Clash of Kings (17 page)

‘That nose of yours is the healer’s greatest tool, for we can smell putrefaction. Then what?’

Myrddion frowned and winced at the memory. ‘You packed his mouth with raw flax and the poisons continued to seep. The tooth was broken close to the gum and his whole mouth reeked. You cleansed the wound every few hours, applied hot packs to draw out the poison and gave Rhys poppy juice so he’d sleep and not disturb the wadding – but he was still restless and in pain. Even when the wound stopped oozing pus, his jaw and his temples began to swell, and he started to rave in his sleep. His body grew hotter and hotter, so we wet him down, over and over, to cool his flesh. But nothing worked. He seemed to burn up from inside until he died in the early hours of the morning.’

‘Aye,’ Annwynn replied sadly, for Rhys had been fifteen years of age and was only newly wed. ‘The poison went to his brain and killed him. A simple toothache defeated me. For all my experience, I could do nothing to save him.’

Annwynn looked so disconsolate that Myrddion made her a beaker of her favourite mint tea. He bruised the leaves a little in her mortar to release the fresh scent and taste quickly, for he knew that his mistress was troubled. She gulped a mouthful of the hot liquid, put down the beaker and then clenched her hands together as if deeply in prayer. Having come to some kind of decision, she crossed the room to her thick woollen pallet and threw back one corner at its foot, revealing a heavy box some twenty inches high and at least three feet long and wide.

Myrddion goggled at the simple, undecorated container. The wood was strange and unfamiliar, and it possessed a pleasing aroma that Myrddion had never smelled before.

‘My old master said the wood was called sandalwood, and insects would avoid the contents of such a box. I had never heard the name, but it is true that no moths or vermin touch any of the things he stored within it, and the perfume has lasted for forty years.’

Myrddion stroked the surface and discovered that the wood was as slick as the finest imported cloth. He breathed in the heady, exotic scent and found that it lifted his spirits with its heavy opulence.

‘Well? Open it then,’ Annwynn said, her face split with a wide, proud grin. ‘The box – and what’s in it – is yours.’

‘Mine? Why would you give this lovely box to me, mistress? Your master left it to you and I’m no kin to be worthy of so fine a gift.’

Despite his instinctive response, however, Myrddion continued to stroke the smooth, unblemished wood as if it were a living thing.

‘The box isn’t important, Myrddion, but the contents will be of vast use to you.’ Annwynn flipped open the brass catch and threw the lid back to reveal scroll cases and sheets of vellum, hide and something that looked like pulped woven reeds. Where the individual sheets were visible, Myrddion could see close, small writing that covered every inch of each page. His breathing stopped for an instant with shock and amazement.

‘What? Who? Er . . . I don’t understand.’ Myrddion breathed in the heady scent of old scrolls, dust and age, feeling his blood quicken in awe and disbelief.

‘My master travelled all over the Great Inner Sea and served many important personages with his healing skills. He came to Portus Lemanis at a time when he was old and tired. I was his last apprentice, and he taught me all he could, but I couldn’t read or write, so the scrolls were useless to me. My master knew he lacked the time to teach me, and asked me to protect the box and its contents until I could pass them on to a suitable healer. He was also trying to protect me, for women are distrusted if our mastery of medicine is too great.’ She sighed. ‘There’ve been many times in the past when I’ve lamented my inability to read. It may well be that the cure for an abscessed tooth might be found in these scrolls, and had I been able to understand it the blacksmith’s son might have survived his illness.’

Annwynn stared at her hands, and Myrddion sensed her deep and unceasing regret for the limitations of her skills.

‘I could, perhaps, have learned to read all those years ago, although I was twenty years old and needed to earn my living. It was easier to put away my master’s box after he died and promise myself that I’d learn to read the scrolls at some distant day in the future. As you know, I never did.’

She lifted her eyes then, and suddenly her whole face was wreathed in smiles and merriment, leaving her pupil puzzled and off-balance.

‘Then a beautiful young boy with a broken thumb and a questioning mind became my apprentice. He had worked hard to master Latin and he took notes of everything he learned from me. My master would have liked young Master Myrddion, not least because he was rumoured to be some kind of demon, for my dear old friend believed that all healers are touched by the gods in a special way. So! I’ve decided that the scrolls are now yours.’

