To Kill the Christ! - Chapter Seven: Journey to Bath

       The sun was still below the horizon, lighting the glade with ambient light, when Carl awakened. Mists hugged the waters of the pond. The breeze of the night before had disappeared. He had slept, but his mind had been searching for ways to move Raphael and save the truck and equipment. They would pack for a quick trip through the countryside, returning to the glade when everyone was in good health.

       Rebecca stirred and he slid next to her, their naked bodies basking in each other's warmth, for there was a chill in the air. But love making would have to wait. He was up and dressed before Rebecca was fully awake. He jerked a hand shovel from a pack and exited the tent, closing the flaps behind him. "Good morning, my love. I'll start a fire then awaken Raphael," he threw over his shoulder. He didn't see her quizzical expression.

       Later he poked his head into the tent as Rebecca threw back the cover to get dressed. His resolve momentarily fled at the sight of her body, but it would take a couple of hours to do what he had to do, and time couldn't be spent in bed. "I'll get him up then bury some of the more important goods. We'll leave the truck where it is and hope any discoverers won't know what to do with it."

       Raphael was awakened with difficulty. His forehead was warm, but he was lucid and capable of getting up by himself.

       Carl found two bushes some distance from the pond, high enough to be above ground water. Throwing tarps on the ground, he carefully took dead leaves from under one bush and placed them on a tarp, then, digging deep, he placed the dirt from around the roots on another tarp. He stacked the wheels on each other, then placed the battery and other essentials from the engine in a waterproof bag. The gasoline can came next. Other essentials were placed in waterproof bags and jammed into spaces around the wheels and engine components. Thank God for the SAS truck, he thought. He replaced the dirt and the bush on top of the treasure and surveyed his work. Even with the leaves carefully returned to the area, it was obvious it had been disturbed.

       He dug up another bush about eight feet away and took little care where he threw the dirt and the leaves. Into this hole he placed loot for the marauders, should they find it. Dirt was sent flying in all directions, disturbing leaves around the hole he had just dug, leaving an impression of hurried work.

       They would wear body armor, but the CR uniforms, tent, and supplies were carefully hidden in a bushy area some distance away.

       Raphael arrived after helping Rebecca strike the tent. Carl explained his plan. "It's misdirection. I'm hoping any visitors will find the 'treasure' and miss the other cache."

       He surveyed his work. "After all, they can't know what should be on a truck now, can they?" Raphael agreed through bleary eyes.

       Carl gave it another glance. He didn't have time to do anything else, but if it didn't work and those parts were found, the truck would be useless.

       After putting just a few items in Raphael's pack, Carl got into a heavy field pack. "Rebecca, bring up the rear. I'll take point and hope I see any trap before we walk into it."

       As they had packed, Rebecca had opted to carry bow and arrow rather than rifle. "I don't think I can shoot a man with either one," she confessed.

       "You may need to."

       "If so, I hope I can, but the idea of killing someone is terrible."

       Carl buried the information in his mind. Letting a deer escape because of buck fever is one thing, not shooting someone who's about to kill you is something else.

       "That helmet will cover your hair, Rebecca. No one should know you're a woman."

       The pace was fast from the start. Carl wanted to make it to Bath as quickly as Raphael's condition would permit.

       They took five-minute rest breaks every half-hour. Raphael was quickly exhausted because he was unused to physical exertion and the infection was causing a fever. Every time his arm hit his side or brushed against bushes it sent waves of pain coursing through his body. But he soldiered on, for he too felt the urgent need for speed.

       Consulting the map, they all agreed that Bath was about sixty miles from their location on the Wye, only a two-day journey in normal circumstances, and for Carl and Rebecca, if they pushed themselves, a very long summer day's journey. But these were not normal circumstances. The forests and mountains, rivers and streams, their ignorance of the terrain, and Raphael's condition slowed their progress.

       During one of the late morning rest stops, Rebecca warned Carl. "This is taking too long. That infection looks bad."

       She examined Raphael's arm, then looked him straight in the eyes. She was his height. "The infection is spreading, you may lose the hand and wrist if we can't stop it," she said, mincing no words. "If it gets away from us, you may lose the entire arm."

       Raphael straightened through his fatigue. "Never! I would rather die than lose my hand or arm." His eyes clouded. To be crippled in this era will be a great handicap, and life won't be worth living.

       Carl started to speak, then thought better of it. What can I say that makes any sense?

       They had passed through the forest onto rolling plains. Round huts appeared infrequently with a few sheep and pigs in nearby enclosures. They avoided all farms.

       Mid-afternoon was drawing on when they entered another woods. The hills were in front of them, but they thought the pass toward Bath and Bristol, whatever they were called, should be on the other side of the forested hills, nearly forty miles if they reckoned correctly. But they would have to cross at least two rivers, so they would need to find or make ferries.

       The woods had little underbrush. The maple and hazel trees were widely separated and not yet flowering.

