Death of an Empire (3 page)

Against his better judgement, Cadoc sipped the thin gruel and discovered that it did have a palatable taste, although he’d have added a little salt if he was able. Led by his master to a nest of blankets prepared on the least frequented portion of the deck, he was persuaded to recline on the scrubbed planks where he huddled in a cocoon of wool so that only his dripping nose was exposed to the cold air. Once his vivid eyes began to cloud over and his head started to nod, Myrddion ushered Finn out of the other man’s hearing, hushing him when he opened his mouth to make a joke at Cadoc’s expense.

‘Be kind to our friend, Truthteller. He’s seriously ill from the movement sickness and I need him to be alert and healthy as soon as we are on dry land again. His malady will soon pass once we have docked, but until then he’s really suffering. Unfortunately,
although the crossing is very short, the pangs of his illness are quite extreme.’

Finn shook his head with the incomprehension of a man who has never been affected by the movement of the waves. ‘Of course, master. I’ll see him comfortable, although who’d have thought that the irrepressible Cadoc would be laid low by a few pitching waves?’

‘We all have weaknesses, friend Finn, even Cadoc.’

Myrddion turned away and returned to the blunt prow of the crude vessel, where he strained his eyes towards the coastline in a wishful hope for the first sign of land. His thoughts ranged back to Londinium, and the dire things he had seen in that mighty Celtic city.

After weeks of weary travel, the wagons eventually reached the broader roads leading into Londinium as a short winter day began to fade into darkness. The open countryside had given way to the unmistakable signs of a large metropolis, in conical Celtic cottages, small plots of tilled land, fences of crude wood and an abundance of inns, shop-fronts and trading stalls along the Roman road. Crudely daubed signs bore the ramshackle air of semi-permanence.

Barca’s Food
screamed a red sign over one such establishment, a place where bucolics and ragged children stood and played in thick mud and ate greasy stew with shared wooden spoons, or devoured chunks of meat, oozing fat, which they impaled on their knife points. Myrddion observed a crowd of filthy, tangled beards, sly eyes and ragged wools and furs typical of the inhabitants who dwelled on the fringes of any large settlement.

Another sign leered drunkenly above a two-storeyed structure, which indicated its wares with the simple declaration
Best and Cleanest Girls
. Myrddion judged the truth of this boast by a young woman, barely beyond puberty, who lounged at the doorpost and scratched her crotch unselfconsciously. Under flimsy, revealing
robes, her goose-pimpled flesh had the grey tinge of old dirt and her long black hair was greasy for lack of washing. Even from a distance of a few feet, Myrddion could see lice crawling through the tangled locks.

Clean? Myrddion thought sardonically. I could become diseased just from talking to her. The girl caught his eyes with her own insolent, ancient invitation to experience the pleasures of the flesh. Under the childish veneer of seduction, he sensed a well of hatred and contempt that she had not yet learned to disguise.

Pointing towards a copse of dispirited, bare trees that survived just off the road, Myrddion ordered his servants to make camp. With the economy of long practice, the servants obeyed, but preparation of the evening meal had barely begun when the first customers appeared in search of the healer. Somehow, with the mysterious genius of those who grasp all opportunities with alacrity, the settlers had already discovered the profession of the itinerant strangers. Sighing with weariness, Myrddion set to work, lancing boils, drawing a painful tooth from one sufferer and treating the small injuries and diseases common in any semi-rural community where poverty and dirt afflict the citizens.

He was dressing a nasty infection with a pad of cloth smeared with drawing ointment when a huge form entered the tent and inserted itself between the firelight and the healer’s view of his patient. Myrddion cursed under his breath, rose to his feet and turned with sharp words of complaint on his lips.

His protest withered.

The figure was a huge warrior, standing well over six feet three inches, more than enough to block out the light. Myrddion was very tall, but this warrior overtopped him by several inches. Although the light from the fire was behind him, the young man seemed even larger and more impressive than he would otherwise appear, for he possessed a wild bush of amber curls that defied the
strictures of plaits and the iron helmet designed to contain their vigorous tendrils. The light invested his head with a nimbus like a glowing, golden halo that exactly suggested a great crown.

‘Are you proficient with your sewing needles, healer?’

Almost seductive in nature, the melodious, husky voice seemed to promise understanding and support. Myrddion shook his head to clear it of the dulcet offer that the tone implied and peered into the dark face.

