‘So Mildburgh never knew he was going to be in it.’
‘That’s right,’ Wat confirmed, ‘not that I even knew what her name was.’
Hermitage gazed at Wat. ‘Are you telling me that you made a tapestry of Mildburgh, like, like,… this,’ he waved at the tapestry, not wanting to look at it again, ‘and then you added Gilder in without either of them knowing?’ Surely no one would do such a thing.
‘Not at all,’ said Wat.
That was a relief.
‘Other way round,’ said Wat. ‘I did Gilder first and then added Mildburgh.’
‘Oh, Wat,’ Hermitage said, with despair. ‘We are going to have to have a serious talk about this.’ All these conversations after Shrewsbury were starting to add up.
‘So,’ said Hermitage, turning back to the moot and gesturing that Cwen could put the hateful tapestry away now.
She did so, rolling the thing up once more and laying it on the end of the moot table.
One member of the moot slowly reached out and moved the scroll toward him. He opened it carefully as if it was unfortunate but necessary that he give it a good close study. The other members of the moot were beckoning that he needed to pass it on, quickly.
Hermitage went on, ‘Imagine Mildburgh’s shock at finding that Gilder had this image, in a tapestry of all things. She thought it would never be seen. It hadn’t occurred to me that she wouldn’t know Gilder himself was in it. That must have been truly shattering.’
Mildburgh had nothing to say.
‘Perhaps she thought Gilder would share her shame and she could use this image to persuade him to pay for the nunnery.’
Mildburgh dropped her eyes to the floor.
‘Presumably master Hendig was in on the secret, being the one who fetched and carried for Gilder.’
Hendig was examining the floor of the hall very closely.
‘And imagine too, what Gilder would have done with this. You have all told us what an unpleasant man he was. He would not be shamed by anything, I imagine.’
The moot mumbled their agreement.
‘I suspect he would have kept this until it became useful. Mildburgh had nothing he wanted but then she started pressing him into funding the nunnery. What better way to have power over her?’
Now the moot got it.
‘So Gilder told Mildburgh to stop bothering him, or he’d put the tapestry on display; having no shame himself.’
‘This is all very interesting,’ said the moot member who was carefully considering the tapestry.
The room turned to face him.
‘Erm, aha,’ said the man, suddenly realising he was the centre of attention. ‘Yes, all very interesting,’ he repeated, floundering to explain what it was he found very interesting, ‘but, erm, what does it have to do with the death of Gilder? That’s what I want to know.’ He hurriedly pushed the tapestry aside to be snapped up by another leader of Shrewsbury’s community.
‘There we come to the nub,’ said Hermitage.
‘The coin was still taken,’ Cwen noted, ‘never mind all the business of the tapestry.’
‘Unfortunately,’ said Hermitage, reluctant to take the next step, ‘I think the two are connected.’ He had the attention of the whole room now, which was very off-putting, but he carried on as best he could. ‘All this speculation about Wat being the guilty man prompted me to speculate as well. A very poor practice, I know, but it's all there is to go on. I can’t find any evidence, or solid proof but Mildburgh had been insulted and threatened by Gilder. We know she appears to be an, erm, excitable person?’
The moot muttered their agreement at this masterly piece of understatement.
‘Gilder had told her that he was not going to pay for the nunnery and that he was going to expose her.’
A snigger from the moot table brought a tut from Hermitage.
‘All her plans and dreams would be destroyed in one fell swoop. Gilder was old, and he had the coin Mildburgh needed. All she had to do was get rid of him and her problems would go away. He was a terrible, sinful man. Wouldn’t it be a good deed to get rid of him? It’s just as Wat said.’
‘Did I?’ Wat asked brightly.
‘You did. You suggested killing a demon would be a good thing to do. An act to be celebrated.’
‘I did,’ Wat informed the hall.
‘And if there was a demon in Shrewsbury, it was Gilder,’ Hermitage continued. ‘How could it be a sin to kill such as he?’
Mildburgh became the centre of attention once more but stood silent under the examination.