       Carl still held point so he was first to see the four warriors standing around a campfire, their ponies browsing nearby, a scruffy looking lot. They were seventy yards away when Carl raised his hand to warn Raphael and Rebecca. At the same instant one of the warriors looked up and saw them.

       Galvanized into action, the four grabbed swords and axes and leaped astride their ponies.

       Carl removed his pack, crouched beside a tree, motioned Rebecca to another tree covering his left side, Rafael behind them, and then raised his rifle. The warriors were yelling at the top of their voices, instilling courage in themselves while striking fear into the hearts of their intended victims.

       Carl yelled to Rebecca. "I've got the leader and the guy on the black pony on the right. Be sure to hit the first man!" he yelled, even as he recalled Rebecca's comment. He used her rifle because it carried a clip.

       The four warriors were counting heads already, for they could see three people and only one was an archer. All raised their weapons as they charged, skillfully guiding their ponies around the trees. Carl caught his two with two bullets each, both men literally bouncing from the ground as they fell, crumpling at the foot of trees, but the riders on Rebecca's side quickly closed the gap. Carl strayed from behind the tree and sighted on the lead rider, pulling off two rounds. The rider ricocheted from a tree as he fell sideways.

       The second warrior was upon Rebecca swinging his heavily bladed ax before Carl could re-sight. He could only scream, "Duck!"

       Nearly paralyzed with fear, Rebecca flung herself from the tree as the axe descended, her bow flung aside. She landed heavily, smashing her helmet against a log, stunning herself.

       The rider's ax missed her and caught in the crouch of the tree, jerking the rider from the pony and flipping him on his back. Both Rebecca and the bandit gazed at each other through stunned eyes. Then he crouched, prepared to spring.

       But Carl was moving, his charge fluid and instinctive. Sliding his knife from his sheath as he crossed the six yards that separated them, he launched himself upon the bandit, diving over him, and driving his knife deep into the bandit's chest. He laid on the body until he knew the assailant was dead, the blood from the wound warming his hand and staining his jacket. In personal combat there were no prisoners. The entire battle was over in a minute.

       Rebecca began to vomit, loud retching sounds interspersed with sobs, in shock from the near encounter with death. Carl moved to comfort her, his hand covered with blood, when he suddenly realized their need was greater than her comfort.

       He shook her instead. "Get hold of yourself! We need those ponies!"

       Rebecca bit her lower lip and composed herself, though tears continued to well.

       The ponies, bewildered by the gunfire and the sudden loss of riders, their momentum having carried them past Carl and Rebecca, slowed as they left the woods. Raphael, crouching some distance behind the fray, had caught the bridle of the lead pony with his left hand as it raced by and was dragged nearly thirty feet over brush and clumps of dirt before planting his feet and bringing it to a halt.

       He returned with it, dirty and disheveled, but holding the bridle of his possession.

       "Good show, Raphael!"

       One other pony was blindly heading out of the woods. Carl grabbed the reins and pulled the pony to Rebecca's side, yelling into her ear as he thrust the reins into her hands. "Ride after that pony. I'll check the bodies. Don't let those ponies get away, they're too valuable."

       She flung herself onto the pony, almost sliding off onto the other side. For the first time they noticed there was neither saddle nor stirrups. The riders had controlled the ponies by bridle and leg pressure, and it was strong leg muscles that kept them astride the ponies as they dodged through the trees. Rebecca's size helped her stay atop the pony.

       "Raphael," Carl said, "see if you can find the casings while I go over these guys."

       By the time Rebecca returned with the other ponies, the bodies had been stripped of usable weapons and materials. The men were poor physical specimens. Their clothing was ragged and dirty. All wore black beards, with long, unkempt hair, and they had dirty, dingy teeth. They had not kept themselves clean, and Rebecca thought two of them had syphilis pus marks around their mouths. A sorry lot, indeed.

       "I thought venereal disease came from the American continent when the explorers returned," Carl said in surprise.

       It was Rebecca's turn to express surprise. "It looks like syphilis, but it may be something else." Her face showed revulsion. "I don't think the wolves will take these four, they smell so bad."

       Carl made a discovery. "Look at this metal! It's brass, not steel!" He looked closely at the dirk his victim had grabbed as Carl struck him. The point had bent where it hit the log as he fell. "We seem to be in the copper or iron age. There isn't any steel among these weapons."

       Raphael returned with five of the six precious casings. "That's all I'm good for," he groused. "I owe you two my life, again," he grimaced, "'tho' why I want to keep it's beyond me."

       This time, Carl responded. "Not me," he interjected. He held Raphael at arms' length, his slate blue eyes almost grey. You've got to want to live! He peered deeply into Raphael's deep brown eyes. "You have locked in your head secrets these people won't know for centuries. You know things neither Rebecca nor I know. If we lose you and your mind, we lose a valuable resource." Then a painful smile played across his face, for the split lip had reopened when he jumped the bandit. "Allah must have wanted you here for some reason, if only that your Middle Eastern background will temper ours. And ours yours!" Little did he know that those words of encouragement would one day come back to haunt him.

