Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

by Howard of Warwick

  Wat shied backwards, as if they were offering him diseased fish.

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage.

  ‘Ah, what?’ Wat asked, ‘what does “ah” mean?’

  It’s the symbol of the pilgrim,’ said Hermitage, and noticed that this did not seem to be helping Wat. ‘St John’s body miraculously emerging from the waves covered in shells?’ Surely everyone knew this.

  ‘Did it?’ Wat asked.

  ‘Of course it did. In Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. Although I think they’re supposed to be scallop shells.’ Hermitage peered at the rather plain shells the pilgrims were holding up, which could have come from anywhere.

  ‘Well, what are you doing following us?’ Wat demanded, ‘why aren’t you off pilgriming somewhere?’

  ‘We are,’ Elard explained, ‘we’re coming with you.’

  Wat was in danger of getting angry, he was so confused. ‘Why are you coming with us?’ he demanded, ‘we’re not pilgrims.’ He held his arms wide to illustrate the lack of pilgrims in the party.

  Elard grinned, and even gave Wat a light-hearted punch on the shoulder at this teasing. ‘Yes, you are,’ he said.

  Wat’s face looked ready to scream, ‘What do you mean yes we are? We know what we are and what we aren’t,’ he stole a glance at More, ‘well, most of us,’ he clarified. ‘We are not pilgrims and you are not with us.’

  ‘Oh, you are,’ Elard confirmed, as if Wat was trying to hide the fact. ‘We can tell a pilgrimage when we see one.’ He looked the group of men up and down. ‘Yours must be a good one, so many of you. And you’ve got a druid. Must be very important to have a druid with you. Are you taking him somewhere to have him converted?’

  ‘What?’ Wat seemed so far out of his depth he was in danger of drowning.

  ‘Tricky job, druid conversion I’d have thought. Must need a lot of holiness to convert a druid. And you’ve got an armed guard,’ the man nodded at John and the robbers. And her,’ he tipped his head towards Cwen. ‘She been rescued from the druids then? What was she? The sacrificial vir…’ the word died on his lips as Cwen’s piercing look did its job and dared him to go further. ‘Where you off to?’ The man smiled encouraging friendliness at Wat and tried not to look in Cwen’s direction.

  ‘We are not on a pilgrimage,’ Wat ground out of his teeth.

  ‘Oh I see,’ Elard nodded very knowingly, clearly in on the secret, whatever it was. ‘You can tell us though.’

  ‘I just have.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it won’t go any further.’ Elard tapped the side of his nose. Lanson and Pord nodded their agreement. ‘If you’ve got a new miraculous cure for being a druid somewhere, we won’t breathe a word. Experienced pilgrims us. Done all the major routes. Holywell, Walsingham, Canterbury, Santiago.’

  ‘You’ve really been to Santiago?’ Hermitage was very impressed. ‘All the way to Spain?’ He knew of the place of course, and of the great sacrifice there was in making the pilgrimage. It was such a long way off. Over the sea, it was. Which sea, he had no idea.

  He’d never even met anyone who’d actually been there.

  ‘No, no,’ the man scoffed at the suggestion, ‘Spain?’ He clearly thought Hermitage was some sort of idiot. ‘Cornwall.’

  ‘Cornwall?’ Hermitage found his voice sounding like More. ‘Santiago de Compostela isn’t in Cornwall.’

  ‘The one in Cornwall is.’

  Hermitage’s suspicion, which Wat was always encouraging him to use, brought some more questions to mind. ‘So that’s where you got the shells then? Cornwall? And which Holywell, Walsingham and Canterbury have you been to?’

  ‘Oh, now you’re asking,’ Elard stroked his chin and gave his face an expression of deep thought. ‘Holywell was down Oxford way. Walsingham is just this side of Cirencester and Canterbury’s almost as far as Bath.’

  Hermitage’s shoulders sank. More frauds and liars, was he never going to meet anyone honest?

  Wat joined in the questioning. ‘I see,’ it was his turn to sound very knowing and in on the secret. ‘I expect people are always very generous to pilgrims, given that you’re on a sacred mission and all.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Elard confirmed. ‘Always keen to support the pilgrim on his way. One show of the shell and we’re handsomely supplied.’

