Bridei lay under Ambrosius’s spent body, her reddish-brown hair spread across the fine sleeping pallet like a bloodstain that was almost dry. Her jaw and the white column of her throat spasmed briefly as she thought of her lost children, and then she smiled sleepily in the way she knew moved the High King.
‘I’m still a servant, my lord, no matter what you might say. I share your bed but I am your possession, regardless of your words. The only thing I have that is mine is my soul, which is still Pict – and I cannot give my soul to my enemy. You have my heart, but I keep my spirit jealously, so I cannot kiss you. Ask for anything else, but not that.’
Ambrosius rolled away from her so that his long, powerful spine was all she could see of him, except for his curly, closely cropped hair. She was torn between a desire to stroke the long bow of his back and an impulse to take up the eating knife that was so casually laid on a low table and plunge the weapon deep into his muscular flesh.
But she knew the knife was not long enough to cause the High King permanent harm, nor did her wilful heart truly desire to kill him. She would never see her children again if she committed such a deed, and she hoped, against all reason, that he would tire of her one day and send her away. But, like the
Picts who had shaped both her youth and her womanhood, she was patient.
Bridei had heard an owl call outside the High King’s shutters on three successive nights. Its wings had beaten at the wood as if it sought entry, and she wondered if Ceridwen had turned her smile upon her suffering daughter at last. She kissed Ambrosius’s stiff spine and felt his resolution weaken. After a few seconds, he rolled over and enfolded her in his powerful arms.
Two days had passed in Tomen-y-mur and Myrddion chafed under his enforced inactivity. Deep snow had fallen, and the dirty town was transformed under a blanket of powdery whiteness that softened the hard flint surfaces and disguised the mean streets. The healer passed his time by transcribing the names of the complex network of agents that was starting to form under his clever hands onto a scroll.
On the second afternoon in his newly scoured room, he huddled over the brazier that rested in an iron tray beside his feet and tried not to remember the warm, balmy winds of Constantinople. Cait had brought some heated mead, and although the cloying sweetness was not to Myrddion’s taste at least the hot beaker warmed his hands. Just when he thought he might be able to continue with his writing, Brychan stuck his untidy head round the door and announced that Gruffydd had drifted into the inn.
‘Invite the gentleman to join me, Brychan, and bring a jug of beer and two cups. If Gruffydd tries to refuse, explain to him that he will be paid for his trouble whether he decides to oblige me or not.’
‘That one will come for the free beer,’ Brychan snorted and disappeared.
Rallying his drooping spirits, Myrddion combed his hair and tied it back, more to appear older than out of any vanity. He called for Cait and asked her to beg her
mother for something filling to eat, explaining that he would be entertaining an indigent guest who would probably have a voracious appetite. Cait nodded her understanding of his requirements, and on her way down the shadowy stairs passed a disreputable man coming up in company with Brychan, who was carrying a pottery jug of ale and two earthenware mugs.
Myrddion rose to his feet as his guest entered, although he was obliged to bend almost double because of the low-set rafters. ‘Please be seated, Gruffydd,’ he said politely, pointing to the only seat in the room. ‘As you’re my guest, I’ll sit on my pallet.’ He did so as he spoke, and watched his quarry fold his compact body onto the poorly constructed stool.
Sitting down, Gruffydd looked boneless and unthreatening, apparently completely at ease. When any other man would have been wary and suspicious, he managed to present himself as a disinterested dullard. His eyes seemed empty of any thoughts of consequence, his hair was a wild tangle with a complement of twigs caught in the untamed curls, and his clothing, if such rags merited the word, were slovenly and food-spotted.
Pouring a mug of beer for his visitor, the healer noticed the scars around the thickly muscled neck. Gruffydd took a deep gulp of the sour brew, grimaced, and then grinned dourly.
‘You’re looking at my slave scars, whoever-you-are. So why don’t you stare your fill? Perhaps you should see this one if you’re so damned curious.’ With one grimy hand, he dragged down his tunic and exposed a healed scar shaped like the iron spearhead that had been heated and pressed to his breast. The hair had never grown over the ugly cicatrice and Myrddion winced as he imagined the agony that such a wound would have caused.
