by M. K. Hume
‘Yes, I helped to erect your first tent at Tomen-y-mur. My brother died at the hands of that bastard, Balbas, who was supposed to be caring for him. God rot the cur! I hope he starves for the greed and ineptitude that killed my brother. You took Aelwen into your tent and tried to help him, but his blood was already poisoned.’
‘I’m sorry, friend. Every healer regrets the lives he cannot save.’
The warrior shook his plaits and clasped both hands together so tightly that the knuckles shone whitely.
‘He didn’t suffer, because you gave him something to ease his way into the shades – or so you said. You let me stay with him and hold his hand until he drew his last breath. I never thanked you, for I couldn’t think for sorrow. At the time, I wanted the whole world to burn to cinders so everyone would suffer as I did, so I couldn’t say a word. Forgive me for being so ungrateful.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive. I’ve seen every form of grief, so I understand how paralysing it is. What is your name?’
‘Aled. We were Aelwen and Aled of Isca, or Caerleon as we call it. A pair of boys who were set for trouble – that was us. We were never apart in life, so I miss him more than I can say. I’m married now, with two boys of my own, and I serve the Silure king, but nothing fills the hole left by the loss of Aelwen.’
‘I understand. I felt the same when my grandmother died, but the grief grows dim with the passage of the years, and leaves behind only the memories of the good days. You’ll see, Aled. The Mother hasn’t forsaken you.’
Embarrassed, Aled turned the conversation to Myrddion’s presence in Cymru. Stories had grown around the Demon Seed and his name was often mentioned in conjunction with Vortigern. But he had been absent for so long that rumour suggested that his infernal father had either spirited him away to the Otherworld or driven him mad.
‘As you can see, Aled, I am neither crazed nor demon-cursed. I am still a simple healer.’
‘Aye,’ Aled snorted with scorn. ‘And I’m the High King of the Britons.’
Myrddion laughed gently. ‘No. You are surely not Ambrosius, Aled. In fact, the High King is my master now, and I’m here at his behest on a matter of great secrecy.’
Aled raised one sceptical eyebrow. Venta Belgarum was far away, but only foolish braggarts claimed familiarity with Ambrosius Imperator.
‘I swear I never took you for a man who would happily serve a foreign king.’
‘I wasn’t, Aled. But I’ve seen the Middle Sea since I was last in Cymru and my opinions have changed. You can’t imagine the wars and bloodshed that take place as migrating tribes pour into the void the Romans leave when they abandon the lands they ruled. Bridges, roads, buildings, aqueducts and the law itself are cast away. The Saxons are as nothing when compared with some of the tribes across the Litus Saxonicum. No, I serve Ambrosius because he represents law, order and strength for our people.’
‘I will agree with you that we need no more Vortimers or Catigerns to tear the tribes and clans apart, but it goes against the grain, master, to welcome a stranger.’
Myrddion chose his next words carefully, because Aled was exactly the type of man he needed: a cool-thinking, rational patriot.
‘Ambrosius’s mother was both Roman and tribal, which many men forget, but I have talked with him and I can swear that he has always thought of these isles as his homeland. Late at night, he speaks of his years of exile in Brittany, Rome and Constantinople. He still thinks of those places, which he could have considered his home, as foreign and beautiful. But like me during my journey to Constantinople, he longed for the dim blue skies of Britain.’
‘Perhaps,’ Aled growled. ‘Perhaps I’m being a fool to set such store by nine generations of family behind me on the same soil. But our family lands belonged to other peoples, including the Picts, before we Celts settled in Britain. I suppose the world is changing and we must change with it.’
The warrior’s expression was thoughtful, so Myrddion rose to buy another pitcher of ale. When he retuned, Aled was sunk in gloom.
‘By your description of Gaul, we could be at war for years. May the Mother save us.’
‘No, Aled, we must act to save ourselves. I’m in the service of Ambrosius, and I’m searching for like-minded men, including some who speak Saxon, who are prepared to serve as listeners within and without the kingdom.’
Myrddion carefully refrained from using the ugly word spy, but Aled’s back straightened and a cloud settled on his brows.
