by Smith, Skye
"Oye," Raynar replied. "If it smells that bad, then let's not bother with the water. I wouldn't trust it anyway. It's probably sulphur water."
"It's not the water that smells, Ray, but the bodies. The body of the shepherd and the body of a sheep. They can't have been dead long, cause he hobbled his other sheep like he was going to milk them, or sheer them, so there are still a dozen of them in the shade of these boulders."
"Well come away then. Cut the sheep free and come away."
Flint came into clear view and looked up and called out in a shakey voice, "We're fucked Ray. You go on without us."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith
Chapter 20 - The woolsorter's curse in Illyria in October 1081
"What do you mean you are fucked," Raynar called down to Flint and Buck. "What is happening?"
"I know what this is, Ray," Flint called back. "The smell is because the shepherd cut open a sick sheep to skin it, and then died himself. It's the woolsorter's curse. Poisonous dust in the wool of the sheep. We'll have breathed it in by now. If we stay, we die. If we go, we die. But if you come near us, or come near this place, or near these sheep, you will die too."
"But..." called Raynar, thinking, searching his memory for anything he had ever been told about the woolsorter's curse. "Wait there while I think for a minute or two.” It was coming back to him. The deadly illness that all shepherd's feared. Unlike most sheep diseases that tended to happen in the rainy weather, this was a disease of the dry season, because as Flint had said, it was caused by poisonous dust that gets into the wool of sheep.
What else could he remember. Rain. England’s wonderful rain. The poison dust was not a huge problem in England because the sheep were usually damp, and therefore there was no dust. He looked around at the brown hillside and the dusty soil of this parched land.
What else. If the dust stayed on the grass and was eaten rather than breathed, and then the sheep died as if they were folk with the water sickness. Lots of puking and shitting and fever. You knew it was woolsorter’s because it happened so quickly. It was the same with people. If they ate the meat of a sheep that had puked and shit itself to death, then the people would die the same way.
For that reason, any sheep that died quickly as if by water sickness was immediately buried, or if there was fuel enough, burned. The grass where they died was also burned. Now, did the shepherds bury them to stop the spread of it to their other sheep, or did they bury them so their neighbours wouldn't find out and slaughter all their sheep and burn their meadows.
Wait, there was more shepherd's wisdom drifting back from his memories. Black spot. Men that killed and buried sick sheep sometimes had scratches and cuts go bad on their hands and arms and those turned black. The black spots did not heal themselves. You had to cauterize them and put bitter salves on them. If you didn't do it while the black spots were small, then the black spots would poison the blood, and the men would die of the poisoning.
With all of these morbid memories, there were no good ones. There were none about cures once you breathed the dust, or ate the meat. The only thing you could do was to keep everything damp to keep the dust from spreading in the wind, and bathe all of your folk and your animals in rivers or lakes or the sea; and never, ever eat the meat of a sick animal.
"Was there any water in the spring," Raynar asked, as he wetted his own neckerchief using the little water he had left in his skin, and then tied it around his nose and mouth. "Can you wash yourselves off, and dampen the dust down."
"Too late Ray," Buck called up. His voice was shaky as if on the edge of tears, or perhaps anger. "We are dead. You go on. Get to the ships. If you stay around here, you risk breathing the dust. Once you are gone we will kill everything and bury everything, and then set fire to it all."
Flint called up, "Ray, we are not jesting. As lads in Yorkshire we did our time as the village shepherds, that is, before the Normans destroyed the villages and killed everyone. The signs down here are just as clear as how they were explained to us by the old shepherds and the wise women. It's woolsorter’s, no doubt about it, and therefore we are dead, and if we leave this place, then we risk spreading it."
Ned yelled down, "So then what. You kill everything and bury the bodies and torch the place, but then what. Do you just sit down and wait to die. You are warriors. That would be the worst of deaths. You will be ignored by the Valkyries."
The two men below looked at each other and whispered. Buck eventually called up, "We will fight each other, and at the same moment kill each other. We will still die fighting with our Valkyrie knives in our hands."
"No," Raynar yelled out. "You mustn't. The Valkyries will never choose a man who died trying to kill his friend."
"What else can we do, Ray," called Buck. "The Valkyries don't choose suicides either. Look around. The Normans are all at the battle, so we can't even trick some Norman scouts into coming up here and killing us."
Raynar sat down on a rock hoping that something would come to him to solve this dilema. While he waited he kept the men below talking, trying to keep their hopes up, "There is one of my stories that I rarely tell, because telling it brings the great hurt back inside me. Did I ever tell you about how my wife Anske became a Valkyrie?"
"Anske," replied Buck, "the woman you named your ship after?"
"That is her. It was near Peterburgh just before the Ely rebellion. We had captured some Normans in Peterburgh. They escaped. They took Anske along as a shield. I followed them but could not attack without costing Anske her life. That night they, they, .... they raped and tortured her. From the screams I knew that she would die anyway if I did not attack, so I attacked.
