My Lord, the Hermit

by Veronica Heley

  She sighed, and slid her arms forward across the bench at which she had been kneeling, bending her head.

  Joyeuse touched her on the shoulder, whispering that she must go, because she had promised to visit her aunt in the convent. Joanna nodded, but did not move. She heard the door close behind her, and then she was alone, except for the sanctuary light, and the dimly seen figure of a man kneeling in prayer at the back of the chapel. She thought it was probably Midge. She was too tired to pray in the conventional manner. She thought she was probably very sinful, that she could not pray as the priests taught. She would rest here awhile, and then go to ask the Countess about the water situation in the convent. …

  She woke. She had slipped off the bench, and the movement had woken her. The priest was standing nearby, and his eyes were on the Rood. She could feel the exultation he was experiencing, even before she caught the murmur of words. Gloria in Excelsis Deo. …

  ‘And in earth,’ said Joanna, ‘there is very little peace or goodwill at present. Why did you hate him so?’

  ‘You don’t know what you are saying.’

  ‘I know very well what I am saying. I say you hated him, and left him to die. You committed murder, even as you say that he did.’

  ‘You doubt my word?’ And he smiled, as to an ignorant child. ‘Well, it is all over now. Perhaps by the manner of his death, he redeemed the evil he did in life.’

  ‘A riddle for you. How can an evil man work good, and a good man do evil things?’

  The priest raised his arm as if to strike her, but she did not flinch. He laughed, lightly, as if her words had not cut him at all. ‘My child, the devil works in subtle ways to undermine the authority of God’s Chosen. You would do well to tear such foolishness from your mind, and turn your attention to the correction of your own faults. It is not fitting for a maid to behave as you have been behaving. Some might even call it wanton.’

  ‘So. Let us have it out. I am a wanton, and you a murderer. I shall not forget.’

  His smile was a rictus of pain. ‘I spoke in haste. A failing of mine, for which I will do penance. Come, let us forgive each other and look to the future. The hermit is dead, and can no longer provide a source of contention between us.’ Again he smiled, but this time in triumph, as at a consummation long prayed for.

  ‘They say the evil men do lives after them Yet I think the good a man like Amory did will live a little longer.’

  ‘Amory? Why do you call him by that name?’

  ‘Because it was his.’

  ‘Did he tell you so? He broke his oath again?’

  ‘He did not speak,’ she said, pulling herself to her feet with an effort. ‘I do not think you understood him very well. He would not have broken his oath for any selfish purpose, ever.’

  His hand shot out, and encompassed her forearm. ‘Come. It is some time since I last heard your confession. Tell me everything that happened.’

  ‘That seems pointless,’ said she, removing her arm from his grasp, ‘since you say the matter is finished.’ And she went out into the clean air of the castle, away from the oppression of the priest’s presence.

  Amory was dreaming again. He ran up the stairs, taking off his swordbelt, opened the door, and fell forward. This time he knew what had happened.

  ‘Someone hit me on the back of the head,’ he said.

  ‘And a woundy smack it was,’ said a man, above and behind him. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

  Amory opened his eyes, but what he saw meant nothing to him. Shifting shapes, shifting shadows … pain. …

  ‘Who was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Sir Bevil.’

  Amory shut his eyes again, trying to clear his sight. ‘No, not Sir Bevil. Before.’

  ‘I saw him do it. You were kneeling in prayer, laughing; then he hit you.’

  Amory opened his eyes again. The shifting shapes and shadows resolved into the underneath of the wooden altar. Someone held up a cup to his mouth, and he drank. It was water from his own spring, which had a distinctive metallic taste to it. He sat up, gingerly pulling himself out from under the altar. He was in the shell of the church, and it was night. A rush-light glimmered on the floor nearby. A large man in chain mail crouched beside him, with a file between his fingers. He was filing through the chain that connected to the cuff round Amory’s right ankle. The left was already hanging loose.

