Wat’s welcome from the merchants was much more enthusiastic. He was greeted like a long lost cousin who had returned from distant lands having made his fortune. He was clapped on the back, wine was poured and food brought out.
They were still in the moot hall and the great and the good of the town looked as if they were set for a long stay. Servants bustled about attending to needs and every now and then one of the members of the moot would stand up, wobble out of the door and return a few minutes later looking much more comfortable. He was then greeted as if the rest of them had just been waiting for him so they could carry on drinking and carousing. If this moot was debating the issues surrounding the death of Gilder, they’d found an awful lot to laugh about.
Now that there were no observers, it seemed the merchants of the moot were much more relaxed. Very much more relaxed. From what Wat could tell, they had spent the days since Gilder’s demise becoming increasingly relaxed and two of them had their heads down on the moot table and were snoring loudly. He appreciated that the experience of Abbess Mildburgh in full flight would be enough to sober anyone up, and her departure had left the moot with a lot of catching up to do.
Even the Ealdorman was happy to engage in conversation now that he had Wat alone.
‘Wat the weaver,’ the Ealdorman said, standing back to look at Wat as if he was appraising a great work of art. ‘Well, I never.’
Wat smiled and bowed his head in acknowledgement. Since his companionship with Hermitage he had seen little of the approbation that usually came his way - if only from the more broad-minded customers. He knew in his heart that Hermitage was right, and that he must live a more wholesome life. Which he could afford to do, having made his fortune from a very unwholesome one. Sometimes the lure of the old ways was strong, though. Just now it was very strong indeed.
‘In Shrewsbury,’ the Ealdorman went on, ‘it’s an honour.’
The Ealdorman sounded like he was one of the broad-minded.
‘Aclan,’ the Ealdorman introduced himself properly, shaking Wat firmly by the hand. ‘Simple wool merchant,’ he explained. ‘It’s a wonder to see what Wat the weaver can do with a bit of wool.’
‘Ah, well,’ Wat shrugged. The praise was nice, but it was starting to get a bit too effusive. Effusive praise usually meant someone was after something.
‘And what,’ Aclan paused to give the question its full power, ‘is the great Wat the weaver doing with a monk and a girl?’
Wat opened his mouth to answer.
‘He should be at home turning out more of his very special works.’ Aclan gave Wat a friendly thump on the shoulder.
‘Circumstances,’ Wat explained. ‘We came together some time ago and just sort of stayed that way.’
‘Looking into murders?’
Wat shrugged. ‘It seems so. Brother Hermitage has a bit of a talent for unravelling such sorry tales.’
‘Who?’
‘Brother Hermitage? The monk?’
‘Oh, the monk, yes. And the girl?’
‘Cwen’s actually a very fine tapestrier herself. Not that I’d tell her, of course.’
‘Never produced works the like of Wat the weaver though,’ Aclan said with confidence.
‘Actually,’ Wat was about to say that Cwen had done her fair share of ruining the reputation of decent tapestry makers in her time.[
Which you can read all about in The Tapestry of Death – as long as you pay for it.] For some reason he thought sharing that with the over-enthusiastic Aclan would not be sensible. ‘No,’ he gave a light laugh. ‘Absolutely not.’ He would have to explain this carefully to Cwen if it ever came out. Very carefully. ‘And on the question of the murder,’ he began.
‘I’ve heard Wat’s workshop is in Derby,’ Aclan went on, ignoring Wat. He had a gleam in his eye that said he’d very much like to look around the workshop.
‘Er, yes,’ Wat replied. This man really was an enthusiast. Perhaps the type who tended to follow Wat around and write him peculiar letters, usually misspelt and written in something that definitely wasn’t ink.
‘Ever, erm,’ Aclan’s voice took on a strange, high-pitched nonchalance as if he’d just plucked a thought out of the air, ‘ever thought of moving at all?’
‘No,’ said Wat, wondering what on earth was going on here.
‘Always opportunities to improve business by spreading out a bit.’ Aclan winked. ‘Whole new markets to exploit.’
‘I don’t actually,’ Wat started. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain that he had given up the old works, and be able to let Aclan down gently.
‘Take Shrewsbury for instance,’ said Aclan, as if it was just a random town picked as an example, and not the place in which he was a leading merchant at all. ‘Got nothing like Wat the weaver in Shrewsbury.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Wat, knowing perfectly well where the others like him were. They all kept track so there was no danger of the different customers meeting one another. That would be very awkward.
‘Gilder’s murder,’ said Wat, quite loudly, hoping to get the conversation where he wanted it.
