Brother Hermitage's Christmas Gift

By Howard of Warwick

For reasons beyond reason, the monastery of De'Ath's Dingle is invited to the ceremony and the only ones who can be let out on their own are Brother Hermitage and Wat the Weaver. But it will be a rush to get there. With only 7 days to travel over 100 miles, the pair must cross a frozen and largely lawless country if they are to make it to Westminster alive.

And then there's the problem of Wat's attitude towards gifts in principle. He doesn't mind a reasonable exchange but simply giving sounds like a very poor deal. Perhaps the days of the journey will give Brother Hermitage the opportunity to breathe the spirit of the season into his weaving friend.
Or perhaps not.

Recent reviews for Howard of Warwick continue a theme:
5* "Very funny"
5* "Another demented tale"
5* "Briiiiiliant as always.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard of Warwick
• Release date: Oct 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781999895907

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

Brother Hermitage’s Christmas Gift

A diversion from the

Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

by

Howard of Warwick

Published by The Funny Book Company

Dalton House, 60 Windsor Ave,

London SW19 2RR

www.funnybookcompany.com

Copyright © 2017 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.

Original cover image: The British Library Public Domain

ISBN 978-1-9998959-0-7

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

Brother Hermitage Diversions

Brother Hermitage in Shorts (Free!)

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

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Introit

Caput I De’Ath’s Dingle

Caput II De’Ath’s Dingle to Lincoln

Caput III Lincoln to Sleaford

Caput IV One Night in Sleaford

Caput V Sleaford to Peterburh, via Bourne

Caput VI Peterburh to Godmuncestre

Caput VII Godmuncestre to Wandrie

Caput VIII Wandrie to Waltham Abbey

Caput IX Waltham Abbey to London

Caput X Westminster

Caput XI Coronation

Brother Hermitage’s Christmas Gift

Introit

December 18th 1066 St Desideratus’s Day.

The recently appointed Abbot Athan sat in his recently appropriated study and considered the parchment in front of him with care. Being made abbot had its advantages. Having to deal with parchments was not one of them. The messenger who had delivered it could not wait to get away and so had given no hint of its contents; if he even knew. Those contents presented Athan with a puzzle and he was not comfortable with puzzles that could not be beaten into surrender.

He held the sheet in front of him and considered the words laid out in a neat hand, as well as the large and impressive wax seal affixed to the bottom. This was a message of considerable importance and he had to deal with it carefully. He nodded gently to himself as he thought through the implications, the main one arising from the fact that no one ever sent messages to the monastery at De’Ath’s Dingle. Well, they did, but they’d never been caught.

Lifting the document to his face he studied the seal that said this was a missive from high in the church hierarchy. Oval in shape, the wax had a clear image of a saint, sat upon a throne of some sort, the whole being surrounded by a border inscribed with Latin. He could tell it was a Saint because the figure had a halo. What the Latin said, he had not a clue. He thought one of the letters might be an A. He knew A because of Athan. B had always seemed to be just one more of life’s completely unnecessary luxuries.

He tried turning the whole thing over so that the wax seal was at the top but still the irritating squiggles and splashes of ink made absolutely no sense to him.

His normal recourse in a situation like this was to summon Brother Hermitage, who could read all of the letters, in Latin and English. But there was no way he was going to let that irritation of a monk get the better of his abbot.

He scoured his head for anyone else in the place who could read. There was the awful weaver friend of Hermitage, but he was just as bad. Perhaps Brother Baldon could be persuaded to cooperate for once. He knew that the price to pay would be high, and probably sinful, if Baldon’s preoccupations were the same as usual. Still, anything was better than letting Hermitage in on a confidence. With any luck the content of the message would be something horrible. Then he would send for Brother Hermitage.

