 
### Brother Hermitage The Shorts

### By

### Howard of Warwick

### Being vignettes from the life of that most medieval detective, Brother Hermitage.

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Text copyright © Howard Matthews 2015

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Cover design by Double Dagger

### Also by Howard of Warwick.

The First Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The Heretics of De'Ath

The Garderobe of Death

The Tapestry of Death

Continuing Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other

Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids

Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns

Yet More Chronicles of Brother Hermitage

The Case of the Clerical Cadaver

The Case of the Curious Corpse

The Case of the Cantankerous Carcass

A Brother Hermitage Diversion (and free!)

Brother Hermitage in Shorts

Also:

**Howard of Warwick** does **the Middle Ages:** Authenticity without accuracy.

The Domesday Book (No, Not That One.)

The Magna Carta (Or Is It?)

Explore the whole sorry business and join the mailing list at

Howardofwarwick.com

Another funny book from The Funny Book Company

Greedy by Ainsworth Pennington

Contents:

Foreword

Manuscript ref: MS/BH/HoW/001 Folio 7

Preface

Hermitage and the Headless

Manuscript: MS/BH/HoW/002 Folio 7

Preface

Hermitage and the Dog

Manuscript: MS/BH/HoW/003 Folio 7

Preface

Hermitage and the Robber

Manuscript; MS/BH/HoW/ 004 Folio 7

Preface

Hermitage Home

Manuscript; MS/BH/HoW/005 Folio 7

Preface

Hermitage and the Hostelry

Finally

The Battle of Hermitage

The Heretics of De'Ath, Caput I

### Foreword:

I present for your consideration a collection of short tales from the life of Brother Hermitage; medieval monk and reluctant investigator. These tales are drawn from the Brother's life before the major events told in an unnecessarily large number of full-length sagas.*

They are all taken from manuscripts deciphered in my scriptorium and which arrive from a variety of sources. Truth be told, most of the time this is a fellow who insists on describing himself as my "agent", and who arrives with bundles of the things, just when they seem to be needed.

I do my best with the works and translate them into accessible pieces for the modern world. The agent then takes them away and edits them - which they need, apparently.

It is here, I suppose, that I have to acknowledge an old academic colleague of mine, Professor August Bunley, Reader in the History of the Investigative Monk at the University of Mid-West Nuneaton. He has cast some doubt upon the authenticity of the primary sources, and indeed, upon the veracity of the "agent" himself. Some of these doubts are expressed quite forcibly, and personally, but I try to keep my head buried in the work, and plough on regardless.

As you will see, I have catalogued the manuscripts in what I believe is date order, although later research may shed new light on this.

The one exclusion to this is the tale Hermitage and the Hostelry, which we know comes from an earlier date, as the year 1064 is specifically mentioned. Apart from this one outlier, the rest of the material does follow a chronological pattern. I have thus placed the "Hostelry" manuscript at the end.

I have also now re-read some of the prefaces to the stories and find that the agent and Bunley have been far more of a distraction than I intended. I do apologise, but it's too late to re-write them all now.

Howard,

Warwick

### Manuscript ref: MS/BH/HoW/001 Folio 7

### Hermitage and the Headless

Preface.

While this is not the earliest mention of Brother Hermitage, that comes in the tale Hermitage and the Hostelry, I have numbered it first in this folio. From the quality of this particular manuscript, it is unclear, at this time, whether the name mentioned is Hermitage, Heritage, Hendrick or Duncan. Later sources do confirm the identity of our monk.

There is little in the material to confirm the location of the monastery in this tale, all we are told is that De'Ath's Dingle is not far away. A later work, summarised in the bound volume, The Heretics of De'Ath*, confirms that awful place is somewhere to the north of Lincoln, but south of the River Humber.

This is a wide area to cover but when we consider that in The Heretics of De'Ath Hermitage references his journey from the Lincolnshire coast, I might be unjustifiably criticised for concluding that this might be the monastery in question. Or not.

It is with alarming precipitation that I have referred to this as the first Hermitage manuscript. I can only hope that an even earlier version does not emerge at some later point, after which I would have to re-catalogue the whole collection.

The source of my material, the fellow who keeps bothering me and telling me he is my agent, assures me that he won't find any earlier works, as that "would really bugger things up", whatever that may mean.

As to date, that can only be confirmed from a combination of the primary sources available. We know that Brother Hermitage met King Harold at De'Ath's Dingle at a later date, and so the events here must have taken place prior to 1066. How far prior is unknown. It is, as yet, unclear how long Brother Hermitage was at De'Ath's Dingle before the events of The Heretics of De'Ath took place. No indication is given in this work of Hermitage's age, although we know that he was still a young man while at De'Ath's Dingle.

There is also no mention here of Wat the Weaver, Hermitage's companion in investigation - companion, adviser and frequent life-saver. That Hermitage and Wat became inseparable is well known, and so it would be unusual to find Hermitage completely alone. This is further support for the theory that the events here took place before Hermitage met Wat, and so before 1066.

What we can see is that Hermitage's natural enthusiasm and inquisitiveness is already well developed, and already getting him into trouble.

Given the other factors we know about England at the time, it is hard to imagine how anyone like Hermitage actually survived to adulthood.

I must acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Professor August Bunley, reader in The History of the Investigative Monk at the University of Mid-West Nuneaton, for his endless contributions. It is despite them that I offer here perhaps the first ever Chronicle of Brother Hermitage.

Howard,

Warwick,

Wednesday.

Hermitage and the Headless

Brother Hermitage was in a quandary. He liked being in a quandary, it was one of his favourite places - as long as it didn't involve the sort of physicality the other brothers seemed to relish. Being dangled over the monastery parapet was certainly a quandary, but not the sort he favoured, even though it seemed to happen quite often.

No, this quandary was right up his habit. Brother Prembard was dead and no one was quite sure why. Part of the puzzlement which set Hermitage's brain scurrying to the quiet and lonely places it liked to frequent, was the fact that no one else in the monastery seemed remotely bothered about this event.

Prembard, a notoriously slothful and absent brother who had been known to fritter the day away with as many as three hours sleep, had been missed at Nones and so an acolyte had been sent to his cell to wake him.

The acolyte had returned, reporting that Prembard was in fact dead. Having been roundly castigated for his presumption in leaping to such a conclusion without consulting the abbot, who gave him a light beating to emphasise the point, the acolyte responded in a most impudent manner that if the abbot had had his head cut off he would be dead as well. This earned the young man a more conscientious visitation from the abbot and he soon retired to the apothecary.

As Hermitage pondered his quandary further, he realised that it had many fascinating aspects. It wasn't strictly true to say no one knew why Prembard was dead, it was obvious that why he was dead as opposed to still alive was that his head was no longer joined onto his body.

Hermitage had no direct experience of this sort of event, but he reasoned that as head removal was currently the favoured method of execution, it was safe to assume that this was, in fact, the cause of death.

The questions though, gathered like magpies to a rotting badger; how had Prembard's head parted company with the rest of him and why had it happened? Heads did not generally become removed of their own volition. Hermitage thought that accidents during sleep which led to the loss of the head must be very rare, and that the application of some tool or other would probably be required for the process. This would indicate the presence of another person or persons to carry out the task, and this 'why' arose and buzzed inside Hermitage's head.

Why would anyone want to remove the head of Prembard? The conclusion that there had been others involved was supported by another puzzling aspect of the situation. No one could find the missing head.

Hermitage knew that he could be pretty naive at times, but even he didn't believe that a head could make off with itself. The third why was the why that consumed Hermitage even more than the others. Why was no one interested in the facts of this case and seemed intent on simply burying Prembard without further ado?

...

Hermitage hesitated to approach his abbot as a man would hesitate to coat his eyeballs in honey before thrusting his face into a bee's nest.

As was often the case though, Hermitage let his head rule his heart; a practice which had led to many of the visits to the parapet. He skipped up to the abbot during that man's morning perambulation of the monastery garden in his usual annoyingly enthusiastic manner.

'Father,' he gushed

'What is it, Hermitage?' The Abbot responded in the tone he kept for those occasions when he wanted to make it perfectly clear that conversation was unwelcome, and would almost certainly be physically terminated.

'Brother Prembard,' Hermitage went on regardless. Like all enthusiasts, he was tone-deaf.

'What about him?'

'Well, he's dead.'

'Yes. Well done, now if I could get on.'

'But someone removed his head.' Hermitage was, as usual, incredulous that others did not share his childlike fervour for detail.

'Probably a prank,' was the Abbot's startling conclusion.

'A prank?' Hermitage was dumbfounded. 'Someone removed his head as a prank?'

Hermitage knew all about pranks. Most of the things the other brothers did to him were waved away as pranks. 'Oh it's alright Hermitage,' they would explain as they dropped him in the privy, 'it's only a prank.' It was only a prank when all his habits went missing on the coldest day of the winter. It was only a prank when he woke one morning to find his wrists and ankles tied up. Still, even he had never been on the receiving end of a prank which left him without a head.

'Most likely.' The Abbot shrugged. 'Was there any blood?' he asked.

'Blood?' Hermitage said, still distracted by the concept of a decapitation prank. 'Erm, I don't know, I haven't actually seen the body.'

'Well, you seem to be drawing an awful lot of conclusions on very scant evidence.'

This was truly remarkable, it was the longest conversation Hermitage had ever had with the abbot.

'You see,' the abbot took Hermitage by the arm and steered him for a second circuit of the garden while he gestured to his assistant Alud, 'if there was lots of blood that would indicate that Prembard had been alive at the time his head was removed. If there was very little blood it would show that he was already dead, and someone removed his head after that event.'

'I do see,' Hermitage said.

Alud, who had been listening intently, suddenly scurried off on some urgent business, gesturing rather imperiously that other monks should attend him.

'Which would constitute a prank,' the abbot concluded.

Hermitage hadn't considered the possibility that someone might have removed the head after death. He thought that this probably constituted less of a sin than doing it while the owner was still using it, but it still seemed extreme behaviour for a monastery.

'But to remove a head and then hide it?' Hermitage made his feelings clear.

'We are a small community Hermitage, who have lived closely with one another for many years. There are those among us who sometimes need to burst out in the occasional harmless prank so that they may concentrate all the harder on their duties thereafter.'

Hermitage saw the reasoning of this, but it didn't ring true. That young brother who had set a pig loose on Saint Finjan's day had been dealt with by the abbot, and he still hadn't recovered the power of speech - even though he could now walk without wincing.

To dismiss the removal of a Brother's head as harmless was out of keeping. And the abbot was still keeping one young monk, who had tied a thistle to his habit as a prank, in a small pit under his study.

'Perhaps I should go and examine Prembard's cell for blood,' Hermitage suggested, starting to step away from the abbot only to find that he was dragged back. The abbot must really be in a good mood to engage in so long a conversation with Hermitage, without hitting him once.

'And what will you conclude if there is no blood eh, Hermitage?'

'Well father,' Hermitage reasoned, his enthusiasm once more asserting itself. 'As you say, I would conclude that the head had been removed after death.'

'In which case?'

This was marvellous. Perhaps once this puzzle was sorted out, Hermitage could engage the abbot in a fascinating internal debate he was having on the nature of miracles.

'I suppose in that case we might have someone who had removed the head of a corpse, rather than one who had created the corpse in the first place.'

'A prank,' the abbot concluded

'A rather generous conclusion father,' Hermitage commented, noting that generosity was one quality the abbot had hitherto managed to hide completely from his flock, buried as it was beneath a façade of vindictive violence.

As if the abbot had suddenly lost interest in the topic, he thrust Hermitage away from him and said, 'Right, go and check your cell then.'

As his leader walked away, it was clear to Hermitage that the conversation was at a rather abrupt end, and so he made his way to Prembard's cell.

...

Once there, he found brother Alud brushing a group of monks from the room, all of whom carried mops and leathern buckets slopping with some dark liquid or other.

'Clearing up brother?' Hermitage asked.

'Of course,' Alud answered in his usual peremptory manner. 'We can hardly leave a dead brother lying around can we?'

'We did when old brother Bavum passed on.'

'That was different.'

'We only noticed that he had died when the smell became intolerable.'

Alud made no answer.

'And then you gave me his cell without so much as changing the straw.'

'Times change Hermitage.' Alud hurried the last of the monks from the room. 'Here you are then anyway, corpse, no head, no blood, prank. Just like the Abbot said.'

'Hmm,' Hermitage hummed, wondering for a moment whether there might have been some blood before Alud's cleaning squad arrived. That would be too much of a coincidence though.

Hermitage looked around the cell, hoping that the missing head would turn up in some rafter or other, or in the slop bucket. Finding nothing, he retreated with the puzzle creasing his face.

Strolling through the damp, dark and dank corridors of the place, he let his mind run free, as he often did when he had a particularly tricky theological point to interrogate.

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 that 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 which 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, Hermitage 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 for.

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 his 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, and 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 gestured with his head in a very odd way toward Hermitage, 'I expect you've come to collect the message that the king wishes to send to the Duke of Normandy?'

'Oh, er yes.' The messenger winked 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.' Alud held 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,' Alud said 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.' Alud seemed irritated. '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 even more 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 though, 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.' Alud was 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,' the abbot shrugged. 'Never mind.'

'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 alarming thought. There was something going on here. Something he didn't understand, but something that 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 to anyone nearby.

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 to 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 commence their annoyance before his enthusiasm drove a wedge between them which 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 nondescript 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, far from being driven away with rocks and animal waste, he had been greeted with lively approbation by the men and had been welcomed to their hearth.

It transpired that 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.

'Ah,' Hermitage said as he came to the end of an enormously long sentence which had very few commas in it, and looked up to see that he was alone. He thought that his exposition on the key points of the issue at hand had been relevant and engaging, but perhaps his diversion into the life of Saint Barnaby had been, looking at it from the point of the view of an independent observer schooled in the analysis and evaluation of argument, pointless and unnecessary.

The dog regarded him with some disappointment as the noise of his droning came to an end.

'Well,' Hermitage addressed the dog, 'I don't think that the problem has gone away, even if the people have, and perhaps if I can reach a tentative conclusion on my own I can seek some confirmatory information at a later stage.'

The dog lay down. It liked the long words particularly and it wouldn't be long before it drifted off to sleep dreaming of its mother's milk and rabbits.

