Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns

by Howard of Warwick

  No, what they didn’t like was the idea of doing anything about the death of Gilder. Hermitage suspected that only if the great merchant came back to life would this moot seek out the killer. And then it would be to ask the man to finish the job properly this time.

  He really feared for their souls. And said so. They didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. They said they had a very good idea where Gilder’s soul was right now, and it was the best place for him.

  Hermitage didn’t know what else he could say. His argument was unanswerable, irrefutable, unavoidable. And they’d answered it, refuted it and avoided it, all without the slightest hint of reasoning. The town really was mad.

  He now sat, disconsolate at the side of the room while Wat and Cwen negotiated over how large and just how expensive the grand tapestry was going to be. This made him feel even worse. Not only was no one going to take the smallest step to identify the killer, but here were his friends making money out of the whole sorry business.

  He fully appreciated money had to change hands when there was a death. How was Mass going to be said, or a space in the graveyard reserved, or a tomb erected, or any one of the hundred things the church could do for the deceased be achieved, if the church wasn’t paid?

  He knew that his own monasteries had taken money for prayers and remembrance of those who had passed on. By such means were sins mitigated and a life in heaven secured.

  But all that was right and proper. He hated to denigrate the trade of his only friends in the world, but really. They were going to make a picture of the dead man. In full detail, it seemed. Did no one see that this was quite revolting? Was there really no one in this town who felt anything but unalloyed joy at the death of Gilder?

  The man’s son had been mentioned, perhaps he’d have something to say about the idea of making a tapestry of his father’s last moment. In fact it was worse than that, it was a tapestry of the moment quite a long time after the last one.

  Hermitage sighed and gently shook his head while he tried to recall if scripture had anything to say about this.

  He was so far removed from events in the room that he only looked up when he realised that things had gone very quiet. He had heard the door bang open but just assumed someone was coming or going.

  He glanced over at the moot table and saw a new figure standing at the end of it, facing the meeting.

  ‘Ah, Abbess Mildburgh,’ the Ealdorman greeted the woman as if the rotten fish in his ale had just climbed out to bite his head off. The whole of the moot had fallen silent and Wat and Cwen were gazing at the new arrival.

  Hermitage saw that this was the nun from the Shrewsbury gate. Now she was in an enclosed space he could see that she really was a striking woman. If ever you had a group of women with specialist tasks for some mission or other, Mildburgh would be a striker. From the set of her it was probably all she did.

  She towered over the assembly and in her anger her body looked like it had been carved from something very hard indeed.

  She was also cross, very cross. Her face was red, but that could have been from some exertion in the heat of the summer; probably some striking. When it was accompanied by an expression that made a thunderstorm look like a tinkling brook, and by fists clenched so hard they had turned white. The mood of the woman was clear.

  She was wearing the rough cloth befitting a religious sister, and the vow of poverty hung around her like a sign. Hermitage judged her to be at least forty, if not older. A single strand of grey hair was trying to escape from that wimple that now seemed bent on pulling the woman’s face off completely. A white-ish material was bound so tight around her cheeks that Hermitage was surprised she could move her mouth at all.

  It looked hideously uncomfortable - probably just as intended.

  Hermitage had met her sort before. He tried to shrink into the wood of the chair he was sitting on.

  Cwen was staring at the new arrival as if the nun’s appearance was a personal attack of some sort. Hermitage grimaced as he knew how Cwen tended to respond to personal attacks.

  Wat and Cwen had wandered slowly away from the moot table as the nun made her presence felt. They must have felt like they might be injured by the cross fire. They joined Hermitage.

  Wat was rubbing his chin as he considered the abbess. ‘She definitely reminds me of someone,’ he said quietly, obviously not wanting to attract her direct attention. ‘Could be my old weaving master’s wife.’

  Hermitage nodded politely.

  ‘She was a horrible piece of work as well,’ Wat added.

  ‘Gilder is dead,’ the abbess announced to the room.

  ‘We know,’ said the Ealdorman. He looked like he immediately regretted his impudence in answering back.

