Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

by Howard of Warwick

‘More help,’ Hermitage managed to say, ‘how lovely.’

  Le Pedvin stood in his saddle and scanned the surrounding men. Finding what he wanted, he beckoned someone to join them.

  Without any apparent movement of the throng of men around them a new figure appeared at their side.

  ‘This is, erm,’ Le Pedvin paused, as if trying to remember the new man’s name – or make one up, ‘John.’

  A quick glance was sufficient to get the measure of this fellow. His age was probably the prime of life, but he was built to make starving cats feel better about themselves. And he had a look in his eye that said he would do things a starving cat would be ashamed of. He was only slightly larger than Cwen but his wiry frame could be built of solid metal. The face was long and drawn, cheekbones prominent and dark eyes brimming with secrets you really didn’t want to know.

  He gave Hermitage the shivers and the monk quickly knew why. The man reminded him of Le Pedvin.

  ‘John will make sure things go well. Look after you, that sort of thing.’

  Hermitage suspected that Le Pedvin’s idea of looking after someone would not be a happy experience.

  Le Pedvin now beckoned Hermitage and Wat close, and whispered so John could not hear. ‘The King may trust you not to run off with his gold but I don’t trust you to walk upright. John here thinks you’re looking for Martel and doesn’t know anything else. I suggest you don’t tell him.’

  Hermitage nodded his head and shook it at the same time.

  ‘He really is the sort of man who would run off with a King’s gold if he knew about it. Probably making sure anyone else who knew wouldn’t speak of it. Most likely because he’d cut out their tongues.’

  ‘And he’s here to help?’ Wat queried with a desperate laugh.

  ‘He’s here to help me.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Wat, striding off in disgust, ‘thanks very much.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Le Pedvin announced, ‘you know what you’ve got to do, now get on with it.’ He wheeled his horse around and headed off to the middle of the camp without a backwards glance.

  Hermitage and Cwen exchanged shrugs and set off after Wat. At least John had the decency to follow them at a distance.

  When the weaver’s grumbling died to a silent sulk, Hermitage risked a question.

  ‘So, er, where do we go now? It’ll be dark before long, I expect we’ll need somewhere to camp?’

  ‘I do know of an inn near London Bridge,’ said Wat, rather hesitantly, as if it might not be good enough.

  ‘Ah yes? ‘What’s it called?’ Hermitage asked, equally cautiously, suspecting the place might be full of Wat’s tapestries.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know?’

  ‘Tends to change its name each time the King’s tax man comes round. You know. Come to tax the Inn of the Horse. Oh, no such Inn of that name round here sir, this is the Inn of the Walking Man, has been for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Friends of yours then,’ said Cwen.

  ‘I am known to the Inn keeper,’ Wat confirmed.

  ‘I think perhaps we had better make haste?’ Hermitage suggested.

  ‘Eh?’

  He directed their attention back down the track where a cloud of dust indicated that some Normans were on the move again. Saxons found out after dark were generally frowned upon, usually because they made a mess on the conquerors’ horses when they were trampled to death.

  …

  The inn had no name at all when the small band arrived, having run the last stretch to make it. Even John seemed anxious not be out in the open after dark.

  The Inn Keeper explained he was waiting to see what sorts of names the Normans liked for their Inns before re-naming his. Wat suggested The Abject Surrender would go down nicely, Cwen came up with The Norman Bastard, while Hermitage’s best advice was to close the place completely and go on pilgrimage.

  Thanking them for their comprehensively useless ideas, the Inn Keeper directed them to a corner table, where he brought them food and drink.

  A large jug of beer and leathern mugs, a loaf of bread and a pot of steaming stew occupied most of the table and the four of them tucked in. John ate as if it was a distasteful necessity.

  Hermitage had the opportunity to consider the man at close hand as he leaned over his food, and he had an overwhelming urge to send him on his way. He had been told about people who generated instant dislike; those who carried with them some indefinable aura of being annoying, and scattered it liberally. They didn’t have to say much, or anything at all. They didn’t have to do anything. They just stood there and within a few moments people wished they would go away.

