The Talan Box Set

By Lee Robertson

Talan is a Cornish Medic living in the dark ages of Britain on the far Cornish shore. We first meet him as a novice in the new faith of the early saints. His background as the son of a druidic healer has given him skills in medicine that aren't always in line with the new faith and he treads a thin line to keep his place in the community.
These first three stories see him mature into his calling and leave him hungry for new knowledge of the further world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Robertson
• Release date: Oct 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463458693

Lee Robertson

Living by the coast in North Cornwall, Lee Robertson has worked as a chef, hotelier, and pub owner. More recently he works as a photographer, short film maker and location manager. He has been a lifelong surfer and currently enjoys teaching young people to be lifeguards. When he isn't by the coast he enjoys wandering the moors and lanes. The idea for Talan came from searching for the old Holy Wells and Celtic Crosses that crop up in obscure places over the Cornish landscape.

Book preview

Book 1

Talan & The Welsh Boy

Chapter 1

I have been in Cornwall this past six month, after leaving Devonshire and the Lady Githa who had been so very kind to me. But I go where I am needed and I packed up my meagre belongings to cross the border and aid Nectan’s sister, living in poverty high on a windswept cliff, battered by gales. The winter has been long, but I can see an end. The first signs of new growth are emerging and the morning birdsong becomes cheerier with the lengthening days.

Morwenna is often taciturn under her raven hair, her beauty had me interested in making her friendship, but she needs no company. She seems content under the leaden sky, tending her vegetables, feeding her animals. I arrived to tend an illness that she thought would kill her, but all she needed was rest, and little else. I watched over her, making sure she ate well and got out in the sunshine. I kept her home clean and tidy. I think it was only help she needed. I saw her as perhaps her father had seen her then, a shy girl, headstrong, keen to learn. Brechan had been good to all his children and if he thought he had done the right thing in sending them far and wide then so be it. I have enjoyed the travel this has entailed and am grateful, but in those days of Morwenna looking sick and frightened, I saw the girl who wondered what had led her to this place, alone and without family.

These last few weeks I have seen her gather her purpose. She is beginning to work the land again, and is soon to employ a labourer for a chapel. I am starting to feel she sees me as linked to her illness, and becoming unnecessary.

I have no wish to return to Wales, there was never anything for me there, only the shadow of my own father, seeming to envelop everything I attempt. My future lies in front of me, unknowing but without much hope. Self doubt, laziness and fear often grips me, I know it is acedia, I hope my prayers and faith can lead me from it.

Chapter 2

‘Talan!’ calls Morwenna from outside the hermitage. I am walking for no other reason than to keep warm. She has not spoken to me in a week. I can see her below with dog by her side, she waves, and I turn from the path to the cliff and take care through bracken and wet grass down the steep hill to meet her.

‘A letter’ She says loudly, and smiles and returns to keeping the dog. A letter could mean many things, my natural instinct is to fear the worse, news from home, perhaps. It may be I am needed elsewhere, or I am to return to the monastery at Hartland.

We sit against the wall out of the breeze in the low winter sunshine. Wheeling gulls, choughs and ravens above us squawk their songs of life, oblivious of the humans below.

‘It came yesterday’ she begins, ‘from Nonna on Bodmin.’ She unfolds a sheet of paper, and begins scanning. ‘It seems she has need of you. Her son David, a child, he may be dying, as soon as possible’. She puts the paper in her lap.

I look at the sky and clouds racing in from the sea, trying to remember about Nonna, another lady enduring the ascetic life, this time with a young boy, somewhere inland.

‘Be good to her,’ says Morwenna, ‘she has had difficult times, and I know she would not have called on my help for little reason’

I still haven’t said anything, I am looking at the floor now, and my thoughts are full of what I need to take and how I am going to make the journey.

‘I think, Talan’ she says slowly ‘that there is little left for you here, and I can see no reason for you to return, so take one of the ponies, and these coins and Godspeed’ she pauses, she appears to be waiting to say something, so I remain silent waiting. ‘I have been very happy to have you here with me, and so very grateful for your cure and help with the hermitage, I feel again that I can continue with my path now, and I will think on you often with hope for your future.’