‘Just the opportunity,’ said Aclan, without missing a beat. ‘With him out of the way the town opens up to good honest trade.’
Even Wat wouldn’t have described his trade as good or honest.
‘Pleased he’s dead then?’
‘Everyone is,’ Aclan beamed. ‘And if Wat the weaver was to set up shop in Shrewsbury, we’d attract trade from all over.’
Wat didn’t want to reveal the truth just yet. Perhaps the promise of coming to Shrewsbury would get Aclan to open up a bit.
‘Was he trouble then?’
‘Who?’
‘Gilder,’ said Wat, with some impatience.
‘Oh, God yes. Owned most of the buildings, charged all the rent, took the tithes and the tolls. The rest of us could barely get by.’
Looking at the amount of food and wine in the place, Wat thought that barely getting by in Shrewsbury must be quite pleasant.
‘Of course,’ Aclan went on.
Wat looked at him hopefully, perhaps some detail of events was about to emerge.
‘You wouldn’t have to actually come to Shrewsbury yourself. You could appoint someone to deal on your behalf.’ Aclan smiled again.
Ah, thought Wat, there it was. Aclan wanted to sell Wat’s tapestries in Shrewsbury and take a cut. The old tapestries which commanded such high prices. He doubted the man would be interested in that thing of Saint Patrick that Cwen and Hermitage had concocted between them. The one that was full of snakes for some reason. Who’d want a tapestry full of snakes for goodness sake? Unless, of course, they were entwined around a couple of naked…. no, he put that thought from his head.
‘And Gilder wouldn’t have allowed that sort of thing?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Aclan nodded his head and laughed. ‘As long as all the profit went to him. Any merchant would have to go through Gilder. And pay accordingly.’
‘So,’ said Wat, as if he was having to think about it carefully, ‘not only is it good for you that Gilder is dead, but you actually stand to make money.’
‘And you could be part of it,’ Aclan was clearly on his own track, ‘and we wouldn’t mind what sort of thing was produced. We’re very open to new ideas here. Could be some of your really naughty stuff.’ He released an involuntary snort. ‘We could get Shrewsbury a real reputation. Put it on the map. Get visitors from all over.’
If the visitors were coming for Wat’s very particular tapestries, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be the sort Shrewsbury would want loitering after dark.
‘Can we stick to Gilder?’ Wat ignored the commercial opportunities.
‘He’d have thought this was a good idea,’ said Aclan, ‘quite keen on your works himself.’
Not another one, thought Wat. ‘That’s all very interesting, but he’s dead. And we’re trying to find out who did it. Remember?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Aclan paused in his sales drive for Shrewsbury. ‘But we’re really not that worried about who did it.’
‘You'd let a killer get away with it?’
‘Well,’ Aclan drawled as if dismissing a child’s harmless prank. ‘It’s not as if they’ve killed lots of people.’
‘What does that have to do with it?’ Wat was alarmed to hear himself sounding like Hermitage. ‘I don’t think the number of people you kill makes it any less important.’
Aclan seemed to need time to think about this.
‘And for all you know Gilder was only number one. What if you’re number two?’
‘Oh, come, come,’ Aclan dismissed the suggestion. ‘Who’d want to kill me?’
‘A killer?’ Wat suggested.
Again, Aclan needed some time. ‘Gilder was killed quite a while ago you know,’ he explained, ‘if there really was someone who wanted to kill lots of people, they’d have got on with it by now. We’d have bodies all over the place.’ Aclan put a finger in the air. ‘In fact,’ he announced, ‘as no one else has been killed, we know our killer only wanted to do Gilder. There you are.’
‘There I am, what?’
‘Solved your problem for you.’
‘Have you?’
‘Yes. The killer of Gilder is someone who wanted to kill just Gilder.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Wat, with sarcasm that would have knocked Aclan to the floor if the man had been sober.
Aclan’s satisfied smile filled the space.
‘Narrowed it down nicely,’ said Wat. ‘Who did you say would be glad he was dead? Oh yes, everyone.’ He folded his arms. ‘Not much further forward eh, master Aclan?’
Aclan frowned as he worked all this out. ‘Anyway,’ he waved Wat’s objections away, ‘it was still only Gilder.’
‘And it was still only a killer,’ said Wat, insistently. ‘One who is still out there in Shrewsbury. Someone who now knows how to kill people, if he didn’t before. And someone who also knows that they can do it and no one raises a finger.’
