The Devil's Acolyte (2002) (32 page)

Roger pointed to him. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ivo Cornisshe. I work at the bottom of Misery Tor, not far from Wally’s old place, and I saw him setting off for Tavistock early on the Thursday morning.’

Simon scowled about at the men. ‘Where is Hamelin? He lived nearest, up at Wally’s old place. Why isn’t he here?’

There was no answer from the men arrayed before them.

The Coroner nodded to Ivo to continue. ‘How was Wally when you saw him?’

‘Cheery. I asked him why and he said he was looking forward to a good quart of ale. He hadn’t made much money recently, he said, and he was miserable as the Tor itself with the
thought of drinking any more water off the moors.’

‘His mining wasn’t successful?’

‘It wasn’t too bad, I suppose,’ Ivo said with transparent honesty. ‘He did well at first, but then he could only just scrape together enough to live on. That was why he
tried farming instead.’

‘Near here?’

‘Yes. A mile or so. His rabbits and vegetables kept him fed. At least he didn’t have a family to keep. Trouble is, veg is tough to grow on the moors. Especially if the rabbits get to
them,’ he added as an afterthought.

Coroner Roger glared about him to quell the sudden ripple of laughter that spread about the gathering. ‘And he had little money?’

‘None of us have much of that. If a mine is working, then all is well, but it only lasts so long. You dig and dig, wash away the rubbish, dig again, and then you have enough ore to fill a
few bags. Melt them, pay the owner of a furnace, carry the ingots to Tavistock and pay your tax, pay your feed bills, have some ale, and suddenly you’ve got nothing left again, and you have
to come back to the moors to try to dig out a load more tin or find a new claim.’

Simon interrupted. ‘I have been told that on the day of the coining, he had money aplenty. Where did he get it?’

Ivo shrugged. ‘Maybe he found it?’

There was a quiet comment, a miner suggesting that he could have sold his remaining asset, his body, to one of the rich women who were always passing by here, and some coarse sniggers were
silenced only when the Coroner barked, ‘Shut up!’

Simon was still listening as the Coroner began asking about Wally’s sudden wealth, but standing at the edge of the miners, his eyes ranged over the men. Ivo was known to Simon, but then
most of the men here were, by sight if not by name. It was natural that he should recognise them all, for there weren’t all that many miners, especially since the famine years when even
places like Hound Tor had been deserted.

He stared fixedly at Hal. The man knew something. It was obvious in the way that he stood with his legs apart, as though preparing for a verbal sparring match. His arms were crossed over his
chest, with a long staff hooked in one, and he was perfectly still, as though he was at his ease, but his good eye was sharp and moving swiftly from Baldwin, to the Coroner, to Simon, below his
black brows.

Seeing the swift flash of Hal’s eye, Simon lifted his eyebrow, and he saw that his guess was correct. Hal looked away so fast, his head actually moved, and immediately the Coroner was on
him.

‘You! What’s your name?’

Hal’s head dropped lower on his shoulders. He threw Simon a bitter look as though the Bailiff had betrayed him, then cleared his throat. ‘Hal Raddych, sir.’

‘You’re a miner as well?’

‘Yes, sir. I protected this body the first night and last as well.’

‘Very good. And tell me, did anyone come here and move the body while you were here?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What of the club that was used to kill him, Hal?’ Simon interjected.

‘The club?’

‘The blood is still there on the bush. It’s obvious that there was something there.’

‘Perhaps it was stolen away, sir.’

Simon stood and hooked his thumbs in his belt. ‘You take me for a fool?’

Hal looked away. ‘No, sir. But I don’t have the club, and I don’t know anyone who does.’

‘You don’t know anyone who does? You mean that your guard yesterday took it?’

‘I don’t know where it could have gone. Maybe a dog took it, or a fox, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway. It was only a lump of timber.’

‘It matters how many nails there were in it,’ Coroner Roger said. ‘We have to know how much it was worth for the
deodand
.’

Simon smiled. ‘It must have been worth at least two shillings, Coroner, for someone to bother to take it away.’

