Clash of Kings (19 page)

‘Well, Rhun, what do your gods say? Speak up and tell me what you see.’

‘I fear you will become angry at the message and strike me down in your rage,’ Rhun murmured, his voice reedy and thin.

‘I’ll strike you down if you don’t speak. Immediately!’

Rhun gathered the small ivory tablets together and placed them in a leather bag that he looped over his belt. Then, once the tools of his trade were safe, the sorcerer straightened to his full height and began to speak.

‘Your tower is ensorcelled and I don’t have the power to lift the charm that causes the stones to fly apart. Only you, Lord Vortigern, can bind the stones of Dinas Emrys together. Only you can find the child of a demon, sacrifice him and seal the stones with a mortar mixed with his blood.’

Vortigern leapt to his feet and his beaker of ale toppled and spilled over the tabletop.

‘A demon child? Where in this world would I find such a creature? You have found an answer that cannot be refuted and so think to keep your head. Have a care, Rhun, for I am not a fool – and I’m not a man to cross.’

Rhun was silent for a moment, but then he gathered together his courage and used the sorcerer’s old reply, half charlatan and half prophet.

‘Only you, King Vortigern, can establish the truth buried inside the runes. Only you can seek out the Demon Seed. But beware, my king, for you may meet your doom when you find this child. Should the Demon Seed live, he will ensure that everything you have built is burned away. At Caer Fyrddin, where the runes say he was born, the Demon Seed will conjure a wind that will blow throughout these lands and scour away the last of those who love you. So, ask no more, King Vortigern. I cannot read the runes any further, for they have closed themselves to me. Please, lord, ask no more.’

Vortigern scratched at his chin with his forefinger and watched Rhun very closely, seeing a glaze of tears in the sorcerer’s eyes. Rhun was terrified. Apollonius seemed to scent his comrade’s fear, and tried to make his corpulent body as small as possible.

‘Very well then, Rhun. I’ll play this game of yours, but you have but three short weeks.’

Peremptorily, Vortigern signalled to the captain of the guard to step forward.

‘Send your men out. Search the north for the son of a demon and, if you hear of him, bring him to me, regardless of who he is. We will meet again at Dinas Emrys in three weeks, and if I have no demon child, then I’ll use the blood of Apollonius and Rhun to cement my tower together. Now, go with the gods.’

And, although his sorcerers were near to fainting with terror, they fled from the presence of the king.

‘You cannot imagine how frustrating it is to learn Greek from the alphabet,’ Myrddion complained as he sat cross-legged before his mistress’s fire and filled clay pots with dried herbs and fungi. Myrddion was particularly skilled in drying, chopping and preserving the raw materials of Annwynn’s art. Even as he complained to his mistress, his nimble fingers sorted and packed the herbs and then sealed the jars with rag and soft wax plugs.

Annwynn had rendered sheep’s fat over a fire outside her cottage, and once she had reduced the thick, yellow clots to a rather turgid liquid she proceeded to beat and stir into the smelly mix herbs and mysterious substances that fired Myrddion’s imagination as well as his olfactory senses. The unguent that was the end product of the healer’s labours served many purposes. One version was an exceptional drawing ointment that could force inflamed flesh to thrust out thorns, slivers of metal and any other sharp invaders with a small rush of healing pus. Another ointment, with one or two added ingredients, soothed burns, scalds and some infections. With her armoury of opium, henbane, mandrake root, speedwell, juniper, tansy, figwort and other plants, Annwynn fought her constant battle against injury, disease and accident.

But Annwynn had been trained by a master who provided her with instruction based upon the teachings of Galen, the ancient healer who had revolutionised physicians’ knowledge of anatomy. An oilskin on her wall, kept rolled up for protection, showed the hidden interior of the body and ascribed purposes to each organ according to Galen’s wisdom. Annwynn whispered to her apprentice that Galen had dissected a human corpse, an action that was frowned upon as blasphemy by all sensible Celts.

‘All battlefield surgeons have seen those same organs ripped apart by sword, axe and spear, so there’s no mystery in the human body to those who work elbow-deep in the blood of the wounded, except for where the soul lives,’ Annwynn explained as Myrddion continued to fill the pots with dried herbs and simples. ‘I’ve always believed it to reside within the brain.’

