The Craggy Hillock:a Cadmus Mystery 1/5 by davistrell@aol.com
There had been a rain in the night, and the morning light broke bright and cloudless.The cock crew and Cadmus had his morning emission, so he yawned and stretched, waking, as he always did, reluctantly. He put on the coarse linen habit, cleaned the straw filled sack, his only luxury, crossed himself, went outside, looking for the novice Osmund. His favorite.
Osmund, hair spiky, a wooden bucket in each hand, splashing water, taken from the well. The first chore of the day accomplished.
"We have work to do young Osmund, let's not fritter off what remains of the day..." said Cadmus, a happy smiling man in his fifties, his ruddy jaw, that is said once belonged to a crusader, and had seen Jerusalem and seen Saracen spices, and known the flesh.
A ways off, Septimus, another novice, was milking Gertie, who mooed appreciatively. Thaddeus, the remaining unaccounted-for novice, was persuading Henrietta to give up her new-born, so that the four monks would have breakfast this morning.They sat in a circle, broke the bread, drank of Osmund's well-water, and cut the egg into four pieces, after boiling, so its solid flesh with hard yellow center, made the bread palatable, and the only egg Henrietta had delivered this week.
"Will we have veal later?" said Thaddeus, laughing.
"Washed down with small beer," said Septimus always one for a jest. Osmund said nothing, as he could think of naught to say, to add to the jokes, and munched on the egg, that after a few bites, and a single swallow was gone. Cadmus ran his fingers through the youth's spiky hair, uncombed, he looked like a hedge-hog.
"I will have to give you arrowroot, and monk's balm to clean thy pores, methinks, thou lookst a little wan," said the gentle old monk, with a fondness for Osmund, that was perfectly uncle-like, and the other novices understood.
"Now Brothers, off must we, to Shrewsbury....we must arrive before shrove Tuesday, and stay till Maundy Thursday, pray through Good Friday, stay through till Better Sunday and return, for the nonce on Lame Monday..."
And the four, with their cowls over their heads, cast down, so they could look only at their feet as they walked onward, Cadmus in front, leading like a mother goose, leading his three brown chicks.
They made their way through bladderwort, old man's beard; lily of the valley; roses, those prim, and those blushing. Elder-flower and aldeberry, goose-foot and crock-wheat. Goose-gog and bramble, dock leaf and nettle, harsh-tasting horse-radish, and dandelion wet-the-beds. Forget-me nots, and a long walk to Shrewsbury.
Sir Desberry Hawke, with a scar on his lip, that travelled up his cheek, past the dead-white of his eye, and terminated above his brow, serious in his expression climbed back into the bed.
"You will besport me, young Joseph, and not squeal this time..."
They both smiled. Joseph held his Master firmly. Joseph nearly squealed as he was penetrated. And did nearly faint.
Boscombe Valley, a dank, dark weeping place, with the ruined stone that had once proudly been called a castle, lay asleep in the distance, and Cadmus called a halt. The day had been long, with many prayers said, but none answered.
"We will encamp here, tonight," he told the novices, who sat down, in the glade of silver birches. It was almost spring, cold in the day, and colder at night. Firewood was to be found but sodden.
A wet toad leapfrogged away, and a snail tried to hurry away, among the dampened stones.
"I am so cold," said Thaddeus, "my bones seem froze, wilst huddle with me Septimus...?" He looked at Cadmus, looking for permission, which Cadmus gave.
"You look cold too, your teeth chatter so, young Osmund" said Cadmus, "thou mayst join me; we too, like brothers might mingle..."
A shy stag atop the craggy hillock looked down, as evening fell with a chill blanket. The two monkish groupings, did everything they could think of to keep each other's monk warm.
Sir Desberry Hawke undressed, took off the soldier's bodkin, the gartered hose, the sword belt, carrying Widowmaker, and finally, the noble doublet with the heraldic device, his own, a Hawk, with blood bleeding from its talons, on a field of vert, and the eagle's eye blazed with anger. There lay Joseph,in a heap on the bed, that with its warm woolen curtains, when drawn created a room within a room, and helped keep drafts out and secrets warm within.
"Joseph, I'm sorry I was rough last night..."
"My lord is my master, and pain and affection are one in the same, as I have read..."
