My Lord, the Hermit Read online

  ‘What is it, master?’ Rob the toothless came up to Keren, and peered out over the valley, his one eye blinking. Keren shook his head. What could he say, even if he were allowed the luxury of speech?

  ‘Dang me,’ said Rob. ‘Two wagons and a troop of them thieving soldiery. What be they after? Our arms? The horses?’ Keren nodded. ‘Aye, and our able-bodied men, too. Which means. …’ Keren nodded again, and sighed. ‘Aye, it means we’ll all have to shift, if there’s no arms and no able-bodied men to defend us. Be they mad, dost think?’ Keren shrugged. He had just got as far as thinking what might happen if Sir Bevil came along and found a fortified camp, empty but for one unarmed hermit.

  Rob turned his eye on Keren. ‘Soldiers to take us down with the arms, eh? Well, well. And maybe three or four of us able to give a good account of ourselves, if it came to blows. A sledgehammer to crack a nut. How do they think we’d dare oppose them?’ He was leaning on his long-bow, as Keren was leaning on his staff. ‘Well, master. Shall we hide some of the armour and a couple of swords for our own use? They’ll never know.’

  Keren shook his head. He turned Rob round to the camp, and gave him a push in that direction.

  ‘What, me? Never. I’ll stay with you. You and me is professional soldiers, ye see. We could hold this place against twenty.’

  Keren shook his head. He could hold out against a good number if he had but six or seven able-bodied, well-trained soldiers. But he could not hold out with just one old man. Besides, there was the question of his oath.

  He looked out over the valley once more, and his eyes narrowed. Was that a woman riding at the end of the column? No, two women. …

  Joanna.

  No, it could not be. It must be. Who else? He could feel the tug of her thought pulling him. … Nonsense. Why should she concern herself to. …? It was her. It must be. No, it was all in his imagination … but if it were?

  He went to the church. A double row of stakes had now been dug into the ground around it, and an earth bank piled between them. The hurdles had been made higher and thicker, and reinforced with branches of thorn. The church itself had grown yet again, with a heavy door of poles set in the entrance. More poles had been lashed together to make a support for the best of their hides, and these were now stretched over the altar end of the church, enclosing it against wind and rain. The feeblest of their little band now slept inside the church at night, in the charge of Kate – the girl who had been raped – and her mother, who seemed to be failing in health in proportion to her daughter’s recovery. The bright blue cloth on the altar had been embroidered with a band of green stitchery by two young girls, and on either side of the newly cleaned cross, next the rush tapers and their holder, was laid a little posy of white flowers.

  Bethany ran to him and clasped his leg. He threw her in the air, and set her on his shoulder. She still refused food from any hand but his, and more often than not would lie awake half the night, until he rocked her to sleep in his arms. He laughed, his anger replaced by a more powerful emotion. Joanna was coming to him. It must be her … the blue gown under the grey cloak. The girl he loved would be with him soon, and he could hardly contain his joy. Death might – probably would – come later, but before that his love would be with him, would walk on the hill with him; and perhaps, if she were kind and he bold enough, she would let him touch her hand for a moment, and smile at him.

  The child laughed, and clutched at his hair. He was sobered. What was he to do with her? She was the only surviving member of a large family of foresters, brought in by a woman who had plucked her from the arms of her dead mother.

  The collie came prancing up, barking in the direction of the valley, and then sniffing at his heels. And what would he do with her? He wanted to be alone, to think. The women were all around him, clamouring for reassurance. Was it true that they were to pack up and go down into the valley? They didn’t want to go. The woman who had been raped – Kate – said in her soft, scared way that she had only just begun to feel safe. They all wanted to stay with him. The men understood the case better, and stood around, frowning, muttering to one another. The swineherd Col had got his head close to Rob’s, and the two of them were whispering together, and now and then glancing at Keren. Those two were up to no good, he’d be bound. Neither of them were exactly meek and mild characters, both probably had a chequered past. Ought he to interfere? No, let Father Hilarion deal with them now.

