Hodd Read online

  We were cast into a despondency, although the bitter quarrel had not ended in blood, for Hode wished to go to Notyng[h]am alone, to the astonishment of all; and not even donning a disguise, save his cloak and hood. Thereupon, after much protest from the felons, he showed me a great favour, by bidding me hold his bow and arrows and be his page on this foolhardy adventure; then indeed I swelled with pride, as (in my idiocy) I thought myself the equal of Litell John.

  This caused much rancour among the others, and some e’en called me obscene names in a whisper, for these men were violent and most especially one called Flawnes,203 whose face was so thin and pointed it was (as men say) made only of each side pasted together, and looked as sharp as the blade he carried, that had been a butcher’s for parting sinews. He took delight in others’ pain, and cut with his knife even the travellers we had no business with (who were poor or vagrants), that they might remember us, and have tales to tell in the taverns; for he left them with rips on their cheeks or their foreheads, their tunics soaking with blood and e’en their footprints [filling] as they fled.

  And this Flawnnes, taken with a great jealousy, did call me under his breath, when I was saddling my mount alone, ‘Hode’s geld [castratus],’204 twisting my arm painfully behind my back and saying he would one day do to me as the law did to sodomites205 – and there was much noxious drink carried on the vapours from his mouth, that had less lips than a tear in a leaf. ‘Verily,’ he went on, ‘I shall be helping thee into Heaven, brother, for the time is short that remaineth, and only eunuchs might pass into eternal bliss.’

  ‘There is no Heaven to pass into,’ I cried, as if the devils were moving my tongue, while other fiends were removing my shoulder-bone, as a candle from its socket. ‘Only the sea of essence awaits those who are free spirits.’ At this he laughed, and methought my arm was being dismembered as traitors’ limbs be in the square, the pain making the forest dusken to my eyes, and I fell to the earth by my horse like an iron tool when he released me […] (at sight of?) his boon companions.206 Yet he did not cut me, and for this I was much relieved, thinking almost to show my gratitude; as poorer wayfarers on the road would thank us for not slaying them, or taking all their chattels down to their underclothes, but only half – as would oft happen if we were of a sweet temper.

  6

  For he who has no money or worldly goods, as we say, sings in the presence of a robber. Only gluttons fear a lack of capons, or a dearth of pepper.207 My first and best master, the hermit, spoke often of these things in my earliest years, for he had so retired from the temporal pleasures of this world, which he regarded as harmful, that this world was to him a kind of captivity, all save the sound of the sea and the simplest and most humble things, such as the shine of a pebble, or the scuttling of a crab, or e’en the sway of a thin reed on the marge. On these did he dine, that the utmost bliss was discovered in his life’s cell, as the desert fathers found contentment in the wastes of desolation.

  And he said that Heaven was not a luxurious garden of palaces and fountains, spread to the bejewelled walls of the New Jerusalem set upon a high hill cloaked in verdant fruit [trees], but surely a place wherein the natural simplicities of Christ’s presence make of a petal something fabulous, and a grain of sand a dazzling sight, and the scent of a sea breeze nothing less than a thousand pillows filled with nectar. ‘Then it is not a garden,’ I would say, ‘as it says in the Bible,’ (for my Latin was then advancing every day), ‘but a wild country.’ ‘Nay,’ he would reply, ‘nothing is wild or savage in Heaven, for the Lord God makes all tame, even the roaring lion; yet He fashions nothing falsely, and a garden be false.’

  Thinner and thinner the hermit became, for he ate little but grey bread and glasewort,208 drinking only sips of water or weak ale as befitted his thirst. Yet because he spent most of the day in prayer and meditation, he was like those creatures that sleep during the winter, and do not need to sup or sustain themselves in any way – as we see with swallows, who rest secretly under the earth till spring be returned, and then emerge to fly as swiftly as before, so that men say God hath loosed His barbed points [of arrows].