In a moment of revelation he saw that Hermitage was right. You couldn’t let killers go wandering around the place. It wasn’t right. Good Lord, what had he come to? He really must start spending more time away from the monk.
Aclan didn’t appear to have an answer to this. ‘Yes, but,’ he said, and dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘what if it turns out to be someone, you know, difficult.’
Wat couldn’t tell what was going on now. ‘What do you mean, difficult?’
‘Well,’ Aclan looked around the room at his mostly comatose moot, ‘it could be someone who’d find the whole business, you know, rather embarrassing.’
‘Embarrassing?’ Wat knew the town wasn’t taking the murder seriously, but really. ‘A murderer is rather embarrassed and so we mustn’t point it out? Why? In case someone says something nasty while they’re executing him?’
‘No, no,’ Aclan dismissed the ridiculous suggestion. ‘Well, yes. Sort of. If it turns out to be some vagrant stranger, or a peasant, all well and good. But if it was one of the moot, or Gilder’s son, say, or someone of good standing in the community. Well, it wouldn’t look very good, would it?’
Wat tried to look horrified at the idea that a murderer shouldn’t be executed if he came from the right background. ‘It wouldn’t look very good if we found out someone decent had bashed the back of Gilder’s head off?’
‘Exactly,’ said Aclan, sounding pleased that Wat got the idea. ‘It would damage the reputation of the town, wouldn’t it? What merchant is going to come here if they think their fellows are going to lop the back of their head off at the first sign of trouble?’
And these people wanted Wat to set up shop here.
‘It is a ticklish problem, isn’t it?’ said Wat, not knowing whether to berate the Ealdorman or start laughing.
‘I’m glad you understand.’ The conversation didn’t seem to bother Aclan in the slightest.
‘What if we found it was one of the monks,’ Wat offered, ‘what with them paying rent and all?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Aclan, ‘exactly the point. That would never do at all. Good sources of pilgrims, a nice monastery.’
‘Or the nuns?’ said Wat, thinking who else he could offer up.
‘Abbess Mildburgh?’
‘That’s it. What if she turned out to be the killer?’
‘Well,’ said Aclan, in deep thought, ‘I don’t suppose that would be too bad.’
‘What?’
‘She is an awful nuisance. And a ghastly woman.’ Aclan leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘To be honest, I’d be glad to see the back of her.’
Wat could not think of a thing to say.
‘Do you think you could find out that it was her?’ Aclan sounded very hopeful.
‘We’ll try to find out who it really was,’ said Wat, with some force.
‘Well, obviously, yes,’ Aclan winked, ‘but if it was her, that would be really helpful.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Come to think of it, if I ever met anyone capable of taking the back of your head off it’s our abbess. You’ve seen her. Temper like a red hot horseshoe. Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Gilder tells her he’s not paying for her nunnery and off she goes. And off goes the important bit of his head.’
Wat shook his head in disbelief. He had met some very dubious merchants in his time. In fact most of them were dubious in one way or another. Many of them were dubious in several ways at once and would have the skin off your back if there was a penny in it. They’d cheat a starving peasant, or trick a noble out of a fortune. They’d lie, steal, rob and smile while they were doing it, but he’d never come across anyone who wanted a nun taken out of the picture.
He really didn’t want to take this conversation any further. ‘We’d heard that Gilder was about to send a message to you, the nuns and the monks, just before he died.’
‘Really?’ Aclan sounded genuinely surprised at this.
‘What could that be about?’
Aclan shrugged. ‘Probably another rent rise. And tell the nuns to clear off and stop bothering him. Again. That would annoy the abbess no end.’
Wat tried to put the blatant attempts to blame the abbess out of his mind. ‘So it would be to your advantage if the message never arrived?’
Aclan didn’t pick up on the accusation. Perhaps he was imagining Mildburgh’s execution. ‘We’re always getting messages from Gilder, one more wouldn’t make much difference.’
‘All messages delivered by Hendig?’ A thought was occurring to Wat.
‘That’s right. Old man Gilder would never come out on his own. Someone would have killed him, ha ha.’ Aclan stopped laughing when he realised what he’d said.
‘Really?’
‘Just a figure of speech,’ the Ealdorman added, hurriedly.
‘Hm.’ Wat tried to look like he didn’t believe this.
Aclan held his arms wide and thrust his stomach out. ‘Do I look like the sort of man to run around knocking people’s heads off? It’s as much as I can do to climb Gilder’s stairs to look at his body, never mind get up there and finish him off.’
‘Needn’t have been you personally,’ said Wat.
‘And the rest of the moot are no better. Look at us.’
