Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

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?’

‘Look, I couldn’t help it, all right? He just asked me to join him in a game of knuckles, and I didn’t see the harm. When his friend challenged me, I had to accept.’

‘Oh? And which friend was this?’

‘Just some foreigner. He’s Sergeant to the Arrayer who’s in town. You must have heard about him,’ Nob said, attempting a confidence he didn’t feel while his belly bucked at the memory.

Humphrey had worn a serious expression, winking to Nob as he asked him over, and Nob soon saw what he meant. The Arrayer was here to take every able-bodied man from sixteen to sixty, and that meant Nob was well within the age range. If the Arrayer saw him, he could be taken – but if this Sergeant gained an affection for him, he might be safe. Nob and Humphrey set to with a will, gambling wildly so as to lose, and buying the stranger plenty of ale. It would be dangerous to openly bribe him in public, but the Sergeant must surely know what they were doing. It had been expensive.

‘You haven’t the brain you were born with, have you? Well, I hope you didn’t gamble too much.’

Nob remained strangely quiet on that score, and Cissy had pressed him. Finally he had been forced to admit that his investments hadn’t been blessed with profit.

Not only had he suffered the losses, but plying the Sergeant with good ale had proved ruinous. The man had an astonishing capacity for drink and hardly seemed to feel the effects. Then, when Nob went out for a piss, and the Sergeant followed him, grunting and farting as he did so, the Sergeant blandly thanked him for the gambling, accepting the money as his due from the run of the dice, no more. He had no idea, or so he said, that Nob had been playing to lose.

Nob was dumbstruck. As the Sergeant made to return indoors, Nob gave up, and with a bad grace he offered the money remaining in his purse. With an equally ill grace, the Sergeant accepted it – but somehow Nob didn’t feel confident that he was entirely secure in the cold light of the following dawn.

‘You’re an oaf and a fool! You go in there and drink yourself to blind stupidity, and then you come back and want sympathy!’ Cissy snapped, but then fetched him a morning ale to whet his appetite. ‘I suppose you want me to give you some breakfast now.’

‘No, I’ll be all right with a pie,’ he said with stiff pride. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out.’ He turned away and tripped over a stool, barking his shin on the seat. ‘Oh, bugger, bugger, bugger!’

It was enough. Laughing, she took his arm and settled him in his chair by the hearth, and bent to cook him some bacon and an egg. She had some bread she had thrown into the oven the night before when he had finished cooking, and now she broke off a crust and gave it to him while his meal spat and sizzled on the griddle over the fire.

‘You daft old sod,’ she had said fondly.

No, Cissy thought now, it was no wonder that she was tired. No rest Sunday night, and Monday had been busy, too, what with all her work and Nob being unable to do more than grunt all morning. Monday night she had been so tired she’d only slept shallowly, waking at the slightest groan or squeak amongst the timbers of the house. And today, Tuesday, she had had to listen to poor little Sara as well. Sometimes it felt as though she was mother to all the foolish chits in the town.

Sara was a silly mare! She was always hoping to find a man who would help her, and she was so desperate that she would give herself to anyone, and now she must suffer the inevitable result of a fertile woman and be scorned as a whore. The parish had to keep her and her children, just as it would any child, but Sara would be fined the layrwyta by the Abbot’s court. Her child would be known as a bastard, and while a King or nobleman could sire bastards all over the country without concern – why, even King Edward himself was taking his bastard son, Adam, with him to wars, if the stories were to be believed – a woman like Sara got off less lightly. Adam would be provided for by the King his father, but Sara’s child would be despised by everyone, as an extra burden on the parish. No one would blame the incontinent man who had promised to wed her; no, they’d all blame the gullible woman.

Idly, Cissy wondered again who the father might be, but then she shook herself and told herself off for daydreaming. There were some crusts and scraps of pie in a pot, and she reopened the door and threw them out, and it was then, as she saw the bits and pieces fly through the air, that she saw a man recoil.

He looked familiar, she thought, a young fellow with broad enough shoulders, but then he was gone. Disappeared along an alley. Cissy closed the door thoughtfully. He was familiar… and then she realised who it was. ‘Gerard, you poor soul!’

Simon was about to make his way to the guest room when, yawning, he heard a chuckle and turned to see Augerus and Mark sitting in the doorway to the salsarius ’ room.

‘So, Bailiff, the strain is showing, is it?’ Augerus asked, not unkindly.

Simon smiled and accepted a cup of Mark’s wine. ‘You fellows are never likely to suffer from thirst, are you?’ Mark looked like a man who had already tasted more than a gallon of wine, Simon thought.

‘We have a resonable supply, it is true,’ he agreed. ‘Why, any monk should be allocated five gallons of good quality ale and another five of weaker each week. Even a pensioner gets that. And Augerus and I have strenuous work to conduct for the Abbey. We need to keep our strength up – and what better for that than strong wine?’

‘Shouldn’t you both be abed, ready for the midnight services?’

‘I rarely go to bed until later. I need little sleep,’ Mark said with a partly boastful, faintly defensive air. ‘I am like Brother Peter, the Almoner. He only ever has three hours a night. Never needs more than that. Most of the night he wanders about the place, along the walls and about the court. And look at him!’ He belched quietly. ‘He doesn’t look too bad on it, does he?’

Simon noted that. So, Peter was always up and wandering about, was he? Well, it was hardly surprising. After his wound, maybe he found it hard to sleep. He was ever looking out for another band of attackers, perhaps?

‘Have you found out any more about the murderer?’ Augerus asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Am I right, that the miner was killed by a club?’

‘Yes. The sort of weapon that anyone could make,’ Simon said. He saw no reason to mention that it had gone missing. Augerus or Peter was responsible for gossip, according to the Abbot, and Mark had already admitted his own interest in it.

Augerus glanced at Mark, then back to Simon. The Bailiff’s tone was curious, he thought, and he wondered whether Simon harboured a suspicion against Mark. It was quite possible. After all, Augerus knew that Mark had been up on the moors, the day that Wally died. And he had argued with him. Perhaps the Bailiff knew that, too.

‘I only asked, because I have heard that some mining men will scratch marks into wood they have purchased to stop others from stealing it. Perhaps there might be something on the timber that killed Walwynus?’

Simon was still a moment. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Take a closer look at the weapon. If it came from a miner, marks will be visible.’

Mark sniffed. ‘I think Brother Augerus here has been drinking too much of my wine, Bailiff. Ignore his words. You will only find yourself wasting time. Have you learned any more about the thefts?’

Simon was suddenly aware that Mark’s eyes were brighter and more shrewd than his voice would have indicated possible. Mark was perhaps inebriated, but that was his usual condition, and he was still perfectly capable of reasoning.