The Devil's Acolyte (2002) (11 page)

Halting his horse, Simon leaned forward and frowned at the view. Through the trees he could see the Abbey deep in the valley between the hills, enclosed neatly within its walls, safe from the
intrusive borough that crouched beneath the parish church. It was a scene of quiet progress, the little town of Tavistock. Busy, attracting men from all over the country to come and generate
wealth, it was a model for other towns to follow.

It was so tranquil-looking, it was hard to believe that a man could have been bludgeoned to death so close. Perhaps he was trying to reach the town, Simon mused, and was captured by someone who
beat him to death from sheer evil spirit; or was he attacked by a gang of trailbastons or other felons? Simon had seen such things before, certainly, but usually there was a good reason for an
outlaw to attack, especially armed with a club.

The club. It was odd, Simon realised, and his brows darkened.

A man who was poor might choose a morning star as a weapon because anyone, however destitute, could lay his hands on a lump of wood and hammer some nails into it, and while most would prefer to
set out on a career of murder and theft with a sword or at least an axe or dagger, a very poor man might be glad to make do with a home-made club. Of course, a man that hard up would surely not
then toss his weapon away. He’d keep it, unless he had managed to steal a better one from his victim. And yet Walwynus had had nothing other than an eating knife on him, the last time Simon
saw him.

However, a man who was wealthy enough to afford a decent long-bladed knife or sword wouldn’t have minded abandoning the murder weapon, especially if he intended pointing the finger of
suspicion away from himself and allowing another man to dance a jig on the Abbot’s gibbet.

Simon was thoughtful as he spurred his mount on, and he didn’t like his thoughts very much.

When the Almoner, Brother Peter, entered the Abbot’s chamber, he was aware of a faster beat to his heart, as though it had shrunk and he now possessed the tiny heart of a
dormouse in his breast. It felt as if it was preparing to burst from its exertions.

‘My Lord Abbot? You wished to see me?’

Afterwards he remembered it. Aye, at the time he saw Abbot Robert flinch, but it was so commonplace a reaction to the sight of him that Peter hardly noticed it just then. Only later would he
recall it, and realise that the Abbot suspected him.

Different people reacted in a variety of ways. Some, especially the young, would first recoil with every expression of revulsion on their faces – although later, once over their initial
shock, they would often speak to him about his wound and ask how he received it, how it felt, and even, could they touch it, please?

Quite often, Peter told untruths. God would forgive his dishonesty, he felt sure, for the stories he told invariably had a moral purpose. He would tell a child that he had received his scar when
he was a little boy, caught stealing apples from a neighbour’s orchard, or that he was found with money taken from his master’s purse and fell into a fire while hurrying away from his
crime, and every time he would solemnly declare that any child who was so naughty as he had been, would also be marked for life.

Aye, the children were easy, as he often told himself. It was the adults whose reactions were more difficult for him to cope with. The women, who once might have smiled and glanced back at him
from the corner of their eyes, measuring his strong body against their private erotic gauges, now grimaced at the sight of him, as though he had some disease that could contaminate them. All knew
that God infected some because of their sins, like lepers. Perhaps that was the reason behind the women’s reaction: they assumed that he had been so foul in his youth that he had been branded
in this way.

Well, so he had thought himself, once upon a time, he recalled, and yes, it was quite possible that this wound was payment for his earlier offences against God.

Men were prone to stare. God forgive him, but that hurt more than anything. Even if it was God’s means of humbling him, it was a sorry trial, for never beforehand had he been looked at in
such a foul manner. He was like a midget or a dancing bear, a curious sight, something to be watched with interest. Once he’d only have been looked at for a moment, and then he’d have
made sure that the man staring would have to look away, but not now. Now he must accept, aye, and forgive those who gawped at him so rudely, so unchivalrously. The fit and well, the unscarred.

‘Yes, I wished to speak with you, Brother,’ the Abbot said, beckoning vaguely with all the fingers of his left hand. ‘How long is it since you first came here,
Almoner?’

‘Six summers, my Lord.’

‘You know the men of the Abbey as well as most, do you not? Better than most, I’ll wager.’

‘I think I can claim to know many of the novices better than most, aye. And my Brothers are a gentle, goodly family. I feel very much at home here.’

