The Devil's Acolyte Read online

  That was why Hamelin had hurried to this desolate place. Cold, wet and grim, he had a loathing for it that bordered on the fanatical. He had come here determined to find a rich lode of tin. From all he had heard in Exeter, it was easy. You walked about until you saw traces of the tin-bearing ore in a riverbed, mid then traced the river back upstream until you found the source. You might have to dig a few times, exploratory little pits designed to see whether you had the main line of the tin, but that was it. It had seemed incredible to Hamelin that everybody didn’t run to the moors to harvest the wealth that lay beneath the soil.

  But after six long years of intensive searching, after wearing through spades, after all but breaking his back moving lumps of moorstone and trying to bale water from pits he was trying to dig, he felt as though it was all in vain. Luckily Hal had taken him under his wing. Apart from Hal’s friendship, the only wealth he had found was Emma. She was the only source of joy in Hamelin’s fife. The children he was fond of, but they were a continuing drain into which all his money was tipped, while Emma, with her smiling round face, was a comfort to him.

  He had met her on one of his journeys to the Stannary town of Tavistock years ago. She had been serving in a pie-shop, and he had bought one pie, and then stayed there for the rest of the day, chatting and teasing her. He had adored her from that moment. It was something he had never thought could happen to him, but she was kind, generous of heart, and made him laugh; and he seemed to make her as happy in return. Soon they betook themselves to a tavern and drank, and that night they fell together on her bed. Within a week they were wedded, with many witnesses watching at the church door.

  That happiness was blessed with children, as the priests liked to say, but Hamelin spat on the idea. Blessed! How could children be thought of as a blessing? They needed food, and that meant money. Hamelin had nothing. The children stared at him with their sunken eyes, their swollen bellies, each time he went to see them, every few weeks, and when he saw his lovely Emma and how wizened she had become, he felt as though his heart would burst. She was broken down with toil, her back bent, her face aged beyond her years. As he took his leave-taking to return to the moors he had grown to detest, she hugged him and kissed him and wept a little, as did he as his feet took him up the steep hill towards Walkhampton, over the common, and on to the Nun’s Cross at the edge of the Great Mire. Yes, he wept too, for the life that he should have been able to offer his wife. If he still had his money, he’d be able to, as well.

  Injustice! That was what tore at him. If he’d not made that damned loan to the bastard who’d fleeced him, he’d be able to support his family. Instead, he was out here, stuck in the middle of this hellhole.

  From his vantage point at the top of Skir Hill, he could look all along the small valley that pointed northwards. His house was a huddle of stones, almost invisible among the clitter, with its thick layer of turf for a roof. It was small and smoky, but at least it was warm in the winter, which was more than other miners’ places. His home was not too bad – but it was this desert all about which appalled him. It was as though he had been convicted of a crime and punished with exile in this hideous land, all alone but for the occasional traveller passing by. If he could only get at his money, he would be safe, but even the lawyers he had spoken to had laughed at the idea of appealing a monk. Who wouldn’t balk at the prospect?

  He felt crushed by the unfairness. Today the sky was a grey blanket that smothered his soul. There was no pleasure here, only despair, he thought.

  A sparkle caught his eye, and he frowned, peering northwestwards. There, on the track that led from Mount Misery towards the Skir Ford, he saw a tiny group of people and carts. Travellers. It was tempting to go and speak to them, but he had work to be getting on with. Perhaps today he would find a rich seam, maybe enough to buy food for his wife and children.

  Or maybe he would find a purse of gold, he thought cynically, and returned to his work.

  Chapter One

  When the messenger found Bailiff Simon Puttock, some few days after Brother Peter’s story-telling, the bailiff and his servant, Hugh, were watching the routine of Tavistock’s coining. Simon was doing so with more than his usual care, after the fiasco of the previous couple of days.

