Clash of Kings (58 page)

‘Do it!’ Vortigern ordered peremptorily. ‘Everything! Hear me?’

‘Aye, lord,’ the warrior answered, and left at a run.

‘Now we wait,’ Myrddion said evenly and sat on the side of the table with one foot swinging idly. To the gathered servants, he seemed totally at ease, although his thoughts scurried feverishly as he sought an answer that would save his mistress.

Some time elapsed, during which the servants rolled their eyes and gave every indication of natural nervousness. They knew that even innocence might not save them from a terrible death, not with a master like Vortigern.

After the best part of an hour, the warrior returned. He was accompanied by a man-at-arms bearing a large collection of unguents, a hide bottle containing liquid, various powders, and a small jar of dark glass that immediately aroused Myrddion’s suspicion. What was a servant girl doing with such a precious material?

‘What is in the bottle, Willow?’ he asked quietly.

‘I distil the dried feverwort with a little wine to ease the queen’s fever,’ she replied, slightly too quickly. ‘It’s harmless.’

‘Then drink some for me, for feverwort will do you no harm.’ With her eyes darting from one person to another in the prosaic surroundings, Willow made her decision. With a swagger of bravado and injured innocence, she filled the empty beaker that had held the milk and swallowed the concoction defiantly.

‘And what is this cream, Willow?’ Myrddion picked up the glass jar with its cloth stopper.

‘It is a beauty preparation that the queen uses on her skin to soften her hands and face.’

‘Then it will do you no harm, will it? Put some on your hands and face, Willow.’

‘The cream is expensive and isn’t mine to use,’ Willow responded quickly.

‘Are you refusing, Willow? Must this warrior hold you down while I don gloves and smear it all over you?’

Willow took the jar and removed the stopper. Her fingers trembled above what appeared to be an almost full jar containing an innocent, colourless cream. Then, defiantly, she threw the container into the fire so quickly that the watching warrior had no chance to stop her.

‘Hold her!’ Vortigern ordered, his face thunderous. Meanwhile Myrddion had opened a square of oilcloth to reveal a small amount of white powder. He smelled it, but it had no odour. ‘And what is this, Willow?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, and Myrddion was sure that she spoke the truth.

‘And this?’ He opened each unguent bottle.

‘The queen’s cosmetics,’ she whispered.

‘No doubt you’d prefer these in the fire as well,’ Myrddion responded softly. ‘How long, Willow? How long have you used this white powder in the queen’s lip rouge and face powders? A week? A month? Or longer?’

‘Longer,’ she replied in a whisper. Her eyes were downcast, almost in shame.

‘Then your fate is sealed, Willow. The reasons for your attempt to kill your mistress will be extracted from you by King Vortigern, but perhaps he will show some mercy if you reveal them quickly and with repentance.’

Vortigern cut in, as Myrddion knew he would. The king’s face was congested and red, demonstrating that he could barely contain his temper. Any treacherous blow against the queen was also treason against the High King, as far as he was concerned.

‘Bring her!’ he snapped to his two warrior escorts. ‘You too, healer, since you’ve given this traitor to me. I don’t want her to die before I know the whole breadth of this plot. Your job will be to keep this bitch alive until I have finished with her.’

Myrddion was appalled. To use his medical skills in such a situation was gruesome and contrary to all the ethics that he held dear. And the idea of being a party to torture caused his gorge to rise.

‘I cannot obey you in this matter, my lord.’

‘But you
will
obey me, healer, or you will regret your refusal. As will your assistants! How can I be certain that they haven’t been a part of a treasonous plot? After all, you have little reason to love me.’ He turned to the warriors. ‘Escort him!’

One of the warriors approached Myrddion cautiously, obviously determined to obey his master’s orders and physically drag the healer in the High King’s wake if it should prove necessary. With a grimace of distaste, Myrddion waved him away.

‘I’ll come with you, but I won’t act dishonourably. I was the one who discovered Willow’s involvement in this matter, Vortigern. Is this how you intend to thank me?’

Vortigern merely snorted in response and strode back into the fortress.

