Stories Thread

[econ21]

The Ballad of Hermant Mauvoisin


My first sight of Hermant Mauvoisin was of him as a young man, standing aloof from the other new students at the seminary. I confess I was immediately drawn to him. Tall, with striking if gaunt looks, he affected a supercilious disdain of all the other recruits, huddled together and chattering nervously as they awaited the Monsignor.

I recall the Monsignor’s entrance, long thick cane in hand, flanked by two of the more officious priests. Doubtless he harangued and cajoled the new students, as was his want, aiming to intimidate and to browbeat them into submission. I remember the students gathered around the Monsignor in a semi-circle, heads down almost as if in prayer, eyes only daring to glance upwards as their new master strutted back and forth among them - the cane flashing at any student whose demeanour betrayed any foolishness or awkwardness. It did not take long for the Monsignor’s cruel eyes to fasten on Hermant, still standing apart, watching the Monsignor’s parade with an almost amused look of indifference. At 18, Hermant was several years older than most of the new recruits to the seminary and, even when leaning against a cart, he seemed to tower above their bowed forms.

“You!” the Monsignor exclaimed, pointing his cane at Hermant and marching towards him: “What are you looking at?”

With a leisurely grace, Hermant straightened and replied with a breathless fluency: “Watching the work of God, Monsignor.”

The Monsignor stopped his approach abruptly, as if confused. He eyed Hermant quizzically, and then - as if aware of a sand timer about to run dry - he turned back to the mass of new students around him and resumed his harangue. Hermant was left unmolested, although from all the new arrivals, he was only one whose face the Monsignor remembered at the close of day.

*****

Most students became accustomed to the seminary. They learnt its rules and requirements. They bended to its will and twisted themselves around its arcane protocols. In time, some would even flourish and grow, emerging as fine priests or holy men of some devout order. But not Hermant. The stone walls threatened to crush him and the monotonous rituals seemed to excite in him an almost maddened reaction. What had brought him to such a place so unsuited to his nature, I never learnt, but whatever it was, it was clearly insufficient to keep him there.

“I will be gone from this accursed place, whether on my own two feet or in a box, carried by eight others. But I will be gone!” he declared one night.

“You know the Monsignor never allows a new student to leave before they matriculate. It is a point of pride for him and many parents pay well for this chance to contain their troublesome sons.” I replied, trying elliptically to find out if his were such parents. But Hermant would not be drawn.

“It is intolerable! The English defile our lands! Petty warlords seek to rule cruel fiefdoms outside of any proper authority. And our King stands almost alone, with bickering Dukes and Counts more concerned with bolstering their fragile domains than with uniting behind him. How can I sit here in such times? Still less, how can I sign away my life to decades of inactivity and impotence?”

“You cannot leave. The gates are barred and the hounds find every runaway. Just complete your studies - matriculate and then you will have a chance to renounce your vocation.”

“I will find a way.” Hermant assured me.

I watched his gaze harden and could not doubt his words.

*****

It began the next evening. The other first years were gathered in the seminary bar, enjoying the wine and ale that were among the few material consolations of their training. Hermant sat, as usual, to one side, his eyes dully scanning the restive students. Then, he stood up abruptly, kicking back his stool and ostentatiously tipping up his mug and emptying the contents over the floor of the bar-room.

All the students turned to watch the spectacle, unsure what drama they were about to see.

“What’s the matter, Hermant?” one of the faster drinkers cried out “Our ale is not good enough for you?”

Hermant snorted: “No ale is good for anyone. It is an abomination of Satan’s handiwork!” Nonchalantly, he let the mug fall from his hand, clattering onto the ale-sodden timbers below him. Then he coolly left the bar.

Excited voices rose out mockingly behind him. “What’s gotten into him?” “Satan’s handiwork, by the sounds of it.” I left to follow Hermant, but paused outside the bar, listening for the continued reactions. There were guffaws and more comments, but then the excitement abated and the drinkers returned to their normal nightly vigils. Hermant’s outburst would soon have been forgotten.

