Web of Deceit (46 page)

‘We must protect him, Brangaine, if he can be saved. Damn me, but now he must send word to those tribal kings who are able to leave their winter halls that they are required to attend a feast to celebrate the solstice. What a farce! The High King has no wife, so the rites of rebirth are as cold as a witch’s tit in a snowstorm. And the master also worries that the Boar of Cornwall has drawn the High King’s ire. I’ve told him that he cannot save everyone, but you know how the boy is. He gives his word and it’s iron-clad.’

‘He’s not a boy, Cadoc. He’s a man. Ruadh has gone to his bed, and with luck she’ll quicken, and that might divert his mind. Perhaps we’ll escape this cursed place if she carries his seed. He’d not allow any child of his blood to be born under the dragon’s claws.’

Brangaine spoke so prosaically that Cadoc almost missed the message under the words.

‘So you women have decided that the master should become a father? You take liberties, Brangaine! Myrddion wouldn’t wish to bring new life into this place, or to be responsible for an infant while he is following Uther’s battles through the countryside. You have no right to meddle.’

Brangaine tried to stare Cadoc down, but eventually her eyes dropped with a kind of shame. The women had forgotten their master’s trade in their neat plan to remove themselves from Venta Belgarum and the dangers of Uther Pendragon.

‘For shame, Brangaine! What were you
thinking of?’

‘Willa!’ she hissed. ‘My girl is racked by night terrors. Can’t you feel something horrid drawing closer to us all?’

Cadoc finished his milk and slammed the bowl down on a shelf so that the jars on the table shuddered. ‘I think about the master, about our comfortable life and our useful work; I think about my friend having to swallow the insults and violence of the High King in order to keep us all safe; I worry about how we can save Uther’s soldiers from his total disregard for life, as does the master, and I care about our servants who’d not survive long if Myrddion deserted them.’

Brangaine’s cheeks flooded with shame and she backed out of the small room like a chastised child. But in her secret heart she had no regrets about the argument with Cadoc, for she hungered for the wild hills of Powys and the safety they promised for her and the children.

At this time of early winter, the house of the healers was neither a carefree nor a truly happy place, although Myrddion took great pleasure from watching the children’s games and from the sounds of laughter that echoed through the old Roman colonnades. The kitchen women were cheerful and seemed content to relinquish their old trade on the streets, while the house servants were happy to spend their time whitewashing the outer walls of the villa in the fashion of the houses in Gaul that had so captivated Myrddion during his travels. A veneer of contentment covered the cracks that were appearing in Myrddion’s carefully constructed life.

He was kept busy organising the minutiae of Uther’s impending feast. The potential for social disaster was huge, and Myrddion would not have been human had he not resented being treated like a servant in charge of the kitchens. He had sent the carefully worded invitations out to all the kings from Deva to the Litus Saxonicum, knowing in his heart that Uther’s use of ceremony was designed to bring Gorlois and young prince
Leodegran to heel. The order to bring wives and older children was a careful threat that Myrddion did his best to nullify with graceful language, and other than to decide where the guests would sit in order of precedence he left the working of the feast to those able stewards who had served Ambrosius. His small act of defiance went unnoticed by Uther, who used Myrddion with the casual disregard he would apportion to a tethered and collared hound.

So easily can nations be turned to rubble!

One by one, the kings and their retinues came to Venta Belgarum in the first month of a mild winter. The city enjoyed the crisp cold of early morning frosts and days that were short and dim. The sun had no bite, but only a gentle kiss on bare faces. No snow had fallen, but soft rain cleansed the roof tiles of the Roman buildings and scoured the cobbled streets of summer’s refuse.

The day the Boar of Cornwall came to the city, the people on the streets gawped at his magnificence. He had been a familiar figure in Venta Belgarum during Ambrosius’s rule, but for this particular visit he had decided to arrive in unaccustomed pomp and splendour. He wore a coat of metal links polished to the buttery shine of silver that should have been far too heavy for any ordinary man to wear because of its great weight. A cloak of many otter skins, glossy and waterproof, had been stitched together by Ygerne’s busy fingers, although she had been obliged to protect her hands during the heavy work with stout leather gloves. She had fashioned the lining from a fine fabric gifted to the Boar as part of her dowry and it shone with the refulgence of shell whenever he moved. The collar was wholly of winter fox, snowy and thick, and she had arranged the legs to clasp at her husband’s throat with bands of orange gold. From behind, the head glittered with two raw green stones of crystalline amber, taken from the sea’s bounty on Gorlois’s rough coasts. Green amber and heavy gold massed in his dark hair so that the king of the Dumnonii seemed almost
god-like in his power and strength.

