Clash of Kings (47 page)

‘Ambrosius has provided Vortimer with Roman-trained engineers from Gaul. He has rebuilt the old Roman bridge upstream with a series of rafts that allow him to cross and recross at will. He has fortified this bridge and my scouts tell me that he has ballistas, catapults and other engines of war on the far riverbank. These machines could pound us into oblivion if we allow them to be used against us. We would never reach the river, let alone cross it. Then, at a time when my son was certain we were mortally wounded, he would come to us.’

‘But such machines of war can be destroyed by determined men. They can be burned or sabotaged, and then Vortimer’s edge is lost,’ Myrddion suggested hesitantly, trying to imagine such deliverers of long-range death. ‘They can be captured and turned against the prince, just as the Greeks turned the Trojan Horse against Troy in days long gone.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, lad,’ Vortigern snapped. He was ill pleased to be at a disadvantage with a boy of just fifteen years.

Quickly, Myrddion explained the role of the Trojan Horse and how the Greeks became famous for their innovations in warfare.

‘How do you know all this?’ Vortigern asked, stroking his beard ref le ctively.

‘My grandmother procured tutors to instruct me in Latin. My tutor loved the writings of the blind philosopher, Homer, so I learned to read Latin translations of his
Iliad
.’

Vortigern’s eyes flickered briefly and Myrddion could tell that the High King was filing away evidence of Myrddion’s learning against some future time when it would become useful. Then, as if his face was wiped clean, Vortigern returned to the problem at hand.

‘Our only way to the river is across the open land, so it seems we will have to face Greek fire and huge boulders that my son will cast down among us. The loss of life will be hellish until our warriors are in close contact with Vortimer’s army. Then his engineers would be killing their own friends as well as their foes. It would seem that catapults would be most effective against a stationary target.’

Myrddion’s mind was racing. For catapults to work effectively, they would need to hold very large rocks, or huge piles of waste metal and smaller stones designed to break open on impact and kill or maim all the men within a wide radius. Loading and winching such a machine, if such was the means of operation, would take some time. But burning oil? Myrddion shuddered at the thought of such a thing inside breastplates or armour.

‘Will your healers be able to cope with the number of injured in the opening salvo of the battle? Do you need more materials? I need men on the front line who can fight on, even with injuries, which is where you come in.’

‘I can prepare a large supply of unguents for burns and small projectile wounds, but surely the foot soldiers can protect themselves as well.’ Myrddion’s brain, like a thing of cogs and wheels itself, was planning how to treat the injuries likely to be caused by Vortimer’s war machines. Even as he stood close to the man he hated most on earth, he was seeking workable solutions for the sheer love of solving the problem.

‘Explain!’ The flat tone of Vortigern’s voice should have warned Myrddion that the king was unsettled by the healer’s unsolicited suggestion.

‘If fire and missiles come from above, the first line of attackers should use some kind of movable platform to provide shelter and protection. We have good carpenters among the levies, don’t we?’

The king nodded, his eyes suddenly brighter.

Myrddion removed a strip of vellum from inside his tunic and a piece of charcoal from the pouch on his belt. He began to sketch a large, flat-topped structure, higher than a man, and fitted with large wooden wheels. Shafts, under cover behind the front wheels, permitted the structure to be pushed by men or slaves. The High King peered over his healer’s shoulder, the glitter in his eyes feral and charged with menace. He returned to his chair and stared hard at Myrddion with an ambivalent expression.

‘Good. I’ll hold you to your word that you and your assistants can handle most injuries, and you will return the warriors to the field if they are only slightly wounded.’

Myrddion bowed and prepared to leave, but Vortigern halted him with a gesture. Myrddion felt strangely light-headed, as if his fits were returning after many years of absence, but fortunately the spasm passed quickly.

‘We’ll remain in this bivouac for four days. In that time, I want as many of these contraptions built as possible while we still have access to trees. You’ll be in charge of their construction.’

‘My lord, I’m a healer, not an engineer,’ Myrddion protested, his face a little pale and pleading. He was appalled at the notion that a casual idea of his could be used in a real battle, even though it might pave the way to victory.

