Murder 'Midst Merriment

By Howard of Warwick

When conflicting versions of the Norman Conquest are offered to the people of Derby, Brother Hermitage is in the audience to hear both sides.

But, if Brother Hermitage is in the audience, someone is at serious risk of ending up less alive than they used to be.

As Wat and Cwen the weavers point out, Brother Hermitage, the King’s Investigator of murder, after all, was standing right there when the deed was done. How can he not know who did it?

Well, he will simply have to investigate as he always does, and the facts will be revealed.
Unfortunately, everyone seems to have their own version of the facts and they can’t all be right.

When even the liars are lying about their lies, and the people who know the truth don’t know that they know it, things are bound to be confusing.

But someone has been shot. With a bow and arrow, a rare item in Anglo-Saxon Derby. Someone must have seen something. And in this case, everyone is talking. They just aren’t saying anything reliable.

Never fear. Brother Hermitage will knock this investigation on the head. Unless someone knocks him on the head first, of course.

Non mitterent nuncio, as Hermitage might say. Don’t shoot the messenger. Oh, too late.

The 29th Chronicle of Brother Hermitage carries the familiar warning; if you like your historical mysteries serious and sombre, look away now.

5* Hilarious medieval murder
5* Another hysterical masterpiece
5* Good humour and funny, clever characters

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard of Warwick
• Release date: Oct 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781913383541

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

Murder ‘Midst Merriment

The boundless

Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

by

Howard of Warwick

From the Scriptorium of

The Funny Book Company

The Funny Book Company

Published by The Funny Book Company

Crown House 27 Old Gloucester Street

London WC1N 3AX

www.funnybookcompany.com

Copyright © 2023 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.

ISBN 978-1-913383-54-1

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.

The Investigator’s Wedding

The Investigator’s Kingdom

The Boundless Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

Return to the Dingle

Murder Can Be Murder

Murder Midst Merriment

Brother Hermitage Diversions

Brother Hermitage in Shorts (Free!)

Brother Hermitage’s Christmas Gift

Audio

Brother Hermitage’s Christmas Gift

Hermitage and the Hostelry

Howard of Warwick’s Middle Ages crisis: History-ish.

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

Caput I: Not Really My Area

Caput II: All Is Well

Caput III: All Is Not Well

Caput IV: The Show’s The Thing

Caput V: Fundamental Contradiction

Caput VI: Showtime

Caput VII: Who Would Do A Thing Like That?

Caput VIII: Who’s Who

Caput IX: What’s In A Name?

Caput X: All Due Ceremony

Caput XI: Rude Awakening

Caput XII: From The Latin

Caput XIII: Smell Of Success

Caput XIV: Divide and Conquer

Caput XV: Suspicious Suspect

Caput XVI: The Drummer’s Tale

Caput XVII: Hilda

Caput XVIII: Contradicting The Contradictions

Caput XIX: Not Forgetting.

Caput XX: Distinct Lack of Progress

Caput XXI: Smith By Name…

Caput XXII: I’ll Be Bound

Caput XXIII: Tavern Enquiries

Caput XXIV: Tracking

Caput XXV: Revelations

Caput XXVI: Fit the Crime

How Many Monks?

Caput I: The Rain It Raineth

Caput I: Not Really My Area

What on earth does this have to do with me? That was the thought that shouted inside Brother Hermitage’s head as the problem was brought to his door.

‘Only too pleased to help,’ were his actual words.

What did you say that for? his mind enquired quite rudely.

‘What does this have to do with us?’ Cwen asked the question as she arrived at Hermitage’s side. ‘Has someone been murdered?’

‘Well, no.’ Old Jeb’s son, imaginatively named Young Jeb, stood cap in hand. He thought that he had done well to come to the workshop of Wat the Weaver in the first place.

It had a reputation, after all. One well-earned by the old tapestries of its owner; old and extremely rude. Even Wat himself reported that he no longer produced work of that nature, but if that was the case, you’d think he’d have changed the name of the workshop.

