The Devil's Acolyte

Chapter Nine

There was no obvious justification in posting a sentry to watch Hal, but Rudolf was a practical man, and when he saw strangers about, he wanted to know that they weren’t the precursors of an attack.

Rudolf was in his little tent when Welf, his son, returned. He was a sturdy young fellow, with broad shoulders and thick dark hair. He was trying to grow a beard, and the other men ribbed him about the fine fluff that was all he could manage, but never Rudolf. He believed that a man was no less a man just for the lack of hair on his face. A man was measured by other things, like physical strength and courage.

‘So? Was macht er? What is he doing?’

Welf sat by the brazier that glowed with coals and held his hand to the warmth before answering in German. ‘He stayed there all day with the body. Last night he settled down and remained near it. I went closer and watched until almost dawn. He was asleep by then, and that was when I returned to the cross and waited to see what happened when he awoke. He washed, then went down to the bog and threw in the morning star.’

‘And now someone else is up there on the hill?’

‘Yes. Brother Peter the Almoner from the Abbey.’

‘Good. You have done well. Eat and sleep.’ Rudolf sat a while longer, frowning at the fire.

They had travelled all the way here from an urge to see what the world was like. Rudolf was a pewterer by trade, and in his home lands in the mountains his work was prized, even among the nobles. Glancing about him, he couldn’t help but curl his lip. This land was ever wet and depressing. There were bogs all over the moors, and the mountains were mere bumps in the soil, not at all like the crags among which his home nestled. There, men had to avoid the high passes, because they were populated by dragons and other monsters. No, people lived in the broad valleys and farmed peacefully.

Or they had. Rudolf’s life had suddenly changed for ever at Morgarten. Until then, he had lived comfortably in his native Canton of Schwyz, but the Swiss lands were growing more important. When the Saint-Gotthard Pass opened, there was an easier, shorter road between parts of the Holy Roman Empire, from Italy to the Rhine, and the murderous Leopold of Habsburg decided to enforce his authority among the peasants who lived there.

It was a farce. Rudolf was no coward; he wanted peace, for men don’t buy plate and pewter in wartime, they hoard their money and seek to store foods, but Rudolf felt he had a simple choice, make pewter or fight: sit back like a coward or resist and hope for freedom for his sons. It was an easy decision. If Leopold’s armies won through to the towns, they would slaughter everyone. He chose to fight, to protect his lands and his people, and he was there at Morgarten when Leopold’s army was crushed.

But Rudolf was not convinced that the free Cantons could survive. The Habsburgs were wealthy nobles, they could afford to buy up armies and crush resistance from tiny states like Schwyz, and Rudolf was not prepared to risk the life of his son and his wife. Instead he brought them out of the country, and worked his way from one town to another until they crossed over from France to England. He went to London, where he heard of the tin mines of Devon, and he decided to come here and see for himself where the English stocks of tin came from.

His household was small. Himself, his wife Anna, Welf, and a few others. Ten men all told, and seven women. Together they had crossed Europe, and here, Rudolf felt, they had hit the bottom. In his home, the sun always shone in the summer, while here it was always raining, or about to begin. Homesick, he longed for the meadows and pastures of his own land, high in the free mountains.

But he was here and while he was here, he had a duty to protect his household. He stood and pulled a strong leather jack over his shirt, then made his way along the path Welf had used.

From here all was fine grassland. A few rocks were dotted here and there, but it was still good land for sheep or cattle, with scarcely a stunted tree showing itself. However, Rudolf knew that there was one advantage to land like this, and that was that an enemy would find it very difficult to conceal himself. In the same way, it was not easy to move without being seen. That was why, as he reached the first of the crosses, he began to bend his back, his eyes staring ahead, making sure he couldn’t see the man waiting at the side of the corpse.

There was another cross at the summit of the hill, to which he walked bent almost double, but when he reached it, he couldn’t help but stare at it once more. The bloody imprint was still there, a foul mark that almost seemed to tempt the devil. Not that the devil would need tempting to come to a place like this, Rudolf thought. It was his own hell, this land. With a shudder that was more a convulsion of his entire body than a shiver down his back, Rudolf averted his gaze and continued. At Morgarten, he had hurled rocks and tree-trunks with his comrades at the Duke’s knights below them, pitching the screaming, petrified men and horses into the waters of the Ägerisee, and he had not flinched. Yet that smudge of a dead man’s blood made him feel sickened. Perhaps because the fool of a miner hadn’t stood a chance. Rudolf had been angry, and now the man was dead.

