Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

Hamelin smiled at the dog. All was well in his world. He had a sore head, and a bloody mouth, true, but his son was alive, his tooth had been pulled – thank God! – and he’d had an enormous stroke of luck today. Emma stirred, and Joel grunted in his sleep, and it was that which woke her. Startled, her face showed terror for a moment, but then relaxed, her hand going to her heart. That brief shock made Joel begin to sniffle and wail, a low moaning noise that grew, and Emma grabbed him up and rocked him, the little stool on which she sat squeaking and cracking under their weight.

It was some while before she could settle him again. She rested Joel in a small crib, and stood, stretching her back. When she turned to face him, her apron awry, her tunic stained and faded, Hamelin thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The warm firelight was kind to her, smoothing out the wrinkles and lines of worry, while emphasising the soft curves of her body. She pulled the hair from her eyes and smiled almost shyly, accepting his hand as he pulled her down onto a rug near the fire, lifting her skirts and parting her legs. Afterwards, when his breathing was calmer again, he kissed her.

‘It’s good to have you back here again, love,’ she said simply.

‘How is he? I couldn’t stay away, not knowing.’

‘No better, I think. We need good beef broth or an egg. Decent nourishing food,’ she said with quiet sadness. Her emotions were worn away with sorrow after so long. It was as though she was already in mourning for her dead child.

Hamelin felt his heart lurch within his breast, and taking a deep breath, he rolled over on to his back. ‘I had expected to come here and find him dead.’

‘I know. There’s nothing more we can do. If he dies, it’s God’s will.’

They held each other silently. They knew too many children who had succumbed to wasting diseases or who had suffered from that hungry illness over winter when their teeth became loose and their gums bled. Sometimes the teeth would fall out and the child would slowly die.

‘I have brought money,’ Hamelin told her tenderly. ‘There’s no need for you to go without for a long while.’

‘Money?’ Emma sat up sharply. When she saw her husband’s eyes gleam as they took in her bare breast, she hastily pulled her tunic across and gathered it together with a fist. ‘Where did you get money? There was nothing for you at the coining yesterday. How did you come by it?’

‘Calm down, woman,’ he commanded, and with a hand he gently forced her fist to open, so that he could cup her breasts. ‘I sold my debt.’

‘Who to? No one would be stupid enough to buy that!’

‘One man was – Wally. He thought it was a good deal and paid me cash for it.’

‘Wally? Where would he get money?’ Emma scoffed. ‘He has no more than us!’

Hamelin could almost feel her body cooling, as though she suspected that he was a thief. ‘Come, love, I haven’t killed anyone. We were walking back to the mines today when he asked me why I was so glum, and I told him about Joel. He already knew about Mark robbing us. He said, “Injustice is terrible. Let me buy the debt to save your son’s life.” ’

‘Wally never had two farthings to rub together.’

‘I know,’ Hamelin said. ‘But maybe he got lucky.’

‘You swear you haven’t robbed anyone?’ she demanded.

‘Of course not. All I know is, I have a purse full of coins for you.’

Emma felt herself wavering. She would hate to think that he could have robbed someone – but the thought of money was horribly attractive. It meant life for her child, freedom from fear for a while.

Hamelin was speaking, and she forced herself to listen. ‘It was odd this morning. I had walked back to my camp, and I saw that fat bastard Brother Mark up there. He was having an argument with Wally. I could see them clearly – it sounded as if he was giving Wally instructions or something. Then old Wally went off eastwards while Mark turned back towards Tavvie. I was coming back here myself – to get my tooth pulled and to see you – so I set off a little while after, just to annoy him. Mind, he kept going at quite a pace without looking over his shoulder even once.’

‘He’s allowed on the moors, isn’t he?’ Emma said flippantly.

‘I’ve never seen him up there before, though.’

‘Forget him.’

‘How can I?’ he growled. ‘He ruined us.’

‘But you say Wally might have saved us?’

In answer, Hamelin grabbed his purse from his belt on the floor beside them and, opening it, tipped a pile of bright copper coins amounting to several shillings over her breast. Then, kissing her nipples, her throat, her chin, he said, ‘Do you believe me now? I got money for you and the children. What’s wrong with that?’

Emma opened herself to him again; after all, if he said he had come by it fairly, it wasn’t her place to doubt him. They needed the money, no matter where it came from.

Hal Raddych had also returned to their camp on that Friday morning. He was tired, and his head ached a little, but less than it should have, after drinking so much the night before. Hamelin had already been there, wandering about like a man in a daze, but Hal thought his tooth must be troubling him. It was merely a relief to see him go.

He didn’t comment when he saw the mess their timber-pile was in. Hamelin was in no mood for listening to more instructions at the moment. Hal would wait for a better time. It was the store of wood that he and Hamelin needed for their works. As he was always telling Hamelin, it was important that stores were kept in an orderly manner. Letting good wood lie on the damp soil of the moors would ruin it and lead to wastage. Grunting to himself as he surveyed the collapsed heap, he shook his head, then set to rebuilding the stack. It looked as though Hamelin had grabbed a balk from the bottom of the pile and let the rest simply collapse. Slapdash as ever, in Hal’s mind. A sloppy miner was a miner who would die as his mine fell on him.

If Hamelin didn’t mend his ways, Hal would have to find a new partner, he thought to himself irritably, noticing that a hammer, too, had been carelessly left to sink part-way into the mud.

He didn’t notice the small handful of nails that were also missing.

On the following Monday, Simon was woken by an agitated voice. He opened his eyes and recognised the red-headed acolyte he had seen at the coining.

‘What the…’ he demanded, pulling his cloak back over his nakedness before rubbing his tired eyes.

The night before, he had been invited to a feast with the Abbot in celebration of the successful coinage – they were several thousandweight above the previous coining and the Abbot was delighted with his profits – and Simon’s head was naturally more than a little woolly. He felt fine, he told himself, but at the moment he wanted water rather than food. There was a faint odour of vomit in the air, and he wondered fleetingly whether he had been sick over himself, but then he focused again on the red-headed novice.

‘What’s your name, boy?’ he growled.

‘Gerard, Sir Bailiff.’

‘Well, Gerard, you must learn that, in future, when you come to the room of a man who has enjoyed your master’s hospitality, you should bring a pot of water or wine.’

He looked about him. This room was the main chamber for respected visitors – the servants and lower classes must sleep in the stables or out in the yard itself – and Simon stretched contentedly in the bed. For once he had been able to sleep alone. Usually when he came to the coinings, he was forced to share his bed.

This morning the chamber was quiet. There had been several guests the night before, but they seemed to have gone already. Most of the beds were already empty; only one still had an occupant, a yellow-faced, rather dissipated pewterer, who lay on his back, breathing in heavily, then puffing out gusts with faint, but now Simon could concentrate, deeply annoying, popping sounds. At the side of his bed was a small pool of vomit. Simon wrinkled his nose.