‘You can’t give them to me, mistress. They’re too valuable – and too old.’

‘I can do as I please, Myrddion. And I do. You will use my master’s knowledge and extend mine, because I expect you to explain anything you discover in the scrolls that might save some of my patients. Young men like Rhys make me feel a failure. So, take home my gift and study it well. Can you carry the box, or shall I send one of my neighbour’s farm workers to carry it for you?’

Myrddion was forced to admit that the box was far too heavy for his journey along the soft, sandy paths near the villa, so Annwynn smiled her approval at his honesty and called for a farm worker who lived just outside Segontium. For a few copper coins, the man agreed to carry the sandalwood box to Myrddion’s home.

That night, by the light of an oil lamp, Myrddion examined his windfall. Most of the scrolls were in Latin and covered a variety of topics, including battlefield surgery, infectious diseases, the plague and simple wounds. For Myrddion, their potential was incalculable, and the boy couldn’t wait to experiment with the information written so clearly on the soft doeskin in spidery black ink.

But the real wonders were the scrolls written in Greek.

Of course, Myrddion was as ignorant of the contents of these scrolls as Annwynn, for Greek was as foreign to him as Latin was to her. However, when it was unrolled, the very first scroll contained diagrams of strange body parts with descriptions in Greek and a translation into Latin. What a miracle!

Annwynn had understood that Myrddion would use his knowledge of Latin to learn Greek, and she blessed the day when a broken thumb had brought the boy to her door.

Against all the odds, Dinas Emrys raised its grey, looming tower over its halls, courtyards and thick walls. Somehow, through threats, promises and the expenditure of a small fortune in gold, the ruined fortress had returned to a semblance of life. With much panoply and blowing of rams’ horns and the long brazen trumpets favoured by the Roman legions, Vortigern came to Dinas Emrys with his lords, the Saxon thanes and his extraordinary wife Rowena.

The Great Hall at Dinas Emrys was small by comparison with many of his forts, and the walls of flint and bluestone were unmortared and draughty, as well as dreary. A roaring fire improved the ambience of the room, filled as it was with warriors, hounds, noise and laughter. Drinking and eating, boasting and tricks from his chief sorcerers, Apollonius and Rhun, filled the early hours of the night until king and queen went off to a simple bed. His warriors burrowed drunkenly into the straw with their hounds for company to scratch and mutter through the night.

Vortigern was awakened from a deep sleep when the earth began to shake. With eyes half-blinded by sleep, he watched a huge crack appear along the corner of the walls. Leaping naked from his sleeping pallet and dragging Rowena with him, he pressed himself into the farthest corner of the small room, opposite the tearing stone. Dust filled the air, while a sound like an avalanche of flint and scree echoed and vibrated under the flagging. Then silence fell.

Hearing the shouts of his warriors and the barking of panicked hounds, the king dragged up his crimson cloak and wrapped a woollen blanket around his wife. Warriors burst into the room with drawn swords and escorted the royal couple down to the paved forecourt in case the earth should shake again. Men milled and shouted, horses screamed, and still more warriors fought a small fire that had been started by a fallen oil lamp in the stables. Dusty, smutted with soot and smoke, hair tousled and wild, the warriors sought invisible enemies with drawn swords and many pungent oaths.

Vortigern looked towards his great watchtower – and then he knew! Where stone had stood on stone and blotted out the view of the stars, a pall of dust now rose turgidly into the night air. The tower had collapsed as it tore itself away from the rest of the fortress, until now it lay in ruins below the cliffs that surrounded Dinas Emrys.

‘To me!’ Vortigern roared, the rage in his voice bubbling to the surface like hot lava. His tower had fallen and all his efforts at Dinas Emrys had come to nothing. As his warriors encircled him, Vortigern swore that he would know what had destroyed his tower, or every worker on the site of the fortress would be executed.

When the grey dawn stole over the hills, the sun picked out the broken ruins of the tower that had fallen, so that the shattered walls looked like a set of rotten teeth. Stones had tumbled and rolled down the hillside, and one side of the fortress gaped open in the cruel, unflinching light.