The pewterer had work to do. He was past the stone cross, and crawled the few yards over the other side, peering ahead with a frown. ‘Where is he, Henry?’

‘There. He’s sitting on that rock.’

Rudolf gave a short chuckle. ‘I think your young eyes are better than my old ones. I can see nothing.’

‘Can you see the other man?’

‘Which other?’ Rudolf demanded, his fears about an ambush reawakened.

‘There. A man coming from the north. He looks short and heavy. Like a miner.’

Rudolf breathed a quiet sigh. ‘Then he must be coming to relieve the first man, just as you relieved Welf. Has he done nothing else?’

‘Not since I got here.’

Rudolf stared in the direction of the man, towards the body. ‘Well, wait here for now, but I shall send someone to fetch you soon.’

‘We are leaving?’

‘You think we would do best to stay here?’ Rudolf asked.

‘It was him who tried to attack you, Rudolf. Self-defence is no crime.’

Rudolf spat, turning to stare back at the cross. ‘The cretin tried to stab me and I put a stop to it. Yes, but the first time, in the alley, when I took his pewter – how many people saw us? Be ready to pack. I won’t wait for them to come with a posse.’

Unbidden, the memory of a tall, cowled man in a habit sprang into his mind. ‘When they want to find the murderer, they can seek another, not me!’

After giving pensions to the lepers, Peter the Almoner and Gerard made their way back through the streets of Tavistock to the Abbey. Once there, Peter ushered Gerard inside, but he himself walked back along the main street towards the town’s shops.

His jaw hurt. It often did when the weather looked like changing. The day before yesterday it had been a constant ache, as though all the teeth which should have been there were simultaneously erupting with rottenness. He had to set his hand at his jaw and hold it. The action provided little relief, but it was comforting in the same way that a woman’s caress could give some solace from the worst of a wound’s pain.

The pain was not the sharp, stabbing agony that he had once known, in the weeks after the attack. No, it was just a constant part of him, a never-failing anguish, or at best a dull ache. It was worst at night, of course. When he wanted to turn his mind to pleasing, soporific thoughts, when he wanted to drift away, that was when the wound seemed to strike at him with renewed force. That was when he wept silently, so as not to waken his neighbour in the dorter – when he felt the hideous emptiness that was his life now. No love, only horror or curiosity.

It was that which made him turn his mind and abilities to other things. Such as the dead man, Walwynus. Still, Wally had enjoyed his last few hours. Peter had seen him in the town, somehow throwing his money about, although everyone had thought that he hadn’t more than a few pennies altogether. Ale, wine and women. That was always the way of miners when they had a bit of luck, and Wally had obviously found some cash from somewhere, because Peter had seen him indulging in the drinking, even if he hadn’t managed to find a woman to help him.

Peter entered the tavern and took his seat near the fireplace. A thin smoke rose from the logs on the hearth, and he sat behind it, waiting patiently, his head turned a little, which kept his wound to the wall.

‘Brother? You want wine or ale?’

‘Friend, I think I need a good pot of cider.’

The host left to fetch a jug and Peter watched as he went to one of the barrels and opened the tap. As soon as the greenish golden liquid was poured, he returned to Peter and passed the jug to him.

Sniffing it, Peter could discern the odour of sourness and sweetness that he found so addictive. He slurped as he drank, because of the failed muscles on the right side of his mouth, but when the publican made as though to move away, Peter held up his hand and pulled the pot from his mouth. ‘Do you remember Wally being in here on the coining?’

‘Yes, poor old git. Dead, i’n’t he? Some thieving bugger killed him up there.’

‘I saw him in here on that day, and he had plenty of pennies to throw about. Did he say where he got so much money?’

‘Di’n’t tell me anything. Might have told Sue, though,’ the host said. He glanced about the room, calling over a girl with a loosened tunic. She walked across to them, eyeing Peter doubtfully, her hands going to her tunic’s laces automatically, and Mine Host stopped her hurriedly. ‘No, the Brother here just wants to ask you a bunch of questions, Susan.’