And that was that, time to leave another home. I looked at her eyes, dark, almost beautiful, ageing, a little strain from a life on the edge of existence. I looked at her hands, wondering what to say, whatever I said would be worthless. Her hands were good, long fingers, a little dry, a beautiful ring. I stood up.

‘Thank you,’ I said, she touched me on the arm.

Chapter 3

A long journey on horseback alone, I left at first light with a cold wind from the east, stars still in the sky and the sound of booming surf from the cliffs below. I could see Morwenna’s fire was just lit from a trail of wood smoke rising against the lightening sky. It felt even colder then. I hoped she lived well. I loved her in a way.

Up and onto the moor for the light rising far in the southeast, the land close to freezing, I wrapped my cloak tight against the wind and tried to snooze, the steady plod of the horse keeping me uncomfortable yet close to sleep.

In my thoughts that bleak morning were the reasons for my life here on a Barbary coast. As we crossed the windswept high ground before Stratton I thought back on almost three years of service as a novice, being sent from my little monastery in Wales to accompany Nectan and his sister Morwenna. I had stayed with Nectan in Hartland, his was the larger congregation from across the water, and a good life for me until his murder. Soon after Morwenna not five miles south became sick, and I took the work of caring for her on her small plot on the high cliffs. In Wales I had been taught healing with herbs and minerals by my master, and before then my mother who was not a Christian. She passed down many skills that I had promised would not be shared with the church. In this way I suppose I had earned a reputation among both the lay people and the church. I have never considered myself a good physician however; I am often too scared in the face of mortality.

Soon I imagine I will return to Wales and ask Brechan if I can take my final vows. It is not something I look forward to, and the more I stay outside the fold the more I like my independence, in some ways I would prefer to stay a novice.

In the late morning after some hard miles, I stopped for a rest at a small stone well by a spring above a valley, the water was clear and bright. I ate some hazel nuts beside the horse and looked over Bodmin Moor, Roughtor stood imposing before me. In the middle distance I could see a cross on highland, a landmark that told me I had many miles yet. From there I headed south, away from the peaks. Approaching the Inny river I looked for a suitable fording spot, There was another newly crafted cross to confirm the path and I passed down through some rocks into a sweet valley. A stonemason was at work by a spring, a boy beside him, He was hammering out the post for a cross, working a pattern through the length, an intricate wheel cross beside it, waiting to be jointed.

‘Hail Fellow’ I called. They stopped their work and looked at me impassively. There was a good similarity, the father a strong but short man with heavy large hands. I smiled generously, stuck for words.

‘You the medic?’ he asked eventually. With my nod he pointed low in the valley into the woods, ‘There is the ford, rise up and over, you will come out on to the old road, back down into the next valley and there is Altarnun next to the old bridge.

‘Is the cross for Nonna?’ I asked, he nodded and pointed again at the crossing.

‘To mark the ford.’

‘It will be beautiful, do you reside at Altarnun?’

‘No, we live in the woods, I am Alan, and this my son Alban’

The boy smiled at me nervously.

‘I am Talan’ I replied, ‘come from Morwenstow this morning.’

‘You should hurry, the boy is quite unwell.’ Said Alan.

I waved and signalled on to the Pony, and crossed the ford to the gentle splash of water and the resounding strikes of iron on stone.

I wondered of this woman coming to the moor, with a young son, and no husband. She must be of royal descent, I surmised, with the cost of these crosses, let alone the masons required to build a chapel.

Chapter 4

Cold, tired and hungry, I was met by Nonna at the gate to her small holding, and immediately taken into one of the small wooden buildings close to the stone chapel and further into a small room. A fair fire blazed in the hearth and the boy lay on a cot against the wall, a small face peering at me from the bedclothes, shadows behind him on the wall. I took off my cape.

‘These were my own rooms, but I have decided to call it the Infirmium, and I now sleep in a room in the dormitory while David is unwell.’

‘A chair please.’ I asked. The mother went to fetch one, and I stood by the fire, slowly warming my cold bones.

Nonna returned with a stout, large chair made from green oak. I placed it between the bed and the fire, then stood at the bedside with her. She was Welsh, tall and slim. Her fine head of hair a deep auburn, I found her imposing in the small room.

