Pale with anger, his jaw muscles rippling as he held his temper in check, the prince rounded on Myrddion. ‘And what might that be, healer?’
‘Pascent seems to understand the land and its pitfalls. Of one thing I’m certain – peasants understand the dangers of meadow saffron, but noblemen have little or no knowledge of flora and fauna.’
Then Myrddion left the tent to return to his patient. As the sun rose on a chilly autumn morning complete with the first gentle mists of the seasons, the healer was concerned to discover that Ambrosius had weakened further. He complained that his legs refused to move and that his hands couldn’t clench when he tried to make them. Although pain still periodically racked his belly, the king’s mind remained very clear.
‘I’ll not live, Myrddion, will I?’ Ambrosius whispered. ‘Don’t bother with kind lies, because the body knows its own fate and I can feel the paralysis rising towards my heart. I’m not frightened to die, but I have so much left that I want to do. I should have been more
assiduous in my father’s faith. Then, perhaps, I’d not fear the end of things so keenly. But my mother worshipped the old Roman gods and so I’ve hovered between Christianity and the old worship all my life.’
The High King was in a mood to talk, so Myrddion waited with his tincture of poppy until he tired.
‘You need only ask and Botha will ride to fetch a priest from the monastery at Glastonbury. We are so close to the community that he can be back by noon.’
A look of yearning sweetened Ambrosius’s face. ‘Aye, I’d like that. Whether it’s the Christian God, or Bran, or Zeus, or the gods of the Saxons who intend to rule our world, it would please me to be shriven as I was when I was a boy and my father still lived.’
Myrddion nodded at Botha, who left the tent without a word.
‘I should like to know why I’m dying. It’s a very odd feeling to experience the onset of death while my mind is still so clear. I cannot understand who hated me enough to kill me, my Myrddion. I can tell by your expression that you know, or suspect, but you don’t wish to wound me. Would you have me draw my last breath while still wondering?’
Myrddion stared at his long, sensitive fingers and wished he could find a comforting lie, but Ambrosius had already ordered him to be honest with him, now that his time was limited.
‘You know who did this deed, Myrddion. I can tell.’
‘Aye, lord. I know who poisoned you, but I cannot fathom the reason or the method. Only Pascent can answer your questions.’
At first, Ambrosius’s face was thunderstruck, but his expression gradually changed to a deep and bitter disappointment. He tried to pull himself up on to a pile of cushions and Ulfin hurried to assist him.
‘I trusted him and held him close when Uther urged me to exercise caution . . . or order his execution. You tried to warn me, as
well. But why would Pascent want me dead? Consider it one of the last wishes of a dying man, but I want to face my murderer so that I can cross the River Styx, or go to the Otherworld, or to Paradise, understanding the reason for my death.’
Ambrosius paused, panting after such a long, impassioned speech, and Myrddion feared for his heart. ‘Bring him to me, Myrddion,’ he gasped. Then the king grinned with his old, reckless charm that meant he was acting without reflection. ‘I can see by your face that you wish me to die peacefully and without further burdens on my spirit. Perhaps you are right and a wiser man would listen, but I have tried to be reasonable for all of my adult life . . . and yet I have come to a violent end. You will do as I order, for I will be quite safe with Ulfin to guard me.’
Unwilling and saddened, Myrddion walked to the tent where Pascent had been quartered with one of Uther’s trusted officers. Warriors guarded the tent flap, and within, another hardbitten, laconic soldier watched the young man with a sharp eye.
‘He can’t be left alone,’ the soldier said conversationally, when Myrddion entered. ‘Prince Uther has ordered me to guard him from
all
harm, including you, healer.’
‘Do you believe I plan to set him free? Or slit his throat? The High King lives and demands the presence of his poisoner. Will you disobey Ambrosius Imperator?’
‘As long as he’s guarded and safe, I’ll take him wherever the High King desires – straight to Hades for preference.’
‘Then bring him with sufficient guard to ensure he cannot run. I want his hands bound, for I’m offended that a common felon should stand freely like a man before the master of us all.’
‘So the woman-killer isn’t dead yet,’ Pascent whispered softly, but with venom. ‘Never place your trust in poisons. I’d have used a blade, except the Roman was too cowardly and far too careful to come within my reach.’
