‘You had to ask, didn’t you?’ Wat accused Hermitage when they gathered in their room at the back of the inn. He and Cwen sat on the rough cot, while Hermitage paced up and down the small space.
‘You couldn’t just leave everyone happy that he’s dead,’ Cwen joined in.
Hermitage looked at them both in some confusion. ‘It was only information.’
‘Information you didn’t want. You’re not investigating Gilder’s death.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Hermitage with a light laugh. Of course he wasn’t investigating Gilder’s death. What a thing to say. He was just finding some things out. He liked finding things out. That was alright, wasn’t it? Of course, having found out about the bashing on the head, there were now some other things that needed finding out. But that wasn’t the same as investigating. Not at all.
‘He was bashed on head by God who came down from heaven to do it,’ Wat pointed out.
‘And only then in a child’s song,’ Cwen actually waved her finger at Hermitage.
‘Quite. But if Gilder was bashed on the head,’ Hermitage began, interested on a purely intellectual level.
‘Which we don’t know,’ Cwen interrupted.
‘There would probably be someone who did the bashing.’
‘About which everyone is perfectly content,’ said Wat.
‘And about which, we do not need to know,’ Cwen added.
‘Oh, quite, quite,’ Hermitage reassured them. ‘Still,’ he said, after a pause, ‘you shouldn’t really have people being bashed on the head. It’s not right.’
‘So you’d like to know if he was bashed on the head, and if so who did it?’ Wat asked.
‘Well,’ Hermitage thought about this. Yes, it would be nice to know. But then things in general were nice to know.
‘Investigate, you mean?’ said Wat, with heavy emphasis.
‘Oh, er, no, not at all,’ Hermitage objected.
‘Sounds like investigation to me,’ Cwen addressed Wat. ‘Take one dead person, find out how they died and who did it? Pretty much what Hermitage does, isn’t it?’
‘Because if an evil deed has been done, we simply have to find out about it,’ Wat replied. The two of them seemed to be ignoring Hermitage altogether.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Cwen, ‘I get the evil bit, it’s the we I’m not so sure about. Why do we have to do it? You, me, Hermitage, us, we.’ Cwen waved her arms about to make sure Hermitage knew who she was talking about.
‘Well, we don’t,’ said Wat, conclusively, ‘because we’re not investigating.’ Now he turned to Hermitage. In fact they both did. ‘Surely not just because we’re here?’ Wat asked the question of the air. ‘That hardly seems a good reason. By that argument anyone could be excused any action at all as long as they were there at the time.’
Hermitage was ready to point out the fallacy of that reasoning.
‘And just because Hermitage is King’s Investigator? That doesn’t stand up either. After all, Hermitage doesn’t actually want to be King’s Investigator.’
‘Of course not,’ Hermitage interrupted, not really too sure what was going on. ‘I don’t want to investigate at all. I’m not. I’m only asking.’
He was only asking and that wasn’t his fault. If someone had had their head spread about the place, it was only right that it should be asked about. That didn’t mean he was investigating.
‘Sounds like a job for the sheriff,’ said Cwen.
‘The what?’ Hermitage asked.
Cwen sighed. ‘The shire reeve,’ she said with exaggeration.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Hermitage, tutting. Young people just didn’t speak properly anymore. Then he thought he wasn’t much older than Cwen himself. Those few years between what, seventeen and twenty-something, seemed to make a world of difference.
‘No one calls them shire reeves anymore,’ Cwen snorted her derision at old people who couldn’t keep up with the times. ‘It’s pronounced sheriff these days.’
‘But the spelling says shire reeve,’ Hermitage pointed out. ‘How is the language going to end up if we start saying things other than the way they’re spelled?’
‘Change the spelling?’ Cwen suggested.
Hermitage was so horrified at this idea that he didn’t know what to say. ‘You can’t change the spelling of a word,’ was all he came out with. Even as he said it he realised it wasn’t a very good argument. Of course you could change the spelling of a word. It was just that you shouldn’t. Not ever.
‘Alright, you spell it your way, and I’ll spell it mine,’ Cwen concluded.
‘But, but,’ said Hermitage. This was simply unthinkable. What was going on?
