The Devil's Acolyte (2002) (24 page)

‘He’s not eating?’ she asked.

‘Oh, he’s eating a bit, but not enough. I don’t know what to do!’

Cissy listened to the girl with a sense of futility. Emma was on the brink of despair. Her husband’s venture was petering out and he was scurrying about trying to find a fresh deposit, but
so far there had been no luck. It was maddening, but there was no guaranteed reward for hard work, and then the tin ran out, and it was beginning to look like her family would soon have nothing. No
income at the next coining meant no food for the children.

‘And my Joel, he won’t eat now. He looks up at me like he’s starving, but he won’t eat anything when I try to get him to feed, and he’s wasting away, the poor
sweetheart. It’s been three days, and he’s not had hardly anything, not even when I’ve chewed it up and given it to him in a paste.’

‘He won’t suckle?’

‘No. He refuses my breast, just turns his head away when I get it near him.’

Cissy pursed her lips. It was more usual for children to be breast-fed until they were two or three years old, and hearing that the lad refused his mother’s pap was alarming. She had seen
Joel only the other day and had thought then that he looked weakly and unhappy, although his belly was large enough. Asleep now in Emma’s arms, he looked restless and irritable.

She was no midwife. Her own boy had been an easy child, although he had become more difficult to feed later in life, growing fussy with his food. For some reason he disliked his father’s
meat pies; but no, Cissy told herself sternly as her mind wandered, that was unimportant compared to Emma’s present and very real problems.

‘I have taken him to the Abbey, and they have said prayers for him, but what else can I do?’

Cissy sighed. She had remained with Emma for ages, calming her as best she could. If it was God’s will to take the child to His arms, He would, and there was nothing that the people of
Tavistock could do about it. All Cissy could do, in all truth, was try to soothe her friend.

‘There is one thing you could do,’ she said suddenly. ‘You could mix some honey with milk, and give that to him. It sometimes works. Can you afford some honey?’

Emma sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘Yes. Hamelin gave me his purse.’

Cissy’s eyes grew round as she saw the money in Emma’s hand. ‘Whee! He gave you all that? He must have sold a lot of tin!’

Emma became a little reserved. ‘No, he sold a debt to Wally before he died.’

‘Some debt, girl. When did Wally ever have so much money?’

Emma concealed the money in the purse again. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he grew lucky? There was no report of a man being robbed, was there? If so, perhaps I’d think evil of Wally
– but no one has, so it must have been his money somehow.’

Cissy opened her mouth to argue, but then glanced at Joel and her expression softened. ‘Right, well you have enough to do him some good, anyway. Buy honey and some milk from the first
morning milking, when it’s rich and creamy. Give him that, and then try him with soft bread dipped in honey too. Once he’s eating again, you can change his diet.’

By the time she had hustled the girl from her door, Emma’s tears were at least a little abated, although while her child refused to eat, she would remain petrified with fear that she was
going to lose him. Also, now that her husband’s mine appeared to be failing, she knew that the rest of her children might suffer the pangs of starvation before too long.

It was a terrible thing to lose a child. Cissy hated the very idea. A devoted mother, she adored her children. One boy and two girls, and all fine, healthy, strapping creatures who had given
her, so far, seven grandchildren. Her only regret was that all had moved from the shop as soon as they had married. Of course it was usual for a girl to do that, moving in with her in-laws, but it
was sad to lose a son. And such a son Reg was! Tall, hair as dark as a crow’s wing, his eyes deep brown; she thought he was perfect. But he had been convinced of his calling, and he had
needed to follow it. That was all there was to it. Perhaps in years to come he would marry and give her the extra grandchildren she wanted.

The thought of more children turned a little sour when she saw the state her Nob was in. As she said to him, he made her wonder whether she had married a child and not a man.

After such a long exile from his hearth, Nob was more liquid than solid when he eventually returned to the shop. Not that being overbloated with ale had been the worst of it, of course. She had
known what he would be like, and he had more than fulfilled her expectations.

