The Sorcer part 1: The Fort at River's Bend cc-5

by Jack Whyte

  Derek's contention was that anyone who wished to volunteer should be allowed to join us. Shelagh was adamantly against that. We had room, she maintained, for willing, skilled workers in specific crafts, and she named those skills and crafts. Married couples who shared these skills should be given preference, she asserted. In addition to those, she declared, we required a number of women, unencumbered women, to do women's work and to redress the sexual imbalance in our community. It followed naturally from that, she pointed out, that these women should have a certain calibre of Youthfulness, real or apparent, and of basic cleanliness and attractiveness, since their function would be as much social as anything else.

  Witnessing—with more than a little detached amusement—the ongoing clash of wills between these two aggressive personalities, I suddenly discerned the true reason for Derek's intractability. Shelagh was declaring and asserting and maintaining and pointing out exactly what followed naturally from what; Jessica was agreeing, silently, but nodding vigorously; and Derek was reacting jealously, feeling outflanked, outmanoeuvred and outgeneraled.

  I took Shelagh aside and whispered in her ear. She looked at me haughtily and made a face. Then she dipped her head and went back towards the king, apologizing for her own excessive enthusiasm and deferring belatedly, but charmingly, to his judgment and his wisdom. She played poor Derek like a fisherman playing a large fish, so that he ended up according her everything she had asked for at the outset, totally unaware of having done so. We spent the remainder of that day and night selecting two score new residents for our fort from among more than two hundred applicants who had flocked forward to volunteer their skills and services within the hour that followed Derek's public announcement of our interest.

  That we were able to do so with such dispatch was due purely to the fact that everything we sought in this undertaking lay within Derek's own township. Most of the people who lived beyond the town itself were farmers, living close to their fields and crops, and we had no need of such skills on our high, rocky little plateau beneath the mountains' crest. Arable land was something we lacked completely, although plans were already afoot among us to convert some small part of the cleared forest, close to the fort, into something approaching fertile plots for growing vegetables. The people whom we sought were those whose gifts and skills could be adapted to making our seclusion tenable: barrel and pottery makers; shoemakers and boot makers, to provide protection for our feet on the stony mountainsides; cobblers to maintain those boots in good repair; leather-tanners and goat- and sheep-herders; carpenters and stonemasons and smiths; charcoal-makers to supply the fuel for our forges; fletchers to flight new arrows; grooms and farriers to tend our horses. Each time I thought to end the list, I found some other requirements I had overlooked.

  Shelagh had a long list of her own that bore little resemblance to mine. She was concerned with finding bakers and cooks and butchers; flensers to skin and cure the hides from the beasts we killed; beekeepers and brewers and makers of mead to augment her own efforts; women adept at needlecraft and knitting, and at carding and teasing the rough brown wool of the native sheep; spinners of fine thread and coarser yarn; weavers of cloth, and people who knew the art of dying those cloths. All of these skills, could we find them, would make our lives much easier in Mediobogdum, for at the present time all of us were having to turn our hands to all the work, and we were poorly equipped to do so.

  I chose to take no part in the selection process, content to leave the task to Shelagh and Donuil, Hector and Brunna, Lars's wife, who had long years of experience in the choosing of able workers. Seeing that I was distancing myself from the work in hand, Derek sought me out, in need of some comfort after the savaging he had received at the end of Shelagh's tongue. I commiserated with him shamelessly, agreeing that our Shelagh was a formidable woman with a tongue like a rasp, but pointing out that she was highly thought of by all who knew her well, for reasons he would doubtless soon discover for himself. Mollified by my sympathy and obviously wishing to make amends for his earlier stubbornness, he hesitated only long enough to gain my assurance that his people would remain his people, and that since we would be leaving someday in the foreseeable future, in a matter of short years, he would not only regain their presence but would also inherit the fruits of their labour in the form of a habitable fort here in the mountains. Immediately thereafter, greatly reassured, he threw himself into the task of supervising the selection process, adjudicating ruthlessly whenever there appeared to be a conflict or a choice to make in terms of quality and ability. I derived a great deal of ironic amusement from the fact that Derek immediately became our greatest asset in finding the people who would suit us most. He knew all of his people, of course, and was unblinkered in judging their strengths and weaknesses.

  By late afternoon the task was complete, and we had swelled our ranks in Mediobogdum beyond our expectations. Every category we had hoped to fill was filled to Shelagh's satisfaction, many of them with couples who, between them, offered complementary skills. Thirty-eight adults would join us, twenty-six of those being thirteen married couples, including a brewer and his wife, a noted beekeeper. The remaining twelve were nine women, five of them young, and three men. The married couples would bring their families, totalling fourteen children ranging in age from two-year-olds to half-grown boys and girls.

  Shelagh and the others were delighted. I was well-pleased. Derek was relieved to have the task completed, and that night we had a feast to celebrate the day's events.

  Shelagh approached me in the course of that evening's celebrations, when I was leaning contentedly against a corner wall, eyeing the festivities. Ambrose had left me moments earlier to talk with Ludmilla, who had beckoned him to where she sat with Derek's Jessica, and Donuil was deep in a discussion with Dedalus on the other side of the room.

