Clash of Kings (50 page)

He kicked out at her ribs, and Rowena tried to curl into a ball to protect herself. Her cheek brushed the discarded mending and the needle scratched her cheek. As her stepson continued to kick at her, she ripped the tiny weapon out of the cloth and hid it in her fist.

‘Don’t!’ she gasped as she felt a rib break. She knew beyond doubt that he would kill her if she couldn’t calm him. ‘I’m your stepmother!’

From the moment the words left her mouth, she realised that she had unwittingly inflamed him again.

Vortimer pulled her up onto her faltering legs by her unbound hair and struck her face until her senses swam and she could taste the blood of her split lips. Even as he prepared to hit her again, Rowena went for his eyes with both hands, until he, too, screamed shrilly and reeled away from her.

Her left hand had clawed Vortimer’s face from forehead to chin on his right side, leaving deep scores in his cheek from her long, sharp nails. But his left eye began to bleed immediately, for she had driven the needle deeply into his enlarged pupil. A scrap of thread hung down from his eye like an obscene tail.

One hand rose to cover his blinded eye, while the other arm swept her away from him so that she stumbled over the plaster shards littering the floor until she crumpled in the corner of the room like a broken doll. Tears of blood, serum and water streamed down his face as he turned on his heel and ran from the apartments.

His parting words were dreadfully audible, even as she lost consciousness.

‘I’ll be back,
Mother
, and then I’ll take great pleasure in killing you. Vortigern will never see his precious Saxon whore again.’

The night was aflame as the circular huts that clustered outside Glevum’s walls burned to the ground. Against his will, Myrddion had been summoned from his patients at Vortigern’s express command, to divine the workings of the catapults and ballistas. No pleas or reasoning made an iota of difference to the king. He planned to bring Glevum to its knees, so he refused to be deflected by a lowly healer who might hold the answer to the secret mechanisms within his agile brain.

The tide of battle had swung against Vortimer with such speed that his engineers had been forced to abandon their weapons. Normally, they would have sabotaged them so they couldn’t be used against their original owners, but the speed of the retreat was too great. Loyal to Ambrosius rather than Vortimer, the engineers had run for their lives to the shelter of the old Roman walls encircling Glevum. Now, as the flames lit the night with a hideous, bloody tint, the war machines of King Ambrosius were drawn into position to attack the central gates of Vortimer’s refuge.

But before they could be aimed against his enemy, Vortigern had to learn how to use them. Myrddion clambered all over the catapult with a child’s flexibility and a man’s curiosity. He understood the gears and levers that permitted the great pole to be ratcheted down and locked into position, ready for firing. He found the long iron handle used to lower the bucket to be filled with the ordnance that would rain down on their targets, and found the release mechanism just as easily.

But how was the arc of the strike calibrated? How was the elevation changed?

‘I’ll need to load a catapult and practise until I understand how to aim it. Do I have your permission to fire at the gates of Glevum until I know what I’m doing?’

‘Pound them into oblivion if you want.’ Vortigern snorted with laughter. ‘But you don’t return to your patients until my men know how to use these infernal machines.’

‘But your wounded warriors will die if they remain untreated, King Vortigern,’ Myrddion warned. ‘You may need every fighting man you have if the siege of Glevum stretches out over weeks or months.’

‘If the gods will it, my warriors must be sacrificed. Unfortunately, I require those catapults far more urgently than I need a few extra men.’

Displeased, Myrddion’s lips twisted and he recalled, belatedly, the hatred he still felt towards the old king. For a few weeks, the healer had found himself seduced by Vortigern’s energy, his swift intellect and his ferocious recuperative powers. Even now, as the king’s eyes bored into his, Myrddion could feel the man’s charm, a trait possessed by all great men who entice others to follow them to the death.

Myrddion masked his sudden upsurge of hatred so that nothing reached his black, glistening eyes, but the healer knew that the king had divined the edges of his thoughts.

So Myrddion was allotted a group of lightly wounded men who had volunteered to work the
infernal machines
. Captured peasants were impressed into collecting rocks and other ordnance and placing them in large piles, ready for the bombardment that would soon take place. Fortunately, Vortimer’s men had obligingly gathered a significant store of boulders that were just light enough for men to lift, with difficulty, into the iron buckets.