‘No,
you feared to die, Pascent, so you’d rather kill in secret and protect your own skin. Gag him,’ Myrddion ordered contemptuously. ‘His voice turns my stomach.’
‘With pleasure,’ the soldier responded, and was none too gentle as he rammed a wad of cloth in the young man’s mouth and bound his wrists behind his back.
‘Bring him with you, and send one of your warriors to tell the prince where Pascent is being taken. Tell Uther he is being moved on the High King’s orders.’
Roughly, Pascent was escorted to Ambrosius’s tent. Uther and Llanwith appeared within moments, and the prince insisted that three men remain to guard the captive, who was now sporting a swelling over one eye from a heavy kick after he had slipped and fallen.
‘Ah, Pascent,’ Ambrosius began sadly, and then he saw the venom in the young man’s blue eyes. Abruptly, he turned to Uther. ‘Remove his gag so he can tell me why I am so loathed.’
With his own hands, Uther dragged the plug of cloth from Pascent’s mouth, narrowly avoiding being bitten in the process. The prince merely laughed at Pascent’s obvious hatred. ‘Like all dogs, this creature has sharp teeth, brother, and the same understanding of honour as a mongrel hound.’
‘How dare either of you censure
me
or lecture
me
about honour? You have none! You are cowardly Romans . . . the last branches from a rotten tree, and the sooner you are both dead, the cleaner the air of Britain will be.’
Ambrosius was genuinely puzzled. ‘I don’t understand, Pascent. You’ve tried to kill me on two occasions, and I have no notion why you should do so. Yet I can only suppose you allowed yourself to be captured by Saxons purely to place yourself close to me.’
‘The Vessel of Thor was happy to oblige me at Verulamium, although he never believed you could defeat him. Gods, but I tried to
explain to the fool that you have Loki’s own luck, and would see him worm-food before the day was out. The Saxons still don’t understand their enemy. I knew that I had only to wait, protected by my bruises, and I would win back the honour that I once had. And you believed everything I told you because I knew how to act like a lordling.’
‘I was never convinced, you nameless dog,’ Uther snapped, and slapped Pascent with a stinging blow across the mouth. ‘I’ll not use the alias that you took as your own, for I always knew you to be a cuckoo in the nest.’
The blow was not overly heavy, but the young man’s lip split, and he spat a gobbet of blood on to the cloth-covered floor. Then he smiled insolently at Uther with his bleeding mouth, but didn’t deign to answer him. Instead, he turned to face Myrddion with an air of reckless arrogance that entirely changed his countenance.
‘I suffered a moment of doubt when you turned up, healer. I was sure that you’d remember me, but my appearance must have changed in the eight years since we last met.’ Pascent grinned unpleasantly, displaying such triumph that Myrddion longed to emulate Uther and slap the young man’s handsome face. ‘I suppose I was little more than a boy at the time, so I bear you no ill-will for your memory loss. Even though you were a danger to me, I was determined to leave you in peace. After all, it was you who made sure we survived the horrors of Dinas Emrys.’
‘Shite!’ Myrddion swore. ‘I never saw it, fool that I am! You were fourteen, near fifteen, on that terrible night. Have I saved you so you can murder all our hopes? Are you so Saxon that you would destroy half your birthright?’
Uther strode forward and shook Myrddion bodily. The healer’s eyes were filled with tears, as once again he saw the long road that led from one generous action to a terrible outcome. Although Uther
shook him until his teeth rattled, Myrddion was lost in the terrible machinations of fate.
A sharp slap bought the healer back to himself. Uther’s hand had left a red imprint across Myrddion’s pale face. ‘Who
is
he?’ Uther demanded.
‘I have never given a damn about the wars between the Saxons and the Celts,’ the captive snarled, his face twisted into an ugly rictus of hate. ‘I am a little portion of both, so how can I go to war against myself? The only person I ever truly cared about was my mother.’
Myrddion laughed hysterically, and Pascent bowed awkwardly in the healer’s direction, given that his hands were bound. ‘And now you can kill me, for I’ve done what I swore to do in the years before I became a man.’
‘Of course you have,’ Myrddion replied shrilly. ‘How could your honour not insist that you carry out a crime such as this?’ He turned back to Ambrosius, and his eyes were terrible with a dark knowledge.
