My Lord, the Hermit Page 2

  The hermit went into his dwelling, and busied himself collecting dried leaves from a pouch that hung from one of the uprights. Now that her eyes had ceased to play her tricks, she could see that a number of such pouches hung from the uprights within the tent. He poured some water from the pot on the fire on to the leaves in a wooden bowl, and stirred the liquid. He fished out the herbs he had put in the bowl, and brought the liquid to her. She turned her head away from the smell, not liking it. He set the bowl to her mouth, and she drank. She lacked the strength to do otherwise than obey him, apparently. She resented that.

  Midge said, ‘You will feel better presently.’

  The hermit took her hand out of the spring, and turned it this way and that. The pain began to return. She bit her lip, and closed her eyes. Again his hands were at elbow and palm. Then there was only a slight ache. His fingers were passing over the arm, pressing to trace the muscles.

  She looked up. He was sitting absolutely still at her side, his hands holding her forearm and wrist. His eyes were blank. His face was narrow, triangular; the brow broad, the jaw hard, the bones of the skull prominent. It was not the face of a peasant.

  He was not old at all. His hair was thick and wavy, longer than the short bob which fashion dictated; he did not wear the bonnet universally adopted by peasants and workmen. A scar ran down his forehead from hairline to eyebrow, and above that scar one lock of hair sprang white against the black. He was clean-shaven.

  She seemed to know his face already – and yet, no; she was sure she had never seen him before.

  Something was happening to her arm. Some slackening of muscle, some rearrangement of stresses. His fingers seemed to be pressing, and yet there was no pressure to which she could object. His hands were warm. No, they were not warm. They were pleasantly cool.

  He was bending over her arm, his hands under wrist and elbow, holding it up for inspection, blowing gently on the grazed area. She drew in her breath. There was no swelling. The wrist throbbed a little, more as if remembering past pain than as if there were any danger of pain being renewed. The grazed area was clean and new skin was forming over it.

  ‘B’yr Lady,’ said Herkom. ‘He’s done it again.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Midge. ‘Even when I see it happen, I don’t believe it.’

  Keren sighed. He lowered his hands from under her arm, and she let it drop in front of her. She made as if to touch the newly-healed area. The hermit stopped her. He turned back the sleeve of her dress, pushing it above the elbow.

  She understood that he did not wish her to cover it.

  She looked at him. His body was slack. He had given her of his strength, and now she was healed, and he was weary beyond telling.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Tell me how I can repay you.’

  He lifted his head and looked at her. She continued to look at him. She smiled. Her smile faded, for he had not responded. Then he did. And this time her smile was a joyful thing, indeed.

  Midge said, ‘What have I done?’

  Joanna did not hear him, and neither did Keren.

  Herkom glanced from the man to the girl, and said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Peace, fool!’ quoth Midge the fool.

  Joanna recovered first. Some thought caused colour to rise in her face, and she turned her head aside. Keren sighed, and his head sank. Joanna rose to her feet, and stretched her arms up to the sky.

  ‘I feel new-made,’ she said. ‘But so hungry!’

  Keren laughed. The planes of his face, which had looked so stern a moment before, broke up in laughter. He had a presence, did this hermit. Just as he had bent his will to heal Joanna, so now his joy made them laugh.

  ‘Alack,’ cried Midge, ‘we have no food with us. Not so much as a crust of bread remains. Lady, we must away, or we will all die of hunger.’

  But Keren was beckoning them within his dwelling. He spread his cloak on the bed of fern, gesturing Joanna to take this place of honour. He chopped up vegetables and threw them into the stew-pot while Herkom coaxed the fire to burn up. Then from a crock at the back of his tent he brought half a loaf of unleavened bread, and set it on a wooden platter. Water he drew from the spring, and set in his wooden cup beside the platter. The bread he divided into four equal pieces, and by this time the vegetable soup was ready. The hermit had a gait that lifted the chain from the ground, enabling him to move swiftly, stiff-legged like a heron. He had bound rags round his ankles, that the chain might not chafe.

  ‘Midge,’ said Joanna, in the fool’s ear. ‘We cannot take his food. That is all the bread he has.’

