by M. K. Hume
‘You’ve opened the skull?’ Ruadh gasped, wide-eyed, as her hands worked unconsciously to staunch the slow leak of blood from the shoulder wound.
‘Aye. Perhaps I have sinned, but the warriors I examined were mostly Saxon and all were very, very dead. What I learned has helped me to save other lives, but I would be obliged if you remained silent on this matter. The Christian Church forbids us to cut open any corpses and who knows how Uther would react to such information about me.’
‘I could more easily die than betray you, master,’ Ruadh replied earnestly. ‘But what did you find?’
Any person not initiated into the alien world of battlefield medicine would have found this conversation very disconcerting, but Myrddion’s fingers didn’t hesitate as he explored Luka’s shoulder wound and cleaned it thoroughly of the mud that had fouled it. His scalpel opened the wound still further and, with a grunt of satisfaction, he used his forceps to retrieve a fragment of leather that had been driven into the injury. In truth, healers often spoke of other things as they struggled with death over the supine bodies of damaged men. Perhaps it was the only way they could remain sane.
‘The brain, which is the source of our thoughts – indeed, all of our senses – is greyish pink, and very soft. It is a network of blood vessels and I don’t understand a fraction of how it works. The skull protects it as a glass or pottery container protects our unguents and liquids from harm. What happens when you shake a jar of cream? Or you thump the jar on one side? The contents always hit the other side of the jar with some force. If the cream was our brain, there would be damage where the jar was struck and further injuries where the cream bounced against the other side of the glass.’
‘Your knowledge is amazing, my lord.’ Ruadh’s eyes were so starry with adoration that Myrddion flinched. ‘In some ways, it opens my eyes to the mysteries of the gods.’
‘I can stitch this shoulder wound now, Ruadh, so I need needles and gut.’
As she prepared his tools, Myrddion looked across at her and smiled, for he was eager to divert the topic of conversation into safer areas. ‘Do you ever regret the loss of your children, far away to the north of the Vallum Antonini? When Uther freed you to return to your home, I never understood why you stayed in the south. I’m grateful, of course, because you’re a budding herbmaster who could one day rival the great Annwynn herself, and she is the best I’ve ever known. But you have cut yourself off from your childhood kin as well as your own children. Why would you be so . . . rash?’
As he spoke, Myrddion’s fingers deftly packed seaweed paste and radish into the wound and stitched it temporarily with a single knot. Ruadh assisted with eyes and fingers that were calm and still.
‘I loved King Ambrosius in my way, so the Pict life was barred to me for ever once I realised how I felt about him. If I was a true wife and mother, I should have killed him while he slept – indeed, I planned to do so when he took me to his bed for the first time. I even had a small fruit knife that could have been used to stab him through his sleeping eyes. But I couldn’t do it. I’m not squeamish, as you know, but I looked at Ambrosius’s care-worn face and remembered his gentleness, and I couldn’t make my hands obey me. He was sweet and loving, my lord, for all he was a king. I regret that I never kissed him, for to do so would be the last betrayal of my dead husband and my lost children. But I wish I had, Master Myrddion, so that he would know that I had come to love him before he died.’
By now, Myrddion had stitched most of the nastier superficial wounds on Luka’s arms and Ruadh had begun to bandage them with neat expertise.
‘I still don’t understand why Ambrosius’s death didn’t set you free.’
‘I felt in my heart that I had betrayed the Picts, while I had rejected my tribal kin years ago. I was lost – until the day you took me in because of the love you had for my dead lord.’
‘So your place here is based on personal honour?’ Myrddion laughed. ‘Many men say that women can’t really understand the concept.’
Ruadh’s fingers stilled, trembled, and then resumed their careful, efficient movements.
‘Those clods would be wrong, master. Women have their own code, which is as rigid and unbending as anything a man can devise. But few men try to understand us as my lord Ambrosius did. He was a rare king . . . and an even rarer man.’
‘Aye, he was that.’
