The Devil's Acolyte

by Michael Jecks

  Rudolf spat, turning to stare back at the cross. ‘The cretin tried to stab me and I put a stop to it. Yes, but the first time, in the alley, when I took his pewter – how many people saw us? Be ready to pack. I won’t wait for them to come with a posse.’

  Unbidden, the memory of a tall, cowled man in a habit sprang into his mind. ‘When they want to find the murderer, they can seek another, not me!’

  * * *

  After giving pensions to the lepers, Peter the Almoner and Gerard made their way back through the streets of Tavistock to the Abbey. Once there, Peter ushered Gerard inside, but he himself walked back along the main street towards the town’ s shops.

  His jaw hurt. It often did when the weather looked like changing. The day before yesterday it had been a constant ache, as though all the teeth which should have been there were simultaneously erupting with rottenness. He had to set his hand at his jaw and hold it. The action provided little relief, but it was comforting in the same way that a woman’s caress could give some solace from the worst of a wound’s pain.

  The pain was not the sharp, stabbing agony that he had once known, in the weeks after the attack. No, it was just a constant part of him, a never-failing anguish, or at best a dull ache. It was worst at night, of course. When he wanted to turn his mind to pleasing, soporific thoughts, when he wanted to drift away, that was when the wound seemed to strike at him with renewed force. That was when he wept silently, so as not to waken his neighbour in the dorter – when he felt the hideous emptiness that was his life now. No love, only horror or curiosity.

  It was that which made him turn his mind and abilities to other things. Such as the dead man, Walwynus. Still, Wally had enjoyed his last few hours. Peter had seen him in the town, somehow throwing his money about, although everyone had thought that he hadn’t more than a few pennies altogether. Ale, wine and women. That was always the way of miners when they had a bit of luck, and Wally had obviously found some cash from somewhere, because Peter had seen him indulging in the drinking, even if he hadn’t managed to find a woman to help him.

  Peter entered the tavern and took his seat near the fireplace. A thin smoke rose from the logs on the hearth, and he sat behind it, waiting patiently, his head turned a little, which kept his wound to the wall.

  ‘Brother? You want wine or ale?’

  ‘Friend, I think I need a good pot of cider.’

  The host left to fetch a jug and Peter watched as he went to one of the barrels and opened the tap. As soon as the greenish golden liquid was poured, he returned to Peter and passed the jug to him.

  Sniffing it, Peter could discern the odour of sourness and sweetness that he found so addictive. He slurped as he drank, because of the failed muscles on the right side of his mouth, but when the publican made as though to move away, Peter held up his hand and pulled the pot from his mouth’. ‘Do you remember Wally being in here on the coining?’

  ‘Yes, poor old git. Dead, i’n’t he? Some thieving bugger killed him up there.’

  ‘I saw him in here on that day, and he had plenty of pennies to throw about. Did he say where he got so much money?’

  ‘Di’n’t tell me anything. Might have told Sue, though,’ the host said. He glanced about the room, calling over a girl with a loosened tunic. She walked across to them, eyeing Peter doubtfully, her hands going to her tunic’s laces automatically, and Mine Host stopped her hurriedly. ‘No, the Brother here just wants to ask you a bunch of questions, Susan.’

  She joined Peter, sitting at his side and gently pulling the jug towards her. ‘Well?’

  ‘Did you know Walwynus – the miner?’ he asked, allowing her to tilt the jug to her mouth.

  She drank, nodded, and drank again. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘He was often up here and trying it on. Always said he had plenty of cash, that he’d buy me for a night. Never did, of course. Bastard just wanted to bury his tarse and didn’t give a shit about paying. He used to stop me and the other girls in the roadway. Didn’t even wait to get us in here. We get fondled often enough in here while we’re serving, but it’s different out in the street. We could get in trouble with the port reeve if he thought we were doing business outside. Not that he’d mind usually. He likes us, the port reeve does. Nice man.’ She licked her mouth slowly, a faint smile pulling at her mouth. ‘He likes me. Do you like me, Brother?’