'As I see it,' Hermitage continued. His audience was only himself and an unresponsive dog but then he was used to this sort of thing. 'Something has been stolen from somewhere and it is causing great anxiety. The villagers won't tell me what it is that has been stolen, nor from exactly where it has been stolen. Neither will they say how this causes anxiety nor give me any other information.'

Any normal person given this situation would have given the villagers a pretty comprehensive curse and told them where they could stick their dilemma.

'How fascinating,' Hermitage told himself with some relish. In the depths of his soul he thought that the dog would be fascinated as well, 'Now, where to begin?' He paused and looked at the dog for some inspiration. The dog opened its eyes with some expectation, but that was the sum of its contribution to the debate. Even this opening of the eyes was grist to the enthusiast's mill. They were, after all, people who would take an obscene gesture and a string of heartfelt obscenities as encouragement for a fascinating discussion on the sin of anger.

'Yes, you're absolutely right,' Hermitage spoke to the dog in the manner for which old women were burned, 'I think that the anxiety is key. There's absolutely no point in simply trying to guess what it was that was stolen, it could be anything. It is the circumstances surrounding the theft that will indicate the solution I believe. If it had been some normal item, like a pan or pair of shoes then the owner would have been angry or resigned but not anxious. In any event, it can't be a single item belonging to a single person or else why would the whole village be roused? It must be something that the village wants to get back. They clearly aren't content to shrug their shoulders, get over the loss and go and get a new one, whatever it is.

Perhaps it's a child? No, if that were the case they would all be out searching and they're not. In fact, that's very odd in itself. This is a very isolated spot and if this thing has gone missing why aren't they all out looking for it? It's a small place to turn upside down, they could have done that in a moment. This in itself must indicate that they know that the missing thing is not here and that it was not taken by one of them. I really think we're making progress,' Hermitage told the dog who didn't appear to disagree.

'Therefore it must be something taken by someone else, but something which is precious to the whole village. No.' Hermitage's learning did its thing, 'They would still be angry if it was a thing of value. Why would they be anxious? They seem to be behaving as if they were guilty that the thing had been lost. I suppose that could be the case if there was something precious which had been entrusted to them? You know, I don't think the thing lost was entirely their property. Or if it was, it is the sort of thing the loss of which would bring you into disrepute.'

He paused for a moment.

'And for the life of me, I can't think what such a thing would be.' Hermitage thought this because he was a monk, and a rare monk at that, as he took being a monk very seriously.

All the stuff about no possessions was meat and drink to him, and meat and drink itself was pretty sinful most of the time. As he had no truck with ownership, he had very little chance of understanding people who thought otherwise. Again the dog concurred, or it would have done had it been awake. Hermitage took its complete lack of animation as confirmation that his argument was progressing well.

'Or are there any alternatives? What if they shouldn't have had the thing lost in the first place. What if the owner is going to return to claim his property and they haven't got it? That would cause anxiety. Or perhaps it was something they had stolen in the first place?' Hermitage sighed, 'There are too many options here, perhaps we should move on and come back to this point.

'I think it safe to assume that their agitated state is caused by the fact that they have betrayed some trust or other. They clearly believe that there are worse consequences ahead of them as a result of the loss than lie behind them. That would explain the continued agitation.

'Now, who could have taken it, if it was an it, of course and not a they. Mustn't leap to conclusions. Clearly not one of the villagers, or at least not one that I've met, so a stranger or someone from the vicinity. I've travelled the road to get here and I seem to be the only one doing so. On this basis, I think we have to reduce the probability that it was a passing thief. Who else is local then? They did tell me that there are no other villages around here and that they serve the estate at the top of the hill. So, someone from the estate then?

'They probably have poor relations with the house servants, most peasants usually do.' Hermitage knew this to be the case from personal experience. Having been the son of a woodsman he had often been the target of abuse by the children of servants in the Lord's house. Of course, he had been the target of abuse for everyone else on the estate as well, but he felt that the house staff had been spectacularly vindictive.

'So,' he concluded with great satisfaction, 'someone from the house has taken something from the village. Something which they either shouldn't have had in the first place or which was given to them on trust. This really is most satisfying.'

The dog did agree with this as the lovely noise went on and on and it snuffled its acquiescence to further speculation.

'Now, what sort of thing would these villagers have been given which would be of value.' He paused for a moment's further thought. 'Clearly not a book,' and he laughed heartily at his excellent joke and looked to the dog to see if it was joining in. It wasn't. It had chewed a book once and been beaten for it which had put literature in the same category as fleas.

'Again, we need to start from the anxiety. If there is some consequence to fall upon the villagers, it will be when they are reprimanded for losing whatever it is that is lost.'

As reprimands were normally capital in nature, Hermitage could understand the concern shown by the villagers. Even the dog knew that reprimands were bad things, but then it wasn't making a terribly active contribution to the debate.

'The thing must be of value to the one doing the reprimanding. Who has the power to reprimand? The lord or one of his senior people. And they would only reprimand if the thing was either their own or entrusted to them from some higher authority still. Now we do get to the nub then.'

Hermitage looked to the dog again who opened his eyes and sat up, as he thought the human had said 'bone.'

'I know,' Hermitage said, 'exciting isn't it?'

Obviously no bone, and so the dog settled again.

'We appear to have come full circle don't we?' Hermitage told the dog with some amusement. 'Still, at least our return to this point now has a foundation. What would the villagers have received and kept which was of value? Gold, precious stones? Unlikely I think. This is a poor place and the villagers would find no use or pleasure in such things. They don't get the fields ploughed or the wood chopped and aren't of themselves very entertaining. What other things are of value in the lord's house? Furnishing? Unlikely again, as I would have thought that the lord would want to keep his furniture to sit on himself, and it would be a bit bulky to be shifting up and down the hill.

'Pictures? Ah, that's a possibility, perhaps the lord had leant the villagers a magnificent representation of the magi for their devotions, and some recalcitrant from the hall has stolen it back just to put the villagers in a bad light? Come to think of it, unlikely to be a painting, they are rather fragile, and this place,' Hermitage glanced down at the dog who was drooling steadily onto its own leg. 'This place is not conducive to the continued care of a work of art. What else then? Come Hermitage think.'

He lapsed into another dog-disturbing silence and the animal woke from its reasoning-induced slumber, It gave the man a demanding look. When there was no response, it looked under its leg to the ragged piece of cloth it carried with it everywhere. A cast-off of a cast-off, and a small and useless piece of linen that had been in so many disgusting places that the villagers certainly had no further use for it, the dog had taken it to its own. The children found it an invaluable device for teasing the dog into a rage until the dog had made its sentiment for the token clear by biting one of them.

Hermitage gazed with wonder and revelation.

'You marvellous animal,' he said and headed straight for the hovel of the man who had appeared to be some sort of leader.

...

'Whose tapestry was it?' he asked.

'What?' the leader asked in complete shock, partly because no one had mentioned the tapestry to the monk and so he wondered how the hell he had found that out, and partly because he and Mrs Leader had been about to embark on an exploration of their own, and didn't like to be interrupted.

'The tapestry,' Hermitage repeated, and he embarked on an exposition of the coherent and cogent case he had just concluded.

The leader recognised an embarking enthusiast when he saw one and knew that he had to cut him short, for the sake of Hermitage's physical well-being and his own sanity.

'All right, all right, it was a tapestry.' The leader confessed and then, before he could stop himself or realise what he had done, he added, 'how the hell did you work that out?'

'Ah.' Hermitage began again.

'Never mind,' the leader said with some force.

'It's your own fault,' Mrs Leader commented and she left the hovel with what Hermitage could only think of was an air of anger and disdain. Perhaps she didn't like monks?

'As I see it,' Hermitage continued, 'you were entrusted with this tapestry and the rightful owner is going to come to get it back, and you haven't got it.'

The leader looked at the floor they way all people do when they have been found out. 'That's about it.'

'And it is likely that someone from the lord's hall has taken it.'

'Really?' the leader was impressed.

'Obviously, it wasn't anyone in the village, and it wasn't me so that's all that's left.'

'I suppose so.' the leader was wide-eyed. Maybe learning wasn't as futile as it was cut out to be.

'And the reason that they have stolen it is to put you in a bad light with the lord and so bring some punishment upon you.'

'Erm,' the leader didn't seem so sure about this point, but the hesitation sailed over Hermitage's head like the hull of a boat over a sunken corpse.

'But,' the leader really did have to know one or two things, 'briefly if you would. How did you know it was a tapestry?'

'Something of value, something you wouldn't own yourself, something which the village would still enjoy seeing and something which could survive the rigours of village life. Had to be a tapestry.'

'Of course,' the leader agreed, not seeing at all but deciding that he didn't want any more explanation. 'So, what do you suggest?'

'Suggest?' This had Hermitage stumped.

'Yes, what should we do about it?'

'Oh,' Hermitage exclaimed. He had considered that a thoughtful analysis of the situation would be sufficient. He didn't think that any sort of concrete action would come out of it.

'Yes,' the leader repeated. 'Given that there was a tapestry here which isn't here anymore, and that the owner is going to come back for it, what should we do?'

'Erm,'

'What's the point of being all thoughtful and clever if you can't actually do something to make things better?'

Hermitage hadn't thought about that before. Usually, the being thoughtful and clever was enough on its own. Oh well, all good experience he supposed.

'Well,' he said, in that considering tone which dragged the word on far longer than necessary.

'Yes?'

'I suppose you could go and ask for it back?'

Was the man an idiot, the leader wondered?

'Are you an idiot?' the leader asked. 'If, as you say, the people at the hall took it, why would they give it back?'

'Because they know, that you know they have it.'

'Eh?' The leader was lost. He knew it had to happen sooner or later.

'They took it back to put you in trouble. If you know they have it, the trouble is dissipated?'

'The trouble is worse,' the leader explained, managing to follow the monk for a moment. 'They'd only add gloating to the trouble.'

'Ah,' Hermitage said. This was a new field of thought for him. The practical had never really been his forte. When it involved the motivation of people, he was at a complete loss.

'But,' Hermitage offered, 'if, for the sake of argument, the tapestry belongs to the lord and it is the pigman who has taken it, you simply go to the lord's Seneschal and tell him. He will then get it back from the pigman.'

This all seemed perfectly sensible to Hermitage, who thought that everyone behaved rationally and reasonably - which went a long way to explaining a lot of the things which had been done to Hermitage in his young life.

'For the sake of argument,' the leader said, trying his best to talk down to this man's level, 'let's say the tapestry, oh I don't know, was loaned to the lord by a travelling weaver as a sort of sample. The Seneschal then leant it to the village on the understanding that it be returned before the weaver came back. If, say, the Seneschal had then stolen it from the village before the weaver returned, he could blame the village, make them pay the weaver and then keep the tapestry for the lord and it hadn't cost him a penny?'

Hermitage considered for a moment.

'Sounds a bit far-fetched, to be honest,' the monk said, and the leader raised his hands to the sky. 'In such a situation,' Hermitage went on, 'the lord would have to be dishonest and that hardly seems likely does it?'

'Oh no,' the leader said in a very strange tone which Hermitage found a trifle offensive.

'If that were the case,' Hermitage was thinking again.

'Yes?'

'There would be only one recourse.'

'Which is?'

Hermitage couldn't believe what he was about to say.

'Steal it back again before the weaver returns.'

The leader grinned from ear to hole where the other ear used to be, 'Brilliant,' he said, 'I knew it was sensible to talk to a monk, they always know stuff. We'll wait 'till it's dark.'

'Oh Lord,' Hermitage muttered quietly.

...

This was one of those situations where Hermitage, knowing full well all the events that had led up to it, still had not the faintest idea how he came to be here. It was that evening with the ladies in waiting and the mix up over the dresses all over again.

Here he was, in the dead of night, creeping up to the door of the lord's house with some perfect stranger and the intent of robbery. He kept telling himself that it was perfectly reasonable and justifiable, but he was beginning to suspect he was a bit of a fibber.

'Right,' the leader said, 'the guards here are completely useless. Mainly because no one ever visits and there's very little worth guarding. Once everyone's gone to bed, they disappear.'

'And you're sure that the Seneschal gave you the tapestry?'

'Of course. Then he stole it back. So if we steal it back from him again he can't possibly say anything, can he? It's just like you said.'

Although he felt that it was a reasonable interpretation of events, Hermitage didn't like the idea of this being all his doing. He had been working, as usual, on a purely theoretical level. He never expected anyone to actually do anything he suggested, ever.

'So where are they going to keep the thing?' The leader asked Hermitage

'I don't know,' he replied.

'Well think then, that's what you do.'

It was, and he did.

'Presumably, the Seneschal would want to keep it safe until such time as the weaver has been and gone. To display it would be far too brazen.'

'You don't know our Seneschal. None of us are usually let into the hall so it wouldn't surprise me if he had the thing on the wall and only took it down when the weaver walked in. If he was allowed to walk in that is.'

'Perhaps we'd better just go in and look then?' Hermitage really wasn't cut out for this sort of thing, and a previously unknown streak of irritation surfaced.

'Good idea.' The leader nodded as if it had all been Hermitage's idea.

With no one in sight, they entered the hall through the small door cut into the main entrance gates. That this wasn't barred, confirmed to Hermitage that the place was so far away from routine civilization that even beaten tracks stopped long before they got here. At least that meant that when he left, which couldn't be soon enough, there was very little likelihood that he would ever come back or have anything to with anyone who had even the most remote knowledge of the location. That suited him down to the ground as he certainly had no intention of talking about any of this to anyone.

'Right,' the leader whispered, 'if it is in the Seneschal's chambers it's going to be difficult to get, but if your thinking is right, chances are it's hanging in the main hall.'

'My thinking?' Hermitage protested. Weakly.

They tiptoed across a dark courtyard, scuffing into piles of things which Hermitage didn't like to think about. At least they were down there on the floor, and as long as none of them moved he should be all right.

Across the yard to the right was another entrance, and the leader did his leading thing and took Hermitage through it. Just as they entered, the moon emerged from behind a cloud and gave a rather unhealthy illumination to a very unhealthy scene. The yard behind them was, as Hermitage had suspected, liberally covered with straw. The problem was that the straw looked like it had been spread on the yard several years ago and was now congealing itself together in clumps. It looked like it was gathering for some sort of assault on the main building.

Hermitage shivered as he moved indoors. Inside, the hall was a complete contrast and Hermitage thought it very likely that the Lord spent all his time in here and seldom visited the outside.

