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FROM THE AUTHOR. -------------------------------------------- Book
Information: Genre:
Epic Fantasy Author:
Sarah Douglass Name:
God’s Concubine Series:
======================
God’s
Concubine The By Sarah Douglass
Part One
The Gathering
Standing on the banks of the Thames
on his arrival into
"I will here, our kind to enjoy,
A city for the love of
For
Troia Nova the name shall be…"
Then came a king, hud was his name,
And made a gate in [the wall of] the
same,
Caer hud the name became…
When Saxons came that name was
strange,
Their own speech they did prefer,
They called the city huden or hondon
And the name soon became
hondon in the Saxon tongue.
Robert
Mannyng of Brunne,
Chronicle, 1303, Translated by
Sara Douglass
THE TIMBER HALL WAS HUGE, FULLY EIGHTY FEET
end to end and twenty broad.
Doors leading to the outside pierced both of the long walls midway down their
length, allowing people exit to the latrines, or to the kitchens for more food,
while trapdoors in the sixty-foot high-beamed roof allowed the smoke egress
when weather permitted: otherwise the fumes from the four heating pits in the
floor drifted about the hall until they escaped whenever someone opened an
outer door. Many of the hall's upright timbers were painted red and gold in
interweaving Celtic designs; the heights were hung with almost one hundred
shields.
Tonight, both painted
designs and shields were barely visible. The hall was full of smoke, heat, and
raucous, good-humored noise. Men and women, warriors and monks, earls, thegns,
wives, and maidens sat at the trestle tables, which ran the length of the hall,
while thralls, children, and dogs scampered about, either serving wine, cider,
or ale, or nosing out the scraps of meat that had fallen to the rush-covered
floor. The wedding feast had been in progress some three hours. Now most of the
boiled and roasted meats had been consumed, the cheeses were all gone, the
sweet-spiced omelettes were little more than congealed yolky fragments on
platters, and the scores of loaves of crusty bread had been reduced to the odd
crumb that further marred the food and alcohol-stained table linens, and fed
the mice, in the rushes, darting among the booted feet of the revelers.
At the head of the
hall stood a dais. Before the dais, a juggler sat on a three-legged stool, so
drunk, his occasional attempts to tumble his woolen balls and his sharp-edged
knives achieved little else save to further bloody his fingers.
A group of musicians
with bagpipes and flutes—still sober, although they
desperately wished
otherwise—stood just to one side of the dais, their music lost within the
shouting and singing of the revelers, the thumping of tables by those demanding
their wine cups be refilled without delay, and the shrieks and barks of
children and dogs writhing hither and thither under the tables and between the
legs of the feasters.
In contrast to the
wild enthusiasm of the hundreds of guests within the body of the hall, most of
the fifteen or so people who sat at the table on the dais were noticeably
restrained.
At the center of the
table sat a man of some forty or forty-one years, although his long, almost
white-blond hair, his scraggly graying beard, his thin, ascetic face and the
almost perpetually down-turned corners of his tight mouth made him appear much
older. He wore a long, richly textured red and blue heavy linen tunic,
embroidered about its neck, sleeves and hem with silken threads and
semiprecious stones and girdled with gold and silver. His right hand, idly
toying with his golden and jeweled wine cup, was broad and strong, the hand of
a swordsman, although his begemmed fingers were soft and pale: it had been many
years since that hand had held anything but a pen or a wine cup.
His eyes were of the
palest blue, flinty enough to make any miscreant appearing before him blurt out
a confession without thought, cold enough to make any woman think twice before
attempting to use the arts of Eve upon him. Currently his eyes flitted about
the hall, marking every crude remark, every groping hand, every mouth stained
red with wine.
And with every
movement of his eyes, every sin noted, his mouth crimped just that little bit
more until it appeared that he had eaten something so foul his body would
insist on spewing it forth at any moment.
On his head rested a
golden crown, as thickly encrusted with jewels as his fingers.
He was Edward, king
of
Godwine sat on
Edward's left hand, booming with cheer and laughter where Edward sat quiet and
still. The earl was a large man, thickly muscled after almost forty-five years
spent on the battlefield, his begemmed hands when they lifted
his wine cup to his mouth, sinewy and tanned, his eyes as watchful as Edward's,
but without the judgment.
The reason for
Godwine's cheer and Edward's bilious silence, as for the entire tumultuous
celebration, sat on Edward's right, her eyes downcast to her hands folded
demurely in her lap, her food sitting largely untouched on the platter before
her.
She was Eadyth,
commonly called Caela, Godwine's cherished thirteen-year-old daughter, and now
Edward's wife and queen of
The marriage had been
a compromise, hateful to Edward, triumphant for Godwine. If Edward married the
earl's daughter, then Godwine would continue to support his throne. If not…
well, then Godwine would ensure that Edward would spend the last half of his
life in exile as he'd spent the first half (staying as far away from his
murderous stepfather, King Cnut, as possible). If Edward wanted to keep the
throne, then he needed Godwine's support, and Godwine's support came only at
the price of wedding his daughter.
She was a pretty
girl, her attractiveness resting more in her extraordinary stillness than in
any extravagant feature. Her glossy brown hair, currently tightly braided and
hidden under her silken ivory veil (which itself was held in place by a golden
circlet of some weight, which may have partly explained why Caela kept her face
downward facing for so much of the feast), was one of her best features, as
were also her sooty-lashed, deep blue eyes and her flawlessly smooth white
skin. Otherwise her features were regular, her teeth small and evenly spaced,
her hands dainty, their every movement considered. Caela was dressed almost as
richly as her new husband: a heavily embroidered blue surcoat, or outer tunic,
over a long, crisp, snowy linen under tunic embroidered with silver threads
about its hem and the cuffs of its slim-fitted sleeves. Unlike her husband and
her father, however, Caela wore little in the way of jeweled adornment, save
for the gold circlet of rank on her brow and a sparkling emerald ring on the
heart finger of her left hand.
Edward had shoved it
there not four hours earlier during the nuptial mass held in her father's
chapel. Now that nuptial ring's large square-cut stone hid a painful bruise on
Caela's finger.
Caela's eyes rarely
moved from the hands in her lap—someone who did not know her well might have
thought she sat admiring that great cold emerald— and she spoke only
monosyllabic replies to any who addressed her.
That was rare enough.
Edward had not said a word to her, and the only other person who addressed
Caela (apart from the occasional shouted enthusiasm from her gloating father)
was the man who sat on her right side.
This man, unhappy
looking where Edward was sullen and Godwine buoyant, was considerably younger
than either of the other two men. In his early twenties, Harold Godwineson was
the earl's eldest surviving son and thus heir to all that Godwine controlled
(lands, estates, offices, and riches, as well as the English throne, which
meant that Edward loathed Harold as much as he did Godwine).
Like his father,
Harold was a warrior, blooded and proved in a score of savage, death-ridden
battles, but, unlike Godwine, a man who also had the sensitive soul of a bard.
That bard's sensibility showed in Harold's face and his dark eyes, in the
manner of his movements and his engaging ability to give any who spoke to him
his full and undivided attention. His hair was dark
blond, already
stranded with gray, which he kept warrior-short, as he did the faint stubble of
his darker beard. He was a serious man who rarely laughed, but who, when he
smiled, could lighten the heart of whomever that smile graced.
Harold was not so
richly accoutred as his father and his new brother-in-law, although
well-dressed and jewelled enough as befitted his status of one of the most
powerful men in
Unlike Edward, Harold
spent a great deal of time watching his sister, occasionally reaching out to
touch her with a reassuring hand, or to lean close and whisper something that
sometimes, almost, made the girl's mouth twitch upward. Harold had adored Caela
from birth, had watched over her, had spent an inordinate amount of time with
her, and had argued fiercely with their father when he proposed the match with
Edward.
Some people had
rumored that it was not so much the match that Harold raged about, but that the
girl was to be wedded and bedded at all. In recent years, as Caela approached
her womanhood, Harold's attachment to his sister had attracted much sniggering
comment. There was more than one person in the hall this night who, under the
influence of unwatered wine or rich cider and who thought themselves far enough
distant from the dais to dare the whisper, had proposed that Godwine's
flamboyant happiness this eve was due more to his relief that he'd managed to
get his daughter as a virgin to Edward's bed than at the marriage itself, as
advantageous as that might be.
If one were to guess,
one might think that Harold's wife, sitting on his other side, had been party
to (if not the instigator of) many of these whispers. Swanne (also an Eadyth,
but known far and wide as Swanne for her beautiful long white neck and elegant
head carriage) sat almost as still as Caela, but with her head held high on her
lovely neck, her almond-shaped black eyes watching both her husband and his
sister with much private amusement.
Swanne was a
stunningly beautiful woman. Of an age with Harold, or perhaps a year or two
older, she had black hair that, when unveiled and unbound, snapped and twisted
down her back in wild abandon. Her skin was as pale as Caela's, but drawn over
a face more finely wrought, and framing lips far plumper and redder than her
much younger sister-in-law's.
And her eyes… a man
could sink and drown in those eyes. They were as black as a witch-night, great
pools of mystery that entrapped men and savaged their souls.
When combined with
her tall, lithe body… ah, most men in this hall envied Harold even as they
whispered about him (the envy, of course, fueling many of the whispers). Even
now, sitting leaning back in her great chair so that her swollen five-month belly
strained at the fabric of her white surcoat,
most men lusted after
Swanne as they had lusted after little else in their lives. She was a woman
bred to trigger every man's wildest sexual fantasy, and she was the reason why
over a score of men had already dragged female thralls outside to be pushed
against a wall and savagely assaulted in a vain attempt to assuage their lust
for the lady Swanne.
On this occasion
Swanne did not watch her husband or his sister, her black eyes trailed
languidly over the hall, her mouth lifted in a knowing smile as she saw men
staring at her, lowering frantic hands below the table to grab at the lust
straining at their trousers. Swanne was a woman who enjoyed every moment of her
dominance, yet loathed those who succumbed to her spell.
Among the other
members of the wedding party on the dais sat Harold's younger brother, Tostig,
a bright-eyed, lively faced youth, and sundry other noblemen, earls or thegns
closely allied with Godwine. But King Edward had a few supporters, two Norman
noblemen who had remained at Edward's side since he had returned from his
twenty-year exile in Normandy at the young duke's court, and the rising young
Norman cleric, Aldred. Aldred had also come to
Aldred was not known
for the austerity of his tastes.
He snatched a
congealing piece of roast goose from the platter of a Saxon thegn, stuffing the
morsel inside his mouth.
All the time his
eyes—strange, cool gray eyes—never left Swanne's form.
EVENTUALLY CAME THAT
MOMENT WHEN GODWINE
decided that the
wedding was not enough, and that the bedding must now be accomplished.
At his signal (shout,
rather), Swanne rose from her husband Harold's side and, together with several
other ladies, took Caela and led her toward the stairs at the rear of the hall,
which led to the bedchambers above.
The largest and best
of the bedchambers had been prepared for the king and his new bride, and once
Swanne had Caela inside, she and the other ladies began to strip the girl of
her finery.
There were no words
spoken, and Swanne's eyes, when they occasionally met Caela's, were harsh and
cold.
When Caela at last
stood naked, Swanne stood back a pace and regarded the girl's pubescent flesh.
Caela's hips were still narrow, her buttocks scrawny, and her pubic hair thin
and sparse. Her waist remained that of a girl's: straight and without any of
that sweet narrowing that might lead a man's hands toward those delights both
above and below it. Her breasts had barely plumped out from their childish
flatness.
Swanne ran her eyes
down Caela's body, then looked the girl in the eye.
Caela had lifted her
hands to her breasts, and was now trembling slightly.
"You have not
much to tempt a husband's embraces," Swanne said. She moved slightly,
sensuously, her breasts and hips and belly straining against her robes, and
then smiled coldly. "I cannot imagine how any husband could want to part
your legs, my dear."
At that Caela
blinked, flushing in humiliation.
Swanne sighed
extravagantly, and the other ladies present smiled, preferring to ally with
Swanne rather than this girl who, even now, wedded to the king, promised less
prospect of benefaction than did the powerful lady Swanne.
"But we must do
what we can," said Swanne and clapped her hands, making Caela start.
"The wool, I think, and the posset I prepared earlier."
One of the ladies
handed to Swanne a small pouch of linen and a length of red wool, and Swanne
stepped close to Caela once more.
"Now," Swanne said, both eyes and voice cold
with contempt, "do not flinch. This will get you an heir better than
anything… save that wild thrusting of a man's thickened member."
She put a hand on her
own belly as she spoke, rolling her eyes prettily, and the ladies burst into
shrieks of laughter, their hands to their cheeks.
Caela flushed an even
darker red.
Swanne bent
gracefully to her knees before Caela and first tied the length of wool about
the small linen pouch, then tied the pouch to Caela's inner thigh. "This
contains the seeds of henbane and coriander, my dear. So long as it doesn't
confuse Edward's member too greatly, it will surely drive him to those
exertions needed to put a child in that…" she paused, her eyes running over
Caela's flat abdomen, "child's belly of yours."
Again the ladies
standing about giggled, but then came the sound of footsteps approaching up the
stairs, and the rumble of men's voices and laughter.
"In the bed, I
suppose," said Swanne. "He's bound to remember why she's there once he climbs in."
With that, the women
bustled Caela to the bed, drew back the coverlets over the rich, snowy
whiteness of the bridal linens, and bade Caela to slide in.
"We hope to see
the red and cream flowers of love spread all over that linen in the morning, my
love," said Swanne, pulling the coverlets back to
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As Swanne and her
ladies had done, so now these men, numbering among them Godwine and his sons
Harold and Tostig, attended to Edward, divesting him of his jewels and apparel,
and stripping him as naked as Caela.
Then Godwine drew
back the coverlets on Edward's side of the bed, and the king, his genitals
pitifully white and shriveled in the coldness of the room, clambered into the
bed and sat stiffly alongside Caela.
Once he was in bed,
one of the men handed him a goblet filled with spiced wine and the raw, sliced
genitals of a hare.
"Drink,"
said Godwine, "and my daughter will soon breed you a fine son."
Edward looked at the
goblet, very slowly and reluctantly raised it to his mouth, made a show of
sipping it, then placed the goblet on a chest at the side of the bed.
Harold looked at
Caela, caught her eyes, and tried to smile for her.
Across the room
Swanne laughed, rich and throaty. She pulled her shoulders back, aware that the
eyes of most were on her, and splayed her hands over the rich roundness of her
belly. "I wish you well, my lord," she said to Edward. "I hope your
screams of pleasure, as those of your bride, keep us awake throughout the long
hours of this wedding night."
Tostig giggled, and
Swanne shot her young brother-in-law an amused glance even as Harold hissed at
him to be silent.
As Tostig subsided,
Aldred stepped forward, staggering a little djunkenly on his feet, and raised
his hand for a mumbled blessing. Then Godwine said something coarse, everyone
laughed (save Harold, who watched Caela with eyes filled with sorrow), and then
Swanne began to direct people out of the room.
"Our king's
member can never rise with this many witnesses," she murmured, to more
good-humored laughter.
Swanne was the final
person to leave. She stood in the doorway to the chamber, her hand on the
latch, and regarded the two stiff people in the bed with a gleam in her
wondrous dark eyes.
"Queen at last,
Caela," she said. "You must be so pleased."
And then she was
gone.
THEY SAT, STIFF,
SILENT, COLD, STARING AT THE closed door.
Finally Caela,
summoning every piece of courage she could, took her husband's chilled hand and
placed it on her breast.
He snatched it away.
"I find you most
displeasing," he said, then slid down the bed, rolled over so that his
back faced Caela, and stayed like that the entire night.
IN THE MORNING, WHEN
SWANNE AND THE REST OF
the (largely still
drunken) attendants pulled back the covers from the naked pair, there was a
moment's silence as the eyes took in the unsullied bleached linens.
Swanne's eyes slowly
traveled to Caela's white face, and then she smiled in slow, malicious triumph
before she turned her back and left the chamber.
CbAPGGR GUDO
N THE SAME NIGHT THAT
CAELA, QUEEN OF EN-
gland, lay sleepless
beside her new husband, Edward so also the duke of
But where Edward and
Caela's wedding night remained coldly chaste, William and Matilda's night had
been filled with much loving and laughter. Theirs had been a marriage that they had made, and for which they'd had to combat the
combined disapproval of most of the princes of Europe as well the Holy Father
in
William lay on his
side, his head resting on a hand, his black eyes gentle as he regarded the sleeping
Matilda. Gods, he'd had to
fight so hard for her! They'd
first met just over three years ago at the court of Matilda's father, Baldwin,
the count of
/vs it, some rumored,
he somehow managed to draw on the experience of a past life as a victorious
king instead of a few meager years as the son of a tannery wench.
Thirteen years he'd struggled, and then William had
met Matilda. On that fateful day, William's only thought, as he strode toward
the count's dais, had been of Baldwin and what the count could do for him, but
then his eyes had fallen on the tiny form of Baldwin's daughter standing by her
father's throne. William had muttered a cursory greeting to
At that remark there
were several audible gasps and one hastily swallowed giggle from among the
members of William was six and a half feet—an
amazing height in an age when most men were grateful to achieve five and a
half—and with broad shoulders and heavy, tight muscles. Combined with his dark,
exotic looks (some questioned the tannery wench maternity, and opined that the
previous duke had got his son on some lost Greek princess) and bold demeanor
and bearing, William cut an imposing figure.
He certainly looked
too large to wed the dainty Matilda without causing her serious bodily damage.
But Matilda had not
cared about William's bastardy, nor worried about his large-than-life
physicality. She wanted him the instant his mouth grazed her hand and he spoke
those words: You were made for
me.
William smiled softly
as he lay watching his bride sleep. He lifted a hand and pushed a strand of her
dark hair back from her forehead. It was tangled, and damp with sweat, and
William's smile grew broader as he remembered
the enthusiasm with
which both had (finally!) consummated their union. Whatever
whispers may have rumored, the physical contrast in their heights and builds
had made not a single difference to the ease and joy with which they dispensed
with Matilda's virginity.
He stroked Matilda's
forehead again, his touch less gentle this time, and she sighed, shifted a
little in their bed, and opened her eyes. "I adore you," she
whispered.
He leaned down and
kissed her, but did not speak.
"And you?"
she said very softly, once his mouth lifted from hers.
William hesitated,
remembering that other time (so
long ago) when
he had made (forced) another marriage. This time, he
determined, he would not start with deception and lies.
"You are my
wife, my duchess, and I will honor you before any other woman, but___"
His nerve failed him
at that moment, and so Matilda did what she had to do in order to found their
marriage in such strength that it would never fail.
"But I will not
be the great love of your life." she said, propping herself up on one
elbow.
"That does not
worry you?" he said.
"You and
I," she said, tracing one of her tiny hands through the black curls that
scattered across his chest, "will make one of the greatest marriages
Christendom has ever known. What more could I ask?"
"That is not
what I expected to hear," he said, laughing softly in wonderment.
"That is not what I had learned to expect from wives." He reached up
a hand and cradled her face within its great expanse.
"You have
honored and respected me by telling me," Matilda said. "I can accept
this." She paused. "You will not dishonor me with her?"
"Never!" William
said.
"Romantic love
can so often destroy a marriage," said Matilda, "when what is needed
is unity of purpose, and unified strength. I will be the best of wives to you,
and you shall be the best of husbands to me, and we will marry our ambitions
and strengths, and we will never, never regret the choice that we have
made."
"I wish I had
found you earlier," William said, and Matilda could not have known that
with that statement he referred to a time two thousand years past when a former
marriage had resulted in such a ruination of dreams and ambitions that a nation
had foundered into chaos and disaster. As Brutus, he had failed with Cornelia;
William was determined to make a better marriage with this woman.
They made love once
again, and then Matilda slipped back to sleep. Once he was sure that she was
lost deep in her dreams, William rose from their bed
and walked to stand
naked before the dying embers of the fire in the hearth of their bedchamber.
The conversation with
Matilda had unsettled him. First, the maturity of Matilda's response had
astounded William, even though he well knew that she was a princess such as
Cornelia had never been, and made him appreciate even more the woman he'd taken
to wife. Second, the nature of the conversation had recalled to him Cornelia,
and Genvissa, and so much of his previous life.
When he had lived as
Brutus, two thousand years previously, in a world wracked by war and
catastrophe, he had been a supremely ambitious man. Brutus had allowed nothing
to stand in his way. At fifteen, Brutus murdered his father Silvius and took
from his dead father's limbs the six golden kingship bands of
In this new land,
Llangarlia, now known as
Even more
uncomfortable now that he was thinking of Cornelia, William glanced over his
shoulder at Matilda. Gods, there was nothing to compare them! Cornelia wept and
sulked and plotted murder. Matilda used reason and wit, and she accepted where
Cornelia would have argued. Cornelia had fought with everything she had against
Brutus' love for Genvissa. Matilda had shrugged and accepted it as of little
consequence to their marriage.
William closed his
eyes, feeling the heat of the embers on his face, and finally allowed thoughts
of Genvissa to fill his mind. Ah, she had been so beautiful, so powerful! She'd
been his Mistress of the Labyrinth, his partner in the Troy Game.
And then she had been
cruelly struck down by Cornelia before Brutus or Genvissa could complete the
Game.
Had he truly loved Genvissa? William stood, contemplating
the issue. After this night with Matilda, and most particularly after their
conversation, William wondered if what he'd felt for Genvissa had been an
astounding excitement generated by their mutual meeting of ambition and power
rather than love. Oh, there had been lust aplenty, but there had been no
tenderness, and little sweetness. Instead, William believed, he and Genvissa
had been
swept away by the
realization that united they could achieve immortality through their
construction and then manipulation of the Troy Game. They could make both
themselves and the Game they controlled immortal.
William smiled wryly.
That realization and that ambition had been far, far headier than love.
But both their
ambitions foundered into disaster, as Asterion manipulated Cornelia into murdering
Genvissa and putting a halt to the Game that would have trapped the Minotaur
back into its dark heart.
Disaster, and death.
A death that had lasted two thousand years. Why such a delay? William would
have thought that his and Genvissa's ambition, as well as the Troy Game's need
to be completed, would have brought them back centuries before this. Instead
they'd languished in death, frustrated at every attempt at rebirth, kept back
from life by a power that they'd both taken a long time to accept: Asterion.
Over two thousand
years ago, the Minotaur Asterion had spent his life trapped in the Great
Founding Labyrinth on the
William believed that
it had been Asterion who had kept Brutus and Genvissa locked within death for
so long, and Asterion who had finally removed the barriers to their rebirth.
Both Brutus and Genvissa had constantly fought for rebirth, and had as
constantly been rebuffed by Asterion's bleak power. He'd been stronger than
either had ever expected, and William had thanked whatever ancient gods who
still existed, in this strange world into which he'd been reborn, that as
Brutus he had secreted the kingship bands of
Why had Asterion kept
William-reborn and Genvissa-reborn at bay for so long? Had Asterion wanted to
find the bands and destroy the Game without risking their rebirth? Well,
Asterion had not found the bands— William could
still sense them, safe in their secret hiding places buried under the city now
called London—and so he'd caused Brutus and Genvissa to be reborn, hoping,
perhaps, that he could use one or the other to locate the bands.
Asterion had also
caused Brutus to be reborn far from
William had had no
chance to think of
William crouched down
before the hearth, stretching out his hands to what little warmth the embers
emitted. Oh, but
And Genvissa.
Genvissa had been
reborn. William knew it, but he didn't know who, or where, she was.
Genvissa-reborn undoubtedly faced the same obstacle. That was their great
dilemma. They needed each other desperately so they could reunite and complete
the Game, but they did not know who the other was. But wherever or whoever,
William knew one thing: Genvissa-reborn would not rest until she had achieved a
place within
But who was she? Who?
William pondered the
fact that as this night was his own wedding night, so also it was Edward of
England's wedding night. He knew Edward well, the Saxon king having spent a
number of his youthful years at William's court while he was exiled from
Genvissa would loathe
the necessity of becoming a wife, as she would loathe the inherent subjection
to a man that marriage meant in this Christian world. It went against her very
nature as Mistress of the Labyrinth, an office of such feminine power and
mystery that its incumbents refused to subject themselves to any man. Well
might a Mistress form a partnership of power and lust and ambition with a
Kingman, but never would she subject herself to him.
But William also knew
that Genvissa-reborn would do whatever she had to do in order to achieve her
ambitions. In this world women had little power. No longer did Mothers rule
over households and over their people; the idea of an Assembly of women setting
the course of a society was unthinkable now, when men ruled and subjected women
to their every whim. Unpalatable as it might be to her, Genvissa would subject herself to marriage, if it meant gain.
Marriage to Edward would give her the most gain of all. Queen of
The moment William
heard of Edward's betrothal to Godwine's daughter Caela, William had been
almost certain she was Genvissa-reborn. True, Caela
was by all reports very young, and as timid as a mouse, but maybe that was
merely Genvissa's way of disguising her true nature.
William idly wondered
what was happening in Edward's bed this night. Had he enjoyed his bedding with
the Mistress of the Labyrinth as much as William had enjoyed his with Matilda?
William's face
sobered, and he flexed his fingers back and forth before the fading heat,
slowly stretching out some of the tension in his body. He needed desperately to
contact Genvissa-reborn. He wondered if Caela had any idea who he was. Did she suspect William was more than just a
struggling duke of Normandy, or did she merely think of him as some bastard
upstart who brazened his way about the courts of counts and princes, and of
little consequence to her own life and ambitions.
William stared into
the fire, then grinned as a means of contacting Genvissa-reborn occurred to
him. He would announce himself in no uncertain manner.
She would know him by his actions, and by his message, and then she would make
herself known to him.
"Soon, my love,
soon," he whispered.
"William?"
His mind still caught
in thoughts of Genvissa-reborn, William jerked to his feet, turning about.
Matilda was sitting up
in bed, the coverlets sliding down to her waist and exposing her small breasts.
"What are you doing?"
After a moment's
hesitation, William walked to the bed, studying Matilda before he slid beneath
the coverlets. "Wondering if I dared wake you again," he said.
"But, look, now I find you have answered my dreams."
And with that he
seized her shoulders, and pushed her back on the bed.
"Matilda,"
he said, "Matilda, Matilda, Matilda," using the sound of her name in
his mouth to suffocate his thoughts of Genvissa.
cbRee
%. WANNE MOVED
THROUGH KING EDWARDS crowded Great Hall at
The monks were
ecstatic, sundry other clerics present were grudging (why
Happy to be alive and breathing after so long locked in death.
She saw Tostig's eyes
on her, saw the darkness in them, and she widened her smile and closed the
short distance to his side. "Brother," she said, "you do look
well this morn."
His eyes darkened
even further. "I am your husband's brother, lady. Not
yours."
"As my
husband's, so also mine." She leaned close, allowing her breast and
rounded belly to brush against him, and kissed him softly on the mouth in a
courtly greeting.
As she drew back,
Swanne heard his swift intake of breath and decided to deepen the tease.
"How else should I think of you but as my
brother?" Now Tostig flushed, and Swanne
laughed and laid the palm of her hand gently against his cheek, pleased at his
patent desire. At fifteen, Tostig still had not learned to conceal his thoughts
and needs, nor to discern, or even to realize, that the carefully chosen
expressions of others so often concealed contradictory thoughts.
Tostig began to
speak, struggling over some meaningless words, and Swanne studied him
indulgently. He was not, nor would ever be, as handsome as Harold, but he had a
certain charm about him, a darkness of both visage and spirit that Swanne found
immensely appealing.
He could be so
useful.
"Tostig,"
she said, and slipped one arm through his. "I am finding this crush quite
discomforting. Will you escort me through the hall to my husband's side?"
She leaned against him. "I feel quite faint amid this airlessness."
"Of course, my
lady!" Tostig said, relieved to have been given something to do, yet
flustered all the more by Swanne's attention and the press of her flesh against
his. He suddenly found himself wishing that he'd laid eyes on her before
Harold, and that he had been the one to demand her hand and her virginity.
"Aside! Aside
for the lady Swanne!" he cried, paying no attention to the irritated
glances of thegns and their wives. No one said anything, not to a son of the
powerful earl of
Within moments,
Tostig had led Swanne into the clearer space before Edward's dais. The Great
Hall, only recently completed, formed the focus of Edward's entire palace complex
at
The focus of the hall
was the dais at the southern end. Here Edward currently sat, conversing with
Harold who stood just to one side and slightly
Denina me kings
throne, and with Eadwine, the newly appointed abbot of
Tostig halted as soon
as they'd moved into clearer space, and now he stared toward the queen.
"Will there be a child soon?" he asked quietly of Swanne.
She laughed, the
sound musical and deep, and for an instant Tostig felt her body press the
harder against his. "Nay," she said. "There will never be a
child oithat union."
"How can you be
so sure?"
Swanne put her lips
against Tostig's ear, and felt him shudder. "He will not lay with
her," she said. "He believes fornication to be such a great evil that
he will not participate in it." She paused. "Especially with a
daughter of Godwine. He will have no Godwine heir to the throne. My dear,"
she said, allowing a little breathlessness to creep into her voice, "can you imagine such restraint?"
"With you in his
bed, no man, not even Edward, would be capable of it."
"You flatter me
with smooth words," she said, but let Tostig see by the warmth in her eyes
how well she had received his words.
"But…"
Tostig struggled to keep his voice even, "but if he has no child of his
body, then surely then there will be a Godwine heir."
"My
husband," she said, laughing. "For surely, for who else? To think,
Tostig, you stand here now with the future queen of
Emboldened by her
words and touch, Tostig said, "That you will be queen of England there can
be no doubt, but who the lucky Godwine brother is that sits beside you as your
lord can still be open to question."
That I will be queen of England is
undoubted,
Swanne thought, laughing with Tostig, encouraging his foolish words, but that you will ever sit beside me, or Harold, can never be. I have a greater lord
awaiting me in the shadows, a mightier lover, a Kingman, and the day he
appears, so shall all the Godwine boys be crushed into the dust.
At that moment Harold
looked up from his discussion with Edward, and saw his wife standing too
familiarly close to Tostig. He frowned, and spoke swiftly to one of his thegns
who stood behind him.
The next moment the
thegn had stepped from the dais and was approaching Tostig and Swanne. "My lady and lord," he
said, bowing slightly, "the lord Harold begs leave to interrupt your mirth
and requests that his wife join him on the dais. We have
received word that a
deputation trom the auKe 01 iNormanuy nas amvcu, <mu the king wishes to receive
him."
"I am not invited?" said Tostig.
"You are not my
lord's wife," said the thegn.
"I am a
Godwineson!" Tostig said, seething.
The thegn was a man
of enough years and experience not to be intimidated by the brashness of youth.
"All the more reason why our king would not want you standing beside
him," he said. "Harold stands there as representative of his father,
who cannot attend. Edward tolerates him, but only him. My lady, if you will accompany me."
And with that, the
thegn led Swanne away, leaving Tostig standing red-faced and humiliated.
HAROLD TOOK SWANNE'S
HAND AS SHE MOUNTED the dais, and helped her to a chair. "Was Tostig
annoying you?" he asked, smiling gently at his wife. By God, even now he
could hardly believe he'd won
such a treasure!
"He is a
youth," Swanne said, her expression now demure as she sat. "All
youths are abrasive,
and annoying."
"I will speak to
him," Harold said.
"Oh, no!"
Swanne said. "It would embarrass him, and only create bad blood. Let it
rest, I pray you."
Harold began to say
something else, but just then Edward leaned over and hushed them both, waving
Harold to his own chair to the king's left.
"I dislike
people whispering behind my back!" Edward said, and Harold bowed his head
in apology as he sat. Once Edward had returned his attention to the Hall,
Harold leaned back, looking behind Edward's throne to where Caela's own throne
sat aligned with Harold's chair. He tried to catch her eye, but she was so
determinedly focused on her embroidery that she did not, or chose not to,
notice his gaze.
Sighing, Harold
turned his eyes back to the front. He'd had so little chance to speak with
Caela in the past two months, and no chance at all to ask of her in privacy why
she wore such a face of misery to the world.
Damn their father for giving such a
wondrous girl to such a monstrous
husband!
In truth, Harold
would vastly have preferred to have spent the morning out hunting, but he'd had
to stand in for his father who was not well. Despite the strained and often
hostile relations between the earl of
I
noblemen advisers,
and thus sat, by right, on the dais beside Edward. If God-wine could not
attend, then it was best his eldest son and heir do so in his place. Not only
would Harold represent Godwine during court proceedings, but his presence would
also further cement the
Godwine was
determined that one day either he, or his son Harold, or the far less likely
prospect of his grandson by Caela, would take the throne of
Once the dais was
still, Edward waved to the court chamberlain to admit the duke of
Edward had two great
weapons to use against the Godwine clan: the first was his refusal to get an
heir on Caela; the second, his deep ties with the Norman court that carried
with it the possibility that Edward would name the duke of
As far as Edward was
concerned, William was not only a friend and an ally, he was one of the few
weapons Edward had against Godwine and his sons.
Edward liked William
very much.
The Norman entourage
entered the Great Hall with a flourish of horns, drums, the sound of booted and
spurred feet ringing out across the flagstones, and the sweep of heavy cloaks
flowing back from broad shoulders. Edward grinned as he recognized several
among the entourage that he knew personally.
There were some
twenty or twenty-two
Guy Martel led his
entourage to within three paces of the dais, then halted, bending to one knee
in a gesture of great gracefulness.
Behind him, each
member ot the entourage likewise dropped to a Knee, bowing his head.
"My greatest
lord," Martel said, his voice ringing through the Hall, "I greet you
well on behalf of my lord, William of Normandy, and convey to you his heartiest
congratulations on the occasion of your marriage."
Edward grunted.
On her chair, Swanne
shifted slightly, bored with proceedings. She tried to catch Tostig's eye for
some amusement—he was standing to one side of the Hall—but failed. She sighed,
and rubbed her belly, wishing she were anywhere but here at this moment. Her
mind began to drift, as it so often did, to thoughts of Brutus-reborn, and
where he might be, and if he were thinking of
her.
"My lord wishes
to present you with a token of his love and respect," Martel continued,
"and hopes that you are as blessed in your marriage as he
is in his."
With that, Martel
reached under his cloak, and withdrew a small unadorned wooden box. "My
lord, if I may approach…"
Mildly curious—and
yet disappointed that William's gift was not more proudly packaged—Edward gestured
Martel forward, taking the box from him.
"What is
this?" he said, opening the lid and staring incredulously at what
lay within.
It was nothing but a
ball of string. Impressively golden string, but a ball of
string nonetheless.
This is what William thought to offer
a king as a gift?
Caught by the offense
underlying Edward's words, Swanne looked over, wondering what the duke of
"What is
this?" Edward repeated, and withdrew the ball of string from the box,
holding it up and staring at it.
Swanne went cold, and
her heart began to pound. She was so shocked that she could not for the moment
form a coherent thought.
"A ball of
string?" Edward said, the anger in his voice now perfectly apparent.
"If I may,"
said Martel, taking the string from Edward. "This is a treasure of great
mystery." He continued, "May I be permitted to show to you its
secret?"
Edward nodded,
slowly, reluctantly. A
treasure of great mystery?
Trembling so badly
she could hardly move, Swanne edged forward on her seat. Oh, please, gods, let this be what I want it to be!
Please, gods, please!
Martel began to
unwind the string, which was indeed made of golden thread. His entourage had
now formed a long line behind him, and Martel
siowiy waiKea aown
the line, spinning out the string so a portion of it lay in the hands of each
member of the line. Once the string had been entirely played out—there were
perhaps fifteen or twenty feet of string between each man—Martel walked back
toward Edward's dais, holding the end of the string.
Again he bowed.
"Pray let me show you," he said, "the road to salvation."
And with that, still
keeping a firm hold of the end of the string, he stepped back, and nodded at his
men.
They began to move,
and within only a moment or two, it became obvious that they moved in a
well-choreographed and practiced dance of great beauty. They moved this way and
that, in circles and arcs, until each watcher held his or her breath, sure the
string was about to become horribly and irredeemably tangled. But it never did,
and the men continued in their dance, their faces somber, their movements
careful and supple.
Of all the watchers,
only Swanne knew what she was truly watching, and only she knew what that ball
of string represented: Ariadne's Thread. The secret to the labyrinth.
And gift to Edward be damned. This
was a message for her, and her alone!
"Brutus,"
she whispered, now at the very edge of her seat, her eyes staring wildly at the
Brutus… none other than William of
"Thank all the
gods in creation," she said, again in a whisper, and her eyes filled with
tears and her heart pounded with such great emotion that Swanne was not
entirely sure that she would not faint with the strength of it at any moment.
With a final flourish
the dancers halted, paused, and then in a concluding, single movement, each
laid his portion of the string on the ground, and then moved away from it,
their task completed.
Soon the flagstone
area before Edward's throne was empty, save for the golden thread, now laid out
in a perfect representation of the pathways of a unicursal labyrinth.
Edward had risen to
his feet, and his eyes moved slowly between the golden labyrinth laid out on
the floor and Guy Martel.
"The road to
salvation?" he said in a puzzled tone.
"My lord duke
well knows of your piety," Martel said, "and of your great
disappointment that you have been unable to tread those paths within
you enter the heart
of the labyrinth that Christ and his redemption await you. When you exit the
labyrinth, retracing your steps through its twisting paths, you do so in a
state of grace, and you will truly be stepping on the pathway toward your own
redemption. This labyrinth, great lord and king of
No, thought Swanne, the tears running freely down her
cheeks, this is Brutus-reborn's gift to me.
Edward was clapping
his hands, his cheeks pink with joy, and he began to converse animatedly with
Martel. But Harold was staring at Swanne, and leaned over to her, concerned.
"My dear, what ails you?"
Clearly overcome with
emotion, her eyes locked onto the golden labyrinth, Swanne had to struggle to
speak. When she did, her voice was only a hoarse whisper.
"The
child," she said, and rested a trembling hand on her belly. "The
child has caused me some upset. I will retire to our chamber, I think, and
rest."
Harold leaned closer,
worry now clearly etched on his face. "Should I send for the
midwives?"
"No! No, I need
only to rest. The heat and the crowd in this Hall have made me feel faint. I
will be well enough. Please, Harold, let me be."
And with that she
rose and, a little unsteadily at first, made her way from the Hall.
Harold might have
followed her, but as Swanne passed behind Caela's chair, he saw that his sister
was staring at the labyrinth with almost as much emotion as Swanne had been.
Harold sent a final glance Swanne's way—she was walking much more steadily now,
and his worry for her eased—then he rose himself and went to Caela's side.
"Sister, what ails you?"
She tore her eyes
from the labyrinth, and looked at Harold. "How do we know," she said,
"that Christ is in the heart of the labyrinth, instead of some dark
monster? Promise me, Harold, that you will never enter that pathway." He
attempted a smile for her. "Should you not be warning your husband?" "I care not who he meets within the heart of the
labyrinth, brother. Christ, or a monster."
And with that she,
too, was gone, rising to exit with her ladies.
LATER, AS MARTEL WAS
SHOWING EDWARD THE INTRI-cacies of laying out the string into the form of the
labyrinth, a man leaned
against the wall of
the Great Hall and watched with a cynical half smile on his face as the king of
He was a man of some
influence within Edward's court, and that influence was growing stronger day by
day. He was a man liked and trusted by many, disliked by some others,
overlooked by many more, and used by none. He was a man far greater than his
outward appearance and station within society would suggest.
He was Asterion, the
great Minotaur, lover of Ariadne, and victim of Theseus. Many thousands of
years ago, Asterion had been trapped within the heart of the Great Founding
Labyrinth of Crete. There Theseus had come to him and, aided by Ariadne,
Asterion's half sister, had slain him. But then Theseus had abandoned Ariadne
and, in revenge, she colluded with Asterion's shade, promising him rebirth into
the world of the living if he passed over to her the Darkcraft, the dark power
of evil that the Game had been created to imprison. Asterion had agreed,
handing over to Ariadne the ancient Dark-craft for her promise that she would
destroy the Game completely.
But Ariadne had lied,
and one of her daughter-heirs, Genvissa, had sought to resurrect the Game with
her lover Kingman, Brutus. That attempt had ended in disaster and death—two of
the things Asterion was best at manipulating— but the attempt had given
Asterion cause for thought.
What if, instead of
completely destroying the Game, he sought to control it?
