Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other

by Howard of Warwick

  'Or he had help?’ Poitron suggested, somewhat chastened.

  'Ah,’ Hermitage nodded, 'very good point. We only see the body here, there could have been others involved.’

  'Excuse me,’ Wat interrupted.

  Hermitage looked to him.

  'Are you suggesting that perhaps an apprentice, noticing that the master has just been impaled on a spoke, calmly finished the wheel off without first removing the body?’ His voice was that of someone stating the blindingly obvious.

  'He didn't have an apprentice,’ Poitron observed helpfully.

  Wat's voice rose, 'It doesn't matter if the local guild got together and had an evening of put-the-wheelwright-in-the-wheel, or someone sneaked up on him and did it by surprise, we generally call such people murderers and they need to be caught.’

  'And,’ Poitron contradicted Wat’s suggestion with a rather knowing tone, 'it must have been the cause of death, or been done soon afterwards, otherwise there wouldn't be so much blood.’

  Hermitage looked at the wheel again, with its liberal splash of uniquely red paint. 'My goodness, of course.’ He nodded enthusiastically, which seemed to give Poitron some pleasure.

  'What about the other one?’ Wat asked nodding to a much more conventional corpse which lay slightly behind the wheelwright’s unique resting place.

  Hermitage peered over the fascinating distraction of the body in the wheel, and saw the legs and torso of another man. This fellow was laid out on his back, his feet towards them in a much more conventional manner, well, more conventional for dead people, the living not generally having a bit of a lie down next to a leaking corpse.

  'The blacksmith?’ Hermitage asked.

  'We reckon so,’ said Poitron.

  'Reckon so?’ Hermitage questioned. Why did they only reckon so, surely the fellow would be recognizable in the village? He looked more closely from foot to head. The legs were covered in the hardwearing leather apron of a blacksmith, black and pitted with the scars of flying embers. The apron continued up over the broad chest, typical of the trade, built as it was for a working day of vigorous hammering.

  Hermitage's gaze continued up to the top of the corpse to examine the face. If this were indeed a blacksmith, the fellow would have rough features, baked by all the vigorous hammering taking place in front of a vigorous fire.

  Hermitage saw what was at the top of the corpse and looked back at Wat and Poitron, 'It's an anvil,’ he said, not immediately understanding why there was an anvil where the face should be.

  'Quite right,’ Poitron confirmed, 'it's the blacksmith's anvil.’

  'Is it?’

  'Well his isn't in his shop anymore and this one is very much like it. Not that I’m an expert in anvils,’ he added, archly.

  'So he was killed with his own anvil?’ Hermitage gaped. There was a pattern here, the wheelwright in his wheel and the blacksmith under his anvil.

  'Could be,’ Poitron shrugged.

  'Could be?’ Hermitage couldn't take this in, 'the man has an anvil on top of his head, if that didn't kill him what did?’

  'Not quite,’ said Poitron smug once more.

  'What do you mean not quite?’

  'He doesn't have an anvil on top of his head, he has an anvil instead of his head.’

  Hermitage's mouth just fell open. He looked from corpse to corpse, from Wat to Poitron.

  'You mean,’ said Wat, thinking it through, 'that his head isn't under the anvil?’

  'Not that we can see. Got a couple of strong guys to lift the thing out of the way and there you had it. No head.’

  'Well where is it?’ Hermitage asked. He thought it was a reasonable question in the circumstances.

  'If we knew that,’ said Poitron with a huff, 'I suspect the whole situation might resolve itself.’

  Hermitage paused for a moment to consider the situation, 'This is truly bizarre,’ he breathed.

  'You don't say.’

  'A wheelwright and a blacksmith killed by their own products, or in a manner closely connected to their own products. It must mean something.’ He looked around the space of the woodshed, wondering how many other crafts were represented at this definitively morbid fair.

  'And nobody saw or heard anything?’ Wat asked.

  'Not a thing. First we knew anything was wrong was when we couldn't get a horse shod. Went to the blacksmith's, all locked up. Next door to the wheelwright to see if he knew where the blacksmith was, same story.’