Vortigern rode away with his warriors and his wife trailing in his wake. Although the ravens rose from the woods in spirals of black rags, Vortigern scarcely noticed the portent. He did not draw rein until his troop clattered into the town of Forden, their horses half dead with weariness. Yet no one, not even Queen Rowena, raised their voice in censure, for Vortigern was angry that he had been humbled by the revenge of the gods.

And so Dinas Emrys lay in abeyance, its stones scattered and its furnishings already looted by the hill people who seemed to grow out of the ground like mist wraiths as soon at the first signs of darkness crept up the valley. Vortigern’s warriors had set sentries to guard the fortress and its breached walls, but to no avail. Small stones vanished, hangings from the hall that told of Vortigern’s campaigns were stripped away, and even the new straw that had been laid down for the first banquet was stolen during the nights that followed. Despite the guards’ best efforts, Dinas Emrys was picked clean, and the superstitious among the stone-workers whispered that perhaps the gods were angry with Vortigern for welcoming barbarians onto Celtic soil, so that he had earned the wrath of the earth golems. Blessed Ceridwen had used her knowledge to tear these dreaded creatures from the earth, using fierce monsters to cast down Vortigern’s pride and bring his dreams to mud and rubble.

But the workers whispered cautiously, for they all knew that the mud of Dinas Emrys smelled of old blood, so the wiser men among them understood that words spoken loudly sometimes tempted the gods to crush the unwary babbler.

Under the autumn rain and grey skies, they waited for the king to consider his options and make up his mind.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SONG OF THE SUN

Months before, and far away in Segontium, Myrddion was so happy that he feared such pure joy would cause the gods to be envious of him. The box had been polished clean, inside and out, and beeswax had been liberally applied to raise the grain and glow of the sandalwood. Myrddion experienced a sensuous pleasure every time he touched the surface of the healer’s box and so he stroked it often, as if it possessed a soul and tangible flesh of its own.

The scroll cases had also been cleaned, repaired and polished. The loose leaves of strange materials were preserved in the finest hide pockets that Myrddion could fashion, bleached and engraved in patterns of exquisite beauty. Even Olwyn was fascinated by Annwynn’s gift, and puzzled over the sheets of strange fabric until her grandfather came visiting in the summer, accompanied by his scribe. This worthy Greek had taught Olwyn what letters she knew, for Melvig had no love for learning and recognised no necessity for warriors, or women, to be literate. Only through great persuasion had Olwyn convinced Melvig that young Myrddion should be taught Latin five years earlier, so his scribe, Democritus, had found a suitable tutor for the boy.

Olwyn and Myrddion stepped away from the box and asked Democritus to give them his expert opinion on the scrolls and the loose sheets within it.

As the old Greek began to read the first script, he felt his knees begin to shake and his hands visibly trembled.

‘Here? Here? In Segontium, of all places?’ he muttered. ‘How can such books be here, in a place as primitive as this town of nothing and nobody?’

For an old man, Democritus was remarkably quick to drop to his knees and lift more of the scrolls reverently from their cases. His breath caught in his throat as he unrolled the brittle leather and saw two more blackened scripts, punctuated by drawings.

‘By the heavens, boy, do you know what this is? Have you any notion of how precious this scroll is to any scholar?’

Myrddion shook his head. ‘It’s valuable to me because I can read the Latin and I will become a healer.’

‘This tract is ascribed to Hippocrates, the most able of the Greek physicians and healers. This is a kingly gift.’

Before Democritus could launch into another paean of praise about long-dead scholars, the boy broached his most urgent need.

‘Sir, could you write down the Greek alphabet for me alongside the Latin version? I intend to teach myself Greek from these texts, but your help would make all the difference.’

Democritus waved away the boy’s request as if it were an uninteresting and trivial interruption. ‘Yes, yes, young Myrddion – before I leave. But look! Here’s another! And yet another! All the great minds of Greek medicine have found their way here, into this humble box. Gods above!’ he cursed reverently as he untied the shell-decorated lacings on one of the folders of loose pages. ‘Dear Hippocrates himself wouldn’t be too proud to own this papyrus. It’s Egyptian, my boy – Egyptian! It has been written in hieroglyphics and translated into Greek. This is a treasure trove indeed. I could spend what is left of my life willingly transcribing these wonderful relics. Any man who mastered the knowledge of these scrolls would become a very great healer indeed.’