Prophecy: Web of Deceit (Prophecy 3)

by M. K. Hume

  With sick revulsion, Myrddion followed her glazed, dry eyes to a clothes chest, where her husband’s greenish head rested on a tangle of torn-down wall hangings. Only the sweet smile that Myrddion had placed on that livid face was vaguely familiar. Ygerne stared blankly at the ruined features.

  Myrddion crossed the small room with two quick strides and threw the edge of a soft yellow weaving over the monstrosity. Uther has treated rape and seduction like a pre-emptive strike. How the Dragon understands extortion! In one stroke, he has deliberately crushed Ygerne’s spirit, ensured her compliance and filled her mind with terror for her daughter, by giving her her husband’s head.

  ‘Uther’s such a cold-blooded bastard,’ he whispered. ‘He had every eventuality covered before we departed from Anderida.’

  He approached the huge bed and Ygerne responded by cowering as far from him as possible. Her eyes were wide and glazed, and she sucked pathetically on her thumb as she searched for comfort.

  ‘Please, highness, it’s only Myrddion, and you know I won’t hurt you. Please permit me to satisfy myself that you’re unhurt.’

  As he examined Ygerne’s empty eyes, Myrddion pondered that some hurts are more lasting than stab wounds or broken bones. Ygerne’s spirit had vanished, leaving a husk to sleepwalk through her imprisonment. With careful treatment she might recover, but not while Uther was free to force himself on her as often as he wished. No one could protect her from the man who now owned her. Although the queen was naked beneath the covers, Myrddion knew better than to touch her.

  ‘Please talk to me, highness. Gorlois wouldn’t have wanted you to be harmed, so I must discover if you have any wounds.’

  ‘No.’ The monosyllable was so softly whispered that it was little more than an exhalation of breath.

  Knuckles rapped on the door, and Ygerne’s eyes swivelled towards it, the pupils dilated with panic.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, highness. No one will harm you while I am here.’

  She seemed to recognise him then, so Myrddion hurried to open the door and deal with the interruption speedily.

  Botha hovered awkwardly on the threshold. ‘I’ve arranged for the cook to stay with Lady Morgan, as most of the younger female servants are . . . ill,’ he whispered. ‘Do you need anything further?’

  The captain was acutely embarrassed, and obviously wished he was leagues away from Tintagel. Shame-faced, he refused to acknowledge the cowering figure of the queen in the large, tumbled bed, and seemed ready to run at the slightest provocation.

  ‘Get rid of that head,’ Myrddion hissed. ‘Gorlois’s head. Covered – on the clothes chest. Wrap it and take it away so the queen won’t be distressed any further.’

  A succession of painful emotions was clearly written on Botha’s open face as his eyes flickered over Uther’s instrument of mental cruelty. With obvious distaste, and using his body as a shield, he carefully bound the wrapped head before carrying it out of the queen’s bedchamber.

  ‘It’s all true – Gorlois is dead, and all my bad dreams were portents of the future,’ Ygerne whispered. ‘I should never have gone to Venta Belgarum, or I should have killed myself before I permitted the High King to touch me. Too late! Too late!’

  She sighed again and her flower-like face looked as if it would shatter at the slightest touch. ‘Is my daughter alive? Is she safe?’

  ‘Yes, highness. Her wrist has been broken, so I’ve drugged her to give her bruises a chance to heal – but she will be well again within a very short time.’

  Ygerne mewed in distress, then her countenance smoothed as if a hand had wiped her crumpled face with a damp cloth. ‘Such is the fate of women, I suppose. Men will always take what they desire, and will always suffer for their lusts. My father and my husband protected me all my life, so I didn’t recognise how cruel men could be. You were right, Myrddion, for the sight is only insight, but I didn’t understand the lengths that men could go to in their determination to satiate their desires. The visions I had in the past should have prepared me for my awakening to what other women learn in girlhood.’

  Myrddion listened, and was relieved that the queen seemed to be rallying as her daughter’s plight forced her to return from the empty space inside her head. Her words seemed lucid, although he regretted the blame that the queen placed on her own prior ignorance.

  ‘What will become of me?’ Ygerne asked in a voice so flat that Myrddion doubted she was speaking to him. But it gave him an opportunity to reassure her, so he answered as honestly as he could. At least he could offer her some frail shadow of hope.

