Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

by Howard of Warwick

  Over the Border.

  ‘Right,’ said Wat, holding his arm out to direct everyone’s attention to the bridge over the River Severn. ‘This is the border with Wales, so you can all just bugger off.’

  Hermitage still found it hard to believe all these people had followed them this far. Instead of finding someone else to straggle after in Cirencester, the stragglers had moaned about the paucity of travellers these days and tagged along.

  More said he wanted to see the river, so he could spot if it was any different from the Thames. He showed signs of real disappointment that it wasn’t flowing up hill, or didn’t glow in the dark, or wasn’t in mid-air. He summarised England’s greatest river in five words. ‘Well that’s a bit dull,’ he said.

  The robbers simply wanted to go wherever Wat went and the pilgrims just did what everyone else did.

  Wat tried a bit of passion. ‘Who knows what evils lie over these waters? It is our mission to go there, but mayhap we will never return. Flee I tell you, flee before your lives are ripped from your bodies and your souls are cast into the dark depths.’

  ‘Do what?’ One of the robbers looked very puzzled at this bizarre outburst.

  Hermitage and Cwen both gave him a rather hopeless look.

  The entire party, which now took up quite a bit of the road, was silent, but clearly considered Wat had gone slightly mad.

  Eventually the silence was broken by Elard the pilgrim. He spoke as someone who’d been was told a joke about a week ago, and has just got it. ‘Ahaaaa,’ he drawled out.

  ‘Aha, what?’ said Wat, disappointed that the whole group had not run for the hills.

  ‘I see what you’re up to,’ Elard went on, knowingly.

  ‘I doubt that,’ Wat mumbled to himself.

  ‘Relics.’ Elard announced – although it sounded rather rude the way he said it.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You’ve got the relics.’

  Wat checked himself over. ‘No, still not with you.’

  ‘That’s why we’re going to Wales. And why you’ve got a druid and a swordsman’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Me and Lanson and Pord been thinking.’

  ‘Well done,’ Wat sounded suitably surprised.

  ‘There’s relics in Wales. Everyone knows that. You lot are going there to steal relics and bring them back to Christendom.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Absolutely. There’s lots of saints gone into Wales over the years. Most of ‘em get killed or eaten or something.’

  Hermitage pondered for a moment how someone could be killed or eaten. Surely if you were eaten…? He let the thought drop.

  ‘And where you got a dead saint, you got a relic. Very valuable things relics. Very holy. You been given a secret mission to go into Wales and rescue the saints’ relics from the heathens.’ He folded his arms and smiled in triumph at Lanson and Pord. ‘So we’re coming with you.’

  Wat’s mouth hung open and he just looked at Cwen and Hermitage as if shocked by the idiocy. And surprised at being shocked.

  ‘What a load of rubbish.’ The leader of the stragglers spoke up.

  Hermitage was rather ashamed that after all this time on the road he still didn’t know her name. Mind you, they had been purposefully straggling behind everyone else so the opportunities for conversation were few and far between. He supposed that was the point of straggling, but it wasn’t very sociable.

  ‘You’re joining the army.’

  ‘The army?’ Wat squeaked out. Surely anyone could see he would be the last person to join any army. And anyway, what army?

  ‘What army?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know do I?’ the head straggler answered smartly, ‘I’m just a straggler. I don’t know what the great and the good get up to. What I do know is straggling. This many people do not go wandering about the country without a purpose. The usual purpose is an army and there’s nothing like an army for a spot of good straggling. There you are. See.’

  Hermitage did see and had to congratulate the woman on her argument. She had obviously applied her experience and her knowledge to her situation and had drawn a very reasonable conclusion.

  She was completely wrong, but had taken a commendable route to get there.

  ‘There should not be this many people,’ Wat cried out in exasperation. ‘There should only be three of us. Four at most if you count John.’ He gestured at John, who acknowledged the recognition with a bow of the head. ‘So there is no way we are going to join an army.’ He shook his head at his own reasoning. ‘Anyway, there isn’t an army. King William’s got the only army these days, and he’s miles away.’

