Brother Hermitage The Shorts
By
Howard of Warwick
Being vignettes from the life of that most medieval detective, Brother Hermitage.
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Text copyright © Howard Matthews 2015
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Cover design by Double Dagger
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
A Brother Hermitage Diversion (and free!)
Brother Hermitage in Shorts
Also:
Howard of Warwick does the Middle Ages: Authenticity without accuracy.
The Domesday Book (No, 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
Contents:
Foreword
Manuscript ref: MS/BH/HoW/001 Folio 7
Preface
Hermitage and the Headless
Manuscript: MS/BH/HoW/002 Folio 7
Preface
Hermitage and the Dog
Manuscript: MS/BH/HoW/003 Folio 7
Preface
Hermitage and the Robber
Manuscript; MS/BH/HoW/ 004 Folio 7 TC "Hermitage Home" f C l "1"
Preface
Hermitage Home
Manuscript; MS/BH/HoW/005 Folio 7
Preface
Hermitage and the Hostelry
Finally
The Battle of Hermitage
Foreword:
I present for your consideration a collection of short tales from the life of Brother Hermitage; medieval monk and reluctant investigator. These tales are drawn from the Brother’s life before the major events told in a number of full length sagas.
They are all taken from manuscripts deciphered in my scriptorium and which arrive from a variety of sources. Truth be told, most of the time this is from a fellow who insists on describing himself as my “agent”, and who arrives with bundles of the things, just when they seem to be needed.
I do my best with the works and translate them into accessible pieces for the modern world. The agent then takes them away and edits them - which they need, apparently.
It is here, I suppose, that I have to acknowledge an old academic colleague of mine, Professor August Bunley, Reader in the History of the Investigative Monk at the University of Mid-West Nuneaton. He has cast some doubt upon the authenticity of the primary sources, and indeed, upon the veracity of the “agent” himself. Some of these doubts are expressed quite forcibly, and personally, but I try to keep my head buried in the work, and plough on regardless.
As you will see, I have catalogued the manuscripts in what I believe is date order, although later research may shed new light on this.
The one exclusion to this is the tale Hermitage and the Hostelry, which we know comes from an earlier date, as the year 1064 is specifically mentioned. Apart from this one outlier, the rest of the material does follow a chronological pattern. I have thus placed the “Hostelry” manuscript towards the end.
I have also now re-read some of the prefaces to the stories and find that the agent and Bunley have been far more of a distraction than I intended. I do apologise, but it’s too late to re-write them all now.
Howard,
Warwick
Manuscript ref: MS/BH/HoW/001 Folio 7
Hermitage and the Headless
Preface.
While this is not the earliest mention of Brother Hermitage, that comes in the tale Hermitage and the Hostelry, I have numbered it first in this folio. From the quality of this particular manuscript, it is unclear, at this time, whether the name mentioned is Hermitage, Heritage, Hendrick or Duncan. Later sources do confirm the identity of our monk.
There is little in the material to confirm the location of the monastery in this tale, all we are told is that De’Ath’s Dingle is not far away. A later work, summarised in the bound volume, The Heretics of De’Ath*, confirms that awful place is somewhere to the north of Lincoln, but south of the River Humber.
This is a wide area to cover but when we consider that in The Heretics of De’Ath Hermitage references his journey from the Lincolnshire coast, I might be unjustifiably criticised for concluding that this might be the monastery in question. Or not.
It is with alarming precipitation that I have referred to this as the first Hermitage manuscript. I can only hope that an even earlier version does not emerge at some later point, after which I would have to re-catalogue the whole collection.
The source of my material, the fellow who keeps bothering me and telling me he is my agent, assures me that he won’t find any earlier works, as that “would really bugger things up”, whatever that may mean.
As to date, that can only be confirmed from a combination of the primary sources available. We know that Brother Hermitage met King Harold at De’Ath’s Dingle at a later date, and so the events here must have taken place prior to 1066. How far prior is unknown. It is, as yet, unclear how long Brother Hermitage was at De’Ath’s Dingle before the events of The Heretics of De’Ath took place. No indication is given in this work of Hermitage’s age, although we know that we was still a young man while at De’Ath’s Dingle.
