Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns

by Howard of Warwick

  Newcomers asked questions about what lay behind the door, but they were never answered. Nobody knew. The natural result of this was that the contents of the room behind the door were reliably and positively known to contain any one, or combination of the following;

  The abbot’s private collection of tapestries by Wat the Weaver. The ones that showed all the details of human anatomy, from the outside.

  The body of the previous abbot.

  The current abbot’s wife and children.

  The abbot’s mother - an impossible prospect but apparently eternal life was a certainty for any who got through the door.

  Great treasure.

  Even greater treasure.

  The relics of a saint.

  A saint in person.

  A huge supply of food and drink.

  Virtually all the tableware from the Last Supper.

  Joseph of Arimathea - having given up his own tomb.

  King Arthur, several knights and a table of some sort.

  A dragon, or at least a dragon’s egg. Or a chicken, whichever came first.

  Another door which led back to the first door again which was then slightly smaller. (This was the firm conviction of Brother Daly, but Brother Daly had a lot of very strange ideas.)

  And, of course, the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail was hidden in virtually every hidey-hole in Christendom. If every Holy Grail that everyone absolutely positively knew the location of was gathered together in one spot there would be enough to give the five thousand a drink to wash down the loaves and fishes.

  Perhaps now was the moment Egbert was going to find out. Surely the abbot carried the secret.

  ‘The door, Father?’ Egbert asked. ‘What does it mean?’ He looked back at the pointing finger.

  The abbot sighed heavily, some new weight pressing down on him. ‘We must send word.’

  ‘Send word? Who to?’

  ‘The king.’ The abbot said it simply but it sent a shock through Egbert.

  ‘The king?’ What on earth was going on that the king needed to be told of this?

  The abbot faced Egbert and his gaze was terrible. That was normal, but this time it carried an added intensity. The abbot even laid a hand on Egbert’s shoulder. It had all the substance of a light breeze from yesterday, but it was clear Egbert was being given a great confidence.

  ‘Ignatius points at the king’s door,’ the abbot intoned.

  Egbert checked the door again to see if it looked at all regal. It didn’t. ‘The king’s door?’ he said in amazement. ‘That’s the famous king’s door?’ He couldn’t believe that this humble slab of wood was the actual king’s door.

  ‘It belongs to the king,’ the abbot snapped, his old familiar persona returning quickly.

  ‘And what’s behind it?’ Egbert couldn’t help but ask.

  The abbot looked very thoughtful - for the abbot - and was clearly considering whether to go further.

  ‘Only the king and the Sacerdos Arcanorum know.’

  Well, that was a disappointment after all this time.

  He hesitated to make the next suggestion. Not for long though. ‘Perhaps we should open it?’

  The abbot found a whole new catalogue of facial expressions to express his opinion of the very idea.

  ‘Alright,’ said Egbert, getting the message very quickly. ‘We don’t open it.’

  ‘Only the king and the Sacerdos Arcanorum may open it.’

  It sounded like the king and the Sacerdos had a lot on their plate.

  ‘Why would he be pointing at the door?’ Egbert speculated. ‘Especially when he’s just been given the time in such a pointed manner.’

  Speculation was something the abbot seldom tolerated, or was capable of.

  ‘Was he trying to tell us to take the responsibility from him? A sort of dying instruction as it were?’

  The abbot looked rather blank.

  ‘Or mayhap he was telling us to look there for some clue to his fate?’

  No, the abbot was now as lost as a lamb in a wolf pack.

  Egbert took a breath. Back to basics then. ‘So we send for the king who comes here to open the door and see what all the fuss is about?’ he asked.

  The abbot looked more comfortable now, ‘Hardly,’ he scoffed at Egbert’s stupidity. ‘The king will have people who deal with this sort of thing.’

  So secret doors in monasteries which were pointed at by corpses on sundials was “this sort of thing” was it?

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course. King Harold will know the significance of this more than you or I.’

  ‘Harold?’ Egbert was taken aback.

  ‘Yes,’ the abbot growled. ‘The king.’

  Egbert couldn’t think of a subtle way to deal with this. ‘King Harold is dead,’ he announced.

  The abbot looked suitably shocked. ‘When did this happen?’ he demanded, obviously offended that no one had told him.

  ‘Two years ago,’ said Egbert, with disbelief. He knew the abbot was a solitary individual in this solitary place but news did travel. You’d think he’d at least find out when kings died.

  ‘So who’s the king now?’

  ‘Chap called William, apparently,’ Egbert explained. He thought about adding that William probably didn’t even know he had a door, and when he found out he would likely just burn it to the ground, if what Egbert had heard about him was true.

  The abbot mused, ‘Funny name for a king.’

  ‘A Norman.’

  ‘Is he?’ said the abbot, shaking his head in sympathy for the poor fellow.

  ‘From Normandy,’ Egbert explained.

  ‘Aha,’ said the abbot, clearly not having the first clue where Normandy was. ‘Well, we shall send word to this William.’

  ‘Must we?’ Egbert enquired. ‘King William won’t even know he’s got a door. And I have heard that he is a fearsome fellow, more likely to wreak havoc than resolve the mystery of a locked door.’

  ‘Of course we must,’ the abbot waved away the objection. ‘It is a sacred duty. We dare not interfere, it is for the rightly crowned king alone to command.’

  Egbert wondered if explaining that the rightly crowned king had become so by killing the previous incumbent. No. Not worth the effort.

  ‘And how do we do send word?’ Egbert asked. It was a good question. They were a closed community with outside contact limited to that which passed through the hatch in the main gate. It was rumoured that things could get through that hatch that were simply unbelievable, but there was never any proof.

  What these brothers did not do was go traipsing round the country passing word.

  ‘We shall send Brody,’ the abbot announced.

  Egbert caught his breath, ‘Are you sure about that?’ Brody was their servant and go-between with the outside world but he was the most awful gossip. The man couldn’t keep secrets that he didn’t even know in the first place. If there was a sure-fire way of getting a piece of information in circulation it was to give it to Brody with strict instructions not to tell anyone.

  The abbot cast a beady eye at Egbert, ‘I have not been an abbot so long that I cannot cast the fear of God into such as Brody.’

  Egbert could believe that.

  ‘And the king will not come in person. He will have someone appointed to tasks like this.’

  ‘The bishop?’ Egbert suggested.

  ‘The bishop,’ the abbot coughed his scorn. ‘I don’t think we’ll be letting the bishop near another dead body. Not after all that unpleasantness the last time.’ The old man pondered the problem, ‘Perhaps one of his trackers. One who seeks out information on his behalf.’

  Egbert waited while the abbot thought about whatever it was he was thinking about.

  ‘A vestigare?’ the old man mused, considering the Latin root. ‘Someone who tracks, perhaps investigator,’ he seemed satisfied. ‘The King’s Investigator,’ he announced.

  King’s Investigator? Sounded like a perfectly stupid idea to Egbert, but he didn�
��t like to say.