Devil's Acre

‘Ah,
there you are Walter. Thank you for answering my call so promptly. I have to go on a journey and I want you to come with me. So drop whatever you are doing and be ready to leave at first light tomorrow morning. That is all.’

With those words Abbot Samson began what was to be the strangest of all the adventures that I, Walter de Ixworth, undertook during my time as physician to the monks and people of Edmund’s town.

I say “strangest adventure”
because even now four decades on I am still not sure I understand all that was being asked of me then. This has long troubled me and is the reason I begin this account now while I still have the health and wits to do it, because only by writing it down can I hope to see that which has so far eluded me - the answer to an enigma. I may not be successful in my quest but if I am not then I will at least have left a record for others to ponder and hopefully succeed where I have failed.

To this end I will record as faithfully as I can all that occurred during those fateful few days in January forty years ago. But memory plays tricks and I apologize in advance for my mistakes of which I am sure there will be many. Alas
, so few who were alive then are still around to correct my errors. Indeed, I have stood at the gravesides of most of them as one by one their mortal remains have been interred within the good honest soil of England. Nor at the extreme age of seventy-eight do I expect to remain here myself for very much longer and for that I am not sorry. Half blind, practically deaf and increasing arthriticky, I long to dispense with the need for this irksome body of mine and to join my friends and family in that celestial place where I hope at last to see the face of God.

But not before I have solved this one last riddle.

My initial reaction to Samson’s summons was one of irritation. January is never a good month for me to be away from the abbey. People fall ill more readily in winter and I need to be on hand to alleviate suffering and comfort the dying. Nor is winter an ideal season to be embarking upon any kind of expedition. Roads can be treacherous at this time of year - one minute an unyielding rock of ice and the next a quagmire of freezing mud in which to slip and break an arm or for a horse to go lame.

And then there are my regular patients to consider. The money I earn from these unfortunates goes to support the many good works of the abbey - well most of it at any rate. I therefore had to spend the rest of that day frantically rushing around preparing potions and medicaments for my assistant, Gilbert, to dispense in my absence and to beg help from other physicians in the town to take over my patients until my return. When I finally made it to my cot that night I was exhausted and the last thing I wanted was to embark next day upon a long and arduous trip how far and for how long I did not know.

However, as a confessing member of the Order of Saint Benedict of Nursia I had little choice. The first duty of every monk is to obey the directives of his abbot with humility and without question - however inconvenient, inconsiderate and down-right bloody annoying they happen to be.

Where we were going Samson didn’t say but I had my suspicions.
My fellow obedientiaries and I knew that a few days earlier he had received a letter which was rumoured to have come from the king requiring his immediate attendance at court. Such summonses were not unusual. As Baron of the Liberty of Edmundsbury Samson was a senior member of the king’s council advising him on all matters temporal as well as spiritual. He could thus be called at any time to attend the king wherever he happened to be and in January of 1202 John was in Normandy fortifying his castles against an anticipated attack from the armies of the King of France - one of King Philip’s endless attempts to dispossess our monarch of his rightful continental possessions. So if it was John we were to see then it was to Normandy we would have to go.

However that didn’t explain why I had to come along. I wasn’t a member of the king’s council and John had physicians aplenty of his own without the need for my poor services. And I would be a pitiful choice of companion for Samson. It was well-known that he and I rarely agreed on anything. We would likely spend the entire trip arguing over some knotty question of theology or philosophy and make each other’s li
ves a misery in the process. I could think of a dozen of my brother monks who would have been more amenable company than I. But he was adamant it should be me and as a fully confessed monk of the abbey I had no option but to obey.

There was one other curiosity regarding this trip
that worried me. When he announced his intention in chapter Samson revealed at the same time that he had settled his servants and made his Will which of course is something a man normally does only when he is about to die. Now, I knew Samson had been unwell recently - I was his physician as well as everyone else’s in the abbey. His heart had been palpitating faster than it should and there was his old problem of anal protuberances which I knew troubled him from time to time - another reason, surely, to avoid any lengthy periods in the saddle. But none of this justified such a thorough settling of his affairs for a journey he had undertaken many times before - unless of course he believed he would not be coming back.

‘Are you ill again father?’

‘No indeed. Why do you ask?’

‘In that case why do you need me with you on this journey?’

He tutted impatiently. ‘Is it such an imposition to ask you to spend a little time with your spiritual father who cares for you as well as any natural father?’

I bowed. ‘As you wish, father. But why me? Why not Robert? Or Hubert? Or Jocelin even?’

He flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Jocelin’s too much of an old maid, forever fussing about my comfort. We’d never make any progress. As for the others - you are the most senior. And,’ he added reluctantly, ‘the best educated.’

‘So it’s for my wit and erudition that I am coming along?’

Samson shifted uncomfortably on his cushion as though his haemorrhoids were hurting again. ‘I crave intellectual disputation. On a long journey it helps to pass the time.’

‘I see. May I then ask where we are going?’

‘You’ll know when we get there.’

‘I take it that we are not touring the abbey’s provinces?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘But you can’t say exactly where.’

‘No.’

‘Well then can you at least tell me how long are we likely to be away? I have my patients to consider.’

‘It shouldn’t take more than two days.’

‘Two days? I thought you said it was a long journey. Two days isn’t very long.’

‘Two days to get there. How long we are likely to be away depends on a great many unknown factors.’

‘Such as what?’

‘If I knew that they wouldn’t be unknown would they?’ He frowned impatiently. ‘All these infernal questions - look, just for once do as I ask without argument will you, Walter?’

‘I thought argument was what you craved father.’

His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘All your questions will be answered in the fullness of time I promise you. For now you will have to be patient.’

But promises are more easily made than kept.

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