The Tapestry of Death Page 7

  'He took it?' Hermitage was staggered. This wasn't what he'd expected at all. The killer should have taken the tapestry because its image was the key to the whole affair. It would unravel events, reveal truths. What an awful experience, to be so curious about something that turned out not to matter at all. 'But the golden thread?' he muttered. 'If the customer took it, he would have the golden thread. You know, the erm…'

  'Customer fodder?' Cwen offered.

  'Yes, quite.' Hermitage acknowledged another disappointment that this girl was being comprehensively corrupted.

  'Didn't want it. Funny old boy though. I can’t imagine him wanting one of Briston’s specials at all. '

  'I thought you said you kept out of the way?' Wat asked in some triumph.

  'I was looking under the tent. I have to. Briston let me. He said I needed to see how customers were handled.'

  'Stott wasn't happy with the work?' Hermitage pressed on, realising that this was a possible motive.

  'Nah,' Cwen said. 'He went all shaky and red. Said it was a slight to his precious wife's memory.'

  Hermitage nodded in understanding and sympathy. He could imagine. He didn't want to ask the next question at all, let alone of a young girl. He reasoned to himself that this was bizarre, considering the young girl in question had actually made the thing. Still, it didn't feel right.

  'I don't need to know all the details, my dear,' he began, 'but I imagine the work was of quite a personal nature,' he continued quickly, hoping to put her off giving him an anatomical description, the sort of description he didn't want to hear coming from anyone, let alone the mouth of a child. 'I have seen the other works in the box so I know the general style.'

  'Yeah,' Cwen said, undisturbed. 'Usual stuff. It showed the Lady Lorinda in the garden with a great big...'

  'I don't…' Hermitage almost yelled. He controlled himself, 'I don't need the full description.’

  'I thought it was rather good,' she said, as if describing an apple.

  'This Stott fellow clearly did not,' Hermitage commented, with greater sympathy for Stott.

  'Nah,' Cwen scoffed. 'Briston still got his money though and he went off.'

  'He accepted it?' Hermitage was amazed. ‘Why would the man do that?

  'Briston told him he had to pay because of all the thread and cloth and work and everything.'

  'And how if he didn't pay, Briston would be destitute, the debt collectors would come and beat him half to death, and then his children would starve,' Wat said in a very matter of fact manner.

  Hermitage stared at him.

  'Standard response,' Wat explained.

  Cwen nodded.

  'This gets worse and worse.' Hermitage had never expected he could feel such depths of despair at weaving. Hitherto his despair had been applied to much grander concepts, oh like, human nature, sin, corruption, the ultimate fate of the human soul. Not a bit of thread through some cloth.

  'So this Stott fellow?' he speculated.

  'What about him?' Cwen asked.

  'He has a tapestry he doesn't want. More than doesn't want. He probably despises it and himself for ever ordering it.'

  'Yeah,' Cwen sniggered. 'I think he expected Briston to be a normal weaver.'

  'He's in anguish over the tapestry. He's lost money over it, and it insulted the memory of his wife. Plenty of motive for murder.'

  'I doubt it,' Wat dismissed the suggestion. 'He wouldn't know the Tapestry of Death from a cow pat. He sounds like the sort of customer who just blushes and walks away. Never tells a soul what he's ordered. If he didn't throttle Briston there and then, he certainly wouldn't have come back and done it later.'

  'He could have got someone else to do it.' Hermitage didn't want to give up on the tapestry being the cause of all this.

  'Nope,' Wat knocked this idea as well. 'The people who want other people killed tend not to be the types who go a bit red and then pay up. They tend to be the types who drag you around your tent, having punched you several times in the head to soften you up for the journey.'

  Cwen nodded agreement.

  'Also, he wouldn't have time,' Wat said. 'He was only here this morning. Finding someone who could do the Tapestry of Death would take ages. Then they'd have to get their killer to Baernodebi and finish Briston off. All by dark the same day.'

  'Perhaps he went back to his house and told his guards to go and kill a weaver?' Hermitage offered.

  'Like this?' Wat gestured to the neatly bound package that used to be Briston the Weaver.

  'One of the guards used to be a weaver? Or Stott is a guild man himself?'

