The Devil’s Acolyte
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Cast of Characters
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Glossary
Author’s Note
The Last Templar Mysteries
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
{alt=‘The Devil’s Acolyte. Michael Jecks’}
For Janice and Jim – the good and not-so-good fairies!
Cast of Characters
Sir Baldwin de Furnshill: Once a Knight Templar, Sir Baldwin is Keeper of the King’s Peace in Crediton. He is known to be an astute investigator of crimes.
Simon Puttock: The Bailiff of Lydford, Simon is responsible for law and order on the moors, under the watch-fill eye of the Warden of the Stannaries, Abbot Robert Champeaux of Tavistock.
Hugh: Simon’s servant. Hugh is a moorman and understands Dartmoor and its folk.
Sir Roger de Gidleigh: The Coroner of Exeter, responsible for investigating cases of sudden death over a substantial area of Devonshire.
Abbot Robert Champeaux: Of all Tavistock Abbey’s Abbots, Abbot Robert was probably the most influential in his day. Taking on his post with a debt of some £200 in 1285, he soon made the Abbey profitable. One of his inspired ideas was to buy the Wardenship of the Stannaries.
Augerus: Steward to the abbot himself, Augerus is responsible for the abbot’s stores and seeing to his master’s private needs.
Gerard: New to the abbey, Gerard has been tempted into thefts by older, unscrupulous men.
Mark: This monk is salsarius at the abbey (see Glossary).
Peter: Once a monk in a northern priory, Peter came south after being attacked by Scottish marauders, and was grateful for Abbot Robert allowing him to live in Tavistock as almoner.
Sir Tristram de Cokkesmoor: The King’s Commissioner of Array, Sir Tristram has the responsibility of recruiting men for the King’s army.
Joce Blakemoor: Receiver of the tin at the five coinings held at Tavistock, Joce is an important local man within the burgh.
Walwynus: Also known as Wally. An unsuccessful miner, Walwynus has spent the last few years eking a living from his smallholding while trying to locate another seam of tin.
Ellis: A barber. Monks are not allowed to bleed themselves, and all abbeys need a barber to open veins, as well as remove teeth and ensure that cheeks and tonsures are neatly shaved.
Nob: Originally from the north of England, Nob runs a local pie-shop with his wife, Cissy.
Cissy: Wife to Nob, Cissy is also the unofficial aunt to all those young women who need help with their social lives or children.
Sara: Widowed while young, Ellis’s sister has recently become pregnant and is in need of a comforting shoulder to lean on.
Hamelin: The miner who took over Walwynus’ works, Hamelin is sorely troubled by his lack of success. His wife and family are in dire straits, but he can’t find the tin he needs.
Emma: Hamelin’s wife is desperately worried about her youngest son, Joel, who is showing signs of malnutrition.
Rudolf von Grindelwald: A free Swiss from the Forest Cantons, Rudolf has come to Dartmoor with his wife Anna and family to buy tin, for he is a master pewterer.
Anna: Rudolf’s wife.
Welf and Henry: Two sons of Rudolf who have joined him on his trip to Devonshire.
Hal Raddych: One of the old school of Dartmoor miners, Hal is a near neighbour to Wally and Hamelin.
Prologue
When they sat down in the old man’s room on that Tuesday evening, it was the scar that initially held them all spellbound, rather than his stories.
The room was only small, the fire resting in a slight hollow in the middle of the floor, and the novices seated around it. The almoner hunched forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his head moving from side to side as he studied each boy. Gerard the young acolyte felt a shudder of revulsion pass through his frame as Brother Peter’s gaze passed over him. In this dim light, the almoner looked like a demon viewing his prey. Gerard almost expected to see him sprout wings.
Away from the fire there was no light at this time of night, and the wind was gusting in the court outside, making a curious thumping as it caught ill-fitting doors and rattled them in their frames. This dismal sound was accompanied by the constant rumble and clatter of the corn mill next door; its low grumbling made itself felt through Gerard’s bony buttocks as he sat on the floor.
Gerard gawped at the almoner’s terrible wound, knowing he shouldn’t, fearing that at any moment, the man would look up and catch him at it.
Old Peter was aloof mostly, far above the novices in his supreme authority, yet most of them rather liked him. He rarely had to raise his voice to command their respect, rarely had to offer them the strap; he could keep them obedient and quiet through the mere force of his will. Yet Gerard didn’t much care for Brother Peter. Not now. And the lad was incapable of averting his eyes. Even as the almoner turned his gaze from them to the fire, his thin head nodding, his lip curled ever so slightly at the sight of the novices, as though it was hard to imagine that so pathetic a bunch of young males could have been selected from the length and breadth of Devon, Gerard fixed on that hideous mark, wondering anew how painful it had been.
Even after four or five years, Almoner Peter’s wound glowed in the firelight, a livid, six-inch cicatrice that began beneath his ear and ran along the line of his jaw to his chin.
It must have hurt like hell, Gerard told himself as the almoner began his story. Most men would have died after receiving such a blow; it said something about Peter’s powers of endurance that he had not only survived it, but had managed to teach himself to talk again, even with his jawbone shattered and no teeth on that side. The boy shuddered as he imagined a heavy blade shearing through his flesh, his bone, his teeth.
Old Peter enjoyed talking, particularly
