I guess I was joining the army…
Does conscription count as joining?
A King’s order. ALL men, including me, between 16 and 30 were to become cannon fodder in some war the king was planning on fighting.
We were pretty far away from the capital and all its political intrigues. Living in our tiny little hamlet minding our own business so we weren’t the most clued in on any rumours of an upcoming war, certainly not a war large enough to warrant the use of a King’s order. Luke and some of the village elders had heard talk of a small uprising being led by a witch, but I had honestly not been paying attention. It was being led by a witch. John had said I was entering the true world, where magic was real, but I had thought he meant it in a secret underground cabal kind of way. But alas no, this was the “Dark ages” a period of time in which there was very little recorded history. It was also called something else in John’s memories.
It was called, “The age of magic”.
One of the layers of memories unlocked and the information flooded into my mind.
After the Romans left the hidden world had decided it was their time to rise up and rule the earth, witches, wizards, mages(I guess I actually fell into this group), elementals, alchemists, were-kin all came out of the shadows and vied for the throne. Surprisingly under the heavy assault of all of those powerful supernatural powers, the ones that succeeded in snatching the throne were the Pendragon clan. Humans, albeit, with the aid of dragons. Dragons were the most powerful of all creatures, big fire-breathing, lizards with massive wings. They were creatures that had existed since before the ice age and according to John’s memories were near immortal. A hundred years went by and the Pendragon clan ruled over the land peacefully, and the age of magic was in full swing.
That was true at least until 21 years ago and the black dragon’s rebellion. One of the Pendragon’s own dragons betrayed its brothers by joining forces with the witches and attempted to take over the throne. After an epic yearlong battle the Pendragons prevailed, but it was a pyrrhic victory, all but one of the dragons were dead, and the capital was burned down to the ground. Most importantly to King Uther, Queen Aetheria was dead. The King in his grief and rage outlawed magic in all its forms, punishable by death. He even executed any children of the known witches and wizards. And in a final move against magic, Uther had his own dragon, the last of his kind, bound in unbreakable chains and buried under the castle.
“Thanks for telling me so soon John” I muttered under my breath, suddenly very sober, all thoughts of a silly marriage discarded.
The villagers were visibly upset. There were even mutterings of disobedience, which were quickly quashed. Actually the impact on the village would be pretty minimal, there were only 6 men (the village only had 50 people) between the ages of 16 and 30 and 2 of those were former soldiers, so they could not be conscripted. The sense of unhappiness came from the fact that, the villages further away from the (new) capital were always the ones conscripted first.
Mark spent the day with us. Catching up with Luke and being mothered by Bess. I tried to keep out of the way as much as possible, packing what little things I had managed to accumulate over the winter into my satchel. Talking to the other villagers, saying my goodbyes to the little kids, buying things I might need, like a sewing kit and a good leather belt. So it was lunch time by time I actually spoke with Mark.
“So you are the one who’s being staying in my room?” he asked with a friendly smile on his face. He was going to be one of the soldiers in charge, so effectively he was going to be my boss. I wasn’t nervous (I was never nervous anymore, the walk had made me too apathetic), but I did want to make a good impression.
“Yes, that’s me I suppose” I said laughing, rubbing the back of my head then offering my hand for a hand shake. “I am Emris”
“Mark, although you know that already” he said shaking my hand; he had a strong grip from years of sword practice but he didn’t try to crush my hand when he shook it. “Thank you, for saving my father’s life.” He had a genuinely grateful look on his face.
“It was the least I could do, Luke and Bess have been very kind to me, taking me in as they did” I said brushing off his thanks.
Bess came into the room and squeezed my shoulder, she looked at Mark and said “you better look after him, whilst you two are off soldiering!” she kissed him on the cheek and bustled off to the kitchen area (actually the kitchen prep area, the actual cooking was done over the fireplace as that was the only place with a chimney).
I looked at Mark with a serious expression “How bad is the situation? There wouldn’t be a need for an order if it wasn’t serious”
“It is not that bad, at least not in terms of soldiers. Our soldiers will outnumber theirs 20:1. It’s the witch that is the problem, her magicks are strong and she is trying to unite the bandits under her rule. There are rumours she used her powers to enslave an entire battalion of our own soldiers. I even heard wild rumours that she resurrects corpse of those killed by her men to use against us” he said shivering slightly at the talk of magic. “But those are just the rumours, the real reason is that the king wants us to make an example of her, and kill her army to the last man as a warning against any others.”
