Chapter 17: A Touch of Cream and a Sprinkle of Parsley. That Would Have Been Perfect

We were on our way to border creek on our cart. It had taken us a day and a half to walk from the little hamlet to Leicester, but it would only take us around 8 hours by cart, to return. Going back to border creek made me think about all that had happened in the past year. It was almost November; I had been in the 6^th century for almost 11 months. I could still vividly remember the smell of the earth and the ground of the forest when I finally awakened from my long walk.

I remembered looking into the cold stream and barely recognising my face. I doubted that version of me could recognise me now. I had lost a lot of weight during the walk, I was thin and malnourished looking. I had long wild hair and a splotchy beard. Oh, how much difference a year makes. I was no longer malnourished or skinny, I was long and lean. My hair was no longer messy or crazy, it was short and neat.

Actually my hair wasn’t really hair any more. Ever since that first transformation my hair was more resilient and slightly out of phase with the world. It couldn’t be cut or combed anymore; it grew back into a neat short haircut and then stopped growing. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about going bald like my father.

I could grow a beard and it was no longer splotchy, it was thick, black and bushy. Don’t ask me why I could grow a normal beard when my hair was no longer real hair, I don’t know, my power is weird and I still don’t fully understand it. My power is weird.

The biggest change however was in my eyes. When I first awoke from the walk my eyes were blank. I was an outsider to the world, nothing on this earth held any interest to me. I found the concept of interacting with other people alien to my instincts. I thought the little hamlet of 50 people to be too populous.

I still hadn’t recovered all of my humanity that I had lost in the walk, but I had regained the parts that I wanted. I had friends now; I had people I had formed bonds with. that would have felt impossible to the shell that woke up in that forest.

That wasn’t to say that everything was perfect, I had killed people and done things I never would have thought that I would have to do ... I was woken up from my reverie by a massive Jolt that nearly threw me out of our cart.

I picked myself off the cart floor and jumped out. The cart wasn’t moving very fast, barely faster than walking pace, so it was safe for me to jump out. The path was downhill so it took a while for the cart to slow to a stop, there were no brakes on the cart. I walk down the hill to the cart and inspected around the cart, nothing had broken but one of the spokes on the rear left wheel was cracked. Everyone got out of the cart and inspected the damage; they had much more experience with medieval wheels than me. I preferred fifteen52 forged alloy wheels, personally.

Mark untethered the two horses and led them over to the stream to water them; he staked a peg into the bank and let them graze on the grass whilst we assessed the damage. The damage was assessed and we had to take the wheel off. This proved to be much easier than modern times as there were no complicated 5 bolt patterns or tyre wrenching required. The wheel was held together by an axle and wooden peg that went through the axle rod, holding the wheel in.

Mark got back and helped me lift the back of the cart off of the ground. Isiah hammered the peg holding that wheel, out of its socket. And then Isiah and a one armed Josiah gently removed the wheel from the axle. The cart balanced itself on three wheels. It was fairly empty and we had moved our packs to the opposite corner to make it easier to lift the back.

The break was long and diagonal. I went to the front of the cart and rummaged around my pack, whilst bringing out a few 3 inch long nails from my void space. These were not like the round shiny silver nails from modern times, these were square and covered in forge scale. I also got some thick tanned leather strips from my back pack. I had bought these specifically in case of this happening. The 6th century wasn’t known for its glass smooth roads, and as far as I knew suspension hadn’t been invented yet.

I bound the leather around the cracked spoke and then hammered a nail through the middle of the break, at the thickest point for both sides. I then made sure that the leather was stretched and bound as tightly as possible before nailing the two ends of the crack. I continued to wrap the leather strip and nailed them to the unbroken ends of the wheel. I bent the nails on the other side so that they stayed firm for the Journey. Whilst I did that, Isiah had gone into the woods and hunted us a couple of rabbits, Mark had been fishing and fished us a ... trout, I think. Josiah had foraged in the woods and gathered firewood for a fire.