There is also no mention here of Wat the Weaver, Hermitage’s companion in investigation - companion, adviser and frequent life-saver. That Hermitage and Wat became inseparable is well known, and so it would be unusual to find Hermitage completely alone. This is further support for the theory that the events here took place before Hermitage met Wat, and so before 1066.
What we can see is that Hermitage’s natural enthusiasm and inquisitiveness is already well developed, and already getting him into trouble.
Given the other factors we know about England at the time, it is hard to imagine how anyone like Hermitage actually survived to adulthood.
I must acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Professor August Bunley, reader in The History of the Investigative Monk at the University of Mid-West Nuneaton, for his endless contributions. It is despite them that I offer here perhaps the first ever Chronicle of Brother Hermitage.
Howard,
>
Warwick,
Wednesday.
Hermitage and the Headless
Brother Hermitage was in a quandary. He liked being in a quandary, it was one of his favourite places - as long as it didn’t involve the sort of physicality the other brothers seemed to relish. Being dangled over the monastery parapet was certainly a quandary, but not the sort he favoured, even though it seemed to happen quite often.
No, this quandary was right up his habit. Brother Prembard was dead and no one was quite sure why. Part of the puzzlement which set Hermitage’s brain scurrying to the quiet and lonely places it liked to frequent, was the fact that no one else in the monastery seemed remotely bothered about this event.
Prembard, a notoriously slothful and absent brother who had been known to fritter the day away with as many as three hours sleep, had been missed at Nones and so an acolyte had been sent to his cell to wake him.
The acolyte had returned, reporting that Prembard was in fact dead. Having been roundly castigated for his presumption in leaping to such a conclusion without consulting the abbot, who gave him a light beating to emphasise the point, the acolyte responded in a most impudent manner that if the abbot had had his head cut off he would be dead as well. This earned the young man a more conscientious visitation from the abbot and he soon retired to the apothecary.
As Hermitage pondered his quandary further, he realised that it had many fascinating aspects. It wasn’t strictly true to say no one knew why Prembard was dead, it was obvious that why he was dead as opposed to still alive was that his head was no longer joined onto his body.
Hermitage had no direct experience of this sort of event, but he reasoned that as head removal was the current favoured method of execution, it was safe to assume that this was, in fact, the cause of death.
The questions though, gathered like magpies to a rotting badger; how had Prembard’s head parted company with the rest of him and why had it happened? Heads did not generally become removed of their own volition. Hermitage thought that accidents during sleep which led to the loss of the head must be very rare, and that the application of some tool or other would probably be required for the process. This would indicate the presence of another person or persons to carry out the task, and this ‘why’ arose and buzzed inside Hermitage’s head.
Why would anyone want to remove the head of Prembard? The conclusion that there had been others involved was supported by another puzzling aspect of the situation. No one could find the missing head. Hermitage knew that he could be pretty naive at times, but even he didn’t believe that a head could make off with itself. The third why was the why that consumed Hermitage even more than the others. Why was no one interested in the facts of this case and seemed intent on simply burying Prembard without further ado?
…
Hermitage hesitated to approach his abbot as a man would hesitate to coat his eyeballs in honey before thrusting his face into a bee’s nest. As was often the case though, Hermitage let his head rule his heart; a practice which had led to many of the visits to the parapet. He skipped up to the abbot during that man’s morning perambulation of the monastery garden in his usual annoyingly enthusiastic manner.
‘Father,’ he gushed.
‘What is it Hermitage?’ The Abbot responded in the tone he kept for those occasions when he wanted to make it perfectly clear that conversation was unwelcome, and would almost certainly be physically terminated.
‘Brother Prembard,’ Hermitage went on regardless. Like all enthusiasts, he was tone deaf.
‘What about him?’
‘Well he’s dead.’
‘Yes. Well done. Now, if I could get on?’
‘But someone removed his head.’ Hermitage was, as usual, incredulous that others did not share his childlike fervour for detail.
‘Probably a prank,’ was the abbot’s startling conclusion.
‘A prank?’ Hermitage was dumbfounded. ‘Someone removed his head as a prank?’
Hermitage knew all about pranks. Most of the things the other brothers did to him were waved away as pranks. ‘Oh it’s alright Hermitage,’ they would explain as they dropped him in the privy, ‘it’s only a prank.’ It was only a prank when all his own habit and all the spares went missing on the coldest day of the winter. It was only a prank when he woke one morning to find his wrists and ankles tied up. Still, even he had never been on the receiving end of a prank which left him without a head.
