William now joined the remaining guard to give one last tug. Neither the door nor its crude hinges had been built to withstand this sort of treatment. It gave up the ghost and came off completely in the hands of the surprised men.
Wood in hand, they staggered several steps backwards, straight into Hermitage who had been standing behind them. Burly guard number one, William, investigative monk and large door slid backwards on the wet grass for a few feet. Then all of them, except the door, looked back towards their feet to see what effect they had had on the tower.
The sight that met their eyes stayed with them for several years after the event. The stuff piled up behind the door stayed exactly where it was; it even had a perfect impression of the inside of the door embossed upon it. It took the eyes a moment to register the fact that the original door had in fact gone, and had not simply changed colour.
After several tense moments the contents of the room started to move. They did so slowly and cautiously, but with inexorable intent. As if testing the way, as if doubting that the route was safe or that its new-found freedom was real, the stuff shifted forward an inch or two.
With a noise that could only be described by those who were there at the time, and only then after many strong drinks, the contents of the garderobe made a comprehensive, if incomprehensible, deposit on the field. The territory was never to be reclaimed.
Hermitage ran over to join Wat who was again covering his face with his scented cloth. It was more scent than cloth at the moment.
A number of other guards from the castle appeared to see what all the fuss was about. They saw one colleague lying prone by the tower and two others backing away slowly with eyes wide, as if the ground were about to leap up and chase them. The two guests of Robert were looking on.
The captain of the watch brushed through the ranks of his men, furious at having been woken so early.
'What the hell is going on out here?’ he yelled as only he could yell. He spotted Wat and Hermitage and changed his tone. 'Any trouble, sir?’ he asked.
'We need some new men for the torches,’ said Hermitage, putting the events of the last two minutes behind him with remarkable ease. He beckoned towards the stumps of two torches which were burning merrily close to the door.
'Eeuuucchhh,’ said the captain as he took a gentle sniff of the air.
'Is that?’
'Yes, it is,’ said Wat. 'Just get the torches.’
Gagging into his hand the captain staggered away and selected two of the men he disliked most.
'This is not good,’ Hermitage said to Wat.
'My friend, you are a master of understatement,’ Wat mumbled through his cloth.
'The evidence will have been disturbed. I should have thought of this. Hermitage, you idiot.’
'Eh?’
'If there was any footprint, or trace of the killer, it will have washed out of the door with all the rest of the, erm, material. We should have gone down through the hole like William said.’
'I don't think we'd have fitted, Hermitage,’ said Wat with commendable restraint. ‘The holes weren't meant to let whole people pass through.’
'Perhaps not. Anyway, we can still examine what remains, to see if there is anything of interest.’
'You can still examine what remains,’ Wat corrected him.
'Ah yes.’
…
Word spread quickly about what had happened and some of the night guards came to join their colleagues at the foot of the tower. Two reluctant souls appeared with hastily-made cloth masks covering their noses and mouths. Hermitage waved them towards the tower door.
Ethel appeared at Wat's side. 'What is going on?’ he asked, frowning at the mess that had been made of the field.
'We're getting into the bottom of the garderobe,’ Hermitage explained.
'I hope you're going to put it all back.’ The Saxon sniffed uneasily.
Looking helplessly towards their captain for respite that they knew would not come, the two guards gingerly approached the tower, trying hard to tread in as little of the stuff as they could manage.
They reached the torches without event, plucked them from the ground and held them in front of their faces, as if the flames would frighten the smell away. With more caution than they had ever used before, they approached the door in the castle wall.
The rudiments of chemistry had long since been forgotten in eleventh-century England. This was a shame. If a Saracen had been to hand he could have warned them about the effects of thrusting a lighted torch into a confined chamber full of extremely combustible gases. As it was, the resulting explosion took the now large gathering by the biggest surprise of most of their lives. It was certainly the messiest.
Not even soldiers had invented a word to describe the event.
'Well that's that, then,’ Hermitage snapped in disgust, as the contents of the garderobe launched themselves into the sky before raining down again, very unlike rain. 'We'll never find anything now.’ He turned to Wat, only to spot him running away again, this time back to the castle.
As he looked further he noticed that everyone was running back into the castle, guards, captain, William, the lot.
‘”As people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle,”’ he quoted resentfully. 'Two Samuel, book nine chapter three,’ he added. 'Useless bunch of….’
He grumbled as he stepped towards the tower to see if anything of value remained.
Picking his way as carefully as he could, he lifted a smouldering torch which lay nearby and coaxed it into a gentle life. He reached the opening of the tower. The old wooden door was nowhere to be seen, having been comprehensively buried.
'How fascinating,’ Hermitage said, examining the wreckage. Several parts of the stonework had been destroyed and there were large burn marks all around doorway. He rubbed these with his finger tips and smelled the result of an intense fire.
'There must have been some violent humour inside the room which reacted with anger to the light of the torches. This warrants further investigation.’
