by Daniel Diehl
“If we get back.”
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be fine. And I have every confidence that you will dredge up some spectacular tactic from some war over the last sixteen centuries that will guarantee Arthur’s victory.”
Jason mumbled “I appreciate your confidence” but the look on his face did nothing to confirm the wizard’s belief in his ability.
“My point is, my boy, that when we get back we will have another little situation to deal with.”
“Yeah, I know, the dragons.”
“Oh, no, I mean we have something to deal with before we deal with the dragons.”
“Oh, Christ, Merlin, what now?”
“Don’t blaspheme and the ‘what’ is Morgana le Fay.”
“Why do we have to deal with her?”
“First, we still have to rob her library, and then, before we confront the dragons, we have to tell the king that his half-sister is in league with the creatures.”
Jason’s eyes flew wide and his jaw dropped. “You mean HE DOESN’T KNOW?”
Merlin stared hard at Jason, shaking his head slowly back and forth. When his head came to a halt, he whispered “And eventually we’re going to have to deal with her army of mercenaries.” After a long pause he added “And I’m reasonably sure they’re Picts.”
“That’s bad?”
Merlin pressed his eyes shut and nodded his head. “Very bad.”
“Worse than the Saxons?”
“Much.”
“Oh, God.”
* * * *
“I understand how you feel, Beverley, truly I do.” Gwenhwyfar set two small, stemmed goblets of strawberry wine on a delicately carved table, pulled up a stool and sat facing her guest. “I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Arthur ride off to battle, never knowing whether he would come back and, even if he does, will he be in one piece. We all go through it. I suppose this is just one of those things that women have to learn to deal with.”
“Well, it isn’t something this woman has ever had to deal with and I don’t like it one bit.”
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to come from a place where there is no war.”
“Oh, we have wars, it’s just that my country usually has the good sense not to get involved in them, and when we do, our military is all fulltime professional so it doesn’t affect most of us.”
“How strange this place you come from must be. Does your king not fight?”
“Our monarch is a queen and she is quite old, but her grandsons fight.”
“I should like to meet your queen someday.”
“I’m sure she would like to meet you, too, my Lady, but for now, I’m stuck here and I have to find something to do to keep my mind off this battle.”
“That’s always the hardest part – the waiting. Of course, once they come back there will be plenty to do. Inevitably, it’s always the women’s job to tend the wounded. And I warn you, some of the wounds inflicted by the Saxon battle axes are truly horrible.” Gwenhwyfar let out a long, sad sigh. “Most of the badly wounded die, of course, and even some with minor wounds if the poison sets in. But we do what we can to lessen the pain until they find peace.”
Beverley pulled herself upright, leaned forward and stared at the queen. “So what kind of preparations will you make before they come back?”
“Preparations?”
“Yes, like, do you have a place that you use as a hospital?” The look on Gwenhwyfar’s face gave her all the answer she needed and more than she wanted. “Ok. Do you have a real doctor…a surgeon…some kind of a healer to tend the wounded?”
“Oh, now I understand. The praefator makes his ointments and unguents, many of which are highly effective at helping to heal the wounds, but it is we women who actually tend the wounded. Merlin just tells us which ointments and potions are for which purpose and instructs us in how to administer them.”
“And where do you put the wounded?”
“If they live here in Baenin we take them to their homes and look in on them daily, if they are from elsewhere in the kingdom we place them on pallets. We try to keep them outdoors if the weather is nice.”
“Nope. No good. No wonder the wounded die.” Rising to her feet, Beverley extended a hand to Gwenhwyfar, as a request that she, too, should stand. When they were eye-to-eye, Beverley smiled. “My Lady, while the men are off playing war games, you and I are going to set up a proper hospital. Someplace where we can give them twenty-four hour a day care and at least keep them from dying of infection – what you call the poison. The first thing we need to do is find an adequate space. What is the largest single room in Baenin?”
“The largest is my husband’s audiencing hall, the room where we first met, and the next largest space is the chapel.”
“Where is the chapel?”
“Adjacent to the audiencing hall.”
“Well then the king is just going to have to hold his parties somewhere else for a while because those two rooms are going to be the hospital.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to tell Arthur about this.”
“Tell me, my Lady, who is in charge when the men are gone?”
“I am.”
“Then you don’t have to tell him anything, do you?”
For the first time during Beverley’s enthusiastic outburst Gwenhwyfar seemed to join into the spirit of things. Her nod was small but a tiny smile had crept into the corners of her mouth. “No. I guess I don’t.”
“Good. Then the minute the men march out of here, we want to move the furniture out of those two rooms and scrub them down from ceiling to floor. Now, I don’t suppose you happen to have forty or fifty spare beds lying around anywhere, do you?’ The queen shook her head, her eyes wide with confusion. “No, I didn’t assume you did. Well then, we want as many beds as your ladies can round up and any spare mattresses as well. When we run out of mattresses we will have to make do with blankets piled on the floor.”