  The straggler seemed a little crestfallen, ‘Still have armies,’ she mumbled.

  ‘It ain’t relics and it ain’t armies,’ Banley the lead robber announced from the back of the group. ‘It’s gold.’

  That sent a shiver down Hermitage’s back. How could the man know? None of them would have told him. Perhaps John? Maybe he had really had been told the purpose of the journey by Le Pedvin. That man lied about pretty much everything. Or the druid? The mysterious priest seemed to know a lot of what was going on.

  The word “gold” had caught the attention of stragglers and pilgrims alike.

  ‘Gold?’ Wat sounded like it was the most ridiculous suggestion of the lot.

  ‘Of course,’ Banley went on. ‘Stands to reason don’t it. Everyone knows Wales is full of gold. Only the dragons stop anyone getting at it.’

  If Hermitage had been quite pleased with the proposal from the stragglers, he could see that the robbers were not even starting well.

  ‘Dragons,’ said Wat, in resignation that this was not going at all well.

  ‘That’s right. And what do you need to fend off a dragon?’

  ‘Do tell.’

  Banley stepped forward, struck a dramatic pose and pointed to one of the number. ‘A druid.’

  ‘Ahh,’ the crowd sighed in recognition of this amazing revelation.

  The druid looked rather disconcerted to be the centre of attention.

  ‘So,’ Banley challenged Wat, ‘you tell me that you are not going to Wales to get gold.’

  Hermitage thought this was a real problem. Yes of course they weren’t going to Wales to get gold from a dragon, but they were going to get gold. And Banley had challenged them to deny it. What would Wat do?

  ‘Of course we’re not.’

  Ah yes, lie. That was Wat was going to do. It would never have occurred to Hermitage.

  Wat held his arms out wide to get their attention. ‘Pilgrims, robbers, stragglers,’ he called out.

  More put his hand up.

  ‘Sorry, and Boatmen.’

  More smiled and nodded to everyone so they would know he was the boatman.

  ‘Let me make it perfectly clear. ’We are not going to Wales to recover relics.’

  The look on the pilgrims’ faces said they did not believe this for a moment.

  ‘Neither are we going to join an army. And most certainly we are not going to get gold from a dragon.’

  Each of the groups seemed still wedded to their own particular version of events and were still dismissing Wat’s denials.

  ‘Shall I tell you why we’re going to Wales?’ he asked.

  The groups exchanged confused looks. Yes, they would like to know, but not if was going to contradict their own theories.

  ‘Disease,’ Wat announced.

  Disease? Thought Hermitage. What disease? He did though notice that the crowd had taken half a step back. He glanced at Cwen who had a smile hidden on her face.

  ‘Aye,’ Wat pressed his advantage, ‘horrible, deadly disease.’

  ‘Plague?’ someone whispered in alarm.

  ‘Plague isn’t even close,’ said Wat, eyes widening.

  The lead straggler was the first to start frowning. Hermitage thought she seemed quite intelligent. Wasted on straggling.

  ‘You’ve got a disease, or you’r
e going to get one?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re going to look.’

  ‘You’re going to look at a disease? That’s sounds a pretty stupid thing to do.’

  ‘King William sent us to find out about the mysterious welsh disease.’

  There was a pause while the group took this in.

  ‘I’ve never heard of a welsh disease,’ the straggler sounded unsure.

  ‘That’s because most people just drop dead when they get it.’

  ‘So what good are you to King William if you drop dead as well?’

  Hermitage would like to have a debate with this woman over some topic of mutual interest. Perhaps she had opinions on the post-Exodus prophets? If not, he could always tell her his.

  ‘He’s a cruel master,’ Wat explained.

  The group seemed to be pausing, like some animal that couldn’t make up its mind whether the other animal it was about to jump on could kill it or not.

  ‘Nah,’ straggling woman had decided. ’Don’t believe a word of it. It’s an army and you just want to keep it to yourselves.’