  ‘Lady, how can we refuse? I will send one of the workmen up from the castle tomorrow, with some more bread.’

  ‘And I will come up on Sunday while the others are at Mass,’ said Herkom, ‘And work in his garden for a few hours, that he may rest. Never fear, lady; we will repay.’

  ‘And how am I to repay him?’ asked Joanna. Her eyes were sombre.

  There was no answer. Midge hung his head.

  Joanna sniffed. The edge of her sleeve had dropped over her forearm. The skin burned. She lifted the cloth, biting her lip. The newly formed skin was too tender to bear any weight, and it had broken under the touch of the material. She folded the sleeve back on itself, and blew on the cracked skin, as Keren had done. The new skin formed beneath it, but more slowly than before.

  Keren was throwing some herbs into the pot. He tasted it, and nodded. He had a chipped pottery bowl. He ladled some of the soup into this, and presented it to Joanna, trying to serve it on one knee in courtly fashion. The chain between his ankles impeded him, but instead of showing annoyance, he laughed. And the others laughed with him, and if there was some pain in their joy, yet the laughter cleansed them of all embarrassment. They fell on the food, sharing cup and platter and bowl, hungrily demolishing the bread and soup as if it had been the finest feast prepared by the master cook in the castle. Joanna watched Keren all the time. He slipped a smooth flat stone from his mouth, putting it in a pouch that hung at his belt, and then ate slowly, with enjoyment, his eyes going from one to the other of his guests in turn, smiling. His pleasure at playing host was so great that it increased their pleasure in the impromptu meal.

  When Joanna said, ‘That was delicious!’ the others echoed her, and all were sincere, although all would have spurned a simple meal of bread, water and vegetable soup under any other circumstances.

  Joanna sprang up and ran out into the sunshine. She felt so happy that she would have liked to dance. She stood on tiptoe to peer up the bluff, where the broken outline of the church stood against the skyline. Herkom had tethered the horses nearby, and they were quite content, plucking at the grass. The collie lay nearby, nose between paws. Keren came out behind her. She could hear the jingle of his chain as he moved. His feet were bare.

  ‘May I see the church?’ she asked.

  She ran up the path beside the bluff, and again she heard the jingle of his chain as he came after her. He had put the pebble back in his mouth after they had eaten, and as he had done so, she had felt acutely distressed. Midge had stirred and muttered at her side. Was it his pain that she had felt?

  She was full of contradictory emotions. She wanted to laugh and sing and dance. She wanted to weep.

  She ran ahead of him, that she might not have to look at him. The building was set to one side of the chalky path that ran along the top of the hills. It was a simple oblong of stone, bearing little resemblance to the fine church that her uncle was raising in the valley below. Here were no blocks of finely chiselled ashlar, each one shaped to match its neighbour, with an inner wall and an outer, the joints overlapping. Here were no lancet windows raising pointed fingers to the sky. Here were no trestles and scaffolding, nor feeling of space inside.

  The foundations had been dug deep into the chalk, and the walls were now about hip height. The blocks of stone were rudely cut and of different sizes. Some were more boulders than blocks of stone. There were chunks of yellow stone and la
rge pebbles set in mortar on the inside walls, and more of these pebbles, together with large stones of all sizes and colours, had been used to fill in the gaps in the outer walls. A heap of these same small stones lay at the church door – or rather, in the opening where the door would no doubt be one day. Boulders, chips of stone, and one cut and dressed block of fine workmanship, lay on the turf nearby. Poles, which had been used to shift the larger lumps of stone, lay near the block of dressed stone on the sledge which Keren had been hauling up to the church when they arrived. A ramp of turf had been built up against the outside of one of the walls, and the sledge had been left near this. Her uncle’s masons would have laughed at such a makeshift method of building.

  ‘Well, it is clear you are no mason by trade,’ she said to Keren.

  He laughed, spreading his hands wide, acknowledging the imputation. It was, his grin seemed to say, all one great joke.

