Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

by Howard of Warwick

  ‘You do remember Lord Bermo,’ Hywel called at the departing villagers who scattered to collect tools. ‘You know. Our Lord who likes to kill all the strangers himself?’

  ‘Ah, but this is different. This is for the druids,’ Caradoc called back. ‘And anyway, the Gods are going to do the killing, not us.’ He frowned in thought for a moment. ‘I’d quite like to see a God do a sacrifice. Should be pretty spectacular.’

  …

  When Wulf arrived back at the master stone, just where he’d left it, the villagers went to their work with a will. There was none of the moaning and complaint of Hywel about how impossible the task was, and how unmovable the stone. There was some frowning and scratching of heads and chins but eventually they all settled on a plan.

  Several of the group went to the back of the stone and started digging out the ground around the sides, while a similar number attacked the top and bottom. Their thinking was that they would dig all around and underneath as far as they could and slide in some tree trunks as rollers. The stone would then be resting on an undug pillar of ground in the centre.

  The Arch-Druid gave Hywel some seriously disappointed looks as the work took off at quite a speed.

  The final part of the plan was, to use Hywel’s words, as mad as a bee up a badger’s bottom. Someone, it had not yet been agreed who, would climb under the stone and dig out the earthen pillar. At that point the stone would come to rest on the rollers, or it would snap the rollers and come to rest on the person doing the digging. As this was the chosen method for the sacrifice of the monk, there was little doubt the digger would be seeing the Gods before any of them.

  Hywel made it perfectly clear that he would not be putting so much as a toe under the stone, let alone his whole body.

  Someone suggested that the person who could achieve such a task would be strong, supple and excellent with a spade. If there was an accident, such a person would be a great loss to the village. Hywel, on the other hand, would hardly be missed at all as no one was sure what actual use he was anyway.

  After much sniggering, Caradoc said that he was the person to do it. In fact he’d quite like to. It would be exciting, he said, which caused some worried glances. If he found a job like this exciting, what other completely stupid things was he prepared to do?

  With the digging proceeding at a remarkable pace, helped by the soggy ground on which the rock lay, a smaller group was sent to fetch the tree trunks from the winter log pile.

  These great lengths of pine had been felled two years ago and left to season. Hywel argued that they would be very dry and might not take the weight of the stone.

  Caradoc reasoned that if that happened, at least they’d get the wood broken up for them, instead of having to chop it like normal.

  Hywel thought about pointing out that if that happened, Caradoc would be flatter than a wood louse at the bottom of the heap. Perhaps the young idiot would figure it out when he heard the first splintering sound.

  All of this frenetic activity was watched by the eyes in the cave, now safely back in the dark having wandered down and back up the hill as people came and went. He had no idea what they were up to, but wished they’d make up their mind where they were going to do it.

  The whole village appeared to be trying to dig up a huge rock. Perhaps it was a special rock of some sort, or someone was trapped under it. He had seen that they had a thing about stones, particularly the ones in circles, so perhaps this was part of that.

  He saw the party from the village coming back up the hill carrying tree trunks between them and quickly made the connection to rollers. They would have to be pretty careful about that. If they managed to get the stone onto rollers, the slope of the hill could carry the thing away at some speed. He imagined they’d thought of that. Have to be pretty stupid not to.

  Then he remembered that he had seen one of their number trying to put the head back on a chicken after he’d chopped it off.

  He stroked his chin with a worried frown on his face.

  …

  The roller party dragged their burdens up to the stone and tested them against the gap that had now been dug all round. A few more spade fulls and there was room to push one of the trunks under the front of the great stone and another under the back.

  Some discussion around the stone now ensued, with several members of the team gesticulating down the slope away from the rock. They added mimes of a mighty rock plummeting down a hill, completely out of control, and smashing itself to bits at the bottom.

  There was a suggestion that if they waited for this monk to arrive they could stand him at the bottom of the hill and let the rock do its thing.

