Clash of Kings (15 page)

And so Myrddion’s apprenticeship began.

Although Olwyn worried about his extreme youth, the children of the peasantry commonly began training for a life of labour at an even younger age. Toil was the natural and inevitable lot of the poor, and a bastard like Myrddion could not expect to inherit anything from his mother, his grandmother or the king of the Deceangli. He had been made aware from the cradle that he must earn his own bread, so he went happily to Annwynn’s cottage every morning, with only the occasional holy day when he could completely relax and play.

The boy loved the early mornings best. He enjoyed hunting for mandrake root, edible and poisonous mushrooms, and fungi of such brilliant colours and interesting textures that they resembled exotic night flowers. Annwynn was a master of herb lore and her knowledge of the properties of plants was so extensive that Myrddion begged his grandmother to provide him with some fine hides that could be used to construct a series of scrolls. Ambitiously, the boy planned to immortalise the whole of Annwynn’s vast knowledge. So, although each day consisted of hard labour, he spent his nights hunched over a small table scribing every newly learned detail of plant lore onto his scrolls by the light of an oil lamp. Many years later, when he was a very old man, the scent of fish oil, pungent and slightly rancid, reminded him of the flanges of the vivid yellow and red fungi that grew in the forests outside Segontium.

‘Different parts of the country host different plants, depending on the weather, the trees that predominate in the forests and the richness of the soil,’ Annwynn explained. ‘In other countries, especially those that have a warm climate, the flora will be totally different from what we have here. Oh, lad, I sometimes wish I could travel just to discover all there is to know about everything that grows. How wonderful it would be to find plants that are unknown, and to discover what properties they have in the preservation of health and life.’

Annwynn’s eyes would glow with enthusiasm and her whole face be transformed when she considered such wonderful propositions. At those times, Myrddion truly loved his mistress, not for her kindness or for her generosity of spirit, but for the avid breadth and depth of her mind.

Eighteen months passed happily and productively, while Myrddion grew like a weed and his mind stretched and expanded with the exacting challenges of his position. At first, the villagers distrusted the touch of the demon child, but Annwynn suggested that his ancestry was an aid to her medicines, for Myrddion had chosen to follow the human half of his blood, rather than the temptations of wickedness. As a further incentive, the boy had a delicate touch and rarely caused pain, no matter how terrible the wounds might be. And then came the night of the fire at the Blue Hag Inn.

Segontium had several taverns, but the Blue Hag was by far the largest establishment of its kind in the town. Although it had a flagstone floor, the inn was of two-storeyed timber construction, with a gimcrack series of rooms above the more sturdily built ground floor.

How the fire began would remain a matter of conjecture, but its outcomes were tragic and would turn Myrddion onto a life-path that would cause him to become an extraordinary man.

The first warning that Myrddion received of the fire was a ruddy glow in the distance from the direction of the township. Eddius pointed out the bloody haze to his wife and the other children, while the Greek servants set up a caterwauling of fear and distress.

‘Cease that dreadful noise, Crusus!’ Eddius ordered crisply. ‘The villa isn’t alight, so call out the field hands and we’ll try to assist the citizens of the town.’

Olwyn clutched her skirts with whitened knuckles. ‘Be careful, husband! I’ve always been fearful of fire in towns where whole streets can be destroyed in minutes. May the goddess save the people from too much loss of life.’

‘I must go to my mistress,’ Myrddion decided and ran to find his satchel.

‘No, Myrddion, you might be hurt . . .’ Olwyn wailed after him, but Myrddion scarcely heard her. She turned back to Eddius. ‘If you need somewhere to bring casualties, husband, we can open up the servants’ quarters for the injured. Take care, my love.’

Eddius paused only to stroke his wife’s cheek affectionately and then began to lope towards the site of the fire, his long legs soon leaving Myrddion far behind. The boy struggled on, his senses acute in the darkness of the late evening. Autumn had just come to the land and the night air had an edge of cold, but Myrddion could smell the acrid stink of burning along with a sweet reek that reminded him of cooking meat. His child’s mind rebelled while the older, cooler part of his consciousness reasoned that Annwynn would be desperate for help, even the ham-fisted efforts of a half-trained boy. He ran on towards the red glare of the fire.