‘From my readings, I don’t believe that any man can live when the brain is breached, mistress, although one of the Egyptian scrolls has a drawing of a physician opening a hole through the skull.’

‘Aye, Myrddion, it’s called trepanning,’ Annwynn answered idly as she mixed tinctures of opium. ‘I’ve never seen it, although my master told me that the procedure relieves pressure on a wound by letting out excess blood. He said that some men have been known to live through the operation.’

‘Well then, mistress, since all other organs die when the heart is stilled, perhaps the heart might be the dwelling place of the soul?’

Annwynn grinned at her apprentice as her hands followed their accustomed patterns.

‘The scrolls speak the words of the Greek, Hippocrates, who bound his apprentices to the principle that no healer should use harmful poisons or do anything to hurt the body of the patient. Hippocrates makes sense to me, Annwynn. He also speaks against bleeding out bad humours in the blood, which Galen proclaims to be a healthful cure. I know that you don’t bleed your patients, mistress, even though you admire and practise many of Galen’s ideas.’

Myrddion looked so serious as he confronted his teacher that she laughed with delight.

‘Oh, Myrddion, how serious you are. Aye, I don’t approve of bleeding generally because the patient becomes very weak during the treatment. And sometimes that feebleness causes their illness to advance. But I saw my master achieve miracles with one man who suffered from choler. His face was bright red, and he had peculiar lapses wherein he was desperately short of breath. While my master treated him, he was well.’ Annwynn could almost see the workings of Myrddion’s mind. ‘See, boy? You’ve already helped me by offering the words and thoughts of another healer. I will dwell on your words, Myrddion.’

‘I will also dwell on the practice of bleeding, mistress.’

She smiled at him affectionately. ‘The sun is still warm, Myrddion, so today’s a good time for you to spend the afternoon at play. It’s not healthy for a lad of your age to spend all your free hours with an old woman.’

‘Aye, mistress. I’ve finished the dried herbs anyway,’ Myrddion replied as he uncoiled his long body and climbed to his feet. As she watched, Annwynn envied her apprentice his youthful flexibility and ease of movement.

‘We’ll look at the tools of the physician and the surgeon tomorrow. You’ll need to have your own set made by the blacksmith, so bring all your attention when you arrive in the morning. Shite, boy, they’re only tools of iron, you know,’ she added as Myrddion’s face glowed with pleasure at the promise of such a treat. ‘They aren’t made of gold or silver.’

‘I’ll be early, Annwynn, I promise.’

Then, with a skip to his step, the boy was gone. He left an empty space in her afternoon, and even the warmth of the sun seemed weaker for his absence.

Myrddion’s buoyant spirits lasted all the way along the track and the Roman road that led from Annwynn’s cottage towards Segontium. With eyes blinded by pleasurable anticipation, Myrddion scarcely felt the nip of late autumn in the wind, for his thoughts were wholly occupied by the excitement of finally learning to use scalpels, bone drills and nasal probes. He saw the golden gorse and hawthorn hedges, the green hills with sheep grazing on their flanks like little puff balls of cloud and, in the town itself, the wheeling, crying gulls. Even weak sunshine was sufficient to give the mean streets a glister of gold on rough cobbles where a light shower had marooned little puddles of water. All was well in Myrddion’s world and he believed that nothing could dim his happiness.

A gang of small boys was chasing each other through the market place as Myrddion strode past. One of the larger boys was throwing stones at a skeletal dog that yelped piteously when a rock struck its thin flanks. Without thinking, Myrddion scooped up the trembling animal and turned toward its tormenters.

‘Pick on someone your own size,’ Myrddion yelled as the dog stuck its head pathetically into his tunic. ‘This poor hound is nearly dead from starvation.’

‘Who are you to tell me what to do, Demon Seed?’ the bully yelled back, while his friends shouted encouragement in the way of all packs of dangerous animals. ‘Come over here and make me. Perhaps I’ll bloody your nose for you.’

‘Yeah!’ his friends chanted. ‘Demon Seed! Demon Seed! Demon Seed!’

Myrddion flushed so that two spots of colour stood out on his pale face. ‘Next time my mistress asks me to lance a boil on your arse, perhaps my probe will slip and you’ll sing castrato,’ he snapped back, for this bully was prone to suffer from painful swellings on embarrassing parts of his body.