  Many of the people Hermitage encountered; brothers, priors, abbots, bishops, nobles, peasants, beggars and the like had suggested that he had a fair portion of this aura himself. He could never get them to put their finger on exactly what it was that he did, or said, which annoyed them so. He had been told he didn’t need to say or do anything, he just had to be.

  He pointed out that being was hardly something he had any control over, and they said that was a perfect example of what they were talking about, which did nothing to help Hermitage.

  The second jug of beer disposed of, and the sun well doused in the cold bath of night, there was unspoken agreement that it was time for sleep.

  The Inn Keeper led them to a simple chamber at the back of the building, a ground floor room of rough earth with a single cot low in one corner.

  ‘Be just us tonight,’ said Wat, sliding a coin to the Inn Keeper and winking to make the message clear. John would have to sleep outside. Le Pedvin’s man didn’t baulk at this, in fact he gave Hermitage the distinct impression he would be sitting up all night staring at the door.

  …

  Settling down for a night’s sleep. Hermitage’s head was well provisioned with another night’s load of disappointment and worry.

  Sniffs and snuffles, sighs and wriggles settled into a collection of gentle breaths as the three of them drifted off to sleep.

  At some indeterminate point Hermitage surfaced from the world of sleep, the reality of the real one making him thankful once more that it had all been a dream.

  It was still dark and so he tried to settle his mind back towards sleep. Then he heard what had woken him.

  There was a shuffle outside the room. Not by the door, across which Wat’s sleeping form moaned and complained in its sleep, but behind the wall beyond Cwen. The single window in the place was a small opening high in the wall opposite the door, and it was in no way big enough for anyone to get through.

  ‘Ahh,’ Hermitage cried out, leaping to his feet and backing away from the window, straight onto Wat, who had started to wake at the cry.

  ‘Ahh,’ said Wat as Hermitage trod on him.

  ‘Ahh,’ said Cwen, waking quickly and clearly convinced she was under attack.

  ‘What is it?’ Wat, half asleep, half angry at being woken. He got to his feet.

  ‘The window,’ was all Hermitage could say.

  ‘What about it?’ Cwen asked, sounding entirely angry that she’d been dragged from some very satisfactory dream.

  ‘Something came through it.’

  ‘Something came through the window?’ said Wat, apparently not really bothered about things coming through the window.

  The room was as black as the back room of an Inn in the middle of the night, and so all they could do was keep still and see if anything moved.

  Nothing did. If anything had come through the window it had stayed where it was. There was no sound of shuffling from the other side of the wall and no snuffling animal wandered the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ Hermitage hissed, hoping not to be heard by whatever it was.

  ‘How should I know?’ Wat hissed back.

  ‘Perhaps it’s a snake?’ Hermitage suggested.

  ‘A snake?’ Cwen almost laughed, ‘why on earth would a snake be climbing through our window?’

  ‘Some
one pushed it through.’

  ‘Someone pushed a snake through the window?’ Cwen snorted, ‘how much beer did you drink Hermitage?’

  ‘I heard a noise outside,’ Hermitage explained patiently, ‘the other side of the wall. Someone was out there. Then it moved to the window and something was dropped through.’

  ‘But why a snake?’

  ‘Someone wants to do us harm.’

  ‘By dropping a snake through the window?’ said Wat, as impressed with the idea as Cwen. ‘This isn’t some story Hermitage. Nobody drops snakes through windows in real life. If it was a snake it could hardly jump around the room and bite us all. If it was a viper, who’s to say it would bite anyone anyway, they’re timid things, run away at the first sign of trouble.

  ‘Well,’ Wat corrected himself, ‘sort of slither away I suppose. And who in their right minds goes round picking up vipers and dropping them through windows? One thing guaranteed to annoy a viper I’d have thought, being picked up and dropped through a window. So unless you heard a pronounced “oh bloody hell I’ve just been bitten by a viper” coming from outside, I’d suggest it wasn’t a snake.’

  ‘Alright, alright’ said Hermitage, feeling rather annoyed that his concern for their safety was being dismissed so comprehensively, ‘so what was it then?’