  He signed to the women that they must prepare food, eat and then be ready to leave. Elena came running up with a child in her arms, and her grown-up children stumbling along after her. Elena had failed to rear the six-month old baby who had been dumped in her lap, but was doing a good job with the rest of her adopted family.

  ‘Is it true?’ she asked. ‘Must we go? Why can’t we stay? You need someone to look after you.’

  She was the archetypal mother, although she was barely sixteen. The man with the broken leg hobbled after her, shouting that she was to wait for him. The man who would not speak clutched at her skirts, holding his pottery jug to his chest with his free hand. His eyes spoke for him, telling of remembered terror.

  Keren took Elena’s hand and kissed her on the brow. She burst into tears. The lame man said ‘Hey!’ and his eyes gleamed bright with jealousy. Smiling, Keren reached for the lame man’s hand, and placed Elena’s in it. The girl snatched her hand away, and wiped it on her skirt.

  ‘What do you mean? I am not leaving you.’

  Keren knew she was fond of him. But she was the sort of girl whose heart was perhaps a little too loving for her own good. It was best that she marry again quickly, and here to hand was as good a man as she could hope to find. She insisted on treating her grown-up charges as children, but the lame man, Dickon, was no child, and it had been apparent for some days to Keren that Dickon loved Elena.

  ‘He means we should marry,’ said Dickon. ‘And he is right. Elena, I will care for you when my leg is mended, and for this poor dumb soul here, and we will rear the child as our own. I had a trade, and when these troubles are over, I shall earn good money once more.’

  ‘But what is to become of our master, if we go?’ cried Elena.

  Keren shrugged and smiled. Joy irradiated his face, so that they shrank from him in wonder that he should be so brave. They did not know that he could think of nothing but Joanna, hard though he tried still to be shepherd of his flock. He fetched the sword he had used from under the altar, and set it at the head of the track. The able-bodied men began to prepare their animals and bring the rest of the armour to the head of the track, too. The women rushed around in a flurry of preparation. The child Bethany went to sleep on Keren’s back.

  The hermit wished for privacy, but there was none. Every moment someone came up to him, asking for a decision on this or that. He nodded and smiled and shook his head, and knew that his people mistook his joy for madness, or holiness. At the very idea that they should think his joy a sign of holiness, he laughed out loud. How little did they know that it was based on something so very basic as the love of a man for a maid.

  Joanna … the touch of her blue gown against his leg, the smoothness of her arm under his fingers, the straight honesty of her eye. … His love swelled till he thought he would only have to take a leap in the air to touch the sky. And then came reaction. Why had she come? Perhaps it was not she, but some other. When she saw him again, she would recognize him for what he was, a poor hermit; a very bad hermit, too, who constantly broke his vow of silence, and allowed others to work on the church while he busied himself minding other people’s business.

  He knew very well how Father Hilarion would look at the matter. He, Keren, had no right to sidestep his duty as he had done of late. Keren reflected, not for the first time, that his life would have been a lot easier if Father Ambrose had been appointed his spiritual mentor instead of Father Hilarion, for the former understood that some people, when they saw others in trouble, just had to do something about it. Keren had often pondered the par
able of the Good Samaritan when he was being scolded by Father Hilarion, for it seemed to him that the priest was a good example of the Pharisee who passed the wounded man by on the other side of the road. He had not said so, of course. He had never spoken to Father Hilarion, but contented himself with making signs, in all the years they had been locked together in their strange relationship. Father Hilarion had never offered to give him communion or hear his confession. A strange man, Father Hilarion – or so thought Keren; the priest seemed to love only his own version of Christ, and not to feel any love for his fellow men.

  Twice Keren had humbled himself to beg Father Hilarion, in sign language, for a sight of his son, and twice had he been refused with such indignation that for a month or so thereafter life had seemed very grey. It was difficult for Keren to understand how Father Hilarion could be so hard. Keren knew that the priest was as hard on himself as he was on others, but that was small consolation to a man as lonely as the hermit.

  The collie touched his bare leg and sat down, her tongue lolling. What was he to do with her? In a few short hours he would be all alone on the hill-top, and then tonight or tomorrow Sir Bevil and his men would return, and they would kill him. He did not care what happened to himself; he had expended so much energy through violent changes of emotion recently, that he was too tired to feel anything but a remote curiosity as to his own fate. But he could not allow the collie to be killed, too. And Bethany – what of her?

