Mark thanked the staff sergeant, and then took us to one of the larger tents in the camp. There was another old and grizzled veteran inside. He was even older than the staff sergeant, in his mid-50s grey haired. He was hunched over his desk with a quill in his hand. Mark seemed scared of the man. “Sergeant Bernard, Corporal Mark reporting with the recruits from the Border Creek hamlet.” Mark said in a loud and clear voice.

“Stop shouting corporal” he said without looking up. “How many, corporal?”

“uh, 6 men between the ages of 16 and 30, but two of them had 10 years of prior service and were exempted, sergeant” Mark replied, slightly less loudly

“So four new soldiers, names of the exempted.” Still without looking up

“Ian and Mathew, from border creek village, sergeant”

The sergeant finally looked up, obviously recognising the names. “Good men, even better soldiers” he nodded with approval and then opened up a new bound book. “Names of the new recruits.”

Mark pointed at each of us, and we each said our names to the sergeant

“Isiah”

“Josiah”

“Emris”

We waited for Fred to say his name, about 5 seconds passed, nothing, by this point everyone including the sergeant was looking at Fred. Nothing, the gormless braindead idiot was looking at the tent wall behind the sergeant, a vacant look in his eyes

Mark finally got fed up and walked behind Fred. He smacked him on the back of the head (careful there is already not much there) then said directly into Fred’s ear “say your name to the sergeant”

It still took him another 3 seconds to process that “huh, umm, Fred”

The sergeant sighed, shook his head and made a note. He then looked up at us and said “My name is Sergeant Bernard, I am the quartermaster at this camp, I will be letting you BORROW MY equipment, if you return my equipment and I find that it has been damaged in any way, you will answer to me. Is that clear?”

Isiah and Josiah gulped. I didn’t care. Fred, Fred was back to looking at the tent walls. Fred, wasn’t stupid or mentally challenged, he just didn’t pay any attention to anything not farming related. Talk to him about something like weather affecting crop yield and Fred could wax lyrical about the effect that year’s rainfall had had on the wheat farming for hours. But talk to him about anything else, he was vacant to the point of driving anyone around him crazy.

The sergeant gave each of us two sets of uniforms, a tent and pack to carry our equipment. He looked at us and said “you will be given your practice weapons tomorrow; you will not get your real weapons until I know that you will be able to look after my weapons”

Mark took us to one of the clear areas around the edge of the camp and told us to put up our tents and settle in. “Be sure to get your rest, tomorrow is going to be the longest day of your lives.”

Isiah and I decided to check out the town after putting up our tents and stowing our stuff. Jo followed behind; the town was full of the old Roman buildings. Isiah and I ended up at a pub enjoying drinks with people who were also joining up tomorrow, border creek being one of the villages on the outskirts of Mercia we were one of the last batches of recruits to arrive. Josiah had disappeared into the local whorehouse. Isiah and I got to know some of the new recruits and even some of the veteran soldiers here to instruct us. We spent the evening drinking honey mead, and funnily Ian’s beer which I had helped to create. We called it a night pretty early heeding Mark’s warning about tomorrow being a very long day.

After the Romans left and the Pendragons conquered the throne, England had been split into many grand duchies by the Pendragons. These duchies were regarded as their own kingdoms within their territories, but the ducal kings all bent their knees to Uther. Mercia was one of these “kingdoms” ruled over by its own ducal king, but this war against the Witch’s uprising was being led directly by king Uther. So we were conscripted by the king’s army and not the ducal militia.

Our platoon was recruiting in eastern Mercia; the platoon was made up of 40 soldiers led by a lieutenant. They were to conscript able bodied men from the nearby villages, train us and then lead the resulting company to join up with the division command at the capital. Where we would be given our orders for the upcoming war.

I woke up well before dawn, and got dressed. I also meditated for an hour. I wasn’t worried about today, 1850 years of walking builds stamina. The meditation also helped with my body, as my meridians strengthened and the energy started to form a small gaseous cloud in my core, the nourishment it gave to my body also improved my body. It wasn’t noticeable from the outside but after I was able to rotate the energy inside my body 10 times my physical strength had increased dramatically. I was now able to easily lift about 100kilos over my head, whereas before I would be struggling with about 50. Subsequent increases hadn’t been as dramatic but after reaching about 50 rotations I was able to easily lift about 200kilos. I completed my rotations for the day managing 58 rotations before not being able to continue. I was left mentally exhausted but my body felt as if it was filled to the brim with energy. I closed my eyes again and took 10 deep breaths and then opened my eyes. I remembered reading somewhere that at the core of all training was breathing, and I couldn’t help but wonder on its profoundness.

I was broken out of my reverie by a loud clanging noise outside. The clangs rang 10 times, and then someone said in a loud deep bass filled voice. “You have one quarter hour to get dressed and present yourself at the camp entrance. You are to arrange yourselves according to village; if one person is late the entire village will be punished.”

