Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

by Howard of Warwick

  ‘Whereabouts? Of course not,’ Le Pedvin scoffed, ‘have you got a map of Wales?’

  Well naturally Hermitage didn’t have a map of Wales. Who did? What a ridiculous suggestion.

  ‘So we just go to Wales, start at the bottom and work our way to the top looking for a single dead Norman.’ Hermitage tried to make it clear the whole idea was ridiculous.

  ‘Got it,’ said Le Pedvin, ‘shouldn’t be hard to find. You can take this,’ he held out the parchment map which was still grasped in his hand, ‘it’s been drawn up by Ranulph de Sauveloy. Ghastly man, but knowledgeable. It’s the best we have.’

  ‘Is this it?’ Hermitage asked with obvious disappointment.

  ‘Unless you’ve got something better?’ Le Pedvin enquired mockingly.

  Hermitage shrugged. No one knew of any events in Wales so how could they make a map? Hermitage had heard of some ludicrous new approach to map making where you looked at the ground around you and drew a picture of that. What use this would be to anyone he couldn’t imagine.

  He peered at some tiny scribble in one corner of an otherwise randomly drawn shape of Britain.

  ‘Here be dragons?’ he read in disappointment at the speculation and unimaginative superstition.

  ‘Yes,’ said Le Pedvin, ‘de Sauveloy wants you to spot one while you’re there and do a picture.’

  There seemed nothing more to say, Hermitage just looked blankly at the empty space on the parchment in front of him, thinking it was a fine summary of this situation, a void about to be filled by something horrible.

  There was a shuffling at the back of the tent which diverted their attention just as the silence was about to get embarrassing. A flap was thrown aside and two more soldiers entered the space. They examined the contents of the tent with some disdain and then grunted a signal back the way they had come. They held the tent flap open and stood back to make way for King William.

  Caput II

  Because the King Says So.

  ‘Aha,’ the voice of the King climbed right inside Hermitage’s habit and scared all the hairs on his body to attention.

  ‘My Investigator and his weaving friend,’ William observed as he strode into the tent like he owned it. Which he did, along with the country it was pitched on. He clasped a sheaf of documents in his left hand while his right held a leg of some animal or other, bits of which sprayed from the royal mouth as he spoke.

  On their previous encounter Hermitage had thought the man physically quite unassuming but nonetheless terrifying. Nothing much had changed. The King hadn’t grown in stature, he was wearing the simple garb of a solider, or at least someone who spent most of his time fighting people, and his head carried the bizarre Norman haircut. But there was still that look in his eyes. The look that asked you why you weren’t dead, and said if you wanted to be, he could help.

  Cwen stood at the back, not bowing. She was staring at the King, looking singularly unimpressed. She had frequently said what she would do to King William should she ever meet him. And here she was meeting him. Hermitage hoped to goodness she wasn’t going to try any of the things, even one of the more harmless ones, of which there weren’t many. If the King saw what appeared to be the eyes of a servant staring at him impudently, he would probably dismiss the servant, but keep their eyes.

  ‘So,’ said William, settling himself in Le Pedvin’s vacated chair and thumping the arm with the handful of parchment. ‘You’re off to Wales to find Martel then.’

  Hermitage tried to say yes, but his voice wouldn’t come out in the presence of the King. He nodded and bowed at the same time, which he hoped conveyed the right message.

  ‘Excellent. Doesn’t really matter if you can’t find him, or you find bits of him, just make sure you bring back the gold,’ William added nonchalantly.

  The silence in the room this time was very heavy and Hermitage didn’t know what to do with it. He had the urge to attack it with a lot of words, many of them pointless but all of them comforting, at least to Hermitage.

  Le Pedvin sighed, ‘I hadn’t actually mentioned that,’ he said pointedly to William.

  ‘Well that’s what we want,’ William replied, as if it was obvious, ‘no one cares about Martel, it’s the gold he sent word of. The gold this idiot was supposed to collect.’ He gestured at the body on the floor, which he had clearly noticed, but which he had ignored completely. They were probably laying around everywhere he went – or were after he’d left.

