Away from the fire there was no light at this time of night, and the wind was gusting in the court outside, making a curious thumping as it caught ill-fitting doors and rattled them in their frames. This dismal sound was accompanied by the constant rumble and clatter of the corn mill next door; its low grumbling made itself felt through Gerard’s bony buttocks as he sat on the floor.
Gerard gawped at the Almoner’s terrible wound, knowing he shouldn’t, fearing that at any moment, the man would look up and catch him at it.
Old Peter was aloof mostly, far above the novices in his supreme authority, yet most of them rather liked him. He rarely had to raise his voice to command their respect, rarely had to offer them the strap; he could keep them obedient and quiet through the mere force of his will. Yet Gerard didn’t much care for Brother Peter. Not now. And the lad was incapable of averting his eyes. Even as the Almoner turned his gaze from them to the fire, his thin head nodding, his lip curled ever so slightly at the sight of the novices, as though it was hard to imagine that so pathetic a bunch of young males could have been selected from the length and breadth of Devon, Gerard fixed on that hideous mark, wondering anew how painful it had been.
Even after four or five years, Almoner Peter’s wound glowed in the firelight, a livid, six-inch cicatrice that began beneath his ear and ran along the line of his jaw to his chin.
It must have hurt like hell, Gerard told himself as the Almoner began his story. Most men would have died after receiving such a blow; it said something about Peter’s powers of endurance that he had not only survived it, but had managed to teach himself to talk again, even with his jawbone shattered and no teeth on that side. The boy shuddered as he imagined a heavy blade shearing through his flesh, his bone, his teeth.
Old Peter enjoyed talking, particularly when he was relating tales like this one. Gerard could see his eyes glinting, reflecting the sparks from the fire as the logs settled. To Gerard tonight, he looked mean and malevolent, cunning and cruel. It wasn’t Peter’s fault, it was the acolyte’s reaction to the threat he’d been given. He kept darting nervous looks at his neighbours: any one of them might be the agent of his ruin, simply by seeing him going about his business. Not that any of the novices looked too bothered right now. They were all busy listening open-mouthed to the Almoner as he related another of the old legends.
‘Aye, it was a miserable winter’s day, when Abbot Walter set off for Buckfast, many years ago now, and Abbot Walter had a long, hard way of it. Strong of character, he was. Brave. Off he went, aye, him with none but his advisers and a few clerks to take notes, and all because of an argument between Tavistock here and the Brothers at Buckfast.’
The Almoner paused and stared about him, mouth slightly open, tongue noisily burrowing at the gap where his teeth should have been. He often did this, as though it was an aid to thought, but Gerard privately believed that it was an affectation, one which Peter had cultivated to repel novices.
‘Aye, Abbot Walter was a good, holy man. He lived as the Rule dictated, and he expected his monks to do the same.’ He glowered at the boys as though expecting modern youths like them to dispute the justice of Abbot Walter’s attitude. Shaking his head he stared into the flames before continuing gruffly.
‘Like you, they were, some of them: always wanting more ale and wine and meat than they needed. And when the Abbot was gone, the bad ones among them decided to make the most of his absence. One in particular, there was – an acolyte called Milbrosa, learning the ways of the chantry, a happy, cheery fellow with a winning manner and an open, honest face, the sort of man who finds it easy to make friends. Bold, he was, and disrespectful – always prepared to make jest of older monks. He scoffed when he was told that his levity would lead to punishment – if not in this world, then in the next.
‘Aye, he behaved like many of you would. When a cat dies, they say that the rats will dance and sing, and that’s how Milbrosa and the younger monks were when Abbot Walter left. Before his packhorse had even crossed under the Court Gate, Milbrosa led a few of his friends down to the undercroft beneath the Abbot’s lodging, and there they broke into a barrel of his best wine.’
There was a subdued intake of breath. The novices listened intently, utterly absorbed as he spoke, not because his strange, slurred speech made him difficult to understand, but because Peter seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in seeing how badly he could terrify his young audience. And the youngsters loved to be thrilled by his fearsome tales.