Telling time in 6th century was an imprecise thing but it was possible using various methods such as sundials in the day time and using the rate of a candle burning during the night. Of course candles were expensive so not really used in the little farming villages. Candles were used mainly by the priest and monks in churches and monasteries who had to adhere to strict times for their vigils. There was bell at the church in Leicester, and that’s what the clanging was.

I was already dressed, so I got out of my tent and ambled over to camp entrance. I saw Mark standing there waiting, his demeanour completely different than before. He was much more buttoned up, serious looking, standing straighter, more like a soldier. His body language told me he was no longer Mark, Luke and Bess’ son from border creek, now he was Corporal Mark, soldier in the king’s army and our instructor.

He looked me over. “Good to see you so squared away, I hope you got a good night’s sleep you will need the energy”

I was there early so I helped the veteran soldiers setting up tables, moving racks of shields, moving barrels of water. Not drinking mead, water quality in the middle ages inside or near cities was fatally bad, cholera and other faecal waterborne diseases, but not in wells. The ground rock acts as a filter naturally filtering out the pollutants in water. So water from deep drinking wells was perfectly safe to drink, but not water from the rivers near or downstream from the towns.

By the time we finished setting up most of the people were lined up and nearly 15 minutes had passed. I lined up behind Isiah and Josiah and I asked if they had seen Fred. They both shook their heads. Sergeant Randel came to the front of the line-up and started doing a rollcall. The platoon of forty soldiers had managed to gather around 180 conscripts from the nearby area. 3 of the soldiers in the platoon were the staff sergeant who was in charge of training ALL of the groups, the quartermaster and the lieutenant (whom we hadn’t met yet), so that meant the 180 new soldiers were going to be trained by the 37 remaining veterans, that meant there were going to be 32 groups of 5 and 5 groups of 4 new soldiers. We were from a village group of 4 and one of the last arrivals so we were assigned to be a group of four.

By the time the rollcall got to our group Fred was still missing, Mark looked at us and said “where is Fred?”

“We don’t know” Isiah replied back

“Did you not hear that if one of you is late you ALL get punished?!” he glared at all of us “you are to be a team. You were supposed to wake him up and drag him here. Naked if necessary”

That’s exactly what happened, Mark asked one of the corporals to check inside Fred’s tent and drag the fool out. Fred was dragged out of his tent, naked as the day he was born, bleary eyed with drool hanging from his lips.

Mark looked at us angrily and said “you are going to pick up your practice equipment from the quarter master, and the run around the camp 20 times carrying your equipment, and since you all are to be punished equally, you will be dressed the same as Fred”

We were lined up single file and marched down to the quartermaster and given our equipment, a wooden shield, a dowel rod about two meters long and a wooden short sword. We were marched outside, made to strip down to our skin, and run around the camp 20 times. We ran around the camp, naked as the day we were born. Josiah tried to use the shield to cover up, but that made running impossible as his knees kept hitting the shield. This meant he wasn’t paying attention to his “spear”, which angled forward, got stuck in the ground, and made him topple over almost like a badly performed pole-vault.

Running around naked didn’t bother me that much. The walk had worn away some of my modesty, and we weren’t exactly being ogled by women. It did make me realise that running naked wasn’t the best idea though and made me appreciate the ingenuity and purpose of under wear.

We finished our run in about an hour wisely having paced ourselves to the slowest person in the group, Josiah, who wasn’t unfit, so much as built for impact. Jo had his hands on his knees not caring that he was mooning the entire platoon, huffing and puffing, exhausted, occasionally spitting out huge thick wads of mucus, staring murder at Fred. Isiah being a woodsman wasn’t as tired. He calmly went and got a cup of water from the tables and handed it to his brother. He calmly walked over to Fred and whispered “If you are ever late again, I will gut you.” Fred’s eyes flew open and he was about to say something

“Hhh how…”

“He won’t be late. One of us will kick him awake every morning until he learns to wake up” I said trying to diffuse the situation

By the time we got done with our run the rest of the new soldiers had gotten their new equipment, Mark let us get dressed and then we had to run around the camp again this time only ten times and with all of the new soldiers. Our group, which was already tired from the first run, were among the last to finish. Josiah was on his knees dry heaving.

We were the last to finish our run so we were the last to enter the mess tent. We also were the last to get served, and since they were running out of food, consequently we got the smallest portions. Josiah kept looking at Fred with increasing hatred.

After our breakfast we were all taken over to a large clearing on the east side of the camp grounds. We were lined up, spaced apart about 3 meters from each other and were taught how to hold our shields properly. Our instructors went round correcting our mistakes, and making sure we were holding the shields correctly. It was tiring work and inevitably our shields dipped down too low, due to the weight and the effort required to maintain the same stance. When they did drop too low, the instructors started swinging their blunted metal swords at us, we had to hurry up and raise our shields to parry or get brained in the head. This went on for a couple of hours, and then we were made to switch hands.

