Clash of Kings (59 page)

Katigern grinned with such bitter irony that Myrddion wondered how a lad of fourteen years could feel such anger.

‘He put Catigern Major in his place by giving his grandfather’s name to a lesser son. I was a warning to my older brother that he wasn’t legitimate and that my father could put him aside any time he chose.’

Myrddion smiled sadly, for the explanation was entirely consistent with Vortigern’s sardonic nature. ‘So Catigern became twisted and cruel, and died because of these failings. Let your father be a warning to you, Katigern. You must find a name for yourself.’

The night before Rowena’s burning was oddly stifling, for wild storms circled ominously around the high mountains, almost as if summer had returned. Myrddion sensed the portents of danger in the air, so he prayed that he would survive whatever punishment the goddess inflicted on Vortigern for his hubris. The healer paced his tent and refused the stew offered by Cadoc, as he brooded on the violence promised by the coming tempest.

He was almost relieved when, later in the evening, Vortigern sent for him.

The fortress was dark and oppressive in the threatening air. Only a few warriors were awake. They were guarding the entrance to the hall, and Myrddion saw an oil lamp flickering in the upper room where Rowena’s body lay in preparation for the following day’s ritual cremation. Myrddion nodded to the guards and passed through the heavy oaken doors, cursing as the hinges complained loudly.

The darkness in the hall was almost absolute. A single oil lamp lit the High King’s face from below as he lifted a crude goblet to his lips, splashing a little of the scarlet wine on his tunic as he did so. As Myrddion approached, he realised that Vortigern was drunk. The great, greying head was weaving back and forth and Myrddion doubted that the old man could stand, but when he spoke his voice was carefully articulated.

‘Sit and drink with me, Myrddion. I’m offering you more than I’d have given to your father. He would have had my head in the blinking of an eye if I had given him an opportunity like this. Now his son comes knocking, just when I’m nearing my end.’

Unwillingly, Myrddion accepted a pottery mug of raw red wine that Vortigern had attempted to fill. He spilt most of the contents on the floor as he owlishly tried to focus on his task.

‘My thanks, lord,’ Myrddion replied, and almost gagged on the sharp sourness of the liquor.

‘It’s bad, isn’t it? Still, it would be a pity to waste it.’

Vortigern emptied his cup and refilled it with the last dregs in the jug. Throughout this careful operation, Myrddion stared at the puddle of spilt wine on the floor and watched the single oil lamp leap and dance in its reflection. He felt sick and dizzy, as if one of his prophetic fits had come to trouble him again.

‘I’m a fair man, healer. I promised you a name, so I’ll give it to you. The gods alone know how long Ambrosius will leave me alone, now that he knows how to reach me and touch me. Incidentally, I have killed the bastard who forced the maidservant to poison Rowena. But there are many other Celts who’d happily revenge themselves on me, including yourself.’

‘I should like to retain my head, my lord, so I have no intention of seeking revenge on you.’

Vortigern snickered drunkenly. ‘Yes! And the trickster god, Gwydion, sold horses that turned into mushrooms. Or was it pigs? Doesn’t matter!’

Myrddion waited quietly. He knew better than to interrupt the maunderings of the ageing king. Drunk he might be, but Vortigern was still a vicious man, capable of striking out if he was of a mind to do it. The king would tell Myrddion what he wanted his healer to know, when he finally made the decision for himself.

‘Your father’s name was Flavius,’ Vortigern slurred, his speech finally succumbing to the wine. ‘Flavius – a pretty name for a bird of ill omen! Birds. Now, birds he loved – your father – the hunting birds in particular. Oddly, they loved him back, so they would fly to his glove when he called. They killed for him too. Like the women! Ban only knows why, but they’d fight over him like sluts – good women, too. Even Rowena looked at him like . . . well, no matter!’

Once again, Myrddion waited for the king to resume his tale. He now had a name, and a dim picture of the man he sought to understand, or hate. Vortigern seemed almost asleep, or in a trance of memory, but the healer continued to stand patiently in front of the huddled figure on the wooden throne.

Then the king reopened his blurred eyes and noticed Myrddion’s presence once again.

