by Smith, Skye
After a deep breath through the pain, he swirled the shot in the sling, and then loosed. It completely missed Roland, but hit the horse on the flank and the half wild beast kicked out at the priest, and connected, hard. The priest slumped to the ground holding his knee, and screaming.
While keeping his left arm rigid, to keep his wound from being wrenched open, Raynar stumbled towards the priest. Roland was in such agony from his broken knee and making such a noise that he did not hear Raynar come up behind him; did not hear him pick up the very sword that was red with his own blood; and did not see that same sword plunge through the back of his neck. The last thing Raynar remembered was that he was so thankful that Roland had stopped screaming like a girl, and there was quiet again to match the blackness.
* * * * *
"Leave him to die," were the words. A male voice. What language? A type of French. He could almost understand. The main words anyway. He tried to speak but his mouth was parched and his tongue thick.
"He is a holy man. We cannot leave him like this." A woman’s voice. Was it Anske, his Valkyrie, come to claim him. He tried to tell her that he was Raynar, her husband, her lover, a warrior, not a monk. Where was his voice?
"A holy man who just killed three, including a priest of Rome. Look at the muscles in his arms and legs. He is no man of god. Leave him here to die."
Some water cooled his lips. He licked at it. Now there was some in his mouth. Oh, what a paradise cool water was. Now there was water washing his face. "Help me," he whispered. He could hear his own voice. He opened his eyes and tried to focus them. A woman with dark hair and dark skin and a large nose between two dark eyes, stared back at him. Very much not the fair Anske. "Help me. I can pay."
A shadow crossed the bright gray light in the sky, the November sun behind low clouds. A man caused the shadow. He bent lower to see. "You have nothing to pay with. We have already taken everything. Thank you for that. Now hurry up and die so we can hide your body with the others in the marsh."
Raynar reach up clumsily with his right hand and caught a handful of the woman’s cloak. "Help me." She tried to pull his hand away, but that just served to make it push under her cloak and against her breast. He pulled it away gently, slowly. She grabbed his wrist and held his hand in place hovering over her breast, the she moved his hand and made it hover near her throat.
"We must save this man," she said to the man.
"Why?"
"He has the touch. He is a healer. He is a true holy man, like one of our own.” The man tried to pull her to her feet but she hit out at him. "Help me lift him into the boat so I can take him home. Careful, his wound has stopped bleeding, but it has not knitted." She pulled at the torn fabric of his habit to see his wound, but the silk shirt blocked her view. "I would prefer to stitch it together before we move him, but I have nothing with me to do that."
The pain of the lifting and carrying was so great that Raynar was relieved when the blackness came again.
* * * * *
"Who are you?" Raynar asked the big nosed woman who was admiring her neat stitches that wrapped around his side and back.
"Sarah," she said and smiled at him with big white teeth.
"My name is Ra..."
"Raynar, citizen captain of Venice," she said putting a finger to his lips to stop him from talking. "Yes I know. I read it on your medallion. But you need sleep, not talk. Sip this syrup. It is honey and poppy juice. It is bitter despite the honey, but if you take it all it will make you sleep."
"When I am asleep, and can no longer feel it, wash my wound with wine," he said between slurps of the vile tasting syrup.
"I did that before I began stitching, as I did with the needle and the threads."
Raynar was amazed. Even physicians did not know such things. "How did you know to do this?"
"I am of the Yehudim. We know many things. Now sleep."
* * * * *
The hut, Sarah's hut, was so similar to the huts of the Frisians of the Fens that Raynar kept drifting in and out of reality. Even as he healed and gained strength, enough to sit outside and watch village life, the similarity tended to confuse his reality with his dreams. This hut was built on a man made mound, a mound high enough that it stayed dry even when rain or tides swelled the waterways that were all around them. Just like the hut islands in the Fens. Just like the manmade islands in Venice’s lagoon, but on a much smaller scale.
The hut was built of materials common in the marshes like rushes and reeds, just like in the Fens. The land that connected hut mound to hut mound was raised and diked and used for kitchen gardens, just like in the Fens. The village was on a low island, and the only way to it was by boat. This was a delta of a river, so there was no stone, only silt and mud. There were damp forests and pasture land close by, but the villagers stayed safe by living on this damp island.
The diet was just like that of the Frisians, fish and dairy, but as a treat, they also ate very large pink birds that tasted like a cross between chicken and fish. It was a damp place so the folk did their work dressed in scraps of clothing, and only dressed in their warmer, dryer clothes when work was finished and when they wanted to get warm and dry again.
Everyone stank, but not of fish. They all smeared the jelly of a fat leaf on their skin, especially on exposed places, and the jelly had an odor to it. Sarah even spread it on Raynar's skin. When he asked her if it was to stop skin mushrooms from growing, she laughed and replied. "Not just to stop the mushrooms, but also to stop the moustique flies from biting. The moustique suck blood so they can carry blood poisons from person to person. Very unclean."