  In fact the rock was so big they could probably gather all the sacrifices together and do it in one go.

  The observation that anyone standing at the bottom of a hill with a massive rock coming down it, would move out of the way, was countered with a plan to build a stockade of some sort, to keep the sacrifices together and in the right place.

  They then recalled that the Gods were going to do this sacrifice and so they probably shouldn’t interfere. If the Gods wanted a stockade they could knock one up in no time.

  Perhaps it was the talk of the Gods which brought Lypolix into their midst. He cackled a lot and shook his head while the villagers all kept their distance.

  ‘A hole,’ the old seer either suggested, instructed or noticed, no one could tell.

  ‘Yes,’ one of the villagers confirmed loudly, nodding extravagantly as one did to all dangerously mad people.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ the seer nodded back.

  ‘I think he wants a hole,’ Wulf observed, joining the strange conversation.

  One of the villagers muttered something about giving Lypolix a hole but the Arch-Druid smacked the man round the head.

  ‘A hole, a hole,’ Lypolix confirmed that he did indeed want a hole.

  ‘We put the stone in the hole?’ Wulf asked. He could see that this would be required if the stone was to stand upright in its final position.

  Lypolix did a little dance of confirmation. Or at least that’s what it looked like to Wulf.

  ‘I see,’ Wulf nodded his understanding. He explained to the villagers. ‘We need to dig a hole where the stone is to go. Then we move the stone to the right place and tip it up until it drops in the hole.’ He smiled at the simplicity of the plan.

  ‘Tip it up?’ Hywel was aghast. ‘You’ve seen the size of the thing. How on earth are we going to tip it up and drop it in a hole?’

  ‘We could use Caradoc as a lever,’ one of the villagers sniggered.

  Caradoc didn’t immediately see a problem with this.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Wulf, seeing how it could work. ‘Not Caradoc though,’ he added, quickly. ‘We get it to the right place, dig out to get a tree trunk or two under one end and then lever it up.’

  ‘The lever would sink into the ground,’ Hywel dismissed the plan.

  ‘Then we put a smaller rock on the ground to rest the levers on,’ Wulf was quite excited by working all this out.

  ‘Another rock?’ Hywel scoffed.

  ‘A smaller one,’ Wulf explained with some irritation. ‘Then, when we’ve levered it up a bit we stick some logs underneath to stop it falling back again. Then we move the small rock and the levers and do it again. See?’

  ‘Never work,’ was Hywel’s considered analysis.

  ‘When it gets to the right height it will drop into the hole,’ Wulf concluded.

  Several of the villagers nodded at this and seemed impressed.

  Lypolix also appeared very happy with the plan. ‘And the monk,’ he added with a clap and a skip.

  ‘Ah yes,’ Wulf recalled the sacrifice of the monk which gave him pause for thought. ‘Once the stone is up I suppose the sacrifice comes next.’

  The villagers nodded some more. They were clearly looking forward to that bit.

  ‘No, no,’ Lypolix dismissed the idea.

  ‘No?’ Wulf was surprised, b
ut actually found himself quite relieved that they wouldn’t be killing anyone after all.

  Lypolix explained what would happen using mime, dance, some grunting and screaming noises and a final, very terminal-sounding gurgle.

  ‘I see,’ said Wulf slowly, translating for the villagers, ‘we dig the hole. Tie the monk up and put him in the bottom of it, then we drop the stone on top.’

  ‘Ah,’ the villagers saw it now. What a clever plan.

  ‘But I thought the Gods were going to come and do it?’ Caradoc asked with disappointment.

  ‘Perhaps the Gods will give the stone its final push,’ Wulf observed with little pleasure.

  ‘That’s not very interesting,’ Caradoc mumbled.

  Wulf had a further thought which he was sure hadn’t been taken into account. ‘There will be one for every stone and every stone shall have one?’ He checked Lypolix’s sums.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ the seer was very happy.

