Death of an Empire (27 page)

Day followed day in a seamless ribbon of dawn, noon, sunset, evening and night. The weather became cooler but the southward journey took them into gentler climes where autumn blessed the land with mild weather, ripened fruit and heavy fields of grain. Berries ripened prolifically in the hedgerows, and Willa’s mouth was frequently stained the red and purple of juicy, bursting fruit that had been plucked whenever they paused to feed the horses or rest for the night. Small, misshapen apples and plump nuts were
there for the harvesting and the healers augmented their dried rations with the bounty of this fecund land. The country was not heavily populated, and the road was little more than a rutted track that led them from one settlement to another, all of them small and wary of newcomers.

The good earth was beautiful in ways that Britain was not. Here, the colour of gold seemed to cover every surface, unlike the dove grey and charcoal tones of Cymru. Poplars grew profusely like golden fingers; long grasses were edged with gilt and the very air seemed to have been kissed with gold dust by a benevolent god. The Celts could understand why such a land had known so many invaders, for its rich soil and sweet waters spoke of agriculture that could not fail. But years of turmoil and the movement of those seeking new pastures created populations that were nervous, distrustful and divided by different tribal loyalties. Like farmers and herdsmen the world over, they were pragmatic and insular, choosing to avoid strangers as outlanders who had no place in their quiet existence.

But healers provided a service more precious than gold to those who lived in a dangerous world where a broken limb spelled possible death and a simple childhood illness could maim or kill. Most communities possessed a wise woman who was well versed in herbal lore to one degree or another, but these women served within their communities’ isolation, without the wider experience of illness and injury that Myrddion and his apprentices had gained in abundance, first on battlefields and then in their long travels. While the inhabitants of these far-flung settlements might have few major accidents, Myrddion was surprised by the number of sufferers of chronic diseases who were brought to his wagons.

In the months of their weary journey, the healer experienced the emotional failures of his craft over and over again. At the end of every dispiriting day when he failed to help those who sought
his aid, he regretted anew his ignorance of the many diseases that mocked his learning and left him with an increasing sense of powerlessness. What could he say to the parents of a child whose mind had been damaged at birth? Had fate been kinder, the tiny misshapen child who was unable to walk, speak or even feed itself would have died in infancy. Myrddion knew that some parents killed such damaged infants, but his heart went out to the mothers who wouldn’t submit to Fortuna’s curse and struggled to keep their children alive in the teeth of constant illness and infirmity. When such parents brought in a drooling child whose eyes rolled uselessly in its head, he was forced to explain that he could do nothing, and watch the hope die again in their faces. He prayed to the Mother to lift the spirits of these children and their loving, long-suffering parents, but his own spirits were hard to support.

Leprosy was crueller still, although it was a rare affliction and Myrddion had only seen three cases before coming to Gaul. Now, he saw two cases in as many months, each at a different stage of the disease. One was a boy who seemed untouched, except for swollen knuckles and loss of feeling in hands, feet, nose and lips. Myrddion’s heart quailed when he was forced to tell the widower who had brought him that his eldest son had been stricken with the curse. Merely ten years old, the happy boy would soon be ostracised, lest the disease should begin to spread among other members of their community. By the defeated slump of the father’s shoulders and the haunted look in the man’s brown eyes after his diagnosis, Myrddion knew that he had struck the poor man a deathly blow. Later, Myrddion confided to Cadoc that the father would probably kill his son to put the child out of his misery.

The other leper was an elderly woman who lived on the fringes of a wood in abject poverty, maintained only by food left near her hut by a priest and a small group of pious Christians. Myrddion visited her in her shack, which was held together by slabs of rotten
wood nailed into position. The mean dwelling was as clean as she could keep it with her numbed, damaged hands, and her pitiful possessions filled Myrddion’s heart with sorrow. When he noticed a cracked piece of pottery that had been crudely repaired with pitch and then filled with gay field flowers, her brave attempt to beautify her room caused a tear to well in the healer’s eye. The poor woman walked with the aid of simple crutches, although every step on her ruined, suppurating feet must have been agonising. Her hands retained their thumbs and at least one other digit, so she had some dexterity remaining to her. Although he realised he was being cowardly, the healer was shamingly relieved that she had covered her face.

