Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other

by Howard of Warwick

  Ekard stepped into the breach, happily abandoning all the opinions Uris had held and embracing those of his new Abbot like long lost children.

  Hermitage saw that Bernard was just such a one. He knew that even if he laid out the catalogue of Norman wrong-doing since their arrival in the country, Bernard would dismiss it all as a pack of lies. Yet he'd happily repeat third hand information from an unreliable source that accused a man he'd never met of murder. He could see that an Abbot Le Pedvin would be very hard to contradict but even so, surely Bernard had some mind of his own.

  'But you don't know anyone who's actually dead?’ Wat was continuing the enquiry.

  'Not a Cabourg man myself sir.’

  'Perhaps no one's dead?’ Hermitage suggested, 'perhaps it's all been a ghastly mistake? A different Cabourg? A different Bonneville? Messages do get distorted in the telling, we might get there and find there's no trouble at all and it's all been a horrible misunderstanding.’ He liked the sound of this but suspected reality would have a very different ring to it.

  Bernard gave Hermitage the sycophant's stare. A stare of disbelief that such idiocy can exist in the world, let alone in the person of the King's Investigator.

  With rabbit consumed and the fire falling to glowing embers, Hermitage and Wat climbed back into the carriage to settle for the night on the comfortable seats, comfortable now they'd stopped flying and bouncing about.

  Bernard had climbed back onto the roof of the cart, Hermitage suspected he would sit there awake all night as Master Le Pedvin had probably told him not to sleep.

  The monk hissed whispers to Wat, suspecting that their cart man would be listening for any sign of dissent.

  'Wat this is ridiculous,’ Hermitage breathed.

  'Of course it is,’ Wat acknowledged as he lay with eyes closed, a gentle smile on his face.

  'What are you smiling about?’ Hermitage demanded, not seeing anything to smile about.

  'I'm smiling that I've got a comfortable bed to sleep on. I'm smiling that my stomach is full of rabbit and my head is full of wine. I'm smiling that this is one of the most lunatic experiences we've had involving the Normans.’

  'But we're in the middle of it.’ Hermitage's natural caution prevented him taking this so lightly. That and his natural pessimism, fear, worry and despair.

  'And it'll be fascinating to see how it all turns out in the end.’ Wat smacked and licked his lips lightly, savouring the meal and preparing for sleep.

  'If it doesn't turn out the way Le Pedvin wants we could end up the next dead people.’

  'I'd be very surprised if there are actually any dead people at all,’ Wat commented without concern.

  'Really?’ There was some hope then.

  'Oh yes. The more I've heard, the more our Bernard has gone on about how awful this Bonneville is, the more convinced I am that the whole thing is a pack of lies. The way Bernard tells it the fields and paths of Cabourg must be so thick with bodies you couldn't walk ten yards without tripping over a corpse.’

  'Yes,’ Hermitage nodded to himself, 'it did seem a bit extreme.’

  'Why?’ Wat muttered.

  'Well, all those nobles and peasants being killed,’ Hermitage explained.

  'No, I mean why are we being sent? That's the interesting bit, not the murders, which I'm sure haven't happened. What is it about Bonneville, or Cabourg, that William wants us to go and look? It's nonsense to suggest that he can't just go and execute anyone he likes, he does it all the time.’

  They fell into silence, Wat's breathing slow as he prepared for sleep. Hermitage tried to persuade his worries to leave him alone but there were so many of them he knew slumber would be slow in coming.

  ‘And if Le Pedvin is lying about that, what else is he lying about?’ Wat mumbled through his approaching sleep, ‘we've only got his word this instruction has come from William. Would you believe anything the man said?’

  'Well,’ Hermitage was about to begin considering the issue, he never liked to call anyone a liar.