  'All a bit unlikely,' Wat said.

  'Well,' Hermitage said, whose ideas really were running out of plausibility, 'he may have paid the guild killers directly. Or perhaps he saw something of them. There's only one way to find out.'

  'You want to find this Stott character and see what he knows,' Wat summarised. 'While Briston's real killer, the guild man who finished him off for having a female apprentice, gets away.' He glared at them both.

  Cwen just shrugged again.

  'You were lucky you were looking for water or you'd be dead as well,' Wat said, clearly thinking that's just what should have happened.

  'We go to the guild,' Wat said. 'If this Stott's place is very nearby, we can go there first. If not, we leave him alone.' He made it sound like he was giving Hermitage a treat, but only if he was very, very good.

  'Well, that's excellent,' Hermitage smiled some encouragement. 'We want to get a complete picture. We'll question this Stott fellow and take it from there.'

  'We need to go quickly,' Wat added as he stood once more over the body of his friend.

  Hermitage looked and nodded in sympathy.

  'Briston's starting to smell,' Wat said.

  Caput VIII

  To The Manor Forlorn

  It took a little bribery and corruption to get clear directions to the Stott manor, which was two miles away. Lolby the peasant insisted on being bribed and corrupted before he would say a word. There then followed a lively debate on whether two miles constituted nearby, very close, close, or miles out of their way. Hermitage had a number of sources, most of them biblical, which supported the proposition that a visit to Stott's would actually take no time at all – in a rather obscure and theological sort of timeframe. Wat waved his arms about and tried to indicate two miles by holding his hands apart. Eventually Cwen stepped in and pointed out that they could have got there and back in the time spent arguing the point. They finally set off for Stott's, Hermitage gently satisfied, Wat not at all.

  In exchange for the route, Lolby was left once more in charge of Briston's box of bounty. Cwen told him in no uncertain manner that she knew every piece in detail, and that if any of them were missing, damaged, or needed cleaning when they got back, he'd wish his private parts were made of wool.

  Hermitage listened to the conversation with his familiar despair. A peasant whose highest ambition was so low. A young woman mired in a trade of such depravity her very thinking and language had become corrupt. And his friend Wat. At least he now knew why Wat never spoke of his work. The great mystery of their relationship had been cleared up. Hermitage rather wished it was still a mystery. He liked a mystery unravelled and revealed, but hadn't thought this one would be quite so revealing.

  The members of the little team were in their own worlds and conversation wasn't welcome. Hermitage followed Wat and Cwen as they walked the two miles to the Stott manor. The two weavers, in line astern, were munching on a piece of something Lolby had given them. He had said it was bread, but Hermitage was not convinced. His previous experience had convinced Hermitage that starvation was the safer option. Plus, the ‘bread’ was a kindof yellow colour and not the healthy kind.

  He thought of the two in front of him as weavers, despite Wat's protestations that a woman putting thread in a cloth was not weaving while a man doing the same thing was. Wat had made some truly ludicrous suggestion that perhaps the church should
take the lead and say that women could be priests. Hermitage always enjoyed a good debate, but there really was no point if your opponent was going to spout such unintelligible nonsense.

  The triumvirate, separate but together, arrived at the Stott manor in the glorious, crackling sunshine of the winter morning. The air was so clear, the cold passed through it unhindered and made straight for the bones. Hermitage shivered in his habit, but then he always did. Wat was covered in thick, well-fitting clothes as normal, but rubbed his hands together to frighten the chill out of them. Cwen had wrapped a cloak around her boyish garb. She pulled it closer as they approached the main entrance.

  The manor was modest but solid. A great oaken door studded with black iron work sat in the middle of an expanse of stone that looked like it had been thrown up, readymade, just after God said, “Let there be light”. Moss and ivy clad the face, giving it a life of its own. More likely it was the chief means of holding the wall together. Small windows peeped through the ivy, as if ashamed to be spotted, while worn down castellations topped the greenery.

