by Daniel Diehl
“I don’t know which one of you to thank first.” Looking at Merlin, he said “I assume the whirlwind was your doing?” When Merlin nodded the king responded in kind, adding “It was brilliant and brilliantly timed. I think we would have been fine on our own – eventually - but that was the decisive factor; and it saved a lot of lives, including Griffudd’s.”
Turning toward Jason, Arthur smiled again. Jason could smell the coppery twang of blood on the king’s breath. “Master Jason, if I had any doubts about your abilities as a military engineer, that flying wedge formation dispelled them entirely; you saved my army. I’m sure my uncle will want to thank you, as well, as soon as he has time.” Arthur started to turn back to his men, but paused, looking back at Jason. “And your idea about using cavalry for encirclement was very clever. I have to go now, but we will talk more later.”
“What are they going to do with all these bodies?” Jason’s voice sounded very small in his own ears.
When he answered, Merlin stepped close, keeping his voice low. “Once we separate those of our men who can survive from those who have no hope, and get the wounded loaded onto the carts, Arthur will dispatch a detail to give our dead a Christian burial here, where they fell.”
“And the Saxon dead?”
“Meaning the entire army.”
“God, he isn’t really going to kill all the prisoners, is he?”
Merlin squatted down on the ground, motioning for Jason to join him. “Look, Jason. If we don’t kill them, their king will take it as a sign of weakness and, eventually, he will send another, bigger army against us. If only the two messengers are left alive, and they tell King Hengest about our new tactics and the whirlwind, he’s going to think long and hard before he invades us again.”
“It’s just so barbaric.”
“War is always barbaric, it always has been and it always will be. There is no such thing as a clean war. It’s just that most people in your world don’t have to look directly into its ugly face.” After a long pause to let his words sink in, Merlin added “And you understand we will have to kill some of our own men?”
“WHAT?”
“Some are far too badly wounded to recover. And we can’t just leave them to suffer.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“I know; I feel the same way. But it’s really much kinder if we relieve them of their suffering now rather than put them in a jostling wagon and torture them with a ride they can’t possibly survive. Now be strong and come help the others tend to the wounded while I give last rights to the dead and dying. I am still a priest, you know.”
By sundown Arthur’s men had buried one hundred and seventeen dead Britons – more than fifteen percent of his army - in a common grave and dragged the bodies of more than eight hundred Saxons – stripped of their weapons and armor – to the edge of a small woodland bordering the battlefield where they were piled up and left for the wolves, fox, crows, ravens and other of nature’s scavengers to dispose of.
With their grizzly work finished, nearly all of the men able to walk made their weary way into Vaddon where they found a tavern whose owner had not fled, and proceeded to eat and drink the innkeeper out of everything in his cellar. Only Merlin and a few volunteers remained at camp, tending to the wounded. It was the first time Jason had ever known the wizard to pass up an opportunity to make friends with alcohol. In an equally unusual switch, Jason got roaring drunk. The other men and officers assumed that he, like themselves, was helping to celebrate their stunning victory over the despised Saxons, and they took every opportunity to congratulate him on his help. Only Jason knew the real reason he drank himself insensible.
The following morning Arthur separated his forces into two divisions. The main body, including the vast majority of the army and all the wounded well enough to travel under their own power, would return to Baenin by the end of the day. The remainder, including the baggage wagons with their freight of wounded, and a small contingent of drivers and armed guards, would take a slower course to avoid jostling the casualties and breaking open freshly clotted wounds.
Jason and Merlin rode with Arthur, Ambrosius and some of the officers, and while the others laughed and joked, reliving their fabulous victory of the day before, Jason gritted his teeth and pressed his eyes shut, wishing the herd of horses running around and around inside his head would go away. He didn’t know if they had been on the road ten minutes or a thousand years when he vaguely heard someone speak his name. Opening one eye and turning toward the sound he looked into the grinning face of Llewellyn.
“It was the mead, wasn’t it lad? It’ll get you every time if you’re not used to it.”
“It was something.”
“I just wanted to thank you personally for figuring out how to use my equites in battle. And thanks to the stirrups, when we rode into the enemy lines we no longer got unhorsed when we drove a spear through somebody; the force of the impact used to throw us out of the saddle. Now it doesn’t. It was superb and my men loved every minute of it.”
The thought of driving a spear through another man at the speed of a charging horse nearly sent Jason into another round of dry heaves, but he fought the urge, tried to smile and once the banging inside his head slowed down he mumbled, “It wasn’t really my idea, but you’re welcome. Glad it helped.”
“When we have some time to ourselves, I’d appreciate hearing any other ideas you might have for the equites.”
Jason wanted to be polite but he also needed time alone and his answers were correspondingly terse. “Any time you like. Merlin brought me here to help.”
What he said was true; all Jason had wanted to do was help Merlin save lives. Now, somehow, after devising the technology and tactics that had taken the lives of more than a thousand men he felt like he had the blood of every one of them on his hands. His hung-over head hurt, his back hurt, his saddle-sore rump hurt but mostly his soul hurt. He tried to shake his head but the pain was too intense, so he just sighed, pressed his eyes shut and clung to the back of the shaggy little horse as it bounced homeward. His mood was not helped when Merlin’s mule walked alongside his horse and slowed to keep pace. When Jason finally opened his eyes, Merlin spoke.
