Clash of Kings (34 page)

Vortigern’s eyes softened as he thought of Rowena and his sons, and seeing it Myrddion felt his deep-seated enmity towards Vortigern weaken . . . just a little.

‘We appreciate your offer of help, and Cadoc will show you to the tents of the healers,’ the king continued. ‘Anything you can do to assist those fools will earn my gratitude, for our men die like flies. At least dysentery and other diseases have yet to scour my ranks further. I will demonstrate my gratitude to you at the appropriate time.’

Vortigern spoke almost exclusively to Annwynn, and Myrddion was under no illusion about how far Vortigern trusted him. But at least they had been accepted into the camp, and could set to work immediately for the good of the common soldiery. Perhaps Myrddion could forget Vortigern’s cruel, smiling lips and the hand that killed Olwyn.

When they returned to the wagon, now surrounded by curious warriors, they discovered that Cadoc had supervised the repacking of its contents, as well as watering their ever-patient horse. He greeted them with a lop-sided grin as they trudged up the incline.

‘You’ve still got your heads, so it seems that we have more healers than before. At least you almost seem to know what you’re doing. Don’t forget your promise, young sir.’

‘There’s no chance of that, Cadoc, after all your efforts to help us,’ Myrddion replied seriously, while Annwynn rummaged through her box and pulled out a jar of salve. ‘The king has ordered you to show us to the tents of the healers, so perhaps we can see for ourselves why sensible young men like you avoid having your injuries treated.’

Annwynn smiled at the young warrior, her medication in her hands. ‘Stand still, young man. That burn on your face must hurt excruciatingly, especially in sunlight. Smear a little of this preparation on it – it will last until we can check you out thoroughly.’ Then she noticed his grimy hands and black-rimmed nails, and changed her mind. ‘On second thoughts, my young friend, stand still and let me do it.’

She worked quickly, knowing how much even her gentle touch must be hurting the warrior.

‘There! The salve cools the skin and gives it some protection from the sun.’

‘My thanks, healer. It feels better for your touch,’ he murmured. ‘Now, see the two big tents near the very edge of the encampment? That’s where the healers treat the sick and the wounded.’

‘Those tents are right next to the midden!’ Myrddion’s voice was incredulous.

‘Aye,’ Cadoc agreed with a scornful half-smile.

‘Tell me what you know about these healers,’ Annwynn said as she helped the foot soldier onto the narrow seat above the traces of the wagon.

‘There’s three of them, and they have six or seven servants. The chief healer calls himself a surgeon and claims to have served with the legions in Gaul. He says his name is Balbas, but he looks like no Roman I’ve ever met. The other two are more like fortune tellers than healers and spend most of their time praying to their gods and selling the wounded charms that they claim will save the lives of their patients.’ He noticed Annwynn’s expression. ‘Aye, dying men will trade their last copper, or even their swords, to give themselves a chance of survival. The healers call themselves Crispus and Lupus, and we know nothing of their origins. They’ve certainly amassed modest wealth out of the injured during this campaign. I can’t stand them, because prayers don’t cure sword cuts or burns like I’ve got. Besides, everyone within their tents seems to die.’

Annwynn and Myrddion exchanged worried glances, and the journey, continued in silence.

An area of empty ground separated the hospitals from the soldier’s camp sites, and as soon as the wagon entered this no-man’s-land the two healers understood the reason. Their horse shied in the traces and the smell struck them at the same time. A reek of ammonia from urine, faeces, old blood, rot and vomit assailed their nostrils and prepared them for what they would soon face. Reluctantly, they descended from the cart.

‘Stay here, Cadoc,’ Myrddion ordered, his nose wrinkling with distaste. ‘I don’t want you exposed to the evil humours in these cesspits.’

‘They’ll take no notice of you, sir. They’re arrogant and greedy, and they’ll think you’ve come to rob them of their profits.’

‘Why does Vortigern allow this?’ Annwynn asked as she stared, aghast, at a dying man who had been dumped on a stretcher in the sun. A deep wound on his shoulder was black with flies.

‘He has no choice. There are few healers since the druids were killed, and even fewer wise women are accepted in an army. These three drones were the best that Vortigern could find.’

‘Guard the wagon, Cadoc. I’ve a feeling we’ll need tents of our own to treat our wounded.’

