The Garderobe of Death

by Howard of Warwick

  'We found him. Like this. All weaved up.'

  Hermitage thought this a fine description. It was indeed as if Briston had been woven to death. He squatted at the side of the body and examined the cord, except it wasn't cord or rope. It was tapestry thread, the thin delicate strand from which great beauty sprang. In this case, many strands had been wound to make a thicker binding and the only bits of Briston visible were his boots at the bottom and a clump of hair at the top. They certainly didn't look beautiful.

  Most incongruously of all, the colour of the thread was flesh pink.

  Hermitage acknowledged that whoever had done this had been very neat. Each pass of cord was precisely laid against the next, and the whole formed a rather agreeable pattern. This body-shaped tapestry was lying on its left side, its face pressed against the wall of the tent. Evenly laid bands ran round and round his legs and on to the torso, clamping the arms to the side. Indented towards the top was a most effective and well-ordered noose, which tightly grasped the man's throat. This continued on around the head until the whole ensemble finished in a masterful knot on top, leaving those few wisps of hair struggling out.

  'Weaved up is right,' Wat breathed. 'So you came straight to us in Castle Grosmal?'

  The man held out a crumpled piece of pale cream parchment, 'I found this.'

  Wat took it while Hermitage looked in wonder. It appeared to be a fine piece of material, ill-used, no doubt, but the quality was visible. Clear writing could be seen, and in a good hand. Wat looked at the thing and handed it to Hermitage, keeping his attention on his captive. The monk reverently turned it over in his hands. It was indeed of high quality, or rather had been some time ago. It had weight and durability. Some of the edges were frayed, but that was to be expected. It had clearly been crumpled and thrust into this fellow's pocket. A thought that gave Hermitage the shivers. He looked at the paper and the writing upon it. This too was old, but completely legible. He read it to himself once and frowned deeply.

  'Recipe for the sousing of herring gizzards?' he read out loud, wondering what on earth that had to do with the murder of a weaver.

  'The other side,' the man bemoaned.

  Hermitage turned the paper over and read more writing. This was in a far less learned hand, but the words were simple.

  'If I die,' Hermitage squinted and read out slowly, 'he's misspelled “die”, by the way.'

  Wat simply glared.

  'Sorry. If I die, pass this to Wat the Weaver. He is now at...' Hermitage held the paper some distance from his eyes. 'There's a lot of writing and crossing out. Looks like a list of some sort.'

  'It is,' Wat said. 'Just read what's at the end. Not crossed out.'

  'Erm,' Hermitage scanned down the document to find something he could make head or tail of. 'Castle Grosmal,' he read out in some wonder. 'How did he know you were there?' He looked further. 'Before that it says De'Ath's Dingle, crossed out. How did he know you were at the monastery?'2

  'He was worried,' Wat explained. 'It's a death note. Look.'

  Wat released his prisoner with a glare of warning and pulled another piece of parchment from a small pocket in the waistband of his breeches. This was neatly folded and in much better condition. He handed it to Hermitage.

  Unfolding it the monk read, 'If I die, pass this to Briston the Weaver, he is currently at... then it's blank?'

  'That's because I wasn't worried someone was going to kill me. Briston plainly was. It was an arrangement we had.'

  'A rather risky one,' Hermitage observed. 'If the threat of death arrived, you'd hardly have time to find out where your friend was and then write it down.'

  'We get threatened all the time,' Wat shrugged. 'You get to know when it's serious. That's when you start keeping tabs on one another. Pick up word from the markets, other travellers, that sort of thing.'

  Hermitage shook his head. It was clearly an appalling way to live.

  'Wouldn't it be more effective to have a help note?' Hermitage asked. 'One which said “someone is after me, come and help”. That way you might not have to actually die before help arrived. Which is a bit extreme, and a bit late, if I may say so.'

  'It's just a sort of will, Hermitage,' Wat explained. 'We weren't tending one another like lambs.'

  Hermitage didn't find this satisfactory, but Wat clearly didn't want to go into the subject any further.