Wat did look and saw a bunch of men at various stages of aged decline, more than half of them now unconscious. ‘You could have paid someone to do it.’
‘In Shrewsbury?’ Aclan asked with some surprise. ‘Do you know how many hired killers there are in town?’
‘No.’ Wat had to admit it did sound a bit far-fetched.
‘None at all. It’s not that sort of place.’
‘Apart from your leading merchant being murdered in his bed and your nunnery being destroyed by the Danes.’
‘That was a hundred years ago,’ Aclan dismissed the nunnery. ‘Doesn’t stop the abbess going on about it all the time though. I don’t know why she can’t take it up with the Danes and stop bothering us. Mind you, if she’d been about when the Vikings turned up, they wouldn’t have dared.’ Aclan smiled at his own thought. ‘There’s an idea. Why don’t we send a boatload of nuns to pillage the Vikings? Get some of our money back.’
‘But you still gain from Gilder’s death,’ Wat ignored Aclan’s ramblings and pressed on.
‘So does everyone. The whole town hated him and is pleased he’s dead.’ Aclan eyed Wat confidently. ‘So now you’re not actually much further forward either, master Wat. Anyone could have done it.’
Wat had to admit it was sounding like that. He still thought that the merchants of the moot had the most to gain though. Did that make them the most likely to kill? He gave this some thought and tried to work out what Hermitage would say. He thought what Hermitage would actually say would probably be nothing to do with the issue at all. He had to make his own mind up.
Yes, he thought. If they had a lot to gain they were the most likely killers. All he had to do was find the person in the town with the most to gain of everyone and that would be that.
‘And with Gilder gone we need new blood in the town.’ Aclan broke his concentration. The Ealdorman was back on his favourite subject.
‘New blood?’ Wat asked, thinking that was a most unfortunate phrase.
‘You know what I mean. A merchant of the standing of Wat the weaver would be very good for trade.’
‘And you’d promise not to kill me?’
‘We didn’t kill Gilder,’ Aclan made the point very clear. ‘Yes, we’ve got him off our backs but there is one problem with him gone.’
‘Which is?’
‘Protection of the town. It was always Gilder himself who saw off any bands of raiders or robbers who wanted to plunder the place.’
‘I thought you said he never went out.’
‘Not in recent years. He’d taken to having meetings in his house if ever someone turned up.’
‘And they just went away?’ Wat asked. There was something very suspicious about this.
‘They did.’
‘A band of robbers arrives at the gates, Gilder has words with them and they walk off?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘What did he say to them?’ This was only one more thing in this strange town that was turning out hard to believe.
‘No one knows, that’s the problem. Next bunch who turn up, there’ll be no one to deal with them.’
‘Maybe one of them came back and killed him,’ Wat suggested. That sounded like the sort of thing a band of robbers with nothing to rob would do.
Aclan shrugged this suggestion away. ‘Haven’t seen any strangers for months. Been quiet as the grave.’
Wat tried to get this in order. These people wanted Gilder for protection but wanted him dead so they could pay him less. Perhaps the man just asked for too much one day and someone had had enough. He was sure the moot would have the contacts and influence to find a killer if they wanted one. Or persuade someone sufficiently in their own debt to do the deed for them. There was a thought.
He hadn’t really got much out of this encounter, apart from being quite comfortable with the conclusion that the moot could well have had something to do with the death. He had none of that “evidence” that Hermitage was always insisting upon, but if killers were self-serving individuals with a lot to gain from the death, then the moot was a hall full.
‘Mind you,’ said Aclan, ‘the protection problem may go away soon, so I hear.’
‘Oh yes?’
Aclan took Wat by the elbow and steered him away from the rest of the moot, who couldn’t hear them anyway. ‘Have you heard of the Normans?’
Wat controlled his response, ‘Er, yes, I think I’ve come across them.’
‘I hear very good things.’ Aclan nodded to himself.
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes. Very organised, apparently. And they got rid of that awful King Harold and his family - throwing their weight around everywhere.’
Wat struggled not to smile at the surprise Aclan was going to get when some real live Normans turned up. ‘So, when the Normans arrive here, they’ll keep the robbers away and let you get on with trade?’
‘Absolutely. Their King William sounds like a very good sort. And he’ll probably exert some control over that awful Edric.’
‘Edric?’
‘Edric Silvaticus. Has estates to the south. Terrible man. Almost as bad as Harold. Completely wild.’
‘No problem then,’ said Wat, with a barely concealed smirk, ‘William will put Edric and Gilder completely in the shade.’