As soon as his head hit the pillow, he snored fit to shake the daub from the walls, and he wouldn’t roll over and shut up even when she prodded him with an ungentle finger. No, he merely
lay back with his mouth agape, the fool! And then, just when she was thinking that she was so tired she might fall asleep, he snorted, grunted, and rose to go to the pot. Except, of course, he was
fearful of wakening her, so he had lighted a candle that he might see without stumbling. The rasp, rasp, rasp of his tinder had been like a blade scraping on her skull, and the knowledge that there
was no point in arguing with him because he was still drunk did not soften her temper. At last, after making as much noise as the Lydford waterfall, he had returned to bed, but now the second evil
of drink had made itself felt. He had broken wind, and soon she was reeling from the foul odour.

Next morning he had woken with a pained expression. It did not succeed in arousing any sympathy from her.

‘I don’t know why you do it to yourself so often. Can’t you get it into your head that you’re not a young boy any more? Look at you! A grown man, but you behave like a
child, guzzling at ale like a baby at pap as soon as I turn my back!’

‘It was just nice to have a chance to talk to some of our neighbours, woman – and stop shouting. You’d wake the dead, you would!’

‘If you hadn’t drunk so much, you wouldn’t be so upset with a normal, quiet voice.’

‘I didn’t drink that much. I just got chatting, that’s all. Like you were chatting in here with Emma. And anyway, it was you told
me
to bugger off. I didn’t want
to go there – I was coming home, remember?’

‘You didn’t have to go straight to the alehouse, did you? You could have gone and waited at our door, or visited Humphrey or someone.’

The mention of that name had made Nob give a fleeting wince, but not so fleeting that Cissy missed it. ‘You didn’t see him in there?’

‘Look, I couldn’t help it, all right? He just asked me to join him in a game of knuckles, and I didn’t see the harm. When his friend challenged me, I had to accept.’

‘Oh? And which friend was this?’

‘Just some foreigner. He’s Sergeant to the Arrayer who’s in town. You must have heard about him,’ Nob said, attempting a confidence he didn’t feel while his belly
bucked at the memory.

Humphrey had worn a serious expression, winking to Nob as he asked him over, and Nob soon saw what he meant. The Arrayer was here to take every able-bodied man from sixteen to sixty, and that
meant Nob was well within the age range. If the Arrayer saw him, he could be taken – but if this Sergeant gained an affection for him, he might be safe. Nob and Humphrey set to with a will,
gambling wildly so as to lose, and buying the stranger plenty of ale. It would be dangerous to openly bribe him in public, but the Sergeant must surely know what they were doing. It had been
expensive.

‘You haven’t the brain you were born with, have you? Well, I hope you didn’t gamble too much.’

Nob remained strangely quiet on that score, and Cissy had pressed him. Finally he had been forced to admit that his investments hadn’t been blessed with profit.

Not only had he suffered the losses, but plying the Sergeant with good ale had proved ruinous. The man had an astonishing capacity for drink and hardly seemed to feel the effects. Then, when Nob
went out for a piss, and the Sergeant followed him, grunting and farting as he did so, the Sergeant blandly thanked him for the gambling, accepting the money as his due from the run of the dice, no
more. He had no idea, or so he said, that Nob had been playing to lose.

Nob was dumbstruck. As the Sergeant made to return indoors, Nob gave up, and with a bad grace he offered the money remaining in his purse. With an equally ill grace, the Sergeant accepted it
– but somehow Nob didn’t feel confident that he was entirely secure in the cold light of the following dawn.

‘You’re an oaf and a fool! You go in there and drink yourself to blind stupidity, and then you come back and want sympathy!’ Cissy snapped, but then fetched him a morning ale
to whet his appetite. ‘I suppose you want me to give you some breakfast now.’

‘No, I’ll be all right with a pie,’ he said with stiff pride. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out.’ He turned away and tripped over a stool, barking his shin on
the seat. ‘Oh, bugger, bugger, bugger!’

It was enough. Laughing, she took his arm and settled him in his chair by the hearth, and bent to cook him some bacon and an egg. She had some bread she had thrown into the oven the night before
when he had finished cooking, and now she broke off a crust and gave it to him while his meal spat and sizzled on the griddle over the fire.

‘You daft old sod,’ she had said fondly.

