Michael JECKS - The Devil's Acolyte

He had no choice. Before anything else he must avoid these men looking for him. Cautiously, he made his way along a narrow gully, listening for shouts and knocking as search-parties banged among bushes and ferns to see if he was hiding. It was like a great hunt, with beaters scaring the quarry onward. With animals there would be a line of huntsmen, with dogs or bows, or perhaps men on horses eager to give chase, but here the reason was more mundane. The beaters were hoping to push him forward, up the hill, and out into the open moorland beyond. There he would be easily visible.

That way was madness. He would need a mount to escape to the moors. Instead, he searched for a gap between beaters, and carefully made for it. The line was extended, but the gap between each man was fluid, and it took him some while to spot where he could go. There, a space between one youth and a forty-year-old peasant who looked like his head was built of moorstone.

Joce crawled over to a thick bramble patch and scrambled through it, feeling his woollen clothing snag and pull. Thorns thrust into his hands and knees; one caught his cheek and tore at him, and more became tangled in his hair. He had to bow his head and clench his fists against the pain. He couldn’t, he daren’t make a sound. The beaters were too close.

With a shock of horror he heard a dog. His heart stopped in his breast. Every facet of his being was concentrated on his ears and it seemed that the slavering, panting sound was deafening, smothering all other noise, even the steady whistling and banging of sticks. Then there was a clout across his back as a heavy staff crashed into the bushes above him, and he could have shrieked as a set of furze thorns were slammed into his back between his shoulders.

There was a louder panting, and he opened his eyes to see the dull-witted eyes of a greyhound peering at him, mouth wide, tongue dangling in a friendly pant. A man bellowed, and the dog curled into a fist of solid muscle, then exploded forward, shooting off like an arrow. Joce felt as though his heart had landed in his mouth, it burst forth into such powerful thumping.

Then the noise was past him. To his astonishment, the line had washed over him and now was carrying on up the hill. He was safe!

He carefully crawled from his hiding place, pulled off his coat and knocked as many bramble and gorse spikes away as he could, while walking swiftly down the hill towards the town. Once there, he could fetch clothes and a horse.

His blood was coursing through his veins with more consistency now. Yes, he would escape from this damned town. Over the moors on a horse, perhaps, or south, to the coast. He would be free again.

Sara had left her children with a neighbour while she went to buy bread, and she was there, outside the baker’s when she heard the raucous blast of a horn. Hurrying along the street, she came to the road where she could see the bridge, and there she saw the men bringing a body back from the hill. They trailed down to the bridge, and slowly crossed it before making their way past the Water Gate and on around the town.

There was another blast from the horn, then a harsh bellow. ‘Havoc, murder! Help! All healthy men, collect your arms and help catch a murderer!’

At Sara’s side a woman gasped, ‘My Christ! The poor boy!’

Others had already stopped to stare, watching as the small group, Sir Tristram on his horse at the head, and four men carrying the stretcher of stout poles with a palliasse bound between them, made their way to the Court Gate. All could see the blood and pale features of the boy.

‘What have you done to the lad?’ came an angry voice from the crowd.

Sir Tristram whirled his horse about. ‘Don’t bellow at us, man! This is none of my men’s doing. One of my Host saw this fellow being attacked, and we are up the hill now, trying to find the culprit, so any among you who are fit and healthy, grab a weapon, and go up there. We need all the help we can muster. Come on! All of you, up that hill and find this bastard before he kills someone else!’

Coroner Roger, Simon and Baldwin were walking back from Emma’s alley when they saw the men carrying the stretcher.

‘We found your man, Sir Coroner,’ Sir Tristram said with heavy amusement. ‘Although I fear he won’t be of a mood to help you yet awhile. He is a little punctured just now.’

‘Sweet Jesu!’ Baldwin burst out, and then he whirled around to Sir Tristram. ‘Why did you do this? The boy was no threat to you!’

‘We did nothing. My man was riding eastwards towards the moor, thinking that the lad might have tried to escape,’ Sir Tristram said, waving the stretcher-bearers on towards the Abbey. ‘He saw a man striking this lad, kicking him and then preparing to give the fatal blow. He shouted and raised havoc, and the bastard ran away.’

‘Did he see who it was?’ Coroner Roger asked eagerly.

‘Alas, he doesn’t know the local folk,’ Sir Tristram acknowledged. ‘By the time the rest of my men responded to his call, the scoundrel was flown. He could be anywhere. Still, I have left my fellows up there to see if they can find him. It’s the best training for war, hunting a man.’

Baldwin felt sick. He could remember how knights had spoken about hunting down his comrades from the Knights Templar after their destruction. It was repellent, this idea of treating men like so many deer or hares.

Gerard had suffered; it would be a miracle if he lived. Baldwin had seen the thick flap of skin cut away from his cheek, the smashed and all-but cut off nose, the slashed ear that dangled from a small flap of flesh, the bloodied shoulder and flank. After so many wounds, any one of which might grow gangrenous, the lad would be fortunate indeed to live.

‘There they are!’ Sir Tristram exclaimed, pointing.

Following his finger, Baldwin could see a thin line of men working their way up the hill east of them. There was no sign of their prey.

The Coroner saw this too. ‘I shall have to organise the Watch to help them. Christ’s Ballocks! As if there wasn’t enough to do already!’

Baldwin nodded. ‘You go, and I shall see whether I can entice a little information from that poor wreck of an acolyte.’

Studying his coat and tunic in among the trees that stood at the side of the road, Joce was forced to accept that he’d be viewed a little oddly if he were to appear like this in town. He’d be better off leaving his coat behind.

He could hear the horn blowing, and when he stared over the river, he saw that Sir Tristram was shouting for more men to help. It made Joce grind his teeth with impotent rage. If he could, he would charge over that bridge and hurl himself at the tarse! Who did the arrogant sodomite think he was? The new conscience of the land, the new hero? From all Joce had heard, he was nothing more than a reiver himself. There were enough of them up there on the border, as Joce knew perfectly well.

Then he saw a saviour. There, standing near the bridge, as Sir Tristram’s men rode onwards, was Sara. She would help him: she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, he thought smugly. He stepped onto the road from his cover and walked across the bridge, his coat carelessly flung over his shoulder. Once there, he made straight for her.

‘Hello, Sara.’

Her face blanched. ‘What do you want?’

‘My love, all is well now,’ he murmured as soothingly as he could, ‘since that blasted fool Walwynus is gone, I need have no more fear.’

‘Fear?’ she repeated dully. ‘You wouldn’t talk to me after the coining, and now you talk of fear?’

‘It was Wally. I told you afterwards, I had hoped you’d understand,’ he said sadly. ‘Wally came and threatened me, telling me to leave you alone, not to play with your emotions. I was scared.’