With extreme caution, even for Hermitage, he held his low burning torch at arms’ length. Slowly he moved it into the room, hiding as best he could behind the stonework. It didn't occur to him for a moment that he was being extremely brave. Nor that he was being incredibly stupid. The torch leapt into life, but there was no further eruption.
He poked his head into the chamber and noticed that the worst of the smell had gone. 'So the smell and the humour are one and the same thing. I wonder if there could be some practical use for this process?’ He pondered some more. 'If a whole series of mobile garderobes were built, they could be moved to a forest for example. Then, when the trees need felling, we simply throw in some torches and let the humours do the rest. It would save days of chopping.’
'Unless, of course, the humours set fire to the forest,’ he reasoned with some disappointment.
Then, casting his mind to the Normans, he wondered if there might be some use for this effect as a weapon of war. Intriguing, but not something for a monk to pursue. And he couldn’t see Wat coping with the finer details. Oh well.
'Back to the matter in hand.’ He now climbed into the room, made largely vacant thanks to the violent humours. Still taking care where to put his feet, and not a little nervous of the torch, he looked around.
Nothing. Hermitage’s shoulders sagged.
The room was by no manner of description clean, but there was very little left of what used to occupy the space.
He held the torch up and peered towards the holes in the ceiling. He moved under the one that had supported de Turold's last moments and looked closely around. Nothing on the floor or walls gave any indication of presence. There was certainly no child's bow or crossbow lying about.
He was about to give up when the light of the torch cast a strange, thin shadow on the wall. As Hermitage moved, the shadow wavered. He moved the torch around until he located the source. Some thin filament was dangling from the hole
above, perhaps a remnant of Henri's gizzards.
He had just taken hold of it when his arms were grabbed by strong hands.
'Right,’ said a gruff and ignorant voice, the sort of voice that was usually attached to strong hands, 'you're coming with us.’
Hermitage dropped the torch in shock. He was unceremoniously dragged backwards, the heels of his sandals most effectively scooping up the floor of the chamber and thoroughly coating his feet.
Caput X
Ten-o-clock: Weaver and Saxon
Dawn's chaos had descended into the mere mess of a morning at the Castle Grosmal. After breakfast – a much later and lighter meal than normal for anyone who had witnessed the destruction of the garderobe – Ethel sent for Wat and Hermitage.
The weaver arrived in the retainer's tower looking pale and bilious.
'Where's the monk?’ Ethel asked with the usual disdain in his voice.
'Brother Hermitage,’ Wat replied, emphasising the fact that his companion had a name, 'is investigating the garderobe.’
'Well, let's hope he investigates a little less vigorously this time. We won't have much of the castle left. What happened?’
'No idea. I'll have to wait for Hermitage to come back. He was going to examine the chamber below to see if there was any indication of who committed the crime.’
'If killing Normans is a crime,’ Ethel said with considerable sincerity.
Wat frowned at him. The man was obviously a snooty, arrogant, self-important dung bucket, but he had been taken down several notches by the invaders. There was no one like a snooty, arrogant, self-important dung bucket for bearing a grudge. And nothing like a noble for taking a grudge to extremes. Especially an ex-noble with little hope. Wat had better discuss this with Hermitage.
'And what are you supposed to be doing?’ Ethel asked.
'Well, I would be investigating as well if I hadn't been summoned here.’ Wat folded his arms. He might have taken this condescension from Aethelred Saxon noble, but Ethel the servant could stick it.
'Well, get on with it then. And find your monk before he does any more damage. If he's looking in the lower chamber, you'd better check the upper one. You can see if there's been any damage there. And if there has I can arrange for you to tell Grosmal.’
‘“Grosmal” eh,’ Wat observed sardonically. 'Yes, I will go and have a look. Then maybe we can both go and see your lord and master. I imagine you're responsible for the fabric of the building.’
Wat turned and strode from room without looking back and certainly without bowing.
'Dung bucket,’ he muttered as he left the tower.
…
On reflection, he reluctantly admitted that looking in the garderobe again was probably a good idea. The big fire that had blown out the lower chamber might have done some damage, but it might also have revealed something of interest. Wat didn't have a clue what something in a garderobe of interest would look like, but it wouldn't do any harm to check. Apart from having to put up with the smell, of course.
Making his way back to the garderobe he passed William again, quietly walking up and down the battlements.
'Ah,’ Wat began.
'Oh no,’ William got in quickly, 'not again. I can't do anything for you, I'm busy,’ and he scurried off.
'Don't blame you, mate,’ Wat muttered. He followed his previous path until he came to the chamber.
He was very pleased to note that the worst of the smell had gone. The odour of the place was now no worse than the average dwelling.
This gave him the courage to enter the room and look around. The place looked pretty much as it had before. The seats were still there, in their proper place, the walls were as intact as he imagined they were supposed to be and the floor of the place was as grubby as it had been.
He went over to the nearest hole and peered in. Daylight was streaming in through the missing door below and he could see the floor of the lower chamber.
'Hermitage,’ he called, ' are you there?’
There was no reply which puzzled him. It was unlike the young monk to leave a scene of interest until he physically dragged away from it. Perhaps he had found something and was at that moment looking for Wat.