  The problems wound themselves around in his mind, circling the thought of Joanna. Joanna, coming to see him. …

  CHAPTER SIX

  JOANNA looked up at the top of the hill, and noted that Keren who had been standing and watching them, had disappeared. She held back a sigh. She knew Father Hilarion was watching her, suspecting perhaps that there was more to her insistence on this ride than a desire to leave the castle for a while.

  Keren, so straight and tall, with a child on his back, leaning on his staff, the dog at his side. She had wondered if she had remembered him as something other than he really was. She had been half out of her mind, coming across the plain, thinking that she had made a mistake, and that when she saw him again, he would appear nothing out of the ordinary way. It was good to know that he was not a peasant, although, of course, she had guessed as much before. Her first sight of him, standing against the skyline, had put paid to all her fears. He was who he was, and she loved him, and that was that. She bent her mind to the task of finding the right arguments to make him fall in with Herkom’s plan. She had money in her wallet, and Herkom had said it would be an easy matter to hide sufficient arms and a good suit of clothes where Keren might find them after they had gone. But the very sight of him standing there so still had reminded her of his strength, his capacity for endurance. And she was afraid.

  Father Hilarion spurred forward to reach the head of the road first. Keren was standing there to greet him, and behind the hermit were some thirty or so men, women and children. A pile of weapons and armour was already at the head of the track, together with the tethered livestock, and over everything floated the scent of roasting meat.

  ‘Welcome, Father,’ said a young man with a bad leg, limping forward. ‘There are but eight of us sound in wind and limb, so we are glad you have brought us help to carry our things down into the valley. We are dismantling the last of our tents now, and by the time we have eaten, all should be ready for a start.’

  ‘Good,’ said Father Hilarion, but he did not smile. ‘You have done well. You will be housed in the outbuildings of the new convent, until such time as you are able to return to your own homes. Is that all the weapons there are? Surely there must be more. Herkom, count them. I make you responsible for getting them all back to the castle, and woe betide you if any are missing.’ Herkom nodded. He dismounted and began to look through the pile. Father Hilarion looked around him. He did not dismount, and the horse added another dimension to his already imposing person. ‘There should be five more horses here,’ he said. ‘I see only three. Where are the other two?’

  The men, women, and children all looked around, and started to mutter among themselves. Keren took one look, and guessed what had happened. Not only two horses, but Rob the archer and the swineherd, Col, were missing. Keren supposed that they had armed themselves and gone off into the forest on the missing horses. It was unlikely that they would be found, if they did not wish it. He found himself smiling, because he admired their initiative. Joanna was looking at him. It was hard work for him not to stare at her, because she looked so beautiful on her horse, outlined against the sky. Her hair was a dusky brown and her bare arms sunburnt.

  ‘Well, fetch them back!’ said Father Hilarion, in a cold fury. Someone had dared to tell him about Rob and Col, and it had not improved the priest’s temper. He dismounted and strode around, demanding to know how many pigs they still had with them, and how much flour, and what number of them would be too feeble to walk to the castle that afternoon. He came to the church, and drew in his breath in horror. Keren had forgotten to remove the evidence that the church was in use.

  ‘What blasphemy is this?’ He looked at Keren. ‘Are you the perpetrator of this mockery?’ Keren bowed his head. He was used to the priest’s invective, but the others were not.

  ‘What do you mean: mockery!’ cried a young girl, thrusting herself forward. ‘It’s our church, that’s all.’

  ‘Unconsecrated! Defiled by heretics! This cross – impertinence! An altar – unblessed!’

  ‘Bless us,’ said a stout woman, humorously. ‘Doesn’t the man know what time of day it is? Why, didn’t Father Ambrose celebrate Mass here for us all every day, before he was called away?’

