Warrior of the West (24 page)

‘They first make mad?’ Targo shook his tired old head. ‘I don’t think so, my son. The Greek who coined that ancient truism didn’t know you. The gods love you, Artor, mad or not, as they never loved your father. And we love you too.’

The last words were uttered in a bare whisper that, in his pain, Artor did not hear. He stood, four square upon the rising ground, until the afternoon gave way to early evening and the men were permitted to rest, to eat and, in turn, to sleep.

‘Will you see Myrddion now, my lord?’ Targo asked.

Artor sighed and permitted his shoulders to slump.

‘Yes, I will see Myrddion now.’

Myrddion’s small kingdom was a kind of hell. The stench of the dead was a persistent itch in his nostrils, not sharp and sweet yet, for death was still young, but wet and heavy, like an empty sickroom after the patient has died.

Men lay on makeshift pallets in the circle of the wagons. Glassy-eyed with poppy juice, they bore wounds of varying severity: the bloody stumps of amputation by sword or axe; the gut-piercing wounds of arrows that stank like death already; and the delirium of head wounds that few men survived. Those who bore lesser wounds had already rejoined their fellow soldiers, bearing their bandages, stitches and slings like heroes. They would rather kill again and again before they joined the living dead of the knoll.

Myrddion and his healers worked on tirelessly. While his leather apron was covered in dried and fresh blood, his fastidious hands were clean, for he had noticed that dirty hands hastened putrefaction. He had ordered regular supplies of boiled river water, trusting that water from the brackish tides would be clean. Similarly, every rag used on a patient was washed before it touched another man, just as Myrddion himself laved his hands before he touched a new patient. Men still died, but other men swore that the devil’s spawn saved more lives than he lost.

Myrddion was holding a dying man’s hand, pretending to be his father, offering a harmless lie as comfort, when Odin assisted Artor into the circle of the dying. Myrddion’s face blanched at Artor’s extreme pallor, but his voice did not cease its soft, country cadences as he talked about the lambing on the morrow, and the young calves frolicking in the upper meadows. The eyes of his patient had the pinpoint pupils of poppy juice, and he soon fell asleep, lulled by his father’s talk of ordinary, familiar things.

Myrddion extricated his hand gently and kissed the closed, fluttering eyelids. The young man smiled as he dreamed.

‘Will he live, Myrddion?’ Artor asked quietly as the healer joined him and plunged his hands into clean water.

‘No. He’s been disembowelled. He will die by morning regardless of what I do. If the gods are kindly he will dream through the night, at least as long as the poppy lasts, and I promise he will feel no pain.’

Myrddion’s serene face was infinitely sad and Artor began to truly understand what his chief counsellor achieved on the battlefield. If a dying man needed a lover, a friend, a wife, or a parent, Myrddion took their place. He said everything that was needed to bring peace and heart balm to the sufferers, and allowed brave men to die wrapped in the arms of loved ones who were far away. Although he never struck a blow, Myrddion Merlinus had the grace and the gravity of a hero.

Artor’s head began to spin, and he almost fainted.

‘Come, Artor,’ Myrddion ordered, as he immediately took the younger man’s weight. ‘I have a clean pallet just for you. Let me see what you have done to yourself.’

Artor recoiled from Myrddion’s touch.

‘No. I cannot lie with these men. I cannot be ill, for too much depends on tomorrow’s battles. Take out the arrowhead and wrap me tightly. Come what may, I must be seen to be in command when dawn lights the day.’

Myrddion smiled gently with complete understanding.

‘If you are dying, Lord Artor, I will tell you so. If you are not, then you will do what I say. Odin, strip your master to the waist.’

For once, Odin evaded Artor’s febrile hands and obeyed Myrddion. The cuirass was removed, followed by the leather jerkin, and both men’s faces paled as they saw the deep staining of Artor’s woollen undershirt. When his chest was bared, the stump of the arrow was revealed.

‘How are you breathing, my lord?’ Myrddion asked gently.

‘It hurts, but the air still goes in and out,’ Artor replied with grim humour. ‘No, Myrddion, I do not have a sucking chest wound, but talking is painful.’

Myrddion examined Artor’s back and pressed lightly on the swelling muscle under the shoulder. Despite his clenched teeth, Artor cried out and his face greyed even further. Targo was sure his master would faint, but Artor struggled to remain in an upright position.