They had broken her feet, so the leader of the bastards held her up with one arm as his shield and put a knife to her throat. He told me that if I surrendered that she would go free. She knew I would surrender, so she took her own weight on her broken feet and pushed herself to her full height so that the man would loosen his grip around her.
Then she smiled at me and let her legs collapse. As she dropped she tore out her own throat against his knife, but as she dropped she left me a head shot, and I blew out the back of the man's skull with my arrow. She had taken her own life, but before she took her last breath she had killed the bastard by my hand.
The wise women and seers told me that Freyja would choose her as a Valkyrie immediately, because through violence and weapons, she had killed her enemy, and had saved her friend, even though it cost her life. It was therefore not suicide, but heroism in battle."
There was silence. Raynar sniffed and wiped his tears on his dampened kerchief.
"So send us some Normans," Buck called out, "so that we can commit suicide as we kill them."
"All the Normans are on the coastal plain on the other side of this ridge," said Ned. "And they are beating the Byzantines, and they have killed the last of the English lords."
Buck and Flint whispered to each other, and they both began to nod. Buck called out, "Then if you can't send us some Normans, then we must go and find some for ourselves. Clear out. Go further along the path and stay upwind. We must cross the ridge and go down the coastal side."
Slowly, but with no other choice, Raynar and Ned climbed back up to the high path along the top of the ridge and then walked away towards the Venetian fleet, which they could now see clearly. At the next jog in the ridge, they looked back. Buck and Flint were leading a roped line of a dozen sheep up and over the ridge and then they started down the other side. Down towards the coastal plain, the battlefield, and the Norman army.
Buck stopped walking and looked back at them and yelled, "Ray, I'll make you a deal. I will kill Duke Guiscard, if you kill Duke William."
Raynar yelled back. "It's a deal Buck. I'll find you in Woden's hall and we can compare stories."
"Look at that," said Ned as he sat down to watch his friends and their sheep, "They look just like two shepherds off to
market."
"To market with sheep carrying poisonous dust. I hope they make it to the Norman camp. I hope they wind their way through the horse paddocks, and stop and pat the dust from those sheep right underneath the noses of the horses and their riders."
They watched until the two shepherds reached the base of the ridge and wandered towards the gleaners who were now scavenging from the bodies on the northern edge of the battlefield. A group of men came towards them and blocked their way and began motioning to the sheep. Some of them were Norman infantry men. The infantrymen first hit them and then grabbed them and then led them and their sheep across the coastal plain and towards the Norman camp near the city.
"We have to go back," said Raynar softly.
"What?"
"We have to go back and warn the Byzantines that there is a plague starting in the Norman camp. What did Buck say... he had breathed the dust so he had less than two days to live, and on the last day he would be very sick. A lot of Normans down there are going to be dying in two days. The Byzantines need to retreat to the first big river along the highway, the last damp place, and wait until the dying stops, or until the winter rains begin, before they venture onto the coastal plain again."
Raynar stood and began to backtrack along the high path. When they got to the place where Buck and Flint had led the sheep across the high path, the climbed up onto the highest boulder, held their breath, and leaped across. Then they struck out back towards the pass with renewed purpose.
* * * * *
The first of the Byzantine army that they came across were the Seljuks who were holding the slopes of the pass. They had no language in common with them, and the Seljuks would not let them continue unescorted. The first man they met who spoke Greek was Ahmad, their commander, who was organizing the Seljuks who were arriving with the Byzantine army that was now retreating in great numbers from the coastal plain and through this pass.
Ahmad whistled some signals and waved to some Seljuks further down the pass, and that brought John Doukas to them. With Ahmad and Doukas and a few Seljuks and Thracians listening, he tried to explain the poison dust and the great sickness that was about to befall the Norman camp. The real trouble was that the name woolsorter's curse was the English shepherds name for the sickness, and Raynar did not know what it would be called in Constantinople.
He tried explaining the sickness, and how it would keep killing men until the rainy season began, and even then it would still kill animals like cattle, horses and sheep. It was frustrating that he couldn't make himself understood, even in Greek.
Doukas was loosing his patience. "The Emperor has left the battlefield and no one knows where he is or even if he still lives or is a captive. I do not care about the Norman camp. Unless we find Alexius, we will not be attacking the Normans again. This news is of no importance to me. Not now. Not yet."
Ahmad had been talking to some of his Seljuks, probably relaying Raynar's description of woolsorter's curse and asking if anyone had heard of it. Their talk became excited, and other archers were called down from the hillside to discuss it. Now they all became very excited and were speaking very quickly and men were even back-talking to this fearsome warrior and leader, Ahmad Khan.
Ahmad turned back to Doukas and explained that the shepherds amongst his men knew of this disease, and it was a disease not a poison, though it did spread in the dust of wool. "My men are more afraid of this disease than they are of anything on this battlefield. They want me to order them to retreat. They agree with Raynar, that they need to get to a place where they can stay damp until the rains come. At least get back across the river Charzanes so that all men and animals can be washed down before they enter the next camp."
"What is it called in your language?" asked Raynar.
"Some call it Siberian dust fever, but most know it as komur fever because it turns all wounds black. My Greek fails me. What is the Greek word for the black rock that burns; the one we Seljuks call komur?"
