Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

Sara pulled her tunic closer about her against the chill which had filled her. ‘You could be accused of killing him.’

‘Perhaps. If it happens, it happens.’

‘I’ll protect you,’ she whispered, and hugged him.

For the first time that day, he looked a little easier.

Nob grunted when Jack scooped up his coins – Nob’s coins – into his purse, said goodbye and thanked Nob for their game.

‘Bastard!’ Nob muttered. It was bad enough that Jack had taken his money – but he had played while drinking at Nob’s expense too. Never even offered to buy a round.

Jack had wandered up the alley, and shortly afterwards, Nob heard what sounded like shouting. Hoping that someone was beating up his opponent, probably, as Nob told himself, to avenge his cheating at dice and general tight-fistedness, he glanced that way. Immediately his eye was caught by a flash of metal up beyond Joce’s house. Throwing down some coins, he headed in that direction.

A fight was always worth seeing!

It was the Arrayer. Nob had heard of him, and seeing Sir Tristram at the front of all the men, striding along with a clerk at his side, talking loudly and slapping his hand on a piece of paper, it was easy to guess that he was a military commander. He appeared, from the sound of it, to be arguing about the amount of food that the town was going to provide for him and his men. Looking about him, Nob saw Joce, white-faced and furious, standing at a shop’s table at the edge of the men.

‘I will have none of it,’ Joce said, and although his voice was quiet, it carried marvellously. ‘You have your men, and the King demands that they be fed on the way – that is fine, but I will not give you food to take with you. If your men want food, they should bring it themselves from their own larders, not expect us to provide for them here. The King’s writ demands food for his Host while marching and when they have been marshalled at a battlefield, but this is no battlefield, and they haven’t been marching. If you had collected them from Cornwall and brought them here, then maybe you would deserve to take something, but you haven’t.’

Nob leaned against a wall with the contentment of a man who could recognise good entertainment when he saw it. A little way off, he could see Jack, who stood scowling at Joce with his hands thrust into his belt. He appeared to be shaking his head as though a little confused.

Sir Tristram continued.

‘You are deliberately preventing me from setting off, man, and that means you are thwarting the King in his aim of protecting his realm.’

‘No, I am not!’ Joce spat with fury. ‘Don’t you try to tell me that I am a traitor, you pig’s turd! I may not be a knight, but I am not stupid enough to hold up the King in his ambitions, so don’t you dare suggest I am! I am only standing up for the rights of this town, and I will not allow you to steal from the shops here just because you want to protect your own profits. You are the Arrayer; you have your men. You feed them.’

‘You have a responsibility, Receiver! I demand that you–’

‘You can demand what you like – you’ll get nothing here, Arrayer! Ach! I have nothing further to say to you.’

Sir Tristram’s face was purple and Nob could see that the crowd was enjoying the sight of a King’s official almost apoplectic with rage. It was always good to see a lying bastard being roasted over the coals, and in Nob’s world any man who rose to the heights of political or administrative power was, by definition, corrupt.

Not that in his view Joce Blakemoor was any better. The sole difference was, the pool in which Joce swam was smaller. Both men were like pikes, vicious, always hungry, swallowing up any fish smaller than themselves. Sir Tristram moved in that huge pool the Royal Court, while Joce fed off the provincial town of Tavistock, but both were as willing to destroy anyone or anything that stood in their way.

Nob couldn’t understand it. Such men were always struggling to accrue a little more power to themselves so that they could cradle it to their hearts like a woman, but like any incontinent lover, as soon as they consummated their lust with that trophy, their eye was roving for the next.

There were many men who were like that with women, he knew. Men who were good fathers generally, who were kind and attentive to their wives, and who yet sought others. To Nob it was incomprehensible. His wife was his lover, friend, and a cheap housemaid too. What would he want with another? It was a right mystery.

But when there were two officials like these, there was bound to be fun. Nob could see that neither was going to withdraw; to leave the field now would be to lose face for ever, and that was one outcome that neither could tolerate. Except one man had an edge: a small army.

Sir Tristram barked an order. While most of the men were milling unconcernedly listening to the argument raging, there was one who looked on with more concentration.

When Nob glanced at Jack, he saw that the Sergeant hadn’t immediately heard Sir Tristram’s command. He was standing stock still and staring at Joce. Then he acknowledged the order and strode forward, gripping his sword. Nob saw the blade sliding free.

A young, shaven-headed man turned and paled at the sight of the Sergeant heading his way. Nob opened his mouth to bellow a warning, but before he could do so, the fellow had melted away into the crowd. Nob breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good lad, Gerard,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t get into trouble when you don’t need to.’

His attention flitted back over the crowd, and now he saw that Jack was heading directly towards Joce.

‘ Joce !’ Nob bellowed.

It was impossible. Joce couldn’t hear, didn’t want to be distracted while he stood watching the Arrayer, expecting the danger to come from that side. If he did nothing, Nob knew he’d die. He didn’t want that. No foreign bastard man-at-arms had the right to come here and kill the Receiver for doing his duty. It wasn’t right!

Almost without thinking, Nob reached down and pulled his knife from the scabbard. He didn’t want to fight anyone, but he couldn’t let Joce get himself killed, and he started to hurry around the crowds, trying to get to Joce before the other man could.

But the man was gone. One moment Nob was hurrying around, keeping an eye on him, the next he was nowhere to be seen. And where he had stood, now there was a tall and apologetic-looking monk holding a long staff.

‘Brother Peter,’ Nob breathed. He swallowed, shoved his dagger away before anyone could notice he had drawn it, and offered a quick prayer of thanks. And then, as he glanced about the crowd, he saw Gerard’s frightened face, and whispered, ‘ Godspeed !’

Sir Tristram hadn’t seen the collapse of his man, but he was aware of a certain confusion; having given his order, he expected it to be carried out. And then he saw the grim-faced monk and his face paled with a kind of fury that was near to madness. He turned on Joce again. ‘So you have the monks on your side as well, do you? Think you’ve got God with you?’

‘I have right on my side, that is all,’ Joce said, but a little uncertainly. He was convinced that he had missed something. There had been a shout, he was sure, from the crowd, as though he was in danger, but when he cast a quick look about him, all he saw was the stern-looking figure of the monk watching the Arrayer, and now the Arrayer seemed even more choleric than before.

He stood his ground, waiting for the Arrayer to make a move. It was impossible for a knight to back down even in front of a crowd like this without losing the respect of his men.

His blood tingled. His hand was near to his sword and he felt the thrill of the moment keenly, ready to sweep the weapon loose and defend himself. The knight may have some skill, but Joce was trained as well, and by one of the best masters of defence in the whole of Devonshire. Joce was confident that he could win a straight fight, and excitement surged through his body, leaving a heightened awareness in its wake. It was as though he could feel the whole of his life balanced on a razor’s edge, teetering this way and that. If he were to lean to one side his entire future could be thrown away, and Sir Tristram would kill him, but if his fortunes swayed in the opposite direction, he would prevail. Either he would kill Sir Tristram, or there would be no fight, and it was time he fought Sir Tristram. This, Joce felt, was a fight that had already been too long delayed.