‘Well, Myrddion? You promised me the truth.’

‘The arrow has passed almost completely through your body. I must cut into your back to draw the arrowhead out with the shaft attached. I think you may also have broken your shoulder bone - which accounts for the pain - but, no, this is not a sucking lung wound. That injury would have resulted in your death.’

‘Then start cutting. I must return to my post.’

Myrddion laughed lightly. ‘No, my king! You are now in my hellish little domain, and I consider your wound serious. Yes, I will patch you up so you can join your troops at dawn, perhaps, but unless you have a wish to depart this earth, you must consign your body into my care. At least for tonight.’

‘Shite!’ Artor swore, for Myrddion rarely lied, and never to him.

He nodded to Targo. ‘Take my place in the line, Targo,’ he said softly. ‘Tell any warriors who ask that Myrddion is sewing up a minor wound, and that I will rejoin them at dawn.’

‘Me? I’ve never been in command before. You know how I feel about officers.’

Artor clenched his teeth as Myrddion explored the wound around the arrow shaft.

‘Do as I bid you. Immediately!’

‘Shite, boy! Me? An officer? I’ve avoided that responsibility for forty years or more.’

‘You became an officer on the day I became High King, so don’t argue with me. Just obey the orders you’ve been given.’ Then Artor grinned. ‘Remember, if you make a mistake, you’re dead.’

‘By all the gods!’ a disgruntled Targo snapped as he moved slowly out of the circle of suffering.

Myrddion continued to probe at the small entry wound on Artor’s shoulder.

‘I’m going to hurt you now, Artor. You may use the poppy juice if you wish, but I’d rather you were awake to let me know if I strike some vital spot. Odin will hold you down, and I need you to grip this strip of leather firmly between your teeth. Biting through your tongue is the last thing I need to happen.’

Artor shook his head firmly. ‘There’ll be no poppy juice. We’ll do it your way, old man. Just don’t let your knife slip, for I fear that Odin wouldn’t understand.’

Odin and another healer held the king upright on the pallet, his arms firmly imprisoned by his side. Still another burly man sat on the king’s legs, while Myrddion secured the strip of leather inside Artor’s mouth.

‘This hurts me more than it hurts you,’ Myrddion joked, and made a fast incision into Artor’s back with a narrow, razor-sharp blade.

Artor’s whole body bucked with the shock of the sudden pain.

‘Hold him fast,’ Myrddion ordered, and the blade sliced through flesh and muscle once again, this time deep into Artor’s back. The king’s brow was thick with a cold sweat, and his teeth bit deeply into the leather. It was only Odin’s massive strength that kept him motionless as Myrddion used a fire-cleansed skewer to probe the open wound.

‘Aaah!’ he cried. ‘I’ve found the point of the metal.’

As Myrddion probed deeper into the wound, Artor’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slipped into unconsciousness.

‘Good! Now we must work fast.’

Myrddion’s fingers were slick with blood but he did not attempt to clean them. Instead, he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the wound, parting tendons and muscle physically as he prepared a path through which the arrowhead would pass.

Then, standing directly before his king, the healer willed himself to carry out the task that was now before him.

With a tightening of his whole body, and with his left hand flat on the shaft, he punched the broken stump of the arrow shaft deep into Artor’s shoulder.

Odin watched in horror as the arrowhead appeared out of the back of the High King’s shoulder; he would have struck at Myrddion, but the healer’s eyes quelled him with a glance.

Returning to the exit wound, Myrddion fixed the arrowhead firmly in a pair of large tongs. Then, with a great flood of blood, the healer pulled the arrowhead and the broken shaft clear through Artor’s shoulder.

From both wounds, fresh blood pumped fiercely. Odin would have covered the chest wound, but Myrddion slapped his hand away.

‘Don’t touch him with your hands if you truly care for our king,’ he said sharply. ‘The flow of blood will cleanse the wounds and can make our work easier.’

Only then did Myrddion pause and wash his hands.

‘I need fresh cloth, Fynn. It must be clean and untouched. And I need the bottle of salve and the glass jar in my horse bag. Hurry!’

