Clash of Kings (51 page)

Reflectively, Rowena popped a sweet delicacy into her mouth and licked her fingers clean of the sticky amber treat.

‘It’s good. Vortimer will find these morsels difficult to resist, no matter how angry and frightened he is. And he’ll guzzle the wine for sure. Now, a goblet of water, Willow, if you would.’

The maidservant was in the process of obeying her mistress when Grannie Edda returned, bringing the faint reek of smoke into the room with her. The barrage continued with a sickening stink of fire and brick dust.

‘We must hurry,’ Rowena warned them both. ‘Who knows when the situation inside the city will become grave?’

Grannie Edda held up two vials of a liquid that looked like slightly dirty water. ‘Belladonna,’ she stated.

‘Fine. Now poison the wine and the water, and then sprinkle a few droplets on every item on the platters. Oh, and poison the water in my goblet as well.’

‘Mistress!’ Willow protested. ‘You can’t!’

‘I must, so don’t be afraid. I don’t plan to kill myself, but Vortimer trusts nobody. He could insist that he’d prefer to drink my goblet of water rather than his own wine. I must be prepared for any foolishness on his part.’

As Edda went to work, Rowena noticed a plate of fruit that had survived the carnage of the previous evening.

‘Can the fruit be poisoned?’ she asked Edda, who exposed the last of her teeth in an ugly, clever grin. Her wrinkled brown hands darted into a pouch at her waist and came out with a powder sealed inside a twist of cloth.

‘This dust comes from grave mummy, apricot kernels and certain berries. Every grain of this powder kills those who handle it, so beware that it doesn’t touch your fingers. Even when it is burned, it gives off noxious fumes that will kill. I’ll dust the fruit myself, so we can be certain that he will die if he even touches the rinds.’

‘I would poison my own flesh if I thought it would work on him. Please stitch my foot now, Grannie Edda, and then you should both depart until such time as he comes to have his way with me. The sun is rising and the city is on fire, so Vortimer will come for me soon.’

Myrddion watched his handiwork rain death on the city of Glevum with a grim mix of guilt and relief. Vortigern’s army was safe, while Death was abroad and hungry in the narrow streets and damaged buildings of Glevum.

The air was thick with smoke above the city, for the breezes were gentle and the flames spread so slowly that the army inside the besieged walls was able to extinguish all but the most persistent blazes. Myrddion could readily imagine soot-blackened warriors forming bucket lines to kill any burgeoning fire, or digging desperately through collapsed walls of brick, plaster and timber to find buried comrades. He saw thatched roofs blaze like oil lamps, and imagined the bubbling, burning skin of children and infants with the sickened knowledge of a healer. Closing his eyes momentarily, he reassured himself that the city could choose to surrender so he could put his guilt behind him.

Vortimer was the only man who could change the fate of Glevum, but Myrddion feared that the son would be as ruthless as the father. Cruelty was a learned skill.

The catapults continued to batter the city. The gates should have been smashed hours earlier, but the old oak timbers were heavily braced with thick iron bands and the inhabitants of Glevum had piled many weighty objects against them to absorb the punishing blows. Still, nothing can stand repeated blows indefinitely, and Myrddion could see that the wood was beginning to splinter around the hinges, although a heavy iron bar still held the gates closed.

‘It won’t be long now,’ Cadoc said cheerfully from behind Myrddion. The assistant rocked cheerfully back and forth on his heels, his hands hooked over a leather belt as he surveyed the suffering township. ‘Sieges can be long, drawn-out affairs without catapults, so Vortimer would have been better off if he’d never accepted Ambrosius’s gifts.’

Myrddion grunted his agreement. Now that the rigid surface of the gate was breached, its fall was only a mater of time. Then Vortigern would order his men to attack and the healer would soon have new wounded to treat.

Rowena had dressed herself with painstaking care so that the worst of the swellings and contusions were covered. She lay on her sleeping couch with her hair demurely braided while she waited for Vortimer to decide that his position was so difficult that the queen must pay.

In the late afternoon, she heard the sounds of his approach: the slam of doors, a dropped amphora of oil on the hard tiles and a single moaned protest as Willow was slapped away from outside the queen’s room. Rowena prepared herself for pain, torment and argument.

