Hodd

by Adam Thorpe

  Then I ground my teeth with a noise like a mouse gnawing a nutshell, and said, ‘Verily, the greatest service will be to brother Thomas, when he hath his reward.’ ‘Ay,’ said Hennrie, ‘my master wisheth to be rewarded more than his hundred pounds.’ And I thought: ‘He was ever eager to cloak his avarice;’ saying nothing more, but bethinking a way of warning Hodde without Henry’s sharp eyes pursuing me.

  Then Satan, worming into that sacred place like a spider, filled me with e’en thicker hate of the boy, who was but three or four years younger than myself; for he was ever the one who had replaced me in the worthy monk’s affection, and now (so he boasted) he was the owner of a fine harp, paid for by the brothers. And long before (as it seemed to me then, though it was but a matter of five or so years), I had similarly lost another master: this being the hermit. Truly, methought, life was but a betrayal, that is doom to all green and growing things, as ice and strong cold be, caused by fiends and making the soul’s brief journey barren as Yslonde.237

  I leapt upon the lip of the pillar beside us, and spied Hode’s dusky-blue hood, ever near the armed guard of the brute baron, just as the Host was raised high and the [hand]bells rang out their happy news. Yet the baron himself was leaning towards the damsel and talking and laughing, as ignorant of the divine as any Jew or heathen: and so fierce I felt, I might have drawn my bow and run him through with a shaft, save a strange noise was heard through the open door, and a subtle quietening of the market roar without.

  Dost thou know, dear reader, what it is to hearken the gates of eternal bliss closing with a distant boom like thunder, that hushes the naked hordes and tells you that you are trapped for ever in the desolation of pain and suffering? Sufficient ’tis to know it, and not even to be thrown into liquid fire or cold slime, or squeezed by weights, or pinched by iron pincers, or blinded with quicklime, or stretched upon the rack until your limbs burst from their sockets; for to have knowledge of the loss of eternal bliss is agony enough, when the cause of loss be, exempli gratia, a few fleet moments of carnal lust in a soiled bed, that passeth like a shadow on the wall.

  Such did I feel, on hearing the gates of Noty[n]gham close, one after the other on their great iron hinges, so that the ground itself trembled.238

  Henry cast a wicked, gleeful glance at me, and I knew not what action to take, for I was paralysed. Were I to warn my master of the hue and cry raised against him, he might doom us both by his impetuosity, inches from the armed guard: for Hode had upon him a two-handed sword in its scabbard, longer than his thigh, that was so sharp it might cleft through a man’s brainpan all the way to the chin; yet in no wise could he defeat the baron’s and the sherif’s guard together, for already I could hear the faint cries of many men summoned by the sceryf, as if the assault of a castle was underway, and from both north and south.

  Yet now I think it the good Lord’s doing, this aforementioned freezing of my limbs, as the Host was raised and the choir sang sweetly enough, ignorant as my master of the closing of the gates, and of the many armed men pressing towards us through the streets and the market, like a flood, armed with staves, axes and swords: only He knew, in His infinite wisdom, that I still bore a speck of salvation within me, not yet found by the fingers of the Arch-fiend and his seven daughters,239 and that I might one day return to the righteous path e’er all hope was lost …

  The ensuing meditations do not warrant insertion here.

  2

  Once before had I been thus paralysed, and in like manner; I have long considered it my own feebleness, that stinted my advance in the world, for it took place before the young king [Henry 111] himself. Yet e’en that was no doubt also the thumb of the Lord God Himself, pressing me to His secret will as a potter doth his clay upon the wheel, for He alone is our true master and eternal Father.

  And now I think that I must explain what I mean by ‘stinting my advance’, for in truth life is made up of a myriad ways that connect one with another, for oft we leave the allotted path for a false one, yet find our way back.

  My former life as a pupil of the hermit’s proceeded quietly enough, summer upon winter, winter upon summer: happy state, no doubt descried by a messenger of the Scribe of All Errors! For early in the month of June, when I was eight or nine, there came a sea fog so thick that it blew inly and lay in white vapours upon the moor. I was reading by the cave, and our master praying fervently in his [circle of ] stones, when, hearing distant calls of strange birds very like peals of trumpets, I saw Edwynn clambering down the cliff in great haste.