  ‘Why was I not told?’ she demanded.

  A member of the town moot raised a finger to answer this question but one look at the abbess persuaded him to keep his peace. Leave it to the Ealdorman, that’s what it meant to be Ealdor.

  The Ealdorman, after a brief pause to see if anyone else was willing to step in, swallowed hard and answered. ‘Because we didn’t know where you were.’ The bold statement came out like the question of a timid child.

  ‘I’m not hard to find,’ the abbess snarled. She gestured at the back of the room where Hermitage saw that she had been joined by a number of other sisters. They were dressed in the same simple garb, but were all ages. A couple of young novices stood at the back, teenage girls probably, looking as terrified of the abbess as the rest of the room. In front of them were three sisters of the order, about Hermitage’s age. Standing just behind the leader was another figure cut from the same material as the abbess, only a lot more of it.

  This rotund sister was clearly someone of authority and appeared to be strategically placed. There was no way anyone was going to make it to the door past her.

  ‘We are a wandering order,’ the abbess pointed out, clearly accusing the moot of knowing this perfectly well.

  ‘Yes,’ the Ealdorman nodded brightly, ‘but we didn’t know where you’d wandered to. You could have gone back to Wenlock.’

  ‘I was in Wenlock,’ Mildburgh explained, ‘the rest of the order was not.’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘All you had to do was send a messenger.’ The abbess gave the impression that she was very weary of telling this moot what to do.

  ‘We, er, couldn’t find anyone who…’

  Hermitage had the distinct feeling that the next words were going to be “wanted to”.

  The Ealdorman swallowed again. ‘Anyone who was free. What with so much going on.’

  The abbess’s growl would have put the fear of God up a bear.

  ‘So when did he die?’

  ‘When? Ha, ha.’ The Ealdorman’s laugh was nervous, even with several people and a table between him and this nun. ‘When did he die? Now, let me see. I think it was probably about, erm-’

  ‘He was found in the morning,’ one of the moot put in.

  The Ealdorman was grateful. ‘Morning. That’s exactly it, he was found in the morning so he died, erm,’ he paused to give this careful thought and work it out accurately, ‘some time before morning.’ The man sat back, happy that the question had been answered.

  ‘Which morning?’ the abbess pressed and the Ealdorman was squashed.

  He now started a debate among his fellows as they all looked at the ceiling and tried very hard to recall which day it had been.

  ‘Enough,’ the abbess banged the table with one of her large fists. ‘You,’ she surveyed the table, clearly aiming this at them all, ‘deliberately withheld the news that Gilder was dead.’

  The moot of Shrewsbury now looked at the surface of their table, which had suddenly become very interesting.

  ‘And that is a sin.’

  Hermitage frowned. He wasn’t sure that had a sound theological basis. The whole situation had to be put into context. Perhaps the moot had been trying to spare the abbess’s feelings. He looked at her again and doubted th
at. Still, at least someone was showing some disquiet at the death of Gilder.

  ‘Trying to get his affairs sorted before anyone could have a say, I imagine.’ The abbess’s glare wandered up and down the moot table.

  ‘No one has sorted out any of his affairs,’ the Ealdorman retorted, finding some courage from somewhere. He carried on, without looking at the abbess, and in best official tone, ‘If the abbess of the wandering order of St Mildburgh has representations to make, they will be heard in due course. Like everyone else.’

  The abbess’s tone dropped to one of pure and simple menace, ‘You know very well we have representations to make. I bear the name of our blessed founder because the nunnery at Wenlock was destroyed by the Danes. Once our establishment is restored to glory, praise at the altar of Saint Mildburgh can resume and we can return to our usual ways.’

  Saint Mildburgh, Hermitage racked his brains. He should know this. Mildburgh. The name rang bells at the back of his head. He had a lot of saints’ details at the back of his head. A lot of them had bells as well. Wasn’t Mildburgh something to do with birds? He would have to ask the abbess. Second thoughts, perhaps he’d look in a book.

