Free Devil's Acre by Stephen Wheeler Page A

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