Hermitage closed his eyes and plunged in, ‘Mildburgh went to Gilder’s house once more to complain and hector that he hadn’t committed to the nunnery. He then produced the tapestry and said what he was going to do with it. If Mildburgh had lashed out then and there she could have taken the image and we’d have been none the wiser. She probably controlled herself though, considered what a mortal sin she was contemplating and so she paused. Very commendably. Gilder hid the tapestry again, doubtless without showing Mildburgh where. It had all become too much for her. It could be he carried on gloating and provoking. She could take no more. There was a weapon to hand and so she took it. She struck and killed Gilder.’
He paused to let all of this sink it. ‘And of course,’ he concluded, ‘seeing the tapestry for ourselves makes it perfectly understandable that Mildburgh would want Wat dead as well.’
‘Oy,’ Wat complained.
‘Realising what she had done,’ Hermitage completed the tale, ‘Mildburgh probably left town to visit her beloved Wenlock before coming back to face the consequences. When she got back to town she saw us and knew I might be the King’s Investigator. That must have really troubled her. Perhaps she was ready to confess all. Then she discovered that the weaver was Wat. Who better to be punished for everything that had gone so horribly wrong?’
All eyes were boring into Mildburgh, who stood, taking it with calm acceptance, her face down.
She took a deep breath and seemed to exude a contentment and serenity she had not displayed in the short time Hermitage had known her. Perhaps it was the relief at having all of this out in the open at last, the need for deceit had dissipated.
The silence in the room waited, along with everyone else, for Mildburgh to speak.
Eventually, she did so, ‘I did not kill Gilder for the coin. There was no coin.’
Hermitage pondered this. ‘You mean it had already been taken? Are you saying Gilder was dead when you found him?’
‘No,’ said Mildburgh, ‘I mean there is no coin. There was no coin. There never was any coin.’
‘He’d hidden it somewhere else?’ Hendig blurted out. ‘Where?’
Mildburgh turned slow eyes onto him. She then moved them around the moot hall, making sure she had everyone’s full attention.
‘There never was any coin. Gilder had no coin at all. He may have once upon a time, but not anymore. He had a few pieces scattered about to pay those he absolutely had to.’ She rummaged in her habit and produced a single gold coin which she held out for all to see. ‘I took this single one as a mark of my own folly.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Aclan spoke up. ‘Gilder was the richest merchant in town. How could he have no coin?’
‘Spent it,’ said Mildburgh simply. ‘Paid people not to sack the town and steal his property.’
‘How do you know this?’ Hermitage asked.
‘Because he told me. It was to be his message to the moot and the monks.’ She still managed to get a tone of disgust into the word “monks”. ‘And it was the final straw for me.’
Hermitage gave her time to explain.
‘I could have lived with the tapestry,’ she said. ‘It’s only an image and we’ll all look like that before God. If it was the price for the nunnery I would have gladly paid it.’
Hermitage looked on her with new found respect. Still quite a bit of fear, but respect as well.
‘And Gilder made it quite clear that it wa
s the price. If I “cooperated” with him, the money would come.’
‘Cooperated?’ Hermitage asked, with some horror.
‘Oh, nothing like that,’ Mildburgh explained. Which wasn’t much help because Hermitage really wanted to know what it meant. ‘He was too old and long gone for anything serious. He just wanted me to attend to him. Deal with his aches and pains, tend his bandages, that sort of thing.’
‘I wondered who was doing that,’ Eggar piped up. He turned to the moot. ‘I certainly wasn’t going to do it. Disgusting old man.’ The moot nodded their sympathy for this.
Mildburgh continued her tale. ‘But then, that evening he made the announcement. I told him I had had enough and he could do his worst. He either came up with the money or I would leave him to his fate and take the one God had prepared for me.
‘He simply cackled and said there was no money. Never had been. He’d used it all up bribing people to leave him alone. And now that I knew, he would tell the monks and the moot as well. He knew he was not long for the world but he wanted to see their faces when he destroyed their dreams.’