  ‘And you also know,’ the abbess was going on, ‘that Gilder was to pay for the restoration. I fully expect that will not be hindered by the fact the man is dead.’

  Well, that was disappointing. Hermitage had thought the abbess’s protests might have been about the nuns being unable to attend a dying man. Or to say prayers for his soul, or perhaps to attend his passing. No. It was all about their nunnery. Even the abbess of a local order seemed to care not one jot that a man had died.

  ‘We shall have to see,’ said the Ealdorman, back to his nervous best. ‘We don’t know if he made any arrangements. And of course there’s Balor to consider.’

  ‘Balor,’ the abbess scoffed. If she thought little of anyone in the room, it was clear Balor held a special place in her heart. A place where the vitriol probably dripped into deep pools.

  She now surveyed the assembled moot with the end of her finger. She pointed at each and everyone one of them. ‘I don’t expect any further progress to be made without the full involvement of the order of Saint Mildburgh.’

  The moot rumbled its agreement that such a thing was unthinkable.

  ‘And that news will be sent to us.’

  Nods ran round the table which said that of course they would be sent news, why on earth wouldn’t they?

  The abbess frowned and glared and stared, all at once.

  As she slowly turned from the table she noticed Wat, Cwen and Hermitage, cowering slightly. She appraised them all and seemed to get even stiffer, if that was possible. Hermitage even checked himself to see if he’d got something horrible on his habit, such was the glare the nun was shining on them. ‘You were at the gate,’ she stated for the record. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, for herself.

  ‘Oh,’ said Wat, ‘just tradesfolk.’

  ‘And a monk,’ the abbess pointed out.

  ‘Oh, yes, and a monk. Tradesfolk and a monk.’

  The abbess questioned Hermitage without saying a word.

  ‘Brother Hermitage.’ Hermitage stood and gave the abbess a bow.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ At least the abbess’s tone with Hermitage was neutral. Still demanding, but neutral.

  ‘Just passing through, sister,’ said Hermitage. ‘We travel to Derby from Wales where we have been on, erm, an errand.’

  ‘An errand? In Wales?’ The abbess clearly found this hard to believe. ‘And what business do you have with this moot?’ She waved a hand to dismiss the moot as an irrelevance.

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage, noticing that the room had suddenly gone very quiet. He glanced to Wat, who gave him a very peculiar look. Cwen was even shaking her head, almost imperceptibly. ‘Actually, we’d, erm,’ he looked around again, trying to get some clue about what it was he was supposed to say, or not say. Wat and Cwen clearly had very specific ideas, but he didn’t have a clue.

  Cwen spoke up. She looked the abbess straight in the eye and said, ‘We’re discussing marking the death of Gilder with a tapestry.’ She even managed to say this as if it was none of the abbess’s business.

  If the members of the moot could have taken a step back, they would have.

  The abbess glared at Cwen, who reflected it straight back. A silence descended on the room, screaming with the noise of two women who didn’t like one another. At all.

  This was so uncomfortable Hermitage felt he had to speak. ‘And we’re suggesting to the moot that they may like to look into Gilder’s murder.’

  He immediately saw that he shouldn’t have spoken at all. The entire moot of Shrewsbury had their faces in their hands. The Ealdorman was even banging his head gently on the moot table. Wat and Cwen had looked away and were gazing to the heavens as if calling for divine assistance. Hermitage tried a smile.

  The abbess was very still indeed, which was somehow more worrying that when she was in full flight. ‘The murder of Gilder?’ she said in a very calm, very frightening manner.

  ‘Erm, yes.’ He got the distinct impression that he was now the centre of attention, which he hated. ‘It seems he was, erm, might have been, that is to say, it’s possible that he was knocked on the head. A bit.’

  ‘Knocked on the head?’ The abbess maintained her calm, but her stiffness said she was about to fall on something and do some serious damage.

  ‘But we don’t know that,’ Hermitage went on, quickly, because of course they didn’t. ‘It’s only what the children are singing in the street.’

  ‘Children?’ the abbess asked, and it sounded like she didn’t know what children were.