  'No of course you wouldn't,’ Wat concluded for him, 'so perhaps this is about Le Pedvin getting rid of Bonneville without being explicit about it. Maybe they're rivals and Le Pedvin wants his land, or his wife or his title or something. What better way of going about it? Get us to go and prove the man's a murderer, execute him and tell William after the event. He could even hold his hands out and say he loved Bonneville dearly but had to chop his head off because we said so.’

  'Wat, that's awful,’ Hermitage pondered the level of sin required for such a scheme.

  'Typical though,’ Wat seemed to accept the proposal as a perfectly natural part of human nature. He squirmed in his cushions and settled again for sleep.

  'But you do think there haven't actually been any murders?’ Hermitage wanted to check this point as it was one of the major worries which he knew would keep him from sleep.

  'Absolutely positive,’ Wat assured him, 'in fact with Le Pedvin and Bernard behind the suggestion I'd go so far as to say the idea is completely ridiculous.’

  Caput VI

  Murder Galore

  ‘Murder!' The morning street of Cabourg rang with the plaintive cry of someone who has discovered a body when they least expect to. Granted, people who expect to find a body tend not to cry out at all, unless the body is in a spectacularly horrible condition. The plaintiveness of this particular cry was tinged with the shock and despair of a discoverer who had known the body while it was still walking about and talking.

  'Not another one.’ Old Blamour, sitting outside his hovel, trusty companion at his side, interrupted his conversation and looked down the single track, along which a figure was running. 'Coming this way by the look,’ he commented, stroking his dog on the head to calm any excitement. As the aged dog had not been excited for many years, this was mainly for old Blamour's benefit.

  'How many murders can one little place stand?’ The old man asked. 'Things have come to as pretty a pass as I can recall. Back in fifty two of course there was the madness came calling. That was grim that was, we lost a lot that winter. I was working down on long field when old mother come to me and she says Blamour, guess what? And I says what? And she says there's a murder. And I says a murder? And she says yes. And I says no. And she says yes there is and it's young Rollo. And I says not young Rollo. And she says yes.’

  This explains why old Blamour was outside his hovel with only a dog for company, a deaf dog at that. All the other old men of the village were gathered in the square, either saying something of import to one another, or saying nothing at all, most frequently the latter. Blamour, with his uncontrollable habit of describing everything in detail, most particularly things that no one wanted described at all, made him unpopular to say the least.

  His descriptions of events of no consequence were painful. His lengthy repetitions of the pointless conversations of others were agony, and his explorations of the thought processes of people without a thought in their heads were positively excruciating.

  The rest of the village had long since given up telling him to be quiet, stop talking or shut up. Blamour couldn't do it, and didn't seem in the least concerned that people got up and left whenever he opened his mouth.

  The man's recall was phenomenal, as he seemed capable of describing every passing moment of the last fifty years to the most unnecessary degree. The problem was that even the interesting times, the battles, arguments, invasions, floods, fires and famines, were given all the narrative qualities of a Latin sermon from a priest who didn't speak Latin. No matter the import of the event, the words spoken by someone who hadn't seen it would be given the same priority as the dying gurgle of the main protagonist.

  He had once described the great shipwreck of 1047, when a crew of seventeen was lost. He knew how the cargo of wine had been washed ashore and stolen by the villagers and how old Lord Bonneville had come rampaging from his fortress and put half the place to the torch. His audience gave up and walked away after the first twenty minu
tes, which described every single step in the process by which ships’ sails were generally furled in rough weather.

  When the person who cried murder came along the track and saw old Blamour was closest, they might not want help after all.

  This person was in such a state of panic and helplessness that even Blamour would do. The old man stood slowly as young Cottrice Lallard came up to him in a very haphazard manner. Her normally tight-bound dark hair flying, as if trying to escape from her head, she looked up and down the road, perhaps hopeful that there was someone else she could talk to, before grabbing Blamour by his jerkin and shaking him as hard as she could.

  'He's dead,’ she wailed, tears throwing themselves from her brown eyes, 'he's been murdered. Killed!’