  ‘Very much, my daughter,’ he said. And in truth he did. He often considered that the failed people were those among whom he was better suited to live. This girl was pretty, with her oval face and striking dark hair. Her slanted brown eyes were strangely bright in the firelight, her lips tempting, her breasts were small and high, as he liked them, while beneath her thin tunic he could see that she had long, fine legs.

  She leaned against him softly, so that he could feel her thin figure. ‘Would you like me, then?’

  He felt the old stirring in his loins. It was many years since he had known a woman’s comfort. That was before he had entered the Priory at Tynemouth, before he had been butchered, before she had been killed. This girl was much like her.

  ‘Not now, Daughter,’ he said, but without conviction.

  She grinned and sat up straight, her hands going to her long hair, teasing him now. ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘You say Wally never had any money?’

  ‘That’s right. Only pennies until the coining. He had some then, last Thursday.’ She shook her head. ‘If I’d known, I’d have made him more welcome, but I just thought he was lying again. And then I saw him throwing money around like a merchant. Too late by then,’ she added regretfully.

  Peter frowned to himself. When he had spoken to Wally on the morning of the coining, Wally had nothing on him, or so he had said. Yet after the coining he had money, if this girl was to be believed. So he had received it after seeing Peter, but before coining to this tavern. Perhaps during the coining itself.

  ‘Do you know where Wally got his money from?’ he asked.

  ‘He took one of the other girls, and told her he’d found a new source of tin. Somewhere out on the moors, I suppose.’

  Peter nodded. He patted her thigh, feeling the tingling in his palm at the firm flesh. ‘Thank you, child. You have helped me. Now you must remember this. The coroner will hold his inquest, and you must tell him what you have told me. It might be very important.’

  ‘All right, Brother. What now?’

  He stared at her blankly, and then he gave a weak smile when he realised her meaning. She winked cheekily at him as he left the room, but for his part, all he felt was an all-encompassing despair.

  Leaving the tavern, he stood outside breathing heavily. It would have been all too easy to accept her offer. She was a cheeky, bright, pretty little thing – just the sort of girl he had so often longed for and, every so often, the sort of girl whom he had bedded.

  He was lonely, sad, and had that curious emptiness, almost a hunger for companionship, that afflicted him occasionally. It was a desire, almost a lust, for simple pleasures and the conversation of generous-hearted, ordinary people.

  There was a man he knew who could help him. Looking up the way, he could see Nob and Cissy’s cookshop, and he turned up the lane towards it.

  ‘Hello, Nob,’ he said, but then he stopped with a slight frown on his face. ‘Ah, Gerard. What are you doing here?’

  Hearing his voice, Gerard dropped his pie with a startled cry.

  * * *

  ‘Master Bailiff, I understand the good abbot has spoken to you already?’

  Simon nodded. ‘Yes, Sir Tristram. He tells me you are to collect men for the Host?’

  ‘Quite so. There is a need for many fighting men now that the King has chosen to attack Scotland again and punish the Scots for their constant attacks over the borders and into English territory. They cannot get away with it.’

  ‘Oh. So we won’t see all our men die, like at Bannockburn.’ Sir Tristram’s face hardened a moment. His eyes were like chips of diamond, Simon thought. They
reflected light in the same way that a cut stone will shine from its facets under a light. Hard and uncompromising, but that did not necessarily make him an unpleasant man. Simon decided he would give Sir Tristram the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘I think you should be careful who hears you making comments like that, Master Bailiff.’

  He sat very neatly, a trim man with narrow shoulders and a slim waist. His robes were well fitted and richly embroidered, with plenty of fur at his neck and wrists. He had his belt on, with his sword, but at his right hip was a dagger with a magnificent enamelled pommel that looked expensive, like a gewgaw that was meant for show, That it was a working weapon was shown to Simon’s quick eye by the roughened leather of the grip. It had been worn smooth and dark in places, where the knight had gripped it, presumably in battle.

  ‘My friend, it was merely a pleasantry,’ Simon said.

