Brother Hermitag, the Shorts

by Howard of Warwick

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage as he came to the end of an enormously long sentence which had very few commas in it, and looked up to see that he was alone. He thought that his exposition on the key points of the issue at hand had been relevant and engaging, but perhaps his diversion into the life of Saint Barnaby had been, looking at it from the point of the view of an independent observer schooled in the analysis and evaluation of argument, pointless and unnecessary.

  The dog regarded him with some disappointment as the noise of his droning came to an end.

  ‘Well,’ Hermitage said to the dog, ‘I don’t think that the problem has gone away, even if the people have, and perhaps if I can reach a tentative conclusion on my own I can seek some confirmatory information at a later stage.’

  The dog lay down. It liked the long words particularly and it wouldn’t be long before it drifted off to sleep dreaming of its mother’s milk and rabbits.

  ‘As I see it,’ Hermitage went on. His audience was only himself and an unresponsive dog, but then he was used to this sort of thing. ‘Something has been stolen from somewhere and it is causing great anxiety. The villagers won’t tell me what it is that has been stolen, nor from where exactly it has been stolen. Neither will they say how this causes anxiety nor give me any other information.’

  Any normal person given this situation would have given the villagers a pretty comprehensive curse and told them where they could stick their dilemma.

  ‘How fascinating,’ Hermitage told himself with some relish. In the depths of his soul he thought that the dog would be fascinated as well, ‘Now, where to begin?’ He paused and looked at the dog for some inspiration. The dog opened its eyes with some expectation, but that was the sum of its contribution to the debate. Even this opening of the eyes was grist to the enthusiast’s mill. They were, after all, people who would take an obscene gesture and a string of heartfelt obscenities as encouragement for a fascinating discussion on the sin of anger.

  ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right,’ Hermitage spoke to the dog in the manner for which old women were burned, ‘I think that the anxiety is key. There’s absolutely no point in simply trying to guess what it was that was stolen, it could be anything. It is the circumstances surrounding the theft that will indicate the solution, I believe. If it had been some normal item, like a pan or pair of shoes then the owner would have been angry or resigned but not anxious. In any event it can’t be a single item belonging to a single person or why would the whole village be roused? It must be something which the village wants to get back. They clearly aren’t content to shrug their shoulders, get over the loss and go and get a new one, whatever it is.

  Perhaps it’s a child? No, if that were the case they would all be out searching and they’re not. In fact that’s very odd in itself. This is a very isolated spot and if this thing has gone missing why aren’t they all out looking for it? It’s a small place to turn upside down, they could have done that in a moment. This in itself must indicate that they know that the missing thing is not here, and that it was not taken by one of them. I really think we’re making progress,’ Hermitage told the dog who didn’t appear to disagree.

  ‘Therefore it must be something taken by someone else, but something which is precious to the whole village. No.’ Hermitage’s learning did its thing, ‘They would still be angry if it was a thing of value. Why would they be anxious? They seem to be behaving as if they were guilty that the thing had been lost. I suppose that could be the case if there was something precious that had been entrusted to them? You know, I don’t think the thing lost was entirely their property. Or if it was, it is the sort of thing the loss of which would bring you into disrepute.’

  He paused for a moment.

  ‘And for the life of me I can’t think what such a thing would be.’ Hermitage thought this because he was a monk, and a rare monk at that as he took being a monk very seriously. All the stuff about no possessions was meat and drink to him, and meat and drink itself was pretty sinful most of the time. As he had no truck with ownership, he had very little chance of understanding people who thought otherwise. Again the dog concurred, or it would have done had it been awake. Hermitage took its complete lack of animation as confirmation that his argument was progressing well.

  ‘Or are there any alternatives? What if they shouldn’t have had the thing lost in the first place. What if the owner is going to return to claim his property and they haven’t got it? That would cause anxiety. Or perhaps it was something they had stolen in the first place?’ Hermitage sighed, ‘There are too many options here, perhaps we should move on and come back to this point.

  ‘I think it safe to assume that their agitated state is caused by the fact that they have betrayed some trust or other. They clearly believe that there are worse consequences ahead of them as a result of the loss than lie behind them. That would explain the continued agitation.

  ‘Now, who could have taken it, if it was an it, of course and not a they. Mustn’t leap to conclusions. Clearly not one of the villagers, or at least not one that I’ve met, so a stranger or someone from the vicinity. I’ve travelled the road to get here and I seem to be the only one doing so. On this basis I think we have to remove the probability that it was a passing thief. Who else is local then? They did tell me that there are no other villages around here and that they serve the estate at the top of the hill. So, someone from the estate then?

  ‘They probably have poor relations with the house servants, most peasants usually do.’ Hermitage knew this to be the case from personal experience. Having been the son of a woodsman he had often been the target of abuse by the children of servants in the Lord’s house. Of course he had been the target of abuse for everyone else on the estate as well, but he felt that the house staff had been spectacularly vindictive.

  ‘So,’ he concluded with great satisfaction, ‘someone from the house has taken something from the village. Something which they either shouldn’t have had in the first place, or which was given to them on trust. This really is most satisfying.’