We were served lunch of a savoury gruel with bits of dried beef and watered down ale, everyone seemed exhausted and a few of the new recruits even had bruises and welts from the mornings’ training. After lunch we were given 30 minutes of rest time before the afternoon session began.

In the afternoon we were taught how to use our swords, swinging our wooden swords on wooden dummies, which were little more than a tall wooden logs. That first day we were shown two basic swings and then we were told to swing at the logs. It was tough work. The jarring impact of the swords on the dummies made the hands itch, and the impacts would hurt all the way up your arms to your shoulders. I had previous training, from John’s memories, and the practice had done in the woods, so I quickly figured out that the easiest way to avoid the jarring impacts was to angle the sword and glance off the post. The sound of the impact changed and Mark immediately took notice. He observed me for about 5 minutes and then called over another of the instructors.

Mark stopped me and called me over “Emris come over here!” Mark barked

I quickly stopped what I was doing and jogged over “yes, corporal?” I asked

“This is Private David”

“You have had previous training.” Said David. It was a statement not a question

“My dad taught me some forms, and I had an older brother” I quickly lied “I also had some instruction from Mathew” I said, this was true. Mathew had once caught me practicing with my stick out in the woods; he was coming back from hunting and had observed me practising some of the forms. After that Matty had suggested that I needed a sparring partner and we had sparred with each other a couple of times a week. In the two months since, I had improved tremendously, almost beating him more than once.

David looked at me with a raised eyebrow “show me.” He said whilst unsheathing his sword

I backed away unsheathing my own sword. David had a distinct advantage, his was sword was made of blunted steel and he had years of training, my sword was made of wood and I had 3 months of training and some memories.

David swung at me full force before my sword was half way out of my belt loop (no scabbard for a wooden sword); I abandoned the draw and rolled left, avoiding the sideways swipe. I was about to get up but I felt the sword strike coming at me from above, I had managed to get my sword out of my belt loop whilst rolling. I used both hands to block the heavy overhand blow. I could hear the wood creaking in protest as the internal structure snapped from the pressure. I had managed to angle the block so that the sword slid past me. David had over extended on the strike and that gave me enough time to try and get up. Because I was caught unprepared and had to roll away at an angle, when I was getting up my back was turned to David, David noticed and sent a backhand strike towards my back. Out of some kind of primal instinct and my faster than normal reaction speed I managed to swing my sword backwards over my head and block the strike. That strike had force. If it had landed it may have broken some vertebrae, and even the block wouldn’t have worked if not for my extra strength. I utilised that strength and spun to my right, flicking away David’s strike. I was finally face to face with him. He had a surprised look in his eyes.

By this time everyone had noticed that something was going on and had paused on their training. Even the staff sergeant had started looking over. Normally I wouldn’t like to stand out like this, but some kind of primal survival instinct in me had been triggered, that strike at my exposed back could have been fatal. I was angry and at a disadvantage but I wanted to fight. And now I was face to face with my opponent, finally ready to attack and not just defend.

I swung overhead going right to left, David blocked the strike and moved back quickly and came right back at me with a piercing thrust, which would have been fatal if it struck. I step into the thrust parrying his steel blade with my wooden sword and spun away; as I was spinning past I used the momentum from my spin and punch him with a spinning back fist to the back of his head. David staggered forward, I waited for him to turn around, David had a wild angry look on his face, and he wasn’t expecting a new recruit to even touch him. He snarled and came at me again with a wild overhand swing, looking to overwhelm me by force, I tried to block the strike but my wooden sword couldn’t take the abuse anymore and snapped under the pressure. I rolled away barely avoiding the strike, but I was now furious. I turned around to see David smirking. He casually started to swing his sword, looking to punish me for humiliating him. I used my left hand and threw the broken sword towards him like a Frisbee; the sword was aimed at his face. David flinched and moved to avoid the sword and in that split second I grabbed him by the wrist squeezing with enough force that he let go of the sword due to the pain and with my free right hand I jabbed him lightly in his throat. He slumped to the ground holding his throat. I lightly bent down and picked up his sword which was on the ground and held it against the back of his neck in a declaration of my victory.

Mark looked at me suitably impressed, and I heard a voice behind me. “Not bad, recruit”

I turned around to see staff sergeant Randel looking at me. “You have been trained well in the sword” he turned and looked at Private David and frowned. “You attacked an unprepared recruit with a real sword and lost. You will see me in my tent at the end of the day”

The rest of the day went pretty well, I was made to spar with the veterans whilst the rest of the recruits went back to their training; I did pretty well managing to scrape out victories in most of my sparring matches.

When the days training finished we were dismissed. We all went to the baths in an almost organised fashion, and then in an zombie like trance returned; went to the mess hall, ate the brown sludge on our plates, and went to bed whilst there was still daylight.