Three Brothers, Two Plots and a Monk

After solving all those murders, Brother Hermitage deserves a reward. And one arrives in the shape of a very high-quality parchment delivered by some very high-quality servants.

Appointment to the Standing Conclave, which advises King William on mainly ecclesiastical matters, is a great honour. It is not to be sniffed at, let alone turned down. The fact that the appointment has come from Ranulph de Sauveloy, who is known to think Hermitage an idiot, is only a detail.

Wat and Cwen the weavers think this detail is going to be trouble, and they had better accompany Hermitage to the first meeting in Nottingham. When they find that no one else understands why Hermitage has been appointed, suspicions grow.

Has he been sent in his role as King’s Investigator of murder? Is there dark work afoot in the fringes of the Conclave? Do some of the very important people there actually want to kill one another?
Is this simply some devious plot of de Sauveloy to get Hermitage in the right place to foil some dastardly deed? Or to investigate it once it’s been done? Or is he simply being put out of the way.

Words overheard through a window and a horrible discovery in a chest set Hermitage’s worries at full gallop.
Rumours that King William is to attend, while his half-brother, Robert, is already there, and the other sibling, Odo, has sent his man, turn the possibility of a plot into a certainty.

All Hermitage has to do is work out what it is and put a stop to it. Before someone gets hurt, probably fatally.

He can’t really ask William’s fearsome companion Le Pedvin for help, can he? They’ve never got on in the past.
And Mistress Aveline, Gilbert of Nottingham’s daughter, she can make any situation into a nightmare.

What seemed like an honour very rapidly turns into a curse. But Hermitage should be used to them by now.