by M. K. Hume
Isaac cleaned his hands and, using an unusual thread, began to stitch the skin of the lower half of the wound together. Unlike Myrddion, he created individual stitches set some distance apart. The lower half of the wound was then smeared with more of the healer’s special salve.
‘Why are the stitches so far apart?’ Myrddion asked, having observed every movement of the Jew’s large, deft hands. ‘Won’t the resultant scar be very ugly?’
‘If the wound is only partially sealed, it will continue to drain. What’s a scar compared with keeping your arm?’
The area where the abscess had formed was an ugly hole in the fleshy underside of the envoy’s forearm, just below the elbow. Both healers agreed that the scarring would be considerable and the lost flesh would leave a hollow that would always mar the appearance of the arm. However, once Isaac finished the dressing, he stated his belief that the arm had probably been saved.
‘You’re certain?’ Myrddion asked hesitantly, for the situation had been very grave only five hours earlier.
‘No, I’m not certain. I’m a healer, not a prophet. But Cleoxenes has a fighting chance if he remains very quiet, doesn’t move his arm and keeps it regularly dressed.’
‘But he’ll insist on leaving for the Padus river tomorrow. Surely he’s endangering himself.’ Myrddion saw the whole idea as foolish, even though he was sworn to assist Cleoxenes to fulfil his duty.
‘He’ll need regular nursing if he’s to survive the journey,’ Isaac warned, his bushy brows twitching with the energy that always seemed to fuel him. ‘Are you prepared for that?’
‘Aye,’ Myrddion sighed. ‘I’ll go with Cleoxenes and prevent any stupidity on his part. I’ll also take one of the women to watch over him if I need to sleep.’
‘If you really intend to go, we’ll let him wake naturally. But taking a woman on such a long journey isn’t wise. This delegation is going into the heart of enemy territory and I, personally, wouldn’t want the responsibility for a woman’s life on my hands. You need to leave your apprentices behind to run your surgery – a reasonable decision – but you should take servants to share the nursing duties on the journey. The Lord knows there are servants enough in this house. Whatever you decide, that arm must remain immobile for the next twenty-four hours, with a new dressing every day from then on. Perhaps even two if you feel they are needed.’
‘Your plan is sound.’ Myrddion nodded. ‘Thank you for your advice.’
‘Can your apprentices watch over Cleoxenes for a while? They seem well trained.’
‘They are.’ Myrddion explained their abilities and backgrounds while Cadoc and Finn stood by, red-faced, as they heard themselves praised by their master.
‘Then walk with me! We’ll see if that steward can find us some ice water and something to eat. I left without breaking my fast and a man of my age needs to keep up his strength.’ Isaac patted his ample girth and Myrddion clearly heard the Jew’s stomach rumble.
As soon as food was demanded, Pincus became his usual deft self, and once Isaac was ensconced in the kitchens Myrddion was certain that no power on earth could convince the older healer to move. Fortunately, Pincus also realised that Roman manners were of no consequence to Isaac, who would happily sit and eat wherever he chose. Within moments, the kitchen staff magically conjured up a bowl of plump olives, two cold quails meant for Cleoxenes’s meal the night before, a hefty wedge of goat cheese, flat bread, several fresh apples and a bowl of assorted nuts and seeds. Pincus offered them wine, but Isaac refused, his brows suddenly knitting like two demented caterpillars.
‘Can we have ice?’ he asked with the greedy anticipation of a child, causing Pincus to smile in a rather indulgent manner.
‘Of course, master healer. Pincus will supply whatever you require.’
‘Before you continue with your duties, Pincus, I need to organise transport for your master on the trip to Mantua,’ Myrddion said. ‘It’s a task that requires your particular skills.’
Pincus nodded, so Myrddion explained that they must find the fastest possible, but least uncomfortable, means of transport. Pincus seemed unconcerned and explained that he had an acquaintance who could supply them with a good carriage and a litter, as well as a supply wagon to carry food, medical supplies and clothing. He assured the healers that everything needed for a trip from Rome to Mantua, likely to take several weeks, would be available by the next morning.