It was around midday and our breakfast had been light (no one had felt like eating before the funeral). Isiah lit the fire whilst I brought out the cooking pot. He had also gathered a bunch of mushrooms, mostly penny buns (porcini) and oyster mushrooms. I brought out some onions and garlic, as well as some root vegetables, which we had bought at the Market in preparation of our trip. I brought out a piece of pork Jowl preserved in salt, I chopped up the Jowl and put it into the cooking pot, I then added the onions and root veg, finally added the washed and chopped up mushrooms and the smashed garlic into the pot to cook. Whilst I did that, Isiah dressed the rabbits and cut the rabbit into small pieces. I put the rabbit into the pot along with a few dried thyme leaves and a secret pinch of chilli powder. After a few minutes I added some water and put the lid on the pot to let it stew.

Whilst I was doing that, Mark had whittled some tree branches and skewered the fish after removing its guts. He planted the skewers near the fire. We chatted for about 10 minutes waiting for the fish to cook, it smelled divine, you could see the juices inside were bubbling. We divided the fish up and ate it after seasoning with salt. Isiah and Josiah managed to snag most of the fish, whilst Mark and I got about a third to share between us.

The stew needed more time and we were temporarily satiated, so we decided to put the wheel back on the cart again. We finished doing that in about 10 minutes. We sat down around the fire and ladled ourselves some of the stew. It was good, I mean really good. It was light and earthy, and it was particularly good at softening up the hard bread we travelled with. The pork Jowl added a baconiness, which went well with the mushrooms and the gameyness of the wild mushrooms. The others also seemed pleased with the meal as they finished of multiple bowls of the stew in a reverent silence.

We finished our lunch and continued on our way, the Journey was uneventful and we spent most of the time chatting and having fun. But there was an air of death that hung around us; the battle was still fresh in our minds, especially as Frank’s funeral had reopened the wound. We were all pretty worried about the war and the battles to come, especially after the battle with the blood wolves. We all had heard the rumours about the monsters that worked for the Witch (I know this is a cliché) but hearing about something and actually seeing it are completely different.

“How do we kill those monsters?” Mark asked me. He meant as normal human beings. Not realising, at that time, he was surrounded 3 to 1 by supernaturals.

“I only know of three ways to kill a were-wolf, and these are largely based on rumours” I said. Mark leaned forward, as did Josiah who was in the cart. Isiah was driving (is that still applicable?) the cart, but even he was interested, I could tell because he tense up. “Fire. Burning them to death works on most things. I guess that is why the King likes his burnings. Chopping their heads off also works, I know this one because that’s what I did to the blood wolf (I couldn’t call him Graith in front of Mark). And this last one is a rumour and I am not absolutely sure I believe this one fully, but cutting them with silver stops them from healing as quickly, silver weapons are rumoured to hurt them like normal weapons hurt humans.” (No, silver doesn’t visibly burn like in the TV shows. But it does inhibit the supernatural healing abilities of weres and vampires.)

“Smithing swords and knives out of silver is not really practical. The metal is too expensive, and too difficult to forge” Mark replied. “And the sword wouldn’t be practical. I saw one of those rich merchant’s sons in the capital that had one commissioned, to show off his father’s immense wealth. He challenged one of his other rich friends to a match. The poor sod could barely lift the sword, and the thing broke in three pieces before there was a blow made in real anger.”

“You could melt a little silver and paint your blade with it, I suppose” Josiah said

Mark turned around in surprise, he had not expected that answer to come from Josiah.

Here is a thing that no one tells you about being super human, your brain becomes much more efficient. You are able to move at supernatural speeds and to keep in control of that your brain improves along with your body. This doesn’t make you fundamentally smarter or wiser, it just makes you quicker. That makes you seem smarter, but in reality you’ve just had a longer time to think.

Isiah and I were also surprised by Josiah’s answer. The blow to the head had done some permanent damage to Josiah. Becoming a were, amplifies your personality and merges it with the natural instincts of your were-animal. Josiah had been brash, loud and aggressive before becoming a were-cat. His transformation should have made him more aggressive. More fighty. More brash. More loud. But he wasn’t. He was calmer, more ... docile, he was quieter and gentler.