His friends now shrieked with laughter at the bully’s expense. ‘Castrato! Castrato! Castrato!’ they howled, and the large boy turned beet red with fury.

‘I’ll catch you and turn
you
into a girl,’ he screamed as he rushed towards Myrddion, who skipped agilely away.

‘You won’t catch anyone with those fat legs of yours,’ Myrddion replied with a reckless grin and, with the dog still cradled in his arms, he ran lightly and gracefully away from the boys and their raucous catcalls.

From the arbour of a nearby inn, Democritus watched the exchange. Under the meagre shadow of a gnarled, bare vine, the Greek’s eyes snapped with sudden interest. Until the boys had started to shout their insults, Democritus had forgotten the talk that had swirled around Myrddion’s birth some ten years before, but now he began to wonder whether the story might be turned to good account. Perhaps he could still gain possession of the boy’s scrolls.

The scholar was beyond any considerations of right or wrong. The existence of the scrolls ate at him, awake or sleeping, and he knew he was prepared to dare almost anything to hold those precious rolls and absorb their ancient wisdom. He had even stayed in Segontium when his master had ridden back to his palace, pleading illness, so he could find a way to steal them.

After all, what did the boy matter?

Democritus admitted to himself that Myrddion, his family and every soul in Segontium was less important to him than even one of the scrolls that languished in the child’s possession.

Within twenty-four hours, Democritus was presented with his chance for intervention when three armed men, kings’ guards by their torcs and arm-rings, rode into Segontium. Their task was to find the child of a demon who was reputed to live in the north, and Democritus hurried to meet them as soon as he became aware of their mission. Not only were there three new gold coins in his purse, with the promise of more to come if his information proved correct, but the boy would be separated immediately from his most treasured possessions. Myrddion’s ultimate fate didn’t worry the avaricious old man in the slightest, even when the troop captain explained that the boy would be sacrificed. Democritus shrugged. The knowledge of the ancients was more important than his duty to his lord or the Deceangli nobility. Melvig was a noisy cock strutting about his malodorous dung heap, as if Canovium were Rome or Athens and he the emperor.

As the warriors rode towards Annwynn’s cottage, Democritus rubbed his palms together as if he could already feel the stiff papyrus between his fingers. He scuttled away towards the sea path.

Above his head, the gulls still squabbled as they waited for food scraps dumped into the open gutters. What did they care for right or wrong, theft or murder? Only the need for a full belly drove them as they swooped to snatch up rotting bread in their cruel, sharp beaks.

CHAPTER IX

TAKEN

For late in autumn, the day was clear and sunny once the mists had burned away and the light cloud had dissipated over the strait off Mona. A sea breeze hurried any rain clouds onto the mountains and sunlight turned the sea into a pattern of dark blue and pale washes of green and turquoise. The citizens of Segontium enjoyed the good weather, while even the animals in the pastures frisked and rolled through the dying grasses as if spring had come again.

Myrddion had reached Annwynn’s cottage not long after dawn, just as the sun began to stain the grey sea. In fact, Annwynn was still plaiting her long grey hair by lamplight when the boy knocked on her door.

‘You
are
eager, little apprentice. Are the tools of my trade so fascinating that you must haunt my footsteps before I have even broken my fast?’

Myrddion began to mumble embarrassed apologies until his mistress took pity on him.

‘I joke, Myrddion. You must be hungry, lad, being up and out so early. I swear you’ve not eaten this morning – unless your gran begins her day in the dark.’

‘I didn’t want to be late,’ Myrddion said. ‘I suppose I could eat a little something.’

‘A little something? Aye, my young prince. You’ll eat me out of house and home given half a chance. I’ve porridge, new bread, honey and fresh milk for you, so take what you need.’

With a quick glance at her face to ensure that she wasn’t angry with him, Myrddion sought out an early meal with the appetite of a healthy young animal. While he ate, he told his mistress that he now had a mongrel dog, and recounted his adventures of the previous afternoon.

‘You must be careful, young man. Spite is a terrible spur for some people, driving them to almost any lengths to have their revenge. Other people aren’t necessarily as honest or as well motivated as you are.’

‘Yes, Annwynn, I’ll remember. Now, when can we begin working on the tools?’