The Heretics of De'Ath (The Chronicles of Brother Hermitage Book 1)

by Howard of Warwick

  'Better for us all if you simply died here and now,' the young man replied, 'that way we could pick you out of the chair and drop you straight in a hole.’

  'Your brother would have something to say about that, you little runt.’

  'Not if I got him first,' Toksvar said with a very serious and anticipatory smile on his face.

  Nicodemus was not a great believer in the more supernatural elements of his own religion. He had no truck with tales of witchcraft or spirits and he had other radical views, which he naturally kept to himself. These concerned the causes of right and wrong and the nature of good. His philosophy was thrown into turmoil by the grin on Toksvar's face, which could only be described as pure evil.

  'Family,' Toksvar grinned a more earthy grin to Nicodemus. 'Who'd have 'em eh?’

  It took some considerable time and not a small amount of inconvenience and to-ing and fro-ing to sort out the Earl. A number of men who seemed used to this sort of thing appeared and carried him bodily from the room. They were directed by Nicodemus to a place of privacy where they could do whatever you did to a leaky Earl. Another two men appeared and took the chair away, moving it outside to their carts and horses, which as far as Nicodemus was concerned was the best place for it. Apart from perhaps a bonfire.

  Next a team of about four appeared with fresh clothes for the Earl. Two more men left the building carrying a sack, the contents of which Nicodemus could only speculate about, and shudder. When the hubbub died down the Earl emerged and took Nicodemus by the shoulder as if nothing untoward had happened at all.

  Nicodemus led the way back into the chamber where the two chair carriers returned the furniture. This was completely unblemished and looked like new. In fact it looked better than new, as a small tear the Bishop himself had made had been expertly repaired. Nicodemus marvelled at what was possible when you had serious money. He was grateful to notice that the Earl did not return to his seat. With Toksvar out of the room the Earl talked conspiratorially with Nicodemus.

  'Now that I have experienced the presence of my son again, I am more anxious than ever that we proceed with our development as quickly as possible.’ There were still a few crumbs in the Earl's mouth which splattered Nicodemus's shoulder.

  'Of course, of course,' Nicodemus grimaced. Maybe something good was coming out of all of this after all.

  'Today?’ While the Earl placed a question mark at the end of the sentence it was clear from his demeanour and tone that it was a rhetorical question mark. An Earl's rhetorical question mark: this was not a matter for any debate.

  Nicodemus nodded and hurried to call for another messenger to take this news ahead. He was starting to run out of messengers.

  …

  In the monastery itself, Wat and Hermitage arrived at the refectory to examine the place of Ambrosius’s death – only to find it locked.

  'Why's it locked?’ Wat asked. 'Who's going to steal anything from here?’

  It was clear that any passing thief would have to be pretty desperate to believe there was anything inside this ghastly place worth stealing. Indeed, it would be a rather disturbed individual who considered the inside of this place worth entering at all. For a place of refreshment and revitalisation, it was remarkably grim and foreboding.

  'It's part of the order.’ Hermitage shrugged; it was a part he wasn't too keen on.

  'To lock the refectory?’

  'Yes. You see the Abbot believes that we all eat too much and too often. Just because we're hungry doesn't mean we should get a meal.’

  'So how do we get in?’

  'We could ask Athan for the key?’ Hermitage made the suggestion although there was an alternative in his mind.

  'Or?’

  'There is another way,' Hermitage said, nodding slowly.

  'Brother Hermitage, you surprise me,' said Wat with some admiration.

  Hermitage shrugged in embarrassment.

  'I've never really seen why it matters whether we're in here or not because this isn't where the food is. The locks and bars on the granary and the meat store I can understand. Perhaps it's because the refectory is so comfortable.’

  Wat looked around the outside of the building, finding this very hard to believe.

  'Compared to anywhere else I mean,' Hermitage added.

