The Devil's Acolyte (2002)

by Jecks, Michael

  A merry fellow with gleaming blue eyes and a ginger beard, he was dressed carelessly, in a short tunic that was marked by a thousand fatty explosions, while his arms were protected by his torn and frayed shirt. Through the rope that encircled his belly had been thrust a cloth to serve as an apron, ‘and to protect me cods!’ as he often happily declared.

  Cissy called, ‘All right, all right, you old fool. I won’t be long,’ and returned to chatting with Sara.

  Nob could see her talking, but he let her continue. Cissy attracted women who needed advice like a candle-flame attracted moths. Yesterday it had been Emma, and now apparently Sara wanted help.

  Sara was always seeking the friendship of one man or another now she was widowed, and Nob had no doubt that his wife was offering some friendly and probably long overdue advice on how to disentangle herself from her latest admirers. There was always more than one, which was no surprise when a man considered her long, lithe body, slim haunches, tiny waist and swelling breasts. And all that, as Nob told himself, under a fair halo of strawberry-golden hair, slanted, humorous green eyes and those succulent lips, bright and red and soft as rose petals. Bloody good-looking, she was.

  Cissy was going to be with her for a while, from the look of things, so Nob pulled the pies from the heat himself and set them on a large wooden tray to cool, taking them to the trestle.

  ‘Now then, lass,’ he called out. ‘Is it more talk about men or not?’

  ‘Shut up, Nob. If you want to be useful, fetch us a jug of water,’ Cissy snapped curtly.

  Nothing loath, for at the side of the water barrel was a second one filled with ale, Nob hitched up his rope, sniffed, and walked out.

  ‘Nob!’

  He poked his head around the doorway. ‘Yes, my little turtle dove?’

  ‘Enough of your smatter. And don’t empty the ale barrel while you’re there.’

  Grunting, he tugged at his rope belt again. Since Cissy had already turned her back to him, the effect was somewhat lost, but he cocked an eye at Sara. ‘Eh, Sara? How comes you always have all these fellows drooling over you, eh? Tell ’em you’re mine, girl, and they’ll leave you alone. None of ’em would mix wi’ me, lass.’

  Sara gave him a weak smile, and he winked and grinned before walking out to his barrel, reflecting that she appeared more upset than she usually did when she was suffering from man trouble.

  Sitting with his large pottery drinking horn in his hand, he wiped the sweat from his brow and upper lip, then the back of his hair, using his cloth. Draping it over his shoulders, he sat back.

  It was a long day’s work, cooking. Up before dawn to light the first of the fires, then mix the flour and water to make the paste, and leaving it to rest a while before rolling out the little pastry coffins and filling them. Some liked plain meats – beef, pork, chicken, lark or thrush; others liked thick gravies or jellies. He always had half a calf’s head and offal boiling in one pot ready to make gravy, while the animal’s hooves were simmering in another for the jelly. No matter, Nob liked his work, and with the profit of the coining last week, he and Cissy had made enough money to be able to survive through to the big coining in the late autumn. That would be the last for a while, and the money he saved from now, together with the profit from the next, would have to keep them going through the winter.

  Not, he thought with a contented belch, that he had much to worry about. The wood for the winter was stored. Their last pair of pigs were ready to be slaughtered and salted down, and the chickens which had stopped producing enough eggs had already been marked off in his mind. There was enough for them this winter. Thank God, he thought, virtuously crossing himself and glancing upwards, the harvest was better this year. The last few summers had not been good. No one had starved, but the cost of food was still too high.

  Finishing his ale, he filled a cup with water and, as an afterthought, picked up a second cup and pitcher of cheap wine. Poor Sara looked as though she could do with a drink.

  But Sara was already gone when he re-entered his hall.

  ‘Trouble again, with that girl?’ he asked.

  ‘When isn’t she in trouble?’ Cissy said gloomily.

  Nob nodded, waiting.

  There were no customers in the shop to listen at the moment, so Cissy continued, ‘She thinks she’s got a babby on the way.’

  ‘How many will that be?’

  ‘You know. There’s Rannulf, Kate, Will, and now she reckons she’s going to have another. Missed her time this month and last. She’s beside herself, poor maid, because her man’s been dead two years and more, so people will know, and then what will happen?’