  It was all because of his blasted daughter, he told himself again. She had no consideration for others. Two days ago, when he was due to set off for Tavistock, she had disappeared without telling him or Meg, his wife, where she was going. When he realised that she had been gone most of the morning, he nearly went out of his mind. It was all very well for Meg to point out that she herself had gone for walks with men when she was fourteen and fifteen, as Meg had probably been more mature in nature and outlook even when she was Edith’s age; and in any case, boys today weren’t the same as when Simon was younger. They were less respectful, less well behaved, more likely to ravish a beautiful young girl like his Edith. The little sods.

  As usual when she came back, there had been an almighty row. She couldn’t understand, Edith sulked, why her parents should be so overprotective. She wasn’t a child any more.

  That was when Simon saw red. He bellowed at her and was near to thrashing her for her insubordination and lack of regard for his and her mother’s feelings; if he hadn’t been due to travel here to Tavistock, he would have done just that. He knew his neighbours all believed that women needed a beating now and again, and Simon was a source of amusement for his tolerance, but that day his daughter had gone too far.

  Just when he had wanted to set off early, the arguments and wailing and weeping had held him up, and he gathered up everything in a rush, stuffing it any old how into the bags on his packhorse. His servant helped moodily – for Hugh was always grumpy when there were voices raised against his favourite, little Edith. Simon then gave his wife one last hurried kiss before throwing his leg over his mount and setting off at speed. Hugh desperately hopped along at the side of his own pony, trying to hold it still long enough to clamber atop. After so many years of riding alongside his master, he was less like a sack of sodden oats in the saddle these days, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the experience, and he still eyed horses as nasty, vicious creatures whose only pleasure was to unseat him as soon as possible.

  Simon had been forced to wait while his servant caught up, as Hugh refused to urge his horse on to what he considered a dangerous speed. If they had set off when Simon had intended, they would have had plenty of time, even allowing for Hugh’s slower pace, but as it was, with Edith’s little performance delaying their departure, he hadn’t bothered to check the things he had packed.

  Yes, Simon considered. It was all his daughter’s fault.

  He could remember his mood as he arrived at Tavistock, as black as the clouds in the sky, brooding on the ingratitude of daughters in general and his own in particular, with Hugh scowling bitterly on his own little mount and answering only with a grunt whenever Simon spoke. A tedious, wet and miserable ride it had been.

  However, it was as nothing compared with the grim realisation which struck him that evening before meeting his master, Warden of the Stannaries, Abbot Robert Champeaux. Simon had gone through his belongings once with a general lack of concern, still affected by the scene that morning, but then he had paused and gone through his things more urgently, searching each bag with care for the little felt sack which contained the coinage hammer. It wasn’t there. Racking his brains, Simon vaguely remembered seeing it on top of his bags on his chest in his solar. It must have tumbled off as he snatched everything up.

  If that realisation was terrible, having to go and see the abbot himself was worse. The latter was a cheery fellow, red-faced, with a thin grey circle of hair fringing his bald pate; there was no need for the good Abbot to have his tonsure shaved by the barber every so often. His fair complexion held a tracery of little burst veins, and his nose was mauve, but his voice was as loud and enthusiastic as ever as he welcomed Simon with a heartiness that was entirely unfeigned.

  ‘B
ailiff, come in and sit down. Sorry not to have been here when you first arrived, but I have only just settled back myself. I have been over at Buckfast meeting my brother abbots and talking about the costs of our Benedictine House at Oxford.’

  His eyes left Simon and slid across to the window. When Simon followed his glance, he saw a deer trotting through the trees and slipping down to drink from the river. The abbot was a keen huntsman, and Simon knew that the sight of a deer so near must have been sorely tempting. Abbot Robert’s fingers tapped impatiently on the arm of his chair. ‘We were kept talking for hours about finance, when the whole matter could have been agreed in moments. Why people insist on talking around and around in circles when they could be…’ He gave a slight cough and seemingly reminded himself of his duties. ‘Tell me, how was the journey from Lydford? And how is your lovely wife?’

