tapping the timber against the palm of his hand, he let his eyes move to the mire ahead, to the smoke beyond that showed where another group of miners worked.

  They were probably getting their cooking fires ready to heat a flat pancake of oats with maybe a little meat from a bird or a rabbit, whatever they could catch out here. And one of them, perhaps, had stolen a piece of his wood, knowing that he marked every balk against theft, and used it to murder Wally so that he, Hal, would be implicated. That thought was not a comfortable one.

  Hal was one of the more successful miners. He had found tin in places where others saw nothing, and some said he possessed a magic, that a witch or demon had granted him the ability to find ore where others couldn’t, but he asserted it was simply his organised way of looking. Others were slapdash, digging one hole, deciding there was nothing there, and moving on to a fresh site. Hal wouldn’t do that. He dug one pit, then a line of others, running across the base of a hill where he thought a seam might lie. Sometimes he was right; often he was wrong – but the men who created malicious rumours about him ignored his failures.

  Some men had grown to hate him, he knew. They were either scared of him, thinking that he was touched by the devil, or they were jealous, envying his success. He didn’t care which type of man had used his wood to kill Wally. Whoever it was, Hal had other things to concern him, like what to do now?

  His eyes dropped from the smoke and a small smile touched his lips. He walked down the hillside to the green, shimmering land beneath. There was a pile of stones, as there were in so many parts of Dartmoor; this one was named Childe’s Tomb. He walked past it and on, careful now, stepping cautiously over the soft grasses and rushes. When he found a boot sinking deep into a patch of mud, he stopped. He prodded the grass in front of him with the timber, and saw the gentle rippling that spread across it.

  It was a mire. One of those evil spots where the water built up beneath a thin layer of soil and plants. A man or beast who put his foot on to that would sink through the grasses and drown in the thick, peaty waters beneath. There was no possibility of rescue, so far away from civilisation.

  Hal studied his timber once more, and then pushed the end of it into the ground before him. It sank quickly, and when it had disappeared, the grasses and reeds floated back over the hole as though nothing had ever disturbed the smooth grassy surface.

  Chapter Nine

  There was no obvious justification in posting a sentry to watch Hal, but Rudolf was a practical man, and when he saw strangers about, he wanted to know that they weren’t the precursors of an attack.

  Rudolf was in his little tent when Welf, his son, returned. He was a sturdy young fellow, with broad shoulders and thick dark hair. He was trying to grow a beard, and the other men ribbed him about the fine fluff that was all he could manage, but never Rudolf. He believed that a man was no less a man just for the lack of hair on his face. A man was measured by other things, like physical strength and courage.

  ‘So? Was macht er? What is he doing?’

  Welf sat by the brazier that glowed with coals and held his hand to the warmth before answering in German. ‘He stayed there all day with the body. Last night he settled down and remained near it. I went closer and watched until almost dawn. He was asleep by then, and that was when I returned to the cross and waited to see what happened when he awoke. He washed, then went down to the bog and threw in the morning star.’

  ‘And now someone else is up there on the hill?’

  ‘Yes. Brother Peter the almoner from the abbey.’

  ‘Good. You have done well. Eat and sleep.’ Rudolf sat a while longer, frowning at the fire.

  They had travelled all the way here from an urge to see what the world was like. Rudolf was a pewterer by trade, and in his home lands in the mountains his work was prized, even among the nobles. Glancing about him, he couldn’t help but curl his lip. This land was ever wet and depressing. There were bogs all over the moors, and the mountains were mere bumps in the soil, not at all like the crags among which his home nestled. There, men had to avoid the high passes, because they were populated by dragons and other monsters. No, people lived in the broad valleys and farmed peacefully.

  Or they had. Rudolf’s life had suddenly changed for ever at Morgarten. Until then, he had lived comfortably in his native Canton of Schwyz, but the Swiss lands were growing more important. When the Saint-Gotthard Pass opened, there was an easier, shorter road between parts of the Holy Roman Empire, from Italy to the Rhine, and the murderous Leopold of Habsburg decided to enforce his authority among the peasants who lived there.

  It was a farce. Rudolf was no coward; he wanted peace, for men don’t buy plate and pewter in wartime, they hoard their money and seek to store foods, but Rudolf felt he had a simple choice, make pewter or fight: sit back like a coward or resist and hope for freedom for his sons. It was an easy decision. If Leopold’s armies won through to the towns, they would slaughter everyone. He chose to fight, to protect his lands and his people, and he was there at Morgarten when Leopold’s army was crushed.

  But Rudolf was not convinced that the free Cantons could survive. The Habsburgs were wealthy nobles, they could afford to buy up armies and crush resistance from tiny states like Schwyz, and Rudolf was not prepared to risk the life of his son and his wife. Instead he brought them out of the country, and worked his way from one town to another until they crossed over from France to England. He went to London, where he heard of the tin mines of Devon, and he decided to come here and see for himself where the English stocks of tin came from.

  His household was small. Himself, his wife Anna, Welf, and a few others. Ten men all told, and seven women. Together they had crossed Europe, and here, Rudolf felt, they had hit the bottom. In his home, the sun always shone in the summer, while here it was always raining, or about to begin. Homesick, he longed for the meadows and pastures of his own land, high in the free mountains.

  But he was here and while he was here, he had a duty to protect his household. He stood and pulled a strong leather jack over his shirt, then made his way along the path Welf had used.

  From here all was fine grassland. A few rocks were dotted here and there, but it was still good land for sheep or cattle, with scarcely a stunted tree showing itself. However, Rudolf knew that there was one advantage to land like this, and that was that an enemy would find it very difficult to conceal himself. In the same way, it was not easy to move without being seen. Th
at was why, as he reached the first of the crosses, he began to bend his back, his eyes staring ahead, making sure he couldn’t see the man waiting at the side of the corpse…

  There was another cross at the summit of the hill, to which he walked bent almost double, but when he reached it, he couldn’t help but stare at it once more. The bloody imprint was still there, a foul mark that almost seemed to tempt the devil. Not that the devil would need tempting to come to a place like this, Rudolf thought. It was his own hell, this land. With a shudder that was more a convulsion of his entire body than a shiver down his back, Rudolf averted his gaze and continued. At Morgarten, he had hurled rocks and tree-trunks with his comrades at the Duke’s knights below them, pitching the screaming, petrified men and horses into the waters of the Ägerisee, and he had not flinched. Yet that smudge of a dead man’s blood made him feel sickened. Perhaps because the fool of a miner hadn’t stood a chance. Rudolf had been angry, and now the man was dead.

  The pewterer had work to do. He was past the stone cross, and crawled the few yards over the other side, peering ahead with a frown. ‘Where is he, Henry?’

  ‘There. He’s sitting on that rock.’

  Rudolf gave a short chuckle. ‘I think your young eyes are better than my old ones. I can see nothing.’

  ‘Can you see the other man?’

  ‘Which other?’ Rudolf demanded, his fears about an ambush reawakened.

  ‘There. A man coming from the north. He looks short and heavy. Like a miner.’

  Rudolf breathed a quiet sigh. ‘Then he must be coming to relieve the first man, just as you relieved Welf. Has he done nothing else?’

  ‘Not since I got here.’

  Rudolf stared in the direction of the man, towards the body. ‘Well, wait here for now, but I shall send someone to fetch you soon.’

  ‘We are leaving?’

  ‘You think we would do best to stay here?’ Rudolf asked.

  ‘It was him who tried to attack you, Rudolf. Self-defence is no crime.’