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Langstone - A Short Medieval Mystery Story12/28/2023 Pardon the long absence... several months of business and other creative efforts seem to have gotten my attention away from the Cave. Well, I'm back, with a story or two to tell!
During my hiatus, I participated in Writing Battle, a massive online writing peer-judged writing competition. While the experience alone is worth a blog post, I thought I should put up the story I submitted first. (The story, by the way, did not win any great prizes - but it did beat six others in "duels," so I suppose it was worth writing. And I received some very encouraging feedback from fellow contestants, which is always a great boon in any event! The assignment for the contest had a word limit of 2,000, and the genre was a locked-room mystery - essentially a mystery wherein the culprit could seemingly have not possible been in the area of the crime. I had little or no familiarity with the mechanics of these stories, so most of my research went into figuring out how to write in this subgenre... which meant I had very little time left to research the setting. What setting could I choose that I felt comfortable writing in with little or no prior research? Certainly not anything in the modern era. Anway, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope you enjoy! Langstone “Once again I thank you, holy fathers,” Aymer told them. “I know not whether you will find anything, but I am grateful that you seek justice for my poor lord.” A balding man past fifty he was, his face marked by strain and tragedy. He led the two black-clad monks down the stairs into the deepest level of the castle undercroft. A burly guard, his face bandaged on one side and framed by a mail coif, carried a torch beside them. "Fear not, my son," said Father Augustine, the elder of the two monks. "There is naught hid beneath heaven, that shall not come to the light." "You say you found Baron Fulcard down here after he had left to join King Richard?" asked Cusick, the younger monk. He had some familiarity with the castle, having at times administered medicine to the family and folk of the house. "Aye. I and his lady wife Edith saw him ride out in full armor eight days after Candlemas with a dozen men-at-arms, bound for the Holy Land." The steward shook his head in bewilderment. "I found him dead in the treasure-chamber three days after." The stairs had levelled into a long passage. The torchlight cast strange shadows on the walls, and roots could be seen pushing through chinks in the masonry. “This passage runs outside the castle, for the baron’s men to use as a means of escape or surprise attacks during a siege,” Aymer explained. “Most of the guards know of it. But they do not know of this. Willet, bring the torch closer.” Aymer halted, studied the wall on their right, then stepped forward and pressed one of the stones. A wide span of the wall gave a jolt, then slid away with a grinding roar which sent echoes screaming into the darkness. Beyond it was a second passage, shorter than the first, and at the end of this was a wooden door. The sour-sweet stench of death smote the air as Aymer opened it. At once, the stone door at the far end of the passage closed behind them of its own accord. “Are – are we trapped?” asked Cusick nervously. Aymer shook his head. “It always closes after a time. A stone pressed from this side will reopen it.” He led them into the chamber. The treasure-chamber glowed in the torchlight. A miser Fulcard had surely been, for the jars and chests lining the walls overflowed with coins, jeweled crosses, coronets, cups and icons, silk and saffron and cumin; all the spoils Fulcard had brought back home after fighting in King Richard’s war with old King Henry. Sprawled among these treasures was Baron Fulcard of Langstone Castle. “We dared not move him, lest we destroy some sign of how he perished,” Aymer told them, offering Augustine his torch. Augustine examined the dead man. The face before him seemed more weathered than the one he remembered from the baron’s past visits to the priory. The black beard was streaked with iron. His eyes were closed, but his lips hung slightly open. “No wound upon him, that’s for certain,” Brother Cusick announced, standing by the dead man’s feet. The baron was clad in a padded gambeson the color of tallow. His shoes were missing. His fingers seemed frozen in the act of forming a fist. “He was clad all in armor when he departed, but where is it now?” Augustine wondered aloud. “I cannot say,” Aymer told him. “Either he was taken, slain and robbed, then brought back here, or…” “Or else he never left,” Augustine finished. He raised the lifeless hand. There seemed to be blood under the nails of three fingers. “Oh, he left, father, that he did,” said Willet. “I saw him come down, and go back up, all clad in armor, sure as death.” “Then how did he get back here?” Cusick mused. “A question worth pondering,” Augustine replied. He motioned for Aymer to follow him outside of the chamber, leaving Willet and Cusick within. “Tell me, Aymer, did you speak with the baron just before his departure?” “I did.” “And what did you speak of?” Aymer thought. “He said he wished to take a certain reliquary with him on crusade, an heirloom from his great-grandfather. It is said to contain two of the teeth of St. Mark.” “Was there a certain reason he wished to bring these relics?” The steward shrugged. “For protection, father. The baron was a pious man, whatever else folk said about him.” “And where was this kept?” Augustine asked. “The treasure-chamber?” “The chapel,” Aymer answered mournfully. Yet he brightened. “But the key to the reliquary was kept in the treasure-chamber. He may well have gone down there himself to fetch it. None but he knew how to open the chamber. Well, none else but I,” he finished sheepishly. “Then I say the baron died here,” said Augustine. “Whomever Willet saw go up from here was not the baron, but a man in his armor. Did not his helm cover his face?” “Aye.” Aymer’s eyes widened. “But who could have done it?” Augustine frowned. “That has yet to be deduced.” He would have said more, but Cusick called from within the chamber. “Augustine! Come