We chatted for about half an hour, after which I let Mark catch up with the family whilst I did all of today’s tasks like feeding the cattle and tending to what little vegetable farming Luke did. I spent the evening at Ian’s; Ian was the local village brewer and brewed some of the WORST beer I have ever tasted. It was bitter and sour and all in all horrible, but his was the only public house in the whole village. Ian liked me; I had helped him improve his beer by convincing him to add dried heather and elderflowers to the wort to steep, acting as a substitute for modern hops. This helped preserve his beer for longer, and it tasted less vile; almost palatable.Ian saw me coming in and beckoned me over; Ian was actually one of the two former soldiers who were exempted from the King’s order, “here drink this” he said giving me a tankard of white liquid.
I looked at him with suspicion, and then down at the murky white liquid again. I took a tentative sniff; it smelt of grapes, but also something else. I looked up “Where did you get wine from?” wine actually wasn’t that rare in England at the time, there were vineyards in England and it was actually a bit warmer than in modern times. But there weren’t any vineyards in the neighbouring area, as it was the wrong kind of soil.
“It is special wine, have a sip” he said to me encouragingly. I looked at him suspiciously again and tentatively took a sip. It was sharp, acidic, tart, astringent and much more potent than normal wine of the time. Normal wines, before cork, were very weak, about the same as beer, this was different. This was delicious.
I looked up at him sharply “This is some exceptional stuff, it must have cost you a lot of coin” Ian was notoriously stingy with his coin. Half the reason he liked me was that I had increased his profits, by a lot. His ale was sought after now, some people came from as far as the capital to buy barrels of his new ale. But the stingy bastard still made me pay full price for every tankard of beer I had ever drunk.
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“War is a bad business, friend” he said seriously. “You are a healer: healers are valuable on the battlefield. In an honourable battle a healer might be safe being in the back lines helping to save his brothers, but those you fight won’t be honourable. The witch will target the back lines with her magicks and your secrets will be revealed.”
“My secrets?” I asked curious to see how much he knew
“You are an alchemist.” He stated back calmly and quietly
I literally fell out of my chair laughing, “hahahahahahaha, me an alchemist!” I gasped laughing using the table to pick myself up from the floor. Everyone was looking at me funny; a few of them were even looking shocked at the revelation that I wasn’t an alchemist. “Seriously, does everyone really think I am an alchemist?” I looked at Ian and then around the room, a few of them turned their heads away embarrassed.
“You are too good at healing. I was a soldier, and not even the venerable doctors of the capitals can do all of the things you do. Also your use of water to heal people is too easy looking. Finally you don’t smell” he said to me as if that was conclusive proof that I was an alchemist.
I looked at Ian and motioned him to come closer “I will tell you a little secret Ian” I whispered quietly “I don’t actually heal people” he was taken aback. “The body can almost always heals itself from minor wounds. It’s only that there are bad humours in the air that prevent the body from doing so. Boiling water is too hot for those humours to survive within; so using boiling water to clean those wounds and making sure that the wound is shielded from further contamination is what caused my patient's bodies to heal themselves. I am useless against anything that your body can’t deal with on its own. By the way it is the same humors in the air which causes the malted barley or the pulped grape to turn itself into beer or wine.” Ian looked at me as if I had revealed the mysteries of the universe to him.
“As to why I don’t smell, I bathe. Every single day. Even in the winter, I had Bess boil me water so I that could have warm water to bathe in the winter.” I paused and told him “I also know how to make soap by mixing lye water with fats and mixing in dried lavender.” Ian looked at me and shook his head in disbelief.
I looked down at my drink, “what’s in this anyway, it’s not just wine is it?” I asked
He looked at me laughed and said “no, one of Mathew's contacts makes this with juice from gooseberries, and wine.” Mathew was the other former soldier, he and Ian had served together and had retired together, they even partnered up for the brewery and public house, Mathew grew the barley which the beer was made from. The two were inseparable, more often found with each other than their wives. Their wives were identical twins.
“Where is Matty?” I asked looking around
“Mathew is getting you something.”
“Getting me something? Does he think I am an alchemist too?”
“He is one of the few who doesn’t. He is giving you some of his old things from when he was a soldier. He never liked killing and his old equipment reminds him too much of the bad old days.” Ian said, frowning, remembering their army day. I distracted Ian by talking about making soap and we spent the next half hour chatting with each other and the other villagers in the public house. Quite a few of the villagers wouldn’t look me in the eyes embarrassed, but they all had smiles on their faces.
Matty came in through the back entrance carrying a long thin thing, that was wrapped in cloth. I got up and greeted Matty “can you believe these guys, they thought I was an alchemist?!” I complained.
“You know too much, but you aren’t an alchemist. They smell of the earth and fire” he said with complete certainty
“So you are giving me your old sword. Don’t. You may need it one day if something bad happens to the village” I said.
