No murder here, p.26
No Murder Here, page 26
If any visitors to this room were of a mind to do it, they could probably jump out of the window and run off into the woods. Not that it would do much good, Cwen seemed to realise as she looked at the window with interest. They were on an island. Where would they run to?
‘Attend,’ one of the soldiers instructed as he turned and left the room. The servants followed him out, but two soldiers remained: one at the window, one at the door.
‘They’re not pleased to see us, and they don’t want us to go,’ Cwen complained.
Hermitage was still frowning. ‘Why are they Normans?’
‘What does it matter what they are?’ Cwen asked.
‘And we are in Normandy,’ Wat said. ‘They’re allowed to be here.’
'Yes, but, but..,' Hermitage tried to get his feelings into words. 'We would have seen some elsewhere. In Saint Sampson's. With the seneschal or the greffier. Why none until we come here?'
He pondered the situation some more. There was no point asking the soldiers themselves as the looks on their faces plainly said that they didn’t understand a word being said. Which was probably for the best.
‘The archbishop was exiled by William,’ Hermitage mused.
‘So Mabel told us,’ Cwen agreed.
‘In which case why are Norman soldiers with him? If he’s been expelled from William’s company.’
‘They’re his guards?’ Wat suggested. ‘Make sure he stays here?’
‘He’s on an island, where can he go?’
‘He could get a boat’ Wat said. ‘Le Mare will take anyone anywhere for money.’
'It's possible, I suppose,' Hermitage admitted, although he still wasn't happy. 'But why not simply tell the seneschal to keep him here? Why send three soldiers? There may even be more. William needs all his men to control England.'
‘Why do you think they’re here, then?’ Cwen asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Hermitage confessed. ‘That’s the problem.’
‘This house is pretty new,’ Wat said. ‘It could be that Mauger’s only just arrived, and these are the ones who brought him here.
That did sound reasonable to Hermitage’s ear.
‘I don’t imagine William sends a parchment saying, Mauger, you’re exiled, be off with you. He sends some of his men to take you kicking and screaming, probably. Lets you know that you’re well and truly exiled.’
‘Hm, that’s certainly possible, I suppose.’
‘Particularly if you’ve been rebelling against him,’ Cwen added. ‘He’d want you to know you’re being punished.’
‘Perhaps William has left them here to remind the archbishop every now and again?’ Wat suggested.
'With the flat of a sword on the backside, I imagine,' Cwen said with another glare at the guilty soldier, who seemed to find something interesting out of the window to look at.
Just then, the door rattled and opened, and the first soldier reappeared.
‘Time to find out,’ Wat said. ‘All will become clear.’
Hermitage had very little confidence in that.
The soldier held the door open and stood straight as two more people followed him in.
The first was obviously Archbishop Mauger.
The man must be fifty or so and was very well-dressed. Hermitage thought that anyone with clothes like this must be important, and as they had come looking for an archbishop, this must be him.
He also brought with him the unanswerable impression that he was now the most important person in the room. Not only should everyone else believe this, but he believed it himself.
It needed no persuasion, no argument, no reason. It was simply so, and you had better get used to it.
There was certainly something in the bearing, which was upright and haughty, but it was also the way he looked at the others in the room. He knew that they were lesser than him, so far lesser that they didn't count as being there at all. They might have words to say and actions to carry out, but they wouldn't matter.
And it helped that Hermitage had met a few churchmen like him before. He recognised the signs.
Mauger stepped across the room as if three additional bits of furniture had been brought in for his approval, and sat by the fireplace.
Behind him came an altogether different creature.
This was a thin and wasted-looking man of considerable age. He wore a simple gown of coarse cloth and stooped slightly as he walked. His feet wore sandals that had seen better days, and it didn't look or smell as if he had washed for some time.
Hermitage was reminded of nothing so much as some ascetic holy man. The sort who spent his mornings alone in a cave, his afternoons rolling in dung, and his evenings bothering local people for alms. What he was doing with so fine a figure as the archbishop was a mystery.
