Web of Deceit (4 page)
‘Let’s get out of this foul place.’ Myrddion sighed gustily. ‘I can’t believe that six years have wrought so many changes in Britain. We’ve seen the movement of the
tribes in Gaul and we know from first-hand experience what violence has filled the void created by the Roman retreat. Somehow, I never expected to find it here, in Britain, so we’ve missed astonishing changes during our wanderings.’
‘Nothing much of benefit to the people has happened, master, and that’s for certain,’ Cadoc grunted as he climbed down from the primitive, poorly constructed wagon, which lacked even the refinement of leather covers. ‘Look at this thing! Even the wheels are made of wood. Remember those metal rims on the wagons in Rome?’
‘We’re not in Rome now,’ Finn snapped back unnecessarily.
‘I have a strong desire to see broad skies and breathe clean air,’ Myrddion muttered under his breath. ‘Let’s dust Dubris off our backs as soon as possible.’
With the economy of long practice, the healers packed the wagons. They were conscious of the hard, envious inspection of the watching dockworkers so, nervous of further interference by footpads and thieves, the men worked with dispatch. As they laboured, Praxiteles asked numerous questions about the size and quality of Britain’s largest port, and the healers felt a certain embarrassment as they compared grubby little Dubris with the wonders of Constantinople.
Once they had loaded the wagons and climbed aboard, the crack of Cadoc’s long whip urged the oxen into grudging movement. And so, with Praxiteles driving the other wagon and Myrddion riding the dun-coloured horse, the journey through Dubris began. The evidence of wide-sweeping and destructive change was all around them and Myrddion, with his new sophistication, told himself that this shift was the way of the world, as natural as rain or sunshine.
Nevertheless, these fresh scars on his homeland caused him pain. Even the smaller temples had been stripped of stone, while vandals had toppled whole
columns in many buildings so that Myrddion could see the clever engineering that had pegged the sections together. Mute, and yet eloquent, naked plinths reminded him that gods of marble had once stood here and blessed the citizens of Dubris with peace and plenty.
‘All things change,’ Myrddion whispered aloud in a vain attempt at self-persuasion. ‘To stay still is to rot and die.’
Then the forum hove into view and the entire party was silenced by its complete ruination. Even more poignant were the ragged children who played with shards of marble in the weak spring sunshine. Like young animals, they were tormenting a starving dog by tossing pieces of stone at it. The poor creature attempted to slink away through a forest of columns, but the children pursued it, screaming with excitement. Across the wide road, the roofless remains of the baths still sported slimy green water within the calidarium, where more ragged children were tossing stones into the scummed depths. Myrddion had bathed here only six years earlier, and now . . .? Stone and wood had been dragged away by the immigrants to create makeshift structures on the edges of the city.
A brightly coloured object caught Myrddion’s attention from the centre of a thick growth of thistles that were flourishing between slabs of cracked marble paving. Without thinking, he leapt from his horse and thrust aside the spiky foliage to retrieve a fragment of carved and painted marble. He raised it like a trophy and his companions were able to identify his discovery.
A carved marble hand, painted brick red to simulate tanned flesh, raised an index finger imperiously towards the sky. Miraculously, the fingers remained unbroken. A carved ring on the pointing finger had been painted blue and captured the light as if it were a true gem, rather than a mere simulacrum.
‘Perhaps it came from a statue of a god? Or it might have been part of a dedication to an emperor or a noble senator. No matter, for it’s now as dead as its owner, or the Roman
Dubris we passed through on our way to Constantinople. There is no point in mourning the peaceful days that fled during our absence.’
Still, despite his rational acceptance of the natural and organic nature of change, Myrddion stroked the marble hand and asked Brangaine to care for it until he had time to examine it more closely. Equally reverently, Brangaine found a strip of waste cloth and wrapped the hand carefully, as if it belonged to a man who still lived and regretted the loss of his amputated flesh.