  ‘Father Ambrose!’ Father Hilarion made the name sound like a curse. ‘That hedge-priest? The bishop shall hear of this. It is more than time he was unfrocked.’ He tore the altar-cloth away, and with a grunt overthrew the altar, so that rush-lights, flowers and cross all tipped over on to the floor. A cry rose from the people. Only Keren seemed unaffected. More, he smiled, as if the destruction of something that had meant so much to him now meant less than nothing.

  Joanna touched his arm, and he followed her out of the church and up on to the hill path. They looked at each other and in that meeting of eyes each acknowledged hunger and pain and happiness.

  ‘Keren,’ she said, and her voice caressed his name.

  He bent and took her right hand in his, turning the wrist this way and that to assure himself that the skin was healed. He still had the sleeping child on his back, and the movement upset his balance. The chain between his ankles jangled as he shifted his footing. He set the child down on the turf beside him.

  ‘You cannot stay when we are all gone,’ said Joanna. ‘I do not understand Father Hilarion. He insists that you stay, but that is absurd, for we all know that Sir Bevil has sworn to kill you, and how he means to do so. Father Hilarion is … a strange man. Anyway, Herkom has devised a plan. He will hide clothes and arms in the woods nearby. I have some money here for you. Herkom will try to leave a horse, too, but I am not sure … Father Hilarion is taking count of everything. You must go east along the Travellers’ Way until you come to the nearest town, and there seek employment in whatever way seems best to you.’

  He was shaking his head. He touched her cheek lightly, and smiled. And his smile told her he was resolute in his refusal.

  ‘I will not take “no” for an answer,’ she said, and was horrified to hear her voice tremble. ‘You cannot stay. You will be killed – and in such a terrible way … I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it, anyway, but at least if you get away, if I know you are still alive, I can bear it … or at least, bear it better than waiting to hear that you. …’

  Again he shook his head. He took both her hands in his, and holding them together, kissed them. She bowed her head, her tears falling on his fingers as they enclosed hers. After a moment he released her, and stepped back.

  ‘I do not cry as a rule,’ she said, rubbing her cheeks. ‘It is ju
st that I … nothing goes the way I plan. Will you not take the money, at least?’ He shook his head. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you will not, I cannot make you. There is something else I want to do for you, and you cannot stop me doing that. The boy Amory.’ She watched for a change in his expression, and it came with an alert, conscious look. ‘He is your son, is he not? Well, I suppose you know he is a page at the castle. I will do my utmost to love him, and care for him as his own mother would have done, if she had lived.’

  Yes, he was pleased. His smile was as wondering, as full of joy as a child’s.

  ‘I don’t know what else I can do for you,’ she said. ‘There seems to be nothing. I want so much from you, and yet I see, or I think I see, why you refuse. Your oath, I know. I do understand, really, or I think I do; although it seems to me to be cruel and … surely you have suffered enough? But no. I must not talk that way. I planned to be so strong and calm when we met, and now I. …’

  They looked at each other, and again there was that joining of pain and love of joy, so that her hands sought his, and his twisted in her grasp till they could feel the weight of each other’s bodies. And again it was he who loosed her, and stepped back.

  The child Bethany woke. Keren picked her up, and put her into Joanna’s arms. Joanna was one of those women who are born knowing how to hold children. Her hip came out, and she held the child firmly in the crook of her left arm while she brushed the tangled curls out of the child’s eyes with her right hand. Bethany stiffened, and then curiosity replaced fear, for on the lady’s shoulder was something bright and pretty. The child reached for the brooch, and smiled. Joanna smiled, too, and looking up at Keren saw that he also was smiling.

  ‘Now I know what I can give you,’ said Joanna. ‘It is yours by right, after all.’ She unpinned one of the brooches the jeweller had made for her, and held it out to him. He drew back. She told the child to be good, set her on the turf, and pinned the brooch on Keren’s cloak, throwing away the thorn he had been using. He put his hand up to touch it. She pulled the hood of his cloak down over the brooch, hiding it from prying eyes. He put both his hands to his face. The rhythm of his breathing altered. One moment he was standing tall above her, and the next he was on his knees, hiding his face against the soft blue of her gown. The child reached her arms up to him and he bent lower, cradling her in his arms, hiding her face against him, and his face against Joanna.