In the midst of the last of the seven days and nights of feasting in Raedhill that accompany King Aeldred's conversion of the Erling leader, Ingemar Svidrirson, into the most holy faith of Jad of the Sun, Burgred of Denferth, the king's lifelong companion, finds that the black bile rising in his gorge is simply too strong.
He leaves the banquet hall, walks alone into the beclouded night past the spearmen on guard, away from the spill of torchlight in the hall and the sounds of revelry, seeking a darkness to equal the one he finds within.
He hawks and spits into the street, trying to dispel the clawing sickness he feels, which has nothing to do with too much ale or food and is, instead, about the desire to commit murder and the need to refrain.
The noise is behind him now and he wants it there. He walks towards the town gates, away from the feasting hall, finds himself in a muddy laneway. Leans against a wooden wall there—a stable, from the sounds within—and draws a deep breath of the night air. Looks up at the stars showing through rents in the swift clouds. Aeldred told him once that there are those in distant lands who worship them. So many ways for men to fall into error, he thinks.
He hears a cough, turns his head quickly. There is no danger here now, except, perhaps, to their souls because of what is happening in the banquet hall. He expects it to be a woman. There are many of them about, with all the soldiers in Raedhill. There's money to be made by night, in rooms with a pallet, or even in the lanes.
It isn't a woman, following.
"Windy out here. I brought us a flask," Osbert says mildly, leaning back against the stable wall beside him. "The Raedhill brewhouse is run by a widow, it seems. Learned all her husband had to teach. King's asked her to join his court, brew for us. I approve."
Burgred doesn't want another drink but takes the flask. He has known Osbert as long as he's known Aeldred, which is to say most of his life. The ale's strong and clean. "Best ale I ever had was made by women," he murmurs. "Religious house in the north, by Blencairn."
"Never been there," Osbert says. "Hold the flask a bit." He turns around. Burgred hears his friend urinating against the wall. Absently he drinks, looking up at the sky again. Blue moon over west, waning towards a crescent above the gates. It was full the night they won the second battle of Camburn Field and camped before these walls: not even a fourteen-night ago. They had Ingemar and his remnant penned in here like sheep, and a dead, unspeakably mutilated king to avenge. Burgred still wants to kill, an urge deeper than desire.
Instead they are feasting that same Erling remnant, offering them gifts and safe passage east across the rivers to that part of these Anglcyn lands that has long been given over to the northmen.
"He doesn't think like we do," Osbert murmurs, as if reading his mind. He takes back the flask.
"Aeldred?"
"No, the miller upstream. Of course Aeldred. You understand that Ingemar knelt before him, kissed his foot in homage, swore fealty, accepted Jad."
Burgred swears, viciously. "Carved his father open from the back, cracked his ribs apart and draped his lungs out on his shoulders. Yes, I know all these things." His hands are fists, just saying it.
The other man is silent for a time. The wind carries the sounds of the banquet to them. Someone is singing. Osbert sighs. "We were less than seven hundred men at the gates. They had two hundred left inside, and the season turning, which could mean dragon-ships, soon. We had no easy way of smashing into a walled, defended town. One day we might, but not now. My friend, you know all these things, too."
"So instead of starving them out, we feast, and honour them?"
"We feast, and honour the god and their coming to his light."
Burgred swears again. "You speak that way, but in your heart you feel as I do. I know it. You want the dead avenged."
Sounds carry to them from the distant hall. "I believe," says the other man, "that it is tearing him apart to do this, and he is doing it nonetheless. Be glad you are not a king."
Burgred looks over at him, the face hard to see in darkness. He sighs. "And these foul Erlings will stay with Jad? You really think so?"
"I have no idea. Some of them have, before. Here's what I do think: the world will know that Ingemar Svidrirson, who wanted to be a king here, has knelt and sworn loyalty to Aeldred of Esferth and accepted a sun disk and royal gifts from him, and will leave him eight hostages, including two sons—and we gave them nothing in exchange. Nothing. And I know that has never happened since first the Erlings came to these shores."
"You call the gifts nothing? Did you see the horses?"
"I saw them. They are the gifts of a great lord to a lesser. They will be seen as such. Jad did defeat Ingavin here, and took the raven banners, too. My friend, come back and drink with me. We have won something important here, and it is just a beginning."
Burgred shakes his head. There is still pain, a congestion in his chest. "I would… follow him under the world to battle demons. He knows that. But…"
"But not if he makes peace with the demons?"
Burgred feels the heaviness, a weight like stones. "It was… easier on the isle, in Beortferth. We knew what we had to do."
"Aeldred still knows. Sometimes… with power… you do things that fall against your heart."
"I may not be suited for power, then."
"You have it, my dear. You will have to learn. Unless you leave us. Will you leave us?"
The wind dies down, faint music fades. They hear horses through the stable wall.
"You know I won't," Burgred says, finally. "He knows I won't."
"We must trust him," Osbert says, softly. "If we can keep him healthy and alive for long enough, they will not take us again. We will leave a kingdom to our children, one they can defend."
Burgred looks at him. Osbert is a shadow in the blackness of the laneway, and a voice forever known. Burgred sighs again, from the heart. "And they will learn how to read Merovius on cataracts, in Trakesian, or he'll slaughter them all."
There is a pause, and then Osbert's laughter in the darkness, rich as southern wine.
+
Fevers were tertian, quartan, daily, or hectic. They stemmed—almost always—from imbalances in the four humours, the alignment of coldness, heat, moisture, dryness in all men. (There were other concerns peculiar to women, each month, or when they gave birth.)
The fevered could be bled, with knife and cup, with leeches, in locations and in degrees according to the teachings followed by the physician. Sometimes the patient died of this. Death walked near to the living at all times. It was known. It was generally considered that a good physician was one who didn't kill you sooner than whatever afflicted you would have.
Those suffering from acute fever might be comforted (or not) by prayer, eased by poultices, wet sheets, warm bodies next to them, music, or silence. They were treated with hydromel and oxymel (and physicians had divergent views as to which sort of honey was best, in the mixing), or with aconite and wild celery when it was thought that witchery lay at the root of their burning. Lemon balm and vervain and willow would be compounded, or buckthorn to purge them inside, sometimes violently. Coltsfoot and fenugreek, sage and wormwood, betony, fennel, hock and melilot were all said to be efficacious, at times.
Valerian might help a sufferer sleep, easing pain.
Fingernails could be clipped and buried under an ash tree by blue moon's light, though not, of course, if any cleric were about to know of it. And that same caution applied to remedies involving gemstones and invocations in the night wood, though it would be foolish to deny that these took place all over the kingdom of the Anglcyn.