Going to Wat the Weaver’s, was still an expression with deeply unpleasant connotations; and one that was usually accompanied by a dirty snort.

Cwen’s workshop would be a lot more wholesome, but visiting it would be no more comfortable. The look she was giving Young Jeb was enough to drive a hungry child from the door of a friendly baker.

‘What’s going on here, then?’ Wat asked as he now sauntered up from the depths of the workshop.

Young Jeb flinched at the face of the weaver of bad repute.

‘That’s what I asked,’ Cwen reported. ‘There’s been no murder. Hermitage only does murders.’ She said this for Young Jeb’s benefit.

‘And I assume Young Jeb here has not been sent by the king?’ Wat asked lightly.

‘The king?’ Young Jeb bleated. ‘What’s the king got to do with anything?’

‘King’s Investigator,’ Cwen explained. ‘That’s what Hermitage is. We can’t have just anyone turning up at his door.’

Hermitage was starting to think that the moment was approaching when it might be appropriate for him to speak for himself.

‘Look,’ Young Jeb said calmly. ‘Old Jeb saw something in the woods last night.’

‘Yes.’ Cwen folded her arms and spoke very directly. ‘We all know the sort of thing Old Jeb sees in the woods.’

Young Jeb ignored the comment. 'But this scared the life out of him. Came back shaking and moaning and pale as fog, he did. I asked him what was up, and he wouldn't tell me. Just said he'd seen it in the woods.'

‘Seen it in the woods?’

‘That’s right. And it needs dealing with, otherwise we’re all doomed.’

‘And where does Hermitage come into it?’

'He deals with things,' Young Jeb said confidently. 'Old Jeb said to go to Brother Hermitage, he deals with things.'

Cwen shook her head slowly as if understanding the easy mistake that had been made. 'Investigates things. He investigates things, he doesn't deal with them.'

Hermitage thought that a fine distinction, but actually, quite an accurate one. He didn't like investigating things, but he had to do it. Dealing with the aftermath was simply beyond him.

‘Investigates, deals, what’s the difference?’ Young Jeb asked.

‘Ah, well, Hermitage can tell you that.’ Cwen looked to Hermitage.

Unusually, very unusually, Hermitage was not inclined to embark upon a voyage of etymology.

‘Why does Old Jeb say this thing he saw needs dealing with?’ he asked.

‘He won’t say. He won’t say what it was, just that it needs dealing with.’

Cwen gave Hermitage a look that said he should not be encouraging this sort of thing.

‘It could be a body?’ Hermitage suggested. ‘Maybe that’s why Old Jeb thinks it’s for me.’

'I don't think so,' Young Jeb suggested. 'A body's nothing to be worried about, is it? We have bodies quite regularly when people die and the like.'

Hermitage was briefly diverted by what, and the like might include, but he tried to concentrate on the matter before him. He gave the problem a moment’s thought.

‘It wouldn’t do any harm to go and talk to Old Jeb, see what he has to say.’

Cwen spluttered. ‘You’re the one who says he never wants to investigate anything. We’re only trying to help you out here.’

‘Of course,’ Hermitage agreed. ‘But this doesn’t sound like an investigation. Old Jeb might just need some guidance or to talk to someone about what he’s seen.’

‘What about the priest?’ Wat suggested.

They all gave him looks that invited him to think about what he’d just said.

‘All right, not the priest,’ Wat surrendered. ‘The headman?’ Wat did his thinking straight away. ‘Not the headman either. Perhaps it is for Hermitage, after all.’

‘It probably won’t take long,’ Hermitage said. ‘And if it gives comfort to Old Jeb, it is my duty.’

Cwen shook her head in disappointment that he was not following her direction. ‘Just don’t you come home with any murders, do you hear?’

‘Yes, Cwen,’ Hermitage nodded.

He indicated that Young Jeb could lead the way and the two of them left Cwen and Wat behind.

‘That was hard work,’ Jeb commented. ‘I’m only doing what I was told.’