back, quickly!” They found Cusick and the guard hovering close over the body, apparently sniffing at the dead man’s face. Cusick rose, pointing. “There,” he said. “Smell his mouth.” Augustine bent and sniffed. The smell was strange, vaguely plantlike. “What is it?” “Wolfsbane,” Cusick told him. “A deadly poison.” -- As they returned to the passage, Augustine turned to Willet. “The rag you have over that wound seems none too clean. Perhaps you should let Brother Cusick tend to it.” “’Tis naught but a scratch,” growled the guard. “From a cat.” “Aye, but even small wounds can turn foul if dirt gets in them,” Augustine answered. “Come, let us see to it.” Willet pulled away. “I need no monks pawing at me!” He pushed past and stomped up to his post at the head of the stairs. -- Lady Edith stood at the far end of the great hall, her back to a blazing hearth. Her gown and coiffure were black, as was the veil hiding her face. “What have you found?” she asked as they approached. The heat of the fire stirred her veil like a ghost’s shroud. Her voice was a young woman’s, but her bearing was almost matronly in its dignity. “It is hard to say, my lady,” Augustine told her. She inclined her head, and a breath of the fire lifted a corner of her veil. For a moment, Augustine found himself staring; was there a scar running under one of her eyes? “Forgive me, my lady,” he said, “But we have reason to believe your husband died in the treasure-chamber the day he left. Another man was in his armor, and left in his stead.” He stepped closer. “Can you tell me where you were before the baron went to the undercroft?” “In the courtyard,” she answered. “I and Master Aymer waited there with all the castle-folk. I saw him ride off myself.” She paused, breathing hard. “Another man?” “I fear it was his murderer, my lady.” Augustine said. “However, before we can determine that man’s identity, I must consult with my brother.” Bowing, he led Cusick to the door. As they reached it, the lady’s voice halted them. “I and my people owe much gratitude to the priory already, and to Brother Cusick for his kind work among us,” Lady Edith said. “If you can find the man who did this, you will have lifted a great cloud from this house, and we will be forever in your debt.” -- “I say it was that steward,” Cusick announced. “The fellow would stand to gain by the murder. Perhaps he thinks to shut the lady out of managing of the estates. He could have poisoned Fulcard’s cup an hour before his leaving. From there it was only a matter of waiting for him to fall, slipping into his armor, riding out, then ducking away from his men and doubling back to take charge of the castle.” “And how did he reenter without being seen?” Cusick shrugged. “The passage, perhaps. It opens outside the castle, you heard the man himself say it.” “And no one noticed the steward’s absence?” countered Augustine. “No. He was not the only one who knew of the passage. And there was one who certainly knew of the treasure-chamber door. One who would have been close enough at hand to reach the baron in the treasure-room passage before that door closed behind him, or else see which stone Fulcard pressed to open it. One whose absence from the deepest recess of this castle could have gone unnoticed. Willet.” Cusick laughed at that. “Willet? He’s hardly a poisoner.” “Quite right. He didn’t use poison.” “And what did he use?” “His hands. Strangling.” Cusick still doubted. “What proof have you?” “The blood on the baron’s fingernails. There were no blows or wounds, but there would have been a struggle. Fulcard clawed at his attacker as he died. That blood was on his right hand. The bandage on Willet’s face – the one he was so loath to take off – was on the left side, where Fulcard’s right hand might have struck.” “Might,” sniffed Cusick. “But poisons may make a man bleed in strange places. And on that score, from whence came the smell of poison on his lips?” Augustine sighed heavily. He hated what he must say, but he said it. “From you.” The candle-flame shuddered in the long silence that followed. “You think I poisoned him?” Augustine shook his head. “No. You planted that poison in his mouth the moment Aymer and I had our backs turned. The only one there would have been Willet, with whom you had plotted the last time you came. You knew what my suspicions might be, and put the poison there to divert them elsewhere, hoping I would turn a blind eye to all I had seen.” Cusick stared at him. In the weak candlelight, his expression was indecipherable. “What possible motive could I have for helping Willet murder his lord?” “The same which drove Willet,” Augustine answered. “Pity.” To his surprise, Cusick nodded. “True.” He leaned closer, eyes shining. “You’ve seen much here, brother, but you’ve not seen all the dark deeds of this place. You haven’t heard the screams, the blows – the sound of that lady’s suffering. For all his feigned piety, the baron was a demon in human guise. There are many scars on that young girl – inside and out. I could not heal all of them, but I and Willet planned to end it all, as you have guessed. Aymer was mere slave to the baron, a loyal fool, and would never have helped us. We sought to lay the blame on him, once the corpse was discovered.” “You would have condemned an innocent man,” Augustine protested. “Innocent!” Cusick scoffed. “A tool of evil. He stood by and watched that fiend torment her day after day, saying nothing. If you tell the story I have given you, it would be justice upon him. Or go and say we have found nothing to identify the murderer. Let the devil feast on Fulcard in hell, and never mind who sent him there.” He seized Augustine by the wrist, pleading. “Turn a blind eye once more, and you can save a loyal soldier who defended his lady at his own peril.” He peered at Augustine, searching him with his eyes. “What story will you tell?” Augustine nearly gave in. Cusick spoke truly now, in good faith and with good intent; he could not deny it. But neither could he deny the law. He rose. “Before God,” he said, “I tell nothing but the truth.” Cusick’s face hardened, and his eyes burned. “Then tell it to God.” From his sleeve he drew a dagger.
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