Prophecy: Web of Deceit (Prophecy 3)

by M. K. Hume

  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.’

  ‘Truly, my king, I don’t believe that Gorlois harbours any desire for your crown,’ Myrddion protested as mildly as he could. ‘He shows no signs of duplicity and my spies in Tintagel would know. He is simply more devoted to the people in the Dumnonii lands than to the rest of Britain.’

  ‘We’ll see!’ Uther snapped. ‘The banquet will be our first meeting. I’ve organised various hunts and amusements for the kings over the next ten days, but I’ll be too busy to meet any of them until that night. Make sure they all understand that.’

  Gods! When will Uther learn that the mailed fist smashes the nut and makes it difficult to swallow for the shell grit?

  But Myrddion’s face said nothing, although Uther knew precisely what he thought. In his quiet corner, Botha watched the two formidable men circle each other with words and his heart grew cold for the sanctity of his oath to his king. In the warrior’s imagination, Myrddion was a long, slim blade, sharp and light, but wicked in its flashing speed. His king was a heavy Celt sword, used to crush and hack through cringing flesh, and had no fear of the lighter blade or the narrow hand that wielded it, trusting to his animal instincts to outguess the healer’s intelligence. But Uther Pendragon was wrong. Botha could feel the power growing inside Myrddion Merlinus like a sea creature rising towards the light.

  ‘As you ask, so I shall obey, my lord,’ Myrddion replied enigmatically and Botha recognised the double meaning in the passive reply. The warrior was oath-bound to the High King, and knew he should speak his fears aloud to his master. On the other hand, he understood the frustration and the passions that drove Myrddion Merlinus because he had felt those same emotions often enough during the years he had served Uther Pendragon. He considered the question carefully, and decided that his personal code of honour did not demand that he should explain Myrddion’s growing resistance to a king who also had eyes to see and ears to hear.

  So Myrddion left the king’s presence to explain to Gorlois and those kings already in residence that Uther was too busy to join them. He did so with delicate, wry humour, in a way that left no one in any doubt that Uther’s healer did not approve of the situation. Gorlois quaffed his wine thoughtfully and joked with Leodegran and Llanwith pen Bryn with an absent, abstracted good humour and tried to interpret the fear that flitted through the black eyes of Myrddion Merlinus.

  That night, in Ruadh’s arms, the horses of terror galloped through Myrddion’s dreams. Ygerne screamed shrilly through eyes that were wild with horror; Gorlois wept tears of blood above a severed neck wound; Morgan grew suddenly old and smiled widely to reveal that her tongue was now a hissing serpent . . . and an infant slimed with the blood of birth opened inhuman grey eyes and smiled at him with such trust that his heart almost broke in two.

  Just when the images were more than he could bear to watch, they were blown away by an unnatural, freezing black wind and a cowled shape appeared. Whether it was man or woman, Myrddion could not tell. Human or god, he could not say. But his brain froze with terror.

  ‘You must do what must be done, my poor suffering son. When this child is born, then you will be free – for a time.’

  ‘Master . . . mistress . . . do not ask such dishonour of me, for I can go no further . . . I’ll die of shame. Why did you give me life to do such things as I know are coming? I’ll not obey! I’ll not do this thing!’

  The voice in his ears was neither male nor female but was greater than either. It replied gently, but Myrddion knew that all the storms of this world, and the screams of every living thing upon it, could not drown out a single word.

  ‘You will do what must be done because you were made for this time. The road has been hard, my son, and will be harder still before I permit you to die, but everything I ask is necessary, and nothing will compromise your honour. Others will break their oaths, although you will suffer for it, but you will finally be free.’

  Then the figure lifted the cowl and Myrddion saw a succession of faces beneath the hood. There was his grandmother, Olwyn, gently smiling at him; Aetius sneered; Petronius Maximus nodded ruefully; Flavia’s lips trembled; face after face came and went in the blackness under the cowl.

  Then other faces he did not know replaced the friends and enemies of his youth. Old and young, they flashed past his wondering gaze. A tawny-haired woman was replaced by a breathtaking beauty with golden hair and cerulean eyes. A gnarled old mercenary gave way to a huge, brooding barbarian. A woman with ice-white hair and eyes too blue to be anything but a dream smiled at him with heart-stopping love. And then the faces were gone, and Myrddion knew that his dream was almost over.

  A final face began to loom out of the pitch blackness, a face that seemed to belong to Uther Pendragon. There was the hair: wild, tawny and spiralled with curls. There was the same firm jaw and noble b
row, but Uther never possessed such delicacy of cheekbone or nose. And then the eyes opened, and Myrddion saw that they were winter-grey and as chill as the northern ice packs.

  ‘May the heavens protect me,’ Myrddion screamed. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am what you desire most, the creature of your brain,’ the face answered, but Myrddion screamed anew. For this face spoke with the seductive voice of Queen Ygerne of the Dumnonii, wife of the Boar of Cornwall.

  CHAPTER XVI

  A CURSE OF LOVE

  The easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself; for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.

  Demosthenes, Olynthiaca

  Still shaking within the shadow of his dream, Myrddion attempted to fasten the strings of his tunic with fingers that trembled uncontrollably. Ruadh’s eyes were clouded with concern as she assisted him by smoothing the sable fabric over his broad shoulders and straightening the glossy leather hem around his trim hips. She knelt and laced his boots while Myrddion tried unsuccessfully to compose himself.

  ‘Master, you must take a few drops of poppy in hot water tonight. These dreams must not continue, beloved, else you will go mad.’

  Absently, Myrddion stroked her red hair with fingers that had lost their natural dexterity. He felt her wince when his nails caught in a tangle of her curls, so he pulled away from her.

  ‘There will be no poppy, tonight or ever, for no soporifics can protect me from my dreams. In fact, they will only come with more intensity should I try to drug them away. You must avoid me for a time, Ruadh, for my affections can be poisonous. Although I don’t intend it, those whom I care for always seem to die or be spirited away. I have too much esteem for you to risk your life, so leave me to my duties and my misery.’