"Thou art mere scribe, Joseph, not scholar, lose thy pretense, with me boy ...thou art no more than the son, and not legitimate at that, of the village smithy, thou though hast inherited his manly sinews, and for my pleasure, here are crowns.." and he threw three golden coins, onto the bed sheet where rumpled Joseph lay. Desberry Hawke put his hand on the youth's honey-brown body, to touch his flesh, that so wanted to reciprocate, when the knight anointed the youth's throat with a burning tongue. Sir Desberry held the broad boy's body, tasting the very softness of the skin. Then the sharp release of hissing breath, an ache, and tasted the man he held wrapped around him. It seemed as if the man wanted to suck the life essence from out his bed-companion. Joseph opened his thighs, and let the Knight joust him with his sword, forged of purple flesh.
Edward the Penitent had been King, lo these forty years, and the realm was calm. But the King was old, and had sired no heir.
"OddsFish, Osmund...."
"It's not a fish, Brother Cadmus..."
Sir Desberry Hawke, his brow was drawn into black lines, His face flushed and darkened. His one good eye shone with a steely glitter. He bent forward, lips compressed. the vein in his neck like thick whipcord, his nostrils dilated, and he practiced his snarl. Joseph was impressed.
"Come back to bed milord.. and please... do it without thinking."
"I knowest when thou josh, young cur..."
"Call me cur again, but say it like this time you mean it..."
A little warmth came back to the castle. The halo of the flickering flame, glowed on the wall, a golden aureole, burning the grimy stone. Silhouettes played on the coarse curtains, but muffled the sounds. A candle burnt bright, reached full flower, and erupted before it died, in a black upward trickling of thin black smoke, and all was quiet, save for the sound of satisfied breathing.
An abrupt, heavy rumble, the noise seemed to roll away, a growl of thunder. Lightning flashed. At the moment of greatest brilliance, the darkness leaped back, with culminating crash.
Osmund was frightened, but Cadmus held him close.
"Sssh... " he whispered into the boy's unkempt hair. A little humping of hips, and Cadmus' palm was wettened, a stickiness that was not at all unpleasant.
"I am so sorry, brother,..." Osmund's voice, barely audible.
"Sssh... " Brother Cadmus whispered, his lips on the novice's head, his arm round his shoulder, as the boy crawled in; and fell asleep, while Cadmus, held him, rocking him. We had men his age in the crusade he remembered, and some died, he also thought, as he looked down on his sleeping love.
Came the dawn. A grey-light, turning to a fish-green, then slowly a mackerel sky loomed overhead as the monks walked on.
They spied a ramshackle cottage. The four cowled huddled men, in military precision, with Cadmus in front, leading the flock.
"It looks deserted..." said Thaddeus.
"We can warm ourselves a while, " said Cadmus, " I see dandelions, Septimus, find dry tinder, and Osmund,... over there, the babbling brook, fetch water, we will boil water and make an herbal infusion to warm our bones...Shoo, shoo, go to it!"
A trembling town-mouse that had wandered too far afield, scurried out, and was gone in a twinkling.
He and Septimus opened the creaking door. Cadmus entered first.
There was an unholy smell, that smelt like Satan had passed this way. And recently. Only one shaft of light broke through the gloom, but it pointed at...
Septimus shrieked, and the others came running.
"A severed hand, neatly done..., a few day's old, a woman's hand, and here a ring, ahh, it comes off easily, an emblem, a hawk, with one blazing angry eye...." and Brother Cadmus, mused for a while.
Joseph, looked at the man, that was at one time his, but at the same time not his. He looked as Hawke slept, though oddly, as his blind eye never closed. His body too, had scars, that if you pushed gently, back the hairy covering, you could see each livid weal, that had been hacked upon his chest.He too had faced the Saracen, man to man, though scimitar clashed with longsword, Joseph felt a jealous twinge. Then his hand drifted across, next to the sleeping monster worm, that draped on thigh and only recently had been too awake, and on that same thick thewed thigh, another scar, four inches long, and as Joseph touched it, felt Sir Desberry stir in his sleep. Joseph rolled in, to face the man, that was not his; not entirely, and kissed the sleeping knight, on the face, and licked the black mustache, and his hand went down to the sleeping worm, and it too stirred, as morning broke with a rooster, with free reign on his territory.