  "Lucanus and Derek are close-huddled over there. I wonder what they're plotting?"

  I had not seen her approach and I straightened up immediately, shrugging myself away from the wall and looking to where she was pointing. I smiled.

  "They're an unlikely pair, I'll grant you, but I doubt they are plotting anything. They've known each other a long time, those two."

  "Aye." She was already looking elsewhere, her glance sharpening, and I followed her gaze to where the two youngest, single members of our party, Mark and Jonathan, were huddled admiringly about one young woman. Her name, as I recalled, was Tressa, and I had met her earlier in the day when she brought me a mug of icy beer, addressing me as "Mester Cahy." She was a striking young woman, far from classically beautiful but gifted nonetheless with youthful beauty and colour, high, cushioned cheekbones, sparkling eyes and strong white teeth. She smiled naturally and often. I had admired her form. She wore a plain white tunic, modelled on the simply draped, classic Roman stola, which showed off her long, slim, graceful neck and the wide, straight shoulders that bore her high, full breasts with pride and artless magnificence. As she had turned to walk away from me, having bowed her head prettily in response to my thanks for her attentions, I had seen, too, that her buttocks filled the lower part of her garment very nicely. An impressive young woman, I thought at the time, and I was pleased now to see my own impression borne out by the attention our two youthful artisans were showing her. She threw back her head and laughed at something Mark said to her, and even from a distance, over the noise of the crowd, I heard the artless sound of it.

  "That's Tressa," Shelagh said.

  "I know. I met her earlier." I turned and looked at her. "Are you saying—"

  "She's one of ours? Of course. Do you approve?"

  I looked back towards the tall young woman. "You don't need my approval. Mark and Jonathan approve, I see that plainly."

  "Aye. She's a seamstress, and a very good one. Her talents are spoken of with envy by all the women here. Some of the elder ones are jealous of her gifts and have Seen making things difficult for her, so she has much incentive to come to us. We will appreciate her skills without r
esentment. She'll help you."

  "Help me? How, and with what? I need no help."

  "Oh, don't you?" She reached out and thrust the end of one index finger through a tiny rent in my sleeve. I had never seen it before, but I knew it was new. I vaguely remembered catching it on something I was passing, earlier that day. "No, it's clear you don't, not even from someone who could keep you clad and mended without your noticing."

  "I can take care of such things by myself."

  She smiled sweetly at me and straightened up to move away. "Of course you can, Caius. We both know your opinions on that—you need nothing. But that is your opinion. I disagree with it."

  Before I could find a response, she was gone, gliding towards her husband, who was smiling at her. Disturbed, somehow, I turned to look again at the young woman Tressa, but she had gone as well, and then I realized that she was close beside me, less than a pace from me, smiling.

  "Mester Cahy, c'n I fetch thee to drink?"

  Flustered by her sudden proximity, I managed to thank her graciously, refusing her offer, raging at myself internally for the damnable redness I could feel flooding my face. She appeared not to notice; instead she kept her eyes fixed on mine, smiling at me as I stammered out my words. When I had done, she nodded pleasantly, and I had to fight against the urge to watch as she walked away.

  A short time after that I saw her again across the hall, talking to Jonathan, and as I looked, she raised her head and her eyes looked directly into mine. Before I could avert my gaze she smiled again and dipped her head in the slightest nod before returning her eyes and her attention to Jonathan. A moment later, while I was still watching her, I heard Donuil's voice addressing me and I turned to find his wife gazing at me from beside him, a small, secret smile on her lips. I felt a strange surge of anger towards her but recognized it as being unreasonable and stifled it. Very shortly after that, I went to bed, where I fell asleep with Tressa's good-natured, disconcerting smile hovering in my mind.

  The following morning, as dawn was breaking, we prepared to bid farewell to Ravenglass again and turn our steps towards our hilltop home. Those of our new neighbours who were sufficiently free of duties, obligations and other encumbrances—slightly more than half the newcomers—accompanied us. The others would follow within the next few days, as and when they were able to. Ambrose and Ludmilla rode with us too, both of them keen to see what we had made of our own private fortress among the towering Fells.

  As I sat watching our assembling party that morning, my thoughts were split in two directions: the greater part of my attention was bent upon organizing our train, which had now swollen from the four wagons we had brought down empty with us—they were now all filled to capacity—to include the transportation for another thirty- some adults and children. This hotchpotch of vehicles ranged from ox-drawn carts, to wagons drawn by horses and mules, to light carts, with high, narrow wheels that were evidently intended to be pulled along by hand. These latter vehicles, and there were four of them, I eyed askance, thinking it would be a major undertaking to push or pull them up the steep, narrow gradient leading from the river vale to our rocky plateau so far above. I knew, however, that it would matter nothing to me, and these people were native to the land, so I assumed they knew the task that lay ahead of them in climbing up to Mediobogdum.

  Conflicting with the need to concentrate on preparing for departure, however, was an equal, or perhaps an even greater need to dwell at length upon the brief discussion I had had, an hour or so before, with Lucanus. My mind had not yet adjusted to the news that he had delivered, and as I sat there on Germanicus, high up and securely mounted in my saddle, I felt a surge of giddiness that might have sent me crashing to the ground had I not braced myself and sucked in a mighty, belly-deep breath.

