Brother Hermitag, the Shorts Read online

  Emerging once more into the daylight, he set off to wander the grounds of the monastery while his thoughts wandered around his head.

  Wandering the grounds was not a happy experience. The place had been constructed as a retreat from the world and so all semblance to the world had been removed. Comfort, warmth, and companionship were kept outside, while hunger, cold and a variety of diseases had been invited in, and had made their home here.

  A stroll around the monastery grounds had to be undertaken quite quickly, and preferably with a weapon to hand. Several Brothers had suffered the attentions of an animal of some sort that roamed the place. No one knew quite what it was, just that it had teeth, was hungry and was not afraid of a habit.

  Hermitage was not interested in his surroundings though, he wanted to think through events and circumstances, knowing, somewhere in the back of his head that there was an explanation, and that it was not a happy one. As he approached the main door of the establishment, which always remained firmly barred to prevent the temptations of the outer world getting in, or as some brothers had it, to prevent the horrors of the place getting out and scaring the locals, there was a loud rap.

  ‘King’s messenger,’ a voice from outside heralded itself and was answered, almost before Hermitage could react, by Alud running across to open the gate.

  No one ever visited the monastery. Hermitage had never heard anyone knock on the door from the outside wanting to come in. Pounding on the inside wanting to get out, yes, quite frequently.

  Intrigued by what would be revealed, he loitered as Alud swung the timbers wide. This was not an easy task as it was some time since the gates had been opened at all. The last time they had been shut it had been done very firmly indeed - catching quite a portion of Brother Kedrick in the process as that unfortunate Brother had made his bid for departure. He had departed a few days later, but in a much more permanent manner than he had doubtless hoped.

  As the gate opened, it revealed a magnificent, uniformed messenger atop an almost completely healthy horse. The man was festooned with pouches for the various parchments he would carry and his expensive looking saddle was hung with bags on either side. He urged his animal into the monastery with a disdainful look at this surroundings. The horse gave a derisive snort to complete the picture.

  ‘I’ve come for,’ he began in a voice befitting a messenger on a great horse.

  ‘The message,’ Alud said rather hurriedly. Remarkably, he was then joined by the abbot, who never came out for so humble a task as gate opening.

  ‘The what?’ the messenger asked, obviously in some puzzlement.

  ‘The message,’ the abbot said, gesturing his head in a very odd way toward Hermitage, ‘I expect you’ve come to collect the message which the king wishes to send to the Duke of Normandy?’

  ‘Oh, er yes,’ said the messenger, winking for some unknown reason. ‘The message.’

  ‘Go and get the message Alud,’ the abbot instructed and his assistant scurried off again.

  ‘What message?’ Hermitage asked.

  ‘None of your business Hermitage,’ the Abbot responded. ‘Perhaps we’ve been asked to prepare a confidential message for the king. You aren’t the only one who can scribe here you know.’

  Hermitage was about to say that yes, he was actually, when some buried instinct for self-preservation convinced him that this would be a bad thing to bring up.

  After a very few moments of rather awkward silence, Hermitage heard the running feet of Alud returning.

  ‘That’s a rather large message,’ he couldn’t help but comment when Alud presented a bulky bag which clearly contained something considerably more substantial than a parchment.

  ‘Er yes,’ said Alud holding the bag as if he had just been caught with his hands full of something disreputable, ‘We, er,’ he hesitated and seemed to think as he spoke very slowly, ‘We know that the, er, king is, erm, very fond of erm.’

  ‘Turnips,’ the abbot offered.

  ‘Yes, turnips,’ said Alud gratefully. ‘And so we’re sending him some turnips from the monastery garden.’ He smiled in satisfaction.

  ‘But I thought the message was going to the Duke of Normandy?’ Hermitage thought this was the most important question. He also wanted to comment that the turnips of the monastery were of such poor quality that even the starving turned them down. He thought that could wait.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Alud in some irritation it seemed, ‘and he hates turnips, so there you are.’

  This didn’t make much sense to Hermitage. He supposed the king sending a bad turnip to the duke might be part of the dispute he’d heard about, but it really wasn’t anything to do with him. This messenger and his turnips had totally distracted him from his consideration of the fate of Brother Prembard. He shook his head. He would leave the abbot, Alud and the messenger to their vegetables while he got back to the matter in hand.

  A connection presented itself in his head.

  ‘Wasn’t Prembard a Norman?’ He asked in real innocence.

  The silence descended again. This time the abbot, the messenger and Alud all exchanged looks. ‘You know I think you’re right.’ The abbot turned to Alud and spoke very casually, as if discussing how awful the weather was likely to be tomorrow. ‘Alud, do you think Prembard was a Norman?’

  Alud looked to the sky and scratched his chin in thought. He sounded mildly surprised at his own conclusion. ‘Now you come to mention it, I think he could well have been.’

  ‘Well,’ the abbot beamed, ‘what a coincidence eh?’ he shrugged.

  Alud stepped smartly up to the messenger, handed over the sack of turnips and beckoned the man to be on his way.