  The youth rushed up shouting and, without reflecting upon his terrible action, seized the kneeling devout by his wasted shoulders and shook him as if to wake him, saying that the king’s court,240 being lost in the vapours on its way to Whittbey, was halted in the village where he lived, and had taken all provender for the courtiers and sumpter-mules, and trampled the crops like a hail storm, for the followers numbered many hundreds and included dicers, tumblers, washerwomen, prostitutes and play-actors; and that his father, turned out of his own house by the royal stewards and becoming very drunk and sorrowful, had knocked a mincing courtier to the ground, by whom he had been called ‘an oaf, with a brain no bigger than an oak-apple’; and that his father was now seized, and at the king’s mercy (accused of grievous assault), and the smithy smashed to smithereens.241

  Thereupon, instead of sympathy, Edwin received blows (from a piece of driftwood) as harsh as those his own father had delivered to the courtier – though the boy was hardened to blows, whereas the courtier was not, save perhaps from the lance in a tournament. When this assault was over, and the blood wiped from his brow, the victim sat dazed and weeping on the sand, saying that he wished to die, for he knew not why God had thus treated him on this day.

  And the holy hermit, trembling from head to foot in his ragged cloth, explained that he had been, in his prayers, on the very sill of the light ineffable, wherein the sound of the sea-surge had become silenced, and the screaming gulls no more than whispers, and that the grace of the Sevenfold Spirit was stretched out to him with seven arms, shining brighter than gold, amidst clouds of myrrh and cinnamon; whereupon as he was spreading and stretching his soul towards the seven manifestations of Almighty God, whose invisible likeness was surrounded by many thousands of holy spirits and angels – swooping about a tower of the purest pearl wherein the immortal King did reside – then a sudden burst sounded above his head, as if the glass of the tower window had been punctured, and fell in pieces upon his hair and hands, and he was not looking at the face of the divine, but upon the hideous and screaming visage of his mortal pupil.

  Thus did Edwyne understand his sorry wrongdoing, for by this feebleness he might have for ever denied his master a vision granted only to the purest and cleanest, even after death. And no blows were hard enough, he admitted. ‘Good!’ cried our master. ‘Now you understand that my vow is for a purpose stronger than any mortal emergency. Your father is a drunken brute,’ he went on. ‘This is granted you by the Almighty Lord that you may choose a holier and a cleaner path through the world’s fighting, uncoupled from thy sorry relatives. Tarry not, but seize the opportunity, that this blood upon your shirt is a sign and a blessing upon withal, for my hands are yet shining full marvellously.’ And so saying, he showed us his hands, and I did see them glowing like coals lightly blown upon by the breeze, and felt a strange joy ripple through me, though the surf did crash beyond and the gulls scream their sorrow out of this world full of sins.

  Yet Edwyne’s earthly ties proved too strong, and he and I returned to see the court (for such I had never imagined to see) and bring away his oath-fond mother, for he was very afraid that she too would be arrested and be left at the mercy of the king’s ministers.

  On the way there he began to grumble in his sorrow, his head cut about and bruised and his eyes swollen, and the devils that had fled him during the beating began again to creep back through his nostrils and ears and mouth, as they are ever eager to do, just as gnats [culices]
be, pricking him to speak ill of our holy master (than whom, we knew, few had ever been holier). In this I saw my opportunity, proud and jealous rival that I was, and fed his dismay.

  ‘Yea,’ I said, as we hastened upon the grassy track that was misty still, ‘the hermit forgets this world of suffering, that the Lord Jesus never forgot.’ ‘The Lord Jesus would have struck the courtier dumb,’ said Edwine; ‘nay, he would have sent a plague of toads upon the whole fawning rabble, sparing only good King Henry himself!’ I laughed and said: ‘Then you would be made the first minister, and I the chief knight, with armour of worked gold and the thickest lance ever seen, and we would fill our court’s library with the most costly and fabulous books.’ Thus I fed his devils as if giving crumbs to flies, that swell to hideous dragons within.

