Prophecy: Web of Deceit (Prophecy 3)

by M. K. Hume

  Finally, drooping with weariness and the weight of the vigorous child in her belly, the queen was taken away by Ruadh to recline on her great marital bed with the roses close to hand in a container of green glass. Myrddion’s tea and the sweet smell of the huge, full-blown blooms lulled the exhausted woman into a fitful sleep. Prudent always, Ruadh sat beside her bed and stitched a piece of wool into a baby’s robe.

  In the rose garden, the bishop and the healer continued to converse in the midday heat. With Uther away on campaign, Myrddion discovered that the oppressive weight of suspicion had been lifted from the palace, so he spoke more freely than was his usual custom.

  ‘Uther isn’t enamoured with the idea of fatherhood, Lucius. Botha spoke to me before the army rode to the east, and confided that his master might choose to expose the child to inclement weather when it’s born. The High King prefers that no questions concerning Gorlois’s death should be prompted by the birth.’

  ‘But why would he do that?’ Lucius mused, his broad, tanned brow furrowed in confusion. ‘Every king desires an heir.’

  ‘Uther is not every king. He desires, more than all else, to eclipse the power of every other British king, even his beloved brother Ambrosius. Uther must be the cynosure of all eyes to fill an emptiness that lives within him, even if the mob should fear and hate him. He’s not prepared to share the authority of the throne with anyone, not even a son from his own body.’

  ‘That degree of egotism is lunacy,’ Lucius protested.

  ‘Then Uther Pendragon is a madman. He’s often a monster, like the dragon after which he is named. And he now professes to doubt that this child is the product of his own loins.’

  ‘Then his arithmetic is poor!’ Lucius snapped. He rarely brooked any criticism of the queen, for he recognised in Ygerne a nature of unwavering gentleness and love like that of the Madonna whom the Christians revered. Where Myrddion was sometimes irritated by the queen’s fragility, preferring women who were able to defend themselves, the Roman in Lucius was devoted to Ygerne as a symbol of the perfect wife – graceful, faithful, loving and fired by duty.

  ‘Uther doesn’t give a snap of his fingers whether the child is his or Gorlois’s. He knows the child is his, but the possibility that it might not be is sufficient justification for killing it. If the infant is female, he may permit it to live. But the child will surely die if it is male.’

  ‘No! He can’t do this thing! Ygerne would suffer terribly and there would be no legitimate heir to the throne. I’ve heard that Uther fears the passage of the years and has even asked Morgan to concoct potions that will ease the developing aches in his bones. But even Uther must acknowledge that no man is immortal.’

  Myrddion laughed sardonically. Sometimes Lucius’s goodness made him naïve.

  ‘True! He turns to Morgan because he trusts nothing from my hands, despite my healer’s oath which precludes me from treachery. Personally, I’d trust nothing that Morgan offered. I don’t really understand her motives, although you can be sure she offers her potions for a reason.’

  Suddenly, the veil of darkness was lifted from Myrddion’s vision. ‘So that’s why she hasn’t killed him!’

  ‘What are you saying, Myrddion?’

  ‘Morgan plans to destroy Uther slowly so she can feast on his suffering. But first, she plans to make him totally dependent on her. By the gods, I’m almost tempted to warn him. Women can be more fearsome than any warrior, even one maddened by bloodlust.’

  Then he laughed. ‘I’d rather be elsewhere than caught up in any battle between those two. Uther has brought Morgan’s enmity on himself, just as every ache in his ageing bones is inevitable, given his years in the saddle. Likewise, Morgan has always been a law unto herself. I first met her at Deva, when she offered to enter into a sexual partnership with me – solely for the acquisition of power. Yes, she adored her father, but she hasn’t risked her own skin to demand the blood guilt which is undoubtedly owed to her. Nor will it happen unless she is able to watch the results of her success in safety from somewhere close at hand.’

  ‘How could such ugliness be born from the loins of Ygerne, who is such a good woman in every way?’ Lucius asked thoughtfully. ‘And Gorlois was noble and direct – not given to manipulation or sadism.’

