Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns

by Howard of Warwick

  Cleaning was obviously considered an attraction and so had never taken place. Over the years of its use the standards of behaviour of those locked up in there and the fragility of their bodily functions had left an ambience that could slaughter a pig.

  ‘Why me?’ Hermitage piped up, after a moment’s thought. ‘We’ve all been asking questions.’

  ‘You were the one who suggested murder in the first place,’ Wat pointed out.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Hermitage nodded to himself. ‘But why would they take us now? They know Gilder was dead before we even got here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t stop us killing him, going away and then coming back pretending to investigate,’ said Wat.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Hermitage, ‘but what a stupid thing to do. Why on earth would we kill someone and then come back to find out who did it?’

  ‘Throw them off the scent?’

  ‘Throw them off the scent?’ Hermitage sounded incredulous, even to his own ears. ‘They didn’t want a scent in the first place. They just wanted to bury Gilder and get on with life. Or rather not bury him at all and get on with life.’

  ‘So they want us out of the way. We’re causing trouble. What better way than to execute us for the murder?’

  Cwen stirred. ‘I am not being executed.’ She said this with such certainty that Hermitage felt nervous for the executioner.

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ said Wat, sounding confident.

  ‘It had better not.’ Cwen pointed her finger at Wat, making it very clear that if she was executed she would be holding him personally responsible. He would not avoid her wrath by being dead.

  The cell door rattled and took Hermitage’s attention from Cwen. There was a barred opening at head height but they couldn’t see anyone. They waited for it to be drawn back to see who was coming for them.

  It was the imaginative guard once more. ‘You’re coming with me,’ he said. It was not an invitation.

  Cwen was the first to stand and get to the door, glaring at Hermitage and Wat as she went. It looked like she had been holding her breath for the entire time they had been in here.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Wat asked as they exited the room. ‘Worcester?’

  This confused the guard no end. ‘No, you are not,’ he said, as if going to Worcester was a treat and murderers didn’t get treats. ‘You are going to the moot. They’ll deal with you proper.’

  Variously pushing and goading them along, the guard, with his two companions loitering at the back, probably in case the murderers went wild and killed some more people, guided them up the stairs to the main moot hall.

  Inside, things had not changed much since their last visit. Some of the members of the moot had actually curled up in corners of the room to sleep off their celebrations and the table looked a complete mess. Half eaten food and spilled flagons of wine, mead and ale scattered the surface. It looked like there had been a murder here.

  At the main table, Aclan, Cuthbert and Mildburgh were in conversation.

  Hermitage was relieved to see Cuthbert had been brought into this. At least he would bring some sense to whatever deliberations there were going to be. If anyone did have mad ideas about execution, he would be able to dissuade them.

  ‘Ah,’ said Cuthbert, turning to the new arrivals and beaming his friendly smile, ‘our murderers.’

  Hermitage thought he must mean this in a jocular way, as if the very idea of them being murderers was ridiculous. He hoped it was jocular. Surely it must be jocular.

  ‘Bring them forward,’ Aclan commanded.

  The guard did so, with some vigour.

  Cwen gave him a look that said she was committing his face to memory, and it wasn’t going to end well for him.

  ‘What is going on?’ Wat asked when they were facing the top table, Aclan, Mildburgh and Cuthbert having taken seats. ‘First you welcome us to town. Then you knock us on the head in the middle of the night and put us out of town, now you want us back again. I wish you people would make up your minds.’

  Aclan looked genuinely surprised. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Someone attacked us in our room. Dragged us out to the Derby road and left us there.’

  ‘A likely story,’ said Mildburgh, ‘like so many we have heard from you. And you chose to come back?’ she asked, clearly thinking this made them even more guilty.

  ‘Ha,’ said Wat, ‘it was you then.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She sounded as surprised as Aclan, which caused Wat to frown.

  ‘Well it was one of you,’ he sulked.

  ‘It would have been a better idea if you’d kept going,’ said Mildburgh. ‘Shrewsbury was a nice, peaceful place until you three arrived.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Wat, ‘your leading merchant had just been murdered.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence don’t you think, you turning up?’ Aclan nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Again, no,’ said Wat. ‘It’s no coincidence at all. Gilder is murdered and then days later we arrive. Where’s the coincidence?’

