‘What did I say?’ Brody asked.
They were gathered in the kitchen, Hermitage trying to gather his wits on a chair by Mrs Grod’s cauldron. The cook herself was regarding them all with suspicion. Strangers in her kitchen usually meant trouble. Frequently for the strangers.
‘You tell us,’ Cwen replied, putting a hand on the shaking shoulder of Hermitage.
‘I only said I’d come here with a message from the King.’ Brody still leant importance to the word “king” but it was more nervous now, as it had caused a very strange reaction in the monk.
‘There you are then,’ Cwen scolded. ‘What did you say a thing like that for?’
Brody’s eyes started to look worried that he was trapped in a small kitchen with these people. ‘Because it’s true. I really do have a message from the King. What’s the problem with having a message from the King?’
‘Brother Hermitage here has a thing about messages from the King,’ Wat explained. ‘They usually mean trouble.’
‘They usually mean death and disaster,’ Hermitage whimpered.
‘Oh,’ said Brody, admiringly. ‘He’s right there.’
This did nothing for Hermitage’s constitution which took another downward spiral, twittering its distress as it went.
‘You’d better tell us then,’ Wat said, with heavy resignation. ‘What’s the message? What were our dear King’s words this time?’
‘His words?’ Brody asked. ‘You want to know his actual words?’
‘Well, yes,’ Wat replied, frowning slightly. ‘That’s usually how messages work.’
‘Please yourself,’ said Brody. He settled himself on his short stool, ‘They’re only his words though,’ he pointed out, ‘not mine. Don’t blame the messenger.’
Wat waved him to get on with it.
Brody cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes to bring the memory into focus. ‘The King’s words were; “get up to some God forsaken rat hole called Derby and tell that idiot monk and his disgusting weaver friend that they can bloody well sort this out. I’ll be buggered if I know what the devil you’re talking about, I care even less and if you don’t get out of my sight in the next one minute my friend Le Pedvin here will split you open and use you as a purse.”’
He stopped and let the silence hold sway.
‘Definitely the King then,’ Wat confirmed.
‘And of course,’ said Brody, proud of his knowledge, ‘there was only one disgusting weaver in Derby worthy of the name, so here I am.’
Hermitage’s impersonation of a small, scared animal was so lifelike Mrs Grod started to give him an entirely different look.
‘And what is it we’re supposed to bloody well sort out?’ Cwen asked.
‘A murder,’ Hermitage muttered, weakly. ‘It’s bound to be a murder.’
Brody’s eyes widened, ‘How did he know that?’
‘Ha,’ Hermitage managed to get out from the depths of his despair.
‘Who’s dead?’ Wat asked.
Brody leant in close, perhaps so that Mrs Grod would not hear the great secret. ‘Father Ignatius,’ he hissed.
Hermitage, Wat and Cwen exchanged looks of blank ignorance.
‘Who?’ Wat asked.
‘Father Ignatius,’ Brody insisted, as if everyone should know who father Ignatius is. Or was.
‘Hermitage?’ Wat asked.
Hermitage shook his head. ‘I heard of an Ignatius in Lincoln, but he was an old man even then. Probably dead now anyway. And unlikely to be of interest to the King I’d have thought, being the chief confessor of cattle.’
‘Chief confessor of?’ Wat stopped himself going any further. ‘Not him then.’
‘Father Ignatius at the monastery,’ Brody explained.
‘Ah, the monastery,’ said Cwen, as if that made things perfectly clear. ‘We all know there’s only one monastery with an Ignatius in it.’ She really looked like she wanted to smack this Brody on the back of the head until his words made sense.
Hermitage frowned at her. The country was strewn with monasteries and Ignatius was a common name. He saw that she was being sarcastic. He really must get the hang of that one of these days.
Brody cast a cautious eye at Mrs Grod stirring the contents of her cauldron as it bubbled on the fire. Every now and then she would bat some recalcitrant piece of the meal back into the pot from which it had been trying to escape.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ Brody whispered.
Wat looked at Mrs Grod and shrugged, he beckoned them out of the kitchen.
Hermitage followed, slouching along in his resignation. He didn’t know why they were leaving the room as he wasn’t convinced Mrs Grod understood anything that was said to her. Nothing made any difference to what went into or came out of her pot.
Wat led the way back to the upper chamber, making sure no one trod on his drawing, and settled them by the window.
There was no questioning the fact that the workshop was a grand place, probably the grandest for miles around and all of it the wages of sin as far as Hermitage was concerned.
What had started out as a simple timber framed, single story building, the same simple space as anyone of worth would have, had been extended as Wat’s income had spread. He had even named some of the extra rooms after the tapestries that had paid for them. Hermitage put a stop to that.
A whole extra floor had been added when King Harold took an interest in the weaver’s works. Wat may not have gone to the expenses of the very finest workmen, but they were capable. Nothing had actually collapsed or fallen off, as was common with some of the more rustic constructions.
As business had really blossomed an apprentice hall had been added on at the back. It was here that the bulk of the work was done, and here where the minds of young apprentice weavers were corrupted by Wat’s trade. Hermitage had managed to move them on to much more worthwhile and wholesome works. About which they complained continuously; those who hadn’t actually left to start their own definitively less wholesome businesses.
He suspected some of the remainder were making their own works under the table, but he had never managed to catch any of them at it. He had though discovered some preliminary sketches under a floor board. They had gone straight on the fire.