‘You did well,’ Hermitage assured him. ‘If your father needs to explain this to someone, I am here to help.’

He still thought that he probably wasn’t here to help, but it was in his nature to respond to any request. It was a quality about which Cwen had strong views.

‘Can you tell me anything more?’ he asked. ‘Did Old Jeb say anything specific about what he saw.’

‘Only that he’d seen it.’

‘It? And he didn’t say what sort of it it was?’

‘He wouldn’t go into details. Either he wouldn’t, or he couldn’t. He just kept muttering that it was in the woods and something had to be done. And then that I was to fetch you.’

‘Why me? I’m hardly the sort of person to deal with things in woods. Monks seldom are. Unless it is to do with a murder, after all. Could he have seen the act committed and now fears for his own life?’

‘I don’t know why it would be an it,’ Jeb replied.

‘It. A murder? He saw a murder?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose. But that still doesn’t explain why he was so pale and fearful.’

'Murder can be pretty fearful.' Hermitage knew this because it was.

‘We’ll find out soon enough.’ Jeb held an arm out and indicated that they should turn to the north, along the main road out of Derby.

‘I must confess, I don’t know where Old Jeb lives. It is out of town?’

‘Just a little way. He has a patch of land he tends.’

‘And you live with him?’

‘God, no. Sorry, Brother. No, no, I live at the south end of town. I make carts.’

‘A good trade.’

‘Not big ones,’ Jeb explained as if it was important. ‘Small hand carts, that sort of thing.’

‘A very useful tool for all folk.’

‘Of course, I’d like to move into big carts one day. I’ve got plans for a four-wheeler, you know.’

‘Really?’ Hermitage did his best to sound interested.

‘Oh, yes.’ Jeb’s enthusiasm was palpable. He leaned closer to Hermitage and spoke in a low whisper. ‘It’s the hub, you see, that’s the secret.’

‘Is it?’

‘But I can’t say any more.’ Jeb looked around very carefully as if people might be following him just to hear about his hubs.

'Very wise,' Hermitage said, not wanting to hear any more anyway. 'How did you know of your father's experience in the woods, then? Did he report it to you?'

‘He did. In the middle of the night,’ Jeb complained. ‘Hammering on my door, he was. Wake up, wake up, it’s coming, it’s coming. It was all I could get out of him.

‘He took an age to settle, and even then he wanted to stay with me.’

‘But he went home eventually?’

‘After much persuasion.’

Hermitage thought that this sounded a rather heartless way for a son to treat his father in distress.

‘You don’t know what he’s like,’ Jeb gave a very sparse but sincere explanation. ‘You wouldn’t want him in your home either.’

Hermitage didn’t want to enquire too closely into exactly what it was about Old Jeb that made his own son shun him.

‘He didn’t say where in the woods he saw this, it?’

‘No. I thought that he might have calmed down a bit in the light of day, but nothing of the sort. Still ranting when I checked on him this morning. That’s when he said I had to come and get you.’

‘I see.’ Hermitage didn’t, but it might become clear.

'I had to promise; otherwise, there was no quieting him. Here we are.'

Jeb led the way off the main road and over a ditch that was spanned by a log that was not in the best of order.

Hermitage tested it before hopping over, and before it had the chance to fail completely.

‘It’s not much, as I said,’ Jeb announced.

It certainly wasn’t much. It was a patch of land, that much was true, but when Hermitage thought about it, the ground he walked upon was naught but a patch of land. And there were good patches and bad patches. This was not a good one.

It wasn't bad land like a swamp or a mountainside, but it was poor, that was probably the best description.

Whether it was poor by God’s design or Old Jeb’s handiwork, was hard to tell.

There were patches of things growing, but they didn’t seem to have any sort of order. No neat rows of vegetables, well tended and nourished, grew in this spot. If there were vegetables under these leaves, Hermitage wasn’t sure he wanted to see them.

The ground that was not planted was left to the weeds. He knew that land should lie fallow for a year so that it could recover for future crops. Well, he'd been told this by people who ought to know that sort of thing.