Together, they examined the huge lump on Luka’s forehead and decided that the elaborate boss of a shield had probably caused it, hence the strangely mottled purpling.
‘What can we do, master?’
Myrddion shook his head regretfully. ‘Nothing, Ruadh,’ he whispered. ‘We must keep him very still and force liquids down his throat – milk for preference – and hope that he wakens of his own volition. I’ll not despair until I have no other option.’
‘Then I’ll pray to the Blessed Virgin for him – and for you. Perhaps God might still have plans for this young man. After all, he is still alive when thousands of others have perished.’
Several more men were found alive, but all succumbed to their wounds without regaining consciousness. As his bearers carried away the last of the bodies for communal burial, Myrddion regretted that battlefields could not be organised to save as many lives as possible. The healer had hired a score of body servants and trained them in the rudiments of first aid so that they could stop bleeding and carry wounded men off the battlefield after the fiercest of the fighting had left behind its trail of dead and wounded warriors. Lives were saved by this simple expedient, and Cadoc’s tasks were made significantly easier as he need no longer expend his energies in bringing back the injured himself. A significant proportion of Myrddion’s apprentice healers were youths, and the training herbmasters were either women or men like Dyfri who were crippled in some way. The healers no longer depended on warriors to provide the brute strength needed at the field hospitals. The extra hands saved lives.
As full darkness fell, Luka’s condition remained unchanged. Myrddion was tired, not from recent physical exertion, but from years in the saddle and at battlefields that blurred together in his memory. But worst by far was the need to mitigate the endless caprices of Uther Pendragon.
After his initial grief, and his crowning amid the magnificence of the newly built Christian church in Venta Belgarum, Uther began a campaign of attrition against both the recalcitrant tribal kings and the Saxon thanes. Gone were the days of the judgment halls where justice was dispensed with mercy as well as punishment. Despite Myrddion’s best efforts, Uther made snap decisions about petitioners, whether they were the humblest peasants or the most offensive noblemen. More than once, Myrddion had risked his head by intervening when Uther had flagrantly ignored reason to either settle old scores or exercise a rather skewed ruling.
During the two winters that he had spent in Uther’s service, Myrddion had ridden countless miles as he tightened and extended his spy network, while checking that the tribal kings were fortifying the outposts in accordance with their oaths to the High King. He was now viewed as Uther’s creature, so the prejudice and dislike he had suffered in his youth were laid on him anew – and two-fold. The tribes feared Uther, but they obeyed him sullenly, for the gods alone could guess what he would do if he was gainsaid – or betrayed.
So Myrddion suffered a crushing isolation that was only assuaged when he dwelled in the house of the healers, where laughter and a spirit of enquiry still reigned. In his scriptorium, Myrddion could study, assemble his opus on herbal curatives, train eager young men to serve on the battlefield and enjoy the company and laughter of children. Had he not possessed this peaceful haven, Myrddion suspected that he would have broken his oath to Ambrosius, and run.
In the darkness, as Myrddion checked several scores of patients who seemed likely to survive, Botha sought him out. The tall captain of Uther’s personal guard carried a nasty slash across the thigh which had almost castrated him, but Myrddion imagined that the unfortunate Saxon never had a chance to repeat t
he blow. Botha was a superlative warrior and a man whose life was ruled by a finely honed sense of honour which governed all aspects of his life.
‘The High King wants you, Myrddion, and you know how quickly he expects you to obey,’ he said with a wry grin. Both men were slaves to Uther’s whims.
With a flash of irritation, Myrddion permitted himself to scowl.
‘Then he’ll have to wait until I dress that cut on your thigh. It’s very high and likely to become infected because the muscles bunch with your every movement. Strip to your loincloth, Botha. If you argue, we’ll only be delayed further.’
When, tightly bandaged and on tenterhooks, Botha finally ushered Myrddion into the High King’s tent, Uther was pacing irritably. Something in the king’s eyes gave Myrddion a frisson of apprehension.
‘You took your time, Botha. You’ve permitted the healer to flout my orders, as usual.’
