Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

by Howard of Warwick

  ‘We could go back to the King and tell him that we tried to get the gold but that the druids are fierce and won’t let it go. We say that they killed Martel and you and that we didn’t have the men to deal with them. All he needs to do is come with a small force and it will be his.’

  ‘I don’t know where you two have been, but you don’t seem to have the first idea,’ de Boise was dismissive. ‘I’m not going to let you go because then I wouldn’t be able to kill you, would I?’

  ‘But you don’t need to kill us,’ Wat explained.

  ‘But I want to,’ de Boise countered.

  There seemed to be no arguing with that.

  ‘Now,’ said de Boise, rubbing his hands in eager anticipation, ‘shall we pop you in the hole now?’ he gave it a moment’s thought. ‘No, you might try and get out. We’ll wait until the stone gets here, then do it all in one go.’

  He paced up and down. The pace was that of an impatient man who cannot wait for his giant stone to roll down from the hills so that he can crush a monk and a weaver to death.

  ‘Well?’ he eventually demanded of Wem,

  ‘No, not really,’ replied Wem, who was in no mood to cooperate.

  De Boise was about to unleash his mailed fist again, when a noise caught his attention.

  They all heard it, a sort of low, grinding, rumbling noise, accompanied by some splintering sounds and the distant shouts of men. It was no natural sound at all. It was most akin to a fight between a large number of masons and an equally large group of carpenters, both of whom were running away from giant with a significant flatulence problem.

  ‘Aha,’ said Wem, with some satisfaction, ‘it’s coming.’

  All eyes turned up the valley towards the hillside, and waited for something to appear. They all knew that it would be a large rock on rollers, trundling down the path of flat stones. As no one had ever seen anything like that before, they were keen to get first sight.

  ‘It’s definitely coming,’ Wem confirmed, ‘coming pretty well by the sound of it.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said de Boise. When it gets here we’ll pop these two in the hole and then tip it on top of them.’ He smiled to himself at the prospect. ‘Oh,’ he said with a sudden realisation.

  ‘Problem?’ Hermitage asked, hoping there was quite a big one.

  ‘How am I going to get your bits if you’re buried under a rock?’

  ‘Well,’ Wat began, ‘we didn’t like to say anything but it is a bit of a problem. That’s why sending us with word to the King is a much better idea.’

  ‘Got it,’ said de Boise, having ignored Hermitage and Wat completely. ‘If the monk can leave an arm out, and you leave a leg, I can have them without having to move the stone again.’

  ‘A leg?’ Wat asked.

  ‘Or anything else you like. As long as it’s vaguely recognisable.

  ‘There!’ Wem called and pointed, ‘it’s coming.’

  They all followed his finger and saw the men of village emerge from the brush. They were emerging very quickly indeed and didn’t look at all happy.

  ‘It’s coming,’ Wem nodded authoritatively.

  ‘It’s coming,’ the men of the village screamed as they ran to keep up with their charge.

  Wem looked puzzled and took a step forward. His eyes widened as the sight of the stone coming down the valley became clear.

  The rocks and the rollers were working very well indeed, so well that the rock was travelling at a very good walking pace, but with such weight that it was clear stopping it was going to be the problem.

  ‘We released the holding brace,’ Caradoc yelled as he ran to keep up, ‘and the bloody thing set off.’

  It was clear that the stone was large. Quite large enough to finish off a monk and a weaver. And quite large enough to finish off the entire village, with its inexorable speed.

  It was also clear why the men of the village were running around to try and keep the thing under control. One slip or missed roller and the sacrifices would be scattered all over the valley floor.

  At regular intervals several of them would run to the back of the stone to retrieve a roller that had been discarded like some giant toothpick. They heaved this round to the front of the stone and laid it down on the road, usually just before the stone arrived, looking forward to crushing their hands - and arms and anything else that got in the way.

  ‘That’s very impressive,’ said Hermitage, quite taken with the very clever use of materials which enabled such a huge stone to be moved and such a rate.

