‘Why us?’ Hermitage bleated.
‘King’s Investigator?’ Le Pedvin pointed out, ‘King William made you his Investigator. Therefore you investigate things for him. He wants this investigated, therefore you do it.’
Hermitage had to admit this was a very sound and well-constructed argument. He didn’t want to do it, therefore he shouldn’t, seemed to get him nowhere.
‘And you think this other man of yours is as dead as this one. You want him avenged?’ said Wat.
‘Not really,’ Le Pedvin sniffed, ‘it’s only Martel, who’d care? What we can’t have is people going round killing Normans. They’ll all think they can do it.’
Now that was heartless, even for Normans.
‘And when you’ve found out what happened, you can bring his killer to your workshop in Derby.’
‘Why there?’ Wat sounded rather worried that Le Pedvin was using his home as a landmark.
‘Because we’re heading north for a spot of harrying and it’ll be on the way.’ Le Pedvin paused and consulted his map. ‘I think,’ he said turning the parchment in his hand.
Wat frowned deeply.
‘Oh and of course if you’re not there, in what shall we say,’ the man pondered as if adding up barrels of cider on his fingers, ‘a week to get to Wales, week to find Martel’s killer, week to Derby? Three weeks? Yes, in three weeks we’ll burn the workshop to the ground and kill everyone in it,’ Le Pedvin completed the plan.
‘Is that really all you can do?’ Hermitage’s outrage flared once more. ‘Every time you want something, you threaten to burn places to the ground and kill everyone.’
Le Pedvin smiled his thin, horrible smile, ‘Think of it as our secret weapon.’
‘It’s not very secret.’
‘That’s why it works so well.’
‘Well it’s not going to work for long. What happens when you’ve burned everything to the ground and killed everyone?’
Le Pedvin held the monk with his one eyed gaze, ‘We’ve won.’
There was nothing in the cold, lifeless gaze Hermitage wanted to engage with, so he moved on. ‘Have you any idea whereabouts he might have been?’
‘Whereabouts? Of course not,’ Le Pedvin scoffed, ‘have you got a map of Wales?’
Well naturally Hermitage didn’t have a map of Wales. Who did? What a ridiculous suggestion.
‘So we just go to Wales, start at the bottom and work our way to the top looking for a single dead Norman.’ Hermitage tried to make it clear the whole idea was ridiculous.
‘Got it,’ said Le Pedvin, ‘shouldn’t be hard to find. You can take this,’ he held out the parchment map which was still grasped in his hand, ‘it’s been drawn up by Ranulph de Sauveloy. Ghastly man, but knowledgeable. It’s the best we have.’
‘Is this it?’ Hermitage asked with obvious disappointment.
‘Unless you’ve got something better?’ Le Pedvin enquired mockingly.
Hermitage shrugged. No one knew of any events in Wales so how could they make a map? Hermitage had heard of some ludicrous new approach to map making where you looked at the ground around you and drew a picture of that. What use this would be to anyone he couldn’t imagine.
He peered at some tiny scribble in one corner of an otherwise randomly drawn shape of Britain.
‘Here be dragons?’ he read in disappointment at the speculation and unimaginative superstition.
‘Yes,’ said Le Pedvin, ‘de Sauveloy wants you to spot one while you’re there and do a picture.’
There seemed nothing more to say, Hermitage just looked blankly at the empty space on the parchment in front of him, thinking it was a fine summary of this situation, a void about to be filled by something horrible.
There was a shuffling at the back of the tent which diverted their attention just as the silence was about to get embarrassing. A flap was thrown aside and two more soldiers entered the space. They examined the contents of the tent with some disdain and then grunted a signal back the way they had come. They held the tent flap open and stood back to make way for King William.
1 An awful experience neatly explained in The Garderobe of Death, available from shops with books in them. You could start a collection.
Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other Page 30