Myrddion winced. His relationship with the High King was strained, not only because their characters were diametrically opposite, but also because Myrddion had been the only person to see Uther weep over his brother’s corpse. The king couldn’t tolerate the constant reminder of what he perceived as a gross weakness.
‘Botha has been wounded, highness,’ Myrddion answered for both of them. ‘I doubt you were even aware of it, but your servant’s blood could have been poisoned without treatment because of the mud in the wound. The decision to delay was mine, and I apologise for that error.’
Uther grunted, then threw himself grumpily into a folding chair among a scattering of scrolls and maps. His handsome face settled into lines of discontent, made ugly by something sly and disappointed behind his blue eyes.
‘We routed the bastards, but we still can’t break through to Petuaria. That son of a whore, Hengist, knew what he was about when he led his people to this godforsaken stretch of coastline. They breed like ticks in the marshes and all their battle plans are shaped by the landscape. I’ll learn to fly before we dislodge Hengist’s sons out of the old Parisi lands.’
Prudently, Botha and Myrddion remained silent.
‘We’ve lost too many men by playing the Saxons at their own game. The Roman-trained centuries don’t work effectively in marshland and the cavalry was wasted in the deep forests, except for night reconnaissance. As for siege machines? Bah! All we need now is bad weather.’
Once again, he expected no reply. Myrddion recognised the king’s continual switching from one source of annoyance to another: Uther was fuelling his frustrations. The healer knew from painful experience that any sort of imprudence might yet follow.
‘Leonates of the Dobunni has seen fit to ignore me. And Gorlois has refused to send troops to assist us. He could have cost us the battle. I’ll not be mocked, Myrddion.’
The healer watched the mounting warning signs that he had come to dread. Under his thick yellow brows, Uther’s eyes were mere slits, obscuring the colour of the irises and giving his face a bestial appearance. His nostrils were flared as if he smelled something vile and his mouth had fallen in so that every word spat out of those almost invisible lips showed his teeth in a feral snarl. The High King was working himself up into a tantrum and only the gods knew what would be the result.
‘Gorlois has never failed to send troops to our campaigns in the south. Perhaps he deemed that this attack was better dealt with by the Brigante tribe. I cannot read the Boar’s mind, but he has always been loyal, my king. As for Leonates, he was ill throughout the winter with lung disease, so perhaps he has been unable to send levies to assist you. His son, Leodegran, is still in his teens and is probably overwhelmed by his father’s illness.’
‘No excuse. The boy is a sybaritic pup and if he wishes to rule one day, he should take care to maintain his alliance with me.’
Myrddion dropped his eyes and bowed respectfully. ‘Of course, my lord. I shall look into the matter of Leonates’s health.’
‘As for Gorlois, how dare he decide which campaigns he will fight and which he will not? He’s not the High King, although I’ve heard whispers that many of the tribal kings would be happy to see him take the crown of Maximus. Even his name irritates me. If he continues to decide when and where he’ll send his levies, then he’ll discover that a dragon can burn a wild boar to a crisp.’
Myrddion almost laughed, although Uther’s expression was far from humorous. At times the High King’s intemperate words were ludicrous, but in other circumstances they were monstrous. The healer set to work to soothe his bad temper, while Botha tidied the disordered tent and hunted up some of the red Hispanic wines that Uther loved. Cosseted, coddled and placated, Uther’s mood improved so much that he demanded that his current woman be sent to his tent, and as the doe-eyed girl slipped through the flap to the sweet susurration of her robe, Botha and Myrddion sighed and departed.
But Myrddion could not rest peacefully. All his persuasion had failed to still the worm of suppressed rage that ate into the king’s brain because the Saxons had thwarted him, so instead of seeking his bed he went to the healers’ tents to check on the condition of Luka of the Brigante, who still lay like a dead man on his cot. He paused by the rolled-up side of the largest tent and stared down towards the swamp where little corpse lights seemed to flicker. During his journeys in the Middle Sea, Myrddion had been told that the phenomenon was caused by pockets of gas that escaped from deep underground, but even his rational understanding was jarred by the eerie flicker of coloured light where so many corpses still lay pressed into the mud.