The room was sparse but neat. A long refectory table was surrounded by equally spaced and identical chairs. Facing its longest side, away from the door, the embers of the main fire jittered and twitched in the inglenook. Several doors led from various walls to places unknown. The room was clean, ordered and well maintained.

It seemed impossible that anyone who lived here could even have the faintest idea what conditions were like outside. Perhaps they had come through the back door and the lord only ever used the front.

'Right, look around,' the leader hissed and set off to the right on a perambulation of the room, looking at the tapestries that hung on the wall. Hermitage moved to the left doing likewise and noted the quality of the first piece he came upon. It was a large work in the traditional style showing a variety of scenes in one image. In the bottom left a number of ladies were embroidering while sitting in a garden, in the opposite corner a group of men on horseback were hunting a boar, and across the top were a series of vignettes, probably from the life of the lord of the estate.

First, he was a child being borne by his father in armour, then he was a youth killing his first deer, and then he was a man surveying his demesne in a very lordly manner. It only occurred to Hermitage now that he didn't know what the tapestry he was looking for was like.

He thought about calling over to ask the leader but then thought that shouting out while trying to steal things in the night was probably best avoided. It was so dark that he couldn't actually see the man anymore, and in any case, it seemed clear that this first work was not the sort of thing a weaver would leave as a sample. He would carry on until he found something which seemed perhaps out of place and then confer.

The next work was again a fairly standard piece, a maiden was cowering by a tree while a knight on horseback was skewering a unicorn through the eye. Normal romantic stuff, and again a bit too large to be a sample.

Hermitage had covered one wall of the room by now and turned to the side of the fire, which was still giving out some warmth and would probably be visited by a serf any minute to make sure it didn't die in the night. Hermitage shivered as he thought that discovery could mean that it would be him who died in the night.

There was a tapestry by the side of the fire here, and it was a small one so perhaps this might be it and they could make their escape. Hermitage had to peer hard in the dying light of the fire to see what it was and felt further disappointment as it became clear it was a simple patterned device of the family crest. At least he assumed it was the family crest, which didn't seem to be the sort of thing villagers would want to borrow.

Right next to the fireplace, probably in the place of most importance as it would be in anyone's line of sight, was another small work which once more Hermitage had difficulty making out. Even as the representation became clear to him he couldn't quite see what it was, or what was going on. There was a preponderance of pink hues about it and some shapes in the foreground that seemed intertwined somehow. Just at that moment a piece of wood, buried in the fire, sprang to flame and bathed the area in a swaying glow.

'Oh my,' Hermitage said as the image before him became clear.

He had spoken loudly enough for the leader to hear and he came over.

'Ah yes,' he said with some relief, 'that's the one.'

'But,' Hermitage stuttered.

'Remarkable isn't it?' the leader commented and dug Hermitage in the ribs.

'Is that a woman?' Hermitage asked pointing at the tapestry and tipping his head over to one side slightly.

'I hope so.' The leader chortled slightly.

'But isn't she..?' Hermitage couldn't finish the question.

'She certainly is.' The leader was grinning again now and Hermitage found it almost as distasteful as the picture.

'And is that a..?'

'Yes, it is.'

'And is it doing what I think it's doing?'

'I bet you never expected to see that.'

Never mind expected to see it, Hermitage had never, even in the darkest depths of his murkiest and most sinful thoughts even begun to imagine anything remotely approaching the activity that was portrayed in front of him.

'And that man?' Hermitage pointed a wavering finger at the shapes which were now beginning to swim before his eyes.

'Yes,' the leader said. 'A fine specimen eh? And that's something even I wouldn't have thought of. And you see the two nymphs in the background?'

Hermitage certainly could see them, he could see a lot more of them than he knew was necessary. He was equally certain that nymphs simply didn't do that sort of thing. He was fairly sure that no one did that sort of thing.

'I don't know where this weaver gets his ideas. Famous for them, he is. You can see why it was important to get the thing back.'

Hermitage could see many things now, both as a new arena of life was opened up before him, and as a portrayal of activities that he didn't even have names for was spread out before his eyes.

He knew that he was a bit of an innocent, but he understood the ways of the world, even if he had no inclination to take part in any of them. These weren't ways of the world he knew, these were ways of a world that had been closed to him before, and which he already wished had remained so. Would he ever be the same again? Would he ever be able to have a sensible conversation with a married couple without picturing the sorts of things they got up to? Would he ever be able to look the dog in the eye again?

With a leer on his face which was quite appropriate to the tapestry, the leader reached up and removed it from the wall. He rolled the small work up and stuffed it into his jerkin. Next to his flesh. Which gave Hermitage a new image to conjure with.

...

Having made their escape from the woefully guarded hall, the leader was full of good spirit, giggling and slapping Hermitage's back as they returned to the village.

'Will the lord and the Seneschal take its removal well?' Hermitage asked not feeling in remotely good spirits.

'Oh, absolutely not,' the leader confirmed, 'but of course, they can't say anything can they? They loaned the thing to us, then stole it back. Now it's back where they've got to say it's been all the time.'

'Erm,' this level of deception and double-dealing was something entirely new to Hermitage and it spun his mind.

...

'Oh.' Mrs Leader's voice screeched out of the darkness at them. 'Got the filthy thing back then?'

As they came into the village and saw her clearly, she gave them both the sort of look that could dry fish.

'And you a monk,' she said despairingly which Hermitage took to heart.

'Oh shut up,' the leader said happily. 'Just keep the thing safe until the weaver comes for it.' The leader paused and plunged into the depths of thought which was not an area he was familiar with.

'In fact,' he said slowly, 'I've got a better idea.'

'Oh yes?' Mrs Leader was fully prepared to be not impressed at all with what came next.

'Yeah, we wait till morning and then go back up to the hall and give it back to them.'

'But,' Hermitage's powers of thought were far more profound than most, but the depths he plunged were clean and clear and sparkling. The murk he was paddling around in now obscured all his rational processes.

'Brilliant,' the leader congratulated himself. 'That'll show that pig of a Seneschal who's got the upper hand.'

Mrs Leader huffed.

Hermitage saw two options before him. The first was to try and work his way through all of this. This had many advantages. It would be a learning opportunity for him, it would enable him to better understand the ways of the ordinary folk, it would open up his thinking to more routine and mundane matters than he usually attended to, and it would give him the chance to consider the manipulations and twists of scheming, sinful people at first hand.

'I'd better be off then,' he said, as he came quickly down on the side of the second option; get away from this place as quickly as possible.

'It's the middle of the night?' Mr Leader exclaimed.

'Then I shall have the route to myself. I think I have done quite enough in the short time I've been here, and I feel a calling elsewhere.'

The leader shrugged, he had his tapestry back and was going to be able to put one over on the hall, he didn't care what else went on.

'Please yourself,' he said.

As he gathered his meagre things together and bid farewell, making his lonely way out into the darkness, he was subject to conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he was terrified that there would be fierce animals or people close at hand intent on doing him harm, but on the other, he felt the most overwhelming sense of relief that he was out of the place. He did not want to be around when the tapestry was handed back, partly because it was bound to be a frightful scene and he hated that sort of thing, but mostly because he didn't want to see that tapestry in the daylight.

Further, he did not want to be in the position of having to explain to the lord or the Seneschal what a monk was doing in the village, and what his part in all of this had been.

Primarily though the desire to walk away from the village as soon as possible was prompted by the fact that the very last thing he wanted to happen, preferably ever in his whole lifetime, bearing in mind the ghastly image he had seen and the ideas it had put unbidden into his head, was to bump into the weaver of the thing. He wouldn't know where to look.

The end of Hermitage and the Dog

### Manuscript: MS/BH/HoW/003 Folio 7

### Hermitage and the Robber

Preface.

This manuscript is remarkably helpful. The discussion it contains firmly places Brother Hermitage on the road to the monastery at De'Ath's Dingle. He even mentions the place in his discourse.

We are also fortunate to have the thoughts of someone as they deal with Hermitage, the outsider's view as it were. This view only serves to confirm many of the conclusions already drawn about the monk, but supporting evidence is always welcome.

The material also goes some way to explaining Hermitage's engagement in the mystery, The Garderobe of Death. His knowledge of such devices is clearly already established.

It is quite possible though, that my allocation of manuscripts to dates is awry. There is a strong argument to suggest that MS 002 Folio 7 comes after 003. In the tale here, Brother Hermitage is hopeful that his interlocutor may know the location of the grim monastery at De'Ath's Dingle, and so it may only be a few hours or days since Hermitage left the coast.

To my own mind, I am content to leave them as they are. MS 002, Hermitage and the Dog, has no indication of date and so could well have been immediately after the events of 001 Hermitage and the Headless. By the time of 003 - this tale - Hermitage appears quite desperate to locate the place, and may have been wandering the countryside for days or weeks looking for it. We know from the tale of The Heretics of De'Ath that his sense of direction appears to be missing.

Of course, Professor Bunley does not agree. He insists that his Department for The History of the Investigative Monk, at the University of Mid-West Nuneaton is much better equipped to deal with the sort of thing. I say department, but that is stretching the facts somewhat. As I understand it, the "department" consists of Bunley himself and a part-time post-graduate who was expelled from the Tudor period for defacing one of the Wives of Henry VIII.

This "agent" fellow arrived just as Bunley was expostulating, and criticised him roundly for the very widest variety of failings, many of which might have been thought, but need not be brought up.

Bunley retorted that he had doubts about the authenticity of the manuscripts the agent kept turning up with, (I must confess I have had my own doubts on this score), and virtually accused the man of fabrication. Coming from a historian, even one of Bunley's modest repute, this is quite an accusation and the agent retorted in kind.

Professor August Bunley is not a small man, while the "agent" is a wiry fellow, endlessly fidgeting and unable to sit still for a moment. When the two of them crashed into my lectern and spilt my favourite Walnut ink - a charming brown hue which hangs very well on the quill - I had to call a halt.

After some considerable effort, I managed to usher them from the scriptorium but could hear that their dispute continued for some time in the garden below my window. The professor would have weight on his side but the agent is lithe and would be able to get away quite smartly if necessary.

I imagine they will both return to let me know the outcome in due course. Unless of course I lock the door and pretend to be out.

Howard,

Warwick,

Thursday.

Hermitage and the Robber

'So,' the gruff voice did gruff extremely well and the spice of menace that garnished it did nothing for Hermitage's peace of mind.

'A monk eh?' it asked and Hermitage wondered why. Wasn't it obvious that he was a monk from the way he dressed?

'That's right.' Hermitage debated whether the figure before him was simple or just knew nothing about monks. He didn't feel that this was the moment to ask somehow.

'What you doing here monk?' This wasn't a threat, there was distinct disappointment in the voice as if Hermitage had stumbled into some place where monks shouldn't tread. A place where there was perhaps some sin and wrongdoing which had been getting along quite nicely before a monk turned up.

There was some truth in this. The man's name was Bargis, and he was disappointed that this was a monk. The source of the disappointment was that monks were notoriously poor. This one looked worse than most, meaning that he was almost certainly not going to have anything worth stealing.

Bargis had noted the weight and shape of the monk's pack as he had put it down and had used years of experience to quickly value it at next to nothing. Not precisely nothing, and of course a decent habit could fetch a reasonable price.

The trouble was that this monk didn't even have a decent habit. Bargis had rapidly concluded that if there was anything of worth about this wandering monk, then the wandering monk could keep it. The gain would not be worth the pain of delving into this man's belongings. Even Bargis, with his famously low standards, drew the line somewhere.

'I am on my way to the monastery at De'Ath's Dingle my son,' Hermitage replied, it only occurring to him now that this unkempt fellow might know where that was.

'Lucky you came upon me at this time of night then.'

'Is it?' Luck hadn't been Hermitage's travelling companion for some time now, and he failed to see how this rather frightening looking fellow, in this place, was a harbinger of good fortune.

'Oh yes, dangerous country this.'

Hermitage looked around quickly, expecting to see a bear or something.

'Robber country.'

'Is it?' Hermitage looked around again, this time for a robber. He didn't spot one.

'You'd be lucky to make it through after dark. There's people round here would drop you for your sandals.'

'Really?' Hermitage puzzled over why a robber would lift him up in the first place. Probably to get at the sandals.

'Oh yes, I doubt you'd make it through the forest to the Nottingham Road. Where is this Dingle place anyway?'

Oh well, that was that line of enquiry terminated.

'I have to confess that I don't actually have the detailed location. I was rather hoping that the name would be familiar to you?'

'Never heard of it. It's round here somewhere, is it?'

'A very good question. I wasn't given much information, just that I was needed there.'

'Monks!' Bargis spat on the ground. 'You weren't told where it was that you had to go, just that you had to go there?'

'Erm.' Now that it was said in this way, Hermitage did think that his Abbot had been less than responsible in his despatching of Hermitage.

'So, why are you needed? Are you an apothecary or something?' Bargis thought that this might compensate for the lack of profit from this encounter. The monk could take a look at his bunions, which had been killing him for weeks, and at that lump that had appeared in his groin.

'Oh no,' Hermitage replied, flattered by the assumption. 'I'm a scribe.'

'Woah,' Bargis was impressed. 'Can you read and everything?'

'Oh yes,' Hermitage said, 'I'm not just a copyist.'

'I know my letters,' Bargis said. He prided himself on his great learning. Well, relatively great.

Hermitage was ashamed of himself as he found this very hard to believe looking at the condition of the man.

In reality, of all the men of the woods, Bargis was recognised as one of the foremost intellectuals.

'Really?' Hermitage tried to sound impressed.

'Oh yes. Bee, ay, arr, gee and issss. Bargis. I can write them, and read them if they're written neat.'

'A remarkable level of learning my son.' Hermitage said genuinely, and Bargis's chest swelled. 'In these sorry days it is hard to find anyone of intellect, even in monasteries. And then they are treated with a sorry level of significance.' Hermitage could confirm this from personal experience.

'So this Dingle place needs a scribe does it?'

'Well, I'm not exactly sure about that.'

'If I may say so Brother, for someone travelling alone in a testing part of the realm, you seem know very little about your direction or purpose.'

'I'm afraid that is the case, I had to leave my last establishment rather quickly you see.'

Oh, this was better. Tales of this sort about monks weren't really to his taste, but he could always trade a good one for a loaf somewhere.

'Go on,' Bargis said, hoping that this was going to be really juicy. He was already making up the sales pitch for the next village.