‘A spy in the Saxon towns I understand, but you must call it by what it is, Master Myrddion.’ Aled’s voice was crisp with his displeasure. ‘But why should any loyal tribesman provide you with information about his own people that will be used for the benefit of Ambrosius Imperator? Such information smacks of treason, and brings dishonour to the informant’s own tribe.’
‘You said it yourself, Aled. We don’t want another Vortimer, hungry to assume his father’s throne. Good kings need fear nothing from Ambrosius Imperator. Believe me, he knows the Saxons are unpredictable and cruel enemies. He needs no others.’
Aled nodded tersely, but his shoulders remained stiff and unbending.
‘The men who have already committed themselves to this task have sworn an oath to me, not to Ambrosius,’ Myrddion continued as persuasively as he knew how. ‘I will decide how the information I receive should be used. If you insist on describing my mission accurately, it is my task to be the spymaster, so you must decide whether I have the integrity to carry out my role. I hope I have already proved to you that I can be trusted.’
Aled remained silent for almost ten minutes as he considered Myrddion’s proposition. He drank slowly, stared at his strong right hand, flexed it and looked into the middle distance with eyes that saw nothing but his secret thoughts. Myrddion sat quietly and permitted the warrior to consider his options. Finally, Aled made a decision, wiped his hand on his jerkin and offered it to the healer.
‘I’ll serve you, Myrddion of Segontium – but only you. I’ll trust you to act honourably with any information I give you, so long as you swear to be guided by what is good for our lands.’
‘I can make such an oath easily.’ Myrddion grinned. ‘I owe nothing to Ambrosius and his brother, and I yearn to see a king who is totally committed to the tribes and their survival ruling the west as one peaceful nation. I can swear to you that I will always remain true to this good earth and the people who till the soil and shepherd its beasts, and I refuse to bend the knee to any man who is drunk with power. The Saxons are the enemy and their advance must be stopped.’
So, in diverse ways, Myrddion travelled through the south, finding a man here and another there, men who swore an oath to serve him personally rather than pledge loyalty to the High King. At first, Myrddion was awed by the responsibility that these strong men placed in his hands, but his reasonable, inner self whispered that sensible warriors prefer leaders who are close at hand, accessible and human, for few ordinary people understand the political jostling for power of kings.
In Caer Fyrddin, Cletus One Ear and his eldest son swore to serve Myrddion because of the shared skein of kinship. Aunt Fillagh wept copious tears to see her great-nephew again, now so strong and powerful, and in private she shared her memories of his birth with her husband. Even though time had weakened her eyesight and her memory, she recalled a powerful sense of destiny that had been woven around the comely young man’s form and face.
‘You’ll see, Cletus. Our Myrddion will be the most powerful man in the land, more important than even the High King. Olwyn would have been so proud to see him rise so high.’
‘Aye! One day, we’ll boast that the boy is kin to us. I thank Fortuna that I found his bulla for him.’
‘You found the locket, husband, but his accursed mother found the sunburst ring. Did you see it upon his finger?’
Cletus puffed up with natural pride. Many years had passed but, with an ageing man’s memory, he recalled long ago days more clearly than the happenings of yesterd
ay.
At Isca, Aled had informed Myrddion of a rumour concerning a man from Venta Silurum who had been orphaned by Saxon raiders from the Demetae hills. After killing his parents, the raiding party had enslaved the young man. Eventually, the captive escaped from the Saxons when he was some twenty years old and had run wild like a savage ever since. Unable to live in normal human society, and fuelled by a hatred so scarfing and hot that he could barely contain it, this Gruffydd kept to the wild places and hunted Saxons with a ruthlessness that was becoming legendary.
‘He was somewhere north of Tomen-y-mur when I last heard of him. He was nearly recaptured after he murdered a Saxon trader on the road out of Caer Fyrddin, so he took to his heels and disappeared into the north. I can’t imagine how he lives, but if you can find him and mend his maddened brain, you’ll have a Saxon-speaker with an axe to grind.’
So Myrddion headed into the north.