  ‘Who’s the father?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say. Someone who isn’t married, she said, but that’s no matter, is it? She thought he was going to offer to marry her, she said, but after he bedded her one last time, he turfed her out and laughed at the idea. His promise was nothing and there were no witnesses. Three kids already, and now this one,’ Cissy sighed. ‘She’s one of those who takes a compliment like it’s got to be paid for. Tell her that her hair looks nice, and she’ll ask whether you want her bed or your own.’

  ‘Never asked me,’ Nob said innocently.

  ‘Nob, the day you notice someone’s hair is the day I’ll become a nun,’ she said scathingly as she walked to wipe crumbs from the table in front of her.

  Nob returned to his oven, taking a shovel and throwing fresh charcoal inside. He reached in with a long rake to pull the remaining old coals to join the fresh pile, and used his bellows to heat the lot to a healthy red glow. Once it had been in the oven’s centre for a while, he would rake the coals aside again and thrust fresh pies on to the hot oven floor.

  Sara was a pretty girl, but she had her brain firmly planted between her legs, in Nob’s opinion. She’d been married to a young poulterer, but he’d died, falling into a well after a few too many ales one night, and she’d had nothing left, other than two of his children and a growing belly. With no money, she’d been forced to sell up and depend on the charitable instincts of her brother Ellis, her neighbours, and the parish. That was when she first started talking to Cissy.

  Cissy was known by all the young women in the town to be possessed of a friendly and unjudgemental ear. Girls could, and did, walk miles to tell Cissy their woes, knowing that she wouldn’t usually offer advice, but would listen understandingly and give them a hug if they needed it.

  Nob knew that Sara had received many of Cissy’s hugs. The trouble was, although she knew she was foolish to keep allowing men into her bed, she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘She’s being called harlot,’ Cissy said thoughtfully, shaking her head and, a rare occurrence this, poured a goodly measure of wine into her cup, ignoring the water.

  ‘She’ll be all right, love,’ Nob said.

  ‘Don’t be so foolish. Haven’t you got pies to make?’

  Nob grinned to himself. Cissy was on her usual fettle. He sauntered back to the ovens and began making fresh coffins, rolling out a little pastry, spooning his meats onto the middle, and putting the coffin’s lid atop. A few minutes passed, and then he saw her hand deposit another hornful of ale at his side. He smiled his thanks. After last night, he didn’t feel that he needed much ale; water would have been more to his taste, but he wouldn’t turn down anything today, not after keeping her awake all night. That was the trouble with going out and drinking. The bladder couldn’t cope as well as once it had, and then he farted and snored too, making Cissy sharp with him in the morning just when he needed a little comfort. And if he sought a little comfort when he got home from the tavern, he would soon learn that she wasn’t in the mood.

  The thought made him feel a little better, and he was just grabbing her experimentally about the waist when a man called out from the shop.

  ‘I want a meat pie. You know my sort.’

  Nob glanced over his shoulder. ‘Morning, Master Joce.’

  ‘Cook,’ Joce said, nodding. It was the nearest the town’s
Receiver would come to acknowledging the baker.

  Pulling his apron from his shoulder, Nob hooked it back under his rope belt and turned to see to his fire. He must pump with his bellows to make the coals glow again, and then he scraped them all away, to the left-hand side of the oven’s opening, near the entrance, where their heat would rise and sear the top of the pies. Grabbing his long-handled peel, he loaded it with uncooked pies and thrust them far inside, reloading the peel again and again until he had all but filled the oven. Only then did he set the peel down and rub his hands.

  ‘Thirsty work, that,’ he observed.

  ‘Will it be long?’ Joce asked sharply.

  ‘Sorry it’s not ready yet, Master. It’ll not be very long. Do you want an ale while you wait?’

  ‘No, I shall sit outside. Call me when it is ready.’

  Cissy was watching Joce Blakemoor as he stalked from the room.

  ‘What’s the matter with him today?’ Nob said. ‘He’s usually more polite than that.’

  ‘Anyone would think he had something on his mind,’ Cissy said.

  ‘Hah! I think he probably does.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘Come on! You know something. What?’

  ‘There was talk in the alehouse last night, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh! You men are worse gossips than all the women in the town. What did they say?’

