The Devil's Acolyte

Chapter Nineteen

Peter held on to his staff with that little, apologetic smile still on his face. He could see the raging anger in Sir Tristram’s eye and wouldn’t turn his back on the man, but he made no threatening gestures, simply stood peacefully, all the while gripping his staff, ready to defend himself should it become necessary.

Sir Tristram bit his thumb to Peter and turned away contemptuously, walking swiftly towards an alehouse.

Peter sighed in relief, but he knew that this wasn’t the end of the matter. There would probably be a complaint to the Abbot; it might even be a good idea to remain in the Abbey until the raggle-taggle of the King’s men had gone. That way he would save putting temptation in Sir Tristram’s path.

That wasn’t strictly true, though, he admitted to himself. There had been almost a hope in his heart that the man might indeed attack him. It would have been pleasing to strike down one of the most notorious of border reivers. It was against his religion to strike the first blow, but that wouldn’t have affected the sense of gratification which he would have felt from knocking Sir Tristram over. Like Joce, he craved the opportunity of a fight.

He was offering up a prayer for better self-control when he heard a scream, a high, keening sound. His head snapped around in time to see a woman appear at the end of an alley, arms thrown out as though she was pleading for help, her clothing bespattered with blood.

‘Murder! Murder! Murder!’

Simon listened to the drawn-out procedures of the Coroner’s inquest with a new sense of purpose. He watched the men of the jury and the witnesses as they gave their evidence, but there was little more to be told.

Wally had left his home early on the Thursday morning with the small satchel but nothing else. He had been seen by plenty of men during the coining. Initially, people said, he had looked despondent, watching the tin being assayed, but by the time he arrived in the drinking houses, his mood had undergone a great change. He was laughing and joking with the other customers, chatting up the whores and offering them money to sleep with him. The last that was seen of him that night was him disappearing with two women into a back room.

‘Died happy, then,’ was the Coroner’s sour comment.

The following morning, once most of the miners had spent the money they had earned from selling tin, on buying provisions and ale or wine, all began their slow, painful progress back to their workings.

‘What of Wally?’ Coroner Roger asked.

Ivo answered drily. ‘Coroner, we were marching under a grey, miserable cloud. We all had sore heads, and many had sore guts too. We weren’t looking out for one man who wasn’t one of us, not really.’

‘You must have noticed a companion like him.’

‘Why? I wouldn’t have known if my own brother stood at my side. We live out in the wilds, Coroner, and when we have a chance to get into town with money in our scrips, we don’t dilly dally. We drink! I got through more than a gallon of strong ale myself that night. Woke up in the kennel in the middle of a lane. By the time we set off for home, my head was like an apple in a press. Looking up was hard enough, my head was that heavy.’

‘Did any man see him?’ The Coroner looked about the group. ‘What of anyone else?’

In the ensuing silence, the Coroner declared that Walwynus had been murdered and stated the value of the fines to be imposed. Soon the men began to move away, muttering amongst themselves, swearing and complaining about the expense. Simon kept his eye on Hal, and as the man walked off, Simon darted after him, catching him by the arm.

‘Come on, Hal. What’s this about?’

‘What? I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Yes, you do. That club – what happened to it?’

‘I don’t know…’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Simon hissed. ‘Look at me, Hal. You’ve known me five or six years now, since I first came out here to the moors. I’ve never treated you badly or given you any problem, have I?’

‘I’d like to help, but…’ His eyes slid over to the Coroner.

Following his glance, Simon saw that Baldwin was watching them with interest. ‘Don’t worry about them. Anything you tell me will be between us and only us. All right?’

Hal met his gaze.

‘I swear on my oath before God,’ Simon added. ‘Now do you trust me?’

Hal gave a grudging nod. ‘I suppose so. Although I don’t know how much use it’ll be. I was with a group of the lads coming back on the Friday morning. There wasn’t much talk. Wally was ahead of us, and we gradually caught him up. When I saw his face, it made me feel a lot better. He was in a much worse way, poor sod and he’d been in a fight. I gave him a good day, but he only grunted. It didn’t take long to pass him, and we soon left him behind.’ Hal paused. ‘When I reached the Nun’s Cross, I stopped and took a look behind me, just to check if Wally was all right. I could see him coming over the brow of the hill, and this time he wasn’t alone. There was a monk with him.’

‘Which monk?’

‘The tall one, the one with the wound – you know, the scar along his jaw.’

‘Brother Peter!’ Simon breathed.

‘That’s the one. I couldn’t hear what they said. I was heading homewards, and I didn’t want to dither so I left them to it.’

‘Was there anybody else on the moors that day, Hal? Come on, man!’ he expostulated as he saw the miner look away. ‘Wally’s been killed. While his killer is free, he might strike again.’