  ‘It’s a relic, I tell you,’ Elard the pilgrim held his ground.

  ‘You’re all idiots,’ Banley the robber dismissed the lot of them, ‘it’s gold. Who in their right mind is going to go into Wales for some relic or an army? An army I ask you? Things best kept away from if you ask me.’

  ‘Don’t know what you’d know about it,’ the straggler woman countered, ‘very lucrative a good army. Bigger the better.’

  ‘Not as good as a relic,’ Elard piped up. ‘One good relic and you’re made for life.’

  The various parties to the discussion now drew their fellows into the argument until the middle of the road was just a mess of arguing robbers, pilgrims and stragglers, each one as sure of his or her own position as anyone could be.

  Even More was piling in, although he seemed able to swap sides with each argument, and was heading for the conclusion that there was an army of robber-pilgrims who carried gold in their relics.

  No one could be sure, but it was probably one of the robbers who pushed first, robbers generally being the sort of people for pushing and shoving.

  It seemed stragglers could hold their own as well, and pretty soon the pushing and shoving had extended to everyone engaged in the debate. The roadway became a melee of bodies and first one, then another was either pushed over, or off the path altogether.

  Voices were being raised and it wouldn’t be long before someone reached for a rock.

  The confusion continued for quite some time. An official looking man wandered up at some point, perhaps he was the toll-man or bridge keeper, paid to keep this vital artery of the country clear and free for traffic. Whoever he was, he took one look at the size of the crowd scuffling on his doorstep and decided that watching them was his best course of action.

  More wandered out of the crowd and joined him at the side of the road.

  ‘It’s all about the rowlocks,’ said More, grinning and nodding.

  ‘Is it?’ said the man, looking like he was just as worried about the boatman as he was about the fight.

  ‘Oh, yis. It’s the golden rowlocks that the army have given to the druids. You see the weaver and the monk have been sent by the King to find Martel. He was on my boat. Did I tell you about my boat?’

  The man wandered away again. He’d come back in an hour or two and hope that this had all just gone away.

  With no progress being made in the resolution of the debate, the group was starting to break up into sub-fights. In the course of the conflict some individuals had developed personal grudges and were intent on taking them out.

  ‘Stop!’ Pord the pilgrim held his arms above his head and shouted at the top of his voice. This stunned everyone as he had been quite quiet until then.

  They all paused mid-argument and turned to the pilgrim.

  ‘Where’ve they gone?’ Pord asked, or rather demanded of his fellows.

  Heads were turned and the road scanned.

  There was no sign of Wat, Hermitage, Cwen, John or the druid.

  ‘The bastards,’ the lead straggler exclaimed. ‘They’ve gone into Wales without us. After them!’

  Forgetting their disagreement over the purpose of the visit, the entire party ran to the bridge over the River Severn, and without a second glance hurried to meet whatever fate had in store for them.

  Caput XVII

  Meet the Locals.

  ‘This way,’ the druid had found his voice, although it was a pretty terse instruction.

  They had run over the bridge as soon as attention was off them, and quickly turned to follow the priest as he headed north on the Welsh side of the river and headed confidently along the path.

  Once they were confident they were away from the crowd they slowed to fast walking pace.

  Hermitage did not feel confident at all. Here he was. In Wales. With the Welsh. Not in England anymore. Something bad was bound to happen very soon indeed. After all, everyone William sent to Wales came to a bad end, and here they were sent to Wales by William. And now they were here, the bad end was bound to be just around the corner.

  Neither Wat nor Cwen seemed at all bothered about treading into this unknown land, but at least John had his hand on his sword.

  Hermitage scanned the sky but couldn’t see any huge, fire-breathing shapes descending on them. There didn’t appear to be any druids hiding in the bushes and no savage killers leapt out into the roadway to gobble them up.

  Still, they’d only just stepped off the bridge. It would take quite some time before Hermitage would be able to relax at all. Probably five or six years.

  The druid led them on, which at least meant they wouldn’t have to wander aimlessly about the place.

