Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

Baldwin wasn’t convinced. He glanced over his shoulder, and seeing Simon talking to the old miner Hal, he led the way to them.

‘Simon, may we ask this miner some questions?’ Baldwin asked.

There it was again, Baldwin thought to himself. The usually cheerful Bailiff gave a most ungracious nod without meeting Baldwin’s eye. It made him look almost shifty, and Baldwin was convinced that there was a block between them, a wall of resentment. He couldn’t understand it. Simon and he had never had a hard word. They had been friends for six years now, and Baldwin was sure he had not given his friend any reason to be angry with him. Perversely, he began to feel a reciprocal bitterness rather than a desire to offer sympathy and find out where the problem lay, and he turned a little from Simon to face Hal.

‘You knew this man Walwynus?’

‘I’ve told the Bailiff all I know.’

‘And now you’re going to tell us as well,’ the Coroner said happily.

Hal glared at him, but said nothing.

Baldwin said, ‘Did he go to the town often?’

‘No. Hardly had a penny to spend. He only went for the coinings. Four, five times a year.’

‘Was he friendly with any of the monks?’

Hal shrugged, glancing at Simon, who was standing a short way off, listening intently. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Do you often see monks out here?’ Coroner Roger asked.

Hal tilted his head and flung an arm out towards a tall cross at the top of a nearby hill. ‘See that? That’s a way-marker for the Abbot’s path. There are always monks wandering from Buckfast to Buckland to Tavistock. We see them all the time. When they aren’t walking about and being a nuisance, they’re talking to folk and getting in the way, or sometimes preaching. They’re a pain in the cods.’

‘Are they always monks?’

‘What do you mean?’

Baldwin smiled reassuringly. ‘There are others who wear the habit, aren’t there? Friars, for example. And novices.’

‘Oh, yes. The Almoner, Peter, he sometimes has younger lads up here. I think it’s to teach them safety on the moors, in case they are ever sent out to Buckfast.’

‘This Almoner is a regular visitor up here?’

Asking the question, Baldwin heard Simon make a tiny sound, like a grunt, as though he was suddenly listening so carefully that he had all but forgotten to breathe.

‘Peter’s often up here, yes. There’s a shepherd boy over toward Ashburton – John, he’s called. Orphaned, he’s been looked after by the Abbot for some years. Recently he was crushed by a falling tree-limb and broke his leg. The Abbot’s Almoner is often up that way to see him and pay him.’

‘Pay him?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes. He has a half-wage while he’s ill. The Abbot takes his charity seriously,’ Hal said without irony.

‘Are you aware of the Almoner or any of these novices talking to Walwynus?’

‘What would an Almoner have to do with a man like him?’

‘He was a poor man; a poor man is often provided for by alms.’

‘What, you think Brother Peter would give out his money to a miner who fell on hard times? Wally would have to have been beggared in the town itself for Brother Peter to consider him; Wally had land and the ability to work.’

‘Perhaps one of the novices knew Walwynus before taking the tonsure?’

‘It’s possible. But if you reckon to suggest Wally was father to any of them, well, I’d guess you’d be wrong. He enjoyed the whores when he could, but I doubt he’d have had a child without me knowing. If he had, it’d be living in Tavistock still, not out Ashburton way.’

There was no way to put that to the test, Baldwin noted, yet it could be a useful line of enquiry for the future. He was worried about the disappearance of the novice still; the idea of the lad running away was attractive, if only because the other possibility, that he had been killed, was so repellent. That would surely mean that another novice, or monk, was a murderer.

That thought led him to muse, ‘This Peter… some monks have fathered their own children, and…’

‘Brother Peter only came here a few years ago,’ Simon said. ‘If this boy was a shepherd, he must be more than eight years old.’

‘He’s fourteen,’ Hal supplied.

‘Not his own, then,’ Baldwin said reluctantly. He glanced at Simon, acknowledging his help, and Simon tried to smile. He looked as though he was suffering from piles. What on earth was the matter with his friend? Baldwin wondered. He swore to himself that he would tackle Simon as soon as he could.

He turned back to the miner. ‘Have you seen any monks or novices up here recently? Or just travellers generally who look out of place?’

Hal scowled up at him. ‘There was one fellow earlier during the inquest. I saw him, running as if the devil and all his hounds were after him. Straight up along the Abbot’s Way, past us and on eastwards.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I’ve seen him before.’ Hal stuck out his jaw and scratched at his chin. ‘Lad called Art, who works as servant to Joce Blakemoor, the Receiver.’

Baldwin’s eyes followed his pointing finger. ‘What lies that way?’

‘Go far enough and you’ll get to Buckfast.’

‘Is there anything between us here and the town?’

‘Only the travellers. Don’t think there’s anything else.’

Baldwin smiled. ‘One last thing. These travellers. Where would we find them?’

Joce stalked across his hall still bellowing for his servant, but Art was nowhere to be seen. Feeling thwarted, Joce stormed through to the buttery and drew off a quart of wine, himself carrying it back to the hall, where he sat down before his fire. The embers were smouldering pleasantly, and he threw some sticks onto it and sat back to wait until the flames should begin to lick upwards.

It was good that he had managed to see off that cretinous fool of an Arrayer. It would be better still if Sir Tristram failed to win the King’s approval for his contract and had to pay for the food for all those peasants out of his own pocket. Not that Joce cared much now. He had enjoyed the altercation while it lasted, had done his duty as he saw it. He drank and sullenly gazed at the fire.

This had been a bad week, he thought. First there was the problem with the girl, then the neighbour, and finally the death of Walwynus. That was a problem, too.

With that thought, his eyes went to the cupboard. He hadn’t looked at it since that night when Sara had come here, he thought. When she arrived he had been counting all the pieces. Next week he would ride off to Exeter with it all and sell it. That would settle his debts and turn him a handsome profit.

It was as he rose and was about to walk to the cupboard, that he heard the rapping on his door. In two minds whether to answer it or leave it, Joce stood a moment, but then swore and strode out to the front of his house.

‘Thank God you’re here! I came as soon as I heard…’

‘Calm down, you fool! Jesus! What are you doing up here? You useless piece of donkey shit, what have you got between your ears – cloth?’

‘Let me in. It’s not me who’s going to be hanged, is it?’

Joce grabbed a handful of the man’s habit, hauled him inside and kicked the door shut. He thrust hard, and the man was forced against the wall, then up, with Joce’s hands beneath his chin. He held his face close. ‘Are you threatening me, Brother?’

‘Let me down!’

‘Why, Brother Augerus,’ Joce said, leaning closer so that he could see the naked terror in the Steward’s eyes, ‘how nice of you to drop in. Would you like some warmed wine? Or mulled ale? Or would you prefer me to throw you into my fire and leave you there to burn?’