‘My lord Ambrosius, High King of the west, this young man is Vengis, the eldest son of Vortigern and Rowena, a Saxon woman, who both perished at Dinas Emrys. He has come seeking blood price for the poisoning of his mother.’
We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe nothing but truth.
Voltaire,
Lettres sur Oedipe
The
oil lamps flickered in the darkening tent. Storm clouds were gathering, and a mist of rain obscured the sun. As he lay on his soft woollen pillows, Ambrosius’s face was so pale that he already looked like a corpse with his blued lips and haggard face, while the lamplight bleached the gold of his hair to the colour of pale ash. The light cast upwards from the lamp closest to him was reflected in his bloodshot eyes, so that Myrddion could fancy that his master was a reincarnation of Charon, calling for the lost souls he would carry to the Underworld on his time-warped, split and weathered ferry boat.
Uther’s face was obscured by shadow. As if seeking the solace of darkness, he had stepped backward when Myrddion had introduced Vengis, so that his body alone expressed the powerful emotions that caused his huge hands to clench and unclench as he sought for something he could rend and pound into the dust.
At
the centre of the lamplight, his chin streaked with blood, Vengis talked and talked. Having hidden behind an affable mask of innocence for long, wearisome months, the young man relished the opportunity to justify his crime, to glory in his vengeance and to boast, like a common felon, about how clever he had been. Guilty and shocked, Myrddion had no choice but to listen.
‘You’ll kill me, or your brother will, once you have taken your last vile breath,’ Vengis stated proudly at Ambrosius’s recumbent form. ‘I have no illusions that my death will be either quick or painless. I could have eaten the pretty flowers in my cap if I had wished to escape the so-called justice of your court, but only a coward tries to escape the outcome that has been hungered for during year after lonely year of exile, as I wandered in the cold north with neither kinfolk nor friends to offer shelter. There is nothing you can do to me that could be as terrible as the years that have passed since the death of my mother at Dinas Emrys.’
‘How did you poison me? I know about the salt, but I doubt that you’ve had any experience as a secret murderer, which probably explains why you botched your first attempt. My brother and my healer took every precaution possible during the journey to Glastonbury.’
Vengis glanced at Myrddion, who returned his gaze and nodded in understanding.
‘You’ve figured it out, Demon Seed, haven’t you? My father used to call you the Black Raven of Cymru, and often said that you were the worthy son of a devil sire. But I never believed him because you tried hard to save my mother’s life. Still, I’ve cursed you often enough on this journey as you blocked my plans at every turn. Loki was laughing in Udgaad and did not see fit to smile upon me until two days ago, at a time when I was almost mad with despair. When I saw the cow in the meadow, the beast was cropping meadow saffron. I couldn’t believe my luck. Of course, I didn’t know whether the
beast had been feeding on the plant for hours or days, so I took a few of the flower stems and placed them in my cap, just in case the cow’s milk wasn’t toxic. Uther had no idea what it was, even when he joked that I wore flowers in my cap like a girl. I almost laughed aloud at the dolt, and had to pretend that he had hurt my feelings. It’s easy to see that Prince Uther has never had to work at menial tasks like a beggar, just to prove his loyalty. My brother Katigern and I had to slave for the thane who took us in, for no amount of royal blood compensated for being born the sons of an animal like Vortigern. But the thane did me a favour, as it turned out, for I learned to keep his fine milking cows away from clumps of meadow saffron.’
Vengis paused for a moment as his tongue explored a loosened tooth.
‘Even so, only infants die of the small amounts of poison that are ingested in the milk of a cow.’ Uther’s voice grated like the sound of a whetstone dragged down a pitted blade. ‘At least, that’s what the healer says.’
‘Myrddion is correct . . . as always. But you were all so busy protecting the food the woman-killer ate that no one ever thought to check the cup. You poured the water yourself, Demon Seed. You gave me the means to kill your master and helped me to break the accord of the united kings.’ Vengis giggled childishly, and Myrddion’s blood ran cold.
‘You took some of the stems and the leaves and pulverised them in water,’ Myrddion interrupted. ‘Then you steeped the meadow saffron for as long as you could. Am I correct?’
Vengis nodded.
‘You used an old cup as a container and you’d have tossed it away later, when you eventually found the opportunity. You soaked the liquid up in a scrap of wool or very fine cloth and then put it in your jerkin. You took a great personal risk, Vengis.’