Myrddion gulped down a deep draught of ice water with a sigh of relief. The mechanics of the journey had been worrying him all through the night, and he thanked Pincus profusely. The servant appeared to be pleased and bowed before leaving the healers to their repast.
‘I swear that you’ve got a smooth way about you, young man. That shifty slave was eating out of your hand by the time you’d finished flattering him. Tell me about yourself. Up until now we’ve not had time to scratch ourselves, let alone talk.’
As he spoke, Isaac did indeed begin to scratch himself, and Myrddion tried hard not to smile. He was a little offended by Isaac’s rude assessment of Pincus’s character, but he was coming to appreciate that the Jew spoke intemperately as a matter of course. He gave Isaac a brief outline of his life and the path that had led him to Rome. The Jew asked some sharp, embarrassing questions about his parentage, which Myrddion tried to answer honestly, but his words seemed to choke in his throat when he described his mother’s rape, his painful childhood and the death of his grandmother.
‘Families!’ Isaac said in disgust. The Jew’s face was momentarily lugubrious, while his black eyes appeared suspiciously moist. ‘It’s amazing how we mess up our lives trying to live up to the expectations of others . . . or live down the sins of our fathers.’
‘You speak from experience?’
‘No . . . not entirely. Anyway, my past life is unimportant – as is yours. We’re healers, and we live in the most diseased city in the world. We should be concerned with the fates of our patients rather than our own.’
Myrddion detected more than a trace of resentment in Isaac’s voice, as well as anger that simmered just beneath the surface of the healer’s expressive face. He also noticed that Isaac had deflected the conversation away from his own background.
‘Why do you describe Rome as diseased? I know the city is in decline, that good food is highly priced and the river is polluted, but the population is the cleanest I’ve ever seen and most people have shelter and sufficient food for their needs. I’ve visited large cities that are far more filthy than Rome. Personal cleanliness is a natural part of daily life here.’
‘That’s true, my boy, but haven’t you noticed the number of patients who suffer strange maladies such as headaches, aching bones, walking difficulties, vomiting, too many bone fractures, madness? I can list dozens of strange, disconnected symptoms that make no sense to me. I have never seen the like in any other major city in the Empire.’
‘Since you mention it, even in the short time I’ve been in Rome I’ve treated at least six patients with non-specific symptoms that I can’t explain – but surely . . .’
Isaac slammed his fist down on a walnut with unnecessary force. The nutshell shattered and the plump kernel was pulverised.
‘Shite, Myrddion, I’ve studied such patients for more than five years. I think of little else, for something is poisoning the citizens of Rome . . . reaching even beyond its borders. Something is killing the Empire . . . and I can’t, for all my skill, discover what it is.’
Myrddion understood the frustrations of failure. One hand reached over the tabletop to grip Isaac’s shoulder in sympathy. ‘What symptoms have you noticed, master? Perhaps a new perspective might help. I’m an outsider, a newcomer. Perhaps I’ll see something that you’ve missed.’
Isaac grinned at the accidental insult without taking offence. ‘I’ve only established that the symptoms are infuriatingly vague. The mortality rate is huge and it strikes more patrician families than plebeians. But what does that tell us?’
‘That the dis
ease is somehow dependent on wealth? If that is so, it must be food-related.’
‘But must it? I would hazard a guess that the slaves and servants in this house eat what their master does, only less of it. The same applies to all the patrician families I’ve studied. But the slaves never seem to have the symptoms. Or they have them so rarely that the number isn’t worth considering. Slaves of the patricians eat better than plebs in the suburas, so they should be sicker than the poor. But they’re not.’
‘It’s a mystery,’ Myrddion murmured. He cut a long slice of cheese and ate it reflectively. ‘So the disease must stem from a specific food or drink that only Romans ingest. But I don’t know where that conclusion leads us.’
‘Agreed. It’s easier to hold back the Tiber than to check each food item sufferers ingest and then try to cross-reference their diets for a commonality. I know. I’ve tried.’