  ‘Joce is the town’s Receiver, isn’t he?’

  ‘You know he is. So what?’

  Nob scratched at a blister on his wrist. A globule of fat had hit him there two days ago and it itched like the devil. ‘So he’s the Receiver, and he has to take in all the fines and so on, keep the accounts and pay over what is owed to the Abbey at the end of his term. Well, what if his hand got a bit close to the purses, and a little dribbled into his fingers? And once a little dribbled into his greasy mitts, he chose to take a bit more. What then, eh?’

  ‘Rubbish! Joce Blakemoor a thief? You’ve been drinking too much ale for breakfast.’

  ‘You can sneer if you like, but I know what I’ve heard,’ Nob said smugly.

  ‘And what have you heard, Husband?’

  ‘Joce hasn’t submitted the accounts for the last couple of years. Why should he do that, unless he’s fiddled them?’

  ‘Just because he’s bad with paperwork doesn’t mean he’s stolen from the Stannary, does it? Christ’s Balls, you’ve got nothing better than moorstone between your ears, you!’

  ‘Oh, really? Then why doesn’t he just ask the Abbot for the loan of a decent clerk, then?’

  ‘Nob, you great dollop, the man probably didn’t want his friends and other burgesses thinking he was as stupid as you! What if the gossip starts? Soon he couldn’t get credit with the traders in the town. He’d never be able to get food, would he?’

  Nob was silent, staring at her with wide eyes. She returned his gaze with sudden sharpness, and both glanced at the door.

  ‘I’ll ask him for cash,’ Cissy promised, folding her arms over her immense breasts like an alewife blocking her door after throwing an alcoholically rebellious customer into the street. Yet while she stood there, she wondered. There was one thing that Sara hadn’t told her, and that was the name of the man who had got her pregnant. Usually if a woman was in her position, she would tell all if the man refused to support her, and Cissy had expected to have the man’s identity shared with her, but Sara had remained coy. Perhaps she still hoped he would look after her and the child; not that he was likely to, Cissy told herself. These men never did. They gave their lovers as much soft soap as they thought the girls needed, and then they ran like the devil.

  Next time she saw Sara she’d ask his name. Not from nosiness; she wanted to know if he was preparing to try it on with another girl. Cissy wouldn’t have him doing that if she could stop him.

  Simon had been woken a little after dawn by a small and nervous-looking servant. He hated waking in a strange bed, and he much preferred to come to life with the gentle insistence of his wife Meg than with his shoulder being prodded by a pimple-faced youth whose fore-teeth had fallen in or been punched out. Probably the latter, he thought uncharitably as the boy hurriedly withdrew.

  There was no sweet wakening here. No gentle kisses or soft, teasing caresses from his wife. Instead, as he yawned and stretched, he was reminded that he was in a room filled with strangers. There was the reek of armpits, of unclean teeth and rotten gums, of feet that craved cleaning with a sandstone rather than with water, and the foul odour of sulphurous bowel gas.

  ‘Someone needs a physician. He’s got a dead rat up his arse,’ he muttered as he climbed from his bed and searched for his clothes on the floor, scratching at an itch on his lower belly and wondering whether it was a flea. If so, it could have come from the bed – or from the man with whom he had shared it last night. Hugh would still be asleep in the stables, where he could keep an eye on the horses. Simon had sent him there before going to the Abbot when he saw how many were making use of the Abbot’s hospitality, for there were never any guarantees that a mount was safe when there was a thief about, but it was an irritation that Simon must seek his own clothing rather than have it presented to him as usual.

  He glanced down at the man who had been his bedmate. The fellow still slept easily, lying on his back, a calm smile on his roundish face, his mouth slightly open to display one chipped incisor. On his chin was a dark stubble, while his brown hair had an odd reddish tinge at his temples that gave him a slightly distinguished look. He didn’t look or smell like the sort of man who would harbour fleas, Simon acknowledged. At his side of the bed was a richly-scabbarded but well-used riding sword of the sort that knights would wear on a journey, light enough not to be uncomfortable over a distance, but still strongly built and balanced as a good weapon.