  ‘But in that case,’ Hermitage said slowly as the wheels of his mind turned slowly and ground facts to flour before baking something solid with them.

  ‘Oh my! What’s that?’ The abbot called in a rather odd voice as he pointed to the gate tower of the monastery.

  Hermitage and Alud looked up to see a monk on top of the tower apparently looking down at the ground outside the monastery. The winter afternoon light was dim now and so it was hard to make out who it was, but there was something familiar about the shape to Hermitage.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Alud asked very loudly although Hermitage couldn’t hear anything.

  Words now drifted through the gathering gloom.

  ‘Oh, Prembard, what have I done?’ a very calm and rational voice called out before it rose into a rather half-hearted scream. With that the figure hurled itself, with a leap so prodigious it could have been thrown, onto the ground below.

  Hermitage was horrified by the sight and shocked by the action. He was rather puzzled by the fact that the weak scream continued for some moments after the body had landed.

  They all rushed out of the monastery gate to find the remains lying on the ground outside. Rather mangled and damaged remains as the man had managed to reach the rocks which were several feet away from the wall. A truly amazing jump, Hermitage thought, for someone whose main aim would have been to simply reach the ground, which he could have done with considerably less effort.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Alud, the first to reach the scene.

  ‘What is it?’ the Abbot asked.

  ‘His head seems to have come off as a result of the fall. We’ll never find it in the dark and then animals will probably take it during the night.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said the abbot. ‘Never mind,’ he added.

  ‘That could be brother Prembard’s body,’ Hermitage called in some alarm.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the Abbot sounded quite cross. ‘How could a headless corpse climb a tower? No, what’s happened here is that Prembard’s killer has in turn killed himself in a fit of remorse. It is only justice that the killer lost his head just as his victim did.’

  The words “But I thought you said it was a prank” were climbing to the front of Hermitage’s tongue. He looked at abbot, Alud and the departing messenger and had an alarmin
g thought. There was something going on here. Something he didn’t understand, but something which connected everything together. Maybe it would come to him later. Back to the matter in hand.

  ‘But if Prembard’s body has gone?’ He suggested.

  ‘Well of course it’s gone, we buried it,’ Alud said.

  ‘That was quick,’ Hermitage blurted in surprise, ‘where?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Alud shrugged, ‘in the graveyard somewhere.’

  Hermitage’s jaw went up and down as he tried in vain to reason this latest event into his view of events. Clearly the abbot was an abbot and so there could be no dishonesty there. Perhaps Alud was up to something?

  ‘Look Hermitage,’ the abbot took his arm once more and led him firmly away from the scene of the death, which was now being tidied up by Alud. A man who had never tidied anything in his life. ‘I must say that I have been most impressed by your powers of reasoning.’

  ‘Oh, thank you father,’ Hermitage was surprised that this was the topic of conversation, rather than the murderous monk who had just thrown himself from the battlements.

  ‘Don’t mention it. I can see that you are an exceptional fellow. Not only have you shown great concern for your brothers and their welfare, but you have demonstrated a commendable concern to find out what actually happened.’

  ‘I think that only right father,’ Hermitage confirmed the blindingly obvious.

  ‘Quite so. So I think you’d better leave.’

  ‘What?’ Hermitage was shocked. Where had that come from? All the compliments and then that? Surely, if Hermitage was so well thought of, he should stay? Not that anyone had told him he was well thought of at all until now.

  ‘But of course. We are a humble and remote community, far distant from the circles of thought to which you are obviously suited. You need to be in a place where men are forever reasoning about why this happened, or what that means, or how do you spell this? I know of a number of other communities which would make far better use of your skills.’

  Hermitage remained startled and in denial. The thought of leaving was hard to comprehend. This place had not been his home for long, but he had got used to it. Yes, it was full of trials and tribulations, but then everywhere he went seemed well equipped with those. He had to admit that there were several of his Brothers he would not miss at all, but there were others. Come to think of it no, there weren’t any others. Perhaps leaving had its attractions after all. But where would he go? Was there really a place which welcomed such as Hermitage? Was there really a place which had any such as Hermitage?

  ‘You are a treasure to the monastic community Hermitage,’ the abbot went on. ‘You need to be in a place where there is thought and discussion and erudition and learning.’

  Hermitage was definitely coming round.

  ‘The monastery of De’Ath’s Dingle isn’t far away,’ the abbot said as he led Hermitage back to the gate.

  ‘De’Ath’s Dingle?’ thought Hermitage. He recalled hearing some mention of the place, but he couldn’t recall the context. Perhaps it had a famous library? That would be nice.

  At the gate, Alud was waiting. The body of the poor falling monk had gone and there was no sign that anything unusual had happened at all.

  As he stood, bewildered at the gate, Alud thrust a blanket containing Hermitage’s meagre belongings into the monk’s hand. When had they packed those?

  ‘Have a good journey,’ The abbot called as the gate was firmly closed behind the fundamentally puzzled Hermitage.