‘I am glad to hear it. I have been given some terrible news today, so anything that gladdens my heart is welcome.’

‘My Lord Abbot?’

‘We have a pewterer staying with us. A Master Godley from London. This morning he has come to me and told me that two pewter plates he had stored securely beneath his bed have gone. Stolen
in the night.’

Peter sat back and stared. He had feared that something of this nature might happen, but had hoped that after talking to Gerard the lad would be sensible enough to desist.

‘You know something of this, don’t you, Brother?’ Abbot Robert observed. ‘I do not demand that you answer me with the culprit’s name immediately, but I urge you to
speak to the fellow and tell him that I can be understanding, but that I want those plates back right speedily. I will not allow the reputation of this Abbey to be harmed because of one felon in
Benedictine habit!’

‘I . . . I shall do what I can, my Lord,’ Peter stammered.

‘Have you heard that a man has been found dead?’ His words shot out like a blade from a scabbard, making Peter still more uncomfortable.

‘I had not heard, my Lord.’

‘Up on the moors. Your friend Walwynus.’ The Abbot’s face was pulled into a frown of concern. ‘I would not wish this Abbey to become a laughing stock. We are a small
community, and any suggestion that we might be harbouring a killer – worse, a devil – would harm us severely, Brother.’

Now Peter understood. He felt his mouth fall open. ‘I have had nothing to do with this, my Lord Abbot,’ he protested.

Abbot Robert’s voice was harsh with distrust. ‘I took you in, Brother Peter, to help you and give you a place of peace. Your corrody, your retirement, was to serve as Almoner here.
If you killed this man, tell me now. I can comprehend your crime, if I cannot forgive it.’

‘I and he have lived in this town for a long time, Abbot. I forgave him in my heart many years ago,’ Peter said, fingering his scar. ‘I have had nothing to do with death since
I moved here. Whoever killed Wally, it was not me.’

‘The rumours will harm us,’ Abbot Robert repeated. ‘The Abbot’s Way. My God in heaven, why did he have to be found on
that
trail, the Abbot’s
Way?’

The Almoner nodded slowly, his eyes hooded. Now the Abbot was making sense. According to legend, first the Abbot’s wine had been stolen, then the Jew had been murdered. Aye, and then the
thieving monks had been gathered up, so the legend had it, and taken away by the devil himself. ‘It is a coincidence, my Lord,’ he agreed slowly. ‘But there is nothing to suggest
that this man out on the moors had anything to do with the Abbey, is there?’

‘You know how the people will talk. There doesn’t need to be a connection, Brother.’

The Abbot’s eyes were fixed on him with that intensity which Peter knew so well. Abbot Robert was no man’s fool. No, and he could see a man’s soul and judge it, Peter sometimes
thought. Abbot Robert Champeaux had been elected to lead the Abbey after years of incompetence, and he had rebuilt it with a single-minded dedication. No man would be permitted to destroy what he
had created.

‘You were on the moors a few days ago, Brother,’ the Abbot said.

Peter could feel the full force of his eyes upon him. ‘I know nothing about the man’s death, my Lord Abbot, I assure you,’ he said as strongly as he could.

‘You were up there?’

‘After the coining. Aye, on the fast day, Friday.’

‘You are Almoner and may pass beyond our doors, but why did you need to go up to the moors that day?’

‘My Lord Abbot, I had to take alms to John, your shepherd with the hurt leg.’

‘Oh! Young John? And then you came back?’

‘Aye, but slowly. I was born in the wilds of the northern March, and the open spaces are in my nature.’

‘You should have your humours tested then, Brother. You should be content with God’s company here in the Abbey.’

‘I try to be content,’ he said, his tongue clicking in his mouth, it had become so dry.

‘Do so. Did you see any man up there?’

‘Only Walwynus. He was returning to his little hovel.’

The Abbot gazed at him. ‘I see. Did you speak to him?’

‘I called out to him, but he didn’t seem to want to chat. He was crapulous, I fear.’

‘Did you follow along behind him?’

‘I went up to the moors, aye. And I came back. But I saw no dead man up there, my Lord Abbot.’

‘No. Because if you had, of course you would have come back here and told me, wouldn’t you? So that we could try to save the man’s soul.’

