Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

Hugh clearly agreed. His face registered his disgust, and he refused to approach the corpse, remaining on his horse, glaring about him as though daring a felon to try to attack him in the same way that Wally had been.

Simon could fully understand Hugh’s reluctance. He dropped from his horse, trying to breathe through his mouth and not his nose, but it didn’t help. He stood a few yards away from the body, eyes narrowed, mouth drawn down, and as soon as he was satisfied that nothing had been stolen or altered, he turned away.

By chance his glance fell on the place where the club had fallen, and he walked to the spot with a frown growing on his features. ‘Where’s the club that was here?’ he said, pointing.

‘Don’t know. Weren’t nothing there when I came ’ere.’ The miner was a burly, short, grizzled man with an immense curling beard. He stood with his thumbs in his belt and stared blankly at Simon’s pointing finger. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

‘There was a morning star there. Home-made, just a lump of timber with a load of nails hammered into it. It’s what killed Wally. Wasn’t it here when you arrived?’

‘No. Nothing there what I saw. And I haven’t slept, Bailiff.’

‘Shit!’ Simon turned away and walked to his horse, his mind whirling. If this man hadn’t taken it… He span on his heel. ‘Who was here when you arrived?’

‘Hal. No one else.’

‘Good. Come, Hugh,’ Simon said, mounting his horse. He considered riding out to see Hal now, but a quick look up at the sky persuaded him against it. Hal was only a short distance away, but Simon didn’t know the safe route. To get to him would mean walking around the great bog, going far out of his way, and then it would soon be dusk. No, he must see Hal later, and demand to know what he had done with the club – and why.

The thin grey dusk had already given way to a clear, cloudless night, with stars shining bright in a purple sky. Having partaken of a loaf of bread and some pottage, he and Hugh sat back in the little chamber that stood at the ground floor of the Great Court’s gate and drank from their jugs of ale.

From there, Simon could peer through the doorway to the court itself, and see when Sir Tristram was likely to appear. As soon as the knight did so, Simon planned to leave. He would say that he had to go and talk to a man who had been seen up on the moor when Wally died, or perhaps that the Abbot needed to talk to him – or just that he felt sick and was going to spew. Anything to keep away from Sir Tristram.

If only Hal was here, he thought. He would have liked a chance to talk to him about the disappearance of that morning star. It made no sense for Hal to have taken the thing, unless he thought that somehow it was incriminating and wanted to protect the real killer. Perhaps even protect himself.

Except Simon knew it made no sense. The nails could have been made by any one of a number of smiths in Dartmoor. Simon had seen them making their nails, setting a red-hot bolt of iron into the spike-shaped metal formers and beating it until it was pushed into the mould, the head gradually rounding over. It was easy work, if dull and repetitive. Similarly the wood of the club itself would give no sign where it had come from. There was no point, no point at all, in taking the thing away. All it could do was indicate that a miner was involved, but the fact that Wally had died up on the moors tended to suggest that anyway.

He was considering this for the thousandth time when he glanced through the door and observed a monk walking slowly, with bent head, along from the main gate and across the court. When the figure turned, Simon saw the flash of the scar shining in the torchlight. He left Hugh and walked outside.

‘Brother Peter, may I speak to you for a while?’ he called.

‘To me, Bailiff? Aye, if ye’re sure ye can cope with the ranting and ravening of a mad northerner,’ Peter said in his thickest dialect.

‘Do you often find people saying they can’t understand you?’ Simon smiled.

‘Aye. And usually it’s the most uncommunicative and intractable shepherds or farmers who accuse me of being hard to listen to,’ Peter snorted. ‘Well, never mind.’

‘No. Don’t fear, though. I’ve lived in Devonshire all my life, and if I go and listen to moormen talking, I still can’t understand a word they say. It’s too broad for me.’

‘Aye, but you’re a foreigner like me, aren’t ye? You come from at least two miles outside the moors.’

‘True enough,’ Simon said with a chuckle.

The monk was in an apparently contemplative mood. He walked slowly, and although he gave his lopsided smile in response to Simon’s comments, he said no more. The Bailiff had the impression that he was waiting for him to speak.

Now that he was here, Simon wasn’t sure how to continue. He wanted to warn the older man to beware of Sir Tristram, that the knight might lose his temper if he knew about Peter, but Simon’s diplomatic skills were not up to telling a man whose face proved how terrible his time up in the north had been, that someone else wanted to hit him, especially since Sir Tristram’s reason was in order to punish Peter for collaborating with the very men who had given him such a grievous wound.

‘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.’