Durniss thought nothing of the place and had to be told to stop walking when he got to the tree line. 'Castle,’ he accurately observed.
Sigurd gave a low snarl as his foe was presented to him.
Scarlan looked across the open space between woodland and castle and stroked his chin.
Sigurd son of Sigurd threw twigs at some rabbits.
'There's a lot of them, eh?’ Hermitage commented, pointing out the Normans who patrolled the castle. There must have been a dozen in sight at this moment, all in uniform, armoured heads shining in the weak winter sun. Several had swords at their waists and others carried large pikes. Real pikes with spikes on top.
'Where's Wat likely to be?’ Scarlan asked Hermitage, squatting down at the edge of the wood and throwing some grass in the air – as if knowing which way the wind was blowing would help defeat a lot of men in armour with pikes.
'No idea. We were looking all over the castle. The garderobe, Ethel's chamber, the great hall.’
'He'll be in the dungeon,’ Sigurd explained, with confidence in his knowledge of situations like this.
'Why?’ Hermitage asked. 'He hasn't done anything. He's helping Robert Grosmal. Why would the lord put someone he needs in the dungeon?’
'Norman,’ Sigurd explained simply.
'We need to know before we attack.’ Scarlan was clear.
'Attack?’ Hermitage was horrified. 'Us? Attack them?’ He gestured first at their own band, using his arms to very effectively illustrate the paucity of their military resources, and then at the Normans, demonstrating that theirs were much bigger. Much, much bigger.
'He's right,’ Cotard said, clearly prepared to leave immediately.
'Not head on,’ Scarlan explained, 'not man to man combat.’
'Ah,’ said Cotard with some relief.
'Oh,’ said Sigurd with disappointment.
'We have a man,’ Scarlan nodded his head, indicating it had a secret inside it.
'Just the one?’ Hermitage asked.
'On the inside. We have a man on the inside.’
'Inside what?’ Durniss asked, looking round at the trees and eventually at his own large frame.
'Inside the castle. A spy.’ Scarlan whispered the last word as if the wind would carry it to the wrong ears.
'But we're here and he's there,’ Hermitage pointed out, emphasising the large space between Scarlan and his spy. A space currently full of Normans.
'We can signal to one another. There's a routine established. We'll get a message to our man. He'll find out where Wat is, then we can sneak in and get him out.’
'Sneak?’ Sigurd was appalled at the word.
'Why don't I just walk up to the gate and ask for him?’ Hermitage proposed.
'Pah.’ Sigurd was dismissive.
'They know me, they're probably expecting me. I can just ask where Wat is and we can pop out.’
Sigurd seemed to have run out of contemptuous terms and just shook his head in sorrow at ‘pop out’.
'And as I tried to explain,’ Hermitage went on, 'even if we do get Wat out, what do we do then? We can't just leave. Grosmal wants us to sort out the death. He's not likely to just say goodbye. He'll send men to bring us back. Lots of men. With weapons.’
'We leave him to rot. Hide in the woods and let him sort out the death himself.’
'I don't think mister Wat will want to hide in woods. He has a business to run. He got very bored in De'Ath's Dingle, and there was plenty to do there.’
'This is war.’ Scarlan was losing some patience. 'We don't get what we want in war.’
He seemed very sincere in this and Sigurd hefted his sword, so Hermitage thought better of pointing out that the war had already been lost.
'There's the signal,’ Scarlan called.
Hermitage looked to the castle, but couldn’t see anything.
'Our man is on the battlements. He goes there every hour. I'll use our secret sign language to tell him what to do.’
…
Scarlan stood up on the very edge of the wood and raised his right arm. 'Good, he's seen us.’
Hermitage peered hard at the battlements and couldn't see anyone. There was a Norman guard strolling along, not looking in their direction. Certainly no sign of a spy exchanging signals.