‘However we spell him,’ Wat stepped in, ‘he can do the investigating and we can not do it. There you are.’
Well, that doesn’t solve the problem at all, thought Hermitage. But yes, the shire reeve could do it. He did feel relieved at that. ‘We can speak to the,’ he tried the word, ‘sheriff then,’ such impropriety gave him the shivers.
‘And why would we do even that?’ Wat asked.
‘It is our simple Christian duty to see that there are no suspicions around Gilder’s passing.’
Wat smiled. ‘And you are not the King’s checker of suspicions.’
‘No, indeed,’ Hermitage acknowledged. If the sheriff did look into things, Hermitage could always find out the result afterwards. That way his insatiable curiosity wouldn’t keep nagging him to know what had happened.
‘Excellent,’ said Cwen, with a fold of the arms, ‘and if the sheriff says there's nothing to worry about, we can go about our business.’
Hermitage paused as a thought entered his head. It was a horrible thought and he could stand back and look at it, wondering where on earth it had come from. He really had spent too long investigating. ‘Unless of course,’ he hesitated before giving voice to his mind, ‘it was the sheriff who did it?’
‘Oh, Hermitage.’ Cwen was exasperated. ‘Now you really are clutching at straws. Anyone would think you want the man to be murdered, just so you can investigate.’
‘Not at all,’ Hermitage protested. ‘I just want to know, that’s all.’ He looked at them both with his hangdog expression. ‘Just out of personal interest. And concern for the people.’
‘Ah,’ Wat raised a hand, ‘but if they’re only bashing Gilders on the head, the rest of the town should be fine. Gilder having been done, as it were.’
‘Really, Wat,’ Hermitage chided, ‘and you, Cwen. You know perfectly well that I’m right. It may well be that there has been no murder but we ought to at least make sure someone is giving it due attention. Duty,’ he nodded sagely.
‘Funny how finding out about a murder is not the same as investigating at all.’ Cwen arched her eyebrows.
‘You know how he is with duty,’ said Wat, as if Hermitage wasn’t in the room. ‘No matter how distasteful it is, he has to do it.’
Hermitage acknowledged his commitment to duty with a shrug. He thought it was rather a good thing.
‘The King might be happy that Gilder’s dead,’ Wat went on, ‘could be the last thing he wants his investigator investigating. You know that William prefers a lot of his people dead.’
‘But I’m not investigating,’ Hermitage insisted. ‘I just need to know how Gilder died.’
‘I don’t know how we came to this,’ said Cwen. ‘Most of the time you’re arguing that you don’t want to investigate the horrible murders and someone has to make you do it. Usually on pain of death. Now you’ve got the two of us saying don’t bother, and you insist on carrying on? There’s no pleasing some people.’
‘Maybe,’ Wat said, in speculative mood, ‘when we find out that Gilder just died and there’s nothing to do, we could go and kill someone especially for Hermitage. Then he can investigate that instead.’
Hermitage just tutted at such an appalling idea. ‘We shall go and find out what we can about the death of Gilder. The question will soon be answered.’
Wat and Cwen exchanged looks which seemed to say they were going to have to amuse Hermitage or they’d never hear the end of it.
They rose and left the room, Wat hoisting his pack onto his back, Cwen leaving hers on the cot. After all, it was Wat’s that had all their money in it.
Next to Cwen’s pack Hermitage deposited his spare pair of sandals and the small devotional volume that were his only possessions.
Outside the inn, a new question occurred to Hermitage. ‘So,’ he gave his question voice, ‘if there is any suspicion over the sheriff himself we need to go straight to the source of the problem. The dead man himself. How do we find Gilder’s house?’
‘Just look for the biggest and best place and that will be it,’ said Wat.
‘How do we know Gilder’s at his house anyway?’ Cwen asked. ‘For all we know he could have been bashed to death in some alley or other and left with all the other dead bodies.’ She grinned at Wat.
‘Really,’ Hermitage chastised, ‘I hardly think the people of the town would leave one of their great merchants in the street.’
‘They might, if they hated him as much as they say,’ Cwen replied.