His voice dropped, and all had to lean forward and strain to pick up his words as he said grimly, ‘You can imagine it. Five monks all vying to swallow more than any other, like so many Scotch gluttons set loose to pillage a tavern!’
Gerard could hear the hot fury in his voice, and he saw a small gobbet of spittle fly from Peter’s lips. It flew through the air, falling with a short hiss into the fire. Yet when he lifted his eyes to the old monk, Peter’s angry mood had flown. He was contemplatively tugging at a thread of his gown.
‘Aye. Drunks. A terrible thing. Milbrosa was the worst of them. He’d have emptied a whole pipe on his own if he could. They guzzled their fill, getting horribly, beastly drunk, befouling themselves, spewing and retching, and yet returning to wash away the taste, drinking more and more, forgetting their divine duties, ignoring the bells calling them to Mass, not attending the Chapter meetings. It was a terrible thing. Terrible.
‘But they couldn’t remain besotted for ever. After some days, they gradually stirred themselves among the wreckage and filth they had created there, and when they saw what they had done, the appalling truth of their crimes broke upon them like a thunderous wave smiting a ship.’
He sat with that characteristic twisting of his features as he imagined the scene in his mind’s eye. Gerard wondered whether the hideous grimace was in truth nothing more than a relaxation of his face – it was the nearest the Almoner could come to a smile since the Scottish reivers he so detested had attacked him and left him for dead.
‘You can just see it, can’t you? There they all were, bepissed with terror in the undercroft. They had stolen from the Abbot, and stealing is a terrible sin. But worse, they had taken his favourite wines! What more evil crime could a man commit? There they lay, moaning and groaning, waiting for the earth to open and swallow them, or for the ceiling to fall and crush them. That would be preferable to their pain . . . or living with the shame of their sins!’
Gerard shivered. ‘The shame of their sins,’ he repeated to himself. The boy knew instinctively that Peter was thinking of him as he spoke those words, because Peter had guessed he was a thief; he had seen Gerard at night, and later he had warned him, telling him to confess his crimes and stop his sinning. The Almoner’s scowling features had petrified the boy – although not so much as the man who had ordered him to steal just once more, or be exposed to the Abbot as the thief he was.
‘They set themselves to with a will,’ Old Peter resumed. ‘All went to the Chapter meeting and confessed their guilt – not that they needed to. Their brother monks were well aware of what had been done, and Milbrosa’s enemies were pleased, because they hoped this would be an end to him. But Milbrosa was no fool. He knew that he could avert the Abbot’s anger if he simply replenished the stores, but he had no money with which to purchase good wine. Like all of us, he had taken the vow of poverty.
‘What could he do? No more than what he did. First he cleaned the undercroft with his friends; they scrubbed and washed and scrubbed again until all the flagstones were shining and clean. Perhaps that would deflect the Abbot’s rage when he heard of their drunkenness at his expense. When their master returned, they must endure his chosen punishment, but that could be days away, Milbrosa hoped, and in that time anything could happen. Perhaps by some miracle he would see a way through the problem.
‘But once a man has submitted to an orgy of dissipation and fed the beast within him, it is hard for him to forego the pleasures he has enjoyed. Thus it was with Milbrosa. He cra
ved more wine. Only used to ordinary ale like a monk should be, the heady stuff he had stolen had created a thirst he couldn’t appease.
‘It tore at him, this lust for wine, but how could he assuage it? Sunk deep in gloom he went to the frater and ate a meal with friends. They tried to persuade him that his sole hope was to pray to God for peace and await the Abbot’s return. He should submit to his master and accept whatever penance the good Abbot Walter should impose upon him.
‘Perhaps he would have listened to them and recognised the good sense in their words, but then travellers arrived, and in among them, walking with them for security, was a messenger. Abbot Walter had, he told them, completed his business and was travelling by ship to the Abbey’s possessions in the Scilly Isles, far to the west of Cornwall. He would not be coming straight back to the Abbey.