Scarlan was waving his arms and moving his body in a way that was anything but secret. Anyone looking in his direction would assume some loon was pretending to be a tree in a high wind. Maybe that was the secret, Hermitage thought. Very clever. No one would expect this bizarre show to be an exchange of information.
Mind you, if the spy in the castle was behaving in the same manner he wouldn't be a secret very long.
Scarlan settled down from his extravagant gyrations and leant forward to read the reply.
'He already knows of Wat, and of you, it seems,’ Scarlan announced.
Hermitage really did look very hard at the battlements and couldn't see a thing. He looked askance at Scarlan, wondering now if the man really was a loon and this was all in his head.
After a few more moments watching, Scarlan turned to Hermitage with his hands on his hips. 'Well,’ he said in a very told-you-so tone.
'What?’ Hermitage was all innocence.
'We know where mister Wat is. The dungeon.’
'Ha!' Sigurd was triumphant.
'The dungeon? Who put him in the dungeon?’
'I think the lord of the manor usually does things like that,’ Scarlan pointed out.
'Yes, but why?’ Hermitage really hated it when new facts turned up without invitation.
Scarlan turned back to the battlements. 'It's just coming through,’ he said, squinting.
They waited a moment or two.
'Murder, apparently,’ Scarlan shrugged, 'of de Turold.’
'That's impossible.’ Hermitage dismissed the message as an error, 'Wat was with me at De'Ath's Dingle when de Turold was killed. We didn't even know he existed until Ethel came and told us he didn't exist any more.’
‘That’s Normans for you,’ Sigurd explained.
'I don't understand,’ Hermitage shook his head. Why did events have to make themselves happen all the time?
'I'll see if I can get any more information.’ Scarlan turned to the battlements and his waving dance.
'Ah,’ he said, 'yes. I see. Oh, really? Well, well.’
'What?’ Hermitage demanded when the exchange had finished.
'Turns out some other monk has turned up.’
'Other monk?’ Hermitage couldn't imagine which of his brothers would voluntarily visit Robert Grosmal.
'Yes. I couldn't quite make out the title. King’s Master Baker or something.’
'Master Baker?’ Hermitage found people who gabbled nonsense at him difficult to cope with. If they didn't have a full and comprehensively referenced source for what they were going to say, why didn't they keep quiet?
'Why would a baker turn up? And why would a baker be a monk? He ran the syllables through his head until the bottom dropped out of his stomach.
He turned to Scarlan and his voice shook. 'Did he say “King's Investigator”?’
'Ah yes, could be.’
Hermitage looked at the castle and then back at the sorry band. There were four now as Cotard was nowhere to be seen and Sigurd son of Sigurd had climbed a tree to do a wee.
Hermitage took hold of Scarlan by the scruff of the neck and looked deep into his eyes. 'We have got to save Wat.’
Caput XVI
One-o-clock: Noble Takes Weaver
Even as he was carted away to the dungeon, Wat could not really believe what was happening. He explained again, in very simple terms, that he could not have killed de Turold. He explained it to Grosmal and to Ethel. He even explained it to Foella when she happened to glance in his direction.
He explained it loudly to the two guards who lifted him by his arms and carried him from the room. He even explained it in his poor French. He explained it to the gaoler who scratched an ‘x’ on
the wall to remind him to feed the prisoner in number two – in a couple of days.
His most pointed and sincere explanation was for the defective idiot whose job it was to lock the doors of the cells. It was pretty clear this boy either didn't speak English or French, was deaf, was pointedly ignoring him or was so stupid he couldn't understand the noises that came out of people's mouths. The outcome was the same. Wat was thrown in the dank and dark cell and the door was locked.
'This is ridiculous,’ he explained to the darkness.
…
Up in the main hall Brother Simon was giving his own explanation to a rapt audience. Well, Robert Grosmal was rapt. Foella was just loitering as near to the lord as she could get and Ethel was being Ethel – as inscrutable and invisible as he could get.
'And so my reasoning is sound.’ Simon was rambling away.
'Your what?’ Grosmal asked.