Vortimer entered without the violence of the previous evening, for the door remained unrepaired. His demeanour was colder, harder and more fixed, as if the well of his softer emotions had been emptied, leaving a hungry void. His wounded eye was covered with a stained bandage that was tied around his head at a rakish angle, but he was dishevelled as if he had spent time fighting the blazes in the town, as indeed he had.

‘Madam, Glevum will belong to your husband by morning, by which time I expect to be dead. If my father thinks to enjoy my surrender, he will be sadly disappointed. I’ll not give him the satisfaction of ordering my death.’

Rowena raised herself so she was almost sitting upright on her pillows. Inadvertently, one white shoulder was bared as her gown fell away. A livid bruise caused by his boot was clearly visible on her naked flesh. Vortimer felt his manhood become aroused with shamed excitement.

‘You choose to die then, Vortimer? Surely there are hidden routes out of Glevum? I can’t believe that you have left yourself with no means of escape.’

As a clever planner with an eye for the main chance, Vortimer had already determined the route of his retreat. His histrionic tale of imminent death was a ploy to divert her attention from his planned desertion of the citadel. He had no intention of leaving her alive, because every throb of his wounded eye that pulsed through his brain convinced him that his plan to strangle her was all she deserved. But he wanted her to be compliant. He desired her body one more time, although he trusted her words even less than he trusted his father.

‘There are no means of retreat for men of honour. Do not insult me, stepmother. We both know what Father will do to me if I am captured alive. After all, you have provided him with other legitimate sons.’

Rowena read the craftiness in Vortimer’s eyes and knew that he lied. She veiled her own eyes and lied in turn.

‘I should be sorry to learn of your death, stepson. Prior to my captivity, I always believed you to be a man of honour.’

Cursing ferociously, he gripped her bruised shoulder until she cried out with the pain of his clasp. He felt a surge of pleasure and rising tumescence. Whenever he forced this proud, contained woman to bend to his desires, Vortimer experienced an exhilaration that fulfilled some dark need in him – as if he was inflicting her dishonour upon his father.

He stroked her swollen cheek, forcing her to close her good eye so he shouldn’t see her revulsion. Stroking her and pinching her by turns, he spread her legs with scant concern for the bandages that were mute proof of his recent assault. When he entered her, he sighed a deep, shuddering breath and luxuriated in her agony as he deliberately let his full weight press onto her abused body.

Once again, she moaned in pain. But, unlike the night before, she was unable to resist him. Callously, he leaned on her cracked ribs until tears spilled down her cheeks and she bit her split lip until blood filled her mouth. But still she refused to fight, knowing that any resistance would give him pleasure. Once the rape was over, Vortimer slumped onto her, breathing heavily against her wounded face until Rowena thought she would vomit with disgust.

Eventually, the prince lifted his body away from hers, straightened his clothing and stared down at her supine form. He felt no pity or shame, only emptiness. He was done with her and knew, instinctively, that he could only endure his life if she were to stop breathing.

Standing idly over her, he picked up her long braids and absently played with the heavy hair. He considered strangling her with her own plaits, an apt symbol of his freedom from her charms, but rejected the idea as quickly as he thought of it. The vision of her congested face and protruding tongue caused him a thrill of sexual pleasure, so he toyed with the desire to strangle her during another rape.

She reached out her hand for her goblet of water, but he took the precious glass out of her hand and placed it back on the table. He shivered at the immediate physical response he felt at his proximity to her.

‘You don’t need water, Rowena. You don’t need anything.’ He looked around the clean, well-lit room and his eyes fell on the wine, the water and the platters of food. ‘You’re a clever bitch, aren’t you? Do you think to poison me?’

‘I’d be poisoning myself it I did,’ she whispered. Her realisation of impending failure made her shoulders droop, for his gaze told her that she had been too obvious in her entrapment.

‘Yes, I know. But I’ll still reject your offerings, just in case.’

He eyed the fruit, which seemed a little past its best, and remembered that the same platter had been in the room on the previous night. He recalled that he had eaten an apple when he first entered the apartments, and had suffered no ill effects. Absently, he picked up a costly orange, but rejected the fruit because the skin was split. Instead, he took up a handful of black berries, rolled them around in his palms and then popped them into his mouth, one by one.