  Edwyn was his best pupil, for I had something in me that was dull, like a plumbstone of lead, that one day or another would appear without warning and make me sorrowful and heavy, and slow my wits that the words would blur or fade, and nothing could be joined in the threads of grammar. On other days I sped forth, and even Edwyne would marvel, while our master exhorted me to even greater efforts. And so pure and clean became the spirit of our master, that oftimes I wondered why God did not take him there and then, to face the light immortal and not be blinded by its effulgence, and dwelleth therein. His face was become an old man’s, with many wrinkles, but also smooth as pure things be, and of the colour of a bronze coin. His eyes were each a pool of water set under a cloudless sky; as of the type left upon our sandy littoral by the tide, that the hermit called ‘holy bowls’, as though they were unlocked fonts of consecrated water, safe from sorcerers.209

  Edwin would be bolder than myself in all ways, while his work in the smithy made him strong of arm, though he was short of stature. When our master was on his knees in meditation, eyes turned upwards and hands clasped, in a circle of stones beyond the tide’s reach, Edwyn would wrestle me to the ground and pin me there, causing me hurt; yet I dared not cry out for fear of disturbing our master. Eager would I be to pretend to have swooned, or give the bullyboy some simple fare from my foster-mother intended for myself, rather than cry out.

  Neither did I dare tell on his antics, for he had a bousy, violent father of great strength; and our master was as close to Edwin as an uncle, yet with none of the disadvantages of a true family’s carnal [libidinosorum] relations, that hinder true devoutness.210 Never did I feel the same closeness, though fain was I ever to receive it: I yet remained the pupil, and he the schoolmaster, and in my dogged, earnest way I thus gained my education. Among sea winds and grains of sand, with reeds or slivers of driftwood to mark the pages, and the surge for ever in my ears, did I become literate: nay, more than literate – learned, and well broken in to all matter of sacred words and forms.

  The demon that feeds on pride had much sport with me, however, as a mouse does in a barrel of cheese; for every slight, no matter how trivial, became a deep stripe. For example, my master said once, ‘This is slow work!’ – meaning the perfection of penmanship, for we were scribing the letters of Carmentis211 before enduring [Latin] declension, with Edwyn ever ahead though his tongue protruded like an incontinent peasant’s – and I heard it as: ‘Thou art slow!’ Bursting into tears, I ran from the cave. Foolish boy! I deserved twenty or thirty stripes from the sharpest rod, but instead the hermit, whose kindness cannot be exaggerated,212 told me afterwards that he had meant such work itself must be tackled carefully, and not hurried as Psalms and suchlike are hurried through by ignorant priests and deprived thereby of all sense. And that true learning must be drunk in deeply and slowly, as must true humility.

  Someone in the village, covetous of my guardian’s fine hens and cock, did start a rumour that she was a witch, and I her succubus, mainly on account of my sullenness; and this risked reaching the ears of the law and its full might.213 We were only saved from arrest and probable burning by my master, whose great holiness and reputation had spread. Ten or twenty a day pressed into the chapel on the cliff, some advancing to the beach below, despite the superstition of the sea-ravens, and even knowing he was a solitary and would not be disturbed. They sought to be his follower and pupil, or to touch him if they were sick, or cripples.

  And this became so much of a trouble to him that one day he talked thus to both of us: ‘I will not have any more of the common folk; though I feel compassion for them in my bowels, yet my head is turned to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the two elements war in me, that I begin to unstitch all the advances I have made. I will not preach, for they have plenty of preachers, and if they wish to be healed, they can touch that wretched garment of mine I have lef
t in the chapel. I must find a more hidden spot in the far north, on the coast of Caledonia, though it grieves me to leave here, for even the sea-otters come and dry my feet214 each morning, and I love this simple cave more than any.’

  Edwyn and I complained bitterly, and besought ourselves to find a way that he might stay. Our master had bid us continue our studies while he betook himself to the [circle of ] stones, when Edwyne said to me, ‘We must start a false tale, for folk are easily fooled.’