‘This is simple nonsense,’ Aclan got to his feet. ‘Of course Gilder had coin. Lots of it. We’ve been using his notes in trade for years. I’ve got a pile at home. All I had to do was take them to him and he’d have given me their value.’
‘He’d have laughed in your face,’ said Mildburgh.
‘There’s his treasury,’ Hendig protested.
‘All promised away as well.’
‘And his rents,’ said Eggar.
‘No sooner received than paid out.’
Aclan was wide-eyed and pale. ‘Everyone has been using Gilder’s notes as currency.’
‘I know,’ said Mildburgh.
‘If there’s no coin to back them up, the town will be ruined.’
‘Correction,’ said Mildburgh, ‘there is no coin to back them up and the town is ruined.’
Hermitage broke the stony silence of the moot hall, ‘So that’s when the deed was done?’ he asked, gently.
‘Not even then,’ said Mildburgh. ‘There was no nunnery and there wouldn’t be one. We would simply have to carry on and seek other founders.’
‘So?’ Hermitage pressed.
Mildburgh took a heavy breath. There was clearly some even deeper shame buried amidst all the dishonesty. ‘He wanted me to rub his back.’ She sounded more ashamed of this than of anything.
‘Rub his back?’
‘Yes. Once more he had showed me the tapestry. Then he told me there was no money anyway. I was in the downstairs room considering my fate while he rattled his way upstairs. Then he called me.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘I went upstairs, perhaps hoping that he had changed his mind. There he was. On the bed, saying that his back hurt and I should rub it for him.’
She took a very deep breath. ‘So I waited until he was comfortable, took the fire iron and hit him until he was dead.’ She dropped her head. ‘It only took the once.’
‘And then you were going to see me executed for it,’ Wat complained.
‘It is all your fault,’ Mildburgh bit back, her old self emerging. ‘If you hadn’t made the tapestry, if you hadn’t put Gilder in it, he wouldn’t be dead now.’ Her anger petered out. ‘But I know that I delivered the fatal blow. I know that I must pay.’
Aclan looked up from what seemed to be some sort of daze. ‘So you killed Gilder?’
‘I did,’ Mildburgh confessed.
‘And he had no money?’ Aclan still looked like a child who’s heard that the Pope has abolished Christmas.
‘Scattered coins, that’s about it. Apparently he’d even given his house to Eric the Wild.’
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Balor whined.
‘Well,’ Aclan seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion. He looked to his fellows of the moot. All of them were in various stages of shock. ‘Gilder deceived us all then.’
‘It seems so,’ Mildburgh confirmed.
‘All of us who have our fortunes in Gilder’s notes in fact have no fortune at all.’
The silence in the hall seemed to be looking down on this new-found band of paupers.
‘And when people from outside come for payment for their trade, we will only have the worthless notes of Gilder.’
There was some light sobbing from the moot table now.
Aclan looked at Mildburgh. His attention to this point had been on some internal dialogue.
‘And you killed him?’
‘I did,’ Mildburgh confessed again.
‘So he is no more.’
‘That is the usual outcome,’ Cwen said, pointedly.
‘Well,’ said Aclan, sounding alarmingly bright and positive for some reason, ‘never mind then.’
Wat was first to speak, quite loudly, ‘Never mind then? What do you mean, never mind then?’
‘These things happen,’ Aclan explained.
‘She killed him,’ Wat pointed out.
‘Which is all he deserved, really.’
‘And she tried to blame me.’
‘Understandable, in the circumstances.’
‘She killed a man.’
Aclan looked at Mildburgh. ‘She seems to be very sorry.’
‘Very sorry?’ Wat was almost screaming now. ‘You’d sent for the executioner for me, and I didn’t do it. She did do it and you’re letting her go?’
‘I’m sure she won’t do it again.’
‘Well, she can’t kill him twice, that’s for sure. But who’s next?’
‘It is a significant step.’ Hermitage pointed out, ‘It is for the Lord to judge us, not for nuns to take things into their own hands.’