  ‘It’ll be even more impressive if we’re standing in its way when it gets here,’ Wat pointed out.

  ‘Hm,’ said Hermitage, absentmindedly. He was clearly considering something else. ‘You know what?’

  ‘There’s a bloody huge rock about to crash into us?’

  ‘No,’ Hermitage was thoughtful. He had his head on one side and was considering the approaching piece of mountain. ‘I don’t think the hole is big enough.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Wat, not giving this any importance at all.

  ‘The rock is very large and I don’t think it will fit in the hole. It might go in the top but it certainly won’t sink to the bottom.’

  ‘So?’ Wat almost shouted as the audience began to scatter in all directions.

  ‘It means there will be a gap at the bottom. If we are in the hole, I think we could be quite safe.’

  ‘Apart from having a monstrous rock on top of us, which we won’t be able to move?’

  ‘We could dig our way out,’ Hermitage was quite happy at the prospect.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ said Wat. With hands tied behind his back he tried to nudge Hermitage with his shoulder so they could get out of the way of the approaching rock.

  ‘We’re quite safe here,’ said Hermitage, ‘the path is guiding the passage of the rock very effectively, and the floor of the valley is flat and so the stone is slowing.’

  Wat looked and saw that there did seem to be a bit less unstoppable force to the rock as it drew nearer.

  ‘And if it does get here, we simply step out of the way.’ Hermitage nodded to himself, ‘in fact I don’t know why the men with the stone are making such a fuss.’

  ‘Perhaps they wanted to warn the villagers that their death was hurtling down the hill.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hermitage, grateful for Wat’s explanation.

  The slowing of the stone was quite noticeable now. The great behemoth had slowed to a walking pace as it approached the site of Hywel’s hut.

  ‘That really is very clever indeed,’ Hermitage nodded in satisfaction, ‘it would be most diverting to consider the practicalities behind the scheme; angles and weights and such. I don’t mean to put these villagers down, but I’m not sure they’d have the wherewithal to calculate this to such a degree of accuracy.’

  ‘I’m pleased you think they’ve done so well,’ said Wat, in that tone he had.

  They were all gathered now at the edge of the hole as the massive stone slowed more and travelled sedately on to its terminus.

  De Boise looked very happy indeed, probably with the size of the rock compared to a monk.

  Wem looked very content that his plan had worked to such a high degree of accuracy. The rest of the crowd looked on, very impressed that something very impressive was happening.

  As the stone reached the end of its paved path, it had just enough momentum to take it over the edge of the hole. The entire journey couldn’t have happened better and there were smiles all round. Apart from Hermitage and Wat, of course.

  The stone, the great, master stone, hewn from the side of the hill and brought to this place to fulfil the destiny Wulf had seen in his vision, edged its way over the hole a few inches more.

  It was a few inches which was just enough to increase the weight hanging over the hole so that it was slightly more than the weight on the earth. The whole thing began to slowly tip up.

  ‘It’s going to tip,’ Wem said in wonder, ‘it’s going to tip straig
ht into the hole.’

  ‘Quick,’ de Boise barked, gesturing towards Hermitage and Wat, ‘throw them in.’

  Caput XXX

  There Goes the Stone.

  Hywel was first to move. He had a look that said he had had enough of all this and was going to take action to bring it to an end.

  Almost simultaneously, the Arch-Druid stepped forward from where he had been mingling in the crowd, the look in his eye was firm and resolute.

  Lord Bermo came up for the ceremonial moment, his look was a bit confused but it seemed to have some sort of purpose.

  Finally, from behind a hut, crouching low so that he would not be spotted, came John.

  All of this was unseen by Hermitage and Wat as they waited for their fateful moment. Despite Hermitage’s confidence that the stone would not, in fact, crush them to death, the actual experience of falling into the hole, just before the rock did the same, was quite uncomfortable.

  The stone was now at its very tipping point and De Boise gave the fateful order, ‘Now,’ he screamed.

  He screamed again as Hywel, the Arch-Druid, Bermo and John, simultaneously pushed him into the hole in advance of the falling rock.