  Then we plotted together how to feign, not knowing the danger that lies in all untruths. We said nothing to the hermit our master, and set about during the following days to describe a sea-serpent we had seen from the shore by the hermitage, when we had in truth seen no more than whales and sea-pigs215 [porculos marinos] and seals. So easy was it to spy this creature in my mind’s eye, with its glossy scales, foul-stinking jaws and head like a peacock’s on the end of a long and slender neck, that reached even unto the cliff’s top as we cowered there at eventide, that I did not feel I was lying and thus committing a sin. I added that we were so close we might have picked its teeth of the rotting carrion lodged between them, and put our fingers into the moist and dripping crusts like cancres upon its tail, and other such trifles; and did marvel at how astonied my listeners were before our humble cot, and how readily I invented!

  Edwinn feigned likewise in his village, adding that the serpent had four whelps, covered in tender white scales and of shorter necks, yet their heads alone were as big as dolphins. And the sea-serpent and her litter made such a fearsome grunting and roaring (said he), and so savage a sight were they, that even the holy man cowered in his cave, and only the Holy Book protected us from being dragged away by those jaws, that had already munched upon a whale.

  By rubbing our childish bodies under our shirts with the foulness of see wrek216 beforehand, we each feigned the stink and heat of the serpent’s nostrils, that gave off a fumosity worse than a sea fog. We said that we could not delineate one another for an hour – nor the cliff, nor any of the coast, nor the sea itself save a glimmer like a steel blade, and we each thought it the End of Days. And all believed us, for we gave off a stench of slime. And my foster-mother, with the urging of our ignorant local priest, forbad me to return to the hermitage; but I told her that the holy man had given me a secret phrase in Latin that would protect me, and I spoke a line of Livy I had learned. Thus simple feigning turned into diabolical untruth, for such empty charms are forbidden, so dangerous are they when ill-used.

  The hermit soon wondered that so few came to him any more, and not even to the chapel, yet he was not displeased. All pilgrims seeking him had to pass through either village on the way, where they were told of the visitation, that struck terror into most of these folk – man being naturally faint-hearted, and dreading most especially the monsters of the deep. Only those who approached from the coast itself, along the sand, were unawares – but these were very small in number, for the way was oft concealed by tides or storm. We did not tell our master why, save that there were rumours of sea-beasts here on account of a great crocodile that had been washed up some miles south. He laughed at that, and said he was glad, for he had worried that it might be the result of evil gossip: ‘One day I might look up and see a mob come to try me for heresy,’ he said.

  We expressed amazement at this, but he continued thus: ‘The Devil finds slippery ways to defeat a Christian, and many times he does this through a woman’s loose tongue, for it is in the nature of women to be gossips.’ He added that at the time of the gossip this did not appear grave, as there was little passion behind the tongue, and little thought, so that the soul was hardly connected to the mouth; but afterwards the Devil worked on the feigning tales like a potter with clay, to shape it to an evil form. He said this with great feeling, so much so that tears started to his eyes and ran down his sea-fretted cheeks, hollowed by hunger.

  Edwin agreed, and said that a woman must have in her mouth a short bridle like a horse, to rein in her wayward will. I was silent with worry, however, for I saw how our feigning might grow, like the serpent itself, and bring destruction upon our master, and e’en upon our little school (for we were scholars, in truth). I conjectured that our master had powers of prophecy, as do many holy hermits in imitation of the desert fathers, and that was why he was shedding tears.

  I did not know then that he was being galled by a painful memory, of the type that ne’er dislodges from its throne in the brain until the day of death, or the rebellion of madness.

  Alas, how many times did he appear to me in memory, as I lay in my hut in the felons’ dark wood half my then lifetime [some seven years] later, or when aiding them in their sundry tasks – with the poor quack’s bones swinging above us night and day, ghastly in my sight! Once, chopping at timber with the chip-axe to kindle their fires, alone under the great new-leaved boughs and my hand blistered from the helve, the sound of my task seemed to utter a line of the Lord’s prayer over and over: et dimitte nobis debita nostra. And the hermit’s figure stood over me suddenly, with the white surf behind pouring through the trees, as if I were in two times and [two] places at once. The holy man was scolding me for ill-writ letters, as I had inscribed in the sand thus: et domitte nobis debita nostra.217 ‘Only one letter is wrong,’ I said: and this was indeed a true memory.