The rising glint of sun, seen shimmering through an everpresent mist, scarred against the knotty trees, letting enough light fall in, as the four brothers, and hand, made their meager way to the ruined battlements of the once proud castle, the last Celtic bastion, in these parts, but had long since fallen beneath the encroaching foot of Angle, and more terribly, Jute. The Normans came, but did not count.
They reached the craggy hillock, and looked down. The valley, in whose gully, the mists hovering like bodies of long lost souls, writhing in silent agony. And there, in the middle, half blackened, half fallen down, was the castle, its keep still intact, the moat long since drained, but with bones of fish littering the salty earth.
"Where are we going...?" asked Osmund. " Let's not. Let's to Shrewsbury, for the better glory of God..."
"And not find the owner of the rest of this pretty hand?"
Cadmus was insistent and reluctantly his three followers followed. Up the sharp incline, past the skull of a rabbit, and the remains of a squirrel, a mouse that had given up this life for the better one to come. And their eyes, cowled, looked down, only to see the speckled legged spiders, with their blotchy bodies, turn tail and scurried away.
"The girl, a maiden of seventeen, I would surmise," said Cadmus, "of about five and one half feet in height, uncommonly tall,, unless the length of her fingers were in discordance with the rest of her anatomy and were an anomaly. The finger nails pared, as in the Frankish fashion, and the blue veins, ahh, well there's nothing in that, her blood may have been blue in life, but in death, the color is the same as we all..."
"Are you sure she's dead?" asked Septimus.
"She could be alive, and in this castle.." said Thaddeus.
"It could have been an accident..." said Osmund. And Cadmus, then the others, looked at each other, smiled at him; no accident, this they knew. They shook their heads in agreement.
"Such a sweet boy," said wise Cadmus and he stroked the novice's, spiky hair, in an affectionate way, an owl, comforting a sparrow.
Through the gatehouse ahead, they could hear sounds of general merriment abounding as some kind of peasant fair was in progress. Song, and the sound of those too drunk, all part of the customary festivity, but this, so close to Christ's Passion? Foodstuffs on sale, a palmist from the East, and wrestling, and itinerant fire-eaters walked about unconcerned. Sounds of gaeity, a fair in progress. Filled with peddlers, carpet sellers, woolen underclothes, woolen overclothes, and woolen clothes to be put within former and latter, sheep, pigs, canaries in cages, singing to be free, acrobats and tumblers, dancing bear, minstrels, and some apes, that pass for clowns.
There were piemen, simple, all called Simon, cheap ale and vile wine from leather bottles, tavern carrion, stalls with pots and pans made from iron, newest stuff, in all shapes and size. A glorious place. Osmund did not know where to look. Here, a sweaty wrestler, there, a falcon on a hawker's glove, swords, that were swallowed, and brought back gleaming, a singer and his head cut off, but popped back, and continued singing, all this and more did Osmund espy that day.
The monks entered into the spirit of the festivities, all save grave Cadmus. Thaddeus stole the hand.
After the parade, there was first an acrobat that, turned his body into a circumflexion, normally only woodentoys on string are capable of. Two vaulting, placing limb delicately on limb, with precarious balance, won a wave of handclaps, then the bodies entwined, so as if they were one, waddled like a crab, and juggled multicolored balls between four hands, Legs wrapped around waist as if in the act of love, made Cadmus blush, and he pulled Osmund away, as the novice's jaw dropped agape.
More meat pies on sale. Cadmus brought forth a coin. And Septimus, had a pie, Thadeus had a pie, Osmund had a pie, and Cadmus chose a pickled whelk.
They separated as Cadmus and Osmund walked toward the little stage where a mystery play was in progress. John Ôa Larrikin tempted by a red-clad Devil who sneered at the audience,horned, carrying a pronged trident fork, and dangled a dragon's tail. The crowd hissed back, and Cadmus too, hissed and the devil inched back, away as if in terror as a cross, produced, and disappeared in a plume of purple smoke. Pouff!
Meanwhile, at the Palmist, with the sign ÔPalms for Psalms', the tent had Thaddeus entered with willing accomplice, Septimus, and offered up the hand, as if it Ôtwere his own.
