The Investigator's Wedding

By Howard of Warwick

Wat and Cwen, both weavers of tapestry for the very strong of heart are to marry. Brother Hermitage, the King’s Investigator will be chief witness and so warnings are issued; there is to be no suspicious death ruining the big day.

But no one told the Normans. Lord Walter d’Aincourt has been given Derby by King William and he is going to take it, wedding or not. In fact, he’ll help himself to anything else that takes his eye - or send some large Normans on horses to take it for him.

If the wedding doesn’t go quite as planned, things aren’t much better in the Norman camp. One soldier ends up with a tent pole where there shouldn’t be one, and it’s business as usual for Brother Hermitage. He should be used to being accused of murder by now.

However, there’s enough conflict between the Normans themselves for several decent suspects.
All this situation needs is a reasoned approach, careful analysis, a well-constructed argument and some sensible discussion.
Or a great big fight.

And that’s how wedding receptions were invented.

“very good indeed, brilliant” BBC

5* A funny happy series of books that cheer you up.
5* Outright laughter
5* Just as good as every other in the series
5* Laughed till my sides ached

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard of Warwick
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781913383428

Howard of Warwick

Howard of Warwick is but a humble chronicler with the blind luck to stumble upon the Hermitage manuscripts; tales of Brother Hermitage, a truly medieval detective, whose exploits largely illustrate what can be achieved by mistake.Now an international best-seller with nearly a quarter of a million sales and a host of Number 1s, it only goes to show.Howard's work has been heard, seen and read, most of it accompanied by laughter and some of it by money. His peers have even seen fit to recognise his unworthy efforts with a prize for making up stories.The Chronicles of Brother Hermitage begin with The Heretics of De'Ath, closely followed by The Garderobe of Death and The Tapestry of Death.Howard then paused to consider the Battle of Hastings as it might have happened - but almost certainly didn't - and produced The Domesday Book (No, Not That One). More reinterpretations hit the world with The Magna Carta (Or Is It?)Brother Hermitage still randomly drifted through a second set of mysteries with Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other: Hermitage, Wat and some Druids and Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns.Just when you think this can't possibly go on: The Case of the Clerical Cadaver turned up followed by The Case of the Curious Corpse and now The Case of The Cantankerous Carcass.Now there are thirty of the things in various cubby holes all over the world.All the titles are also available as major books, with paper and everything. Try your local bookstore or www.thefunnybookcompany.com

Book preview

The Investigator’s Wedding

By

Howard of Warwick

(The Perpetual Chronicles of Brother Hermitage)

The Funny Book Company

Published by The Funny Book Company

Crown House, 27 Old Gloucester Street

London WC1N 3AX

www.funnybookcompany.com

Copyright © 2022 Howard Matthews

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, or distributed by any means whatsoever without the express permission of the copyright owner. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

Cover design by Double Dagger.

ebook ISBN 978-1-913383-42-8

Scriptorial appreciation is due to:

Mary

Susan Fanning

Karen Nevard-Downs

Lydia Reed

Claire Ward

Also by Howard of Warwick.

The First Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The Heretics of De'Ath

The Garderobe of Death

The Tapestry of Death

Continuing Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other

Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns

Yet More Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The Case of the Clerical Cadaver

The Case of the Curious Corpse

The Case of the Cantankerous Carcass

Interminable Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

A Murder for Mistress Cwen

A Murder for Master Wat

A Murder for Brother Hermitage

The Umpteenth Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The Bayeux Embroidery

The Chester Chasuble

The Hermes Parchment

The Superfluous Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The 1066 from Normandy

The 1066 to Hastings

The 1066 via Derby

The Unnecessary Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The King’s Investigator

The King’s Investigator Part II

The Meandering Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

A Mayhem of Murderous Monks

A Murder of Convenience

Murder Most Murderous

The Perpetual Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The Investigator’s Apprentice

Brother Hermitage Diversions

Brother Hermitage in Shorts (Free!)

Brother Hermitage’s Christmas Gift

Audio

Hermitage and the Hostelry

Howard of Warwick’s Middle Ages crisis:

The Domesday Book (No, Not That One.)

The Domesday Book (Still Not That One.)

The Magna Carta (Or Is It?)