‘I agree. Unless we find it, I shall value it at two shillings. Sheriff to come and collect and so on.’ He looked at the clerk. ‘You know the right words to use, don’t
you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So it comes to this, then,’ the Coroner said. ‘We have a dead man, murdered by a man or men unknown, his head bashed in. He was a poor man, yet he somehow had collected money.
We don’t know where from, but he splashed it around liberally. We know he was at the coining from what the good Bailiff has learned. Did he sell something? When he left his home to go to
Tavistock, did he have a lump of tin to sell? Did he have a packhorse or anything? Did he look as though he was suddenly wealthy?’

Ivo answered. ‘No, he had nothing but a small wallet on his back. His purse didn’t rattle, either.’

‘Could he have had tin in his wallet?’

‘I suppose, but that much would be worth little. That was why he was so dependent on his rabbits. He used to sell the meat to other miners, the pelts separately. They were good on a
winter’s day, those pelts. He knew how to cure them with salt. Took him time, but he was good at it.’

‘And yet he had enough money to buy drink?’ the Coroner asked.

Hal interrupted. ‘He was probably just looking to get some credit with a tradesman in Tavvie.’

Simon watched him closely. Hal looked deeply uncomfortable, as though he was trying to move the conversation on, afraid that something might be discovered.

‘Hmmph,’ the Coroner grunted. He was staring at the clerk, and Simon saw that he was taking Hal’s words at face value. He was surprised – then afraid that he really was
losing his touch. If he thought that the man’s evidence was so clearly dishonest, perhaps it was because his own judgement was at fault, because Coroner Roger obviously didn’t share his
misgivings.

Then he felt a shiver of resentment pass through him. He refused to believe that he was so incompetent that he didn’t understand his own miners. Simon had spent six years getting to know
these men, and he’d cut his own cods off if Hal didn’t know more than he was letting on. Simon would speak to him separately. It would show that he still knew a trick or two. Maybe it
would teach the Abbot that he was trustworthy still. It might even prove to Baldwin that Simon wasn’t burned out and only good for the midden.

There and then Simon determined that he would learn all that Hal knew, and if he could, he would discover the murderer of Wally before anyone else.

Nob belched as he finished the last of his ale and glanced up the road. The kennel was filled with mud and filth, and even as he watched, he heard the familiar bellow of
‘Gardy loo!’ from Tan the cobbler’s place up the road. There followed a minor eruption of green liquid from an upper window, narrowly missing a well-dressed merchant who stopped
in the middle of the lane to roar and shake a fist upwards with fury.

This was such a small street, it was no surprise that pedestrians would often get spattered, but there was little choice for housekeepers. They had to empty their pots somewhere.

Ordering another ale, Nob wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and considered the place. It was only a little town, Tavistock. Not like other places he’d been. Mind, some of them
weren’t so disorganised as this. The trouble was, Devonshire was so hard to get to. Most towns he’d been to, there was some sort of plan about them before the houses went up. Like
Longtown in Herefordshire. Even newer towns in Devonshire had some thought invested in them; he remembered South Zeal as a pleasant place with a good broad road and pleasant plots set out regularly
along it.

Tavistock was older, though. It had been a Burgh since the days of Abbot Walter, many folk said (although exactly how long that meant Nob didn’t know), and the lanes and streets wound
their way untidily about the town. But there were advantages to it. Such as this, the quiet little alehouse not far from his pie-shop, hidden from the main roads by a bend where the lane was forced
to curve around the back of Joce Blakemoor’s large house.

It was an imposing property, although Nob himself reckoned it gaudy. Joce was supposed to be a wealthy man, and this was one of the most impressive places in town. The front opened on to the
main street, and there you could see that the owner was important. All Blakemoor’s goods were stored in the undercroft, a massive, stone-vaulted chamber that lay under the level of the road.
Between the undercroft and the roadway was a large channel, like a moat, which must be traversed by a set of wooden steps, like a drawbridge, which led up to Joce’s shop, where he sold his
bolts of cloth, everything from the coarse, cheap dozens to linens and fine wool materials. He even sold silks occasionally, the only cloth merchant to do that this side of Exeter.

Behind the shop itself was Joce’s hall, a high-ceilinged room with doors at the back which gave out to the parlour and service rooms, while a ladder led to the bedchambers at front and
rear.

Nob knew the place well. On several occasions he had been instructed to bring pies here and set them out for Joce’s friends, and he and Cissy had been led through to the great hall, its
fire roaring in the middle of the floor, then out to the parlour and storerooms beyond. While Cissy went though some final details in the arrangement of the pies, for she was never satisfied, Nob
had taken the opportunity to go upstairs and have a look around.