It could be an act of charity, but Archbishop Mauger didn't look the charitable type. He reminded himself that Mauger wasn't an archbishop anymore, but Mauger didn't appear to be persuaded of that.
The wizened one stepped to each of the Saxons in turn and studied them at close quarters.
This was not a pleasant experience and both Cwen and Wat waved their hands in front of their noses to disperse the miasma.
After the inspection, the old man took the chair opposite Mauger.
The ex-archbishop took a breath. ‘I am Mauger,’ he announced in good English
He looked as if he very much wanted to extend his hand so that they could all bow before him and kiss his episcopal ring, but as he didn’t have one anymore, he had to restrain himself.
Wat and Cwen gave clear looks to Hermitage that he was expected to speak, as he was the one with the title.
He coughed lightly. ‘Ah..,’ he began, but managed to stop himself saying “archbishop”. ‘I am Brother Hermitage.’
Cwen and Wat urged harder.
‘Erm, yes, King William’s Investigator. Duke William, that is. Duke William’s Investigator.’
Mauger didn't reply but raised his eyebrows.
‘Er, yes. I have been, that is I and my companions have been sent by Duke William to consider some recent events.’
‘The murder,’ Wat said very plainly.
Mauger looked surprised that the others were going to speak at all.
‘Death of Adel,’ Wat said. ‘Murder of Pierre. Attack on Preauex. The Duke wants some explanations.’
Mauger managed to look more confused by this than challenged.
‘And they don’t have murder on Gernesey,’ Cwen put in. ‘Well, they didn’t. Until now.’ She feigned giving this some thought. ‘Until we got here, some say,’ she went on. ‘But most of it happened before we got here.’ She left a pause. ‘It probably started just after you got here, funnily enough.’
At least Mauger frowned at this. He leaned forward in his chair and had a muttered conversation in French with the old man opposite.
The elderly one gave a reply that Mauger frowned at, but he sat back again.
He pursed his lips, clearly preparing to bestow upon them the great gift of his words. ‘Thoret says you are Saxons and are not to be believed.’
‘Thoret?’ Wat looked to the ancient pile of cloth in the chair.
‘Thoret is my familiar,’ Mauger explained.
‘Sorry, your what?’
‘Familiar. He is my spirit familiar. He guides me.’
Le Viner had been right. Hermitage almost gasped with surprise. He knew that archbishops, even deposed archbishops, were not supposed to have spirit familiars.
‘Does he?’ Wat asked slowly. His look to Hermitage and Cwen said Mauger may be having some trouble with his senses. Mainly that he’d left them behind somewhere.
Thoret himself gave a little cackle, which did nothing to help.
Mauger leaned towards them now. ‘Do you know that the islands have tremendous magical presence?’
‘Really?’ Wat asked as if he would like to back slowly out of the room now.
‘Oh, yes.’ There was something in Mauger’s eyes now, something that wasn’t quite right. ‘And we shall harness it, Thoret and I. Through study, and devotions and rituals.’
‘Rituals, eh?’ Wat asked with a grimace.
Hermitage noticed that even the soldiers in the room seemed discomforted by Thoret’s presence.
‘It is an omen that I have been sent here.’
Hermitage could only assume that the rebellion, being deposed and then exiled had taken its toll on Mauger. Where this Thoret individual had become involved, he had no idea, and he didn't much like to think about it.
‘These rituals,’ Cwen asked, ignoring the looks from Hermitage and Wat that said they wished she hadn’t asked. ‘Any murders in them at all?’
‘Murders?’ Mauger looked puzzled and offended. ‘We have only just begun our work,’ he said.
‘Someone has been murdered,’ Cwen reminded him. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’
Mauger looked thoroughly confused and leaned back for another conversation with Thoret.
Hermitage wondered if the archbishop might have become so disordered that he had murdered Pierre as part of some grand delusion.
