by M. K. Hume
‘Open your mouth, lord,’ he ordered. ‘I must check your throat and your breathing.’
Like a tired, fretful child, Ambrosius obeyed between spasms of vomiting. His mouth was reddened and, with a sick lurch of his stomach, Myrddion saw patches of redness at his wrists, elbows, knees and ankles. Several blood vessels in his eyes had burst, giving his eyeballs an ugly red cast.
‘I’m so thirsty that I could drink the river dry, Myrddion,’ he whispered. ‘I remind you of your oath to me.’
‘It hasn’t come to that yet, my lord. I intend to fight to keep you healthy with every ounce of my strength.’
Ambrosius laughed weakly then turned his head away as his stomach spasmed. ‘God, my gut is afire.’ Without pausing to think, Myrddion began to mix a few drops of poppy into his boiled water and assisted the king to drink.
‘This potion will make you drowsy, lord, but it will take away your pain. I must consult my scrolls to find the answer to this particular illness. Don’t be afraid, Ambrosius, my true friend, for I will find it.’
‘If I am to sleep, I need Uther now. He’s rampaging through the camp, seeking invisible enemies.’ Turning to Botha, the king pointed across to a small table. ‘There’s a scroll in my chest. Please bring it to me, and then find my brother and escort him here.’
By the time Botha returned, the pupils of Ambrosius’s eyes had widened and his pain was gradually receding. He was drifting in and out of sleep as Myrddion wrapped him in heated woollen blankets. With a great effort of will, the king roused himself when Uther entered the tent.
‘Brother,’ he said softly. ‘Hold my hand until I sleep. Botha has a scroll that must be read if this illness closes my eyes for ever. I ask for your promise that you will ensure the accord of the united kings holds firm, and that you will send Andrewina Ruadh home to her children. All else is for you to decide.’
Uther held his brother’s hand and swore that he would promise anything, if only Ambrosius could be returned to health. His eyes were stark and fearful, and Myrddion remembered that Uther had no kin in the isles other than his brother, who was fading even as they watched.
As soon as Ambrosius was deeply asleep, Uther left Botha to guard the High King and bodily dragged Myrddion out of the tent. His hands were very strong as he gripped Myrddion’s loose tunic, but the healer could feel that the iron fingers were trembling.
‘You told me that he’d survived the poison! That he was feeling better! What has caused this illness? What have you done?’
‘I’ve done nothing, Prince Uther! You know that! I drank the water before Ambrosius, and you milked a cow but yesterday. The eggs he ate had not been breached. Now I must consult my scrolls, for these symptoms are puzzling, and new to me.’
Unconsciously, Uther had continued to shake Myrddion as a terrier shakes a rat. Suddenly, he seemed to come to his senses and loosened his hold on the healer’s tunic to run his sweating, shaking hands down his own overshirt.
‘Poison? Again? How?’
‘I don’t know, lord, but you must give me time to consult my scrolls and perhaps I will discover something. You must gather your wits, Uther. You’re no use to your brother if you run amok through the camp. Let me go to my tent.’ Myrddion paused, then said, ‘You would also be advised to find Pascent and put him under guard. No one but him has been with us while Ambrosius was eating.’
‘It’s already done, healer. Find out what’s wrong with my brother. Go!’
Myrddion had been unable to take his sandalwood box of scrolls with him on the journey to Deva, but he rarely travelled without a number of herbal references he had been assembling since he had first become Annwynn’s apprentice. That redoubtable old woman knew everything there was to know about plants, nuts, flowers, roots and fruit, both their curative and their toxic properties, but to his regret Myrddion could not remember even a quarter of it.
Now, in the chaos of his tent, with Llanwith trying to help but simply getting in his way, Myrddion hunted through his precious herbal scrolls until a sudden thought crossed his mind.
‘Llanwith, do something useful and bring me every piece of baggage that Pascent possesses. I don’t care if he complains, and I know that Uther has already searched him. Don’t argue! Just bring me everything. Oh, and be careful, Llanwith. You don’t know what you’ll be touching.’
Llanwith looked thoroughly alarmed and grabbed a pair of Myrddion’s leather riding gloves, which proved to be a very tight fit. Then, with a puzzled expression and panic in his quick movements, he was gone.
Uther returned to Myrddion’s tent just as the Ordovice prince arrived with two saddlebags held gingerly in his gloved hands. Myrddion looked up from the scroll he was trying to read by the fitful light of an oil lamp.
‘What have you discovered?’ Uther demanded. ‘Do you suspect Pascent?’
‘I told you why. As for the reason I’m searching his possessions, it’s because I’m desperate. Perhaps there’s something in his bags that seems harmless, but isn’t.’ He lifted the first bag gingerly. ‘May I have my gloves back, Llanwith? I hope they’re not too stretched by those hams that pass for your hands.’
Wordlessly, Llanwith stripped off the leather gloves and Myrddion immediately donned them, carefully pressing each finger firmly into place. Then he upended the saddlebags on to the sod floor.
Three pairs of blank eyes examined the resultant mess on the ground. Spare tunics, leggings, a small drawstring pouch of soft leather, a knitted cap with wilted flowers tucked into it, a scrap of fine rag and a spare, worn leather belt lay innocently on the churned grass. With one booted foot, Myrddion moved a rolled tunic and revealed a battered cup, a flask and a worn eating knife.