  The mists were thinning as we approached the village, yet we could not see it for the tents and waggons and the swarm of people, while the stench of horses, oxen and men, and old fish and rotten meat, mingled so thickly that it made its own vapour, that numerous camp fires added to yet further in a choking miasma. I said to Edwynn that this was very like the fog that awaiteth sinners in Satan’s kingdom, and which afterwards moisters the fields of Hell and corrupts them, for nothing grows in that desolation.242 Yet all he replied was, ‘Ey, daf, keep thy peace!’

  There in a sty for swine we perceived several pairs of feet, while a hovel used by shepherds was replete with fine cloths and straw beds such as armies use, numbering at least ten. The din was dreadful: men and women running about, and trumpets blowing, and buffoons play-acting beneath a tree to make courtiers laugh, for the young king himself was still a-bed, and none knew where they might be going next – not even Whittby [being certain], for they were tardy by more than a day. Never have I seen such loads piled upon waggons, nor poor sumpter-mules more weary, so that some had died in their harness, cruelly flayed. Great casks of sour wine were set upon carts, from which all drew liberally and grimaced as they swallowed; while nobles and knights, wrapped in cloaks brushing the torn and corrupted earth, did chew at a table on mouldy crusts dipped into a muddy broth, and all the time shouting orders that none obeyed: spitting all the while like the roughest serfs, they plunged their fingers into the cups as they drank, spattering much grease about.

  Within the houses of the village (for the tents were for their servants), the highest ministers were billeted; yet even they looked dismayed and vexed when they emerged from under peasant thatch in their fine caps and cloaks, and some in glittering mail with their helmets under their arms, to practise [jousting or fighting] in the lists – for which horrid pastime many apple and pear trees were felled, for the orchard was the flattest place, and soft-grassed.

  Of the original inhabitants, there was no sign, for cast out as they were, they had either stayed elsewhere bewailing their ruin (for the locusts were taking all), or vanished into the throng – especially that which convulsed [agitavit] about the church and the great barn, in which more long tables were set, heaving with people.

  Hoping for droppings and leavings, or decent gains – selling their only skinny cow to the ravenous lords and their servants, or milk to the royal merchants by so much a pail – these [locals] were no doubt cheated in the pandemonium. Some were hired as washerwomen, slaving at giant tubs upon heat provided by their own long-stored fuel: one had her baby beside her, that she did coax her pap into when he screamed, inches from the bubbling water full of dirty cloths. Amongst these women Edwyn, alas, could not find his mother, but only his maiden aunt that was a simpleton with cropped hair like a sheep’s, and spoke no more than twenty words in a loud voice.

  The smithy was disembowelled, for the court had great need of repairs, and had loaded the anvil upon an oxen cart, and all the tools, that it might mend buckets or weapons or whatnot, wherever it stopped. For this, Edywin’s father had received meagre compensation of £12, that he had refused, which led to the bitter quarrel for which he might hang – for the victim of his wrath lay between life and death, though the royal surgeons had bled him strongly and wiped and cleansed his wounds.

  And likewise had the village been emptied of all its cart horses, oats, hay, halters and other apparel, and every beast in stye and byre and field, down to hens and several hundreds of eggs, for which coin makes no reparation when winter cometh, while certain ways and yards were ankle-deep in stinking dung and excrement from the press of the living creatures both human and animal, for none minded where they did their offices. I saw many lost women, alas, painted like harlots (for such they were) and loosely clad, showing bare arms and necks and worse, and some in carnal conjunction with men, scarce concealed! – for they served their clients with only a heap of straw as curtain, that anyone might peer round by chance, squinting through the choking vapours.

  Many times have I seen Hell on this earth, dear reader!

  All this awful sight was drawing me nearer to the pure way of the hermit, yet for one demon within me, that held out a sweet fruit. I noted how idle and bored many of the courtiers were, despite the play-actors and buffoons and jugglers, who performed no doubt the same japes and mirths as many times before on the royal progress, judging by the hisses and boos; and e’en the court’s [glove] puppets, that held me as in a trance, their squawking ribaldry in the canvas booth seeming more true than their human counterparts, failed to quicken any member of the dusty train of the king. And among the servants was an Ethiop,243 that marvelled me much, for I bethought him at first to be the Devil who had slipped secretly in, though his features were as ours and with strong, white teeth.