  'It's hard to believe this could have been done without anyone noticing,’ Hermitage gestured at the small corpse collection.

  'I think there are things here a lot harder to believe than that,’ said Poitron.

  'Perhaps they upset a customer?’ Wat suggested. He moved to the door of the woodshed and looked out with interest at the courtyard of the castle, which was still deserted.

  'Upset a customer?’ Hermitage almost squeaked, 'how could a blacksmith and a wheelwright upset a customer so much that he did this to them? Shod a horse badly? Made a wobbly wheel? It's a bit extreme for some bad workmanship,’ he thought some more, 'and actually the wheel shows the wheelwright was very good at his job. It is his wheel I assume?’

  He checked with Poitron who nodded.

  'No one else makes wheels,’ the Norman patronised.

  'I need to sit somewhere and think this through,’ Hermitage said with a shake of the head.

  'You're welcome to try,’ said Poitron, 'it's what me and the rest of village have been doing for the best part of two days and haven't got anywhere. That's why I went back to work, get my mind off it, I thought maybe something would occur to me if I stopped thinking about it. Don't know why you'll have any more success than the rest of us though.’

  Hermitage and Wat exchanged glances.

  'Still,’ Hermitage observed with some recognition of good thinking, 'at least you brought the bodies here to keep them safe while the matter's investigated.’

  'And that’s what Saxon monks do is it? This “investigation” business?’

  ‘It means to track, from the Latin vestigare. And we don’t all do it.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Poitron, sounding not in the least fascinated, ‘monks would know that sort of thing I suppose,’ he shrugged the question away, 'anyway, we didn't bring the bodies here. This is where we found them.’

  Hermitage didn't have any words left for this revelation. He wouldn't have been surprised to hear that the bodies were seen floating here, or being carried by cherubs.

  'So,’ said Wat slowly and significantly with a pointed look at Hermitage, 'the bodies of two village craftsmen were found in the wood store of the castle Bonneville eh?’

  He stepped back to join Hermitage and they both gazed at the bodies. The weaver leant over to whisper in the monk's ear, 'Castle Bonneville where they chop down trees in summer,’ he hissed.

  Caput XI

  Yes, But How?

  'How did they get the anvil there?’ Hermitage asked as the three men left the wood store with its inconsistent contents.

  'I think the bodies are of more interest?’ Poitron pointed out.

  Hermitage thought for a moment before replying, 'But bodies are easy to move, even I could do that. Not that I did,’ he added hastily, 'you said yourself it took two strong men to lift the anvil out of the way. How did it get from the Blacksmith's to the wood store without anyone noticing?’

  Wat nodded at this very good question. 'Never mind carrying a dead wheelwright and all the parts necessary to build his final resting place.’

  Poitron just looked confused.

  'If it took two men to lift the thing, it must have taken at least that many to carry it in here? And no one noticed a group of men struggling with an anvil wandering around the place?’

  'Obviously not,’ Poitron replied, 'mind you, the blacksmith's forge is only the other side of the castle gate, it wouldn't have to come far. Perhaps it was on a cart,’ he added.

  ‘On a cart?’ Hermitage was outraged
at such shoddy thinking. ‘Hard enough to believe no one noticed two men lugging an anvil across the castle courtyard. Now they had a cart as well?’

  Poitron shrugged dismissively.

  'And the wheelwright?’ Hermitage pressed.

  'Next to the blacksmith, just the other side of the gate as well.’

  'Near the castle then?’ Hermitage was suspicious that all this was going on right under the noses of the Bonnevilles.

  'Well of course,’ Poitron was haughty, 'I hardly think the peasants have much call for blacksmiths and wheelwrights, do you?’

  'So a blacksmith's anvil and a wheelwright perhaps already in the middle of his wheel, were carried across the castle gate, or even through the courtyard, and no one saw?’ Hermitage was finding this very hard to believe, his worries about the Bonnevilles were increasing, and his worry that Le Pedvin might be right was quite alarming. Mind you, the courtyard was still deserted. What long rests these Normans must have.