Carefully, and using a practical man’s language, Myrddion explained the purpose of each part of the catapult before ordering two huge ex-farmers from Dyfed to turn the winch handle that would lower the bucket. With one hand on the great shaft of the catapult, Myrddion could feel the tension in the timbers as they strained for release.

‘Fill the bucket with rocks, as many as possible,’ Myrddion ordered, and his grinning labourers hurried to obey. With much grunting and effort, the dangling bucket was filled to the top.

Myrddion grinned at his makeshift engineers. ‘I have no idea if this is going to work, or if we’ll hit anything at all.’ And before he could dwell on the subject, or change his mind, he released the firing mechanism.

The noise, and the thudding of missiles into stone, made a very satisfying explosion of powdered rock, dislodging a large section from the top of the wall. On the far side, within the township, other missiles struck buildings and dust rose in a pall thick enough to be visible in the darkness. Unfortunately, the catapult salvo had overshot the target and missed the gates entirely.

‘This machine must be moved back to lower the trajectory. I have no other ideas on how to achieve the required result. We must also line up the raised pole on the gate. The other machines can be moved forward a little to send their loads of boulders over the walls and into the town itself.’

As the men set to work to reposition the machines, Myrddion deciphered the workings of the ballistas, fired one to make a range calculation, and then set their crews about the same task. However, before he was allowed to trot back to the healer’s tent, the High King called Myrddion over and took him to one side so they could speak privately.

‘I’m a plain man at heart, healer, and I keep my word,’ Vortigern began. ‘You have done what I asked, so I’ll tell you that your father said he came from Ravenna, where he claimed to be an aristocrat. I have no idea if he spoke the truth, because the man was as crooked as a willow branch. I trusted him so little that I ordered him thrown overboard during a sea voyage from the port of Deva into the Seteia Aest. As usual, the devil survived. It was near enough to make me convert to the Christian god.’

‘What was his name?’ Myrddion asked in a voice suddenly hoarse with emotion.

‘I think I’ll save that information for another day,’ Vortigern replied with a nasty smile. ‘I’m sure I’ll need your services at some time in the future.’

Rowena struggled back to consciousness through a vortex of pain and terror. Both eyes struggled to open, but the swellings around her cheekbone and temple glued her right eyelid shut. Every bone and muscle screamed their protest at these abuses, while her broken ribs made every breath painful.

‘Madam! Madam! Please wake up, madam,’ Willow whispered, as she gently shook Rowena’s arm. ‘The master has gone berserk and is ordering his troops to arms. He swears he’ll burn Glevum to ashes, with everyone within its walls, before he permits Vortigern to set foot in the town.’

Disoriented and dizzy, Rowena saw the vague, misty face of Willow, and could feel the ministrations of another old woman, who had been smearing ointment on her wounds. The crone was in the process of binding her ribs with lengths of coarse linen, and it was the agony of being touched that had dragged the queen back from the mercy of unconsciousness.

‘Let me rise.’ Rowena blinked her one good eye until the edges of the room came back into focus and she could see her servant girl clearly. ‘I must try to stop him.’

The old woman cackled her opinion of Rowena’s chances more clearly than words. ‘Fathers and sons! Sons and fathers! There’s no peace in a household when they live together, aye?’

‘Aye,’ Rowena replied softly, and sighed. ‘But to weep and suffer needlessly is stupid, especially when innocent people will perish with us. Could you find some belladonna from the roots of the nightshade, grannie? I have a desperate need for it. We all have need of it, for Glevum will be destroyed unless Vortimer is stopped.’

‘Old Grannie Edda has a small supply of the distilled juice of the berries, my lady, and other potions that kill, but I doubt that he’ll drink anything from the hands that blinded his eye.’

Rowena swung her legs over the side of her sleeping couch and winced as her head spun crazily. With Willow’s assistance, she finally managed to stand, although she was hunched over like an old woman.

‘Get me the belladonna nevertheless, and anything else you think will help. I’ll find some way to put it into his drink. Believe me, the abstemious Vortimer
does
drink, when he thinks no one is looking.’

