Devil's Acre (7 page)

‘Trade?’ Samson snorted. ‘What trade?
You’ve nothing but an old satchel.’

‘Pirrip -
I have dinner - pirrip-pip.’

Samson’s lip curled. ‘Oh I get it. Well I’m sorry my man, you’ll have to beg your dinner from somewhere else today. We’ve barely enough for
the three of us.’

Tomelinus looked round, pointed a grimy finger first at Samson, then at me. ‘In that case I’ll have his share,’ he said
pointing at Ralf’s corpse. ‘He doesn’t look as though he needs it.’

‘I meant another,’ corrected Samson hastily, and right on cue Jane reappeared from the trees.

‘Ah!’ grinned the man. ‘A lady.’ He skipped over to Jane and gave her an even deeper bow. ‘
Madamoiselle, à votre service
.’

‘Paw!’ said Jane pinching her nose. ‘He do stink!’

‘Washed in God’s holy wells, your grandiloquence.’

‘My what?’

‘Puddles, dear lady.’

‘That’s enough of your blaspheming,’ frowned Samson. ‘Be off with you now!’

Tomelinus shrugged and turned to go.

‘No wait,’ I said. ‘Trade you said
? Dinner you said?’

The man
’s eyes narrowed into something approaching a smile. ‘I have something better than dinner, brotherliness. I have Peter’s spice.’

‘And what is that,
pray?’ snorted Samson. ‘Some miserable Yorkish concoction, no doubt.’

‘A heavenly one to be sure, for it is the food of angels. I have the secret of it here.’ He patted his chest.

‘Secret!’ Samson snorted. ‘What secret?’

‘Ah well
, if I told you, your holinessness, it wouldn’t be a secret now would it - pip-pip-tirrip-pip?’

And with a dramatic flourish of his hand he reached deep inside his grimy
shirt and took out an equally grimy linen rag. With a further flourish he unwrapped its corners one by one. Inside was a stone about the size of a hen’s egg, shiny and black. He held it out reverently in the palm of his hand.

‘Let me see that,’ said Samson snatching the thing from him. He rubbed it with his thumb. ‘Pah! It’s nought but a lump of coal.’

‘Well that just shows thy ignorance,’ said Tomelinus. ‘This is jet-stone and not just any jet-stone but a very special jet-stone, one blessed by the saint whose name it bears, pip-pip-tirrip. Saint Peter’s stone.’

‘Oh yes? Why then have I never heard of it?’

‘Because it is a rare and precious secret,’ said the man lowering his voice and looking around him. ‘So rare in fact that what you are holding is probably the very last of it in all Christendom, pip-pip.’

‘What r
ubbish!’ growled Samson and tossed the stone to me.

I turned it over in my hand. It felt warm and smooth to the touch. ‘How does it work?’

‘Pip-pip - by rendering the tasteless flavoursome, the unpalatable toothsome, the bitter sweet, brotherliness.’

I handed the
thing back to him. ‘Show us.’

‘Oh I daren’t do that, brotherliness. Its very potency is its undoing. By itself it can overwhelm.’

‘You mean it needs the balance of something bland to even out the taste?’

‘Pip pip - that’s it exactly,’
the man grinned. ‘You are indeed a man of wisdom and elucidation, brotherliness.’

‘
Am I indeed?’ I chuckled. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that,’ I nodded towards Samson.

Tomelinus shrugged
reluctantly. ‘Then
permettez-moi
to
demonstratio
.’

With a flourish he brought the stone up to his nose and sniffed it.
His eyes rolled and he went into rapture as if it were the most exquisite potpourri. Then with his eyes firmly closed he licked the stone’s shiny black shiny surface. As soon as his tongue touched it he began to moan as if in an ecstasy of sensual delights, his eyes rolling and his lips smacking noisily. I must say it did look mouth-watering the way he did it and I began to feel very hungry indeed.

Once he’d recovered himself Tomelinus stuck out his scaly tongue
for us to inspect. ‘Look. Clean - pip-pip?

‘Here
,’ said Samson holding out his hand again for the stone. ‘Let me try.’