  ‘As far as this lot know,’ Le Pedvin went on, as if the others weren’t there, ‘they’re looking for Martel’s killers. Now that we’ve revealed the gold they might take it for themselves and never come back.’

  William stared at Hermitage, who tried to appear the sort of monk who wouldn’t dream of taking a king’s gold. He wouldn’t anyway, but he thought it important to look the part.

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ William said confidently, ‘no one in their right minds would take the King’s gold. Just imagine the awful things that would happen to them if they did.’

  Hermitage simply put all the sombre commitment one monk could get into a shake of the head.

  ‘There you are,’ William confirmed Hermitage’s acquiescence, ‘and the weaver and this impudent servant who keeps staring at me will do the same, won’t you.’ He barked these last words right in Cwen’s face as he dropped his meat and bounded from his chair in one wolf-like leap, burying the space between them.

  Cwen shrieked. William stared into her eyes with his look of impending death and eventually she swallowed and nodded her head.

  ‘Excellent,’ said William, instantly back in good cheer, returning to his chair.

  Hermitage thought it best to get back to the matter in hand, in case William took a shine to killing someone, just for the practice. His voice came out as if carried into the room by a troop of particularly timid mice, ‘Martel sent word of gold then your majesty?’

  ‘He did,’ William confirmed, ‘mountains of it apparently. People wandering around draped in the stuff. So, Martel, being seven different sorts of an idiot, we sent a messenger to get it.’

  ‘This poor fellow here,’ Hermitage observed, noting the dead body and wishing William would at least acknowledge it.

  ‘Him?’ The King gave the corpse a sideways glance, ‘no, don’t think so.’ He turned to Le Pedvin, ‘This isn’t the first one is it?’

  Le Pedvin gave his sigh another outing. ‘No, it isn’t. But they didn’t know that either.’

  Hermitage was horrified, ‘How many have there been?’

  ‘Two,’ said King William.

  ‘Three,’ said Le Pedvin. William frowned at him. ‘If you count Hector de Boise.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ William was happy with the correction. ‘But he wasn’t a messenger. He was a knight.’

  ‘A knight?’ Hermitage was getting beside himself again. He looked to Wat and Cwen, either for support or for an escape route. He was gratified to see that they both looked very worried.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said the King, as if Hermitage was daring to question Hector de Boise’s knighthood, ‘bloody good knight as well. Excellent back hand.’

  ‘And he’s dead?’ If messengers and knights were meeting their ends on this task, what chance did a monk and two weavers have?

  ‘I think he must be,’ King William mused. ‘This messenger brought some of de Boise’s bits back with him. Pretty vital bits by the look of them.’ He cast a disinterested nod at the corpse of the messenger.

  Hermitage’s brain and body were not capable of functioning under this sort of onslaught so they stopped. His mouth dropped open and he stood frozen in fear and anticipation – and anticipation of fear.

  ‘Just bring as much gold as you can carry and then we’ll go and get the rest. After I’ve harried the north.’

  The only burning question in Hermitage’s mind was the one about not doing this at all please? Surely the failure of two messengers and a knight was reason to send an army. Or not to go at all? If he po
inted out that they were being sent to a certain death, William would probably think that was a very good reason to get on with it.

  ‘Did Martel give any indication of where the gold was majesty?’ Wat asked.

  Hermitage saw this was a very good question, it might avoid the dangerous tramping about all over Wales, asking about gold.

  ‘Of course,’ William had gone back to his parchments and looked up in apparent surprise that they were still there, ‘the druids have got it.’

  ‘The druids.’ Hermitage said the words slowly, so they wouldn’t frighten him all at once. ‘Hence the curse that killed the messenger,’ he nodded to himself, keeping remarkably calm, he thought. They were being sent into Wales to steal druid gold. Cursed druid gold. The first thing Hermitage was going to look for when they got out of this tent, was the nearest privy.

