Death of an Empire (24 page)

‘Bridie didn’t want you troubled, master,’ Brangaine whispered, as Willa, sensing the tension that charged the air, began to cry.

‘Show me, you silly girl. It was I who sent you to the general, so any mishap you’ve suffered is my fault. Were you waylaid on the way back to the camp? I should have sent one of the men with you.’

Myrddion’s full attention was on Bridie’s wounded knee. With a sinking feeling under his ribs, he realised that a tendon had been severed, turning her foot unnaturally inwards. So daunted was he by the impossible task of re-attaching the tendon, which had retreated up into the thigh, that he scarcely heard her reply.

‘What did you say, Bridie?’ he asked, as his bloody fingers sought for the slippery, elusive cord. ‘Who ordered this injury?’

Bridie hiccupped with distress. ‘You’ll be angry, master.’

‘So you know who did this thing? Tell me immediately so I can demand some form of reparation for you.’

Bridie was now weeping in earnest, great gusts of misery and pain that caused her whole body to tremble as if she had the ague. She pressed her face into her pallet and shook her head.

‘She doesn’t want to say, master,’ Brangaine explained in a voice that was sharp with distress and suppressed fury. ‘There’s nothing you can do, because Bridie believes that they plan to kill you if you complain.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘General Flavius Aetius became angry when he read your letter. He sent Bridie back with this wound to remind you that you are crippled without him.’

Myrddion felt a sudden, visceral surge of rage so primal that he couldn’t speak. He could understand Aetius’s argument with him, for he had goaded the Roman with a prophecy that seemed to lay bare his most secret ambitions, and had been neither an obedient
nor a willing servant. But to cripple a harmless woman, sent in broad daylight to deliver a letter, besmirched Myrddion’s honour with such devastating thoroughness that the young Celt felt he couldn’t live with the shame.

‘Were you hurt in . . . other ways?’ Myrddion demanded. ‘Don’t shake your head at me, Bridie, or I’ll draw my own conclusions, I swear.’

Bridie wailed, causing Rhedyn to shoot a warning glance at Myrddion that was both reproachful and feminine in its world-weariness. ‘They said it didn’t matter what they did to her as she was only a jumped-up camp follower. She was even less important because Celts have no standing now that the island of Britain has been lost to the empire.’

‘Who said this?’ Myrddion hissed between his teeth.

‘The guard. The librones,’ Bridie whispered, lifting her face so that Myrddion saw an ugly bruise forming across one side of her face. ‘It doesn’t matter, master, truly it doesn’t. I suppose I became a camp follower after losing my Llywarch when he was fighting for King Vortigern. We’d been hand-fasted for a year so I thought of myself as his wife, but . . .’

Then Bridie began to sob in earnest, and the soft-hearted Rhedyn took her into her arms and rocked her as if she were a child.

‘This tale gets worse and worse!’ Myrddion exclaimed with loathing. ‘Someone should pay for your pain. And someone will! Cadoc!’ he roared, and the apprentice came running in response to a voice that seemed too raw and violent to belong to his master. ‘Stitch Bridie’s wound together for me. I have tried to grip the tendon where it has slid back into the sheath of muscle, but I have failed. Do what you can with forceps, because I am required elsewhere.’

‘Master, please take Finn with you wherever you’re going. Please?’

Cadoc’s words were drowned out by the tide of fury that robbed
Myrddion of any rational thought. Without pausing for reflection, or considering the distance he had to travel, the healer stalked through the encroaching dark. The days were shortening, for autumn would soon wrap the plain in russet, gold and saffron. But Myrddion was careless of the smell of ripening fruit or the warm perfume of sweet grasses that were carried on the evening wind. He was fuelled by rage, and pity for Bridie, who would never walk properly again.

The physical marks of her rape would fade but, unlike most men, Myrddion understood the crippling of the heart and mind that women suffer after such an ordeal. The fact that unattached women were fair prey in the minds of many warriors had never struck the healer before, because his servants had always been treated with respect. His eyes had now been opened, and he felt a heavy contempt for his sex.