Asterion stood within
the Great Hall of Westminster, clothed in the guise he wore every day to
confuse and deflect, watching Edward in his labyrinth, his thoughts all on that
great prize: the Troy Game. To control the Game, Asterion needed the six
kingship bands of
The bands were a
pitiful prize, considering that Asterion had the power to raise and destroy
empires, but these bands continued to elude him as they had from that moment
when Asterion, in his rebirth as Amorian the Poiteran, had invaded and razed
Brutus' Troia Nova. He had not been able to find the bands then. He had
continued to fail in their retrieval for two thousand years. Brutus had hid
them well, embuing their secret places with such protective magic that they
remained hidden from Asterion.
And, by all the gods
and imps in creation, how Asterion had tried to uncover their location! He had
thrown everything he had at the city in order to
discover their locations. He knew they were somewhere within
Asterion knew it,
because every time he destroyed the city, whether in sheer fury or in order to
try again to unearth the bands, the city regrew. Under Asterion's direction,
the Celts, the Romans, the Scotti, the Picts, the
various tribes of the
Anglo-Saxons, and finally the Vikings had invaded the land and razed or
otherwise destroyed
corpses.
Every time the city
was struck down, it somehow recovered. Perhaps not overnight, but it did recover. Other cities would have succumbed and
vanished beneath the waving grasses of wild meadows. But not
stay dead.
This told Asterion
several things. One, that the bands were
still here, for otherwise the Troy Game would not be able to function. Two,
that the Game begun so long ago remained alive and well and grew more vital
with each disaster, as it absorbed the evil that attacked it. Finally, the
city's continued regeneration told Asterion where the Game was—where lay its
heart.
When Asterion, as
Amorian, had razed Brutus' Troia Nova, he had not been able to determine the
location of the actual Troy Game itself, where lay the labyrinth. For decades
the area surrounding the
Flushed with their
success, which they attributed to the benefice of the gods, the town's citizens
built a temple of standing stones atop Og's Hill. The town grew space—and was
then torn apart by Asterion's fury in the guise of the invading Celts. The area
surrounding the ancient Veiled Hills remained desolate for almost a century.
Then the Celtic
Britons built there a larger town this time, in the same spot that Brutus had
erected Troia Nova, their streets following the contours of his streets. The
town prospered, and the Celtic Druids erected a circle atop Og's Hill, which
they now called Lud Hill after one of their gods. This community Asterion
murdered with disease—a horrific plague that wiped out much of the population
of southern
Diana, the Roman
Goddess of the Hunt, who had been known during the time of the Greeks as
Artemis.
Asterion, who walked
through Roman London as one of
The labyrinth was
there. It had to be. It attracted to it the veneration and temples of every
people who lived within the city.
And yet the Game and
the labyrinth it hid would not allow Asterion to uncover it. No matter how many
times he caused the temples and churches atop Lud Hill to be razed, Asterion
could never discover the labyrinth.
No matter how deep he
caused his minions to dig. Now a Christian cathedral graced
the top of the hill.
To his eyes, still
yearning for the grace and color and beauty of the temples and halls of the
ancient Aegean world,
Suddenly Asterion's
eyes refocused on Edward in the Great Hall. The fool had worked his way through
the labyrinth to its heart, and then back out again. Now he was calling for
cups of wine to be handed about so he could raise a toast to William of
Normandy.
A servant handed
Asterion a cup, and Asterion put a smile on his face, nodding cheerfully to
Edward when the king looked at him, and toasted William of Normandy with wine
while in his heart he cursed him.
Asterion was wary of
William. Very wary. As Brutus, William's magic had been powerful enough to
outwit Asterion in his hunt for the kingship bands. Brutus' power was the
principal reason Asterion had for two thousand years kept those blocks in place
that prevented William and Genvissa's rebirth (and thus preventing everyone
else's rebirth who had been caught up in this battle).
But Asterion had not
been able to discover the bands, and thus, a few decades ago, frustrated beyond
measure, he had removed the blocks. One by one, women across western Europe had
fallen pregnant and given birth to babies who, as they grew, drew on the
remembered experiences and ambitions of a past life to shape their decision in
this life.
Asterion had taken
the added caution of ensuring that, first, William was reborn far from London
(a nice touch, Asterion thought, remembering how Genvissa's mother, Herron, had
caused Asterion to be reborn far from Llangarlia so many lifetimes ago), and,
secondly, William was kept busy and
distracted with
problems within his own duchy. Asterion did not want to meet William until he,
Asterion, was well and ready.
And Asterion did not
want to meet William, or to have to cope with the problem of William, until he
had the bands and… her.
His eyes slid from
Edward to the door through which Swanne had
vanished.
"Enjoy what
happiness you can find, Swanne," Asterion said. "It won't last
long."
CbAPGGR FOUR
ARRIAGE TO HAROLD
HAD BROUGHT SWANNE
many benefits—her
current proximity to
She had brushed aside
Harold's concerns, she had brushed aside the concerns of her attending woman
Hawise, and now Swanne stood wonderfully alone, her back against the closed
door of the bedchamber.
"Brutus,"
she whispered, the tears now flowing again down her cheeks. Then, more loudly,
more emphatically, "William!"
William of
Once again he would
reign as king over
"William,"
she whispered yet one more time, rolling the word about her mouth, loving the
feel of it, joyous in her new discovery.
He had sent that ball of string as a
message to her! He yearned for her as much as she for him!
It seemed such a
simple thing, discovering what name Brutus went by in this life, but its lack
had meant that Swanne had not, to this point, been able to discover or contact
Brutus-reborn. She needed to know who he was to be able to contact him, and
likewise he had to know her name. Much of her life to this point had been spent
in that search: Where are you
Brutus? Where?
Always that search
had been frustrated over and over again by circumstance.
Swanne had been born
in a county a long, long way from
or eleven years old
and had come to a full awareness—and remembrance— Swanne had been desperate to
leave her father's home and get to
To get back home.
To find Brutus and to
finish what had been so terribly interrupted.
But Swanne had been
reborn into a life and a world in which women had very little power, and even
less say over the destiny of their lives. Her father had laughed at her
pleadings to be allowed to live in
The thought of a husband made Swanne even more desperate—no Mistress of the
Labyrinth submitted to a husband—but as she grew older, and
rejected the hand of every suitor her father tossed her way, she grew ever more
desperate. She'd hoped Brutus-reborn would one day ride into her father's
estate and claim her, but he didn't, and Swanne realized he probably wouldn't.
As she did not know
him, so he did not know her.
The only way out of
her father's house, and the only way to
Then one day Harold
Godwineson had ridden, laughing and strong, into her father's courtyard, and
the instant Swanne had seen his face, felt his eyes upon her, she had known.
She had known who
Harold was reborn, and she knew she could use him. He would be her bridge to
Brutus-reborn and to
The blessing in all
of this was that Harold himself had no memory of his past life. If he'd had,
Swanne would have had no chance at him at all. She had no idea as to why this
was so—perhaps it was merely an indication of Harold's complete meaningless in
what was to come—but she was very, very grateful.
And so Swanne had
smiled, and shaken out her jet-black hair, and tilted her lovely head on her
graceful neck, and had won Harold before he'd even dismounted from his horse.
She went to his bed that night, and in return he had taken her from her
father's house the next morning.
They were wed, but
under Danelaw rather than Christian. That had been Swanne's demand, and Harold,
desperately in love with her, had agreed without complaint. A Danelaw marriage
gave Swanne more independence, and far more control over her extensive lands,
which had been her dowry, than a Christian
©
marriage would have
done. Under the hated Christian law, everything—her estates, her chattels, even
her very soul—would have become Harold's. Under Danelaw it remained Swanne's
And thus to
Where was Brutus? What was his name
in this reborn life?
But now she
knew, and all she wanted to do was go to him, and, in this want and need,
Swanne succumbed to a fit of hatred so great that she actually sank to the
floor, beating at her belly with her fists.
All she wanted to do
was go to her lover, to go to William, and here she was, almost seven months
swollen with another man's child.
Harold! She spat the name, all her
gratefulness for his usefulness vanishing in her anguish. She wanted to go to
William. She wanted to so
badly, she could taste the need in her mouth, feel it in her
body, and here she was, great with another man's child! Coel's child.
Swanne went cold with
apprehension. Oh gods… Coel's child. How could she explain that to William?
She hit her belly
hard with the closed fist of her right hand, beating at it until she bruised her
skin beneath its linens and silks. Coel-Harold's child. And a son.
She conceived the
baby only after many months of marriage, when it had become apparent to her
that Brutus-reborn was nowhere within Edward's court, and likely nowhere within
"Curse you, Harold, for getting this child in me!" she said, low and vicious,
and she barely
avoided using her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to visit him with a
death-dealing curse then and there.
No, no, she must be
careful. She must be prudent. She was very well aware that Asterion lurked
somewhere, and, after the mistakes of the past life, Swanne was not going to
make another ill-considered move until she knew precisely where Asterion was
and what power he commanded. As Genvissa, she had thought he was weak and
essentially powerless. What a fool she had been. Asterion had played with them
all, had toyed with them, and had used Cornelia
to stop the Game in its tracks.
Swanne had tried to
scry out Asterion's identity—she had managed it easily enough when she had been
Genvissa and had realized the fact of Asterion's rebirth within the Poiteran
people—but now, in this life, Asterion appeared to have grown so greatly in
power and in cunning that she could not know where, or who, he was.
Even if she didn't
know who he was, Swanne knew precisely what Asterion wanted. To destroy the
Game once and for all, and to destroy Swanne and William with it.
No, you bastard, she thought, her eyes still
closed, her lovely face set in uncommonly harsh lines. No. And this time you can be sure we won't allow you
to use Caela as your dagger's hand.
Ah, Caela! Swanne's
eyes opened, and they were hard with hatred. Caela! Swanne couldn't believe it when she first met
Harold's sister. She would have murdered the bitch then and there, had it not
been for the fact that she still needed Harold's goodwill (and body and bed and
children) to assure her a place by his side at court.
Then, as if her very
existence were not bad enough, Caela had become queen! Still Swanne did nothing. The murder of Caela would
expose her to far too much risk. Not only would it alienate her from Harold
(and how she despised being tied by need to the man) but it would overexpose
her to Asterion. For all Swanne knew, Asterion was hoping that Swanne would murder Caela.
So she stilled her
hand, and contented herself with whispering viciousness into the poor girl's
ear whenever she had the chance.
The blessing in all
of this was the fact that Harold and Caela had been reborn as siblings. Swanne
wasn't sure who was responsible for that piece of mischief—whether fate or
Asterion—but it had provided her with a never-ending source of amusement. Poor,
lost, insipid Caela, for whatever reason, not remembering a thing of her
previous life, and horrified at her constant yearning for a man who was her
brother. And the equally un-remembering Harold yearning for her.
All that suppressed
lust.
Swanne could
understand why Harold might not remember his previous life (he was hardly
important in the scheme of things, was he?), but she was surprised that Caela
did not remember (if also gratifying, as it gave Swanne so many opportunities
to torment the woman). Caela still carried the ancient mother goddess Mag within her womb (was there nothing that could eject that damn goddess
from Cornelia-Caela's womb?), but even Mag seemed faded, lost, forgetful.
Useless.
Swanne shrugged to
herself. Well, neither of them were of much account now.
Swanne slowly rose to
her feet, drying her tears and straightening her robe, her thoughts now back to
William. There was a large mirror of burnished bronze in the corner of the
chamber, and Swanne walked over to it, regarding herself within its depths.
Would he like her? Would he desire
her? Pregnancy
aside, Swanne was taller and slimmer in this life than she had been as
Genvissa. Elegant, where once she had been earthy. Swanne pulled the veil from
her head and tossed it contemptuously to the far corner of the chamber: all
Anglo-Saxon ladies wore lawn or silk veils over their head in public, and
Swanne loathed this single badge of womanly subjection more than any other. Who
could imagine it? Veiling a woman's beauty! Pulling the pins from her hair with
almost the same amount of vigor as she'd pulled away the veil, Swanne tipped
her head to one side, letting her heavy hair fall over her shoulder, admiring
the way her long neck glowed like ivory in the candlelight. As a child, Swanne
had been named for her long, exquisite neck, combined with her manner of
holding her head. Even as a baby, apparently, her beauty had been remarkable.
Now, as a mature woman, she could stop men open-mouthed in their tracks.
"Thank the gods
this child has swollen only my belly and not my feet, or even my face,"
Swanne muttered. She continued to study herself critically, unfastening her
heavy outer surcoat and allowing it to fall away from her shoulders and arms to
the floor so that she stood only in her under gown of pale linen.
She remembered how
Tostig had lusted after her in the Great Hall earlier.
She remembered how
other men had followed her with their eyes.
She remembered how
Harold still used her body, night after night, in their bed.
She remembered how
she and Brutus used to make love when, as Genvissa, she had been heavily
pregnant with their daughter. Her belly hadn't deterred him then… why would it
now?
She smiled. So her
belly was all crowded out with child—that made her no less desirable.
"I won't tell
him about Coel," she murmured. "Why? What does it matter?"
Her hands stilled, and
her eyes stared at her reflection. "William," she whispered. Ah, gods, he was so close! "William!"
Then again, her voice
riddled with desire: "William!"
Finally, her mind so
consumed with need and want and desire that all thought of Asterion and of
prudence disappeared, Swanne opened her arms, cried out one more time, "William!" and vanished.
CbAPGGR F1V
ILLIAM STOOD IN
THE TACK ROOM OF THE
stable complex in his
castle at
They had just decided
that one of William's most prized saddles needed one of its seams restitched
when William suddenly raised his head and peered into the middle distance, his
eyes unfocused, his face drawn.
"My lord?"
Roussel asked softly, wondering if his duke had heard the sounds of a distant
battle that his own aging ears had yet to discern.
"Leave me,"
William whispered.
"My lord—"
"Leave
me!" Then,
in a more moderate tone that was nonetheless tense, "Ensure that no one
disturbs me."
"Yes, my
lord." Roussel bowed his head, turned on his heel, and left. Whatever he
thought at the abrupt and strange command did not show on his face.
The instant Roussel
had departed, William began to pace back and forth within the relatively narrow
confines of the tack room.
Genvissa! She had seen, or heard about,
his gift to Edward, and recognized it for what it was.
She was on her way.
William felt nerves
flutter in his belly. Gods, he
wanted to see her, to hold her! Yet, at the same time, William worried, his eyes
roving from this dark corner to that, wondering if somehow this would expose
Genvissa-reborn or himself. If somehow this demonstration of power on her part
would awake Asterion into madness…
I
And then she was
there, directly before him, breathless, laughing, tears running down her
cheeks, her arms held out, and William forgot everything else and snatched her
into his arms, holding her tight, laughing and crying with her. He was kissing
her, she was pressing her body into his, her hands grabbing at his arms, his
shoulders, running through the short black curls on his head.
"You've lost
your great mane," she said, somehow managing to get the words out between
kisses.
"It did not suit
a Norman man-of-war," he said. Then, summoning all his control, he put his
hands on her shoulders and pushed her back a little so he could see her face,
and study it.
"You're beautiful,"
he said, and the wonder and admiration in his voice made her laugh and cry all
over again. "More beautiful than ever. Sweet Lord Christ, Genvissa, thank all the gods that we've found each other!"
"I was
desperate. I didn't know who you were, where… and then your damned envoy
arrived this morning, and presented Edward with that wonderful ball of string,
and I knew, I knew, I could hear you screaming for
me… I came…"
They embraced and
kissed again, and then again William pushed her back, gently. "I had
thought Edward a pious man," he said, grinning at her, "but I see he
has wasted no time getting an heir on you."
Swanne's expression
stilled. "What?"
William laid a hand
on her swollen belly. "You've been married only, what? Two months? And yet
this is a six or seven month belly you carry."
She frowned all the
more.
William opened his
mouth, hesitated, then said, "You are Caela, are you not?"
Her reaction stunned
William. She tore out of his arms, stepped back, and looked so angry that
William almost thought she might hit him.
"I am not that fool!" she said. "I am Swanne, lady of
"Swanne—what a
lovely name—Swanne, I am sorry. Like you, I worried for years where you were,
and who. Then I heard Edward was taking a wife, and I wondered if this was you.
It seemed to fit… I knew you would do everything in your power to consolidate
yourself within
Swanne was not
appeased. "Caela is Cornelia-reborn."
William stilled, his
hand partway down Swanne's cheek. "Cornelia? By the gods, what is she doing here? What mischief
does she plan?"
Swanne's mouth
curled. "She couldn't plan the curdling of a milk pudding, my dear. Fate
has this time been kind to us. Cornelia has been reborn as the timid, helpless
daughter of Godwine, so sexless and so undesirable, thatsfee at least will
never be swelling with child. William, hate her all you might, for that at
least she deserves, but do not fear her. She has been reborn into such weakness
that she does not even remember her past life!"
William frowned.
"She doesn't remember?"
"No." Now
Swanne moved back into him again, running her hands over his body, and her
mouth, slowly and teasingly, over his neck and jaw.
He drew in a deep
breath, and she smiled, and nipped at him with her teeth. "She is of no
account," she whispered. "None."
Again he breathed
deeply, then ran a hand over her belly. "So who gave you this then, if not
Edward? You said you were a lady of
"Aye. His eldest
son, Harold."
There was something
in her voice, a tightness, and William took her face between his fingers and
tilted her face up to his. "Harold? A powerful catch."
"He has been my
path into
"And who is Harold, Swanne?"
She twisted her face
out of his fingers and kissed his neck again. "No one. Only a man."
"He is no one
reborn?"
She laughed
throatily. "Of course not." Her teeth nipped into his skin, and he
felt tiny pinpricks of pain as her sharp teeth drew blood, and he forgot Harold
in the rising tide of his desire.
"You should have
chosen a better place to come to me, my love. This dusty tack room isn't
quite—"
"It will
do," she said, and loosened the laces holding together the neck of her under
robe so that he could run his hand over her breasts. "For all the gods'
sakes, William…"
The agony of wanting
in her voice undid him. He hauled the skirts of her gown up, running his hands
over her thighs and bare buttocks. Then he lifted her up, resting her buttocks
on a shelf and, as she wrapped her legs about his hips, fumbled desperately
with his own clothing that he might bury himself within her.
As he did so, as he
moaned and dug his fingers into her buttocks, pulling her hard against him,
there came the faint memory of Matilda's words two months earlier: You will not dishonor me with her?
Never! He had cried.
Never.
He thrust deeply into
Swanne again, and then again, and she cried out and tightened her legs about
him. Never. And then William became aware of
that damned belly of Swanne's digging into his, and he wondered if she had
cried out like this under Harold of Wes-sex, and whether or not she had ever
promised Harold what William had promised Matilda. Never.
"I can't,"
he said, groaning, and pulled out of Swanne abruptly so that she almost tumbled
to the floor.
She flushed, and he
knew her well enough to know it was anger. "Not yet," he said,
readjusting his own clothing. "What?" she hissed. "You don't
want to dishonor your wife?" William's face
reddened—she had picked up his thoughts. "She is important to me," he
said.
"And I not?" Swanne said, dangerously quiet.
"Listen to me,
Swanne." William stepped close to her and took her chin between fingers
less gently than they had been earlier. "Neither of us can afford to relax
our guard. Each of us has a part to play so that, eventually, we can both play
our parts together. Yes, Matilda is important to me.
She brings at her back military might and alliances that I can ill afford to
ignore if I am to seize the throne of
She had quietened and
relaxed a little as he spoke, and now she reluctantly gave a small nod.
"You think Asterion sends these armies to annoy you?"
"Aye. Again and
again they come back. That's Asterion's hand, none other." He paused.
"Is he in
She shook her head.
"I cannot tell who he is, but the 'where'… well, I am certain he is in
"We must be
wary, Swanne."
"Yes. I
know."
He kissed her.
"It won't be long. Surely… not now."
She gave a half
smile. "No. It won't be long." Then… "Where are your Kingship
bands, William? You feel naked without them."
He grimaced.
"After… after you died—"
"After my murder at that bitch's hands!"
"Aye. After
Cornelia murdered you, I burned you atop a great pyre on Og's Hill. Then,
mindful of your warning—Save the
Game! Hide it, for Asterion is surely on his way!—I took the bands from my limbs
and secreted them about
She shivered, and moved in close against him. "I
do not know what amazes me more, William. That for two thousand years Asterion
sought those bands— and kept us apart—or that you have such power that you
could frustrate him for that long. William, can you still feel the bands? You
know they are safe?"
He nodded. "They
are safe. I would know the instant anyone touched them."
"And the
Game?" she said. "Do you feel it, even as far from it as you
are?"
He nodded. "It
is strong still. Unweakened by the time it has been left by itself."
There was a small
silence.
"It is
different, William."
He hesitated before
answering. Yes, the Game was different.
"Could the Game
have changed in the two thousand years it was left alone?" Swanne said.
"Perhaps,"
William said, but his voice was slow and unreassuring. "We had not closed
it, it was still alive, and still in that phase of its existence where it was
actively growing. Who knows what…"
He stopped then, but
his unspoken words were clear. Who
knows what it could have grown into.
"Oh, gods,
William," Swanne said. "How long before you can come?"
He gave a small
shrug. "With the resources Matilda brings at her back? With her father and
her entire clan as allies? A year, maybe two at the most. Swanne, listen to
me—we cannot risk this again."
"Meeting like
this? Are you afraid that next time your Matilda might discover us?"
He tensed, and she
knew the truth of her words.
"I cannot afford
to alienate her, Swanne. But, no, I fear more for what Asterion might do. You
can be sure that he's somewhere, watching us. Manipulating us." He paused.
"Is there anyone at Edward's court that you can trust to carry messages
between us?"
She thought,
frowning, then her brow cleared. "Yes. Do you know the cleric Aldred? He
is a
"Yes, indeed. I
know him well." William paused, thought, then gave a decisive nod.
"He is an excellent choice. Either he, or some of his subordinates, travel
to and from
"And he favors
you. I have heard him talk well of you to Edward."
William smiled.
"Aldred then. But be careful, for—"
He stopped suddenly,
his head up. "Gods, Matilda is but fifty paces away! She is looking for
me! Go, Swanne, Go!"
"William…"
"Go!" He kissed her once, hard. "Go! It won't
be long. I swear. It won't be
long… go!"
And then she was
gone, and William staggered, caught his balance, and looked up to see Matilda
staring at him from the doorway.
CbЈPG6R SIX
HE WAS ONLY
SEVENTEEN, THE CROWN OF HER
head scarcely reached
his chest, and she had none of the mystical power of the woman who had just
left him, but Matilda's simple, still presence and her clear, questioning gaze
made William's heart thud with nerves.
"There has been
someone with you," she said, and walked into the room, her eyes now
sliding this way and that about the tack room.
Suddenly her eyes
were back on him, very still. "Someone unsettling enough that your breath
rasps in your throat and your cheeks flush. What is this, William? That look I
only thought to see in the more intimate moments of our marriage."
"You surprised
me."
"I think I
should have surprised you a moment or two earlier than I did. Yes?"
William thought of
what Matilda might have seen had she been that bit
earlier. Swanne, legs about his hips, moaning in abandon? Gods…
"You
vowed," Matilda's voice was harsher now, and William could hear the grate
of pain and judgment underlying it, "that you would never dishonor me with
her. Not two months since."
Gods, what had she seen? Or was
Matilda more perceptive than he had credited?
William thought of
all the lies he could tell, would have told had this been Cornelia
instead of Matilda, and he thought that when he began to speak, one of those
glib lies would slip smoothly out. But he found himself remembering their
marriage night, and what benefits the truth had brought him then, and so when
he spoke, it was truth rather than falsehoods. "She was here, that woman
of whom I spoke, and she begged me to take her. Oh God, Matilda, I wanted to.
Thus my breath. Thus my flushed cheeks."
"And you did
not?" Matilda had not moved, and her eyes were very steady on his.
"I began,"
he said. "I was roused, and for a moment I did not think. Then I
remembered you, and I stepped back from her."
"You remembered
what I bring at my back, more like."
O
"I remembered you, Matilda. If it had been your dowry at the forefront
of my mind then I could have lied to you just now."
"Who is she,
William?"
"She is the lady
Swanne, Harold of Wessex's wife."
"I have heard of
her, and of her legendary beauty. How came she here, William?"
Oh gods, how to explain this to her?
"She was raised
among the ancient ways," he said, "and when a baby suckled at the
breasts of faeries. She… she commands powers that many would condemn."
Matilda stared at her
husband for many long minutes, digesting this piece of information. "A
witch?" she said finally, her voice a mere whisper.
William opened, then
closed his mouth. He gave a single nod.
"By Christ
himself, William, what interest has she in you?"
"Even witches
can find me attractive, Matilda."
Matilda laughed, and
William was profoundly relieved to hear genuine amusement in it.
"As also
daughters of
"No. Matilda… I
have spoken long and often to you of my plans for my… for our future. But there is one burning ambition of which I
have not yet spoken to you."
She raised an
eyebrow.
"I long for the
throne of
She gave a
disbelieving laugh. "Fighting for
"When
"Those bits of it you command," she said
sotto voce.
"How much more
would you like to be queen of
She thought about it.
"Very much, I think. I have heard it is a fine land, and rich, and its
people pliable. But I have also heard that there are many people who lust for
He grinned,
mischievously. "I thought the challenge would appeal to you."
"Oh, aye,
challenge does appeal to me. Why else marry
you?"
They both laughed,
their eyes locking, and William relaxed even more. He moved close to her, and
bent down to kiss her, but she moved away.
"Not when your
mouth still stinks of this Swanne. Later, perhaps, when you have washed away
her taste with wine."
William was not
perturbed by Matilda's refusal, for there was no hatred or viciousness in her
voice. Indeed, her tone had been matter-of-fact, as if all she had complained
about was that his mouth still stank of the leeks he'd eaten for his noon meal.
"I will secure
"Not this
Swanne?"
He shook his head,
his eyes unwavering. "No. You. Swanne is… Swanne is my eyes and ears
within Edward's court. My ambition for
"And yet she
does not want to be your queen in return for all this disloyalty to her country
and husband?"
"What she might want," William said quietly, "is not what she
might necessarily get." Stunningly, he realized that was no lie.
She regarded him very
steadily for some time before finally speaking. "Do you not want to know
the reason I came seeking you? What made me dare the stables and all its
dirt?"
He smiled.
"What, my love?"
Now she drew close to
him and, taking his hand, put it on her stomach. "The midwives have just
confirmed to me what I have suspected now for a week or more. I am with child,
William."
He looked at her,
then drew her in close, holding her in silence for a long time. Eventually
Matilda drew back, her face softer than it had been at any time before in this
conversation.
"Do you think
you could still bear to make love to me when I am swollen with this child,
William?"
He smiled, but for a
moment the memory of Swanne's pregnant body pressed against his consumed him.
"I will find it no difficulty at all," he said.
"Then let us
quit this tired and dusty stable, and seek our bedchamber and some wine to wash
the taste of Swanne from your mouth. I do not think that tightness of breath
nor that flush in your cheeks should be wasted."
HE SLEPT ONCE THEY'D
MADE LOVE, BUT MATILDA
lay awake under the
heaviness of his body, thinking over all that had happened this day.
Matilda had known the
instant she'd stepped into that tack room what had been happening, although
she'd not been able to understand the how of it,
for there was no exit
from that chamber save the doorway she herself stood in.
But there William had
stood before her, as aroused as ever she'd seen him, and behind her had stood
the Master of the Horse, Alain Roussel, who had begged her not to enter.
So Matilda had done
the only thing she could. She had closed the door on Roussel and had done what
she had to in order to not only save her marriage from disintegrating into
sham, but to fashion it into something even stronger than it had been.
William had been
engaged in making love with another woman (and a witch, no less!) that he'd
already admitted (on their wedding night, no less!) was the first love of his
life. Matilda could have whined and sulked, or she could have cried and stormed
and threatened, but she did none of these things, realizing that would have
lost her William's respect. Instead she had remained calm and reasonable,
allowing William to judge himself by his own words rather than by hers. She
realized also that a marriage could be made on stronger ties than love and
that, in the end, these ties would defeat whatever love or lust William felt
for this lady Swanne.
Whatever William had
said to her, Matilda was not entirely sure that it was love that bound these two. Something else bound them…
their equal ambition for the throne of
You might be a witch, lady Swanne, Matilda thought, but you have not yet matched your wits against a
daughter of
William sighed, then
half waking, shifted his body a little, running a hand over Matilda's breast and
cupping it gently in his hand before falling back into a deeper sleep.
And you are not the one lying under
his body, and with his child in her belly. Beautiful and powerful you might be,
Swanne, but you are deluded if you think that love and lust will mean more to
William than loyalty and friendship and the bonds of a strong marriage.
Matilda resolved to
never tax William with Swanne again. If she did so, then it would be Matilda
herself who would fracture their marriage.
No, she would not tax
William about Swanne, but she would do her utmost to make sure that she had her ears and eyes at Edward's court.
Two agents were better than one when it came to a throne… and a marriage.
CbAPGGR
N THE SIX MONTHS
FOLLOWING EDWARD'S MAR-
riage to Caela, the
court at
To cater to the
growing workforce, as also the growing complexity of Edward's court, so also
the numbers of servants and their families grew.
Many new arrivals
thronged the community of
Some three months
after Edward's marriage, a young widowed and destitute peasant woman had come
to the palace, asking for work as a laundress, or perhaps a dairy maid…
whatever work there was, she begged. Damson, she called herself, after a
variety of exotic plum.
A damson, thought
Edward's chamberlain, studying her silently, was the last thing she looked
like. The woman was already tired and worn, despite her relative youth, with
stooped shoulders, waxen cheeks marred by broken veins, and pale blue eyes that
looked about to fade away to nothing. Nevertheless, she claimed to be a skilled
laundress, and with a queen in residence, and all the ladies she attracted
about her, and all the linens they wore, or sewed, or commissioned… well,
another laundress was always needed.
"Very well,
then," said the chamberlain severely, "but you'll work under my
direct orders for the time being, until I can be sure you're trustworthy."
Damson's eyes
brightened at the prospect of a home, and the chamberlain softened. He patted
her on her cheek and sent her away to join the women already carrying heavy
wicker baskets of laundry down to the river.
Within a week he had
forgotten about her.
Edward was a
particularly pious king, and among the builders and laborers
and sundry
laundresses that flocked to
One he almost turned
away was a woman of a particularly annoying frankness and air of independence.
She presented herself at Edward's court in order to petition him to fund the
establishment of a female religious priory.
"In honor of St.
Margaret the Martyr," the woman said to the king as she knelt before his
throne.
Edward watched her
silently, not only wondering precisely who St. Margaret the Martyr was (possibly one of those
forgettable Roman noblewomen who had somehow managed to achieve martyrdom and
subsequent sainthood on the strength of their donations to the emerging church)
but how he could rid himself and his court of this unsettling woman as quickly
as possible. She was of some forty years, rotund and with a cheerful round
face… but the strength and determination underlaying that cheerfulness did
truly unsettle Edward. Women should know their place, and he was not sure that
this one did at all.
"I am
afraid—" he began, when, to his amazement, his wife broke in, leaning
forward in her own throne and speaking to her husband.
"My husband, may
I perhaps take this care from your already over-burdened shoulders?"
Edward stared at
Caela, his mouth open. This was the first time he could ever remember her
speaking openly in court, let alone interrupting him.
"My father has
endowed me well," Caela continued, her cheeks flushed as if she realized
her transgression, "and I would like this opportunity to repay Christ and
His saints for their goodness to me. Perhaps I could use a small portion of my
own reserves to endow this holy woman's priory?"
At this, her courage
failed her—by this time over half the court were staring open-mouthed at
Caela—but Edward smiled, suddenly pleased with her. If she was this pious, then
perhaps she could eventually retire to the order she founded and he could be
rid of her.
His smile broadened.
"Of course, my dear. As you will."
Caela blushed even
further, perhaps astounded at her own temerity, but she turned to the woman
still kneeling before Edward (but with her round and generous face now turned
to Caela) and asked of her, her name.
"You may call me
Mother Ecub," said the woman, and then looked at Caela as if she expected
some reaction.
But Caela only smiled
in politeness, and begged Mother Ecub to visit her within her own private
chamber on the morrow.
Mother Ecub bowed,
rose to her feet, and left.
And as she left, so
she locked eyes momentarily with Swanne, Harold of
Thus was the Priory
of St. Margaret the Martyr founded, with Mother Ecub as its prioress. The small
priory was built at the foot of Pen Hill just to the north of
It pleased Mother
Ecub no end.
The third arrival
into Edward's court, in this first year of his marriage, caused great comment
where the other two had caused scarcely a ripple. King Edward had recently
suffered pain caused by increased swelling and heat in the joints of his hands,
elbows and knees. Many physicians attended him, but there was only one who
consistently relieved Edward's discomfort, and he was the youngest of all those
who presented the king with their herbals and unguents.
His name was
Saeweald, and was but some eighteen or nineteen years of age. Born to the north
of
Saeweald attracted
much attention, but not only because of his youth and his talent. He was very
dark, bespeaking more of the ancient British blood than the Saxon in his veins,
but this was not what made him stand out physically at court. Saeweald's right
hip and leg had been brutally mangled during his birth, and the newly appointed
royal physician walked only with the greatest difficulty, dragging his deformed
leg behind him, and, on his worst days, requiring crutches to stand upright. In
a strange manner this endeared him to many. Saeweald's rasping breath of
discomfort, the drag of his leg, the tap of his crutches and the constant
jingling of the small copper boxes of herbs, which hung at his belt, announced
his imminent arrival more efficiently than any clarion of horn; no one could
ever accuse the physician of spying, for there was no means by which he could
creep unheard upon any conversation.
Yet Saeweald himself
did keep secrets, and it was Tostig, younger brother to Harold of Wessex, who
discovered one of these a few months after Saeweald's appointment as royal
physician. Tostig and Saeweald had become friends soon after the physician's
arrival at court. To many onlookers this outwardly seemed a strange friendship,
for Tostig was a youth dedicated to the military arts, to heroic action, and to
the bravado of the warrior, while
Saeweald was far more
introspective and given to the pursuit of thought and mystery rather than a warrior's
heroisms.
This was, after all,
all that his leg would allow him.
Tostig and Saeweald
did find some common ground, however, perhaps their mutual youth, as well as
their mutual indulgence in some of the fleshly delights the court and community
of
Edward had given
Saeweald three chambers (an unheard of private space for this crowded
community) in one of the palace outbuildings. Saeweald used the space to live
and sleep, as well as store and dispense his herbs. The first chamber was given
over to the herbs and a dispensary, the second, Saeweald used as his sleeping
and living quarters, and the third… well, the third Tostig had never entered.
But this day, as he walked silently through the first and then second chamber
seeking his friend, Tostig heard the sound of splashing coming from this third
chamber, and so, without any announcement (assuming his friend was merely
enjoying a soak) Tostig walked straight in.
Saeweald jumped in
surprise—which was unfortunate, because it was that action that instantly gave
Tostig full view of something he'd not ever suspected of his friend. True,
previously he'd never seen Saeweald utterly naked, but Tostig had always
assumed that was because Saeweald was sensitive about his deformed hip and leg.
Now he saw there was
another reason—a far darker one.
"What is
this?" he said quietly, coming to stand at the side of the tub.
Saeweald had sunk
under the water, but now, seeing the expression on Tostig's face, he allowed
himself to sit upright, allowing Tostig full view of his chest.
Tostig looked at
Saeweald's chest, then at his face, then back to the man's chest. He stepped
closer and, very slowly, lowered his hand onto Saeweald's wet skin.
Saeweald's skin
jumped a little as Tostig's hand touched him, and the man tensed, but then he
relaxed as he saw the expression on Tostig's face.
Awe. Reverence.
Tostig breathed in
very deeply and, as Saeweald remained still, moved his fingers over Saeweald's
chest and shoulders, their-tips tracing the dark blue tattooed outline of a
full magnificent spread of stag antlers.
"I should have
known," Tostig whispered.
Saeweald said
nothing, his still, dark eyes unmoving from Tostig's face.
"You follow the
ancient ways," said Tostig, still very quiet. "By the gods, Saeweald,
no wonder you are so skilled with the healing herbs!"
He lifted his hand
from Saeweald's chest and looked the man full in the face. "This mark is
enough, my friend, to have you executed at the order of our most Christian of
kings."
Still Saeweald said
nothing, still he watched Tostig carefully.
Tostig breathed in
deeply again, deeply affected by what he had discovered. "Moreover, this
tattoo marks you as just not a follower of the ancient ways, but as… as…"
"Are you too
afraid to say it, Tostig? Then I will, for already you know enough to have me
killed. I am Saeweald, but I am also of that direct bloodline that traces back
to the ancient priests of this land. I am the heir to that bloodline, and to
the power of the ancient Stag God of the forests."
Tostig paled, and
took a step back, his round eyes fixed on Saeweald's face, but Saeweald
continued on remorselessly.
"One day that god will rise from his grave,
Tostig, and on that day / will speak with his voice."
"You are his
Druid," Tostig whispered.
"Aye. I am his
Druid," Saeweald said, using a word and concept Tostig would understand.
Tostig blinked, and
with heartfelt relief Saeweald saw tears slide down the youth's cheeks.
"Then I am your
man, and you have more friends here at court than you can possibly
realize."
Saeweald grimaced.
"There is more at this court than you can possibly realize, my friend."
Tostig held out his
hand, and Saeweald took it, using his friend's strength to pull himself out of
the tub. Tostig stood watching Saeweald as the man dried himself. "Have
you met my brother Harold, yet?"
Saeweald shook his
head. "He has been south in his estates for some weeks. No doubt I will
make his acquaintance soon enough."
"He needs to see
this, too, Saeweald." Tostig reached out once more and touched gently the
mark on Saeweald's chest. "I think he is going to be as a good a friend to
you as I am."
A MONTH AFTER THIS
INCIDENT, A MONTH DURING which Edward became increasingly reliant on his young,
brilliant physician, the king asked Saeweald to attend his wife.
Saeweald stood before
Edward who had retired from his Great Hall to hold his evening court within his
private chambers situated above the Hall.
Here gathered
relatively few people: some of the king's closest attendants, three or four of
the queen's attending ladies, a few servants, invariably the abbot of
Despite his demeanor,
Saeweald was intensely aware of everyone in the chamber. On his way through the
door, he had caught the eye of the lady Swanne, here this evening without her
husband.
They had known each
other instantly, and Saeweald was somewhat surprised that the silent bolt of
hatred that shot between them had not sent the entire court into chaos.
But now Saeweald had
all but forgotten Swanne. He was intently aware of Caela, who sat in a carved
wooden throne a pace or two to Edward's right, and who was almost as rigid as
the frame of her chair.
"My wife,"
Edward began, flickering to Caela, "is unwell. Consistently unwell. She
suffers from a great disquiet of her womb, which causes me some anxiety."
Saeweald understood
very well by this that Edward was not anxious for Caela's sake, but anxious and
irritated that she displayed such womanly weakness. No doubt, Saeweald thought,
Edward would believe in the physical manifestation of Eve's sinful presence
within all women and, as such, undeserving of any sympathy. He looked at Caela
from under the lowered lids of his eyes.
She was, if possible,
even more rigid, and pink with humiliation.
"Sire,"
said Saeweald in the strong, quiet voice he always used with the king, "I
have many medications that will ease the problem. Be assured that I can ease
your anxiety." For an instant Saeweald's mind was consumed with that
terrible night so long ago when Caela had been Cornelia, and he Loth, and
Cornelia had lain on the floor of her house, her womb and the child it had
carried lying torn and bloody between her legs.
"Good. Perhaps
you can attend her now?"
Saeweald bowed his
head, more to hide his jubilation than in any real respect for Edward. Finally, he was going to have a chance to speak with
Caela!
Caela rose stiffly
from her chair, her eyes staring ahead so that she did not have to see either
her husband or Saeweald, and she walked from the chamber, two of her ladies in
close attendance.
With a final bow to
the king, Saeweald followed. WITHIN THE REGAL BEDCHAMBER,
SAEWEALD'S
"examination"
consisted of merely holding Caela's hand in his, feeling the
fluttering of her
nervous pulse, and asking her a few quiet questions. The queen's two ladies
stood a respectful distance away, and, although they kept their eyes on the
proceedings, Saeweald was able to converse with Caela in relative privacy.
"Madam,"
Saeweald began, "I am sorry to hear of your affliction."
She said nothing,
merely turning her face very slightly aside.
"It might not be
so unexpected, however?"
She turned back to
study him. "What do you mean, physician?"
Saeweald did not know
what to expect at the distance within her voice. Surely she knew who he was?
"Your previous
troubles…" Saeweald murmured, hoping that Caela would realize he spoke of
her life as Cornelia, and Genvissa's terrible attack on her.
She did not reply,
and Saeweald could sense an immense withdrawal within her.
