The Devil's Acolyte (2002) (25 page)

‘What should I have learned? The Abbot did not ask me to investigate the theft,’ he said, purposefully leaving the word in the singular.

‘Aha! So you weren’t piqued with interest? But perhaps other things have been taken from here, which could lead to the reputation of the Abbey being damaged – badly so.
Don’t you have a duty to seek out the truth?’

‘Not if the Abbot told him not to,’ Augerus said, and hiccuped. ‘Isn’t that right, Bailiff?’

‘Yes,’ Simon said. ‘After all, I have no jurisdiction here, do I?’

‘If a man is threatening to trample the Abbey’s good name in the mud, he should be punished,’ Mark said, but now his eyes were turned away, and Simon felt he was almost talking
to himself. ‘He deserves punishment.’ Then he turned to face Simon again. ‘Any man who dares harm this Abbey will suffer the consequences,’ he declared. ‘God
won’t allow blasphemous behaviour.’

After a long and strenuous ride, Baldwin and the Coroner had slept the Tuesday night in a pleasant inn at South Zeal. The weather had been kind to them, and they had made good
time, riding fast on the swift road that led through Yeoford and then Hittisleigh, finally arriving in the village only a short time after dark.

Sore from their ride, Baldwin rose with a grunt as the innkeeper arrived and started opening the windows. This, Baldwin thought, was the worst aspect of travelling. Small inns so often had
nowhere to put guests, and all they could do was make space for a man to sleep on a bench, or perhaps allow him to sleep on the hay in the stables. Perhaps he should be glad that at least there was
space near the fire, because the weather was turning unseasonably cold. The landlord and some local men asserted that it was normal for the time of year, but Baldwin found it hard to believe that
the weather so near to his own home could be quite so different. And the midges were foul, too. When he went out during the night to piss against a nearby tree, he found himself crawling with them
in the space of a few minutes.

It was a great relief to be up and ahorse after a rushed breakfast of cold meat and some coarse bread. While he chewed, Baldwin saw the Coroner putting half his own loaf in a cloth and tying it
into a neat bundle.

‘What’s that for?’

‘I thought it would be as well to take something for our lunch.’

‘There are plenty of good inns on the way to Tavistock, Coroner. We have eaten in some of them.’ Baldwin eyed his own loaf. ‘I certainly do not think that this would be
comparable with some of the food at inns there.’

‘No. If we were to ride around the north side of the moor, you’d be right,’ the Coroner agreed. ‘But I didn’t intend that.’

‘Which way do you want to go, then, Sir Roger?’

‘Over the middle.’

Baldwin considered this. ‘You do realise how quickly the mist can come down?’

‘I have been on the moors and lived to tell the tale when that happened to me,’ Coroner Roger said lightly. ‘No, I merely wish to see the place where this death happened
before
we go to Tavistock and hear what people think we wish to hear.’

Baldwin nodded, but he was not content. Even when they had mounted their horses and he could see that the sky was almost devoid of clouds, that the top of the nearby hill was smooth and an
apparently easy ride, and that the ground underfoot was dry and not at all boggy, he still felt a nagging anxiety.

‘Come on, Sir Baldwin. Courage!’

They had left the inn, and were riding down the main street, past all the houses in their burgage plots on either side, and then turned right at the bottom of the road, heading for the great
hill Baldwin had seen before.

‘I am not fearful,’ he said stiffly. ‘Yet I swore to my wife that I would avoid spending too much time on the moors. Every time I visit, there is death and murder.’

‘Well, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’

Baldwin grunted. He could not put his feelings into words. He was aware of a curious awe about the moors which bordered on the superstitious; probably, he told himself, because his wife’s
attitude had coloured his own. Earlier this year, before the double disasters of the tournament at Oakhampton and then the murders at Sticklepath, he would have scoffed at the idea that the moors
could themselves be unlucky or fated, but now he was growing to feel if not a fear, certainly a degree of apprehension.

‘How do you know where we are to go?’ he asked. ‘I thought you only knew that the body was over towards Tavistock.’

