Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

‘Doesn’t matter what you eat, there are always peas and carrot in it,’ he muttered.

‘Sir, the Abbot… I mean… Oh! Sir, I am…’

Stifling a yawn, Simon looked up at the lad. ‘Don’t be flustered, just speak slowly and clearly. My head isn’t all it has been.’

‘Sir, the Abbot asked me to call you because Wally has been found dead on the Moors.’

Fast asleep on a bench in the adjoining room, Hugh had a rude awakening when his master roared in his ear to rouse himself, and then booted him off the bench and on to the floor.

Simon stormed from the chamber, and his eruption, and the hasty slapping of Hugh’s boots on the flooring, woke the yellow-faced pewterer in the bed across from Simon. A scrawny man in his early thirties, he yawned, scratching at his thin beard and groin. Then he stood and walked to the window, gazing out through the branches of the tree that grew outside, and then, since all was silent, he returned to his bed and idly thrust a hand beneath the mattress, pulling out a leather satchel. Opening it, he rootled about inside for a moment, but then his face sharpened with the realisation that something was wrong. He emptied his satchel onto the bed, staring down at the contents with shock, his eyes dark with suspicion.

That the man was dead was not in question. Just the smell was enough for Simon’s belly to rebel. He had to swallow hard. Grabbing at the wineskin dangling from his saddle, he took a good gulp to wash away the bile. Hugh, on his pony at Simon’s side, reached for the skin, but Simon irritably slapped his hand away. His servant didn’t need it – or rather, there was a priority of need in which Hugh came a long way below his master.

His guide was Hal Raddych, the stern-looking miner Simon had watched at the coining. Below his hat’s brim and above his bushy beard, his left eye peered out intelligently enough, although his right had a heavy cast that made it confusing to speak to Hal face to face. He was reasonably wealthy, compared with other miners Simon had met, a steady man, honest and reliable, who worked with Hamelin not far away.

As Stannary Bailiff, Simon had grown to know most of the miners on the moors, and he thought that Hal was as fair-minded a man as could be found. Many weren’t. The harsh life of the miner seemed to forge men who had a certain resilience, a toughness of character which made them more prone to fighting even than the peasants who lived on the fringes of the wasteland. And those bastards were hard enough, Simon reminded himself.

Hal chewed at his inner lip for a moment, then said slowly, ‘Poor old Wally. You know, Sir Bailiff – Walwynus. You must have met him? Used to have his own small claim over there, beyond Misery Tor, down at the Skir Gut. Worked a stream. Had a good year some summers ago, but bugger all since, by all account. Wally tried to keep a smallholding going, and you know how difficult that’s been since the famine. What with the dreadful weather, it’s a miracle anyone can live by farming.’

Simon grunted in acknowledgement, staring at Wally’s remains. The body was curled, foetus-like, into a ball, hands and arms over his head in a posture of defence. Two fingers were missing, which wasn’t out of the ordinary: most miners lost fingers as a matter of course, just as timber workers and carpenters did. It was a natural risk of working with exceptionally sharp, heavy tools. Except in this man’s case, the fingers had gone recently, from the look of the fleshy mess where they had been. There was a balled piece of cloth nearby, clotted with blood, as though it had fallen from his fist as he died.

Simon reluctantly passed the wineskin to Hugh and let himself down from his horse. He had no wish to approach the corpse and inspect its death wounds, but he knew he must do a formal identification if possible. It was a Bailiff’s duty. Personally, Simon was happy to leave all the actual handling of the corpse to the Coroner and his jury. They were welcome to it, he thought queasily, standing over the body, waving under his nose an apple which he had wisely taken from the Abbey’s kitchen and stuffed with cloves before setting off on this journey. It helped to neutralise a little of the hideous stench.

The body was lying between two furze bushes. One in particular was almost as tall as a tree. From here, south and east of Nun’s Cross, near Childe’s Tomb, not far from the marked track of the Abbot’s Way, Simon could see more furze westwards, and grass, with the view extending all the way to the trees that stood on the hill above Tavistock. Before him, the path dropped down into the thickly wooded valley. Beyond, on the other side of the cleft in the ground, he could see glimpses of the moorland. Tors stood like oddly-carved statues left by the giants who had once inhabited this land. It was a harsh, bleak landscape, covered with tufts of grasses and occasional lumps of stone. The sort of land to break a man’s ankle if he wasn’t careful; or break his head.

Except this man hadn’t fallen and knocked himself out. His head was a blackened mass, his hair matted and thickened with great gouts of blood which had spattered and marked the grass all about. There was a broad slick of it on a nearby furze bush, and Simon noted it. He would have to look at that later: it didn’t look natural.

The victim had been severely beaten, from the look of him. The back of his skull was opened, with a three-inch-long gash that must have come from a heavy weapon. From what Simon could see Walwynus had tried to protect himself, for his forearms and left hand were broken, one whitened bone thrust through the skin of his right arm, and maggots had already begun to squirm in the flesh.

It was that which made Simon move away; the sight made his stomach churn. Truth be told, he’d have preferred to remain in the Abbey and leave this job to another official, but he was the Bailiff; under the Abbot he was responsible for keeping the King’s Peace out on the moors, and if there was a possibility he might learn something about this man’s murder by visiting the place, he had to make the effort.

The Coroner had already been sent for. Simon knew that Sir Roger de Gidleigh, the Coroner based in Exeter, would come as soon as he could, but that might mean a couple of days. There was never any shortage of suspicious deaths in the Shire and this one would have to take its place in the queue. In the meantime, the body had to be protected. That was the responsibility of the people who lived near the corpse, to see that no dogs or rats got to it and damaged it. It was illegal to move the body or bury it; either was a serious offence that could only result in fines being imposed, so Simon knew that he would have to arrange for guards to look after the corpse until the Coroner could arrive.

He walked away from the body, towards the splash of vivid colour on the furze bush. It looked as if someone had taken a brush and painted it a dull red in a broad swipe. Peering down beneath the bush, Simon saw something, and he reached inside, wincing as the sharp thorns deep in among old growth stabbed at his hand and wrist.

He withdrew a heavy baulk of timber, maybe a foot and a half long and three inches square. One end was darker, and there was one little greyish lump stuck to it that Simon felt unhappily sure was a piece of bone. When he studied it more closely, he could see the small round-headed nails embedded within the hardwood, turning it into a more effective weapon, a ‘morning star’. Obviously the killer had thrown this weapon aside after killing Walwynus. He would have had no use for it after that.

‘Look at this, Hal.’

The miner peered at the piece of timber. There was a curious stillness about him, but Simon noticed it only in passing. It was no surprise, he thought. Old Hal must be feeling in a state of shock, maybe close to throwing up. He left Hal there while he took another look under the bush.