  ‘Uther won’t harm you any more than he has already done, highness, because you are his property now – for a time. He will soon tire of you. He always does – and then he will permit you to return to Tintagel alone. I promised Gorlois that I would help you, and I swear to you that I will.’

  Outside the shutters, a gust of wind hit the fortress and moaned through the cracks in the wood to stir the hair on Myrddion’s neck. Within the small room, Gorlois’s spirit seemed to be crying out to his beloved, and neither queen nor healer dared to break the low groan of sound.

  So they waited in their separate miseries on the desires of Uther Pendragon, High King of the Britons. Both knew that their master would soon return and neither had any hope that the king would show them mercy.

  Spring came at last with a flush of warmth and regeneration, and with it, Uther’s army marched into the Dumnonii lands to rescue their master and escort him home to Venta Belgarum.

  At Anderida, when he discovered that Gorlois’s head had been removed and that the High King had ridden post-haste to Tintagel, King Bors had fumed over the betrayal and had sworn that the Dumnonii tribe would refuse to follow Uther Pendragon in the future. Leaving the fortress unsecured and driven by fears of treachery, the Dumnonii force had ridden fast and hard to Tintagel in an effort to protect Queen Ygerne. Failing, Bors had surrounded the fort in a visceral surge of fury and had refused to allow the High King and his troop to depart.

  So, for the weeks that followed Uther’s rape of Ygerne, matters of state remained in a precarious impasse. Even when Gorlois’s body was laid on its funeral pyre on the cliffs above Tintagel, Bors refused to make any concessions to the High King, although Myrddion insisted that the head of the dead king should be lowered over the wall to the Dumnonii to ensure that it was cremated with the rest of the body.

  High in the fortress tower overlooking the funeral pyre, and oblivious of Uther’s demands for silence, Ygerne rent her clothing and keened with sorrow as the flames licked at the corpse of her dead husband. Through the opened shutters, and even over the gusting winds that sent smoke and flames billowing from the funeral fire as it twisted and guttered, Ygerne’s grief could be heard by the waiting army. The Dumnonii warriors bowed their heads at such love, and swore that Uther Pendragon would pay for his betrayals.

  This state of affairs would have endured until one side relented or retreated had the Mother not provided a new complication that would change everything. Although believing herself to be well past the age of child-bearing, Ygerne quickened. Myrddion himself sent the message to King Bors and the Dumnonii forces entrenched on the cliffs above Tintagel that the High King had chosen to honour the widow of Bors’s uncle and would wed her in all pomp and ceremony within the fortress. Summoned from Glastonbury, Bishop Lucius agreed to officiate, for Ygerne had begun to take her erstwhile casual respect for Christianity seriously. Further, she had endured Uther’s undiminished ardour and suffered her daughter’s sullen fury and open desire for revenge with great dignity. Reluctantly, Bors agreed to the arrangement, and the sombre ceremony took place in the forecourt beside the gates. Then, as imperious as ever, Uther departed from Tintagel with his new wife, his stepdaughter, his troop and Bishop Lucius, leaving Bors to fume at his arrogance.

  Ygerne had begged the bishop to stay with her until the birth of the child. In her selfish grief, Morgan gave her mother no comfort, being wholly obsessed with the c
omplete destruction of Uther Pendragon. Although Myrddion attended to the queen’s physical needs and offered what companionship his nature permitted, Ygerne was wholly isolated for the first time in her life. Only the calm presence of Bishop Lucius offered any serenity.

  ‘Please, Father Lucius. My thoughts turn constantly towards death, and I need your presence to remind me that suicide is a mortal sin.’

  ‘I will stay,’ Bishop Lucius promised unwillingly, for proximity to the High King was causing the prelate to suffer agonies of conscience. For the first time, Lucius understood why Myrddion had come to him months earlier seeking guidance concerning the sins he had been forced to commit in the king’s name. With sympathy and a new comprehension, Lucius sought out Myrddion’s company, and despite the gulf of religious differences and personal experiences between them, a strange mutual respect developed between the two men. In their separate ways, their common desire was to protect Queen Ygerne during the debilitating, sorrowful journey to Venta Belgarum and to encourage her to accept her lot as the new Mother of the Britons.

