Web of Deceit by M. K. Hume Read Free Book Online

quietly. ‘I’m not convinced that the Saxon race is naturally wicked or that they are more violent than we are. Their motives are foreign to us, so perhaps they’re just different. I wouldn’t choose to hate them simply because I don’t understand them.’
    Rhedyn flushed, but she squared her rounded shoulders defiantly. ‘Then I’ll hate them enough for both of us, master. As far as I’m concerned, it will always be sinful to slay people who are harmless and innocent.’
    ‘Aye. But few of us are truly without sin, Rhedyn.’
    Agreeing to disagree, Rhedyn held her tongue, and the small party quit the city to set up camp beyond the walls of Durovernum.
    Word of their trade had preceded them, so they were kept busy for the remainder of the day in the mundane practice of their craft. It was always so, for healers provided a small hedge against disaster, a bulwark when illness came calling or accident threatened to turn fragile human flesh into dust. Serious disease rarely came their way, for such patients lived or died quickly, but ambulatory sufferers were fast to seek out a cure when healers arrived in their town.
    The treatment of non-fatal ailments served the purpose of providing Myrddion and his assistants with much-needed information about the political and social realities of this small corner of the world. Farmers and townsfolk loved to gossip, especially about the lives of the great ones, as long as there was no danger in it for them, so they talked and talked to distract themselves from the pain of brokenteeth, rheumatic fingers and ingrown toenails, and the healers listened and remembered what they heard.
    The Saxons spoke fearfully of Uther Pendragon, younger brother of Ambrosius, High King of the Britons, and said that his ferocity and ruthlessness matched the most brutal of the Saxon thanes. No cruelty seemed beyond him, so simple men speculated that the many years of exile, after his family’s escape from the wrath of King Vortigern, had left a permanent, unhealed scar on his soul. The murder of his oldest brother, Constans, had created in him an unquenchable thirst for revenge on his mortal enemies – a group that was large and varied. Now, as the strong right arm of the High King, Uther led Ambrosius’s warriors into unceasing battle against the Saxon forts and villages. He showed no mercy towards his enemies, and was renowned for treating women and children as harshly as fully grown warriors. As justification for this barbarity, he boasted openly that lice breed and even nits spread and grow as they infest healthy hair. In his opinion, it was far better to destroy all parasites, especially when they were still growing and unable to resist.
    Myrddion remembered Uther’s cold blue eyes and shuddered at such a callous metaphor, knowing from experience that men such as the prince were capable of almost any horror in pursuit of their ambitions. It was six years since he had treated a jagged wound on the warrior’s arm, but the memory was still vivid enough to leave him in no doubt that, if he saw the need, Uther Pendragon would turn the whole land into a sterile desert.
    On the other hand, Ambrosius was honoured for possessing a more reasoned approach to the wars he was forced to fight. When the High King led offensives against the Saxons, Angles or Jutes, he spared women and children and took orphans to be raised as slaves and servants. Ambrosius believed that small children, when they were removed from their families before they had become imbued with outland culture, couldbe trained to become useful Celts as they grew. His moderate approach was applauded by the Celts, but scorned as weakness by the Saxon traders. Wisely, Ambrosius forbade any Saxon merchants from straying onto his lands, having learned that infiltration via commerce was soon followed by an invasion that used the intelligence gained by the merchants.
    Myrddion had never met Ambrosius, but he was impressed by what he heard of the