Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

‘Who are you?’ Cissy looked up and demanded.

It was a small room, smoky, ill-lit from the small window high in the northern wall, and although the reeds on the floor were not too foul, there was an odour of decay and filth. A pile of straw with a cloth thrown over was the bed for the children, who snuffled and wept together like a small litter of pigs.

‘I am the Stannary Bailiff. Are you Nob’s wife?’

‘Oh, God! What’s he done now?’

Simon grinned at the note of fatalism in her voice. ‘Nothing, Cissy. But I would like to talk to you about the murders.’

‘Very well, but keep your voice down. I don’t want to upset her any more. It’s taken me ages to calm her this much.’

‘Of course. Just this, then: your husband said that Hamelin came here with money. Do you know where he said it came from?’

‘He said he had sold a debt to Wally. One of the monks owed him a lot of money. A bad debt. Wally bought it.’

‘Did he say who owed it?’

‘No.’

Baldwin interrupted them. ‘It makes no sense. Why should Wally have bought a debt he couldn’t have redeemed? If the owner of the debt was a monk, there was no legal means of recovering the money?’

Cissy gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘You officials; you men ! All you ever think about is simple things, like straight lines. Maybe Wally wanted to give his money to help Hamelin. Little Joel was ill, he was dying. Maybe Wally always wanted a child of his own and couldn’t bear to think that the child would die of starvation.’

‘It’s a leap of faith with a man like that Wally,’ Coroner Roger said cynically.

‘Is it?’ Cissy said. Then her jaw jutted and she faced him aggressively. ‘You say that when you don’t know the man? How dare you! I knew Wally for two years or more, and he was always polite and kindly. Never raised his voice to women, never caused a fight. When he got drunk he sat in a corner and giggled himself to sleep. Hah! And you reckon he was a violent, cruel man? I think that’s rubbish. He was quiet, shy, even, when he saw that old monk, but we know why now, don’t we? We’ve heard Wally had something to do with the monk’s wound. Well, I think Wally felt the shame of that, and I don’t think he’d have hurt another man in his life. So there!’

‘My lady, would you serve as my advocate, should I ever be accused of a crime?’ Baldwin murmured, and Cissy preened, grinning.

Simon said, ‘Tell me, before Hamelin was killed…’

At these words, there was a high, keening wail from the corner of the fire, and Cissy rolled her eyes. ‘Did you have to say that? I’ve only just got her to quieten down, and now you’ve started her off again.

‘My apologies. But can we ask some questions?’

‘Hamelin! Hamelin! He can’t be dead! Oh, Christ! Why him? Why us? What have we done to deserve this?’

Cissy shook her head. ‘You want to question people, you find someone who can talk without crying. Come back later. Better still, don’t bother.’

‘What of you? Can we talk to you?’

‘Why has he died?’ Emma burst out. ‘How could someone do it to a man like him?’

Simon was struck by the woman’s ravaged features. If he had been asked, he would have said that she was at least forty years old, and yet he was sure she was not much more than half that. It was the toll that bearing children had waged upon her, the toll of little sleep, of fear that her youngest might die, of her husband being taken from her so cruelly and without explanation.

‘I am sorry about your husband,’ he said with as much compassion as he could.

Cissy tried to hold Emma back, glaring furiously at the men. ‘Won’t you leave us? This girl is in no position to–’

‘Cissy, give me grace! I want to help these men if they can find the murderer of my man! Why should I sit here snivelling while he who has caused my misery dances and sings, knowing he is safe? Let me put the rope about his neck if I may!’

‘Do you know anything of your man’s death?’

‘All I know, I will tell you,’ Emma declared with force. She gently removed Cissy’s arm from before her and walked to her stool, sitting and composing herself as best she might. It was terrifying to have three such men in her room, but she drew strength from Cissy, and from the memory of the sight of her man’s body.

‘Gentlemen, Hamelin arrived here the night before last because he wanted to make sure that our son was well and hadn’t died. The last weeks have been hard for us. Joel has been suffering because we couldn’t afford good food. Then on Friday Hamelin arrived with a purse of money which he said Wally had given him.’

‘I told them,’ Cissy said.

‘That money saved Joel’s life,’ Emma said with determination.

‘You say he saw you the day Wally died,’ Simon said. ‘Did he say anything about Wally’s death?’

‘Only that he saw the Brother Mark up there. Hamelin hated Mark for taking our money and gambling it away. It was because of Mark that he became a miner. He saw Mark with Wally that morning, arguing with him, and then Wally set off eastwards and the monk came back to Tavistock. Hamelin followed after him, and went to the tooth-puller, Ellis, to have a tooth out. Then he came back here to me.’

‘Do you not think he might have killed Wally to rob him?’ Baldwin asked quietly.

‘No! If he would have harmed anyone, it would have been that fat monk. No one else.’

‘What of the night before last, then?’ the Coroner asked.

‘He came home to see how Joel was, as I said, and while he was here, the watchman arrived and told him to go to see the Abbot in the morning – that would be yesterday. As soon as he had risen, he left me to go to the Abbey.’

‘This watchman – who was it?’ Simon asked.

‘We didn’t see him. He told us the message and said there was no need to open the door.’

‘Did you recognise the voice?’ Baldwin asked.

‘No,’ she said with a frown. ‘He didn’t sound familiar.’

‘Were there many routes your man could have taken to the Abbey?’ Baldwin enquired thoughtfully.

‘No. He would have gone along this alley, across the road, then into the next alley. That would take him straight to the place. But he didn’t get there, did he?’

‘I doubt it,’ Simon said. ‘He was ambushed on his way.’

‘By the man who gave him the message,’ Baldwin muttered.

Joce could hear them. God! How many were there? He crouched low, his knife in his hand, listening intently, and it sounded like the whole of the King’s army had come to try to catch him. He still gripped his dagger, and held it out in front of him as he cautiously pressed his way onwards, trying to evade the men, but desperate to return down to the town where he would be safe.

He must clean his hand. The acolyte’s blood had stained him all the way up to his wrist, and he could see specks up his arm. That was from his cut to the lad’s nose, he thought with a flash of pleasure. There was something good in having punished the bastard like that. He might live, but he’d never forget Joce Blakemoor, Joce Red-Hand.

It was a complication he could live without, though, the thought that the lad might survive. Joce had kicked him hard: maybe he had broken his neck? A cracked rib could kill as easily as a sword-thrust, and Joce had managed at least one good stab with his dagger in the shoulder. Not enough, though, he reckoned. The boy had been fit and healthy, well-fed and strong. He could take a more severe punishment than that which Joce had handed out.

Would Gerard’s word stand? Joce was inclined to think it would. If the boy lived to tell his tale in court, that was the end of Joce. Not that it mattered. Without the pewter, nothing mattered. He had no life in the town, no money. Nothing.