  ‘Why, bishop, it seems you’re a little in love with the queen yourself, just like the rest of us. She weaves a magic about her that will outlast the skein of the years. But even her qualities have little chance against her poisonous daughter and a cruel, vindictive husband.’

  ‘Doesn’t your famed gift for prophesy tell you what will come to be?’ Lucius’s wariness of the dangers of the sight charged his voice with cynicism.

  ‘The goddess has lifted that curse from me. Although I still dream, the waking fits of prophecy are gone and I will travel this life with only my two eyes and my wits to guide me. I am finally glad to be blind.’

  ‘Then God has been merciful because you remained true to your vow to Ambrosius,’ Lucius suggested, for he was genuinely curious about Myrddion’s talent. Like all Romans, he had been raised to believe that prophecy was real, and separate from religious belief.

  ‘No, my part in the betrayal of Ygerne was my fate. Sometimes, I wonder if I was born to preside over the birth of Ygerne’s infant, but I suppose that notion is just a sick and selfish fancy. At any rate, my gift of prophecy appears to be dead and gone.’

  Lucius glanced up at Myrddion with inquisitive brown eyes. ‘Could you abandon Ygerne’s son to the elements if your master demanded such an act?’

  Myrddion toyed with a rose that was past its best. The flower petals fell to the chocolate-brown earth under his restless fingers. ‘I don’t know, Lucius. Given the tasks that Uther has forced upon me, I have no idea what I would do if he added infanticide to the list. I don’t believe I could kill an infant, but how can we ever be sure what we would do if we were placed under pressure?’

  ‘You’re honest, as always, Myrddion. You make my decisions easier because of your candour.’

  ‘I do?’ Myrddion said, but he knew in his heart that both men had crossed some invisible line and that the blinded Fortuna no longer turned her great wheel.

  They sat quietly amid the over-blown roses which sweetened the air with the scent of new days and fresh possibilities. Somewhere in Myrddion’s tired, over-burdened heart, hope began to grow.

  The horns blew, wild with victory and triumphant arrogance, as Uther returned to his city, laden with wagons that groaned with Saxon booty. His restless boots trod the long corridors of his hall, driving out any serenity with the clash of his armour and the raucous celebrations of his guard. And in the soft lamplight of his private apartments, he dropped a pair of golden earrings, dully blinking with large garnets the precise colour of dried blood, into Ygerne’s hands.

  ‘Wear them out of love of me,’ Uther ordered, and Ygerne obediently removed the golden hoops that Gorlois had given her and replaced the gifts of love with the bonds of lust. What the queen really thought was hidden by her downcast eyes.

  ‘The child grows well,’ Uther stated unnecessarily. His mouth twisted with disgust at the rounded swelling that marred the body he still desired.

  ‘Aye, my lord, your son waits eagerly to be born. By my reckoning, only a month must elapse before he demands to be here. He will be strong.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Uther’s noncommittal response caused Ygerne to frown in turn. ‘The child is a confounded nuisance. He, she or it is making you ill, which I can’t abide. I’ve been gone for months and what kind of welcome do I receive on my return? A warm wife who waits eagerly for my arrival? No. I have a woman barely able to move or eat for the brat she carries.’

  Ygerne played with the spirals of his wild curls and tried to still the trembling of her fingers. Since childhood, she had understood that she had the power to soothe, and now she exerted this talent over the fractious, irritable man whom she had the misfortune to be tied to for the rest of her life.

  ‘Wh
at are a few weeks, my lord? I will be well and healthy again very soon, and I’ll be able to take care of you as you deserve.’

  Mollified, Uther never heard the ambivalence in her careful words.

  That night, he took his pleasure with a servant girl whom blind chance had given pale blue eyes much like those of Ygerne. The girl was terrified when he kicked her out of his bedchamber, bruised and bloodied, with a handful of coins and an order to keep her mouth shut. Like any sensible female, she fled the palace and the city, for Uther could always find other girls.

  Week followed week, and the pleasant days in the rose garden became a memory of lost comfort and tranquillity. Uther went hunting, easing the violence in his nature by killing every unfortunate creature that crossed his path. The kitchens could not use all the deer, the rabbits, the plump pheasants and the pigeons that the king and his guard slaughtered. With the prudence of the poor, the peasantry became accustomed to following Uther’s path through the forests and marshes, collecting the spoils of the hunt that Uther rejected for his table.