  The dog did agree with this as the lovely noise went on and on and it snuffled its acquiescence to further speculation.

  ‘Now, what sort of thing would these villagers have been given which would be of value.’ He paused for a moment’s further thought. ‘Clearly not a book,’ and he laughed heartily at his excellent joke and looked to the dog to see if it was joining in. It wasn’t. It had chewed a book once and been beaten for it which had put literature in the same category as fleas.

  ‘Again, we need to start from the anxiety. If there is some consequence to fall upon the villagers, it will be when they are reprimanded for losing whatever it is that is lost.’

  As reprimands were normally capital in nature, Hermitage could understand the concern shown by the villagers. Even the dog knew that reprimands were bad things, but then it wasn’t making a terribly active contribution to the debate.

  ‘The thing must be of value to the one doing the reprimanding. Who has the power to reprimand? The Lord or one of his senior people. And they would only reprimand if the thing was either their own, or entrusted to them from some higher authority still. Now we do get to the nub.’

  Hermitage looked to the dog again who opened his eyes and sat up, as he thought the human had said ‘bone.’

  ‘I know,’ Hermitage said, ‘exciting isn’t it?’

  Obviously no bone, and so the dog settled again.

  ‘We appear to have come full circle don’t we?’ Hermitage told the dog with some amusement. ‘Still, at least our return to this point now has a foundation. What would the villagers have received and kept that was of value? Gold, precious stones? Unlikely, I think. This is a poor place and the villagers would find no use or pleasure in such things. They don’t get the fields ploughed or the wood chopped and aren’t of themselves very entertaining. What other things are of value in the Lord’s house? Furnishing? Unlikely again, as I would have thought that the Lord would want to keep his furniture to sit
on himself, and it would be a bit bulky to be shifting up and down the hill.

  ‘Pictures? Ah, that’s a possibility, perhaps the Lord had leant the villagers a magnificent representation of the magi for their devotions and some recalcitrant from the hall has stolen it back just to put the villagers in a bad light? Come to think of it, unlikely to be a painting, they are rather fragile, and this place,’ Hermitage glanced down at the dog who was drooling steadily onto its own leg, ‘this place is not conducive to the continued care of a work of art. What else then? Come Hermitage think.’

  He lapsed into another dog-disturbing silence and the animal woke from its reasoning-induced slumber, It gave the man a demanding look. When there was no response, it looked under its leg to the ragged piece of cloth it carried with it everywhere. A cast off of a cast off, and a small and useless piece of linen that had been in so many disgusting places that the villagers certainly had no further use for it, the dog had taken it to its own. The children found it an invaluable device for teasing the dog into a rage, until the dog had made its sentiment for the token clear by biting one of them.

  Hermitage gazed with wonder and revelation.

  ‘You marvellous animal,’ he said and headed straight for the hovel of the man who had appeared to be some sort of leader.

  …

  ‘Whose tapestry was it?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ The leader was in complete shock, partly because no one had mentioned the tapestry to the monk and so he wondered how the hell he had found that out, and partly because he and Mrs Leader had been about to embark on an exploration of their own, and didn’t like to be interrupted.

  ‘The tapestry,’ said Hermitage, and he embarked on an exposition of the coherent and cogent case he had just concluded.

  The leader recognised an embarking enthusiast when he saw one, and knew that he had to cut him short, for the sake of Hermitage’s physical well-being and his own sanity.

  ‘Alright, alright, it was a tapestry.’ The leader confessed and then, before he could stop himself or realise what he had done he added, ‘how the hell did you work that out?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage and began again.

  ‘Never mind,’ the leader said with some force.

  ‘It’s your own fault,’ Mrs Leader stood up and left the hovel with what Hermitage could only think of was an air of anger and disdain. Perhaps she didn’t like monks?

  ‘As I see it,’ Hermitage continued, ‘you were entrusted with this tapestry and the rightful owner is going to come to get it back, and you haven’t got it.’

  The leader looked at the floor they way all people do when they have been found out. ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘And it is likely that someone from the Lord’s hall has taken it.’

  ‘Really?’ The leader was impressed.

  ‘Obviously it wasn’t anyone in the village, and it wasn’t me so that’s all that’s left.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ the leader was wide-eyed. Maybe learning wasn’t as futile as it was cut out to be.

  ‘And the reason that they have stolen it is to put you in a bad light with the Lord and so bring some punishment upon you.’

  ‘Erm,’ the leader didn’t seem so sure about this point, but the hesitation sailed over Hermitage’s head like the hull of a boat over a sunken corpse.

  ‘But,’ the leader really did have to know one or two things, ‘briefly if you would. How did you know it was a tapestry?’

  ‘Something of value, something you wouldn’t own yourself, something that the village would still enjoy seeing and something that could survive the rigours of village life. Had to be a tapestry.’

  ‘Of course.’ The leader didn’t see at all but didn’t want any more explanation. ‘So, what do you suggest?’

  ‘Suggest?’ This had Hermitage stumped.

  ‘Yes, what should we do about it?’