  'This is a peaceful place,’ Poitron explained, 'the Bonnevilles are good people who look after the peasantry well. There's very little trouble and the land is secure under Duke William. There's no need for closed castles, guards going round hitting people, night-watchmen, any of that. It's quite possible someone could wander around the castle in the dark and not be noticed. We all get on very well together.’

  'Apart from those who kill one another,’ Wat pointed out.

  'That's unheard of,’ Poitron retorted, 'or it was until recently. It's most likely a stranger passing through.’

  Hermitage found this to be very poor reasoning, 'I hardly think a stranger passing through is going to go to all that trouble,’ he nodded his head back to the wood store, 'and as I said, it would have to be two strangers to lift the anvil.’

  'Alright,’ said Poitron, quite tetchy now, 'it was two strangers. They were probably mad men who had been expelled from their guild and so had cause for revenge on craftsmen. They found our little place lightly guarded and took advantage of the moment.’

  'They built a corpse into a wheel,’ Hermitage couldn't believe Poitron really considered this a serious explanation.

  'So one of them was a wheelwright, it's not an unusual trade.’

  'Two wandering mad men, one a blacksmith, the other a wheelwright, stroll into your village, kill the locals in the night and then wander off again, without anyone spotting anything,’ Hermitage recapped the proposal, just to show how ridiculous it was.

  'That's it,’ Poitron nodded, 'and that's what I shall tell Lord Bonneville.’

  'You can't,’ Hermitage protested, 'it's just not credible.’ He looked to Wat for support but the weaver was shaking his head at the Norman's intransigence.

  'And what about the other wheel?’ Wat asked, interrupting what was becoming a rather tetchy conversation.

  'What other wheel?’ Poitron asked, seemingly annoyed at a question he hadn't thought about.

  'The other wheel,’ said Wat, as if asking where the legs on a stool were, 'one wheel on its own not generally being much use to anyone?’

  'He probably hadn't started it,’ Poitron replied.

  Hermitage could tell that the man hadn't thought about there being two wheels, if not four. Like most aspects of the modern world that didn’t involve monasteries or texts, Hermitage had not the first clue about how wheelwrights did their work, but even his common sense, emaciated as it was, told him that the craftsman probably built the rims together and the spokes and the hubs. It wouldn't be efficient to build one whole wheel and then start another one from scratch.

  'Do you know who the wheels were for?’ Hermitage asked, 'or rather who the wheel was for?’

  'Well Lord Bonneville of course,’ Poitron sounded like he was dealing with idiots, 'I hardly think the peasants could afford something like that, or the cart to put it on. I don’t know all his Lordship’s foibles. He’d probably ordered a new personal carriage or something.’

  Hermitage paused and thought. There were too many facts and they didn't add up to anything that made sense. Tradesmen and their trades, work for the Bonnevilles, strange causes of death. He stroked his chin as they strolled on in silence. If Bonneville didn’t like his wheel he might have gone mad and done the unspeakable act. That pointed to Le Pedvin being right again, which was not a happy thought.

  'So what did happen?’ Poitron asked Hermitage, and his voice was still laden with irritation, 'tell me what did happen Master clever monk who investigates murder.’

  'Well,’ said Hermitage, not picking up on the verbal attack but thinking this Norman was being quite rude, 'I haven't had a chance to consider things yet.’

  'Aha.’

  'But I will, and it won't be wandering killer craftsmen.’

  'Well you get on with considering. Tonight I tell Lord Bonneville that's what happened and we can bury the wretched men and start looking for a new blacksmith and a replacement wheelwright.’ With this he stomped off through the main gate of the castle, leaving them outside the portcullis.

  'Well really,’ Hermitage huffed, 'I don't think he wants to find out what happened.’

  'I suspect not,’ Wat agreed, 'too much trouble, or perhaps he knows more than he's saying.’

  Hermitage raised his eyebrows at this.

  Wat gestured that they should walk back to the village. The afternoon was stretching on now, and although it wouldn't be dark for some time yet, they would need to find somewhere to rest, and hopefully something to eat. Hermitage thought that perhaps Blamour would be their best bet. He wanted food but he didn't know if he could stand the conversation.

  'It's all a bit suspicious isn't it,’ Wat said as they strolled along.