But before he could take it Tomelinus snatched it away again. ‘Ha! And learn my secret without cost to thee? Dost thou take me for a fool?’

I could see Samson eyeing our bubbling gruel speculatively. ‘If I were to agree,’ he said tentatively, ‘how would it be done?’

‘Add my spice to yon dingy gruel and thou will think thee are feasting with kings!’ He held the thing suspended temptingly above the pot in finger and thumb.

Jane, who so far had been watching Tomelinus’s performance without comment, now snorted. ‘I en’t sharing my dinner with this witchman.’

‘No witchman,
mademoiselle
, I assure you.’

Samson looked once more at our unappetizing mess of pottage.
He licked his lips and swallowed. ‘Oh go on then,’ and before he could change his mind Tomelinus deftly plopped his stone into the pot.

‘Hoooow!’ protested Jane and glared hard at the man.

Tomelinus then picked up our spoon and began to stir and chant:

‘
Peter’s spice, Peter’s spice,

S
tir it round to make it nice.

Stir it once and stir it twice
,

A
nd once again to make it thrice.
There,’ he tapped the spoon on the side of the pot and handed it back to Samson. ‘You’ll not regret this, holiness - pip-pip-pip.’

‘I’m regretting it already,’ frowned Samson.

I have to admit the pottage
did taste better than it looked with Tomelinus’s stone in it - but then we didn’t know what it would have tasted like without it. But we all had our fill, Jane included, and there was bread and cheese afterwards.

Over the meal Tomelinus regaled us with more stories about his travels and a very entertaining chap he turned out to be. We learned all about the Dogmen of the
Black Forest; the changeling children of Swabia; the men with one big foot which they sit under to protect themselves from the midday sun.

All the while
I was looking at his makeshift boots. ‘How far have you walked with these?’ I asked him.

‘Ah, well I lost my boots in the salt mines of southern
France.’

‘Now I know you’re lying
,’ said Samson.

Tomelinus looked incredulously at him
. ‘Surely you know the Alps are made of salt? Why else d’ye think they’re white, pirrip?’

‘They’re white because of the snow,’ informed Samson. ‘
Be careful now. I’ve been to Rome and I can tell you there aren’t any salt mines in the Alps.’

‘Pirrip - of course there are salt mines!’ objected Tomelinus indignantly. ‘Where dost thou think salt in the
Middle Sea comes from? From the rivers that wash the salt down the mountains, of course!’

He shook his head sadly as though Samson were the greatest fool alive. I didn’t think there were any salt mines in the
Alps either or that that was where the salt in the Mediterranean came from, but Tomelinus was so convincing that I began to doubt myself. I think if he had told me the air was made of syrup I would have been tempted to lick it.

‘And,’ he added for good measure, ‘it is in those self-same salt mines that I found my jet-stone.’

‘I thought you said it belonged to Saint Peter?’ said Samson.

‘That’s where he found it when the good lord Jesus Christ was directing him to
Rome.’

‘I can’t listen to this nonsense any longer,’ said Samson rising to his feet
and walking off to fiddle with Clytemnestra’s saddle.

‘T
ime I went too,’ said Tomelinus getting to his feet.

‘
Pity,’ I said getting up also. ‘I was enjoying that.’

I walked
him over to where he was packing up his satchel.

‘By the way
,’ he said nodding towards Ralf. ‘Who is thee silent guest?’

‘A reluctant corpse.’

‘I never yet met an eager one, pip-pip. And yon harridan?’ he said indicating Jane.

‘His wife.’

‘Then I can see how he might prefer hell. Well, whatever he did it must be bad to be towed about t’countryside on the back of an ass - pirrip pop-pop?’

‘He did nothing except die at the wrong time.’

‘Is there ever a right time?’ He heaved his satchel over his shoulder.

‘Before you go,’ I said, ‘what’s th
at you have hanging round your neck?’

He looked at me
slyly. ‘Round my neck, brother?’

‘Tomelinus
, I’m not blind. I saw it when you took out your bundle.’