'Oh, nothing much to tell really,' Hermitage began, which did nothing to dampen Bargis's hopes as the guilty always thought they'd done nothing wrong. The ruder the sin the more heartfelt the denial. The really naughty ones usually admitted all the sordid details of their grubby little acts, but would then ask their audience with wide and unbelieving eyes what they had done wrong; it was perfectly normal/natural/expected/invited/helpful after all.

'There was a death you see.'

Fantastic.

'One of the monks died and I couldn't understand how or why it had happened.'

He had killed someone; Bargis would dine out on this for weeks.

'I questioned and considered all of the facts and thought that I was coming to a conclusion. Then the abbot said that there was nothing to worry about and that perhaps I should take my skills to another place.'

'What?' asked Bargis, all agog, 'Your skills at killing people?'

A killer monk, this was getting better and better.

'No, no.' Hermitage was shocked and appalled, then offended and finally worried that he was being thought capable of murder. 'I had nothing to do with the death, I was just trying to determine whether it was a murder and if so, who might have done it.'

'Clever.' Bargis was disappointed that this monk had not turned out to be either a deranged killer or some sort of ecclesiastical executioner.

'That's what the abbot said before he asked me to leave.' Hermitage began to wonder if the learning he valued so highly was more of a curse than a blessing. 'None of the other monks was worried about the death, the abbot said the head removal had been a prank,'

Bargis could already taste the wine.

'And then another monk threw himself off a tower saying that he had done it. Although that seemed odd as well.'

'Well, what a day you've had.' Bargis hoped that the monk would go on. Perhaps he had a whole history of things like this happening around him.

'That's why the abbot said I would better off at a place of higher learning, like De'Ath's Dingle. I could put my analytical powers to good work.'

'Let's get this straight.' Bargis found it hard to believe that someone so apparently intelligent could be this stupid. 'A monk gets his head cut off, the abbot says it's nothing to worry about, you start getting suspicious, an odd monk jumps off a tower and the abbot suggests you should leave?'

'That's about it,' Hermitage sighed.

'Remarkable.' Bargis now wondered if he could find the monastery and blackmail the abbot. Churchmen were notoriously difficult to blackmail though. If they were junior, disgraceful behaviour was pretty much expected, and if they were senior they tended to make troublesome people disappear in the middle of the night - as this abbot had obviously done once already.

'So,' Bargis offered the opinion in that high pitched tone that suggests innocence of question and absence of judgement, 'do you think the abbot could have had anything to do with it?'

'Good Lord no,' Hermitage responded quickly. 'He was an abbot.'

'Ah,' thought Bargis, this monk was one of them. 'Of course,' he added. 'So it's your working things out that the abbot thought you ought to take somewhere else?'

'Yes, I've always had an enquiring mind, that's what drew me to the world of letters in the first place.'

Bargis also had an enquiring mind. It was usually enquiring how he could get hold of other people's property before they got hold of him.

There were very few occasions when he couldn't see the value in something or other, and even fewer occasions on which this didn't result in him helping himself to the something or other without the owner's permission.

Everything had a value, it might be large or small, it might be right now or in the future, all you needed to do was let your imagination run wild. While it was out in the wild it would sometimes spot some helpless and hapless individual who could be led down one of two paths; either Bargis had something of high value, for which they would pay dearly, or something they possessed was so worthless they would sell cheaply.

Bargis knew very well that knowledge alone could have very high value indeed, although it seemed clear that this monk didn't actually have any hard facts. It seemed even more obvious that he wouldn't know what to do with a fact if it ran up his habit.

He did have understanding, though \- analytical skills he called them - and there had to be some use for them. All Bargis needed to do was think what it might be. He let his imagination off the leash while his body sat there nodding at some drivel the monk was spouting about the nature of miracles.

'I think you'd better stay by my fire tonight brother,' he eventually interrupted as his thinking returned with a quite simply marvellous idea.

'That's extremely decent of you my son. I have nothing to offer in return I'm afraid.'

'Oh, a good conversation is payment enough, and you have given me that already.'

Hermitage didn't think it had been much of a conversation as the fellow hadn't even answered some direct questions about whether miracles were mediated or not.

'I'll tell you what,' Bargis went on, 'I'll give you a puzzle to challenge that thinking of yours.'

'A puzzle?'

'Yes, one I heard in a village a way back and I haven't been able to solve it with my poor brain. Perhaps you'll have better luck?'

'We can but try.' Hermitage liked the idea of a puzzle, but it seemed rather out of place at this moment.

As Bargis got his fire going and produced some bread from which he expertly flicked the mould, he told Hermitage the puzzle.

'There's a castle see.'

'Where?' Hermitage asked.

'In the puzzle'

'Oh right, have we started?'

'Yes, this is it.' This was going to be hard work.

'There's this castle and it's impregnable.'

'Impregnable.'

'That's right. Big wood and iron doors, drawbridge up, moat, great tall walls with battlements and guards, no obvious way in.'

'Presumably, people come and go?'

'They do,' Bargis said, already seeing that this was a good idea. 'Now, inside the castle, a fair maid is being held prisoner.'

'Oh dear,' Hermitage wasn't sure he liked the sound of this.

'Oh it's alright, it's only a puzzle. It's not a real maid.'

'Ah.' In that case, Hermitage couldn't really see the point.

'And outside the castle is the maid's sweetheart. But as it's impregnable, and as it's a big castle, he can't get in. And even if he could get in, he doesn't know where the lord of the castle keeps his precious erm, prisoner.'

Bargis fell silent.

'And?' Hermitage asked

'So, how do you get in and find the treasure - ed princess?'

'She's a princess?'

'Usually.'

Hermitage thought for a moment. First, he thought that if this was a puzzle, he didn't like them. It seemed to be a totally pointless exercise, leading nowhere and offering no learning. Then he thought that his companion had been kind in offering him a fire for the night and if the man wanted to play puzzles then it was the least he could do to go along with it.

'Well, we need more information.' Hermitage said.

'Do we?'

'Oh yes, not enough to go on here. Am I allowed to ask questions?'

'Ask away.'

'Presumably the drawbridge is not up at all times. How do supplies get in?'

'Well it's open at, I mean I suppose it must be down during the day but then the guards are posted on the bridge so you can't, I mean couldn't just walk in.'

'I see. Is the sweetheart expected to rescue the princess?'

'Oh absolutely. Compulsory.'

'So it's got to be in secret? No gathering an army and attacking the place?'

'Secret would be best.'

'Night is obviously ticklish as the drawbridge is up and, as you say, the castle is impregnable.'

'That's what I thought.' Bargis mentally crossed out a night raid.

'Do we know if there are any other ways into the castle?'

'Nope.'

'Then it would have to be a daytime entrance which means that the guards on the bridge have to either not see him, or see someone who they would let in. Do the guards know the sweetheart?'

'Oh yes, and they've thrown him out several times already.'

'Oh dear.' Despite himself, Hermitage was starting to find this exercise stimulating, 'What's the traffic on the bridge like?'

'Can be busy at times, mostly castle business coming and going but the odd cart as well.'

'Is it in a very populous area?'

'No, it's pretty ugly really.'

'No, populous, not popular, do many people live round there?'

'Oh, just the usual, sort of shanty town round the edge of the moat, usual beggars and peddlers.'

'And are any of them let into the castle?'

'Nah, usually thrown into the moat.'

'And the carts, are they let in?'

'Oh yes, but they're searched.'

'My goodness, this lord really does protect his treasure doesn't he?'

Bargis was suddenly hostile, 'What treasure?' he snapped.

'The princess,' Hermitage replied, wondering at the outburst.

'Ah yes, the princess. Yes he does, very erm, jealous of the princess is the lord.'

'This really is a conundrum, isn't it?' Hermitage lapsed into thought.

'Ah yes, probably.' Bargis didn't like to interrupt the train of thought with simple questions like, 'what are you talking about?'

'Tell me about the castle.' Hermitage said.

'Like I said, big, moat, walls, drawbridge, guards, all the usual.'

'Is it new, or one of the old designs?'

'Oh it's pretty new, they're still building bits of it but it's nearly done. Only another ten years or so, I think'

'That's interesting.'

It wasn't to Bargis, but then he was not the one doing the thinking here.

'Does it have any towers?'

'Towers?' Bargis asked, what did that have to do with anything?

'Yes, you know, tall, usually round although sometimes square, normally situated...'

'I know what a tower is,' Bargis interrupted with some irritation. 'And yes it has towers.'

'How many and where are they?'

'They're in the castle of course.' Bargis was losing it.

'I mean, where are they situated in the castle?'

'Oh, I see. There's the big square one in the middle of the yard.'

'The keep.'

'Is it?'

'Yes, probably where the lord lives and probably where he keeps the princess.'

'Really?' Bargis was impressed.

'What about other towers, are there any at the edge of the castle?'

'Yes, there are two, one sort of either side of the coop.'

'Keep'

'Keep.'

'Right, and do the castle staff live in one of those? I expect one is home for the guards and the like and the other is for stores.'

'Suppose'

'Well, does the puzzle know which is which?'

Bargis thought for a moment which seemed a bit odd to Hermitage, surely he would know if this was a game?

'Erm, the guards usually go into the one on the right.'

'As you face the castle?'

'Yes,' Bargis said, although he did seem to be having to think about it a bit.

'And do the guards live in the castle all the time, or do they come and go and live in the village?'

'Oh no, they all live in the castle, all the bloody time.'

'Right,' Hermitage said, 'I think we have our way in.'

Bargis could hardly contain himself

'Really?'

'Oh yes, but that's only half the puzzle isn't it?'

'It is?' Bargis really, really wanted the funny monk to tell him how to get into the castle but pushing it might tip the man off to his devious plan. He was though, starting to think that this man couldn't be tipped off if he was taken at speed to the edge of a cliff in a wheelbarrow with a dangerously faulty wheel.

'How to get to the princess.'

'What princess?'

'The princess in the puzzle.'

'Eh? Oh yes right, the princess. Yes, got to get to the princess.'

'So,' Hermitage thought as he spoke. 'We've got to get into the castle and avoid the guards.'

'Er, yes.' Bargis was somewhat annoyed that this had been the whole point of the conversation. 'How do we do that then?'

'I'm coming to that bit,' Hermitage said tantalisingly. 'We enter the castle when the drawbridge is up. Once that happens, the guards will be looking outwards, they won't be expecting anyone to be already in the castle.'

'But the drawbridge only goes up at night?' Bargis was getting lost.

'Exactly.'

Bargis mentally uncrossed-out the night raid.

'Now we need to get in the keep. If it's of a standard design we'll probably find the princess in an upper chamber, which is going to be tricky.'

'Why an upper chamber?'

'Well you could hardly put a princess in a dungeon, could you? It wouldn't be seemly. No no, the lower chamber would be kept for more mundane things like the lord's armoury or treasury.'

'Really?' Bargis tried to fain disinterest but knew that he was failing miserably. The monk was fully engaged in the problem though and didn't seem to notice anything.

'Again if the keep is fairly new, we may be able to utilise the same method of entry.'

Bargis had to bite his lip to stop himself demanding what this method of entry was. Demanding with menaces was one of his favourites.

'Hm,' Hermitage hummed, 'I think I have an answer.'

'Right,' Bargis sat forward. When driven by greed, his mental capacity was really rather high.

'At night the sweetheart swims across the moat.'

'What? Gets in it?'

'Yes.'

'Yeuch.'

'Oh, that's nothing. He swims to the foot of the tower where the guards live.'

'Right?' Bargis was very doubtful about this. He'd looked at the moat many times and had once seen a rat, perfectly happy on the shoreline, die within moments of slipping into the murky brown water.

'Towards the bottom of the tower there will be an opening in the wall.'

'Will there?' In all his reconnoitring Bargis had never spotted anything like this.

'Oh yes, it'll be rather small and may have a hinged door or gate but they put them in all the latest designs.'

'I see. And the purpose of this opening?'

'Well it's the garderobe, isn't it?'

Bargis was stumped here, he didn't know whether to ask what the hell a garderobe was, or whether to play the knowledgeable role, even though he was in complete ignorance. Perhaps a middle way with this man.

'A garderobe brother?' he asked with the tone of an enthusiastic innocent, a tone which had come in handy in many of his more colourful exploits.

'Yes, it's the very latest thing. Instead of all the detritus of normal living being hurled over the wall from buckets, a special room is built in which people sit and carry out their functions. Where they sit is above a hole, which drops through the castle walls and out, either into a further chamber created for the purpose from where it can be removed, or into a suitable location. As this castle is new it's bound to have one, and as it has a moat that's bound to be where it all ends up.'

Bargis was horrified and he'd seen and heard a lot of things in his life which would horrify all but the more seriously deranged.

'And the sweetheart is expected to climb up this thing?'

'Exactly.'

'But what if someone's sitting just above, carrying out their functions?'

'Well he's just swum across the moat so I don't think a bit more is going to make much difference.'

Bargis had done some pretty disgusting things in his time to increase his material wealth. He'd also done some very disgusting things and a couple of extremely disgusting things, but this was going to be a whole new chapter.

'And how does he get out the top? I mean someone might be sitting there?'

'He'll be able to see that won't he?'

Bargis thought that he probably would be able to see that, and then he tried to stop thinking about it but found that he couldn't.

'And he has to wait until the hole is available.' Hermitage finished off with some satisfaction.

'Then,' Hermitage went on, although Bargis found it hard to get his attention back to the plan, 'Comes the clever bit. While he was swimming across the moat the sweetheart's accomplice....'

'What accomplice?' Bargis's heart sank

'Oh, he has to have an accomplice or the plan doesn't work, I think that's the trick in the puzzle. They tell you about the princess and the sweetheart but they don't tell you that there definitely isn't an accomplice do they? I mean a sweetheart rescuing a princess is bound to have a servant or something isn't he?'

'Perhaps the sweetheart has been impoverished and is a bit of a loner who's never made friends?'

'Except with the princess?' Hermitage asked, a bit puzzled.

'Oh yes except for the princess obviously.'

'So, anyway, while the sweetheart is swimming the moat, climbing the garderobe and sneaking into the keep, the accomplice starts a distraction at the drawbridge.'

'Like what?'

'Oh I don't know, perhaps a fire or something, or he could fake an attack on the castle.'

'On his own?'

'Well I'm sure the accomplice can think of something, it's not as if this is for real.'