  ‘You may say he is no mason, lady,’ said Herkom. ‘And yet the church grows, whether he is here or down in the quarry.’ He picked up a large boulder, which would have taxed any ordinary man’s strength to shift, and swung it on to one of the walls, pushing a handful of pebbles into place around it, wedging it into position. ‘Like that,’ he said. ‘Those who use the Travellers’ Way know about this church, and bring their own offerings for it.’ He indicated the pile of multi-coloured stones. ‘Sometimes they put the stones in themselves, as I have done, and sometimes they leave them there for Keren to put them in with mortar.’

  Joanna laid her hand on the large block of dressed stone. ‘This is the way we will repay, then. Let us lay this block in place for him.’

  ‘Gladly, lady.’

  Herkom bent to the task, aided by Keren and Midge. They laid poles in the path of the stone, and levered it slowly up the slope. Joanna ran with poles, placing them under the stone, and retrieving them from the back as she did so. Once levered to the height of the wall, Keren brought mortar, and showed Joanna how to lay it on the bed of mixed stones beneath. Then the men pushed and pulled until the large stone lay secure in its resting place. Only then did Joanna look into the body of the church itself. The sinking sun had sent one bright finger of light across the building, and it caught the tip of a cross in silhouette. The cross was on a rude altar, and the floor around it was swept clean and laid with bracken.

  Joanna stood up and stared. The church was not finished. It could not have been consecrated. Yet the cross was there, and now that she was still, she could feel its domination inside the building.

  She was not a particularly religious girl; although she had been brought up to pay all the usual outward respects to the Church, it meant little to her. But she was perceptive enough to realize that this particular cross was a symbol of great power. It was a living presence. It was – she realized with a sense of shock – part of Keren’s life. She did not want the cross to be part of Keren’s life. She did not want to think of him as a hermit. She wanted. …

  She did not know what she wanted.

  She only knew that she was tired, and hungry again, and that it was growing late, and she was still a long way from the castle. She hitched up her sleeve again. Her wrist and arm were no longer swollen, but still tender. Keren had disappeared. Herkom had disappeared. Midge was standing in the doorway of the church, with head bent. Was he praying? And why not? She would have said a prayer herself, if she had thought it would do any good. No, prayers were best left to the priests.

  She turned her back on the church, and went down the ramp to look over the valley to the north. Herkom was bringing the horses, and beside him walked Keren, gracefully ungainly. He would be half Herkom’s weight, and yet he had moved the stone as easily as the sergeant. He was holding something which caught the light. He came to her, smiling, and held it out to her. It was a brooch, a large one, which might have been used as a clasp for his cloak. It glinted, but surely it could not be gold. It was probably copper. He pushed her sleeve back up to her shoulder, and secured it there with the brooch, that it might not fall down and brush her forearm.

  ‘You cannot take that, lady,’ said Midge. ‘If you take that, he will have nothing left.’

  Keren smiled at Midge, and there was such joy in his smile that Joanna knew that though Midge was right, and that Keren was making a great sacrifice in giving her his brooch, yet it was not a gift which she could refuse. He had given it so gladly that to refuse his gift would be to negate the sacrifice.

  ‘I will repay,’ she said.

  Keren shook his head. He did not want her to repay. She did not understand. Why should she not? Herkom was holding her horse. Keren stooped and locked his hands for her to place her foot on them, ready to throw her up into the saddle. He was willing her to go, now. His smile was gone. He wanted to be alone. She settled herself into the saddle, riding astride. She was not one of those ladies who insisted on riding side-saddle or pillion.

  Herkom had clasped Keren’s hand. Then he mounted, and began to ride off down the steep track into the valley. Midge stood, forlorn. Keren put an arm round the fool’s shoulder, urging him to his horse. Joanna began to ride after Herkom. She turned in her saddle to look back. Midge was kneeling at Keren’s feet, and Keren was stooping, clasping the little man to him, and then half-carrying, half-leading him to his horse.

  Joanna’s throat constricted. She dug her heels into her horse, and sent him scrambling down the track.

