The Devil's Acolyte

by Michael Jecks

  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 wa
s 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.

  Gerard shivered as he came to the reredorter and walked to the wooden plank with the holes cut out. His bowels had felt loose ever since news of Walwynus’ death had reached his ears. He had never thought, when he succumbed to the temptation of stealing a little bread, that it would come to this. He knew he should confess to Abbot Robert, but his master was such an intimidating man. Someone like the bailiff who knew the abbot only as a businessman or friend wouldn’t see him in the same light, but to Gerard he was the strict interpreter of God’s will, the man who translated His will for the poor fools like Gerard himself who couldn’t comprehend it. Abbot Robert was the supreme master in this, his abbey, and Gerard could no more face standing before him and confessing his crimes than he could before the King.

  If only it had been the wine alone. Gradually, step by step, he had been drawn ever further into crime. Not because he wanted to, but because that evil bastard had forced him to. He could weep now, to think of the coins, the baubles, the little strings of beads, the wine and dried meats… All stolen by his nimble fingers, all gone. He was to blame, and the abbot would exact a severe penalty for his crimes. At the least he would be humiliated, but he might receive a worse punishment. Perhaps he could even be sent to the Scillies, to the islands of St Nicholas, St Sampson, St Eludius, St Theona the Virgin and Nutho. Gerard had never been to the islands, and didn’t want to. To be sent there was the punishment for only the most hardened of conventual criminals. The islands were tiny, with small communities of weather-beaten, uncommunicative men to whom piracy was a way of life whenever fish were scarce.

  He hadn’t wanted to get involved. Life as an acolyte was hard, in a regime like this, and he had occasionally stolen spare food or a little wine, but then he was spotted. Suddenly he had a master, a wheedling fellow who persuaded him to take ‘just one little loaf from the kitchen. Such a little thing.’ And so it was, something which the two could share, and all for a small wager. If he had been discovered, it was no matter. He could have borne the strap on his bared arse. That was nothing – the sort of thing that all boys were used to. After all, a beating was easy: three or four rubs and the pain was gone. Far better to have the strap than to be detained indoors on a warm, summer’s afternoon when the birds were tempting a shot with a sling, or when the dogs were baiting a bull in the shambles.

  Although that was the beginning, it wasn’t the end. If only it had been. The suggestions went from a loaf to loaves. There was nothing to it. Gerard was small, slender-waisted and narrow-shouldered, and could wriggle through the smallest of windows: He found it easy, and it was fun. There was never anything serious about it. Not for him there wasn’t, but soon he was to realise that his exploits were not viewed in the same light by his confederates.

  His enjoyment dimmed when his wheedling master neatly trapped him. He had been stealing to the order of his master, who now insisted that he continue. If he didn’t, at the least he would be exposed; at worst, tortured. But if he complied, he would be safe.

  Gerard had been tempted to go to the abbot and confess everything, but then he realised how weak his position was. Gradually he had taken more and more and his easy manner had begun to fail him. Whenever he saw the abbot’s eye resting upon him, he was convinced he was about to be accused. It seemed so obvious. He became a nervous wreck. And then he had been told to steal the wine.

  It made no sense to him. What was the point? They had no need to steal the better part of a pipe of the abbot’s best wine. It could only bring attention to them. To him. If only he had not succumbed to stealing the bread in the first place, then he would be safe. Perhaps he still could be.

  He would never again steal from the abbey, he promised himself. There was no cure for his soul for the damage he had already done, but at least he could try to atone by not stealing again, and try to make amends for the things he had already taken. That would be best.

  Filled with this resolve, he rose and washed his hands in the trough before making his way out to the frater. This massive block was opposite the abbey church, at the other side of the cloi
ster, and he must walk down the steep stone stairs outside the reredorter and cross a narrow passage between the buildings to reach it.

  At the bottom of the stairs he licked his lips nervously. A fresh thought had occurred to him. If Walwynus was dead, then the man who had killed him might have been motivated by the simple urge to steal whatever Walwynus had, as the majority of the monks suspected. Someone might have seen Wally walking about with a sack on his back on the day of the coining and decided to kill him and take whatever was inside. There were plenty of outlaws even in Devon who would be prepared to murder on the off-chance. And any man who did that would have found themselves in luck, from the quantity of pewter that was in Wally’s sack.

  Then another thought struck him, and Gerard felt his belly gurgling.

  What if Joce had seen them taking the stuff from his house? Maybe he didn’t even need to see them. For all Joce knew, only Wally had any idea where the metal was stored. He could have killed Wally and taken back his stolen metal. Unless Wally had already got rid of it, as he said he would. Then Joce would be discomfited, Gerard thought with a sudden grin.

  But then his expression hardened. If Joce had caught Wally and then learned that his metal was gone, he would be enraged. Perhaps he had tortured Wally before killing him, demanding to know where the metal was, or to learn whether he had a confederate… What if Joce had learned that Gerard himself was involved, that Gerard had aided Wally’s theft of Joce’s stock?

  All of a sudden, the acolyte felt the need to return to the reredorter.

  Chapter Five

  Simon sat at the table comfortably replete. The meal, as usual at Abbot Robert’s board, had been excellent, the wine even better, and the bailiff was aware of a gentle drowsiness stealing over him. Fortunately only one barrel of the special wine had been stolen, as the abbot said, and this, as Simon was happy to agree, was a very good wine indeed.

  As was usual when there was stannary business to discuss, the abbot was entertaining Simon alone. Other guests of the abbey had to make do with the hospitality at the gatehouse, but Simon merited rather better treatment. He and the abbot had enjoyed a good working relationship for many years.