Willow and Myrddion were led to the newly built tower, where steps led up to an elevated room that was bare except for rings fixed to the rock walls, a brazier which waited to be lit and a table on which were arrayed a collection of pincers, knives and lengths of rope. Quickly and efficiently, Willow’s arms were attached to the rings. Then, with a sharp pull on the neck of her robe, Vortigern tore the frail material from neck to hem, exposing her pale, childish body.

‘Tell him what he wants to know, Willow,’ Myrddion begged softly. ‘He will kill you anyway, but you can earn a quick death if you comply with his wishes.’ He turned to the High King. ‘For the sake of the gods, Lord Vortigern, she is barely more than a child. She cannot be more than sixteen years old. Willow could never have plotted this treason, or found such an obscure poison. She has been the tool of very powerful men.’

Without acknowledging Myrddion’s pleas, Vortigern smiled across at the terrified girl. ‘The queen has told me how you helped her at Glevum.’ His voice was very soft and Myrddion knew that the king had passed into the cold, controlled rage that made him one of the most dangerous men in the tribal lands. ‘She convinced me to bring you with us to Dinas Emrys as her personal maid, because she believed she owed you something. So why have you done this thing? Why have you tried to kill a woman who never did you any harm?’

Wordlessly, the healer prayed that Willow would not provoke Vortigern any further.

‘I know you’ll not understand, but I had no choice,’ Willow gasped as the manacles cut deeply into her wrists. ‘I know you’ll not forgive me, but perhaps the mistress will. Please, tell her I’m sorry and that I never wished her ill. The man came, gave me the powder and told me what I had to do. He explained that his master had a long reach and that my sons would die if I didn’t obey, but if I were to succeed my little boys would be returned to me. So I agreed to poison the queen. I had no choice.’

‘What are you maundering about, woman? What children?’

Vortigern had no softness in him and he accompanied his question with a vicious punch to the woman’s soft belly. Myrddion remembered how a single blow from that gloved fist had killed his grandmother.

Willow groaned and gasped for breath. A string of saliva drooled from her mouth and Myrddion though that she would vomit, but somehow the girl managed to control herself.

‘I bore two living children to your son. He gave them away because he couldn’t be bothered with the bastard children of a servant girl. Ask the queen! She knows how I felt and why I helped her to kill your son.’

Vortigern slapped her again with the back of his hand, a gentler blow on the jaw, but Myrddion heard her teeth break.

‘Who has the power to find your lost sons? Who was your master in this plot?’

‘I never met him before Glevum – how could I? He stands high in your regard and he watches me closely, even here in this horrible place. But he told me that Ambrosius himself wanted the queen dead.’

Willow spat out a gobbet of blood and broken teeth, but she saw Vortigern’s hand begin to rise and hurried back into speech.

‘The queen’s death is designed to send a message to you that there is no safe refuge for you in these lands. Besides, my mistress killed Vortimer, Ambrosius’s ally, and the Roman would never let such an insult pass. For him, the death of my mistress serves a double duty.’

‘Who approached you? Who gave you the poison?’

Willow bit her bleeding lip. ‘He said he’d kill me if I told you,’ she whispered. ‘But I suppose that doesn’t matter now, for it’s more likely that you will kill us both.’

Then, making her last decision, Willow gave Vortigern a long, aristocratic name that Myrddion didn’t recognise. The healer watched with interest as Vortigern’s face paled with mingled chagrin and fury.

‘I trusted that bastard, Ban rot his soul. He’ll regret this treason,’ Vortigern muttered spitefully. He turned to one of his warriors. ‘As for this slut, strangle her and get rid of the body.’ He glanced across at Myrddion. ‘Go back to your patient, healer, and leave me to deal with these treasonous dogs.’

Myrddion left, but a sick curiosity caused him to turn back at the top of the ladder that would take him out of the tower. The strangler had looped a rope around Willow’s neck and her face was already purpling. Taking pity on her, the warrior snapped her neck with a quick jerk of his wrists, killing her instantly. As Willow’s body voided in a stink of loosened bowels, Myrddion turned away and fled the gruesome scene.

In his absence, Rowena had been encouraged to swallow a little mashed egg and milk, but she had vomited up the contents of her stomach not long after. White, shaken and pallid with pain, Vortigern’s once beautiful wife lay on her pillows in a state of physical and mental exhaustion. Myrddion mixed a little poppy juice and induced her to swallow it. Once it had taken effect, she drowsed quietly, and Myrddion advised her sons to wait a few minutes before trying to feed her again.