  'Who would threaten you?' he asked instead. 'And what for? I don't understand what you could possibly do in the way of weaving that would make someone want to kill you. And all these crossings out,' Hermitage reasoned, 'show that your friend had been under serious threat for some time.'

  'He always was a chancer.'

  'A chancer?' Hermitage hadn't heard the word before.

  'One who takes chances, risks, always on the lookout for big fortune. Perhaps taking some money for something he hadn't done. Passing off work as his own when it might not be. That sort of thing.'

  'Ah. Dishonesty, but not you.' Hermitage stated a fact.

  'Cautious and steady, me. Always have a fall back.' Wat was reassuring, but he hadn't actually denied being dishonest.

  'You've done very well for yourself.' Hermitage acknowledged the fine cut of Wat's clothes and the quality of his boots.

  'I have. And when someone wants to kill me, my general approach is to avoid them. Briston's approach was usually to rob them some more.'

  'How awful.' Hermitage gazed at the body as these revelations about life in the world were more shocking than those of Saint John at the end of it. 'Still,' he tried to sound positive, 'we've resolved issues such as this before. We've found killers. I'm sure we could do it again.'

  'That's the easy bit,' Wat said, standing once more. 'I know who did it.' There was steel in his tone.

  'Really?'

  Hermitage was impressed. They'd only been in the tent for a few minutes and Wat had already identified the murderer. Hermitage looked around in some intellectual frustration. What clue had he missed? He checked the old parchment in his hand in case Briston had written the name of his killer on it. He held it loosely as he considered the processes required to make a note of a murderer's name while you're being murdered. He considered it unlikely.

  'It's a guild execution,' Wat announced.

  The man with them, who had been sidling towards the door since getting his throat back, now made a run for it, shouting, 'Assassins, assassins,' all the way back to his hovel where he bolted inside and threw a goatskin over the entrance.

  'Let him go,' Wat said as Hermitage started to move after the man. 'He didn't have anything to do with it. I just thought he might have seen something.'

  Hermitage returned to Wat's side and they looked down on Briston's woven resting place.

  'It's called the Tapestry of Death,' Wat explained.

  Hermitage thought this was a fine expression, but no explanation. He turned his head to his friend and raised eyebrows in question.

  'It's the ritual of execution for those who breach the code of the guild.' Wat was sombre and serious. 'There's an awful lot of ritual in the guild. Books and books of the stuff, but this is the end of it all.'

  Hermitage nodded sagely. Then he had some thoughts.

  'Weavers?' he said, incredulity creeping into his voice.

  'Yes,' Wat snapped back.

  'The guild of weavers executes people?' The incredulity had gone up a notch and had been joined by an undertone of mocking.

  'A significant body,' Wat insisted.

  'Oh absolutely,' Hermitage agreed, not wanting to offend his friend. 'Maintain the standards of the craft. Ensure the proper training and appointment of apprentices. Let prospective customers know that their weaver is a man of quality. Perhaps even see off those of inferior workmanship, or expel people in extremis. But execution?' Hermitage found it hard to believe that the guild of weavers had an office of murderers. 'I mean,' he went on, 'it's a bit strict, isn't it?'

  'Only in the most extreme cases, obviously.' Wat was rather defen
sive.

  Hermitage was still on his train of thought, 'Guild of murderers I could understand, if there is one. Certain chivalric orders, perhaps? They might have to kill their own members. But for a bit of mucking people about and being a, what was it, chancer?'

  'It's more than that,' Wat insisted. 'Much, much more than that.'

  Hermitage thought hard, but couldn't imagine what more a weaver would have to do to justify execution.

  'Did Briston kill someone in the guild?' he asked. It was the only thing he could think of.

  'No, of course not,' Wat answered. 'Don't be ridiculous! We're weavers.'

  'But you just said...' Hermitage began, puzzled that Wat had just described the self-same weavers as a desperate band of killers.

  'It was Briston's subject matter.'