  ‘So,’ Wulf thought it through. ‘If three stones are already up and they’ve been done, there’s twenty two to go. Twenty four for the main circle and then the master stone.’

  Everyone nodded in appreciation at this display of advanced calculation. Druids really were clever people.

  ‘Which means,’ Wulf hoped someone else would get it as well, but they looked like they wouldn’t get it if the stone fell on them. ‘Leaving out the monk, who’s tied up at the bottom of the hole, there’s another twenty one people to be sacrificed.’

  Lypolix rubbed his hands in glee at the prospect.

  Wulf surveyed the small crowd which was the cream of the village crop. ‘So the sacrifices will outnumber the villagers.’

  Still no one picked up on the facts.

  ‘Twenty one people, who probably aren’t all that keen on being sacrificed in the first place, against a dozen villagers?’

  Surprisingly it was Caradoc who saw that this might be a problem. ‘Perhaps they’re all small?’ he offered.

  Wulf looked to Lypolix.

  The seer counted on his fingers, ‘The monk, the artisan,’

  Well, that didn’t sound too bad.

  ‘The warrior, the fearsome woman, the robbers,’ Lypolix went on.

  Wulf was gratified to see the faces fall.

  ‘How are we supposed to manage that lot?’ Needless to say, it was Hywel who voiced the difficulties.

  ‘The Gods,’ Lypolix laughed happily, ‘the Gods will come and deal with them all.’

  Caradoc was relieved. ‘Oh, great,’ he said, happy that there was going to be a God after all.

  ‘Twenty one strangers,’ Hywel mocked, ‘twenty one would-be sacrifices are going to wander into the village and just wait for us to drop rocks on them? They’re not going to put up a fight at all?’

  ‘Not if the Gods are with us,’ Caradoc argued.

  Hywel just snorted, which brought a scowl from the Arch-Druid.

  ‘I shall be in my hut if you need me,’ Hywel huffed, clearly intending that they wouldn’t need him. Or rather they would when they saw he was right after all, and then he’d be able to say “I told you so”.

  Wulf held a hand up to stop Hywel, but the village leader was stomping off down the hill, leaving them to their digging and levers.

  ‘Do you want him back?’ The Arch-Druid asked, clearly prepared to drag Hywel by the hair if need be.

  ‘I suppose not,’ Wulf shrugged. ‘We can tell him later that the stone’s going to go right where his hut is now. Perhaps he’ll help with the hole.’

  The Arch-Druid sniggered. Just the one snigger and it was gruff and reluctant, but Wulf had never seen the Arch-Druid snigger before.

  He smiled, but then had an image of twenty one people tied up in the bottom of twenty one holes, with twenty one rocks about to be pushed on top of them. He couldn’t see himself able to do it when push came to shove – which it would, as the stones would be pretty heavy. The Arch-Druid and Lypolix? He was sure they wouldn’t have a problem at all. And most of the villagers seemed positively enthusiastic. He had another vision, quite a strong one this time, that this was not going to end at all well.

  Caput XIV

  And Now, Stragglers.

  Fifteen people were making the best time they could towards the border with Wales. Wat seemed able to walk along as if he was on his own without a care in the world. Cwen walked as if annoyed by every step of the way, and by the shuffle of feet that followed. Hermitage couldn’t keep his head still, his eyes darting about to try and force him to accept that there really were twelve complete strangers with them on a mission made for three.

  He looked at John and almost felt as if the man was one of them. True, he had been foisted on them by Le Pedvin, but then Le Pedvin spent a lot of his time foisting things on Hermitage.

  The Druid was still a total confusion. The man said nothing, just looked serene and confident – which annoyed Cwen no end.

  The six robbers kept to themselves and seemed enormously content simply to be in a party led by the great Wat the weaver. Their quiet conversation about tapestries brought out occasional bursts of laughter; very crude and lascivious laughter.