There were also differences to the Fens. The Frisians of the Fens were tall, thin of hip, fair, and had small noses. These people were short, wide of hip, dark, and had large noses. The Frisians raised pigs and fished for crayfish and catfish, because they enjoyed the sweet meats. These people did not eat pig or any form of bottom feeder. "Our elders tell us it is a religious law," Sarah told him, "but really it is for health reason. Pigs and bottom feeders are shit eaters, and spread illnesses.
The folk of Arles call our people Ligures, and leave us alone because we have lived here since ancient times, and therefore have a right to live here. They are wrong, of course. We are Yehudim who were shipped here and stranded by the Roman Empire, so we would stop causing political problems for them in our land of Judea in your Holy Land."
"So, what do you call yourselves."
"Magdelenas, because one of the original women was Princess Magdelene, the wife of the prophet prince Jesus. But we are more than happy to be called Ligures because we fear the Romanized priests. Our men are quite angry with you for killing that one on our lands. They fear that others will come searching for him."
"Yehudim, so you are Semites like Arabs, and worship the Christian God."
"The God of us all," she corrected.
"Sorry, I am always confused by the desert religions with their preaching of the one true god, while shaking different gospels at each other and killing each other over words written by men in ancient times."
She laughed at the truth of this, and said, "And what do you call your God?"
"The one I pray to the most is Freyja, the moon goddess. The goddess of tides, and fertility, and healing. Real things. Important things. Women's things," he reached for her hand and held it. "Thank you for your care."
"My village has been well paid," she said softly, looking into his eyes, and sighing. "We will give you back your things, but the things of the other men we will sell and those coins will be useful this winter."
"The priest had a scroll pipe with him. May I keep it?"
"Ah, of course, you need the passport of the Pope to keep you safe while you travel. The scrolls are no use to us. You may take them. Don't look at me like that. Our elders read Latin. We are a learned people, though not always wise. When do you leave?"
"That is for you to say," he replied softly. "I am in your care."
"A month then, if you
do not pull your stitches, and if you do not come down with a fever."
"Here, in this hut, with you?"
"You must be feeling better. That is a good sign. Why not with me? I am a widow, and no longer young enough or pretty enough to attract another husband. That is why I gave my larger hut to my sons, and now stay here in the healing hut. Anything to get away from the shrews they chose to marry. Of course you may stay with me. Anything to get those shrewish tongues wagging in envy."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith
Chapter 25 - The children of Jesus in the Camargue in December 1081
He absolutely loved living with Sarah. Once in his youth he had stayed in similar circumstances, that is wounded and cared for by a healer. That time had been with Inka, the Frisian seer and healer. This time with Sarah brought forward in his mind the memories of his times with Inka. Thinking of what he had learned from Inka made him also remember Inka's daughter Gesa.
He had slept with both of them. Not at the same time of course, because Inka had been burned as a witch by a Norman priest while Gesa was still a little girl. A Norman priest very much like the one he had just killed. Inka's woeful, painful death had made Gesa determined never be a seer or a healer like her mother.
Instead Gesa was now a courtesan of the Paris court of Queen Bertha, the consort to Philip. Of course she was still a seer and a healer. They were gifts of the goddess that you could not ignore. However she was not known as a seer, but as the most successful courtesan in Paris. Bertha's agent in all things, her confident, her physician, her bodyguard, and of course, her best friend.
Just as Inka had taught him the healing ways of the Frisian Fens, so now he shared this knowledge with Sarah, while she taught him the healing ways of the Yehudim of the Camarch. She even tried to teach him the Hebrew alphabet. Tried, but did not succeed. He learned Hebrew words and simple phrases verbally, but the alphabet was nothing like anything he had ever seen before and it would just not stick in his head.
As the drizzle of November turned into the raindrops of December, she gave up on teaching him Hebrew and instead taught him the dialect of French spoken in the south of France. The French of the south, of the Languedoc, was very different from the French of the north. Even the words for yes were different, ok rather than oui.
She also taught him the difference between the Christians of Languedoc and the Romanized Franks. The Christians of the Languedoc did not have professional priests or consecrated churches. They believed that speaking with God did not require an interpreter paid by the Pope, who was the lord of a holy building owned by the Pope. They were nicolaites, where any lay man could read and preach scriptures.
"For that reason," Sarah told him, "both the Byzantine and the Romanized priests call them Gnostics and hate them. Hate them even more than they hate each other, or hate the Mussulmen.” She was quiet while he thought about her words. "Of course, this hatred is for the same reason that the temple priests of Judea hated our prophet Jesus, to the point where they had Herod and the Romans crucify him.
Jesus was a follower of the teachings of the prophet Moses. Moses forbade priests and temples. He taught that they were not only unnecessary, but that they always eventually caused greed, then corruption, and then slavery."
"I have noticed this in my travels," Raynar replied. "Every time I am shown a giant stone building or wall, I am also told that it was built by slaves. It is as if the only way that you can afford to build with stone is by capturing slaves. The Normans lords are a good example. They turn their people into slaves so that they can build stone castles to protect themselves from people who are angered at being forced into slavery."