Explore the whole sorry business and join the mailing list at

Howardofwarwick.com

Another funny book from The Funny Book Company

Greedy by Ainsworth Pennington

The Investigator’s Wedding

Caput I: A Bit of History

Caput II: Smiles All Round

Caput III: The Wedding Planner

Caput IV: If Any Man

Caput V: Battle Of The Barrel

Caput VI: Treating The Invalid

Caput VII: Visitors

Caput VIII: Follow That Horse

Caput IX: At Home With The Normans

Caput X: Misty Memories

Caput XI: The Surprise Bride

Caput XII: In Tent

Caput XIII: Fetch The Priest

Caput XIV: The Trouble With Gitton

Caput XV: Alibi

Caput XVI: Captain Legless

Caput XVII: Death by Accident

Caput XVIII: The Devil In You

Caput XIX: Interrogare

Caput XX: Stitching It Together

Caput XXI: Hostage Situation

Caput XXII: Norman vs. Norman

Caput XXIII: Odds Against

Caput XXIV: Inner Sanctum

Caput XXV: Ban The Trouble

Caput XXVI: Let Battle Commence. Or Not

Caput XXVII: It Could Have Been Anyone

Caput XXVIII: But It Wasn’t

Caput I: A Bit Of History

The cup of love, it floweth over.

Currently, it floweth all over the workshop of Wat the Weaver.

Which is odd, considering this is the same Wat the Weaver who personally created some of the most disgraceful tapestries of the new millennium which, while illustrating love in one form or another, tended to concentrate on the other.

Never mind the joy of love, its soaring flight from the mundane, its all-consuming power and its eyes that see nothing but the object of its devotion, Wat the Weaver made tapestries of things most people hadn’t even heard of, let alone seen. If there was one question more distasteful than what his tapestries looked like, it was where he got his ideas.

He never said, but he almost exclusively did requests and even he was worried about some of the things his customers came up with. With each fresh and frequently horrible topic, he struggled to contain his shock and surprise; but a well-stuffed purse could hold quite a lot of shock and surprise.

And word had spread; along with a lot of other things amongst this sort of clientèle. Soon, his own nimble fingers were not enough to keep up. Help was required. A small workshop and an assistant to organise supplies enabled Wat to work hard and fast; something he swore he would stop doing as soon as funds allowed. But there was a problem with funds. The more you had, the more they allowed, and Wat liked being allowed things.

So, the images went forth from his workshop, well wrapped, to disgrace the halls of the great and the good. Well, the great, anyway. The king, the Anglo-Saxon nobility and a goodly portion of the clergy had fine collections of Wat the Weaver tapestries, usually in dark corners of the halls, if not inside boxes or under loose floorboards.

Few people were prepared to confess that they had a Wat the Weaver at all, and they were equally circumspect about how much they paid for it.

Wat's discretion could always be relied upon. He wouldn't tell the sort of thing they liked to look at if they didn't tell how much he liked to count.

As a result of this, the common man rarely encountered the works, simply because he couldn’t afford them. That didn’t stop them being a topic of conversation and lascivious speculation. Usually when the common woman was out of earshot.

It also prompted quite a lively trade in copies, fakes and imitations, none of which even approached the true vivaciousness of an original; the sort of vivaciousness that excommunication was made for.

Wat’s influence was not even limited to these shores. Foreign fields found themselves subject to his creativity, rather like fields of wheat subject to a particularly virulent blight.

All of this shameful activity brought great wealth to Wat the Weaver, wealth that took shame out to the woods at midnight, and buried it.

Like a trail of remarkably succulent breadcrumbs, the route to Wat’s workshop attracted a greedy flock. Young men, who might have thought of carpentry, or smithing, or simple honest, hard labour, saw that some moderately honest and relatively light labour might be considerably more rewarding.

The workshop of Wat the Weaver grew.

Why he chose Derby as his home is a question mainly posed by the people of Derby. Ease of access to the rest of the country? A central point from which to distribute finished works? Other towns had been more sprightly in chasing him away? Whatever the reason, the town was not averse to taking his business as long as they could complain about it at the same time.

And so apprentices toiled, within reason. Hartle, an old weaving master with a good eye for quality and a deaf ear to outrage, joined the band. Wat sat back and spent most of his time counting things. Tapestries out, and coins in.

The road seemed straight and true, even if the products weren’t. But any road has turns for the worse, and this one had been saving them up.

The Norman Conquest proved to be the first major inconvenience.