Fynn hurried to one of the supply wagons where neat boxes of clean wood held the battle supplies intended for the healers. With clean hands and a pair of tongs, he extracted folded cloth which he brought back to Myrddion. Then, he fetched a pottery jar with the Roman numeral X marked upon it. Other jars, with different numbers, rested in nests of straw.

Myrddion’s other satchel also sat on the seat of the cart. Hesitantly, as if he was intruding into a private room, Fynn rummaged through its neat compartments until he found a precious glass jar. His task completed, he returned to Myrddion and the royal patient with a mumbled apology for his tardiness.

‘No, Fynn, you’ve done well. Now, watch carefully. If anything should happen to me, this is what you must do.’

The healer then swabbed the wounds clean and poured some of the contents of the glass jar into both wounds.

‘This is apricot brandy,’ he told his assistant. ‘I use it to kill those humours that cause wounds to rot.’

He paused to survey his work. The wounds bubbled and hissed as the liquid began to bite into them.

‘Now mix the herb poultices on two clean pieces of cloth,’ he added, almost as if speaking to himself. ‘But don’t use your hands to mix it. There’s a clean wooden spoon in the jar. Good. Very good.’

Myrddion gingerly inserted one piece of vile, green-covered cloth over the frontal wound, and then placed the other on the incision in Artor’s back.

‘Now, wrap him in fresh linen, and bind it tightly. The pressure will help the fragments of bone to knit and will keep the poultice in place. Use as much cloth as you need. I’d rather use too much than too little.’

He glanced across at the Jutlander, who was absorbing the surgical process with an awestruck expression on his face.

‘You may clean your master now, Odin. But don’t touch his bandages. Cover him, and keep him warm. All else is in the hands of Mithras.’

Odin commenced the process of cleansing his master’s torso of blood. When he had completed this task, he wrapped Artor’s upper body in a length of new wool, and then sat with Artor’s head resting back against his chest.

As Odin held his king in his embrace, he sang a tuneful outlander song that seemed, somehow, to ease the hearts of restless, agony-wracked men in Myrddion’s makeshift hospital.

Myrddion and Fynn went back to their grim nursing tasks.

Odin watched as other men died, and noted that it was always Myrddion’s fingers that closed their eyes. Other patients came limping into the circle and it was Myrddion’s hands that cauterized their wounds with hot iron, and Myrddion’s gentle fingers that smoothed thick salve on to the smoking wounds. Those who could walk away bowed in gratitude to the white-haired healer as he sewed wounds together, embraced the dying, and eased the passage of the dead.

The sky was still pitch black when Artor awakened, his eyes dazed with pain. Myrddion was immediately by his side.

‘What hour is it?’ Artor muttered in a hoarse voice as he struggled fitfully to get away from Odin’s embrace.

‘It’s nearly an hour before sunrise. Had you not woken naturally, I’d have been forced to bring you back to consciousness. I gave you my word, Artor.’

‘I thank you, my friend. Can I dress now? The warriors must see me abroad.’

‘The arrow is out, Artor, and I’ve cleansed the wounds and applied poultices. You were lucky, for that arrowhead was wickedly barbed. I could never have drawn it back out through the point of entry in your flesh without inflicting lasting damage to you.’

Myrddion pressed a small barbed arrowhead into Artor’s nerveless fingers.

‘It’s time now to see if I am still a healer,’ he added, as he called Fynn to bring the apricot brandy and the salve, along with a supply of fresh bandages.

Artor shivered as the night air touched his flesh, but Myrddion assured him that the wounds showed no sign of heat.

‘But we must be certain, my lord,’ and he poured more of the potent liquor on to the flesh where it foamed against the edge of the wound.

The High King cried out in pain, but the cool poultice offered immediate relief. The process was then repeated on the incision in Artor’s back.

Pre-warned this time, Artor clutched the arrowhead and his amulet and bore the pain as manfully as he could. When he was bandaged and wrapped once more, Myrddion offered him a cup of some brackish tea, a brew that Artor eyed suspiciously.

‘The sky will soon lighten in the east, my king, and you must perforce return to your duties. I have placed a little poppy juice in that herb tea, but you will not fall asleep from the little I have given you. You may feel a little distant from your pain, but it’s just enough to allow you to heal and yet maintain command of the battle. Trust me, my lord, for I don’t lie to you.’