As the travellers passed through the city, hard-eyed men stared at them and recognised something Celt in their plaited forelocks and antique jewellery. But the healers had become hardened and strong from years of travelling, so they carried with them a faint aura of danger that silenced the sullen men and their tall, angular wives. Only the children were either courageous or careless enough to shout insults that followed the wagons through the streets.
‘Smelly Celts! Cowardly dogs! Run away home to your smelly huts.’
‘Where are your Roman friends now?’ a blonde woman screamed from the steps of a small theatre, as she suckled a child at a brown-nippled breast. ‘They’ve all scurried away, so you’d better hurry after them to the bastard Ambrosius.’
She shut her mouth eventually when Myrddion drew his huge Celtic sword and rested it across his saddle. With unerring accuracy, she spat at the feet of his horse. The healer stared straight ahead and ignored the woman and the pack of small boys and youths that ran after them.
‘We’ll soon need supplies, master,’ Cadoc shouted back to his leader without turning his head. The ever-prudent servant was careful not to lift his eyes from the road while they were passing through enemy territory.
‘Speak in Latin, Cadoc,’ Myrddion replied
sharply. ‘There’s no need to advertise that we have money.’
‘Aye! But we still need supplies – and that soft spot between my shoulder blades is itching. These streets are full of hidden eyes.’
‘We might stop on the outskirts if we can find a safe market place. But if we must travel night and day with only water to fill our bellies, then that’s what we’ll do. We’re hated here, so I’ll not pause willingly, even out of hunger.’
Praxiteles held his club easily across his knees while he plied the reins. Finn had also drawn his sword, and, armed and ready, the cavalcade passed through the hostile streets at a steady, lumbering pace. Eventually, night fell and the party was forced to halt. Even then, the men stood guard while the women slept, conscious that the night was full of menace and the rank stink of hatred.
‘Welcome home to Britain!’ Myrddion muttered ironically to Cadoc as he bedded down under the wagon. ‘I’d rather sleep on the streets of Rome than in this cesspit.’
Cadoc discovered that he had little to say when he was profoundly troubled. His ebullience and humour had seeped away in the slow journey from the docks. But, like his master, he mourned the loss of so much he had loved.
Before first light, that hour when the sky faded to grey and the stars were extinguished, the healers were on the road and moving once more. The night had been cold with a memory of winter chill, so they huddled miserably in their cloaks and dreamed of hot food. Fog hung over the buildings of the town and loaned the pillaged ruins an illusion of wholeness, blurring the details of mud and sagging wooden door frames to create an illusion of beauty in simple shapes. Weedy courtyards and rank gardens were softened and clothed in glistening dew. The deserted streets echoed mysteriously, as if the stones remembered the marching, sandalled feet of the legions and the wild, fair
singing of Celt warriors as they prepared for war. It was an hour when the ghosts of the past seemed to call to unwary travellers out of the mists, before the rising sun brought back the prosaic, ugly reality of Dubris under her new masters.
‘We’ll have left the city by the time the sun is up, and with luck we’ll find suitable markets, master,’ Bridie consoled Myrddion as he rode close to the wagon and smiled at the sleeping countenance of her small son.
‘You’ve been very patient and brave, Bridie. Bearing a child on board a ship bound for Gaul is no small thing. But you’ll soon return to our lands and you can present your son to Ceridwen. Then he will become a true Celt.’
Bridie stroked the small golden charm that hung round the neck of the sleeping infant, her eyes shining with the unconditional love that mothers feel for their children. ‘I thank you for his bulla, my lord. The gold is so fine that you must have purchased it in Constantinople. It is a wonderful gift for my boy, and he will be forever marked by your favour.’
Myrddion blushed, for he had been afraid that Bridie would be offended by the Roman custom of gifting an infant with a tiny casket to hold an amulet. But Bridie had travelled far from Cymru and had learned to judge the hearts of men with instinctive accuracy.
