The Devil's Acolyte (2002)

by Jecks, Michael

  ‘You appear ill-at-ease, my friend,’ Peter said softly.

  ‘It’s Sir Tristram,’ Simon blurted out.

  ‘Aye. He’s a hard man, Sir Tristram,’ Peter said mildly.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I know him well, but I’ve seen him a few times. He’s a tough warrior, always out on the warpath. As soon as there was ever a hint that the Scots were at the border, Sir Tristram would take up his sword and lance and ride with his men. I don’t think I could count the number of lives that man has ended.’

  ‘He was telling me that the Scots raid over the border, though,’ Simon frowned.

  ‘It’s always the way, isn’t it? Somebody did commit the first raid. I wonder who it was? Perhaps it was the Scottish, for all we know, and then the English border folk decided to take revenge, and then the Scottish strong men took their revenge. It’s easy to see how the border reivers could cross the border from both sides. And what happens? A few cattle are stolen and taken back to the other side of the border, or a house is found locked up and is fired, with the screams and pleadings of the women and children inside falling on deaf or uncaring ears, or perhaps they ride into a group of other men in the dales, and Armstrongs fight Elliots until all are dead, for none would give quarter.’

  ‘And Sir Tristram was one of these?’

  ‘Sir Tristram!’ Peter said, and there was a chuckle in his voice, although his eyes didn’t reflect any humour. ‘I saw him once, you know. He had lost a pair of oxen, and he decided that reivers from the other side of the March were responsible, so he rode off with his men, great, fierce warriors, they were. I saw them come back. Sir Tristram was proud. He’d lost one man, but he’d killed three himself. Personally. Do you know how I know that?’

  Simon shook his head.

  ‘Because that honourable knight had their heads dangling from his saddle, Bailiff. Tell me, how do you order the law here? Do you slaughter and bring the heads back?’

  ‘It is possible. If an outlaw is found, his head is forfeit.’

  ‘Come, Bailiff, how often does a man sweep off the head of an outlaw? The man is taken prisoner and brought back to the Justices if possible, and if not, why then the fellow is fought, and his corpse brought to the Justices. If not, the Coroner would ask questions. Even if a felon’s head is needed for the city’s spikes in York or Exeter, so that all can see that the King’s justice and his laws are still functioning, it is carried in a sack. Not much of a distinction, I know, but at least that demonstrates a certain respect for the dead man’s soul. Not Sir Tristram, though. He kills, and enjoys the killing.’

  He stopped and glanced up at the sky, which was darken-ing.‘Perhaps I am just too old, Bailiff. I spent so many years trying to find peace where none existed, and then I received this, when the Scottish rebels came over the dale and attacked us in revenge for a raid that English reivers had launched on them. Where is the sense? Will the feuds never cease?’

  ‘I am sure they will,’ Simon said seriously.‘Once the Scottish stop rebelling against the King’s rule, and we become one nation again as we should be, the border region must be pacified.’

  ‘Bailiff,’ Peter said, smiling now as he faced Simon. ‘You cannot pacify those men, only kill them. They won’t stop fighting until they are dead, or all their enemies are, and there is nothing more for them to steal.’

  ‘Then perhaps it is natural for Sir Tristram to want to fight them and protect his own,’ Simon said hesitantly.

  ‘Him? He is one of the worst of them,’ Peter said, and his voice was suddenly terribly cold, as though he had seen the ghosts of all his friends who had died on the Marches passing before him.‘Few on either side of the border don’t know of Bloody Tristram.’ The old monk stopped and looked past Simon to the Abbey’s church tower.‘He doesn’t only attack the Scottish, our Sir Tristram. He is like the shavaldours – happy to rob any man for profit. No one may cross his lands without being attacked.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Simon asked doubtfully.‘The King has sent him here as an Arrayer. Surely he wouldn’t send a man who was untrustworthy?’

  Peter looked at him; there was deep sadness in his eye. ‘You think the King would object to a man like him? Sir Tristram gives King Edward all he wants: a constant fight to irritate the Scottish, and a boundless zeal for killing Scots and terrorising the whole of the March. Whenever the King wants men-at-arms or archers, he can go straight to Sir Tristram and find a ready source.’