‘Permit me to dwell on the problem?’ Myrddion asked hesitantly. ‘I have been concerned about my patients since I first arrived in Rome, so the puzzle will be a profitable pastime for the long hours of travel that lie ahead of me. I’d be grateful if I could consult you when I return. I know I’m too old to be your apprentice, Isaac, but there is so much that I would like to learn from you. Perhaps I can assist you, in repayment, by offering a different perspective on the Roman disease.’
Isaac peered at his young companion from under his shaggy, expressive brows. ‘Shite, boy, but I like you! You’re a competent healer as well, which is a rarity in these days. You’ll always be welcome at my rooms when you return. I don’t envy you the days and weeks ahead of you, that’s certain.’
‘Nor do I. Somehow I’ve been manoeuvred into any number of difficult situations since I left Cymru. Do men ever control their own destinies?’
With a hoot of laughter, Isaac popped a handful of olives into his mouth and chewed vigorously before spitting out the pits. He slapped his leg and laughed again, even more loudly, once he’d swallowed. Myrddion began to feel offended.
‘Don’t stiffen up on me, lad, for I’m not precisely laughing at you. We’re all such fools, trying to be free, yet choosing those paths that lead us into captivity.’ He sobered a little. ‘We’re healers, lad, and so we can never be free. We must struggle to save others our whole lives long, at the cost of the freedom to marry, to choose our own place to live or to sleep through the night without interruption. We go where there is pain and suffering, and we do what must be done. Of course we don’t control our own destinies. We are healers: we are the servants of fate.’
Myrddion stared along the narrow, rutted track that led to Mantua. Hostilia lay several miles behind them over the great Roman bridge that crossed the Padus river, servicing the Via Cassia that ran from Rome all the way through deep gorges in the Alpes Venetae to the lands ruled by Attila. The journey had been punishing on Cleoxenes and difficult for Myrddion, whose role was to ensure that the envoy could contribute to the delegation that would meet Attila, the Dread of the World, on the morrow.
The journey along the Via Cassia had impressed Myrddion more than he had expected, for these roads were not the more quickly constructed and rarely maintained Roman roads of Britain. The long dead engineers who had designed these networks had built them to last, as they had. On a foundation of carefully laid rock constructed over a gravel base, stone paving blocks were used as a finish to provide a durable and gentle surface for the passage of litters, wagons, carts and chariots. Every ten miles or so, fresh horses could be obtained, while inns dotted the countryside through which the great roads marched, as straight as a spear for the most part, so that weary travellers could find a bed on which to rest in comfort.
At the beginning of the journey, Cleoxenes had still been very drowsy and vague because his abused body craved rest as it began the healing process. The envoy’s manservants had placed pallets of wool, linen sheets and comfortable cushions in the travelling wagon so that Cleoxenes could lie in relative comfort under the covered roof. Two horses drew the cart, guided by a driver who sat in the open on a raised platform. One of the bodyguards served this purpose, although he grumbled throughout the whole two weeks of travel that this task wasn’t part of his normal duties. A second wagon was piled high with supplies and a heavy carrying litter rested atop the leather cover. Before they left Rome, Myrddion realised that a litter would be necessary, especially in the Mons Apenninus, a mountain range that wasn’t as high as the Alpes, but was difficult to negotiate by cart. The second bodyguard drove this vehicle.
Myrddion rode his horse, leading a spare mount. In addition, four other body servants accompanied the small cavalcade, taking turns on the wagons or riding the sturdy mules that made surprisingly good speed.
Concerned as he was for Cleoxenes’s comfort, Myrddion was worried at first about the state of the roads. However, the heavy traffic out of Rome, consisting of litters, horsemen, farm wagons and carriages, not to mention several centuries of foot soldiers marching northward, slowed their progress to walking pace for long enough to reassure him that his patient would not be jolted too much on the well-maintained highway even when they picked up speed.
The ancient city of Veii, originally one of the great centres of the Etruscans, the first rulers of Italia, passed quickly. One sculpture in particular caught Myrddion’s attention. Sited in a large square near the Forum, the figure appeared strange and inhuman, and seemed to stride on its plinth as if it was ready to explode out of its restraint of stone, leap to the ground and charge down the wide road. Strangely, the eyes were large and blinded, while the mouth smiled at its corners with a distant, peculiar knowledge that chilled the healer’s blood. If Ceridwen were translated into stone, she would smile in just this way. Traces of brilliant paint could still be seen in creases in the marble, so Myrddion realised that the sculpture had once been coloured in red, black, white and ochre to ape natural colours when it sat in its temple. Wind, weather and more than a thousand years had bleached the sculpture white, like a spirit or a corpse.