Aclan shrugged. ‘If Mildburgh hadn’t done it we’d probably have murdered him ourselves, once we found out about the money. She’s taken our sin upon herself.’
Hermitage wasn’t sure about that at all.
‘It wasn’t half a day ago you wanted us to find out it was her,’ Wat said, angrily.
‘Ah, yes,’ Aclan acknowledged, ‘but I think she’ll be much less,’ he searched for the word, ‘angry from now on.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Wat protested.
‘Do you want us to execute a nun then?’ Aclan asked.
‘Well,’ Wat paused, ‘not when you put it like that, but it still doesn’t seem fair.’
‘Ah, what is fair?’ Aclan posed the question airily. ‘It turns out we’ve all been treated unfairly. We have to live with it, at least Gilder is dead. And given that fact,’ Aclan obviously had something up his sleeve, ‘perhaps there is more we can do.’
‘What are you up to?’ Wat asked, suspiciously.
‘Well,’ said Aclan, ‘it just occurs to me that only we know Gilder had no coin. Only those of us in the room know that his notes are useless.’
‘Erm,’ said Hermitage, suddenly having a strong feeling that this was going in a very bad direction.
‘So there is a simple method for dealing with this information. A method by which we may save the town, our fortunes and our lives from marauders.’
‘Which is?’ Hermitage would be delighted to hear what this scheme might be. It must be terribly complex.
‘We don’t tell anyone.’
‘Don’t tell anyone?’ Hermitage thought there must be more to it than that.
‘We keep our heads down, do nothing and hope it all turns out alright in the end,’ Aclan explained as if this was his regular approach to problems. ‘If no one knows, the town will be saved.’
‘I’m not sure saved is quite the right word.’ Hermitage put in, ‘You cannot hide the fact for long. People will find out.’
‘Hm.’ Aclan gave this some thought. ‘If we gradually replace the notes, no one needs to know. Take them out of circulation, as it were. As long as we’re careful. You know, take our time. It’ll costs us all, but much less than getting some bits chopped off by Eric the Wild.’ He looked at everyone very sternly. ‘And of course, no one in this hall breathes a word.’
‘And Mildburgh,’ Wat asked, ‘your killer?’
Aclan gave Mildburgh a long look. The sister said nothing.
‘Wouldn’t be very helpful if we executed her for murder,’ the Ealdorman concluded. ‘People would lose confidence in the town. They might even start rushing to cash in Gilder’s notes when they heard he was killed by a nun. Then where would we be?’
Hermitage was going to suggest that they’d be in an honest place where truth held sway. He was starting to suspect Shrewsbury had never been like that in the first place.
‘Balor has to carry on as if nothing has happened,’ Aclan announced.
‘Apart from his father having half his head taken off,’ said Wat, sulkily.
‘And when Eric the Wild does turn up?’ Balor asked.
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘Or we could take the bridge down, stop him getting in,’ Hendig suggested, to universal observations that he should shut up.
‘We’re all agreed then,’ Aclan concluded, without asking if they were all agreed. ‘We just carry on as we were. Gilder died and that’s that. Business as usual.’
‘With a killer nun in your midst,’ said Wat.
Aclan turned to Wat now, anger and irritation on his face. ‘Listen, weaver, if it hadn’t been for you three we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. We were happy that Gilder was dead and no one knew anything about his coin shortage.’
‘You’d have found out,’ Wat grumbled.
‘Not for weeks, or even months. Could have gone on and on spinning the tale of Gilder’s lost treasure. But you had to turn up and ruin everything.’
‘I’m not sure that’s quite-,’ Hermitage began.
‘So the least you can do,’ Aclan interrupted, ‘is leave town and keep your mouths shut. You owe us that.’
Hermitage, Wat and Cwen exchanged glances, the common understanding being that it would actually be quite nice to get out of this place, mired in sin though it be.
‘Of course,’ Aclan added, ‘we could always execute the weaver anyway and say he stole all the coin.’
Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns Page 25