‘You are your father’s son, damn the man! He was skilled in every element of warfare, which was why I needed his advice in the first place. I was . . . but no. You still have to fulfil your part of the bargain, boy.’

‘But . . .’ Myrddion’s voice trailed away.

‘Be content with the knowledge that he was Roman and skilled in warfare,’ Vortigern replied with a smirk that was both smug and resentful. ‘You’ll have to earn more information.’

Shite, Myrddion thought. Vortigern is playing me like a fish on a line. He lets me run by telling me a few, meagre details about my father, but then he stops me by cutting off the flow of information until I’ve completed some task for him. He’s a hateful, clever man. But Myrddion knew, even during these times when his thoughts ran hot with resentment, that he would continue to play at Vortigern’s game, for, ultimately, he was determined to learn the details that would make sense of his life.

When he spoke, he was careful to keep his voice neutral and passionless. The less Vortigern knew of his eagerness, the better. ‘As you wish, King Vortigern. I will do my best.’

The king nodded absently, picked up a dried apple and began to eat, leaving Myrddion to stand like a fool – ignored and confused. The healer bowed, put away his sketch and backed out of the tent.

‘What am I to do now, Grandmother?’ Myrddion whispered to the night sky as he strolled away. ‘What do I know about war machines?’

But the stars were distant and cold, and Olwyn was lost in death.

Learn, a voice whispered in his brain, and Myrddion set his face towards the section of the camp where the carpenters kept their wagons.

Behind its walls, Glevum was still and dark, its cobbled streets laid out in a grid pattern that was typically Roman in the newer parts of the town. There, in an old villa of particular magnificence, Vortimer had installed his household.

Rowena sat in the most opulent room in the house, with only a single maidservant to attend her. The girl was a slave, but she had been taken as a child and had lost all her original language, so Rowena had no way of discovering her parentage. The girl’s pale, brown-blond hair and light eyes marked her as a northerner, as did her golden skin and her unusual height. As if like called to like, the girl was only comfortable with Rowena, and the queen with her.

Rowena’s superb hair was loose and the maidservant, Willow, was combing the long, tangled locks with exquisite care. Under the gentle, long strokes of the ivory comb, Rowena’s tense shoulder muscles began to relax and the ache in her heart eased just a little.

‘I miss my sons.’ Rowena spoke aloud, knowing that Willow wouldn’t betray a single word that the queen spoke in her hearing. ‘But my husband will have secured their safety.’

‘Aye, madam,’ the maidservant replied in a rich contralto voice that the queen found very soothing. The ivory slid with a soft susurration and untangled the hair with ease, although Rowena’s tresses had never been cut and hung almost to her knees.

‘Where is Vortimer?’ The queen’s hands clenched together until her knuckles shone white with strain. ‘Where is my stepson?’

‘The master is closeted with his captains. The servants whisper that they plan a war.’

‘Then Vortigern is coming. Freya and the Mother are still with me. Soon, very soon, I shall be free again.’

But Rowena suspected that she would never be free as long as Vortimer remained alive, and probably not even then. Initially, she had not been concerned for her safety when Vortigern’s son had captured the baggage train, the queen’s servants and her person. The boy was her stepson and she had watched him grow from a shy, nervous ten-year-old into the man he had become. She had been a fool.

Directly after his father had surrendered and fled from his ambush, Vortimer had entered Rowena’s tent. He was bloody, sweaty and white around his usually rational eyes. She had hoped to be able to calm him, for she had tried to be a mother to him from the time when she had married an ageing despot as a girl of fourteen; and since she had borne her first son, supplanting the illegitimate Catigern within the family, relations between them had been civilised, if not warm.

Although less than five years separated Rowena and Vortimer in age, the queen had never considered the boy as anything but a stepson who might disapprove of her but at least treated her like another human being. But on that first night of captivity, when Vortimer stank of blood and fear, she looked into his eyes and saw that he was no longer a boy. She had tried to escape, had attempted to fight, but he had struck her on the temple with his gloved fist and she had lost consciousness. Unfortunately, she had awoken while he was still grunting over her body, his eyes blind to any mercy or reason, so she had rammed her fist in her mouth to silence her screams. He had finished with her, straightened his clothing and stared down at her naked, spread-eagled legs before stalking out of the tent.