The weaver leant over a bit further and tried to see the whole of the lower room.
He was nearly knocked down the hole when a large object fell from the sky and crashed across his shoulders.
'Ow, bloody hell!' He leapt back and looked up. A large portion of the lower garderobe's contents had clearly been blown up through the seats when the torches went bang. It had liberally coated the ceiling and Wat's first thought was that he hoped no one had been sitting here at the time. His second was that a large portion of something had just fallen on his clothes.
He hopped about, brushing his shoulders with his hands. Then he realised what he might be brushing.
He looked round on the floor to see what had fallen. One rather heavy, entirely man made object had clearly come up through the hole with the filth. It had been stuck to the ceiling and had chosen this moment to fall down. Wat didn't like to pick it up. Or touch it. Or go anywhere near it. But he knew it was of vital importance.
Sighing loudly, he wrapped his hand in his piece of scented cloth, picked the object up and went to find Ethel.
…
The retainer himself had been summoned and was dragging himself across the great hall.
'What’s going on?’ the lord of the castle demanded. 'Noises, smells, people running about shouting – bloody mayhem in here.’
'It’s the garderobe,’ Ethel said, without batting an eyelid.
'Who is doing what in my garderobe? I'll have their heads.’
'The monk and the other one are trying to determine how de Turold was killed. They were examining the lower chamber of the garderobe when there was some sort of fire.’
'A fire?’ Grosmal panicked for a moment. ‘In my castle?’ A worse thought occurred. ‘In my garderobe? '
'It went out again straight away, but it left a bit of a mess.’
'Looking into the garderobe?’ As usual, Grosmal was a few steps behind. ‘It’s not for looking into, you know, it’s for putting stuff in.’
Ethel laughed lightly at his master’s terminal idiocy and explained.
'They have been trying to find out who killed de Turold, as you ordered.’
'Oh, excellent. Who was it then?’
This rocked Ethel a bit. 'I don’t know yet, they haven’t found out.’
'Well, that’s not very good, is it? I asked you to do that hours ago.’
'They've got to find some evidence.’ Grosmal looked blank. ‘Clues,’ Ethel explained. ‘Something that might tell us who the killer was.’
'What, like his name on a piece of parchment or something?’
Ethel laughed contemptuously, neatly side-stepping the fact he had thought the same thing himself a little while earlier. 'Well, that would be ideal, obviously. A little bit of paper saying I did it, signed William, that would be really handy.’ Ethel’s tone was so laced with sarcasm that it could barely walk. However, it could have jumped up and down on the spot singing that popular number 'Let’s Kill the Normans and Cook Their Heads in a Pot' and Robert Grosmal would have missed it.
'Oh, it was William was it?’ He paused. ‘William who?’
'No, it was not William. I was just giving you an example. I was trying to indicate that a piece of parchment was an extremely unlikely thing to find. I was trying… oh, I give up. I think they were going to look for something like a footprint, or a piece of clothing that came off, maybe a spare arrow, or the bow left behind, anything at all really.’
'And what did they find?’
'Nothing.’
'Nothing? In the garderobe? That’s not possible. I’ve been going in there for months, there must have been something.’ Robert sounded as if he was about to abandon the hunt for the murderer and re-direct his efforts towards finding the contents of his garderobe, which had obviously
been stolen.
'Clearly there was something, there was a huge amount of something. The trouble was that it all fell out of the door when they opened it, and then when they tried to look inside it all went bang.’
'Bang?’
'Well, more a sort of Whhoooommfff really. But the end result was that the contents of the garderobe were scattered all over the field and any clues there might have been were lost with it.’
'So who’s cleaning up the field?’ asked Robert, with disarming simplicity.
'Well, er.’ Such deft logic was not what Ethel had been expecting. 'No one really.’
'Can’t do that,’ said Robert as if it was perfectly obvious. 'Can’t have smelly stuff all over my field, makes it look untidy. Have someone clean it up. And tell those monks to bring me the killer.’
Ethel was dumbfounded. He felt it really wasn’t worth the effort of explaining to Grosmal that the one not dressed as a monk was not, in fact, a monk.
The moment was disrupted by a clattering noise outside the chamber door.
'I shall press them for a resolution.’
'Yes, you do that, or I shall press you. Very hard and with something very heavy.’
'Yes my lord,’ Ethel grimaced.
Wat appeared at the chamber entrance, holding his new-found object at arms’ length.
'Who's that?’ Grosmal demanded.
'That's the one who isn't a monk.’ Ethel explained. He beckoned Wat to join them.
As he came closer Grosmal recognised what Wat had in his hand.
'Where did you get that?’ he demanded viciously.
'I found it,’ Wat replied.
'Found it? Found it?’ Grosmal seemed very disturbed by this.
Ethel stood back, observing but out of the firing line.
'Where did you find it?’ Grosmal snapped.
'In the garderobe.’
'Impossible. You're a liar. Ethel, hang this man.’
Ethel took a step forward with a slight smile.
The Garderobe of Death Page 9