Gruffydd had his own nightmare visitors, the men he had killed and the friends who had gone to the shades before him. But his dead weren’t hungry for his pain, his fear or his suffering, thanks be to all the gods of all the nations.
The sick bastard! Gruffydd thought viciously. I hope he hurts! I hope he shits his insides out before the healer returns with a cure. But his face remained impassive, even sympathetic, as he organized lighting, clean water for washing and a fresh robe for the sick man.
As it was obvious that Caius was unfit to travel, Gruffydd decided that the party would remain in their present encampment until the situation resolved itself. Already, he was composing the report he would make to Artor on his return to Cadbury.
Less than two hours later, Gruffydd’s messenger returned with a white-haired old woman from a nearby village. The healer possessed a pair of light blue eyes that proclaimed her barbarian blood. Her amulet was a simple stone, pierced through the centre, and hung round her neck on a crude cord of flax. She was small, bent and lean, and Gruffydd could see the raised veins on her swollen hands.
Caius hissed as she approached him, and cowered in abject fear at the thought of a Saxon woman touching his body. She ignored him, sat on her heels and stared at his flaccid, naked body that was leaking blood and serum.
‘Do you like mushrooms?’ she asked her patient politely.
‘What have mushrooms got to do with anything?’ Caius howled. ‘Do your job and heal me, witch!’
She rose, nodded to her patient, and walked out of the tent. The old woman would have walked back to her village had Gruffydd not waylaid her.
Self-possessed and impassive, she stared into Gruffydd’s soul through his frowning eyes. What she found there seemed to allay her anxiety.
‘What ails the brother of the High King, mother?’ the Sword Master demanded bluntly.
‘Besides his many sins? I am not sure, master,’ the old woman replied enigmatically. ‘But it is certain that I cannot help him.’
‘Will he die?’ Gruffydd snapped, irritated by her riddles.
‘The Woman’s Comfort mushroom has caused him to bleed. He ate it three days ago, and he is now beyond all mortal aid. His dead have come for him, so permit me to return to my people. I must wash myself clean of the stink of him.’
Gruffydd raised his brows.
‘Woman’s Comfort is a pretty little mushroom that all women know. Some Christians also call it the Angel Cap. Only the greatest of needs, or the greatest of hate, would justify its use to cause the death of another living person. The very breath of your man is envenomed. I cannot tell what comes from his person and what from the mushroom poison in his blood.’ She looked at Gruffydd with a woman’s sharp sense of wickedness. ‘Do not ask me to minister to your patient, for my hands would become polluted.’
‘By the poison?’
She laughed, freely and openly. ‘No. By him.’ She pulled her ragged cloak about her narrow, old woman’s shoulders. ‘Have a care, good man, and bury him deep when he breathes his last, for he carries the death of others with him.’
In the two days and nights that followed, Caius raved at unseen shades that taunted him.
The warriors pointedly refused to tend to his needs. Strange things seemed to hover in the shadows in the corner of the tent, just out of view, and no sensible man chose to gaze on a wight.
Only Gruffydd remained to assist the dying man. He left copious amounts of water within Caius’s reach, but the patient remained parched, no matter how much fluid he drank.
Gruffydd took care to avoid asking what Caius had eaten, and from whom his rations had come. He did not want to know.
The son of Livinia Major took a long time to die, and the High King had not broken his oath in the process. Myrddion had given his last gift to his well-loved master.
Enid was heavy-bodied and dreamy in her final month of pregnancy, and Gawayne was a proud father-to-be. Even so, the Otadini prince continued to seek out willing girls in Cadbury town.
And Wenhaver smiled until her jaws ached with the strain.
When Gruffydd returned with the news of the death of Caius, Artor’s heart seemed lighter, but his eyes examined Myrddion speculatively. This mood lasted a mere day, and to everyone at the court of Cadbury, the relationship between master and healer seemed unchanged. But the eyes of both men were filled with shadows.
Artor rode to Venta Belgarum at the end of autumn. As was his custom, he sought absolution from the bishop of that venerable city, for his heart was heavy with guilt. He had come, late in life, to understand Uther’s belated piety.
