The Devil's Acolyte aktm-13 Read online

  She saw his movement, and for a moment he saw naked fear in her eyes. It was fleeting, but he hadn’t missed it, and although he smiled up at her and questioningly held out his cup to be refilled, he saw that he hadn’t eased her anxiety. Her eyes went back to Baldwin with a kind of nervous exhilaration, as though fearful of what she might hear.

  The Swiss picked up his cup of wine and took a good drink, glancing at Anna as he did so. She was all but petrified, and he smiled at her reassuringly, pleased to see that she appeared to be soothed by his easy confidence.

  Baldwin stared up at the hills. ‘You know, I never visited the Forest Cantons. I hear that they are beautiful.’

  Simon added, ‘And I have heard that the metalwork is excellent.’

  Rudolf felt his stomach lurch. Behind him he heard a slithering noise, and he turned to scowl at Henry. His son shamefacedly allowed the bow to uncock, setting it aside. Turning back to face Simon, Rudolf stared at him coolly. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Nothing. I was only passing a comment. You have many pewterers in your country?’

  ‘Some.’ Rudolf was watching his face closely, wondering whether this was the face of a man who sought to destroy him, or whether he was a man who could be trusted. It was so hard to gauge. Some men who looked honourable were devious, lying fools who would kill you just to see how long you took to die, and would cut your fingers off because it was easier than pulling rings from them.

  The shorter knight he didn’t like the look of. That man had dark features and black eyes like gleaming flint. The second knight had a face which had seen much misery, with lines of pain etched deeply into his forehead and at the side of his mouth. He and the Bailiff both looked like men who could be trusted, he thought.

  Simon knew Baldwin was staring at him, but he refused to return the look. His eyes were fixed upon the Swiss, while his ears strained to pick up any signs of nervousness from the woman. ‘I heard you were a pewterer yourself.’

  Rudolf lifted a hand and glanced over his shoulder, but the bows were unstrung. There was no need to worry about the hotter-headed fellows. He kept his hand in the air, beckoning his wife, and she walked to him and took it, grasping it firmly, like a drowning woman grabbing at a spar. ‘And what else have you heard of me, Master Bailiff?’

  As soon as Peter had heard that dismal cry, the terrible anguished shriek of the widow, he felt his heart dissolve and a huge emptiness open up inside him.

  ‘Woman, who is dead? Who is it?’ he cried as he ran to her.

  He was not the first to arrive at her side. Before him was a decrepit watchman, who stood helplessly wringing his hands. Peter grabbed her hands and kept them still, trying to impose his stolid calmness upon her. He stared into her maddened eyes and spoke soothingly. ‘Come now, woman. You know me, don’t you – hey? You know who I am. I’m Peter the Almoner. Now what’s all this about a murder? Who’s dead? Where is he?’

  ‘Help us! He’s in the alley! He only came home last night, and now he’s dead! In the alley, outside our door!’

  Men were gathering about her, fingering their weapons, wondering whether they should be chasing after a murderer, and if so, whom they should seek. Peter shoved his way through them all, hurrying back along the alley from which she had come.

  It was a noisome little place. Not much more than a couple of yards wide at the entrance, but with extended buildings reaching out overhead, some all but touching, and shutting out the sun so effectively that he felt as though he was swimming through an almost impenetrable murk.

  He knew which was Emma and Hamelin’s house. If he didn’t, he soon would have, from the sounds of wailing children.

  It was a tatty building, with the plaster falling from the walls and the lathes exposed. In the winter there would be terrible draughts whistling through, Peter thought absently. It said little for the couple that they hadn’t done the same as so many other peasants, and made a thick, sticky paste from the glutinous earth that lay all around to patch the wall to shut out the winds. But Hamelin was a miner, he remembered, so he probably rarely had time, while his wife was permanently exhausted from raising and feeding her brood.

  Some of them were outside now, and as Peter approached, one young lad turned his head to him. With a shock of horror, Peter realised that the darkness about the fellow’s face was not the darkness of the alley, but was blood, great red streaks down both cheeks. His hands and fingers were covered in it, and he had transferred the blood to his face as he wailed.