  He led the weaver around to the right of the building to an alleyway, squeezed between the outer wall of the refectory and an apparently pointless piece of high stonework, which jutted out from the adjacent building. They passed along the outer walls of both buildings and then turned left to arrive at the back of the refectory.

  If the face of the refectory was so grim as to cast a pall over the happy proceedings of repast, the back of the place would have sucked the soul from a kitten.

  It was a triangular area of bare ground walled on each side by buildings which took this open space as a personal insult. They glowered down on it with every intent of hurling themselves forward at any minute. This made it as disturbing a place as the kennel of a mad dog that's just been roundly taunted by a soulless kitten. The buildings were bullying the space mercilessly. They had already cast several pieces of their loosest masonry at it, so that the floor was a jumble of broken stone and mortar.

  Hermitage led the way through this mess to a spectacularly thrown gargoyle, which had finished up feet first in the ground right up against the refectory wall. It looked like nothing other than a demon-headed dog that had not got out of the way fast enough when the refectory landed. The look on its face said the building had hit it somewhere extremely sensitive. Wat winced in sympathy at the creature's tortured expression.

  'Here,' said Hermitage, and behind the emasculated mongrel was a small door set into the stone.

  'We don't think the Abbot or Athan know about this, so we use it when the weather is extreme.’

  'Ah,' said Wat. 'You get in out of the cold, eh?’

  Hermitage looked puzzled, 'Oh no,' he said, 'we come in here when it's too hot outside. The inside of the refectory is always colder than outside. If you entered in midwinter, you probably wouldn’t come out again.’

  Hermitage pushed at the door. It swung open with little resistance.

  'We're not even sure why it's here,' the young monk went on. 'Must have been a builder's thing, I suppose.’

  'It is,' Wat said, 'it's the escape hatch.’

  'Escape from what?’

  'I know my fellow tradesmen very well,' Wat explained. 'Putting up a place like this refectory would take years. The men on the job certainly wouldn't want to devote their entire lives to it. Whatever the designers' plans, one of the first things the builders would put in would be the escape hatch.’

  Hermitage looked puzzled.

  Wat continued as they knelt and went through the door on hands and knees. He seemed relaxed and comfortable in Hermitage's company and the young monk was gratified and hugely enjoyed this general conversation. It was nice to talk about something that wasn't his own execution.

  'A secret door which allowed them to get in and out of the site,' Wat sprinkled trade secrets. 'They could be signed in in the morning, go straight out through the hatch to another job and then come back in again in the evening to collect their pay. With construction being such a naturally slow process, no one would notice if one of the trades hadn't actually done anything at all one day.’

  'That's disgraceful,' Hermitage commented.

  They now stood in the refectory, having passed through a convoluted passageway that emerged between two pillars at the very back of the room.

  'Right,' said Wat, rubbing his palms and gazing around the large space. It echoed and amplified the nastiness of the outside to a peak of architectural malice. Malice towards everything. Life, love, food, good company, contentment and comfort. None of them were on the guest list.

  'Where was Ambrosius?’ Wat asked, once he had got his bearings.

  'Er, just here,' Hermitage took three steps forward to the lectern at the head of the chamber from which Amb
rosius had delivered his oration.

  Wat came and stood at it and looked all around.

  'And this was the chair he was found in?’

  'Yes, that's it.’ Hermitage stood respectfully back from the plain wooden backed chair which had held the corpse.

  Wat prowled around it and the space. He looked at the chair in some detail, getting down on his hands and knees. He looked up at the windows and paced out distances from places of concealment to the Ambrosius memorial chair. He walked over to the main entrance door and also to the far end of the building.

  'Where were you?’ he asked.

  'I was just here.’ Hermitage indicated his seat, on the end of one of the long refectory benches.

  'Sit there, would you?’

  Hermitage sat.

  'I'll be Ambrosius.’ Wat took up position at the lectern. 'And you were the only one here?’

  'Well, I was when Athan arrived. During the debate Brother James was over there by the fire.’

  'There was a fire?’ Wat was surprised. He was getting used to the place.