‘You’re still here?’ Vortigern peered through the fog of wine towards his healer. ‘What was I saying? Yes. Flavius, the bastard! Bastard Flavius! Bastard Myrddion! That’s the whole problem, isn’t it? I hated him, with his damned birds and women fawning all over him. Didn’t ever hear his given name, not even from his women – everyone called him Raven to his face and Storm Bird behind his back. He had black eyes, you know. And a black heart! He was after the main chance, even if he claimed to be an aristocrat. We suited each other at the time, especially when he did messy work for me . . . but he was only a mercenary who gave himself airs.’ He paused, musing over old wrongs. ‘Do you know he threatened me?
Me?
So I took action first. But he survived, of course.
He’s
the Demon Seed, not you.’ Vortigern stood up shakily, staggered forward and tapped Myrddion’s chest. ‘A word of advice, healer. If you want something done . . . do it yourself. Do it yourself.’

Vortigern’s legs were beginning to fail, so Myrddion gripped the king under the shoulders and held him upright. He called for the guards, who supported the king between them while he continued to mumble.

‘Put your lord to bed. Tomorrow will be a difficult day.’

As Myrddion watched the guards half carry the High King down the narrow corridor behind the hall to his sleeping chamber, he caught a glimpse of the shadowy figure of a servant waiting in the darkness, his face a blur of white features. For a moment, Myrddion thought he recognised the slouching silhouette, but then he put the notion aside. Vortigern’s servants were rarely seen and never trusted, so Myrddion knew none of them, except by sight. Silent, cat-footed men completed their assigned tasks and fitted into the landscape of the fortress, as unnoticed as the furniture.

When Myrddion returned to the leather tent that was his home, his own servants were already asleep. Even the horses dozed at their picket lines, their harness bells tinkling sweetly in the darkness.

Myrddion sat quietly on his pallet in the still heat and thought hard about the king’s revelations. Vortigern had told him all that he was ever likely to reveal. Perhaps, if Myrddion asked careful questions, Vortigern might still remember some details of dress or appearance, but Flavius had chosen to be a flamboyant character, using dramatic devices to hide his true self. Myrddion saw through Vortigern’s drunken euphemisms and realised that, to a king,
messy work
could well describe murder.

‘The great ones never learn. Ambrosius has spies who suborn young girls to murder queens, while Vortigern uses a Roman nobleman to bring the northern tribal kings into line. They throw their tools away when the tasks are done, so innocents like my mother suffer for the sins of others.’

‘What?’ a drowsy voice responded, as Cadoc emerged from his blanket like a disgruntled tortoise from its shell. With his hair awry and his eyes blurred with sleep, Cadoc sniffled, groaned and rose to his feet, taking his blanket with him.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Taking a piss, master. I don’t think I need your help with it.’

Cadoc shuffled out of the tent, and after a brief interval he returned looking far more awake and alert. As he tumbled down on his pallet, Myrddion came to a decision.

‘Get up again, Cadoc. We’re leaving! After you’ve woken the rest of the assistants, pack everything onto the wagons so we can be on our way long before dawn. Be as quiet as possible, for I’d rather Vortigern didn’t become aware that we’re running away in the dead of night.’

‘Why, master? Wouldn’t it be sensible to leave in the morning when we can pack in comfort?’ Cadoc ran his fingers through his wild red hair and yawned with jaw-cracking broadness.

Myrddion restrained the urge to put Cadoc in his place, remembering that his servant was a grown man and a warrior, and that he, for all his status, was a sixteen-year-old with few fighting skills. He thought of Melvig’s sword in his scroll chest, still unnamed, and how he had no idea of how to use it.

‘Don’t make me order you to get moving, Cadoc. Vortigern is drunk and half crazy, the queen is dead and I’m certain that his last two sons plan to escape his clutches before her ashes are cold. He’ll be a raging bull in this fortress and I for one don’t plan to be his scapegoat. Hop to it, my friend, and let’s leave this wicked place.’

‘Why didn’t you explain? We’d have to be crazy to stay here an extra day more than we have to. Leave it to me.’

So Myrddion did, but first he warned his servant to avoid lights and noise. Dinas Emrys had very sharp ears.

Stealthily, the healer’s assistants packed up their possessions within the tent and loaded the two wagons that had become Myrddion’s world. The tent was the last item tackled, for it was large and excessively heavy, requiring all hands to strike it. As the final roof support came down, Myrddion looked up the rise in the land towards the fortress and, with a sudden pang of fear in his heart, saw a flickering light.