"Cornelia,"
he whispered. "Do you not know me? I am Loth, reborn."
She snatched her hand
from his. "Are your wits addled, physician?"
Her words were angry,
but Saeweald could hear a desperate fear beneath them.
Gods, he thought, what is going on?
"Madam," he
said, "I am sorry." His thoughts raced, wondering what he should do
or say next. Why wouldn't she
recognize him?
"I took a concoction for the ache in my leg earlier this evening, and I
fear that somehow it has muddled my thoughts."
He felt her relax
and, very gently, he took her hand back in his. She was so frail. . . For a few minutes Saeweald asked her questions
about her monthly fluxes, how they had changed in recent times, and how they
discomforted her.
Despite the intimacy
of their discussion, Caela relaxed further at the detached tone of his voice.
"You are not
with child?" Saeweald asked eventually.
"No."
"There is no
possibility…?"
"No."
Saeweald licked his
lips, phrasing his next questions as delicately as he could. "Madam, has
the king ever—"
To his relief, she
answered before he had time to form all the words. "No. He will not lie
with me."
Saeweald could not
help the sudden twitch of his lips. "And does that bother madam over
much?"
He more than half
expected Caela to snatch her hand from his, but to his astonishment her lips
curled in a very slight smile as well. "You are the first person not to
offer me sympathy over the issue, physician."
©
He grinned,
delighted, for in that single instant he saw some of Cornelia's old spirit
light Caela's face. She was
there, but buried deep. Caela had also responded to him as an intimate friend—something they
were not yet in this life—for that question should have seen any person,
favored royal physician or not, immediately ejected from the queen's presence.
"There are many
men more deserving of you, madam," he said, and then, not wanting to push
Caela any further, began to speak of some of the medications he would mix for
her.
When Saeweald
eventually sat back, setting Caela's hand loose, he risked one more incursion
into their shared past. "Do not think your womb is useless," he said.
"It harbors a greater power than I think you can currently know."
Or remember.
She frowned at him.
"Mag," he
said, hoping that this single word, the name of the goddess who had inhabited
Caela in her previous life, would summon some response from the queen.
Mag, are you there?
But Caela's frown
only deepened, and, with a brief, respectful few words, Saeweald rose and left
her.
THREE DAYS LATER, SAEWEALD WAS IN THE FRONT
room of his chambers,
which served as a dispensary, when the outer door opened and a woman came in.
Saeweald stared at
her, then stepped forward, taking the woman's hands in his and kissing both her
cheeks in welcome before enveloping her in a huge embrace.
"Mother
Ecub!"
"Aye," she
said, hugging him as tightly as he did her. "Mother Ecub indeed—and still Mother Ecub."
"I know,"
Saeweald said, standing back and grinning at her. "I have heard of you. I
have never heard of a more undevout Christian prioress!"
"The priory
serves me well enough," said Ecub, "and I have gathered to my side
many sisters who, while mouthing their Christian prayers, instead turn for
inspiration and hope to the circle of stones standing atop Pen Hill. Whatever
Edward and his flock of clerics want to believe, the ancient ways still throb
deep within the hearts and souls of the people. But, oh, Saeweald, look at you!
How can Fate treat you so badly?"
He touched his hip
and grimaced. "I have learned to live with this, Mother Ecub. You need
spare no pity for me." Then he smiled. "Just the sight of you, and
the knowledge you are back, has eased so much of my pain."
Ecub knew he was not
referring only to his physical aches.
"Who else?"
she said, softly.
"Genvissa, but
then you must know that."
Now it was Ecub who
made the face. "Yes. The gracious and beautiful lady Swanne. She and I
have exchanged bitter looks, and a few even more bitter words, but my duties
within the priory—and to the stones atop Pen Hill— allows me to avoid much of
her poison. You?"
"We have spoken
only once when she crowed with delight at this." Again Saeweald tapped his
hip. "As with you, I avoid her."
"Harold?"
Ecub said very softly, watching Saeweald's face.
"Oh, Ecub! How
did that witch trap him?"
"He does not
remember, does he?"
Saeweald shook his
head. "In the past few weeks I have come to know him well. We have
re-formed our old friendship and bonds, although Harold is not consciously
aware of it." He sighed. "Ecub… it is a mercy for him, I believe,
that he does not remember. I think it best that way. But that Cornelia and Coel
were reborn as brother and sister! To yearn for each other, and yet to believe
that to touch would be the ultimate vice! What evil mischief is this? Fate, or
Asterion?"
"Who can tell,
Saeweald. But you are sure that Harold is Coel-reborn?"
"Yes. Yes. Like so many people, he adheres to the old ways
while he mouths Christian pieties. He is my old and beloved friend, Ecub. Ah!
How I hate to see him tied to that witch!"
Ecub grinned.
"But he is her husband, and thus she his chattel by the Christian law of
this land. Is that not deliciously amusing? Have you not thought how Swanne
must chafe under that? And she must bear him sons… oh, I laughed when I heard
she had birthed a male child. How that must have riled the oh-so-powerful
Mistress of the Labyrinth."
"Where is
Brutus, do you think?"
"You know where
and who he is, as well as I. You have seen that 'gift' he sent to Edward, and
have seen Edward crawling through that evil labyrinth on his hands and knees,
thinking he is crawling toward Jerusalem and salvation instead of toward
monstrous terror."
"Aye. I know who
he is, and knowing that, I can foresee the sorrow that is to come. It will be
Coel against Brutus, Harold against William, the moment that Edward dies.
Edward means to get no heir on Caela. Thus, when he dies,
"Coel against
Brutus," Ecub repeated softly, "Harold against William. And Swanne,
rising in all her malevolent witchcraft to ensure that it shall be William to
succeed. Gods, Saeweald, how long do we have?
"How long do we
have for what, Ecub?"
She was silent,
dropping her face to study her work-worn hands.
"Caela,"
Saeweald said for both of them, finally bringing up the name they had both been
avoiding. "I can understand why Harold does not remember his previous life
as Coel—that is nothing short of a kindness to him. But Caela? Gods, Ecub! She carries Mag within her womb. She is our
only hope against Swanne and William and the ever-cursed Troy Game! And she does not remember!"
"You have spoken
to her, then."
Saeweald nodded
tersely.
"As have
I," Ecub said. "We have engaged in several conversations over the
past months. Sometimes I push a little—mention a name, a deed—but she does not
respond, save to stiffen, as if the name I mention causes her great fear. And
yet Cornelia is there. Caela founded my priory
when she had no need to, and I hear her womb bleeds, as if Mag weeps within
her."
Again Saeweald
nodded.
"Then there is
nothing we can do," said Ecub, "but to wait and trust in both Mag and
Caela."
"And wait for
Edward to die," said Saeweald.
"And wait for
the storm to gather," said Ecub. "Saeweald, sometimes I sit on Pen
Hill and cast my eyes down to London, to the cathedral of St. Paul's that now
sits atop Genvissa and Brutus' foul piece of Aegean magic, and I shudder in
horror. It still lives there, Saeweald. I can feel it, festering under the city and the feet of the
people who inhabit it, poisoning this land."
"Ecub,"
Saeweald said. "We can do nothing until Caela—"
At that moment they
both jumped as the outer door opened, jerking their heads about as if this were
the storm approaching now, or perhaps even the Game itself stepping out to
consume them.
But it was only the
laundress, Damson, come to collect Saeweald's linens, and both Saeweald and
Ecub relaxed into silence as the unassuming peasant woman did her task, then
left.
Part Two
Autumn
As in days of old, the labyrinth in
lofty Crete is said to have possessed a way, emmeshed 'mid baffling walls and
the tangled mystery of a thousand paths, that there, a trickery that none could
grasp, and whence was no return… just so the sons of Troy entangle their paths
at a gallop, and interweave flight and combat in sport… this mode of exercise
and these contests first did Ascanius* revive, when he girdled Alba Longa with
walls, and taught our Latin forefathers to celebrate after the fashion in which
he himself when a boy, and with him the Trojan youth, had celebrated them… even
now the game is called Troy, and the boys are called the Trojan Band.
Virgil, The Aeneid, Book V
* Father of Silvius
and grandfather of Brutus.
ACK SKELTON WOKE JUST BEFORE DAWN.
HE LAY IN
the cold gray light, staring at the
just-discemible shape of his uniform hanging on the back of the door. Violet
Bentley had put him in the tiny spare bedroom on the first floor of her and
Frank's cramped terrace house in Highbury. It was a child's bedroom, really,
kitted out with what was probably either Frank's or Violet's own childhood
single bed that was far too short for Skel-ton's tall frame, and with a
garishly bright hooked rug on the floor, plywood closet, a ladder-backed wooden
chair, and floral cotton curtains that were, if the roll of heavy black twill
behind the chair was any indication, soon to be replaced with blackout
curtains.
Skelton thought he'd never been in a
more depressing room, not in any of his lives. Its melancholy lay not in the
cheap hand-me-down furniture, nor in its austerity, but in the sad attempt to
make it homely. If Violet had just managed to resist the rug then the room may
have managed some dignity.
If only.
But then, was not life full of
"if onlys"?
If only he'd recognized earlier
Genvissa's true nature.
If only he'd realized earlier the
treasure he'd had in Cornelia.
If only he'd reached
Jack lay still, barely breathing,
dragging his mind away from that terrible moment when the rafters had given
way. He thought about his walk through London last night, remembered Genvissa—Stella Wentworth now—and
her stunning beauty, and the way she had turned away from him when he had asked
after Cornelia. Had she not known where Cornelia was, or did she not want to
tell him? He remembered Loth, Walter Herne now, who had tormented him with
questions and who had promised him nothing.
And Asterion, haunting his footsteps
as he had haunted them for three thousand years. Always one step ahead.
"Cornelia?" Skelton
whispered into the sorry gray dawn light.
Then, after a long moment:
"Earing?"
There was no reply, and Skelton had
not truly expected one.
CbAPGGR 0JM
Autumn
OTHER ECUB,
PRIORESS OF THE SMALL BUT
well-endowed Priory
of St. Margaret the Martyr, which lay just off the northern road from
She did not sit in
the chapel of her priory, which had been well constructed of the best local
stone and decorated with beautiful carvings and statues, as well as rare and
costly stained glass windows.
Neither did Mother
Ecub sit before the altar in her solitary cell, nor in the refectory where hung
a cross on the wall, nor even in the herb and vegetable gardens of the priory,
which were close enough to the wall of the chapel to access in a crisis.
Mother Ecub did not
worship within the walls of the priory, nor even within shouting distance of
them.
Rather, Mother Ecub
sat worshiping atop the small hill, which rose two hundred paces west of the
priory.
Pen Hill, as it was
known both in ancient times and in present.
The ring of stones
that had graced the hill two thousand years ago still stood, although they were
now far more weather-beaten than once they had been, and there were gaps where
the Romans had hauled away the better stones to use as milestones on their
roads. Two of these milestones now stood guarding the London-side approach to
the bridge over the
Their faith made
Mother Ecub, and the seventeen personally picked female members of her order,
smile and manage to keep the faith. If people
remembered the
ancient gods of this land, the stag-god Og and the mother-goddess Mag, even in
this corrupted form, then that was all well and good.
Then all was not
lost.
Mother Ecub had come
to the top of Pen Hill not only to worship the land, which she could see spread
about her (and where better for her to do that?), but to gather her thoughts
for this evening's audience with Queen
Caela.
She shuddered at the
thought, distracting herself with the view. To the south, some three or four
miles distant, lay
For that matter,
nothing could make the Christian faithful give up their right to be buried as
close to their church as possible. After all, come Judgment Day, when all the
dead would rise once more, one didn't want to totter too far to get to the
church altar and, hopefully, eternal salvation, on barely held-together bits of
crumbled bone and rotted flesh.
Ecub's mouth twisted
in derision at the thought, and she made a convoluted gesture with her left
hand, which, to the initiated, would have instantly recalled the movements of
Mag's Nuptial Dance, which Ecub had once watched Blangan and Cornelia perform
within Mag's Dance itself.
She squinted a little
in the winter sun, focusing on the stone cathedral that sat atop Lud Hill—once
Og's Hill. Here, where Brutus had constructed his labyrinth, now stood a great
Christian cathedral:
How alive it was.
Ecub's face, as
wrinkled as it was with lines of laughter and care, went completely
expressionless as a momentary hopelessness overcame her.
It had been fifteen
years now since she'd first come to
the ancient gods Mag
and Og could once again take their place within the land and restore its
harmony and goodness.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years she and
Saeweald had waited, the last three shared with a noblewoman called Judith, who
was Erith-reborn. The widow Judith had come to
Ecub and Saeweald had
hoped that Judith's appearance had been what Caela or Mag had been waiting for…
but nothing. Caela persisted in her unremembering; Mag still lingered useless
and ineffectual within the queen's womb.
Why this delay? Ecub
did not know. Was it the Game itself? Asterion? Mere fate? Mag? No one was
sure, but what Ecub knew for certain was that if Caela or Mag did not do
something soon then all hope would be lost.
Edward was now an old
man. He would not last many more years. When he died, Ecub knew that Duke
William would swarm across the seas and reclaim the Darkwitch (his former
lover) and the city and the Game… taking the throne of
Even worse was the
possibility that Edward's death would sting Asterion into some terrible action.
Ecub knew of Asterion from Loth, as well as from the knowledge she had gained
during the long death between her last life and this one. Asterion might want
the same end as she and Saeweald, the destruction of the Game, but what he
would replace it with—the frightful reign of the unrestrained malevolence of
the Minotaur—was even a more frightful future than a Troy Game triumphant.
"I trust in
Mag," Ecub muttered, "I trust in Mag," repeating the mantra over
and over until she restored some peace in her heart.
Caela's continuing
forgetfulness no doubt kept the Darkwitch Swanne giggling in delight, but it
left Ecub, Saeweald, and Judith in despair. They could do little but stay close
to Caela and support her, and wait for her to come to her senses and do
whatever it was that Mag required of her. Still, there was hope, as Saeweald
constantly reminded Ecub and Judith. Caela had endowed Ecub's priory, and
continued to support it, when Edward had refused (and Caela had done this for
no other religious order). Caela had also taken Erith-reborn, Judith, under her
wing as the most senior of her attending ladies without any prompting from
either Saeweald or Ecub. She kept Saeweald and Ecub close to her, although she
did not have to. She was patently drawn to
her allies from her former life… but she just would not recall them from this
former life.
O
"Mag directs her
thoughts and action," Saeweald often told Ecub, and with this Ecub had to
be content. Although in her darkest moment, she wondered if Mag had forgotten
as well.
Ecub sighed and
thought about rising. She was almost sixty years old, far too old to be
spending an entire morning sitting cross-legged in this damp grass, even if
such close proximity to one of the sacred sites of Llangarlia brought her peace
of mind and spirit. Damp grass aside, Ecub needed to return to the priory to
brush out her robes, and set out on the slow ride south to
What Caela would want
to hear were accounts of how many hours a day the sisters of St. Margaret the
Martyr spent on their knees in prayer to the Virgin herself, or how many days a
week they spent attending the needs of the sick and ill, or how best they had
distributed the alms Caela provided among the small community of lepers that
lived five miles further to the north.
What Ecub could tell her, if she had had the nerve, was how many
nights the sisters spent dancing naked among the ancient stones of Pen Hill, or
how they whispered to the milestones of Gog and Magog on their numerous visits
to London, and of their efforts in keeping alive the ancient ways and beliefs
among the people in and about London.
Or perhaps Ecub could
tell the queen of how she and the sisters of St. Margaret the Martyr spent
their nights praying to Mag within Caela's womb to give them a sign, and to
show them she still lived and cared, and that there was hope for this land amid
all the horror that had visited it.
"And perhaps
not," muttered Ecub, wincing at the ache in her joints as, finally, she
rose slowly to her feet. She spent a moment testing her legs to make sure they
could bear her weight, and straightened her somewhat grass-stained and dampened
robe, before taking the first step toward the slope that led back to St.
Margaret the Martyr's priory.
One step only, and
then Ecub froze, her heart thudding in her chest.
Something was… wrong.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and the breath
in her throat caught
and held.
Something was … different.
Very carefully,
trying to keep her fright under control, Ecub slowly turned about, looking
around the top of the hill.
Nothing. A blue sky,
interspersed with heavy dark clouds that foretold
rain for the
afternoon.
Thick, wet green
grass that moved sluggishly in the slight breeze.
Stones, twenty-five
or -six of them, encircling the entire hilltop…
Ecub's heart felt as
though it had stopped entirely.
The stones.
There was something
about the stones.
"Oh, sweet
Mother Mag," Ecub whispered and, unaware of the discomfort, dropped to her
knees and clasped her hands before her.
The stones were
humming.
Ecub's mind could hardly comprehend it.
The stones were hummingl Moreover, their harsh outlines were softening, as
though the stones were dissolving into warmth and movement.
As though they were living.
In her previous life,
Ecub had heard of tales that were ancient, even in that time. Tales of how the
stone circles had come to be, and why they were so important to the worship of
Mag herself.
Could it possibly be that they were
true?
"You are
singing!" Ecub exclaimed, her mind still struggling to comprehend what was
happening about her.
Indeed, the stones
were now singing—a sad, haunting, lilting melody.
Moreover, the stones
were now swaying back and forth in a liquid, delicious movement, as if they
wanted to dance.
Then, before Ecub's
astounded eyes, they let go the shape of stones and took on their true forms.
Although each had
individual aspects, all shared similar characteristics. They were tall with
rather long, sinewy arms, their hands broad and long-fingered. Above their thin
mobile mouths and hooked noses, each had dark brown hair, shot through with
flecks of iron gray; their eyes were of the same color, also flecked with gray,
and despite their bleakness, managed to convey a surprising sense of humor,
perhaps even mischievousness.
They were very
watchful, these eyes, and Ecub realized that all the creatures' eyes moved at
the same time; if one looked slightly to the left, all eyes looked slightly to
the left. It was very unsettling, and gave Ecub the impression that they shared
a silent communication.
All wore the same
clothes: undistinguished and well-worn leather jerkins and trousers.
All had bare feet,
their toes curling into the grass.
All sang, the sound
humming through their thin-lipped mouths, and the song was very sad, and very
bleak, and very beautiful. It reminded Ecub of the whispering, sorrowing sound
that the wind made when it hummed through the stones of Mag's Dance.
She felt conflicting
emotions surge through her. Joy, that she should have been privileged to see
this. Fear, that the stones' metamorphosis portended doom. Reverence, before
the oldest and most sacred creatures this land had
ever known.
Terror, that she
should not prove worthy of…
The Sidlesaghes. The
most ancient inhabitants of this land, so ancient, they were the land, who
rested within the stones.
By Mag herself, Ecub thought, I had thought them only legend! She momentarily closed her eyes,
blinking away her tears. Very slowly, inch-by-inch, hand-in-hand, the
Sidlesaghes closed their circle about Ecub.
When, finally, not a
handspan separated Ecub from the circle of Sidlesaghes, the tallest and most
watchful of them leaned forward, touched Ecub on top of her head, and began to
speak.
SOME SIX MILES TO THE
SOUTHWEST STOOD ANOTHER
of the sacred hills
of the ancient and forgotten realm of Llangarlia. While Pen Hill still retained
a similar aspect to that of two thousand years previously, Tot Hill, now
Tothill, had changed enormously. In Brutus and Genvissa's time it had housed
only a simple rectangular building, the Meeting House, and a platform of stone
at its peak. Now Tothill boasted a thriving community consisting of Westminster
itself as well as King Edward's vast palace complex—not merely the Great Hall,
but the kitchens, dormitories, barracks, chapels, storerooms, infirmaries,
scriptoriums, as well as offices for a score of officials, a dairy,
meat-houses, bake-houses, and all the other buildings, orchards, her-beries,
vegetable gardens, and necessities required for a lively and growing community.
Fifteen years ago,
Edward had begun the reconstruction of the abbey. Now the almost-finished abbey
reared into the sky, one of the greatest constructions in western Europe, and a
monument not so much to God, but to
Edward's piety.
Here in Westminster,
just to the north of the palace in an open space on Tothill that overlooked the
gray-green sweep of the Thames to the east and the smudge of London on the
great northeast bend of the river, stood the man who would control not only
Westminster, but London, and all of England, and
all of everything
else besides.
Asterion. He stood,
staring northeast toward
watchful.
He could feel the
Troy Game moving. A shudder, part apprehension and part excitement, swept
through Asterion's body.
The Troy Game was
moving, and it was time for Asterion to put into motion the plan that he had
spent this entire lifetime constructing.
He turned slightly so
that Edward's palace came into view. There she waited. The one who would
deliver to him everything. The bands. The Game. William. Power.
"It is
time," Asterion muttered. "Time to begin my game."
A death, a seduction,
followed by another death. A plan of beauteous simplicity. That's all it would
take, and the kingship bands and the Troy Game would be his.
CbAPGGROUDO
Caela Speaks
WONDER HOW MANY
WOMEN KNOW WHAT IT IS
/"*"% m like to endure the hatred of one's husband for fifteen
long years? Many, I suppose, for while marriage might be a consecrated thing in
the sight of God, His saints and the Holy Church, it was often a burden to us
lesser mortals, the daughters of Eve who had to bear the torturous punishment
for her Great Sin in our marriage and childbeds.
Not that I had to
bear anything but the sharpness of Edward's tongue in our marriage bed and, for
total lack of the warmth of his body, I never had to endure the agonies of
childbed.
Fifteen years a wife,
and still a virgin. It was a shameful thing, and not one I had to bear alone,
for Edward made sure that the entire court knew that he'd never laid a finger
on me. I remembered our marriage night so long ago when, a nervous and excited
thirteen-year-old, I had allowed my sister-in-law to settle me into my marital
bed with my new husband.
I had been so
fearful, and yet still excited. Not only had I become a wife, soon to learn the
secrets of my marital bed (or so I had naively thought then) and chatelaine
over the realm of my own household; I was also queen of
Without my father's
support, Edward would have lost his crown years ago. Edward hated me, for I was
the constant visible reminder of his humiliating dependence on Godwine and,
later, his equally humiliating dependence on my eldest brother Harold who
assumed the earldom of
induction into
womanhood, and of the joy and pride I would feel as I bore Edward an heir.
When Edward, sullen
and joyless, joined me in bed that first night, he turned to me, gazed at me
with the greatest contempt, and said: "I find you most displeasing."
Then he humped over,
and went to sleep, and I was left trembling and silently weeping, wondering
what I had done wrong.
I eventually slept
that night, and when I did I dreamed. I dreamed of another man, his face lost
in shadows, who regarded me with contempt, and who spat at me words of hatred.
He also had called me
"wife."
I had gone to sleep
weeping, and I woke weeping, and it seemed that the first five or six years of
my marriage were spent weeping.
Everyone at court knew that Edward would
not lay with me. Edward put it about variously that I was a whore (on one
occasion he even sent me into exile for a year over that particular lie); then,
when I protested my virginity and had it proven by a midwifely examination, he
said that I refused his attempts to make a true wife of me. Latterly, Edward
liked to claim that I was Satan's temptation put into his path to tease him
away from salvation.
Edward the Confessor,
his people had taken to calling my husband, in tribute to his piety.
Gods' Concubine, they
called me, for it appeared that in Edward's pious disinterest he had passed
over the sexual proprietorship of his wife to God Himself (not that God seemed
interested, either). Some smirked at this appellation, and pitied me, but most
seemed to feel that Edward's saintliness had somehow rubbed off on me (how, I
have no idea, for most certainly our flesh had never rubbed enough for the
transfer).
Gods' Concubine. I
hated that label. Ho doubt some wit would soon make the connection and start
calling me the Virgin Mary's apprentice.
Latterly, Edward's
attempts to humiliate me had taken a more disturbing turn. My father Godwine
had died some years previously, and now my eldest brother Harold held sway, not
only as earl of
Harold and I were
close, and Edward saw that closeness, and made of it a terrible thing. He hinted
to me in our cold bed in the dark hours of night—he
would not dare say it
aloud where Harold might hear the words—that he knew Harold and I were
unnatural lovers. He watched the way that Harold's laughing eyes followed me
about a chamber and said that Harold lusted
for me.
This tactic terrified
me. I feared for Harold far more than for myself. I wished great things for
Harold—the throne, for one, once my frightful husband had departed for his
place at God's right hand, but above all, joy and contentment and achievement.
Edward could destroy
this with a single, hateful remark. I could imagine it now. Edward finally
deciding that he no longer needed Harold's support for this throne and
remarking at court, as if in passing, "Ah, yes, the earl of Wessex. His
sister's lover, don't you know?"
Maybe that would not
be enough to destroy Harold. Maybe my brother was powerful enough to overcome
even that slur.
Maybe.
And maybe Edward's
threat had so much power over me because, in my heart of hearts, I wished that
it were true. Because, in my dreams at
night, I often imagined myself in Harold's bed.
I closed my eyes
tight, hating myself. I could hear Edward's voice murmuring as he spoke to some
of his pet priests, and I felt more loathsome than
the darkest worm.
Mother Mary, I was repulsive! To lust after my own brother! When I was a child, I
adored Harold. As I grew, that adoration grew into something… else. Something
that should not grow between a brother and a sister. Harold knew it, for
sometimes I caught him watching me strangely, darkly, as if I represented a
threat to him.
It was rare now that
Harold allowed himself to be in a chamber alone with me. We should have been
close, Harold and I, but instead we found ourselves avoiding each other,
sliding our eyes away from the other, our words stumbling to an awkward close
whenever we found ourselves addressing each other.
Edward had noticed
it, and I am sure most others did also. I know that Harold's achingly desirable wife, Swanne, saw it
and recognized the awkwardness for what it was.
I know it for a fact,
for one day soon after my loveless marriage had begun, Swanne leaned her
elegant, beautiful head close to me, and with her soft, red lips whispered in
my ear, "Shall I tell you, my dear, of how fine a lover your brother is?
How he makes me squeal and twist under him? Would you like to hear that, my
poor virgin girl? Would you? Would you like it, my dear? I'm sure Harold has enough for you as
well."
And then she'd leaned
back, and laughed, and made a comment so crude that even now I could not bear
to form the words in my head.
"Wife?"
I jumped, then
blushed, for I was sure that somehow Edward could read my thoughts. He sat in a
chair some distance from me, although not, unfortunately, so far distant that
it prohibited conversation. About us in the Lesser Hall (that smaller hall we
used when not holding great court), our small evening court had fallen silent,
watching, and wondering what humiliation Edward had in store for his wife
tonight.
A tongue-lashing,
perhaps?
An order to spend the
night on her knees confessing her sins to Eadwine, the abbot of
A tirade on the sins
of the flesh, at the least…
"My dear…"
Only Edward could
make an insult of those two words.
"Are you not
going to greet the Lady Prioress? She has been standing before you for the past
few minutes while you have wandered in your thoughts. You have duties as queen,
Caela. I would that you occasionally remembered them."
Humiliated, and not
the least because I knew I deserved the reprimand, I looked before me.
There, sure enough,
her own cheeks stained pink in embarrassment, stood Mother Ecub as she had
probably been standing waiting for my regard for the past half an hour.
"Mother," I
said, stammering in my discomfiture, "I beg you forgive me." I held
out my hand, and Mother Ecub shuffled forward—Lord Christ, when had she grown so old and arthritic?—and took it briefly, laying her
mouth against the great emerald ring I wore on my heart finger.
Edward had given me
that as a wedding ring. Christ alone knew he had never kissed it.
"My apologies to
you, good prioress," I said, as Ecub stepped back and slowly straightened.
"I have kept you standing far longer than I should. Judith…" I turned
my head slightly, and beckoned to the favorite and most senior of my ladies.
"Fetch a chair for Mother Ecub, I beg you."
As Judith hurried to
do my will, the court slowly relaxed, and muted conversation started to again
fill the background. Our evenings were usually spent in this smaller hall
rather than the great audience hall, and only the closest and most valued among
the court attended us after supper. About Edward clustered several members of
the witan, all looking grave, perhaps with the latest news from
Just behind that
group stood Saeweald, physician to both Edward and myself. He saw me looking at
him, and lowered one eyelid in a slow, reassuring wink.
I looked away, both
grateful for the gesture and annoyed at his presumption. I liked Saeweald, I
truly did (how could a man stay so cheerful when his right leg and hip were so
twisted as to make every one of his steps a painful, tottering journey?), but
that liking had taken years to mature. Saeweald had been attending court since
the first year of my marriage, but my liking for him had taken some time to
establish itself. During the first six months at court, he had greatly
unsettled me.
When first we met,
Saeweald had called me by another name—what was it again? Corvessa? Contaleia?
Analia?—and had seemed irritated with me when I would not respond to it. I had
tried to be patient—after all, the pain in his leg must surely addle his mind
somewhat from time to time—but all the same his insistence had greatly
unsettled me. Over a period of some weeks and months, Saeweald tried to talk to
me of a time long ago, and I had bade him to be silent, for I had no mind to
hear of the witchery that must have made him scry out such memories of so long
ago. He begged me to remember a woman, Mag, he called her, to whom I apparently
owed a debt… or some
such…
I would have none of his
wanderings, and commanded him to silence with the greatest sharpness. I had
said to him that even though he be the greatest physician within Christendom, I
would have none of him at court if he carried
on so.
I wept.
Eventually Saeweald,
weeping himself, had lowered himself to his knees before me (and what agony
that must have been for him!) and had said that he would talk of these matters
no more. I had nodded, once, stiffly, and motioned him to rise, and Saeweald
had done so, and had kissed my hand, and had kept his word and held his tongue.
That had been many
years ago now, and even if Saeweald had held his tongue, I still often came
upon him watching me as though he expected me to… to do what, I do not know, but that very expectation in his gaze
unsettled me.
I had grown close to
him, nonetheless. He was witty, and comforting, and largely nonjudgmental, and,
through several murmured remarks over the years, I knew that Saeweald honored
me far above my husband. That was largely a novel sentiment (only Judith and
Mother Ecub seemed to feel thus), and one that predisposed me toward much good
feeling for the man.
And, last, I liked
Saeweald because as my physician he was the only person who had the requisite
skill with herbs and potions to ease my monthly fluxes, which had become an
increasing trouble over the past few years. One might have thought that my
womb, finding itself not needed, would have settled into a quietude of
resignation, but, no, apparently it resented its empty
state so greatly that
it wept increasingly copiously and painfully each month. Ecub had settled
herself before me by this stage, and I smiled at her, and paid her my full
attention.
"My good
prioress," I said. "What have you to report?" Ecub began a monotony
of her priory's good works, and even though I kept my eyes on her and a
half-smile on my face, my mind drifted off again. I could hear Aldred, the
archbishop of
There, my mind had
betrayed me once again!
"Ah, Ecub,"
I said, blushing yet once again (one would think me still thirteen years old,
and not the twenty-eight-year-old woman I was). "You must forgive me this
evening. I cannot think what has come over me. I… I…"
Oddly, for she never
usually was so bold, Ecub leaned forward to close the space between us and held
my hand briefly.
"You will feel
better soon, madam," she said. "I have it on good authority." "Ecub?"
But the prioress was
already rising. "I will stay the night within the women's dormitory, if it
pleases you. The way back to St. Margaret the Martyr is long and cold for an
old woman like myself, and I would rather attempt it on the morrow than
tonight."
"Of
course," I said, rising also (a movement that made Edward half-start up,
as if he suspected I was going to dash for the palace portal as if I were a
hind escaping the huntsmen; my bevy of twittering ladies started likewise,
their needlework shuffling to the floor with the suddenness of their movement).
"Perhaps, if it
please you madam," Ecub continued, looking at me with those intense brown
eyes of hers, "I might stay a day or two beyond this night? I have need to
consult with Master Saeweald, and perhaps also to gossip with the lady Judith
about mutual memories."
"Of
course," I said again, feeling stupider by the moment. What "mutual
O
memories"? I wondered momentarily if
Saeweald had a potion against stupidity secreted somewhere, then managing to
summon the few wits that remained to me, smiled graciously at Ecub, murmured my
apologies to my husband, stating that my head ached and I must needs to bed,
then made my exit accompanied by Judith and the other of my ladies. Perhaps
sleep would untwist my wits.
SLEEP BROUGHT ME NO PEACE.
INSTEAD, I SWEAR
that as soon as I had
closed my eyes I slipped into a dream.
I dreamed I walked
through the center of a stone hall so vast there appeared to be no end to it.
It stretched east to west—I felt, if not saw, the presence of the rising sun
toward the very top of the hall—and above me a golden dome soared into the
heavens. Beneath my feet lay a beautifully patterned marbled floor; to my sides
soared stone arches protecting shadowy, mysterious spaces. Even though great
thick walls rose beyond those arches, I could still somehow see through them to
the countryside beyond where a majestic silver river wound its way through
gentle verdant hills and fertile pastures. It was an ancient and deeply
mysterious land, and it was my land,
I turned my eyes back
to the hall. Although this was a strange, vast place, I felt no fear, only a
sense of homecoming. I also had the sense that I had spent many nights dreaming
of this hall, although I never remembered the
dream in the
mornings.
Suddenly I realized I
was not alone. A small, fey, dark woman walked
toward me.
My eyes filled with
tears, although I did not know why.
"Peace, lovely
lady," the woman said as she reached me. She half started forward as if
she meant to embrace me, but then thought better of it and merely reached up a
hand to touch briefly a cheek.
"Are you
ready?" she said.
"Ready for
what?"
"The battle
begins," she replied. "You must be ready, Cornelia, my dear."
I frowned, for this was the name Saeweald had called me so many years
ago. Was this woman as deluded as he?
"Remember,"
the woman said, "to meet us in the water cathedral beyond
death."
"What are you
talking about?" I said, taking a step back. The woman was
mad! A witch, no
doubt!
She laughed, as if I
had made a jest, "Then follow Long Tom, my darling
girl. Listen to him.
He will show you—"
"You! Will I never be rid of
you?"
A man's voice thundered
about us, and the small, dark woman gave a sad half smile, then vanished with
only a word or two reverberating in my mind. Remember, Cornelia, my dear… remember… remember… "What do you here?"
I forgot the woman,
and looked at the man striding toward me. I gasped, for although I swear I did
not recognize him, nonetheless I felt I knew him intimately. Tall and
well-built, the man had cropped, almost blue-black hair, a strong, handsome,
and clean-shaven face and compelling dark eyes that seemed to have noted my
every flaw, for, as he neared, an expression of distaste seemed to come over
his face. He was dressed in the finery of a Norman nobleman: a vivid blue and
stunningly embroidered knee-length tunic over breeches and boots, and a sword
at his hip.
For some reason my
eyes kept blurring, and I saw him with short black curls one moment, then with
long curls that streamed and snapped in the breeze.
"Cornelia? Is
this you?" He looked at me puzzled, as if I was some half remembered
companion to him.
"I am not
Cornelia!" I cried. "I am Caela. Caela!"
He had stopped before
me now, his black eyes unreadable. "You will always be Cornelia," he
said. "Always ready to betray me to Asterion—"
I do not know why,
but at the mention of that name a feeling of such fear came over me that I
thought I would collapse.
He took another step
toward me, very close now, and he grasped my chin in his hand. "You are
much more beautiful now than you were as Cornelia." He paused, his black
eyes running over my face as if he wanted to consume it. "Far more
beautiful… but still as desirable."
His mouth twisted,
cold, and malicious. "But if the reports I hear are true, then Edward has
more sense than I would have credited him, and has not touched you. I should have known better than to lay with you, bitch
daughter of Hades."
At the contempt in
his voice I cried out, and tried to wrench my chin from his hand. But he was
too strong, and I remained caught in his hateful
grip-
"You want me to
kiss you? Well, I will not kiss you, Cornelia, or Caela, as now you are, my
queen of
His face bent closer,
and his breath fanned over my cheek. I shuddered, and he felt it. Then his
mouth grazed the skin beneath my ear, then grabbed and
held it, and I cried
out, and would have sagged had he not let go my chin and caught my shoulders.
Something occurred to
me, almost a memory, save I know I had never met this man before, and I said:
"Do you hate me still?"
He had raised his
head away from me, and I saw his lips form the word "Yes," but then
his own face became puzzled. "I never hated you," he said.
"Not
really."
"But you just
called me," God help me,
I wanted him to hold me close again, and do again with his mouth what he had
just done,
"bitch daughter of
Hades."
He laughed, low and
soft, and pulled me close enough that he did lay his mouth against my cheek again. "I am
sorry for that. That was habit. Who knows if you deserve that epithet
now?"
"They call me
God's Concubine," I said, relaxing even more with this
strange
"You should have
children," he said, standing back from me. "You were a
good mother."
Now it was I who
laughed. "I? A good mother? And when, pray, did I have
a chance for that?"
"Tell me,"
he said. "How is Swanne?"
"Swanne?"
"It is so long
since I have seen her. Fifteen years. I miss her. I want her. Will you tell her
that? Will you tell her how much I want her?"
He was walking away
now, his booted strides ringing out through the
stone hall.
"Tell Swanne I
want her," he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder, "and
that I cannot wait for that happy day when we can be together."
Then he was gone, and
I stood there in that cold stone hall, and wept, for that I felt so alone, and
so empty.
Far away, in
his bed.
At his side, Matilda roused, muttered
sleepily, then sat herself, laying a loving
hand on his arm.
"William, what ails you?"
He smiled, although it was an effort.
"A bad dream only, my love. Let it not
concern you."
Then he took her chin in gentle
fingers, and lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed away the memory of that
cursed stone hall and the woman who haunted it.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON
SWANNE JOINED MY CIRCLE of women as we sat and gossiped over our needlework. I
sighed, for I had good enough reason to dislike my brother's wife, but her
presence reminded me abruptly of the strange dream that had gripped me the
previous
night.
"My lady
Swanne," I said, putting my needle down, "I dreamed most
unusually last
night."
She tipped her head
slightly, the movement one of supreme indifference. "I dreamed of a most
handsome man, a Norman, with close-cropped black
curls."
Several of the
younger women tittered, and I managed to fight down the urge to blush. No doubt
they thought I sought my pleasure in dream where I could not find it in my
marriage bed. Suddenly I wished I had not brought up the topic, and would have
dismissed it with a laugh had not Swanne leaned forward, her pale face now
almost bloodless, her own dark eyes intense.
"Yes?" she
said.
I made a deprecatory
gesture. "Oh, I am sure it was nothing, save that this dream-man asked to
be remembered to you."
"Yes?" The
word sounded as if Swanne had forced it through lips of stone.
I almost smiled as I
remembered his message. "He told me to say, T want her and I cannot wait
for that happy day when we can be together.' He said it had been fifteen years
since you had been together, and that he missed you. Why, sister, who can this
be that is not your husband?"
Swanne sat upright,
rigid with emotion. Her eyes glistened, and she seemed unaware that everyone in
our circle now stared at her.
"Who is this
man?" I asked again, softly.
"A lord such as
shall never love you," she said, then rose and
made her exit.
CbAPG6RGbR
't, AEWEALD SAT
WITH ECUB BY THE DYING FIRE IN
■"""•l
the pit in the center of the Lesser Hall where Edward held his evening court.
Edward and Caela had long retired, and the only people left in the chamber,
save for them, were two servants, sweeping away the detritus of the night's
activities.
They were silent.
Uncomfortably so, on Saeweald's part, for he wanted to grip Ecub by the
shoulders and shake out of her whatever it was that she had to say to him, and
far more comfortably so on Ecub's part, for she still basked in the glow of
what the Sidlesaghes had said to her.
They awaited Judith,
who had to complete her evening attendance on the queen before she could join
them.
They sat, silent,
eyes set to the floor, until even the servants had gone for
the night.
The moment the door
had closed behind the last of them, Saeweald turned
to Ecub and opened
his mouth.
"Wait," she
said, forestalling whatever it was he'd been about to say.
He mumbled something
inaudible, then turned back to resume his silent
vigil.
Eventually Judith
joined them, looking both weary and worried, a reflection of Saeweald's own
expression. She drew a stool up to Ecub and Saeweald, glanced at the physician,
then looked at Ecub.
"What has
happened?" she said.
Ecub took a very
long, deep breath, then beamed, her entire face almost splitting in two with
the width of her smile. "Today I sat amid the stones atop Pen Hill,"
she said.
"Yes?" said
Saeweald.
"They spoke to
me."
There was a long
moment of complete silence, during which time Saeweald and Judith stared at
Ecub, their minds trying to make sense of what she'd just
said.
"They 'spoke' to
you?" Saeweald finally said, enunciating very carefully.
"Aye, they did.
Saeweald, what do you know of the ancient tales of the Stone Dances?"