       Carl set about making primitive stirrups. Rebecca shook the blankets out and threw them over branches, beating out the dust and airing them if only for a few minutes. She cut a branch from one of the trees and used a piece of it to curry the ponies, which were sturdy creatures with long winter hair, not yet shedding. She was recovering well from the close encounter with death.

       Rebecca spoke to Carl as they fastened supplies on the fourth pony. "How can you kill men so easily? I couldn't kill that brigand even though he threatened me." She was thankful that he could do so, or she would be dead. But the ease with which he killed those men perplexed her. She had been taught that each life was sacred, and no one had the right to take it from another.

       He paused to reflect on the question. "Training and self preservation. In your case, the lack of it."

       "But Jesus says we should love our enemies, not hate them." She gave a wry grin, recognizing how Carl might respond. She beat him to the punch. "I suppose you'll say you don't have to hate him to kill him."

       "No, though it's true. A Christian response to impending death and destruction is complicated. My mother abhorred guns. She preached sexual purity. And being useful around the house." He gave a lopsided grin at the memory of the last. It had served him well in college. "My dad was the opposite. He was always faithful to my mother, but he never preached sexual purity to me. Rather, he taught me to hunt and kill animals, but only for food. The army taught me to kill men, but only when they threatened the integrity of the mission, my men, or me."

       He shook his head, his unkempt beard wet with sweat. "Those guys weren't about to start a dialogue, unless it was with our severed heads."

       Rebecca shuddered. Her close brush with death flashed in front of her eyes so vividly that she involuntarily flinched.

       Carl moved around the pony to hold her close. His vivid expression was not intended to spook her.

       He continued his justification. "Jesus didn't condemn the centurion who appealed to him to heal his servant. When he said he would go to his house, the centurion said there was no need. He could heal him from where he was. Jesus told his followers that he had not seen such faith in all of Israel. And Peter was sent by the Holy Spirit to minister to Cornelius the Centurion to bring him into the church. Neither one was told to leave the Legion, at least we weren't told they were. And, at the very end of his ministry, Jesus told his men that social conditions have changed. People consider him and them to be law breakers, so they should take up purse, sack, and sword." He gave a wry grin. "That's one of the hard sayings of Jesus, difficult to understand and reconcile with his other sayings. But it's a great proof text for what I do!"

       The horses or ponies were a little larger than the modern Shetland pony. Carl claimed the largest and strongest for himself.

       The bandits were short and stocky. All but one probably weighed less than one hundred and sixty pounds. The ponies were ideal for them, but not for Carl.

       He fashioned rough stirrups from leather remnants found in the camp. "I wish I had brought that yearling's hide." He turned to Raphael. "Some historians claim the stirrup created a new method of warfare in the Middle Ages," he said, working on the leather. "Men mounted on horses large enough to carry great weight were the tanks of their day. The warrior wielded powerful weapons, such as lances, swords, and axes while protected by armor from arrows and swords.

       "That new warfare was far more expensive and powerful than any warfare practiced before it," he said. "All because of the stirrup. The theory was that feudalism was fashioned to pay for the new method of war." His eyes took on a far away look even as his hands continued to manipulate the leather. What an exciting time, to live some of the history I've studied.

       "It's clear that the stirrup hasn't invaded England," he continued, "since those riders didn't use it. It's such an important invention it'll be adopted quickly, I should think." He paused to shape the foot's cradle.

       "Why?" Raphael was intrigued.

       "Because it welds man to horse, giving a warrior the mass of a large horse moving at great speed. And a quickly turning horse won't shed his rider. The bandit who tried to decapitate Rebecca might not have lost his mount if he'd had stirrups. But when his ax caught in the tree, he was jerked off that pony as though he had been lassoed. A quick, mobile cavalry can devastate ground troops, even those of the Romans, if they're properly equipped and trained. Though the Romans use a saddle that locks them onto the horse, it still isn't as good as a Western saddle with stirrups."

       He glanced at Rebecca as she finished currying the last pony. "We may be the first to use the stirrup in England, and maybe even the continent. We can create a formidable fighting machine. And we won't have to create feudalism to do it."

       He looked out of the side of his eyes at Raphael. "That's where you come in, finding a way to support such a system."

       He adjusted the hastily rigged leather stirrups, which were rough indeed. They were tied to the blanket with long strips of cloth, but they would do until they had time to produce something better.

       "Just don't get thrown," he warned Raphael. "You may never get your foot out of this leather strap, and you'll be in worse shape than a knight in armor flat on his back."

       He helped Rebecca onto her horse. "I'm terribly sorry for yelling at you. I wanted to comfort you, but the ponies are needed. You did well after such a scare."

       She smiled weakly, her stomach still unsteady from the close call with death. This man of mine is filled with tenderness and decisive practicality. I'm learning something new each day.

       The incident had delayed their progress, but now they could move much faster.