  ‘Yet he needs to send Sir Tristram here to fetch them?’ Simon queried.

  ‘At times the King needs more men. When he plans to slaughter even more Scottish than usual, or when the Scottish decide to raid more deeply into England, like a sword thrust, instead of their usual short stabs at the border, like daggers, then he needs more men. But whatever happens, Sir Tristram will not lose by it.’

  Simon could say nothing. The pain in Brother Peter’s face was all too evident, and the Bailiff wanted to distract him. ‘You have heard about the dead man on the moors?’

  ‘Poor Walwynus? Yes. Terrible to think of his being clubbed to death so far from friends, out on that bleak moorland. He lived out in the middle of the moors, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In among the tin-miners, then. Do you think one of them could have killed him?’

  ‘It’s possible, although I can’t understand why.’

  ‘You know how it is. Feuds.’

  Simon shot him a glance. The old monk was facing the ground now, but Simon was sure that he was watching him keenly from the corner of his eye.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘that will be for the Coroner to discover.’

  ‘Who is the Coroner?’

  ‘Sir Roger de Gidleigh,’ Simon said, adding, ‘He’s a very astute man. The killer should beware. If there is any sign of who was guilty, Sir Roger will find it.’

  ‘Well, shall I save you some trouble learning things, then, Bailiff?’ Peter muttered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wally, the dead man – he was one of the group that did this to me. My woman had saved his life only a short while before, nursing him. Then, when he was hale and hearty again, aye, and could ride, he and his friends found me. His companion, Martyn Armstrong, headed me off from my escape, and Wally came up. I think, perhaps, he was going to try to save me, but before he could, a third man caught me and did this with an axe.’

  Simon winced. ‘You saw him swinging his axe at you? That must have been . . .’

  ‘No, I didn’t. He swung, but all I saw was a blur. And then I was down. But you know the worst, Bailiff? Aye, that was when I came to, and I was told that my girl was dead. Raped and murdered on the very same day. It was that which ruined me, more than this wound even, for in losing her, I lost my life.’

  ‘So you came down here.’

  ‘Aye, I came here, every day cursing Wally for leading his men to my woman and letting them rape her after her kindness to him. It was only last week that I learned he hadn’t. He had stayed with the men and tried to lead them around her house, but they met a party with Sir Tristram and got separated. By the time Wally met them again, she was dead. They tried to escape by coming south, and Wally dared not confront his companions, for he knew he needed them to survive, the coward, but once they were settled here, he killed Martyn for her murder. They were drunk and Wally couldn’t help but taunt him. When he accused Martyn, the mad Scot went for him, but Wally won the advantage.’

  ‘He was happy to live with the man out on the moors until then?’ Simon asked doubtfully. ‘Even though he thought the man had murdered the girl?’

  ‘By then the man Martyn was his only comrade in a terrifying world. Imagine if you were forced to flee to Scotland, Bailiff. Would you question a companion closely, if he was your sole contact with your old world? I think not.’

  ‘Perhaps. I hope I never suffer such an existence. What of the third man?’ Simon wondered. ‘Did he come here too? Or did he die
on the way?’

  Peter shrugged. ‘I care not. I hope he is dead and broiling in hell, but if I met him on the street, I would think it my duty to try to save his soul. I might even shake his hand. Repellent thought.’

  Shortly afterwards the bell began to toll, and Peter sighed and gave his farewell, making his way to the church and the last service of the day.

  Simon was strangely happy to see him go. He had never heard a bad word about Brother Peter; the Almoner was known among the townspeople to be a gentle, intelligent and mild-mannered man, but something about him today made Simon feel cautious. The monk had been interested to hear about the dead man, and if Simon was right and Peter had attempted to distract him, maybe drawing him away from the real killer and instead focusing his attention on the miners, that could indicate some form of complicity or guilt.