Every night, Artor squirmed in his bed as he considered the dangers to which his Licia and his grandson, Bran ap Comac, had been exposed by his failure to execute Caius as soon as he became aware of the man’s guilt. And he found himself reliving Myrddion’s expressions of disbelief, and the old man’s scorn and anger when he informed him of the total inadequacy of Caius’s punishment. Worst of all, Artor knew that only Myrddion had the skill to destroy Caius so thoroughly. Gruffydd had mentioned mushrooms, and who but Myrddion had such knowledge of mushroom and fungal lore? Artor also understood that the blood on the hands of the healer was his own fault because he had mishandled the whole affair when a little honesty would have spared his old friend.
The High King was scarcely gone from Cadbury when Wenhaver began her campaign to reel in Gawayne. Myrddion and Nimue, who both knew her methods well, watched with amazement as the queen invited Lot’s heir to afternoons in the garden, even though the flowers were dying because of the cold night frosts. Her retainers were often sent away on various errands, and only those closest to the queen knew how she was flouting her wedding vows.
Gawayne, for his part, was beginning to experience unfamiliar pangs of guilt. As the baby moved inside Enid’s belly and prepared for its entry into the world, he found himself unable to meet the gentle eyes of his wife, for he knew he had betrayed her innocent trust. He had come to realize that he had betrayed Artor as well, and his admiration for the High King had always been pure and total. Gawayne’s true loyalties did not belong to Wenhaver, but she played upon his sexual weaknesses, and the lure of her body, luscious and inviting, was a more potent force than any notions of loyalty. If he sometimes wondered whether she betrayed Artor, and himself, with other men, he thrust such thoughts aside as unworthy. Gawayne really was a bonehead within the convoluted plotting of the court.
Nimue was called to Enid’s rooms when she took to the birthing stool. The child was huge, and Enid was tiny at the pelvis. The labour was protracted, and Nimue began to fear that Enid would die.
After a night and a day of hard labour, Enid was exhausted. Gawayne had fled from the room once his wife began her travail. The sound of her screams from the contractions, and her agonized pleas, echoed through the fortress until Wenhaver huddled in her room, demanding that her maids sing for her so that the sounds of childbirth were muffled.
During one seemingly endless contraction, Enid held Nimue’s hand so hard that her nails drew blood.
‘Don’t let my son die,’ Enid begged once the contraction had passed and she could breathe once more.
Nimue tried to feed her a little broth, and hid her fears behind practical action.
‘I must call for Myrddion, Enid. I know he is a man, and he has no place in the business of women’s labour, but you are too small to bear so large a child. You will both die if we don’t use his skill.’
‘Then send for him, but tell no one,’ Enid panted, as another contraction arched her swollen body with agony.
Nimue ran to Myrddion’s apartments, leaving Enid with her old nurse. Her hands were still stippled with blood as she burst into the study of her master.
‘Enid is dying. The child is too large to be born, and the birth canal is tearing. I need your help.’
Myrddion did not argue.
Snatching up several glass vials and a small leather wallet, he ran after Nimue. The route to the birthing rooms was obvious, for he could hear Enid in her extremity, although her screams were growing weaker. He had no doubt that Gawayne’s wife was near to death.
The nurse was afraid for the safety of her mistress, so she wasn’t overly scandalized by the presence of a male at such an intensely female event. She hovered over her mistress, so Myrddion sent her for water, and measured out several drops from one of his vials into the glass.
‘She must drink. This distillation of poppy juice will take away the pain and Enid will sleep.’
The narcotic gradually worked, and Enid drowsed in a half-conscious world. She still moaned occasionally with the pain of her useless contractions, but the empty corridors of the fortress were virtually silent as the poppy juice took effect.
‘Bless you, sir, for if my girl must die, it’s better she does so without pain,’ the nurse told him tearfully. Then she gasped with shock as Myrddion lifted Enid’s gown to expose her belly and thighs.
‘I cannot help this woman if I don’t know what is wrong,’ Myrddion snapped. ‘Has the head crowned yet, Nimue?’
‘Yes. But Enid is too small and the child is wedged in the birth canal. ’
‘Have you ever delivered a foal, Nimue?’ Myrddion asked.
‘No.’ Nimue sounded affronted. ‘And Enid is not a mare!’