‘Turn into the light, sir, so I can attend to your needs,’ he replied in kind, using his own mellifluous voice to counteract the warrior’s silken net of sound. ‘Cadoc can complete this dressing.’

Mutely, the warrior turned so that the firelight washed his face with scarlet and held out a bronzed arm to reveal a long, shallow wound that travelled from elbow to wrist.

‘I see!’ Suddenly all business, Myrddion moved forward and gripped the proffered arm so he could inspect the wound more clearly. ‘What caused this injury, sir? The edges are puckered as if something blunt ripped through your skin.’

‘Something did.’ The warrior grinned engagingly. ‘I killed a boar on my spear, but the beast threw itself down the shaft as it attempted to gut me. One tusk managed to catch my wristband before it died.’ He smiled again. ‘It was determined to kill me, so I suppose I’m lucky to have escaped with this scratch.’

Myrddion examined the inflamed edges of the wound and pursed his lips. ‘This boar has used his tusks on other, unclean prey, and even now the infection from their blood is attacking your flesh. You are fortunate that you came to me when you did. One more day and we might be mourning your imminent death.’

The warrior watched intently as Myrddion began to wash the wound with hot water, taking care to clean every part of the nasty gash. Although the water must have burned the exposed and tender flesh, the man didn’t flinch. Then, while Myrddion heated a
long tool until it was cherry red, he asked if the healer proposed to cleanse the wound with fire and seal off the blood vessels. Myrddion realised that the man had a curious and adaptive mind and was able to appreciate the reasons for his actions.

‘Aye, lord. It is paramount in wounds of this kind that the evil humours are scarified out of the injury before rot sets in and the limb dies. So easily are we crippled, sir, by things we cannot see.’

‘Then my luck holds, healer. I find myself wounded and you arrive on my doorstep, knowledgeable and ready to minister to my needs. What is your name?’

Myrddion looked up into the handsome, tanned face and saw that the warrior was beardless, in the Roman fashion. Mystery piled on mystery with this tall stranger, Celtic in appearance, yet so alien in manner. He didn’t flinch as his flesh smoked and burned, except for a perceptible tightening of his lips.

With a little nod of his head, Myrddion answered. ‘I am Myrddion Merlinus of Segontium, erstwhile healer to King Vortigern. I am en route to the Middle Sea to study my art under the great minds in Constantinople.’

Except for raising one eyebrow interrogatively, the warrior showed no obvious sign of surprise. Myrddion felt the warmth of the man’s wide smile, but observed that no corresponding liking reached the cold blue eyes that watched him so carefully. Somewhere below his ribs, the healer cringed inwardly, as if he recognised someone who would change his life.

‘I am Uther Pendragon, brother of Ambrosius the Great, Lord High King of the Britons. You may have heard of me.’

Uther spoke without a trace of prideful self-consciousness. Like an unpredictable force of nature, he simply was. The entire British world had heard of Uther Pendragon. Eloquently, he had expounded his lineage, his royalty and his utter self-belief with just a few simple words. Myrddion shivered, as if a cold wind had
crawled over his bare flesh, threatening all kinds of punishment and horror.

‘Indeed, Lord Uther, all men who serve the goddess have heard of you and your valiant brother. The Saxons, Hengist and Horsa, were driven out of our lands at your command, while Powys, Dyfed and Gwynedd rest more peacefully because of your actions.’

‘You served the tyrant Vortigern?’ Uther asked as Myrddion smeared fresh salve along his wound, taking care to use a small wooden paddle so that his fingers never touched the reddened edges of the wound. Uther’s cold voice never wavered, but the blue eyes had hardened.

‘Aye. And tyrant is a good description of that unlamented king. He would have killed his own children by Queen Rowena had he not burned to death in his own fortress in the midst of an unseasonal storm.’

Myrddion was choosing his words with a statesman’s care, even though Uther’s piercing eyes were fixed upon his wound. Uther was a truly dangerous man and Myrddion felt the air drain away around them, as if the High King’s brother could suck all the vitality out of the atmosphere with a single intent glance. The healer hardened his heart, composed his face and spoke on with feigned nonchalance.

‘Aye, Vortigern paid for his many sins when he ran the length of his own hall, wreathed in flames, as his fortress burned to the ground around him. Believe my words, lord, for I was at Dinas Emrys . . . and I saw the Burning Man.’