  Thereupon, watching Edywin pleading for his father at the feet of a noble with haughty nostrils like slits in a sleeve, who kicked him aside and then threw him a coin to further humiliate him, I left my fellow scholar under some pretext or other [per causam alicujus rei] and made hot-foot for the cliffs, ne’er stopping though my feet were bare upon the path.

  My master being once again settled into meditation, I could borrow the harp from the cave without troubling him. Within two milewey244 from leaving the hermitage, I was returned to the court and its clamour. The king (or mayhap his guardians) were not yet decided whither they would progress, if anywhere at all that day, for reasons no one knew: the mists had cleared to warm sunlight, and Witby was scarce a day away for a laden cart.245

  Edwynn having disappeared, I sat upon a tussock by a fence, where it seemed to me there was a better type of young courtier – both men and women – perched on rugs and well-woven carpets in a quieter spot; and I began to play, singing also. Novelty rewarded me with coins, each one a marvel to me; for I did sing well under my master’s tutelage, who maintained that nimbleness of fingers on strings is a divine gift and that the songs of angels will make us seem as cackling hens and our nimbleness as that of a toad, but we must ever strive to imitate them: and my voice then was still that of a girl’s. Soon a small crowd was gathered in a circle about me, and I did not stumble from nervousness but was lifted by the joy of so many people listening to naught but myself – my soul being full of wicked pride instead of humility. And thus I did win many pennies that day, growing as if by a charm into shillings! And the taste for greater glory was in my mouth, thanks to the Devil, who ever plants in us unwonted joy as well as pains, to further his treachery.

  From the large but humble farmhouse that flew the pennants of the royal and legitimate sovereign upon its mossy thatch, the Prince of Princes himself emerged; sore pressed to glimpse him, there being many in front of me bustling to prepare for departure, and great carts and waggons, and whinnying horses and braying mules, I slipped between legs to the front, being yet small of stature. His own smallness of youth caused him, anyway, to be half hid behind his favourites and the lords and guardians that ruled for him, though I could see the gilded hem of a blue silken robe brushing the carpet laid for the progress to his mount, and very beautiful pointed shoes of buttoned leather.

  Then of a sudden his pale-hued, royal visage appeared, that was indeed one-eyed;
246 and spying the harp upon my back, he stopped. Thereupon a retainer approached me and bid me play. In the fore-front of that throng, and covered over in a sudden great heat, my limbs refused to move as though gripped by ague, and giddiness came over me as I had been assaulted with a cudgel.

  And forthwith was the king hastened upon his way, seeming more anxious than angry, for he was too young to hold sway over his ministers, and I was left severed from all my hopes, and in pitiful shamefulness.

  Soon the cries and trumpets faded over the hill, and the village was as an empty field of battle, much knocked, in which the only sound was oaths against all who rule over others on this earth, and women weeping, and children running about in search of dropped trinkets and broken valuables and crockery, and the bleat of a single spared goat. The stream and the well that the inhabitants must drink from were full of garbage, entrails and other foul ordure, that mingled its vapours with the yet-smoky air. Even the little holy church was not spared, for she bore a drunken harlot within, left behind the altar and snoring, whose fate was to be dragged out and stripped, smeared in dung, and whipped black and blue until there was scarce a tooth growing in her face, that she couple no more with lewd men or husbands.

  ’Twas Edwin’s father who beat her with the most zeal, using a carter’s lash;247 for the steel-dinting bull had been released by royal pardon, in consideration of the loss of his equipment, with a fine of £4, this sum removed from the recompense – the victim being recovered sufficiently to depart upon a litter with the rest of the court. And Edwynne’s mother returning from a distant field, and cajoling her husband with many choice oaths as was her wont (for she blamed him, being a shrew), he bestrewed his anger upon the harlot.