‘The basic principles are the same. Wash your hands now, and do it carefully, for the Jews believe that contagion is carried on the hands.’
Nimue immediately plunged her hands into a bowl of clean water and commenced to scrub her fingers clean. Her elbow still pained her, but Enid’s need was greater than her own small aches.
‘You.’ Myrddion pointed at the nurse. ‘I want you to hold the blade of this knife over the flame of the lamp, and hold it there until the metal of the blade glows red from the heat. We must make sure that the fire cleanses it of all corruption.’
Nimue returned to his side with her freshly cleansed hands. When the nurse had sterilized the narrow knife blade, Nimue took hold of the hilt.
‘You will have to cut her now, Nimue,’ Myrddion said softly. ‘I will tell you exactly where to make your incisions.’
‘Cut her?’
‘You can see where the head is crowning, so you will have to cut on both sides of that point. You are about to ease the way for the child to come out of the canal. We can always stitch Enid up after the birth has been completed. Otherwise she will die, Nimue, and you know I’m not permitted to touch her myself. ’
‘Heaven help us all,’ Nimue prayed, and commenced to slit the straining, swollen flesh. The babe’s head burst into view and part of one shoulder, but the child’s flesh was a bluish colour.
‘The cord is trapped round the baby’s throat. You must remove it, fast!’
Nimue obeyed, but although the child’s flesh gradually became pinkish, he was firmly stuck in the body of his mother.
‘You must listen to me carefully, Nimue, and carry out my instructions as I give them. Is that understood?’
Nimue nodded.
‘You must grasp the child by its visible shoulder and try to free its arm. Then, perhaps, you will be able to pull him out by the shoulder.’ His gaze flickered from Enid’s body back to the face of his apprentice. ‘You mustn’t faint, Nimue, or Enid will surely die. Do you hear me? Enid will die.’ Myrddion turned to the nurse. ‘We need water, a needle and thread, and as many clean cloths as you can find. Then I need you to start warming the water.’
Nimue gently explored the shoulder of the child. A strong contraction allowed her to ease her hand into Enid’s body to find the small arm and Enid’s wound split further, and blood flowed.
‘Now wait for the next contraction, and then pull.’
‘I might break the child’s arm,’ Nimue wailed.
‘Breaks will heal without too much difficulty, especially in children,’ Myrddion answered brutally, his face firm and calm in the lamplight. ‘You know that.’
As Nimue saw Enid’s belly begin to move with the next contraction, she pulled, gradually exerting more and more pressure. Then, just when she believed that she had failed, the baby slid from Enid’s body, and Nimue almost dropped him.
‘Nurse, wrap the child up in that blanket. Nimue, tie the cord off about a finger length from its body, and then cut it off. Come on, woman, there’s no time to lose. This fine boy must be forced to breathe alone, and his mother must be prevented from bleeding to death.’
Nimue’s sure fingers carried out Myrddion’s instructions. She opened the tiny mouth and breathed into its lungs. The nurse then slapped the child hard on its tiny buttocks and he coughed out a plug of mucus, screwed up its eyes and commenced to cry lustily.
‘Nurse, wash the child and see to its warming.’ He turned back to Nimue. ‘You and I must save the mother. Use cloths to soak up the blood and move fast. That’s good. Now thread the needle. Ignore the cord, because the afterbirth comes free of the womb naturally, as long as there are no haemorrhages.’
Myrddion watched closely as Nimue worked to stitch the two gaping wounds together. His concentration was so great that Enid seemed little more than a piece of living meat to the old man.
‘Remember that you must take one stitch at a time, both inside and outside the wound. Keep the pressure on each stitch constant. Too tight with even one stitch, and you bring extra pressure to bear on the stitches alongside it. Too loose with the stitch, and you have a weak area where bleeding and seepage can take place. You can do this, Nimue, so don’t fail Enid now. Women’s bodies are very strong, and so much better made than the frail flesh of a man. Gawayne would not have survived the agony that Enid has borne. Pain and shock can kill just as easily as a knife.’
‘Yes, master,’ Nimue answered automatically, her eyes fixed on each stitch as she repaired the damaged flesh. Her task was relatively simple where the blade had cut, but the tearing caused by the many hours of labour was very difficult to mend.