  Wat strode forward and hammered on the oak. Hermitage had been about to suggest looking for the tradesman's entrance. He didn't know about weavers, but monks were never welcome at the front door. After a wait, during which they said nothing but looked around, displaying a hitherto hidden fascination with ivy and moss, steps were heard behind the door. They went on an awfully long time, as if the space inside the manor were far larger than the outside indicated. Eventually the door creaked open and the reason for the steps was displayed.

  The ancient Parsimon dragged the door open, taking the slow and tiny steps that were all his legs were capable of.

  'Yes?' he asked, frowning at the band behind the door.

  'Is your master at home?' Wat enunciated each word loudly.

  'I'm not deaf,' Parsimon retorted. 'Everything else, but not deaf.'

  'Sorry,' Wat dropped his voice to normal. 'Your master?'

  'Who's asking?' Parsimon had not opened the door wide enough for anyone to enter.

  'I'm Wat and this is Brother Hermitage,' Wat announced.

  'And I'm Cwen, weaver's apprentice,' Cwen added in a loud and clear voice of her own. Mainly for Wat's benefit. Or rather for the benefit of his irritation.

  'Ah,' Parsimon hesitated. 'I am confident my master will not want to talk to anyone about weaving. He's had rather a nasty experience lately.' Parsimon's eyes narrowed as he looked from Cwen to Wat. 'You're called Wat, you say? Not Wat the Weaver?'

  'I am,' Wat said and bowed a bow of acknowledgement rather than humility.

  'He definitely won't want to see you,' Parsimon concluded, which rather knocked Wat.

  'Does he know me?' Wat wondered.

  'By reputation,' Parsimon hissed.

  'Oh dear,' Hermitage observed.

  'I'm surprised to see a monk in such company.' Parsimon cast a glance at Hermitage.

  'We are investigating a death, a murder,' Hermitage answered, hoping to move the conversation away from weaving. Especially Wat's very particular sort of weaving.

  'Death, murder, and weaving, eh?' Parsimon raised an interested eyebrow. 'Subjects currently excluded from my master's fireside.'

  'We think your master may have some relevant information,' Hermitage put in quickly, as the door began to shut in their faces.

  It opened again slowly, 'And who was the victim, exactly?' Parsimon asked with some suspicion.

  'Exactly?' Hermitage puzzled, surely the victim was the victim. There was no ambiguity. Who was the victim approximately? Didn't make sense.

  'Briston the Weaver,' Wat explained, seeing that Hermitage had been confused to a halt.

  'Ah.' Parsimon raised his eyebrows. 'Well, these things happen.' He made no attempt to open the door wider.

  'These were very unusual circumstances,' Wat explained.

  'I'm sure,' Parsimon's voice shrugged.

  'I'm determined to bring the culprit to justice,' the weaver added with some more intensity in his tone.

  'Very commendable.'

  'So we would like to talk to your master,' Wat growled, trying to make it quite clear that he was going to get what he wanted.

  'I'll be sure to let him know you popped by,' Parsimon said, putting his paltry weight behind the door.

  'It's alright,' Hermitage whispered to Wat. 'If master Stott doesn't want to talk about it, I quite understand. We still have our killer to go after.' He felt bad about his curiosity now. It was unjust to satisfy it at the expense of an old man.

  'I don't like doors being shut in my face,' Wat hissed back. 'The people doing the shutting are usually hiding something.'

  'Do you know a chap called Virgil?' Wat asked through the last closing inch. The inch paused.

  'No,' Parsimon said, sounding puzzled by such a non sequitur.

  'Nasty piece of work,' Wat continued, clearly happy that Virgil wasn't close at hand. 'Big, violent, thoroughly unpleasant.'

  'Well, I don't know him,' Parsimon closed the door.

  'Not yet, you don't,' Wat spoke in a friendly manner to the sheet of oak that now faced him. 'But he's very interested in Briston and his works. In fact, we hear that Briston owed him money. When this Virgil finds out your master might have information, he'll probably pop by as well. Trouble with Virgil is he can never pop quietly. Always brings a few friends with him and they tend to make an awful mess. Of places, people. No respecter of position is Virgil. Or age, come to think of it.'

  ‘My master has no information for you or for this Virgil character.’

  ‘So he doesn’t own a tapestry made by Briston then? A representation of Lady Stott?’