‘It is. It’s down near Fox Tor. I know that way a little – there was a knife-fight there some years ago and a man died, and I had to go there to hold the inquest. It was one of
my first cases, so of course I recall it well.’ Cheerfully, he related the tale of a man who had come to the area with a friend, both seeking to become miners, but then one day they argued,
and one stabbed the other.

Baldwin listened with only half an ear. They had followed the narrow lane for some hundreds of yards, with the land rising steeply on their left, while on their right there was an area of
pasture with a small stream beyond, chuckling merrily. Their track took them right, down a dip and up the other side, and here Baldwin realised that they were climbing the hill.

From a distance it had looked immense, like a great bowl which God Himself had inverted on the horizon, and Baldwin was glad that the daunting sight of it was concealed by the thick woods that
grew here at its base. In among some of them pastures had been cut, and the woods were receding as the men from the borough cut their winter logs and coppiced and cleared, but there were enough
trees to hide the vast bulk.

They wound upwards, and then took a left fork. ‘No point climbing to the top,’ the Coroner muttered as he led the way. ‘This is the peat-cutters’ track.’

The track led between two walls, both of which had bushes and trees growing in them and reaching high overhead, creating a tunnel of verdure. At their feet, it was metalled with rocks of
moorstone which had sunk to an even level, so that packhorses could pass up here even in the worst of the winter weather, and Baldwin was glad of it because at the side of the trail was a trickle
of water. If there were no stones, this would soon become another quagmire.

The way climbed, but more shallowly, and at last they were out into the open, leaving the trees behind.

Baldwin took a deep breath. The last time he had been up on the moors he had seen another death, and it had touched his soul with sadness. That was partly why he was growing to detest the moors,
because he could only ever associate them with death and murder. Not that this visit would make him feel any more content, with another murdered man at the end of the journey.

Here, though, it was hard to view the surrounding landscape with anything but awe and delight. The ground dropped away to their left, while on their right was the steeper rise to the summit, the
side of the hill scattered with a thick clitter of stones. A tough climb on foot.

Coroner Roger took him on, past a strange little triple row of standing stones. ‘God knows what they’re doing here!’ and on to a lower hill. From here, he pointed south.
‘All this land is the King’s. He must have magnificent hunts over here, eh?’

Baldwin could not help but agree. As they trotted on, he marvelled at the odd, soft beauty of the place. It was as though the only people alive were he and the Coroner. No noise of axe or pick
reached their ears, and no house could be seen. There was only the endlessly rolling little hills, mostly smothered in a bright mantle of purple heather.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ the Coroner said, smiling at the sight of Baldwin’s face.

‘Very!’ Baldwin twisted in his saddle to take it all in. Some hills were surmounted by great hunks of stone, while others were smooth, shallow ripples in the grass and heather. Here
and there a stream cut through a hillside, casting a sharper shadow like a gash in the grass, but mostly it was all soft-looking undulations.

They stopped at the side of a stream, freeing the horses to drink their fill and crop the grass while the two men idled on the banks, and then remounted and rode on unhurriedly. The weather
remained clear, and Baldwin could feel his trepidation falling away: as he had believed, it was superstitious in the extreme to blame the land itself for the evil actions of the men who trod upon
it.

He hoped his attitude would not change again.

They followed well-trodden tracks for some more miles, but then Sir Roger began searching about, peering at the horizon.

‘What is it?’

‘Miners. There should be some near here. Aha! Over there!’

The Coroner pointed and Baldwin saw in the distance a thin plume of smoke rising. They rode towards it and found themselves in a small miners’ camp. Having asked for directions, they were
soon on their way again, and this time they reached a larger camp where a well-built miner pointed over to a hill. ‘See where that stream is? You’ll find poor old Wally there. But
don’t go straight. Head up that hillside west of here, then go south until you come to the cross. Then turn east again. Not until you reach the cross, though. The mire’s deadly down
there.’

Hearing his words, both agreed that his advice was sound. Soon the two were walking their horses up a hill. The cross was not difficult to see – a tall, somewhat rough-hewn shape. There
they turned east and crossed a pleasant ford.

‘If it’s true that he was beaten to death, surely another miner was responsible,’ Roger grumbled. ‘Those bastards are always quarrelling. And they’ve got so many
potential weapons to hand.’