“You do realize that we won the battle, don’t you, Jason?”
“Of course. What’s your point?”
“I just want you to consider that, for whatever it means, we have irrevocably altered the course of history.”
Jason scowled and ran a filthy hand across his dirt-streaked forehead. “So what’s going to happen?” Merlin’s only reaction was to raise one shaggy eyebrow enquiringly. “What I mean is, how do you think it might affect the future?”
Merlin shook his head almost imperceptibly, mumbled “I have absolutely no idea, Jason” and kneed his mule forward, leaving Jason alone with his inner pain.
An hour later Jason was still dealing with his self-recriminations, trying to decide whether he should have come to this primitive world with Merlin, and whether things would get better or worse if he stayed, when his attention was brought back to the real world by the sound of screaming voices. Opening his eyes, his attention was drawn to his left where two ragged looking men were shouting and waving their arms in the air as they scrambled over a low hillock a few dozen yards beyond the roadway. Arthur and Ambrosius almost simultaneously held up their hands, ordering the column to a halt, and waited for the strangers to approach. The closer the men got the clearer the reason for their distress became. Their clothes were literally in tatters and their faces, hands and bodies were covered with soot and spotted with burns of various degrees of severity. Even before they reached the edge of the road, holding their hands toward Arthur in supplication, Arthur, Merlin and Ambrosius had dismounted and were moving to meet them.
“My Lord, my Lord,” one of the men croaked through blistered lips as he stumbled and fell to his knees. “My Lord, the beasts are back…”
“They destroyed our entire village. My wife and children, they burned them al
ive. Oh, God, oh God.”
Merlin had rushed to the men’s side, passing a skin of wine back and forth between them. By the time he had them seated on the ground and calm enough to quit babbling, Jason had dismounted and joined the others who were clustered around the terrified men. Arthur squatted down so he was looking the men squarely in the eye and spoke calmly and evenly.
“Where is your village?”
One of the men was completely incoherent, capable only of repeating the single word “them, them, them” over and over, but his companion pulled himself together and answered the king’s question.
“We are from Uwlly, my Lord.” The man’s eyes were glazed over in shock and it was obvious that it took every ounce of composure he had left to form a coherent sentence. “Two days north of here, near the river.”
Merlin passed the wine skin between the men again. “Have you been running for two days?”
“Aye. We ran till we collapsed last night and again all day today.” Looking back and forth from Arthur to Ambrosius, not sure which of the men in fine armor was their king, he blurted out his story. “We heard that your Lordship had come to destroy the foreigners. When the monsters flew down from the sky and burned our village, we were the only ones to escape. I think we were. I don’t know. I can’t be sure. But we ran to find you. Can you help us, my Lord? Will you? Please.”
As Arthur patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, the man broke down in tears. Standing up, the king stepped toward Ambrosius and motioned for Merlin and Jason to join him.
“We four will ride to Uwlly. The equites will come with us. We need to search for survivors and gather whatever information about the attack we can find in the rubble of this sad place.”
Pointing toward the two wretched figures on the ground, Merlin whispered “Perhaps I should stay with them.”
“No. I need you with me, old friend. It will have done me no good to defeat the Saxons only to have the kingdom fall to the dragons; and to prevent them from tearing my kingdom apart one village at a time I need to take the war to them. That means you have to tell me how to locate their lair. Do you think you can locate their base for me?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Good. Then turn these poor hulks over to Griffudd and instruct him to have someone tend to them. He can take them back to Baenin with the rest of the troops.”
Turning to Jason, Arthur offered a twisted smile. “It would seem that Merlin brought you here not one minute too soon. I want your thoughts on the damage at this village and your help devising every possible means of dealing with these creatures, so I would appreciate it if you came with us as well. I can’t order you to come; you’re not one of my subjects. Do you think your backside can survive another day or two in the saddle?”
Jason nodded wearily, repeating almost verbatim the words he had spoken to Llewellyn only an hour earlier. “No problem. That’s why I’m here.”
Clapping Jason on the back, King Arthur shouted down the line of men. “Llewellyn, you and the equites are with me. We ride to survey a dragon attack. Tell Griffudd he can proceed with the rest of the men to Baenin.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
As Merlin handed his wineskin to Griffudd, leaving the two survivors in his care, Arthur shouted “Mount up.”
A half hour later Merlin motioned for Jason to follow him and dropped back to the end of the line. When Jason caught up with him, Merlin sighed and rubbed his nose.
“I just realized something that I completely missed when I went through this timeline before. Possibly it was the stress of losing the battle to the Saxons.” When Merlin left the thought unfinished, Jason prompted him to continue. “Ah, yes. After destroying Uther’s kingdom the dragons disappeared for nearly a decade-and-a-half and now, suddenly, there have been three attacks within two months.”
“And you see some kind of a pattern here?”
“I’m afraid I do. You see, I think their first series of attacks, both here and in Europe, were simply exploratory. Testing the waters if you will.”
“And now?”