Ragged cheers followed him through the gates, but the Dumnonii king maintained a stern, sober countenance. He attended this meeting unwillingly, and Myrddion admired the integrity which was written on every line of his face.

In his retinue, cradled within a circle of armed men, rode two of his dearest possessions, his wife and his daughter.

Every citizen of Venta Belgarum had heard of Queen Ygerne’s beauty, rendered legendary because none had ever seen her face. As for her daughter, Morgan, the population spoke in whispers about her attempts to master magic. Men sniggered in the inns about rumours of multiple lovers, despite her noble blood, but not one of those leering dullards would dream of making any ribald comments within her hearing. She might have turned them into snakes, foretold their deaths, or, worse still, informed her father that commoners had sullied her name. The rawest recruit in Gorlois’s army knew that the king would gut anyone who insulted his daughters.

Hooded and shrouded in heavy wool, the two women rode through the streets of Venta Belgarum, conscious of the many pairs of eyes that searched for a hint of flesh or the flash of an eye. Neither woman lifted her gloved hands from the reins of her horse or lowered her hood to satisfy the curious gazes of the vulgar crowd. The guard closed around them tightly, their eyes hard and bright with dislike.

In the great forecourt before the king’s hall the retinue drew to a disciplined halt, and Gorlois dismounted and looked round. The large, paved space was surrounded on three sides by roads and buildings that seemed to lean in homage towards the hall and the palace. Uther had ordered the archaic carvings around his tall doors painted a vivid brick red with an edging of liquid gold, because the ancient, complex, interlaced design was
based upon his totem of entwined dragons. The magnificence of this rambling wooden building, two storeys in places, was in stark contrast to a squat and square grey-stone church that sat incongruously next to the barbaric splendour of Uther’s residence. Under his breath, Gorlois swore pungently, for he understood the symbolism in Uther’s latest gesture.

‘Obey me without question, for I am the Dragon,’ he whispered.

The brass-sheathed doors opened and a tall, slender figure in deepest black walked towards the king with his head bowed low in homage. Gorlois immediately recognised the jet-black unplaited hair marked with its streak of white. Insulted to the core, the Boar of Cornwall realised that Uther Pendragon had not deigned to greet his guests in person.

Myrddion saw the muscles in the face of the Dumnonii king tighten with suppressed anger as he scowled. The healer had argued in vain with the High King, explaining that such a calculated slap on the face would not be forgiven, but, Uther had merely flared his nostrils and turned away.

‘Say whatever is necessary, Myrddion. After all, that’s your purpose and the reason you’ve been foisted upon me. You may let the Boar know I am displeased with him.’

In frustration, Myrddion had protested. ‘I recall that the Romans counselled us to hold our friends close, my lord, but to keep our enemies even closer.’

‘Don’t address me in such a familiar fashion, healer. What my brother has created, I can also destroy. Remember your place.’

Despairingly, Myrddion had obeyed. Now, as he kneeled on the ice-slick stones, he prayed to the Mother that such humiliations would not become the pattern of his life.

‘Forgive the High King for his absence, my lord, but affairs of state have delayed him. Welcome to Venta Belgarum for the winter solstice, King Gorlois, and I hope your
sojourn in this city will be pleasant and happy.’

Gorlois read the chagrin in the healer’s face. He remembered the Demon Seed very well from the accord at Deva and admired the young man’s intelligence and tact. Although under his calm façade he was toweringly angry at Uther’s slight, he was too wise to cast blame on the man who carried the unwelcome message.

‘Get on your feet, Myrddion Merlinus, for it is unseemly for a man of your learning and intelligence to grovel in the dirt.’ Gorlois stepped closer and whispered, ‘You are not responsible for your master’s manners.’

‘Or lack of them,’ Myrddion responded softly, knowing that Uther had spies watching and listening behind him. ‘Take care, my lord, for every stone in Venta Belgarum has ears.’