*****

And yet, the next morning at breakfast, it continued. The students filed in on the cold winter’s morning after their first mass. Whether dulled by the cold, the mass or last night’s ale, they were a subdued bunch as they shuffled in line, bowls outstretched, to receive a welcome ladle of hot soup.

Hermant alone among them stood upright, straight as an arrow, with eyes fixed unflinchingly forward. When he reached the cook, he stared at the hot green liquid that been deposited in his bowl.

“What meat is in this?” he demanded.

The cook laughed. “Meat? You’ll be lucky if you find any meat in that, but it’s supposed to be pea and ham soup, same as always.”

Abruptly, Hermant upturned the bowl. The entire dining room hall seemed to freeze, as the hot green soup splattered over the floor.

“Swine-flesh is forbidden” Hermant declared. “The pig is unclean and we become what we eat.”

He turned and promptly marched back the way he came, past the other queuing students and left the dining hall hungry.

The cook stared red-faced as the soup sapped into the dining room hall floorboards and called after the departing Hermant: “Unclean! Unclean! What the hell do you call this mess you have made on my floor, you arrogant prig?!”

I hurried over to the cook and paid him what little coin I was carrying to soothe his annoyance, then left to look for Hermant.

*****

And so it continued, with Hermant’s confrontations with seminary life escalating more and more, until the inevitable collision came. I was not there when it happened, but I heard the Monsignor and six of the larger priests came and took Hermant away. He was locked in a small cell as a punishment and subjected to regular visits, where - rumour had it - the Monsignor alternated theological debate with physical chastisement. Some of the students even claimed that Hermant had declared himself a Mohammedan and was engaged in a nightly contest with the Monsignor over the most fundamental tenets of our faith. I did not believe these more outlandish stories, but I had to find out for myself what had become of my friend. So one night I gathered a large flagon of strong ale and, in a friendly manner, approached the student assigned to bring Hermant’s supper to his cell later that night. After a long and tedious drinking session, the student had finally succumbed to the ale, so I deftly unencumbered him of the keys to Hermant’s cell.

Careful not to be observed, I made my way to the outbuilding where Hermant was imprisoned and let myself into his room. I was shocked at what I saw. He was roped to his bed, his face sunken from hunger, and his body covered with sores and bruises.

He smiled on seeing me and beckoned me closer. He whispered conspiratorially: “You will do me a service. Pick up the knife…”

His voice was beguiling, halfway between a father’s voice and a lover’s. I picked up the knife.

*****

In the morning, they found him. The discovery shocked the seminary and for a while rendered it mute. Hermant was hustled out of the grounds in a well curtained carriage, taken back to his aristocratic family to recuperate. The local abbot was hastily summoned and the Monsignor departed to the abbey for a while, without explanation. With his going, the seminary appeared almost visibly to exhale, excited rumours and speculation flowing round its corridors.

No priest would confirm the story, but gradually it became understood that Hermant had been found at dawn in his cell in a most unnatural state. The ropes that had bound him to his bed had been undone and the bed itself broken up, its two longer sides fashioned into a crude cross and the larger nails extracted from its joints. The ropes had been reapplied, fastening Hermant to the cross and the nails cruelly inserted into his hands and feet. Clearly, these awful wounds could not be self inflicted but no one could believe the feckless student assigned to feed Hermant was responsible. (Fearing the reaction if his drunkenness was discovered, the student stayed silent over my role in the affair.) However, given his reputation, the same disbelief did not extend to the Monsignor - hence his departure.

I never saw Hermant again, although memories of the night before his release still haunt me. It is eight years since those events and the young man I once knew must now be in his prime. I wonder what became of him? His zeal and determination make me search for any rumour or information about him, but his name is never spoken of. I find it hard to believe that he would disappear from public view, after all his oft professed devotion to France and his vehement indignation at the state into which she has fallen.

”I will find a way.” he had sworn and so it had proved. But I cannot believe that his way should end in obscurity as soon as he left the hated seminary door.