The site of the blaze, the Blue Hag, was a small slice of the Christian hell. Flames had engulfed the lower floor of the inn and were now stretching out fiery tentacles towards the stables and the upper storey of the main building. The shrill scream of horses confused Myrddion at first because the beasts sounded like frightened women. A girl at an open window on the upper floor was shrieking as well, and Myrddion turned away as she leapt from the open shutters with her woollen tunic already smoking.

‘Annwynn? Has anyone seen the healer?’ Myrddion shouted, but the men who were passing water from hand to hand in any buckets available took no notice of the wide-eyed boy. Only when Eddius saw him, as he threw a wooden pail of water over the roaring maw of the inn’s public bar, did Myrddion receive any kind of answer.

‘She’s down the street outside the wool trader’s establishment,’ Eddius roared, then applied himself to the hopeless task of preventing the fire from spreading. As Myrddion hastened to find his mistress, he saw frightened ostlers trying to drag maddened horses away from the blaze while other servants and visitors alike continued to throw themselves out of the windows of the second storey.

‘By the gods! Nothing can live in those flames!’ Myrddion muttered, and raced over the slick cobbles until he reached the makeshift area that Annwynn had set up for the injured.

Women from the village had dragged pallets out into the street and woollen rugs were employed to cover those survivors who were shaking with shock. Myrddion stared aghast at the bubbled skin, burned hair and charred clothing that seemed welded to shining and swollen flesh.

‘You’re needed, lad! I’ve brought some unguent for burns in my satchel but it won’t last long. I also need at least one fine, sharp blade – you know the one I use! I’ll need more unguent, and you can fetch all the poppy juice that I have to hand. Move! Oh, and I’ll need more bandages and splints, and my pearwood box. I’ll also need my stocks of mandrake and henbane seeds, and a mortar and pestle. Hurry, for love of the goddess! You know how to open the door.’

Myrddion raced towards Annwynn’s house, fleet-footed with the urgency of his mission. Only a few seconds sufficed for him to bypass Annwynn’s safety measures at her door, and he began filling baskets with everything that he thought might be useful, as well as those items on his mistress’s shouted list. Boudicca looked at him nervously, but Myrddion begrudged the time to even pat the head of the old dog.

‘On guard!’ he ordered her, and began the long run back to the fire, which had already spread to adjoining houses. Racing towards his mistress with the first basket of supplies in his arms, he heard Eddius screaming.

‘Ignore the inn! It’s lost, and there’s no help for it. Start wetting down its neighbours! Stop the fires from spreading, or the whole town will burn to the ground.’

Cinders were already flying on the light breeze and several thatched roofs were beginning to smoulder. Men used makeshift ladders and woollen blankets to batter out the smaller flames, but where one fledgling fire was defeated three or four more sprang up in its place. The reek of burning houses, the stink of death, even the roar of flames and the screams of the terrified humans and animals, combined to create a gruesome assault on the senses until Myrddion was forced to shut everything out of his mind except for his duty to his mistress.

‘To me, boy! We save only those who can be treated.’

Then Annwynn put him to work.

Without pausing to record the faces of the injured, Myrddion smeared unguent over burned heads, limbs and torsos. Where large areas of the body were affected, Annwynn simply shook her head and called for the poppy juice. On clean wool, and without a stitch of clothing on their agonised bodies, the worst injured then slipped into a deep sleep from which there would be no return. The dying were left on the street, while those who had some chance of survival were moved, pallet and all, into the store to be out of the noise, smoke and stink. Annwynn used too much of the poppy to permit the terminally injured to survive, and Myrddion could find no words to fault her, for those less injured continued to twist with limbs that were still smouldering.

Myrddion learned many lessons on that dreadful night, the most important of which was the care necessary to assist both the living and the dying. He watched the women who sat with the suffering as, inside the wool store, they talked gently and optimistically to the wounded. These women took care to give their patients careful descriptions of their injuries, while explaining Annwynn’s prognosis for their recovery and calming them with cool water, common sense and gentle words.

In the street, kneeling on the hard cobbles, older women sang lullabies, took on the roles of mother, wife, child and lover, gave solace to the frightened and stroked unblistered skin without showing a flicker of shock at terrible wounds and burns. Men, women and children died gently, their path to the shades eased by the courage and love of strangers. As he watched such actions with deep humility, Myrddion vowed that he too would be a healer who cared for the dignity of the dying, as well as those lucky ones who managed to survive.