  ‘That you want to start looking into a murder,’ Mildburgh took over, glaring at them all.

  ‘Which you should have been doing all along,’ Cwen glared back. ‘Leaving murderers to wander the streets. It’s disgraceful.’

  Hermitage was grateful to Cwen for saying this. He wouldn’t have dared contradict Mildburgh.

  ‘But we’re not leaving them to wander the streets,’ the nun retorted, with all the venom of a vipers’ nest with extra vipers, ‘we’ve got them right here.’

  ‘We weren’t even in town when Gilder was killed,’ said Hermitage. Surely even these simple folk could work out that you had to actually be in the vicinity to kill someone. ‘Opportunity,’ he said, ‘we could hardly have had the opportunity to kill Gilder if we were miles away.’

  ‘You say you were miles away,’ Aclan replied. ‘We’ve no idea where you were. You could have been sneaking about here for all we know.’

  ‘Mildburgh saw us arrive,’ Wat pointed out. ‘She was at the gate at the time.’

  ‘Returning from Wenlock,’ Mildburgh explained to the room, ‘and these three could have been in town for days.’

  ‘Three strangers sneaking about killing merchants? Hardly go unnoticed I’d have thought,’ said Wat.

  ‘It’s quite possible,’ said Mildburgh, leaning forward as if she wanted to see into their souls, ‘especially if it’s not your first time.’ She smiled rather triumphantly at her companions.

  ‘Not our first time?’ Hermitage asked, getting lost even more quickly than normal.

  ‘It is time to share our information,’ the nun was positively glowing with excitement.

  ‘Oh,’ said Hermitage, trying to sound like he didn’t know what she was talking about, and failing miserably.

  ‘I have it on good authority gentlemen,’ Mildburgh addressed Aclan and Cuthbert, ‘that this monk claims to be the King’s Investigator.’ She smiled a horrible smile as if all her troubles were over, and Hermitage’s were about to begin.

  Hermitage thought that wasn’t strictly true. He wasn’t claiming anything at all, Mildburgh was announcing it. He also thought that it was not going to help.

  ‘Dirty devil,’ said Aclan, with a turn of his nose.

  ‘It means he looks into things for the King,’ Cuthbert explained.

  ‘I can imagine,’ Aclan went on, in disgust.

  ‘Murders and the like,’ Mildburgh said, with some glee. ‘Last time he was here he said he had some experience of this sort of thing. It’s obvious now what that experience was.’

  ‘Erm,’ said Hermitage.

  ‘A murderous monk,’ said Mildburgh, glancing at Cuthbert. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised, really.’

  ‘Father?’ Hermitage cast his plea at Cuthbert.

  ‘It does look a little, what shall we say, odd.’ Cuthbert shrugged. ‘If, as Mildburgh says, you are the King’s Investigator, there must have been an awful lot of murders just while you h
appened to be close by.’ He arched an eyebrow as if the connection was clear.

  Was this the man’s secret to placating opposing forces? Agree with everyone and take the path of least resistance? Hermitage should be used to disappointment by now but each new arrival took him by yet another disheartening surprise.

  He looked around the room and couldn’t think of a thing to say. He couldn’t deny it, of course; it was true.

  Wat took a breath and a step forward. He looked around as if making sure they were on their own and then addressed the bench in quiet tones. ‘We weren’t supposed to tell you that, but I think the time has come when you have to know the truth about Brother Hermitage here.’

  Brother Hermitage wondered what else there was going to be.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Aclan said, with some disdain.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wat firmly. ‘I can confirm that Brother Hermitage is, in fact, the King’s Investigator.’ He folded his arms with a confident finality.

  ‘Aha,’ said Mildburgh, as if everything was clear now.

  Wat did an excellent sigh of condescension. ‘It means he investigates murders; he doesn’t do them. And he investigates for the King. The King commands him to find out who did something and he does so.’

  Cuthbert raised a finger. ‘It comes from vestigare, to track.’