  ‘You’re not pilgrims,’ said Wat, confronting the men with a bald truth, ‘you’re just a bunch of thieves walking about a lot. You carry some old shell and wave it in people’s faces, and they think they have to give you alms or there’ll be trouble.’

  Hermitage simply stood by and tutted.

  ‘We are pilgrims,’ Elard protested, sounding very offended. ‘We’ve pilgrimmed all over. I told you.’

  ‘Well you’ve made pilgrimages to all the wrong places then,’ Hermitage explained. ‘Santiago is in Spain, despite your protests that it’s in Cornwall. Canterbury is in Kent, Holywell, the one I know of, is in Wales somewhere and Walsingham is in the east. If you think you’ve achieved anything with these pilgrimages of yours, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.’

  ‘What would you know about it?’ Elard snapped.

  Wat looked at them in renewed shock, ‘He is dressed as a monk,’ the weaver pointed out.

  ‘Ah, right,’ Elard accepted this, reluctantly. ‘Doesn’t make any difference though, we still do what pilgrims do. Devote their lives to walking about and the like.’

  ‘Pilgrims.’ Hermitage scoffed, finding himself quite irritated with this sacrilege. He had a shameful urge to take it out on the false ones in front of him. The good book had an awful lot to say about the fate to be handed out to false prophets, he imagined false pilgrims wouldn’t fare much better.

  ‘Wandering around a small piece of England is not a pilgrimage,’ he concluded. ‘In fact to atone for your sins I think you should go on pilgrimage for real.’ They looked very unhappy at this. ‘Perhaps to Jerusalem,’ Hermitage rubbed it in, ‘without any shoes.’

  ‘We’ve done Jerusalem,’ said Elard, although his confidence looked shaky.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Hermitage asked, ‘the one near Dorchester?’

  ‘No,’ Elard retorted, his voice heavy with contempt, ‘the real one. Near Lincoln.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage, on safe ground as that was his very neck of the woods. ‘I know it well.’

  That wiped the smile off Elard’s face.

  ‘Yes,’ Hermitage went on, ‘it’s in the woods just off the old Roman road to the east. Put there so people didn’t have to bother going all the way to the real Jerusalem, which,’ Hermitage added with unfamiliar assertiveness, ‘is miles away.’

  ‘So,’ said Wat, rubbing his hands, ‘you are not pilgrims and neither are we. We’ll carry on going our way and you can go in another direction completely.’

  Elard did not look happy. ‘We’re going this way in any case,’ he sniffed.

  Wat looked at the band of fourteen people gathered around him waiting for a decision. He didn’t seem to be weighing up conflicting arguments, rather he looked comprehensively stunned by the passage of events. ‘Oh, please yourselves,’ he said, throwing his hands in the air and turning away. ‘What’s the point? Why do I bother? Let’s see if we can round up a few more to join in. Perhaps once we get to fifty we can start our own village.’

  He stomped off up the road, closely followed by Hermitage and Cwen.

  ‘What do we want this lot for?’ Cwen clearly thought little of this development.’

  Hermitage could see that once his face was turned from the band, Wat was smiling to himself. ‘If they confuse us,’ the weaver said with a wink, ‘imagine what they’ll do to Le Pedvin when the whole lot turn up in Derby.’

  Hermitage was not so confident, ‘I don’t think killing three or fifteen will make much difference to King William.’

  ‘Depends which one we say was carrying the gold when we left Wales.’

  ‘Wat, you wouldn’t,’ Hermitage breathed in shock.

  Cwen was nodding her head, ‘Good plan,’ she s
aid.

  Caput XII

  Lord Bermo Rides Out.

  Discussion of the gold was continuing in the courtyard of the castle Bermo, although courtyard is a generous description of the space bounded by the buildings which made up the Lord’s fortress. Fortress is a not a word any self-respecting fortress builder would apply to this place, and even buildings is pushing it a bit. It was an area on top of a hill with some things built on top which kept the rain out. Mostly.

  Of course the lord’s own chambers were solid and comfortable but there had been no need to extend such extravagance to anyone else.

