'I hope you'll forgive me if I speak plainly,’ Wat said as he and Ethel walked back towards the retainer's chamber.
'What am I saying? I don't give a donkey's fart whether you forgive me or not. I don't know what you're up to, Aethelred, and I don't think I care. I don’t know if you really have given up completely and are happy to be this Norman no-brains’ lackey, or if you have some secret scheme going on. You could be poisoning his water for all I care. In fact if you are, I'll carry the jug. What I am not going to do is get either Hermitage or I dragged into this murder.
‘We're here to try and find out who did it. If I detect even the slightest hint that we are being sold out I will make sure the Norman believes you killed de Turold, interfered with his mother and pissed in his milk. And he seems stupid enough to believe anything.
‘For all I know you did kill de Turold. Perhaps it's part of the secret scheme. I wouldn't blame you for exacting revenge, but if you did do it we need to know. Perhaps we can work something out.’
Wat looked to the thin Saxon for some response. There was none.
'Or we will find out who did it by this evening, tell Grosmal and leave you to your fate.’
Wat stopped and folded his arms, staring hard at Ethel.
The Saxon stopped as well and looked at Wat. 'I'm sorry, did you say something?’
Wat contained the urge to slap the man in the face. Or pull a knife and stab him in the head. Both were tempting. 'You know bloody well I did. I know your sort, Ethel,’ Wat emphasised the Norman's derogatory name for his servant, 'but you're in no position to walk all over everyone around you any more. King Harold may have let you do what you want, but he's not king any more. As far as your wellbeing is concerned, I'm the king. Think on that.’
Ethel looked at Wat without an expression on his face. For a moment Wat thought he was going to walk away. Instead the Saxon gave the shrug of a man who is already dead. 'What do you suggest?’ he asked.
'That's better,’ Wat grinned. 'Come on man, we can run rings round this Norman idiot.’ He clapped Ethel hard on the shoulder.
The Saxon retainer looked at Wat as only a noble who has never been touched without invitation could look.
'Back to the garderobe,’ said Wat.
'Do we have to?’ said Ethel as if he'd been asked to go into a room that smelled of poo. 'You've already examined it at close range. From both ends.’
'That was before the Normans' crossbow turned up. We need to find Hermitage anyway – he's probably still examining the chamber.’
If Ethel could have turned his nose up any further he'd have smelt his own neck. 'Oh, very well,’ he said, 'this way.’ He walked off.
'I thought it was this way?’ Wat beckoned to the tower.
'Not if you want to go directly,’ Ethel replied in a tone that spoke highly of Wat's idiocy.
The weaver shrugged and followed Ethel. They went along a path, through a hole in a wall, down a short tunnel, out a hole in another wall and up a short flight of steps which looked more like mistakes in the stacking of the masonry. This led to another series of holes in walls, the last one of which opened outside the garderobe entrance.
Wat turned and gazed at the way they had come.
'The whole place is riddled with mistakes,’ Ethel explained, 'apart from the ones living in it, of course.’
'What is your game, Aethelred?’ Wat asked before they entered the garderobe. 'What are you up to?’
'Mister Wat.’
'Yes.’
'You say you know my type?’
'That's right.’
'The old order. The way things were?’
'Yes.’
'So there's absolutely no possibility of me revealing any personal details to a tradesman, is there?’
Wat couldn't stop himself grinning widely. 'I suppose not.’
'Let's just get on with whatever it is we're getting on with then, shall we?’
…
The room was occupied.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,’ Wat started, before realising the occupants were just two old hags trying to scrub the place clean.
The ghastly apparitions, wearing rags which put the function of the room to shame, had got some sort of ladder, or rather a pile of planks loosely bound together with twine. They were using this, and some sticks with even more hideous rags tied to the ends, to try and relieve the ceiling of its bowel problem.
As the explosion had forced a goodly quantity of the garderobe contents up through the seats, so the hags had to get it back down again. Not an easy task.
As the larger lumps of material fell from the roof the hags had started with shovels, which were still propped by the entrance. Now they had moved on to leather cloths, dipped every now and then into a bucket containing a liquid only slightly less revolting than the muck they were trying to clean away.
'What are you doing?’ Wat asked
'We're hollowing out this huge turd to make into a house,’ one of the hags responded, with creditable sarcasm.
Ethel stepped neatly forward and banged his knuckles on the back of the hag’s head until she lay down.