Now totally absorbed in her work, Beverley began circumnavigating the queen’s small sitting room, counting off things on her fingers and making mental lists. When Bronwyn, the queen’s lady in waiting, came in to check on their wine, Beverley asked Gwenhwyfar if she would ask Bronwyn to have all the ladies of the court join them. Half an hour later Beverley was still rattling off her list of hospital necessities, adding more and more things as they came to mind while the queen’s secretary, Myfanwy, scratched furiously with a small quill pen in a frantic attempt to keep up with Beverley.
When Beverley asked “And what do you use for bandages?” it was Gwenhwyfar’s friend Guendolena who answered.
“Whatever spare cloth we have left over from our sewing, Mistress.”
“Ok. That won’t do. It won’t do at all. I want you to bring me thirty or forty clean white bed sheets. Nothing dyed. Then I want them cut into strips no wider than the palm of your hand and I want them boiled in clean water.”
“Boiled, Mistress?”
“That’s right. Boiled. And I want them to stay in the boiling water for at least fifteen minutes. Then…”
“Mistress?” It was Ganieda who spoke in a small, uncertain voice, curtsying as she did so.
“Yes, Ganeda? Is there something you don’t understand?”
“You say you want the strips of cloth boiled for fifteen minutes… is that right?”
“Yes, and?”
“What is a minute, Mistress?”
“Right.” Thinking to herself, They don’t have the slightest concept of how we measure time, she only paused for a second and said “Boil them for as long as it takes you to eat your lunch.” After a long pause to catch her breath and down a great draught of the queen’s delicate strawberry wine, Beverley pressed on. “What do you use for antiseptic?” When the only response from the ladies was blank looks, she tried again. “What do you use to stop the poison from setting in?”
“The praefator has an ointment for that, Mistress.”
“And does it work?”
> “Sometimes, Mistress.”
“Not good enough.”
Looking more confident than she had all afternoon, Gwenhwyfar looked up from her chair, smiled and coughed gently. Realizing that she may have seriously overstepped the bounds of courtly propriety, Beverley stopped talking, curtsied and said “Yes my Lady?”
“Mistress Beverley, be assured that we deeply appreciate your desire to help save the lives of our wounded menfolk, but before we proceed, I have one question.”
“Yes my Lady?”
“Is this really going to work?”
“Not everyone can be saved even under the most ideal conditions or with the most skilled physicians. But I guarantee you than far less will die with proper care than will surely die without it.”
“Then there is nothing more to be discussed. We will do as you ask. What do you want next?”
For a moment Beverley had no idea what to do about finding an effective antiseptic. She needed alcohol. The only things in this world with alcohol in them were the ale and the wine, but it wasn’t nearly strong enough to kill germs and prevent infection. How could she make it stronger? Then it came to her. “Do you have a potter here at Baenin, my Lady?”
“My husband is our potter but he’s going to battle with the rest of the men.” The shy Bronwyn’s voice was hardly audible from behind Gwenhwyfar’s shoulder, the place where she perpetually stood both from a sense of duty and for protection.
“Do you ever fire the kiln for him, Bronwyn?” The wheels inside Beverley’s head were turning furiously now.
“Sometimes, Mistress.”
“Do you think you could carry out an entire firing by yourself.” When the queen’s lady in waiting seemed unsure how to answer, Beverley prompted her. “I mean without him to help you?”
The girl did not answer until Gwenhwyfar turned to look at her and nodded encouragingly. Finally, Bronwyn whispered “I think so, Mistress.”
“Is your husband in his shop now?”
“No, Mistress, he is with the others, practicing maneuvers.”
“Well,” Beverley said, wiping a hand across her mouth, “I took a pottery class once so I guess we’re going to find out if I learned anything.”
Three hours later Beverley, Bronwyn and a curious Queen Gwenhwyfar were huddled around the small potter’s wheel staring at the product of Beverley’s efforts. She had created two separate vessels. The first looked very much like a two-foot-tall teardrop with three short legs under it, but it had been cut in half, horizontally, just above its widest point. The upper half of the vessel had a small opening at the pointy apex and around the lower edge it had been fitted with a lip so it would fit securely over the lower bowl. The other object looked exactly like a small teapot with an extra-long spout.
“There” said Beverley. “With any luck they won’t crack when they dry and we can fire them in a day or so. To get enough antiseptic prepared in the time we have, I’ll probably need two more just like this one. I can make them in the morning after the men leave.”
The queen leaned forward, hands clasped behind her back, inspecting the strange, cone shaped top section, the bowl-like bottom with three delicate legs and the funny little pot with the long spout.
“They really are very attractive, Beverley. What are they?”
“It’s called an alembic. It is a device used by wizards to extract the healing elements found in certain substances, including wine.”
“Can you share its secret with us…so we can heal others after you and Jason return to your homeland?”
It was at this point that Beverley realized she was about to commit the same terrible sin Jason had committed when he designed the stirrup. Two days earlier she had kicked his ankle to stop him from explaining what a chimney was and now she was on the verge of sharing knowledge of the distillation process which should not be known in the western world for another six hundred years. She could always destroy the alembic and let infection take its natural course among those men with wounds both large and small. No, there was no way she could do that, and she knew it. No one with even a single shred of decency could just stand by and watch people die when they knew how to save the vast majority of their lives.