  Hermitage struggled to get his head round this. 'You mean he was executed for what he created tapestries of?'

  'Exactly.'

  'Good heavens. Must be pretty unique for this to happen to you.'

  'Believe me, it was. Even though I know it was the guild, there are still questions. Someone actually wove the Tapestry of Death on to poor Briston and there aren't many who can. I want him first.'

  'Ah,' Hermitage didn't like the sound of that. Wat's tone wasn't of a man who wanted to resolve an intellectual puzzle. It was the tone of a man who wanted to hit things. If there was a first, there would probably be a second.

  'Then there's the guild master who ordered it done. He's second on my list.'

  Now there was a list.

  'You have a list,' Hermitage tried to sound supportive, but it came out as a bit of a squeak.

  'And there could be a third man.'

  'Another one?' Hermitage was concerned that this list was quite long.

  'It's possible someone asked the guild to do it.'

  'Ah,' Hermitage was hoping the list would come to an end soon.

  'Unless there was some sort of group,' Wat speculated. 'A number of the aggrieved getting together and deciding to take action.'

  'Let's stick with two for now, shall we?' Hermitage offered.

  Wat nodded a sombre acknowledgement, 'One at time,' he mused, 'one at a time.'

  'That's the spirit.'

  Hermitage knelt once more at Briston's side and laid a hand on the man's head in blessing. As he touched the large topknot, the body overbalanced and rolled on to its back.

  Wat nodded as the whole structure was revealed, 'Definitely guild work.'

  Hermitage looked at the head of Briston as the covered face was presented.

  'Ah,' he said in some interest at what he saw. 'Erm,' he didn't like to ask the next question of Wat. He didn't know if it was going to be blindingly stupid or blindingly clever. Perhaps this was part of a standard weavers' guild assassination. 'Is he, erm, supposed to have blood all over him?'

  Wat peered down at the forehead area, which had a large and intense red stain all over it. Whether the figure had been bound and then hit or hit and then bound was difficult to tell. It also didn't matter very much. Certainly not to Briston.

  'Ah,' Wat said, rubbing his chin. 'Now that's not in the ritual. Death by tapestry. Not death by being hit on the head.'

  'So, not the guild?'

  'Still the guild. No one else can do this kind of tapestry work.'

  'Are you sure?' Hermitage thought it a bit of an assumption to make.

  Wat gestured at the complex woven structure, 'Who else would bother?' he asked.

  'I suppose so.' Hermitage could see it would need a lot of training and practice to produce something like this. Not the sort of thing anyone would do as a pastime.

  Wat was thoughtful, 'This only doubles the force of my promise.' He came to some sort of conclusion.

  'Promise?'

  Hermitage hadn't heard any promise. Wat had promised a couple of things to the peasant who brought them here, but Hermitage thought them inappropriate at the time. They were certainly not relevant now. What else could the weaver be talking about? He rubbed the death note between his fingers and thought. The old familiar sinking feeling descended on his stomach. 'These notes?' he asked with a slight tremor.

  'They were promises,' Wat said. 'Promises that if either of us died and left the death note, the other would avenge.'

  'Oh.' Hermitage didn't like the sound of that at all. He noticed Wat's fists were tightly clenched. Another alarming sign. Investigating he could do. Well, he could do it now. Well, he'd done it twice and neither time had actually resulted in his own execution. Although both came close. Avenging sounded much more dangerous.

  'Avenge by bringing to justice, perhaps?' he offered in place of the image of avenging that had sprung into his mind. This involved running around with swords and getting in fights, all of which he lost.

  'No,' Wat snarled, 'avenging by hunting down the men who did this. The guild master who invoked the ritual and ordered Briston's death and the paid killer who did it. I'll get them if it takes the last of my breath, and I will dispense the only justice possible.'

  'Ah,' Hermitage said, 'hunting down a professional killer then. Marvellous.

  1 The volume entitled The Garderobe of Death reveals all…

  2 You can find out why Wat was at the monastery by reading The Heretics of De’Ath