  All through the casual small talk, Simon was edgy, waiting for the right moment to broach the subject of the hammer. He took the proffered wine, drank deeply, answered his host’s searching questions about prisoners in the gaol and about a boundary dispute between two tin-miners’ claims at Beckamoor Combe, and then, when he saw the abbot’s eyebrow raised in enquiry, he confessed his error.

  ‘You left the hammer at your house! God help us, Bailiff, how could you be so careless!’ The abbot swallowed hard and gave him a long hard stare. ‘This is not the sort of behaviour I expect from you, Simon. You are my most trusted servant. You have failed me, and that is a great sadness to me. I had… But no. Enough.’

  Simon squirmed. He hated making mistakes. Robert Champeaux was a kindly, generous-hearted man, but his years as abbot had not been easy. When he was originally elected in 1285, thirty-seven years before, he had found the Abbey finances in a disastrous state and had been forced to borrow two hundred pounds, but since then he had, through careful management and scrupulous care, been able to rebuild file monastery’s fortunes. Lands which had been lost were now regained, at Ogbear and West Liddaton; he had marvellously improved the farming and taken up new fisheries; while by his purchase of the wardenship of the stannaries he had brought in still more money which he had spent helping to found a house at Oxford in which Benedictines could study, and building the new church here in Tavistock. And even after doing all that, Simon knew that Abbot Robert had been able to save plenty. His abbey had grown to be one of the wealthiest in Devonshire.

  Robert Champeaux was not the sort of man to leave a vital tool behind. Nor could he understand how someone else could. It was not mere anger that darkened his brow as he stared at Simon, but genuine incomprehension.

  Although the abbot wasn’t avaricious for his own purse, Simon knew he wanted to leave Tavistock on a sound financial footing. Stupidity like this could endanger his legacy – and that was why he was intolerant of such lapses.

  ‘You had?’ Simon prompted him automatically. ‘You said, “I had”?’

  ‘Nothing. I shall have to consider. You have many duties already. Such as, sending a messenger to fetch the hammer before the coining,’ Abbot Robert said pointedly.

  That was two days ago. Simon had ridden back yesterday with his servant as a foul-tempered companion. At his house he found Meg instructing two of their manservants in redecorating their little solar. She loved their house, and had recently had a new wall of timber panels installed to separate off a little store-area from their parlour. Now she was having the walls whitewashed and the wood limed in preparation for the likenesses of saints to be painted on them.

  ‘I thought Saint Rumon here and Saint Boniface there,’ she said. ‘To remind us of Tavistock, where you have been so fortunate and Crediton where we were so happy.’

  The sight of her smiling face made him pause and stand in the doorway for a long moment.

  Before moving here they had owned their own farm outside Sandford, near Crediton, where they had been content, and afterwards, when they had lived a short time in quarters at Lydford Castle itself, neither had been happy. The grim stone block was cold and hideously uncomfortable, not at all like their old home, and because of her unhappiness Simon had searched for somewhere else. Soon he found this little cottage with the enclosed garden and ample room for themselves; and their servants. Although Meg had been pleased with their place near Sandford, this one had attracted her from the first moment she saw it. Perhaps it was a reaction against the castle, or maybe it was her joy at giving birth to their first son Peterkin, who later died, to their joint despair, for she had begun to plan for the improvement of it as soon as she had arisen from her bed.

  Seeing him, she had fussily hurried the two men from the place, and then stood before him smiling. ‘You wanted this?’

  He took the hammer from her.

  ‘I found it this morning as soon as the men moved the chest to paint the wall,’ she chuckled. ‘Will you be in trouble?’

  ‘Not if I get it back for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If it’s late I could be fined. The last man forgot it once, I think, and he was fined three shillings.’

  The smile was wiped from Meg’s face at the thought of so much money being taken. ‘That’s terrible. Surely Abbot Robert wouldn’t do that to you?’