‘Quite so,’ Baldwin said.

‘Except you don’t mean it. What’s on your mind?’

‘I trust the judgement of my Lord Abbot. He would only call us both out if there was good cause. Otherwise he would surely only ask for you to be here.’

‘You mean he doesn’t trust
my
judgement?’

Baldwin smiled innocently. ‘I mean he probably has more than one concern. He knows how busy you are, Coroner. If there were another matter, he would hardly dare take up more of your time
than he need, would he?’

‘Oh. You
do
mean he doesn’t trust my judgement!’

‘The little devil,’ Augerus said. ‘If he couldn’t be bothered to come and help me, the least he could have done was let me know.’

It was early afternoon, and the two were seated in the
salsarius’
room amidst the odours of gently curing hams and sausages, and the sharp tang of sea and fresh wind from the open
steeping barrels in which the salt fish had soaked yesterday. It could take many hours for the salt to be washed out, and Mark had other duties, so he tended to leave the fish to soak for as long
as possible, sliding the slippery fillets into a wooden trough to wash off most of the salt, then dropping them into the barrels of fresh water as early as possible on the Tuesday, ready for
cooking today, Wednesday, the fast day. The barrels were still full of the fishy water, waiting to be emptied.

‘Novices are not as respectful as they once were,’ Mark said.

‘I had thought Gerard wasn’t so bad,’ Augerus said. ‘He is the best-behaved acolyte I have had dealings with for many a year. Quiet, unassuming, quick to learn. He has
been candle-bearer for months now, and never late for the Mass, always well-mannered. But this proves he’s just the same as the others. No doubt he thinks he can get away with sloping off
back to his bed. He was kind enough to leave it for Nocturns, but as soon as Matins were finished, off he went.’

‘Maybe he was told to help another Brother and didn’t realise the time,’ Mark said charitably. He wasn’t really very interested, and he could afford to be generous:
Gerard wasn’t
his
acolyte.

‘Well, he’s not turned up for me,’ Augerus said irritably. He had caught Mark’s tone and felt miffed: whenever Mark had a problem with his own charges, Augerus always
listened to
his
complaints. ‘He was supposed to be in my undercroft to help me check the stores. I can’t do it on my own.’

Mark sipped at his wine and cast a glance at his friend. Augerus sounded quite het up; it seemed as though there was something else on his mind. ‘Don’t worry. Maybe you’ll find
him waiting for you when you get back to the undercroft.’

‘I should hope he arrives before that – I’ve sent a servant to fetch him from his bed.’

Mark peered through his doorway. ‘Did you send
him
?’ he asked, pointing.

As Augerus joined Mark in the doorway, the tall figure of Reginald hurried across the court to them.

‘Where
is
that boy?’ Augerus grated. ‘If he’s pretending to be ill . . .’

Mark threw him another look. Augerus was always so calm and unflappable, but now there was a tone of real anxiety in his voice. It was most unlike him. Mark almost wanted to reach out and pat
his shoulder.

‘Brother Augerus, Brother Mark, he’s not there.’

Mark gazed at the lad with patient good-humour. ‘Did you check in the
reredorter
?’

‘I did, Master, and he isn’t there either. I checked the
calefactory
, the
dorter
, the refectory, the church . . . I don’t know where else to look.’

‘Are you sure he wasn’t in his bed?’ Augerus demanded.

‘No, he wasn’t there, sir. I did look there for him.’

Mark touched Augerus’ shoulder. ‘He probably went out to the orchard and sat on a bench and fell asleep, or perhaps he went to the stable and dozed off in there. The Good Lord knows
how often I have done that, although I couldn’t count the number of times myself.’

‘I must tell the Abbot he is missing!’

‘There is no point – not yet. Wait awhile. He will turn up. You know what boys are.’

‘But what if the poor fellow has fallen under the mill-wheel, or into the well?’

‘If so, there is little you can do to help him now. Leave it until noon. I’m sure he’ll reappear with a hangover, and you can give him a thrashing. He’ll wish he’d
never seen a barrel of ale or wine!’

Augerus turned to him and smiled, but there was in his face such a terrible sickly fear that Mark was hard put to return it.