'My reasoning, sire. The chain of thinking which moves from one event to another.’
'Fascinating.’
'You see Wat and Hermitage were closely involved in the death of poor Brother Ambrosius at De'Ath's Dingle, and I always had my suspicions. I managed to get Brother Hermitage locked up but then the abbot of that place, who was an insane fellow, insisted he be released. Well, no sooner could you say jack to a rabbit than there was another death.’
'No!' Grosmal's raptness was undiminished.
'Indeed. The connection seemed obvious, but others were not capable of following my thinking. Eventually the King, erm, usurper turned up and Hermitage was able to worm his way out of the accusations.’
'Disgraceful.’
'So it is matter of no little thought at all to see the connection to events here.’
'Is it?’
'Of course. There was a murder in De'Ath's Dingle: Hermitage and Wat were there. There was a murder here: Hermitage and Wat are here. Therefore they did both murders. You see?’
'Marvellous.’ Grosmal actually clapped his hands like a child. 'So this is reasoning, is it?’
'It is, sire,’ Simon bowed low, 'a wonderful new weapon in the armoury of the intellectual. This particular instance is called a principle. Where one thing happens and another one is always there, we can conclude that God has connected the one to the other. Of course, we all know every event in the world happens at God's will.’
Ethel coughed.
'What?’ Grosmal snapped at him. 'You don't cough unless you've got some interrupting to do.’
Ethel bowed his patronising bow and tried to sound humble. 'I was as impressed as any by Brother Simon's erudition.’
Brother Simon accepted the compliment.
'And, of course, following his example, it seems that he was at both deaths as well?’
'So?’ Grosmal didn't get it.
'It would appear by this Brother's reasoning that anyone who was at both sites must have been the killer?’
'Not at all.’ Brother Simon snorted with contempt. 'You clearly are not capable of following my intellect either. I think you should stick to your domestic duties, my man.’
'Surely God has connected you to the deaths as surely as mister Wat?’ Ethel politely pointed out.
Thought was struggling across Grosmal's face again. 'But,’ he said and paused while another concept crawled slowly through his mind, 'you did say that this Wat and Hermitage were at both places and so they had done it.’
'I did.’ Brother Simon obviously didn't get it either.
'But, as Ethel says, you were at both places as well.’
'Sire,’ Simon nodded his head.
'So you did it too.’
Simon stopped for a moment and let the proposal pass through his mind. His brow furrowed and look of worry appeared for a moment. It was soon dispatched.
'Ah, I see where you've gone wrong, my man,’ he said to Ethel. 'I am, er, was, the King's Investigator. I was there in an official capacity, not a personal one.’
'Does that matter?’ Ethel queried.
'Does it matter?’ Simon was shocked. 'Does it matter? Of course it matters, my foolish fellow. Instead of interfering with the work of your betters why don't you go and clean something or other?’ He turned to Grosmal.
The lord's face had cleared. 'Of course,’ he said, 'I see.’
'In any event,’ Simon went on as if he had just thought of another excuse, 'I didn't arrive at De’Ath’s Dingle until some considerable time after the death of Ambrosius. In fact I was only sent there by the bishop's office after the event.’
'Just like mister Wat being summoned here after de Turold was already dead?’ Ethel proposed.
Simon and Grosmal got thoughtful again.
Eventually the lord's face cleared. 'I know how to solve all this,’ he said brightly.
'Really?’ Ethel asked, a lot less brightly.
'Of course, we'll go and interrogate the prisoner. They always tell you what you want – in the end.’
'If they make it to the end,’ Ethel observed.
Grosmal ignored him. 'Besides, it's such fun.’
He left the room, followed closely by Simon. Foella hurried after them and Ethel tried to catch her eye to see if she was going to be any help. She saw his look, stopped and slapped his face for his impudence.