‘I hear you are a physician of some renown’ she said.

I said nothing, and lost eye contact with her, nervously I found myself looking at the floor.

‘I have found it best if I talk to the patient alone at first.’ I said.

‘If that is your wish,’ she replied ‘I have chapel duties anyway.’ As she left I realised I had been abrupt, and winced at my inept social skills.

With the door closing I settled into the chair, arranging my cloak for comfort. The lick of the flames lulled me, and the boy and I stared at each other. He was pale, but presently comfortable. His pupils were wide from the low light. After a few minutes he turned to stare at the shadows on the ceiling. I grew tired and warmer, and allowed my body several minutes of rest. Eventually I rose and touched the boys face, he convulsed at my touch and was cold, much colder than myself. I felt around his head. I ventured him a smile, and he returned it.

‘I am so very sorry to hear you are unwell’ I said.

He stared at the ceiling. I put him about ten years of age, but possibly older if he was in poor health. Slight, with fine mousy hair, his head looked too large for his thin body. I had no idea what might have been wrong with him, I seldom have. I can offer some relief with my knowledge of plants and minerals. For some reason I am to be trusted, I can’t trust myself.

He is going to speak, I sense him weighing his words. I remain at his side, looking at the fire.

‘Can you make me sleep? I can’t sleep.’

He looks tired, and there is a wild fear in his eyes. I nod and smile, ‘Yes, I can, if that is what is needed, but first let us together find out what ails you.’

‘My stomach is painful, it swells and then I have to vomit.’

‘Can I look?’ I ask. He raised his shirt, and I saw that his stomach is slightly awollen. I touched it gently and I saw him wince.

‘Have you vomited?’

‘Not today’ He said.

I was worried for him. I was never happy with stomach upsets like this. Bad meats or fish will often give pains and vomiting, but it is short lived and out within a few days. By my reckoning he had been ill over a week. I wanted to discount it being a tumour or an internal injury if it was, I would be out of my depth. Even in my short time as a medic I had seen too many illnesses of the stomach resulting in death, many within a few days of the first symptoms.

‘Let me think a while and speak with your mother’ I said and left him.

Someone has dressed a table in the anteroom with food, nothing hot. Some nuts, bread and cheese, a bowl of apples, some dried fruit. I sit at the table and eat, glad for some sustenance after a day in the saddle.

Chapter 5

The door opens after a slight knock, and Nonna enters to join me.

‘Vespers’ she says, by way of explaining her absence, ‘a long day almost over.’

She helps herself to some food and water and sits next to me on the bench. ‘We stand no ceremony here Talan, we have little and need little. I can give you a board and daily food. How you spend your day is your own, I just wish to see David well and if you can help with that I will pay you what I can afford when it is time for you to leave.’

I nod, eating a delicious dried plum.

‘What do you think ails him?’ she asks. I spend a while trying to construct an answer, but as usual words elude me.

‘You have little to say, I grant them that.’ She says.

That surprises me, I had no idea people might know of me this far south. I had not even tended many people in Cornwall, a few at Hartland, including some of the pagans from the area, and then a few villagers who lived near to Morwenna.

‘There is a board against the wall in David’s room, I have left some blankets and rugs in the corner, please help yourself. Three times a day there will be food on this table. We breakfast before Prime, and after Nones, and now, after vespers. Help yourself, but remember we have little and need little, please don’t be greedy.’

I rise from the table.

‘I need a little wine or cider’ I say. I can see her appraising me. Her eye has gone steely and her lips are thin and straight again. We are getting off on a bad footing, and I am just about to explain my needs for making a tincture when we hear a cry and a groan from David.

We enter to see the boy cowering in the corner of his cot, the flames from the fire have died down and in the dark he appears like a rat in the corner, he is whimpering, terrified of us as we approach, his mother strides across the room and stands at the end of the bed.

‘David, David wake up! It is a dream, David!’ She says firmly, I retreat to the anteroom and retrieve a candle. On my return the boy is awake if drowsy.