  ‘Forgetting it could have led to three hundred miners milling about in Tavistock, all demanding that their metal should be coined, all drinking steadily until they were of a mood to riot,’ he said drily. ‘You haven’t seen the damage that ten happy miners can wreak after a few quarts of ale, so you can’t imagine a hundred angry miners on the rampage after a couple of gallons each. It doesn’t bear thinking about! So yes, the abbot will fleece me as best he might if I don’t get this to Tavistock quickly.’

  ‘You must have been very distressed,’ she murmured, putting her arms about him.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And now you have to leave again. So sad.’

  She had turned her head from him, so that her cheek was against his breast, and he could smell the lavender in her hair. He stroked it, kissed her head and let his hands wander down her back to her waist. A shiver ran through her body, and then she stood back and slowly began to undress. ‘You don’t have to leave immediately, do you?’

  It was while he was giving himself up to a pleasantly erotic recollection of the occasion, that the procession arrived.

  There was a sudden quietness among the bearded, scruffily dressed miners. Up until then Simon had been aware of the rumble of low voices and the clatter of pots and trenchers as the girls from the local alehouse filled pots and served pastries. Not now. Suddenly the marketplace was silent, and when he looked up, he saw the steward’s men roping off the centre, the crowds being pushed back by servants.

  When a space was cleared, the King’s beam was brought out and adjusted, the controller and weigher carefully checking the machine with their standard weights, which were solemnly unsealed from their box while the whole crowd watched intently, witnessing the fact that there could be no cheating here. It was in the interests of the miners that the metal should be fairly weighed. All were to be taxed against the measured weight of the tin that they had brought, and until the miner paid the tax on his ingot, he could not sell the metal.

  When all was prepared, the assay-master sat at his small anvil, his hammer and chisels ready, while the other officials took their seats facing the beam where they could have a clear view.

  The receiver, a short, dark-haired man with the face and belly of a glutton, stood and called the crowd to witness the coining, and porters began bringing up the marked ingots of tin. Some were well-formed, neat rectangles of metal, but many were rougher, marked by their moorstone moulds’ irregularities. These heavy blocks of one or two hundred-weight were placed on the scales and the true weight was shouted out and noted by the three clerks to the officials. Each ingot had the mark of the owner stamped upon it, and the name was called out at the same time, checked with the register held by the receiver.

  Simon knew of him. He was called Joce Blakemoor, a local burgess, and Simon had never liked him. He s
eemed too smooth for the Bailiff’s taste.

  The assay-master, a slim, wiry man with the dark hair and features of a local, was chiselling chips from the first of the ingots and seeing that the metal was of the right quality. In front of him was a grim-faced miner with a filthy leather jerkin over a patched linen shirt, so heavily stained that it looked like worn leather. His lower face was hidden entirely by a thick, grey-speckled beard, and his head was covered by a hood, which gave him the appearance of peering out shortsightedly, rather like a suspicious snail. He watched the assay-master with a keenness that told Simon he must be the owner of the tin, hoping against hope that his coinage wouldn’t be too expensive. Simon knew the man. It was old Hal Raddych.

  There were many witnesses, from miners, to locals, to several strangers who Simon thought must be pewterers and agents. People from all over the country wanted tin.

  One in particular caught his eye – a tall, well-made man with oddly-cut clothes. He was no local, Simon was sure. When a red-headed youth in a Benedictine novice’s garb bumped into him, he swore, but not in English or French. The youngster was profusely apologetic, and the man smiled and nodded.

  Simon was leaning against a pillar and viewing things, his servant scowling ferociously at all about, for Hugh detested crowds, daring any cutpurse to try his luck, when the messenger reached them; it was to the noise of the stamps hammering the King’s arms into the ingot that Simon received his summons.

  ‘I must go to the abbot now!’ he repeated, bellowing over the din, and as he spoke the noise suddenly stopped. By coincidence, the assaying of one ingot was complete, and the bill of weight charged against Hal Raddych was being scrawled on the bill sheet. Once the tax was paid, the tinner could sell his metal, so there was a short period of expectation while the interested merchants and pewterers’ agents witnessed the bill being signed, and it was into this void that Simon’s voice roared.