"Well Jesus, like Moses, taught under the shade of trees, or in tents, and there were no priests, just wisemen and elders who would teach the people and their children. That was the old Yehudim way. Even the prophet King David was told by God not to build temples. That all changed with the prophet King Solomon. He built stone temples and created a priest class to be the keepers of the temples. My people have been suffering ever since, all because of the greed attached to temples."
"Of course," he replied, "if you build a wonderful stone temple, then your city must be rich, and you must be slave masters. Eventually there will come a greedy warlord who has promised mercenaries a rich plunder if they conquer your city, and take you as slaves."
"We Magdelenas have no priests, and want none. Have no temples, and want none. And we do not build of stone."
"You have no stone," Raynar laughed aloud stretching out his arms and waving them at the low swampy land all around them. "You live in a land of mud and silt."
Her pride was injured but just for a moment, and then she laughed too. "It was our teachings, centuries ago, that helped the Gnostic societies to form here in Languedoc. Our teachings are simple and they make sense."
More than just their philosophy was simple and made sense. Their rules of health, and ways of healing were also simple and made sense. In the Fens, Inka had once taught him to cut into a man's skin only with a sharp blade made of polished silver, because then the cut heals faster. Sarah's teachings about silver went far beyond that.
"We all carry a silver spoon for eating, but it also tests the food," she told him. "Most poisons will turn silver black. Spoiled food will change the color of a silver spoon, ever so slightly, but you will notice the change. Silver turns dark as it tries to kill the poison, or the illness. I will give you one of our spoons as a present."
And there was so much else, like, that they were surrounded by water, but water that you could not drink. They made drinking water by filtering river water through a fine cloth, twice, and then boiling it and then letting it cool. And not just a simple boiling, but bringing it to a boil, taking it off the heat for a moment, then boiling it again, and taking it off, and then boiling it a third time.
Everything was looked upon as clean or unclean, and these folk tried to live their entire lives following the clean ways. Even the men, although they never actually looked clean. They were very dark, with long dark hair and long dark beards, and eyes that were like coals. Their bodies were covered with dark hair, even on their backs.
At first the men resented him and wanted him to leave. Later he was accepted, after he told them stories of Venice, and of how the wealthy island city had begun as islands created for harvesting salt, just like the islands that these men had created to harvest salt. Once accepted by the men, they begin to sit with him and speak with him. Raynar told them how similar their life was, making salt from sea water, and fishing, and making small boats, to the life of the original Venetians before they built ships and began to trade with places like Egypt.
After a few days of telling these things to the younger men, the elders began to sit with him. They already knew much about Venice. They asked him to stop speaking of Venice, and of the wealth that was there. Apparently, these villages lost many young men to the ships that came here from the island of Ibiza, where there was a thriving commune of Yehudim who traded with Venice.
Once he was accepted by the men, if not encouraged, life became easier for Sarah. No longer was she shunned for bringing a stranger into their village. Life became easier for Raynar as he healed. When Sarah was away from him doing her chores, he would fill his time with trying to learn the Hebrew alphabet. He even explored a chest, sealed against the damp, within which, stored between layers of chalk dust, were some very old scrolls, and even a codex, all in Hebrew.
Sarah scolded him severely for opening the chest on a damp day. She hovered busily as she gently repacked the contents, all the while sniffing at them to make sure that there was no scent of must. "They are so old," she explained. "From the time when my people were sent here by the Romans. The damp will destroy them."
"The chest was not locked," he said softly, in a feeble excuse for his nosing through things that were not his.
"There are no locks in our villages,"
she replied absent mindedly.
"Then copy them. It is not the paper that is valuable, but the thoughts."
"We fear to make copies. If a copy fell into the wrong hands, it could mean our destruction."
"Oh come now. What is in them. The recipe for Greek fire."
She looked at him and sighed. Did he already know, from reading them? Was his Hebrew good enough to translate the title and the author. "If I tell you, then you must swear never to tell another. Never."
"I swear. I would never bring harm to your village. You saved my life."
"One of the scrolls the gospel of the daughter of our prophet, and another is the bloodline tree of her children."
"Your prophet. You mean the prophet Jesus."
"You must never tell. I would have never told you if you were a Christian. If Christians found out they would come here, and kill our men, and carry our women away, and destroy our way of life,"
"But why would they do that? Though to you Jesus is your prophet, to them he is the son of their god. They would revere you, give you great gifts, protect you."
"Fool. Every Christian nobleman would want to plant his seed into any fertile women named on the bloodline tree. Thus their children would be descended from their God and have the birthright to be a king, or an emperor."
"Is your name on the tree?" he asked softly.
"Yes, but I am no longer fertile. The next woman named Sarah in my line, is my four year old grand daughter."
"Named after you?"
"Named after the daughter of the prophet Jesus."
"You carry a god's blood in your veins?" Raynar pulled back from her, suddenly worried and fearful. The Wyred sisters of the fates had tricked him yet again. He had unknowingly slept with a demi-goddess. Surely the gods would punish him for that, and severely."
"Fool. Jesus was our prophet. He was a man, a seer, a healer. A man, not a god. A man with great wisdom and with a grand vision."
"Which was? Umm ... in a few words."