  ‘That’s them,’ William seemed unconcerned, ‘apparently they’ve got piles of the stuff. Every one of them wears a big lump round their neck, and the old ones have swathes of the stuff dangling from them.’ William’s eyes narrowed slightly as some thought skulked around his head, ‘easy enough to chop the head off an old druid, I’d have thought,’ he concluded.

  ‘Unless you’re a messenger of course,’ said Wat, with real feeling, ‘or Martel, or a knight,’ he added, ‘a fully armed, bloody good knight, with an excellent back hand.’

  William found this comment unhelpful and threw his attention back on Hermitage and Wat, ‘Just get some gold and bring it back,’ he barked, ‘I expect Martel was killed by a druid after he’d revealed their gold so you can find out which one and bring him back as well.’

  ‘Just get some gold off the druids and bring it back,’ Hermitage repeated in a daze, ‘along with a killer druid.’

  ‘What is the matter with you people?’ William’s patience was expiring, ‘it’s a simple enough instruction, now get on with it.’ He waved a hand to dismiss them from his presence, and beckoned Le Pedvin to join him in examining one of his documents.

  Hermitage’s mouth opened, ready to release a wide ranging exploration of the issues facing them, but his eyes saw the look on the King’s face and he closed it again.

  With silent agreement, and a new found understanding of just how closely death was treading their footsteps, they turned to leave the tent.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Le Pedvin asked, without looking up.

  ‘Er, Wales?’ Hermitage suggested. Honestly, you couldn’t do right for doing wrong.

  ‘That’s right,’ Le Pedvin confirmed, ‘but we’re about to leave for London so we’ll take you with us. Make sure you get off on the right foot.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Hermitage, ‘That is good. Save us a lot of time. Thank you very much.’ His enthusiasm sounded like the last squeak of a blackbird in a pie shop.

  Caput III

  What’s The Time?

  ‘Oh, go on, go on.’ The children were tugging at Wulf’s white robe, which was not really showing the right respect for his position. He was still only an acolyte, but really. They wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the Arch-Druid’s robe, let alone tugged it. Once he’d learned how to curse their souls to be devoured by the Gods, they’d leave him alone.

  It was a warm summer’s evening and the last light of the departing sun threw its final beams over the Welsh hills to illuminate an immemorial scene. As the light died, the Gods were once more starting to place the stars in the sky, which was always a bit of a relief, and the shapes in the valley shrank to the insubstantial presence of darkness.

  That night’s ceremony at the great stone circle had come to an end, the Arch-Druid, with Wulf in attendance, having invoked the Gods to deliver the crops. Now the villagers could relax and the children wanted Wulf to do his magic. Some of them called it a trick but the Arch-Druid pressed the idea into their heads that it was magic; mainly by nearly pulling their ears off to make it clear.

  Wulf raised his eyes in question to the Arch-Druid who responded with that look of disappointed acquiescence he always had to hand. The old man’s robe was the whitest, his hair wildest, and the gold dripping around his neck glinted in last light of the sun and the first of the moon. He was the personification of authority. With a curt nod, he indicated Wulf could go ahead.

  The children clapped their pleasure and even the adults gathered to watch. Gathered outside the circle of course.

  Wulf drew breath and strode his standard paces across the grass until he was at the centre of the circle. Marked by a simple slab of granite buried in the ground, this point was equidistant from all the stones of the circle. Exactly equidistant. It was more than just the middle, it was the centre, the centre of everything the circle represented. And it was just what Wulf needed. He turned north, south, west and east in turn, gazed to the sky and held his arms out, indicating that he was ready.

  The crowd breathed out, breathed in and spoke the great question. The question he would have to answer with nothing but the stones and the stars.

  The question shuffled from mouths and ran around the enclosing woods, burning itself into the stones and into his ears.

  ‘What’s the time mister Wulf?’

  Wulf knew he could do this better than all the other druids but didn’t know why and couldn’t explain it. He suspected even the Arch-Druid couldn’t match him.