Annwynn was bending over the warrior on the stretcher, her face grave as she felt the faint beat of his heart in the great vein of the throat. No attempt had been made to treat his wound, or to alleviate his pain. With a gentle touch, she stroked his matted hair and the sick man called for his mother.

Sickened, Myrddion shouldered his way into the hot semi-darkness of the first tent and entered into something worse than Hades.

Fifty men were laid out like cordwood on dirty straw pallets in three long rows that stretched from one end of the tent to the other, with barely a foot or two between each row. Servants fed, watered, or bandaged wounds while the air was thick with groans, prayers and weeping. Dressings were filthy and Annwynn watched, appalled, as a dirty roll of cloth that was obviously stained with old blood was reused on a gaping sore on a feverish man’s foot.

Before their eyes had absorbed the full ugliness of the conditions, a coarse, condescending voice addressed them rudely.

‘You there! You! Who do you think you are, disturbing my patients? And a woman at that! Your poisonous woman’s blood will kill everyone unless you get out of my tent – now!’

Annwynn and Myrddion swivelled their heads in unison to better examine the man who swaggered between his charges with the arrogance of a king.

Balbas was of middle height and soft in the belly, with flabby arms and thick, womanish thighs. He was dressed in a tunic and toga that had once been clean, but were now liberally stained with blood and food. Annwynn noticed that his face was florid, with the wide-pored nose of a man who was over-fond of wine. His fingers were thick and stubby, and each joint had a spatter of long black hair that matched the thick growth in his ears and nostrils and on his forearms, chest and legs. He looked like a fat monkey that Annwynn had once seen at Portus Lemanis on a Spanish galley. But that poor creature had been shivering with cold and its very human eyes had been glistening brown and bewildered. Balbas looked too smug and well fed to be afraid of anything.

‘At last report, this tent belongs to King Vortigern,’ Annwynn relied mildly. ‘And he has sent my apprentice and me to assist you and your colleagues in the treatment of the injured.’

‘What use are a woman and an apprentice in the treatment of battle wounds? Perhaps you could treat the odd scratch and leave the practice of surgery to someone who knows what he’s doing.’

Balbas was so patronising that Myrddion felt his temper begin to rise. He had been struggling with his emotions all day, and this insult to his teacher was the last straw.

‘I may only be an apprentice, but I’m at a loss to recognise the school of medicine you follow, Master Balbas.’ Myrddion’s words were honey-sweet and barbed with poison. ‘Galen relegated prayers, sacrifice and payment to the same level of expertise as fortune-telling. I’m told your colleagues favour the mythic approach, and reject Galen’s careful observations of the internal workings of the human body.’

‘And he hasn’t even examined the Alexandrine sources yet,’ Annwynn added with a grin. Truth to tell, she enjoyed baiting this bloated bag of wind, and delighted in airing names and techniques that she had only heard during discussions with her apprentice. ‘You really should read the observations of Herophilus, who charted the differences between veins and arteries. His work on the nervous system is a little gruesome, for he experimented on criminals while they were still alive, but where would we be without Herophilus and Erasistratus? Don’t you agree, Master Balbas?’

Balbas’s jaw had dropped, and he was looking both angry and baffled. Myrddion could not resist continuing the game.

‘I can tell you don’t follow Galen’s principles, for you aren’t bleeding your patients. But the values of Hippocrates don’t seem to be present here either, for the reuse of dirty dressings must fall into the category of doing harm to your patients. The dictums of Erasistratus on the human brain, perhaps? But no, I think not, for there’s no evidence of trepanning here. Tell me, Master Balbas, which principles do you follow?’

‘Get out! How dare you question the methods of a surgeon who has twenty years’ experience with the legions of Rome? Shysters! Common Celtic charlatans! Remove yourselves from my tent before I have you thrown out.’

‘I am impressed with you, Master Balbas, for you still don’t feel a need to wash your hands, even after twenty years with the legions. This, in itself, is a remarkable achievement.’

‘Out! Out!’ Balbas screamed, his face growing dangerously engorged with blood.

‘We are leaving. I’d hate to cause your pulse rate to rise dangerously, for Herophilus warns us that stresses on our consciousness can cause brain or heart problems. We will be setting up our own poor tents very shortly, and should any of your patients care for a second opinion, we shall be happy to oblige.’