‘There was a group of travellers out there. Just like the old story,’ Hal said quietly, and there was a shiftiness in his face. ‘Look, Bailiff, you may not believe the legend, eh? But when you live out here on the moors, you get to hear funny things at night, you see strange things you didn’t ought to. Sometimes things happen. If Wally was killed by the devil or one of his black angels, I don’t want to get in his way.’

‘I know what the moors can be like,’ Simon said. ‘But it’s rubbish to think that the devil killed Wally. Why should he? Wally couldn’t have sold his soul to the devil, could he? If he did, he made a poor bargain. I thought the devil offered worldly wealth.’

‘And Wally suddenly had all that money last Thursday.’

‘Bull’s cods!’ Simon said. ‘Why did you take the club away, Hal?’

‘What makes you think I did?’

‘Your friend who guarded the body after you had no interest in it, did he? He didn’t even seem to know there’d ever been one. Where did you put it?’

Hal squinted up at him, then shrugged. ‘I threw it in a bog.’

‘Why?’ Simon asked. ‘What good would that do you?’

‘It was a timber from my mine,’ Hal said gruffly.

Simon caught at his sleeve. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘You saw the marks. They were mine. When I bought it, I scratched my own sign into it. I always do that so others don’t try to steal from me. Someone must have tried to make me look like the murderer; me or my partner, Hamelin, who shares my workings and the timber.’

‘Not necessarily. It could have been someone who merely passed by and took up the first bit of wood he saw. Who could have found this timber and used it?’

‘I left for Tavvie early in the morning before the coining. The timbers were all there at my mine from that morning to the day after the coining, so for two or three days they were left unguarded. Anyone could have helped themselves.’

‘We know that Wally was alive at Nun’s Cross on the Friday – you saw him. Did you see him after that? Or see anyone else?’

‘No. Last time I saw him was breasting that hill with the monk.’

‘But you were heading towards your mine. Could the monk have run ahead, stolen the timber, run back, and stored it ready to kill Wally?’ Simon mused.

‘No, I doubt it. But someone else could have, and left it there for Brother Peter to pick up and use to kill Wally.’

‘It’s all a bit far-fetched. Why should someone try to implicate you?’ Simon considered. ‘Not that they did that very well. After all, I didn’t recognise the marks myself. How many would have?’

‘Any miner who looked during the inquest.’

‘Maybe. In which case perhaps a devious mind thought fit to put the blame on you. But it’s more likely that it was someone else entirely, someone who wanted to kill Wally and who knew that your mine was empty. He could go there, hammer some nails into the timber, bring it up here and do the deed. Perhaps it was someone who lives up here and merely stole timber from you because your works were close or convenient.’

‘Yeah. Could have been. There are plenty of men up here, what with miners, travellers and others.’

‘You saw Peter walking up with Wally. I think that means he can’t have been the killer. Whoever did this must have got to your camp before you, stolen the wood and made a weapon out of it, then made his way back up here. He hid and watched until Brother Peter moved on, then he attacked Wally and killed him.’

‘Maybe.’ Hal shrugged. ‘It’s hard to tell exactly what happened.’

But Simon was content with his reasoning. It was not a comfortable thought that a man like Peter could be a murderer, even after the terrible provocation he had suffered. The idea that a monk in the Abbey could be involved in murder was unsettling. Members of the clergy were as prone to anger as any other man in the kingdom, but it was horrifying to think that a man in Holy Orders could stray so far from his Rule and the Commandments as to kill another man.

Yet Simon was also aware of a niggling doubt at the back of his mind: if a monk did wish to murder, he would scarcely leave Tavistock carrying a large club studded with nails! He would prefer to concoct a weapon out on the moors, where no one could see and comment.

The shouts of ‘Murder! Murder!’ brought Nob to his senses. He leaped forward, shoving through the crowds, and soon reached the side of the fallen Sergeant. He paused, looking down at the body. As he did so, he saw a grimy hand reach out to the man’s purse and a dagger slice through the laces that held it on the belt. Then a pair of pale eyes glanced up and met his, before the lad suddenly turned and pelted through the crowds.

‘Oh, bugger!’ Nob swore, and set off in pursuit.

The boy was fleet, but there were too many people in his way. He tried to dodge and slip between legs, but as Nob came closer, he gave a squeak and dropped the purse, sprang through a narrow gap, and then hurtled off along an alleyway.

Nob stood catching his breath. The boy was unknown to him, and to be honest, he didn’t want to see him get caught. There was little satisfaction in the hanging of a mere child. He took up the purse and weighed it. It was heavy with his own coins! With a discontented grunt, he took it back to Jack, and dropped it onto the Sergeant’s breast.