‘Aye, my Lord Abbot.’

The Abbot stared at him for a moment. ‘And this was the same Walwynus whom you knew, wasn’t it, Peter?’

‘He was in the group who did this to me,’ Peter said harshly, touching the scar again. ‘I’d not be likely to forget him, Abbot. Yet I had forgiven him, and I
wouldn’t have harmed him. In fact, I spoke to him and told him that he was forgiven, on the day of the coining.’

‘How so?’

‘I met him before the coining began, and told him. It was the first time I’d spoken to him since the attack on me,’ Peter added thoughtfully. ‘It was most curious,
speaking to him again like that. I fear he was terrified. Probably thought I’d beat his head in.’

‘For wounding you like that?’

‘Aye. That and other things,’ Peter said, but he didn’t elaborate.

Gerard was relieved to be out of the church, as always, but he felt no great comfort. His predicament weighed too heavily on his mind.

He had been out in the courtyard when the tall, grim-faced Bailiff had returned, bellowing for messengers, for grooms and for the Abbey’s man of law. Moments after he had stalked off to
the Abbot’s lodging, his discovery had been bruited all about the community. The dead man up on the moors was definitely Walwynus.

The news that Wally was dead – that was really scary. All the novices and Brothers were talking about it, especially the odd one or two who had a superstitious bent. The parallels between
the story of Milbrosa and this dead man were too tempting: the thefts of the Abbot’s wine followed by the murder of a tinner on the moors. Of course the miner hadn’t been dumped in a
bog, nor was he hugely rich, and there was no indication that a monk had anything to do with it, but that didn’t stop them talking. There was little else of excitement ever happened in a
monastery, after all.

Later, walking from the Abbey church out to the
dorter
, he felt the skin of his back crawling. He anticipated the thunderbolt of God’s wrath at any time. At the very least he
thought he deserved to be stabbed, to have his life expunged.

He’d seen the Bailiff before, and knew who Simon was, what his duties were. The man was bound to sense what Gerard had done. In fact, Gerard thought he could see the recognition in
Simon’s face. When the Bailiff looked at him, there was that expression of confused suspicion on his features, like a hound which has seen his quarry, but is doubtful because the beast
doesn’t run. Gerard had seen that sort of expression on a dog’s face once when he was out hunting. A buck hare was there, sitting up on his haunches, but as soon as he caught sight of
Gerard and his dog, he had fallen flat down on his belly, ears low, and fixed as stationary as a small clod of earth.

His dog was all for running at the thing, but Gerard knew it could easily outrun his old hound, and anyway, there was no need to set the dog after it: Gerard knew hares. He made the dog sit, and
then walked away, up and around the hedge. The hound stared at him as though he was mad, and then returned to gaze suspiciously at the hare, which simply gazed back at him.

Gerard had no idea why hares would do it, but a hare would watch moving things rather than a man. He’d been shown the trick by an old countryman years before: the man had seen a hare, and
rather than set the dogs free, he’d walked closer, then hurled his coat away. The hare stared at it as it flew past, and meanwhile the man circled around it until he could grab it by the neck
and quickly wring it.

The same thing almost happened with Gerard’s hare that day. He left his hound there, sitting, while he took off his jacket and screwed it up into a ball, throwing it as far as he could. He
tried to circle around behind the hare, but it didn’t work. Something alarmed the animal, and it bolted before Gerard had managed to get halfway. He turned to his dog to order him on.

The hound needed no second urging. He hurled himself forward, muscles cording under his glossy coat, and pelted off, but the hare had too much of an advantage. It had escaped beneath a
tree-root, through a tiny gap in the hedge, and was gone, while Gerard’s hound sniffed and whined and paced up and down, trying to find a gap broad enough to wriggle through or a spot low
enough to leap over.

Simon’s expression reminded him of that day, because as he ordered his hound to stay put, and the hare sat still, he saw the quizzical doubt on the dog’s face, as though it knew that
the hare was a prey, and expected the animal to bolt. Only when the hare leaped up and ran did the dog feel comfortable that it was behaving true to form. Simon was the dog, Gerard his prey. Dogs
chased when smaller creatures ran, that was the way of things, and Bailiff Puttock was waiting for him to bolt.