  ‘Nay,’ stammered Amory. ‘It is not right. …’

  ‘It is done.’ The man snapped the link, and stood up with the chain in his hands. Amory stared at his ankles. The cuffs were still there, but they felt light now. He was released, no longer a prisoner. Joanna … the castle … attack … it was night. His head ached. He tried to stand, and at once the man pressed him back to earth.

  ‘Softly. The others must not hear. It is not likely they will, but one might look this way from the watch-tower, and see you. Are you hungry?’

  Suddenly, Amory was. He nodded. The man took bread from his wallet and gave it to him. There was a smile on his hard face. He seemed to be taking satisfaction from the fact that Amory could eat and drink.

  ‘I’ll hang this chain above your grave,’ he told Amory. ‘You must die this night, and be buried ere dawn, with the chain to hang above the grave to show where your body lies. Can you walk, if I help you? You must be far away in the forest by dawn. There be foresters and the like there, who hate us, and will help you. Twice have I been shot at by arrows sent from unseen hands as we came hither. One of our men was slain on our first journey here by just such an arrow, and another has gone missing today. The watch-tower guards the Travellers’ Way, but if I take you down through the trees to the stream below, could you find your way from there?’

  ‘No, I must stay.’ He pressed his hand to his forehead, and then felt the back of his head. ‘The priest said … but that is nothing to the point … my vow bids me build the church. …’

  ‘How can you build a church when it is occupied by your enemies? Besides, if you stay, we must bind you and deliver you to Sir Bevil to be crucified, and that will not aid the building of the church, will it?’

  ‘I do not know. Perhaps my death is required. …’

  ‘Then you would have died. Set your mind at rest. God has need of you alive. You must carry word of Sir Bevil’s plans to the castle. He will not attempt to carry the castle before his ally arrives, but the nunnery and the new church in the valley lie unguarded, and Sir Bevil means to attack them.’

  ‘Why? Unfinished buildings provide poor spoil.’

  ‘To underline the point that the Count would be well advised to pay us a large ransom to leave him alone.’

  ‘You are putting yourself in danger by helping me. Why should you risk so much?’

  The man smiled. ‘I have not led a good life; far from it. I was sickening of it, even before we came here. I had heard of you. I saw you fight Sir Bevil a while ago. I was reluctant to return here with him, knowing what he intended to do to you. It seemed a shameful thing that you should be put to death like a dog, for doing what was no more than your duty. I said to myself, standing here in this church, that I would not kill you, were I in Sir Bevil’s place. And God took me at my word, and gave me a chance to redeem myself. The shortest of the lots fell to me, to test my newly-formed resolve. If I keep you here till the morning, you will be at the mercy of my comrades, some of whom, I doubt not, would like to help you, but dare not for fear of Sir Bevil. And so you must flee, and I must fill in your grave and hang the chain above it.’

  Amory touched the painful lump at the back of his head once more, and winced. He remembered other, gentle hands touching his shoulder, his hair … Joanna. … The thought of her strengthened him; and yet his legs wavered when he stood upright.

  The man watched with a frown. ‘I’ll get you a staff to lean on, for I can only take you a little way.’

  The oak tree. The words came into Amory’s mind, and his brows contracted, in an effort to remember why they were significant. His head ached
.

  The soldier left the church, only to return in a few minutes with a stout staff in his hand, and a crust of bread. It was the best he could do, he said. There was no more food to be had, unless he were to risk waking his companions. There were tapers alight in the church. The soldier dowsed these, and the sudden blackness caused panic to rise in Amory, threatening to choke him. Yet again he felt the quietening hand on his shoulder, and breathing deeply, managed to subdue his fear. It was very dark, and he hated such nights without the comforting presence of the collie by his side.

  The soldier helped Amory walk, with one arm pulled over his shoulders. They plunged straight down the hill into the trees. The soldier paused, listening. No one had seen them. Their eyes adjusted to the dark, they went on more slowly, for it was hard to determine where to put one’s foot. It was a strange feeling for Amory to be able to lengthen his stride without being brought up short by the jerk of the chain.

  A voice hailed them from the ridge above. ‘Halloa there! What are you doing?’

  ‘Noddy!’ shouted back the soldier, removing his arm from Amory. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I saw the light go out in the church. Is the hermit dead, then?’