This land didn’t look like it had been left to lie fallow. It looked like it had just been left. This patch of Old Jeb’s was not large, and using every morsel of it would seem prudent. The old man must have other means of support. This could not be his only source of food.

A hovel sat in the middle of the space and it too had seen little care over the years. It was in Hermitage’s generous nature to assume it had seen little care, instead of none at all, which seemed most likely.

‘I have to supply most of his needs,’ Jeb explained, plainly unhappy about the arrangement.

‘Is that you, Young Jeb?’ a fragile voice bleated from the interior of the home.

‘Aye. And I have Brother Hermitage.’

‘Ah, blessed relief. Come in, come in.’

‘Can you not come out, father?’ Jeb asked. ‘You know it’s not very nice in there.’

‘I cannot come out. I dare not.’

‘We’ll talk at the door, then.’ Young Jeb was not giving in. The inside of the hovel must be truly challenging.

Gesturing Hermitage to join him, Jeb moved over to the doorway and stood firm.

Hermitage stood opposite and detected movement from the interior. He also detected an odour of the most alarming nature and was grateful for Young Jeb's insistence on some fresh air.

The face of Old Jeb appeared from out of the gloom, and Hermitage gave the old man a short bow.

He had seen him around town, but he was not someone he had ever had dealings with. As he considered Old Jeb, he thought that he had never seen anyone else having dealings with him, either. Perhaps he had had a trade at some point but had now become too old for it.

Cwen’s curious comment about knowing what sort of thing Jeb saw in the woods was a puzzle. It sounded as if the answer would be a dubious one. Hermitage couldn’t imagine what there was to see in the woods that would cause such a reaction. Maybe he’d find out.

‘Old Jeb,’ Hermitage acknowledged.

‘Aye,’ Old Jeb replied. His eyes darted about as if his son and Hermitage may have brought some peril to his door.

‘Your son called for me. He said you had seen something that needed dealing with, and that I was the one to do it?’

‘That’s right.’ Old Jeb was still nervous. ‘But come in, we’re best not talking out here.’

‘Father, I have told you.’ Young Jeb was insistent. ‘I am never going in this place again. And I will not let the brother do so either. We talk out here, or we do not talk at all.’

Old Jeb grumbled about this but didn't seem willing to press the point. 'I suppose it's safer out now that it's day,' he said.

‘What is?’ Hermitage asked quietly. ‘What is it that you saw that worries you so?’

‘Death,’ Jeb announced.

'Death? You saw death?' Hermitage, having thought that a murder might be in the offing, relaxed considerably. Old Jeb had clearly misinterpreted something perfectly natural or was seeing things. A sniff of the interior of the hovel indicated that it might be the latter. The cacophony of smells that assailed his nose definitely included a hint of mushroom. It might reasonably be concluded that Old Jeb seldom left his hovel; for any purpose.

‘Death,’ Old Jeb confirmed. ‘And it’s coming here. That’s why you need to sort it out. Before everyone dies in their beds.’

‘How do you know it was death?’ Hermitage asked. This seemed a very reasonable question, as death wasn’t really a visible thing. You could only tell it was there when someone died. ‘Did you see a death? Is that what you mean?’ Back to a murder again. He should have known.

‘It was him,’ Old Jeb hissed significantly.

‘Death is a him?’

Jeb paused significantly. ‘The Hunter,’ he announced and waited for their shocked reaction.

‘You saw a hunter?’ This didn’t seem very odd at all. A hunter in the woods? What was wrong with that?

‘Not a hunter, the Hunter.’

‘You’re going to have to explain,’ Hermitage was obviously failing to understand the significance of the hunter.

Jeb whispered the name, clearly fearing that to utter the word might be a summoning. ‘Herne.’

‘Herne? You met a hunter called Herne?’

‘Herne the Hunter.’ Jeb was starting to sound annoyed that his grim tale was not being taken seriously. ‘The wild hunt. The ghostly hounds. The taker of souls.’