  The three pilgrims were also happy with their lot. That might change when evening came and they found they would have to fend for themselves. There would be no free food and drink on this trip.

  More scuttled backwards and forwards through the group, trying to find someone who was willing to engage in a conversation. As a conversation with More entailed a lot of listening and very little talking, he had no takers. Not that that stopped him.

  For a relatively secret mission given to three people, the road was positively crowded. As Hermitage passed his gaze over the assembly he had trouble understanding how this had all come to pass. Obviously he recalled each occasion someone had been added to their number, but the total now seemed beyond sense. How did they end up like this? And if they carried on, how many would they be as they crossed the border. Wat was right, someone might think they were invading.

  Hermitage remembered what tended to happen when invaders turned up at someone’s border. He swallowed and added death in battle to his collection of worries.

  They were entering the town of Wanborough now, where the old road from the south joined their path towards Wales. Being of a sufficiently large number, they caused all the townsfolk to immediately adopt the normal procedure in these cases. They dropped whatever they were doing, ran inside and barred the doors.

  The population of this place, if only they knew it, would be perfectly capable of seeing this rabble off with a selection of moderately offensive abuse.

  But they didn’t know that. For all they knew the monk was one of those who came collecting alms with a band of fourteen swordsmen at his back. Or he was the member of the band responsible for blessing the swordsmen before they started their rampaging.

  Of course the town had its own militia, but they were only the farmers who could wield a big stick and shout louder than anyone else.

  The pilgrims looked very disappointed as doors were slammed and shutters put up at windows. They had their shells ready and were probably looking forward to a good feed.

  The robbers scowled about the place, unhappy that not so much as a spade had been left propped outside a hovel.

  Wat just carried on walking.

  ‘Oh, Wat,’ Hermitage said, as he took in their welcome, ‘this is awful.’

  ‘What’s awful about it?’ the weaver asked.

  ‘These poor people are frightened of us,’ Hermitage explained, ‘and we’re completely harmless. What has the land come to that a man must hide in his own dwelling at the passing of a stranger?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? If fifteen strangers came wandering into your monastery.’

  Hermitage tutted, ‘No of course not. I would welcome them with the hospitality commanded by our Lord.’

  ‘Which could explain why you keep having to move monastery,’ Wat observed with a wry smile.

  Hermitage couldn’
t see the connection at all.

  ‘We could always knock on a door or two,’ Cwen suggested, sounding quite keen on the idea.

  ‘To what end?’ Hermitage asked, ‘instil more fear in these humble villagers?’

  ‘Don’t look very humble to me,’ said Cwen, nodding towards the well-kept dwellings with their solid doors and windows. ‘Should be good for some supplies to help us on our way.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Hermitage was surprised and disappointed. ‘We must not sink to the level of those who come to take what we have. In fact,’ he thought the situation through, ‘we should probably ask the townsfolk if we have anything they need. Or if there is some service we can do them.’

  Now Cwen looked surprised and disappointed. And very baffled, ‘You’re mad,’ she concluded.

  Hermitage shrugged and walked on. As the last of the band, which on this occasion was More, left the edge of the town, the first doors began to open again, and curious heads popped out. Probably curious to make sure that the strangers were really gone. And without burning anything to the ground. Wonders would never cease.

  …

  At the edge of the well-to-do town were the less well-to-do people. A collection of hovels crowded the road side, populated by those a lot less shy about keeping their doors closed. Probably because what was inside the doors would frighten most strangers away.

  These people watched with naked interest as a larger group than they had seen for quite a while strolled past. The group didn’t seem very coherent somehow, it took quite a while for the last one to go ambling by. And he was a grizzled old man who seemed to want to have a conversation with anyone who stood still too long. He was enough to make even some of these people want to go indoors and hide.

  Once More had passed the last of the hovels Wat took a moment to check that his unwanted travelling companions were in some sort of order.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, now what?’ the weaver cried out with a cross between despair, disbelief and hopeless resignation.