  'Who has?’ Blamour asked, looking up and down the road himself, as if expecting to see the corpse coming along behind.

  'My Orlon, my Orlon's been murdered.’

  'Ah,’ Blamour nodded, understanding the excitement. Young Cottrice's husband had been killed, no wonder she was in a bit of a state.

  'How do you know he's been murdered?’ Blamour asked. Despite being the town bore, he was only human and felt sympathy for a young woman in serious distress.

  'He's dead,’ Cottrice wailed without looking Blamour in the eye. She was casting her look about as if someone would come and take these events away.

  'But how do you know he's been murdered to death?’ Blamour persisted, 'he might have just died.’

  'He's got a dagger sticking out of his back and there's blood everywhere,’ Cottrice screeched.

  Blamour had to admit that did sound like murder. And a different murder from the last two. This really was getting out of hand.

  'Where is he?’ Blamour took Cottrice by the shoulders and tried to calm her agitated shaking.

  'In the house,’ Cottrice broke down and great sobs shook her meagre frame. Despite it being Blamour she fell forward and her tears flooded onto his shoulder. Despite it being Blamour, he put comforting arms around her and most surprising of all, said nothing.

  Cottrice gulped her tears down and lifted her head, she took sharp shallow breaths and clearly had more information to impart. 'The house,’ she said between painful swallows, 'the house of that trollop Margaret.’

  'Ah,’ said Blamour. Now that made things complicated but might provide an explanation.

  Blamour delivered Cottrice safe to the house of her mother, who began her denigration of Orlon as soon as she heard the man was dead. She'd been right all along, he hadn't been good enough, he was a rogue and a wrong-un, and here he was getting himself killed just to prove it.

  Cottrice had no energy to contradict and just sat taking it all in, or rather letting it all wash over her.

  Blamour, leaving the daughter to the tender justifications of the mother, went out to find Lord Bonneville's man. It was still only morning but the summer sky was already hot and clear with the promise of another fine day. In these circumstances the fellow would almost certainly be found somewhere in the village, urging the populace to increase their efforts in the fields while being roundly ignored for his trouble.

  The comfortable silence that enveloped the small village centre became deafening as Blamour walked in. There were only three buildings around the space but they were large and low, their thatch almost coming to the dusty floor, and they coddled the empty triangle between them. Three communal halls for most of the population of the place, the only exceptions being those who were of such importance that they had their own homes, and Blamour, who no one wanted in the communal hall.

  Under the shade of a massive oak that towered between two of the buildings sat an old tree trunk lying on its side. Perhaps it had fallen or been thrown from the main growth but its location was fortuitous and it had been fashioned into a seat for the village elders, those who had served the place all their lives but were now too old to work the fields. It had been fashioned mainly by the years and years of being sat upon, which had worn its surface smooth. It took many years for the backsides of old men to wear out a tree.

  The usual four occupants sat in their usual space and in the usual order. While the young people of the village were out tending their work, the old men generally sat in silence or complained about the women, who would be tending to the household, preparing food or mending clothes. They in turn would be complaining about the men who did nothing but polish their tree trunk.

  'Blamour,’ one of the men on the tree acknowledged. He said it with a tone that did not invite a reply.

  'Another murder,’ Blamour announced blankly, 'where's Poitron?’

  The men breathed and tutted and shifted on their seat. They grumbled incoherently, shook heads and muttered their grumbles.

  'Who this time?’ One of them eventually asked, probably appreciating that the risk of engaging Blamour in a conversation was worth information about a murder.

  'Orlon,’ said Blamour, as if this should not really be a surprise.

  'Ah,’ the old heads nodded and the mouths mumbled and muttered some more.

  'Poitron?’ Blamour repeated.

  'Long field I expect,’ the old spokesman of the group replied. Speaking for this group of wise old heads was an honoured and respected role, at least among themselves. It was usually given to the one who would be dead next.