  Only now did it occur to Hermitage to wonder whether the druid actually knew anything at all about Martel. He had just assumed that a druid turning up in the middle of the night knowing they were going to Wales, was in on the secret. Perhaps his assumption was a dangerous one. Many of his assumptions were. This druid might want them for his own devices. Whatever they may be. The man could be leading them in entirely the wrong direction.

  He was about to raise his thoughtful finger and bring the party to a halt to discuss the question, when he noticed a cart accompanied by three people coming down the road towards them.

  It was a simple enough affair. A donkey pulled it, dragged reluctantly along by a man at its head. A woman sat in the cart among a load of what looked like weeds of some sort, and another man walked at the side.

  The shivers it sent through Hermitage’s body were far from simple. This was it. The cart probably had a dragon in it, the man at the front would turn out to be a killer and the other two would undoubtedly call for help from the horde that was hiding in the woods which bordered the track.

  The cart drew closer and no one seemed to be doing anything. Why wasn’t John getting his sword out? Why weren’t Wat and Cwen stopping and getting ready for the attack? The druid would be happy with the situation of course, leading them into this deadly trap.

  Who knew what horrors a Welsh cart could unleash? He tried to tell himself there couldn’t be a dragon in there. Where was the smoke? And how could you carry a fire breathing animal in a wooden cart? The whole thing would burn to ash at the first exhale.

  He had to remind himself he didn’t believe in dragons in the first place. As usual, he was taking a perfectly reasonable situation and spinning his own personal cataclysm.

  As the cart drew closer he recalled just how many perfectly reasonable situations had wound up in a personal cataclysm of some sort. It was quite a lot.

  Shying away as the cart drew level, Hermitage was fully prepared to run for the woods, or hide behind John.

  The man at the front of the cart raised his hand, probably ready to hurl a knife.

  ‘Bore da,’ the man said as the cart walked on by.

  ‘Arrgh,’ Hermitage screamed and hid his face in his hands. ‘We’ve been c
ursed, we’ve been cursed.’

  When he cautiously drew his hands down again he saw that everyone was looking at him. The cart had stopped and the people with it looked the most puzzled of all.

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ Wat asked.

  ‘He, he,’ Hermitage found the strength to point a shaking hand at the cart man, but could explain no more.

  ‘He said good day,’ Wat explained with a disappointed look that Hermitage would have been proud of.

  ‘Er?’ said Hermitage, the onset of embarrassment at his foolishness sweeping over him.

  ‘Bore da,’ Wat repeated the fateful words. ‘It means good day. Bore, good. Da, day. See?’

  ‘You speak Welsh?’ Hermitage was amazed, which helpfully took his mind off his reaction to a simple cart man saying hello.

  ‘Only a word or two,’ said Wat.

  ‘Is he alright?’ the cart man now asked in perfect English, albeit with a lilting accent.

  ‘Not really,’ Cwen replied, ‘nervous type. You know.’

  Hermitage thought that was a bit harsh. Mind you, he had screamed when someone said good day.

  ‘Oh, aye?’ said the man, ‘what’s he doing here then?’

  ‘We’re looking for someone,’ said Wat, ‘been sent. Well three of us have. The others are, erm, keeping us company.’

  ‘There’s nice,’ said the man. He appraised John and noted the weapons and gave the druid a respectful nod. ‘Who you looking for then?’

  ‘Chap called Martel,’ said Wat.

  Hermitage thought it really would be ridiculous if this fellow turned out to know Martel. He knew nothing about Wales but it clearly wasn’t a small place.

  ‘Funny name,’ the Welshman observed.

  ‘He’s a Norman,’ said Cwen.

  ‘Poor feller.’

  No,’ said Hermitage, ‘it just means he’s from Normandy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the cart man, ‘I know. Poor feller. And he’s supposed to be in Wales is he?’

  ‘So we’re told.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve heard about any Normans round abouts. Not that they’d last long if they turned up.’

  The woman in the back of the cart spoke up. ‘There’s a Mantel up Knighton way,’ she said helpfully.