‘Oh
you mean this.’ He reached inside his shirt and pulling out a small grey object the size of a thumb and in the shape of a tear. ‘This is my surety.’

‘
A magic amulet?’

‘
Some have called it such. One sip from this and you won’t just
think
you are in heaven, you will be there - tick-tiddle.’ He chuckled at my sceptical face. ‘You wish to try it?’ he said pulling it over his head and holding it out to me. ‘Here.’

I was tempted
to do so just to prove him a charlatan. It was a lead bottle, very heavy for its size with a leather bung stopping it at the top. It looked like the sort of container I used for potions. It had some strange writing engraved into its side the like of which I had never seen before. I unstopped it and trickled a tiny amount of the liquid onto my finger. It had an oily feel to it and smelt faintly of almonds.

‘Taste it, my friend
if you’re brave enough.’

‘No,’ I said
replacing the bung and handing back the bottle. ‘I’ll pass this time.’

‘
As you wish,’ he grinned and rehung the thing round his neck.

‘Did you ever have cause to use it?’
I said wiping my finger on my robe.

‘Only once.’

‘And did it work?’

‘I am still here.
’ He pulled his hat back onto his head. ‘Well,’ he said tapping his head, ‘fare thee well, brotherliness. I have enjoyed out little chat,’ and with a final flourish he went on his way yodelling and skipping as before.

‘Did you believe him?’
I said to Samson watching him go.

‘Not one quarter of it. He’s clearly an inveterate liar. Except that business about the soup, of course. That was true enough.’ He looked at my
sceptical face. ‘Well it improved the flavour didn’t it?’

‘But
Saint Peter’s
soup, father?’ I said to him.

‘What of it? A noble name for a noble dish.’

I shook my head in despair. ‘What is “Saint Peter” in French?’

‘
Saint Pierre,
’ said Samson pronouncing the name in his best Norman French.

‘And “
pierre” in English?’

Suddenly Jane came to life: ‘Stone!
He gave us stone soup!’ and she rolled off her log laughing.

Chapter
9

IN
TOTTINGTON VILLAGE

‘Dom
Walter, could I ask you to please keep the noise down a little?’

‘Noise? I wasn’t making any noise, unless you mean the scratch of quill on parchment - ha!’

‘You were giggling.’

‘Nonsense. I never giggle.’

‘It disturbs the others.’

‘Well, there shouldn’t be any “others”. Gilbert this is my private laboratorium. Kindly ask the “others” to leave.’

‘Of course master, but in the meantime if you could just try to write a little less...vigorously?’

‘Oh, very well. I will
try to write a little less
vigorously
.’

‘Thank you. And by the way it’s Gerard.’

‘What?’

‘My name is Gerard not Gilbert.
As I told you already.’

‘Gerard, yes.’

‘If you could just try to remember.’

‘I will try to remember.’

‘Thank you master.’

‘Thank
you
Gilbert.’

Others indeed! Are we so many that we must share now? It’s becoming like the bad old days before Abbot Richard’s reforms. Men need their privacy. I could certainly do with some away from all these sniffling old men. I don’t know why I have to be surrounded by them. Anybody would think I was one of them.

Now
then, what was I saying? Ah yes, Tomelinus. Teeheehee-heehee-heeheehee! I’d almost forgotten about him. It was conjuring the image of our little roadside picnic that reminded me. He was a character and no mistake. He certainly kept us entertained with his tales of fantastical creatures and travels in strange lands. Well worth the quarter share of pottage he cost us. Samson thought him a charlatan but I suspect it was his queerness that forced him to live the way he did. Who would employ someone who yelped and jerked at every moment? As for his claim to be touring the shrines of Europe - such a quest is admirable but doubtful. One that is normally undertaken by those with the wherewithal to pay their way. Tomelinus had no money and had to earn his daily crust with guile and cunning. I couldn’t blame him for that. After he left us we kept seeing him up ahead for a while appearing and disappearing with each rise and fall of the road. Eventually after emerging round a long bend we found he had vanished altogether and I was sorry to see him go.