  Wat moved and edged forward in the darkness, the sound of his feet scuffing across the floor. He covered the ground, clearly sweeping his foot left and right to see if there was anything there at all.

  ‘Oh,’ he cried out.

  ‘What?’ Hermitage asked, thinking Wat would feel a bit silly if he’d just been bitten by a snake, it being a mark of Hermitage’s innocence that it never even occurred to him to say “I told you so”.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Wat, ‘just a bit of a surprise. There is something here.’ He could be heard bending down and scrabbling to pick something up. ‘It’s some sort of plant.’

  ‘A plant?’ said Hermitage, puzzled but pleased that something had been found. And that it wasn’t a snake. ‘Who’d drop a plant through a window?’

  ‘A farmer?’ Wat suggested.

  ‘What’s a farmer doing running round in the night popping plants through people’s windows?’ Cwen did not appear to be taking this seriously.

  ‘Maybe he’d run out of snakes?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s poisonous,’ Hermitage suggested, trying to get the two of them to address the situation.

  ‘Have to be pretty bloody poisonous to kill people just by being in the same room.’

  ‘Maybe it’s poison Ivy,’ Cwen suggested with a snort, ‘that can climb.’

  ‘Very helpful,’ said Wat, ‘I can’t see what it is. Hermitage, you know stuff, can you tell?’

  Hermitage was grateful he was thought of as knowledgeable, but identifying plants in the dark was not something he was prepared for.

  He nearly jumped out of his habit when there was a scuffle outside and the door was thrown open. John stood on the threshold, candle in his left hand and sword in his right.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, as if accusing those in the room of disturbing his night.

  ‘That’s what we’d like to know,’ said Wat, throwing the accusation back.

  ‘I heard you lot shouting about, come to see what’s going on,’ John explained, ’sounded like you were being attacked.’

  ‘We’re having plants thrown at us. Found this on the floor,’ said Wat, holding up the plant so it could be seen in the candle light.

  They all looked and could identify it easily.

  ‘Mistletoe,’ Hermitage whimpered, fear at the plant of the druids descending on him like a cat falling out of a tree. Drawing upon all of his Christian learning and his studied rejection of pagan philosophies – a rejection born itself from a deeper understanding than most, he appraised the implications of a simple plant, and drew the only possible and reasonable conclusion. ‘It’s the curse,’ he howled, ‘druids. We’re doomed!’

  ‘Druids?’ said John in some alarm, looking round the room as if expecting to see one under the bed. ‘Le Pedvin didn’t say anything about druids.’

  Hermitage turned to pace up and down the room, pacing always helped his thoughts get moving and made the fears subside, a little. He glanced up at the window where the first splashes of dawn were bothering the sky. And then he screamed.

  The others jerked their heads up, saw what had alarmed Hermitage and variously gaped or gasped.

  The window frame now looked like nothing so much as a nicely framed picture of a druid. A big, scary druid, with beard and staring eyes. This was explained by the fact that a big, scary druid with staring eyes was sticking his head through the window.

  Caput V

  Prophecy, Prophecy.

  ‘Erm, this Prophecy?’ Wulf asked, trying to sound like he knew really. ‘Which one is it, exactly?’ Life was full of prophecies. You couldn’t walk ten yards in a market without someone offering you a prophecy. He would have to admit that prophecies from mad druid seers in sacred groves at night would probably be more reliable. He certainly didn’t like the idea of a prophecy full of sacrifices. They were always such messy affairs.

  ‘You will build it,’ the seer prophesied through a pointing finger, which always added to the effect.

  ‘I’ll build the prophecy?’ Wulf didn’t think much of that as a prophecy. Prophesying another prophecy wasn’t going to get anyone very far.

  ‘No,’ Lypolix replied, cackling mysteriousness replaced by irritation that he wasn’t being understood, ‘you will build it.’

  ‘Well that’s excellent,’ said Wulf, ‘and what is it exactly?’

  More cackles.

  ‘I hope you’re taking all this in,’ the Arch-Druid spoke up, ‘ask a direct question and get a cackle in reply.’