  It was something that he should ask about, he decided. Turning, he was about to make his way back to the welcoming room and ask for a fresh pot of ale, when he caught sight of a figure standing at the top of the stairs leading to the guest rooms: Sir Tristram.

  The knight was staring after the disappearing monk. As though feeling Simon’s eyes upon him, he glanced down, his face empty of any emotion. Without even acknowledging the Bailiff, he suddenly turned away, into the guest room, leaving Simon aware of a sense of grim foreboding.

  Cissy pushed the last of her customers from the pie-shop and shut up the door, dropping the peg into place on the latch so it couldn’t be lifted, then shooting the bolt.

  She was tired. After the coining the previous week, they hadn’t stopped. Sunday, supposedly the day of rest, had been hectic: Emma, Hamelin’s wife, who was always struggling to feed her children, while her man lived out on the moors for seven weeks in every eight trying to make enough money to keep them all, had burst into tears in the street, Joel in her arms and three of her brood hanging on her skirts, and Cissy had pulled her into the parlour, sitting her in one of Nob’s chairs and warming a little spiced wine for her. She had always kept the toys her own son had played with, and now they were a boon. She brought them down from the shelf in their box and the three children fell upon them with squeals of delight. When Nob poked his head about the door, Cissy glared at him until he shamefacedly disappeared, returning to the alehouse he had just left.

  ‘You sit there, maid. You’ll soon feel better.’

  Emma sobbed into her skirts, unable to speak while Cissy clattered about the place, cutting up one of the pies Nob hadn’t sold the previous day and setting the pieces on the box for the boys, then slicing another in two for Emma. She had a bread trencher, and she put the pie on it, filled a large cup with the wine, and held it near Emma until she could smell it.

  The girl looked at it, her brown eyes watery. She was not particularly attractive, with her large, rather flat nose, and the almost circular shape of her face, but her heart was good, and Cissy had sympathy for any woman who must raise six children, five of them boys, on her own. Many other women were in the same situation, of course, but that didn’t make it any less tiring. What’s more, poor Emma had lost both her parents and her husband’s during the famine, so there was no family to help her. She had to rely on neighbours and friends with young families, and sometimes such people couldn’t do much.

  ‘What is it, maid? Things got on top of you?’

  ‘It’s my little Joel. He’s fading away.’

  The mite was only a year old, but scrawny, and hadn’t ever had much of an appetite. Prone to crying, he was probably more than half the reason Emma was always so tired, because his whining wail could be heard all through the night, and Cissy knew that he kept Emma from her sleep.

  ‘He’s not eating?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, he’s eating a bit, but not enough. I don’t know what to do!’

  Cissy listened to the girl with a sense of futility. Emma was on the brink of despair. Her husband’s venture was petering out and he was scurrying about trying to find a fresh deposit, but so far there had been no luck. It was maddening, but there was no guaranteed reward for hard work, and then the tin ran out, and it was beginning to look like her family would soon have nothing. No income at the next coining meant no food for the children.

  ‘And my Joel, he won’t eat now. He looks up at me like he’s starving, but he won’t eat anything when I try to get him to feed, and he’s wasting away, the poor sweetheart. It’s been three days, and he’s not had hardly anything, not even when I’ve chewed it up and given it to him in a paste.’

  ‘He won’t suckle?’

  ‘No. He refuses my breast, just turns his head away when I get it near him.’

  Cissy pursed her lips. It was more usual for children to be breast-fed until they were two or three years old, and hearing that the lad refused his mother’s pap was alarming. She had seen Joel only the other day and had thought then that he looked weakly and unhappy, although his belly was large enough. Asleep now in Emma’s arms, he looked restless and irritable.

  She was no midwife. Her own boy had been an easy child, although he had become more difficult to feed later in life, growing fussy with his food. For some reason he disliked his father’s meat pies; but no, Cissy told herself sternly as her mind wandered, that was unimportant compared to Emma’s present and very real problems.

  ‘I have taken him to the Abbey, and they have said prayers for him, but what else can I do?’