  On this particular morning the lord’s forces were gathering for a mission none of them had been told about. Lord Bermo and his visitor had been engaged in such long and private conversations that it must be something pretty significant. Even now the two men were engaged in heated but whispered debate.

  Lord Bermo’s forces, all five of them, were used to not knowing what they were doing or why. Even after they’d done it. Their lord had ideas of his own which he certainly wasn’t going to share, but which seemed to involve activities which made little sense to anyone. The forces just followed orders and got fed. What more was there to worry about?

  The lord held the land for Gruffud ap Llewellyn and if summoned to battle would gather the fighting men from the hills and farms and rush to his king’s side. In between times he had his core of fighting men to maintain control and he simply took the tithes which were his due.

  The news that Gruffud ap Llewellyn had actually been dead for several years had not reached castle Bermo, or rather no one had bothered to send to this remote outpost. In fact Gruffud ap Llewellyn had had several wars and battles during his reign, but had never sent for the men of Bermo. Their reputation went before them, and he had never been quite that desperate.

  There was an heir to the Bermo estates, but soon after his birth his mother had taken him from the castle to educate him in the ways of the world and prepare him for the role he would take on. She had also found that she quite liked the ways of the world herself, and had no intention of going anywhere near Bermo until the man’s funeral.

  Thus the lord and his guest discussed their quest in hushed and private tones. The stranger was encouraging the lord with assurances and promises that the appropriation of the druid gold would not rain terror on their heads. The lord was glancing out of the courtyard towards the woods, probably expecting the squirrel to jump out at any moment.

  Eventually, Lord Bermo seemed to accept that they had better get on with it.

  ‘We’ll go there and see,’ he said.

  ‘Very well,’ the stranger sighed.

  ‘I’m not promising anything.’

  ‘Of course not my Lord.’ The stranger looked down at Bermo and bowed his head as he sat comfortably in his saddle.

  He was quite a bit taller than the lord, and his horse was quite a bit taller than the lord’s horse. It was also quite a lot more horse than the lord’s horse. Lord Bermo’s mount had been with him for many years, but what freak of nature had actually produced the thing in the first place did not bear thinking about. In fact several of Lord Bermo’s forces speculated that there might be a bit of bear in there somewhere.

  A cross between a bear and a horse would be a creature of myth. The act of crossing a bear with a horse was not something anyone was going to confess to.

  The lord’s forces had no mounts at all. It was their job to walk at their master’s side, ready to fend off anyone who dared approach, be they man, woman, squirrel-god or jealous she-bear.

  The stranger was also better equipped than lord Bermo. He wore solid leather with a light chainmail sur coat. He had a shining metal helmet on his head with a metal extension which sprang from the front to protect his nose. He wore thick gloves, the backs of the hands protected by more chainmail, and he carried a large sword at his side. And a short one at the other side. And a dagger at his belt. And a crossbow hung from the wooden saddle. He was the most heavily armed thing for miles around.

  The Lord Bermo had a sword and his forces had sticks. Quite big and heavy sticks perfectly capable of inflicting damage, but sticks none the less. But then those they came up against didn’t even have sticks.

  Lord Bermo had made it clear that if the nature if their mission was disclosed to his men, they might rebel and run for the hills. The stranger kept to himself the thought that the mission might actually go better without them. He had seen ragged bands of ne’er-do-wells before, but never with quite so much ne’er or rag.

  ‘Which direction is the nearest, erm, gathering?’ the stranger asked aloud.

  ‘I think the village of Cwm a Pobl will do,’ said lord Bermo in exaggerated tones, largely for the benefit of his men.

  ‘What a what?’ the stranger asked.

  ‘Cwm means valley and pobl means people,’ lord Bermo translated.

  ‘Valley of people?’ The stranger didn’t seem to think much of this as a name.

  ‘Accurate description, the lord confirmed, ‘and quite a centre for the sort of activity we’re looking for.’ He said this quietly in case of his men were showing interest.

  The men were not showing interest, nor any other tangible signs of intelligence. They all just seemed happy to be reunited with their sticks.

  Lord Bermo beckoned his men to depart and the troop led off down the hill.