The Sergeant coughed and tried to sit up. ‘Eh? What? Who fucking hit me? I’ll break his sodding neck, the–’

‘It was a monk. He didn’t want you to kill someone right in front of him. A cutpurse took your money. It’s there.’

‘Sod the money! I was going to knife that bastard when someone hit me,’ Jack said, every word making him wince. ‘It was “Red Hand” Armstrong, God rot him!’

‘Who?’

‘The murderer who attacked the monk, the man who murdered Peter’s girl, the man who led the Armstrongs after they were slaughtered by my master and me!’ Jack exclaimed, struggling to his feet, but as soon as he was up, he staggered as though his knees were turned to jelly.

Nob wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but to him it sounded as though Jack’s head injury was worse than he’d thought. When Jack bent and threw up, his opinion was confirmed. ‘Wait here, I’ll get you help,’ he said kindly. Asking another man to keep an eye on him, he hurried off to find Ellis. It was obvious that Jack really needed a vein opened.

Ellis was finishing shaving a man’s chin when Nob found him. He completed the job swiftly, threw some knives and a bowl into a bag and went back with Nob to find Jack.

‘Bare your arm, fellow,’ Ellis said. ‘From your face, your humours are all unbalanced. I have to bleed you.’

‘Oh, shit. I don’t usually have to pay to lose my blood,’ Jack said with a feeble attempt at humour. He held out his forearm, and the knife was applied, the blood caught in a bowl held beneath.

‘Where has the bastard gone?’ Jack asked, staring about him with a frown.

‘Who?’ Nob asked.

‘ “Red Hand!” He was here. I was going to kill him, but someone struck me down first.’

Nob shrugged and Jack went through the story again, of how he and Sir Tristram caught the Armstrongs and slaughtered them, but missed ‘Red Hand’ and two others.

‘What did he look like?’ Ellis asked sceptically as he studied the congealing blood in his bowl, stirring it with a finger, while Nob applied a styptic and bandage to the cut.

Jack told them, and then caught sight of their expressions. ‘What name does he use here?’

Ellis shot a look at Nob. ‘Joce Blakemoor. Could he be a felon?’

Baldwin listened to the Coroner with only half an ear while he contemplated the body.

This was an unpleasant little murder, a brutal killing with no evident motive, and there was also the second issue, that of the disappearance of the novice. The two could well be related in some way, but it was hard to see how. Surely such men as a tin-miner on the moors and a novice from Tavistock were so far divorced from each other that they could not have met?

The Coroner had soon dismissed the jury and witnesses, and when they were all leaving and Baldwin could talk to Sir Roger alone, he raised the matter although, conscious of the Abbot’s stipulation, he did not mention the reason for his interest.

‘Do you think that the miner would have any involvement with the Abbey?’

Coroner Roger raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? What’s the Abbey got to do with him?’

‘I don’t know. I was merely wondering whether there could be some connection with the Abbey rather than with the poor folk who work out here.’

‘And that’s all?’ the Coroner asked. ‘It seems to me you know something I don’t.’

‘I know nothing, but I have been asked to look into things,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘The problem is, there is an ancient superstition here, that a band of monks were so debauched and irreligious that they were taken away by the devil. People tend to keep that kind of story close to their hearts and lend more credence to it than they ever would to the truth. I merely wondered whether there could be any substance to that sort of tale.’

The Coroner rubbed his chin. ‘Seems odd that people should get that feeling if there’s nothing there. What’s this story about?’

Grudgingly Baldwin told him of the legend of Milbrosa, while the Coroner eyed him keenly. When Baldwin was finished, he sighed and stared out over the moors.

‘Look at this land. Desolate, wind-swept, cold and foggy even in summer, and during the winter, you have to avoid almost all of it because of the bogs and mires. It’s no wonder people like to make up tales about the place. So there’s a mad monk here too, is there? Folk in Tavvie would believe that easily enough.’ He cast Baldwin a swift glance. ‘I suppose you won’t tell me any more. Well enough. But I think you have more information that you could give me, if you had a mind.’

‘I assure you, I have told you all I can,’ Baldwin said disingenuously.

‘Hah! Is that the truth? Anyway, I won’t put you under any more pressure. If you’re keeping something back it’s because you either can’t trust me with the truth, which I’d find hard to believe after the cases we have investigated together, or that someone with more power has ordered you to keep it to yourself. And the Abbot is a powerful man, isn’t he?’ He held up his hand to stop Baldwin’s quick denial. ‘Enough! Your protestations prove my guess. Very well, so we need to consider whether this miner could have been tied to the Abbey in some way. Certainly he was at the coining, so he could have had some sort of contact with the Abbey. Perhaps he went to pray at the shrine? Or simply bumped into a monk he knew?’

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?’