  ‘Surely his grave will be filled in by morning. Now will you leave me in peace for a while?’

  ‘I would not tarry there. Remember what happened to our fellows!’ Yet the watchman laughed and retreated.

  The soldier gripped Amory by the arm, and whispered, ‘Can you manage now? I must return.’

  Amory nodded. ‘My thanks.’

  ‘Pray for me, rather. And if we should chance to meet in battle?’

  Amory pressed his hand. ‘Friend.’

  ‘Aye. That’s it. Friend.’ The man left him, moving back up the slope, blundered into a tree, and cursed, making as much disturbance as he could to cover the slight noises Amory made in moving away downhill. As he went further away from the ridge an owl swept in low above his head, and small animals squeaked in the undergrowth. He was guided down by the feel of the slope under his feet, and by the distant sound of the rill which hereabouts ran from east to west, from its birthplace in his dell.

  Ah, the water was chill round his feet. He waded into it, moving slowly so that he might not splash, and attract the attention of the watch. Taking to the water would destroy all traces of his scent, should anything go wrong, and they send dogs after him.

  By peering up between the trees he could tell that he was almost directly under the watch-tower. Soon he would come across the path which ran down the hill hereabouts, going south into the forest and Sir Bevil’s land, There. It lay directly before him, bare and clear of trees above. He hesitated, and then plunged across into the darkness on the other side. The stream trickled over the path, and then continued, joined now by a tiny rivulet here and another there, swelling in volume until he was wading calf-deep in a pool. He was about half a mile now from the church, and the night noises around him were soothing. He was fatigued. He made his way to the side of the pool and sat down.

  Joanna … Father Hilarion … the boy Amory … being hit on the back of the head by someone … and if so, then there must have been someone else in the room, to have wielded a club or some sort of weapon … not a woman’s blow, so high up … a man in her bedroom? It did not make sense, because if so, then surely there would have been some word spoken about it afterwards … or would there? It was her house, her manor, her servants. Had she been unfaithful to him? How very strange that he should be able to feel nothing but curiosity about it.

  How strange also, that the knowledge that he had been hit on the head should have been kept from him until now, so that all these years he had thought he had been alone in that room with her, and that therefore there was no one else who could have killed her. Except of course, that he did not think he had intended to murder Mariana, even in his worst moments, because the wound would not have killed her, if it had not been for the coming of the child.

  No, pregnant like that, she could not have had a lover with her. The very idea was absurd. Who could make love to a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy? He laughed at the very thought, and then came another thought, of Joanna bearing a child by him … and at that he shivered. His head ached. He stripped off his tunic and knelt in the pond to bathe. Plunging into icy cold water relieved the pain and reduced his longing for her.

  He lifted his head and sniffed. An animal smell, a smell of roasted meats, and unwashed human bodies. He froze. About him the forest lay stilled, but it was the silence of watchful things, and not the normal scratch and rustle of the woods at night-time.

  He was being watched, and the watchers were human.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘MASTER, is that you?’

  Amory scrambled out of the water. ‘Rob?’

  The archer stepped from behind a tree, followed by two more shadowy figures.

  ‘I might have guessed it were you, for who else would be fool enough to wallow in water and laugh with the enemy all around him?’

  ‘Who else?’ said Amory, laughing again, yet softly. The moon was rising. Suddenly the world was a happier place. Amory pulled on his tunic.

  ‘We’ve been keeping watch on them up above,’ said Rob. ‘Come this way. We found a gully whereby we could hear most everything that went on up above. We was going to fall on them, see, at night, and kill them … oh, this is Col; you remember him? … and this other feller is one of my new pals, that used to have a nice little cot in the forest, charcoal-burner by trade, but that can wait, for there’s sixteen of us now, all gathered nearby.’

  ‘You knew I was not dead, then?’

  ‘Aye. We waited to get you out before we attacked. If you had died, we would not have waited. Are you so very tired? Lean on me.’