  The night of the dream was memorable because the first real hint of cold chilled the autumn air. Fortunately, the harvest was almost over, and after such a warm summer the granaries and root cellars were filling with the earth’s bounty. The frosts of the night crisped the apples still left upon the trees, leaving them to rot and blacken after the sudden freeze. Mists hung heavily over the fields like a breath of winter, while the furrows ploughed into the fields shivered under a rime of frost.

  The High King had been drinking late into the night with a clutch of Parisi and Iceni warriors who had arrived with tidings of the new fortifications in the north. Tired and irritable, he had stumbled into bed with a vile headache from too much sour ale and Hispanic wine. When the screams began in the silent hours before the dawn, Botha was the first to break into Uther’s room and was forced to strike his master across the face to release him from the control of the dream that was tormenting him. Trembling, Uther leapt out of his bed with an ashen face.

  ‘Send for Sea Bright. Send for the wise woman,’ he panted. ‘I cannot endure these night terrors any longer.’

  Botha read the panic in his master’s eyes and quickly left the room, leaving the newly roused servants to minister to the High King’s needs.

  Huddled in a patched cloak to hold the chill of the dark morning at bay, Muirne arrived before Uther had been shaved by his manservant, so she waited patiently in a corner of the opulent room. During the year she had lived in the High King’s house, she had saved every coin that came her way and told fortunes for profit whenever credulous women sought love potions or desired to know the future of a clandestine romance. Uther troubled her rarely, so Muirne had grown a little complacent, although she had heard rumours concerning how Ygerne came to wed Uther Pendragon. As Muirne awaited Uther’s pleasure, she expected nothing more taxing than dreams similar to those he had described when she first came to the court. Unwisely, she was also anticipating the coin that Uther Pendragon would toss her way if she should please him.

  ‘It’s about time,’ Uther grumbled as he pushed his servant away, careless of the sharp blade that had removed the reddish-blond hair from his chin. ‘Come closer, Muirne, and tell your master what he needs to know.’

  ‘The sight comes unbidden, your grace, so I can’t control what it tells me.’ Muirne’s accent was still as broad as ever, and her matronly figure, coupled with her plain, no-nonsense features, encouraged confidences.

  ‘Once again, I have had the dream of the spears that grow like wheat, the two women and the portents of a bloody child, but this time there were some added refinements that I require you to interpret for me.’

  Muirne nodded, bowed her head and waited.

  ‘This time, a dragon came out of the sun in a blaze of red and gold. I was engulfed in fire and I watched my skin blacken and curl away from my bones.’

  Uther shuddered as he relived an agonising memory. Muirne raised her brows interrogatively and noticed that the whites of Uther’s eyes were reddened with broken veins. Belatedly, a guarded look washed over her face.

  ‘I saw a woman with white hair and another with black curls. They both pointed fingers at me, and they laughed before stepping aside so I could see a child covered in the bloody slime of childbirth. When I shaded my eyes, I could see that the child was crowned with the coronet of Maximus. Then I saw an old, old man with my eyes. He was shrunken and withered by illness, and I realised that the creature was me.’ Uther shuddered. ‘I woke when my captain roused me after hearing my cries,’ he concluded with a flourish. ‘What do you make of that vision, soothsayer?’

  Muirne didn’t need the sight to interpret Uther’s dream. Gossip and rumour swirled around his palace like a swarm of wasps, and the antipathy of the witch, Morgan, was well known. Muirne had resented every instance when Uther had consulted his mortal enemy, the Dumnonii princess, because she lost prestige and profit by his defection. Perhaps Sea Bright should have been more careful.

  ‘Your dream has changed very little, my lord,’ she began cautiously. ‘The dragon is, of course, an image of you, so you are burning yourself up through your actions. Remember, my lord, that you must not kill a child, especially one that has your bloodline. The powers that allow me to see into the future have warned you that even an attempt of this nature will bring all the worst horrors of old age down upon your head.’