‘She must eat or she will die,’ he told them softly. ‘The poison has built up in her skin, her blood and her organs, which is why she continues to be sick. We must try to leach the toxins out so that she can gradually return to health. Unless her strength increases, she will not have the will to fight. My lady,’ he whispered, and the queen responded weakly. ‘It was Willow who poisoned your cosmetics, on the orders of Ambrosius. But before you judge her too harshly, the Roman threatened her lost children and promised to return them to her if she succeeded in killing you. Before she died, she begged your pardon and hoped that you would understand.’

As if his voice had come from a great distance, Rowena nodded sadly. ‘I do understand, for women will do almost anything for their children. For this, Freya must judge her, for I cannot do so.’

Myrddion stroked Rowena’s forehead and then departed from the sickroom to search for a remedy in the scrolls. To his later shame, he gave no further thought to the fate of Rowena’s servant, or the refusal by her puppetmasters to see her as a human being. She was only an expendable tool in a much larger game.

‘Damn Ambrosius, that he must attack Vortigern by using one innocent woman to kill another. Neither of them matter a tinker’s curse to Ambrosius, or even to Vortigern. To these great men, women are of lesser importance than the toys of children.’

For a brief, poignant moment, Myrddion placed himself in his mother’s shoes when, at twelve, she had found herself raped, pregnant and powerless. He felt a surge of vitriolic rage so visceral that it almost closed his throat. For the first time, he felt truly sorry for Branwyn. At last, he understood her as a fierce soul transformed into an unnatural and perverted creature by the casual cruelties of proud men.

Rowena, Saxon woman and queen of the Britons, died before sunrise at that time of night when the human spirit is at its weakest and Death comes out of his dark corner and smothers the failing spirit. Her sons were with her at the end, one on each side of her threshing body, and they saw the suddenly flaccid hands and loosened mouth and heard her last deep, shuddering breath. She had been unconscious since midnight, so Myrddion feared the worst when Vengis screamed for help. The healer moved to the queen’s side, raised her limp hand and found that the great vein in her neck was still. When he shook his head, Katigern began to weep.

Myrddion patted the boy’s shoulder awkwardly, but Katigern pulled away with a muffled curse. The healer allowed his hand to drop. Meanwhile, after kissing his mother’s face, Vengis rounded on Myrddion as if he was the enemy who had caused Rowena’s death.

‘How could you let her die? Aren’t you supposed to be some miraculous healer, a demon who can even bring the dead back to life? Well, bring
her
back to life!’

‘No one can recall the dead, Vengis. I couldn’t change the flow of the tides or set your mother’s heart to beating even if I
was
a demon.’

Vengis’s face twisted with grief and frustration. The child and the man within him warred in his mutinous eyes.

‘Ambrosius did this. Ambrosius – and my father! Damn them both! Damn you too, if you can’t bring her back. What good are any of you?’

Myrddion studied the two youths before him – blond, golden and blue-eyed with little of their father in their high cheekboned faces. He sighed with genuine regret.

‘Be careful, Vengis, for your father is an angry man and he is not above killing sons who rise against him. If you truly don’t wish to be Vortigern’s sons, and if you decide to dwell in the northern lands once your father is dead, you must choose the path you will follow – Saxon or Celt. Should you choose to follow the Saxon way, I advise you to run far and fast after your mother goes to the fire. Ambrosius will be after your blood too, for he cannot permit either of you to live if he wishes to rule all the Britons. You are Vortigern’s only sons, so I suggest that you go to Thane Hengist at his encampment beyond the Abus Flood at Petuaria. I have heard whispers that the Thane has returned, and out of loyalty to your mother he will take you into his house and give you sanctuary. You may use my name, for I have some acquaintance with Thane Hengist and I can attest that he is a brave and honourable man. But keep your faces still and your voices quiet, just as your mother was forced to do. Poor lady! She suffered at the hands of men who should have cared for her.’

He watched the boys’ faces twist with grief, regret and apprehension. ‘Katigern, your name will be a stumbling block, for Thane Hengist hated Catigern, your half-brother, who was responsible for the death of Horsa. You have heard the stories, so you will understand my concern. What possessed your father to burden two sons with similar names?’