  Seizing my hair, he answered that I might kill a thousand men with one letter, or corrupt their souls, for that is sufficient to change a word, and words guide men, for the first word was God’s and the last word will also be God’s, and no doubt arriving upon a blazing chariot too bright to behold. ‘How did Christ heal? With his word.’

  I replied, ‘I am not God, nor Christ.’ And dragging me by the hair, he threw me upon the shallows of the ebb-tide, furious at my ignorance, crying, ‘Adam was created by God and given speech to name the animals, and all men, even a miserable wretch like you, be descended from Adam! It is better for you to remain dumb and ignorant, wordless as the sea’s surge, than try to follow in Edwyn’s path.’ And he turned to wipe away my words with his feet; but the sea had already done so, leaving only soft welts like scars; and thereupon in the wood did the sovereignty of the present return, and wipe that holy man away, along with the sea. Alas, that I had never left its sound!

  By this scolding, in truth, he had meant to instil in me the importance and the danger of words, but it merely increased my jealousy of Edwine. I said to myself: ‘Meseemeth that the life of a holy man is chafing at his good spirits; I should seek another master. Seeing as how I can now read and write, I can join a holy house and rise to become abbot.’ Indeed, I was in awe of such people, and consumed with ambition, wishing to divest myself of my humble origins with a great effort; though my Latin was but a half-worked bow, scarcely out of the yew, and my written letters still stumbling, and my reading so halting that it oft left a greasy trail upon the parchment.218

  What is the greatest sin? Pride.219

  A further full year passed at that foam-belaboured school, during which time I suffered many indignities from my faster rival, and further strokes of humiliation, while the hermit grew leaner and more like a half-starved beggar, as salted as a corpse that he did (with his shaved skull) resemble. Edwynn was the son of a blacksmith, thus he oft brought back worked trinkets in iron, that he had fashioned when red-hot and pliant into resemblances of letters each the size of a horse shoe [soleae ferreae], that made finally an entire abc. Our master was amused by this, for never had such a thing been seen, save to make patterns220 for the stonemasons and carpenters and painters. I scoffed, saying that to smite letters from iron instead of gold or silver or copper is an insult to the precious gift of the scholar. The hermit put me to shame by saying, ‘Why, are you telling us that nothing beautiful can come from something so rough and hard?’

  And I, ignorant of his deeper meaning in my pride and envy, agreed. And he said, ‘Then go, and never come back, for methought I could break your barbarous iron into the gold of learning.’ I did break, verily
, but only into floods of tears, at which even Edwiyn did marvel, while my master put his thin arm about my trembling form and said, in a kindlier tone, ‘Iron be nothing until made nesh and beaten; then with it we can till and shod and build and chastise and protect and bring dread into men’s hearts, and so it be with written words. Something good of you we shall yet make, though you have come straight out of the earth as doth a turnip.’ Being an orphan, I loved him greatly at that moment, and (ashamed though I was of it, after) seized him about the waist as a drowning child doth hug a floating branch; though affection is an earthly tie, and his mind was more and more heavenward.

  He then laid out all the iron letters upon the marge of the tide, that they appeared and disappeared over the ensuing weeks and months, moved and concealed and restored to sight by the surf when it was stirred by wind; and the salts of the sea soon made the dryness of the metal, and the brimstone within it, rise outwardly into red rust like cancres; and this, he said, is all that happens to words.

  Part Three

  1

  How different from this holy man was my new master, whom I was yet still eager to serve – for like all young men I was fickle, as mortals are before the Lord God, until the imminence of Hell-fire be licking at their flesh, when they wish themselves to have been as obdurate in faith as the stone that suffereth not pain. And it is said that, on the plummet towards the slimy pit and cauldrons of liquid flame, we shall feel the balmy breeze of Heaven upon us, tinted with blossom and all manner of verdant sweetness, that is [Heaven’s] eternal Maytime, and shall grab with our hands in exceeding grief, yet clutch nothing but air as we scream and shriek like children plunging down a well. Horrible fate!221