The Normans are coming, the Normans are coming. And they’re looking for Brother Hermitage.

This cannot go well. It’s never gone well in the past so why should this time be any different?
King William’s own messenger has come all the way from London looking for Brother Hermitage, the investigator. It can only mean one thing; a really important murder.

Running away or hiding are obviously options, but the king’s messengers don’t take “not available” for an answer. Hermitage hears the message and asks for it to be repeated, but still doesn’t understand. He is easily confused but seldom so quickly.

At least he has company. Wat the Weaver and Cwen are just as lost this time. Bart, the would-be investigator’s apprentice, is the only one who sees this very strange situation as an opportunity.
And that’s a worry in its own right.

Forced to travel to the far north, some fifteen miles away, Hermitage and the others make some alarming discoveries that go so far back in history, even Hermitage didn’t see them coming. Still, meeting new people and hearing about their ways broadens the mind. Or threatens the life, one or the other.

As usual, death is always close at hand, and it keeps looking at Brother Hermitage in a funny way.

Then one character turns out to have a secret no one would have guessed. Not even if the threat of death made you guess really hard.