Sure of himself, Vortimer failed to notice the sheen of dust on the bloom of the fruit. Nor did he notice that not all the berries were the same, for the cunning Edda was thorough and had added ripe belladonna berries to the bowl.

Rowena closed her good eye and prayed to Freya that he would succumb to the poison before he killed her. His intent was crystal clear, as obvious as the continual barrage of the catapults that maintained their earth-shaking salvos, or the sound of muffled footsteps outside her broken door, where Willow waited, her breath held, listening for some sign of disaster from within.

Vortimer selected another handful of berries, and once more he ignored their dustiness while concentrating on the sweetness that burst inside his mouth with each bite.

‘Willow!’ he called suddenly. ‘Come here, girl. I need you.’

Willow slipped into the room and bent her head in obeisance.

‘Bring me some wine. I want a flagon, not this muck. I’m very thirsty and I can’t trust your mistress not to poison me.’

Willow disappeared to obey his demands, while Rowena watched Vortimer covertly out of her good eye. So far, beyond a sudden thirst, he showed no ill effects from the poison provided by Grannie Edda. He began to stroke her thighs under her robe and the queen realised, finally, that she would die. She tried to smile, but the promise of pain turned her conciliatory gesture into a grimace.

‘My sons,’ she whispered to herself. ‘At least my sons are safe.’

The sadness in her voice affected Vortimer more potently than any seductive glance or touch could have done. He would have stroked the golden column of her throat, preparatory to throttling her, but Willow entered with a tray on which rested one goblet of water and another of wine. Without thinking, Vortimer gulped the water down.

‘Out,’ he roared, unaware that his voice had subtly changed. ‘And don’t come back.’

He staggered a little as he returned to Rowena, but she hardly dared to hope. Careless of her injuries, she swung her legs to the floor tiles and stood before him.

Vortimer reached out a hand to restrain her, but his vision was oddly blurred and she evaded him easily. With an odd detachment, he noticed that he seemed to be wading through thick honey, while the room was tilting alarmingly. Suddenly, he was drenched in sweat and his limbs began to twitch. He staggered towards Rowena and gripped the sleeve of her robe, almost dragging her down with him before the delicate fabric tore and freed her, half naked, from his rigid, clenched hands.

Clutching the folds of her torn dress, Vortimer fell onto knees that had suddenly lost the power to lock his legs in an upright position. He reached one hand towards her pleadingly, so that she imagined she saw the face of a frightened boy superimposed over the snarling features of the man.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ Vortimer’s voice was slurred and barely clear enough to understand.

Naked, Rowena stood tall like a slim golden column marred only by the marks, scars and bandages that told of his assaults. Her braids had come undone so that her hair fell down her back. She should have looked either seductive or pathetic, but instead her cold, impassive face gave her a regal dignity that seemed to judge him as he looked up at her.

‘You are dying, stepson,’ she said.

‘That filthy little cow poisoned the water,’ Vortimer panted. He was having trouble getting a full breath of air into his lungs.

‘You’re wrong, Vortimer, as always. I poisoned the berries. I poisoned all the fruit. In fact, everything in this room is tainted. I’d have poisoned my own skin if I could have done so and lived. I left your punishment to the fates, Vortimer, and you chose to eat.’

‘Slut! Whore! Saxon cow! Why have you done . . . this . . . to me? Surely you couldn’t . . . want an old man?’

For all his curses, he looked at her pleadingly, as if she could stop the sweat that drenched his body or the pains that had begun inside his head.

‘What would I want with
any
man? So he can do
this
to me?’ Her hands stroked the cuts and bruises on her body. ‘I do what I must to save my sons.’

Vortimer laughed painfully, trying to keep her form in focus with his one eye. His laughter sounded grating, ugly and sad. ‘My father has no idea what a monster you are. You’ll be the death of him as well.’

‘Not me, Vortimer! I’ve never raised my hand against any of you. I was sold, paid for with red gold when I was just a little girl, and put into an old man’s bed. No one asked me what I wanted. You took me just to thumb your nose at your father and to prove you were the better man. What should I care for men? You break what you possess, no matter how much you value it, because it’s yours and because you can. Are your surprised that your toys can stand back and watch as you kill yourselves?’