In any event our journey, or this part of it, was
also nearing its end. Up ahead, Samson had stopped and was beckoning Jane and me to join him. The land from here dropped gently into a broad shallow valley which opened out before us. Already the sky was growing dark again as the short day drew on but I could just make out in the gloom a dozen or so houses huddled around a low thatched church and next to it a village green covered in snow.

‘Tottington,’ smiled Samson with satisfaction.

What can I
say about the village of Tottington? It’s tiny, barely a dozen houses, and much poorer than I’d ever imagined which made it all the more surprising that it should be the birthplace of one of England’s foremost clerics. Samson’s tale about how he came to leave this place is clearly apocryphal but it seems to be a fact that from an early age he set his sights on becoming a monk and never wavered. It appears also that he never returned to his home village after taking the cowl or ever visited it very much. Nothing to read into that. We monks are encouraged to leave our earthly families behind when we enter the cloister and to devote ourselves instead exclusively to Christ. But today he was clearly expected for the church bell began to toll as soon as we started down the path which surprised me for as far as I was aware Tottington had not been on our original itinerary. Indeed, the only reason we were here at all was because of Ralf’s death, and that no-one could have anticipated - could they?

The tolling bell brought folk from their houses to greet us - a dozen chattering wives with their coifs pulled down and their shawls pulled up together with their more reticent husbands and a gaggle of goggle-eyed children peeking out from behind their mothers’ skirts. Barking dogs added to the general cacophony that swirled around us as Samson dismounted with undisguised pleasure bestowing benevolence on all by name. Pretty soon he was lost to view among the well-wishers as what seemed like the entire village wanted to touch the great man. It is at times like this that one realises just how important a personage is the Abbot of Bury. To me he is as familiar as my own fingers for I see him every day, but to simple folk like these, even close family, such a man must seem almost godlike. But Samson was not playing Jupiter today. I can’t remember when I’d seen him more relaxed. He was among his own kind and had fallen back into his old
Norfolk dialect which made me feel more like an outsider than ever.

‘Walter,’ he called placing his arm around one man’s shoulders. ‘See this disgraceful fellow? This is Henry, my cousin on my mother’s side.’

I nodded. ‘Master Henry.’

‘And here, this is Margaret his wife - a second cousin on my father’s side.’

‘Mistress Margaret.’

‘This here is cousin Robert. This his brother John and his four - no
five
sons, heaven help his poor wife! And this old reprobate,’ said Samson roughly pulling another arm out of the crowd, ‘is my first and most beloved cousin Absalom, priest and
paterfamilias
to this rabble of ne’er-do-wells!’

To my astonishment there now came smiling towards me another Abbot Samson - an exact copy of the original right down to the bushy white eyebrows, pink pate, thick sensuous lips and bulbous nose. I had to blink to be sure I was not seeing double. Cousins they may be, but they were also twins. A whisker more here, a tooth less there, but otherwise they were a match for each other exactly. And looking about me now I could see the family likeness in most of the faces around us.

‘Goodness me!’ I found myself exclaiming. ‘Is there anyone in the village not related to you, father?’

‘Not many,’ grinned Samson.

‘Dear father abbot,’ said Absalom pumping his hand.

‘No
ceremony, I beg you,’ said Samson. ‘Here I am as I always was, a poor son of the parish.’

‘A most famous and cherished son of the parish,’ beamed Absalom. ‘Come cousin, bless our humble church by praying with us and giving thanks to Almighty God for your deliverance.’

Samson put his arm around the man’s shoulders. ‘Cousin, with the greatest of pleasure.’

And thus the whole mass of them moved off towards the church amid much rejoicing.

I decided not to join them but hung back with Jane and the mules. Poor Jane. In the midst of all the general bonhomie no-one seemed to have noticed her.

‘I gather that you are not one of the great band of Samsonites,’ I said helping her down from her mule.

‘It were always thus,’ she mused. ‘His tribe dominates here.’

‘So it would seem. Not your family, I take it?’

She shook her head. ‘We were poor folk.’

‘In that case you will want to visit them.’

‘The last of my line died twenty years ago. I will stay with Ralf’s family. There I will be welcome.’

‘Are you sure? They may not...’ I didn’t finish my sentence.