  ‘Very helpful, I’m sure,’ Wulf was finding the constant noise from the seer irritating. ‘I’m hardly likely to burn him as a witch am I?’

  The Arch-Druid took a step forward and clipped Wulf round the ear.

  ‘Ow,’ Wulf cried, with a glare at his master.

  ‘Just because you’re a stone seer doesn’t mean you don’t behave.’

  ‘You’ll build it,’ the seer went on, gazing into the air of the grove in what was apparently a mysterious manner. He waited until there was complete silence. Then he waited some more until an owl hooted. ‘The Grand Complication,’ he announced

  ‘No,’ the Arch-Druid’s awe was having trouble keeping up.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ Lypolix cackled out, ‘no less, no less.’

  ‘This is incredible,’ the Arch-Druid had a good stare at the same bit of mid-air which was occupying the seer’s attention.

  Wulf gave it a hard look as well but couldn’t see anything. No materialisations, no spiritual wisps, no images created by a swarm of midges. Very disappointing. He looked to the Arch-Druid again and it was clear he was going to have to confess that he had not the slightest idea what a Grand Complication was. Mindful of his ears, Wulf half put his hand up to ask a question, ‘This erm, Grand Complication?’

  ‘Yes?’ Lypolix turned his attention back to the here and now.

  ‘What, erm, what is it?’

  ‘What is it?’ Lypolix screeched, either offended that Wulf didn’t know, or appalled that anyone could ask such a stupid question. ‘What are you teaching acolytes these days?’ he directed the question at the Arch-Druid.

  ‘Not about the Grand Complication,’ the Arch-Druid replied defensively, ‘it’s hard enough getting the equinoxes to stick in their heads, never mind advanced ideas like The Grand Complication.’

  The two old men lapsed into a session of mutually disappointed head shaking that did nothing to explain what a Complication was, Grand or not.

  Wulf tried another tack. ‘Where exactly will I build it?’ he asked. Perhaps this would move things on from what The Grand Complication actually was. As a newly anointed stone seer he used his mystical powers to conclude that it probably had something to do
with stones.

  ‘I have started,’ the mad old seer announced, ‘you will finish.’

  That was really less than no help at all.

  ‘Aha,’ Wulf gave his knowing nod again. At least he hoped it looked knowing from the outside.

  ‘Come, come, see.’ Lypolix beckoned them to follow him deeper into the woods.

  Wulf thought that was probably a very bad idea, but could see he had no choice.

  Lypolix led and the Arch-Druid followed, pushing Wulf ahead of him.

  ‘We’re all taught about The Grand Complication,’ the Arch-Druid explained as they tramped on, ‘or at least the idea of it. You would have been if you’d entered the priesthood. It’s been handed down through all the generations from the ancient ones.’ The words “ancient ones” were accompanied by the traditional nod of the head. The nod which indicated the great debt the modern world owed to the ancient ones.

  The ancient ones, who Wulf would quite happily have dashed to death against one of the larger stones. The wretched ancient ones who were the bane of every acolyte’s life. “The ancient ones could do this in their sleep.” “If you don’t remember the dates of the equinox the ancient ones will come and steal your spirit.” “Don’t make me fetch the ancient ones.” All the threats and worries of a young druid’s life emerged fresh and full of life from the ancient ones. As far as Wulf and the other acolytes were concerned, if they’d ever met an ancient one, they’d have taken him to the temple to find out what ancient entrails looked like.

  ‘But no one knows the details,’ the Arch-Druid explained. ‘We know it would be a large circle and would have special powers but more than that has vanished in history. Taken with them to the spirit world by the,’

  ‘The ancient ones,’ Wulf snorted slightly, ‘yes, I can imagine.’

  Lypolix cackled in a very straightforward manner. ‘He will find the master, and Lypolix will give the others their power. But we must hurry,’

  ‘Hurry?’ The Arch-Druid clearly thought hurrying a task like this was as futile as shouting at an acorn.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the seer looked at them all significantly, ‘they are coming.’ He nodded at this as if interested to hear about it himself.