  'A bit suspicious?’ Hermitage was disbelieving and his voice rose to prove it, ‘you think this is a bit suspicious? Tradesmen killed by their own instruments, dead bodies disappearing, strangely behaving nobles and it’s just a bit suspicious?’

  'Yes, alright,’ Wat acknowledged, 'but in this case it’s particularly suspicious that the bodies were found in the Bonneville wood store, where it's possible they were killed; that they were craftsmen who were doing most of their work for the nobles; that the wheelwright was done for in a wheel he was building for the Bonnevilles; that they must have been dragged across the front of the Bonneville residence to their final resting place. And of course that the Bonnevilles chop wood in August.’

  'Yes, what was that about? What's the wood got to do with anything?’ Hermitage couldn't see a connection at all.

  'What goes into the wood store?’ Wat asked, 'apart from dead craftsmen of course.’

  'Wood,’ Hermitage was none the wiser.

  'Exactly. How better to cover up the bodies than fill the store with wood, even when it shouldn't be chopped till winter. Put some fresh timber in the front, move the dry stuff to the back and remove all sign of dead people.’

  'But Poitron just showed us the dead people,’ Hermitage countered, 'if he wanted to keep them secret he wouldn't have done that.’

  'Hmm,’ Wat frowned, 'but I'm sure it fits somewhere, perhaps just stop the locals going on about it. We can ask Poitron next time we see him.’

  'I don't think he likes us very much,’ Hermitage observed.

  'Ah Hermitage,’ Wat smiled, 'first, suspicion of everyone, now spotting when they don't like us. You are coming on.’

  Hermitage acknowledged this with a reluctant shrug, ‘People who don’t like us aren’t hard to spot,’ he explained, ‘it appears to be everyone.’

  'Perhaps we'd better go and ask some of the locals about the blacksmith and the wheelwright,’ Wat suggested, 'see if they can shed any light.’

  'We've also got a missing blacksmith's head and a whole Lallard to account for.’ Hermitage shook his head. 'There really is too much going on here, bodies all over the place or gone completely, strange deaths and normal ones, tradesmen, nobles, how are we to make sense of it all?’

  They were back in the centre of the village again now and people were st
arting to drift back from the day's toil. There would still be household tasks to complete and animals to tend, but with the fields ripening towards harvest, the days of dawn to dusk work lay ahead.

  The four old men were back on their log and Blamour was nowhere to be seen. Hermitage didn't recognise any of the new faces around the place although he thought one was a woodsman. A couple of the locals appraised them, strangers in their midst must be unusual, but nobody showed any real level of interest. Perhaps people passed through quite regularly on their way from the port to somewhere else.

  'Where do we begin?’ Hermitage asked with some despair, having got no suggestions from Wat who seemed more interested in the goings on around them.

  'I don't know about you,’ the weaver replied, rubbing his hands, 'but I'm thinking about something to eat. Perhaps we should go back to Blamour?’

  'Do we have to?’ Hermitage asked with some feeling. He was a patient fellow who could accommodate most people, high and mighty, low and humble. He could give them time, listen to what they wanted to say and understand their point of view, even if it was wrong. He wondered if events were taking their toll on him as the prospect of an evening of Blamour gave rise to some very uncharitable thoughts.

  'Hermitage I'm surprised at you,’ Wat chided, half mocking.

  Hermitage lowered his head.

  'Perhaps Cottrice Lallard would sort us out?’ Wat suggested.

  'It hardly seems decent to impose on the widow on her day of grief.’

  'She didn't seem very grief stricken last time we saw her. And I could give her this thing back,’ Wat waved the sword.

  'Do you think that's wise? I mean, if it chopped the blacksmith’s head off, is it sensible to let it out of our sight?’

  'I can tell her to keep it, I'm sure she'd do that. Poitron obviously didn't recognise it so Lallard didn’t wave it round. And quite frankly I'm sick of carrying it. How knights throw these things about is beyond me, it weighs a ton.’

  'I'm sure,’ Hermitage sympathised, 'but this is a woman who may have stuck a knife in her husband's back, is it sensible to give her a much bigger weapon?’