Jane shot me one of her now familiar stares. ‘You no need to worry, brother. They aren’t Samson’s blood either. They’ll not reject me.’

I sincerely hoped she was right but I know how these things go. Families often tolerate unorthodox relationships while their relative lives. But with Ralf dead I feared she may not be quite as welcome as she once was. I decided to accompany her just to make sure.

Two youths were taking charge of the mules.

‘Just a minute. Where are you going with them?’ I asked the older one.

‘To the stables, brother.’

I nodded and drew the elder out of Jane’s earshot. ‘What about the body? Where are you going with him?’

‘Father Absalom said to take him to the
church vestry,’ said the younger.

‘Did he indeed? When did he tell you to do that?’

The boy was about to answer when the older one hit him in the shoulder. Both boys now stood in sullen silence.

‘All right
. Off you go. But make sure you lock the vestry after you.’

I watched them lead the mules away. I know they were only a couple of village youths who may have got their facts muddled but something wasn’t quite right about their account. Since Ralf’s death had come completely unexpected no-one in Tottington could possibly have known of it before we arrived. So how and when did Absalom tell these boys what to do with the body?

Jane led me to a corner on the far side of the village. By now it was growing quite dark but from what I could see of the house it looked neat and well-kept. This presumably was the Ralf family home, a little outside the village proper. As we came up to the door it was opened by a man who was clearly Ralf’s relative - same stature, same features
- accompanied by a shorter woman.

‘Jane, my dear,’ said the man stepping out and taking Jane’s hands in his own. ‘I am so sorry.’

As soon as she saw him Jane broke down and wept openly. I admit to being quite moved. This was quite a different Jane to the one she presented before and it made me realise just how attached she must have been to her dead “husband”. And judging by the response of the couple my fears for her reception were equally unfounded. She was being welcomed as a full family member. For a few moments the three of them stood in a close embrace until the woman took off her shawl, placed it around Jane’s shoulders and gently led her into the house.

‘Thank you, brother, for bringing Jane to us,’ said the man. ‘We will take care of her now.’ He started to
retreat into the house.

‘You are relatives of Father Ralf?’

‘I am Ralf’s cousin Michael. Our fathers were brothers.’

More cousins. Tottington
, it seemed, was a village of cousins.

‘May I offer you my condolences, sir?’

‘Thank you, Brother...?’

‘Walter de Ixworth,’ I bowed. ‘Physician at Saint Edmund’s abbey.’

‘Ah yes,’ he nodded.

‘You’ve heard of me?’

‘No.’

‘But you know the abbey?’

The man gave a sardonic smile. ‘Everyone knows the abbey, brother. And its famous abbot of course.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said
. ‘It’s just that your family seems to be the only one in Tottington not related to Abbot Samson.’

‘Tottington is not so large that anyone living here is not related to someone else in the village in some way.’

‘But I understood there was a gulf between the two families - yours and the abbot’s.’

He smiled. ‘You’ve been listening to Jane.’

‘May I ask what the nature of the difficulty was?’

‘It’s
long past and forgotten.’

‘Not by Jane.’

‘She doesn’t know the details. I’m not sure I do anymore.’

‘Even so,’ I persisted.

For a moment he looked anxious and I wondered what he was thinking. Was he perhaps afraid to speak too openly? Afraid of what though? Samson? I suppose it was difficult for someone having to live in the village.

‘How well did you know my cousin Ralf?’ he asked me.

‘Hardly at all. We met just last night for the first time in fact. I had hoped to become better acquainted with him. Alas, it was not to be.’

‘His death must have come as quite a shock to you.’

‘And to you.’

He shrugged. ‘Ralf had been ill for some time.’

‘So I believe.’

He looked up. ‘You sound doubtful.’

‘It’s true he was a little breathless when I spoke to him, but I did not think it life-threatening.’

‘
In the midst of life we are in death,
brother - is that not right?
’ He shivered and looked over his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, I’m keeping you out here in the cold. I’ll leave you. No doubt we’ll see each other tomorrow at the funeral. Perhaps we can talk then.’