'Now,’ he said to the remaining hag.
'Cleaning the place up, sir,’ said the second hag, recognising authority when she saw it hitting someone. 'Lord Grosmal likes the place neat.’
Wat walked gingerly across the still stained floor toward the two privy seats, above the slightly larger holes in the chamber floor.
'I was right.’
‘Delighted to hear it,’ Ethel responded, without interest.
'Hermitage was feeling bad that he'd set light to all the evidence, but I said these holes weren't big enough for anyone to get through and I was right.’
'I'm sure you're very happy.’
'Which means,’ said Wat, trying to get the message across to Ethel that this was important, 'that no one went down there to shoot de Turold.’
'Ah,’ said Ethel, actually showing signs of interest. Very dim signs, but signs none the less.
'And no one went in through the bottom door. That hadn't been opened for years.’
'Very wise.’
'So how was de Turold shot?’
Ethel shrugged his shrug of resignation.
'Unless he was shot first and then put in the garderobe?’ Wat asked the very direct question of Ethel.
'In the arse? A remarkable shot.’
'Well, what do you suggest?’
'Perhaps it was a child?’
'A child?’ Wat was horrified at the suggestion. 'Someone sent a child down a garderobe with a sophisticated weapon to shoot a Norman up the back passage?’
'Sounds like a plan to me.’ Ethel seemed to think it was rather a clever one as well.
'Ridiculous.’
'Or a very thin person?’ Ethel offered.
'Like you,’ Wat observed.
'I think not,’ Ethel replied.
Wat accepted immediately that Ethel wouldn't have even contemplated going down the hole. No matter how much he hated the Normans.
'Hermitage said de Turold was sitting on this particular hole when he was shot,’ said Wat, closely examining the one closest to the door.
'He was,’ Ethel confirmed, ‘but what does that matter?’
'Don’t know, but it might be important.’
'It was definitely that one, sir,’ said the conscious hag, fawning shamelessly. But then she was mopping up a garderobe, so shame probably didn't trouble her much.
Peering into the hole, Wat could see into the chamber below again. The door below had still not been put back, partly to air out the smell and partly because no one in the castle could be persuaded to take on the job.
'Where is Hermitage?’ Wat asked as he peered all around below.
'Perhaps he's on his way up?’
'That's what I thought last time I was here, but there's still no sign of him. He wouldn't go wandering off on his own.’
Ethel sauntered over to the hole. 'I can see that it would have been easy to shoot him. All the killer would have to do would be to stand down there, wait for Henri to sit and then fire.’
'The child?’ Wat said, 'who would have to be lowered down through the hole and then wait?’ He tutted. 'I may know little about investigating and clues and evidence and such, but I do have a clue about shooting people. When was the Norman shot?’ he asked Ethel.
'We found him in the morning. Presumably it was some time during the night.’
Wat frowned in thought. 'Presumably the hags work all night?’
'Of course they do.’
'Eeeek,’ the hag squeaked, as hags do when grabbed. Wat reluctantly held on to the filthy rags and shook her a few times to make some words fall out.
'When did Henri de Turold get shot? Was it light or dark?’
'Dark,’ screeched the Hag. She followed the screech with a flutter of her eyelids at Wat. 'I was on the night clean and saw him wandering about.’ She giggled unpleasantly.
'What do you mean, “wandering about”?’
'Well he was walking to the garderobe, but his clothing was … unusual.’
'We know.’
'He didn't have any at all,’ the hag cackled. 'So I sent for Mabel here,’ she gestured at the still unconscious hag, 'and we both had a good look.’
'So – in the dark,’ said Wat, dropping the hag in her bucket of swill. 'How did they shoot him?’
'With the bow,’ said Ethel. He was losing interest again.
'If he was here at night, when it was dark, how did anyone down there see that there was anyone up here, let alone shoot him? Or do we have a child-archer-bat who can see in the dark and hit a target smaller than a dingleberry?’
'There’s the night candle which always burns here.’ The hag gestured towards the stub of stuff that lay on its side by the privy seat. 'Henri had a candle as well.’ She cut herself off quickly and instantly returning to her wiping. Then she stopped wiping as Wat had helped her to her feet by pulling her hair.
'How do you know?’ he enquired.
'We saw him carrying it,’ said the hag, 'and when we was bought in to clear up, we found it in the muck and stuff.’