‘His people would have taken him home,’ Hermitage was confident. ‘And you said he hadn’t been bashed on the head at all. If he died of natural causes he’s bound to be at home. We’ll find out and that will be that.’
‘If they haven’t buried him already?’ Cwen noted.
‘Ah.’ That gave Hermitage pause. In all of the other investigations he’d been made to do there had been an actual body. More than one in some cases. That made it far easier to see who was dead and who might have done it. If there was no body, how would they know the man was gone at all? If he had been buried there was no question of digging him up to see what had happened. That the very idea had entered his head made Hermitage cross himself vigorously and think what penance he should do.
A short distance from the inn they came upon a much larger thoroughfare running across their path. To their right the road dipped away, back to the river they had crossed by the Welsh bridge further upstream. To the left, the road climbed up a gentle slope toward what had clearly been a fortification at some time or another. The old Saxons had doubtless built this to defend this favourable site where the loop of the River Severn was narrowest.
They had obviously not done a very good job. The regular marauders had knocked the place about no end. It took little imagination to see that even a rather poorly motivated marauder would have little trouble with this particular fort. But then the town had walls now, and awkward guards; they should be able to do a half reasonable job.
As they drew closer there was no mistaking the house of Gilder of Shrewsbury.
It looked grander than anything around it and the place was actually built against the old fortification wall, perhaps on purpose to take its authority. Aside from this prop, it sat alone in the middle of the town. It was two stories high, the upper jutting its timbers out over the street to make sure that anything deposited from the windows fell on passers-by, instead of on the owner's own doorstep. It even had glass in the windows, held together by bands of lead. The thatched roof, which towered above them, looked well maintained and even had decorations at its peak.
It was difficult to see anything else due to all the celebrations that were going on outside it. There would be no way of getting through this throng to find out what had happened to the man at all. If he was still there, of course.
Wandering minstrels were playing their songs, skipping about juggling and the like. And probably composing the grand tales of the death of Gilder that they would peddle around the country almost immediately.
Enterprising tradesmen had set up stands to sell bread and roasted pork, ale and mead. Children were skipping, adults were talking and laughing and the whole place had the feeling of the happiest of festivals.
Someone had even tied bright ribbon to the windows of Gilder’s house, which Hermitage thought was very poor, no matter how detested the man was.
As they drew near to the edge of the crowd they could see that the actual door to the house was guarded by two very large men, their heads floating above the press of people. The expressions on their faces were enough to keep most at bay. They stood impassively and glared at anyone who dared to catch their eye.
Wat nodded towards them. ‘Some still loyal to Gilder then.’
‘Or will be until the coin runs out,’ said Cwen.
‘Perhaps they’ll know where we can find the sheriff?’ Hermitage suggested brightly.
‘Do go and ask Hermitage,’ Wat suggested in a rather odd tone.
Hermitage shrugged. He seldom understood the things which caused Wat amusement. Or anyone else for that matter.
He pushed his way through the throng as gently as he could, but people were good natured and when they saw there was a monk trying to get through they made way. This was not without a few unchristian comments about it being too late for Gilder now.
Eventually Hermitage reached the men on guard and asked his question.
‘Well, really,’ Hermitage protested when he re-joined the others. ‘I only asked a perfectly civil question. There was no need for that.’
Wat and Cwen were stifling their laughter as Hermitage re-arranged his habit.
‘I think Gilder himself is going to be hard to get to, even though he’s dead,’ said Wat.
‘Someone else must know where the sheriff is,’ Hermitage said with some irritation. He usually gave people the benefit of the doubt in any new encounter, but he was not going to give those two guards the benefit of anything.
‘Who, wantsh the sheriff?’ a loud voice slurred in their ears.
Cwen smirked that this new arrival was pronouncing the word the modern way.
Hermitage turned and saw a fellow who was clearly having trouble staying on his feet. The crowd was thin here and the man was swaying slightly from side to side, a large smile on his face. He had clearly found the mead stall and had probably done his best to empty it.
He must be of middle years, well dressed with a border of thin hair framing a bald head. He had the ruddy pallor of the outdoor life, or perhaps it was the drink.