'No, no, of course not.'

'The accomplice starts the distraction, all the castle guards rush to the drawbridge and that's when the sweetheart sneaks up to the princess's room, rescues her and escapes.'

'Back down the garderobe?'

'Ah, yes, well, perhaps he'd better have taken rope so the princess can be lowered down.'

'Hmm.' It was Bargis who hummed this time and it was the hum of the unconvinced.

'There you are, puzzle solved and princess rescued. You can take your solution back to that village and I'm sure they'll all be most impressed.'

'Yes, very good,' Bargis said in an absent-minded tone that indicated his mind was elsewhere.

'Listen, Brother,' he said, after what he felt was a suitable interval as they both gazed into the fire.

'Yes?'

'I've been given the job of testing the guards at a castle near here. For the master you know, wants to keep his men on their toes?'

'Ah yes?' Hermitage asked, wondering where this was going.

'Yes. And I was wondering if you'd be able to lend me a hand. You know, start the alarm while I observe the men at their work and comment back to the master.'

Well, this really was pushing recompense for a bit of meagre hospitality a bit far thought Hermitage, but, he was in the man's debt for saving him from bears and robbers.

'Only too glad,' he offered with downbeat enthusiasm for once.

'Excellent,' Bargis rubbed his hands, 'I thought perhaps a small fire.'

The End of Hermitage and the Robber

### Manuscript; MS/BH/HoW/ 004 Folio 7

### Hermitage Home

Preface.

This manuscript has rather thrown me into a turmoil. It clearly fits Hermitage; the wilderness week or two, as there is clear reference to leaving the monastery. However, it is the origin and nature of the piece that concerns me.

I only mentioned in passing to this 'agent' individual that we had very little about Brother Hermitage's life outside the monastery. I happened to say that a monk of the Brother's clear learning and education might have left some trace of his previous life. If the young man could already read and write by the time of the events told in books such as The Heretics of De'Ath, he must have been an educated youth. Perhaps there was some reference to him, or even by him, in documents outside of the monastic sphere. Maybe even a personal reminiscence of his life and times which would throw a light on his situation.

Whatever next, but the 'agent' arrived, clasping a manuscript which almost exactly met expectations. I did comment that the work seemed remarkably fresh, and indeed even still wet - but he said that he had been caught in a shower and we should be grateful the work had survived at all.

He made some rather ludicrous claims for the 'market' looking for exactly this sort of thing - as if academic research should be subject to a market of all things.

I suppose I should not have been surprised when Professor Bunley turned up. I really must make it clear to both of these people that my scriptorium is not some sort of meeting place, let alone a shouting shop.

It wasn't but a few moments before the accusations were flying again, and some of my archives were being jostled.

Bunley was making wild accusations about the probity of the agent, while that fellow cast aspersions about Bunley's weight. The whole thing was in danger of descending into a complete farce and so I took strong measures. I am not a man inclined to forthrightness but certain situations and individuals demand it. There was nothing I could do but invite them to leave - which I did with, I am ashamed to say, a moderately raised voice.

They both looked at me as if I had undergone some sort of metamorphosis and hurriedly made their exits; not before the agent had firmly placed the manuscript on my lectern, and Bunley had grabbed a quill and tried to cross it out!

Howard,

Warwick

Monday.
Hermitage Home

It was with great trepidation that Brother Hermitage took the last few paces around the edge of the wood which would open up a vista not seen since his childhood. He knew trepidation very well indeed, he had experienced a lot of it since he had left this place and had such wide knowledge of the subject that he had categorised it into a complex variety of orders and types. He had even thought about starting a journal of some sort, but after a couple of days realised that he couldn't afford that much parchment.

...

The biggest revelation that the religious life had given Hermitage was that his fellow monks could behave in most un-monkly, and even un-Godly manner sometimes. Well, most of the time if he were honest - which he was habitually - and most of the behaviour tended to lead to trepidation on his part.

Early encounters with his fellow monks had made it clear to Hermitage that he was not like them in almost every way imaginable. As a result of this, most of his ways seemed to act as some sort of intimate irritant to those who came into contact with him.

His learning had immediately been revealed as so far ahead of his new fellows that he began to wonder if his father hadn't been correct in beating him every time he caught him trying to read.

Beyond this though, his thinking, his behaviour, his mannerisms, the way he spoke, the way he kept quiet, the way he looked at people and the way he didn't look at them, the way he wore his habit, the way he prayed and that thing he did with his fingers; what he did in the mornings, afternoons and evenings and apparently his not even being there; all of these things had the facility to drive even the most apparently mild-mannered monk to a fit of behaviour most of which was explicitly forbidden by several passages of the Bible.

If all of this had taught Hermitage anything, it was that trepidation was the master of experience. The fear of what was about to happen to him was almost always far worse than the actual event. Being hung upside down from the monastery walls while the ladies of the village gawped at his private business was an exception to this, but then no rule could be expected to have universal application. The events themselves could be uncomfortable, undignified or messy, usually all three and were always unnecessary, but it was inevitably the trepidation that disabled Hermitage.

This theorising was all very well, and Hermitage could stand back from himself and realise the truth of the situation, but that didn't stop him feeling the urge to visit the privy whenever the brothers knocked on his cell door at midnight.

He reasoned that it must be a consequence of this fundamental trepidation that he felt overwhelming of relief and relaxation when his abbot had suggested he leave. Or instructed he leave, really. Quickly.

...

He wondered then, what he was doing coming back to this place. If trepidation had come to be something best avoided, why had his first path brought him to the place and people from whence it all sprang?

Duty. Hermitage always had the most enormous sense of duty, a sense of the tasks and roles that fell to him even if they would not be his personal choice. He knew that he was a simple servant in this world, first of all a servant of God, then a servant of his betters and finally a servant of everyone else. It was unthinkable that he should put himself first in any way whatsoever - and this had really irritated the hell out of the other monks.

It was, therefore, his duty to return here and inform those who knew him of his future. Now that he was in the place and facing the prospect though, he really couldn't understand what he had been thinking.

His father, woodsman to Lord Egwin's estate, had made it quite clear that the result of Hermitage taking monastic orders would be that they would never meet again, under any circumstances whatsoever. Further, if they did bump into one another at a market or something they should ignore one another completely. That way Hermitage might better focus on his religious life, and his father might not be distracted any further by wondering whether his son was alive or not.

This had always seemed doubly strange to Hermitage as it was his father who had insisted he join a monastery in the first place.

Of the rest of his family, his mother had always been distant. She lived five miles away with a man called Bark who was a professional bear wrestler.

Hermitage recognised his elder brother as the progenitor of his trepidatious life, or more precisely, his constant carping, complaining, whining and physical assaults.

The monastic order had though given Hermitage more blessings than mere distance as it provided the opportunity to change his name.

...

The only one in all those years of his childhood who had shown him any kindness at all had been the Lady Egwin, who had, on occasion treated him with almost parental affection. But even she had seemed very remote and disinterested at the formal farewell Lord Egwin had given him.

With all this both behind and now in front of him, he wondered for a moment whether he shouldn't simply turn around and go. At the very least he needed to pop into the woods as, despite his learned thinking, rationalisation and understanding, the trepidation had come back and he really, really needed the privy.

...

Squatting behind a tree had never been a comfortable experience for Hermitage. This attitude formed part of what his father had referred to as his 'pathetic, weak and wobbly, flimsy-whimsy approach to life by which he would have all the impact on the world of a small lark poo'.

He should be more like his brother who was a real man, and who would deposit in the middle of the market square if the need came over him. It had always seemed to Hermitage that this particular need came over his brother suspiciously often, and it was he who would benefit from some of his younger sibling's qualities of modesty and discretion, rather than the other way round.

That Lord Egwin himself was more inclined towards Hermitage's approach to life at least meant that the estate was not one of those which was forever dripping in gore from the latest hunt, or in which the men continually disported themselves in public displays of the very worst kind.

Lady Egwin, on the other hand, had been much more interested in the practical and had spent long hours with Hermitage's father supervising wood husbandry and the like.

Being surprised while he was squatting behind a tree was the sort of thing his nightmares were made of. After the incident of the monastery walls and the ladies, these dreams had become far more vivid, disturbing and, Hermitage would be ashamed to admit, explicit.

He had obviously had a full education in the facts of life, such a thing was unavoidable when you lived the rural life, but he didn't realise quite so much of it had stuck in quite such detail. He was also quite sure that human beings couldn't do some of the things he had started to dream about.

Surprised he was though, as a figure almost stumbled out of the thickest part of the woods in his direction. Ignominy jumped on the back of embarrassment as he realised it was a woman who had appeared, and although her constant looking back told that she was being pursued, she didn't seem unhappy.

'Oh!' she exclaimed regarding the rapidly rising Hermitage.

'I do beg your pardon,' Hermitage offered at the same time, straightening his habit before looking up to see who was before him.

The shock of his discomfort was immediately replaced by the joy of recognition.

'My Lady,' he said and bowed low.

It was as if the intervening years had been swept down a fetid drain as Hermitage looked upon the Lady Egwin. All of the anxieties and disorders he had accumulated since he last saw her were instantly dispelled, and tears even welled in his eyes as the memory of joyous times was ignited by her presence. All of his trials and tribulations, even the trepidation itself seemed a price worth paying for this moment.

'My goodness, it's...'

'Brother Hermitage, my lady,' Hermitage interrupted, emphasising his new name over his old.

'Of course, Brother Hermitage,' she said, recovering herself and speaking the name carefully.

It was odd that she seemed as taken aback by this encounter as he was. Whatever she had been doing in the woods had been driven from her attention as she stood and stared at the monk before her.

There was a crashing in the undergrowth behind her and Hermitage wondered for a moment if she was being chased by some wild animal or other. She looked back quickly and with a gesture to Hermitage that he should wait, quickly disappeared back into the shrubbery.

There was more crashing in the undergrowth together with some horse whispers, a couple of giggles and some words hissed with quiet intent. With a final high pitched, girlish squeal, Lady Egwin re-appeared straightening her dress which had obviously been disarranged by the bushes and brambles.

'Brother Hermitage,' she said regarding him once more, 'How lovely to see you again. What are you doing here?' This last question was more of a request for an explanation than an expression of pleasant surprise.

'I have become a peripatetic monk, my Lady.'

'Oh dear, I am sorry,' she said

'No, no, it's good. It means that I have been freed from my order to move to another, doing what work I may in the service of the Lord.'

'Oh, that is nice.'

'And I thought that before I begin properly, I should visit to let people know.'

'Really?' Lady Egwin seemed genuinely puzzled by this.

'Duty,' Hermitage said

'Ah, duty.' Lady Egwin was still none the wiser.

'So here I am.' He was beginning to wonder if they were going to spend the entire time in the wood, rather too close to Hermitage's stooping spot than was comfortable.

'So you are,' she said and she seemed to regard him at last with some of the tenderness that he fleetingly remembered.

'Well, it's been lovely to see you and erm, enjoy your wandering.' Hermitage's heart fell.

'Oh,' he said, 'I thought that I would go down and see some of the others.'

'Why?' Again real failure to understand.

'Well erm.' Now that he thought about it further he really didn't know why. Apart from Lady Egwin, there really wasn't anyone he yearned to see.

'Everything is still exactly the same only more so.' She sighed. 'Lord Egwin keeps to his Keep only now he has a companion, one Barsum of Lincoln, and they seem to spend hours together doing, well they spend all their time together.

'Your brother has been in the stocks most weeks for some crime or other, and he routinely attacks anyone after sundown. And your father is erm...,' she pondered a bit longer here, 'your father is still the erm, same as ever. Lots of work in the woods, dealing with this and that. Satisfying the needs of the estate you know.'

'Ah, good.' With this update, Hermitage did see that there was little point in him visiting. It had just been a strange urge to see faces. Even if none of them liked him very much. Something in him wanted to check that they were actually real people and that his memory had not built ogres out of phantoms.

Now that he was within screaming distance of his home, the reality of those he had left behind became only too clear, and the urge to check reality became an urge to leave it alone and move quietly away.

'And both your father and brother maintain the same attitude towards you as they always have, I'm afraid.' Lady Egwin concluded.

'Ah.'

'So perhaps?' she suggested.

Hermitage pulled himself up straight and realised that he had already met the only person he had really come back for.

'Perhaps I should just be on my way to my new life.' He said this with good cheer. He had tried to put the tone in his voice for her benefit, but it occurred to him that he did, actually, feel quite joyful.

'It might be for the best, Hermitage.' She said his name with a tone and emotion which he found unbearable. He would not leave without the memory of this, and the thought that he would return one day.

'I have at least met you again, my Lady.'

'You have indeed,' she said and then did a remarkable thing. She took half a step forward and lightly stroked his cheek. One of those rare moments of childhood revisited him as he felt comfort and security and that the worst woes of the world could do him no harm.

'Go well,' she said as Hermitage smiled and walked past her, back to the path.

As he turned and looked back at her for one last time as she obviously prepared to return to the dense woodland, she spoke again,

'Go well indeed, my son.'

As he walked away Hermitage thought deeply. 'My son?' What a strange thing for her to say. She clearly had no understanding of the orders of monastic life. She wasn't a priest, that was ridiculous, it was priests who called people my son.

He knew that his home valley was a pretty ungodly place but that was pretty basic. Perhaps she'd been confused by his sudden appearance in the woods, or she thought he was a priest and she ought to call him that. Pah, he would never understand how women worked.

...

He strode away from the valley as happy as he could remember. He had seen his home, or at least the personification of the best bits of it, he had left the trials of the enclosed monastery, and he had managed not to see his father or brother, which he now considered to be a happy circumstance.

It did occur to him as he relived the woodland encounter over and over again that the other person in the woods with Lady Egwin might well have been his father, rooting away in the undergrowth, or forcing himself through the bush in his usual no-nonsense, in and out manner, but he decided that the memory of the man, generally horrifying as it was, was far easier to deal with than the flesh.

He thought about visiting his mother on his way back to the main thoroughfare, but her mind was muddled and whenever he had seen her she singularly failed to recognise him.

Best to let the sleeping dogs lie he thought as he put the place firmly behind him. He castigated himself for the idea that with any luck, when he visited again, the dogs might be dead.

The End of Hermitage Home

### Manuscript; MS/BH/HoW/005 Folio 7

### Hermitage and the Hostelry

Preface.