'Where is it?’ said Ethel, in the tone of those who know wrongdoing when they hear it.
Delving into clothing which even the most parasitic, starving flea would avoid for fear of infection, the hag lifted her skirts, deliberately giving Wat a flash of her shapely legs. They were certainly shapely – just not leg-shaped. She retrieved the remains of the candle and presented it to Wat.
'Don’t break it,’ she said. 'We was going to give it back.’
Wat just frowned and held the candle in his hand. 'This thing weighs a ton,’ he commented. ‘What's it made of?’
'Oh, I don't think you want to know that,’ Ethel said with distaste.
Wat examined it. He could find nothing of worth in its appearance. The texture seemed a bit odd. It reminded him of something, but he felt that he didn't want to remember quite what. It seemed to have been cleaned of the poo in which it must have landed. Reluctantly, he put it to his nose.
It is said that one can never smell in a dream, but this was an age of serious smells. If you had smelt De'Ath's Dingle once, that cloying, persistent, evil and somehow impertinent odour stayed with you forever. It would follow you around everywhere, even into your sleeping hours.
The smell of the garderobe of the castle of Robert Grosmal, as has been indicated, was of a comparable presence, albeit of a somehow more natural origin. But the smell of a candle of the castle of Robert Grosmal could blunt arrows. Wat's head swam and he staggered back, dropping the candle into the outstretched hand of the hag.
'Good gods above,’ he said, shaking his head to try and make the memory go away. It only responded to this taunting by settling in more deeply. He took a couple of deep breaths which he immediately regretted.
'Right,’ he panted, valiantly trying to get the world back in the right order. 'We know that Henri had a candle with him. If someone was in the garderobe, they would have been able to see the light of the night candle coming down through the privy seat, and when Henri arrived as well.’
'And perhaps,’ said Ethel, following the line of reasoning, as if the practice was new to him, 'as soon as Henri sat himself down the light would have gone out. Then they’d have known to shoot.’
Wat considered. He acted out standing in the garderobe with a bow pointing upwards. ‘We still need a child to do the job, but I can't see how else it was done. In any case it would have been difficult to see what you were aiming at.’
Wat turned to the hag. 'How big was Henri de Turold’s backside?’
'Ohh sir,’ said the hag. She assumed a greasy mock shyness.
'Was he a big fat Norman or a skinny weasel Norman?’ Wat asked, accurately describing the two most common types.
'Very slim was Lord Henri. Very nice cheeks…' The hag’s mind had wandered off into its own perversions.
'I think we need to try something out,’ said Wat. 'We need to go down there again.’ He gestured through the privy seats.
Wat was still rather pale from the bouquet of Robert’s candle and felt positively billious at this prospect. He was about to follow up with a very reasonable explanation for why his own suggestion should be ignored. Then Ethel intervened.
'Yes,’ he agreed, with an unlikely enthusiasm. 'If we can show that no one could have shot de Turold from below, it means he was killed first and then put there.’
'Which doesn't make finding the killer any easier,’ Wat observed.
'But it would mean we need to trace his earlier steps. Maybe we could find out that it was another Norman.’ Ethel seemed positively excited by this idea.
'That would be a good thing?’
'Of course – there have been enough Saxon deaths already.’
'But if it was a Saxon?’
'As you say, Master Wat, perhaps we can come to an arrangement.’
Wat frowned at the man. Ethel seemed to have woken up somehow. Was the reality of the situation finally dawning on him? Was he really interested in finding out who did it and placating Grosmal? Or was he worried that if the truth came out it might not do him any favours? Nothing in the insouciant arrogance of the man was giving anything away.
'I'll go below and you wait here,’ said Ethel.
At least that was a relief. Wat knew the smell up here wasn't too bad now, but he suspected the room below would go straight to his guts and invite them out to play.
The hag wandered over to the privy hole and stared down to see Ethel appear. She looked at Wat as if this was some sort of perverted parlour game.
'You can get on with your duties or I can throw you down the hole,’ Wat observed.
'I wouldn't fit, you said so.’ The hag was an impudent one.
'I could jump up and down on you a few times,’ Wat suggested.
The hag returned to her duties.
After a few minutes Wat heard noises below and peered into the privy. He could see Ethel at the door at the base of the tower looking up.
'Right, I’m here,’ he said.
'I can see that. Which makes me wonder again where Hermitage has got to. Now, can you get in the tower and stand under the privy seat?’