  ‘Many of them?’ the stranger asked now that they were out of earshot of the men.

  ‘Who?’ Lord Bermo looked at his men and then around to see if anyone else had joined them.

  ‘Druids,’ the stranger said pointedly, and with a sigh that he found he was using quite often in conversation with this man. ‘Are there many druids?’

  ‘Can be,’ Bermo said, unhelpfully.

  The stranger waited a moment for the explanation which he suspected was not going to come. It didn’t. ‘Explain,’ he instructed.

  Bermo looked slightly puzzled, but did go on. ‘It seems to be a sort of centre for them. They have one of their circles there, and an old druid who teaches the young ones. Quite a few acolytes and the like come and go. Then they pass their initiations and go off to be druids somewhere else.’

  ‘Hm,’ the stranger thought deeply, ‘so if there’s a lot of them there’d be a lot of gold.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Lord Bermo’s nervousness at the plan was re-surfacing.

  ‘And old druids have a lot more gold than the young ones.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘And if it’s a centre for them, they’re likely to have even more stashed away somewhere.’ The stranger was warming to his task.

  ‘But if there’s a lot of them?’ Bermo cast a worried glance at his men, who he clearly thought would not be up to the task of dealing with a crowd of druids.

  ‘Won’t be a problem,’ the stranger was reassuring as he patted his sword.

  ‘What about the King?’ Bermo asked in a hurry, as if he’d only just remembered there was one.

  ‘What about him?’ the stranger asked, suddenly alert with suspicion.

  ‘King Gruffyd isn’t going to like it if any of his druids get, you know, damaged.’

  ‘I think you’ll find there’s a new king on his way. Remember that William I mentioned? The one who likes gold?’

  ‘William,’ Bermo scoffed.

  ‘Very, very fond of gold is William. You’re a lot better off getting hold of it now, before he turns up.’

  ‘He’ll have to go through me and King Gruffyd first,’ Bermo said with loyalty.

  The stranger cast his eyes around the place and at the troop of men wandering along in front of them. ‘That won’t take long,’ he muttered to himself.

  The worried look had appeared on Bermo’s face again, the one that had caused so much difficulty over the last few days.

  ‘When we get to this village,’ the stranger tried reassurance, even though it hadn’t been much use so far, ‘you and your men just hold back.’

  Bermo see
med happier with that.

  ‘Don’t say anything, or do anything. Just let me do the killing.’

  Caput XIII

  Playing with the Rock.

  Despite his own reservations, Hywel found that the people of People Valley were quite enthusiastic about moving the stone for the circle. He tried to point out how absolutely huge the thing was, and how it would be impossible to move, but they were still keen. He even suggested that some of them might die in the process, but they dismissed his concerns. They were used to dismissing Hywel’s concerns and variously referred to him as a fuss-pot, and old nag and just plain boring.

  He went on to explain what the druids had in mind for the stone and even threw in the outrageous suggestion that the Gods were going to descend from the sky and use the great rock to murder a monk.

  The villagers thought this sounded absolutely marvellous and some of them asked if they’d be allowed to ride on the rock while the deed was done.

  He then added, in the best discouraging tone he had, that there would be many stones in the circle and each one would have a sacrifice. The whole place would be running with blood.

  This did cause several of the villagers to look askance at the druids. Lypolix happily cackled that the sacrifices would all be strangers, which cheered everyone enormously.

  ‘They are coming to us even now,’ the old seer rambled on, ‘brought they are. Brought to us.’

  ‘Even now?’ young Caradoc asked from the midst of the modest crowd. He was always the most easily impressed by druid mysteries. But then many aspects of daily life were mysteries to Caradoc.

  ‘Aye,’ Lypolix nodded.

  ‘We’d better get a move on then,’ Caradoc looked to his fellow villagers to encourage them to action.

  The energy and commitment demonstrated by the villagers to the task of getting a massive rock off the mountain and dropping it on a monk was unlike anything Hywel or the druids had seen before.

  Wulf started to worry that they might get a taste for this sort of thing, particularly when they’d done the twenty fifth and final stone – and presumably the twenty fifth and final sacrifice.