From what he knew of evil practice, he thought it unlikely. A stabbing in a hut was a bit mundane for that sort of thing. But there was madness here.
And in the face of madness, reason fled.
But what about Preauex? How did the attack on him fit with any of this?
‘I shall build here,’ Mauger said. ‘Not destroy.’
Hermitage looked around the room and thought that the house had been built by someone who intended to stay. It was probably a good job that Mauger had soldiers and people around him. Left alone, he might wander off into the woods and fall off a cliff.
'Wonderful,' Wat said, clearly trying to behave like the guest who had to leave now. 'We came hoping to find the seneschal. Have you seen him at all? You or, erm, Thoret, perhaps? If not, we'd be on our way and not disturb you any farther.'
Thoret leaned forward and whispered in Mauger’s ear.
‘I have taken a wife,’ Mauger announced with some pride.
‘Yes, we heard about that.’ Wat now sounded like the guest who has realised he’s never going to get away.
‘Mistress Gille and I will have many children.’
‘Gille?’ Hermitage was the first to speak. ‘As in Seneschal Gille?’
‘A great dynasty will arise,’ Mauger said.
‘No wonder he had to leave Saint Sampson’s in a hurry,’ Cwen muttered. ‘Inspecting the roads, indeed!’
‘Is Seneschal Gille here now?’ Wat tried to sound as if it was of only passing interest.
‘He attends upon us,’ Mauger confirmed.
‘Perhaps we could have a word?’ Wat asked lightly.
Mauger seemed to look to the ceiling for some reason and his lips moved without any words emerging.
'I think not,' he said when he looked down again. 'You are Saxons, after all, which is strange. Thoret and I will need to think about what to do with you. I suppose we had better lock you away for now.'
'Lock us away?' Cwen was outraged. 'What do you mean, lock us away? We are Duke William's people.'
Wat leaned over to her. ‘As this is the man exiled for rebelling against Duke William, that might not be the most persuasive argument.’
Cwen glared at Mauger and then at Wat.
‘Take them away,’ Mauger instructed his men,
Thoret nodded and cackled some more at this.
‘The spirits will tell us what to do,’ Mauger almost sang the words. ‘We shall consult.’
‘He’s quite mad, you know,’ Wat said to the soldier who took him by the arm. The man clearly didn’t understand the language but still rolled his eyes in agreement.
‘The problem with mad people,’ Cwen said as she was dragged out. ‘Is that they do mad things.’
Caput XXVIII: Creeping About
‘There ought to be a limit, you know,’ Cwen said as she dropped herself to the ground against the back wall of the outhouse they had been taken to. ‘A limit to the number of times during one investigation that we can be locked up, tied up, held prisoner, made captive or otherwise detained.’
‘Nobody has tied us up,’ Hermitage said.
‘Not yet. First Worcester and now twice here.’
‘Oh, I don’t think Urse d’Abetot made us captive.’ Hermitage thought it important to get their definitions right.
‘We just couldn’t leave,’ Cwen pointed out.
‘And we weren’t kept long by Mabel and the monks on Sark,’ Hermitage added.
‘Oh, that’s all right then. As long as we weren’t prisoners for long.
'What is the point of being the King's Investigator if we're treated like this.' Cwen was unhappy.
‘Well, I’m sorry..,’ Hermitage began, not sure what he was apologising for.
‘It’s not your fault, Hermitage, it’s them. Normans, Sark witches, archbishops. They wouldn’t do this to William himself, would they?’
‘I imagine not.’
‘And you’re his investigator. They should give you the same respect.’
‘If Archbishop Mauger had his way, he’d have William locked in here with us,’ Wat said.
Hermitage wanted to point out that they weren’t actually locked in, as there wasn’t a lock, only a large armed Norman guard on the outside. He was quite pleased to understand that pointing out the distinction would not be well received.
‘What are you doing?’ Cwen asked.
'I'm trying to see what's going on.' Wat had his face pressed to the door of the building, which was only a tool store, and was peering through the gaps in the loosely fitted planks.