  During the months that followed, the queen began to suffer all the physically exhausting symptoms of a late pregnancy, obliging healer and prelate to offer medical and spiritual solace to a woman beset with troubles on all sides. Indeed, many women would have been driven to madness by her husband’s murder, her subsequent rape and the ironic aftermath that forced her to become the wife of the architect of all her miseries. Somehow, with skin so translucent that she seemed about to blow away in the wind, or to shatter at the sound of a harsh word, Ygerne stayed alive, sane and dignified through the continued attentions of the High King.

  ‘I hate Venta Belgarum in high summer,’ she murmured to Myrddion, as bees hummed in the small garden attached to Uther’s palace. The king had gone to the borderlands outside Londinium, for the Saxons had taken liberties during his long winter absence and had extended their sphere of influence once the warmer weather began to thaw the frozen earth. No one was concerned at his absence, least of all his pregnant wife who was still summoned to his bed every night when he was in residence at Venta Belgarum.

  ‘You’re feeling the heat, my queen, which is oppressive for a woman in your condition. Drink as much chilled water as you need to keep cool, my lady, and put your feet in a basin of cold water as often as possible, for I’ve noticed your feet are swelling.’

  The queen blushed and tucked her feet self-consciously under her gown.

  Myrddion lifted her limp wrist and easily found her pulse, for Ygerne had become very slender. Only the swelling of her belly, which was unusually large for this stage of her pregnancy, gave any indication of vigour. Her marked loss of weight was a cause for concern and Myrddion had set the cooks to work in an attempt to stimulate her poor appetite.

  The Mother of the Britons sat with her ladies in the rose garden, attended by her physician, Bishop Lucius and Andrewina Ruadh, who had become a virtual body-servant to the mournful queen. The two women had formed an instant bond, possibly because opposites attract and both were mothers, but also because Ruadh distrusted Morgan, who had begun to watch her mother with active dislike. Using a fan of woven reeds delicately painted with floral colours and bound with gold on the handle, Ruadh fanned her mistress to dissuade the persistent insects that showed no respect for dignity or rank.

  Myrddion had recognised this antipathy in Morgan, and was worried because Ygerne could not endure any more loss. Therefore, before the king had departed with his usual speed for Londinium, Myrddion had begged him to allow Willa and Berwyn to act as the queen’s body-servants and companions. Uther had agreed, recognising that the two girls had no ties to either the Dumnonii or Uther’s Atrebates tribe and couldn’t be coerced into treachery. Besides, his hostages may as well serve useful purposes. And so Myrddion had ensured that Ygerne was surrounded by females who were unflinchingly loyal to him – and to the gentle queen.

  ‘Father, is it wrong of me to hate this child?’ Ygerne asked Bishop Lucius. ‘I do – although I’ve tried to divorce it from the way it was conceived. But when I feel it move, I think of my other pregnancies, and how happy I was with my dead Gorlois.’ She lowered her heavy, modestly covered head of braided hair and Myrddion saw tears running down her flushed cheeks. As always, he felt her suffering as if it were his own.

  ‘Your child is without sin, daughter, so pray earnestly for the strength to love it. Any son of your body will inherit this vast land one day, so he will need to carry out the harsh duties that kingship demands. He will require your devotion to grow into a strong, true and just man of the people.’

  ‘I will try, Father,’ Ygerne whispered. ‘Although life is sometimes very difficult.’

  Lucius took her hand and stroked it with his work-hardened thumbs. Even in Venta Belgarum, the bishop contrived to keep himself busy and spent his free time tending the queen’s garden with his own hands, thereby ensuring that many neglected plants flowered for the first time in years. Not surprisingly, Queen Ygerne spent hours in this small, verdant place.

  ‘I wish Morgan would soften towards me,’ she whispered, and her tears fell even faster. ‘As you can attest, Myrddion, I had no choice but to submit to my husband, but Morgan believes I betrayed Gorlois when I married again. What must I do to heal her?’

  ‘Humph!’ Ruadh snorted. She had told her master forcibly that Morgan was quite capable of poisoning her own mother to kill a potential half-sibling. Ruadh had taken to tasting every morsel that Ygerne ate or drank, and she watched Morgan constantly with narrowed green eyes that reflected her dislike for the younger woman.