Ethel stood alone in the empty chamber. His head sagged and he buried his eyes in his palm. He ran his hand down his face, sighed loudly and stood straight. He took his dagger from his belt, looked it up and down and tested the point with his finger. He looked from the dagger to the door through which the interrogation party had left. He considered the dagger again before sighing once more and putting it back in his belt. Then he headed for the dungeon.
…
The gaoler was just starting his afternoon nap, having had a busy time with his lunchtime doze and his morning sleep, when his lord arrived. He leapt to action and summoned the boy to open number two.
Wat was pacing up and down the chamber. One pace took him up it and the other pace took him back down again. Pacing sideways was out of the question as he could touch both walls by sticking his elbows out.
Grosmal entered the room, followed immediately by a bustling Simon. He pressed himself in after the lord, who in turn pushed Wat against the back wall. After that it was full and the occupants were in uncomfortable proximity.
Wat tried to back away from Grosmal, but there was no back left to move into. Grosmal tried to step away, but only found Simon's feet. Simon obviously wondered why they'd stopped and so pushed some more.
'Go back,’ Wat called over Grosmal's disgusting head.
Simon now saw there was no room and attempted a retreat. This manoeuvre proved that Grosmal was standing on the hem of his habit. He tugged backwards without success.
'This is no good,’ said Grosmal. He turned, releasing Simon's habit just as the monk tugged.
The Investigator staggered back out of the door into the approaching Foella.
She screamed at having a spindly, ugly monk thrust at her out of the darkness. She pushed him back, but her cry had already brought the gaoler at a run.
Simon, forced back into the cell, grabbed at Grosmal who was now coming in the other direction. They both came out of the cell, found Foella’s feet in their way and fell to the floor. The advancing gaoler didn't see Ethel in the corridor, but his pace was enough to take them both into Foella. These three made a separate heap.
Wat stepped out of his cell and looked down at the wreckage. 'Shall I wait?’ he asked.
'Take him to the interrogation chamber,’ Grosmal ordered his gaoler from somewhere in the muddle of bodies.
'The what?’ The gaoler asked from the other pile.
'Number four,’ Grosmal barked as they all got themselves back to their feet.
‘Number four?’ The gaoler caught his breath before starting to roll up his sleeves. It was going to be a long session then.
…
Number four was much more spacious, so they could all spread out a bit. There was a rude tabl
e in the middle of the room and even ruder iron implements lying scattered around.
'You will tell us the truth,’ Grosmal growled at Wat, firmly held in the gaoler’s grip.
'Of course I will,’ Wat replied. 'In fact I already have.’
There was a pause while Grosmal looked at Simon. Eventually it sank in that the monk was supposed to take over.
'Master Wat,’ Simon intoned.
'So far, so good. Well done,’ Wat replied with an ironic grin.
'Do you deny that you were at De'Ath's Dingle when Brother Ambrosius died?’
'Yes.’
'What?’
'Yes, of course I deny it. I wasn't there. I only went to De'Ath's Dingle with you. Remember?’ He asked this as he would an old crone who had forgotten where she put her cat.
'But now you are here, and there is another death.’
'No, there was another death and then I came here. Or perhaps I can kill people from miles away. People I don't even know.’
'Devilry, hah!' Simon crowed.
'Oh don't be ridiculous. Look. De Turold died sometime last night yes?’
Simon looked to Grosmal for confirmation. The Norman nodded.
'When I was at De'Ath's Dingle.’
'So you say.’
'Where were you, then?’ Wat interrogated the interrogator.
'I was at De'Ath's Dingle as well, and I didn't see you.’
'Well, I was at De'Ath's Dingle and I didn't see you, so we've only got your word that you were there at all.’ Wat folded his arms and stared accusingly at Simon.
The Investigator was clearly getting lost.
'In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised if you'd concocted this whole thing to make sure you stayed King's Investigator under William. Get a nice murder under your belt. Pretend to solve it. Job done.’
Lord Grosmal was looking backwards and forwards as if the two men were throwing a ball to one another.
The Garderobe of Death Page 15