“I have another, the one I got when I first joined the army. You can have this one, too many bad memories with this one.” He said almost pushing the sword off the table.
I unwrapped the sword. It was different than the standard swords of its day. It was made from pattern welded steel, which was expensive, but the thing that was most different about it was that it was single edged. It was slightly more than 3 fingers wide, there was almost no tapering, the point was curved, and there was a very shallow but wide fuller running down the entire length of the sword. The guard was a simple flat oval, and the pommel was in the shape of a paw. This was a Viking sword.
I looked at him quizzically “I took this from a Nordic raiding captain after I killed him. they had raided this little village near the border with the Aengles in Meon Wara. Something must have happened to anger the raiders, they killed everyone, even the women and children, I saw their mutilated bodies, and the bastards made them suffer. My squadron hunted the bastards down and killed them to a man.” Matt the most cheerful man in the village had a haunted look in his eyes. “I still see the kids in my nightmares. It was something evil that they did to those people. Evil magicks” he spat at the floor
I sheathed the sword back in its scabbard and then wrapped it up in the cloth. “Thank you, hopefully it will serve me well”
We drank and revelled well into the evening, and I left them while they were starting to sing drinking songs. I wasn’t drunk, not because of my powers(although that may have also been a part of it), I didn’t drink much, I liked the wine but I knew it was expensive and didn’t want to take advantage of Ian and I didn’t like the beer, so I wasn’t drinking the beer.
I got home and found Mark asleep in what I guess was rightfully his own bed, Luke or more likely Bess had set up a small cot for me in the living room by the remnants of the fire. I fell asleep quickly. I was sort of looking forward to this new adventure.
Farmers get up early, so everyone was up and ready to go by the time dawn was transitioning to morning. There were hugs, tears and promises of returning alive.
There were four of us about to depart from the village. Two brothers, Isiah and Josiah. Isiah was 24 and an exceptional hunter with his bow, shooting down birds regularly for the Saturday Markets. He was a sharp witted guy who regularly had his friends in stitches, Isiah was maybe 5’6” sinewy but quick. I got along well with Isiah, we became friends after he twisted his ankle and I had to splint his leg to treat him. Josiah was the opposite of Isiah; he was 18, 5’4” nearly as wide as he was tall, dumb as a box of rocks. Josiah was in love with Daisy, who liked me. You would think the fact that I didn’t like Daisy back would make him at least tolerate me. But for some reason he took that as a mortal sin, he had cornered me behind Ian’s one night, threatening me to be more receptive to Daisy’s advances, or else. Like I said, dumb as a box of rocks. It was also the night I discovered the new me didn’t like being threatened. Jo had grabbed my collar and pinned me to the wall, he had just finished threatening me and to emphasise the point he was about to punch me in the gut. I reacted almost instinctively, curving my hand and jabbing him in the throat, as Jo struggled to breath I had put him in a sleeper hold, 10 seconds of pressure and he was out like a light. Isiah who had quietly observed the whole thing thanked me and literally dragged Josiah back home. Isiah and I had become even better friends after that.
The fourth member of our little village conscription was Fred, Fred liked to farm and talk about farming, that was it. He was the most boring guy in the village, 28, never married, average looking.
We started walking behind Mark, towards Leicester, which was in Mercia. It had been a big city when there was a Roman garrison stationed there, but since the Romans left it had lost size to the point where it was considered a town. We were a day and a half’s walk away and we had time to ask Mark about military life, and what was to be expected. The plan was for all of the recruiting soldiers to meet back up with their platoon in Leicester, where we would be trained on how to be soldiers. Then we would get further instructions from one of the generals, who would send a message to the lieutenant in charge of the platoon on what to do next.
The journey to Leicester was uneventful and we got there by early afternoon the next day. Of course, Leicester was nothing like it would be in the future. For one thing, I didn’t notice a single subway sandwich shop anywhere. It was very pretty with its Roman architectures. There was a public bath house near the centre of the town, the same bath house which became the ruins where I found the stone. It was a surreal experience being in a place that I knew from the future, in its past state.
The platoon was stationed outside the town. A sea of tents, large and small sprawled out over an area larger than the hamlet we all just came from. Mark went into one of the smaller tents near the edge of the camp. He came out a few minutes later with a blond haired man, about 45 years old. He seemed to be Mark’s superior as Mark was being very serious and respectful towards the man. The man looked like a grizzled old warrior, and a very serious man. He came up to our group and said in a loud instructional voice. “I am staff sergeant Randel, you will address me as such, and it is my responsibility to turn you farmers into warriors so that you may have some chance of surviving the upcoming war”