But even worse were the marks left on Gruffydd’s neck by a metal shackle. He must have worn one for years to have been left with such hideous scars. Aghast, Myrddion
realised that, unlike the Romans, the Saxons clearly did not line their iron neck rings with strips of hide to protect the flesh.
‘Want to see more?’ Gruffydd drawled, and yanked off his shirt to expose his body to the waist. Then he stood up and turned his back on Myrddion, stretching his arms wide. Layer upon painful layer, scar tissue had built up, criss-crossing the whole broad back until there was no unblemished skin between his neck and his crude leather trews.
‘Enough, Gruffydd! Get dressed, please. Whatever you wanted to prove to me, you’ve done it. The Saxons were cruel masters, but you managed to survive.’
Gruffydd replaced the rags that covered his abused flesh and settled back on his stool like a disreputable heap of rubbish, his face sinking into its previous vacuous expression.
Myrddion went straight to the point. ‘I need someone who hates the Saxons but has the capacity to pretend to be one, or at least to be sympathetic to their cause. Are you such a man?’
‘Who wants to know? Why should I bother to listen to you, except for your superlative beer?’
At that moment, Cait entered with a wicker tray steaming with rich aromas. Myrddion’s mouth began to water as she laid down a large pottery bowl filled with some kind of stew before unloading several slabs of flat bread, two small wooden bowls, two wooden spoons and, with a flourish, a whole roasted chicken still bubbling from the fire, with crispy, slightly blackened skin.
‘Your mother’s a wonder, Cait. Please give her my congratulations and my thanks.’
Cait smiled with a flash of attractive dimples. ‘I’ll tell her, Master Myrddion. It’s little enough praise she gets from Brychan, so she’ll be grateful.’ Then, with a little bow, the girl was gone.
‘I’ll say this for you. You look like a girl, but you’ve got the women jumping
after you. What’s your secret?’ Gruffydd punctuated his approval by ripping a leg from the chicken and starting to eat.
‘There’s no secret. My name is Myrddion Merlinus Emrys and I hail from Segontium. I’m a healer in the service of Ambrosius Imperator in Venta Belgarum, and I’ve been charged with a special mission for my master. Don’t hold my youth against me. I’ve travelled widely, and I promise I’m not the soft, sentimental fool you take me for.’
‘Possibly. I’ll hold my decision on you in abeyance while I enjoy this food,’ Gruffydd replied laconically through a mouthful of chicken.
‘You still haven’t answered my question, Gruffydd. Must I repeat myself?’
Gruffydd lowered the chicken bone into his bowl and wiped his greasy fingers on his thighs. He sighed.
‘It seems a pity to spoil good food,’ he said reflectively to his bowl, then raised his eyes slowly to engage those of Myrddion. ‘Hate the Saxons? What I feel goes beyond hate. My mother was repeatedly raped in front of me. I was only nine, and I’d lived a comfortable life until then, as my da was a successful trader and landowner. I’d never even imagined such brutality. She bled, she fought, she cried for my father – and afterwards, they cut her throat and made me watch. But worst of all, they called her a stupid whore. No, I don’t hate them. The word’s too weak for what I feel.’
Gruffydd’s eyes danced with little fires of madness, but the healer was impressed with the rigid control that held the man’s fury in check. Harnessed correctly, Gruffydd could become a very useful tool.
‘I want to hear the whole story, Gruffydd. Then we can eat in peace, and I will decide what should be asked of you. What happened to you and your father after your mother died?’
Gruffydd laughed softly, without
mirth. ‘I cried, but they just thought me a coward and a fool. And so I was allowed to live, may the gods help me to forget. I wish I’d died with my father.’
Myrddion said nothing. Although his face remained blank, his heart ached for the little boy who had been so grossly traumatised. Gruffydd was fortunate that the Saxons had considered him harmless.
‘They dragged my father away and I never saw him again. His hands were soft because he’d never been a warrior or worked in the fields. Later, I heard that they called him a woman because his muscles were so soft. It was then I was told that they had used him like one, although he tried to fight them. Even when he resisted, the animals thought his struggles were amusing, and enjoyed him even more. Then, when they became tired of his struggles, he was handed over to their women as a plaything. Gods, but I wish they’d killed him cleanly. Women can seem as soft as new butter and as sweet as honey, but they have demons inside them that mere men cannot see. He lived for two weeks under their torture and I was told, with much mirth, that he was made to suffer for every man those hellcats had lost during the years after Vortigern’s death.’