  Where other acolytes had to examine each star in the sky in relation to its neighbours, and then compare them to the position of the stones, the whole thing leapt into Wulf’s head ready-made. He didn’t have to work anything out, he simply read the circle. He couldn’t understand why everyone couldn’t do it, and used to say so quite often. Which did nothing for his popularity.

  He took breath and made a point of looking towards the correct star.

  ‘By the reckoning of the Christians,’ be began, ‘it is the year ten thousand and sixty eight.’

  No reaction from the crowd; children could do this.

  ‘The month,’ he went on, turning slightly, ‘is Augustinus.’

  This brought some unimpressed murmurs.

  ‘The twenty third.’ Wulf stated with confidence.

  The murmuring became acknowledgements of a job being done satisfactorily.

  ‘The hour is ten and one quarter,’ he slowed, ‘precisely.’ He emphasised the moment with a snap of his fingers.

  Relief spread around the circle at the completion of the task and the senior men nodded their told-you-so’s at one another. The children clapped until clapped into silence by elders and betters. Wulf had done it again.

  But there was something new in his vision. He held up a hand to stop the noise. Something in the mithral stone spoke directly to him. ‘Tomorrow will be fine,’ he said. Well anyone could see that from the clear sky. ‘But rain will spread from the west by early afternoon.’

  Again, not much that an educated guess in this part of the country wouldn’t have hit on the head. Rain usually spread from somewhere most days.

  ‘Next week will start rainy but will clear by Wodensday and the rest of the month will be fine.’

  There was muttering now.

  ‘The wheat in the lower field will be ready for harvest in three days. The sheep must be brought down from the high pasture on the third of October. Old mother Carlac’s winter fever will return on November the ninth.’

  There was so much to tell; his head was filling up faster than his mouth could empty it. He was ready to go on at some length when strong arms took him from his place and pulled him back.

  As he moved from the centre of the circle the details disappeared. He glanced up at the sky and could still see the time to an unbelievable accuracy, but the knowledge that had seemed so obvious, was gone.

  He struggled against the hands that held him and eventually turned to see the Arch-Druid. The man clearly wasn’t going to let go. In fact his attention was as much on the crowd as it was on Wulf. The muttering of those around the circle had become quite pronounced.

  ‘Wulf Barelock has done well,’
the Arch-Druid announced in loud clear tones to the assembly. ‘The ways of the seer may even be open to him but only I, your Arch-Druid and Invoker can judge. I must take him from here and examine him.’

  The muttering of the crowd died down a bit. There was no longer that underlying grumble which told Wulf he had been showing off again.

  The Arch-Druid gazed into the sky. ‘The God’s tell me that mead must be drunk,’ he announced.

  Well, that took everyone’s mind off anything but the mead. Now the adults were clapping and the children were scowling, knowing perfectly well how this was going to end up.

  ‘We’ll talk in the temple,’ the Arch-Druid hissed in Wulf’s ear.

  If Wulf had been puzzled about what was going on, he was now ready to leak into his robe. The Arch-Druid wanted to talk to him in the temple. Everyone knew what that meant. Why not simply say “let’s get the sacrificing knife and see what the inside of your stomach looks like.”

  …

  Another pair of eyes frowned down on the scene from a hiding place among the trees on the side of the hill. These eyes had witnessed many things since they had started watching the village and its druids from a safe distance. A lot of the things seemed strange and pointless but a few were intriguing, and one or two were positively alarming.

  This was an entirely new and unexpected development and the chin below the eyes was stroked in a thoughtful manner. This would need further observation. All information was useful, and anything which indicated a weakness of some sort, doubly so. The Arch-Druid down there seemed particularly put out. And that was just what the observer hoped for.

  The eyes turned to the top of the hill and the figure scrambled up away above the tree line, to the cave among the jumble of rocks, which was home now. No one came up here, not any more.

  …

  The square face of the outer temple wall emerged through the dark wood as if it was coming to meet them. Sacred oaks stood sentinel on either side of the entrance, their limbs raised in supplication to the stars. The close timbers of the outer wall glowered down at Wulf.