‘There’s no trouble,’ Wat assured the man, holding his hands out, partly to demonstrate there was no trouble, and partly as a caution in case the man actually fell over.
Hermitage thought him rather too well dressed to be in this state, he looked the sort of gentleman to sip his wine, not gurgle his mead. But then the whole of the town was behaving bizarrely. It was as if there really was some festival of mayhem taking place, when everyone could throw off their daily selves to indulge in all sorts of disgraceful behaviour. The result being politely ignored by everyone the next morning.
‘We simply have an enquiry of him,’ Hermitage said, in his best loud and clear voice.
‘Who?’ the fellow asked.
‘The sheriff,’ Cwen repeated.
‘Shire reeve,’ Hermitage clarified. He had started swaying in time with the drunk, just to keep a sense of equilibrium. He forced himself to stop.
‘Wha’s it about?’ the man dribbled.
‘Not you, I assure you,’ Hermitage nodded extravagantly.
‘I should hope not,’ the man tried to hold himself straight and upright, but failed. ‘Can’t go reporting me to the sheriff,’ he said with confidence and belched loudly. He clapped a hand to his mouth as if the mead was trying to get out again.
Wat looked at him and then at the others, resignation on his face. ‘Because you are the sheriff,’ he concluded.
‘S’right,’ the man belched again, which seemed to send the mead back to its resting place. ‘I’m the Sheriff of Shrewsburghury.’ As he said this, the sheriff sat down in the street. He looked around in surprise that the road had risen so quickly, before keeling over, sound asleep.
‘So,’ said Cwen, with some finality, ‘the sheriff is glad Gilder’s dead as well then.’
Hermitage looked at the prone figure. ‘Maybe he’s drunk through despair and worry?’
The sleeping sheriff smiled and belched once more.
‘Doesn’t look despairing and full of worry to me,’ said Cwen.
‘And doesn’t look like he’s about to give us a fulsome explanation of the passing of master Gilder,’ Wat added.
Hermitage shook his head. ‘We can’t get into the house.’ He cast a glance at the unpleasant guards who still protected Gilder’s doorway. ‘We shall have to take him back to the inn.’
‘What?’ Cwen asked. ‘Why in the woods would we be dragging a drunk sheriff through the town?’
‘We need him to tell us what happened,’ Hermitage explained.
‘Why can’t we take him to his house?’
‘Why can’t we leave him here and come back when he wakes up?’ Wat suggested. ‘At least we know what he looks like now. And I don’t think he’s going anywhere.’
‘He has to stay with us, so nothing will happen to him.’
‘Such as? Apart from getting drunk and falling down.’
‘Being bashed to death?’ Hermitage pointed out.
‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ Cwen was exasperated. ‘Let’s just prop him up against the bread stall and throw a bucket of water over him.’
Hermitage frowned. ‘That seems a bit rude.’
‘But quick.’
Before he could do anything about it, Wat and Cwen had taken the Sheriff of Shrewsbury under his arms and dragged him from the roadway to the side of the bread stall. Here they sat him up as best they could, despite his clear intent to lie down again at the first opportunity.
‘Here,’ said a passer-by in an accusatory manner, ‘what you doing to the sheriff?’
‘Trying to wake him up,’ Cwen snapped back.
‘Oh, he won’t like that,’ the passer-by observed, giving a sombre shake of his head.
‘I must say,’ Hermitage had to say, ‘he is very drunk. Such celebration over the death of Gilder hardly seems appropriate.’
‘Ah,’ said the stranger, with a very modest sway on his feet, ‘but we’ve got an excuse. We’re all drunk to celebrate the death of Gilder.’ He pointed a finger in the rough direction of the sleeping man. ‘The sheriff’s like it all the time.’
Hermitage was appalled. ‘Then how does he sheriff effectively?’
‘He doesn’t.’ The stranger belched. ‘Why bother when Gilder looks after everything?’
‘But Gilder’s dead,’ Cwen pointed out.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the stranger in a moment of drunken revelation.
‘So the sheriff will have to sober up,’ said Wat.