Myrddion shuddered, but said nothing. The flow of Gruffydd’s narrative was in full spate and the healer would do nothing to halt that ugly rush of memories. To know a man fully, Myrddion knew that he must understand the worst parts of his soul.
‘They shackled me, branded me and made me their animal. In those days, I still had some beauty, so I came to discover that Saxons aren’t above pederasty. With a collar round my neck and a leash to make me obey, I was forced to perform for the brutes as their fancy took them. But I managed to stay alive.’
Gruffydd’s chest was straining and his big hands clenched and unclenched as if they searched for a Saxon neck to break.
‘I outlived my beauty, but I refused
to stop fighting them. I was beaten again and again until I prayed for death, but if the gods do exist they didn’t care what happened to me. Eventually, the Saxons forced me to work as a field slave because I wasn’t pretty enough for anything else. I moved rocks and performed the manual, numbing tasks that any ox or horse would do – but I survived. I learned to speak like a Saxon, because I had to think about something other than killing them all. I learned to hide what I was thinking, but I swore every night that I would make every Saxon man, woman and child who crossed my path pay for what had been done to my family and to me. I found that revenge is a powerful incentive to keep a man alive.’
‘Aye. When no other hope exists, hatred can fill the void,’ Myrddion whispered, remembering a cold evening when he waited to be executed at Vortigern’s whim. The memory led inexorably to his beloved grandmother, Olwyn, as she lay under a shroud after she had been murdered by the Celtic king. Myrddion understood Gruffydd’s hatred, and how it scoured the soul clean of anything resembling softness.
‘I managed to escape after six years,’ Gruffydd continued. ‘My master decided that one of his blows had addled my wits, so I said nothing to disabuse him. He turned his back on me one day when we were away from his hall and his warriors. He considered me to be an ox and not worth noticing, so I smashed his head in with a large rock I was pulling out of his newly ploughed field. Then I turned his head to a bloody paste.
‘They loosed their dogs after me, so I killed them. They sent men after me and I killed them as well, because I wasn’t prepared to run. I
wanted
to be hunted. I took their weapons, one by one, and I killed Saxons until even their blood sickened me. I suppose I was mad, but I didn’t care. I’d be dead now if an itinerant priest hadn’t found me, tied me down and hidden me until I began to come back to my senses. He spirited me
out of Dyfed as an acolyte, although I can’t remember much about it. I suppose he was a good priest and he was a gifted man of the woods, which is why he avoided being captured by the Saxons. He taught me woodcraft and forced me to come back to myself by reminding me that my mother would want me to remain alive. When he was killed by robbers in Towy, I was free to act as I chose.’
Myrddion listened in silence.
‘I can do nothing for you, Myrddion-three-names. I kill Saxons because it’s the only way I can sleep soundly, and to forget the eyes of my mother when her throat was cut. I was never told how my father died. Nor did I ever learn the details of his torture, so my mind creates one horror after another. I can pretend to be a man, but I’m still the ox, lashed to the plough, or living on food slops that are more rotten than the scraps that have been fed to the pigs. I pretend to be human, but I’m not.’
The silence was so profound that Myrddion could hear the crackle of coals in the brazier. The smoke might have made his eyes water, but he knew that the tears that threatened were caused by empathy and sadness.
Gruffydd drank deeply, his fingers quite steady. His face was vacuous once more, as iron self-control forced the unsleeping horrors in his tortured memory to retreat behind invisible shutters. Yet despite all the dictates of common sense, Myrddion knew, beyond room for any doubt, that this slovenly and murderous man was crucial to the future of the land and to his own fate.
Outside the crude attic shutters, a flurry of snow struck the inn and a cold breeze stirred the air in the small room. The Mother seemed to whisper to Myrddion that he had been born for a great purpose, and she was placing his tools in his hands one by one. Here sat the first weapon, a man made dangerous by impossible cruelty and aching loneliness.
‘You know what you
must do, my child,’ her voice murmured in the stray draughts of gelid air. ‘If you disobey me, your world will be swept away forever. The choice is yours!’