Flavius Aetius’s tent was a mellow golden glow in the midst of the smaller flares of light that indicated the Roman fire-pits. Myrddion stalked past wagons already piled high with strongboxes filled with plunder, and the attention lavished on these inanimate objects made him feel even more heartsick and angry. Aetius’s passion for gold and treasure was greater than his care for the dead Theodoric, his loyal Merovech or any unimportant little woman who acted as a messenger and brought him unsolicited, unwelcome news.

Without breaking stride, Myrddion used the flat of his right hand to burst through the partially closed flap, and entered the tent.

Two of the general’s guards reached out to stop him, but Myrddion was faster. The taller of the two men, the centurion who had accompanied him to Attila’s camp, received the heel of Myrddion’s still out-thrust right hand on the side of the jaw. Surprised by the force behind the blow, the warrior fell, his eyes momentarily blank and dazed. The other auxiliary began to draw
his sword, but Myrddion turned his back on him and focused his furious black eyes on the startled face of his quarry, General Aetius.

The general had almost reached his feet when the Celt stretched out for him across the low eating table with long iron fingers that were curled into claws and aimed unerringly for the throat of the
magister militum
.

Whether Myrddion would have succumbed to his killing rage or come to his senses would never be known. Two strong, silk-clad arms gripped him round the chest from behind and pinioned his arms so that he couldn’t move, regardless of how desperately he struggled.

‘Take him out and cut his throat,’ Aetius ordered, and the two guards would have obeyed if a cultured voice had not brought them to a confused halt.

‘Stand down. Now. Wait outside until I call for you. Obey me, damn your eyes! I am Cleoxenes, envoy of Emperor Theodosius, overlord of the east, and also his personal strategist. As a Roman nobleman whose ancestors sailed up the Tiber with Aeneas, I demand that you step aside and stand down.’

‘I gave you an order,’ Aetius cried angrily, and upended the small table. The remains of a meal and some crude pottery plates tumbled onto the hard-packed earth, where the terra cotta smashed with a sound like the crunching of old bones under heavy boots.

‘You will obey me.’ The urbane voice of Myrddion’s captor had not risen in volume. ‘I too have the ear of Emperor Valentinian, who will not choose to alienate his brother emperor and kinsman in Constantinople, no matter how valuable you are to him. After all, as you have pointed out to me, you have already routed the Hun. That task is now complete.’

Reluctantly, the two guards backed out of the tent, leaving a small, dangerous tableau of three men standing in the ruins of a simple meal.

‘Sit down, general, please. Do you want those ruffians to hear you shouting and raving over an unarmed and ineffectual healer? Even your reputation is not safe from vicious gossip, my friend. Besides, ranting and threats of violence are crass, vulgar and needless. I’ve never thought of you as one of those buffoons who think they can silence any opposition by imprudent, ill-considered violence.’

Even through his rage, Myrddion was surprised when Aetius righted his toppled campaign chair and sat down.

‘And now for you, young idiot,’ Cleoxenes said calmly. ‘Surely an attempt to assault your master is not a part of your craft. I have read the writings of Hippocrates and I’m tolerably certain that he wrote quite forcibly against all forms of violence.’

‘First, do no harm!’ Myrddion hissed, as he tried to fill his cramped lungs with air.

‘Precisely,’ his captor murmured, as if the young Celt was a particularly bright schoolboy reciting his lessons. ‘So, young healer. If I release you, will you promise to refrain from trying to rip out the general’s throat? Do you carry a weapon of any kind? You can be assured that I’m quite prepared to strip you and search you, if I have any doubts about your truthfulness.’

‘Yes, I promise. And no, I’m not armed,’ Myrddion snarled, too angry to feel any gratitude for the envoy’s intervention. ‘I won’t touch him, but I want to know why a man of his pedigree would cripple a servant woman who posed no threat to him. Was it just a whim, or is he some parody of a man? And then to give her to his men for a plaything is . . . not the behaviour of an honourable Roman.’

‘A reasonable question, and, if true, it’s all very unpleasant. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ There was still no trace of anger, disgust or anxiety in Cleoxenes’s voice.

‘I sent a letter to General Aetius begging permission to depart the Catalaunian Plain and recommence my journey to find a new
master. I am no longer needed here, and plague or disease caused by the ill humours in this place could kill those few patients who remain if we don’t repatriate them to Châlons.’

‘So?’