Willow smiled fleetingly, for she also knew the master’s habits, the cautious, strategic mind torn by the insecurities that caused him to bully weaker, less well protected souls. Before the queen had been taken as the booty of war, Willow had known the bite of Prince Vortimer’s inadequacy. Now, mercifully, the prince was obsessed with Rowena, and Willow was both relieved and shamed by her feelings, especially when she tended to the marks that her master left on the queen’s beautiful flesh.

‘You must not go near him, mistress. His eye has been blinded permanently, for Grannie Edda was called to draw the needle from his pupil. She was unable to cure the damage, even with her knowledge, so he must go through life crippled. Please, Mistress Rowena, listen to me. He has vowed that he’ll hurt you when next you meet.’

Grannie Edda cackled again, her wise, tortoise-wrinkled eyes shining brightly in her ancient face. A streak of irony learned through a lifetime of watching human nature twisted her lopsided smile. To Grannie Edda, the world was a simple place, albeit one where amusing quirks of human nature added seasoning to its plain taste. We are born, we live and then we die.

‘No, madam, you must stay away from him,’ she agreed. ‘The scratches on his face are nothing, but his eye looks like a raw oyster. The pupil is curdled.’ Then Edda cackled gleefully once again, while Rowena shuddered at what she had done to the prince in her extremity.

‘I shall wait until he comes to me. Yes, I know he will come. I cannot understand why he needs to possess me, but he does, so he’ll seek me out when he is most afraid. He will probably kill me then, especially if Vortigern has already taken his precious Glevum. I cannot guess why the master needs to shame my honour – but he
will
come.’

‘Fathers and sons!’ Edda laughed her crone’s broken giggle, full of wicked, sardonic understanding.

‘Bring me the belladonna, Edda. As much as you have. To beguile and poison Vortimer will be my allotted task, so pray to your goddess for me.’

‘I’ll fetch it now, mistress.’ Grannie Edda grinned, exposing gaping holes where her teeth had once been. Only brown and rotting canines remained to give some shape to her seamed mouth. ‘I still need to stitch your foot when I return, for you’ve cut it almost to the bone.’

The queen looked towards her right foot, which was loosely bandaged, but was beginning to ooze blood onto the floor. The wound on her sole suddenly hurt fiercely, so she sat down before she lost her balance and fell.

‘Hurry, Grannie,’ Rowena whispered urgently. Outside, the dawn was coming quickly and a bird chirped outside her single window. The early morning air had the close stillness of summer, although winter had barely relinquished its hold on the city. ‘Hurry, for the barrage could begin very soon if Vortigern wishes to smash Glevum.’

As Edda pattered away, the first boulders began to fall on the city, accompanied by the eerie, whistling sound that always warned of another approaching salvo. The impact of the boulders caused the earth to shake below Willow’s feet, and although she knew they were far from the walls of the city, the maidservant glanced fearfully towards the window.

Distant screams and the keening of wounded citizens disturbed the quiet after the missiles had fallen. Dust from the roof floated down onto Rowena’s hair.

‘I pray that my husband is not so ruthless that he uses fire,’ Rowena whispered softly, as she lifted her feet onto the couch and lay back with a little sigh of pain. She closed her eyes, and both women waited quietly as the catapults continued their grim bombardment.

After a few minutes, Rowena opened her one good eye and turned to speak to Willow.

‘Fetch wine, water and glasses, Willow. No pottery, do you hear? Just fine glass goblets, the best you can find, so the contents seduce the eye. And platters of sweetmeats. Scour the kitchens for anything that is even remotely tempting.’ As the maidservant rose to obey, Rowena added, ‘Hurry, Willow. The city can’t take too much pounding and I can smell smoke already.’

Willow ran.

Rowena dozed briefly, despite the pounding of her head and the persistent ache of abused flesh. A gentle hand shaking her shoulder brought her back to consciousness.

Willow had found two precious Roman decanters, and goblets decorated with rims of pure gold. In one decanter, the maidservant had poured a rich, ruby-coloured wine. In the other, cold water caused condensation to film the glass and trickle temptingly down the sides. A platter of small pieces of well-cooked meat jostled for attention with another covered with cubes of sugared rose petals in a jelly that was dusted with powdered almond and drenched in honey.