"Only that they
were raised by hands unknown, long ago, before even the Llangarlians came to
step on this land."
"Aye, that is
what you would have heard. But I think that Judith may have heard something
else. Judith?"
Judith looked at
Saeweald, but he was still staring at Ecub. She looked back to the prioress,
who was studying her with a maddening calm, and licked her lips, trying to
remember.
"They were
raised in monument to Mag, to the Mother and the land," she said.
"They are more Mag-monument than Og, although by association—"
"Yes, yes,"
said Ecub. "But tell me what you know of their raising."
Judith made a
disparaging gesture, unsettled by Ecub's questioning. "Oh, Ecub, they were
only tales that children told each other."
"Often the
greatest mysteries are hidden within children's tales," Ecub said.
"What safer place for them? Where every adult will discount them?"
Again Judith looked
at Saeweald, and this time he met her eyes.
"Judith,"
he said. "What tales?"
Judith shrugged her
shoulders, not ready to believe that the tales she'd heard as a child in her
previous life were fact rather than sheer childish imagination. "I heard…
it was told…"
"Judith,"
Ecub said, "just spit the words out!"
"The Stone
Dances, or, rather, the stones themselves, are in actuality the surviving
memory of the ancient creatures who walked this land long before mankind set
foot here."
"Very
good," said Ecub. "And their names?"
"Sidlesaghes,"
said Judith. "The Sad Songsters." Then, surprisingly, her mouth
quirked in amusement. "Long Toms, we used to call them, for the height of
the stones. Children's tales, though. Surely."
"Yet all
this," Ecub said, soft but clear, "is true, my dears. Come now,
Judith, tell me more of your 'children's tales.' Why do the Sidlesaghes stand
as stones and not trail their melancholy amid the meadows?"
Judith's mouth fell
open, and she stared wide-eyed and unbelieving at Ecub, as her mind suddenly
made the leap to what Ecub was trying to get her to say.
"They…"
Judith's voice hoarsened, and she had to clear her throat before she could
continue. "They only wake and sing when it is time to midwife Mag's
birth."
Ecub nodded, smiling.
"Aye." She looked apologetically at Saeweald, who was looking
goggle-eyed between the two women. "This is a mystery only discussed among
girl-children, my dear. You would probably not have heard it as Loth. Midwifery
and birth are the realms of women only."
"Wait,"
said Saeweald, shaking his head as if he were trying to shake his thoughts into
some kind of order. "I don't understand. Are you saying that, when you
were atop Pen Hill, these 'Sidlesaghes' appeared to you?"
"Aye."
"And you agree
with what Judith just said, that they only 'wake and sing'
when it is time to
midwife Mag's birth?"
"Aye."
"But Mag already
is! How can she be born again?"
"Because
tomorrow, Asterion is going to murder her, my loves. And then Mag is going to
need to be reborn."
Saeweald and Judith
just stared at Ecub, aghast, then they both began to
babble at once.
Ecub let them speak
for a few minutes, then she held up her hand for silence, and repeated to them
what the Sidlesaghes had told her.
Finally, Saeweald
said, "But why can't Caela remember?"
"For her own
protection, Saeweald. For her own protection. She will remember soon enough. Be
patient."
But Judith frowned,
and looked at Ecub. "But… but where will Mag be
reborn? In who?"
Ecub smiled
beatifically, then shrugged. "With that knowledge they did
not grace me."
CbAPGGR FOUR
OSTIG SAT WITH HIS
BROTHER HAROLD BEFORE
one of the fire pits
in Harold's own great hall that Harold had built two years previously just to
the south of Edward's palace complex in
The past fifteen
years had treated Harold and Tostig kindly. Both had grown: Harold into a
greater maturity—the only physical changes wrought by the passing years were
the sprinkling of gray through his dark blond hair and some more creases of
care about his eyes—and Tostig into full manhood. Eight years previously
Godwine had settled the earldom of
Tostig was a dark,
handsome man. The insecurities of youth, which had once so amused Swanne, had
been set aside for a sometimes overbearing assurance of manner that could
border on the arrogant. Now, as he and Harold sat before the glowing embers of
the fire, alone, save for the soft presence of servants clearing away the
tables in the hall behind them, Tostig leaned forward, his face set, his eyes
snapping, and stabbed a finger at Harold.
"Their insolence
is unbelievable!" Tostig said.
Harold, slouched back
in his chair as if half asleep, sent Tostig an unreadable look from under
lowered lids, but said nothing.
"They demand
that I step down from the earldom!"
Harold closed his
eyes briefly, resisting the urge to lean across to Tostig and shake some sense
into the man. Tostig had ruled
"Tostig,"
Harold said, "stifling opposition by murdering the voices who speak it has
never been the best course of action."
"I have had to
withdraw forces from the border regions closer to home," Tostig went on, ignoring
Harold, "with the result that now the Scots threaten to invade. Harold,
you must aid me."
Harold leaned forward
and emptied the dregs of his wine cup into the
fire pit.
The embers hissed
momentarily, then fell quiet.
"No," he
said.
"No?"
"That earldom is
yours to keep or to lose as you will, Tostig. If you currently find yourself
mired in mutinous resentment, then may I suggest you have only yourself to
blame."
"You have an army at your disposal," Tostig hissed. "Give it
to me!"
Harold sat up
straight in his chair, his hands resting on the armrests, the only sign of his
anger, the gentle thrumming of his fingers against the wood.
"No."
Tostig stared at his
brother, then abruptly spat into the fire. "You think
only of
yourself."
"I think only of
Tostig sneered.
"Edward is
old," Harold continued in an even voice. "His days are numbered. He
has no heir and, in his own sweet recalcitrant manner, refuses to name one. If
he takes this truculence to the grave with him,
"You mean you
want to grab the throne yourself. I can go to hell for all you
care."
Harold took a moment
to respond. "My primary responsibility is to the
realm, Tostig. Not to
you."
Tostig rose, his face
twisted with anger. "Desert your family, brother, and you may find
yourself without either throne or realm!"
With that, Tostig
turned on his heel and stalked off.
Harold sighed,
refilled his wine cup, and spent the next hour staring into the fire as he
slowly sipped the wine.
Finally he rose, and
went to his bedchamber for the night.
Five
AWISE CHECKED TO
MAKE SURE THAT HER LADY'S
gown was safely
folded and set into the chest, then turned back to her mistress. Swanne sat
before a burnished mirror, brushing out her thick mass of curly ebony hair with
long, slow strokes, and Hawise hesitated before walking over and taking her
leave for the night.
Sweet Mother Mary, but she was
beautiful!
In the mirror,
Swanne's eyes slid Hawise's way, and the woman dropped her own eyes and
fidgeted with her skirt, embarrassed at being caught staring.
"I am done with
you for the night," Swanne said.
Hawise nodded,
colored a little—she had served Swanne for twenty-five years, but the woman
still retained the ability to make her uncomfortable— dropped a small curtsy
and walked from the private bedchamber that sat above Harold's hall.
As the heavy drapery
that served as a door fell closed behind Hawise, Swanne smiled at herself in
the mirror. "Oh, aye, my dear," she murmured, "I am beautiful
indeed."
Then her smile faded
a little. What use was such beauty when William lingered within
Fifteen years since
she had seen him. Fifteen years of frustration and of being tied to Harold. Swanne had never loved Harold, but now she resented
him as she never had previously. Fifteen years of Harold when she could have
had William.
And it had been that bitch whom he
had visited in dream! It still rankled her that William had graced Caela's dreams, and not
hers. William was so
©
concerned about
Asterion that he kept his mind and powers closely shuttered; Swanne had tried
to touch him through dream previously and had not been able to get past the
barriers he'd put in place.
But he'd visited
Caela in dream. It mattered not that William had apparently done nothing but
speak of Swanne.
He had visited Caela in dream and not Swannel
"You foolish
virgin bitch," Swanne muttered, "even now you can't resist trying
your petty, childish charms on him, can you?"
There was a movement
at the door.
Harold.
Swanne smiled easily
at him—at least those fifteen years had made her the mistress of deception—and
turned back to her reflection in the mirror as Harold undressed and slid
beneath the bedcovers.
Finally, tiring of
her pose, Swanne shook her head so that her ebony hair rippled luxuriously down
her back, and put down the brush. She stood, slowly and elegantly, aware of
every movement that she made, and smoothed down over her body (still slim and
fine after the six children she'd borne to remain in Harold's graces, thank the
gods!) the thin lawn nightrobe whose delicate weave scarcely hid any detail of
the body over which it was draped.
She placed a hand
over her stomach, flattening the lawn against her body, and again admired
herself in the mirror. "Do you think yourself with child again?"
For an instant,
Swanne's eyes hardened to a flat bleakness, but then she turned to the man who
had spoken, and in that movement she masked her hatred with a well-practiced
coquetry.
"Are six
children not enough for you, my love? Do you want me to swell again so that
your manhood can be proven before all at court yet one more
time?"
He was laying on his
back on the bed, the covers pulled down to his stomach, exposing his
well-muscled chest, hands behind his head, studying her with unreadable eyes.
"Are you with child?"
"No."
Swanne sauntered over to the bed, allowing herself to admire the man's physique
and handsome face even if she loathed who and what he was. Swanne parted her
lips, allowing him to see the wetness of her tongue between her white teeth.
Slowly she tugged the robe over her shoulders so that it fell to the floor,
then climbed onto the bed, pulling the bed covers further down over his body,
then lifting one leg over him so that she straddled his body as she settled her
weight atop his warmth.
His eyes darkened
almost to blackness, and she could see the muscles tense in his upper arms. You are a very lucky man, Harold, she thought, to have me in your bed at night.
Her lips parted even
more, and she moved her hips very slowly atop his. He moved his hands, and
grasped her hips, pulling her the tighter against
him.
She drew in a deep
breath, and watched his eyes drift to her breasts. I should have taken you as a lover when you were Coel.
You were wasted on Cornelia.
"Harold,"
she said, and leaned down so that he could take one of her nipples between his
teeth. Hate him she might, but for the moment Swanne saw no reason to deny
herself his body and the skills he employed as a lover.
LATER, WHEN SHE COULD
HEAR HIM BREATHING IN
the deep steadiness
of sleep, she moved away from the warmth of his body, rose from the bed, and
used the washbowl that Hawise had left to wipe away the traces of his semen
from her thighs. Tomorrow she would take the bag of herbs she had secreted at
the bottom of her clothes chest, and brew a cupful of the tea that would ensure
she'd not conceive. Six children were enough, indeed, and the last thing Swanne
wanted was to be big-bellied with child when… When he would soon be here, please to the gods!
Swanne dried herself,
then wrapped about her nakedness the robe she had discarded earlier, shivering
a little in the cold night air. She sat on a stool by the brazier, warming
herself, and looked back to check that Harold was indeed fast asleep.
He was breathing
deep, and Swanne relaxed. She turned back to the brazier, placed her hands on
her knees, closed her eyes, and sent her senses scrying out into the night.
There was only one benefit that Harold brought her, and that was to give her
the excuse to live so close to the Game.
Ah, there… there it
was…
Swanne relaxed even
further, wrapping her senses about the Game, feeling its strength. Gods, it was
powerful! She and Brutus had built it so well. Whenever Swanne was despondent,
or frustrated, or felt that she could cope no longer with Harold, or with the
pointlessness of her life in this damnable Christian court, Swanne found a
quiet place so that she could communicate with the Game. Touch its power, feel
its promise, believe in the future that she and William would build together
once they'd completed the Game and trapped Asterion within its dark heart.
So powerful, and yet…
different. Swanne recalled again, as she so often did, that conversation she'd
had with William in that single brief encounter fifteen years earlier.
Could the Game have changed in the
two thousand years it was left alone? she'd asked.
Perhaps, he'd answered too slowly, his
own concern obvious. We had
not
closed
it, it was still alive, and still in that phase of its
existence where it was actively growing. Who knows what…
He'd stopped then,
but even now the unspoken words rang in Swanne's mind. Who knows what it could have grown into.
Swanne reached out
with her power and touched the Game. Always
before, it had
responded to her.
Tonight, although she
could feel its presence and vitality, it did not. A coldness swept through
Swanne, and for one panicky moment she almost succumbed to her terror and
projected herself into William's presence. But she didn't; it was too
dangerous. As well as the Game, Swanne could feel Asterion more strongly than
ever before. He was stalking the grounds and spaces of the
And so Swanne drew in
a deep breath, steadied herself. Then she rose and, ensuring Harold still lay
asleep, she went to her needlework basket and withdrew from its depths a small
scrap of parchment upon which she scribbled a few lines of writing with a piece
of sharpened charcoal.
IN THE HOUR AFTER SHE
AND HAROLD HAD BROKEN
their fast, and
Harold had departed to meet with some of his thegns, Swanne took the parchment,
now folded and sealed, and handed it to her woman
Hawise.
"Take
this," she said, "and hand it to the good archbishop of
merely nodded and
slipped the parchment into the pocket of her robe.
DEEP UNDER
that surrounded it,
the Troy Game dreamed as it had dreamed for aeons.
It dreamed of a time
when its Mistress and Kingman would return and complete it, when it would be
whole, and strong, and clean. It dreamed of a time when the kingship bands
would be restored to the limbs of the Kingman, and when he and his Mistress
would dance out the Game into
immortality.
The Game also dreamed
of things that its creators, Brutus and Genvissa, could never have realized. It
dreamed of the stone circles that still dotted the land, and it dreamed of
those ancient days when the stones danced under the
stars.
In its dreaming, the
Game began to whisper, the stones responded, and
the dream turned into
reality.
CbAPGGR SIX
AEWEALD?"
Saeweald jerked from
sleep, the dark-haired woman beside ^^. -*S him murmuring sleepily.
"It is I,
Tostig."
Saeweald relaxed a
little, but not a great deal. He and Tostig had once been great friends, but as
Tostig had grown first into manhood, and then into his distant earldom, their
friendship had ebbed away.
Saeweald slowly swung
his legs out of bed, wincing as his right hip caught within the blankets and
twisted uncomfortably.
The woman beside him
also started to rise, but he laid a hand on her shoulder. "No, keep my
space warm for me, Judith. I will not be long."
Tostig had
disappeared into one of the outer chambers, and now he returned with a small
oil lamp. He grinned at the sight of the woman. "I know you," he
said. "You are one of the queen's ladies."
Judith inclined her head. "Indeed," she
said, "and a better mistress I could not hope to serve."
"Does she know
you spend your nights here?"
"I cannot
imagine that the queen would object," Saeweald said tersely, pulling on
his robe and belting it about his waist. "Tostig, what do you here?'
Tostig shifted his
eyes from Judith to the physician. "I need your advice," he said.
"And your… Sight."
Again his eyes slid
back to Judith.
"She knows who
and what I am," Saeweald said. "You need have no concern for
her."
He led Tostig back
into the next chamber. "What can be so urgent that you need to wake me
from my bed?"
"Edward,"
Tostig said, then grinned charmingly, which instantly put Saeweald on guard.
"I need to know how long he shall live."
"You and most of
"I… I am
concerned for my brother. I need to know what I can do that shall most aid him
to the throne."
ZJ -
Saeweald studied the
earl of
not what you want to
know."
Tostig abandoned his
charm. He grabbed at Saeweald's arm. "I want to know my future," he
said. "I want to know where I stand."
"Why?"
"Does not every
man want to know what lies before him?" Saeweald gave a hollow laugh.
"Some say that a wise man would give all his worldly goods not to know,
Tostig."
"I want to know. Why won't you tell me… do you want gold? Is that it?
Does the physician Druid need gold to share his Sight?"
"If you think
yourself brave enough, Tostig, then I can share my Sight with you. Give your
gold to the beggars who haunt the wastelands beyond the gates of
Saeweald reached for
the oil lamp that Tostig still held. The lamp consisted of a small, shallow
pottery dish in which swilled oil rendered from animal fats. A wick extended
partway out, resting on the rim of the dish, spluttering and
flickering.
Saeweald rested the
shallow dish in the palm of his left hand, passing his
right palm over it
several times. "Well?" Tostig demanded.
Saeweald's eyes
lifted from the lamp, and in the thin glimmer of light, they appeared very
dark, as if they had turned to obsidian rather than their usual
green.
Wait, he mouthed before bending his face back down to the
lamp.
Tostig stared at
Saeweald, then lowered his own eyes.
And gasped, taking an
involuntarily step backward.
That tiny lamp seemed
to have grown until it appeared half an arm's length in diameter, although it still
balanced easily in Saeweald's hand. The oil was now black and odorless, lapping
at the rim of the dish as if caught in some
great magical tide.
The wick sputtered,
and the smoke that rose from it thickened and then sank, twisting into the oil itself
until the dish of the lamp contained a writhing mass of smoke and black liquid.
What do you wish to know?
"How long does
Edward have to live?" said Tostig, unaware that Saeweald
had not spoken with
his own voice.
The oil and smoke boiled,
then cleared and in its depths Tostig saw Edward lying wan and skeletal on his
bed, a dark, loathsome miasma clouding above
his nostrils and
mouth.
"What does it
mean?" he asked.
The clouds gather. He does not have
long. What else do you want to know?
"Harold,"
Tostig said in a tight voice. "Tell me of Harold."
Again the oil and
smoke boiled then cleared, and Tostig bent close.
He saw Harold
climbing a hill. He was dressed in battle gear, although he did not carry a
sword, and he appeared weary and disheartened. He reached the top of the hill,
and suddenly a shaft of light slid down from the heavens, wrapping Harold in
gold, and Tostig saw that Harold wore a crown on his head and that the
weariness had lifted from his face.
Then Harold turned
about, and Tostig drew in a sharp breath, for Harold's face was both beautiful
and wrathful and consumed with power all at once. As Tostig stared, Harold very
slowly raised his hands, palms upward, and light shone forth from them, as if they
carried living, breathing gold within them.
"By the
gods!" Saeweald muttered, and he suddenly dropped the dish, spattering oil
over both men's robes and legs.
"I need to see
more!" cried Tostig, but Saeweald shook his head. "You have seen enough,"
he said. "Edward has not long, and Harold will be a king such as
Tostig stared through
the gloom toward Saeweald, but he could not make out the man's face. Then,
wordlessly, he turned on his heel and left.
Saeweald stood very
still for a long time; the remnants of the oil dripping down his robe.
Eventually he turned,
went back to the bedchamber, disrobed, and crawled back in beside Judith.
"I think I know
why Coel is back," he said.
sevejM
wind ruttling tnc
snun v.
ing him narrow his
almost-black eyes. Behind him a group of his men-at-arms chattered quietly
where they stood by the horses, and his close friend Walter Fitz Osbern sat in
the grass, watching him carefully.
To his side stood
Matilda. She was heavily pregnant, only weeks away from giving birth, and she
and William were engaged in what had become one of the rituals of their
marriage. In each of her pregnancies, a few weeks before she gave birth,
Matilda asked William to bring her to the coast where she could stand and feel
the sea wind in her hair and ruffling through her clothes. It was this, and its
memory, which enabled her to endure the weeks of confinement just before and
after the birth of a child. Matilda hated the sense of detainment, almost of
capture, that surrounded the rituals of childbirth; this single day of freedom,
of feeling the wind in her hair and her husband standing beside her, gave
Matilda enough strength to endure it. Despite her diminutive stature, Matilda
gave birth easily, although she found it desperately painful: this child would
be their seventh.
Matilda also liked to
stand here, her belly swelling toward the sea, because it gave her a sense of
superiority over this witch that William still dreamed of. Well might Swanne be
the first love of William's life, but it was not she who bore his children, and
it was not she who stood here now, William's companion and mate.
She looked at William,
and saw that he had his eyes fixed on the wild tossing gray seas, and that
faint smudge in the far distance, that line of white
cliffs.
"How you lust
for that land," she murmured, and William flickered his
eyes her way.
"Aye. And it will be mine soon enough."
She nodded. In the
past two years, William had finally managed to bring
evaporated, and
William enjoyed power such as he'd never had previously.
Their marriage was
strong, stronger than Matilda had ever envisaged in their early months
together. They had both agreed that truth was the only possible foundation on
which they could build their partnership, and the truth had served them well.
Of course, there were
always a few small secrets and, on William's part, the occasional infidelity,
but neither small secrets nor infidelities rocked the essential core of their
marriage: Matilda and William were good for each other. Together, they managed
far more than either of them could have managed individually.
"When?"
said Matilda, although she well knew the answer.
"When Edward
dies," he said. William was strong enough to venture an invasion now, but
he also wanted to coat his claim with legitimacy, and he could not do that if
he tried to wrest a throne from the incumbent king.
Once Edward was dead,
however, then the path would be open for him.
William shifted
slightly, as if uncomfortable, and he frowned as he gazed across the gray
waters of the channel that separated
"What is
it?" said Matilda.
"There is
something about to happen… matters are moving," he said. He lifted his
closed fist and beat it softly against his chest, underscoring his words.
"I feel it in here."
Matilda felt a thrill
of superstitious awe run up and down her spine. Fifteen years had been far long
enough for her to realize that there were depths to her husband that she had
not yet plumbed.
If the witch Swanne loved him, then
why was that so? Was it because some power in William called to Swanne?
"It is not
Edward," she said, and William looked at her.
"How so? What do
you know?"
Matilda managed to
suppress the small smile that threatened to break through. One of the
"small" secrets she had kept from William was that Matilda had her
own agent in place within Edward's court.
"I think you
will find," Matilda said, "that Edward's queen shall be at the heart
of it."
"Caela?
Why?"
Now Matilda allowed
that secretive smile to break through. "A woman's intuition, my dear.
Nothing else."
Caela intrigued
Matilda. Initially, Matilda had set her agent to watching Swanne, but that
watchfulness had, over the years, grown to include the
queen as well. At
first this had been because Swanne so clearly and evidently hated Caela, and
that made Matilda wonder if Swanne feared the queen as well, and further
wondered why this might be so. But then, as the years passed, Matilda came to
understand, via her agent, that there was a small but dedicated coterie that
surrounded the queen, and that Caela herself sometimes exuded an air of
strangeness that Matilda's agent found difficult to
express.
"Caela is
nothing," William said, and the harsh tone of his voice made
Matilda look sharply
at him. I wonder, she thought. AS WILLIAM LIFTED MATILDA BACK TO
HER HORSE,
his mind drifted to
the dream he'd had some nights previously. Cornelia, or Caela, as she was now
called, in her stone hall. That dream had been so real. The stone had felt hard
beneath his feet, Caela's flesh so warm beneath his
fingers.
The plea in her eyes
as vivid as if he'd stood there in reality. William had dreamed of her
previously—would this woman never cease to torment him?—but never had the dream
seemed so real.
Nor Caela so close. She
was older than she had been as Cornelia, and lovelier. Her hair was darker, her
skin paler, but her eyes still had that strange depth of blue that they had two
thousand years previously.
She had still held
her face up to his, and yearned for him to kiss her. And he had wanted to kiss her, whatever he might have said to
her. He'd wanted to kiss her more than he'd ever wanted anything else in his
life. More than the Game? Aye, at that moment, when Caela's face had been so
close, William thought he might have squandered even the Game itself in order
to feel her mouth yield under his, to taste her sweetness… Yet he'd stopped
himself, just in time. Was she the trap Asterion had laid?
Again?
William turned from
Matilda—watching him curiously—and stared back
across the wild
tossing seas.
Soon. It was starting
today—he could feel it surging through his blood—
and within a year all
would be won or lost.
eigbc
The Great Hall,
AROLD GODWINESON,
EARL OF
slouched in his great
chair in its habitual place to the right of King / Edward's dais. His dark eyes
were hooded, his right hand rubbed through the short dark hairs of his
moustache and beard, his left arm lay draped, apparently relaxed, over the
carved armrest of the great chair, his legs stretched out before him, one foot
idly tapping out a rhythm only Harold could hear.
He looked almost half
asleep, but in reality Harold was coiled, tense and waiting. Harold had spent
his life either at court or on the battlefield, and over the years he'd
developed a sense of danger so acute he could almost smell its approach.
His nose had been
full of the stink of danger ever since last night.
Ever since Swanne had
dropped her robe and straddled him with her naked, tight body.
Ever since he'd lain
awake all night, observing her sitting before the brazier through his
heavy-lidded eyes.
Ever since he'd seen
her scratch out that secret communication and hide it within the folds of her
clothes.
Now he watched and
waited, more certain of this than anything else he'd known in this life. There
was danger afoot, and Swanne was somehow connected with it. Harold knew he
should worry about Tostig as well, but for the moment the sense of danger that
seemed to surround Swanne was so acute that he pushed all thought of his
brother to the side.
His eyes moved slowly
over the crowd gathered for King Edward's harvest court in the vast Great Hall
of Westminster palace, seeking Swanne out. Ah, there she was, chatting with
several members of the witan.
Harold's expression
remained studiously neutral as he watched his wife. This morning she looked
lovelier than ever, her ivory gown clinging to the
IOO
swell of her breasts
and hips, pinching in about the narrowness of her waist, both swell and
slenderness emphasized every time she moved.
He no longer loved
her, nor even respected her. Oh, once he had adored her, patterned his life
about her every movement and want. But that lovelorn man had been left behind years
ago, murdered through years of cohabitation with the lady he'd taken as his
common-law wife. Now that the delusion of love had been stripped from his eyes,
Harold could see that there was a coldness about Swanne that even she, most
expert of deceivers, could not entirely hide. There was a sense of waiting about her that made him think of the dead-liness of a
coiled snake about to strike.
Harold had absolutely
no doubt that, were it to suit her purposes, Swanne
would not hesitate to
murder him.
A great wave of
blackness washed over him, and Harold had to close his eyes momentarily, trying
to recover his equilibrium. All his life he'd been plagued with terrible
dreams, of a love and a land lost; of Swanne standing over his murdered body,
laughing; of a man with raging, snapping black hair reaching out over his
corpse to a woman whose face was that of… that of… Harold opened his eyes,
staring at Swanne, forcing his mind away from his dreams. In his youth, they'd
been the province of the night only, nightmares he could laugh away in the
sanity of wakefulness. But over the past few months, they'd been taking over
his waking hours as well.
And whenever he
looked at his sister, his mind was filled with such carnal thoughts that Harold
was sure the devil himself must have ensnared him.
Last night, when
Swanne had lowered herself to him, he'd closed his eyes and imagined that it
was not Swanne atop him, but…
No! He must stop this. God, what was happening to him?
Was this some sickness of the mind? Some devilish possession? Desperate for
distraction, Harold looked slowly about the Great Hall, seeking whatever it was
(apart from his thoughts of his sister) that was causing chills to run up and
down his spine, and nerves to flutter in his belly.
The Hall was filled
with Normans… who would imagine that this was a Saxon kingdom, and at its head
a Saxon king? No wonder his nerves were afire when his king preferred the
This Hall was far
vaster than the one his father had built in
Currently, Edward sat
on his carved wooden throne on his dais, his snowy hair and beard flowing over
his shoulders and chest, robed in the Norman manner as if he were a woman
rather than a warrior, a crucifix in his hand, an expression of wisdom and
dignity affixed on his aged face. Harold's eyes
IOI
narrowed. Edward
cultivated the demeanor of the scholarly yet shrewd king, but Harold doubted
that any honest appraisal of the man would value him at anything more than the
mediocre. Edward had begun his reign twenty-five years previously in a burst of
bright hope, and it looked as if he'd end it in an agony of indecision.
Edward's
advisers—sycophants all—were gathered about him, nodding and smiling and
agreeing and sympathizing as the occasion demanded. A Norman nobleman, no doubt
from Duke William's court, was smiling and laughing and presenting the duke's
compliments. Several churchmen, never slow to flatter such a powerful
benefactor, bowed their heads in assumed wisdom and piety. Within the cluster,
Harold recognized Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester and the much traveled Norman
sympathizer Aldred, archbishop of York (now much fatter than he'd been when
he'd officiated at Edward's wedding so many years previously). There also was
Eadwine, the abbot of Westminster Abbey, nodding and smiling whenever Edward so
much as looked his way.
Fools, all.
Saeweald stood
slightly behind and to one side of the adoring cluster, his copper vials of
herbs and potions dangling from his belt and catching the light. He leaned on a
crutch that Harold knew he only used on days of supreme discomfort. The
physician's face was masked in blandness, but Harold knew him well enough to
recognize the irony that lay behind his expression. Saeweald hated the
Saeweald caught
Harold's appraisal and, very slowly, lowered one eyelid in a wink.
Despite his
continuing sense of imminent danger, Harold's mouth twitched beneath his hand.
It was Tostig who had first introduced him to the physician many years ago, but
despite the current tension between Harold and his brother, his friendship with
Saeweald remained strong. It was not simple liking that bound the two men
(although sometimes Harold wondered at the rapidity with which they had
established such a deep friendship, almost as if they'd been renewing it, not
forming it) but also their common preference to the ancient pagan ways of the
country. They shared a mutual loving and reverence for the land itself, for the
turf and the stones and the meanderings of the streams and rivulets. A love and
reverence that meant far more to them than the petty mouthings of Christian
priests. Sometimes, in the depths of winter, Saeweald would take Harold to the
top of one of the hills that surrounded London, and there he would shuck off
his robe and, naked save for the tattoo that marked him as a priest of the
ancient paths, would take Harold on journeys of such mystery and power that
left the earl shaking for hours afterward.
Always, after these
mysteries, Saeweald would half smile at Harold and say, One day… one day…
IO
IO
Harold never knew
what he meant, and never dared ask. Saeweald also took Harold to some far less
private, although still very exclusive, celebrations. On the winter solstices,
the equinoxes, the festivals of Beltane, of Maytide and of the Green Man,
Saeweald took Harold to the very top of Pen Hill to meet with (Harold had
laughed in disbelief the first night he'd attended such a celebration) Mother
Ecub and her very unvirginal nuns, as well as a host of men and women he'd
recognized from the councils and markets of London. There he'd partaken in the
dances and meanderings, the fires and the spirit-soarings, the choruses and
(Harold shivered with remembered longing) the strange matings within the
circles of stone about the hills
of
Harold's mouth curled
behind his hand: if only Edward knew what went
on in his realm while
he knelt before his altar…
A snippet of
conversation from around the king reached Harold's ears. Abbot Eadwine had
begun a long and loud boast about the beauty of the
almost-completed
abbey.
Edward was hanging on
every word, almost drooling in his excitement, and Harold's lips thinned in
disgust. Eadwine was Edward's special creature. Many years previously, the king
had selected Eadwine, from among the gaggle of black-robed monks who lived
within the abbey precincts, to be the new abbot and had then glorified both abbey and abbot by financing
one of the most spectacular building programs ever seen in England—or
Europe—come to that. Westminster Abbey had gone from being a damp, dark, sullen
stone church, with too many draughts for any but the most desperately pious to
enjoy, to an imposing church and abbey that now rose atop Tothill. The new abbey,
due to be completed within the next few months, was one of the most beautiful
and impressive churches within all of Christendom.
Edward meant it as a
fitting burial chamber and memorial to his reign. Harold thought the entire
matter beyond contempt. Other men, other kings, would have preferred that their
deeds and victories remain as their memorials. Not Edward. Childless,
victory-less, and increasingly meaningless in his essential impotence and
powerlessness, even within his own kingdom, Edward had chosen to erect a
monument of stone to his glory.
Harold had no doubt
that the Church would eventually canonize the king for it. Spectacular
donations were ever the easy road to sainthood.
Saeweald was still
watching Harold, and seemed to understand some of the earl's thoughts, for his
own mouth curled in amusement.
Harold finally looked
away from Saeweald. Soon the damned physician would have him smiling openly,
and in this court that would never do.
His gaze drifted, as
it so often did, to Caela. She looked particularly beautiful—and particularly
sad within that beauty—on this morning. She was
robed in soft blue
silk over a crisp white under tunic, a mantle of snowy linen about her
shoulders and draped demurely over her dark hair. The colors suited her, and
Harold found himself thinking on how beautiful she would look, were she within
her and Edward's private chambers, where she could remove her veil, and let
that blue silk shimmer against the darkness of her hair…
Caela turned slightly
on her seat, handing some needlework to a woman behind her, and as she did so
the material of her robe twisted and tightened about her waist and breasts.
Harold stilled, his
very breathing stopped.
Caela spoke softly to
the woman, and then laughed at some small jest the woman made to her, and
Harold let his breath out, horrified to hear its raggedness.
Damn it! Look elsewhere, lecher!
Desperate, Harold
dragged his gaze away from his sister and toward the back of the Great Hall
where thronged the thegns and stewards, and even several ceorls, who came each
day to court in the hope of gaining a moment of the king's time for their
supplications.
Harold saw several
that he knew, and nodded a terse greeting to them. And there was Tostig, just
entered.
Tostig saw Harold
looking, even across this distance, and pointedly looked away.
Harold sighed.
Perhaps he should send one of his thegns down to his brother and bid him sit
with Harold. Then they could talk, perhaps, and jest away the tensions that had
arisen between them the previous night.
But, just as he was
about to summon a thegn and send him to Tostig, Harold stilled in puzzlement.
To the very rear of
the Hall, where opened the doors to the outer chambers, stood a tall, pale
figure.
Harold blinked, for
the figure seemed very slightly out of focus… as if it stood behind a veil of
water. Whatever—whoever—it was, the figure was very tall, and dressed in plain,
poorly sewn garments.
A beggar, come to
elicit pennies?
For an instant, just
an instant, the veil lifted, and Harold found himself staring at intense
gray-flecked brown eyes. The eyes transfixed him, they were so clear, even from
this distance, that he did not think to expand his view to the larger face.
Then the veil was
back again, and the figure muted.
Suddenly his sense of
imminent danger exploded, and Harold straightened and slid to the edge of his
chair, a hand to the knife at his belt.
Even as Harold was
rising, the strange, discomforting figure gave a
IO*
discernible moan,
raised a long, thin, almost diaphanous arm, and pointed
toward Caela.
Before Harold could
say or do anything further, Caela half rose from her t
seat, her face a mask
of terror and pain, and cried out with a half-strangled j
moan. J
Asterion marched through the stone
hall that represented Caela's womb, his booted footsteps ringing most satisfactorily.
It was time, finally, to make the opening move in this most exquisite, if
deadly,
of dances.
Asterion laughed aloud—and to think only he knew the tune! Then he sobered,
and slowed his pace as he walked through the hall, his head swinging this way
and that as he tried to spy out where she'd put herself.
She wouldn't have hidden herself too
well, that he knew. After all, Mag was the one who wanted herself murdered.
Wasn't that all a part of her Grand
Plan?
Asterion almost laughed again,
remembering how, in their previous life, Mag and Hera had plotted to outwit
Asterion. Hera, the
dying Greek goddess, had
called to the Llangarlian goddess Mag, telling her that they could use Cornelia to trick Asterion into an alliance
with Mag.
Then Mag, using Cornelia, could turn
against Asterion. Neither Hera nor Mag realized that Asterion knew of their
entire, inept plan. Gods thought to outwit him, Mistresses of the Labyrinth
thought to deceive him, and Asterion was a step ahead of all of them. They
would dance to his tune,
not he to theirs.
"Come on, Mag," Asterion
whispered. "Show thyself. It is, after all, your execution day, and you
wouldn't want to be tardy for such an important appointment,
would you?"
There was a slight movement to one
side, within one of the shadowy recesses of
the arched side aisles.
Nothing. A trickery only. Something
designed to make him feel as though what
he did now was real. Worthwhile, even. <
"Oh come on, you silly
bitch," Asterion muttered. "I haven't got all day." Ah! There
she was! About time…
Asterion's gait increased in pace
and, as it did so, so his entire form became huge and black, a great amorphous
mass of murderous intent.
Mag had appeared at the far end of
the stone hall. She looked tiny and wizened from her long period of inactivity,
and darted terrified from the shadow of one great column to the next. She
wailed, the sound thin and frightened, and she clasped her hands about her
shoulders as if that single, futile gesture might save her.
O
Oh, for goodness sake, thought
Asterion, that act wouldn't fool a toddling child.
"Did you think that you had
outwitted me?" he snarled (one had to play out the absurdity, after all).
"No!" Mag cried. "No! Let me be, Asterion. I
can help you! I can—"
Something dark and horrible, a bear's
claw although magnified ten times over, roared through the air, and Mag threw
herself to one side.
The claw buried itself in one of the
great columns of the stone hall, and blood gushed forth from the stone.
Asterion began to giggle.
"I beg you!" screamed Mag. "I beg—"
The claw flashed through the air once
more, save that this time it became as the head of a great cat halfway through
its swing, and its fangs snapped, barely missing the goddess, who rolled
desperately across the floor.
"Bitch!" seethed Asterion,
and he leaped high into the air. His form turned into a murderous cloud, its
entire bulk shrouding Mag completely. From a cloud it changed into a bubbling
mass of plague, sorrow, and death, and it poured itself over Mag, it flowed
over her, and in that one movement, that one moment, Asterion did what Genvissa
had always wanted to do.
He destroyed the goddess. He annihilated her.
Just as she wanted.
Blood flowed.
Asterion laughed.
So many things
happened all at once within the Great Hall that all Harold could do was leap
from his chair, and then just stand, helpless and appalled.
Caela staggered from
her chair, her face suddenly so pale that all the life appeared to have drained
from her, her eyes wide, her mouth in a surprised "O," her hands
clutching to her belly. Blood—a
flood of it!—stained
first about her lower belly and then thickened down her lower skirts until her
feet slipped in it and she fell to the timber flooring.
Edward, his own face
stunned, stumbled from his throne to stand, staring at his wife as she writhed
in agony on the floor.
Caela's ladies,
standing together in one amorphous mass, hands to mouths, eyes wide in shock. What queen ever acted this way?
Swanne turned from
the three men she'd been seducing with her grace and wit and loveliness and
regarded Caela's sudden, unexplained agony with something akin to speculation.
Judith was the first
to make any attempt to aid Caela, bending down to her and gathering the
stricken woman in her arms. The next instant, Saeweald had joined her, almost
falling to the floor as he tossed aside his crutch.
IG
IO
Harold also went
forward, his eyes glancing back to where the strange, pale figure had stood—it
was gone, now—and bent down beside Saeweald and Judith. Appalled at his
sister's distress, Harold lifted his head to say something to Edward, who was
standing close by with an expression of revulsion on his face, when he was
forestalled by Aldred, the archbishop of
"See," the
archbishop said, his voice roiling with contempt, "your queen miscarries
of a child. I had not known, majesty, that you had put one in her. You should
have been more forthcoming in boasting of your achievement."
Edward gasped, his
rosy cheeks turning almost as wan as Caela's now bloodless ones. "The
whore!" he said. "I have remained celibate of her body! I have put no
child within her!"
And he turned, his
face now triumphant, and stared at Harold. "For mercy's sake!" Harold
shouted, murderously furious at Edward and frightened for Caela all in one.
"Your wife bleeds to death before you, and all you can think of is to
accuse her of whoredom?"
He spun his face
about in Caela's ladies who, too terrified both by Caela's sudden, horrifying
hemorrhage and by Edward's accusation, stood incapable of movement. "Aid
her!" Harold cried. "Aid her, for sweet mercy!"
He rose, as if he
meant to force the ladies down to help Judith and Saeweald, but then the
physician himself spoke. "Send for the midwives," Saeweald said.
"Now!"
Then, stunningly, he
grabbed at Harold's wrist, pulled him close, and whispered, "Be at peace,
Harold. This is not as bad as it might appear."
MUCH LATER, WHEN THE
COURT WAS STILL ABUZZ
with shock and
speculation, the head midwife, a woman called Gerberga,
came before Edward.
"Well?"
said the king. "What can you tell me of my wife's shame?" To one
side, Harold made as if he would stand forth and speak, but Edward waved him to
silence with a curt gesture. "Well?" said the king. "Speak!"
Gerberga's eyes
flitted to Harold, then settled on the king. She raised her head, and spoke
clearly. "Your wife the queen carries no shame, Your Majesty. She remains
a virgin still, as intact as when she was birthed. To this I swear, as will any
other of the five midwives who have examined her."
"But she
miscarried!" Edward said, his hands tightened about the armrests of his
throne.
Gerberga shook her
head slowly from side to side. "She did not miscarry, my king. Some women,
if left virgin too long, grow congested and cramped
within their wombs.
What happened today was the sudden release of such congestion. A monthly flux,
although far worse than what most women endure."
"Caela will
recover?" Harold said.
"Aye," said
Gerberga, "although she shall need rest and good food and sweet words of
comfort."
"Then she shall
have it," said Harold.
Edward snorted, and
relaxed back in the throne. "The court
shall be the sweeter place without her," he observed, and, by his side,
Archbishop Aldred laughed.