Ethel didn’t move.
'Is there a problem?’
'It's not actually very nice down here. There’s rather a lot of, erm, dirt on the floor.’
'I should expect so,’ Wat grinned to himself. This was clearly beyond anything the Saxon ex-noble had experienced before. 'You don't have people to do everything for you any more. You’ll have to, erm, muck in.’ Wat couldn't restrain a laugh. At least it was a cheap one.
'Very amusing, I'm sure.’
Slowly and reluctantly Ethel put a tentative foot into the chamber. He sighed in relief when it did not sink into something truly revolting, and gingerly advanced into the room. The old priest’s desk was still half-submerged in the corner, rather like the tower of a church emerging from the waters of some demonic flood.
'Can you pull the door across behind you?’ Wat asked
'Good idea,’ Ethel responded without enthusiasm. He tugged at the battered wooden door, which had been propped back near its home, until he was alone with his thoughts in a dark chamber full of poo, looking up through a privy seat.
'I can see through both holes into the chamber,’ Ethel said with some disappointment. 'So if someone was down here they'd have been able to spot de Turold.’
'Not necessarily,’ said Wat. 'I’ll sit down and you tell me if you can see my arse.’ He wasn’t sure he wanted to put his nice clean leggings on the sort of garderobe seat arrows came through, but these were unusual circumstances.
‘Right.’ Ethel's voice became muffled as Wat's body blocked the hole.
'Well?’
'Yes, I can see you.’
'Ah, but it was dark wasn't it? Just the light of the candle which was by my side.’ Wat reached forward and grabbed the hag, who was busy scrubbing nearby. He lifted her from the floor with one arm and planted her on the second privy seat beside him.
'Oh?’ she said. 'One of them, eh?’ and she started to lift her skirts. Wat cuffed her lightly on the side of the head and called to Ethel.
'Can you still see me?’
'No, can’t see a thing,’ came the muffled but rather triumphant reply – followed by a plaintive, 'I think I'll leave now.’
A very short space of time later a very grateful Ethel was back in the company of Wat.
'So,’ Wat said, thinking very hard indeed, 'if it was dark, which we know it was, and the killer couldn’t see Henri’s backside, which we know he couldn’t, how did he manage to hit him?’
'Could he have taken aim when the candle light was visible – and then just fired when it got dark?’
'It’s possible,’ said Wat, 'but he’d have to be a damn fine bowman.’ Wat searched his memory for instances of people being shot in the dark. There were a few, but they were mostly mistakes. In fact it was pretty hard to shoot someone even in broad daylight. In the hands of most people the modern bow was hopeless. Killing someone on purpose was like trying to hit the moon with a sheep.
He could never understand poaching: the only real way of killing a deer was to creep up on it with a rock. Anyone who could finish one off with an arrow deserved a prize. He found it hard to believe the crossbow was any better.
Killing someone with one shot was unheard-of. Apart from Harold and Hastings, of course – but then that was most likely an accident.
That gave Wat pause for thought. The thought hurried off pretty quickly as he realised that shooting someone in the backside while they were sitting on the privy was highly unlikely to be an accident. No one would be cleaning their bow in the garderobe chamber when it accidentally went off.
And that brought him back to the size of the killer.
'This is just too odd,’ he said.
Before Ethel could respond, the first hag, counting them in the order of being hit, began to stir.
'Where’s my candle?’ were the first words she uttered on rejoining the world.
'Don’t panic, you evil, thieving wretch, it’s here,’ said Ethel. He picked up the distasteful object from the side of the privy and waved it in the air.
The first hag put her hands in her clothing, delved about for a bit and came out with a few more flea bites and another candle. 'Ah, here it is,’ she said, as if she had just found her baby alive and well after a horrific carting accident.
'It’s a third candle,’ said Ethel, as if he was taking stock of the things.
'So?’ Wat thought that the fewer of these things there were the better.
'Why is there another candle? Why would Henri have had two candles?’
'Maybe this is the killer’s candle,’ said Wat. 'If he was in the garderobe with his own candle, he would have been able to see Henri. He then fired, climbed out through the hole and brought the candle with him.’ He paused for a moment. 'This child is getting cleverer and cleverer.’
'But surely,’ Ethel questioned, 'if he lit a candle down there the whole place would have gone bang like it did this morning?’