  At his feet was a mess of broken shards of pottery. At first that was all Peter could see, but then he realised that there were feet protruding into the alley, and he felt his heart sink further. He approached, making the Sign of the Cross as he squatted beside the body.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Nob had followed the noise and now stood at his side, shaking his head.

  ‘I think it is that poor girl’s husband,’ Peter said.

  ‘Hamelin? Could be, I suppose. Christ Jesus, what a mess! He has been stabbed, hasn’t he?’

  Peter hardly heard him. He was considering the man’s position. ‘He was dragged here and thrown on top of this pile of rubbish. Why should a man pick up another and throw him atop a midden? It would seem a strange way to treat a body.’

  ‘Hey, you looking for sense in a murderer? Come on, Brother. There’s no point in that. Look for sense in a tavern full of drunks more like!’

  Peter glanced at him, and his expression made Nob silent in a moment. ‘This man has been murdered, Cook. Take those children away and see to them, and tell someone to advise the Abbot. And in the meantime, stop your idle chatter!’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘I have heard much about you,’ Simon said. He avoided the eyes of Baldwin and Coroner Roger, but instead leaned forward, holding Rudolf’s gaze. ‘I think you paid Wally money for a sack at an inn in Tavistock, but you have broken no laws. The trouble is, you are fearful of being accused of his murder because he died soon after you saw him – especially since you took his sack from him.’

  Rudolf could feel Anna’s fingers tighten about his own hand, but he didn’t look up at her. She was reminding him that they had the two secrets to preserve now: there was the boy as well. Rudolf ignored her. He was measuring Simon, staring deeply into his eyes and gauging whether or not he could truly trust him. ‘It is easy to arrest a foreigner and convict him of crimes he knows nothing about,’ he said at last.

  ‘It is as easy to accuse a man wrongly as it is to allow an evil man to go free,’ Simon countered. ‘All it takes is for the innocent to hide the truth, for the innocent to be accused and the guilty to walk free. What would you do, friend? See the innocent hang, or see the guilty caught and made to pay?’

  ‘Make the bastards pay!’

  Simon grinned. ‘We have no wish to see the innocent suffer, but we are all King’s men. We have to try to catch the guilty. Would you help us?’

  ‘What is all this?’ Coroner Roger asked silkily. ‘I have heard what you’ve said, Bailiff, but I confess, I am confused. You talk of pewterers and money, but this man tells us he is a mere actor and entertainer. Which is true?’

  Simon smiled, but maintained his eye contact with Rudolf. ‘Friend, we do not want the wrong man, but to catch the right one we need to know the truth. How could we persuade a man to tell us the truth?’

  Rudolf gave a deep sigh, then motioned to his wife to fetch more wine. ‘I met the dead man in an alley in Tavistock,’ he began, and Simon knew he was hearing the truth. ‘He was jumping from a window in a big house with limed woodwork and a blue painted shield above the doorway. In his hand was a sack, filled with metal. I caught his accomplice, but he was a monk. In my surprise, he escaped. When I captured the other man, people saw us together, and I had my knife out. I made sure he couldn’t run away, but he persuaded me to take him to a tavern and let him explain. It seemed a reasonable idea at the time. This man Walwynus told me that the plate had been stolen from others, and that if it we
re left in the house from which they’d taken it, it would be sold to the thief’s profit. He and the monk thought it better that the metal should be ‘rescued’, and so they took it. That was when I came across them. Then he told me that I could have the metal if I wanted, and he named a price which seemed to me to be ridiculous. So! I bought it and gave him coin in exchange.

  ‘I went back up to the moors with the sack. Next morning, Walwynus caught up with me and asked me to return the pewter. I refused, for a bargain is a bargain, but he swore at me and said that he would pay me more than the pewter was worth if I would only give it back. I refused again, for I wanted it. That was when he drew his dagger and made ready to attack me. I pulled my own knife out, and when he lunged at me, I stabbed at his knife hand. I caught him, and his hand lost some fingers. He stopped fighting, and started weeping. I left him. The pewter is in the back of my wagon. If you want it, you can buy it back.’

  Baldwin had sat staring a while, and now he blinked in astonishment. He shot a glance at Simon, who sat nodding knowingly. ‘This pewter… may we have a look at it?’