TOSTIG HAD OBSERVED
THE ENTIRE DRAMA FROM HIS
place far back in the
Hall. He had not moved to aid Caela, nor even to make inquiries after her
health, contenting himself instead with watching the words and actions of those
on the dais with a cynical half smile on his lips.
As he turned to
leave, a man standing just behind him made a small bow of respect, stepping
back to allow Tostig to pass.
But, just as the earl
made to step forward, the man said, "You must be concerned for your
sister, my lord. How fortunate that all seems better than first it
appeared."
Tostig snorted.
"That farce? It concerned me not.
"Edward…"
the man half shrugged dismissively. "He is an old man, and weak because of
it. But Harold…"
"Harold is as
weak and foolish," Tostig snapped, "for his wits are so addled he
cares not for any within this kingdom save our sister. Now stand aside, man,
for I would pass."
As the earl pushed
by, the man looked across the Hall to where a companion stood. They exchanged a
glance, and then each turned aside with a small smile of satisfaction on their
faces.
Tostig would bear watching.
ry ISGUISED IN THE
BODY HE INHABITED FROM
time to time,
Asterion walked through Edward's Great Hall, mounted the stairs at its far end,
and moved through the upper floor toward the chamber where lay Caela.
As he passed, people
stood to one side and bowed in respect. Many of them asked for his blessing,
and Asterion was pleased to pause, and make above their heads the sign of the
cross, and to murmur a few words
of prayer to comfort
them.
So amusing. So
quaint. The world was full of fools.
When he reached
Caela's chamber, the midwives allowed him entry instantly, standing aside as he
approached her bed. Further back, the physician Saeweald sat in a chair,
looking tired and wrung out, as if it were he who had suffered the flux rather
than the queen.
Saeweald rose
awkwardly, made a small bow of respect, then sank down again at Asterion's
good-natured gesture.
"My beloved
lady," Asterion said, his voice an extravagance of sympathy, turning now
to the queen in her bed, "the entire court expresses its concern for your
malaise. The well-wishes are many and rich."
Caela lay very still
and very white under the coverlets. "I doubt that very
much, my lord."
"We were all
shocked," Asterion said, accepting the stool that one of the midwives
brought to him, and pulling it close enough to the bed that he could take
Caela's still, cold hand. "Some of us perhaps uttered hasty words."
He made a small moue of regret.
Caela gave a small,
humorless smile, and remained silent. Asterion sent out his power, searching,
as the queen's hand lay in his. He knew what he would find, but it always paid
to be careful, and he had to go through the motions. To do what was expected of
him. People were watching, and who knew their powers of perception?
As he had expected,
there was nothing. Mag was gone from Caela's womb as surely as if… she had
never been there.
IO
Asterion smirked,
then turned it quickly into an expression of concern as he patted Caela's hand.
"Poor
child," he said. "You have suffered so terribly."
And shall suffer even more.
Then he rose,
mumbling something conciliatory, winked at Saeweald, and walked away, well
pleased with himself.
The trap was set, but
he must not rest upon his achievements thus far. The Game was moving, and he
must needs move with it.
Once he reached the
stairs that led down to the Great Hall, Asterion began whistling a cheerful
little ditty that he'd heard used by the fishermen at the wharves.
C6JM
AELA LAY, DEEPLY ASLEEP. HER HUSBAND,
THE
king, had taken
himself off to another chamber for the night, ^i*p»"'* claiming he did not
wish to disturb his wife in her recovery.
He fooled no one.
Edward had forever been repulsed by the normal workings of a woman's body and
had always insisted Caela move to a different bed during the nights of her
monthly flux. His decision on this occasion to quit the marital chamber instead
of requiring Caela to do so was a singular event, and perhaps a further
expression of regret for his thoughtless accusations at court earlier in the
day. Edward had visited his wife, along with a dozen other notables who had
dropped in one by one, had patted her hand awkwardly, muttered some even more
awkward words, and had then left with patent
relief.
Now, as night closed
in, Saeweald, Judith, and Ecub sat about the brazier on the far side of the
chamber from Caela's heavily curtained bed. The midwives had gone, Caela's bevy
of lesser-attending ladies had gone, and now only the physician, the prioress,
and the senior of the queen's ladies
remained.
For a long time they
sat without speaking, perhaps being careful, perhaps
just bone-weary
themselves.
Finally, with a sigh,
Saeweald spoke. "It has happened as the Sidlesaghes
said it would."
"Aye," said
Ecub.
"Asterion showed
his hand," Saeweald said.
"In a
manner," said Ecub. "He acted, yes, but who saw his hand, then?
You? Or you,
Judith?"
"All of
us," said Judith, repressing a shiver. "We were at court this
morning… and we all
know he would have been among those to come to
this chamber this
afternoon or evening. To make sure Mag was gone." "Oh, aye, indeed," Ecub said very softly.
"But which one was he?" All three knew from their previous lives, from
their conversations with
Cornelia in that time
between when she'd "died" during the dreadful birth of
III
her daughter, a time
when Mag had spoken to her, and the time that Cornelia had murdered Genvissa,
that Mag had made an alliance with Asterion. Mag had warned Cornelia then—and
Cornelia had subsequently mentioned this to Loth—that in the next life Asterion
would renege on the alliance. For him, Mag was nothing but a complication and a
nuisance. Something which must needs be removed on his path to destroying the
Game.
Until very recently,
neither Ecub, Saeweald, nor Judith had any idea what Mag had planned. They'd
thought that the presence of Mag within Caela's womb was the real Mag, but from
the Sidlesaghes, Ecub had discovered that this Mag was only a sham, an
illusion, set within Cornelia's stone hall, her womb, to deceive Asterion. To
trick him into thinking he had disposed of Mag.
They'd known from the
instant Caela had collapsed in court what was happening. At least the Sidlesaghes'
warning had meant they were not as terrified or distraught as they would have
been, had they thought Asterion was truly murdering Mag, but even so, Caela's
distress had sickened and frightened them.
As had the procession
of people into Caela's bedchamber throughout the day. Ostensibly all these
visitors were there to assure themselves of the queen's well-being, that she
had not bled, nor would not bleed, to death, but the three friends knew that
among these visitors almost certainly would have been the disguised Asterion,
come to check that Mag had indeed been killed.
"It could have
been any one of them—and as much one of the women as one of the men," said
Saeweald.
Ecub harrumphed.
"And not a single one of them stank of bull."
Again, silence as
they sat, watching the curtains pulled about Caela's bed, listening to her
quiet breathing.
"Where is
Mag?" said Judith. "Where has she
been hiding all this time? How will she be reborn?"
Both Saeweald and
Ecub shrugged.
"She should know," Saeweald said, nodding at the bed.
"Mag would have told her."
"Cornelia never
told you?" Ecub said.
Saeweald shook his
head.
"Caela should know, but Caela is unchanged!" Judith said,
despair making her voice higher than it normally was. "She has not opened
her eyes and said, T remember.' She has simply opened her eyes and been as she
has always been in this life—unknowing, unwitting, unremembering."
"The Sidlesaghes
told me," Ecub said, "that all will come to pass as it should. So we shall
wait, my friends. We shall wait and we shall trust."
Saeweald was about to
respond, but just then there came a knock at the door, and all three seated
about the fire jumped.
It was Haroiu, i~~—o
sleep.
He walked quietly to
the bed, held aside one of the drapes momentarily as
he looked down on his
sleeping sister, then came over to the fire where Judith
had rejoined Ecub and
Saeweald.
Ecub began to rise,
her eyes on a stool standing in a corner, but Harold motioned her to remain
seated, and fetched the stool himself.
"My sister the
queen?" he said softly as he sat down with them. "She will be well
enough," Saeweald said. "Her monthly flux was bloodier than normal,
but that is all that it was. With rest and good food, Caela shall be
well enough."
Gods, how he hated to lie to this
man, but it were better Harold not know of
the love and loss of his previous
life. To know would be only to torment.
"To so accuse
her!" Harold said, low and angry, and it took the others a moment to
realize that he referred to Edward's hateful accusation at court. "My
sister should have babies and love and laughter, but all she has is… is this!" He waved a hand about the chamber, but taking
in with that gesture the entire palace and her life as Edward's wife.
To that there was
nothing to say, so the others merely nodded. Harold's shoulders slumped and his
face suddenly looked old and gray. "I wanted to come sooner, but Edward
detained me, first with this nonsense and then that, and then sent me to
interrogate some fool who had imagined he'd seen a pair of dragons mating in
the skies over
Ecub nodded, and
Harold gave a small half smile. "Tell me," he said, "has
Tostig been here to
ask after Caela?"
Saeweald shook his
head, and Harold sighed. "Ah well, I expect he was
detained as was
I."
He rose, made his
farewells, and was gone.
When he had gone,
Ecub sighed. "Such a waste," she said, and even though she did not
elucidate on that statement, the other two knew precisely what
she meant.
"And now,"
Ecub continued, smiling at Saeweald and Judith, "I will sit
with the queen
through the night, and you two can have some precious time
together."
"—^a +r, nrotest, but Saeweald took her hand, squeezed it
so that
she subsided, and
smiled in his turn at Ecub. "I thank you, Mother Ecub," he said.
"You will send for us if…?"
"If there is any
trouble, which there shall not be," the prioress said. Then she winked.
"Enjoy your rest."
SAEWEALD'S APARTMENTS
WITHIN THE
complex were spacious
and well-appointed, a sign of the regard in which Edward held him. Situated in
a long, half-timbered, half-stone building situated fifty paces from the palace
and (for Saeweald) a comfortable one hundred paces from the abbey complex, his
building housed the domestic apartments of various court officials, the
occasional visiting nobleman and his family, and a few highly placed servants.
Saeweald's quarters, three well-sized and airy chambers, were at the very end
of the building, and he had his own entrance-way so that he could make his way
to the beds of the sick at all times of the night and day without disturbing
the other residents of the building.
Of course, this also
meant that Saeweald had far more privacy than others when it came to the
comings and goings from his chambers.
Now, several hours
after they had left Caela's chambers, he and Judith lounged naked before the
hearth on coverlets they'd pulled from the bed. They had made love, but the
greatest intimacy came now, when Judith gently, lovingly, massaged soothing
oils into Saeweald's twisted leg and hip. This was an intimacy that he allowed
no one else, the touching of his deformity, and that he allowed Judith to was a
measure of the love and trust he held for her.
They'd been lovers
ever since she'd come to court to serve Caela. The instant they first met in
this life, and knew, there had been such a sense of
relief and of companionship renewed, that their first bedding had been
accomplished with unseemly haste.
In a stable, which
had been the first place they'd been able to find that had some relative
privacy.
Save for the resident
horse, of course, who had been quite agitated and who had snorted his disquiet
for the fifteen turgid minutes it had taken the pair to sort themselves out.
Since that day,
Saeweald and Judith found every spare hour they could to spend together. The
love-making was evidence not so much of lust, but of the deepest friendship and
respect and of shared purpose. To serve Caela
and Mag, and to serve the land, in whatever means that were possible.
They were extremely
discreet. Ecub knew, of course, and Judith thought that Caela, and perhaps even
Harold, suspected, but (apart from the horse, still watched them warily
whenever he saw one or the other cross the
a ix ax
stable yard and
tended to utter panic when he saw both of them together) no one else knew. In
King Edward's court, stiff with morality and piety, that was
just as well.
In a world where
Asterion strode, unknowable and unrestrainable, their
secret was doubly
important, for even this simple knowledge may have given the Minotaur a piece
of priceless information he could use at his destructive
leisure.
Judith ran her hands
down Saeweald's leg, leaning her weight into his
crippled flesh,
massaging away tensions and cramps and aches. Saeweald's hip had been so
brutally twisted during his birth (and who had commanded that midwife's hands? Judith had often wondered. Fate?
Brutus' deadly hand from two thousand years' previous? Asterion? Genvissa's
lingering malicious humor?) that the ball of his hip joint jutted out beneath
his right buttock, making even sitting uncomfortable for the man. As a
consequence, Saeweald either stood, or balanced precariously on the very edge
of stools and seats; when he rode, as he needed to if he was to get about at
all, he had to sit twisted on the saddle so that his left buttock bore most of
his weight. Even
then, riding was
often agony.
At least he could
walk. Praise Mag that at least he could walk. "What do you think will
happen?" Judith said.
Saeweald, who was
lying on his left side, his head propped up on a hand, watched the movement of
Judith's body in the firelight appreciatively.
"Hmmm?" he
said.
Judith looked at him,
then grinned. "You would have me to be your slave forever, would you not,
physician? Bending over your body, rubbing away
your aches…"
"Are you
offering?"
Her expression sobered.
"Would it help?"
In response he only
held out his free hand, and she gripped it silently. They locked eyes, and for
a moment nothing at all needed to be spoken. "Mag," Judith finally
said. "Where is she, do you think?" Saeweald sighed. "Caela would
know… but how to make her remember. Ah! She cannot be pushed, yet…" " 'Be patient,' Ecub said."
Saeweald muttered
something that Judith was rather glad she did not catch. She grinned again, and
was about to say something when, stunningly, horrifyingly, the door to the
chamber swung open and a man stepped through.
"STAY," HE
SAID TO THE STARTLED COUPLE, RAISING A
hand, palm up, a
gesture that was both conciliatory and reassuring.
Judith looked at
Saeweald, who stared unbelievingly at the man, then she unhurriedly reached for
her linen under tunic and pulled it over her shoulders. "Your name, good
man?" she said.
The stranger's mouth
lifted in a small, admiring smile at her composure. He was a strikingly
good-looking man of middle age. His long black curly hair was pulled back into
a leather thong behind his neck, a few strands escaping to trail over his broad
shoulders. His chest was broad and well muscled, his limbs long and strong. He
wore nothing but a snowy white waistcloth threaded over a wide leather belt and
leather-strapped sandals.
His face was stern
and handsome, and not at all marred by the leather patch he wore over his left
eye. His right eye was dark, gleaming with humor and power.
It was not the
stranger who answered Judith, but Saeweald.
"Silvius,"
he breathed, leaning forward so that Judith, now standing, could lend him her
hand and aid him up.
At the mention of
that name, Judith's eyes flew sharply to the man. Silvius? Brutus' father? The man Brutus had murdered
at fifteen in order to seize his heritage?
"Aye," the
man said, "Silvius, indeed. It has been a long time, Loth, since we met
within the dark heart of the labyrinth." His eyes slid down Saeweald's
body, marking the deformities. "My God, boy, does Brutus' hand still mark
you?"
"As much as it
marks you," Saeweald said, his tone still cautious, but nodding toward the
patch over Silvius' empty left eye socket. Judith passed Saeweald his robe and
he, too, clothed himself. "Silvius, what…"
"What do I
here?" Silvius' face suddenly seemed weary, and he raised his eyebrows at
a chair that stood to one side of the hearth.
Saeweald nodded, and
Silvius sat down with an audible sigh. "I am as trapped as you, Saeweald,
and," he looked at Judith, "as I suppose you are, my dear. I take it
from your intimacy with Loth here—"
"Saeweald,"
Judith put in quietly.
"Your intimacy
with Saeweald here, that you, too, are reborn from that time previous when we
all suffered at the hands of Brutus and that woman," he spat the word out,
"he tried to make the Game with?"
"Aye," she
said. "My name was Erith then, and now I am Judith."
Silvius nodded, his
expression still weary. "Asterion is back."
"We know,"
said Saeweald. "Silvius. What
do you here? And how?"
"Brutus trapped
me at the heart of his Game with my murder," Silvius said. "I am as
trapped as any of you."
"But you seem
flesh, not shade," Saeweald said.
Silvius grunted.
"You'd be astounded at what has happened in the past two
v
thousand years, my
boy. I sat there within the heart of the labyrinth, and somehow I took power
from the Game. I am as much a player in the battle that is to come as either of
you two are."
"But you cannot
move from the Game," Saeweald said. "You were trapped
within its
heart."
Silvius looked up at
him, his one good eye seething with knowledge and power. "Who says I have
moved from the Game?" he said quietly.
Saeweald and Judith
said nothing.
"The Game was
left unfinished," Silvius continued. "It continued to attract
evil… and it
grew."
"Grew?"
said Saeweald. He shared an appalled glance with Judith. "Oh, aye. Grew.
Grew in power and knowledge and in magnitude, my boy. You think
that the Game, the labyrinth, occupies only the top of Og's Hill— Lud Hill, as
now you call it—where my son first built it?" The other two were silent,
staring at Silvius.
Silvius' mouth
twisted. "Nay," he said, very softly now, and he threw his hand
about, as if encompassing not only Saeweald's chamber, but all the
Then Silvius leaned
forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and looked at them intently.
"I have had enough of this disaster my son helped construct. I feel partly
responsible, and so I am here to help you." He paused. "To help
Caela."
Saeweald narrowed his
eyes suspiciously. "Caela?"
"Oh, for the
gods' sakes, boy! You think me a fool? I know Caela is Cornelia-reborn, and I
know how important she is to you, and to your Mag and Og besides. And I know
she does not remember, and this she needs to do.
Yes?"
Silence.
"And Caela is
the only one who is likely to know where Mag truly is, yes?"
More silence.
"Yes, and yes
again," Silvius answered for them. "Caela needs to remember very
badly, for if she does not then all of our causes are lost. Saeweald, perhaps
all that Cornelia needs is something from her past life to jolt her into awareness."
"What?"
said Saeweald, finally, grudgingly deciding to trust Silvius just a little bit.
"What possibly remains from her previous life, save want and need
and hope?"
Silvius grinned,
holding Saeweald's eye. "A bracelet," he said. Saeweald frowned, but
it was Judith who spoke. "Saeweald, you may have never seen it, but
Cornelia had a bracelet, a beautiful thing of gold and rubies
that she brought with
her from her life as a princess of Mesopotama. She rarely wore it here in Llangarlia,
but I know she looked upon it occasionally, remembering her life as a
girl."
"Aye," said
Silvius. "That bracelet. What would happen, do
you think, if we slipped it on her wrist again?"
Saeweald was still
frowning. "And you know where it is?"
Silvius nodded.
"But to retrieve it safely I need you and whatever ancient magic of this
land you still command. Saeweald, will you aid me?"
"No,"
Judith said, but it was already too late, for she could see the light in
Saeweald's eyes.
eceve>i
I
wark.
ERY LATE THAT
NIGHT, WHEN THE MOON HAD
sunk and the streets
of
wark.
"They will not
allow us to pass," Saeweald muttered, squirming uncomfortably in the
saddle. His mare, Maggie, was well used to her rider's habitual wriggling, and
strode on unperturbed.
"Is that
so?" said Silvius, his teeth flashing white in the darkness, and Saeweald
saw him make a gesture with his left hand. "A sign of the Game,"
Silvius said. "Look."
Ahead was a
guardhouse that protected the entrance to the bridge. Normally four or five men
stood night watch here, but as they approached, Saeweald saw through the open
doorway into the dimly lit interior that all
slouched dozing about
a brazier.
"They shall not
wake," said Silvius. "And likewise with the guards who stand watch at
the other end of the bridge. The way shall be open for us."
"You can
manipulate the power of the Game?" Saeweald said, and Silvius glanced at
him, hearing the distrust in his voice.
"I was a
Kingman, too, remember? Yes, 1 can use parts of the Game's power. But, believe
me, Saeweald, I want what you do—to stop my son at any cost from completing the
Game with his Darkwitch. I do not want him finding those bands and
completing his horror."
Silvius visibly
shuddered, and Saeweald relaxed slightly. "You look so much like
him," Saeweald said. "I am sorry if I remain on guard." "I tried to help you before, didn't I?"
"Yes. Yes, you
did," Saeweald said, remembering how Silvius had tried to aid Loth when
he'd challenged Brutus to battle within the heart of the
labyrinth. "I am
sorry, Silvius."
Silvius nodded,
accepting Saeweald's apology, and led the way on to the bridge, which was
largely built over with houses and shops, leaving only a nar-Јm foot and horse
passengers to walk. The horses'
hooves echoed loudly
in the enclosed space, and Saeweald glanced back at the guardhouse.
There was no movement.
"They remain unaware," said Silvius.
From the bridge they
turned right along "Where do we go?" Saeweald said, having to
raise his voice above the clattering of hooves.
Silvius nodded ahead.
There, rising out of the gloom, was the White Mount that occupied the
eastern-most corner of
"The Romans were
a people from the same world as the Trojans, although from a later time, when
the mysteries of the Game had been forgotten. They were drawn to this land and
to this place by the siren song of the Game, although they did not recognize
it. On this mound, one of your sacred hills, they built a great lighthouse, a
beacon tower." "But the tower is of no importance."
"No. You are right." "It is what lies beneath it." "Aye."
"The well,"
Saeweald said. The Romans had built their lighthouse atop the White Mount,
which, in Saeweald's previous lifetime, covered a sacred well. Brutus had
caused the opening to the well to be covered over when he built his palace atop
the mound, but Saeweald supposed the well was still there, guarding its
mysteries.
But what was the
bracelet doing down the well?
"Cornelia was
buried there," Silvius said softly. "Did you not know? Ah, of course
not, for you were dead many years before she. When Brutus died, and then
Cornelia took her own life, their sons carried them to the well, and buried
them within it."
"And the bracelet was buried with her," said
Saeweald. "Indeed."
The horses climbed
the grassy slopes of the mount toward the derelict tower, Saeweald clinging to
Maggie's saddle and studying the tower as she
I2O
climbed. The Romans
had built the tower of white ragstone, well-buttressed and founded. It had once
soared over thirty paces into the air, but during the past nine hundred years
the top courses of stonework had tumbled down to lie in untidy heaps about the
foundations, and the highest rooms were open to the night air. The Romans had
used this tower to watch the river approaches to the city, and to set atop its
heights a great beacon to warn both
At the tower's base,
Silvius and Saeweald dismounted from their horses,
leaving their reins
untied so they could nibble the grass about the top of the hill.
Once inside, Silvius
led Saeweald to the tower's lowest rooms. The approaches
to the basements were
half obscured with tumbled beams and stones, and
Saeweald reluctantly
had to allow Silvius to aid him over the obstructions.
Eventually they stood
in the very lowest level of the tower where stood an uneven floor of great
stone slabs.
Here Silvius dropped
his cloak to one side.
"Cornelia's and
Brutus' corpses are beneath these slabs?" Saeweald asked.
"Aye."
"And you want me to lift these slabs?"
"No. Your power
I shall need later." With one hand Silvius made another gesture over the
stone flagging. "That was but a slight alteration to that magic that would
have raised the flower gate," he said. "Never forget that once I,
too, was—"
"A Kingman. Yes,
Silvius. I remember."
Then Saeweald gasped,
for just as he spoke, several of the flagstones wavered and then vanished,
revealing a great chasm.
Silvius stepped
close, his feet careful about the edge of the chasm, and
peered down.
"Gods," he
murmured. "I had not expected this to be so beautiful." Saeweald
looked away from Silvius and back to the well, drawing himself carefully
closer. The way opened into a rough circular shape that spiraled downward in
great twists of rough rock. Far, far beneath rippled an emerald pool of water,
and Saeweald knew that the depths of this pool were unknowable, even to such as
himself. As he watched, the waters surged, their waves lapping higher and
higher up the wild walls of the well, as if trying to reach
him. A dull roar
reached his ears.
Shaken by the power
of the raging waters, Saeweald studied the rock walls of the well. They did not
consist of the well-finished masonry of human hands, but instead twisted and
spiraled down in wild, sharp ledges. This was a savage and untamed cleft, and a
place of great magic and power.
Saeweald's face
sagged in astonishment. "I can't believe the well still retains this much
power! Gods, Silvius, did Brutus and Cornelia's sons see this when they buried their parents?"
"No," said
Silvius. "They saw only ordinariness, and a convenient place to rest their
parents."
"How in all
that's good and merciful," Saeweald said, "did Brutus and Cornelia's
sons manage their way down?"
"The well made
it easy for them," shouted Silvius. "All they and the mourners saw
were smooth, even courses of stones for the walls, a dribble of a puddle far
below, and a easy flight of steps that wound its way about the side of the
well. To them this place was nothing more than a source of water for Brutus'
palace, and not a very reliable one at that."
"I have never
seen the well so vibrant," Seaweald said.
"You know it as
a vital part of this land," said Silvius. "But did you know that
there are others about the world?"
Saeweald finally
dragged his eyes from the well to Silvius. "No."
"There was one
like this in my world also—we called it God's Well. It was the heart of the
city of
"Thank the gods
that Genvissa didn't manage to destroy this one," said Saeweald.
"And to why I
need you here," said Silvius. "The well is open now, and who knows
who can feel it, besides you and me? Saeweald—"
"I cannot go
down," Saeweald said, looking again at the rough walls. It was not the
magic which deterred him, but the simple fact that his twisted body would not
allow him to even attempt the climb down. "You need me to stay here, and
guard the entrance to the well with whatever power I can summon, while you
retrieve the bracelet. In case…"
"Aye," said
Silvius. "I will be as fast as I might, but still…" He stepped close
to Saeweald, and put a hand on the man's shoulder. "One day, my friend,
you will be whole again, and then you also
may go down."
"Be
careful," said Saeweald.
Silvius nodded, then
dropped to the edge of the well, carefully lowering himself down to the first
of the twisting edges. Above him, Saeweald stripped off his robe and, naked,
the light from the well playing over the antler tattoo over his chest and
shoulders, began to hum a strange melody.
Within moments the
entrance to the well had clouded over, and then vanished, as if all that
Saeweald stared at was a rough, uneven flooring of gravel.
Silvius glanced above
to make sure that Saeweald had concealed the entrance, grinned, then
concentrated on the climb. The way down was
difficult, but not impossible,
and Silvius' pace quickened once he became more confident in finding his hand
and footholds.
After some time had
passed, Silvius spied what he was looking for: an opening into the rock wall,
partway around the well from where he clung to a ledge. The roaring from the
waters—still far below—had now increased greatly in volume, and the rocks had
grown ever more slippery with condensation, and Silvius was more than glad he
had found the entrance to the burial chamber. Even more careful, now that his
destination was in sight, Silvius concentrated on climbing about the rock walls
to the opening.
In a few short
minutes he breathed a sigh of relief and leaped lightly down to the floor of
the passageway. He made a gesture with his hand, and immediately the passageway
was filled with a soft, golden light.
Unlike the rock walls
of the well, the passageway had smooth walls and an
even, dustless rock
floor, and Silvius wasted no time in striding down its length.
It was only some
thirty or thirty-five paces long, leading directly into a
rounded chamber that
looked as if it had been water-carved from the living
rock.
In the center of the
chamber were two waist-high rock plinths, some three feet wide and seven long,
and on each of these plinths rested cloth-wrapped
figures.
The corpses of Brutus
and Cornelia.
Silvius halted the
instant he stepped inside the chamber, staring at the
plinths.
A sardonic smile
creased his face as he walked to the plinth that bore the
larger and taller of
the cloth-wrapped corpses. He lifted his hands and rested them gently, almost
hesitantly, on the wrappings that covered the corpse's head. "So much
power that you have wasted, Brutus."
Silvius drew in a
deep breath, then raised both his head and his hands
from the corpse of
his son.
"Cornelia,"
he said, as he stared at the corpse that lay on the other plinth.
"Poor
Cornelia," he said very slowly. "Poor, dead Cornelia. Used and abused
by all about you." He walked over. "Cornelia," Silvius said
again, "is it
time to wake?"
He grinned to
himself. "Why, I do believe so!" Then he reached down with both hands
to the cloths that wove about her breasts and, sliding his fingers between
them, tore them apart. "Cornelia!"
Something fell from
amid the bandages, then toppled from the plinth and clattered to the floor
where it lay glinting.
Silvius drew in a
deep breath, then leaned down and picked it up. "Gods," he whispered,
"the Greeks always knew how to make a fine piece of jewelry."
In his palm nestled
an exquisitely worked gold and ruby bracelet. Then, suddenly, Silvius' head
jerked upward.
SAEWEALD FELT IT
BEFORE HE ACTUALLY HEARD OR
saw anything.
A coldness seeping
out from the cracks of the lighthouse basement's stone walls that rose about
him. The night was cold, yes, but this was different.
Malevolent.
Seeing.
Saeweald glanced at
the well, made sure the conjuration hiding the well's opening remained in
place, then he twisted about, trying to see in every direction at once,
tottering and almost falling as he tried to find a place to hide. Cursed his
power that enabled him to hide (however insubstantially) other objects, but not
himself!
You poor fool. What brought you back
to this calamity?
Saeweald felt the
voice, rather than heard it. He turned about, trying to locate it.
There was a movement
in the air. Something large, shifting. Behind him? No! To his left!
Do you look for me?
Saeweald cried out,
terrified. The Minotaur had materialized directly in front of him, no more than
two paces away. He was massive, taller than any man Saeweald had ever seen,
tightly muscled, overpowering in his presence.
His ebony bull's
head, almost majestic, swayed slowly from side to side, and bright, savage eyes
pinned Saeweald where he stood.
Tell me—what do you here?
Saeweald found
himself compelled to speak. It was though a ghostly hand had seized his throat,
squeezing the words from him. "I am tied to the land! I am for the land!"
That's pathetic. I am for power, did
you know that?
The word was crushed
from Saeweald's chest. "Yes."
And what is this then, that you try
so miserably to hide? Suddenly the gravel dissolved, and the God Well lay exposed. The Minotaur's
gaze jerked back to Saeweald, and the man cried out as invisible claws ripped
agonizingly into his body.
"It is… ah! It
is a God Well!" Saeweald's body began to shake, jerking up and down as the
Minotaur's power began to crush him.
Asterion began to
laugh, a great belly-shaking amusement that filled the basement with his
merriment. A God Well! How
sweet! Shall I destroy it?
Saeweald had begun to
cry. He was no longer capable of speech.
SARA D
OUGLASS
Shall I destroy you, friend?
Then, just as
Saeweald was sure he was about to be torn to shreds, the Minotaur's eyes
widened, and the creature snarled. Who is here with you?
Who?
Saeweald somewhere
found breath enough to speak a single word. "Silvius."
A Kingman? The Minotaur was still staring at the God Well. The
next moment he'd taken a step back, then another, and then he was fading from
view. A Kingman?
And then he was gone,
and Saeweald collapsed unknowingly to the ground.
HE WOKE TO FIND
SILVIUS CROUCHED OVER HIM.
"What
happened?" Silvius said. "Asterion …" "Asterion was fcere?"
Saeweald nodded. His
body was throbbing horribly, but it felt as if the Minotaur had not quite torn
him to shreds after all. It had just felt like it at the time. "Aid me to
rise. Please."
Silvius lent him his
hand. "What happened?" _
Saeweald briefly told
him as he managed to regain his balance, a hand on
Silvius' shoulder for
support. "The instant he heard your name, he vanished.
'A Kingman?' he said,
as if it were the last thing he wanted to hear, and then
he was gone."
Silvius frowned.
"I had not thought I had the power to overly perturb
him," he said.
"You are the one
who keeps reminding me that you were once a Kingman. Maybe Asterion has not
forgotten it, even if occasionally I do." He managed a small smile.
"Perhaps I will trust you, after all, Silvius. Having about me a man who
can terrify even Asterion is bound to come in handy."
Silvius patted
Saeweald's hand where it still rested on his shoulder. "I need to see you
safe back to your chambers." He managed his own grin, but it was a weak
thing. "I think you have need of Judith's ministering hands."
"Did you find
it?"
Silvius nodded, and
held out a hand. In its palm rested the bracelet.
"Pray to Mag
that it works," muttered Saeweald.
GID6CV
Caela Speaks
HEN I WOKE THE NEXT
MORNING, I LAY FOR A
very long time, cold
and stiff, my belly a terrible, painful weight, and waited for my usual sense
of futility to sweep over me.
This futility was my
own constant burden. I had carried it about ever since that first night with
Edward (/ find you most
displeasing) and
I had born it as a woman, as a wife, as a queen. Poor Caela, they whispered.
Poor Caela. How I hated it!
The drapes were
partly pulled back from the bed—and, oh, the sweetness of having this bed to
myself for an entire night—and I could see that someone sat by the hearth, her
chin on her chest.
Slim build, delicate
face, dark sweep of hair escaping from the veil askew over her brow.
Judith. I smiled
drowsily, happy in this moment. Alone in my bed, watched over by Judith.
"You're
awake."
Startled, my eyes
jerked to the person who now stood by my side: he must have been sitting toward
the head of the bed where the drapes had obscured him.
"Saeweald."
Sweet Lord Christ, he looked worse than I felt. There were great dark circles
under his eyes, his skin was blotched, and there were deep lines of pain about
his mouth. "Saeweald," I said again, holding out my hand. "Have
you not slept?"
He took my hand and
kissed it. "You seem rested, madam."
"I am well
enough, Saeweald." And, surprisingly, I was well enough. Although my belly ached, the great wave
of futility and melancholy that had so often been my intimate companion had,
apparently, decided to stay away
i/so
for this day.
"But you? Saeweald… have you been battling demons all
night?"
He laughed.
"Indeed, madam. Keeping them from your bed." Judith appeared at his
shoulder, her tiny hands lifting to straighten her veil and push away the dark
wing of hair that had fallen loose.
Saeweald had sobered,
and now he looked at me with an unreadable expression. "Did you dream
well, madam?"
Ah, sweet lord, why
did he so constantly inquire after my dreams? "I slept dreamlessly,
physician. I am sorry to disappoint you."
Judith and Saeweald
shared a glance, and for some reason that made me
angry.
"I am sorry to
disappoint you," I said again, my tone decidedly waspish
now. "If I had
known you were so concerned at my dreaming I would have had a nightmare to
delight you."
"I did not mean
to offend you, madam," Saeweald said. I sighed, turning aside my face. How
I hated these strange, uncomfortable conversations with Saeweald. He always
seemed to be waiting for me to say something for which I could not form the
words. At times he appeared to be teetering forward on his uncertain legs, as
if I were supposed to remember something of great import and then hand it to
him to enchant him.
Although I could not
see it, I felt Judith and Saeweald glance at
each other
once more.
"Bring me
water," I said, looking back to Judith, "and cloths. I am not so sick
that I want to break my fast stinking of my night sweat. Saeweald, I feel
greatly improved this morning. You may take some of your own rest, and, should
you need to again inquire after my health, then you may do so this
afternoon."
And with that, and
yet one more of those cursed glances between
the two, Saeweald bowed and retired.
LATER, WHEN I HAD
EATEN A SMALL BOWL OF BROTH
and a piece of
new-baked bread, washed, and assured both myself and Judith (who would
doubtless report the fact to Saeweald) that I had not bled afresh during the night,
and when the linens of my bed had been changed and the coverlets shaken, I lay
back upon my pillows and prepared to receive what visitors there were. I would
have risen, save that apparently Saeweald had threatened both Judith and
everyone of my other attending ladies with dire warnings of my undoubted demise
should I rise from my bed too soon, and so
I was condemned to
yet another day's rest within my bedchamber.
To be honest, I was
not so very unhappy with that thought. A day abed
meant a day of peace:
Edward would avoid me, the majority of the court
would find other
scandals and intrigues to amuse themselves, and perhaps… perhaps Harold might
come to talk awhile with me.
He had not come
yesterday, at least not while I was awake.
I remembered that
there had been a constant stream of people come to view me, to poke and prod
me, physically, emotionally and spiritually, to ensure I was still breathing
and to depart with further gossip for the court. None of them had been Harold; none
of them had been particularly welcome. Edward had come, and said words that I
think he meant to be conciliatory (but how could I forget him standing over me,
as I lay in humiliation on the floor of his court, screaming at me that I was a
whore? How could I ever set
that memory aside?),
and had then, gratefully, departed, all thin-lipped and pinch-nosed. Several
churchmen had come, and leaned forward with wet lips and gleaming eyes to hear
what sins of the flesh I had to confess (of which I, boring creature that I am,
had none at all, save a weakness of the womb, which was neither my fault nor
theirs). A woman or two, wives of senior members of the court, had come, and
twittered all about me.
Judith saw them off
with thankful alacrity.
Today, perhaps,
Harold would come to see me. I closed my eyes, the soft movements of my ladies
about the chamber a soothing lullaby and, thinking of Harold, drifted into a
light doze.
I DREAMED OF THAT STRANGE STONE HALL AGAIN,
and in this dream it
felt such a familiar place to me that I knew I had dreamed of it previously;
and often at that.
I smiled in my dream,
for now, at least, I might have something to tell Saeweald.
I walked through the
hall, noting as I went that there were great patches of dried blood staining
the columns and the floor. Oddly, this did not disturb me, nor did I seem to
find it strange.
There was a step
behind me and I turned. Harold! And yet not Harold, for this man wore no beard,
and he was dressed in strange clothes, and his face had a different aspect—and
yet still I knew it was Harold.
"Harold!" I
said, and, glad beyond knowing, I held out my hands.
Joy lit his face, and
he strode toward me. "Cornelia," he said. "How strange you
appear to me."
I laughed, thinking
this some jest of Harold's. "My name is not Cornelia."
"Is that
so?" he said, and then he had taken my hands, and pulled me in toward him,
and I had no thought at all of stopping him. He leaned down until our mouths
almost touched—and at this moment I abruptly recalled another dream I'd had
recently… a night ago, two nights ago?… when
DOUGLASS
atner umu..___
mine.
He had called me Hades' daughter, and I knew I'd heard
those words before—
shouted at me, as if in accusation.
And I had known that man intimately, too. But where? Where? In dream? Or in
some unknown day or week or month of my life that I'd somehow managed to
forget? Who was he, this man of whom I dreamed? I tensed, my mind in turmoil, but Harold only smiled
gentry, and lowered
his mouth to mine.
I should not allow this, I thought. He is my brother.
And yet, even
thinking so, I opened my mouth under his, and felt the sweet bitter taste of
his tongue, and then the pressure of his hand against my back as he pressed me
against him.
And then, to one
side, a sweet laugh.
Harold and I pulled
apart. Standing not three or four paces from us was the most compelling
creature I had ever seen. He was very tall, and wore only a crudely fashioned
leather jerkin and trousers. His face was both bleak and joyful all at once,
his eyes great mysteries that saw far more than just the objects within their
sight. He laughed, raising his hands at the end of long, thin, strong arms, and
I saw that his square teeth were rimmed with light, as if he would always be
incapable of speaking anything but the truth.
Harold's arm
tightened about me, but I could feel that he was not frightened of this
apparition, nor angry at its imposition into our intimacy,
"Are you one of
the ancient ones?" Harold asked of the strange creature. "I am Long
Tom," the creature said, and I frowned, trying to remember something that
tugged at my mind. Hadn't a
wise woman said something to me about a Long Tom only recently? What was it?
What…?
The creature began to
say something else, but then it turned slightly, and
cried out at what it
saw.
Then Harold was
wrenched from my arms, and I saw the man who had called me Hades' daughter, and
now he had a sword in his angry hand, and as Harold fell over backward, his
throat white and vulnerable, the sword came slashing down…
I THINK I SCREAMED. I
KNOW I JERKED AWAKE WITH
such violence I
almost fell from my bed.
That I did not was
due to the fact that someone—a man—was holding my
shoulders.
I twisted away, sure
that it was that brutal man of my nightmare come to murder me, but whoever it
was tightened his hands, keeping me safe, and a -~"<-Vi heloved voice
cried out.
"Caela! Caela!
Wake, I beg you, for this is nothing but a dream." My eyes cleared, and
Harold's face came into focus before me. "Caela," he said again, his
voice now a groan, and I took a deep breath, and stilled, and then fell forward
into his arms.
There was a moment, a
long moment, when Harold's hand cupped the back of my head, tipping it back,
and his face lowered to mine, his mouth so close to mine I could feel its
warmth, and then he gave a harsh laugh and laid me back against the pillows.
Sweet Christ, he had almost kissed me! The memory of my dream still
lingered, and I knew that if he had, I would have responded. What were we,
Harold and I, that this sin consumed us?
"By all the
spirits of the night, Caela, of what were you dreaming?" I could not lie,
not after what had just—almost—happened. "I dreamed of you, that you were
with me—" He winced, "—and that—" "Caela, do not say it!"
I stopped, and drew
in a deep breath. "I dreamed I saw a "Caela…"
"I wish to
God," I said very quietly, holding his eyes, "that I had not been
born your sister."
There was a silence,
neither of us looking away from the other. The silence grew intense, and I
wondered if we were both teetering at the edge of a cliff, and if I would truly
mind very much if we fell over. He sighed, and the sound was ragged.
"Harold…" "Caela, we can't—"
I sat forward, the
memory of his sweet dream kiss still very much with me, and laid my mouth very
softly against his.