  ‘Oh,’ Hermitage exclaimed. He had considered that a thoughtful analysis of the situation would be sufficient. He didn’t think that any sort of concrete action would come out of it.

  ‘Yes,’ the leader repeated, ‘given that there was a tapestry here which isn’t here anymore, and that the owner is going to come back for it, what should we do?’

  ‘Erm,’

  ‘What’s the point of being all thoughtful and clever if you can’t actually do something to make things better?’

  Hermitage hadn’t thought about that before. Usually the being thoughtful and clever was enough on its own. Oh well, all good experience he supposed.

  ‘Well,’ he said, in that considering tone which dragged the word on far longer than necessary.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I suppose you could go and ask for it back?’

  Was the man an idiot, the leader wondered?

  ‘Are you an idiot?’ the leader asked. ‘If, as you say, the people at the hall took it, why would they give it back?’

  ‘Because they know, that you know they have it.’

  ‘Eh?’ The leader was lost. He knew it had to happen sooner or later.

  ‘They took it back to put you in trouble. If you know they have it, the trouble is dissipated?’

  ‘The trouble is worse,’ the leader explained, managing to follow the monk for a moment. ‘They’d only add gloating to the trouble.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage, this was a new field of thought for him. The practical had never really been his forte. When it involved the motivation of people, he was at a complete loss.

  ‘But,’ Hermitage offered, ‘if, for the sake of argument, the tapestry belongs to the Lord and it is the Pig Man who has taken it, you simply go to the Lord’s Seneschal and tell him. He will then get it back from the Pig Man.’

  This all seemed perfectly sensible to Hermitage, who thought that everyone behaved rationally and reasonably - which went a long way to explaining a lot of the things which had been done to Hermitage in his young life.

  ‘For the sake of argument,’ said the leader, trying his best to talk down to this man’s level, ‘let’s say the tapestry, oh I don’t know, was leant to the Lord by a travelling weaver as a sort of sample. The Seneschal then leant it to the village on the understanding that it be returned before the weaver came back. If say the Seneschal had then stolen it from the village before the weaver returned, he could blame the village, make them pay the weaver and then keep the tapestry for the Lord and it hadn’t cost him a penny?’

  Hermitage considered for a moment.

  ‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to be honest,’ the monk said, and the leader raised his hands to the sky. ‘In such a situation,’ Hermitage went on, ‘The Lord would have to be dishonest and that hardly seems likely does it?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said the leader in a very strange tone which Hermitage found a trifle offensive.

  ‘If that were the case,’ Hermitage was thinking again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There would be only one recourse.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Hermitage couldn’t believe what he was about to say.

  ‘Steal it back again before the weaver returns.’

  The leader grinned from ear to hole where the other ear used to be, ‘Brilliant,’ he said, ‘I knew it was sensible to talk to a monk, they always know stuff. We’ll wait ‘till it’s dark.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ said Hermitage quietly.

  …

  This was one of those situations where Hermitage, knowing full well all the events that had led up to it, still had not the faintest idea how he came to be here. It was that evening with the ladies in waiting and the mix up over the dresses all over again. Here he was, in the dead of night, creeping up to the door of the Lord’s house with some perfect stranger and the intent of robbery. He kept telling himself that it was perfectly reasonable and justifiable, but he was beginning to suspect he was a bit of a fibber.

  ‘Right,’ the leader said, ‘the guards here are completely useless. Mainly because no one ever visits and there’s very little worth guarding. Once eve
ryone’s gone to bed, they disappear.’

  ‘And you’re sure that the Seneschal gave you the tapestry?’

  ‘Of course. Then he stole it back. So if we steal it back from him again he can’t possibly say anything can he? It’s just like you said.’

  Although he felt that it was a reasonable interpretation of events, Hermitage didn’t like the idea of this being all his doing. He had been working, as usual, on a purely theoretical level. He never expected anyone to actually do anything he suggested, ever.

  ‘So where are they going to keep the thing?’ The leader asked Hermitage

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied.

  ‘Well think then, that’s what you do.’

  It was, and he did.

  ‘Presumably the Seneschal would want to keep it safe until such time as the weaver has been and gone. To display it would be far too brazen.’

  ‘You don’t know our Seneschal. None of us are usually let into the hall so it wouldn’t surprise me if he had the thing on the wall and only took it down when the weaver walked in. If he was allowed to walk in that is.’

  ‘Well perhaps we’d better just go in and look then?’ Hermitage really wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing, and a previously unknown streak of irritation surfaced.

  ‘Good idea,’ said the leader, as if it had all been Hermitage’s idea.

  With no one in sight, they entered the hall through the small door cut into the main entrance gates. That this wasn’t barred, confirmed to Hermitage that the place was so far away from routine civilization that even beaten tracks stopped long before they got here. At least that meant that when he left, which couldn’t be soon enough, there was very little likelihood that he would ever come back or have anything to with anyone who had even the most remote knowledge of the location. That suited him down to the ground as he certainly had no intention of talking about any of this to anyone.

  ‘Right,’ the leader whispered, ‘if it is in the Seneschal’s chambers its going to be difficult to get, but if your thinking is right, chances are it’s hanging in the main hall.’