‘Oh,’ said the stranger, ‘he won’t like that.’ And he wobbled off down the street. After a few paces he examined his surroundings, looked puzzled and then turned and headed back up the street. ‘What you doing to the sheriff?’ he asked as he approached them again. ‘Oh, no,’ he waved them away with a hand, ‘I’ve done you.’
The three looked down at their sleeping sheriff.
‘If we wait, I’m sure he will wake once the effects of the drink have worn off,’ said Hermitage.
‘If we leave him where he is, someone else can tell us what happened to Gilder,’ said Wat.
Cwen threw a bucket of water over the sheriff, who screamed.
‘Where did you get that?’ Hermitage asked, nodding at the bucket.
‘Borrowed it from the baker’s stall,’ Cwen replied. ‘When I told him I wanted to throw water over the sheriff, he seemed quite keen.’
The sheriff was blustering, and complaining and appeared sober as he wiped his face with his hands. He rolled over to his knees and started to stand. He found that he wasn’t sober at all and so sat once more, his back against the baker’s stall, feet stretched out in front of him. ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ he asked the faces that were looking down on him.
‘Getting you in a fit state to answer some questions,’ said Cwen.
The sheriff looked at her, then at Wat, then at Hermitage.
‘He’s a monk,’ the man observed.
‘Very astute,’ said Wat.
‘What’s a monk doing throwing water over people? It’s not right. Do you know who I am?’
Hermitage was about to explain that he hadn’t thrown the water at all. He supposed that if you were the one being thrown at, such points of detail were of little interest.
‘We know you’re the sheriff,’ said Cwen, showing little interest, ‘and the monk wants to ask you some questions.’
‘What sort of people are you?’
‘Curious ones,’ said Wat. ‘You know Gilder’s dead I suppose?’
‘Of course I do, I’m not that drunk,’ said the sheriff, brushing some of the water from his clothes. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘Now that is a good question,’ said Wat, with a very pointed look at Hermitage. ‘Let’s just say the monk here,’ he gestured to Hermitage, ‘takes an interest in such things.’
The sheriff gave Hermitage the sort of look reserved for people who ate things even the animals were leaving alone.
‘We hear that Gilder may have been struck to death,’ said Hermitage, thinking this was not really the place he had planned to ask his questions. He thought they’d gather round a table somewhere, with everyone carefully paying attention.
‘Struck to death?’ the sheriff clearly didn’t understand the phrase.
‘Yes,’ Hermitage explained, ‘you know, hit until dead. Something like that.’
‘Ah,’ the sheriff indicated that he now understood.
Hermitage had to address the silence, ‘So was he?’
The sheriff chuckled to himself, ‘Oh, yes. Definitely dead and definitely struck.’
Hermitage gave the others a worried look. They gave him a disappointed one.
‘Struck several times,’ the sheriff’s chuckle developed into a wheezing shake of his body, ‘and very hard at that.’ The city’s official now burst into raucous laughter. He held his sides and forced the laughs out through gasps for breath. He could barely speak through the constrictions his body was putting him through as he tried to expand on his explanation. He could only get one or two words out before a fit of laughter tried to wrench them back. It was as if each new description was another hilarious description in its own right.
‘Over and over he was bashed. Ha, ha, ha,’ breath, ‘right on the head,’ breath and snort, ‘all over the place it was.’ He now fell over in the dirt, grasping his stomach and the hilarity was clearly in charge. He had to use what breath he was allowed to fuel yet more howls and explosions of laughter.
This was the most bizarre description of a murder Hermitage had ever heard.
‘You could even…,’ the sheriff tried, but couldn’t make the rest of the sentence without falling to the strangulation of the need to express how this event was quite simply the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life.
With admirable control, the laughing perhaps having driven the drink into retreat, the sheriff controlled his breathing and recovered some semblance of control.
He forced a sombre look onto his face and was clearly suppressing the next eruption. ‘You could even…,’ he started again but had to purse his lips hard to stop the giggles dribbling out. The body was still shaking but no noises were coming out. It didn’t look like this was doing him any good at all.
Eventually, with a supreme effort of self-control the sheriff managed to speak, ‘You could even see his brains. Ha, ha, ha, ha.’ The man collapsed once more into uncontrollable paroxysms.