With simple pride, she showed Myrddion her newly weeded vegetable patch. Beside the hut, an old apple tree still bore fruit on one branch, although she was forced to wait until it fell to the ground because she lacked the strength or the dexterity to pluck it. Everywhere he looked, Myrddion saw evidence that the heart of a warrior was hidden within her shapeless woman’s body.

‘I was beautiful once,’ she told him in a voice so cracked and rasping from the disease and disuse that she could barely be understood. ‘I don’t expect you to touch me, for I know I’m unclean. All I ask for is some salve to ease the pain in my joints, and something to slow down the rotting of my feet.’

As she moved her ungainly body to ease the pressure on those feet, the heavy bell strung round her neck clanged raucously. Myrddion would have dressed the lesions himself, but she recoiled at his kindness.

‘No, master. I would not pass this dreadful scourge on to you. I can see to my own sores if I have the ointments and bandages. Any advice you can give me would also help. I have been forced to remove my own fingers and toes, although it doesn’t really hurt. Still, I’d prefer to keep what limbs I still have.’

The woman was obviously intelligent and responsible, so Myrddion returned to the wagons and made his selection from the prepared unguents and his store of cloth obtained from Aurelianum. He also explained the usefulness of radishes and other plants, while advising the old woman to grow these greens herself and harvest them for her own use.

Before he left, Myrddion gave her a small quantity of poppy seed in a screw of rag. ‘Should your mobility be seriously impaired, these seeds will bring a speedy death,’ he explained regretfully. ‘I promise they won’t give you pain if you grind them carefully. The poppy seeds are very bitter and can make you vomit, so mix them with food that will help you to keep them down. I’m sorry I lack the skills to help you in any other way, but I will pray to the Mother to take pity on one as brave and as noble as you have proved to be.’

‘I am a Christian, master, and the priest counsels me that it’s wrong to take my own life.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘However, I will take your gift – for I know what fate lies in store for me as my illness progresses. May God hold you in His hands, my lord, and protect you always.’

And so Myrddion learned that there were many diseases that he could not heal, and vowed to remember to be humble whenever he drove death away from a cottage door.

Their patients rarely paid in coin, but fresh vegetables, eggs, fruit and even the odd chicken found their way into the cooking pots. Soon, Bridie’s face began to shine with health, and although her leg would barely hold her weight and she needed a stick in order to walk, her injury began to heal cleanly under the dual blessings of good care and healthy food. Little Willa also glowed and developed a plump layer beneath her soft skin, although she remained silent. Occasionally, on the edge of sleep, the child would whisper to Brangaine in the Gaulish tongue, although her new mother reported to Myrddion that the little girl was picking up
Celt so quickly that she seemed to understand almost everything that was said to her.

As winter came, with frosts and biting wind, the healers reached the Middle Sea and turned towards the great port of Massilia. They had spent months travelling across Gaul and had seen no sign of pursuit during all that time, but Myrddion with Cleoxenes’s warning in mind knew better than to lower his guard. The enmity of great men doesn’t dissipate quickly, for such men become powerful because of their willingness to crush those who stand in their way. Myrddion ordered his small family to approach their business in Massilia with caution, so they made their camp on the outskirts of the city close to a well at a place where a stand of poplars raised their naked branches towards the grey sky.

This ancient port, doorway to Gaul and the west, was bigger than any city the Celts had ever seen. They had always considered Londinium to be large, but it was a mere village by comparison with Massilia. The port was full of Roman galleys, Greek biremes, slender boats from Egypt, and square-rigged ships from Phoenicia. As they walked through the crowded wharves, leading their horses, it seemed to the Celtic men that people of every race, colour and creed jostled, shouted, carried loads and cleaned the decks of moored vessels. The whole world came and went from Massilia, adding to its vividness and exotic beauty.