‘A man of your learning and experience will hardly be threatened by either a woman who dabbles in herbs or a mere apprentice,’ Annwynn added, turning to follow Myrddion as he hurried out of the small hell of human suffering.

If anything, the second tent was worse.

Balbas had some pretence of knowledge, but Crispus and Lupus were charlatans of the lowest and vilest order. Conditions in the second tent were even worse, for medical treatment consisted of the burning of holy oil, largely based on rancid fat and fish, the reciting of prayers, and the use of holy tokens and water from sacred wells, which was suspiciously cloudy. These ancient remedies, which invoked a host of Roman, Celt or even Christian gods and saints, all came at a price, and Myrddion found that he couldn’t summon up even the ghost of sarcasm when he saw the waxen faces of dying men staring up hopefully as the two charlatans intoned sonorous prayers to cure gangrene, depressed skull fractures and pierced intestines.

Crispus and Lupus were clean, well dressed and fastidious. Despite a tendency to vanity in dress, the two men were both interchangeable and forgettable in appearance. The two healers felt their scornful words die in their throats. Such wickedness couldn’t be shamed or ridiculed, only soundly crushed and uprooted.

With steely determination, Myrddion and Annwynn strode out of the second tent and returned to their wagon.

‘Cadoc,’ Annwynn asked, ‘do you know of any healthy foot soldiers who would help us to set up a field station for treatment of all the sick and dying troops, regardless of the coin they possess? We treat our patients without charge, but we will need any camp followers who are prepared to volunteer and as many whole warriors as we can find. I know we promised to treat you first, but we need your help for those men who are dying.’

‘Of course. I’ll find the men and women you need. No one who’s seen those pits of evil can fail to offer assistance to real healers. Besides, Lady Annwynn, that salve has helped me already, so it will hold me until I gather up a few fellows to help us. The women will be easy, because many of their men are in those shitty tents. They’ve been banned, because they’re women and they might be bleeding or some such nonsense. They’ll come, and some of them will steal their men by force to get them away from those monsters in there.’

‘Thank you, Cadoc! Your help has been invaluable. We’ll set up near those far trees where the air is clean and we’re close to the stream.’ Annwynn patted Cadoc’s shoulder and he blushed beet red.

‘Is there anything else you need? If I can’t get it honestly, I can surely steal it.’

‘I don’t suppose there might be a few larger tents? Small ones just won’t serve our purposes, unless some stout lads can build us a large cover by lashing them together between the trees. We need clean pallets, and someone to man a fire, day and night.’

Cadoc grinned painfully and winked. ‘Can do, never fear! Just don’t tell anyone where it all came from.’

The tents of the healers used paid servants to do all the manual labour that Balbas and the charlatans required, but Myrddion and Annwynn preferred to use volunteers to carry out the chores needed to run a hospital. But Annwyn’s judgement was correct, and a number of women, including both wives and prostitutes, travelled at the rear of the force. These women and their children were often a nuisance, but they kept the men happy with sex, hot meals and an illusion of family, and now provided a natural supply of eager hands that would labour mightily to save the lives of the men who provided the food they ate and the protection they craved.

Now the work really began. Annwynn had brought her large iron pot and its tripod, so Myrddion set to work with a small hatchet stripping down small branches and dead wood to prepare a fireplace within a circle of stones. The two healers worked so well together that the fire was soon blazing cheerfully, while water was already coming to the boil in the pot. The wagon was quickly unloaded and the two healers cast their tools of trade into the hot water for cleansing.

A dozen men soon arrived at the small clearing in the coppice, loaded down with coarse rope and a number of leather tents, all small, that two of their number immediately began to lash together with twine, taking care to overlap the edges once they had used augers to make holes in the hides. Still others carried scythes and knives and set to work cutting the long grass that hadn’t been cropped by the horse lines, stuffing crude woollen blankets with their booty to fashion makeshift sleeping pallets.

The men were followed by a ragtag group of women whom Annwynn sent to bathe in the stream, clothes and all, knowing that they would dry quickly in the warm sun. With amazement, Myrddion watched the discipline of warriors in action as the hides were strung between four sturdy trees, creating a low, mostly weatherproof roof, and the pallets were placed in position. The man suffering outside Balbas’s tent was collected, stretcher and all, and Myrddion supervised the removal of his clothes. A woman with chattering teeth was set to work washing him with warm water and other fires were started to meet the needs of the patients who were soon to arrive.