"Black rock that burns?" Raynar thought, "In English it is coal, in Venetian carbone."
"In Greek, it is anthrax," said Doukas.
Ahmad thanked him. "So Doukas, tell your emperor that there is anthrax fever in the Norman camp. As for me and my men. We are out of here. Look above us on the hillside. My men are passing along the news of the kumar fever as we speak. I will not be able to hold them here, not here where they will breath the dust from the battlefield. If I do not lead them east right now, then they will desert. I will try to hold them on the other side of the first big river, because they will stop there long enough to wash. If you meet us there, you must warn your own men to wash. My men will run from them if they do not wash all dust from everything as they are cross the river."
Doukas tried to hold Ahmad back, but the man snarled at him, and pushed him away, and then yelled orders up to his men and they passed those orders from squad to squad all along the pass and the ridge. Raynar and Ned prepared themselves to walk to the inland end of the pass where they would turn west down the next flat valley, which was the valley of the lagoon where the fleet was anchored. The Seljuks were massing together and trotting along the highway, east towards Salonika.
Doukas, watched them go until he saw the standard of a Byzantine general, and then he too was gone, rushing to make a report to the general.
Suddenly Ned and Raynar were alone, surrounded by thousands. "Let's keep to the valley all the way to the fleet," Ned said. "I would rather risk meeting Norman scouts than risk being down wind of that spring."
"Agreed. This battle is finished. Alexius now knows that he cannot defeat the Normans without first defeating their cavalry, and that requires arrows. His archers are deserting him. Oh well, at least the Byzantines are safe enough if they retreat along this highway. Once they leave the coastal plain, the terrain favours infantry over cavalry.
The Battle of Dyrrhachium is finished. It is over. Both sides have lost, and England, poor England has lost the most, and doesn't even know it."
"I feel sorry for those poor folk in the city," said Ned, between breaths as he quickened his stride. "They've been besieged by an army for a half a year, and now they will be besieged by a plague camp. There is no helping them."
* * * * *
"So what are the English scouts up to now," asked the steersman of the galley. When the captain gave him a questioning look, he nodded up above to the rigging. Two tall men were scrambling up to the lookout perch way up the mast where the spar of the sail crossed the mast.
"They want a better view of the battlefield," replied the captain. "Ease her off course to slacken the sail a bit, and then let her drift for a while. We owe them that much. They lost two good men taking messages back and forth to the Emperor. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't know that the Emperor was already in retreat, and that there was plague in the Norman camp. I was about to give orders to unload the provisions we carry, when they arrived back with the news."
"Aye, I heard about Buck and Flint. Pity. They had strong backs and strong minds, not like some of our own oarsmen."
The fleet was sailing south along the coastal plain towards Dyrrhachium to have a good look at what was going on so they could report it all in full to the Doxe in Venice. "Don't go in too close," the captain said, "not if there is plague ashore."
"Look, that must be the church that Raynar told us about. There, the big building without a roof. Well at least the Varangians would have died close to God."
"Shush, don't mock them," the captain spoke angrily. "You full well know that they probably weren't Christians. They would have worshiped the old gods, the gods of warriors."
Ned reached over and steadied Raynar until he too had a leg over the perch. "It looks almost peaceful in the Norman camp. I was expecting either drunken feasting, because they survived the day, or drunken puking because they were about to have a very bad night."
"We don't even know if the sheep that Buck and Flint led to the camp were carrying the poison. We don't even know for sur
e that either of them are sick. Well, hopefully if they survive the sickness, and survive the way that Norman's bargain for food with peasants, we will see them again. They know enough French to make their way in the army, and they know enough Venetian to talk their way aboard one of the patrol galleys, if they can steal a small boat and get off shore."
"Yer dreaming, Ray. They knew what they were doing and they knew what they saw at that spring. If they say it was woolsorter’s curse, then so it was. They could even be dead by now. If they wanted to die in battle, then once the sheep were delivered to Guiscard's kitchen, it would be easy enough for them to pick a fight and kill a few Normans before they were killed themselves."
Raynar held up his Valkyrie knife to the sky and looked over towards the collapsed church. One of the crew had told them that it was a special church dedicated to the Archangel Michael, Michael the healer who was actually an ancient god renamed as an angel by the Christians. "Anske," he called out to the heavens. "There are a lot of English warriors dead in and around that church, and they fought a good battle today. Don't ignore them just because they died so close to the house of the desert god."
The galley rocked on the next set of waves, and both men had to hold onto the mast to keep themselves from being thrown off the perch. Finally the ship stilled again, and Raynar held up his knife again, and called out. "Anske my love. There are two good friends of mine dead somewhere in the Norman camp. They may have died of a plague, or they may have been killed by the Normans.
You will know them because they are dressed like shepherds. Ignore their clothes and look for their Valkyrie knives. I want to see them again in Valhalla when my time on this earth is finished and I can once again hold you in my arms. Watch for them especially. Choose them for Valhalla."
"Do you think she heard you, Ray? It's a bloody long way to the Fens of England."