‘Your boy deserves a better future than following the fortunes of war from one cruel place to another.’ Myrddion spoke regretfully as he watched Finn sleep on the heaped baggage in the wagon. Praxiteles was handling the reins and singing Greek songs in a soft and tuneful voice. ‘I’d like you to persuade Finn to take my place in Segontium, Bridie. I expect I’ll become a wandering healer, for these are so many souls suffering in the small hamlets and farms. But you and your babe deserve a snug little house of your own. My mistress, Annwynn, who taught me
so much in the years when I was her apprentice, is very old and needs a young back and a strong pair of hands to help her prepare her healing remedies. You will build a good life on Annwynn’s farm and your son will grow tall and healthy.’
Bridie eyed Myrddion sharply under the fall of her plaits. ‘Do you want to be rid of us, master? Are we an encumbrance?’
Myrddion jerked the rains in surprise and denial, until the stolid horse danced and bridled in protest. ‘No, Bridie, not at all! My heart will be saddened when we part, but you and Finn must do what is right for the little one.’
Bridie sighed and nodded. ‘You’ll have your own children one day, master. Will you cease to roam then?’
‘I’m certain I won’t father children for many years to come,’ Myrddion whispered, his lips twisted with bitter regret. ‘So far, I’ve displayed poor judgement in my choice of women, as you are aware. Some men are born to be alone.’
‘Oh, master,’ Bridie whispered sadly, but Myrddion’s horse had moved ahead and he didn’t hear her. Then the moment of intimacy passed as her son woke and wailed for the breast.
As the sun began to light the horizon, the travellers drove into a market that was being set up on the outskirts of the city. The healers were thankful to see local farmers, as well as Saxons, hefting baskets of live birds, eggs packed in straw and panniers of new vegetables, alongside traders displaying their wares on coarse, blanket-covered tables which proclaimed their affluence. These goods were designed to tempt the crowds who would come once the day was more advanced, and included every tawdry bauble that could be bought cheaply in any of the Frankish ports, as well as ill-made trifles from as far away as Massilia. Bridie, Brangaine and Rhedyn descended from the wagons and fell on the fresh food with the avidity of desperate shoppers. They were far too experienced to waste even a copper on
jewellery that would blacken almost immediately or pans that were so thin they would fall apart within a short period after purchase, and they haggled, cajoled and demanded the best possible deals with the confidence of women who had learned a smattering of six languages in all the market places of the Middle Sea. Within minutes of completing their business, their purchases were packed in the wagons and the party quit the markets to leave the poor huts on the outskirts of Dubris far behind them. The journey home had begun.
The air smelled clean now and gave off the rich aroma of newly turned earth, fresh growth, woodsmoke, and the wild flowers that flourished in drifts between tree roots. Suddenly, the smell of home was so strong that Myrddion felt his eyes prickle with tears and he was forced to turn his head to one side in case his friends should catch him weeping. He had left Britain in a spirit of mingled adventure, resentment and excitement, but he had learned that the land of his birth, no matter how backward it now seemed, was a part of his blood and bones.
‘I swear I’ll never leave again, no matter what our futures may bring. If Dubris is any example, then we’ll have an inordinately busy time right here in Britain.’
But his companions didn’t hear him. They’d not have argued anyway, for home was everything to them . . . and always had been. Myrddion had pursued his own dream to Constantinople, and they had followed him willingly, but they had never lost sight of their roots.
Never again, Myrddion thought. His fingers remembered the texture of Flavia’s skin and the marvellous fineness of her hair; his lips recalled the taste of her honeyed mouth and her wicked tongue; his body continued to hunger for her. But she had chosen to become the concubine of his father, if only for a season, and Myrddion had vowed that he would never love a woman again. Love and passion did little
to assuage his terrible loneliness, and brought only pain in their wake.
From this time onwards, he determined that love of his homeland would be sufficient to sustain the needs of his solitary heart.
Our world is lovely in different ways,
Hung with beauty and works of hands,
I saw a strange machine, made
For motion, slide against the sand,
Shrieking as it went. It walked swiftly
On its only foot, this odd-shaped monster,
Travelled in an open country without