  And so Amory was half carried and half dragged through the forest to the remains of a burned-out cot in a clearing. This was the headquarters of the small band of men who had dared take up arms against Sir Bevil. The cot had been roughly repaired with rushes, and a large iron pot hung on a trivet over an open fire outside the door. Hides had been spread on rushes inside the shelter for bedding, and there was an extraordinary assortment of household utensils and garments scattered about the place.

  A small figure sat hunched over the fire while the others slept. This watcher stood up when Amory and his companions arrived, and he saw that it was not a man, but a young girl with cropped hair and fierce eyes. She reminded him of Joanna, although this girl had evidently been through much, whereas Joanna’s life had been easy as yet. The girl ran to him and kneeling, kissed his hand. Amory exclaimed that it was she and her friends who had rescued him, not the other way round. Now he knew her, though it was many years since she had been brought to him with a broken arm, the bone sticking out through the flesh. She had been only a little girl then, but she had not cried when he had handled her, and in those days he had not always been able to take other people’s pain into himself. Joanna had the same fine courage.

  ‘Why, it is good to see you. And your brother, who played the pipes so well?’ It had been her brother, a shepherd, who had brought her, and stayed with her at Amory’s tent for nearly a month while the girl’s arm healed. She indicated by a movement of her head that her brother lay within the cot. Her eyes gleamed in the dark.

  She said, ‘I told them they ought to take one of the horses, to bring you back. Come by the fire, and eat before you sleep. It will be time enough to talk in the morning.’

  Rob jerked his head to the cot. ‘Is himself back?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the girl, and her smile vanished.

  Amory was too tired to have any curiosity. He accepted the girl’s ministrations, rolled himself in a cloak which Rob found for him, and slept.

  He woke in the dawn to find the ache in his head had subsided to a dull reminder of what it had been, and with a great hunger and thirst upon him. Only a couple of the dark forms that surrounded him were stirring, and there was a smell of unwashed bodies and st
ale beer that drove Amory out to seek fresh water and solitude. There was a rivulet which wandered through the glade in which the cot lay, and though this had been strewn with refuse near the dwelling, yet above the glade it ran clear. His tunic and loin-cloth were torn and muddied, and he had a two days’ growth of beard. His knife and wallet yet remained to him, so he set himself to shaving, while trying to make up his mind what he should do.

  He was free of the task which had been laid on him, and free of the fetters that had bound his feet … or was he? Was this anything but an interregnum, and ought he not to return to the hill-top when the soldiery had gone, to complete his task? Nay, why should he? Had he not laboured for nine long years, in expiation of a crime which he was not at all sure, now, that he had committed? And if the penance imposed on him had been unjust, then was he under any obligation to complete the church? He thought not. Besides, everyone believed he was dead, and so long as he kept clear of Father Hilarion, he was quite safe. He could go east, as Herkom had said, and take service in the King’s army, and make a life for himself elsewhere. The oak tree. The hollow oak. There were arms and a suit of clothes in it for him, if he remembered right. Joanna had offered him money … how like her … ah, but if he ran away, he would never see her again. …

  But would that not be best? He had nothing to offer her, but the life of a common soldier. Her guardian would never agree to his wedding Joanna, even if … he was not thinking clearly. He could not approach Joanna again, unless he were prepared to return to his life of slavery. And that he was not prepared to do. No.

  So it must be flight. He wondered what had happened recently in the world in general. Father Hilarion had never thought to give him any news, but Father Ambrose had told him this and that, as the whim took him. The King had been capricious and cruel, but he had signed some Charter or other … and the King was dead, but his nine-year-old son ruled in his stead.

  The child Amory was nine also. Amory the hermit would have liked to see his son before he died. There was no other living child to bear his name and likeness. Mariana had born him a little girl within a year of their marriage, but the child had died in the third month of her life. It was lucky that Mariana had been able to conceive again before he had gone abroad. How absurd of him to have thought she might have had a lover with her in the bedroom on the day of his return. Mariana bore big children, and needed a lot of rest before they arrived. He must have fallen backwards and bumped his head against the door … except that he distinctly remembered being hit on the back of the head and falling forward. …