He avoided the dangerous areas around the old fortress that the Romans had called Moridunum, and rode hard towards Segontium and his old family home. When he reached the mountains, he found the hill people who provided one of the skeins in the rope of his blood. These people were very short and squat and seemed to be stunted by the harsh winds, the bone-numbing cold and a life of grinding privation as they eked out what food could be grown in such inhospitable places. They gazed at their tall young visitor with glazed eyes that filled with superstitious terror as they noted the growing streak of white on his right brow and the sense of otherness that enveloped him like an invisible cloak. When forced to face him, they accepted his coin and shared what they had with him for the sake of his great-grandmother and her sister Rhyll, whose names were still remembered with affection and awe. But they never explained their fear of him, or invited him into their homes, which were little more than flintstone circles topped with thatch to keep out the snow. Perhaps they feared that he would curse them, all unknowing, but whatever their reasons, Myrddion wore his loneliness like a Christian hair shirt.
At Caer Gai, Myrddion found a ruined house of some size, perhaps built by the Romans to guard the way into the north. An oak tree, many hundreds of years old, had been riven by lightning, and the softer wooden core had been devoured by time, so Myrddion sheltered for a night in the cavern at its base. A thick bed of rotted wood and long dead leaves formed a comfortable pallet and a nearby tarn provided icy water, allowing Myrddion to dine on a stew of dried meat fleshed out with tender greens and some wild parsnips. The peace of the mountains settled into his heart, the winds sang in the flutes of the stone ruins like a choir of children and the young healer could have wept for the beauty of the wild places.
Tomen-y-mur was a walled town, built high over the coast and the wild winds of the sea. As Myrddion trotted through an eerie silence towards his mother’s house, he took solace from the sight of hunting birds as they soared far above him, although they were too distant for his eyes to discern whether they were hawks, merlins or falcons. He saw one great eagle as it rode the thermals rising from a valley, its wings effortlessly accommodating the swirling air, and his heart lightened as if these wild things spoke to him of a future worth his labours. Yet he was aware of dread as well, and feared meeting his mother, now in her forties, who had hated him all his life.
He passed through the sheltered valley where Vortigern’s army had licked its wounds and a younger Myrddion had learned his craft in a bloody leather apron, gore-smeared to the elbows as he saved what lives he could. There was the copse of trees where his tent had stood. The earth was very green where the dead had been buried and wild flowers still flourished in great shrivelling drifts, although autumn was now giving way to winter.
‘The dead seem to give new life from within their graves. Truly, the Christian priests speak honestly when they say all flesh is grass.’ Myrddion spoke aloud to break a silence so profound that he ached from the emptiness of the sky, the mountains and the distant view of the sea.
The route to Tomen-y-mur took comparatively little time. Myrddion traversed the slopes where he had loved his first woman, although he couldn’t remember her face or anything about her, other than her name. He berated himself for this failure, cursing the casual affections of men and his own callousness. He had been besotted with her hair, he remembered at last, so wild and red, tied up with a strip of coloured rag. There, where dead flowers still raised desiccated heads towards the cold sun, he had marvelled at that thick, curling hair and luxuriated in her body and the sweet nothingness that it promised.
But no matter how memory distracted him, Tomen-y-mur eventually called to him from the end of a narrow road that was little more than a goat track, an eyrie of small huts with dark beetling walls and a view of the grey sea. The first snow came in a flurry of wind as he approached the gates on a dark afternoon, so he spurred his horse through the narrow gap opened by a spluttering keeper whose curses followed him along the muddy street.
Tomen-y-mur boasted a single inn, a hovel where the smoke-filled interior and general coating of oily grime over every surface revolted the young healer. The town was a byway, and few sensible folk braved its isolation. Myrddion shuddered to think of his mother trapped on a farm outside such a place, where she would have been starved for companionship and beauty.
The small room was filled to bursting by a press of men from various trades. Myrddion could smell the shepherds before he saw them, for their untanned cloaks of sheeps’ wool reeked nearly as badly as the odour of unwashed flesh, ordure and piss combined. With a barely disguised shudder, Myrddion approached a hulking man behind a plank bar who was pouring jugs of something resembling ale from large barrels. His fat, hairy fingers filled Myrddion with disgust, especially when he saw the man wipe his streaming nose on his sleeve, hawk, and then spit onto the dirt floor.