'Good point. And it still doesn't get over the problem of this child climbing into a garderobe, operating a crossbow in the dark and killing a Norman with one shot. Which he must have done – not much chance of climbing up to finish the victim off before the alarm was raised.’ Wat paused again for another thought. 'Mind you, if de Turold had finished his business and then saw a child climbing out the privy hole, the shock might have killed him...’
'This is getting ridiculous,’ Wat huffed, unable to see how all the strange facts could fit together. Maybe Hermitage would get it.
Ethel was carrying on regardless. 'If it was the killer's candle, why would he leave it here? It would have been pitch dark. How would he have got out of the room and escaped through the darkened castle without a candle?’
'I think we've got to back to the beginning.’ Wat shook his head. 'There are too many confusions in this.’
'And you do this sort of thing regularly, do you?’ Ethel sounded contemptuous of Wat's skills.
'Only the once,’ Wat replied sharply, 'and then we found it was the man in authority who did it.’
'Really.’ Ethel didn’t seem concerned.
'The only thing we know is that de Turold is dead,’ said Wat.
Ethel didn't reply.
'We do know that, do we?’
'Well, he wasn't breathing, his heart wasn't beating, he was cold and pale and didn't flinch when he smashed his head on the floor.’
'Good.’
'I thought so, yes.’
'I don't think there's any more to be done here,’ Wat said. 'I need to sit down and think this through. I need to talk to Hermitage as well. Can you send some men to find him?’
'I suppose so, although I don't know what a monk can add to this.’
'He's very good with facts and reasons. He puts them together in odd ways. If we give him this lot he'll have an answer in no time.’
'I do hope so, because by this evening no time is exactly what we'll have.’ Ethel looked at Wat and raised his eyebrows. It seemed the Saxon wasn't really bothered about being killed by Grosmal, but he assumed Wat would have some objections. He was right.
They left the garderobe and were immediately assailed by a furore from below. There was a commotion in the courtyard of the castle and the noise drifted up to their walkway. Wat stepped very cautiously towards the edge of the pavement to see what was happening below.
Ethel stayed back, very unwilling to follow.
A group of guards had gathered in the middle of the courtyard and were raising their voices at a figure who was in their midst somewhere.
'I demand entrance to this castle,’ the voice of the figure whined its way into the air.
'I recognise that voice,’ Wat said in puzzlement. He couldn't quite place it, but he knew it had been recently, and he knew the recollection was not welcome.
'But you are in the castle,’ the most senior guard was insisting. 'You don't need to demand anything. And you don't need to push my guards around.’
'They are clearly incompetent and have no idea who they are dealing with.’
'I really do recognise that voice,’ said Wat. His stomach was sinking, but the memory would not come. Perhaps it didn't want to.
'Look,’ the castle guard was saying, 'the door is wide open, anyone can just walk in. You're welcome. If you stand outside shouting at the walls we're bound to think you're some kind of loon and send the guards.’
'Your master shall hear of this.’
'Of course he will – he probably has already, you're very loud. If I was you I wouldn't seek him out, but that's up to you. If you insist on getting him, it'll be on your own head.’
A hand appeared from the small throng and waved everyone away. A monk was revealed and Wat's heart sank at the cut of the habit. The cowl was thrown back and a face pointed its way into the daylight.
In a fine counterpoint to Lord Grosmal's head which pointed upwards, this one went forwards. And it didn't point to the air in an interested or intelligent way. A thin skull, sallow cheeks and narrow, contemptuous eyes lent their support to a monumental nose which pointed at the world in front of it as a noble points at a leper. It pointed out the world's failings and inadequacies, and then it sneered at them.
'Bring your master to me,’ the pointy head demanded. 'I am Brother Simon, the King's Investigator,’ it announced. 'I have heard of a murder and I am here to dispense justice.
'Oh bloody hell,’ Wat said slowly and with deep feeling.
'Who's he?’ Ethel asked.
'We have to get to Grosmal before he does.’
'Really?’
'Oh yes. If he gets your master's ear we'll be dead by midday, never mind sunset.’
The morning was well into its prime and Wat had thought he was making some progress. A simple chat with Hermitage and a discussion of the facts could well see the whole business dealt with before night-fall.
And now this. If there was one individual guaranteed to take your progress and wreck it completely, he had just walked into the castle.
It was just what the murder of Henri de Turold in the Castle Grosmal needed – another idiot.