He came to a halt. Countess Madalyn halted alongside him.
In front of them, a large circular vat made from something like beaten copper was sitting on a pile of burning logs. Two younger priests used poles to stir the concoction bubbling inside it. There was a noxious smell — it was sickening, reminiscent of burning dung. Foul, brackish smoke rose from the vat in a turgid column. When the countess came closer, she saw a brown, soup-like liquid, all manner of vile things swimming around inside it. At this proximity, its hot, rank fumes were almost overpowering.
"This effluent?" she said. "This filth…?"
"Not the filth," Gwyddon replied. "The thing that contains it."
"A cauldron?"
"Not just any cauldron. You've heard of Cymedai?"
She looked sharply round at him.
He smiled. "I see that you have."
"This is the Cauldron of Regeneration? But that is only a legend."
"Certain details concerning its origins are legend. Not all."
She appraised the cauldron again. There were no eldritch carvings around its rim, as she might have expected, no images or inscriptions on its tarnished sides. It looked ordinary, in fact less than that. It might have been something she'd find covered in cobwebs in a cellar or the cluttered corner of an apothecary's shop.
"It was never the property of two ogres living in a bottomless lake," Gwyddon said. "Its creators were never roasted alive in an iron building that was actually a giant oven. But there is some truth in the story. It was brought here from Ireland to keep it from the Irish king Matholwch, who sought it for his own. Once in Britain, it was given to the care of Bendigeidfran, who was slain resisting the Irish invaders. It was, as the bards tell us, broken in that fight, but it was later repaired and hidden again. For centuries its whereabouts remained a mystery, until Myrlyn located it. Since then, it has passed from one generation of our order to the next, always in safekeeping."
He spoke fondly, and with his usual eloquence. But Countess Madalyn was fast becoming weary.
"I come to you with a genuine grievance, Gwyddon. I offer you a fabulous reward. And you mock me with this!"
"Mock you, countess?"
"Both you and I know that this is some harmless cooking pot."
"Indeed?"
He clapped his hands, and a young slave stepped forward. It was one of those who had served Countess Madalyn earlier. In full daylight, she identified him as a boy, though, by his cadaverous face, emaciated frame and the brand-mark on his forehead, which looked to have festered before it finally healed, servitude had been cruel to him. The mere sight of the wretched creature touched her motherly nature. Christendom forbade human slavery, and now she understood why.
Gwyddon, of course, had no such scruples. Reaching under his robe, he drew out a bright, curved blade and plunged it into the slave's breast, driving it to the hilt, and twisting it so that ribs cracked. Blood spurted from the slave's mouth. He sagged backward on his heels, but only when the blade was yanked free did he drop to the ground.
For a long moment Countess Madalyn was too aghast to speak.
"Have I…?" she eventually asked, her voice thick with disgust. "Have I quit the company of one devil only to be wooed by another?"
"Everything I do has a purpose, countess."
"Everything Earl Corotocus does has purpose…"
"Wait and you will see."
Gwyddon signalled and one of the acolytes from the cauldron came forth with a ladle. Gwyddon took it, knelt, and carefully drizzled brown fluid over the slave's twisted features. When the ladle was empty, he handed it back, rose and retreated a few steps, all the time making some strange utterance under his breath.
Nothing happened.
"Master druid," the countess said. "As a Christian woman, I cannot…"
He hissed at her to be silent, pointing at the fresh-made corpse.
To her disbelief, she saw a flicker of movement.
Though the blood still pulsing from its chest wound darkened and thickened as the beat of its heart faltered and slowed, the body itself was beginning to stir. There was no rise and fall of breast as the lungs re-inflated; the eyes remained sightless orbs — unblinking, devoid of lustre. But there was no denying it; the slave was struggling back into a ghastly parody of life.
First it sat upright, very stiffly and awkwardly. Then it climbed to its feet with jolting, jerking motions, more like a marionette than a human being. The undernourished creature had been stick-thin and ash-pale before, but its complexion had now faded to an even ghostlier hue. Its mouth, still slathered with gore, hung slackly open.
Gwyddon's acolytes muttered together in awe. The chief druid himself seemed shaken. He licked his ruby lips. Sweat gleamed on his brow.
The corpse stood there unassisted, as if awaiting some diabolic command.
At length, Gwyddon came out of this daze and snapped his fingers. An acolyte rushed forward with a towel so that he could wipe his crimson spattered hands.
"This… this is not possible," Countess Madalyn stuttered, circling the grotesque figure. "How can he have survived such a wound?"
"He didn't," Gwyddon said. "He's as dead as the iron that slew him."
She waved a hand in front of the slave's eyes — they didn't so much as blink. Gingerly, she prodded him with a finger. Even through his blood-drenched tunic, she could tell that his flesh was cooling. She prodded again, harder — the slave rocked but remained upright, staring fixedly ahead.
"This is hellish madness," she breathed.
"This is the Cauldron of Regeneration," Gwyddon said. "As the Mabinogion states, it makes warriors of the slain."
"Warriors? This vegetable! This mindless thing!"
"Could he be more perfect for the task? He'll follow any order, no matter how fearful. He'll feel no pain, no matter how agonising. He'll commit any deed, no matter how atrocious."
"And he can't be killed?"
"Countess, what is already dead cannot die a second time."
"I don't believe you. This is druid trickery."
Gwyddon regarded her icily, and then re-drew his curved blade and spun back to face the slave. With a single overhand blow he hacked into the fellow's neck, not just once, but twice, thrice, in fact over and over, cleaving through the sinew. The countess stumbled backward, a hand to her gagging mouth. But Gwyddon hacked harder and harder, blood and meat sprinkling his robes, blow after butchering blow shearing through tissue and artery and, at last, with a crunch, through the spinal column itself.
With a thud, the head fell to the ground.
The slave remained standing. From his feet, his own face peered upwards, locked in the grimace of death, yet somehow with a semblance of life.
Even after everything she'd been exposed to, Countess Madalyn was nauseated, faint with horror. Only amazement at the seeming miracle and the importance of retaining her aristocratic bearing kept her from running shrieking. Again, she circled the mangled figure, though it took her some time to gather coherent thoughts. Enormous but terrible possibilities were presenting themselves to her.
"If he's a warrior, why didn't he try to resist you?" she asked.
Gwyddon found a clean corner of the towel, and dabbed it at the blood dotting his face. "I raised him, and therefore I am his master. He will not attack me. He cannot attack me."
"If this is true, why have you waited so long to bring this weapon to our notice?"
He shook his head at such a foolish question. "Whose side should I have rewarded with it? The Norman-English, who covet Welsh land and seek to make serfs of its people? Or the Welsh and Irish, whose Celtic Christianity is a harder, more barbarous brand than anything found east of Offa's Dyke."