  With a finality as heavy as only a very substantial part of a welsh mountain can deliver, the master stone swung its awful weight up and over and came to a halt with a muffled thud as its sides ground into the mud.

  ‘Oh,’ said Hermitage, as he looked around and realised he was not under the rock at all.

  ‘There,’ said the Arch-Druid, dusting his hands at a job well done.

  ‘Come here, call himself King?’ said Bermo in disgust. ‘What do you think of the squirrel now?’ he shouted at the rock – which made everyone frown.

  ‘New headman indeed,’ Hywel said with a smirk.

  ‘One less,’ said John, rather ambiguously.

  Wat and Hermitage just looked at one another. And then at the rock.

  ‘What have you done?’ Hermitage asked, appalled at what had come to pass.

  ‘Put the Norman under the rock instead of you?’ said the Arch-Druid, not seeing why Hermitage needed to ask.

  Hermitage’s selfish thought was that this was a good thing. But pushing people under rocks had to be bad, generally speaking, so shouldn’t be encouraged. He tutted in a rather non-committal manner.

  The robbers were now the only ones left with any loyalty to the man under the rock, loyalty which they abandoned as fast as a rock sliding down a welsh mountain. Under Banley’s direction they scurried among the captives, releasing them from their bindings, and acting as if this had been their plan all along.

  Bermo’s men helped out and there was a lot of mutual scowling and growling between the two bands.

  Ellen and Cwen, joined Wat and Hermitage at the rock. Ellen was talking loudly and had the ear of Leon. She had it between her fingers and it had turned very red.

  She paused in the tirade against her son. ‘Cor,’ she said, looking into the hole, ‘what a way to go.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wat, ‘and rather him than us.’

  The various faces stared at the rock with different thoughts. They were all inscrutable but ranged from Hermitage’s sorrow at a life lost, to Leon’s wish that his mother was under the rock as well.

  ‘Help.’ They all turned as they heard a distant cry. Perhaps one of the robbers had decided to carry on being a robber, or Lypolix was carrying on with the sacrifices regardless.

  Among all the people milling around, pilgrims, robbers, Bermo’s men, stragglers, villagers, no one seemed to be in distress. Even More was distracted. He was using a stone and a small beetle to demonstrate to one of the village children what happened when a rock fell on you.

  ‘Help.’ The cry came again and no one could locate it.

  ‘Someone get this thing off me.’ Now the voice of de Boise was recognisable.

  ‘Good gracious,’ said Hermitage looking at the rock, partly in alarm that the man was alive under there and partly in satisfaction that he had been right, the hole was too small.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Ellen laughed and gave the rock a friendly kick. ’Get yourself out.’

  Hermitage looked cautiously at everyone else and knew that his next suggestion was not going to be well received. Nonetheless, he could not keep it in. How would he live with himself?

  ‘We must get him out,’ he said.

  No one moved.

  ‘He’s trapped,’ Hermitage pointed out.

  ‘As you would have been,’ said Cwen, ‘and I don’t think de Boise would have dirtied his hands digging you out.’

  ‘What he would do is one thing. What we would do is another. And what we would do is what must be done.’

  ‘Eh?’ Ellen looked confused.

  ‘There is a man trapped under a rock. It is our Christian duty to get him out.’

  ‘Says so in the good book does it?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hermitage with confidence.

  ‘Says a lot about digging bad men out from under rocks?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Hermitage confessed he didn’t have any accurate references for exactly this situation, but the principle was clear.

  ‘He may be a bad man, but he is in need.’

  ‘What if he’s evil?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Hermitage wasn’t really prepared for a theological discussion. Which was unusual.

  ‘Yeah, what if he’s evil and we’ve buried him under a rock? God would be pleased with that.’

  ‘He’s not evil,’ said Hermitage, ‘as such. Just, erm, bad. Anyway, we could always disarm him before we let him out, then he’d be harmless.’

  ‘He’s more harmless under the rock.’