  Simon said, ‘I doubt whether that is necessary, Baldwin. No innocent burgher has reported the theft as yet. Any man who had all this plate stolen would notice immediately – unless it was already concealed. Concealed because it was stolen! This is all from the Abbey – that’s the point. Maybe Walwynus thought he was stealing some pewter from a wealthy man’s house, but he didn’t realise that it was all originally taken from the church. And as soon as he learned that, he hurried here to persuade Rudolf to give it back. He failed, so he tried to take it by force, but Wally was undernourished and slow, while Rudolf here was quick and assured. So Rudolf won and Wally lost his fingers.’

  ‘It was out by the cross just west of here,’ Rudolf confirmed. ‘The westernmost of the three. He fell when I had struck his fingers from his hand, and he collapsed beside the stone cross. I saw him stand, his hand resting on the cross itself to help himself up. I felt sorry for him.’

  ‘He left his blood there,’ Simon said.

  ‘There were no fingers,’ Baldwin observed.

  The Coroner muttered, ‘There are enough scavenging animals here to take them. Magpies, crows, buzzards…’

  Simon nodded. ‘Why did you fear to speak to us, Rudolf?’

  ‘I had been seen drawing my knife against him in the town, and then again out by the rock. It seemed natural to me to think that I would be viewed as the man’s murderer when I heard that he had died.’

  ‘Who saw you out by the cross?’ Simon asked.

  ‘It was a monk. I don’t know his name, he was just a man standing there with the cowl and habit. Oh, and he carried a stick.’

  ‘So! I suppose you’d defend this man’s murderer as well, would you?’ Sir Tristram sneered.

  Peter hadn’t heard him walk up behind him, and now he turned, his lips still moving as he spoke the words of the viaticum. He refused to rise to the bait, and continued through the office until he had completed the prayers, and only then did he stand and confront Sir Tristram. ‘Well? Are you so offended that I should serve another?’

  ‘You! You serve your own ends at all times, don’t you? Scotch-lover!’

  Peter felt his scar pull as he smiled. ‘You never understood how our faith demands that we should protect and serve even our enemies, did you?’

  ‘The Bailiff told me that there was a monk here from Tynemouth. At the time it never occurred to me that it could be you! I thought you were dead long ago.’

  ‘You would have preferred it. If you had swung this blow…’

  ‘I would not have missed your scrawny neck, monk.’

  ‘You have never forgiven me, have you? All I did was help a brother monk to save a man’s life.’

  ‘He was a Scots raider. You are lucky you weren’t found with him. If I’d found you, you’d have died.’

  ‘My woman found him,’ Peter said. He could remember her racing towards him, her braids flying in the wind, panic in her face. His friend and he had hurried to the man’s body. When he tried to turn his memory to her, he found himself seeing her broken body – although he had not seen it. She was buried while he lay near to death.

  ‘More evil. You are supposed to be chaste, yet you lived with your concubine.’

  ‘She was a good woman,’ Peter said defensively.

  ‘She was a Scottish whore.’

  Peter’s anger flickered, but there was little energy to fan the flames. Not after so many years. ‘It was wrong. Yet it is also wrong to label her that way. She was an honourable girl.’

  ‘Honourable? Perhaps the slatterns in the alehouses are honourable, then. And what did the man you saved do, hey? He took her for himself, didn’t he? He took her and raped her and killed her. All because you saved him. You would deal with the enemy.’

  ‘She was no man’s enemy. She was a woman caught up in a stupid, irrational war of greed,’ Peter flared.

  ‘And she persuaded you to forswear your oath, Brother. You screwed her, didn’t you? And that makes you an oathbreaker.’

  Peter looked away, his anger dissipating, trying to call her face to memory again. Somehow her smile was what came to him, and he thought of the girl in the tavern who had reminded him of her. With a flash of insight, he realised why Wally would have gone to that tavern, why he had tried to secure her for himself before he had any money. It was surely because he remembered that girl, high up on the Scottish moors in among the heather, Peter’s Agnes.