  Luke had approached me as I broke my fast on a mess of boiled wheat and oatmeal with milk and honey, in Derek's kitchens. Returning my nod of greeting, he had sat down across from me and helped himself to a slab of heavy, fresh-baked bread, smearing it with some of the thick honey I had been using to sweeten my oatmeal. We both sat silent for a while, absorbed in the task of eating/Finally, however, Luke sat back, rubbing his hands and wiping a smear of honey fastidiously from the corner of his mouth with the tip of a little finger, and he stared at me wordlessly until I grew uncomfortable, sensing that he had something momentous to say.

  "What? What is it?"

  "That thing on your breast, the mark."

  My stomach swooped and I felt goose-flesh break out across my shoulders.

  "What about it? What have you discovered?"

  "It's what I thought it was, some kind of skin blemish, almost definitely harmless."

  "You have read the scroll, then, the one from the wooden chest in Camulod?"

  "Of course, and it contained nothing of relevance to what you described about your experience with Mordechai — nothing at all that might confirm your fears. You have a blemish there, not any kind of lesion, and, in my belief, most certainly not leprosy."

  I heard a roaring in my ears and the room began to spin about me, so that I had to grip the edge of the table with both hands and breathe deeply. Luke sat watching me, a faint smile playing about his lips. When I had control of myself again, and my breathing had returned to normal, I let go of the table's edge and sat up straighter, expelling one last, deep breath in a great "whoosh" of air. His smile grew broader then and he clapped his hands together.

  "I can see you feel better already."

  I nodded, not yet prepared to trust my voice to speak without wavering.

  "Excellent, now hear what I have to say. In any normal case, I would have prescribed exposure to the sun and air for such a thing. But your fears to date have rendered your affliction abnormal to the point of precluding such treatment, in addition to which it has been winter, too cold to go bare-chested. All of that has changed now and the warm weather is coming. From now on, as much as you are able in fine weather, I want you to go unclothed above the waist. The browning effect of the sun will likely mend what ails you, no matter what it is, and render the thing less conspicuous."

  "I may do that?"

  "May? Of course you may! There is nothing wrong with you, Caius, nor has there been. My original diagnosis now holds true. The sum of my experience, and that of my colleagues down the ages, tells me that you have never been exposed to contagion for long enough to have contracted leprosy, so will you accept that now, once and for all?"

  I nodded again, more slowly now, aware of the incredible sensations of relief and delivery from danger that were surging riotously through my breast and in my mind. "Thank you, my friend," I said, my voice almost inaudible even to me. "You will never know the extent of my gratitude to know that I am clean and unfouled." An image came into my mind, filling my awareness—the image of his lovely, deeply carved and glowing citrus wood chest. For all this time, throughout my agonized imaginings, it had contained the healing balm that would put my mind to rest. And then my curiosity stirred.

  "So what did the scroll have to say about blood and contagion?"

  "Nothing directly concerned with your condition, as I said." Luke folded his arms and leaned back against the wall behind his bench. "It was written by a physician called Oppius, Quinctilius Oppius, a renowned and celebrated teacher in the diagnosis of disease, at Alexandria during the reign of the Emperor Galerius, a hundred years or so ago. Oppius was a great admirer of the work of Galen— have you heard of him? Well, Galen was the greatest physician who ever lived, greater even than Aesculapius. He was born in Pergamum, where his father was an architect, and he studied anatomy in Alexandria before going to Rome, where he remained for forty years, first as personal physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius and then, after Marcus's death, to the emperors Lucius Verus, Commodus and Septimius Severus. Galen was a wondrous writer, inscribing all of his findings and theories on the practice of his art. His treatise On Anatomical Procedure is the greatest medical text ever written, but he wrote also on healing m
ethods, De methodo medendi, and on the natural faculties, and on the movement of the muscles.

  "Galen had been dead a hundred years before Oppius began his work, following the great physician's methods and procedures. It was while Oppius was engaged in working in Asia Minor, at a time when a military action concurred with an outbreak of plague and the medical facilities were overwhelmed, that he became aware of an anomaly that caused the spread of plague infection, in a military ward, among legionaries whose wounds should never have become infected. Oppius formed a theory that these infections might have been caused by the overuse of bandage wrappings that had previously been used to bind plague victims. The wrappings had been washed between uses, of course, but apparently they had not been boiled, which would have been mandatory in less hectic times. We have known for centuries that boiling water cleanses it of impurities. Anyway, Oppius launched himself upon a program to explore this theory of his, and later wrote the treatise that I found long afterward, contending that the careless application of bloody, pus-stained bandages, improperly washed, to open wounds could spread contagion."

  I sat blinking at him. "Does that sound feasible to you?"

  He shrugged his shoulders. "I am not prepared to state an opinion. Pus is part of the healing process, formed by the body's natural purging of the toxins that contaminate a wound or a sore. From that position, knowing that it is an effluent full of contaminants, no sane physician would ever dream of introducing pus from one man's wounds into another's."