‘My servant, Bridie, a widow woman, delivered my message. I chose her because she does not understand Latin and because she is biddable and gentle. She is certainly incapable of rudeness or impropriety. I know how much the general dislikes me, although I swear I am no threat to him, and am not responsible for my ravings when I’m in a trance. I sent my request in good faith, using a messenger because the general told me to stay out of his presence. Had I know what would happen here . . .’

‘Tell me,’ Cleoxenes ordered brusquely. ‘And without the soul-searching and high drama. It’s irritating.’

Myrddion flushed hotly, but his response was free of hyperbole. ‘Bridie returned to the camp hospital with the tendon behind her knee severed by some form of weapon. She will never walk easily again, for all my skill at treating wounds.’ Cleoxenes clicked his tongue behind his teeth. ‘The message sent to me by the general stated that I should remember that I am crippled without the support of the
magister militum
, who presents himself as a noble Roman. If this is the way of the Roman aristocracy, then perhaps the rule of Attila would be less painful and more honourable.’

Cleoxenes freed Myrddion from his harsh and painful embrace. ‘Fighting words, young man. Are you saying that General Aetius crippled your servant himself?’

‘No, I imagine the general ordered his guard to cripple Bridie. I don’t know if pack rape was part of his instructions, but she suffered that indignity as well.’

The expression on the envoy’s face did not change. Myrddion could have been discussing the beauty of a sunset for all the
emotion it showed. The healer’s heart sank and he prepared himself for imminent death.

‘Kill the Celt and have done, Cleoxenes!’ Aetius snarled. ‘Or are you too squeamish for red work?’

‘You know that I’m not the least bit squeamish, my friend, but I hate waste. This young man is an asset to us. It’s true that he’s a difficult asset, but he could be a useful tool for your hand, or to provide some service for Emperor Valentinian. I’m reluctant to waste such a man because he failed to control his temper. A lesser man would have simply poisoned your drinking water.’

Despite his rigid control, Aetius paled a little. Healers had a wide knowledge of poisons, as everyone knew, and Myrddion could have taken his revenge in any number of gruesome ways.

‘As for you, Myrddion Emrys, I never took you for a fool, but I’m prepared to change my mind. I cannot speak for the general, but the guardsmen consider unprotected females to be tasty morsels to be taken at will. Generals cannot be held accountable for the crude behaviour of their men when they’re chasing an available woman. However, you have now informed the general that your servant has been raped so he will, as an honourable commander, take action against the perpetrators. Flavius Aetius is an honourable man.’

Myrddion snorted and, surreptitiously, Cleoxenes ground his heel into the Celt’s sandalled instep. The healer barely suppressed a yelp of pain. Aetius sat in his campaign chair like a stone effigy. Only his eyes seemed alive, while his face was ugly with malice.

‘Because we understand your very natural anger at the treatment meted out to your servant,’ Cleoxenes went on, ‘we will allow you to go free – and unpunished – if you give your solemn vow never to raise your hand against the general again, and swear to give him loyal service for as long as breath remains in your body or the general releases you from this vow. Do you hear me?’

Through a throat that was raw with anger, Myrddion agreed to make the vow demanded by the envoy. He was a little frightened by how close death had come to him and the servants whom he valued so highly. For the first time, the red tide of bloodlust ebbed from behind his eyes and he began to think clearly.

The envoy was so willowy and delicate in build that Myrddion had seemed the more vigorous man, but Cleoxenes had restrained him as if he were little more than an infant. Already, Myrddion was mulling over the acquisition of the physical skills of defence with one part of his brain, while another train of thought was dominated by admiration for the strategic and manipulative gymnastics demonstrated by the diplomat.

‘There now, Aetius, my friend. The healer is tied to you for your lifetime. He cannot, and will not, harm you or move against you in any way from this day onward. You’d be foolish to smash shell and kernel with your fist when, with a little reflection, you can enjoy the nut itself.’

Aetius wasn’t convinced, but he could see that a moment’s anger had the potential to destroy his plans of an advantageous marriage for his son, if the matter should come to the ears of Valentinian. Rumour of unnecessary brutality, even against a camp follower, could made Aetius look incapable of controlling his own troops. Better that the healer should meet with an accident, totally divorced from his dealings with the general.