‘Most likely.’ The abbot shrugged. ‘Was there any blood?’
‘Blood?’ Hermitage said, still distracted by the concept of a decapitation prank. ‘Erm, I don’t know, I haven’t actually seen the body.’
‘Well, you seem to be drawing an awful lot of conclusions on very scant evidence.’
This was truly remarkable, it was the longest conversation Hermitage had ever had with the abbot.
‘You see,’ the abbot took Hermitage by the arm and steered him for a second circuit of the garden while he gestured to his assistant Alud. ‘If there was lots of blood that would indicate that Prembard had been alive at the time his head was removed. If there was very little blood it would show that he was already dead, and someone removed his head after that event.’
‘I do see,’ Hermitage nodded.
Alud, who had been listening intently, suddenly scurried off on some urgent business, gesturing rather imperiously that other monks should attend him.
‘Which would constitute a prank.’ The Abbot concluded.
Hermitage hadn’t considered the possibility that someone might have removed the head after death. He thought that this probably constituted less of a sin than doing it while the owner was still using it, but it still seemed extreme behaviour for a monastery.
‘But to remove a head and then hide it.’ Hermitage made his feelings clear.
‘We are a small community Hermitage, who have lived closely with one another for many years. There are those among us who sometimes need to burst out in the occasional harmless prank so that they may concentrate all the harder on their duties thereafter.’
Hermitage saw the reasoning of this, but it didn’t ring true. That young brother who had set a pig loose on Saint Finjan’s day had been dealt with by the abbot, and he still hadn’t recovered the power of speech - even though he could now walk without wincing. To dismiss the removal of a Brother’s head as harmless was out of keeping. And the abbot was still keeping one young monk, who had tied a thistle to his habit as a prank, in a small pit under his study.
‘Perhaps I should go and examine Prembard’s cell for blood,’ Hermitage said, starting to step away from the Abbot only to find that he was dragged back. The abbot must really be in a good mood to engage in so long a conversation with Hermitage, without hitting him once.
‘And what will you conclude if there is no blood eh, Hermitage?’
‘Well father,’ Hermitage reasoned, his enthusiasm once more asserting itself. ‘As you say, I would conclude that the head had been removed after death.’
‘In which case?’
This was marvellous. Perhaps once this puzzle was sorted out, Hermitage could engage the abbot in a fascinating internal debate he was having on the nature of miracles.
‘I suppose in that case we might have someone who had removed the head of a corpse, rather than one who had created the corpse in the first place.’
‘A prank.’ The abbot concluded
‘A rather generous conclusion father,’ Hermitage commented, noting that generosity was one quality the abbot had hitherto managed to hide completely from his flock, buried as it was beneath a façade of vindictive violence.
As if the abbot had suddenly lost interest in the topic, he thrust Hermitage away from him and said, ‘Right, go and check your cell then.’
As the abbot walked away, it was clear to Hermitage that the conversation was at a rather abrupt end and so he made his way to Prembard’s cell.
…
Once there, he found brother Alud brushing a group of mo
nks from the room, all of whom carried mops and leathern buckets slopping with some dark liquid or other.
‘Clearing up brother?’ Hermitage asked.
‘Of course,’ Alud answered in his usual peremptory manner. ‘We can hardly leave a dead brother lying around can we?’
‘We did when old brother Bavum passed on.’
‘That was different.’
‘We only noticed that he had died when the smell became intolerable.’
Alud made no answer.
‘And then you gave me his cell without so much as changing the straw.’
‘Times change Brother Hermitage,’ Alud said, as he hurried the last of the monks from the room. ‘Here you are then anyway, corpse, no head, no blood, prank. Just like the abbot said.’
‘Hmm,’ Hermitage hummed, wondering for a moment whether there might have been some blood before Alud’s cleaning squad arrived. That would be too much of a coincidence though.
Hermitage looked around the cell, hoping that the missing head would turn up in some rafter or other, or in the slop bucket. Finding nothing, he retreated with the puzzle creasing his face.
Strolling through the damp, dark and dank corridors of the place, he let his mind run free, as he often did when he had a particularly tricky theological point to interrogate.
Brother Hermitag, the Shorts Page 1
