Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

‘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.