I am sorry, but I really am at my wit's end. If Bunley and that agent come round here one more time, disturbing my work, and hurling their personal diatribes, I don't know what I shall do.

The tale below seems harmless enough to me. I acknowledge it isn't a great leap forward in our understanding of the medieval world, but it is an insight into domestic life, so often neglected when all the stories are about the great and the good. I am quite content to leave it in as a small token.

But oh no, that's not good enough for the high and mighty Bunley. He has no confidence in the source of the material. He has no confidence? Who the devil does he think he is? (Pardon my animation.) This is not his research, this is not his manuscript, this is not even his scriptorium. So, what is he even doing here? He should be back with his dubious post-graduate, researching the toilet habits of Brother Cadfael as far as I'm concerned. There. I've said it.

And as for the "agent". (Those inverted commas are getting bigger by the hour.) I don't know what sort of games he is playing, but I am now getting knocks on the door of the scriptorium at all hours of the day and night. Strange people are asking where he is. Have I seen him? Do I know when he'll be back? Can they just leave this package for him? Will I take a cheque?

I have been to the blacksmiths and purchased a very large, very heavy lock. I know exactly where I shall put it and that I shall have the only key. It may be unusual for a scriptorium where there are precious manuscripts and historical documents which require protection, but my lock is going on the inside. If you want to get in, knock three times and ask for Howard - but don't expect an answer.

Howard,

Warwick,

Not available.
Hermitage and the Hostelry.

That winter of 1064 was monstrous. A marrow pummelling, air splitting cold circled the land like some frosted carrion bird. Run-of-the-mill hard frosts had wandered into the wrong neighbourhood and would be lucky to escape with their lives. Even the snow had second thoughts about going anywhere near the ground, loitering instead inside the nice warm clouds.

There was no muffling of the atmosphere, no softening of the edges of the cold. It sliced through man and beast alike, unconcerned which it left dead in the fields and which ran to get away from it. It was mainly the animals with the sense to run away.

As night fell, the cold intensified and fell from the sky to accumulate in a layer on the ground. It promised death to small animals stupid enough to venture out, and a nasty shock to the feet of wandering monks.

Gripped firmly in the maw of the cold and starving hungry to boot, Brother Hermitage remained reluctant to enter the hostelry, even though it was called The Lamb. Or perhaps because it was called The Lamb, it was a rather blasphemous name for such a place after all. His reluctance was partly prompted by the acknowledgement that he had no money: landlords were picky about people taking up their warmth and space for free, and a picky landlord could be a handful.

The landlords Hermitage had encountered were doubly picky. The expression "as welcome as a monk in a brewery", neatly covered the impact of a habit on a hostelry. It would either put the death on the atmosphere or drink the place dry without offering to pay a penny.

The weight of Hermitage's reluctance rested on the fact he was not far from home. There might be people inside who knew him.

People who knew Hermitage seemed inexorably driven to offer him some criticism or other, very little of it constructive. People who knew him and were also people in hostelries tended to make their criticism raucous and physical. He knew if he stood outside much longer he would freeze to death. He also knew if he were drenched in beer and thrown into the cold he would freeze to death as well, just more quickly and smelling of beer.

His reluctance was taking a battering from the wind which circumnavigated the inside of his habit with chilling intimacy. When he started to think he was actually feeling a bit warmer, and perhaps a lie down for a little sleep would make him feel better, his survival instinct took over from his all-pervading reason. He staggered through the rough door and into the warmth beyond.

That he wasn't immediately grabbed and hurled out was a good sign and he closed the door as unobtrusively as he could. He slid into the seat nearest the entrance but furthest from the fire, in the wildly optimistic hope that he hadn't been noticed, and would be left alone, at least until the feeling in his feet came back.

The inn was traditional in every way. The door opened into a room of grubby whitewashed walls flanking a swept flagstone floor some twenty feet square. Its roof was a glowering ceiling of oak beams that provided exhibition space for an extensive collection of cobwebs.

Across the wall to Hermitage's right, an inglenook hosted a log fire that burned half-heartedly in an iron basket. The flames seemed to know how cold it was going to be outside and didn't want to go anywhere near the chimney.

On the far side of the fire, a single, huddled figure sat wrapped in the collection of clothes which was all the fashion just now. Everyone was putting on every single garment they possessed, one on top of another, in the hope that together they would keep the cold at bay. The resulting swaddling meant that if the cold was not kept at bay, and the individual succumbed to it, there was a good chance no one would notice until the spring. This figure held a leathern mug from which it took occasional sips, so at least it was still in the world of the living.

The far wall of the room was taken up with the table, on which sat three barrels of beer, and a door that obviously led to the kitchen beyond. To Hermitage's left were a couple of tables which, in warmer times, would be occupied by resting workers, merrymakers and the just plain drunk. As these sat under a draughty and leaking window, Hermitage could see why the lone customer had chosen their place.

Behind the barrels a man, Hermitage assumed him to be the innkeeper, stood leaning with his head in his hands gazing blankly into the middle distance. He seemed unaware that a monk had just appeared in front of him. He was less comprehensively dressed than his customer, as he probably spent most of his time in the main room or the kitchen where the largest supply of heat, probably for many miles around, was to be found.

And that was it. One landlord and one customer. On such a night it was no surprise people decided to stay by their own hearths. Or in bed with as many covers as possible drawn over their heads.

Still, one landlord and one customer were more than enough to throw out one monk. After a few moments Hermitage became puzzled, and Hermitage becoming puzzled was a one-way street. Puzzles had to be solved. Stepping smartly away and pretending they had never happened, although favoured by people with a smattering of common sense, simply wasn't in Hermitage's nature.

The puzzle had its origins in the fact he hadn't been physically removed from the inn as soon as he entered. It grew in stature as he realised that no one was taking the blindest bit of notice of him. In principle, others taking no notice of him was a very good thing, but he knew that opening a creaking hostelry door and allowing the icy breath of the devil himself to whip its way around the residents should be noticed even by the least-conscious drinker.

Something was amiss. He tested the limits of his new-found invisibility by sidling slowly up to the fire until he could actually feel the warmth. Eventually, he stood before the reluctantly blazing hearth, next to a sleeping dog which had occupied the hottest spot.

Even this creature ignored him and that really was odd. He had no great love for animals either domestic or wild, but neither did he fear them. He assumed he didn't give off the scent of terror which made them attack, or the aura of love which made them follow.

Thus he consistently failed to understand why every piece of wildlife he came across appeared to take an instant dislike to him. Cats hissed and dogs growled, birds attacked and he had even been bitten by a horse once. That he should be able to stand so close to a dog, albeit an ageing and lazy one, without it having a good go at his ankles was a further mystery.

He knew this situation was to his advantage and he should take it. It was patently clear to both his intellect and instinct that the only option was to keep his head down and absorb the life-lifting heat. Never mind intellect, it was plain common sense.

In a situation such as this, common sense should work in harmony with intellect and instinct. Common sense would say, 'Quite right, you're getting nice and warm, no one has noticed, stay low and make the most of it'. Intellect and instinct would concur and they'd all start thinking about food.

All of Brother Hermitage's common sense had been replaced by curiosity, and it made him do the most peculiar things. It now shouted in his head, saying 'What's going on here? Why haven't they noticed me? Something strange is happening and I must find out what it is'.

Intellect and instinct insisted this was a course that would lead to being out in the cold again and asked why curiosity wouldn't listen to them for once. Curiosity had stopped listening years ago.

This process, which took place in no time at all as it was pretty much automatic, led Hermitage to take the step which so often resulted in physical harm. No matter how many times intellect and instinct said 'told you so', curiosity was having none of it. He let out a small cough.

'Ahem.'

The rationale was inexorable. If you draw attention to yourself something bad will happen. Asking people questions and butting into their business draws attention to yourself and therefore leads to the happening of bad things. Ah, curiosity insisted, only by drawing attention to yourself will you find things out, and finding things out is the purpose of life. No arguing with that then.

The innkeeper looked up from his hands and merely grunted at Hermitage.

'Oh that's right, rub it in why don't you.'

Remarkable. No 'Right you, out', or 'We don't want your sort in here'. Not even a simple grab by the habit and a rapid eviction. More than that, what was being rubbed in? Although relatively local, Hermitage had only just arrived, he couldn't possibly know what 'it' was, let alone be capable of rubbing it anywhere.

Why would the innkeeper think that anything he was doing was making some unknown situation worse? Perhaps opening the door had rubbed the cold in. Perhaps there was little custom in this icy weather and a monk walking in, who would clearly have no money, only emphasised the poor trade?

'I er.' Hermitage's curiosity was like a second bladder, if it got too full he simply had to let some questions leak out no matter how embarrassing the result. He wasn't going to be able to hold himself in much longer.

'Look he's dead all right, just leave it at that.'

How marvellous, someone was dead. All thought of cold and hunger was banished. Hermitage had to work out who it was. working things out made life worth living.

'The last thing we want is some bloody monk moping about the place reminding us.'

So that was it. The inn was in mourning and Hermitage's presence made the recent departure only more poignant. He knew that sometimes, on occasions such as this, it helped those affected by death to talk about it and that a monk was just the right person to encourage release.

He also knew that such encouragement, if delivered in an inappropriate manner, could lead to a hearty punch in the face. Unfortunately, Hermitage could only do inappropriate, so for once he held his peace.

Curiosity though was having none of it. It wanted to know who was dead, why they were dead and how they had become so. Was there any question mark over the death and if it wasn't natural causes what was the nature of the accident, and had the authorities been informed?

'You have my sympathy.' Hermitage said with remarkable restraint.

'Well that's no bloody good is it?' The innkeeper retorted, and the muffled figure seated by the fire grunted its assent.

'Might I ask who has passed on?' Hermitage risked it. This level of interrogation usually led straight to the nearest dung-heap.

'Well Barker, of course,' the innkeeper snapped back.

The muffled figure tutted as if Hermitage should have known this.

'Ah,' he said, imbuing the two letters with the tone which he hoped said, 'I don't know what you're talking about and would like further explanation'. Anyone who knew Hermitage would know that the tone added, 'and if I don't get further explanation I will probably ask you some more annoying questions very soon'.

'Barker!' The innkeeper gestured impatiently towards the fire.

Hermitage looked behind him but the fire offered no illumination. Then he cast his eyes downwards in respect for the departed and noticed the dog had still not moved. The animal's absence of interest in Hermitage could certainly be explained if it was dead.

Surely the dog was not called Barker?

Curiosity, when coupled with imagination, could be a great force. Unfortunately, Brother Hermitage's coupling had broken and imagination had gone the way of common sense. Like some vestigial toe, it had withered in the womb, and by the time the infant Hermitage breathed, it had all the potency of Drago, winner of Eunuch of Eunuchs award three years in a row.

Even with this vacuity of creative thinking, Hermitage thought that Barker was not a very good name for a dog. He spent a few more moments staring at the form at his feet and confirmed there was indeed no sign of life.

There was no gentle movement of breath going in and out, no tell-tale signs of twitching or scratching, no languid raising of eyebrows as the animal checked its surroundings for anything of interest. As Hermitage looked long and hard he realised that Barker was, in fact, leaking in several places.

'Who killed him?' The innkeeper positively howled. 'That's what we want to know, who killed him?'

Hermitage looked at the animal and then back at the innkeeper hoping the look on his face would be enough to communicate the blindingly obvious fact that the dog was incredibly lucky to have lived as long as it did. He didn't understand why the man couldn't see that old age took everything and that the animal gently rotting on the floor was as far beyond old age as it was beyond life.

'Surely he was a dog of great age?' Hermitage prompted as the look was having no effect whatsoever.

'He was happy as a lamb yesterday,' the innkeeper forced out through trembling lips, while the figure by the fire shook its head in sympathy.

'How long had you had him?' Hermitage thought that perhaps leading this man to the only obvious conclusion might be more effective than laying it out in front of him.

'Since I was a boy.' The innkeeper finally gave in to grief and sobbed raucously.

Hermitage gave the man a closer examination and concluded he had already spent most of his own allotted span. The fact his dog had gone before him surely couldn't be a surprise.

'Perhaps the erm, I mean, perhaps Barker was simply called by the Lord after a long and happy life?'

'He was murdered, murdered,' the innkeeper declared loudly and with passion.

'What makes you think so?'

'He's dead.'

In a rare demonstration of tact, Hermitage thought this was not the moment to point out that this reasoning was full of more holes than Hermitage's habit.

'Barker would have to go sometime,' he offered as sympathetically as he could.

'But not now.' The innkeeper had taken to pacing up and down behind his barrels, wringing his hands and staring one moment at the ceiling and the next at the floor as if his eyes taking rest would allow the fact of the death to get inside him.

'Was he longer-lived than other dogs?' Hermitage tried another tack.

'He was the oldest dog in the district,' the innkeeper's voice rose before falling into another torrent of sobs.

It seemed the man considered this to be reason why Barker shouldn't die, rather than why he should.

'Then surely his time had come? The Lord would have looked down and seen aged Barker alone and would have taken him back to be with the dogs of his childhood.'

Hermitage was really doubtful about the theology behind this, and he was normally a stickler for that sort of thing, but this situation was beyond his experience. He thought the argument might give the man some consolation.

'So God killed him?' the innkeeper asked most unreasonably.

'With God, there is no death,' Hermitage responded immediately. 'I the house of the Lord, Barker still sits before the fire, probably gnawing on a bone.'

'But I want him before my fire.' The innkeeper descended into further voluble expressions of grief that would have put the fear of God up a pack of wolves.

Hermitage really didn't know what to do. There was no reasoning with this man, and he always had trouble with people with whom there was no reasoning. He would reason away very reasonably, and even after the people had resorted to hitting him because their capacity for reason had run dry, he would carry on.

Even that ultimate foundation of reason, scripture, seemed to be of little value here. Hermitage was well-read and understood more of the words of the Lord than most of his fellows, but even he couldn't bring anything to mind which dealt with the matter of dead dogs.

A look of sympathetic hopelessness fell upon his face only to be picked up by the figure at the fire who beckoned to him through the muffling.

Leaving the innkeeper to his far-from-silent mourning, Hermitage approached and crouched down to get his head near that of the seated shape.

'His wife,' the figure said and settled back as if that was the sum and total of the explanation required to cover this situation.

Hermitage frowned at the voice coming from within the muffling. Coming from somewhere pretty deep within by the sound of it. The weather was so cold most people did their best to keep their mouths shut and avoided talking at all, if possible. This person sounded like they'd muffled themselves from the inside out.