The aged crone,almost blind, the skin at her throat, that hung, that vulture, has grounds for complaint, as to be slandered by, rubbed a bony finger into the dead, white flesh of the severed palm...
"Mmmm," the hag pronounced, "I see in the gloam, an image, a smell of brimstone in the air.., I see you lied upon your back, ankles plunged into the hair, accommodating of some white beasts' lust.."
"Sounds like you, Thaddeus..."
"Thy very body quakes as the young maister pumps as at a Haoedren's spring, the fever on him, and the other young maister, willing him on.."
"Another Saturday night.. as far as I'm concerned" said Septimus, not listening, bored.
" But thenne she moannes, and younger maister rides even harrder, and there is an halt; as if al't world hadde stopped. Then a gushing from under the wurkld, and an bang, I have not the wurd, but the yung men have disposed of... she then taken to a wudde, and head, then hand cut offe.... A yung wench, seventeen, but he-he's from Grimsby, at most... but not yew, you are notte she..."
And the crone, dropped the hand in fright.They looked at each other; and shrieked. Septimus picked it up the dropped hand.
"Do we tell Cadmus?"
"Tell me what?" asked the venerable sage, as the two novices emerged from the tent. The fox ordering the chickens.
The two young monks, hung as sheep as for lambs, confessed. They stole the hand and the fortune teller told how the owner had been... and then murdered and her hand severed. Or was a hand severed and murdered later? They weren't clear. Something about a man from Grimsby.
"Read back what you have written, Joseph...."
"Ergo, cogitum sum..."
"You think, therefore you are..."
"We think, therefore we are..."
"Very good, Joseph, you have learned..."
"I have an excellent teacher, milord..."
And the boy, kissed the virile man's hand. And noticing its abscence inquired, "Where's your ring, milord? "
Cadmus seemed to know where he was going but was stopped, by a guard, whose commanding prescence, was in evidence, as were the two rival guards of his watch. One, a rat of a man, a soldier if an unorderly one, ferret-features, weasel in body; but we musn't take the eye's opinion to gain the full measure of a man, as Cadmus was wont to say.
"Brothers, a little out of our way, methinks?" said the rat-faced man who smelled a rat.
"Stand aside, sir I have dealings with the lord within..."
A brave arm pushed away the foolish man, who challendged a man with the worth of Cadmus. But at Rigsby the Steward he stopped.
"And what doin's Ôas you, a man of the cloth got with Sir Desberry Hawke?"
"I have a ring of his, that needs must be returned..."
The four brothers were taken into a darkened room, allowed to sit on a hard bench, and while they waited were served common fare, vegetable broth, seasoned with goat-cheese, and pease-porridge, pigeons-baked in a pie, on edible stale bread plates, which they partook of. The Guard now more correctly addressed as Rigsby the steward, a man with ginger beard, flowing hair surrounding the balding summit, bald despite the flowing locks, but there was something in his eye, that Cadmus admired.
"You've seen the Holy Land, methinks, I recognise the signs. The scimitar cut across your hand, the crescent-and-moon earing, the teethmark of some eastern wench, no doubt, where she scratched; a Crusader?"
"No by St Smithy! A Saracen boy did cut this flesh! But no Scmitar by Harry! A harlot's Jewel! Lawks a mercy, howdst thou know?"
"I was not always dressed in monkish habit..."
The tallest turret, that could only be reached by a spiralling stair, carved from the original rock, that once was a mountain in this very spot. The knight and his Ôsquire', light for the first time flooding in, looked at each other, in a way that, each knew, this way, the truth from now on, could be ignored.
"The ring? I gave it to Mistress Harmonia, in return for a secret that even with you I might not share."
Thus, Sir Desberry Hawke fell silent, and in deep thought. And Joseph recognised the sign, that he should be silent and return to copying the borrowed book, Gawain and the Green Knight and the Adventures that they Had.