  The others in the room were a less distinguished group. Those who had visited for the coining were gone, and they had been replaced by men who, from the look of them, were of a lower general order: traders of all types, one young friar who had craved a bed for a night, two pewterers who had come for the coining and were enjoying a break before returning, and a man who had a rascally dark head of hair and a scar on his breast, together with the swarthy features of one who has spent many days in the sun and rain.

  If any of them were a recruiting officer, Simon thought, it was surely him. He would take money from one man to avoid putting his name on a list, and would replace it with another fellow’s name, no matter that the second was broken-winded, half-blind, a drunkard and had only one arm. Money mattered, nothing else, and an Arrayer, a recruiting officer, would be paid a bounty for all the men he took on irrespective of quality.

  With this sombre thought, Simon walked out and sought the services of the barber. The rain had stopped only a short while before, and the air was scented with fresh, earthy odours. It smelled as if the whole town had been washed. As Simon avoided the puddles, the sun came out, with enough strength to give him the hope that the day would remain dry.

  The gatekeeper told him that the barber whom the Abbey used was called Ellis; he could be found two streets away. Simon located him in a small room near a cookshop, just behind a brewery. A brazier of glowing coals made the room unpleasantly hot, and a pot of water was boiling on top, with towels dangling. A pair of long-handled wooden tongs stood in it, jumping as the water bubbled below the cloth, threatening to push the tongs out every few minutes, as though a wild animal was trapped beneath.

  Ellis the barber was a wiry man with green eyes and almost black hair. His oval face, which lit up with an easy smile as he saw Simon, instilled a measure of confidence, but more crucial than that, to the Bailiff’s mind, was the fact that monks were keen on their own comfort. A barber who nicked the abbatial chins was likely to find himself unemployed right speedily.

  ‘Aha! My Lord, how can I help you?’

  ‘I was told that you serve the needs of the Abbey?’

  ‘That is right, m
y Lord. I usually get there a little later in the day, though.’

  ‘Good. I need my beard shaved. Have you razors?’

  ‘Master, I have everything,’ the man declared, arms held wide. ‘Whatever you need, I, Ellis of Dartmouth, have it. Please sit here on my stool.’

  So saying, he pulled the three-legged seat out to the doorway where the light was better, and darted about gathering his tools. A long strip of leather he hung from a hook set into the doorway at his chest height, and he picked up a razor, testing the edge on his thumbnail. Satisfied, he whipped it up and down the strop while chattering.

  ‘Yes, I am known as one of the fastest shavers in the whole of Wessex, my Lord. Anyone wants a clean chin, they ask for Ellis. No one else will do, not once they’ve been done by me.’

  ‘Do you ever shut up long enough to shave a man, or perhaps you just keep wittering on until your victim passes out through boredom?’ Simon growled.

  ‘No one falls asleep on me, Master. Well, not unless I intend them to so I can pull out a hard tooth, anyway,’ Ellis chuckled.

  Simon grunted. Fortunately he hadn’t needed the services of a tooth-puller for many a long year. The memory of the last time was unpleasant enough for him to wish to avoid it in future. Just the thought made him reach into the crevice with his tongue.

  ‘Don’t pull your face about like that, Master. I might cut off your nose!’ Behind the banter there was a genuine note of caution and Simon quickly set his jaw again.

  ‘Good, Master. Now just a little warm water . . .’

  He pulled a towel from the pot of water set over his fire, and waved it, steaming, in the air until he frowningly judged it to be ready, and draped it over Simon’s entire face.

  Simon leaned back so that his shoulders were against the doorframe, inhaling the sweet scent of lavender which had been left infusing in the water with the towels. The heat was wonderful, making his beard tingle, and just when he thought he couldn’t bear it any longer, Ellis whipped it away and threw it over his shoulder. While Simon had been covered, Ellis had shaved slices from a cake of soap and beaten them with more hot water and a brush of badger fur, and now he daubed Simon’s face with the light, hot foam. Satisfied, he stood back, swept his razor up and down the strop once more, ‘For luck,’ he smiled encouragingly, and held it up vertically. ‘You haven’t any enemies, Master, who’d pay me to slip, have you?’ Seeing Simon’s expression, he laughed aloud, and before the Bailiff could stand, he leaned forward, a thumb pulling Simon’s cheek taut, and drew the blade in one long, slow sweep from his ear to his jaw.