‘Leave the light on the mantle, and stoke the fire’ she orders me abruptly, and I do so, stacking a couple of logs on edge to give maximum flame. She is talking smoothly to the boy now, though I notice no maternal instinct, no touching.

‘Rest now David, there is nothing to fear’ She beckons me to leave the room and we retreat to the anteroom, closing the door.

‘He cannot sleep more than a few minutes’ she tells me, ‘this is the second week, he was feverish and high at first and then he had some kind of seizure, it did not last long, a minute or two maybe, and then cold shaking. Since then most nights there is this.

‘I need a little wine or cider’ I tell her again, ‘it is not for me, it is for the boy, I need to prepare a concoction’

‘We have some wine, we keep for guests, though we ourselves never drink any. I am not sure if David will drink it, he is very strict about his diet’.

‘It is the best way I know to quiet a troubled mind, if he will accept it. It will allow him sleep but will not sedate him.’

I see her relax a little, she had thought me a drunk I surmised. She leaves to fetch some, and I busy myself with my bag, finding the valerian eventually among the small leather bags tied with different coloured thread. I open it up and remove a few dried leaves, bring out my block and knife and chop the leaves fine.

Nonna returns with a flask of wine, a deep red. It is elderberry, and good and bright, not soured. She is watching me, arms folded. It makes me nervous the way I am always being followed by the relatives or family. I find a small glass bottle amongst my things, one of my favourite items from my mother, old Roman. Using a page of vellum the valerian is poured into the bottle and the wine follows, I place my thumb over it and give it a swirl.

‘What is it?’ asks Nonna. I think about this, my teacher told me never to divulge my work, I can see him now, old and cantankerous, blaming his wasted life on others who had sold his remedies to the public.

I do not answer her, and busy myself at my work.

‘It is late’ she says, ‘I have much to do, will we see you at matins?’

‘I think not’ I reply ‘It has been a long day, and I seldom rise for Matins’

Again her thin lips tighten, but I remain impassive, the middle of the night is no time for prayer. Nonna leaves me to myself at last. I go back to the room. David is lying on his side staring at the light, shaking slightly, I find another blanket and lay it over him, I swirl my bottle and place it close to the fire, and sit at the chair, arranging my cloak again as a comfort. He has a fearful look, and is highly strung. I leave it awhile and we remain in silence. I agitate the bottle every so often and feel it for warmth. Eventually I half fill a small tumbler with the drink. I pull the chair next to the bed and sit with the glass in my hand.

‘This might help you sleep’

I pass him the small tumbler, I see him shake his head a little, ‘Smell’ I say, and he sniffs and coughs from the alcohol in the swirl of steam.

‘I will not drink any alcohol’ he tells me.

‘I need to use wine for this medicine, the leaf releases the medicine with some alcohol, and seems to work well together with a little warm wine, try it, this once.’

He lifts the draught to his lips with a grimace, but finishes in two long swallows. I take the chair back to the fire and watch the flames, I let the infusion start to work.

‘What are the dreams?’ I ask him.

He has remained sitting up, the blankets around him, I can see the muscles in his face soften, the sedative is working, it will relax him enough.

‘It is a big dog, wherever I go he is there, as soon as I close my eyes. He wants to eat me, and is too fast for me, he comes as soon as I close my eyes, through the door, or from the shadows’

‘It is no more than a dream, and dreams pass’ I say. ‘He will not come tonight, and if he does I am here, and will not let the dreams stay’

‘Mother needs help, I need to help her’

‘You will have plenty of time to help her when you are well. For now lay back and watch the firelight.’

David eventually slept. I saw him fighting rest, he would nod a couple of times and then his eyes would close, to start open. He was terrified. I remained in sight of him but averted my eyes from him when he awoke. I concentrated on breathing slow and steady and keeping still. I was trying to give him a constant reassurance with my presence, I slept a little myself, and then I would awake as he did, the terror on his face slowly lifting as he realised where he was. I kept the fire ticking over, he tossed and turned in sleep, throwing off covers with night sweats, and then shivering in the cold. At one point he began shaking, his eyes open in a delirium or vision. I heard Matins and footsteps in the yard outside. I guessed there were four or five heading to the little chapel. After Matins we both slept until I awoke with