She joined Peter, sitting at his side and gently pulling the jug towards her. ‘Well?’

‘Did you know Walwynus – the miner?’ he asked, allowing her to tilt the jug to her mouth.

She drank, nodded, and drank again. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘He was often up here and trying it on. Always said he had plenty of cash, that he’d buy me for a night. Never did, of course. Bastard just wanted to bury his tarse and didn’t give a shit about paying. He used to stop me and the other girls in the roadway. Didn’t even wait to get us in here. We get fondled often enough in here while we’re serving, but it’s different out in the street. We could get in trouble with the Port Reeve if he thought we were doing business outside. Not that he’d mind usually. He likes us, the Port Reeve does. Nice man.’ She licked her mouth slowly, a faint smile pulling at her mouth. ‘He likes me. Do you like me, Brother?’

‘Very much, my daughter,’ he said. And in truth he did. He often considered that the failed people were those among whom he was better suited to live. This girl was pretty, with her oval face and striking dark hair. Her slanted brown eyes were strangely bright in the firelight, her lips tempting, her breasts were small and high, as he liked them, while beneath her thin tunic he could see that she had long, fine legs.

She leaned against him softly, so that he could feel her thin figure. ‘Would you like me, then?’

He felt the old stirring in his loins. It was many years since he had known a woman’s comfort. That was before he had entered the Priory at Tynemouth, before he had been butchered, before she had been killed. This girl was much like her.

‘Not now, Daughter,’ he said, but without conviction.

She grinned and sat up straight, her hands going to her long hair, teasing him now. ‘Then what do you want?’

‘You say Wally never had any money?’

‘That’s right. Only pennies until the coining. He had some then, last Thursday.’ She shook her head. ‘If I’d known, I’d have made him more welcome, but I just thought he was lying again. And then I saw him throwing money around like a merchant. Too late by then,’ she added regretfully.

Peter frowned to himself. When he had spoken to Wally on the morning of the coining, Wally had nothing on him, or so he had said. Yet after the coining he had money, if this girl was to be believed. So he had received it after seeing Peter, but before coming to this tavern. Perhaps during the coining itself.

‘Do you know where Wally got his money from?’ he asked.

‘He took one of the other girls, and told her he’d found a new source of tin. Somewhere out on the moors, I suppose.’

Peter nodded. He patted her thigh, feeling the tingling in his palm at the firm flesh. ‘Thank you, child. You have helped me. Now you must remember this. The Coroner will hold his inquest, and you must tell him what you have told me. It might be very important.’

‘All right, Brother. What now?’

He stared at her blankly, and then he gave a weak smile when he realised her meaning. She winked cheekily at him as he left the room, but for his part, all he felt was an all-encompassing despair.

Leaving the tavern, he stood outside breathing heavily. It would have been all too easy to accept her offer. She was a cheeky, bright, pretty little thing – just the sort of girl he had so often longed for and, every so often, the sort of girl whom he had bedded.

He was lonely, sad, and had that curious emptiness, almost a hunger for companionship, that afflicted him occasionally. It was a desire, almost a lust, for simple pleasures and the conversation of generous-hearted, ordinary people.

There was a man he knew who could help him. Looking up the way, he could see Nob and Cissy’s cookshop, and he turned up the lane towards it.

‘Hello, Nob,’ he said, but then he stopped with a slight frown on his face. ‘Ah, Gerard. What are you doing here?’

Hearing his voice, Gerard dropped his pie with a startled cry.

‘Master Bailiff, I understand the good Abbot has spoken to you already?’

Simon nodded. ‘Yes, Sir Tristram. He tells me you are to collect men for the Host?’

‘Quite so. There is a need for many fighting men now that the King has chosen to attack Scotland again and punish the Scots for their constant attacks over the borders and into English territory. They cannot get away with it.’

‘Oh. So we won’t see all our men die, like at Bannockburn.’

Sir Tristram’s face hardened a moment. His eyes were like chips of diamond, Simon thought. They reflected light in the same way that a cut stone will shine from its facets under a light. Hard and uncompromising, but that did not necessarily make him an unpleasant man. Simon decided he would give Sir Tristram the benefit of the doubt.

