by M. K. Hume
‘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.’
‘Perhaps battle will claim him while we are absent from Britain. I’ve had my fill of arrogant, powerful masters who ride roughshod over the dreams of ordinary men.’
‘Not him. He’ll survive the worst that fate can throw at him and still flourish. We’d best be gone before first light, for I’d not put it past that devil to steal you away for the sake of his precious honour.’
‘Aye.’ Myrddion nodded in agreement. ‘Wake me at dawn.’
The night was as cold as ever and the dried grasses under the copse of trees made an uncomfortable and itchy bed, but Myrddion was suddenly so exhausted that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He plunged into the river of sleep as if he meant to drown himself, and through the marshes of the darkness night-horses sent horrors after him until his cries disturbed the other sleepers and Finn was forced to wake him with a worried frown.
Londinium was a city that had been infiltrated and defeated by stealth. As the healers rode through its outskirts, heading for the southeastern roadway that would lead to Dubris on the coast, Myrddion couldn’t fail to recognise the hordes of Saxon traders clogging the Roman streets and a growing accumulation of filth where the clean outlines of stone drains had been become blurred with rubbish. The Roman passion for cleanliness was beginning to fade, while Celt, Saxon and dark-skinned traders from other lands hawked their wares in an argot of many mixed languages. Myrddion spied Romanised Celts dressed in togas and robes wearing expressions of permanent confusion, as if puzzled by the changes that had turned Londinium into a slatternly city.
‘The barbarians have taken Londinium without a single blow. See the traders? And beyond the villages, there are northern palisades that have no place in these lands.’ Cadoc’s face whitened a little and he shook his head like a shaggy hound. ‘Londinium can’t be allowed to fall, lord. What will happen to us if all sorts of wild men gain a foothold here?’
‘I don’t know, Cadoc,’ Myrddion whispered softly. ‘Hengist and his sons have set down roots in the north of the country, so many more Saxon ships will soon follow from the east. Before I die, I fear that the days will come when our whole green land will belong to the invaders . . . and our customs will be consigned to the middens of the past. Change has come, my friend, whether we want it or not.’
Cadoc was affronted by Myrddion’s opinion, so he busied himself by carefully handling the reins of the four horses that were dragging the heavy wagon. ‘The Saxons won’t be permitted to lord it over our people while we can still fight. I know what those bastards are like. They destroy everything that is good in the name of their savage gods.’
‘I hope you’re right, Cadoc, but reason tells me that a change has come and only a fool pretends he can stop it. The Saxons aren’t wicked, just determined to find a permanent home. Perhaps Uther Pendragon can stop them, if anyone can.’
‘Now there’s a horrible thought,’ Cadoc muttered as he concentrated on controlling his team.
‘As you know, the cure is sometimes worse than the illness,’ Myrddion whispered, but his words were blown away in the stiffening breeze from the sea.
The inhabitants of the towns of the south were nervous and inclined to be suspicious of strangers, for these people had endured the invasions led by Vortigern’s Saxon bodyguards, Hengist and Horsa, and struggled with Vortimer’s bloody retribution for their incursions into the Cantii lands, so the local elders now waited for the void created by warfare to be filled by some new, as yet unknown, threat. Strangers were not to be trusted, for lies come easily to the lips of greedy and ambitious men. But healers were in demand, so the wealth in Myrddion’s strongbox gradually increased through payments of silver and bronze coin and the odd rough gem, besides the barter of fresh vegetables and eggs in return for their ministrations. Of necessity, such aid as they could offer to the citizens along the road to Dubris slowed their journey as well as enriching them, while bringing new dangers of robbery from unscrupulous and desperate outlaws.
Finn Truthteller had been grimly silent as they passed the hillock of greening earth where so many Saxons had died during Hengist’s war, and he shuddered as he spied the standing slab of marble with its carving of the running horse. Knowing that Finn still suffered the lash of memory and a shadow of dishonour, Myrddion joined his servant in the second wagon as they passed an old, fire-scarred Roman villa.
‘You need not be concerned to look upon the ruins left by the Night of the Long Knives, friend Finn,’ the healer offered when he saw the shaking hands and quivering lips of his friend. ‘Hengist’s revenge on Vortimer’s Celts was no stain on your honour.’
‘I am the Truthteller, Lord Myrddion, and Hengist left me alive to testify to the death of Prince Catigern at this place. Many good men perished here, but I was saved to recount the tale. I’ll not run from a memory, master. I can’t. Better to face my ghosts and save my sanity.’
Myrddion laid one sensitive hand on Finn’s arm where he could feel the bunched muscles that were a mute betrayal of Truthteller’s internal suffering. ‘You’re right. I somehow expected the villa to be larger and more oppressive than it is, when you consider its reputation. But, like all bad dreams, its reality is far less impressive than the memories it holds. It has become a worthless pile of fire-scarred bricks and stone rubble. See? The trees are beginning to grow through the open rooms and little will soon remain to remind us of what happened here.’
‘Aye,’ Finn replied slowly, as Myrddion felt some of the tension leave the man’s arm. ‘Weeds are covering the cracked flagstones and ivy is breaking up what is left of the foundations.’ Then, just as Myrddion thought that Finn had managed to banish his constant companions of shame and guilt, the older man cursed. ‘I wonder if Catigern lived for a time under Horsa’s body?’ Myrddion saw a single tear drop from Finn’s frozen face.
‘I don’t know, Finn. But if he did, Catigern deserved to suffer. He was a brutal man who is better under the sod. He’d have betrayed us all for the chance to win a crown.’
‘Aye,’ Finn replied once more. He shook his brown curls and used the reins to slap the rump of the carthorse. ‘Better to be off on the seas and away from these bad memories.’
Dubris still retained its links with the legions in its orderly roadways and official stone buildings, but the healers could see evidence of the growing malaise of carelessness in the pillaging of the old forum for building materials. Marble sculptures of old Roman gods had been carted away to be crushed
and turned into lime, leaving empty plinths of the coarser stone so that, uneasily, Myrddion fancied that Dubris was cannibalising its own flesh.
But the docks displayed the bustle and industry of any busy port. Vessels of all types jostled for moorings along the crude wooden wharves, while traders haggled with ships’ masters in half a dozen exotic languages. Running, grunting under the weight of huge bundles, or driving wagons drawn by mules, oxen and the occasional spavined horse, servants and slaves moved cargoes to warehouses or loaded ships with trade goods for the markets across the narrow sea that linked Britain and the land of the Franks. Above the din of commerce, Myrddion could barely make himself heard as he gave his instructions to Cadoc.
‘Sell our horses for the best prices you can get,’ Myrddion ordered as he ran an experienced eye over the rawboned beasts as they strained under their heavy loads. ‘Judging by the standard of animals we can see here, you’ll get a good price for our horseflesh. The wagons will have to go as well, but remember that we’ll have to buy others once we make landfall. Don’t let the bastards cheat us!’
‘It’ll be my pleasure, Master Myrddion. The traders will pay good coin, or I’ll make up the difference myself. However, we might need to wait for a few days to win the best prices. They’ll fleece us bare if they smell any desperation on our part.’
‘We can afford to wait for several days, for the spring sailing has only just begun. Besides, I’m sure we’ll have our first customers before the day is out.’
As usual, Myrddion read the tone and desires of Dubris correctly. Even before the travellers had found an inn to provide them with moderately clean shelter, the grapevine of gossip had whispered of a skilled healer in the port and Myrddion, his women and his servants were soon profitably at work.