  The man they called Keren watched them out of sight, and then strode into the unfinished church. He raised his arms to the darkening blue of the sky, and gave a wordless cry. Then he fell to his knees. His left hand came to rest, as usual, on a large stone about a foot from the floor. The cross on the altar was no longer lit up by the sinking sun, but loomed dark against the sky. He looked up at it, and spoke to it in his mind, as he often did.

  ‘Not this, Lord,’ he prayed. ‘I have learned to bear all the rest. But this I cannot bear.’

  Joanna did not speak till they were nearing the castle. Her horse’s ears were pricked, recognizing that they were near the stables at last.

  ‘You are silent, fool,’ said Joanna.

  ‘Is it not a fool’s part to be silent, when his mistress is preoccupied?’

  ‘A silent fool is a dead fool, when his mistress requires to be diverted.’

  ‘True, lady. As witness my predecessor in this post, who failed to amuse the Count once too often. The sword of Damocles hangs over my head, lady. If I speak when my lady does not wish to be disturbed in her thoughts, then am I an impudent knave, to be whipped at the horse’s tail. If I refrain, then am I a silent fool, and therefore shortly a dead one. Lady, a straw in the wind would tell me your wishes.’

  ‘What happened to your predecessor?’

  ‘He was hanged, lady, for his silence. The Count could not find his amusement any other way.’

  ‘That will not happen to you, I think. You are a resourceful knave.’

  ‘A word of counsel then, lady. Our absence will have been noted. The page will have told them that we took you to consult with Keren. Do not laud the hermit’s praises, but rather speak indifferently of the matter. A slight sprain, eased by bathing in the spring … a drink of water, a crust of bread, a short rest. A matter of no import, and not to be dwelt upon, lest perhaps it reflect on your courage.’

  ‘You counsel strangely. Is he to be given no credit for what he did?’

  ‘Some say he uses black arts, lady. It is not so, but those who wish to believe this thing, will believe it. You will repay his kindness with betrayal, if you speak of healing powers to certain ears.’

  ‘Which ears?’

  ‘Why … almost any. It is well known that priests have long ears.’

  ‘Yet he took away my pain with the touch of his hand.’

  ‘Nay, lady.’ This was Herkom. ‘He was a skilled wrestler, once. …’

  ‘Or so men say.’ This was Midge, glancing sideways at Herkom.

  ‘Or so men say,’ echoed Herkom. ‘And so he learned
the centres of pain in men. He benumbed your arm, merely, by pressing at a certain point. I have seen him do it before.’

  ‘And he has learned something of the uses of herbs. The drink he gave you contained one of the herbs that grow also in the Countess’s garden at the castle. There was no magic in it.’

  Joanna frowned. ‘Tell me what you know of him? Whence came he?’

  ‘We know nothing of that, lady. He was here when we came to the castle, years ago. It is said that he came with Father Hilarion, when the priest was appointed chaplain here, and that he builds the church as a penance.’

  ‘For what sin?’

  Midge was silent. Herkom shook his head. ‘How can he heal, if he is as great a sinner as they say?’

  ‘Peace, fool,’ said Midge.

  ‘Fool, thyself!’ said Herkom. He aimed a blow in Midge’s direction, and then rode ahead, smiling.

  ‘A fool is Herkom, and a fool he will be till his dying day,’ said Midge.

  ‘Of what does his folly consist? It seems to me that he spoke the truth.’

  ‘He believes that man is fundamentally good. He trusts in God, but will not sit at Father Hilarion’s feet.’

  ‘Is that so unwise?’

  ‘Have you been at the castle a sennight, and not learned that Father Hilarion rules there, as God’s right-hand man?’

  ‘Above my uncle, you would say?’

  ‘On that point, I think a fool should be silent.’

  She laughed. The castle was before them, now. Its three slender towers and the great square keep beyond shone a lighter red than the curtain wall that girt castle and village beneath. The westering sun slanted across the valley, striking the ramparts, pricking points of light from the weapons of the sentries on the walls. The hovels of the villeins which clustered outside the walls were veiled in dusk, and in the smoke from the fires which crept through roofs as best it might.

  Joanna put her hand to her throat, and reined in her horse. Perforce Midge did so, too.

  ‘What ails you, lady? Shall I ride on for help?’