‘I think you should be careful who hears you making comments like that, Master Bailiff.’

He sat very neatly, a trim man with narrow shoulders and a slim waist. His robes were well fitted and richly embroidered, with plenty of fur at his neck and wrists. He had his belt on, with his sword, but at his right hip was a dagger with a magnificent enamelled pommel that looked expensive, like a gewgaw that was meant for show. That it was a working weapon was shown to Simon’s quick eye by the roughened leather of the grip. It had been worn smooth and dark in places, where the knight had gripped it, presumably in battle.

‘My friend, it was merely a pleasantry,’ Simon said.

‘Some comments like that could be thought dangerous. An uncharitable man might think they were seditious, even: tending to incite rebellion. Never a good idea.’

‘I would never seek to spread sedition,’ Simon protested. His chest felt constrained, as though he was already being shown the gibbet on which his body would hang. The charitable thoughts he had harboured burst into tiny flames and disappeared. This was one of those stuffy, self-important fools, he decided.

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said the knight. ‘Come, shall we begin again? I am sorry if I sound harsh, but I have a lot of work to get through. There are so many vills down in this area, and as Arrayer I have to try to get to all of them. Tell me, are all the roads down this way as bad as the one on the way here?’

‘Which way did you come?’

‘From the north. I passed through Oakhampton, then came southwards. The men at Exeter strongly advised me to avoid the moors without a guide. There are mires there?’

‘Many.’ And I hope you fall into one, Simon added silently. ‘They move each year. You need a man who knows his way there, it’s true.’

‘But the roads! It took me twice as long as I had expected.’

Simon shrugged. ‘The weather has been inclement, and the roads aren’t paved. At least you took one of the better ones on the way here. It follows the river in the valley. That is much better than others, like the roads between Oakhampton and Crediton. They are considerably worse.’

‘My God!’ Sir Tristram muttered, then gave Simon a wan smile. ‘Well, at least I understand you are a good guide to much of the country about here. And the moors, of course.’

‘I know the moors well enough,’ Simon agreed, taking a goblet of wine from the Steward, who returned at this moment with a tray on which stood a heavy jug and two goblets. ‘But that won’t help you.’

‘There are men there, aren’t there? Strong, hardy fellows who dig and mine?’

‘Oh yes, hundreds. But you can’t have any of them. They are all exempt, by the King’s own command. While they mine his tin, they are secure.’

‘Ah. I see.’

‘But there are many others about here. Strong enough, I’d guess, for your Host.’

‘Good. Then perhaps we can begin today. I should like to see the good Abbot’s vills about this town with a view to winning the strongest and fittest men for the King’s service.’

‘How many do you need?’

‘As many as possible. You know how the Host is organised? I take twenty men and inspect and list them and put them under a vintenar; for every hundred, there is a centenar in charge, usually a cavalry man of some sort. When they are collected, they will march off to the King’s army.’ He paused and stared down at his hands. ‘It will be a long, weary walk up to Scotland.’

‘I thought that the King recruited his men from nearer to the border?’

‘Yes, but the trouble is, there are so few. Since the famine and the murrains, the Scottish borders are denuded of men, and the ones remaining are scurvy-ridden and feeble. We need hale, competent fellows, like the farmers you have down here. It looks as though the famine didn’t affect people this far west and south.’

‘We lost many people,’ Simon said shortly, thinking of those dreadful times. ‘God forbid that we should have another famine of that ferocity.’

‘Very good. So, are you ready to leave now?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Simon said. ‘I shall ask for my horse to be prepared.’

‘Ask for mine as well, would you? I shall just fetch my bag.’

Simon nodded ungraciously as he walked from the room. Outside he stood and took a deep breath. Arrayers were generally corrupt as hell, in his opinion. Maybe this one wasn’t so bad as some, but after the knight’s harsh introduction, Simon had taken a dislike to the suave Sir Tristram, and the thought that the vills about Tavistock were to be told to produce their finest men for this Sir Knight to take them away to war suddenly struck Simon. As he marched to the stables, he found his lips twitching into a grin.

He had a suspicion that Sir Tristram was not going to find recruiting men to be very easy.