'What about her?' Hermitage asked. 'Is she dead as well?' He thought this might explain the outpouring of emotion which seemed out of all proportion to the shabby corpse of the dog.

'Nah.' The figure's husky tones grumbled through the layers, once again assuming Hermitage knew all about the wife.

'What then?'

If it was possible, through the all-encompassing clothing that constituted the entire form of the figure, it shuffled in a slightly conspiratorial manner.

'Gone.'

'Gone?'

'Gone. With the baker.'

'Gone with the baker?' Hermitage wondered if this was another one of those euphemisms for womanly functions that no one liked to talk about, or at least he didn't like to talk about. Realisation dawned slowly that this was probably factual.

'Oh, gone with the baker,' Hermitage responded brightly, this did offer some explanation.

'Yup. And she wants half the inn.'

'Oh dear. I can see how that would be upsetting. The poor fellow would already be in a fragile state and the departure of his beloved dog so soon after his wife would be too much to bear.'

'Well yes,' the figure said, making it clear there was more to this. 'The man loved only three things in his life; his wife, his inn and his dog, and not necessarily in that order.'

'Ah?' Hermitage dearly hoped this tale wasn't going to become unpleasant.

'So, his wife ups and goes and says she wants half the inn. He's only left with the dog. She says he can keep the flea-ridden, mangy cur.'

'Very decent of her.'

'Except as she walks out the door, she says she hopes it dies.'

'Oh dear.'

'Indeed. Especially when that's exactly what it did. It always did do whatever she told it.'

'And now he thinks...'

'Well of course.'

'But people can't make things die simply by instructing them.'

'God could.'

This seemed a remarkably theological inn.

'Well yes, of course God could if he wanted to. But the Lord would not instruct a dog to die.'

The muffled one did not seem convinced.

'Between you and I,' it was Hermitage's turn to be conspiratorial and he leaned in closer before realising he didn't want to get too close to this muffling, which probably hadn't been changed for three months, 'I think Barker simply died of old age.'

'She told it to die,' the innkeeper had recovered enough of his senses to listen in to the conversation, but he soon lost them again when he heard talk of the death of his beloved Barker.

'My son, my son,' Hermitage didn't really know what he was doing, but he felt simple sympathy for this fellow human being in distress. 'Your poor dog had reached the end of life. He looks as if he was of great age and it's perfectly natural that he should pass away. It is heartbreaking that he should do so at a time when you have so many other travails, but this is often the way of life. The Lord tests us in many ways and the fortitude you show now will do you great credit.'

The innkeeper sniffed what sounded like a bucket full of mucus up his nose, and looked at Hermitage through bloodshot eyes which, nonetheless showed a spark of understanding. Hermitage thought if he could fan the spark, the man would soon recover.

'Besides,' he said in gentle tones, 'it simply isn't possible for anyone to command an animal to give up its life, such power is not granted to mortal man.'

As Hermitage watched, the spark did indeed spring into flamboyant life, and the pall that had weighed down the innkeeper's features lifted as a new realisation dawned on him. He came out from behind the bar, which Hermitage thought was a very good sign.

'Of course,' the man said as he joined Hermitage and the muffled one by the fire.

'I'm glad,' Hermitage smiled and nodded.

'You'd have to be a witch.'

'Er.' This wasn't expected at all, 'No, no,' he started.

'I see it all now. She's cast a spell on the baker, she's charmed me out of me inn and she killed me dog!'

'I really don't think,' Hermitage knew what country folk could be like, and he feared this conversation was leading to a very bad place indeed. There was no stopping the innkeeper though.

'I'm so glad you come here Brother, you've made it all clear. The woman was a witch.' He prodded the muffled figure who swayed slightly in agreement.

'It was a matter of old age and simple co-incidence,' Hermitage urged.

'Ha!' The innkeeper snorted. 'There ain't no such thing as old age and co-incidence where witches is involved.'

'But.'

'In fact, it ain't that she was a witch, she is a witch.'

It was at times like this that Hermitage usually deferred to someone of more authority and presence, such as his abbot who would have slapped the man by now. Hermitage had never been on the delivering end of a slap, and once words and reason failed, his armoury was as bare as a baby.

'I must tell the rest of the village.' The innkeeper went back to the kitchen to get his own layers of clothing on.

'This is terrible.' Hermitage paced up and down.

'Why?' The muffling asked.

Hermitage was incredulous, 'Well he's going to accuse a woman of witchcraft.'

'Perhaps she is a witch?' The figure thought this was perfectly reasonable.

'Oh really,' Hermitage was exasperated. 'This is the eleventh century for goodness sake, we're not in the dark ages anymore.'

'Still got witches, or don't the church believe in witches now?'

'Well of course.' Hermitage had to admit there were many in ecclesiastical circles who did believe in witches, some of them very enthusiastically. Usually, they were the ones who searched for witches marks, which they found in the most remarkable places.

Hermitage was not of that ilk and he thought them all a primitive and unworthy lot. He kept these thoughts to himself though, he may not have had any common sense but he wanted to live.

'There you are then. And she's ensnared the baker, and taken half the inn and there's a dead dog to be dealt with.' The figure moved some muffles in the direction of the canine corpse.

'But any of these events could have happened anyway.'

'They could have, but what are the chances of that? Unless God really is punishing the innkeeper by killing his dog.'

'God doesn't work like that.'

'A witch it is then.'

Hermitage was only good at reasoning with people who played the game. Someone who was prepared to sit there saying 'she's a witch, she's a witch' clearly wasn't capable of engaging in a structured argument. He couldn't give up though.

'But what if she isn't a witch? What if it is all coincidence? An aged dog and a marriage that has run its course. All perfectly normal events which people get over. If you go saying it's witchcraft we'll see an innocent woman murdered.'

'Oh well if she's innocent, God will save her.'

He was all in favour of simple old country faith, but he drew the line at tying people to piles of sticks and setting light to them. And all that nonsense about dipping them in water and if they drowned they were innocent. Errant nonsense. Follow that path and there would be witches floating in ponds all over the country.

'You cannot seriously believe,' he began but he was cut off by the innkeeper barging past him to get out of the door.

'A witch, a witch,' he heard the man cry enthusiastically as if he were selling hot buns as he ran down the central track of the village.

Hermitage peered out into the still ravaging cold and watched as doors were opened and light streamed out into the night. He had been here before. It wouldn't be long before the first of them suggested fetching some kindling.

Perhaps the baker would stand up for her, although he knew what the mob could be like once they'd made their mind up. If the baker valued his own life and business he would end up going along with them.

Hermitage knew he would have to do his best alone, even though he also knew no one would take any notice of him and he would probably end up slightly charred himself.

He stood gazing despondently into the dark as he felt the muffled figure rise and walk up behind him. He turned in time to see it re-arranging its muffling for the journey into the cold, and was completely taken aback to see the face of a woman. Of course, women could go to the inn, it was just he had assumed all along this would be a man.

'Who are you?' he asked as the figure made her way past him.

She took his arm and looked him straight in the eye.

'You can call me Mrs Baker,' she said, then she ran after the innkeeper to suggest gathering some kindling.

THE END - or is it...

### Finally.

Now that Bunley and the "agent" have gone, hopefully for good. I have thrown in this last piece, as pure devilment. (I am becoming rather alarmed at my own reaction to all of this. I feel positively skittish!)

It is not complete, it is not referenced and it is more of a Socratic dialogue than a proper tale, but I think it stills throws some light on Brother Hermitage.

Of course, it would have Bunley in fits. No decent provenance, not academically peer-reviewed, no authentication of the parchment, but you know - I don't care!

And the agent? Well, this didn't come from him so he'll be having nightmares about where I get my manuscripts now. I don't know what all this nonsense is about royalties and copyright, but he seems to get terribly het up about it all.

And best of all, I am sending this off to the printer/publisher/electro-book people, without the two of them even knowing.

I shall batten down the hatches, and may even partake in a small sherry!

Howard,

Warwick,

Alone at last.

### The Battle of Hermitage

'We're at war' the man at arms told Brother Hermitage and he sounded rather proud of the fact.

'Oh dear.' Hermitage, despite everything everyone told him about the glory of war, had concluded that war was a bad thing.

'No, no, that's good,' the man said. He knew that religious types had some pretty odd views about most things but really!

Hermitage hesitated to start this debate once again, especially with a foot soldier. Greater intellects than his own had assured Hermitage that his views on war were misplaced, that his attitude to conflict was lamentable and that his approach to the question of injury and death was so ill-considered that if he opened his mouth in public once more he would find that he was able to comment on the topic at first hand. Still, he felt that it was his duty and he always did his duty, even if it was counter-intuitive, unwelcome and frequently dangerous.

'What if you get injured, or worse killed?'

'You mean killed, or worse injured.'

'Pardon.'

'Oh yes, it would be much worse to be injured, especially if it was something nasty and permanent. I wouldn't be able to work and my family wouldn't get anything. Dead though, that's much better, all over pretty quickly with any luck, and then the family looked after. In fact, I shouldn't say this,' and he leant conspiratorially towards Hermitage, 'if I get injured badly, I'll just have to make sure it's fatal, know what I mean?'

'Oh this is awful,' Hermitage sighed and shook his head. 'Surely it's better not to have a war at all?'

'Now you're just being silly.' It seemed that there was no more to say on the matter, but as Hermitage kept the expectant look on his face, the man at arms felt obliged to go on.

'You've got to have wars haven't you?' The man said in the voice he reserved for idiots

'Have you?'

'Yes of course you have. Look, I'm obligated to give the lord a week's service every quarter, right?'

'Right.' Hermitage was happy with this concept, perfectly reasonable.

'And if I do, I have to go along and till his fields, muck out, build stuff, all of that. But our lord tends to let all the days build up until harvest, then he calls us all in to get his crops for him.'

'I see.' Hermitage didn't really, as the practicalities of life had always been a bit beyond him. Or beneath him, or a mystery to him, he could never determine which, despite his father helpfully trying to beat it into him.

'That's no good. I've got me own harvest to bring in, and by the time I've done a month for him, my crops could be ruined.'

'Ah,' Now Hermitage got it.

'But war, well that's much better isn't it?'

'It's better to be killed than to have some ruined crops?'

'It's better to be serving at arms because that counts four times. I only have to do one week at arms and then I'm clear for the year. If we have a war in the winter, like now, it's even better. We get taken away from home and fed, which means we don't eat our own food. We work off our debt and then the lord has to pay us if he wants us at harvest. Winners all round.'

'Unless you're dead?'

'No, as I say dead's good.'

'Or injured?'

'Yeah, well, there's not much chance of that, to be honest.' The soldier had a smirk on his face.

'Are you a good fighter then?' Hermitage was starting to see that there was no way of dragging this man up to the moral high ground.

'Not bad, but I don't think there'll be any serious fighting.'

'How can you know?'

'There wasn't last year.'

'Last year? You mean this war has been going on for a year?'

'Oh good Lord no, we couldn't afford that. No, we had another war this time last year.'

'And were there many casualties then?'

'Nah.'

'I didn't know the country was at war anyway.' Hermitage said, becoming more and more puzzled with every bit of this conversation.

'Oh, it's not the country. No, no, we don't want the country at war, that really is dangerous. Once you get kings and the like involved it all gets horribly messy and a feller could end up getting hurt.'

'Then?' Hermitage was so far out at sea that he really didn't know what to ask next.

'We're at war with the lord next door.'

'Are you allowed to do that? I thought the king had said something about lords having wars with one another. Don't they have to ask permission first?'

'Yeah well, the king ain't here is he?'

'Well, why are you at war?'

'Land'

'Land?'

'Yeah, land.' The man paused for a moment and seemed to have another thought. 'Or an insult to his daughter. Or a kidnapping. Or something to do with wells, I'm not sure which, to be honest.'

'Yet you're still willing to go to war?'

'Forests.'

'What?'

'Forests, that's it. Deer and rights to timber and that. It's forests this year.'

'You say it like it happens every year.'

'Yeah, pretty much.'

'Why don't the two lords just talk to one another and avoid the conflict?'

'You know what brothers are like.'

'They're brothers?' Hermitage was astonished. 'This really is intolerable. I must see what I can do to bring an end to this cycle of violence.' He had made up his mind to go on to the main house and see if he couldn't reason with these people.

'Don't you dare,' the man at arms said, and Hermitage thought that he lowered his pike slightly.

'But.'

'Look, monk,' the man said, and there was a real change of tone in his voice. 'The lord on the other side operates the same as his brother. His serfs don't want to be working during harvest, they want to get their duty done in one week during the winter when there's nothing else to do. Anyway, no one gets hurt so what's the harm?'

'Harm? It's a war, there's a principle here. You don't have wars just because it's convenient. Where would it end?'

'Oh please. I've got a wife and four kids to feed, I can't afford principles.'

In all of Hermitage's travels, in all of his wanderings around the country since he had been invited to become a journeying monk, well, since he had been asked to leave his monastery, he had been puzzled by the complexities and contrivances of life outside of an Order. He knew himself well enough to realise that a lot of this puzzlement was down to his own nature, and his unfamiliarity with normal life.

He knew that he was an innocent in many ways, this had been made clear to him. He knew that he had a simplistic and overly direct approach to events, this had been made clear to him by some shouting that the abbot had done. And he knew that he could be irritatingly persistent at times, this had been made clear by some dung that had been thrown at him by children.

He also knew that there was no denying his nature, even if that nature had all the properties of something so tiresome that people were inclined to stamp on it.

His latest meandering had brought him through the edge of the great forest to this estate where he had hoped he might find some shelter and rest. If he was honest with himself, and he usually was, travelling was not terribly satisfactory. The opportunities for serious study or intelligent debate on theological matters were severely limited, even if you counted the chap he had met on the bridge some miles back who claimed to be the Archangel Gabriel. To find that the place was at war was appalling, even if the combatants seemed quite content with the situation.

Another highly perilous aspect of Hermitage's nature was his concept of interference; the ability to spot when you are butting into someone else's business. Those tell-tale indicators that the people you are dealing with are less than welcoming of your enquiries, or even of your very presence went over Hermitage's head. That spark of understanding that can be triggered by the smallest message transmitted subconsciously, remained subconscious. All of these were faculties which Hermitage had in absolutely no way whatsoever.