I didn't know how to
progress. I had never been kissed in passion before, and I was not sure…
Harold's mouth moved
against mine. Very slowly, very gently, and I felt his breath mingle with mine.
I opened my mouth, pressing it more firmly against his.
I felt him hesitate,
then respond, and then he was pushing me back again. Caela, we can't. Someone
could well walk in."
Not "We can't, for it is a shameful thing." But only,
"Someone could well walk in." I smiled. At that moment I was so intensely
happy that I did not care that we had, for a moment, slipped over the edge of
that precipice. "I love you, Harold," I said.
RA DOUGLASS
I3O ani't/»
He slid a hand over
my mouth, but I could see the emotion in his eyes, part joy, part longing, part
fear of what we had done. It was not the kiss that was so frightening to him, I
think, but the fact that we'd opened a door that might prove impossible to
close again.
"Not now,"
he whispered, and his hand fell away from my mouth. "Harold," I said,
trying to lighten the mood somewhat. "You are here, at last. I looked for
you yesterday. I wanted to thank you for what you said in court. For a moment I
thought no one would dare a word in my defense."
"Your husband
does not deserve you," he said, and in my mind 1 heard what he meant to
say. I would be the better
husband for you.
"I did come last night, but late, and you were already asleep. I did not
want to wake you."
"So he came to
me, instead," said another voice, and I felt my own face stiffen even as I
saw Harold's lose all expression as Swanne's face appeared
over his shoulder.
"You quite
enlivened your husband's court yesterday, my dear," Swanne
said. "Are you
quite well now?"
Harold's eyes had
dropped away from both of us, his head turned slightly down and away. I felt a
great sorrow then, for I understood that where once Harold had loved Swanne,
now he found her irritating, and an embarrassment.
"Aye,
sister," I replied. "It was but my monthly flux, more burdensome
than usual."
"Is that truly
so?" she said. A very slight frown creased her forehead, then she lifted
her hand from Harold's shoulder and placed it on the coverlets of
the bed, over my
belly.
"Swanne…"
Harold began, but I shook my head—she could surely do no
harm—and he subsided. "Is that truly so?"
Swanne repeated, and her frown increased. Something shadowy and unknowable
darkened her eyes and the pressure of her hand increased slightly, although not
uncomfortably so.
"My lady?"
I said, glancing at Harold who was watching Swanne's face. "Your womb is
empty," Swanne said, and her voice was slightly puzzled. She leaned back,
raising her hand away from me, and looked at me, the frown
still marking her
lovely face.
"Do you believe,
too, that I have a lover, and lost his child?" I said, bitterly.
"I am a virgin
still, Swanne."
My eyes briefly,
meaningfully, locked with Harold's.
She nodded, and made
a small smile with her mouth, but I could see that her mind was consumed with
something other than our conversation.
"So," she
said softly. "He has made his first move. I wonder why this was so
important to him…" Her voice drifted off.
By now both Harold
and myself were staring at her. "Swanne?" Harold said. "Of whom
do you speak?"
She blinked, and her
face set into hard, cold lines. "Of no one who concerns you, my
dear."
And with that she
turned and left us.
't^ WANNE WALKED
FROM THE QUEEN'S APART-
"■■■k
ments, her
gait smooth and elegant, her shoulders back, her X*^^-*^ beautiful face held high.
She walked until she reached the head of the staircase where windows overlooked
the
She had felt nothing
in Caela's womb. Nothing, and yet, for all the time she's known Caela in this
life, the woman's womb had always held a faint
trace of Mag.
Swanne sighed,
ignoring the stares of servants and officials who hurried by, and once more a
small frown wrinkled the otherwise smooth skin of her forehead. Swanne had been
reborn into this life with her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth intact, but
with her two other sources of power strangely muted. In her former life as
Genvissa, Swanne had been the powerful MagaLlan, or high priestess to the
goddess Mag, commanding great powers of magic that she drew from the goddess
herself. In this life her powers as MagaLlan were virtually nonexistent. This
had not surprised Swanne. Mag was all but dead, clinging to life only in the
dim recesses of Caela's womb (and, as a virgin, Caela would have provided the
goddess of fertility and motherhood with no power at all) and the ancient power
of the land that Swanne had known as Genvissa was hidden under a heavy cloak of
time and forgetfulness. There was no source of power for a MagaLlan, and Swanne
spent no time weeping over what she had lost.
What did frighten
Swanne was that the dark power of the heart of the labyrinth, which she'd
inherited from her foremothers, and which Ariadne had won from Asterion, was
all but gone as well. Why? Was that Asterion's malicious hand? Or because her
mother in this life had been but an ordinary woman, and Swanne had needed the
direct blood link from a mother who wielded the darkcraft in order to wield it
herself? She didn't know, and that
frustrated and
frightened her.
Her power as Mistress
of the Labyrinth should be all that she needed, but
Swanne had wanted the
darkcraft as well. Badly.
If she had it now, perhaps she'd have more of an idea of
what was happening about her. She would certainly have more hope of influencing
and directing it.
Whatever power she
did or did not command, Swanne had managed enough of it to be able to recognize
the faint trace of Mag within Caela's womb. Today, even that faint trace was
gone.
Its absence could
have been attributable to a number of causes: Mag had simply faded away
completely, Swanne had perhaps lost touch with enough of her own remaining
power to lose contact with Mag, something, or someone else had destroyed Mag
within Caela's womb.
Swanne knew it was
the latter. Caela had been attacked yesterday, and whatever faint trace of Mag
remained had been deliberately murdered.
And there was only
one person who had the power to accomplish that and had possible reason to want to accomplish Mag's
death. Asterion.
Swanne stared out at
the gray waters of the
"Why?"
Swanne whispered. "Why?"
Why would Asterion want that final,
helpless remnant of Mag dead? Swanne well knew of the previous life's alliance between Mag
and Asterion, using Cornelia to destroy Genvissa and stop the completion of the
Game. Swanne could also understand why Asterion might want to tidy up loose
ends; if nothing else, the Minotaur was a methodical creature, and he most
certainly needed neither Mag's nor Caela's, all but useless, hand.
So why not kill Caela and dispose of both of them at the
same time? Why leave Caela alive?
Why go to all the
trouble of removing Mag in such a spectacular fashion when he could just as
easily have murdered Caela and left no loose ends at all?
What are you up to, Asterion? Swanne thought. To be honest,
Swanne had no idea why even she was alive. Asterion wanted to
destroy the Game. If that was all he wanted, then that was easily enough
accomplished.
Kill her. Kill the
Mistress of the Labyrinth. If there was no Mistress of the Labyrinth, there was
no Game. As simple as that.
Or kill William,
Brutus-reborn. If there was no Kingman, then there was no Game.
What was happening
that she couldn't understand? Swanne's frown deepened, and she chewed her lower
lip as her thoughts tumbled over and over. The Game had changed, she could feel
that herself. Even incomplete, was it a danger to Asterion? Did he fear to be
trapped by it, even though she
IJ-T
and Brutus-reborn
hadn't managed the final Dance? Was the only way Aster-ion could destroy the
Game completely was to use either her or William?
"The
bands," she muttered, keeping her face turned full to the window so that
none of the passersby could see her mumbling to herself. "It must be
Brutus' kingship bands. Asterion needs those, either to destroy them, or to use
them to destroy the Game. Dammit, Brutus, where did you hide them? Where?" Suddenly irritated beyond
measure by her inaction, Swanne abruptly turned away from the window and
walked, as fast as possible without attracting undue attention, down the
stairs, through the Great Hall and back to the
quarters she shared
with Harold.
She could put to good
use the free time Harold had given her by his spending the morning mooning over
his sister's sickbed.
HAROLD LISTENED TO
THE SOUND OF HIS WIFE'S
footsteps fading
away. Gods, had she seen what
was going on? Another moment or two and Harold had been sure he
would have thrown all caution to the wind and taken his sister there and then.
What a fine sight
that would have been for Swanne, had she been a few moments later. Her husband
squirming frantically atop his own sister's body. It would have cost him
everything. It would have cost Caela more.
For the first time in
his life, Harold cursed the high birth of himself and his sister. If they had
been lowly peasants, they could have simply moved to a far distant village, and
lived as man and wife.
But the earl of
Harold pulled his
thoughts back into order. Where
had his self-control gone? "Do not ask me to interpret what she means,
Caela, for I cannot!"
"Sometimes she
makes me feel as though she carries about with her such a great secret that
could destroy all our lives," Caela said. "Sometimes when she looks
at me… ah!" She gave a small smile. "I do not know what to make
of your wife,
Harold."
"Nor I,
indeed," he said, then paused. "She envies you, I think. She thinks
she would do better
wearing the crown herself."
Caela studied him
silently for a moment. "And will she wear it, Harold?" Harold took
Caela's hand between both of his, using the excuse to drop his eyes away from her scrutiny. By all the gods, what did she mean with that question? He rubbed at the back of her hand with his thumbs,
gently, caressingly,
deciding to take
Caela's question at face value, and using the time it bought him to think over
all the issues it raised.
Ah, the throne.
Edward was an old man, likely to die within the next few years, and still he
had to name a successor. In theory, the members of the witan elected a new
king, but in practice whoever was named by the former king had a powerful
claim.
Edward was driving
his witan, and well most of the Anglo-Saxon nobles in
Caela watched Harold's
face, knowing what he was thinking. "You are the only one who can take the
throne, Harold. Even Edward must know that." Harold snorted softly.
"And has Edward actually spoken to you of this?" "Does Edward speak to me of the succession?"
Caela laughed softly, bitterly. "Nay, of course he does not. He has
'spoken' only with his body, keeping it from me, that I may not breed him a
Godwineson as his heir."
For an instant Harold
entertained the vision of Edward making love to Caela, and his heart almost
went cold in horror. "Then he is a fool. Better, surely, that a child of
his own body take the throne than risk the slaughter of half of
There was a lengthy
silence, neither looking at the other, which was finally broken by Caela.
"I have not seen
Tostig," she said, "yet I know he lingers about
"We have
fought," he said, "and now Tostig wastes his time in sulks. I wish that
he put aside his disagreement with me long enough to wish you well." "Over what have you disagreed?"
"Tostig wants me
to send my army north to subdue
"Tostig has not
done well this past year," Caela said. "If only…" "Yes," Harold said. "If only,
indeed."
She squeezed his
hand. "All will be well, Harold. Surely. You are brothers, and
disagreements will be set aside soon enough."
"Brothers can be
enemies as well as any other men, Caela. I pray only that we can resolve our
differences before Edward dies."
"And what,"
Caela said, determined to change the subject yet again, "have
you heard of
William?"
Harold sighed, and
sat back, letting Caela's hand drop to the coverlet. Tostig was a trifling
threat when compared to William of Normandy. Not only was William a seasoned
warrior with a seasoned army behind him (he'd spent over twenty-five years
battling half of Europe to keep
Personally, Harold
did not believe it. No man, surely, could hand over a throne in gratitude for
some bread and wine and a bed for a few years.
Could he? Harold shook his head very slightly. Edward was fool
enough for anything, and who knew what he might have promised William one
drunken night when Edward might have thought he'd never regain the English
throne
from Cnut?
"Edward has
never said anything?" he said to Caela.
Caela shook her head.
"I know only that they exchange letters."
Harold grunted.
"William is preparing the ground to claim that Edward
has always wanted him
as heir."
"Edward is
preparing that ground," Caela said, "with the
keeps at court."
Harold said nothing.
God knows Edward had brought enough of
Had any of those
treaties encompassed a promise that William could have the throne after
Edward's death? No one knew, least of all Harold, and that lack of knowledge
kept him awake many hours into too many nights.
Harold wanted the
throne. Moreover, he felt that he deserved it. He alone had kept Edward safe
from internal disputes and the ambitions of the Saxon earls. He alone had the
moral and military strength behind him to not only take the throne, but to hold
it once Edward died.
He was the only
choice, the only Saxon choice, unless
wanted a foreigner.
Or, if a foreigner
decided he wanted
Now, as Edward
declined into old age, and as it became obvious that he would never consent to
get an heir on Caela, the issue of who was to succeed him was becoming ever
more critical.
"If I take the
throne," Harold said, reverting to Caela's original question, "Swanne
will not be my queen."
Caela arched an
eyebrow, but there was a strange relief in her eyes.
"Once, perhaps,
I would have fought to the death to have her crowned at my side."
He paused, and Caela
did not speak.
"Once,"
Harold finally continued. "Not now. She and I have grown apart in these
past few years. Strangers, almost."
"Then that must
explain the birth of your sixth child and third son last year."
Harold took a moment
to respond to that. "She has ceased to please me, even in bed," he
finally said. "We rarely touch… and even when we do, I find myself
thinking of…"
He stopped suddenly,
unable to say that you.
A silence where both
avoided each others' eyes, then Harold resumed. "Swanne cannot be my
queen, even should I wish it. We were wed under Danelaw, not Christian, and the
Church does not recognize our union.
"You will put
her aside?" Caela looked incredulous, as if she could not believe for a
moment that Swanne would be content to be "put aside."
"If I am to be
accepted by the Church… if my claim to the throne is to be backed by the Church, then, yes, I must put her aside."
"She knows
this?"
"We have not
spoken of it but, yes, I think she knows of it." He made a harsh sound in
his throat. "It would certainly explain her growing distance and coldness
this past year and more."
Caela thought for a
moment, then said, "And who will you take for a wife? For your
queen?"
The instant she
spoke, the awkwardness again rose between them. "That was a foolish thing
for me to ask," she said, "considering how stu-Pidly I behaved
earlier."
"There could
never be a better queen for this country than you," Harold said.
"I shall find
you a queen," Caela said, her voice forced. "A good woman, and worthy
of you."
Harold reached out,
hand and touched he, mouth briefly with his finger-tips. . . i _-,ft.i., "Vint never
so much as
from the bed and
left.
CbAPCGR
ACH YEAR the (hopefully) successful
conclusion of the harvest. It was held in conjunction with the more important
autumn hiring and poultry fairs, with the city guilds, the merchants, and the
folk of at least a dozen of the outlying villages. This festival was held on a
Saturday (the preceding three days being taken up with the market fairs), and
was one of the few occasions in the year when the city came to an almost
complete standstill for the celebrations. In the morning the guilds held a
great parade through the streets of
Edward and Caela, as
most of the court, usually attended the afternoon's festivities at
This year promised
even greater enjoyment.
The night before the
festival, Edward had succumbed to a black headache. He'd retired to his bed,
and demanded that he be left alone, save for two monks who were to sit in a
corner and recite psalms. Saeweald had given him a broth and applied a poultice
that had eased the king's aching head somewhat, but when Saturday dawned, and
Edward's head still throbbed uncomfortably and his belly threatened to spew
forth with every movement, the king decided to forgo the fun of Smithfield for
the continued stillness and peace of his bedchamber.
The queen should
still attend, Harold escorting her—this was, indeed, a true indication of just
how deeply Edward's aching head had disturbed his state of mind. To make
matters even better for Caela (and for Harold), Swanne
O
I4O j «
decided to remain
behind as well, vaguely stating some indisposition, which she felt would only
be exacerbated by the noise and frivolity of
Thus it was that, two
hours past noon, Caela found herself seated with Harold in a great temporary
wooden stand on the north side of
every movement.
She was dressed
splendidly in a deep ruby silken surcoat embroidered all over with golden English
dragons, a matching golden veil, and a jeweled crown. Beside her, Harold had
dressed somewhat similarly, if in bright sky blue rather than ruby. His surcoat
was also embroidered with English dragons, although his beasts snarled and
struck out with their talons while Caela's merely scampered playfully. Harold
wore a golden circlet on his brow, gold-encrusted embroidery weighting down the
tight-fitting lower sleeves of his linen undertunic, heavy jeweled rings on his
fingers and, to remind everyone of his exploits and renown as a warrior, a
great sword hanging at his hip. He looked the king as Edward never had: vital,
healthy, handsome, powerful, and the crowd gathered in
their places.
They stood to receive
the cheers, waving and smiling, and the breeze
caught at Caela's
veil and blew it back from her face. "They adore you," Harold said,
softly. "They adore you," she responded, turning to
laugh at him. The crowd continued to roar, and as the sound pounded over them
in wave after wave, Harold took Caela's hand and held her eyes. "I meant
what I said to you, that day I came to you in your bedchamber," he said,
his voice only loud enough that she could hear him. "There could be no better
queen for me than you. No woman I could want more."
The laughter died
from her face. "Harold…"
"I know,"
he said. "I know. But I needed to say that. Just once." His face
lightened away from its seriousness. "And what better place than here, and
now, when perhaps we can pretend?" "Harold, it can't be."
"Of course
not," he said, and leaned forward and kissed her cheek, where perhaps his
lips lingered a moment longer than they should and where, as he finally moved
his face away, too slowly, she felt the soft momentary graze of
his tongue.
"Unfortunately,"
he finished, and then the sound was fading away, and
they sat, and Caela
used the excuse of settling her skirts to hide her pinked cheeks from her
brother.
Behind and to one
side of them, Judith and Saeweald exchanged a worried glance.
THE AFTERNOON WAS FILLED
WITH GOOD-NATURED
sport and
competitions. Men wrestled, ran, leaped and shot arrows into distant targets.
To each winner, Caela graciously gave a prize: a carved box here, a fine linen
shirt there, a copper ring to someone else. Each time she rose, and the
successful sweating combatant knelt down before her, the crowd cheered, and
called good-natured jests, and when Caela had done with handing the victor his
gift, then she smiled, and waved and patently reveled in the good cheer of the
day.
The final event was
something the city guilds and fathers had spent weeks planning. It was a new
contest, one designed not only to demonstrate the grace and athletic abilities
of its participants, but also to delight and astound the crowd.
A man, clothed only
in trousers, strode into the center of the arena, beating a drum that hung from
a cord about his neck. He was a fine man, tall and well-muscled, and had been
the winner of two of the earlier events. He walked to a spot some ten paces
before the stand in which Caela, Harold, and their attendants sat and, still
beating the drum, cried: "Behold!"
At his word two lines
of horsemen entered the arena from opposite gates. They rode bareback, the
horses controled only with bridles through which had been threaded late autumn
greenery, while the riders themselves wore only trousers, leaving their
shoulders and chests bare. Each man carried a long wooden lance, tipped with
iron. Each line was headed by a rider dressed slightly more elaborately than
those he led. At the head of one line rode a man wearing a chain mail tunic and
Saxon helmet. He carried a bow, fitted with an arrow.
At the head of the
other line rode a man wearing nothing but a snowy white waist cloth, sandals on
otherwise muscular brown bare legs, and a great bronze helmet, of a design and
shape that was not only unfamiliar but markedly exotic. A plait of very black,
oiled hair protruded from beneath the helmet, and hung halfway down the man's
back. About his biceps and upper forearms twined lengths of scarlet ribbon, as
about his legs, just below his knees. This man carried a sword.
Caela frowned,
leaning forward slightly. "What event is this?" she asked softly, but
to her side Harold only shrugged, and no one else had a response.
't<'t*
The man beating the
drum waited until all the riders were in the arena, the lines pulled to a halt
on opposite sides of the great square, then he abruptly gave a flurry of much louder
and more insistent beats, then his hands
fell still.
"Behold,"
he cried. "The
The crowd roared,
intrigued at the display thus far and at the novelty of the event. Judith and
Saeweald went rigid with shock. Harold grinned, anticipating some military game
that might well prove entertaining, while Caela's
frown merely
deepened.
"The Troy
Game," she whispered to herself, and shivered. "Behold!" cried
the man with the drum once more. "Listen well to the rules of the Game! Two
lines, two ambitions, two corps of riders skilled beyond compare. Two kings!
One the king of the Greeks," he indicated the man wearing the chain mail
and the Saxon helmet, "and one the monarch of that ancient, wondrous
realm—
The crowd roared
again. History pageants and games of all sorts were
always popular.
The king of the
Greeks kicked his horse forward a few paces, as did the king of
"What can we
do?" whispered Judith, her face drained of all color. "Nothing, but
watch and see," said Saeweald. He was watching the king of
"We propose a
dance!" cried the drummer. "He who is quickest and most agile, he who
is most skilled shall win. He who falls first… loses!" Again the crowd roared in anticipation.
As the drummer ran to
safety, the two lines of horsemen began to move. First at a walk, then a trot,
then at a carefully controled canter the lines of horsemen moved into an
intricate and dangerous dance, the two lines first interweaving as they each
crossed the arena on opposite diagonals, then in a dozen different points as
the lines performed circles and serpentines.
As the horses
cantered, their paces carefully measured, the riders swung their lances in
great arcs from side to side: at all the intersecting points where the opposing
lines crossed there was only ever a half a breath between the flashing down of
one lance and the passage of another rider. A single misstep, a minor
miscalculation, and the wicked blade, which tipped the end of one lance, might
cut another rider in half.
The drummer had climbed atop the fence, which kept the
crowd safe from the riders, and was now speaking again, calling out over the
riders with a <-1ear. carrying voice. He was minus his drum now, the thud of
the horses'
hooves and the wicked
swishing of the swinging lances the only accompaniment he needed.
"See!" he
cried. "The Trojan king re-creates the walls of
Harold was leaning
forward now, his eyes gleaming. "By God!" he said. "See their
skill!"
Caela was staring at
the performance before her, her face expressionless, her hands carefully folded
and very still in her lap.
The two leaders, the
"kings," controlled the tempo of the dangerous dance. It was they who
sped up, or slowed down the rhythm of their followers, and each had to keep a
wary eye on the other. If one slowed down too soon, or too late, or if one did
not take speedy note of what the other commanded, then his line of warriors
would be broken by the lances of his foe. The two lines of riders were now
interweaving at an impossible pace, the tips of their lances gleaming in the
sun, sweat dripping from shoulders, horses snorting as they fought both for
balance and for breath.
The crowd had begun
to scream for their favorites. "
Then, as it appeared
that the speed of the dance could not possibly grow faster, or the swinging of
the lances more dangerous, there came a surprised grunt from one quadrant of
the arena as a horse, turned too tight, lost its balance and collapsed,
throwing its rider under the flashing hooves of those who came behind.
Instantly there was
mayhem. Horses and riders collided everywhere, the rhythm of the dance was
entirely lost, and the crowd began to shriek in appreciation as the blood
spattered through the air.
Then, stunningly, from
out of the melee, came one line of riders still in perfect formation, their
lances still flashing back and forth in a controlled manner, their riders
untouched, save for their sweat.
It was the line led
by the Trojan king.
They cantered in a
line across the back of the arena, their foes lying mostly unhorsed and
bleeding in the center of the arena, then all turned in one beautifully
coordinated movement so that they faced into the arena, looking toward the
royal stand at the far end.
The Trojan king
raised his sword, then pointed it toward the stand. The line exploded forward
as the horses, still perfectly in line, galloped toward the royal stand.
As they met the
confusion in the center of the arena, each horse leapt in perfect alignment with
its neighbors so that for an instant, the entire line was
suspended high in the
air, then every horse thudded back to earth, their vanquished foes safely
behind them, and galloped to the end of the arena beneath the royal stand,
where their leader brought them to a stunning, perfectly controlled halt.
Harold leapt to his
feet, shouting, punching his fist into the air, applauding the victor.
Caela sat, still
motionless, expressionless, staring at the Trojan king, now
sitting on his horse directly
before her.
The man's chest
heaved as he fought to get air into his lungs, his face was mostly hidden by
his helmet—but still nothing could hide his great toothy
smile.
"My lady,"
he cried, brandishing his sword. "I hand you
CbAPGGR F1FG66JM
Caela Speaks
STARED,
GAPE-MOUTHED. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT
had come over me. I
felt disembodied, dislocated, disorientated. "Climb up!" cried Harold
beside me, and I swear I leapt almost a foot, he surprised me so. "Climb
up and accept your prize!"
At least he'd broken
the trance that had claimed me. I managed to look at Harold: he was bright-eyed
and flushed, flashing a brilliant smile.
"By God,
Caela," Harold said to me as the Trojan king was clattering up the wooden
steps that led to the small platform before our seats, "never before have
I seen such skill! Such horsemanship!"
And then the man was
with us, his heat and his sweat and the powerful presence of his body
commanding my attention. He stood before us, and bowed deeply.
"You honor us,
sir," said Harold. "May we know your face? Your name?"
That great toothy
grin flashed again in the darkness behind the helmet, and the man lifted both
his hands to his helmet (his sword already taken by one of Harold's men-at-arms)
and raised it from his head.
I must confess, my
heart was racing. Who was it?
"A stranger to
our shores, by your countenance," Harold said. "Who are you, and your
allegiance?"
For the moment the
man did not reply. He was staring at me, and I at him. The instant he'd taken
the helmet from his head I felt overwhelmed by a strange disappointment. His
face was familiar—
Almost the face of the man who had
come to me in dream, and who had almost but not quite kissed me.
—and yet not. Not the
face some part of me seemed to have been expecting.
Oh, but he was
handsome! He had dark skin and very black hair. Very long, very curly. Regular,
strong features… and that smile, it was stunning. The only discordant note in
his entire aspect was the leather patch over his
left eye, yet even
that lent him a rakish air that moderated his otherwise overpowering presence.
"I am
Silvius," said the man, replying to Harold but not taking his eyes from
me. "And I am truly king of
And he lifted his
hand, took mine, and kissed it before any could move to
stop him.
Harold laughed, but
the laughter held a trace of tenseness in it now, and,
glancing at him, I
saw that his smile had died.
"Well,
then," he said, "welcome, king of
your military
skills."
Now this man Silvius
did look at Harold. "Oh, I have had many years in
which to hone them,
my lord. Very many indeed."
"Your prize,
good man," I said, collecting myself. I turned, ready to take the gift of
a finely woven and embroidered mantle from Judith, who stood behind me (and, by
heaven, she was staring at this strange king
of
Silvius spoke again.
"Nay, my lady.
Lay that aside, I beg you. It is I who shall gift the prize, I
who shall award the
honor."
"A most strange man," said Harold, watching Silvius
warily.
I noticed that
several men-at-arms had moved quietly closer.
Silvius reached into
his helmet, then withdrew from it the most beautifully worked bracelet that I
think I have ever seen. (And
yet some part of me insisted that I had seen it previously.) It was of twisted gold, and set
with a score of cut
rubies.
"In my
world," said Silvius, his voice now very soft, "it belonged to a
princess and a great queen. It deserves no better home now than on your arm,
gracious lady."
He reached forward, then stopped as both Harold and
the men-at-arms laid hands to their swords. The mood was now very tense among
us, and I wondered at that, at what had changed between us that Harold should
now
be so wary.
"Madam,"
Judith said very softly behind me, and in that word she somehow managed to
convey both reassurance and the message that I should,
indeed, accept the
gift.
"Ah," I
said, smiling a little too brightly at Harold, "put away your sword,
brother. Shall this bracelet bite? Shall it sting? Nay, of course not."
Then, to Silvius.
"This is most gracious of you, and I shall not be so churlish as to
refuse." I held out my left hand, stretching it slightly so that the
sleeve drew back from my wrist.
Silvius reached it
forth and, just before he snapped it closed about my wrist, he said, "It
is very ancient, my lady, and contains many memories."
It clicked shut, its
metal cold about the heat of my skin, and I blinked, and looked at Silvius.
And saw before me,
not Silvius, but a man very much like him but with, if possible, an even more
powerful presence, and whose face made my stomach clench.
It was the man from
my dream, save with long hair and dressed as Silvius was now dressed.
And with great golden
bands about his limbs where Silvius wore scarlet
wool.
Then the man who was not Silvius
spoke, and he said: "I am Brutus, and I am god-favored. It is not wise to
deny me." He smiled, holding my eyes, and it was one of the coldest
expressions I have ever seen. "I control Mesopotama. I control this
palace. 1 control you. Be wise. Do not deny me."
"Brutus?" I
whispered.
And then I fainted.
I HAVE ONLY JUDITH AND HAROLD'S RELATION TO SAY
what happened next.
Harold and Judith both grabbed at me, and the men-at-arms lunged forth, sure
that the strange man Silvius had somehow murdered me.
In the confusion,
apparently he slipped away. Harold sent men after him, but he was never
discovered. When Harold questioned the guildsmen who had taken part in the
strange event, they shrugged and said that he was a foreign merchant who had
seemed perfect for the role as king of
The man Silvius was
never found.
I woke after only a
few moments, seemingly well, and Harold calmed down once he saw me smiling and
apologizing for the fuss. I lifted my arm, and studied the bracelet. It was beautiful, and the stones glittered in the late afternoon
sunshine, and so I decided that it would do me no harm to wear it an hour or
two longer.
So, as the crowds
dispersed, Harold and I and our retinue made our way back to
I left the bracelet
on as I slept. I do not know why, but perhaps it was that which caused me again
to dream strangely.
* * *
I walked through the great stone hall in which I'd found
myself previously. And there, as if waiting for me, was
this man called Silvius. He stepped forward and, as if the most natural thing
in the world, kissed me
hard on the mouth.
I wondered if this were my frustrated
virginity causing me to dream of all these
men who kissed me.
"You and I," he said,
"shall he greater friends than you can possibly realize." Then he was
gone, and I slipped out of the stone hall and back into dream-
lessness.
In the morning, as
she aided me to dress, Judith said, "Madam… are you
well?"
I frowned, because I
felt there was much more to her question than her bold words. "Of course I
am, Judith. Now, watch what you do with that sleeve,
it is all
twisted."
Much later, at court
(Edward having risen, his ache dissipated), I saw Judith lean close to
Saeweald. He asked a question, glancing at me, and she shook her head, as if
imparting news of the greatest sorrow.
I do not know the
import of that question, but Judith's answer made Saeweald frown, and sigh,
then turn away, and I had to fight down an unwarranted irritation at their
behavior.
AROLD HAD KEPT
LATE HOURS WITH SEVERAL OF
his thegns, returning
to his bedchamber when Swanne was already asleep, so it was that she only heard
of what had happened at
Harold, imparting the
news as if it were of not much interest to her, was stunned by her reaction.
In all his years of
intimacy with Swanne, he'd never seen her so shocked that she could barely
speak.
"They played what?" she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Harold watched her
carefully, trying to discern the reason behind her shock. "The
"Describe
it," she said.
"Two lines of
riders, each executing a series of twists and turns that intersected and
interwove." He paused, thinking. "Labyrinthianlike, truly."
Swanne paled, but
Harold kept on speaking. "The Trojan king, who led one of the lines, and
was the ultimate victor, re-created the walls of
She gave a light
laugh, but Harold could see the effort it cost her. "It is not something I
could ever imagine the common guildsmen re-creating, my love. The legend of
"Many, my
lady," said Hawise, who had just entered the chamber to see to the bed
linens.
Swanne, who had
literally jumped when Hawise spoke, now regarded her with a frown. "Many?
Explain yourself, Hawise."
The woman licked her
lips, wondering if she had spoken out of turn.
"Hawise?"
said Harold, curious himself.
O
"The story of
There was a silence,
during which Swanne continued to stare at Hawise
and Harold looked at
Swanne.
Then Swanne smiled,
an expression that seemed to Harold to be one of the few genuine smiles he had
ever seen her give, and touched Hawise gently
on the cheek.
"So it is
said," Swanne said softly. "And so it may be. And do the Londoners
say anything else about the Troy Game?"
"Oh," said
Hawise, "it is but a foolish game, my lady. Children have played it in the
streets for years, dancing a pretty pattern across the flagstones outside
"And that is
what the horse game of yesterday was based on, Hawise?"
Harold said.
"Aye, my lord.
One of the guildsmen was watching his daughters dancing out their childish game
across the flagstones when he thought that perhaps their play could be modified
and made into a far more spectacular sport."
"Well,"
said Harold wryly, turning away to pick up his over-mantle, "it surely was
that."
WHEN, MUCH LATER, SHE
MANAGED TO FIND SOME
quiet time to herself
in the palace orchard, closely wrapped in a heavy woolen cloak, Swanne finally
allowed herself to take a deep breath and think on what
she had heard.
The Londoners were playing the
Whether children or
skilled horsemen mattered not… they
were playing
the
Oh, it was not the
Game that she and William would control, but it was clearly a derivative of it.
It would not command the magic and power of the Game she and William would
play, but it was surely a memory of it.
How had they known?
How had this come to be?
There were many
possibilities, the least unsettling of which was that the Trojans of Troia Nova
had passed the Dance of the Torches (that they had witnessed her and Brutus
dancing) down to their children. The story of the Troy Game may well have
survived the generations between that day Brutus alighted on the shores of
Llangarlia and now, even if the city and surrounding
country had been
ravaged so many times, and so mercilessly. It took only one person to remember
the tales, and to speak them, for a memory to become a permanent myth.
And yet what Harold
had described, and then what Hawise had said about the children's games, was
too accurate to be "myth." The horsed game had been devised by an
expert, someone who had known the Game intimately.
Or… Swanne took
another deep breath… or the entire event had somehow been arranged by the Game
itself.
Was the Game seeping up through the
very foundations of
For years, ever since
she had come to
But this aware? Gods, that was terrifying. What if it refused
to allow her and William control over it?
Swanne gave a small,
disbelieving laugh. What if the Game decided it would rather have some
dirt-smudged child from
"My lady?"
Swanne jumped again,
some stray disassociated part of her mind thinking that she truly needed to ask
Saeweald for some herbal potion to calm her nerves.
It was Aldred, the
archbishop of
"My lady,"
he said, grunting with effort as he sat on the bench beside her. "I do
hope I am not disturbing you. It is just that I saw you sitting alone in the
orchard while I was taking my afternoon stroll, and I thought to pass a few
words."
Taking my afternoon stroll, indeed! thought Swanne. / have never before seen you walk farther than from one
banqueting table to the next.
"I was
thinking," she said, "about that spectacular horsed game the Londoners
put on yesterday in
"Ah, yes,"
Aldred said, tweaking at a corner of his robe where it had become uncomfortably
stuck under his bulk. "I have heard tell of that extravagance myself."
"You were not
there?"
"Alas, no, my
lady. I thought it better to stay close to our beloved king, should he need
me."
Thought it better to stay close so
that you could insinuate yourself even further into his graces, she thought.
"Aldred,"
Swanne said slowly. "I may have another letter for you to pass on within
the day. You will be able to arrange… ?"
"I shall be able
to expedite its delivery, my lady, with all speed."
She inclined her
head. "I do thank you, my good archbishop." He beamed, and patted her
knee, which made Swanne wince.
ANOTHER MEETING TOOK
PLACE IN THE ORCHARD
that afternoon, but
an hour or two after Swanne and Aldred had abandoned
the trees.
Tostig was walking
through the orchard on his way from his own quarters to Edward's palace when he
heard the sound of a footfall behind him.
Stopping, and both
turning about and drawing his dagger in one fluid movement, Tostig saw that two
men approached, one of whom he recognized as that man who had talked to him as
he'd left the Great Hall after Caela's
sudden illness.
"My lord,"
both the men said, and bowed as one.
Tostig's hand had not
left his dagger.
"What is it you
wish?" he said.
"To talk only,
my lord," said the first of the men. Both of them were fair, but this
man's hair and beard were fair to the point of whiteness, and even in the weak
afternoon sun it shone brilliantly.
"I am Halldorr
Olafson," said the man, "and this is my companion Orn Bollason.
Because we want you to trust us, and believe in us, we give you our true names,
and not those we go under while at Edward's court."
Tostig narrowed his
eyes. His hand had not strayed from the haft of his dagger. "You are
Hardrada's men," he said. He'd heard that the Norwegian king had agents
within Edward's court… but what were they doing approaching
him?
"We mean you no
harm," said Bollason. "Indeed, we speak with
Hardrada's voice. Our
words are his, and spoken with his authority." "And they are… ?" said Tostig.
"Hardrada wants
him."
Tostig snorted, and
half turned to walk away.
"In
return," said Bollason, "he will give you all of the north. Not just
Tostig stopped,
although he did not look at the two men.
"Hardrada is a
fair man," said Olafson. "He does not need it all. He has asked us to
treaty with you. If you pave the way for Hardrada's successful ascension to the
English throne after Edward's death…"
"Then I get the north?" said Tostig, turning
back to stare searchingly at each of the two men who faced him. "And the
means by which to hold it?" "And the means by which to hold it."
I
"Talk on,"
said Tostig, and his hand fell away from his dagger.
While they talked,
all three men noticed the round-shouldered woman walking through the orchard
ten or fifteen paces to their left carrying a wicker basket of late-fallen
winter apples. They saw her, but they paid her no attention.
She was but a serving
woman, scrounging the orchard for something to see her and her family through
the long winter months.
They did not know
that, instead of carrying the apples to where Damson kept her pitifully few
belongings, she instead went straight to the river where, after a few moments
waiting, a waterman poled his flat skiff to where she waited. Damson handed the
basket to the waterman, then bent close for a hurried conversation.
The waterman nodded
and then, as Damson walked away, continued on his journey down the
LATE THAT NIGHT, WHEN
MOST OF
His name he had long
forgotten, but he had grown used to the childish whims of the men and women who
had peopled this island after he and his kind had taken to their stonelike
watchfulness, and so this Sidlesaghe called himself Long Tom. As he walked, his
every movement soft and fluid, Long Tom hummed to himself snatches of melody,
the fingers of one hand occasionally snapping in time to the beat of his music.
The Sidlesaghe
skirted
"Soon!" the
Sidlesaghe whispered, and the river subsided.
Soon.
"Soon," the
Sidlesaghe said again, and shivered in excitement.
Far beneath his feet,
something rumbled and hissed, as if a great dragon was passing through a
long-forgotten mine.
"One day,"
said the Sidlesaghe, "but not yet, not yet."
The beast beneath his
feet fell still, and groaned.
Long Tom's pace
picked up as he neared
A woman who could
bring him what he needed.
* * *
JUDITH HAD SPENT THE
GREATER PART OF THE NIGHT
with Saeweald. Now,
as dawn approached, she made her way swiftly and silently from Saeweald's
chambers back toward the palace. Locked in thought—and her warm memories of the
night past—Judith almost passed out from fright when a long arm grabbed at her
from the darkness.
Before she could
shriek—and she'd drawn a huge breath to do just that— a large, hard hand had
enveloped half of her face.
"Peace, little
lady," said the Sidlesaghe, drawing close. "It is only I." The
moment Judith saw the long, hook-nosed face with those strange, watchful,
melancholy eyes, Judith recognized it immediately for a Sidlesaghe. She
relaxed, not much, but enough, and the Sidlesaghe managed a small
smile and let her go.
"How may I aid
you?" Judith said, not sure what she should say to the
Sidlesaghe, but
deciding that question was as good as any.
"It is time for
Caela," said the Sidlesaghe. "Time for her to remember."
"But the
bracelet did no good."
"The
bracelet?" The Sidlesaghe's face crinkled up into a hundred lines of
question.
"The ancient
bracelet of Mesopotama, that which Silvius gave her yesterday."
"Silvius?"
"Yes! Silvius!"
"Silvius was out
of the heart of the labyrinth?"
"Yes."
Judith repressed a sigh. "At
Long Tom was looking
increasingly puzzled.
"The
into remembering.
"Oh," the
Sidlesaghe said, sighing hugely, then smiling. "Yes. That's why I
am here. Caela needs
to take her place within the Game."
Now it was Judith who
was confused. "I am sorry. I do not know how I
might aid you."
The Sidlesaghe leaned
forward and enveloped both of her hands in his large ones. "You already do
more than enough," he said. "But seeing as you offer… bring Caela to
the banks of the "At night? She will not come! How can I—"
He squeezed her
hands. "That is for you to determine, my dear. Tomorrow night, on the
banks of the
Then he was gone, and
Judith was left to stare into the night, feeling both bewildered and blessed.
ADAM?" JUDITH
LOOKED CAREFULLY AT HER
mistress. The evening
was closing in, and she couldn't help a quick, impatient look at the as-yet
unshuttered windows in the queen's chamber. Caela sat by the fire, some
needlework in her hands, her lovely face relaxed almost to the point of
dreaminess. Twelve days after her hemorrhage she looked rested and well, buoyed
by good food, rest, and twice daily visits both from Harold and from Saeweald
who kept their voices and words light, and made her laugh with every third
remark. The outing to
"Madam?"
Judith said again, trying to gain the attention of Caela who had drifted away
somewhere unknowable over her embroidery. Tonight Judith somehow had to
inveigle Caela down to the banks of the
Caela gave a slight
start, then looked to Judith and smiled. "If you have finished your
duties," she said, "perhaps you would like to sit and aid me with
this embroidery. It is for the high altar in
"Madam… I had
wondered…"
Caela gave up all
pretense at her needlework, allowing it to slip to her lap as she raised her
face to Judith and laughed. "Am I keeping you from some great pleasure,
Judith?"
