A Murder for Brother Hermitage (The Chronicles of Brother Hermitage Book 12) by Howard of Warwick

Author:Howard of Warwick [Warwick, Howard of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Funny Book Company
Published: 2018-09-26T14:00:00+00:00

Caput XIV

Conclavity

‘How could you mistake his identity twice?’ The screaming hood of the conclave was in full flight.

‘You told me to kill the King’s Investigator. I asked if he was the King’s Investigator, he said yes, so I shot him. What more do you want?’ Bargis retorted.

‘He had a big nose, you said?’

‘Massive. Biggest I’ve ever seen.’

‘Brother Hermitage does not have a big nose.’

‘Brother Hermitage?’ The killer paused at the name, as it rang a bell somewhere in the recesses of his mind. Still, if he was this King’s Investigator thing, his name was probably well known. ‘You didn’t say he was called Brother Hermitage. You said he was called the King’s Investigator and this one said he was as well. I wish you’d make your mind up.’

‘I have made my mind up. The whole conclave has made its mind up. You keep killing the wrong people.’

‘Ah, well,’ the killer lowered his excitable tone. ‘The last one might not be dead, as such.’

‘Not dead, as such?’

‘Shot. Definitely shot, but I was disturbed before I could finish things off. As soon as he saw the crossbow he started running round the room, twittering his head off about how important he was, and how I couldn’t shoot him. Soon put him right on that.’

The conclave leader paused for a moment. ‘Big nose, you say. Thought he was important?’

‘Very.’

There was a pause for a moment’s thought. ‘I think you’ve shot Brother Simon.’

The killer shrugged that it really didn’t matter to him.

The hood now issued a single, cold hearted laugh. ‘Ha! That’ll teach him. He thinks he’s doing the business of some secret conclave and then gets shot by the same people. Brother Simon is a man deserving of a crossbow bolt somewhere sensitive if ever there was one. But he’s still not the one we asked for. And he’s not even dead.’

‘Not yet. But he can be quite soon. I never like to leave a job half done. Although it’s getting tricky, with this mess.’

‘Your mess. He’ll have told people what you look like. Was Brother Hermitage there?’

‘How should I know?’ Now the killer felt entitled to be aggrieved. ‘You keep sending me out with defective instructions. A quiet, bookish monk in Abbot Abbo’s company, then a King’s Investigator. Well. I did them both and you’re still not happy.’

‘Who disturbed you then?’

‘Funnily enough, I didn’t wait around to do the introductions. There were three of them though, from a listen I had through the window. Sounded like a monk, another man and a girl.’

‘That’s them.’ The conclave leader breathed deeply, as if all his wishes had just been granted. ‘Brother Hermitage, Wat the Weaver and a girl called Cwen, who claims to be a weaver.’

‘That was Wat the Weaver?’ The killer was impressed. ‘I’m not killing him. I like Wat the Weaver.’

‘I bet you do,’ the conclave leader sneered. ‘Well now you know the monk we want, you can go back and do him.’

‘Oh, no. I’ve had enough of this. It doesn’t do to keep going back to the same spot.

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