‘Ah.’ Hermitage breathed deeply. This was complete nonsense. Well, that was a relief.

‘The Celts called him Cernunnos, you know. I don’t know why he’s become Herne.’ Hermitage thought that was an interesting question. ‘Perhaps the pronunciation became Hernunnos and thence Herne?’

‘It don’t matter what the Celts called him, or how he gets pronounced. I saw him.’

‘You saw Herne the Hunter?’ Young Jeb asked with frank disbelief.

‘I did.’

‘Did he introduce himself, then?’

‘Of course not. Would I be alive and talking to you if he had?’

Young Jeb folded his arms and looked as sceptical about this tale as Hermitage felt. ‘You saw the Lord of the Wildwood close enough to tell it was him and he didn’t spot you? A smelly old man in the woods. Had his ghostly hounds lost their noses?

‘I’m sorry, Brother.’ He turned to Hermitage. ‘I’ve brought you here for nothing at all. Just the ramblings of an old man.’

‘It’s not ramblings, I tell you,’ Old Jeb insisted. ‘I saw him.’

Hermitage had to admit that the old man sounded convinced by his own tale. It was clear that he genuinely believed he had seen this awful figure.

‘How did you know it was him, then?’ Young Jeb pressed. ‘Did you see the black horse and the he-goats that he rides upon? Did you see his band of hunters, all grim and loathy? Or did you bump into a tree after too many mushrooms?’

'He was by his campfire,' Old Jeb explained seriously. 'I heard a noise and so I went to have a look.'

'Of course, you did,' Young Jeb said in a very disparaging manner.

Hermitage longed to know what it was that Old Jeb got up to in the woods, but at the same time, he didn't want to know.

‘I did,’ Old Jeb insisted. ‘And I saw the light of the fire with shadows all against it. Shadows in the shape of men.’

‘Those would be men,’ Young Jeb explained.

'That's what I thought. But then one of them stood, and that's when I saw.' Jeb trembled. 'He was a giant of a man, and he had antlers.'

‘Antlers?’ Hermitage checked, his scepticism in full flight.

‘Like a deer?’ Young Jeb asked.

‘Exactly like a deer.’ Old Jeb seemed pleased that he was being believed.

‘That would be a deer, then,’ Young Jeb concluded.

‘Great giant, he was.’

‘A great giant deer. A stag. Heard of them?’

'Don't you mock, boy.' Old Jeb's anger was rising as his story was not only questioned but ridiculed. 'I know what I saw. It wasn't no deer. Do you think I don't know a deer when I see one? I've hunted enough in my time.' Jeb seemed to realise what he had said. 'Not that I hunt deer now, of course, what with it not being allowed by the Normans. I wouldn't do that.'

‘Of course, you wouldn’t,’ Young Jeb scoffed.

‘This was a man,’ Old Jeb continued. ‘Herne the Hunter with his antlers, and he’s bringing death to us all.’

Hermitage didn't believe any of this for a moment, but even then, he couldn't see what he was expected to do about it.

If this was Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Wildwood, which it wasn't because there was no such person, what was one monk supposed to achieve?

He was about to put this question to Old Jeb, not really hopeful of a sensible answer when he was distracted by a commotion on the track.

He and Young Jeb looked over and saw three people together, hurrying towards the town. Behind them came two more and another one was visible further up the road.

‘What’s this?’ Young Jeb asked. ‘Something happening in town?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Hermitage replied. He knew that the time for Mass was approaching, but he had never seen people hurry down the road for that.

Young Jeb took a couple of steps away from the hovel and considered the people on the road.

‘Ho,’ he called as the lone figure, a woman, drew near. ‘What’s amiss?’

‘Amiss?’ the woman called back. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

Hermitage moved over to listen, and even Old Jeb risked a step out of his hovel.

‘Coming into town,’ the woman called without stopping. ‘I just heard, so I don’t know how you missed it.’

‘Missed what?’ Young Jeb asked plainly.

‘There’s a giant.’

Hermitage thought that there must be something in the air today that was making