  ‘Really,’ said Mildburgh, who had clearly heard Cuthbert define more than enough words in her time.

  ‘I’d heard the King was dead,’ Mildburgh growled.

  ‘Harold is. But Hermitage remained investigator. This is the new one, William.’

  Mildburgh looked at them all intently, as if the whole situation was being explained by the presence of these three interlopers, one of them an investigator.

  ‘Don’t believe a word of it.’ Aclan disturbed Mildburgh’s triumph.

  ‘Please yourself,’ said Wat, casually. ‘Very tetchy things though, kings. And believe me, this one has tetchy for his undershirt. And he’ll be thinking about which monasteries to endow,’ he looked at Cuthbert, ‘and nunneries,’ he turned back to Mildburgh. ‘Town charters are probably top of his list,’ he gazed at Aclan.

  ‘They’re just trying to get out of being executed,’ Mildburgh complained.

  ‘Doing it quite well, I’d say,’ Cuthbert observed quietly.

  ‘Can’t be too careful where kings are involved,’ Aclan sounded cautious. ‘But if you are this investigator thing,’ he went on, ‘why haven’t you found out who did it?’

  Hermitage couldn’t help but think that was a very good question.

  ‘You’ve been here hours and the murder was days ago.’ He scratched his chin. ‘You can’t be very good,’ he concluded.

  ‘They aren’t,’ Mildburgh concluded for him. ‘They are in the death of Gilder up to their necks. Why would King William, who doesn’t know Shrewsbury from a boil on a horse, send his Investigator to look into the death of an old merchant?’

  ‘That is the coincidence,’ Wat explained. ‘We were on the King’s business in Wales,’

  ‘Doing what,’ Mildburgh snapped, ‘in Wales, where William isn’t even king?’

  Cwen stepped forward and took Wat’s elbow. In a whisper loud enough to be heard by everyone she said, ‘Don’t tell her that.’ She sounded offended at the very idea. ‘It’s the King’s business. We can’t go divulging the details to some nun.’ She said the word “nun” as if it was the name of the substance that came out of the boil on a horse.

  Mildburgh looked as if she was ready to burst, which made Hermitage take a step back.

  ‘Suffice it to say we were on King William’s business in Wales and are on our way to meet him in Derby.’ Wat went on, ‘If we don’t arrive he’ll start killing people and burning things to the ground, which is how he reacts to bad news. And good news, come to think of it. Anyway, when he finds we were detained here he’ll probably order fresh torches.’ He gave Aclan a little nod at this point. ‘We happened to arrive here after Gilder had died. You note the word “after” there? That means Gilder was dead before we got here. It’s one of the methods Hermitage uses in his investigation. It’s called common sense.’ He directed this at Mildburgh.

  Hermitage thought that was a strange thing to say as Wat was always telling him he didn’t have any common sense.

  While he was trying to figure out what was going on, Mildburgh started to climb over the table. She had a look in her eye that said she really wanted to get hold of Wat, probably by something very sensitive, and throttle the life out of him.

  Aclan and Cuthbert stood quickly and grabbed the end of Mildburgh’s habit as she headed for the weaver.

  ‘Sister, sister,’ Cuthbert called, ‘control yourself.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Aclan added. ‘If they really are with the King we’ll get no end of trouble.’

  Mildburgh had no intelligent response, she just made some growling and grinding noises and reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled back.

  ‘Temper, temper,’ said Wat, chiding the nun like a child - which made her head back over the table.

  ‘Get them out of here,’ Aclan called to the guard. ‘Back to the lock up.’

  The three were led from the room, leaving what sounded like Mildburgh eating the furniture.

  . . .

  Back in their cell, Wat and Cwen exchanged broad grins and hugged and slapped one another on the back.

  Hermitage just looked at them. He couldn’t see anything to celebrate.

  ‘She was obviously ready to do something very stupid,’ Wat explained.

  ‘Just needed a bit of goading,’ said Cwen.

  ‘Aclan and Cuthbert have got their heads on straight. They had to stop her going mad and killing us all on the spot. That was bound to get us out of the room.’ Wat held his arms wide to demonstrate that’s exactly what had been achieved.