  'Special dispensation for the Conclave.’

  'Anyone else?’

  'Brother Francis moved about a bit. Sometimes he was in a seat and at others he was on the floor over there.’ Hermitage indicated a space between the benches.

  'What was he doing on the floor?’

  'Oh well, Brother Francis is a bit, erm…' Hermitage found it hard to explain. 'Well, he's not quite as other Brothers.’

  'Probably the only normal one here then,' Wat concluded callously. 'And Athan didn't think it of any significance that there were two others here as well?’

  'They'd both gone by the time Athan arrived. They had stayed longer than everyone else. People didn't loiter once Ambrosius got going. I suspect those two were using the debate as an excuse to avoid their daily toil.’

  'That's disgraceful,' Wat said. Hermitage did not miss the dig. 'All right. So. If I was standing here giving my all to the debate, you were contemplating and not seeing anything, what were Francis and James doing? And where were they when the death actually occurred, as opposed to when it was discovered?’

  'Well, when I looked round they'd gone.’ Hermitage didn't see how this was going to help.

  'Yes, but you only looked up when Athan shouted at you.’

  'Yes.’

  'So if Ambrosius had been dead for some time, James or Francis could have done it and then left without you noticing.’

  'Oh, they wouldn't have done that.’

  'Why not exactly?’

  'Well, they just wouldn't. They were monks who, well, just wouldn't.’

  'And you would?’

  'No, no, that's not what I mean. Ambrosius just died, you've seen the body. I don't know how many times I have to keep saying this. There was no murder. There was a death and you can have one without the other.’ There was irritation in Hermitage's voice.

  'The body with a big red mark on its head?’

  'But it got that after death.’ Hermitage was feeling uncomfortable again.

  'So you say, but if someone had hit him there and caused the death, the fact that he fell off his chair would disguise the fact.’

  'But we would have noticed when Athan arrived. And I'm sure I'd have stopped contemplating if someone had come up to Ambrosius and hit him on the head.’

  'Hmm.’ Wat seemed reluctantly convinced by this. Hermitage started to worry again that the weaver might think that he had done it after all.

  Wat returned to the lectern.

  'There doesn't seem to be any evidence of a struggle.’

  'How do you know?’ Hermitage was intrigued.

  'Well, there's very little disturbance in the dust – no broken furniture or windows. If he was done in, he didn't put up much of a fight.’

  'I don't think he was in the physical condition to get involved in a fight. If anyone had tried to kill him his best response would have been a robust telling off. I'm positive I would have noticed that.’

  'Yes, probably.’ Wat paused to look about the place once more. 'It would have been difficult to shoot him because the lectern would shield him from any outside view. And you probably would have noticed the swish and thud of an arrow followed by that little gurgle people do. Not that we found any holes in him that shouldn't have been there anyway.’

  'This hasn't been much help, has it?’ Hermitage was finding the constant leaping from the heights of optimism to the depths of despair and back again a bit wearing.

  'Not at all. We've ruled out all sorts of possibilities. No fight, no scuffle, no shooting, not a violent death in fact.’

  'Which leaves an old monk just dying in the natural course of things.’ Up went Hermitage.

  'Not necessarily.’

  Down came Hermitage again.

  'What we have come up with,' Wat explained, 'is a number of other names. While you might have been the only person in the place at the moment Athan found you, you clearly weren't the only one here at all. We've got these Brothers James and Francis, and who did you say was arguing against?’

  'Father Genly.’

  'Yes, I think we need to see these people.’

  'But Father Genly wasn't here. In fact, he was hardly here at all.’

  'No, but he had an interest in Ambrosius. Perhaps he was so angered by the argument...’

  'That he did what? We know Ambrosius wasn't beaten, he wasn't hit, he wasn't shot. How else do you die apart from old age?’ Hermitage knew he hadn't committed a murder and doubted anyone else had. He didn't want there to have been a murder at all. Just to prove all these accusers wrong.