Uther looked up then and caught Myrddion’s eye as the healer began to bandage the ugly slash. His eyes were frigid, although his mouth smiled with a woman’s promise. ‘It is said that he was struck by lightning.’

‘I saw and heard lightning aplenty that night, lord, but I didn’t see what set Vortigern aflame. He was within his bedchamber
when the fire engulfed him, so I doubt that the gods sent a bolt from the heavens just to take his life. The actions of men probably ended Lord Vortigern’s existence. He certainly had enemies enough.’

Uther smiled. ‘So I have been told, healer, so I have been told. How did you come to serve the Regicide?’

Myrddion washed his hands in a large bowl of warm water and chose his words carefully. ‘When I was a boy, I lived in Segontium with my grandmother Olwyn and her second husband, Eddius. Vortigern had me captured because he had been told that blood from the son of a demon should be used to seal the foundations of his tower at Dinas Emrys. I was taken because it was rumoured that I was the Demon Seed.’

Uther raised one eyebrow. ‘So I’ve heard – but I doubted the truth of such a boast. I am agog to hear your ancestry from your own mouth,’ the prince added with a white and sardonic grin. ‘I’ve been told the Demon Seed predicted things Vortigern didn’t wish to hear.’

‘So the rumour says, Prince Uther, but I’ve no memory of what I said. Vortigern feared to kill me, so he murdered his magicians in my stead. But Fortuna turned her face away from me. My grandmother, who was a Deceangli princess, and the priestess of the Mother, came to save me. Vortigern struck her with his clenched fist, and the blow killed her.’

‘So how could you serve the Regicide when your grandmother’s blood called to you from the earth? Were you frightened?’ Uther’s perfect teeth, so unusual in any warrior over thirty, seemed very sharp and lupine. Myrddion wondered if the prince enjoyed the infliction of pain as much as his glistening eyes and moist mouth seemed to suggest.

‘I had no choice, for he threatened to kill my mistress, Annwynn of Segontium, who is a famed healer in Cymru. I obeyed, and
eventually he told me my father’s name. Not that he was much help, for Flavius is a very common Roman gens. However, I’m now free to seek my father out.’

Myrddion checked the prince’s bandage carefully and found a small container so that Uther could take a quantity of ointment with him. As he pressed the small horn box into the prince’s hand, he felt a shiver of presentiment course through his blood.

‘Take care to keep the wound very clean and dry – and use fresh bandages when you dress it, my lord. Evil humours have a way of creeping into the most carefully tended wounds.’

‘I am fated to die peacefully in my bed, healer, for so it has been prophesied. But I thank you none the less for your labours.’

Uther searched in a leather pouch and retrieved a golden coin, far too much payment for Myrddion’s ministrations, and flicked it towards the healer with a deft and insulting movement of his thumb. Reflexively, Myrddion caught it in his cupped hands and tried to return it.

‘That’s far too much gold for such a simple task, my lord,’ he protested.

‘Consider it an indicator of payments for services you will provide in the future. When you return from your journey to Constantinople, I would have one of the finest healers in the land as my personal physician.’ Uther laughed as if he had made a good joke, enjoying the flush of embarrassment that stained Myrddion’s cheeks. ‘I will remember you, Myrddion-no-name, and I will not have forgotten our talk on this day when you return from your travels and enter my service.’

Prudently, Myrddion kept any words of refusal between his teeth and bowed low so that Uther wouldn’t recognise the mutiny in his eyes. Then the prince swept away without a backward glance, accompanied by three warriors who had waited near the raised leather entrance of the tent.

Cadoc exhaled noisily with relief once the small party had vanished into the night. ‘You can thank all the gods for your skill, master. An arrow was notched and ready for flight throughout your ministrations. Did you not see the archer in the shadows of the wagon?’

Myrddion shook his head as his knees threatened to collapse under him. ‘I feel as if I’ve just escaped from a pit of angry vipers,’ he muttered as he sank to his haunches by the fireside. ‘Uther Pendragon makes Vortigern seem kindly and generous.’

‘That man is a devil, master, a chaos-beast come to tear the land to ribbons for his own benefit. Did you see his eyes? For the first time, I’m glad we’re going to Constantinople, wherever that is. He’ll not find us there, master, and he would if you remained here. He wants your skills.’