Web of Deceit by M. K. Hume

doors be suitably painted. As carved dragons of amazing intricacy had been adzed out of the timber, the red colours of the legions figured prominently in conjunction with thin strips of beaten bronze, copper and brass. Every wooden surface was covered with complex, intertwined patterns that had no ending and no beginning: much like the nature of the High King himself, with a firm foundation in the tribal past but strengthened by Roman invention.
    ‘As soon as you have bathed and dressed, you must return with your two guardsmen to this hall, where Prince Uther will introduce you and your party to the High King. Do I have your oath that you will not try to escape?’
    ‘Aye. Your prince kept hisword and allowed my assistant to go back to Segontium. I will not repay his trust by breaking faith with him.’
    Botha nodded his handsome, broad-boned head. ‘Fairly said. You have until sunset. At that time, my master will expect you, in company with your remaining assistant and your servant, to be ready and waiting outside the hall. Prince Uther has no interest in your women, so they may stay with the children.’
    ‘We will be there, Botha.’
    The route to the living quarters allotted to the healers was not long, but it was complex, for it wound through a network of streets that lacked Roman order and method. Myrddion recalled the grid patterns of Rome and the simplicity of finding a path from one landmark to another in the City of the Seven Hills, so the way through the outer, serpentine roads of Venta Belgarum was difficult to remember. Myrddion asked Praxiteles to memorise it, as he was more used than his master to finding his way through the circuitous marketplaces of the east.
    The house that would become Myrddion’s home for many years was a low, sprawling structure of stone and timber that had been constructed in the Roman style, and had probably once been the abode of a minor official attached to the legions. Myrddion was surprised by the lack of windows, for the building was quite old and harked back to a Roman domestic architecture that presented blank walls to frustrate possible enemies. Any light that filtered into the small rooms emanated from an open atrium that was small, overgrown and badly in need of weeding. Long before the carts were unloaded, Rhedyn’s thoughtful eyes were already fixed on a large patch of thistles that served as the lungs of the villa.
    Generally speaking, its rooms were cramped but comfortable, although Myrddion discovered a dusty, spider-webbed scriptorium, complete with scrollniches and shelves that were perfect for the storage of the young man’s precious glass jars. As this room was larger than most, Myrddion reasoned that the original owner of the villa was a man who made his living in some clerical capacity.
    Like children with a new toy, the healers explored the whole building. There were simple baths and a functioning hypocaust in the back of the structure, although the plunge pools were empty and the fires to heat the water were long dead. The women found the separate kitchen and Brangaine’s eyes grew starry with delight when she spied the overgrown remnants of a herb garden.
    ‘We will need servants,’ Praxiteles stated laconically as he ran his fingers over a dusty divan. ‘We’ll have to do a great deal of work to set this house to rights.’
    ‘Aye, but first we must wash and dress for our meeting with the High King. Is there a well?’
    ‘Yes, master, and there are pipes that go somewhere into the foundations,’ Cadoc answered swiftly, having raced through all the rooms and the dusty patches of unhealthy grass that were hemmed in around the villa by a low rock wall. ‘But I think they’re made of lead.’
    ‘They’ll need changing then,’ Myrddion muttered. ‘Find your best tunics, you two, and join me. Our guards will know where the nearest baths are.’
    Unfortunately, the Roman baths had been demolished years earlier, so the three men were forced to sluice