‘That’s the Apollo,’ one of the servants explained when he saw Myrddion’s eyes riveted on the chilling, smiling face. Something about the gentle, all-seeing smile and the curls that clustered around the face before falling in long ringlets down the neck made the Celt shudder.
Later, the Via Cassia wound close to Lake Volsiniensis, a wide, glittering blue expanse encircled by rising hills that conspired to slow their passage. Then, as they passed the city of Volsinii, Myrddion noticed that many of the buildings were marred by empty, shutterless holes in their whitewashed walls which looked like so many blinded, black eyes. They screamed out that few occupants remained in what had once been a thriving community.
At Clusium, the party stayed in a rather smelly inn. Cleoxenes seemed much more alert, and after his dressings were changed Myrddion lingered with him to talk, in preference to joining the servants in the small, poorly ventilated space where all seven men were forced to lie on straw on the cold, unadorned floor.
‘So! Will I keep my arm, Myrddion, worker of miracles?’
‘So far, yes. The lower part of the wound is healing nicely. In fact, a scab is beginning to form. As for the place where the infection was at its worst, I won’t need to drain it any further, which is a positive sign. Incidentally, you wouldn’t be here without the salves of Isaac, so don’t give me the credit for your cure.’
Cleoxenes sipped water, for Myrddion refused to permit him to drink wine at this stage of his recovery. Like most healers, he believed that wine overheated the blood. Myrddion had long adopted the ‘better safe than sorry’ axiom, so he had personally supervised the boiling and bottling of water during their passage along the Via Cassia, in spite of being the butt of many crude jokes for his precise instructions. He was unconcerned by the laughter, for he was practised at presenting a bland, uncomprehending face when he chose to do so.
‘I’ll turn into a fish if I keep drinking this stuff,’ Cleoxenes joked. ‘I won’t complain, however. Frankly, two close
encounters with death in a short period of time are two temptations of fate too many.’
‘What was the first one?’ Myrddion asked curiously.
‘The fall where I was injured. I was called to meet a messenger from Constantinople at an inn on the Via Clodia. The building wasn’t in particularly good order and some fool had failed to repair some of the rungs on the staircase. They were very loose. My foot went right through one, and as I pulled my leg out I leaned my full weight on the railing, which then gave way. The next thing I knew, I was falling. As I said, the building wasn’t in good order, so I was lucky to save myself by hanging on to the rail as I fell, even though something slit my arm open as I slid downwards. I could just as easily have been killed.’
Myrddion wondered if Cleoxenes saw the flaw in his memory of the accident. ‘What was the message?’
‘The message?’
‘The reason you were at the inn in the first place,’ Myrddion prompted.
‘I don’t know. By the time my arm was cleaned up, the messenger had gone. I was rather annoyed, for I’d been waiting for instructions from Constantinople for days. But anyway, a scroll arrived by courier two nights later.’
Myrddion’s face was thoughtful and troubled. Cleoxenes didn’t understand the significance of the missing messenger, but Myrddion did.
After Clusium, they came to the ruins of Aquileia. Myrddion had seen the Hungvari techniques of terror at Tournai and Cambrai, but he wasn’t prepared for the scope of the wanton destruction vented on this pretty walled town on the Arnus river. The roadway through the city had been cleared to permit the movement of Aetius’s troops to the north, but otherwise it was left as Attila had last seen it from atop a nearby fortress.
All the timber structures of Aquileia had been burned to their foundations. The heat must have been ferocious, because the stone and marble had cracked and split in the maelstrom of the resultant firestorm. Here and there, a sculpture stood, headless, on its stone plinth, blackened and streaked by fire. Columns had collapsed in the heat, bringing down carved porticos and red brick roofs. In several places the heat had been so intense that the brick had melted and puddled. Within this hell of flame, nothing could have survived.