  ‘There’s no point Hermitage,’ said Wat, ‘we couldn’t move this thing even if we wanted to.’

  Hermitage frowned at this. ‘These men got it down from the mountains. I’m sure we could move it a bit from here.’

  ‘You said we could dig our way out anyway,’ Wat pointed out.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Hermitage, ‘but that rather depended on being thrown into the hole with a reasonable selection of tools.’ He looked for the man in charge of stone moving and beckoned him over.

  ‘De Boise is trapped under here,’ he explained, ‘if we could lift it a bit, he could hand his weapons out and then we could rescue him.’

  Wem stroked his chin. He then walked round the rock, giving it desultory kicks every now and again. He emerged from the other side shaking his head and sucking the air in through tight lips. ‘Tricky,’ he said.

  ‘You got the rock into the hole,’ Hermitage pointed out.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Wem acknowledged. ‘Getting rocks into holes is one thing, getting them out again is something else altogether.’

  ‘I’m sure you could come up with something.’ Hermitage pleaded.

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll give it some thought, have a chat with Caradoc and the others and see what can be done. Get back to you in about a week?’

  ‘A week?’ Hermitage was horrified, ‘he’ll be dead by then.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Wem, with little concern.

  Hermitage watched in disappointment as the man wandered away.

  Wulf now came up and laid his hands on the stone. ‘This is just how I imagined it,’ he whispered in awe.

  ‘There’s a Norman buried underneath,’ Hermitage pointed out.

  ‘Yes,’ Wulf acknowledged with slightly distant gaze. ‘This is the master stone you know,’ he explained.

  ‘We’d heard,’ said Wat.

  ‘Now a great stone circle will be built around it.’

  The Arch-Druid joined his stone seer and they admired the standing stone, ignoring the muffled pleas that were coming from underneath it.

  ‘I had a vision you know,’ Wulf explained to Hermitage.

  Hermitage nodded politely, hoping that this wasn’t going to get awkward.

  ‘There will be a ring of magnificent standing stones,’ he gazed into the sky as he des
cribed his dream. ‘Not like Lypolix’s little things. These will all be as big as this master. They will stand sentinel, creating gates to the Gods. Some will even have great cross-pieces hauled upon their heads, under which we will make our obeisance.’

  The Arch-Druid and Wulf were standing solemnly, with heads bowed.

  Hermitage frowning at a recollection this brought to mind. ‘In a circle, you say?’ he asked Wulf.

  ‘That’s right,’ Wulf nodded.

  Hermitage hesitated, ‘One circle of great big stones like this, with, as you say roofs on some of them, and then perhaps a smaller circle outside.’

  Wulf frowned at this heathen who was describing his circle.

  The Arch-Druid glowered, ‘How do you know of the Grand Complication?’ he demanded.

  ‘Is that what it’s called?’ Hermitage liked the sound of the name. He didn’t like the fact that these druids didn’t seem very happy any more.

  ‘Speak,’ the Arch-Druid commanded.

  ‘Ah, well, it’s nothing really,’ Hermitage smiled. He could tell they weren’t going to let this go. He tried to sound as nonchalant and disinterested as possible. ‘It’s just that it erm, sort of sounds a bit like the one they’ve got down south?’

  The two druids were utterly silent. Which did not seem good.

  The Arch-Druid spoke very slowly, ‘What “one they’ve got down south?”’

  Hermitage was now all enthusiasm, surely they would know about the circle. ‘Oh, yes,’ he gushed, ‘great big thing. In the fields near Salisbury. Just like you said, big stones, roof on some of them, a big one like this in the middle.’ Hermitage now looked at the rock with newly informed eyes. ‘In fact it’s exactly like this one. Isn’t that remarkable?’

  ‘And you’ve seen this? With your own eyes?’ the Arch-Druid sounded a bit disappointed now.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Hermitage confirmed happily. ‘I was sent from my monastery to study the druids and er, others, and spent some time with a charming fellow who told me all about it.’

  ‘A charming fellow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hermitage. ‘In fact he was a druid as well. Perhaps you know him?’