Joce had made a lot of money, that was obvious. The tapestries hanging from the walls, the pewter and silver on his shelves, all spoke of enormous wealth. A merchant selling fine cloths to the
men and women of a place like Tavistock could earn himself plenty. Yet the last time Nob had visited, there were fewer plates on the cupboard, less pewter. Joce was obviously selling or pawning his
things for cash. He had made more money than Nob ever would from flogging pies, but then, as Nob told himself, he had enough for himself and his family, and that was all a man could ask for.

He was a fortunate soul, Nob told himself again. Good wife, good food, enough to buy himself ale whenever he wanted, and his children all doing well. What more could one want? Especially when
the alternative was to live like Joce, always trying to keep up appearances, spending lavishly just to maintain his position in society.

Not that his position was that impressive, in Nob’s view. Nor was he highly respected. Especially now, since his temper seemed to be growing shorter.

Tavistock was a quiet town, and violence was a matter for conversation, so when a man like Joce went to his neighbour’s house and threatened him, that news was soon the subject of gossip
up and down the place. And when a man beat his servant for no reason, especially a likeable young fellow like Art, that too caused much quiet speculation. After all, it only took one fool whose
brain was in his fists, to lead to fines for all the people living nearby. It was every man’s responsibility to keep the King’s Peace.

‘Drinking so early?’ said a smooth voice, and Nob recognised the figure of Sir Tristram’s Sergeant.

‘Jack!’ He smiled broadly, partly because he wanted this man to look on him in as friendly a light as possible, but also from the hope that since Sir Tristram was thought to be done
in the town, Nob himself should be safe from being recruited. ‘Fancy an ale?’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Jack said, taking his seat with a grunt. ‘I’ve been up half the night keeping an eye on the pitiful little company Sir Tristram’s hired.
A drink would be welcome.’

‘Perhaps a game or two while we’re here?’

Jack smiled hawkishly. ‘Now wouldn’t that be fun?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Nob, gesturing to the host to fetch ale and dice. Soon they were throwing the cubes on the table-top, and before long a number of coins had transferred themselves
from Nob’s purse to Jack’s.

Trying to distract him, Nob said, ‘You lot all off now?’

‘As soon as the men have been fed and have collected water, we’ll set off. Sir Tristram has more men waiting for us at Oakhampton and further north. We’ll have a long and weary
march to get up to Scotland.’

‘It sounds a miserable land. Cold and wet all the time,’ Nob shivered. ‘I knew a man from up there – Wally, his name was, but he’s dead now.’

‘Aye?’

Nob winced as he caught sight of Jack’s throw. ‘Yes, he was murdered. The inquest is today.’

‘There’s a monk who came from up there, too, I’ve heard.’

‘That’ll be Peter. The wounded monk.’

‘Oh aye? How’s he wounded?’

Nob took up the dice with a sinking feeling as he eyed his losses. He explained about Peter’s jaw, and saw Jack nodding.

‘That’s what Sir Tristram told me. Peter, eh? Well, I’ll be buggered. Never thought he’d survive that one. We killed most of the men, but some of those bastards got away.
And that bloody Brother had helped one of them.’

Nob listened with his mouth open wide as Jack told how Wally’s life had been saved and how he had then participated in hunting down Peter.

‘So Wally and these others escaped?’

‘Yes. I was with Sir Tristram even then, and we chased after the three as soon as Peter was found, but they split up. First we knew, we came across this hut where Peter’s woman had
lived.’

Nob thought Jack’s face seemed to harden at the recollection. The Sergeant leaned both elbows on the table and grimaced. ‘She’d been raped, poor lass, and then she’d been
killed – slowly. She was such a beautiful girl, too. I tell you, I’d seen the Armstrongs’ handiwork before that, but I’d never seen anything so . . . so pointlessly
cruel.’

‘Did you never catch any of them?’

‘They all escaped into England and we couldn’t chase them. There were other clans rattling their swords. We sent to warn other towns and villages, but no one saw them again.
I’d thought they’d died – maybe fallen into a bog or died from the cold. Not hard enough as a way to perish, but then nothing would be cruel enough for bastards like
them.’