Just as Myrddion began to turn away, a long ululating cry raised the hair on his arms as it rose over the sleeping camp like a night creature taking to the wing. The agonised sound didn’t belong to a golem or a wight that sought to terrify the living. A human throat had produced that high keening in an excess of pain.
Several fruitless moments were spent in trying to find his satchel, so panicked was Myrddion by the terrifying noise. Cadoc emerged from under a wagon half dressed and cursing. But the sound had been cut off abruptly as it rose to an inhuman pitch, as if the lungs and vocal cords that produced it had been severed.
Cadoc and Myrddion hurried towards the camp, although neither man could place the origin of the scream. Where a tangle of warriors jostled in the circle of tents along the forest edge, the two healers skidded to a halt. Rudely wakened men grabbed their weapons and asked each other unanswerable questions, while the horses made their fear known with whinnies and stamping of feet from the picket lines hidden deep in the woods.
‘What in Hades was that?’ Cadoc muttered as his eyes scanned the partly dressed warriors who had boiled out of tents or from their sleeping blankets around the fire-pits.
‘I’ve no notion, but they . . . he . . . she . . . was in extremity. Someone needs us badly.’
‘We’ll be unlikely to find them in this crowd,’ Cadoc snapped, for his good humour had fled with the end of his comforting dreams.
Gradually, order was restored. Officers calmed their men and explained that a camp follower had experienced a bad dream and was now settled back to sleep. Disgruntled men cursed all women on campaign and returned to their slumbers around the dying fires. Finally, peace settled over the High King’s camp.
Myrddion and Cadoc had barely returned to the healers’ tents pitched on the rise above the swamps when Botha and two guardsmen appeared out of the darkness on silent feet.
‘You’re wanted, Myrddion,’ Botha ordered in a crisp whisper. ‘Come now, and bring your satchel with you.’ His face was particularly impassive, and the healer felt the shorter hairs on the back of his neck stir with apprehension. ‘No noise, hear?’
‘What’s amiss, Botha?’
The captain ignored Myrddion’s hissed question and skirted the camp on silent feet. Defiantly, Cadoc ignored a frown from one of the guards and hurried after his master.
Pushing their way through thick underbrush, the small party approached the High King’s tent by the most indirect route, taking care to move as soundlessly a
s possible.
‘Is the High King taken ill?’ Myrddion tried again.
Botha stopped in his tracks, turned and hissed at him to keep his mouth shut. Myrddion’s eyebrows rose, for Botha rarely lost control or showed any emotion. Something must be very wrong if even his composure was fraying. The party moved forward once more, but both healers watched the dark and threatening shadows out of the corners of their eyes.
Uther’s tent was set on the highest point of a small hill in the forest and some clearing of trees had been necessary to assemble his tent within the allotted space. Smaller tents were placed in a semicircle that clustered around the High King’s skirts, and the main body of his force was bivouacked below him. This arrangement was unusual in that kings usually set up their bivouacs in the centre of their forces to ensure their security, but Uther always valued the high ground and Myrddion was never surprised at the risks he took.
What did surprise him was the route taken by Botha and the guards to reach the king’s tent. What were they trying to hide?
The tent loomed out of the shadows, and Botha stopped. ‘Go in, healer, and I’ll wait outside for your call,’ he said, a little shamefaced. Myrddion wondered why the captain was reluctant to accompany him.
The smell alerted the healer immediately, even before his eyes adjusted to the gloom within the tent. A single oil lamp burned on the sod floor near the camp bed, and the shadows seemed to be thick with something menacing and alien. Both healers advanced into the tent, and the coppery smell of fresh blood led them into the small halo of light.
Myrddion put his left hand on a chair which had been upended in a violent struggle and recoiled at the feel of fresh blood across his palm. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he recognised the shape of Uther in the far corner of the tent, cleaning his hands on a scrap of cloth. Without pausing to think, Myrddion approached him.