  The door opened a touch.

  'May I assume that if I let you in, this Virgil character may never hear about my master?'

  'Who's Virgil?' Wat played along.

  The door was opened very unamicably and Parsimon reluctantly let them in. Wat stood in the doorway as Cwen and Hermitage passed.

  'Really, Wat,' Hermitage frowned in renewed disappointment, 'an old man.'

  'They're usually the worst,' Wat said as they entered the hall and he closed the door behind them.

  Hermitage looked around the place and thought “comfort”. They were in the traditional large hall. The door opened directly into this but the chill of the world was left outside. The place was filled with warmth from a massive log fire that looked like it had been burning since September. The fireplace itself was big enough to walk into and a large wooden chair was pulled up close to the flames. The floor was scattered with fresh straw and large tapestries hung from the wall, preventing draughts and presenting a happy scene. Deer leapt, streams tumbled, musicians played, dragons nibbled. Windows with real, unbroken glass let the weak winter sun fall in over their sills. This was reinforced by a huge iron candelabra that hung from the main beam of the ceiling. It was full of candles, even at this hour of the day, and they burned merrily. This Stott fellow clearly had money.

  The room was some fifty feet square. The fire was opposite the door and a stone staircase to the right led to upper chambers. In the middle of the room, a large rectangular table held the largest amount of pewter Hermitage had ever seen in one place. There were pots and mugs, cutlery and plates, massive tureens, and serving dishes. There were also things, the purpose of which was beyond Hermitage. Strange shapes that looked like they had started life as something else. Even the something they had started as seemed bizarre. The place was warm and homely. The master who lived in it was gently roasting in the chair by the fire.

  'Master,' Parsimon called as he approached the fireplace.

  'Ah, um, what?' The master woke into alarmed life. He remained seated but his voice leaped. 'What the devil is it, Parsimon? Dinner?'

  'No sir, there are visitors.'

  'Visitors?' The master spoke as if a cart load of dung had been poured on his pewter. 'You know my instructions for visitors.'

  'Yes sir, but these have a particular reason for coming.'

&n
bsp; 'Visitors with a reason?' the master ruminated. 'Can't think of one.'

  'It's about the weaver,' Parsimon explained.

  'Oh, no more, Parsimon! Enough of the wretched fellow.'

  'It seems he's dead, sir.'

  'Is he, by Jove?' Stott paused for a moment at the news. 'Probably for the best.'

  Cwen's grief had been replaced by anger as she prepared to launch herself at the old man by the fire. Hermitage, noticing the movement, grabbed her arms.

  'Now then my dear, nothing to be gained from that.'

  'Who's that lad?' Stott asked, hauling himself from his seat to see what was going on.

  'I'm a woman,' Cwen snapped.

  'Oh, I don't think so,' Stott squinted at her. He turned his attention to Wat. 'What is it you want?' He looked the weaver up and down and then noticed Hermitage. 'Good God! There's a monk in here.' He sounded as if he'd just spent weeks exterminating an infestation of monks, only to find they'd been breeding in the wainscoting.

  'Brother Hermitage,' Hermitage announced.

  'Odd name for a monk,' Stott frowned. 'What are you all doing here anyway? You're in my house,' he announced.

  Hermitage was having trouble following this place. The fellow at the door asked odd questions about the victim, now the master didn't seem any better. Of course they were in his house! How else were they going to talk to him?

  'We are investigating the death of Briston the Weaver,' Wat explained in loud, clear tones.

  'Murder,' Cwen put in.

  Stott considered this for a moment. 'Can't say I'm surprised,' he mumbled into his beard.

  'Why so?' Hermitage asked, helping himself to a few steps into the room, closer to the fire.

  'Did you see the tapestries he made?' Stott's beard was all outrage and offence.

  'Yes, we did,' Hermitage sighed.

  'Appalling.'

  'Quite,' Hermitage glanced at Wat and Cwen with disapproving eyes.

  'If I'd been a younger man…' Stott left the thought to the air.

  'So he was well when you left him?'

  'He had a sore ear from the thick end of my tongue, but I'm old,' Stott sighed deeply in reminiscence of younger years, 'I can't kill people anymore.'