Normally, he would never have spoken so openly, for many lives rested upon his compliance with Uther’s wishes. But the healer’s pride had been trampled in the mud and his extra sense was twitching in his brain. He felt the coming storm that was gathering behind Gorlois’s snapping dark eyes.

‘My lord.’ A gentle voice interrupted them. ‘Please help me to dismount and introduce me to this young gentleman, of whom you have told me so much. The whole world has heard of Myrddion Merlinus, so I hope I don’t offend.’

That voice! Mother, have you come to earth to give me hope?

The cowled figure was tall and slender for a woman, and Myrddion could see the faintest trace of a creamy white cheek. But the voice seduced. Husky, deep for a woman and lilting in cadence, it sank into any true man’s bones with a promise of unimaginable intimacy. Against his volition, his expressive right eyebrow rose.

Gorlois’s hard expression softened immediately. ‘My dear, allow me the pleasure of presenting Myrddion Merlinus, who has the unenviable task of advising the High King of the Britons. Myrddion, this is the queen of the Dumnonii and
the Flower of Tintagel – Ygerne the Fair.’

Laughter sweet and unaffected issued from under the cowl. ‘My lord, you do me too much honour, indeed you do. Lord Myrddion will expect a paragon, when all he will find is a middle-aged mother of two grown girls.’

Then, as the sun sent down a fortuitous slant of weak golden light, Ygerne lifted the hood back from her face.

Myrddion couldn’t help his reaction and was grateful that the massed citizenry could only see the queen’s cloaked back. His breath hissed in, and he bowed from the waist to hide his traitorous eyes.

No wonder Gorlois hides her away, he thought. So must Helen have appeared to Paris when he betrayed Troy to possess that unsurpassed beauty. By the gods, she is all women at their purest!

Fortunately, Gorlois couldn’t see Myrddion’s eyes until the young man had calmed somewhat. He had taken his wife’s gloved hand and raised it to his lips, and Myrddion realised that Gorlois adored his wife with a passion rarely, if ever, seen in marriage. Ygerne coloured prettily, and Myrddion took the opportunity to examine her face as dispassionately as her beauty would allow.

Taken feature by feature, the queen should not have been so beautiful. Her nose was delicately modelled but not short, her cheekbones were very high and her eyes were of an indeterminate colour somewhere between blue and green, but neither. Her eyebrows were delicately arched but not remarkable, and her chin and jaw were firm but not exceptional. Her slightly loosened braids defied any description of their colour, being composed of every light shade right through to chestnut.

She is a chameleon, Myrddion thought. Every trick of the light catches her anew so that she is never the same. She is one of the fairest women who ever lived.

‘My wife will be lovely until
death takes her,’ Gorlois stated proudly, and the faces of his warriors reflected his adoration.

Myrddion murmured a graceful compliment, his mind spinning madly out of control as he led Gorlois, Ygerne, Morgan and a small group of personal guards and servants into the palace and along the passageways to a suite of rooms that were comfortable, but not opulent. The Dumnonii guard was billeted on the outskirts of the city.

Bemused, Myrddion left the royal lovers and sought out Uther as he had been ordered. Fractious as always, the High King was pacing his quarters like a wild beast, while Ulfin and Botha attempted to seem busy in the luxurious apartment.

‘Well? What did Gorlois have to say? What does the fair Ygerne look like? And is that Morgan witch behaving herself? You’ve kept me waiting, healer.’

‘Lord Gorlois said nothing except to introduce me to his wife, who is a great beauty. Morgan stayed modestly cowled, and said nothing at all. Gorlois made no complaint about his men’s being quartered so far away. In fact, I wasn’t required to insist on his billets because he had already selected only a few body servants to accompany him into your palace. As always, the Boar of Cornwall was contained, courteous and graceful in everything he said and did.’

Uther growled like a big cat that Myrddion had seen at the circus in Rome. His blue eyes had exactly the same inhuman calculation as the lion had shown as it stalked a terrified felon in the arena. Even his curling, luxuriant hair was more like a mane than human locks.

‘What will he do? What will he do?’ Uther asked no one in particular. ‘He’ll not brook insult, but he’s far too clever to expose himself to my justice. That . . . man! Gorlois would be king, I know it. He’d put his arse on my throne and his head into the crown of Maximus. Never! I’ll embrace Hades before
that
day comes.’