  ‘Some comments like that could be thought dangerous. An uncharitable man might think they were seditious, even: tending to incite rebellion. Never a good idea.’

  ‘I would never seek to spread sedition,’ Simon protested. His chest felt constrained, as though he was already being shown the gibbet on which his body would hang. The charitable thoughts he had harboured burst into tiny flames and disappeared. This was one of those stuffy, self-important fools, he decided.

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said the knight. ‘Come, shall we begin again? I am sorry if I sound harsh, but I have a lot of work to get through. There are so many vills down in this area, and as arrayer I have to try to get to all of them. Tell me, are all the roads down this way as bad as the one on the way here?’

  ‘Which way did you come?’

  ‘From the north. I passed through Oakhampton, then came southwards. The men at Exeter strongly advised me to avoid the moors without a guide. There are mires there?’

  ‘Many.’ And I hope you fall into one, Simon added silently. ‘They move each year. You need a man who knows his way there, it’s true.’

  ‘But the roads! It took me twice as long as I had expected.’ Simon shrugged. ‘The weather has been inclement, and the roads aren’t paved. At least you took one of the better ones on the way here. It follows the river in the valley. That is much better than others, like the roads between Oakhampton and Crediton. They are considerably worse.’

  ‘My God!’ Sir Tristram muttered, then gave Simon a wan smile. ‘Well, at least I understand you are a good guide to much of the country about here. And the moors, of course.’

  ‘I know the moors well enough,’ Simon agreed, taking a goblet of wine from the steward, who returned at this moment with a tray on which stood a heavy jug and two goblets. ‘But that won’t help you.’

  ‘There are men there, aren’t there? Strong, hardy fellows who dig and mine?’

  ‘Oh yes, hundreds. But you can’t have any of them. They are all exempt, by the King’s own command. While they mine his tin, they are secure.’

  ‘Ah. I see.’

  ‘But there are many others about here. Strong enough, I’d guess, for your Host.’

  ‘Good. Then perhaps we can begin today. I should like to See the good abbot’s vills about this town with a view to winning the strongest and fittest men for the King’s service.’

  ‘How many do you need?’

  ‘As many as possible. You know how the Host is organised? I take twenty men and inspect and list them and put them under a vintenar, for every hundred, there is a centenar in charge, usually a cavalry man of some sort. When they are collected, they will march off to the King’s army.’ He paused and stared down at his hands. ‘It will be a long, weary walk up to Scotland.’

  ‘I thought that the King recruited his men from nearer to the border?’

  ‘Yes, but the trouble is, there are so few. Since the famine and the murrains, the Scottish borders are denuded of men, and the ones remaining are scurvy-ridden and feeble. We need hale, competent fellows, like the farmers you have down here. It looks as though the famine didn’t affect people this far west and south.’

  ‘We lost many people,’ Simon said shortly, thinking of those dreadful times. ‘God forbid that we should have another famine of that ferocity.’

  ‘Very good. So, are you ready to leave now?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Simon said. ‘I shall ask for my horse to be prepared.’

  ‘Ask for mine as well, would you? I shall just fetch my bag.’

  Simon nodded ungraciously as he walked from the room. Outside he stood and took a deep breath. Arrayers were generally corrupt as hell, in his opinion. Maybe this one wasn’t so bad as some, but after the knight’s harsh introduction, Simon had taken a dislike to the suave Sir Tristram, and the thought that the vills about Tavistock were to be told to produce their finest men for this Sir Knight to take them away to war suddenly struck Simon. As he marched to the stables, he found his lips twitching into a grin.

  He had a suspicion that Sir Tristram was not going to find recruiting men to be very easy.

  Chapter Ten

  By the middle of the morning the earlier groups of men had left the shop and Ellis could close the shutters, pack his scissors and razors, strops and soaps into his little satchel, and head for the tavern for a quick ale before going over to the abbey and seeing to the chins and pates of the monks there.