  'Not again?’ Blamour asked with disappointment, 'how many times have I told him all about long field and the best way to work it? Back in forty nine we had that storm from the west and I said to his old Lordship...’

  'You'd better get off or you might miss him,’ the spokesman urged, 'murder and all, I expect he'll want to know straight away.’

  Blamour paused and thought for a moment, 'Aye, I suppose you're right.’ He nodded to them and walked off past the oak, heading for long field.

  There was much congratulation on the tree trunk at getting rid of Blamour so quickly. A lively conversation followed on the subject of murder, what the best methods for achieving it were and who suitable victims might be. A lively few moments were spent debating whether Blamour bringing news of Lallard’s death was more disappointing than Lallard bringing news of Blamour’s.

  Down in long field, Poitron was sitting on a tree trunk of his own, watching the place being worked by half a dozen young women who seemed to be wandering around the space at random. The man had his head in his hands and did not look content with proceedings.

  Blamour approached along the lane that led from the village, passed the field on its left, and would ultimately take a walker down to the river as it took its final turns before wallowing into the sea. There was no gate or fence, the stalks of wheat, nicely ripening in the summer sun, came right up to the edge of the lane and simply merged into the path.

  'Master Poitron,’ Blamour called as he approached.

  Poitron turned on his trunk and showed some surprise at the approach of the bent and aged shape of Blamour, so far from his usual resting places.

  Poitron himself was in the spring of his days rather than the autumn, or even the last nights of long winter. He was as well dressed as a senior vassal of the Bonneville family should be but his usual bright and optimistic expression was clouded.

  'Can you believe this?’ The man gestured to the workers in the field.

  Blamour looked and couldn't see anything immediately unbelievable. There were people in a field and they were working. None of them were lolling about, they weren't dancing or trampling the crops and they hadn't started a fire. They seemed bent to their task in the various parts of the field, a task Blamour assumed was weed pulling. All perfectly believable for this time of year.

  'I told them,’ Poitron explained, brushing a looping lock of brown hair from his handsome face. Handsome but a bit too intense for many. His look was always friendly and engaging but it didn't blink quite often enough and never glanced away from the centre of your eyes when he was engaging in conversation. As the conversations in question could better be described as lectures, Poitron acq
uired a reputation for being rather disconcerting. Disturbing some people called him, others simply opined that there was something wrong with the man.

  That he was intelligent was never in doubt. The general preference was that he should keep his intelligence to himself.

  Blamour didn't have to say anything to secure an explanation of Poitron's comment.

  'I told them all to start together at one end of the field, side by side, and walk their way down, pulling weeds as they went. By this means more weeds would be pulled, they'd be pulled more quickly and the work would be equitably distributed.’

  'Aha,’ Blamour nodded, not understanding these new-fangled ideas.

  'But did they?’ Poitron asked, gesturing to the field, randomly dotted with bending figures, 'no of course they didn't. They started all right but within five minutes they'd all wandered off on their own. Now look at them.’

  Blamour looked and nodded, not quite sure what he was looking at or why he was nodding. It all seemed perfectly normal.

  'There's been a murder,’ he announced, hoping to avoid being drawn into one of Poitron's interminable and completely baffling explanations for why there was a better way of doing virtually anything.

  With a brain such as his, Poitron sorted out all the problems of the estate. Disputes, arguments, broken equipment and who was responsible, who hit whom in the tavern fight and who had to pay reparations. He sent people to the Bonnevilles for justice but the explanations and recommendations were Poitron's. Never mind the Bonnevilles, it was Poitron you needed on your side if you were dragged before his lordship.

  Murder was a new one on him though, and one which he didn't seem entirely comfortable with. It crossed Blamour's mind to wonder why Poitron was worrying about the order in which the weeds were pulled up when there were two murders still not resolved. It only added fuel to the speculation that the Bonnevilles didn't want them resolved for some reason, or Poitron didn't.