He nodded once more as his face moved to that disturbing arrangement he called a smile. He raised his toes to the fire and rang his bell

Caput I

De’Ath’s Dingle

The monastery at De’Ath’s Dingle did not generally take winter well. No monastery was supposed to be comfortable but even in the glorious summer this place had been unpleasant. By autumn it had turned grim and was grumbling loud forebodings of worse to come. The very stones seemed bent upon helping their inhabitants find new depths of suffering from which to think longingly of being anywhere else at all.

It had a reputation for being colder on the inside than it was on the outside. In times of blazing heat this could be a comfort, except of course the smell never went away. When the land around froze deep and dangerous, the air inside De’Ath’s Dingle could actually be seen. Breathing out only added to the fog.

The mystery of why an establishment that comprised mainly of open space could be colder than the open space on the other side of a wall was seldom considered. The monks had other things to worry about.

The reputation of De’Ath’s Dingle’s was broad and all-encompassing. It encompassed things most people wouldn’t talk about, or, if they did, it would be in hushed whispers around the tavern fire.

The building itself was bad enough even though it sat in a most beauteous part of the north Lincoln countryside, not far from the swirling brown waters of the Humber. It sat as an animal that has died of something contagious sits in the middle of the village street.

Any building might be considered brooding; usually dark places that blanketed joy with their drear presence. De’Ath’s Dingle was one of those, but no one wanted to speculate what it was brooding about. It had been thrown up, in all senses of the expression, by a son whose only inheritance had been a decrepit stone quarry. He had made the best he could of his stock, and anything left over had been used for the monastery. His father may have left a bequest that a religious house be built on the site, but he hadn’t specified how well.

When established constructions, particularly old Roman ones, fell into disrepair the local folk would gather the fallen stones for their own homes. De’Ath’s Dingle didn’t fall into disrepair, it jumped. Local folk knew far better than to use material cast off by that place. As the saying in those parts went; The stones of De’Ath’s Dingle; for when the worst isn’t quite bad enough.

And then there were the inhabitants. That father of the stone quarry had also failed to specify what Order of brothers or sisters should take up residence, and that presented the religious authorities with a wonderful opportunity.

The corridors of bishops and abbots had their own expression; If he’s too dangerous/disturbing/nasty for you, send him to De’Ath’s Dingle. Their motto for the place became, ignorantia sit beatitudo. Ignorance was fine, bliss didn’t sit happily in the same sentence as De’Ath’s Dingle at all.

But this winter could have been a time for quiet development, for settled devotion and pious attention to duties; King Harold himself had paid the monastery a visit just three months ago as he was on his way south to defeat the Normans. Such royal presence would be enough to raise the status of any religious establishment. In the case of De’Ath’s Dingle raising its status would be akin to lifting a wreck from the abyss. Some tasks were beyond even the anointed of God. Instead, Harold took the curse of De’Ath’s Dingle with him to Hastings, and the celebrations were all in Norman French.

The events that took place around the time of that visit were utterly incredible. The death of a visiting brother and the hasty departure of the previous abbot brought an entirely new shame upon the place. Shame was a familiar friend, but this one had been known to the king; even if that king was dead now. Shame stuck, and there was always the risk of some of it rubbing off on anyone who got too close.

This meant that the time-scale for appointment of a new abbot was shortened considerably. The last thing any senior members of the church wanted to do was go anywhere near the place. The implications of leaving its brotherhood unsupervised were acknowledged. Several of the community probably had revenge on those in authority at the top of their list of things to do if they ever got out.

One name was bandied about for the role, but only very briefly, and was dismissed with considerable laughter. The proposer, somewhat put out by the raucous response to his suggestion, pointed out that this was the same young Brother Hermitage who had been at De’Ath’s Dingle at the time of the death, who had been appointed Investigator by King Harold, and who had solved the crime.

Yes, that was him, another acknowledged. But Brother Hermitage was only there by ill fortune, and never mind a whole monastery, the brother couldn’t keep control of a dead bird in a bag. They further speculated that they’d be surprised if he was still alive, having been alone in De’Ath’s Dingle for several nights.