No, Cissy thought now, it was no wonder that she was tired. No rest Sunday night, and Monday had been busy, too, what with all her work and Nob being unable to do more than grunt all morning.
Monday night she had been so tired she’d only slept shallowly, waking at the slightest groan or squeak amongst the timbers of the house. And today, Tuesday, she had had to listen to poor
little Sara as well. Sometimes it felt as though she was mother to all the foolish chits in the town.

Sara was a silly mare! She was always hoping to find a man who would help her, and she was so desperate that she would give herself to anyone, and now she must suffer the inevitable result of a
fertile woman and be scorned as a whore. The parish had to keep her and her children, just as it would any child, but Sara would be fined the
layrwyta
by the Abbot’s court. Her child
would be known as a bastard, and while a King or nobleman could sire bastards all over the country without concern – why, even King Edward himself was taking his bastard son, Adam, with him
to wars, if the stories were to be believed – a woman like Sara got off less lightly. Adam would be provided for by the King his father, but Sara’s child would be despised by everyone,
as an extra burden on the parish. No one would blame the incontinent man who had promised to wed her; no, they’d all blame the gullible woman.

Idly, Cissy wondered again who the father might be, but then she shook herself and told herself off for daydreaming. There were some crusts and scraps of pie in a pot, and she reopened the door
and threw them out, and it was then, as she saw the bits and pieces fly through the air, that she saw a man recoil.

He looked familiar, she thought, a young fellow with broad enough shoulders, but then he was gone. Disappeared along an alley. Cissy closed the door thoughtfully. He was familiar . . . and then
she realised who it was. ‘Gerard, you poor soul!’

Simon was about to make his way to the guest room when, yawning, he heard a chuckle and turned to see Augerus and Mark sitting in the doorway to the
salsarius
’
room.

‘So, Bailiff, the strain is showing, is it?’ Augerus asked, not unkindly.

Simon smiled and accepted a cup of Mark’s wine. ‘You fellows are never likely to suffer from thirst, are you?’ Mark looked like a man who had already tasted more than a gallon
of wine, Simon thought.

‘We have a resonable supply, it is true,’ he agreed. ‘Why, any monk should be allocated five gallons of good quality ale and another five of weaker each week. Even a pensioner
gets that. And Augerus and I have strenuous work to conduct for the Abbey. We need to keep our strength up – and what better for that than strong wine?’

‘Shouldn’t you both be abed, ready for the midnight services?’

‘I rarely go to bed until later. I need little sleep,’ Mark said with a partly boastful, faintly defensive air. ‘I am like Brother Peter, the Almoner. He only ever has three
hours a night. Never needs more than that. Most of the night he wanders about the place, along the walls and about the court. And look at him!’ He belched quietly. ‘He doesn’t
look too bad on it, does he?’

Simon noted that. So, Peter was always up and wandering about, was he? Well, it was hardly surprising. After his wound, maybe he found it hard to sleep. He was ever looking out for another band
of attackers, perhaps?

‘Have you found out any more about the murderer?’ Augerus asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Am I right, that the miner was killed by a club?’

‘Yes. The sort of weapon that anyone could make,’ Simon said. He saw no reason to mention that it had gone missing. Augerus or Peter was responsible for gossip, according to the
Abbot, and Mark had already admitted his own interest in it.

Augerus glanced at Mark, then back to Simon. The Bailiff’s tone was curious, he thought, and he wondered whether Simon harboured a suspicion against Mark. It was quite possible. After all,
Augerus knew that Mark had been up on the moors, the day that Wally died.
And
he had argued with him. Perhaps the Bailiff knew that, too.

‘I only asked, because I have heard that some mining men will scratch marks into wood they have purchased to stop others from stealing it. Perhaps there might be something on the timber
that killed Walwynus?’

Simon was still a moment. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Take a closer look at the weapon. If it came from a miner, marks will be visible.’

Mark sniffed. ‘I think Brother Augerus here has been drinking too much of my wine, Bailiff. Ignore his words. You will only find yourself wasting time. Have you learned any more about the
thefts?’

Simon was suddenly aware that Mark’s eyes were brighter and more shrewd than his voice would have indicated possible. Mark was perhaps inebriated, but that was his usual condition, and he
was still perfectly capable of reasoning.