Never mind having any empathy with other people, Hermitage couldn't even tell when the person he was interacting with had gone so far beyond the end of it, that he couldn't even see his tether anymore. Even after he had been hit, Hermitage couldn't normally figure out why.

It is said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, but the fools would probably find that Hermitage was already there when they arrived and had pulled up a chair to explain the blindingly obvious to someone who was giving off all the signals of a rabid bull.

Thus, the very clear indications from the man at arms that Hermitage should leave his enquiries where they were and walk quietly back into the wood were not so much ignored as absolutely and comprehensively missed as widely as a man with fishing net standing in a desert.

Of course he was going to visit the estate house and the lord to discuss the war, what else was there to do? Interference and enthusiasm are a dangerous combination, especially when Hermitage was to sensitivity what Bobo the kitten strangler was to a little girl's birthday celebration, a complete stranger.

He stood and headed for the lord's castle, a fighting man with a large pike at his back.

Really the End

The whole Chronicles of Brother Hermitage start their interminable ramble with The Heretics of De'Ath.

The first chapter of this is deposited below; if you can stand any more.

### **The Heretics o f De'Ath**

The very first

Chronicle of Brother Hermitage

by

Howard of Warwick

### Caput I

### After Vespers; One Dead Monk

'And thus I refute the proposition in all its blasphemous impudence. I say yes, the Lord did get sand in his shoes during the forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. Any other belief is HERESY.' Brother Ambrosius hurled the final word into the rafters of the refectory and collapsed into his seat, panting heavily.

Young Brother Hermitage, who was in the front row, or more accurately, was the front row, nodded with admiration and respect as the elderly bulk of the orator sat down in exhaustion. The argument had been long and complex and despite a warming fire, which made this the most comfortable place in the whole monastery, only three monks remained alert at the end of the four-day exposition; allowing a very broad definition of 'alert'.

Hermitage was surprised the official opponent in the debate had given up after only the first five hours. He said he was retiring to his chamber for private prayer and took the novice Thabon with him. Their prayer was pretty vigorous, judging from all the grunting noises. Thus, there were three contemplations on the case of Brother Ambrosius.

He glanced at the others to encourage their reactions. First was Brother James and his was clear and instant.

'Oh, bugger,' he muttered. 'Back to the garden.'

Hermitage frowned but recalled that interest in the debate was an exeunt from daily labours. He smiled, trust Brother James.

Casting the old monk's carefully constructed arguments to another mind in the room, that of Brother Francis, meant they fell not so much on stony ground as on extremely large boulders; all of them stupid. His response was the same as always.

'What?' he said as if accused of something distasteful.

Hermitage shook his head lightly in disappointment, not at the reactions of his Brothers, which was frankly no surprise, but at the loss they suffered through not engaging with this marvellous topic.

Leaving them to their own devices, Hermitage returned to the pose of those in profound thought, or profound boredom. He hunched almost double, propped his elbow on his knee and buried his face in his left hand. Thus he demonstrated deep concentration, or that he was dozing off.

Hermitage was so excited he could not have slept, even if he had been up all night writing a short summary of yesterday's proceedings; which he had. After a while he raised his head and lifted his bright and wakeful eyes to the massive and complex timbers of the roof. He stroked his chin and began to order the many significant ideas accumulated over the last four days. He considered the argument had weight and a certain beauty, although the premise that sand was a work of the Devil was perhaps a weak spot. Most impressive was the passion of Ambrosius for this rather obscure area of theological research.

Deep in his own thoughts, carefully constructing his observations and responses, Hermitage failed to notice that Brother Ambrosius was looking around in some agitation and anger. With a strangled gasp, the old man suddenly clutched at his chest.

The Lord above, perhaps having heard all that he needed, spared the world from further debate by recovering Brother Ambrosius to his bosom. Far from having the opportunity to respond to any questions Hermitage might have come up with, the poor man stopped responding to anything.

Hermitage also failed to notice that Brother James, alert to the ways of the world, looked around to confirm that no one else had noticed this event and slipped quietly out of his seat and away into the darkness.

Hermitage thought on in quiet satisfaction, relishing a rare opportunity for intellectual activity in this austere institution.

The Monastery in De'Ath's Dingle had a sparse population and provoked little interest from senior figures in the Church. In fact, it hardly attracted any attention at all. That this debate of Conclave was assigned here, while literally a Godsend to Hermitage, was a sure sign the result was of absolutely no interest to anyone.

This all-pervading ambience of isolated misery explained why it was some time before the dark of the autumn evening brought another monk to the great hall to light the sconces. Only then was the blindingly obvious fact of Brother Ambrosius's death revealed.

Sconce lighting at De'Ath's Dingle was a serious and sombre duty, to be completed with quiet devotion. It was a privileged task, given to those who would not use the opportunity for frivolous discussion with other monks, or as an escape from the natural labour of life. It was not meant to be a pleasure and so the Prior, Athan, was the perfect choice. He had told Hermitage on many occasions that the unending toils of this life were a precursor to the hereafter, where things would be really tough. It was accepted wisdom that the man wouldn't take pleasure if it was carried by a flea and injected into him.

Even Brother Francis, who knew very little, had learned to move away from Athan when he saw him coming. He followed his instincts now, looking round in apparent puzzlement at where James had got to and why Ambrosius had stopped talking.

As Athan entered, Hermitage turned towards the distant door and saw surprise on the monk's face. Athan didn't like surprises. Apparently, it was only a short step from a surprise to a joke, and then where would we be?

'Brother Hermitage,' Athan boomed.

'Yes, Prior?' Hermitage stood and responded loudly.

'What have you done?'

'Erm.' This was not what Hermitage had expected at all. Some cutting remark about the debate being a waste of breath perhaps, or the oft-repeated accusation that Hermitage was a self-indulgent enthusiast. What had he done? He hadn't done anything. Yes, he'd been thinking deeply, but that counted as doing nothing as far as Athan was concerned. He gaped a little, hoping that there would be some further explanation.

'Brother Ambrosius,' the new arrival barked as if this was sufficient.

'Erm,' Hermitage repeated, uncertainly.

'Brother Ambrosius is dead,' Athan said, never being one to beat around the bush. Beat the bush maybe, set fire to it as a sinful luxury, but on all occasions get straight to the point.

Hermitage wondered who Athan meant for a moment. There was a Brother Ambrosius at Peterborough, but why would Athan be concerned with that? He glanced back at the large shape of the old monk who had so recently completed his argument and considered. He did look a bit dead now it was pointed out, but that couldn't be. Surely nobody died just like that. He had seen dead people and was sure they hadn't sat down in a chair to do it.

Dead bodies were the result of run-of-the-mill domestic mishaps. Usually, they'd been chopped up or mangled by some piece of machinery or a horse's trampling hooves. Ambrosius looked quite normal; very still and rather staring, but apart from that normal. His pose in the chair was a touch more slumped and the look cast solidly on his features was of outrage, which was a bit odd considering he had just finished his debate.

The longer Hermitage looked the less normal it became. Ambrosius didn't move. At all. His huge chest and stomach no longer made their wheezing way in and out, and he hadn't farted or belched for several moments.

Hermitage looked around the room to see if there was anything that might account for a death. Across the length and breadth of the chamber he didn't really know what he was looking for. There was certainly no horse or suspect machinery.

'Are you sure, Prior?'

'Yes. I'm sure,' Athan snapped. 'Don't go anywhere,' he added, pointing a finger at Hermitage.

Hermitage hadn't been going to.

Prior Athan strode across the room as if it were insulting him by being in his way, and peered closely at the defunct monk.

'Yes, definitely,' he spat into the room as if accusing Hermitage of something.

'Oh,' Hermitage replied. 'That's strange.'

There was a pause while Athan did some glaring. Only Hermitage felt pauses needed filling.

'We must pray for the departed, although it's a bit too late for unction in extremis.'

Then Hermitage was puzzled. He liked being puzzled.

'I wonder when he died.' He puzzled away.

'Oh you do? You've been here for his entire pointless ramble, the best part of a week. You've given the old fool your undivided attention, and you wonder when he died?' The older man had suspicion in his voice. He also had it in his look, and probably had some spare in his habit should it be required.

'Well, I didn't notice anything, and as you say, I've been here all the time.' Hermitage blinked in the face of the inevitable consequences of this statement. He had never learned the technique for hiding his light under a bushel when situations got awkward. He was incapable of keeping his mouth shut.

Athan paced back to where Hermitage was standing and took up his usual position, just too close to be comfortable. As he did so, Hermitage squirmed under the gaze, every stain and ragged thread on his well-worn habit calling out for punishment.

Hermitage faced his prior. His bright blue eyes were wide and honest. He smoothed the unruly lock of chestnut hair that tufted from his tonsure, despite the best efforts of the barber. The open and fresh expression that sat perpetually on his handsome and even features bolstered the intelligent enthusiasm, bubbling like a fresh spring from every pore.

'You make me sick,' Athan said. 'You were here all the time, and so?' He gave Hermitage a moment to answer, a moment which went over the head of the enthusiast like a heron in a hurricane.

'And so how do you explain a dead monk and you in the same room?' Athan screamed helpfully.

'I was contemplating the argument and preparing to raise a few questions,' the younger monk answered honestly, wondering why Athan was so excited.

'Raising the Brother himself would be a miracle, never mind getting any answers.' Athan waved his arms at Ambrosius. 'I walk into the room of a most important debate of Conclave and find a dead body with you leering over it.'

Hermitage was offended. 'I wasn't leering over it. I wasn't anywhere near it. I didn't even know it was there.' He paused as he thought of something else. 'Anyway, what do you mean important? You've always said the debate..,'

'You were the nearest one.' Athan cut Hermitage short. 'I want to know what you're up to.'

'I'm not up to anything.'

'You were engaged in the debate.'

'Well, I was listening,' Hermitage said, wanting to be strictly accurate. As usual.

'He was talking, you were listening?'

'Yes.'

'Now he's dead, you're not.'

'Well, yes.' Hermitage really couldn't see where this was going.

'Very suspicious. You have ruined the Conclave.'

'Ruined the Conclave?' The accusation knocked Hermitage back a bit.

'Yes, you idiot. The reason Ambrosius was here in the first place?'

'I know what the Conclave is, Prior. I just never knew you had an interest.'

'Of course, I have an interest in what is important to the Church.'

'But you said this debate was a complete waste of time and the lives of those who would fritter away their minutes listening to the interminable drivel of a demented old man.'

'Don't quote me back at myself, Hermitage. I might get annoyed.' Athan thumped his fist into his palm for emphasis.

'I'm still not sure I follow, Prior,' Hermitage said, so meekly that lambs would have lain at his feet.

'Ambrosius's ramblings were just that. It doesn't mean that the decisions of Conclave are not of vital importance to the future of the Church.'

'But I thought you said the Conclave itself was a steaming pile of...,'

'And now Ambrosius is dead, this particular decision cannot be made and you seem to be in the middle of it. That is extremely serious.'

Hermitage blundered on. 'I think you may be exaggerating a little, Prior. The wilderness footwear issue is not of mainstream significance. Obviously, in Matthew Caput four reference is made to stones in sandals, and while Ambrosius's point about the existence of demons is granted, there is doubt that they should be manifest upon the body of...,'

'No, no, you fool. It's no good you carrying on the debate with a dead monk is it?' Athan gestured once more at the slowly stiffening Ambrosius. 'The major problem is how this vital Conclave can resolve itself.'

'Vital?' Hermitage had thoroughly enjoyed the debate, but even he wouldn't have called it vital.

'Vital,' Athan emphasised the word. 'The vital debate is halted because there is a dead brother in a room with only you in it.'

'But I hadn't noticed,' Hermitage pleaded. 'He must have simply died. He was old. Perhaps the exertion of the debate was too much for him.' As he spoke, he reflected that it hadn't really been much of a debate. Arguing with three monks, none of whom answered back, could hardly be described as testing.

The message was not sinking in, so Athan trod on it a bit harder.

'That will be of little comfort to the abbot, will it?'

Now the blinkers of enthusiasm were torn from Hermitage's eyes by the overhanging branch of mortality. The wheels on his cart of fervour cracked on the stones of self-preservation, and he wanted to go to the privy. Understanding flooded through him from brain to bowels and his mouth opened and closed a few times of its own volition.

Hermitage had chosen the Benedictines as they were a very flexible order. Yet this abbot considered flexibility something to be frozen solid, preferably into some sort of weapon. He was a man of severe countenance, severe habit and a severed leg from some accident long ago. He nurtured great bitterness, and his only spark of generosity was to nurture it so well that it could be shared with everyone around him.

'The abbot?' Hermitage swallowed hard. 'The death of a brother is a regular occurrence and we simply give the abbot the old habits. I don't see why he would want to be involved now.' It was a rather pathetic argument, but it was all he could come up with.

He waited for Athan's response and watched. The pock-marks and lines on the man's face seemed to squirm under the intolerable pressure of reasoning, while already small and pinched eyes tightened further. Athan drew in his breath and delivered his riposte.

'He wants to be involved because he does.'

'But the other brothers will bear testimony to the situation,' Hermitage whined slightly.

'Other Brothers?' Athan's voice lightened to a point in which Hermitage detected a hint of pleasure.

He looked around the room and noticed there were no other Brothers.

'I think you'd better come with me, young Hermitage. The abbot will want to determine how the death came about and what to do to you. I mean with you.' Athan thought for a second. 'No, I mean to you.'

He helped the young man up by the elbow, if using the grip of a blacksmith to drag someone along can be called helping.

As the pair walked out of the room, exchanging the glow of the large fire for the cold of advancing evening, Hermitage offered a short prayer for the departed. It seemed the prayers of those under suspicion are incapable of ascending to the ears of the Lord. This one must have rebounded from the refectory roof and landed on Brother Ambrosius, as the corpse chose this moment to slide gracelessly to the floor, cracking its head on the flagstone.

Hermitage jumped and spun hopefully, expecting to see Ambrosius fully recovered and dribbling his familiar smile. He winced when he saw what had happened. Even Athan drew in his breath as if sharing the pain. Hermitage muttered a short blessing. Athan added his own contribution.

'Well, if he wasn't dead before, he is now.'

Hermitage grimaced.

'To the abbot,' Athan said, with what passed for glee.

Hermitage cast a final glance at Ambrosius, being quite clear that he would prefer a night in the company of a corpse than half an hour with his abbot.