“And now I believe they’re ready to move forward with a full scale invasion.”
It took every ounce of courage Jason had to hold himself together as he contemplated the outcome of a full blown dragon war. Calming himself, he responded as evenly as he could. “Why now? What changed?”
“I think they’ve been looking for someone on this side to help them, a person willing to act as their eyes and ears in this world.”
“Morgana.”
“Morgana.”
* * * *
When the supply wagons and their freight of moaning, wounded men pulled into Baenin, Beverley, Gwenhwyfar and her ladies were waiting in the dusty courtyard in front of Arthur’s villa. Their sleeves were rolled up, their hair was bound and covered with scarves and – for reasons understood only by her - Beverley had insisted that everyone wash their hands in hot water. More water was being kept at a slow simmer for anything that might need to be sterilized. Now, as the first cart lurched over the uneven stones, the women were there with makeshift stretchers, ready to receive the wounded and carry them into the reception hall and chapel where they would be made as comfortable as possible until the severity of their wounds could be assessed. Beverley had seen enough war movies to know that the wounded had to be divided into three categories; those who were so badly wounded that no amount of care could save them, those who could survive if they received immediate attention and, finally, those whose wounds could wait. The dying would be made comfortable and given one of Merlin’s pain killing concoctions, those who could wait were to be led to a comfortable place to lie down and those who needed immediate medical attention would be stripped of their clothes, their wounds cleaned and given whatever treatment was needed.
When the first semi-conscious man was carried through the door Beverley took one look at his ashen-gray face and the ugly, gaping spear wound in his thigh and she knew he had gone into shock from blood loss. She also knew that shock can kill.
Pointing toward the nearest bed she said “Put him there and get him out of those filthy clothes. I want the foot of the bed elevated at least the width of your hand.” Over her shoulder she called to the pre-teenage girl watching the cauldrons of boiling water. “And bring me a bowl of warm water and three or four clean cloths.” Seeing that the women had not yet begun to remove the man’s clothes, she scowled and asked if there was a problem.
“But Mistress, he is neither our husband nor our brother. It wouldn’t be right…”
“I don’t care who he is or isn’t. Take off those filthy clothes…” Pushing her way between the women she mumbled “Oh, here, I’ll show you. Now watch what I do” and began undressing the man after telling the crowd of milling women to find beds for as many men as possible and do it as quickly as they could. When the man moaned incoherently, pawing at her, she gently brushed his hands away and mumbled soothingly. Once the soldier’s dirty, blood-spattered tunic and leggings had been removed, she dipped the clean pieces of cloth in the warm water and bathed the area around the gaping slash on his leg. The wound was at least six inches in length and at its deepest point it reached to the thigh bone, the whiteness of which she could see peeking through the clotted blood.
“That will need to be seared, Mistress. I’ll have one of the girls put an iron into the fire.” Ganieda was leaning over Beverley’s shoulder, watching the proceedings and pointing a finger. “I’ve seen hot irons applied to deep wounds before. It prevents the poison and rot from setting in.”
“And it also prevents healing and the pain of the hot iron can worsen his shock to the point that he’ll die right in front of you. There aren’t going to be any wounds cauterized here as long as I’m in charge. Now bring me a small cup of alcohol from the alembic, a length of thread and the sharpest sewing needle you have.”
“What are you doing, Mistress? You can’t sew up a man like he was a ripped seam in a pair of leggings.”
“Oh, ca
n’t I?”
Dipping a clean cloth into the alcohol, she began cleaning the wound. The wine color of the brandy made it difficult for her to tell which of the wet spots were from fresh blood and which disinfectant but it did not slow her work.
“Mistress, we usually clean wounds with a mixture of hyssop water and propolis, which is made from the red resin collected from bee hives.”
“Hyssop, that’s an herb, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Mistress. It’s sacred. The priests use it when they purify the church.”
Not wanting to alienate the women entirely, but unwilling to have God-knows-what kind of concoction poured into open wounds, Beverley nodded.
“Use the hyssop water to bathe the men after you get their clothes off, but clean the wounds with the liquid from the alembic. It is very pure and prevents infection.”
The women nodded and most of them went about their business as instructed, while Beverley sterilized the gaping spear cut until she was satisfied it was as clean as it was likely to get. After administering a drink of Merlin’s pain killer to her patient, she began suturing the gaping wound with neat stitches spaced at what she guessed to be three sutures to the inch, while the women around her stared open-mouthed, not believing their eyes. When the stitches were in place, she applied a pad of sterilized cloth to the wound, wrapping the thigh in clean linen. When she finished, she stood up and pressed her hand into her lower back, making a silent wish that the beds were two feet higher. When she wiped her forehead with the back of one hand she was amazed that it came away drenched with beads of sweat.
“Ok. Who’s next?”
The next man, who had a broken arm, had also developed a fever, compounding his situation.
“Mistress, it’s customary to bleed those with fevers.” Beverley couldn’t remember the women’s name, but she was very serious and spoke as though she had some experience dealing with sickness and wounds. “They say the bleeding helps balance the body’s humors. That, combined with prayer to drive away the devils that cause people with fevers to suffer delusions, is often effective.”