  Although not vain, Abbot Robert hated having a beard. He often told Ellis that he disliked the roughness, but Ellis also knew that the abbot was keen to make sure that he and his monks all dressed in a manner which reflected their serious duties. They should look sober and professional, not slovenly like the mendicants so often did. It wasn’t simply pride; Ellis knew that the abbot thought it important that their pastoral flock should see in the monks men whom they could respect. Few felt, like Augerus, that they could flout his will about facial hair.

  As far as Ellis was concerned, his job was merely to shave. He had taken up his profession because there would always be men with hair, beards, teeth and veins, and while there were, he could count on being paid to trim, shave, pull or slash.

  An essential part of his business was the cheery patter that he had developed over the years. With some it was bantering conversation, often making mild jokes at his client’s expense, sometimes simply being crude, but after seeing Wally, both at the coining and on Friday, he still felt little urge to be amusing. It was enough that he should keep his scissors away from his clients’ ears, his razors from nicking their throats.

  Sara must have been mad. She had flaunted herself at the miner, no doubt, and he had taken advantage. Ellis couldn’t in all fairness blame the man. When he had seen her with Wally, he had felt his rage growing within him like a canker, but now he was able to be more sanguine. And since Wally’s death, Sara had certainly been mortified. She had been wailing and weeping almost all the time. No surprise, Ellis thought, with Wally’s bastard inside her.

  He grunted sadly. A loyal man to his family, he had paid a lot of money towards his niece and nephews’ upbringing. This would simply be another one for him to help feed.

  * * *

  Augerus waited until Simon and the arrayer had both left the room, then he went in and collected the goblets and jugs, setting them on his tray and carrying them back to his little buttery. He rinsed one goblet, glanced over his shoulder, emptied the remains of the jug into it, and drank it off in a long draught before washing the goblet and jug, and drying them with a long piece of linen.

  He had nothing to do at the moment, for Abbot Robert was gone. Whenever he could, he’d take his hounds out and see what he could catch with a few of the burgesses in the town. Canny devil, the abbot, in Augerus’ mind. He knew how to get his neighbours and tenants talking: he’d take them out for a good race through his park and afterwards, over wine and ale, he’d ask them what they thought about many of the issues of the day. That way he’d be the first to hear of dissatisfaction before any of his officials, and often he’d soothe disgruntled townspeople before their complaints could grow into f
ull-blown feuds. It also gave him an opportunity to catch out his bailiffs.

  Augerus had heard him once, talking to a gather-reeve, the rent collector. The poor fellow was bowing nervously in the presence of his master, trying to show the abbot a confidence he didn’t feel.

  Abbot Robert had stopped at his side and peered down at him. ‘Aha! Reeve, and how is your lady this fine morning?’

  ‘Oh, she is well, Master, well.’

  ‘And your… let me see, you have two sons, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Master. They are well, very well.’

  ‘I am sure they are. And you, you are well?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. I am very well indeed,’ the poor fellow had answered effusively, visibly relaxing. If the abbot was so kindly, it was hard to remain scared.

  ‘Really? And yet my rents from Werrington have not been collected yet. I thought it was because you were unwell.’

  ‘No, Master.’

  ‘Or your children were.’

  ‘Um. No, Master.’

  ‘Or maybe even that your wife was ill.’

  There was a disconsolate mumble.

  ‘Well, in God’s name get over there and do your job, man! You aren’t employed by me to sit about swapping tall stories and drinking ale all day!’

  The memory of the man’s face as the abbot rode off imperiously on his great mount would stay with Augerus for ever. He smiled as he worked, and when his jobs were done, he glanced out of the window at the shadows in the court. In an hour or two he would have to prepare the abbot’s table so that he could entertain whoever was with him today, but until then Augerus was free. He walked out of the abbot’s lodgings to the Great Court.

  The salsarius, Brother Mark, who provided the salted beef and fish, also served the Abbey as medarius, holding the stocks, of wine and ale. The abbot himself had once drily commented that the arrangement made sense – the salsarius could, by serving ale as medarius, assuage the thirst that his salted meat provoked.