‘What the father possesses, the son longs to defile,’ Rowena sighed as, reflected in the silver mirror, she saw Willow’s eyes, hooded and sad, their clear depths marred by something primal.

Because she had recalled that first night, repeated often whenever Vortimer was not in Venta Belgarum or in battle, Rowena suddenly felt the pain of the deep-seated bruises, contusions and wrenched tendons that had resulted from their last encounter. Her beautiful face revealed her bodily ills as her brows furrowed. Usually Rowena was able to mask her distress.

‘Wait, mistress,’ Willow whispered, her feet padding away on the cold tiles. When she returned, she was carrying a simple pottery bowl containing a dark, foul-smelling unguent.

‘What’s that, Willow? It stinks like old boots taken from an excessively dirty old man.’

Willow almost smiled. ‘It’s good for aches and bruises, my lady. The smell is a little . . . ripe, but it works.’

Willow was already drawing aside Rowena’s embroidered robe to expose her thighs, belly and breasts, covered with new black contusions and others that indicated their age by the purples and ugly yellows that marred the queen’s smooth, golden skin. As gently as a mother soothes her babe, Willow began to massage the mud-coloured, greasy substance into her mistress’s flesh.

‘It hurts, my lady,’ Willow whispered and turned her face away from her ministrations for a moment. Rowena looked down at her maid’s silken head and saw the gentle curve of a downy cheek, then sighed as she felt a pleasing heat begin to ease the tightness in her abused muscles.

‘Thank you, Willow; your salve helps. The smell may even be useful if Lord Vortimer should visit me. Especially if I breathe through my mouth.’

Her wry humour prompted a quick, shared smile of amusement between the two women, as Willow continued to massage the salve into Rowena’s side where large, rough hands had recently left fingermarks.

‘Men don’t notice such things, my lady. We are only objects in their minds, possessions to play with, or break, depending on their mood. But the salve does help, doesn’t it?’

Rowena nodded, her throat suddenly constricted. ‘You’re so young, yet so wise, Willow. Who taught you the nature of the other sex, child? You can’t be more than fourteen.’

‘I am sixteen, my lady, and I have borne two living sons.’

The girl’s voice was muffled, for Rowena could only see the top of her silken, pale head. She gripped the clever, deft fingers that worked on her flesh so gently.

‘Where are your boys now?’

‘Gone, mistress. Lord Vortimer has no patience with babies, and no use for a maidservant who has a child to care for.’

Willow’s voice was quite flat and emotionless, but Rowena could feel something hard, cold and hungry emanating from the maidservant’s slender fingers.

‘Are they still alive?’

The queen tried to imagine how she would feel if her newborn sons had been wrenched from her arms at birth. Her blue, northern eyes hardened into chips of ice as she decided that she would kill anyone who attempted to harm her children.

‘I don’t know, my lady. They were taken from me and given to other women in Glywising. I couldn’t find my boys after all this time, even if I was able to try. They are three and four now, you see.’

The hopelessness in Willow’s voice made Rowena’s heart ache. Perhaps that sense of impotence was even worse than the initial loss. Willow’s despair was realistic, for she would never find her children again.

‘I’m in your debt, Willow. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, because I’ve been stolen from my children and I’ve been raped – but my boys are still safe. I’m fed well and cared for better than many women are. All I need do is tolerate the touch of my stepson, and many poorer women would readily change places with me for the sake of a full belly. Even my husband, King Vortigern, is too free with his fists, so the bruises are not unexpected. My only cause for complaint, really, is shame.’

Willow tied a simple square of flaxen cloth over the lid of the unguent jar and rose to her feet. ‘Thank you, mistress. We are all really the same, we women. Queen or slave, some man owns us. So the world goes on, and there’s no help for it.’

Rowena’s eyes were reflective and cold. She chewed on Willow’s words as she dismissed the maidservant and changed into a sleeping robe. Although she readied herself for the likelihood of Vortimer’s unpleasant attentions, her mind dissected her situation and she concluded that she had the means at hand to salvage her honour.