  As soon as she spoke, Muirne realised she had made a crucial error in judgement. Uther’s face reddened along the cheekbones, and Botha shot a warning glance at her. When Uther was in a temper, even the truth could drive him to extremes of behaviour. Muirne bit her tongue and dropped her eyes.

  ‘If I wanted such unwelcome advice, I’d call on the Storm Crow or that bitch Morgan.’

  Mention of Morgan brought Muirne’s resentments to the surface, and she snapped back at the High King without thinking. ‘I cannot control your dreams, my lord, and you are the only person who can know if there’s any truth in what I say.’

  You silly woman, Botha thought, as Uther rose smoothly to his feet. Being right won’t help you if he breaks your neck.

  Frightened by the feral gleam in the High King’s eyes, Muirne frantically attempted to repair her gaffe. But in spite of her best intentions, her gift for prophecy sent her tongue wagging along paths she had not intended to travel. She wondered, as she spoke the dreaded, unbidden words, whether she had angered the goddess through her greed.

  ‘Ah, macushla. Truly, the Great Ones send dreams to deter us from actions that would offend them. We mortals must listen when the gods speak so clearly to us. Kill no child, master, else you will wither and suffer.’

  ‘But you’ll be gone long before me, woman. Remove this crone, Botha, since her advice is so impudent. As of now, she can live as a beggar for all I care. Throw her out into the streets where she can reconsider her foolishness.’

  Now the wise woman’s face flushed with distress and anger at her own stupidity, but her temper would be her undoing. Her Hibernian brogue broadened, and then she spat on the floor near the king, completely disregarding Botha’s bruising hand on her plump upper arm.

  ‘Even dragons can perish, master,’ Muirne retorted in her rough accent. ‘Even the strongest and fiercest of beasts can be slain in their dotage. You cannot always kill your problems to remove them from your path.’

  She never had the chance to protest or to cower. Uther took two quick steps, scooped up the blade that had so recently been used to shave his chin and slit the old woman’s windpipe. She died in a welter of blood, her eyes wide with astonishment. As her senses dimmed, she knew she was being punished by the gods.

  Although Botha had leapt away from the wise woman as soon as he divined his master’s intentions, he was still drenched in gore that left him gasping ineffectually as he tried to clean his leather cuirasse with his sleeve.

  ‘Damn! Your impetuosity will be the death of us all, my lord. What did the old woman do except tell you w
hat you didn’t want to hear? As far as I’m aware, she’s been a faithful servant to you.’

  ‘The woman has been reading the runes and telling fortunes like a fairground whore under my very nose. Keep your mouth shut, Botha, unless you have a desire to join Ulfin among the ranks of my foot soldiers. I am the High King, and I shall do as I choose.’

  Uther waved the blood-covered blade in Botha’s face and the captain drew away in ill-disguised disgust. Uther’s eyes reddened further, and his expression hardened.

  ‘Get rid of the woman’s body by the time I return,’ he hissed. ‘I intend to go into the forest to hunt. Oh . . . and you can warn my wife that I expect her in my bed tonight – pregnant or not.’

  Then Uther stalked away, leaving Botha and the servants to dispose of Muirne’s corpse, just another victim in a city filled with men and women who flinched away from Uther’s touch.

  And every night that followed, Uther entered the same frightening dream and played out the same ugly scene. But he was weary of soothsayers, so he asked for no more dreamspinners, and determined to trust to the power of the sword to save him from the wrath of the gods.

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE BLOODY CHILD

  ‘I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.’

  Aristotle, Stobaeus, Florilegium

  The trees were almost bare of leaves in the fields beyond Ygerne’s window, and although she had no solid reason for her terrors but the dreams that came nightly, she was convinced that she would not live to see another green spring. While she had no dread of imminent death, believing that her immortal soul would be reunited with her beloved, her daughter’s descent into witchcraft and the fate of the child growing next to her heart demanded that she faced each day with courage. Although winter had yet to turn the weather bitter, grey skies threatened cold and freezing winds by morning and she sighed, remembering the previous winter and how her carefree happiness had fled so irrevocably.