The night seemed endless. Myrddion was trusted to apply splints to broken limbs, for many poor souls had thrown themselves onto the flagging rather than burn to death. He had watched his mistress treat broken limbs of all kinds, and as long as the skin was unbroken Annwynn trusted him to pull the bone into place and bind it tightly with straight pieces of wood on either side of the affected limb. Myrddion grew used to hurting patients very badly during his ministrations, and his own body was soon blackening with bruises after kicks and blows from flailing fists or legs, even though he was assisted by those elderly men who were unable to endure the physical demands of the bucket line. Regardless of the pain, he worked on until the fire began to die under the force of the rain that had begun to fall just an hour before dawn.

As the sky lightened and the last of the wounded were finally moved into the wool merchant’s store, Myrddion stretched his aching back and searched for Annwynn. She was surrounded by a group of sober-faced women as she explained the care that would be needed for more than twenty seriously injured patients. The healer badly needed to sleep and to replenish her supplies, but fortunately there was no shortage of wives and daughters who would labour for hours to ease the pains of the suffering. For the first time in what would be a very long life, Myrddion wondered at the generous natures of women.

Feeling his gaze, Annwynn looked over at him and smiled maternally.

The wool merchant’s storage area had been roughly swept and bales of wool had been thrust against the walls to free a large central area where the pallets had been laid in rows. Sufficient space had been left between the pallets to permit the women to move around the occupants. Men and women in various stages of undress were laid on the makeshift beds. Splinted and bandaged limbs, salve-smeared burns, bruises, swellings and all the horrible litany of a disaster of devastating proportions stretched out across the room so that Myrddion was forced to see only injuries, not people who had laughed, loved and enjoyed life. To accept their humanity was to be crushed by the sadness of the whole night. In the darkest recesses of the barn-like space, other women plied their needles and sewed pitiful, twisted corpses into makeshift shrouds. Myrddion counted over thirty neatly laid-out bodies.

Annwynn stroked a shoulder here, or patted a cheek there, as she moved to the spot where Myrddion stood, awkward and lost, near the doorway of the store.

‘You’ve worked hard, Myrddion, and probably saved many limbs during this dreadful night. Go home now and sleep for a few hours, and then I’ll expect you back at the cottage, for I’ll need you to prepare more unguent for the burns and boil up whatever rags we’ve used. I’ll remain here for a while, and go home as soon as I can.’ She glanced along the rows of moaning, feverish bodies and their quiet attendants. ‘Many will die, Myrddion, no matter how hard we try. Do you understand why?’

When Myrddion shook his head slowly, Annwynn took the trouble to explain, although she was almost numb with weariness.

‘You’ve seen how burned limbs can swell and split. Sometimes I cut the skin myself to relieve the agony. But our skin seems to protect us from evil humours that live in the air and on every common object around us, and when it is breached the humours find their way straight into our flesh and blood and the wounds putrefy. Some burned ones do live while others die, but I can’t predict who will lose the battle. I have learned that if a third of the body is blistered, then the person cannot survive, but some patients seem to be on the road to recovery until their body heat suddenly rises and they die very quickly. I cannot even begin to guess what causes their deaths. Gods, we know so little of what happens with these wounds.’

Annwynn shook herself vigorously, patted Myrddion on the head with sad affection and told her apprentice to ignore her mood and hurry off home.

Myrddion closed the wool storage door behind him carefully and quietly and gazed along the street towards the spot where the Blue Hag had once stood. As he walked past the corner and down to the crossroads, the ruins came into view.

In addition to the inn, three other buildings had burned to their foundations, while others had been partially destroyed in the conflagration. Although the fires had been extinguished, wisps of smoke still rose from collapsed rafters and piles of ash. Warriors were searching among the ruins and a row of bodies lay on the cobblestones in a light drizzle of rain. For the first time, Myrddion saw the pugilistic stance of a cremated human body, arms raised as if to fight in a rictus caused by flame. As he walked along the row of corpses, he noticed that many of the skulls had exploded and, although his eyes were sickened by the blackened flesh and fused facial features, his brain was already seeking answers to these strange physical responses to burning.