‘And what is going on?’
'The back of a Norman soldier, at the moment. Either he has to move or I do.' He waited a few moments but there was no cooperation from the Norman.
He shifted over to his left a bit and peered once more.
‘I don’t think you’ll be able to see into the house from here,’ Cwen said.
‘There were only two rooms in the house,’ Wat explained. ‘We were in one, and the carpenters were still building the other. If the seneschal is here, he must be somewhere else.’
‘Another tool store?’ Cwen suggested.
‘There was a larger store around the back, I noticed it when we arrived. It’s probably a small barn for food and the like. He might be in there. I can just see the edge of it from here.’
‘Why would he be in the barn?’
'That's why I'm peering through the wood,' Wat explained with pained patience. 'Is he captive, like us, or is he attending on Mauger?'
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course, it matters. Seneschal Gille might be a friend.
'Our mad archbishop has decided to take a wife called Gille. The seneschal comes down here to demand an explanation and finds himself locked in the barn.
‘If that is the case, we could have the whole force of the island descending on the place to rescue us all.’
‘I think we noticed that the island doesn’t have a force,’ Cwen pointed out. ‘These being the first armed men we’ve seen. And they’re on the archbishop’s side of the outhouse.’
‘We need to know who is friend and who is foe.’
‘Everyone is a foe,’ Cwen said. ‘I think that’s the point I was making. Not only are they foes, but they lock us up.’
‘Preauex was welcoming,’ Hermitage pointed out.
‘I can’t see him coming to prise us from the archbishop’s grasp.’
‘Wait a moment,’ Wat called. ‘Something’s happening. Oh, I can’t see.’ He hopped along the wall and peeped out at more spots until he found the best one.
‘Ah, yes, I assume that is the seneschal.’
Hermitage and Cwen crawled over and looked out through adjacent openings.
They saw a small, old man, dressed in good black cloth, who walked with dignity behind one of the house servants.
‘Is that what seneschals look like?’ Cwen asked.
‘Never seen one before,’ Wat replied. ‘But he looks more guest than prisoner.’
‘archbishops generally keep their guests in barns, do they?’
Wat ignored the comment, but sat back for a moment, deep in thought. ‘Why would he be in the barn?’ he asked himself.
‘Making deliveries?’
Hermitage had a thought and wasn’t sure where it had come from. ‘He didn’t want to be seen.’
Wat nodded slowly at this.
‘Why was the room empty when we went in?’ Hermitage asked. ‘It’s the only good room in the house and Mauger and Thoret came to us, they weren’t in there already.
‘They left before we were brought in, doubtless taking the seneschal with them. He went to the barn while they dealt with us.
'If he had only come here because Mauger had taken a Gille for his wife, why hide? Why not say hello and ask how we are getting on? Why do people hide? Because they don't want to be seen.'
‘I imagine that’s the usual reason,’ Cwen said.
‘Specifically, he didn’t want to be seen by me, the King’s Investigator.’
‘Good,’ Wat said. ‘So the seneschal has something to hide. Whatever is going on, the three of them are in it together, and he doesn’t want to be caught.’
‘Mauger and Thoret wouldn’t care,’ Cwen mused. ‘They’re already William’s enemies and as mad as March hares. If they have hares on Gernesey. Seneschal Gille is supposed to be the duke’s man on the island.’
‘It’s a good place to be, this island, isn’t it?’ Wat said. ‘Governed by a duke who never comes here, you can do pretty much whatever you like. Landes has his hands in the tax box, and Seneschal Gille is in it with Mauger.’
‘But what is it they are in?’ Hermitage asked. ‘And what does it have to do with the death of Pierre, or the attack on Preauex?’
Wat drew his breath slowly in, as if about to make a startling revelation. ‘No idea,’ he said disappointingly. ‘But I wouldn’t put anything past that Thoret creature. If Mauger has gone mad, Thoret probably led the way. And I bet he has a nice collection of witch knives.’