  'Oh my dear fellow, there are so many ways,' Wat explained with some relish. 'Suffocation, poisoning, strangulation, drowning…'

  'Drowning?’

  'All right, not drowning. This time. But just because there isn't a fatal wound in him doesn't mean he wasn't killed. First step is to find Genly, James and Francis; they've got some explaining to do.’

  'I don't think Brother Francis is up to explaining things. He's been touched. I'm not sure I've heard him utter a complete sentence at all.’

  'Then we can talk to Genly and James, and after that a really tricky one.’

  'Who's that?’

  'We need to question the one who discovered the body. Athan.’

  'Oh dear.’

  'Yes, I think we need to consider how to tackle that one. Meanwhile let's start at the top and do the priest first. Where will we find Father Genly?’

  'He seems to spend rather a lot of time with the younger Brothers. Giving them special instruction apparently.’

  'I can imagine,' said Wat shaking his head as if to remove images from it that refused to leave.

  Hermitage led the way out of the refectory again. Back in the relative warmth of an autumnal day, he was thoughtful as they walked.

  'I've been thinking about this investigation business,' he announced.

  'Oh yes?’

  'Yes. All those things we were talking about. Questioning people, getting them to explain, visiting the scene of death. I think all of that is investigation. Tracking the events that led up to the death.’

  'Really?’ Wat didn't seem to think this was adding anything to their progress.

  'In which case shouldn't the King's Investigator be doing them?’

  'Could be,' Wat shrugged. He paused and added, ' All I know is that if this Brother Simon is a true King's Investigator, come to solve a mysterious death with his skill and intelligence, then I'm a monk.’

  Caput XII

  Day five, Ladye Mass

  Finding Father Genly turned out to be more of a challenge than Hermitage expected. There were all sorts of very strange conversations with Brothers, none of which led to the Priest's whereabouts.

  'Ah, Brother,' he called to young Primbard as he was coming out of the privy. 'We're looking for Father Genly.’

  The slim young man looked them up and down in a most impudent manner. 'Really?’ he said in some surp
rise, which Hermitage couldn't understand.

  'Yes, have you seen him?’

  'Might have done.’

  'Well, where is he?’

  Primbard glanced over his shoulder at the privy and simply shrugged. Hermitage put this down to bad manners or ill breeding, and so they moved on.

  Things didn't get any better. Brother Siward claimed never to have heard of a Father Genly, which Hermitage knew was ridiculous because he had seen them together, examining the quality of cloth in one another's habits.

  Brother Barnard was positively offended by the question and refused to give information like that to anyone. And Brother Clement offered to sell them the answer for a loaf of bread. Remarkable.

  'We're not getting very far, Hermitage, are we?’ Wat asked with a wry smile on his face

  'I don't understand it. The Father has been constant presence about the place since the Conclave began. Why can't we find him now?’

  'Are you sure you don't know where his cell is?’

  'Well, that's another odd thing. His cell was the place we went first, I was sure it was his, but it seems not. At least there's no sign of him having slept there.’

  Wat chuckled and smiled benignly at Hermitage.

  'I don't see what's so amusing. We need to find the man.’

  'We certainly do. Let me talk to the next one you line up.’

  Hermitage accepted that Wat knew more about the ways of the world, but he was a touch arrogant if he thought he was better at finding a priest in a monastery. After more moments of desultory wandering about, Hermitage spotted Brother Armand coming round a corner. As soon as he spotted them, the monk turned completely on his heels and headed in the other direction.

  'Word travels fast,' Wat said, and ran after the retreating habit.

  Hermitage stood where he was and waited for the outcome of events. He was confident the weaver would have no better luck locating Father Genly.

  Pretty soon Wat and Armand were engaged in a close and confident conversation, which Hermitage couldn't hear. He thought about going over, but if Wat wanted to tackle this on his own then let him get on with it. At one point the weaver must have said something very offensive, as Brother Armand took a step back, turned very pale and said 'That's outrageous!' in a very loud voice.