Judith blushed, more
from her current state of tension than embarrassment.
Caela's smile died
and she set her embroidery to one side. "What is it, Judith?"
Judith abandoned
caution and plunged straight into the lie. "Madam, your brother Harold
spoke to me earlier."
Caela raised an
eyebrow, no more than mildly curious.
"He asked that I
bring you to the banks of the
Caela's face retained
its pleasant expression, but Judith could see the incomprehension growing in
her eyes.
"Your husband
has decided to spend the night in prayer on his knees before the altar in the
abbey, madam." Judith had told Saeweald and Ecub (visiting this day from
her priory) about the visit from the Sidlesaghe. Edward's decision to spend all
night in prayer was Saeweald's doing, although Judith had no idea how he'd
managed it. Did he inform the king that if he prayed all night before the altar,
his amulet against the arthritis would double its potency? Or was this just a
sign of Edward's increasing piety? "He will not notice you gone."
"Judith—"
"Madam, Harold
was most insistent."
Caela's brow creased,
and she looked cross. "Judith, before heaven, what is Harold doing?
Sneaking about like a mischievous child? A surreptitious midnight picnic by
water's edge? What is going on?" "Madam, please. I beg you, Harold needs you." "Then why not beg me himself? Why ask through
you?"
"It
is about Swanne," Judith said, desperate now. "Swanne… Swanne
is…"
"Ah…" said
Caela, and her posture relaxed very slightly. "Swanne is
causing
trouble." She furrowed her brow, thinking. "It must be that Swanne
and… and Tostig, perhaps…" "The palace has ears,
madam." Judith had no idea quite what she meant by that, but it seemed to
confirm something in Caela's mind.
"Yes." She
nodded. "What chamber is safe in this palace, eh? I swear
that Edward has paid ears against every door." Then Caela smiled, and it
was the kind of smile that Judith had never seen her give: girlish,
mischievous, uninhibited. Judith's breath caught in her throat. Sweet gods, if ever she smiled that
way upon a man…
Then Caela's smile
faded. "But how can I leave the palace? I can have no excuse, and the fact
of my leaving will surely reach Edward's ears long before
dawn."
Judith allowed her
shoulders to relax: she had not been aware how tense she had been. Pray that Caela forgive her when she realizes the deception. "I shall fetch you my
third-best robe, and we shall drape a serving woman's hood and cloak about you,
and none shall be the wiser."
THEY WAITED UNTIL
WELL-PAST MIDNIGHT, THEN,
heavily cloaked and
veiled, made their way to one of the postern gates in the wall about
Perhaps some ten or
fifteen paces ahead of them, waiting on a broad expanse of gravel laid bare by
low tide, waited three cloaked figures.
"Who can be with
Harold?" said Caela.
"Saeweald,"
said Judith. "See how he drags that leg?"
Caela nodded. One of
the figures had moved slightly at their approach, and he did indeed drag his
right leg in the manner of Saeweald.
"Saeweald!"
Judith called softly as she and Caela approached. "Is that you?"
"Aye."
Saeweald threw back the hood of his cloak. "Madam, you are well? We thank
you for agreeing to come."
Caela peered at the
smaller of the remaining figures, and it turned about, revealing Ecub.
"Mother
Ecub," said Caela, "what do you here?"
Ecub bowed her head,
a gesture of deep respect, and smiled, but she did not respond with words.
Caela stared at her,
then looked to the final figure. Strange, for out here in the night Harold
looked much taller than—
The other figure
turned about, and as it did so, the cloak about its form faded as if it had
never been, and Caela saw that it was—stunningly—the same creature that she had
seen in her dream.
Long Tom.
"It is a
Sidlesaghe, my dear," said Ecub, but Caela was staring at the creature in
horror, taking a step backward.
"Caela,"
Saeweald said softly, hobbling forward a little. "Please, it is all right.
You will be safe."
Caela shrunk back
from him, her eyes riveted on the Sidlesaghe, standing with a strange, dark,
watchful expression about two or three paces from her. His eyes, as dark as
they were, seemed to reflect the small amount of moonlight, and they glittered
at Caela eerily.
"What… is…
this?" Caela said very slowly, enunciating every word very carefully. She
shot Saeweald a look, and it was full of anger.
"Madam,"
Judith said, placing a hand on Caela's elbow.
"Don't touch
me!" Caela hissed. Her eyes swung between Saeweald, Ecub, and Judith.
"What have you done?"
Whatever they may
have said was forestalled by the Sidlesaghe, who suddenly almost doubled over
in a sweeping, elegant gesture of reverence.
"My lady,"
he said, "forgive the means by which these three delivered you to
me."
Caela stared at the
Sidlesaghe, her posture as tense as that of a startled deer. "What are
you?" she said harshly.
The Sidlesaghe
smiled, his teeth gleaming in the trickle of moonlight. "I
am your
welcomer," he said. "Do you not remember the last time I greeted
you?"
For a moment Caela
did not respond. Then she shook her head slowly. "I am here once
more," said the Sidlesaghe, "as is all my kind." He lifted one
of his long-fingered hands and gestured.
Caela's eyes darted
around her, and she gasped. Where a moment before had been empty graveled
shoreline, now stood rank upon rank of creatures similar to the one that stood
before her.
"We are all
here," the Sidlesaghe, "to welcome you anew." "Caela," said Saeweald, his tone pleading.
"Please trust—"
"No," she said, and took another
step backward. Then she glanced over her shoulder, as if ensuring her way were
still open.
"It is
time," said the Sidlesaghe, and, with a movement as quick and as fluid as
that of the fox, darted forward and seized Caela.
She gave a half shriek,
grabbing at the Sidlesaghe as if she meant to push it away, but the creature
cradled her against his body, holding her almost as if she were a baby. Caela
struggled, but caught in the Sidlesaghe's firm, loving
grip, she could do
nothing.
For an instant the
Sidlesaghe stood, Caela in his arms close against his body, smiling at her as
if she were his own much beloved child.
Then, stunningly, he
lifted her high above his head and, as all the Sidle-saghes let out a long
moan, tossed her into the river.
Caela hit the water
with a frightful splash and almost instantly sank
beneath its surface.
The final sight that
Judith had of Caela was of her terrified white face, and then her extended arms
and hands as, slowly, inevitably, she sank into the rolling gray waters.
Caela Speaks
H, GODS, THE TOUCH OF THAT WATER!
Something ruptured
within my head—the pain was excruciating, overwhelming, and within the space of
a single breath that agony had become my entire existence.
I was terrified, but
what of I cannot say. Not of the water, nor even of death (an activity I was
undoubtedly engaged in, for the water flowed down my throat as I gasped and
gulped, and some tiny part of me understood that it was filling my lungs), but
of the fact that I was in the grip of something so powerful, so unknowable,
that even death could not save me from it.
Death could not be an escape from it.
My head was on fire,
the pain now beyond the excruciating, and I gave up even trying to stay afloat.
I sank down through the waters—strangely deep for the shallows of the
river—descending into an icy bleakness.
And still my head
rang with agony.
I screamed, and river
water surged down my throat.
Now my lungs felt as
if they, too, were going to explode with the weight of the river within them
and I gave myself over entirely to the water and the pain, and hoped only that
they would have done with me as fast as they possibly could.
My last single
coherent thought was that if Edward could see me now he would only nod his head
knowingly, and turn his head to say to one of his ever-present sycophants: / always knew the Devil was in her.
The instant she gave up the struggle,
tiny hands reached out for her, pulling her deeper and deeper, not so much into
the river, although that was what encased them, but deeper into a realm that
was unknowable to any who watched from above.
I6O
The water sprites waited until her
body was cold and still, drifting lifeless in the current, and then they stripped
her of all her clothing, leaving only the ruby and gold bracelet she wore about
her wrist.
I blinked, and woke,
and found myself lying curled into a tight ball on a cold stone floor, utterly
naked and dripping wet. For the longest time I did not move. I just lay there,
my arms hugging my knees to my chest (not quite naked, for I could feel a band
of jewelry about my wrist that cut into the soft flesh just below one of my
knees), blinking, not thinking, just being.
Then, very softly,
the sound of a name being called. Was it my name? I did not think so, but then,
lying there, I was not even sure of what my
name
was.
Then the faint sound
of thrumming hooves, coming ever closer, and I raised myself on one elbow just
as, at the very reaches of my vision, a white stag burst into the stone hall in
which I lay.
He was huge, vital,
brimming with power and sexuality and meaning, and he lifted his head and cried
out, trumpeted out, tidings of such joy that I
cried out myself, and raised myself to my knees.
The stag ran closer,
closer, and I could feel his heat and feel his breath on
me, and then I saw…
I saw…
I saw about his
delicate, tightly muscled limbs the golden bands of
And I remembered… and I knew where we
were going and where we had been.
I gave one incoherent
cry, and then, as the beast came to a halt before me, and lowered his noble
head, and I felt his lips gently move within my river-dampened hair, I said:
"Og, Og, can we truly manage this?"
He said, "We
must…" And then he groaned, and I both felt and saw his body crumble about
me, crumble away to nothingness until there was nothing but six golden bands,
rolling about on the stone floor…
I woke, and I was no longer who once I had been,
although I was what I
had always been.
I LAY NAKED AT TIDE'S
EDGE, MY LOWER BODY STILL
rocked by the gentle
waves of the river.
The Sidlesaghe was
leaning down over me, his dark face smiling with such
love I thought I
could not bear it.
"Resurgam, pretty lady," he said, and his voice was full
of simple,
unrestrained joy.
Part Three
It is an opinion generally received,
that the tournament originated from a childish pastime practised by youths
called Ludus Troia (the Troy Game), said to have been so named because it was
derived from the Trojans…
In the middle ages, when the
tournaments were in their splendour, the Troy Game was still continued, and
distinguished by a different denomination; it was then called in Latin, behordicum, and in French, bohourt or
behourt, and was a kind of
lance game, in which the young nobility exercised themselves, to acquire
address in handling of their arms, and to prove their strength.
Joseph Strutt, Sports & Pastimes of the
People of
Late 18th century
AVING?" JACK SKELTON
WHISPERED INTO THE SORRY
gray dawn light of the Bentley's
spare bedroom, unable to let go of his need. "Eaving!"
For a moment nothing, then a creaking
noise somewhere deep within the house.
Skelton leaped out of bed, his heart
racing, and then realized, horribly, that Violet Bentley had made the noise.
She was moving from her and Frank's bedroom, down the stairs, and to the small
kitchen on the ground floor where she was doubtless about to prepare Skelton
one of those horribly fatty English fried breakfasts.
Skelton subsided back to the bed,
almost hating Violet for causing him to hope so terribly, and so momentarily.
Eventually
he made the effort to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He
paused there, then dropped his head into his hands, trying to find the energy
to rise and wash and then dress for his first day in his new posting.
And then it came. From outside the
window this time, not inside where Violet was making an increasing amount of
clatter over the breakfast.
The sound of a child's voice. A
breathless, joyful catch of laughter. A spoken word, murmured.
Daddy.
"Gods!" Skelton said, his
voice a harsh, shocked whisper.
She was dead! Dead! He'd recovered
her charred bones from the ruins of St. Paul's himself, wept over them, refused
to allow anyone else to touch them.
Her bones, as those of her mother's.
She was dead. Dead!
Daddy.
Skelton felt the hope rise like bile
in his throat. He scrambled to the window, almost falling in his haste, and
stared out.
On the street below, looking up at
the window, was a little girl of some seven or
eight years. She had very black curly
hair, an image of Skelton's own, and a pale face with deep blue eyes ringed
with sooty lashes.
Daddy, she mouthed.
And then she held out her hands.
In each palm rested one of the golden
kingship bands of
The two lost bands of
CbAPGGR
ATILDA, DUCHESS OF
slightly in her
chair, easing her still-tender muscles, and looked to where her husband sat on
his dais at the head of the ight, commodious hall. William had returned from
his morning hunt not an hour before, and now sprawled in his great chair, his
face still flushed with excitement, one hand gesturing effusively as he relived
the chase with his two closest companions, Walter Fitz Osbern and Roger
Montgomery.
She smiled, happy
that he was, for the moment, content.
Then she sighed, and
shifted yet again to ease her aching muscles. She'd given birth a few weeks
previously—another daughter—and had only just rejoined William's public court.
She would also, Matilda thought, as she watched William's eye slipping to
wander over the form of one of her more youthful waiting women, shortly have to
rejoin him in their marital bed. William's natural lusts made him wander
sometimes, and Matilda knew full well that on occasion he bedded a village
woman and had sired three or four bastards about his many estates, but the
knowledge did not perturb her overmuch.
She was the woman he respected and honored before all
others, she was the one to whom he confided
his most secret thoughts and greatest ambitions, and she was the one to whom he turned to for advice and
counsel.
Matilda felt a tiny
kernel of fear. She was the woman he trusted and honored and respected above
all others, but what would happen once he won
WILLIAM GRINNED AT THE EXPRESSION ON HIS WIFE'S
face, knowing full
well she'd seen him ogling the luscious form of Adeliza.
Adeliza would be sent
home to her family estates and Matilda would be back in his bed before a new
day dawned.
That thought
contented William. The tedium of birthing always annoyed him; he appreciated
the fine healthy children Matilda gave him, but he was irritated that it should
remove Matilda from his bed in the weeks immediately preceding and then
following the birth. He missed those hours holding her, and talking through his
problems with her, in that one place where they had utter privacy and need not
guard their words.
Matilda was worth to
him more than all the gold in Christendom. William did not think he could have
borne the uncertainty and fear of the past years if it had not been for her.
He valued her beyond
measure… and yet he had not found within himself the courage to talk to her of
that one thing which consumed so much of his life.
The
How could he ever explain that to
her?
So William couched
his thoughts of the Game within talk of his ambition for the English throne,
and that ambition Matilda understood very well. All men lusted for more estates
and power, and what was more normal than William, having finally secured his
own duchy, to lust for a throne to which he had some small right, in any case?
A sound distracted
William from his thoughts, and he looked to the doorway.
The guards had
admitted a short and very slight priest, still with his stained traveling cloak
flapping wetly about his shoulders, and now that priest was striding toward
where William sat.
William tensed,
sitting a little higher in his chair, and his companions Walter and Roger
shared knowing glances.
"My good
lord," said the priest, sweeping in a low bow before the duke's chair,
"I greet you well, and am glad to have arrived in your sweet abode after
the mud and strain of the road."
"Greetings,
Yves," William said. "I welcome you indeed." He waved to his
chamberlain, who sent a man forward with a stool for the priest. "You were
not troubled by brigands on your way?"
"Nay," said
Yves, handing his cloak to the chamberlain and seating himself with patent relief,
"just the rain and the sleet. Winter has set in early."
"I welcome you
also, Yves," said Matilda, wandering over to stand by William's side. She
perched one hand on his shoulder. "It is too long since we have seen
you."
There was something
in her tone that made William glance at her face, but she wore a bland,
unreadable expression that gave no clue as to her thoughts. He looked back to
Walter and Roger, sitting forward on their seats with expressions of perfectly
readable curiosity on their faces, and he turned those expressions into ones of
disappointment by asking them to leave himself and his wife alone for a while
with the new arrival.
"We have matters
of some delicacy to discuss," William said, and Walter and Roger, who were
certain as to what those matters might be, reluctantly rose, bowed to both
their duke and duchess, and joined the greater part of the court seated at some
distance from the dais.
Matilda took one of
the chairs vacated by the departing men. She folded her hands in her lap and
waited, leaving it to her husband to conduct the conversation.
"Well?"
said William softly.
"I have a
communication for you," said Yves and, glancing about in a manner that
must have incited the suspicions of the entire court, handed to William a
carefully cloth-wrapped small bundle.
"From my
husband's agent at Edward's court?" said Matilda.
Yves inclined his
head, and Matilda and William shared a meaningful glance. William would not
open this now, not here.
"And how goes Edward's
court?" said William.
"The king ages
apace," said Yves. "His mind lingers less on worldly matters than on
the salvation that awaits him. Most days he spends with the monks and priests
of Westminster Abbey, or walking within its rising walls. He thinks to build
for himself a place of great glory, so that the world might not forget him when
death takes him."
William grunted,
turning the small cloth-wrapped bundle over and over in his hands, as if
impatient to read its contents.
"There is no
sign of an heir?" he said.
Yves gave a short
laugh. "Queen Caela is not so blessed as my lady here," he said,
inclining his head to Matilda, who accepted the compliment with a small, polite
smile. "Edward refuses to corrupt his piety, or his possible salvation and
deification, with any sins of the flesh. There will be no heir of his
body."
He hesitated, and
William looked at him sharply.
"What do you not say?" he said.
"Only that Queen
Caela was struck with a most untimely bloody flux of her womb at court two
weeks before I left," said Yves. "Some said that she had miscarried
of a bastard child, but the midwives who examined her said she was a virgin
still. Edward," again Yves gave his short, strange bark of laughter, "has
his reputation as intact as his wife's virginity."
Matilda had been
watching her husband as Yves spoke, and she frowned, puzzled, at what she saw
in his face. Regret? Unhappiness? Uncertainty?
She could not read it, nor understand it completely. Again she resolved to discover
all she could about this enigmatic queen.
"Harold?"
William asked, and Matilda relaxed, for now there was nothing in William's face
at all but ambition and cunning.
"His strength
grows, my lord," said Yves. "He knows, as does everyone, that Edward
has his eyes more on the next world than he does on this one."
"And so how does
Harold conduct himself, knowing the throne shall be vacant in so little a
time?" said Matilda.
"He sits, and
watches, and gathers his forces. The witan is all but sure to elect him to the
throne on Edward's death—"
"But William has
the greater claim," said Matilda, unable to suppress an outburst of
loyalty. "Edward all but promised it to him when my husband sheltered him
in his court during the man's exile, and through Emma, Edward's mother, William
and Edward are close cousins. There is no one closer in blood
than William."
Yves shrugged.
"The witan will not want a foreigner marching in and forcing the Saxon
earls to his will."
"They may have
to accept it!" snapped Matilda.
William smiled at
her, then looked back to Yves. "I thank you for your care in bringing
this," he tapped the bundle, "to me. Will you accept my hospitality
for the next few days as I decide whether or not to respond?"
Yves rose, knowing a
dismissal when he heard one. He bowed, first to William, then to Matilda, and
left the hall.
The instant he had
turned his back, both William and Matilda looked at
the bundle he held.
"I will open it
later," William said, and slipped it inside his tunic.
"We will open it
together," Matilda said firmly, and William sighed, and nodded.
CbAPGGR GUDO
Caela Speaks
OW CAN I EXPLAIN
HOW I FELT AT THAT MOMENT?
When I opened my eyes
and saw the Sidlesaghe look down at me, and smile, and say "Resurgam, pretty lady!" with such joy and welcome?
I felt relief. That
was the first, overwhelming emotion. Sheer, thankful relief. We'd managed
it—Hera, Mag, and I. The first and most critical part of our journey was done.
And who was I? Why Caela, of course, as I had been Cornelia, but
far more than that.
Far more.
How can I put into
words what that felt like? It is as if… it is as if you had wandered naked all
your life, and then someone approached and placed a mantle about your
shoulders. This mantle protected and nurtured, and because of the warmth and
comfort it gave, it made you much more than you had been when naked. Moreover,
the threads of the mantle magically wound themselves into your flesh so that it
became an integral and living part of you.
The mantle had not
truly changed who you were, it had just made you more.
I lay at tide's edge
that still, cold night, and I felt the land beneath my back and the waters
about my legs. It was not just that I felt their solidity or wetness, I felt them. The essence of them—how they felt, how they turned,
their wants and needs and loves as well. I could feel the land closing in upon
itself for its winter death-sleep; I could feel the seeds of spring and the bones
of the dead sleeping within its flesh; I could feel the roots of the trees
stretching down, down, down; and I could feel the chatter of the moles and the
bark of foxes and the sweetness of the worms who inhabited its flesh.
My flesh.
In the waters I could
hear the laughter of distant lands, and feel the siren
song of the moon, for
love of whom the tides and inlets danced. I could feel my heart in its depths,
and feel the love of the water-sprites who, with the ancient ones, the
Sidlesaghes, had overseen my birth.
I was aware that the
water-sprites still hovered close to the surface of the water, and that the
Sidlesaghes lined the banks of the river in their thousands, and that Ecub and
Saeweald and Judith stood close by, staring down upon my naked flesh in varying
degrees of stupefaction and awe, but, for the moment, I concentrated only on
myself.
I closed my eyes, and
did what Judith, Saeweald, and Ecub had been wanting me to do for so long. I remembered.
I remembered that
terrible night when Genvissa had torn my daughter from my body, and I had died.
I remembered how Mag had come to me then (even as Loth was sobbing over my
cooling flesh), and how she had talked to me, and shown me the way ahead.
I remembered how
dismayed I had been, not only dismayed at the thought of how far we had to go, the intricacies involved (where so much
could go wrong) and the dangers inherent in that journey, but of how unworthy I
was of the responsibility. But Mag had loved me, and held me, and promised me
that all would be well. That all I had to do was to believe and to trust, and
to summon the courage to dare.
I lay there at tide's
edge, my eyes closed, my heart full of contentment, and felt the land and
waters move about me. When, as Cornelia, I had stabbed myself in the neck, thus
causing my own death, Mag within my womb had died with me. When I had been
reborn as Caela, so had Mag—or her potential, rather than her precisely—been
reborn also, but not within my
womb.
Within me. As much a
part of my flesh as that imagined mantle.
There was no
difference between us now. I was not only Caela, Cornelia-reborn, but also
everything that Mag had been.
Mag-reborn. That
strange mantle, seamlessly wound through my flesh, that made me more than I had
been previously. Not different, just more.
I knew that about me
stood those who needed a word, and who needed reassurance, but first I wanted
to do one more thing… I allowed my memory to roam free. Oh, but it encompassed
so much! I could remember when this land was still young, when it was still
bound by a thin land bridge to the great continent to the east, and when great
bear and elk and wolves scampered across that bridge to fill this bounteous
land.
I remembered when Mag
had walked across that land bridge, and was welcomed to this land by the
Sidlesaghes who now stood about me, welcomers once more.
I remembered the joy
of turning about one day, and seeing standing there the great white stag, and
knowing that he would be my one mate throughout eternity.
And I remembered that
bleak day when the Darkwitch Ariadne came to this land, and Mag welcomed her,
not realizing her malignancy and her contempt.
Finally, I remembered
the arrival of the Trojans, carrying with them Mag nurtured within the womb of
their leader's wife, Cornelia. Mag, arriving once more to this land, bringing
with her… me.
Filled with joy, I
looked deeper.
And found an empty
space. A well of nothingness. An incompleteness.
Had something failed? Had my
transformation not been complete?
Startled, and not a
little scared at that discovery, I opened my eyes. I would think on it later
when I had peace and solitude. This was only the beginning, after all. I could
not expect everything all at once.
The Sidlesaghe
reached down his hand and I took it, and rose, glimpsing as I did so at the
gold and ruby bracelet that glinted about my wrist. I half smiled at that,
seeing in it everything that Cornelia had suffered but yet would become, then I
looked to my three faithful companions who had been reborn into this life with
me, and, in turn, I took their faces in my hands and kissed them softly on
their mouths.
"You are
Mag?" stammered Saeweald.
I hesitated. I was
not Mag precisely, but did not know how best to express myself. So, foolishly
perhaps, I let him think what he wanted, for it was easier. "Aye," I
said, and felt a faint flutter of discomfort deep within my belly.
"But… I had no
idea… I would not have…"
"Wait," I
said. "This is not the place nor the time to discuss it." I turned
back to the Sidlesaghe, and I kissed him also on the mouth. "Long
Tom," I said, for that was truly his name, "thank you for greeting
me. I am sorry I was so nervous and that I attempted to obstruct you."
Long Tom smiled, and,
as I had in my dream, I saw a faint suggestion of light spill from his mouth.
"We are happy to see you as well, lady. Do not worry for what you may have
said. We are happy only to see you."
My smile slipped.
"I need to speak with you."
"Aye, and we
with you. But not now. I will come to you again. We will walk the paths."
"Aye," I
said, "that we will."
Then I turned back to
Saeweald and the two women, and I grimaced, and I said, "May I borrow a
cloak or some other covering from you? This night is chill, and there is a long
walk back to the palace."
And so, huddled
beneath Saeweald's cloak, with the Sidlesaghes fading into the night, and the
physician, the prioress and my attending lady beside me, I
went back to the palace
via the graveled flats of the Thames until we reached the wharves of
Then I opened the
door, and walked inside and, shucking away the cloak, crawled into my empty,
cold bed (Edward was, most apparently, still on his knees before his altar, and
the bowerthegn who usually slept by the door must
also be with him).
I lay down naked, and
I closed my eyes, and I put my hands on my breasts, and I dreamed—not of the
young boy Melanthus whom I had thought to love in my previous life as Cornelia,
nor even of Brutus-now-William, but I dreamed of my beloved white stag with the
bloodred antlers, pounding through the forest toward me.
One day, I thought. One day, beloved.
And then I began to
weep.
Silently, deep into
the night.
GbR
ATILDA WATCHED
THROUGH HOODED EYES AS
William, as naked as
the day he had been born, stood before the fire in their bedchamber, reading
the letter that Yves had slivered earlier.
They had retired some
hours ago, made love (which Matilda hoped had driven all thought of Adeliza
from William's mind for the time being), talked, and then William had waited
until he thought Matilda asleep.
Now he stood before
the fire, his head bent over the letter, frowning.
HE
COULDN'T ALLOW MATILDA TO SEE THIS! WILLIAM thanked all the gods that existed that he'd delayed
opening the communication until Matilda had been asleep. Previously, Swanne
always had been circumspect in her communications, but now she had abandoned
caution. Swanne wanted him to tell her where the kingship bands were. She
wanted to move them before Asterion could get to them. She needed to do it
before William arrived, or else it would be too late. She wrote of the strange
events of the day the Troy Game was enacted in
William understood
Swanne's fear about Asterion. It was evident that matters were careening toward
a head: Edward was sliding toward death, the new abbey was almost complete… and
now the Londoners were dancing the Troy Game? Children playing it across paving
stones?
To be honest, William
was not surprised at the manifestation of the Game above the stones. It had
existed for two thousand years, it was no shock to find that the people who
lived their daily lives above it should also find their feet moving unwittingly
in its steps. Swanne's belief that the Game was trying to take matters into its
own hands, however, was an overreaction. William
could not conceive for
a moment that the Game would ever try to divorce itself from its Mistress and
its Kingman.
But the bands. On
that subject William was prepared to share Swanne's concern. The golden bands
of
gone.
If William could retrieve them, however…
William's body
tensed, his eyes staring unfocused into the fire. If he had the
hands, if he wore them, and if he and Swanne had the time and space to raise
the Flower Gate…
Then all would be
won, and he and Swanne would live forever within the
stones of
Strange, that he
should feel no joy at this thought. "I must be getting old," William
muttered. Once, every bone in his body would have been screaming with joy at
the thought of controlling the Game completely.
Again William
collected his thoughts and concentrated on what Swanne asked him: Tell me where lie the bands of
The tone of that last
sentence irritated William immensely. What did she think, that he had idled his
life away in his court of Normandy? Drinking fine wines and laughing at the
antics of court jesters? By the gods, did she not know that he'd had to battle
rivals and enemies for the past thirty years? That he'd spent each and every
day of those thirty years ensuring his survival? That there had not been a
single chance—not a one't—to turn his armies for England
and for London so that he could, at last, take his rightful place on its
throne?
William well realized
that his troubles had been caused by Asterion's meddling. He knew that Asterion
had his own dark, malevolent reasons for ensuring William kept his distance
from
And William knew,
with every instinct in his body, that the fact that all these internal problems
within Normandy had miraculously receded over the past couple of years meant
that Asterion was preparing the way for the confrontation they all knew was
coming.
"What
news?" said Matilda from their bed, surprising William so much he
visibly jumped.
"Little,"
he said as lightly as he could, and tossed the paper into the fire. It
crackled, flaring in sudden flame and burning to ash within moments. "You
did not want me to read it?" Matilda said.
"No."
"Why?"
"Swanne was
incautious." William looked Matilda directly in the eye. "She spoke
of things I did not want you to see."
"What
things?" Matilda hissed, finally allowing her jealousy free reign. She
rose from the bed, snatching at a robe to cover herself as she did so, hating
the fact that her body was still swollen from the child she had so recently
borne, and hating Swanne even more bitterly for the fact that all the news
Matilda received of her spoke of a beautiful and elegant woman, despite the six
children she'd birthed.
"She did not
speak of love," William said, walking over to Matilda and kissing her
gently on the forehead. "But there are matters so terrible that you will
be safer not knowing of them. I speak nothing but truth, Matilda, when I say
that what Swanne wrote has irritated me. I did not throw that letter into the
flames because I am a shame-faced adulterer, but because I was angry with she
who wrote it."
"I should not
have taxed you over the matter," Matilda said, more angry with herself now
that she'd allowed her jealousy to speak tartly.
"You had every
right," William said very softly, his lips resting in her hair. "You
are my wife, and I honor you before all others."
"But Swanne is
the great love of your life," Matilda said, keeping her voice light.
"When I spoke
those words to you, fifteen years ago," he said, "then I thought I
spoke truth. Now I am not so sure."
"What do you
mean?" Matilda leaned back so she could see his face.
Again William paused,
trying to find the best words with which to respond. "You have taught me a
great deal during our marriage," he said eventually. "You have taught
me strength, and tolerance, and you have given me maturity. What I thought, and
felt, fifteen years ago, are no longer so clear to me."
Again Matilda arched
an eyebrow. "Are you saying that I have suddenly become the great love of
your life?"
William laughed,
knowing from all their years together that she jested with him. "What I am
saying, my dear, is that 'great love' no longer appeals to me as once it
did."
She held his eyes,
her jesting manner vanished. "When you win
When, not if. William loved her for that.
"—a marriage to
Swanne would consolidate your hold on the throne, especially if, as we expect,
the witan elects Harold as king to succeed Edward.
When you have dealt
with Harold, what better move for you than to marry his
widow?"
"I will never
renounce you!" William said. "Never! You will be queen of
Matilda, studying the
fervor in his eyes, believed it, and was content.
FOUR
UDITH THOUGHT THE
CHANGE IN CAELA
SO
stunningly obvious
that the entire realm would have taken one
gigantic breath and
screamed its incredulity, but she supposed, on
second thought, that
maybe most people who came into contact with the
queen on that
following day thought her "eccentricity" merely a result of the
turbulent state of
her womb.
She woke Caela as she
usually did, just after dawn, with a murmured word and the offering of a warm,
damp flannel with which to wipe the sleep from her eyes.
Caela took the cloth,
smiling, and wiped her face. Then she stretched catlike under the covers, then
pushed them back and rose in one fluid, beautiful movement, apparently
unconcerned at her nakedness.
Edward's bowerthegn,
or bed chamberlain, aiding his king to dress, stilled and stared.
Normally, Caela
stayed modestly covered in bed until both her husband and his servants had left
the chamber.
Now she walked slowly
over to one of the closed windows, threw back the shutters, and stood
gloriously outlined—and gloriously naked—in the dawning light.
"Wife! What do
you? Clothe yourself instantly!"
Judith froze,
wondering if Caela would strike him down.
Instead Caela only
inclined her head toward Edward's direction, as if she found his presence
mildly surprising. "My nakedness disturbs you?" she asked.
And turned about.
Judith bit her lip,
suppressing a deadly desire to giggle. Both Edward and the bowerthegn were
staring goggle-eyed at the queen.
Caela smiled, sweet
and innocent, and drew in a deep breath.
The bowerthegn's
mouth dropped open, and, frankly, Judith was not surprised. Caela looked
magnificent, her pale skin subtly shaded by the rosy light of dawn, her mussed
hair gleaming in an aura about her face and shoulders.
Her body, which
Judith knew so intimately from their long association,
appeared somehow
different, and it took Judith a moment to realize that where once Caela's body,
although slim, had been soft from her life of inactivity at court, was now taut
and finely muscled, as if she spent her time, not at rest at her needlework,
but running through the forests, or slipping wraith-like through the waters.
"A robe perhaps,
Judith," Caela murmured, turning slightly so that the slack-jawed men
could see her body in profile.
Judith hurried to
comply, not daring to look at Caela's face. "That was most unseemly,
wife," said Edward.
"I am sorry my
nakedness offends," said Caela, allowing Judith to slip a soft woolen robe
over her head and shoulders.
Even then, the soft
robe clinging to every curve and hugging every narrowness, Caela managed to
give the impression of nakedness as she moved slowly about the chamber, lifting
this, inspecting that, and Edward finished his dressing in red-cheeked affront
before he hurried from the room.
The bowerthegn,
hastening after him, shot Caela one final wide-eyed glance, which made Caela
grin.
"How sad,"
she remarked to Judith, dropping the robe from her body so that she might wash,
"that Edward should be so afraid of a woman's body, and that the
bowerthegn should be so shy in admiring it."
Fortunately for
Judith's peace of mind, Caela managed to perform her usual duties about court
demurely and quietly, although with an air of slight distraction. Several
people looked at her oddly, frowning, as if trying to place what was unusual
about Caela (among them Swanne, who stopped dead when first she saw Caela enter
court, then wrinkled her brow as she patently tried to discern exactly what was
different about the queen on this
morning).
When Harold came to
her, and wished her a good morning, Caela visibly glowed, and Harold responded
in kind. He, too, looked puzzled by her, but also pleased, and he stayed longer
than he normally would when he had business elsewhere, laughing and chatting
over inconsequential matters as other members of the court circled close by.
I wonder if some part of him knows, wondered Judith, hovering nearby
and wondering if Caela was being a trifle indiscreet with her openness and
patent happiness in the presence of her brother. There was a subdued sexuality
to every one of her movements that had never been there before, and Judith
prayed that no other observer noted it and spread further dark and malignant
gossip about the queen and her brother.
Edward, certainly,
kept a close eye on his wife, closer than usual.
However, when Caela
bid her brother a good morning, and turned her attention instead to chatting
with one of her more recently arrived attending
ladies, a young widow
called Alditha, then Edward relaxed and allowed himself to be distracted by the
priests and bishops who hovered about him.
In the late morning,
Caela beckoned Judith closer. "I have decided to take an interest in my
lady Alditha," she said, gracing the said lady with a lovely smile.
"I wonder if you could see to it that her sleeping arrangements are
changed. Currently poor Alditha shares with five other of my ladies, as well as
one of the under-cooks, and she sleeps badly. Perhaps…" Caela paused as if
thinking, one finger tapping gently against her lower lip. "Perhaps
Alditha can take over that chamber in the annex that runs between our palace
and Harold's hall? You know the one, surely. The bishop of
Judith blinked,
trying to mask her confusion. She glanced at Alditha, a pretty woman with a
heart-shaped face and generous hazel eyes, who looked as confused with the
attention she was receiving as Judith felt. And the chamber of the (sorrowfully
now deceased) bishop of
And one so close to
Harold's own private apartments?
"Of course, madam,"
she said, inclining her head.
"And when you
have done that, and settled Alditha comfortably," Caela continued, "I
wonder if you might bring the physician Saeweald to attend me? And the prioress
Ecub? Mother Ecub has been complaining so greatly recently about her aching
knees that I think it time I grant her a consultation with Edward's own
physician. Don't you think?"
"Yes,
madam." Judith locked eyes with Caela, understanding.
"Perhaps in my
solar," said Caela. "I think I may withdraw for a little while."
"Yes,
madam."
"I AM SORRY THAT
FOR SO LONG I HAD NO MEMORY,
and that you were
sorrowed and troubled because of it," Caela said, once Saeweald, Ecub, and
Judith had gathered in her solar. They were not entirely alone, for below the
windows sat three of the queen's ladies, their heads bent over their
needlework, but Caela and her three companions were far enough distant in their
chairs about the hearth that they could talk in reasonable privacy. To have
insisted that the ladies take their needlework elsewhere was to have invited
gossip and unwelcome curiosity.
"But you
remember now… madam?" Saeweald said. He hesitated at the
I8O
end of the question
before adding the "madam." His concern was obvious. How should he
address this woman, his friend, queen and, now, reborn
goddess?
Caela nodded.
"Most things, yes, although there are still some vaguenesses." She
shifted a little in her chair, her eyes glancing over at the group of ladies
under the window. "My friends, I am still Caela to you in private, and
madam in public. I am nothing else." "You are Mag," Ecub said.
Caela hesitated a
fraction before replying. "I have her within me, her power and knowledge
and memory, but I am still Caela, Cornelia-reborn. I am simply more than she had once been."
Ecub gave a small
smile, her creased face kind and loving. "And perhaps not. When you first
came to this land we knew you were somehow different. You were always, and will
always be, beloved."
At that Caela lowered
her face, drawing in a deep breath as she blinked back tears. "I say
again," she said, as she raised her face and looked in turn at each of the
three, "that I have been well served in you and that you have my unending
gratitude for staying by me, even when you thought I had no memory, and when
you had every reason to suspect me of uselessness in the struggle that is to
come."
"To destroy the
Game," Saeweald said.
Caela looked at him,
her gaze clear and direct. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it
again, having reconsidered. "Let me tell you, briefly, how things came to
pass. In the world where Cornelia came from, the Aegean world, there was a
great goddess named Hera. She had once been all-powerful, magnificent, but had
been cruelly crippled by Ariadne's darkcraft. Before she died, she approached
Mag—also suffering from the Darkwitches' malevolence—and suggested a plan. A
means by which the Darkwitches could be outwitted, and Mag's land saved."
"But not Hera's
world?" Judith said.
"No. That was
too badly corrupted. It was dying. There was nothing Hera or Mag could do about
that. But Hera could aid Mag and Mag's land, and she did so by passing on her
knowledge and cunning."
"How to destroy
the Game," Saeweald said, and again Caela glanced at him, this time with
her brow very slightly furrowed.
"Mag needed a
place to hide," Caela continued, "and Hera showed her Cornelia. But
Cornelia… but I… was not simply a place to hide. In rebirth—and Hera and Mag
knew that what needed to be done would take more than one lifetime—Mag would be
reborn within my flesh, giving her power and potential new vitality."
Judith frowned.
"But Mag was within your womb…"
"No," Caela
said. "That was merely a phantom. A decoy, if you will. Hera and Mag had
known about Asterion, and had known of his malevolence and danger. Mag
pretended an alliance with the Minotaur, but knew that eventually he would turn
against her. She had no illusions about that. Thus the phantom within my womb
that he could murder, and my lack of memory. Asterion had to be convinced that
he had disposed of Mag, and subsequently that I was no threat. He did just
that, murdering the phantom Mag, and convincing himself that poor Caela was of
no consequence. Now I am safe, we are safe, for Asterion thinks us all of
little consequence or danger to him in the Game ahead."
"And the
Sidlesaghes?" asked Ecub.
"The Sidlesaghes
have always been intimately connected with a goddess's rebirth. They also knew
something of Mag's plan. When they felt Asterion readying himself, they walked.
When Asterion murdered Mag, and convinced himself that I was no threat, then it
would be time to rebirth the goddess."
"And thus they
approached me," said Ecub, "and then Judith."
"Yes," said
Caela.
"Tell us, great
Mother," said Saeweald, his face alive with eagerness, "how will you
destroy the Game? How shall you return this land to its purity?"
There was a moment's
silence, a stillness, during which Caela visibly steeled herself.
"I have no intention of destroying the
Game," she said eventually, watching Saeweald carefully.
"What?"
Saeweald said, tensing as if to rise.
"Be still!"
Caela hissed, and Saeweald subsided at the command in her voice.
Again Caela glanced
at the ladies under the window, but they had not moved, nor glanced up from
their needlework.
"The Troy Game
will save this land," Caela continued,
her voice low and compelling. "It will be completed, but not by Swanne and
William. Not by Genvissa- and Brutus-reborn."
Her three companions
stared at her, their bewilderment patent.
"I will complete
the Game," Caela said. "With Og-reborn."
There was a long hush
as Saeweald, Ecub, and Judith stared at Caela, then exchanged glances between
themselves.
"Og-reborn?"
Saeweald said, very slowly, and a flush mottled his cheeks. Og-reborn! He could not help a thrill of excitement.
"How can this be
so?" Ecub said eventually. "My lady, we… we do not understand. The
Game completed? By you, and Og-reborn?"