Wars, conquests, disputes, battles; these were things the nobility got up to, they shouldn’t disturb the ordinary working man. Or Wat the Weaver.

In order to be profitable, Wat needed his customers alive, and after one afternoon on a hillside near Hastings, most of them weren’t. Even those that were seemed to have lost their interest in tapestry and had taken up running away.

Any optimism that the new rulers would be no impediment to continued business was quickly dashed. The Normans disapproved of so many perfectly reasonable and sensible activities; like slavery. They professed piety and devotion in all things and their views on the more earthy entertainments of the day were very clear. And Wat was as earthy as a big pile of earth.

Even clergymen, hitherto great enthusiasts, declared that they had never been in the vicinity of Wat the Weaver and remained committed to eradicating this sort of thing. Meanwhile, they ordered extra nails for their floorboards.

And if the whole country being taken over by the Normans was not enough, there was Brother Hermitage.

Having rescued the young monk from the evil clutches of some other monks - more evil ones - Wat had brought him to the workshop where he seemed to exert an undue influence for one so mild.

Wat was prompted to start reflecting on his earlier life and, combined with the expectations of the new Norman nobility, the tapestries became a lot less interesting - and lucrative.

Now, the apprentices were instructed to produce images of the saints themselves, instead of ones that would make saints blush.

The defeat of the Saxons who had ruled the land for untold years and their replacement by Norman overlords with strong views and even stronger arms was one thing. The arrival of a monk, who turned out to be an investigator of murder, was another. The whole life of the workshop was turned on its head and many started to question what they were doing and what life was going to throw at them next to make it any more difficult.

Life threw Cwen.

Young, talented, and with her own dark past in the production of profoundly personal tapestry, Cwen arrived in the workshop like a whirlwind; a whirlwind in a snowstorm that was probably on fire. The apprentices thought it no surprise that she came with Wat and Hermitage after one of their murder investigations. She turned out to be murder.

To say that they didn't know what hit them was literally true, but it always turned out to be Cwen.

Wat and Hartle had a relaxed attitude to work. Getting it finished to the right standard at the right time was all that mattered. How you got there was up to you. Cwen wanted every step completed to her own high standard. And as she was better than everyone else, there was no arguing with her. There was no arguing with her anyway, but her skill made the fact even more annoying.

At least the workshop was still Wat the Weaver's and he had a love-hate relationship with Cwen. When push came to shove, and after Cwen had finished pushing and shoving, Wat could be approached for some solace and a decision that erred on the side of making life easier.

Brother Hermitage was usually fussing around about this and that, or even reading a book, for heaven’s sake, so he was no use.

And all three of them would disappear every now and again to investigate some murder or other. In any other walk of life, this alone would be enough to have people running for the hills, but somehow it seemed normal. And anyway, the hills probably had Normans in them and were best avoided.

But now. Now, the place was falling apart. Wat’s love-hate relationship with Cwen had lost all its hate.

Her outburst over the nose of a saint that wouldn’t go right had seemed to be the last straw. She stomped about the place and even tore into Wat and Hermitage. The apprentices held their collective breath, waiting for news that Cwen was leaving.

She would probably set up her own workshop and might even suggest some of the apprentices go with her. She could suggest all she wanted.

But she and Wat had made up! They had kissed and made up. Then, apparently, they kissed and made up some more, at which point Hermitage reported that he had left the room.

But kissing and making up weren’t enough, it seems. The pair of them had got so carried away that a wedding was now being discussed. And it was a discussion about when, rather than if.

Wat the Weaver married. It simply didn’t sound at all right.

Anyone at all married to Cwen, that didn’t sound right either.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Gunnlaug the apprentice said as he came back into the workshop from the privy. ‘They’re just sitting out there holding hands.’

‘It’s better than her being in here holding our hands in that way she does,’ one of the others commented.

There was a general mumble that Cwen being outside holding hands with anyone was better than her being inside doing anything at all.

‘It could actually be for the best,’ Hartle muttered from his seat by the fire, the seat from which he did most of his supervision.

He had clearly been considering this since the news was first heard and had only now reached his conclusion.

The apprentices gave him their attention. After all, listening to their weaving master was the best excuse to stop work.

Hartle nodded to himself as if finally agreeing with his own reasoning. ‘She’s out there holding hands,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ Gunnlaug confirmed.