Myrddion marvelled at men from Africa, Nubians, with their silky black skin and close-cropped curly hair. Their glazed bead necklaces and strings of seeds and shells jangled and rang like so many tiny bells. Other men possessed sallow skins and slanted eyes that spoke, Myrddion learned later, of Asiatic or middle-eastern backgrounds. Their dress was brilliantly dyed, almost hurting the Celts’ eyes with the strength and contrast of the colours. Egyptians scratched their stiff horsehair wigs as they worked, or exposed their shaven heads, glossy with perfumed oils, as they bartered.
Their dress was of super-fine cotton, almost transparent in its delicacy, and the pleated magnificence of their loincloths, robes and skirts was only matched by their wide necklaces and breastplates of cornelian, lapis lazuli, amethyst, malachite, rock crystal and enamels set in gold and electrum.

But it was the noise that was most noticeable, a cacophony of different languages, the calls of street entertainers, shouted encouragements from stall merchants, and the jangle, peal, thud and clash caused by the movement of mountains of trade goods. To this impossible jumble of sounds was added the lowing of oxen, the cries of exotic birds in cages and even the snarl of a black-maned lion, securely caged and destined for the arena. Cadoc’s eyes were so round with amazement that Myrddion found himself laughing with excitement at the carnival atmosphere.

‘I hate the sea and it hates me, but I take back all my complaints about this journey. We’ve had our troubles and seen some terrible things, but it was worth it all to see Massilia. No one will believe me back in Cymru when I tell them of the marvels I have seen. Who would think that men can be as black as old wood, with yellow eyes and full lips the colour of mulberry stains? It’s wonderful!’ Cadoc spread out his arms expansively to encompass the harbour that sparkled in the winter sunshine and the passing, haggling throng around them.

‘Yes, Cadoc, Massilia is surely a wonder,’ Myrddion murmured. ‘What then will we find when we reach Rome and Constantinople? Massilia is but a small part of a much larger world than we Celts or the Saxons could ever imagine.’

‘I never thought I’d see men with the white skin and red freckles of my friend Cadoc,’ Finn whispered to Myrddion with a rare grin. ‘How remarkable are these people from far-off places.’ He pointed out a woman who was draped in diaphanous robes that left her breasts and belly naked, over which was coiled a brilliantly
patterned snake. Her long hair was the colour of fresh blood and tiny brass bells rang from a chain around her waist. As she danced to entertain a crowd that had begun to gather, many ribald comments about what she should do with the snake were shouted from man to man, while a greasy Phoenician handed out small tablets that advertised a house of entertainment. ‘Look at her hair, Cadoc. I thought yours was red, but it’s a pale imitation of hers,’ Finn joked, although his eyes caressed her pert breasts and the hollow in her belly.

‘Perhaps her hair isn’t real,’ Myrddion joked, trying not to dwell on her ripe flesh.

‘There’s only one way to check,’ Cadoc said crudely, and stared at the woman appreciatively. She winked at him and his cheeks flushed with a bright tinge of pink.

While his companions watched the woman’s swinging hips, Myrddion examined the dress of the Phoenician trader. His curiosity aroused by a dagger in a decorated scabbard that hung at the Phoenician’s waist, he approached the man, who smilingly allowed him to take a closer look. The leaf-shaped weapon was exactly like the carving that had been picked into the great trilithon at the Giant’s Dance. Myrddion’s ever-curious mind filed away the information that Phoenicians had come to Britain sometime in the past, and he wondered at the vast distances that were covered in the name of trade.

Of the whole throng who passed before them, a group of northerners who disembarked from a primitive pegged wooden boat were the most exotic. White of skin and pale of hair, with eyes so blue that many men of a superstitious bent stepped aside from their paths, they strode through the throng as if the crowd were invisible.

‘Who are those hulking brutes?’ Cadoc asked, with nervous respect for the height of the northerners. ‘They must stand inches
taller than you, master. And look at the size of their hands and feet.’

Myrddion relayed the question to a stallholder who was selling roasted chestnuts. Although the short, dark man frowned a little at Myrddion’s Latin, he replied with much gesticulation and animation.

‘They are Jutes from a country called Jutland,’ Myrddion explained to Cadoc. ‘They rarely reach the Middle Sea, but they are great sailors and fishermen. I can add that they pose a threat to the north of Britain where they have taken to raiding in the spring. Heaven help us if they make treaties with the Saxons and invade in earnest.’