‘It was enough! Instead of going to the altar and opening his heart to God, this drunken, foolish sot went down to the undercroft again with his friends. Instead of praying for help, they worshipped their own gluttony with another barrel of wine. But this time, when Milbrosa awoke, his head pounding from the alcohol, he realised that he and his friends were truly lost. The theft of one barrel was a foul crime deserving of punishment, but for this second offence the penalty must be severe. Milbrosa might even be exiled to the Scillies. Glancing about him at the bloated figures of his friends, he acknowledged that their only crime was to have followed him, and he was racked with guilt.
‘He was still drunk, the fool, but he didn’t realise it. In his drink-bleared mind he thought he was wide awake and sober. Many a sotten oaf believes himself sensible and clear-thinking when he is thrown from his tavern, and Milbrosa was like them. He was no more sober than a peasant at the end of harvest when the last of the cider barrel is gone, aye, and it was while he was in this state that he thought he saw a way out of his shame.’
Almoner Peter’s voice dropped again, and he studied his audience still more keenly. ‘He left that undercroft, my lads, and stole silently and secretly to the court. Once he was there, he hesitated. It was night-time, and although the weather was chill and ice lay all about him, the moon showed him that the whole of the Abbey was asleep. Alas! If only his Brothers had woken and realised the vile crime he was about to commit! His breath hung in the air like a feather, and he shuddered; he thought from the cold, but no. It was his soul rebelling against the evil of his deed. Aye, the Good God tried to send him sense, to persuade him that his sins were none so foul yet that he should lose his soul if he prayed for forgiveness, but he was deaf to God’s entreaties!
‘For in the silence of that evil night, Milbrosa made his way to the Abbey church, entered, and walked to the chest, where he removed some silver plates and took them away with him.’
There was a gasp, and the old monk nodded grimly, acknowledging their horror. ‘Imagine! He actually dared to go into God’s house to plunder God’s own silver. Milbrosa must have lost his mind. He ran from the church, and secreted the plate beneath his bed, before returning to the undercroft and drinking himself to oblivion. At last falling into a troubled sleep at the side of his friends, he tossed and turned. Dreams came to him, as the Saints called to him to return the plate and save his soul, but to no avail. Saint Rumon himself, our patron saint, beseeched him to take back the plate and sin no more, but Milbrosa heeded none of them and pelted headlong to his doom.
‘The next morning he woke with a head still befuddled and as soon as the keeper had opened the gates, he collected the silver and made his way to the moors. There he found the travellers among whom the messenger had mingled, and offered them the silver if they would pay him for it. They agreed, for they had no idea that the stuff was stolen from the church, and before breaking his fast, Milbrosa had a full purse. He returned to the town and met with a merchant, who consented to send the money with a message to the Abbot of Buckfast asking for fresh supplies of wine, and then he made his way to his bed and flung himself on to it, wallowing in crapulous relief that he could again replenish the Abbot’s stores.
‘But when he awoke hours later, he realised what he had done and he was riven with anguish. Sober once more, he knew that he had committed a mortal sin. If an ordinary man were to steal from the church he would be named felon and would wear the wolf’s head; any man could execute him, and justly. Milbrosa was secure from that for he was a monk and could claim benefit of clergy, but his crime was nonetheless so foul that he could expect a terrible retribution when the Abbot returned.
‘There was nothing else for him to do. He went to his friends and told them what he had done. Head hanging, penitent as only a true sinner can be, he begged them to help him, but one by one as he appealed to them, they told him that they couldn’t help. How could they? None of them had any money. They couldn’t go and buy back the silver.
‘It began to look as though Milbrosa would after all be forced to confess his guilt to the Abbot and submit to whatever punishment he was given. It was plain enough that there was no way of recovering the silver.
‘But then one of his friends had an idea. Or maybe it was Milbrosa himself who mentioned it. Whichever it was, surely the devil himself put the idea into their heads.’
Peter’s voice dropped into a hushed monotone. There was no fidgeting among the boys in front of him, only an appalled silence. Gerard could see the whites of their eyes, their mouths open, fearful as the Almoner reached the final shocking chapter.
