Web of Deceit (8 page)
Then, just as Myrddion began to turn away, Uther looked upward into the morning light and his hard blue eyes fell upon the healer, who was little
more than a dark shape looking down on him. The prince’s brows narrowed with perplexity for a moment as he searched through his memory for this shadowy face, outlined by the last of the fires, but then the machine-like brain recognised the healer and Ambrosius’s brother raised his blade in an ironic salute.
As Myrddion flinched away in alarm, the gates were thrust open and Uther applied his spurs to his horse’s flanks. The startled creature leapt forward into Verulamium.
Myrddion shuddered. As clearly as if it had been yesterday, he heard again the prince’s mocking words as Myrddion finished dressing his wound, six years before: ‘When you return from your journey to Constantinople, I would have one of the finest healers in the land as my personal physician.’ If Uther remembers me, he’ll have me ordered to Venta Belgarum with no hope of refusal. I’ve travelled thousands of miles to avoid having a master, only to be betrayed by fate once I arrive home.
But Myrddion did not complain aloud. Men such as Uther Pendragon purchase sharp ears and eyes everywhere, so any criticism would certainly be repeated to the High King’s brother. The reckoning that followed would be bloody and swift.
And so Uther’s force secured Verulamium, and as his warriors executed the last of the Saxon wounded, the crows and ravens began to mass in the nearby woods. The birds were hungry, but like all scavengers they were prepared to wait. When armed men set the dawn ablaze, the meat-eaters knew that they would soon dine well.
THE FAMILY TREE OF UTHER PENDRAGON
THE FAMILY TREE OF KING GORLOIS OF CORNWALL
The information above is culled from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work,
The History of the Kings of Britain
. Other historical sources include Wace, Layamon, Gildas, Nennius and John Rhys.
Three things always threaten a man;
Sickness or age or the shock of quick death
Will snatch the soul from the strongest warrior
Thus has he need, who treasures his name,
The praise of his people after his parting,
To daunt the devil before his departing,
Do well on earth and worthily conquer.
From a very old English poem,
The Soul’s Voyage
‘Shite!’ Myrddion swore
crudely while
Cadoc and Finn stared at him askance. ‘I know Uther Pendragon saw me. I know it! I saw his eyes try to place me in his memory. Damn and shite!’
‘Perhaps you need to rejoin the women, master. Surely he won’t search too hard for you if he can’t find you among the wounded.’ Cadoc wasn’t convinced by his own argument, whatever platitudes his mouth might utter.
Myrddion wasn’t convinced either, knowing full well that Uther Pendragon had a mind that was wholly focused on achieving his personal ends and fanatically fixed on the destruction of his enemies. By Uther’s reasoning, Myrddion would serve
to keep his warriors alive and fighting: ergo, Myrddion must be forced to accede to Pendragon’s wishes.
‘Finn, listen to me. Have you and Bridie discussed what I said to her? If Uther Pendragon decides to demand my services, I’ll try to ensure that you are free to continue on to Segontium. If Annwynn is still alive, she will take your family into her household and give you a good life in exchange for your skills. But if she has already passed to the shades in our absence, you should seek out Eddius, my grandmother’s husband. He will ensure that you and yours are kept safe.’
The healers had reached the gate and found the bodies stacked three high as Uther’s warriors stripped the dead of any wealth they possessed. A crude cart drawn by a complaining mule was brought as close to the carnage as possible and, once naked, the enemy dead were flung unceremoniously into its depths like so much rubbish.
‘I’ll not leave you with that bastard, master,’ Finn protested. ‘He’s even worse than Flavius Aetius, because Uther enjoys killing his victims. The Roman dog was too orderly and too cold for such hot passions. I won’t leave you, Myrddion.’
‘You must,’ Myrddion insisted. ‘You’re a father now, so your responsibilities extend further than your own desires. You must tell your children what you’ve seen and heard. You are the Truth-teller, so you must survive and be free of any further stains on your honour. If Uther seeks me out, he’ll demand duties of me that I’d prefer not to contemplate. I don’t want to worry about you, your wife and your babe as well as my other companions. Serve me well, my friend, by leaving me to my destiny.’
A thin, almost inaudible whimper caught his attention. ‘Hush, Finn. Listen! Something is alive in that pile of corpses to the left of the gate.’
Two of Uther’s warriors picked up the flaccid body
of a woman whose head lolled unnaturally and whose throat had obviously been cut, to judge from the veil of blood that had soaked her robe from neck to hem. Beneath her body, and partially protected by the curled chest of a youth, a small child began to cry thinly from its nest of ruined flesh.
As quick as the flash of a merlin’s wings as it glides in for the kill, Myrddion swooped under the arms of the nearest warrior and plucked the infant from the blood-soaked earth. The child was wholly saturated with its mother’s blood, so the healer couldn’t tell easily if it had suffered any injuries. As he tried to remove its sticky swaddling bands, Brangaine appeared at his side as if by magic, and whisked the child from Myrddion’s hands.
‘I’ll see to the little one back at the inn, master,’ she said, and Myrddion knew better than to refuse her. She had already wrapped maternal arms around the whimpering child.
Another mouth to feed, a cynical voice whispered in Myrddion’s brain, but he closed a mental door on that insidious thought with a sharp, dismissive slam.