  ‘Yes. You see they made up this rhyme; Gilder is de-ad,’ Hermitage started to sing the rhyme, thought better of it and simply recited the words.

  ‘And on this basis you assume that Gilder was murdered?’ The abbess was not impressed.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Hermitage assured her. ‘If it was just the children that wouldn’t be enough at all. The sheriff confirmed it was the case.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Sorry, Shire-reeve.’

  ‘Him!’ The abbess’s contempt had the Sheriff of Shrewsbury firmly in its grasp. Fortunately he was not visible, being asleep under the moot table.

  ‘But we haven’t seen master Gilder,’ Hermitage went on, ‘so who knows? It could well be that the fellow died naturally. He was of great age I gather.’

  The abbess cast her gaze back at the moot, where it landed heavily. ‘Murder, eh?’ she said, as if she’d suspected it all along and was now vindicated. ‘And your interest?’ she drilled her gaze into Hermitage as if the answer was written inside him somewhere, ‘if you are just travelling.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hermitage, getting the distinct impression this nun didn’t believe them. ‘It’s nothing really. Just that we, that is to say, I, have some, erm, unfortunate experience of this sort of thing.’

  ‘Being murdered?’ the abbess asked.

  ‘No, no,’ Hermitage protested, hesitation getting the better of him, ‘I just happen to have been able to assist in sort of, erm, looking into things. When there’s been a murder. As it were.’

  ‘Sounds like a very dubious thing for a monk to be involved in. And these two are with you, are they?’ The abbess was unhappy about all of this. She generally seemed the type to be unhappy about everything, but she was having a special day today.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Hermitage, ‘well, yes,’ he corrected himself. ‘They are, as they say, tradesfolk. And there really is a tapestry, or will be.’ Hermitage felt he ought to do something to disconnect Wat and Cwen from the murder. It seemed to be causing an awful lot of trouble. ‘We are travelling together, as companions. Friends,’ he said this rather hopefully as he got the distinct feeling he was in trouble. ‘Mistress Cwen is a very fine tapestrier.’ Cwen didn’t acknowledge the compliment at all.

  ‘They are discussing a, erm, work for the town.’ He w
orked out that he should probably not mention the detailed theme of the work. He also wondered about mentioning Wat at all. It usually caused problems of one sort or another. He thought it should be fairly safe though, an abbess shouldn’t really be familiar with the works of Wat.

  ‘And this is Wat the weaver,’ he said quickly.

  The name seemed to have a major impact on the abbess, which shouldn’t really have surprised Hermitage. He knew his friend had a reputation and that it was a very bad one. It was quite possible it had spread to the abbess’s ears.

  The woman was already angry enough to knock the moot hall down on her own. She now looked like she’d been nailed to the foundations. Somehow she managed to grow a couple of inches and the look she threw at Wat simply brushed everyone else aside.

  There was a movement at the back of the room as one of the sisters stepped quickly forward. Perhaps she was going to advise her abbess. Hermitage thought the leader of the order was not the sort of person who took advice.

  The young sister was a woman who, upon closer examination, looked a few years older than Hermitage and was in rude good health. In her simple clothes she was noticeable, even by Hermitage who always failed to notice these things. Her face was clear and perfectly even; large brown eyes with long lashes examined the moot hall, and her mouth, although cut rather straight just at the moment, was obviously ready to smile and brighten any room. Her face was constrained by her tight wimple, as was proper, but this shouted its potential to be a thing of beauty.

  Her pace was calm and even as she became the centre of attention. Some in the moot recognised her and smiled that here was gentle relief from the hell they’d just been dragged through.

  The sister nodded at her abbess and whispered in her ear. Mildburgh turned and looked. Her face said she was very carefully weighing up what she was being told, although she did seem to be very reluctant. She looked at Wat, Cwen and Hermitage in turn, then at the others in the hall. She made a movement and the young sister put a warning arm on her elbow.

  Abbess Mildburgh turned and glared at the offence. She shook the arm off, gave a curt nod to the moot, stepped across the room to Wat and slapped him in the face. Hard.