‘And she’s never done that before,’ Hartle pointed out.

‘She threatened to chop my hand off once,’ young Bredwald reported. ‘She’d probably have held that.’

‘Not the same thing at all,’ Hartle shook his head gently. ‘She’s softened. She’s in love.’

‘With Wat?’ Egland sounded surprised at the very idea. It was rare for him to speak up as he was the newest apprentice in the place and had quickly learned his first lesson; keeping the head down.

‘And him with her,’ Hartle confirmed. ‘It’s unusual for a marriage, I admit, but it does happen.’

‘And how is this for the best?’ Gunnlaug asked.

‘Well, look at the place,’ Hartle prompted. ‘It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, Cwen’s outside quite content and we’re in here even more so.’

‘It can’t last, surely?’ Rags asked. Rags had been named by Cwen when she asked why he was weaving rags instead of tapestry.

‘Oh, it can,’ Hartle assured them. ‘I’ve seen it go on for years.’

The apprentices breathed their awe at that prospect.

The door at the back of the workshop opened, the one that led to Wat’s chambers. Hermitage and Bart appeared.

The apprentices considered Bart to be the one good thing Wat had brought back from a murder; after Hermitage, who seemed pointless, and Cwen who was definitively not good.

Young Bart said that he was Hermitage’s apprentice and would one day be an investigator of murder himself. As there was no murder being done at the moment, he was charged with fetching and carrying for the workshop, which was a great relief to the apprentices who finally had someone even lower in the order than themselves.

‘Hermitage will tell you,’ Hartle said.

‘Tell what?’ Hermitage asked, briefly getting his hopes up that the apprentices were engaged in a debate on some fine point of theology.

‘Love,’ Hartle said.

‘Oh, I don’t know anything about that,’ Hermitage said.

‘You’re a monk,’ Hartle said. ‘You must have heard peoples’ vows before.’

‘I was never that sort of monk,’ Hermitage explained. In the ghastly monastery at De’Ath’s Dingle he had heard a lot of vows, but none of them warranted repetition.

‘But what about Cwen and Wat?’ Gunnlaug asked.

‘What about them?’

‘Are they going to go on like this for long?’ The apprentice nodded his head towards the outside, where it was assumed neither Cwen nor Wat had moved an inch.

‘They do seem, erm, engaged with one another.’ Hermitage admitted.

‘They can’t let go of one another,’ Bredwald snorted.

‘I suspect this has been building up for some time,’ Hermitage said, only really thinking about it now. ‘When they first met in Baernodebi, there was probably an attraction, although both denied it. Since then, there have been moments when they became closer, and then moments when they drifted apart.

‘The business over Saint Bibiana’s nose brought everything to a head and they finally realised their feelings for one another.’ Hermitage allowed himself a small chuckle at the idea of a nose bringing something to a head. The apprentices regarded him strangely.

‘Now they have a lot of catching up to do.’

‘Are they going to take long over it?’ Gunnlaug asked.

‘Who can tell? They appear to be genuinely in love and so only have eyes for one another.’

‘That’s good,’ Rags put in. ‘Keeps her eyes off us.’

‘See,’ Hartle said. ‘Told you it’d be for the best.’

The room seemed very happy with this conclusion. Only Egland’s face had a frown, but then he was used to thinking the worst because for him, it usually came to pass.

‘When they’re married it’ll be Wat and Cwen’s workshop though, won’t it?’ he asked timidly, which was how he tried to behave most of the time.

That did throw a pall over the group.

‘She’ll still be in love though,’ Gunnlaug offered hopefully.

‘Unless it wears off,’ Bredwald suggested. ‘And we get the old Cwen back, but this time with half the workshop to her name.’

Without realising they were doing it, everyone shuffled a little closer to Hartle’s fire to counter the shiver that ran through them.

‘But they ain’t married yet,’ Rags said.

‘Not as far as we know,’ Hartle put in. ‘Are they, Brother?’

‘They’ve made no vows as far as I’m aware,’ Hermitage said. ‘And I’m sure they would mention it. Cwen has talked about her wedding so I imagine she has something planned.’

‘She’s always got something planned,’ Egland said plaintively.

‘They’d probably say their vows in front of you though, wouldn’t they?’ Hartle said. ‘Hardly likely to go to the priest in Derby, I’d have thought.’