  He didn’t move for several moments, not quite sure what had just happened. He stared at the closed gates from the outside now, a view many of the brothers would give their eye teeth for. He then stared both ways down the lane which passed the monastery and looked at the dark, which was piling up in every direction. A dark full of cold, and noises. He hoped there would be safe refuge in one direction or the other, but really didn’t know which was best. And underlying the whole situation was a fresh quandary to be attacked. Where on earth was De’Ath’s Dingle, and how did you get there?

  The end of Hermitage and the Headless.

  Manuscript: MS/BH/HoW/002 Folio 7

  Hermitage and the Dog

  Preface.

  This is a remarkable manuscript for many reasons and I have included it in the category Hermitage: the wilderness week or two. As far as I can make out, the events portrayed took place between Hermitage’s departure from the unknown monastery on the Lincolnshire coast, and his arrival at De’Ath’s Dingle.

  It is quite possible that they occurred at a completely different time, before his arrival on the coast, but from the quality of the parchment - which is remarkably good - I have made, I believe, a reasonable assumption that this is a later tale than Hermitage and the Headless.

  The manuscript itself is worthy of investigation by a specialist in that area, as it is one of the most intact I have ever seen.

  The fellow who calls himself my agent brought it to me one evening, but could not be drawn on its source. My cautiously voiced submission that it might not be wholly original was met with such a tirade of excitable remonstration that I had to give the man the benefit of the doubt. He urged me to publish with utmost haste, citing the historical significance of the piece, what an advance it would be for the understanding of the period, and some nonsense about royalties and the need to pay his wine merchant.

  This, of course, is of little interest to me, but that only seemed to get him more excited. In the end I had to promise to review the material as a matter of urgency, simply to get him to leave.

  As usual, I completed my work and handed over the draft to the agent, who said he would tidy it up a bit. I assume he means formatting and the like, and trust that this tale finds you as it leaves me; a serious consideration of the encounters of a peripatetic monk in eleventh century England.

  What this manuscript does give us is a useful insight into Hermitage’s nature. We do not know the author, but he has spent some time describing Hermitage’s approach and his dealings with other people. Could it be that this is from the quill of the Brother himself? That would be a remarkable claim, but not one I feel is justified from the current evidence.

  My ‘agent’- I have taken to using quotation marks as this description is entirely his - pointed out that the rear of the parchment had some additional comments about the period and other events which relate to Hermitage. They seemed to be remarkably fresh, and I suspect were added at a later date. I only include them for the sake of completeness, my inclination being to treat them with great caution.

  The second truly exciting development is that this work includes reference to Wat the weaver. Not directly of course, and he does not appear in person, but I hope you will agree that the key feature of the tale is so reminiscent of Wat that it would take a hard heart to deny the connection.

  In the interests of academic propriety I must record that Professor Bunley, of The University of Mid-West Nuneaton, has, as usual, an alternative view of this material, which he has expressed many times, at ever increasing volume. However, I do not think his theory is supported by the primary sources. His habit at meetings, of vigorously waving the primary sources above his head and shouting at people, does nothing to enhance his argument.

  Howard,

  Warwick,

  Friday.

  Hermitage and the Dog

  Brother Hermitage was a thinker, a scholar and above all a man of letters, and was given the level of respect due to such individuals at the time; general contempt.

  Unfortunately, piled upon the ignominy of his learning was a tendency to enthusiasm. In Hermitage’s case this was akin to the enthusiasm of the Vikings for landing on the coastal parts of Northern England and renaming them Denmark. It was just the way they were made, but it was still very annoying.

  Naturally the world hated all enthusiasts with their constant excitement and engagement and eagerness. Arbage, the Enthusiast of Aynho had only recently been put to death as a lesson t
o those who insisted on talking to strangers on topics of no interest with great animation and wide-eyed commitment.

  It was, of course, in the nature of the enthusiast to make no connection between events and their own behaviour, and so Hermitage carried on regardless. It was seldom that his learning had an opportunity to get through to people and annoy them before his enthusiasm drove a wedge between them that could separate England and Wales.

  All of this contributes to the reason why Hermitage was sitting at this time of the night talking to a dog.

  His travels on the roads had brought him to a non-descript village, although village was a generous description. A gathering of hovels, deposited in the corner of some great estate like a pile of laundry stained beyond recovery, was hardly justification for the title village, but quite a few people lived there and they liked to call it a village. That they were all manual labourers who had muscles like gateposts, meant that it was best to adopt their description.

  On his arrival in the village he had been greeted with lively approbation by the men and had been welcomed to their hearth. They were confident he would be able to help them with their problem. His learning had been clear through early conversation and so the villager’s optimism had risen. As his enthusiasm had been revealed though, their optimism dipped like the sun setting over the dung heap, and it was not long before he was alone.

  They had explained the outline of their difficulty but, as he had started to reason his way through it and ask a few pertinent questions, one by one they began to realise what they had done and made their excuses. Those of a more reticent nature, who were the last in the group had to either sneak away on all fours when they thought the monk wasn’t watching, or fake some urgent need to visit the privy. Only the dog remained, and it did so because it found the sound of the human voice soothing and this one seemed to have the potential to go on for hours.