Settled by a very expensive window which looked out over the front of the building, Wat addressed Brody. The three of them were sat on the simple window seat, which was padded with a nice tapestry covered cushion. Nice in all senses of the word. Brody was before them on a hard wooden stool.
‘Now,’ Wat said. ‘In simple words explain exactly who you are, where you’ve come from, who’s dead and what on earth it’s got to do with us.’
Brody looked around the room to check no one could overhear. ‘Father Ignatius is dead.’
‘Yes, we know that,’ said Cwen, impatiently.
‘And we think he was murdered,’ Brody ignored her.
‘What makes you think that?’ Wat asked.
‘He had a sundial in him.’
‘A sundial?’ Hermitage’s interest was roused. ‘How could he have a sundial in him?’
‘Well,’ Brody explained, ‘more sort of through him really. From his back to his front and out a bit. The big spiky bit did for him.’
‘Gnomon,’ said Hermitage.
‘Was he?’ said Brody. ‘There you are then.’
‘The gnomon is the part of the sundial that sticks up and casts the shadow,’ Hermitage explained, wearily.
‘Aha,’ said Brody. ‘It wasn’t casting a shadow, it being night time and all, but it was certainly sticking up. Right through Ignatius.’
‘Perhaps he slipped while telling the time,’ Wat suggested.
‘I’ve only ever seen one brother try to use a sundial at night,’ Hermitage observed. ‘And that was young Londor, who also tried to use a cow as his substitute at Vespers. Even he had the sense to actually face the sundial.’
Wat shrugged.
‘Anyway,’ Brody went on, ‘Ebgert says to me that it looks like he was pushed.’
‘Just a minute,’ Cwen held up a hand. ‘Who’s Egbert?’
‘Egbert’s quite new but he’s the Abbot’s second in command.’
‘Claustral prior,’ Hermitage corrected.
‘What he said,’ Brody nodded at Hermitage. ‘Egbert says that there was so much of the sundial sticking through Ignatius that someone must have pushed him.’
‘You haven’t got to the bit about what this has to do with us,’ said Wat, ‘I’m sure your abbot can deal with it, or the local sheriff.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Brody, as if such a thing was unthinkable. ‘You see Ignatius was pointing.’ He gave this the most awful significance.
The others didn’t see anything at all.
‘He was pointing?’ Cwen checked the fact. ‘You went from your monastery to the King to here because some dead monk was pointing?’
‘Priest,’ Brody corrected. ‘Father Ignatius was a priest.’
‘Doesn’t make much difference to the sundial,’ Cwen observed.
‘He was a special priest,’ Brody went on, ‘A, erm, what was the word. The Abbot did tell me so I could tell the King. Once I told the King it went right out my head.’ He looked at the ceiling for inspiration. ‘Sack of something?’
‘Sack of what?’ Wat asked with a snort.
‘Not sack of, sack or. Sack or toss?’
They all looked at the idiot before them. Hermitage shook his head and thought that he shouldn’t really be surprised. ‘Sacerdos?’ he suggested.
‘That’s the one.’
‘It means priest,’ Hermitage pointed out that this added nothing to the information.
‘There you are,’ Brody was triumphant. ‘Ignatius was the Sacerdos Arcanorum. I remembered the other word.’
Wat and Cwen just exchanged looks that said they were getting very little out of this explanation. They looked at Hermitage and saw that he had gone very pale indeed.
‘Are you alright, Hermitage?’ Cwen asked.
In trembling voice Hermitage repeated the title, ‘Did you say Sacerdos Arcanorum?’
‘That’s him. Or was him, I suppose.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Absolutely. The Abbot was quite insistent I got it right.’
‘Didn’t stop you forgetting it,’ Cwen pointed out.
‘But it’s back now. That was definitely it. Sacerdos Arcanorum, whatever it means.’
They all looked to Hermitage.
‘It means the priest of the mysteries,’ he informed them, taking a deep breath. ‘And what is the name of this monastery where Ignatius was priest?’ he asked Brody. ‘The proper name. The one people use when they’re writing it down or mentioning it in the orders of the day.’
‘Well, we just call it,’ Brody began.
‘No,’ said Hermitage, urgently. ‘Not the name you just call it. It’s real name. Probably in Latin.’
‘Oh, that one,’ Brody beamed and winked. ‘I’m not supposed to tell.’
‘You can tell us,’ Hermitage pressed. ‘After all, the King did tell you to come here.’
Brody gave this some thought and looked around the room once more. ‘The Abbot said he’d do horrible things to me if I told. And that when I died God would be waiting for me to do some more.’
‘Sounds like an abbot,’ Hermitage muttered. ‘But you are instructed by the Abbot to tell the King, and the King has instructed you to tell us.’
Brody took some time to assimilate this chain of events. Eventually his face brightened in the way a face does when it finds out something is not its fault after all. He beckoned them close. ‘It’s called the Monastrium Tenebrarii,’ he hissed in a loud whisper.
Again Wat and Cwen looked blank and turned to Hermitage for an explanation.
‘Do you know the place?’ Wat asked.
Hermitage was shaking his head in disbelieving worry. ‘Oh, I know it,’ he said, ‘I know it very well indeed.’
They smiled at this.
‘I know one thing about it for certain.’
‘And that is?’
Hermitage took a deep and shaking breath, ‘The Monasterium Tenebrarii doesn’t exist.’