‘You’re a stranger,’ the innkeeper said unnecessarily. His face was marred by a fierce squint and his belly was gross. Myrddion remembered Gron at Verulamium and compared the two men mentally. At least this man seemed slightly cheerier, but no less venal.
‘Aye. I’m from Segontium, although I’ve been travelling for six years. I’ve come to see my mother, Lady Branwyn, who lives in these parts, and to hunt up a man called Gruffydd.’
The innkeeper eyed Myrddion closely, pursed his lips and decided to grin, exposing a mouthful of rotting teeth. ‘Well, boyo, you’re out of luck on both counts. Gruffydd comes here sometimes, but he’s not in tonight. As for the lady Branwyn – your mother, is she? – she’s mad!’
Several men stared at Myrddion and one nudged his neighbour with a dirty elbow. ‘Are you the Demon Seed, then?’ he asked roughly.
‘Are you speaking to me?’ Myrddion asked politely, but his raised eyebrow and chilly demeanour flustered the shepherd into incoherent half-sentences.
‘Er . . . yes . . . er . . . begging your pardon, sir,’ the man stammered, and the innkeeper shot a withering look of contempt at him.
‘Don’t be minding him. He talks to himself, if there’s no one else available to listen to him, and he never knows when to keep his sodding tongue behind his teeth. He spends too much time with sheep, if you take my meaning.’ The innkeeper leered unattractively.
‘I am Myrddion Merlinus of Segontium, and I am the healer at the court of Ambrosius Imperator, High King of the west. Do my credentials meet with your approval?’
‘It’s not for me to argue with my betters, sir,’ the innkeeper intoned, ducking his head apologetically. ‘Will you be needing a room? A meal? The girl will see to it, or I’ll tan her hide. And I’ll see if I can find Gruffydd for you, sir. You’d do honour to my inn if you were to stay here.’
Having discovered that arrogance – or the Aspar manner, as Myrddion had tagged it in memory of his birth father – was an effective and speedy route to achieving his desires, the tired healer relinquished his horse to the ostler and trudged up rickety stairs to an attic room. When the maidservant opened the door for him he sighed dispiritedly, for the space was filthy with bird drop
pings, the regurgitations of at least one owl and the dust of years. The girl heard his reaction and shyly offered to help.
‘If my master is willing, I can clean your room, especially if you’re staying for a while. You’re the first guest of the house for . . . well . . . years.’
‘I thank you for your offer, and I’d appreciate anything you can do. At the moment I need hot water, as soon as possible.’
‘And food, sir, would that please you?’
Without thinking, Myrddion answered more bluntly than was his usual fashion. ‘Will I survive the experience?’
The maid visibly straightened. ‘My mother is the cook, sir. Perhaps it’s not what you’re used to, but she doesn’t use rotten vegetables or meat that has turned. She uses clean salt and cooks the meat through to the bone. She doesn’t scrimp with the portions either. We’re poor, sir, but we don’t cheat, not even fat-arse Brychan, who’s none too clean in his habits. Me and my ma do what we can with what we’ve got to keep the inn tidy, but there’s only so many hours, sir.’
Myrddion was ashamed. How many more times would he fail to see the world from the point of view of the weak and the helpless? ‘I’m sorry, lass. Bring me whatever will heat the heart of a cold and bad-tempered man. My only defence is that I’ve been thwarted all day and I took my anger out on you.’ He fumbled in his purse and retrieved a copper coin. ‘I’ll pay to have Brychan’s attic cleaned and will be grateful for whatever you can do to make me comfortable.’
The girl took the coin and held it carefully, as if it would vanish of its own volition. ‘I’ve never had a real coin before, sir.’
‘Don’t you receive wages for your work in the inn?’ Myrddion asked curiously.
‘Oh, no, sir. I’m Brychan’s bastard, as are my two little sisters. Mam works to keep us in his favour though he’s got another woman now, a real sow who never moves her lazy rump.’
Myrddion’s brows knitted with dislike of the greasy innkeeper. He understood the plight of a woman with three young daughters, and he supposed a roof over their heads and food in their bellies was worth any compromise, given the grim alternatives.