  She had been a beautiful girl. Strong in the body, with long legs and powerful thighs, dark hair to her shoulders, a slim figure and small, high breasts. She was always laughing, although whether at herself or at him was difficult to tell. More often than not, Peter was sure her laughter was aimed at him. It was no surprise. Now he looked back on himself, he could see how stuffy he must have seemed. Agnes had lived for the moment, uncaring about what the next day might bring, while he was anxious every moment that he would behave as God would expect. His entire being was focused on the life after this – she was content that the present moment was pleasing, to her and to those whom she loved. It was that attitude, more than anything, which had made him adore her.

  Walwynus loved her too, of course. Probably because she was such a good nurse to him. She had fed him with wine and bread while he suffered from his fever, and then helped him to take his first tottering steps when the wound was almost healed. It was only natural that Walwynus should love her. He had wanted her, but she refused him. Not that her refusal had stopped Wally. When he was well, he had left, but then the bastard repaid her kindness and Peter’s by returning. While Peter was lying wounded and waiting for death, Walwynus had gone and raped her, or led his friends to her, so that they all had a share in her murder.

  There was no law in the Marches. That was the first thing that a man realised as soon as he was old enough. No one lived there apart from the peasants and a number of poor devils who were tied to the place, like the monks. Everyone else left as soon as they could.

  Peter shook his head sadly. She was long dead now. And Walwynus had died too.

  ‘If she made me break my oath, so be it. It was many years ago.’

  Sir Tristram spat into the dirt, sneering, ‘You blaspheme now! You think you can swear to God and then discard the oaths you choose? Which other oaths have you broken, monk?’ Then his eyes hardened and there was a cruel glitter in them. ‘What now, eh? Have you another little goose here? I suppose a lusty man like you would find it hard to live without your piece of skirt, wouldn’t you? I wonder which you have now. Perhaps the Abbot would like to know, too. Now there’s a thought. I wonder if he knows of your woman in Scotland?’

  There was no need for Peter to answer. Sir Tristram’s smile showed that he could see Peter hadn’t told the Abbot.

  ‘So I wonder what the good Abbot would think of you, if he knew you had kept a whore, Brother?’

  Nob had listened to their talk with increasing annoyance. Now he
pushed the monk gently out of the way and stared up into the knight’s face. ‘Before that, what do you know about “Red Hand”? Was he an Armstrong?’

  Peter glanced at him in surprise. ‘Why? How did you hear of him?’

  ‘He was the murdering bastard nearly killed this monk and then slaughtered his woman,’ Sir Tristram said shortly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Your Sergeant there reckons he saw this man in the crowd today,’ Nob said.

  ‘Sweet Jesus! He can’t be here!’ Sir Tristram said, looking about him as though expecting one of the crowd to confess to being the outlaw.

  ‘Did you ever see him?’ Peter asked sharply.

  ‘I don’t think so, no. Jack did, but only once. No,’ the knight said, ‘he must have been wrong. The man couldn’t have got so far down south.’

  ‘Wally did, and so did Martyn Armstrong,’ Peter reminded him. ‘Whom did this Jack accuse, Nob?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nob lied, glancing at Peter. He wasn’t going to accuse a man for no reason. Especially before Sir Tristram. Nob didn’t like the Arrayer. ‘Someone in the crowd.’

  ‘He must have been mistaken. Where is he?’ Sir Tristram demanded, and when Nob told him, he hurried away.

  ‘What do you think, Brother?’

  ‘The Sergeant must have been mistaken. Perhaps I hit him too hard!’ Peter was still gazing along the alley after the knight.

  Nob nodded. ‘Ah well, that’s a relief.’

  Something in his tone caught Peter’s attention. ‘Why?’

  ‘The man that Sergeant accused: it was the Receiver, Joce Blakemoor.’

  ‘Joce!’ Peter hissed. He stared at Nob a moment, then slowly turned and made his way back to the Abbey.

  He felt his wound flashing with pain as though he had been struck again. All those years ago he had been hit by a man, and he hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of a figure, no face. It could have been anyone who swung the axe.

  Wally had come here with Armstrong. Peter had thought that there was a curious coincidence in their arriving here, but perhaps a companion of theirs had advised them to return with him to his old home? Perhaps Joce had told his comrades that if they wanted to be safe, all they need do was pass south with him and declare themselves miners. Thus they would become the King’s men and be secure from capture.