  ‘Morgan has also suffered heinous crimes,’ Myrddion explained carefully. ‘Her wrist is only now returning to full mobility, and I worry about those wounds that can’t be seen because they exist within her mind.’

  ‘I pray for your daughter, Ygerne, because she is turning towards pagan darkness,’ Lucius stated baldly. ‘I apologise if I offend you, healer, but Morgan takes the Old Religion and distorts it into a tool that she can use for her obsessions. She risks her immortal soul.’

  Lucius’s proud Roman profile was lifted in disapproval until it resembled the face of an emperor on an old coin, but Myrddion also detected a tremor of superstition under the cleric’s slightly raised, sardonic eyebrows.

  Although the priest cloaks his concerns with religious disapproval, he fears for Ygerne’s safety at the hands of her daughter as much as I do, Myrddion thought helplessly. Damn Uther! He causes chaos for everything and everyone he touches.

  ‘My poor girl was raped,’ Ygerne said. The ugly word fell into the quiet sweetness of the garden with all the force of a stone tossed into a pool of still water. ‘Her dignity was stolen, and the only recourse she believes she has is contempt.’

  ‘Uther issued direct orders that Ulfin was to be publicly whipped near to death for his stupidity. Worst of all for Ulfin, he was demoted from his post at the king’s right hand and has been commanded to serve in the guard in a subordinate position. Morgan watched his punishment, but I fear it did little to assuage her need for revenge.’

  Myrddion’s voice was ambivalent, for he had enjoyed Ulfin’s humiliation. Also, he had refused to treat the guardsman’s flayed back, and had left his care in the less expert hands of an apprentice. Ulfin would carry the scars of his master’s displeasure for all the days of his life, and Myrddion had taken pleasure in the warrior’s shaming.

  ‘Blood calls to blood from the earth,’ Ygerne whispered. ‘I have dreams of a blood-stained child who is under attack from night ravens. Perhaps Morgan sends the dreams to drive me mad.’

  ‘No, mistress,’ Myrddion tried to reassure her. ‘Your inner self knows that no person can harm you in such a way unless you permit them to do so. Morgan’s obsessions lead her to dabble in horrors such as her latest abomination.’ He turned to Lucius to explain. ‘Morgan has a bandage for her eyes that is made from the skin that lies along the spine of a dead child. She believes that such a horror will open the doo
r to the sight, but her spells and portents are impotent because they are based on error. She only hurts herself, for such spells always demand payment from the person who seeks the power. The dark arts extract grim coin from those souls who would master them, and in the end they give the seeker nothing of use.’

  ‘I’ve begged her to burn that filthy thing, but she laughs at me and then binds her eyes to force the visions to come,’ Ygerne said. She rose, slowly but gracefully, and walked up the narrow bricked path between the flourishing rose bushes. An errant thorn plucked at her skirts, and Ruadh hastened to free the delicate fabric. ‘I know that she sometimes sees things that frighten her.’

  ‘I will try to speak to her,’ Myrddion said. ‘She listens to me sometimes when I offer advice because she believes I have some skills in these matters, although I can’t promise that I can deflect her from her purpose.’

  ‘She taunts Uther constantly,’ Ygerne said sadly. ‘But he is just as scathing with her. The two of them seem to enjoy baiting each other, and they drive me to distraction. Uther still keeps his soothsayer close at hand, but he turns to Morgan as well, although I can’t believe he trusts her at all. And he shouldn’t use her. She’d kill him without any regrets if she had the slightest chance to harm him with impunity.’

  ‘Don’t dwell on the relationship between Uther and Morgan,’ Lucius advised her. His stern mouth twitched with dislike for the unspeakable practices that had been described.

  ‘I agree with the bishop, highness. Come now, I will ask Ruadh to heat one of my herb teas to strengthen your blood. Your health is all that matters, so you must try to dwell on pleasant thoughts and surround yourself with beautiful things. I’ll pluck some roses for you and Ruadh will put them in water so the perfume can help you to sleep.’

  ‘I rarely rest in daylight, but I am very tired,’ the queen responded, smiling tremulously. Both Myrddion and Lucius desired only to protect this vulnerable woman, and the bishop coaxed her to accept Myrddion’s suggestion while the healer cut the huge red roses. The queen loved their heady perfume and took comfort from their velvety petals.