At first, he thought that someone was moving through the lower rooms of the fortress with a lantern. The light flickered and bobbed, but the flame seemed too red and too random. Then his intelligence caught up with his eyes and he realised that the right side of the fortress was on fire as someone ran through the rooms with a lit torch.

‘Cadoc!’ he yelled. ‘The fortress is on fire! Get that tent folded and packed. The wains must be ready when I return. Come with me, Finn. Run!’

As he scrambled up the incline, lightning from the approaching storms flashed around the silhouette of the fortress, searing the sky and setting the earth to trembling. ‘Fire! Fire in the fortress!’ Myrddion screamed, his young voice travelling some distance before a long roll of thunder obliterated his yells. ‘The king, his sons and their servants could be trapped inside. Hurry!’

Gasping and bent double with his exertions, Myrddion found himself inside the smoke-filled hall along with a gaggle of bewildered, half-dressed warriors. ‘Open the doors to let out the smoke,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t stand there like logs. Where are your master and his sons?’ This last exhortation was aimed at a servant who stood numbly in a corner of the hall. Smoke wreathed in long tendrils around his face and he began to cough weakly.

Once again, Myrddion experienced a flash of recognition. This time, he thrust his face towards the slack-jawed servant and put both hands up to shake the broad shoulders and force the man to pay attention. Then, as the stranger swatted the healer’s hands away from his body, Myrddion knew who he was.

‘Eddius?’ he hissed. ‘Eddius? What in Hades are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Segontium?’

‘I had to do it! How could I let my lovely Olwyn rot in the ground while the bastard king remained unscathed? With Melvig dead I was free of my oath to him, so the goddess demanded that the High King should feel her wrath. Can’t you hear her footsteps over the mountains? She’s coming for Vortigern.’

Myrddion wrapped one hand round Eddius’s mouth to shut off the rambling, betraying words that would have them all killed. Eddius’s face was blistered along the jaw and Myrddion’s free hand could feel burns along the right hand and lower arm, almost to the elbow. The widower had been careless with his own safety when he set the fortress alight.

‘How long have you been at Dinas Emrys?’ Myrddion whispered in his ear. ‘How long, Eddius?’

Eddius mumbled a response through the fingers of Myrddion’s hand, but the words were muffled and the healer eventually released his hold on the older man’s mouth.

‘It was easy. Too easy. I’ve been here for over a month, working in the village to cover my presence. Vortigern’s no fool, but he’s contemptuous of ordinary men. He never even noticed that I was a stranger within his fortress.’ Eddius hiccuped with shock, and then began to weep.

‘Finn! Finn! I need you, Finn!’ Myrddion called through the thick smoke as he forced Eddius to move on unsteady legs towards the open door and the clean air. Finn appeared out of a press of milling warriors, and Myrddion pulled his assistant closer to ensure that no others overheard his words.

‘Take this man to the wains, dress his burns and give him poppy juice,’ Myrddion hissed into the ears of his assistant. ‘Sufficient poppy juice to induce unconsciousness. Hear me? Then cover him with blankets so his face is concealed – but shut him up! He’s my kinsman and he’s set on some crazy, suicidal mission of revenge against Vortigern. He must be saved, for the sake of his children.’

Finn led the weeping man away to the safety of the wagons, while Myrddion began issuing orders to rescue those whose lives could still be saved.

‘Open all the doors and evacuate the building. Get everybody out, or they’ll die from the smoke and the flames.’

The rear door to the hall was opened to allow the warriors to reach the king’s apartments. A huge gout of smoke billowed out and the warriors reeled away, coughing and choking. Overhead, the lightning from the storm lit the sky and the flagging began to tremble as rolls of thunder shook the mountains with paroxysms of noise.

From somewhere in the hell of fire and smoke, a hoarse voice yelled in sudden pain.

‘To me!’ the voice roared. ‘To me! To me!’

Myrddion could see that sheets of flame were following the smoke along the main timbers of the roof, fed by the new supply of oxygen that was sucked into the inferno through the opened doors. As the fire began to spread along the corridor and the interior walls, the voice beyond the maelstrom of fire was stilled, while the flames began to lick eagerly along the roof of the hall like some ravening, hungry beast. Myrddion assessed the situation with a quick upward glance and abandoned Vortigern to his fate.