‘Why are you here, Brangaine? It’s far too dangerous, and you’ve left Willa unattended.’
‘The prince has been seeking you, master, and Gron looks likely to give you up. He’s a snake, that man, with no decent feelings except to whine and complain about everything in his smug existence. I came to warn you.’
Brangaine scowled at her master with a look that would have curdled milk, so Myrddion attempted to soothe her injured feelings by sending her back to the inn to cleanse the infant and discover if the child had suffered any hurt. Then, his duty done, he turned to continue the search for those who remained alive among the drifts of bodies.
By coercing any able-bodied person who passed into helping him, Myrddion managed
to free the pitifully few survivors who still breathed. In their pursuit of plunder, Uther’s warriors had moved on to pick over the corpses of Saxon invaders in the lower town, having no pecuniary interest in the half-dressed men and women who had been caught up in the merciless battle. The killing field at the wall revealed a total of one hundred and fifty-one dead. Only two slightly wounded children remained alive, and Myrddion was heartsick to contemplate the thoroughness displayed by the Saxon attackers. Unprotected flesh was helpless against swinging axes and iron swords.
In the lower town, Myrddion and his assistants must perforce cope with cruel burns, grossly swollen flesh and bodies that were blistered, splitting and glistening with internal fire. As Annwynn had done so many years before after the destruction of the Blue Hag inn in Segontium, Myrddion plied his henbane and poppy liberally, for few patients survived the kiss of the flames.
And so, some hours later, Myrddion was dispirited and on edge when a warrior from Uther’s personal guard found him treating the last of the survivors. The prince’s orders to the young man had been curt and to the point.
‘Instruct the healer whose name I cannot recall to attend on me at the house of Gotti, the trader, before nightfall. Warn him that he’ll feel my wrath if I am forced to search for him.’
The attitude of the messenger was derisive in both tone and stance, for the slight young healer who stood before him seemed incapable of any threat to either himself or the prince. As the son of a minor Atrabate lord, the warrior was very full of his own importance, although he had not yet learned to be suspicious of superficial appearances. Myrddion recognised his immaturity immediately, although the young man affected a close-cropped, ruddy beard in the Roman style.
‘Before I ask you to present your
message to me once again, young man, what is your name? I don’t like to receive instructions from persons I haven’t met.’
As he spoke, Myrddion’s eyes remained fixed on the burned leg of a young matron, barely fifteen years of age, whose face was blackened with soot, except where tears had cut long runnels down her cheeks before dripping onto her scorched robe.
‘It’s Ulfin. Now hear the words of Prince Pendragon, Master of the West and scourge of the Saxons,’ the young man snapped crossly, as he tried to regain the initiative.
‘I am aware of your master. What is your message?’ The healer spoke with such calm presence of mind that Ulfin became both flustered and angry. He was of a similar age to Myrddion, and trying desperately to disguise his nervousness and frustration, but something that flashed in the slanted black eyes as they glanced up at him made the warrior feel queasy for a moment. However, the smiling mouth soon restored his initial impression of guileless, harmless youth, and he repeated the message more slowly.
‘I will come when I have finished dressing this young woman’s burns. A few moments mean nothing to Prince Uther, but they are crucial to her chances of surviving her injuries.’ Without waiting for an answer, Myrddion returned to wrapping an unguent-smeared bandage around the painful blistering on the girl’s foot and leg.
‘My lord instructed me to bring you to him immediately!’ Ulfin exclaimed sullenly, his right foot stamping childishly on the roadway where Myrddion was working. ‘The prince will make us both suffer if you keep him waiting.’
‘I said I would come when I finish this dressing – and I’m almost done. I would point out to you that Uther Pendragon is your lord, not mine. He is also indebted to me, so I counsel you to be courteous.’
The warrior would have
protested, but Myrddion turned an unresponsive back towards him and continued to wrap the girl’s calf with careful deliberation. Ulfin began to pace as his fertile imagination sought an excuse for his tardiness. Uther would not be amused and Myrddion had won a new enemy.
‘There, it’s all done now,’ Myrddion whispered to his patient. ‘You’ve been a brave girl, and soon you will feel much, much better. Have no fears, for I will see you before I depart for the north.’
With his usual attention to detail, Myrddion washed his hands thoroughly in a bowl of warm water, cleaned his blood-rimmed nails and plaited his hair, which had begun to escape its thong. Then he gave instructions to Finn and Crodoc to care for their patients, straightened his robes and turned back to face the young warrior.
‘Very well, Ulfin, I’m ready. I’m a stranger here, so show me to the house of Gotti.’
Obviously, Ulfin thought, as he led the way back into the city. No man who knows him keeps the Son of the Dragon waiting.
The Gotti house was a two-storeyed, clay-brick structure that owed more to the Roman subura than to fine villas. From the entrance, Myrddion could see a long corridor that opened into a familiar internal atrium, complete with statuary. As he was being searched for weapons, he noted that this open garden was long and thin, and that the Gotti household apparently adhered to the practice of growing edible foodstuffs in a city, if the glimpse of neat rows of herbs, potted lemon trees and some young cabbage heads were any indication. Once Uther’s guards had completed an efficient body search, Myrddion was conducted into the triclinium, where the shutters were wide open to catch any stray rays of sunshine.