‘A voice suggested that they should go and beg money from a tin-miner. It said that there was this man who worked alone out in the wastes, a Jew – this was long before the Jews were thrown from the kingdom – and he was known to be wealthy. Milbrosa needed no second bidding. He proposed to march straight to the tinner’s house and plead with him for money.
‘As good as his word, he packed his scrip with a little bread and set off. His friends, alarmed by his demeanour, went with him.
‘It was a good step, many miles from here. You have all seen the road that leads to the moors. It starts at the riverbank and climbs steeply, and once you have left the farming country, once you have passed through Walkhampton you are in it, but I daresay not many of you have climbed that way?’
On hearing the chorus of denials, Peter sniffed. ‘When I was a lad, I walked to meditate and pray. I used to cover twenty miles each day when my Abbot allowed me, and since coming here from the Northern Marches, I have already walked many miles on the moors, yet you haven’t even crossed the river, I suppose. Oh, aye, you modern youths are a feeble lot compared with my peers.
‘The road goes up and up until you feel as if your knees will crack. That was how Milbrosa felt, for he was pushing himself on as quickly as he could. He had to have money to buy the silver back from the travellers! When you breast the hill, there is a flat plain, and then you must pass on to the ancient cross called Siward’s, or Nun’s Cross, which marks the border of the moors.
There it’s much more soft and rolling,’ Peter told his audience, ‘with a few rocky outcrops in the distance, and heather and grasses that hide the clitter. There are boulders strewn about all over the place, and if you wander from the beaten track, you are forced to scramble up and down all the way. It is a broad, grey land, harsh and unwelcoming. There are no trees, they are all gone, and when Milbrosa stood on the edge of the moors that day and gazed before him, he thought that this could be the ends of the earth. It looked like a place blasted by God’s wrath. The only signs of civilisation were the fires rising from tin-miners’ homes and furnaces and the occasional pits dug all about, or the great heaps of spoil where miners had tipped rubbish from their work. It is a foul, chill, unwholesome land, especially in the depths of winter, with the freezing winds blowing in your face and piercing your robes. Milbrosa felt his courage fading as he stared ahead. His hangover was severe, his head felt as though it had been cracked open by a bill, and his belly wanted to spew up the vast amount of wine he’d drunk. Aye, he was a most unhappy monk.
‘But with all hi
s friends there he had no choice but to carry on. They walked eastwards along the rough tracks and paths until they came to the turn which led to the Jew’s house and took it, going cautiously now, for there were many mires up there, great deep pools of bog in which a man could fall and disappear for ever.
‘At last they found the house. It was one of those rough miner’s dwellings. Ah, but you haven’t seen them, have you? intrepid lot that you are! It was a narrow, low place built of granite, with the walls protected from draughts by piling earth against them and letting the grasses grow. The roof was of timber, with turfs thrown atop to stop the rain seeping in. When you live so far from other people, you can’t always get straw to thatch, but grasses will keep out the worst of the wet.
‘There was no one there, but as they opened the door and gazed at the empty little hut, they heard the clop of hooves and a man’s voice, and there, behind them, they saw the Jew, leading a mule.
‘Milbrosa was struck dumb at the sight of the man. His mule was heavily laden; he must have been about to set off on a journey or perhaps was just returned from one, and Milbrosa felt sure this was a bad time to be asking him for favours. Aye, but although he was unwilling, his friends and companions urged him forward. If he was to save himself, they pointed out, he must gain the man’s favour and win a purse to rescue the silver before the Abbot returned and learned of his crime. They thrust him forward, and he stood shivering in the cold before the Jew, twiddling his fingers and licking his lips nervously.
‘ “What is it?” the old Jew snapped, for he was only just returned from the coining at Ashburton, and his legs were tired.
‘ “Master,” Milbrosa said hesitantly, “we are but poor monks from Tavistock, and we must beg for our food and drink. Have pity on us and give us some of your money.”
The Devil's Acolyte (2002) Page 2