Sir Desberry, wondered, should he have trusted to send the ring, with the girl. An innocent that would not have been noticed. The ring could be given to Edmund, he who ought be rightful King. Geoffrey the bastard, not worthy, sides would be taken and if civil war did indeed break out, Desberry of Aldeberry, Duke Hawke, Earl One-Eye, Baronet mayhap...would take Edmund's part, and the ring was the way that his loyalty would be declared. Nothing could be written down. Mistress Harmonia, a pleasant whey faced girl, sent to Baron Edmund, who would think aught of it...?
I can't trust Rigsby, my steward, even.
Rigsby joined the Brothers at food.
"Tis a banquet you shower us, " said Septimus.
"With a feast,you honor us, sire," Thaddeus offered in way of direct brown-nose compliment.
"I would have been happy with a turnip..." said Osmund, and he ducked, the tap on the head.
"Dost your lord, Sir Hawke know we wait...?" asked Cadmus irritably. "We have waited most the day and now even, Compline bell, and prayers said, and the evening calls, and we must abed..."
"He has been told, and if ye care, bed have been prepared, I am steward, and we who have shared the glory of Holy war, I will not turn you out, but as to my Lord is my Sheperd, more realistically the Lord is my master, and over his will and wish I have naught control.."
Suddenly a pipe, a flageloet, no, a bag pipe, its mournful whine, a tabor struck, a rat-a-tat rhythm, and candles lit, this time many, and the darkness sparkled, in partial enlightenment. A winding hurdy gurdy, and a familiar tune, and a stamping of foot and rousing hand clap. And a space in the floor cleared. A figure in strange garb appeared. Bare-foot, in pantaloons, silky trousers, and not much else a youth, of maybe four and twenty, Arabic locks, and flashy smile, and the pipes turned oriental as the dancer, with silver bells and cockleshells, and a diamond studded nostril came forth from nowhere, and writhe the wrought, taut abdomen, with diadem in the navel.
"Spoils of War..." whispered Rigsby the Steward to his erstwhile comrade in arms, Cadmus. "We could mayhap trade, my Azrael for your pale-blotched Osmund...." Cadmus first looked at the vision, and then Osmund, and without a trace of regret said. "No, I'll keep my Osmund," and pulled his Osmund close to his side.
Sir Jeremy paced, upstairs. Joseph, no longer writing, listened as finally, Sir Jeremy unburdened himself.
At first he didn't believe it.
"You trusted a wench, with your Ring?? I cannot believe. You sent her abroad?? I cannot believe...That you did not trust me to take your message..."
"I confess I could not bear to part with you..."
"But the wench...."
"I know what you think of women,.."
"Not that milord, but you sent a woman, out there, outside these walls, she would not make it even to the nearest ramshackle cottage...."
"I sent Rigsby with her..."
"Not to the first cottage, ramshackle or otherwise."
"Did you learn to play the Saracen game, the paste-boards?"
"I can gamble, if its not for money, entertainment purpose only," said Cadmus. Azrael at his knee, and Osmund, trying to look coquettish to the flame red-haired steward.
"Thaddeus, Septimus, bring in the small beer, and veal if you have it."
Azrael looked with dark eyes, into Cadmus' bright eyes, as if too say, Ôyou look so much like my father'. Cadmus looked back into the pools of reflection of Azrael's dark eyes, and in them, saw, much of himself. Azrael silent, but his lips, as if watched closely, could be read to say Ôdoes it matter?' And as he felt the dancer, attempt,to make a success of the seduction, from nowhere, flew out the gray hand, and it fell, palm upward on the floor, and the stiffened finger pointed up accusingly at....
Rigsby denied all. But as the incident occurred at the simultaneos appearance, of Sir Desberry Hawke, on the stair, and the Castle fell silent.
"Catch..." he said.
The sword flew through the air, hitting Rigsby full in the chest.
"Thank you Brother Cadmus, for the return of the ring." said Desberry Hawke, "this is my emannuesis, Joseph."
"Secretary...or administrative assistant..," hissed Joseph.
Cadmus looked into Joseph's dark eyes, and in them, saw something of himself.
But maybe less of the monk.
They stayed the night. Sir Desberry Hawke looked out over the walls, over Birnham Wood, toward Dunsinane Hill. And Joseph, his Lady Macbeth.
Downstairs, a party, as Cadmus first with Azrael, and then the rest of the brothers, in alphabetical order. Till he was tired, and ended cuddling with Osmund and falling asleep.