  Cissy sighed. She had remained with Emma for ages, calming her as best she could. If it was God’s will to take the child to His arms, He would, and there was nothing that the people of Tavistock could do about it. All Cissy could do, in all truth, was try to soothe her friend.

  ‘There is one thing you could do,’ she said suddenly. ‘You could mix some honey with milk, and give that to him. It sometimes works. Can you afford some honey?’

  Emma sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘Yes. Hamelin gave me his purse.’

  Cissy’s eyes grew round as she saw the money in Emma’s hand. ‘Whee! He gave you all that? He must have sold a lot of tin!’

  Emma became a little reserved. ‘No, he sold a debt to Wally before he died.’

  ‘Some debt, girl. When did Wally ever have so much money?’

  Emma concealed the money in the purse again. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he grew lucky? There was no report of a man being robbed, was there? If so, perhaps I’d think evil of Wally – but no one has, so it must have been his money somehow.’

  Cissy opened her mouth to argue, but then glanced at Joel and her expression softened. ‘Right, well you have enough to do him some good, anyway. Buy honey and some milk from the first morning milking, when it’s rich and creamy. Give him that, and then try him with soft bread dipped in honey too. Once he’s eating again, you can change his diet.’

  By the time she had hustled the girl from her door, Emma’s tears were at least a little abated, although while her child refused to eat, she would remain petrified with fear that she was going to lose him. Also, now that her husband’s mine appeared to be failing, she knew that the rest of her children might suffer the pangs of starvation before too long.

  It was a terrible thing to lose a child. Cissy hated the very idea. A devoted mother, she adored her children. One boy and two girls, and all fine, healthy, strapping creatures who had given her, so far, seven grandchildren. Her only regret was that all had moved from the shop as soon as they had married. Of course it was usual for a girl to do that, moving in with her in-laws, but it was sad to lose a son. And such a son Reg was! Tall, hair as dark as a crow’s wing, his eyes deep brown; she thought he was perfect. But he had been convinced of his calling, and he had needed to follow it. That was all there was to it. Perhaps in years to come he would marry and give her the extra grandchildren she wanted.

  The thought of more children turned a little sour when she saw the state her Nob was in. As she said to him, he made her wonder whether she had married a child and not a man.

  After such a long exile from his hearth, Nob was more
liquid than solid when he eventually returned to the shop. Not that being overbloated with ale had been the worst of it, of course. She had known what he would be like, and he had more than fulfilled her expectations.

  As soon as his head hit the pillow, he snored fit to shake the daub from the walls, and he wouldn’t roll over and shut up even when she prodded him with an ungentle finger. No, he merely lay back with his mouth agape, the fool! And then, just when she was thinking that she was so tired she might fall asleep, he snorted, grunted, and rose to go to the pot. Except, of course, he was fearful of wakening her, so he had lighted a candle that he might see without stumbling. The rasp, rasp, rasp of his tinder had been like a blade scraping on her skull, and the knowledge that there was no point in arguing with him because he was still drunk did not soften her temper. At last, after making as much noise as the Lydford waterfall, he had returned to bed, but now the second evil of drink had made itself felt. He had broken wind, and soon she was reeling from the foul odour.

  Next morning he had woken with a pained expression. It did not succeed in arousing any sympathy from her.

  ‘I don’t know why you do it to yourself so often. Can’t you get it into your head that you’re not a young boy any more? Look at you! A grown man, but you behave like a child, guzzling at ale like a baby at pap as soon as I turn my back!’

  ‘It was just nice to have a chance to talk to some of our neighbours, woman – and stop shouting. You’d wake the dead, you would!’

  ‘If you hadn’t drunk so much, you wouldn’t be so upset with a normal, quiet voice.’

  ‘I didn’t drink that much. I just got chatting, that’s all. Like you were chatting in here with Emma. And anyway, it was you told me to bugger off. I didn’t want to go there – I was coming home, remember?’

  ‘You didn’t have to go straight to the alehouse, did you? You could have gone and waited at our door, or visited Humphrey or someone.’

  The mention of that name had made Nob give a fleeting wince, but not so fleeting that Cissy missed it. ‘You didn’t see him in there?’