‘Perhaps the flask has something in it,’ Uther decided, and picked up the leather container. After removing the brass stopper, he upended the flask and discovered it was empty.
‘Shite! Shite! Shite! There’s nothing here that could have harmed Ambrosius,’ Uther swore, and then repeated a particularly coarse description of Pascent’s parentage. Myrddion’s mind twitched momentarily, but then the half-memory slid away.
‘Let me think!’ Myrddion begged. ‘Please stop talking and give me a moment to think.’ He stared at each item, lifted it, smelled it and then discarded it with a grunt of disgust. When he came to the knitted cap, he examined it inside and out, and then turned his attention to the wilted flowers. They were very pretty, somewhat daisy-like, with six or seven petals on each flower and a cluster of yellow stamens in the centre. The petals were still a clear yellow although the plants were bruised.
Myrddion’s eyes darted from the petals to the cup, and then to the scrap of cloth. ‘Where did you find the cow yesterday, Uther?’
‘You know where. It came from that cottage in the small clearing, miles from anywhere in particular. We had to collect the cow from the fields before I milked it.’ Uther looked thoroughly irritated under his surprise. Llanwith tensed, expecting an explosion of temper.
‘You collected the cow yourself?’ Myrddion’s eyes were very bright.
‘No, I sent Pascent. He couldn’t poison the milk while it was still in the cow, and if he’d milked it himself, always supposing he could, Ambrosius would never have touched it.’
‘So that’s where he found the meadow saffron,’ Myrddion whispered. ‘Was anyone sick in the cottage?’
‘A young girl was poorly, but I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. The brat probably caught a chill.’
‘She probably drank milk from a cow that had been eating meadow saffron. It’s a pretty flower, isn’t it? But the milk of cows or goats that have been eating it can kill a young child.’
Llanwith pen Bryn and Uther stared at the wilted, bruised flowers as if they had suddenly turned into serpents.
‘But Ambrosius isn’t an infant. He’s a grown man and unlikely to be poisoned so easily,’ Llanwith protested. ‘The peasant’s daughter wasn’t dying.’
‘But she wasn’t already s
uffering from a previous poisoning, was she? Ambrosius’s body has been weakened, so the toxic elements of the plant were far more effective on him. Pascent must have known of its effects, since he collected some of the flowers and thrust them into his cap. He couldn’t be sure that the milk was contaminated, but he didn’t warn you of any possible danger, did he, Uther?’
Uther’s expression was thunderous. ‘No, he fucking did not!’ The crudity hung on the air with the promise of sudden death.
‘How did you recognise those flowers, Myrddion?’ Llanwith asked. ‘I didn’t know what they were. Would Pascent, or whoever he is? Could the poisoning be an accident?’
‘Annwynn pointed meadow saffron out to me many years ago. I’d forgotten all about it until now, but Pascent picked those flowers for a reason,’ Myrddion replied carefully. ‘I recall that she told me that every part of the meadow saffron plant is poisonous – the leaves, the stalk and the sap are all toxic. He might have used some decoction as well. But how?’
He lifted the cap and sniffed it delicately. His nostrils twitched. Uther and Llanwith watched him, gape-mouthed, as he used a pair of medical forceps to lift a scrap of rose wool which seemed a little stiff and stained.
‘Of course,’ Myrddion whispered. ‘It must have been a crime of convenience, committed on the spur of the moment, but done so brilliantly and naturally that none of us even suspected what was happening.’
Uther took one angry, threatening step forward with his hands clenched into fists. ‘Stop talking in riddles and make some sense. Can Ambrosius be saved from this . . . this . . . meadow saffron?’
‘Perhaps – but more likely not. You want the truth, don’t you? If Pascent has done what I suspect, the king will suffer progressive paralysis until his heart stops and he dies. We must pray that I am wrong.’
‘But there has to be an antidote. Can’t you purge my brother again?’ Uther was desperate and angry in his appeal, and Llanwith tensed unconsciously. Myrddion seemed unmoved.
‘There is no antidote – only time and the body’s strength. If enough poison has been given, death always results.’
Uther closed his eyes and tried to regain his self-control. Myrddion’s words were a death knell, but he still clutched at the one constant in this tragedy. ‘How did Pascent do it? I understand the bit about the cow, but he never touched Ambrosius’s cup or plate once food or drink was placed in them.’
‘I’m not sure yet. As far as I can see, he was acting as circumstances permitted. So many things could have gone wrong for him. A cow cropping meadow saffron doesn’t mean that the milk is unsafe immediately. The beast has to digest the poison before it is effective. From what I remember, the toxins won’t hurt the animal, but they can kill its calf if it is very young. Pascent would seem to have gambled in every way, so hatred has to motivate him far more than I can read from his facial expressions. He’s never shown an obvious flicker of dislike towards your brother.’
‘I don’t understand anything you’re trying to explain,’ Uther replied, his frustration obvious in both voice and body. ‘You’re saying that a cow’s milk can be poisoned because it eats a flower? Who could ever believe that?’
‘For the moment, Uther, you must keep Pascent under close watch – and you mustn’t execute him out of hand. We need his confession, or the union of kings will believe any number of rumours if Ambrosius should happen to die. What we must ensure is that we avoid talk that you have murdered your own brother to steal his throne. It would be disastrous for you, especially if Pascent is killed out of hand without direct evidence of his guilt. But one detail is quite clear.’
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 offe
nded 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.’