  Hermitage thought about this. ‘It’s rather deceitful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Er,’ Wat gave this his best consideration, ‘yes,’ he concluded.

  ‘And all it’s done is get us back into the cell. I’m not sure that’s much help?’

  Wat smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. Aclan knows what’s going on. The last thing he can afford is to upset the new king. Who knows who he’ll give Shrewsbury to? And as we know, if William takes a dislike to a place he really will burn it to the ground.’

  Hermitage really wasn’t sure about this.

  ‘He’ll be here to get us out any minute. Once he’s sure Mildburgh isn’t going to destroy the moot hall. She’s very excitable, isn’t she?’ He smirked.

  ‘The death of Gilder has obviously disturbed her plans for the convent,’ Hermitage explained.

  ‘It’s a lot of trouble to go to.’ Wat was thoughtful. ‘First she takes you on one side to persuade you not to investigate at all. Then she knocks us on the head and drags us out of town, now she wants us dealt with for murder.’

  ‘We don’t know she knocked us on the head.’

  ‘We don’t know she didn’t,’ said Wat, which confused Hermitage no end.

  ‘And I’ve still got this nagging feeling that I’ve seen her somewhere,’ Wat went on, ‘and if I’ve seen a nun before, it won’t have been in a good way.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s castigated you before?’ Hermitage suggested, imagining that Wat got castigated quite a lot for his old tapestries.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Wat accepted this with a nod. ‘There was this mob in Northampton once. I think that had some nuns in it.’

  He smiled at a happy reminiscence of being chased through the streets of the town by a crowd baying for his blood. A crowd led by the Ealdorman who had just bought a selection of very particular tapestries. Particular and peculiar, even by Wat’s very low standards.

  ‘It’s still an awful lot of trouble to go to for one convent,’ said Cwen.

  ‘But she has devoted her entire life to it,’ Hermitage explained. ‘It is hardly surprising that she would be anxious about its progress.’

  ‘
There’s anxious and then there’s wanting people dead,’ Cwen pointed out. ‘She seems to be way beyond anxious.’

  Hermitage shook his head in disappointment at events, all of them. He sat himself down on the straw to await their release.

  ‘You know,’ said Wat, as he sat as well, having brushed the worst of the straw out of his way, ‘knocking the back off Gilder’s head is quite a feat. Nasty piece of work and not the sort of thing most people would think of let alone be able to do. It’s all very well holding the weapon up and threatening but actually going through with it? Can you imagine really swinging something big and sharp and heavy at someone’s head?’

  Of course Hermitage couldn’t imagine it.

  ‘But of all the people we’ve met in Shrewsbury, if I was asked to pick one who might have done it, I’d say the nun. Never thought I’d hear myself saying that.’ He shrugged.

  That was another thing to add to Hermitage’s list. Motive, opportunity, run away and be able to do the deed. Mind you, Mildburgh hadn’t run away, so that was that.

  As the morning wore towards afternoon, Hermitage started to have his doubts about Wat’s plan for escape.

  . . .

  The rattle at the door, when it came, took them all by surprise. Separately they were coming to the conclusion Aclan was not going to come and get them. They’d kept it to themselves, not wanting to upset the others.

  Wat was the first to spring to his feet. ‘About time,’ he said, as the door opened.

  On the other side stood Hendig and Balor.

  Wat looked around them. ‘Where’s Aclan?’

  ‘Preparing for the execution, I think.’ Hendig gave a weak smile.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve given me a message for old Oswine who tends to deal with this sort of thing.’

  ‘Old Oswine?’ Hermitage enquired.

  ‘He’s the slaughter man,’ said Hendig with a reluctant shrug.

  ‘They can’t do this,’ said Wat. He seemed as offended by the fact his plan had failed as by the fact some people were planning to kill him.

  ‘Apparently we'll have a quick execution, burial in the woods and no one says anything about it if someone called William asks.’

  ‘And you’ve come to fetch us?’ Hermitage asked with a quiver in his voice.