“Of course, my Lady. The process is called distillation and all we need to do is fill the lower bowl half full of strong wine, place a small fire under the alembic and the healing essences hidden in the wine will rise in the form of vapors and come out of the hole in the top in the form of steam. To collect these essences, we set the little pot upside-down over the top and the steam will condense into a liquid and come out the spout. We just need a clean beaker to catch the liquid in. With three of these we should be able to make enough medicine to deal with the majority of the wounds by the time the army gets back from Vaddon.”
“Is that all there is to it? Are there no incantations to say, magical potions to prepare, nothing like that?”
“That’s all there is to it; wine in the alembic and fire enough to bring it to a very low boil. Don’t let the wine boil away or the vessel with crack. Just keep adding wine when it gets low and clean it thoroughly between distillations.”
The queen’s eyes were riveted on the cone shaped object standing in front of her with the fascination and reverence normally reserved for some holy relic that miraculously held the power to heal by touch alone. “That’s amazing. This could save hundreds of lives.” Turning her head toward Beverley, she added “How can we ever thank you?”
“That’s why Merlin brought us here, to assist you. No thanks are necessary.” Inside her head she was thinking, It also makes one hell-of-a brandy so, whatever else you do, try to keep Merlin away from it.
Chapter Ten
The night sky was still as black as pitch when Jason stumbled into Merlin’s laboratory, mumbling incoherently about black coffee and the “ungodly hour” at which he had been shaken out of bed by one of the king’s pages who insisted the Praefator needed him. Across the room from where he stood rubbing his eyes, Merlin was hunched over one corner of his workbench, his hands passing back and forth through the air, leaving gold and blue streamers as his fingers moved ceaselessly, scribing invisible runes in the atmosphere. When Jason headed in his direction, Merlin glanced over his shoulder, motioning for him to join him. Returning his attention to the table, Merlin went back to muttering incantations in Latin, his hands never pausing in their mission of invisible writing. In front of him sat a thick walled black bowl nearly filled with water; dotted across its surface were the remnants of powerful herbs that imparted special, magical properties to the potion.
“What do you want? It’s the middle of the night.”
Pausing in his incantations, Merlin snapped “Time to be up. We have work to do. We’ll be leaving in a few hours, anyway.”
Pulling his head back from the bowl, the sorcerer snapped his fingers once, causing tiny sparks to fly from their tips into the bowl, making it erupt in a tower of flame that shot to the ceiling with a deafening whoosh.
“Ok. Now I’m awake. So what do you want me for?”
Fanning the billowing cloud of smoke away from the bowl, Merlin leaned forward, motioning Jason to join him. Craning his neck, Jason peered into the swirling depths of the ink-black water as the ripples slowly settled out to be replaced with images of what appeared to be a military campsite. A few sleepy men – almost all of them tall, blond haired and heavily built – were doing early morning things; crawling out of bedrolls, stoking fires and pulling on their clothes.
“Those, my boy, are the Saxons. Tomorrow morning Arthur’s army will be lined up in the middle of some field, facing them, waiting to see who lives and who dies.”
Jason leaned closer, staring at the small reflection of reality. “Big guys, aren’t they? How many of them do you think there are?”
“I’m having trouble keeping count. Their number seems to change. I think they send out small raiding parties who come and go at random. Overall I guess somewhere between seven and eight hund
red; an average sized army.”
Jason looked up at Merlin. “That isn’t a lot different than ours, is it?”
“Almost identical. The same as it was the last time I went through this time period. That’s why it’s so important that we have superior tactics. With the numbers so closely matched the outcome of the battle will be determined by superiority of wit, not superiority of force. The Saxons like superiority of number but we have denied them that advantage; now we have to outsmart them.” Locking his hypnotic blue gaze on Jason, he cocked his head slightly to one side before continuing. “Have you given any thought to possible tactics and maneuvers?”
Rubbing one hand furiously through his hair to clear his mind, Jason shook his head. “I have to know what kind of tactics Arthur normally uses before I can come up with possible alternatives.”
“I understand. I will see to it that you have his undivided attention during the early hours of the march. That will give you the maximum time to think.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Shifting mental gears, Jason pointed to the bowl. “So what is that thing? I heard you say something to the king about watching the Saxons in your scrying bowl. I didn’t know quite what you meant.”
“Remember, glass mirrors are unknown here. The only mirrors we have are made of bronze and they don’t work for scrying. The secret here is the bowl itself. It’s made of jet.”
“You mean like they use for jewelry, the stuff that looks like shiny coal?”
“The same. And good jet is only found in the north of Britain. I’ll make you one and show you how to imbue it with the proper incantations when we get back.” Lowering his head to peer through the one, small window in his workroom, Merlin pointed to dozens of silhouetted figures running back and forth from the surviving stable block across the courtyard garden. “You had better get dressed. We’ll be leaving in an hour or so.”
As Jason turned to leave, Merlin dumped the water from the bowl into a slop bucket, wrapped the jet container in a towel and stuffed it in his saddle bag. “And wear that coat of ring mail I gave you…and those leather breeches.”