‘There’s no need for a priest at all,’ Hermitage said. ‘A simple exchange of vows is all that’s needed. But then I’ve never had anything to do with marriage. Marriage of other people, I mean.’

‘Problem is proving you are married,’ Bredwald spoke up and everyone looked to him. ‘My old father said he made his vows to mother on top of a lonely hill, no witnesses at all.’

The unspoken assumption was that there would be more to this story.

‘Then,’ Bredwald went on, ‘when some fellow calling himself Uncle Harbert came along, my mother claimed she wasn’t married at all and ran off with him. Nothing my father could do about it.’

Heads were shaken sadly at the state of the world.

‘So,’ Egland said slowly and carefully. ‘If we all avoid seeing any vows, they might not exist.’

Hermitage thought that was a very interesting philosophical question, but an appalling idea.

‘We shall all see Wat and Cwen married,’ he said firmly. ‘And they will be a good influence, each on the other. Wat’s good points will be taken up by Cwen, and Cwen’s by Wat.’

‘Hm,’ Hartle mused. ‘I’ll need a bit longer to think what Cwen’s good points are.’

‘They will share and learn from one another,’ Hermitage insisted.

‘Oh, God,’ Egland moaned. ‘What if it’s the other way round?’

‘Other way round?’ Hermitage couldn’t think what an other way round would be.

Egland explained although his voice was breaking. ‘What if they share bad points? He’s going to get angry, and she’s going to be greedy.’

Caput II: Smiles All Round

‘Oh, hello, Hermitage,’ Cwen said as he approached the pair of them. He had been sent as a sort of emissary from the apprentices, purely to get the lie of the land, they said, which puzzled him. They then explained what lie of the land meant, and he went off to do the best he could.

The pair were sitting on a bench that occupied a space just to the right of the workshop front door. The bench had been around the back, by the entrance to the workshop proper, but Cwen had said that apprentices didn’t need benches as they’d only go and sit on them, so it was moved. Perhaps it could go back now.

She smiled at Hermitage and took Wat’s hand into her lap where she patted it gently.

Wat smiled at him as well and even sighed lightly.

The last time Hermitage had seen anyone smile and sigh like this was in De’Ath’s Dingle after one of the brothers reported his find of a spectacular growth of very particular mushrooms.

‘I’ve just been with the apprentices,’ Hermitage explained.

‘They’re good lads, really,’ Cwen said.

‘Erm, yes,’ Hermitage agreed. He knew all about possession by demons which could alter someone’s behaviour until the demons were driven out. Was there possession by angels, he wondered? And if so, what was he supposed to do about it?

‘What have we been doing, Hermitage?’ Wat asked dreamily.

‘Doing?’ Hermitage looked around, thinking this might be some sort of puzzle.

‘All this time,’ Wat explained with a gaze for Cwen, who smiled back. ‘Arguing, fighting, squabbling over things that don’t matter.’

Cwen nodded slowly at this sage observation and they looked at one another some more.

Hermitage looked at them both and was with the apprentices; this couldn’t go on. Such a complete change in behaviour was too peculiar to be reasonable. Not that anything peculiar could be reasonable anyway, otherwise, what was the point of the word peculiar? He told himself to save that problem for another day.

If Cwen had mellowed a little, and Wat had become somewhat less self-centred, it might be understandable. Some modest changes to their normal way of dealing with each other and the world around them could be expected. But not this. They appeared to have become two completely different people. Surely, love alone could not have such an impact?

He had enough self-awareness to know that he was a meek fellow who hated trouble and was firm in his determination to avoid conflict at all costs.

He tried to imagine what circumstances could turn him into a loud and aggressive monk who took pleasure in fierce argument if not actual physical engagement. Rather like his old prior, Athan.

He couldn’t think of anything.

Obviously, he was never going to feel the human emotions that Wat and Cwen were sharing, he had devoted his life to God. But if he did, he suspected that would only make him even more meek; if that were possible.

In his unwanted role as King's Investigator, he had faced intimidation, threats, the prospect of death, terror and any number of foul, deceitful and dangerous killers. And none of that had instigated any change in him, as far as he could tell. He had felt the occasional flutter of anger but it had only ever emerged as a very pointed cough or an extremely rare expostulation, such as, oh really.

And if ever anything did convert him into his opposite, it would only be a matter of moments before he returned to normal.