"The Troy Game
is not the evil thing that you believe," Caela said. "You only saw it
so because its creators, Genvissa and Brutus, worked it with corruption rather
than with good intention and meaning. Used correctly, the Game is a
powerful and
beneficial thing, and it can be used to protect this land as nothing else can.
But to use the Game to its full potential, to use it to aid this land, then we
need to wrest control of it away from Swanne and William."
"Gods,"
Ecub muttered. "No wonder you needed to divert Asterion's attention away
from you. It is enough that you have set yourself against Swanne and William;
you do not need to contend with Asterion as well."
"Since the time
Genvissa and Brutus left the Game unfinished," Caela said, "the Game
has all but merged with the land. The land and the Troy Game have, if you like,
negotiated an alliance. Hera told Mag that this would be so. That if the
Darkwitch and Brutus were stopped before they completed the Game, and the Game
and the land upon which it sat were left to their own devices, then they would
come to an understanding, if you will."
"Og-reborn?"
said Saeweald, who had paid little attention to anything else Caela had said.
"Where? When?" He paused. "In whom?"
Caela smiled, and
leaned forward so she could put a warm hand on Saeweald's arm. "Not
yet," she said. "He will not be reborn until it is safe for
him to be so."
In whom? Saeweald thought, and would have
repeated the question save
that Ecub spoke
first.
"When will it be
safe for Og to be reborn?" she said.
"When Asterion
is negated, and when…" Caela faltered, then resumed, "and when Swanne
can pass on to me the arts and secrets of the Mistress of
the Labyrinth."
Judith's mouth fell
open, her expression mirroring that of Saeweald's and Ecub's. "Swanne hand to you the powers of the Mistress of the
Labyrinth?"
"I will need
them in order to complete the Game, as so also will Og-reborn require the
powers of the Kingman. Land and Game merged, completely. Mag and Og, Mistress
and Kingman of the Labyrinth."
"That is not my
query," said Judith, still aghast, "but this: how in creation's
name will you get Swanne to hand to
you her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth?"
"There is a way,
I know this," Caela beat a clenched
hand softly against her
breast. "But for
the moment this way remains unknown to me. Eventually I
will find it—or it
will find me."
Saeweald gave a
short, harsh bark of laughter, making the ladies under the
window look at him in
surprise.
He waited until their
attention had returned to their needlework. "I wish I had your certainty,
Caela. Swanne will never do it, just as William will never hand to Og his
powers as Kingman! Both are too devoted to their ambitions, and to their shared
vision of immortality. They will never do it!"
"You misjudge
both of them," Caela said quietly. "I think they will. Eventually.
When circumstances are right."
There was quiet for a
while, each lost in their own thoughts. Judith and Ecub were trying to come to
terms with the idea that they should actually use the Game, rather than destroy
it; Saeweald's mind remained consumed with the idea of Og-reborn. Who? Who? Who?
The thoughts of all
three stumbled at the idea that Caela, Mag-reborn, actually thought she could
make Swanne hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth, and that William
would do likewise with his powers as Kingman.
Eventually Caela,
having watched the doubts flood the faces of the other three, shrugged her
shoulders as if in a silent apology. "There is still much to be decided. I
will need to speak with the Sidlesaghes. They have been watching these past two
thousand years. They will show me the direction I should take."
Ecub, somewhat reluctantly,
gave a single nod. "May I ask, great lady, whom Asterion masquerades as?
He is among us, we can all feel that, but who is he?"
Caela colored
slightly. "I do not know."
"You do not know?" Saeweald said, incredulously.
Caela shot him another
hard glance, but Saeweald met it unhesitatingly.
"He hides
himself well," she said curtly. "Too well. I cannot know him. But he
must have come to see me in the hours after Mag's death. Who visited me then?
My mind was sleepy and muddled, and I can remember only a procession of vague
faces."
"Half the cursed
court visited you," Saeweald muttered. "How is it you cannot tell
Asterion's guise? By all the stars in heaven, Caela, you do not know how to
persuade Swanne to hand over her powers, you do not know who Asterion is… what
else do you 'not know' ?"
"There are still
vaguenesses, and still things I need to learn," Caela said. "I am not
omniscient, neither was Mag, nor even Og. But, if you worry about Asterion,
then pray put that to one side. For the moment Asterion is concentrating on
Swanne and William. I am no longer of any concern to him." She drew in a
deep breath. "Now, I have some questions of you. Harold…" her voice
broke a little. "For all the gods' sakes, why does he not remember? Why have
none of you told him?"
"As to why he
cannot remember," Saeweald said, "I do not understand this, but I
suspect it is because it is kinder to him that it be so. And that is the reason
none of us have taken him aside, and explained to him the tragedy of his
previous life. What would you have had us say, my lady? That his sister in this
life is the great love of his life? That if he indulges in that love, he not
only threatens her well-being, but throws away all he could attain in this
life? By all the gods, Caela! Harold is the man who can lead
against William, but
with his own
sister!"
"But he is
married to Swanne!" Caela said.
"And that
marriage took place before any of us knew him," said Ecub.
"That fact
changes little."
Caela's face twisted
in revulsion. "But Swanne… she arranged his murder in his
last life."
"And what can
you do about it?" said Saeweald. "If you walk up to him now, and
reveal all that can be revealed, then you risk destroying his life."
Caela did not answer.
Saeweald again leaned
forward. "Is Harold Og-reborn?"
Caela shook her head.
"Then what
purpose is there in revealing his past to him?" said Saeweald. "What
purpose, save to batter his emotions, and show him what he cannot
have in this
life?"
Caela nodded with
obvious reluctance.
"Silvius,"
she said, lifting her wrist a little so she could see the bracelet he'd given
her. "What in heaven's name does he do here?"
"He is part of
the Game," Saeweald said. "Brutus made him so." "He says he is here to help," Judith put in.
"He thought that the bracelet might make you remember. None of us then
knew quite what you truly were, or what was needed to make you remember…"
There was a slight
reproach in her last remark, and Caela's cheeks again
colored a little at
it. "Well," she said, "I suppose I will speak to him
eventually."
She was about to say
more, but at that moment the door to the solar
opened, and Edward's
chamberlain entered with a request that Caela rejoin
her husband to greet
an ambassador from
With a smile, and a
gracious inclination of her head, Caela rose.
LATER THAT NIGHT,
WHEN JUDITH STOOD BEHIND
Caela in her
bedchamber, combing out her long hair, Caela half turned, and
spoke quietly.
"Judith…"
Caela hesitated. "William… I have not met him in this life… have I? He and
Edward were very close when Edward was younger— gods, Edward spent a decade or
more at William's court when he was exiled by Cnut—but I do not think William
has come to our English court. Has he? Ah, I have searched my memory and cannot
remember, and I do not know if that is because I have not in truth met him, or
because if I have met him then I dismissed him, not knowing who he was…"
Her voice broke a
little on that last, and Judith frowned.
"Caela, remember
how this William treated you in your former life. He was vile to you! He—"
"I loved him. And now I need to know. Judith, tell me… have we met?"
"You have not
met."
Caela sighed.
"And his wife, Matilda? I have paid little attention to what I've ever
heard of her. What do you know?"
"Caela, you can
be doing yourself little good by—"
"I want to know.
Please."
"She is a strong
woman, quick to temper, sure of herself and her place in life. I… I have heard
that she and William have made a good pairing."
"And
children?" Caela said.
"Many, sons as
well as daughters."
Caela winced.
"They have been
blessed," Judith finished.
Caela turned aside
her head.
"Caela…"
Judith said softly.
"My hair is
untangled enough, Judith. You may leave me now."
Judith went to
Saeweald, needing to talk through all she had heard that day.
"I still find it
difficult," she said, as she lay naked in Saeweald's arms on his bed,
bundles of drying herbs hanging from the low beam above them, "that the
reborn Mag and Og will complete the Game instead of destroying it. For so long
we have hated and loathed the Troy Game, wanted it gone. Now… now we must
reconcile ourselves to the idea that it will be with us always. Part of
us."
Seaweald did not
immediately reply, and, curious at his silence, Judith raised herself on an
elbow so she could see his face. "Saeweald?"
"While you spent
the evening with Caela, I went to sit on the edge of the river. I prayed, and
thought, and sought answers."
"And did you
find any?"
His hand stroked
gently over Judith's shoulder, and down her upper arm, making her shiver and
smile. "Aye. Caela—Mag—is right. Imagine the power and
strength of this land if it is wedded to the Game."
"But the Game is
so… foreign."
"Now? After so
many years? I don't believe so, not anymore. You may as well say that Caela is
'foreign' and unacceptable, yet Mag chose her for her rebirth. The Sidlesaghes,
most ancient of creatures, have accepted both Caela and the Game. Imagine the power of all these things combined—the ancients,
the gods, and the Troy Game."
Judith frowned a
little at Saeweald's emphasis on power. "And if Caela is
Mag-reborn, and will
become the Mistress of the Labyrinth, then who is to
become
Og-reborn?"
Saeweald was silent,
but he smiled very slightly as he stared upward toward
the ceiling where
strings of drying herbs swung gently in the warm air that
radiated out from the
brazier.
"By Mag
herself," Judith said softly, "you think it will be you!"
Saeweald focused on
her face. "And who else, eh? I cannot think myself
worthy of the honor…
but who else? Not Harold, for Caela said so,
and surely he is the only other one among us who Og's spirit could
inhabit."
"Saeweald…"
He grinned, and
lifted his head enough to kiss the tip of her nose. "Ah, I know. You think
of the intimacy that must exist between the Mistress and the Kingman, but that
is a mere part of the ritual, a step in the dance, and you should not take it
personally. Besides, when did you assume such a cloak of Christian morality? We
have both had different lovers, in both our lives."
"That was not
what I meant."
"Then
what?"
She hesitated, then
gave a half smile and lay her head back on his chest so that he could no longer
see her face. "Nothing," she said. "I think it is all just too
much to absorb at once. Mag and Og, reborn, and dancing the Game.
Imagine."
He laughed, and they
chatted some more about inconsequential things, and then they made love, and
Saeweald spoke no more of his ambition to
become Og
reincarnate.
But all Judith could
think of, as she lay with Saeweald through that night, was that moment in their
previous life when Loth had challenged Brutus within the labyrinth. Brutus had
seized Loth, and had lifted his sword to take the man's head off, but then Og
himself, by some supernatural effort, had careened from the forest and
dislodged Brutus' sword arm so that, instead of decapitating Loth, Brutus had
merely crippled him.
Had that been
happenchance (Brutus' sword must go somewhere, and better in Loth's spine than
through his neck), or design? Had that sword stroke been as much Og's judgement
on Loth as Brutus' displaced anger?
Was Loth's crippling,
in this life as well as then, Og's judgment? If so, then Saeweald would never
become Og-reborn.
Whatever he himself believed.
And if not Saeweald, then who?
Five
't>, WANNE HAD
NOTICED SOMETHING DIFFERENT
about Caela during
the past few days, and it disturbed her
Xw_^*'
greatly. There was something altered in the way that Caela
moved, in the way that
she sat—very, very still—and in the way Caela looked
about her when she
observed her husband's court.
There was certainly
something very different in the manner Caela looked at Swanne—with sadness and
regret, almost—and that difference was driving Swanne almost to distraction.
There was already
enough to worry about. She did not need to fret about what Caela was doing as
well.
Consequently, when an
opportunity presented itself one afternoon when the court had adjourned for the
day (Edward had retired to murmur and mutter in a chapel), Swanne took it in
both hands. She asked for admittance into Caela's private chamber, received it,
and then asked that she and the queen be allowed to speak in some privacy for a
time.
As Caela's serving women
and attending ladies retreated, Swanne took a seat close to where Caela sat at
her ever-present needlework.
"You wonder what
is changed about me," Caela said simply, put her needlework down, and
lifted her deep blue eyes to Swanne's face. "It is merely this: I have
remembered."
Momentarily shocked,
Swanne's expression froze. "Remembered what?" she said, stupidly.
"That I
am," Caela said in a very even voice, "merely a body to be penetrated
and a pair of legs to be parted… if I remember rightly how you taunted me so
long ago."
Swanne stared, saying
nothing, still trying to absorb the shock.
"Why
Harold?" said Caela. "Why him?
What pleasure did you take, then, in seducing Coel-reborn to your bed?"
"Do you want him now?" said Swanne, finally finding her
voice. "I find that I have tired of him, somewhat."
"William must be
close then. Do you send him reports of Harold? Beg him to invade and take
you?"
Swanne's face
flushed. "He will ever be distant to you!" "Did you not know," Caela said, her
demeanor remaining very calm, "that once you were dead he took me back as
his wife? Back to his bed? I bore him two more children." Caela lowered
her face, resuming her needlework as if this conversation were of no importance
to her.
Now Swanne's face
drained of all color. "Never/1 cannot believe that lie." Caela
shrugged slightly, disinterestedly.
"He loathed
you," Swanne continued. "He found you vile!" She drew in a deep
breath, then resumed in a more even tone. "How is it that you have
suddenly remembered all that you were, and all that you did? Did Asterion draw
close, and plant an enchanted kiss upon your lips to wake you?"
Caela's needle
threaded in and out, in and out. "Asterion has not—" "Has he roused you from your slumber so that you
might once again work his will? Hark!" Swanne put her hands to her face in
mock fright. "Is that a dagger I see at your girdle?"
Despite herself,
Caela's eyes jerked upward, and her cheeks reddened. She immediately looked
away, hating the smile of triumph on Swanne's face. "Where is he, Caela?
Where is Asterion?" "I do not know."
"Ah! Do not expect me to believe
that! You are his handmaiden! His
dagger-hand!"
"No! I will not
again—"
"Have you taken
him to your bed yet, Caela? If I caused the midwives to examine you again,
would they now not find you the same virgin you were a
few weeks past?"
"I am a virgin
still, Swanne. Unlike yourself, I do not need to use my bed
to make my way in
life."
"Ah, poor little
virgin, can you not even find one man eager to take it from you? And now even
Mag has deserted you. Poor worthless bitch goddess. Dead. Was that what woke you, Caela? The corpse of your one true
friend slithering dead in the hot blood running down your thighs?"
Ignoring the look of
distaste on Caela's face, Swanne leaned forward, jerked the needlework out of
the way, then took Caela's hands in her own. To any of Caela's ladies watching
from across the chamber it seemed only that the lady Swanne was comforting
their queen.
"My only regret
is that Asterion did not murder you as well. You are as useless as ever you
were, Caela. Take my advice and cast yourself into the cold waters of the
Thames. Who wants you? No one. You are a pathetic queen—even your husband
cannot bear to take you. When William comes,
and come he will,
Caela, then I shall be his queen, and you shall
be locked away in a nunnery in the cold, gray reaches of the north where even
the scurrying rats will be hard put to remember your name."
She let go Caela's
hands and sat back.
"You were ever
the failure at being the wife. An, no! I lie! There is one small thing at which
you ever excelled as the wife, Caela, and that is in attracting husbands who
despise you, and who can hardly bear to touch you."
Finished, Swanne
raised an eyebrow, as if daring Caela to even attempt a response.
"How
strange," said Caela very softly, her eyes unwavering on Swanne's face,
"that you should say that my husbands despise me, Swanne, when you have
misnamed both my husbands."
Swanne's face assumed
an expression of affected curiosity.
"I am married to
this land, Swanne, and it is not me that this land despises."
Swanne's expression
froze, and she did not move as Caela rose and walked away, brushing aside
Swanne's skirts as she did so.
By all the gods, Caela, Swanne thought, keeping her face
expressionless under the regard of the other ladies in the chamber, / will make you suffer once William is here, and the Game, and England are ours.
CbAPGCRSl-X
Caela Speaks
LAY AT NIGHT
BESIDE MY STILL, COLD HUSBAND—
one part of me
thinking that, ironically, nothing had changed—and tested my memory and powers.
It all felt so
comfortable and so overwhelmingly right,
but still… still… There was still something missing, as I had felt it on the
banks of the Thames. Something not quite as it should be. An emptiness. In that
first euphoric day after the Sidlesaghe had thrown me into the river, and I had
remembered and, in remembering, I had thought that if I had actually felt
anything wrong, then that was merely because of the newness of my awareness.
Now, in the days
following that awakening, and, more particularly, during the long nights
following, I had more than adequate time to investigate.
That exploration
unnerved me. I found a fullness of memory and experience, a growing sense of
power and knowledge, but at the very heart of all this… a cold emptiness. Not
so much that there was something "missing," but that I could not
determine what it was.
Only that I was
slightly "emptier" than I should be.
I consoled myself
with the thought that the Sidlesaghes still had to come to me. I knew that they
had visions to show me, and words to share, and I thought that what was
"missing" (whatever it was) could be supplied by them. They would be
the ones to show me how Swanne could be persuaded to part with her powers. They
were the ones to show me the means whereby Asterion
could be subdued.
They would be the
ones to show me how William… no, I would not dare to think about that now.
There was too much else to be accomplished before
then.
On the fourth night
after that of my awakening, I lay beside Edward thinking deep into the early
hours of the morning. Finally I fell into a fitful sleep.
I dreamed.
I walked the stone
hall again, my stone hall, my special place. I
studied it, seeing that perhaps one day it could be a place of great joy.
Perhaps. If all went
well.
I recalled that, not
so long ago, when I had been Caela-unremembering, William had come to me in
this hall and so, when I heard the soft footfall behind me, I turned, a glad
smile on my face, thinking that it would be him again.
It was Silvius, and
some of the gladness went out of my smile.
Oh, but he was so
much like Brutus! He was as tall, and as dark, but not so heavily muscled, and
his face, almost a mirror of Brutus' own (save for that patch over his empty
eye), was gentler and far more weary than I had ever remembered my husband's.
That gentleness and weariness made my gut wrench, and endeared him to me as
nothing else could have done.
Silvius was dressed
as he would have been in his Trojan prime: beautifully tooled-leather
waistband, soft ivory waistcloth, laced boots that came partway up his calves,
and a variety of gold and bronze jewelry about his fingers and dangling from
his ears. His long, curly black hair was tied with a thong in the nape of his
neck.
About Silvius' limbs,
around his biceps, forearms, and just below his knees, circled broad bands of
paler flesh, as if someone had only recently taken from him the bands that had
once graced his body.
I saw that my fading
smile had hurt him, and so I held out my hands in greeting, and rearranged the
smile upon my face.
"Silvius,"
I said. "What do you here?"
He took my hands, one
of his fingers reaching out to touch the bracelet on my wrist, and smiled in
answer to my own. "Come to see this lovely, magical woman," he said.
"Why, oh why, did Brutus never appreciate you? Not know what a treasure he
held in his arms?"
His hands tightened
about mine as he spoke, and their warmth and dry softness made the breath catch
in my throat. Oh, he was so
much like Brutus!
"What do you
here?" I asked again, hearing the quaver in my voice and hoping Silvius
would not know the reason for it. "What have you been doing, wandering the
streets above, and conversing with Saeweald and Judith?"
"I am a part of
the Game," he said. "Brutus left me to wander its twists eternally.
That is what I do here. I am part of the Game." With his hands, he drew me
in close to him, so that I could feel the heat from his flesh, and feel the
waft of his breath across my face.
"Gods," he
whispered. "I am so glad to see you as you truly should be."
And then he leaned
forward and kissed me, gently, warmly, lingeringly, on my mouth.
I was stunned at my
reaction. Silvius had just dared far too much, but…
lyz
oh, I had always
longed to have Brutus kiss me, and had hated it that this was
the one intimacy he
denied me.
And so, when Silvius
leaned forward and presumed so greatly as to place his mouth on mine, I sighed,
mingling my breath with his, and opened my
mouth under his.
He was surprised, I
think, for he drew back, half-laughing. "Lady," he said,
"do not mistake
me for your son."
I let his hands go,
and smiled apologetically. "I am sorry for that. For a
moment…"
"I am not my
son."
"I know."
To distract him, and
myself, I lifted a hand to the patch over his eye. For a moment, I hesitated,
and then I lifted the patch, and winced at the shadows that I saw writhing
within the empty socket.
For two thousand years the Troy Game
had been attracting evil into its heart, and for two thousand years Silvius had
waited within that same heart, where Brutus' corruption had placed him. The
shadows I saw within Silvius' empty socket was the physical manifestation of
evil at the heart of the Game. "You carry this about with you?" I
whispered.
He nodded. "I
must."
I turned away, unable
to bear it. "I wish I could undo that which Brutus
has done to
you."
"Perhaps one day
you will."
Distracted, both by
his presence, and by the thought of what Silvius had been forced to bear these
two thousand years, I lifted my left arm and allowed the bracelet to sparkle
between us. "I thank you for this. It was a fine gift." "It did not make you remember."
"A little." I allowed myself to
look at him again. "It prepared the way, I
think."
He laughed softly.
"You are very kind." He stepped close to me again, and touched my
hair. "When you killed Genvissa, Brutus kept you imprisoned in a dank,
airless hovel for three years. And then for another twenty-four he took you
back to his bed and tormented you. Oh gods, how is it that I had bred
such a son!"
Abruptly he turned
away. "Do you know," he said, half looking over his shoulder,
"that when my wife was pregnant with Brutus, a seer told me that I should
cause the child to be aborted, for it would be the death of both me and
her."
He laughed shortly.
"She was wrong. He was far more than just the death
of me, He imprisoned
me in torment, as he did you. He—"
"Stop," I
said. "Please."
"You still love
him," he said, wonderingly. "How can that be so?" Now he
swiveled back to me again. "How can that be so when he caused you so much
suffering?"
"But you still love him."
His eye went very
dark, and his face stilled. "Oh, aye, I still love him. He is my son. My
flesh." Silvius hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was soft,
pleading. "Caela, will you come see me sometime, and allow me to come to
you? I have been so lonely…"
"Of
course." I would be glad of it, I thought, to speak with Brutus' father. And it would serve both Brutus and myself in good
stead, when it came time for Brutus-reborn to make his peace with his father,
and with himself.
Thus I reasoned,
although, in truth, when I looked at Silvius, all I really saw was Brutus'
face. It was a selfish foolishness on my part, but I had been a woman
helplessly in love, and despite whom I had become, a part of that love still
lingered.
"Tell me,"
Silvius said, "Now that you are in touch with your true nature, and know
of where you must go—"
The doubt at his
knowledge of that must have shown on my face, for he laughed.
"Of course I
know what you plan, and where you want to go. I have sat in the heart of the
Game, remember? Do you think that I do not know? You want to complete the Game yourself, with your
lover, and make of it a shining thing, rather than the corrupt monster of
Genvissa and Brutus' construction."
I let most of my
doubts go at that point, and laughed slightly. "Is there anything you do not know?"
He made a show of
thinking, and I grinned even more. Silvius had a sense of fun about him that
his son had never demonstrated. I felt doubly attracted to him, and now it was
not merely because of his resemblance to Brutus.
"Aye,"
Silvius said eventually. "Do you know," he touched the pale flesh
about his biceps, "that even though I was once a Kingman, and had kinship
with the bands of Troy, that I cannot feel where Brutus has put them. Can you
feel them?"
I frowned, then shook
my head. "No. He will find them, eventually. Surely."
"Aye. He will.
Meantime, there is but you and me."
He smiled, and it
made him look so handsome, and so appealing, that I felt my heart race a
little, and I knew that he realized it.
"Caela,"
Silvius said, then he stepped close to me, and leaned forward °nce more, and
laid his mouth on mine, and the last thing I remember as
I rose toward
wakefulness was the taste and strength of his tongue in my mouth, and I swear
that taste stayed with me all through the day, and at times that memory made me
tremble and wonder if Silvius was everything that Brutus had not been.
sevejM
% ILLIAM? WILLIAM?" MATILDA SHOOK HER
husband's shoulder,
concerned at his tossing and muttering, Sweet Christ, of what was he dreaming?
"William!" 't—He jerked away, suddenly
sitting upright so abruptly he almost knocked Matilda out of the way.
"Ah," he
said, blinking. "I am sorry, my love. A nightmare engulfed me, and for a
moment I thought I was lost to it."
"A
nightmare?" She slid an arm about his waist, pulling him gently against
her, and kissed his shoulder. "Tell me of it, for then it will lose all
power over you."
He licked his lips,
and for a moment Matilda thought he would not respond, but just as she was
about to broach the silence he began to speak in a harsh tone.
"I dreamed I was
in the labyrinth, trying to save… I don't know whom, but someone who was so
important to me that I would have died if I could have given this person
freedom."
"The
labyrinth?" Matilda said softly, kissing his shoulder once again.
"She was
trapped—"
Matilda held her
breath at that "she."
"—and I could
not find her. The blackness swarmed all about, and I thought it would overwhelm
me… had overwhelmed her… ah, Matilda,
this is making no sense, and I am sorry for it. It makes no sense to me,
either."
"But why dream
of a labyrinth?"
He gave a half shrug.
"It no doubt has meaning that the local village wise-woman can decode for
me."
"Perhaps it
represents England, and your fear that England shall be a trap."
"Perhaps,"
he said eventually.
"William,"
Matilda said, unnerved by her husband's dream, "there is something I
should say to you."
She saw a flash of
his white teeth as he grinned. "What, wife? You feel the
need to confess a passion for the stableman? For the
houndsman? You need to tell me that none of my children were fathered by me,
but by a variety of
rough-speaking
peasants?"
She did not grin as
he had expected her to. "Matilda?"
"William, perhaps
England will be a trap."
"What do you
know?"
"Hardrada lusts
for England. You know this."
He nodded. "The
king of Norway has long cast envious eyes south. What
of it?"
"It is possible
that he conspires with Tostig, Harold's brother."
"Against
Harold?"
"Who else?"
"How do you know
this?" William asked eventually.
"Womanly gossip,
my love."
He regarded her
silently for some time, then nodded. If she would not tell
him, he would respect
that for the moment. For the moment.
eigbc
WANNE GLANCED OVER
HER SHOULDER, SAW
that Harold was
ensconced in some doubtless dry conversation with Earl Ralph, Edward's nephew;
Wulfstan, the bishop of Worcester; and his younger brother, Tostig. Swanne knew
there had been some bad blood between Harold and Tostig recently, but they
seemed to have resolved whatever differences they had in the past few days, and
now were back to their old, easy friendship. There was an empty chair set next
to Harold's: Swanne's chair, but she had no intention of filling it this
evening. Just behind the group of men, sitting attentive on a bench, were
Harold and Swanne's eldest sons, Beorn and Alan. Saeweald was sitting with the
boys as well, and managed to catch Swanne's eye during her brief glance.
She arched an eyebrow
at him, then deliberately turned her back, walking slowly and gracefully down
the hall toward a gathering of southern thegns listening to the sweet voice of
a Welsh bard. Swanne smiled as the group rose to greet her, then accepted a
seat from one of the thegns.
This would be a far
pleasanter means of spending the evening than having to pretend a smile at
Harold. Truly, now that events moved apace, and William was surely so close,
she would not have to submit to him for much longer.
The king had retired
early, well before Vespers, whining about a headache and a congestion of his
belly. Freed from the necessity of attending the king during evening court,
Harold and his retinue had retired thankfully to the earl's own hall and
chambers at the southern end of the palace complex. Caela, Swanne assumed as
she settled down and allowed the thegns and bard to fawn over her, was trapped
with her husband, wiping either his brow or his arse, whichever needed the most
attention at the moment.
Her grin broadening,
Swanne relaxed and tried to concentrate on the song the bard was now singing
for her. In truth, she'd not had many settled moments these past few days.
Something had happened… something had shifted.
Oh, yes, part of it
was Caela suddenly recalling all that had been—for no apparent reason—but that
was not all.
Was it something
about the land? The very soil and the forests and the waters? It made Swanne
uncomfortable. Once she would have known. Once she had been the MagaLlan, and nothing occurred within and to the land without her being
fully apprised of it. But Swanne's powers as MagaLlan had passed with her
previous life, and her darkcraft lay untouchable, and something was moving
beneath her feet that she was not privy to.
Asterion, no doubt.
Damn you, William, Swanne thought, keeping the
smile light on her mouth and the desperation from her eyes, Reach out to me! Let me know that you, at
least, are well/
William still hadn't
replied to her request that he tell her where the golden bands of Troy were. Damn him for delaying the information! They were all in danger
of dancing to Asterion's call… and Swanne had no doubt at all that Asterion
would be trying to locate those bands before
William arrived in England to claim his throne and his heritage.
Hadn't that been what
Asterion had been doing these two thousand years,
while delaying their
rebirth?
She had to find those bands now!
Before Asterion.
Swanne could not
entirely prevent the shiver of apprehension that shot from the base of her
spine to her neck. If Asterion found those bands, then he would effectively
prevent William and her from dancing the final Dance of the Flowers and
completing the Game. It was all Asterion had to do. He need not
even face William.
He only had to find
and hide, or destroy, those bands.
From the corner of
her eye, Swanne saw the great door at the end of the
Hall open, and
glanced over.
More churchmen! Was the entire land swarming with them?
The archbishop of York, Aldred, and Eadwine, abbot of Westminster Abbey, had
entered, smiling and nodding, and—damn them!—were making their way
toward Swanne and her group of musicians and admirers.
Swanne's smile
slipped, but she had it back in place by the time Aldred and Eadwine sat
themselves down a few places from her, bobbing their heads pleasantly to all
about. Eadwine began a muted conversation with the thegn beside him, while
Aldred waved the bard to continue as he sat back, and, closing his eyes, folded
his hands over his huge belly. His expression relaxed into one of total
enjoyment, and Swanne had to admit that perhaps the archbishop did find the
soulful music of the Welsh bard a more enjoyable entertainment than the
constant wail of sinners and beggars, and the incoherent mumble of monkish
prayers that must surely fill most of his days.
The great door opened
again, admitting yet another party, but this time
Swanne ignored it, as
she finally relaxed under the spell of the bard's beautiful voice.
It would be another
group of clerics, or sycophants perhaps, come to scry out the lay of the land
in the court of, possibly, the king to follow Edward.
If only they knew, Swanne thought, closing her eyes
herself and allowing her body to sway slightly to the rhythm of the bard's
music. If only they knew.
William, her lips formed slowly, and,
briefly, the tip of her tongue glistened between her teeth.
Asterion saw her from his place
within the hall, and read her thoughts, and kept his face bland and pleasant,
and his thoughts to himself.
When Swanne reopened
her eyes, it was to notice that the entire world seemed to have changed.
No longer was she the
sole object of attention within her circle of clerics, thegns, and musicians.
Instead, all of their
eyes—indeed, every eye within the hall!—was watching as Caela and several of
her attending ladies walked slowly and assuredly up the hall toward Harold and
his company.
It must have been Caela and her party who had entered the hall after Aldred.
But why wasn't Caela with her husband? What was she doing here? Swanne had never known Caela to
do something like this.
It was far too bold
for the contemptuous wretch.
And the way she
walked. She was so confident, so majestic.
So sure of herself.
Every eye in the hall
was riveted on Caela, and not merely because of her surprising entrance.
Because of the way she walked. That wasn't like Caela at all.
Not even a Caela who had suddenly recalled her previous life.
Swanne felt her heart
thudding within her chest. There was something about the way Caela moved,
something in the way she held herself. Something Swanne should have recognized,
and yet remained curiously just out of recognition's reach. Damn her!
She swiveled about on
her seat, and stared toward Caela who was, by now, within ten paces of Harold.
And the empty chair
beside him.
Nausea and cold
disbelief gripped Swanne in equal amounts. Caela was about to take Swanne's place at Harold's side!
Apart from making an
inelegant and highly embarrassing dash to get to the chair before Caela, there
was absolutely nothing Swanne could do about it.
OO
GI
Caela was about to take Swanne's place at the top of the
hall. Caela!
That Caela, both as
queen of England and as Harold's sister and equal, had every right to take that
chair, did not enter Swanne's mind. That she herself had disdained to sit with
Harold did not for a moment occur to Swanne. All she could think of was that
Caela was going to take her place at the head of the hall.
Then, just as Caela
reached the group of now-standing men, she turned
about in a move so
elegant and lissome that Swanne had trouble believing
that it was Caela
standing there at all. She faced Swanne, and extended one
long, white, graceful
hand and arm behind her to the chair by Harold's side.
"If I may,
sister?" she said, smiling with great sweetness at Swanne. "This
is your seat, after
all."
Swanne was so furious
that her entire body tensed, and she almost growled. Caela had her trapped.
Swanne simply could not refuse her permission without
appearing scandalously ungracious. Every eye in the hall was on her. A moment
passed.
Something changed
within Caela's smile, something so subtle that Swanne was sure no one but her
would have noted it. Swanne realized that Caela was deliberately provoking her.
For the sheer enjoyment of it.
"As my queen
wishes," Swanne said. Then, as Caela bowed her head in acceptance, and
started to turn back to Harold, Swanne added, "And, if you wish, you can
also take my place in your brother's bed. We all know how much
you have both lusted
for it."
Absolute silence
filled the hall. No one could believe Swanne had said that. Rumor and innuendo
was one thing, outright accusation another.
As one, eyes turned
from Swanne to Caela.
Among them, Asterion was absolutely
incredulous. If he didn't mind his way, Swanne would dig her own grave before
he could manage it for her! Gods! The
Intemperance of the woman!
He narrowed his eyes, intrigued as to
how Caela would react.
Caela tilted her head
slightly, her still face composed, and regarded Swanne thoughtfully. "Even
if your own tastes have been bred within the dung heap, sister, you should
think twice before ascribing them to others. If you find my purity unbearable,
then think not to besmirch it with your own foulness." Swanne froze in
humiliation and fury, unable for the moment to respond. Caela's eyes shifted
slightly, looking to Archbishop Aldred, sitting a few places from Swanne, and
looking as shocked as everyone else. "Perhaps, my Lord Archbishop,"
she said, "you might take my lady Swanne aside for some instruction in
manners. Such careless accusations, bred within privy pits and
spoken with
spitefulness, are the wont only of barnyard sows accustomed to rolling in muck.
They are not becoming to those who believe themselves great ladies of the
realm."
With that, Caela
turned her back to Swanne, smiled at Harold (who had been glaring at Swanne
with silent promises of later retribution), took his hand and allowed herself
to be escorted to the chair beside his.
Behind her, thegns
slowly began to drift away from Swanne's group, thinning it to such an extent
that within minutes there remained only Swanne, the highly embarrassed
archbishop, the equally embarrassed, but also angry, abbot, and a Welsh bard,
who looked as if he did not know whether to continue singing or not.
"I am most sorry
for that," Harold murmured as Caela sat down. He was studying her as many
others were, surprised that the queen had managed to best Swanne in the verbal
exchange. "You spoke well, sister. Swanne has ever had a vicious tongue,
and that little jest of hers was unbecoming in the extreme." It was what Harold had to say,
even if, in his heart, he was writhing in shame. What
had Swanne seen when she'd walked in on him and Caela that single time they'd
let their passions rule their heads?
Caela shrugged,
looking utterly unperturbed. "Swanne is… Swanne. It is no matter to me,
brother. Now, Judith shall stay with me, and my other ladies may interest
themselves as they may in the hall."
She waved away her
attending ladies, save for Judith, who sat on a stool Saeweald had placed
beside Caela's chair, and nodded greetings to her brother Tostig and the other
men who were now resuming their seats about Harold. Tostig was regarding her as
thoughtfully as most others were: that exchange was not what he would have
suspected from the girl he had known so many years.
"What great
conference have I interrupted, Harold, Tostig?" Caela said. "Such
grave faces you all wear!"
Harold glanced at
Judith, and Caela reached down a hand to the woman, keeping her eyes steady on
Harold's face. "I trust Judith with my life," she said. "You
may, also."
Harold looked again
to Judith, then to Saeweald, who gave a very slight nod.
"Very
well," he said, then he sighed, and rubbed a hand over his suddenly
haggard face. "Not good news, Caela. I have heard that Harold Hardrada has
agents within this court. I fear their intent."
Tostig rolled his
eyes. "Our brother has turned to womanly fancies, sister."
"The
intelligence is good!" Harold snapped.
"Of what do you
fear, Harold?" Caela said.
O
"Hardrada wants
England, he has made no secret of this. I worry that he will try to smooth his
way to the throne with some silent, treacherous action."
"Do you fear for
yourself, Harold?" Tostig asked softly. "Why, the last I heard, you
had surrounded yourself with an army to keep unwanted daggers
at bay."
Harold gave Tostig a
dark look, but did not respond to his taunt.
"Can you
discover who they are?" Caela said.
Harold nodded.
"Within a day or two. My men know where one of the agents, a man named
Olafson, hides. I will have him taken, and questioned."
Caela grimaced. She
knew precisely what Harold meant by "questioned."
To one side, Tostig's
face had suddenly gone very still.
"Ah!"
Harold continued, "If only I had the knowledge of the angels on my side,
and knew when Edward will finally gasp his last. Then I could plan the better
to meet any challengers. But," he shrugged, smiling wryly now, "who
can know such
things."
Caela started to
speak, then stopped, indecision written across her face. She exchanged a glance
with Saeweald, then dropped her gaze to her lap.
"What do you
know, sister?" Harold asked very quietly. "You share his chamber
intimately. Is there something you can share?"
She lifted her eyes to
his. "Edward will not live more than a few days past the New Year
celebrations."
There was an utter
silence as everyone stared at her. "How can you know this?" asked
Wulfstan, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Such knowledge is witchery,
surely."
Caela regarded the
bishop very calmly. "I know this," she said, "because, as Harold
has said, I am my husband's wife, and I know his every breath and manner. And I
know this because my husband's physician," again she glanced at Saeweald,
"tells me that Edward has not long to live. And… and I have dreamed it. An
angel has indeed come to me and told me as much."
People nodded,
accepting her explanation. But again, as before, Tostig's face was very still,
his eyes watchful.
"And my
fate?" asked Harold. "What is my fate, then, if you speak to
angels in your
dreams?"
Caela leaned forward
and took both of Harold's hands in hers. Her expression was one of great
sadness and joy combined. "You will become a hero such as this land has
never seen before," she said. "You will live in glory."
To his side, Tostig
and Saeweald exchanged glances, then as quickly looked away from each other
again.
Harold stared at her,
then his mouth quirked. "That may be read as either a glorious death, or a
glorious reign, sister. No! Do not explain yourself, for I regret the asking of
the question in the first place. But do tell me, since you
O
seem to know so much,
who is it I should fear the most? Who stands as the greatest obstacle between
me and the throne of England?"
She tipped her head,
and regarded him. "Your enemies shall flock like crows, Harold. I am not
the warrior to tell you which one shall be the most cunning."
Harold gave a hard
bark of laughter. "You do not want to
tell me!"
Something hardened in
Caela's eyes. "Beware of William, brother, for at his back shall ride the
greatest enemy this land shall ever know."
"Now you speak
in riddles, Caela. Should I fear his wife, Matilda? But, oh yes, William…"
he drifted into silence, one hand rubbing at his short, stub-bled beard.
"Has there been
any more spoken," said Wulfstan, "of that contract Edward and William
are rumored to have made between them fourteen years ago?"
Harold chewed his
lip. Twelve years ago Edward had moved briefly—but with great effect—against
the Godwine clan. The entire family, even Caela, had been exiled for almost a
year, and only the great cunning of Earl Godwine himself had seen their
eventual restoration to power. They had regained their place, but ever since
that time it had been rumored that, while free of the Godwine family's
influence, Edward had made a pact with William, promising him the throne of
England on Edward's death.
"There is always
a great deal rumored about William," Harold said quietly, his eyes
unfocused, "and very little spoken that is known fact. What does William
plan? How shall he justify his ambitions before God and the other thrones of
Europe? I don't know… I don't know…"
And there lies the rub, thought Harold. No one knows what William is or is not planning. And
without that knowledge, anything I plan is certain to be torn asunder the
instant I act on it. What are you planning, William? Will you content yourself
with Normandy, or do you want this green isle, as well?
HE HUMILIATED ME, AND YOU SAID NOTHING!"
Swanne said, as she
watched her husband disrobe.
Harold remained
silent, unlacing his tunic, sliding it over his
head and tossing it
across a chest.
Swanne stalked
closer, her hands balled into fists, her face white with fury, her black eyes
snapping. "You have a duty to me. I am your wife. I—"
Harold suddenly
turned about from laying his shirt atop his tunic and grabbed her chin in his
hand. "You have a vile tongue, Swanne, and, I am learning, a mind to go
with it! Be silent, I beg you, before I lose what little
regard I have left
for you!"
She twisted out of
his grip. "You've always lusted after her."
He went white, but
said or did nothing.
"You dream about
it, don't you? I've heard you, mumbling at night, planning your incestuous
assault on your sister's body—"
He slapped her, then
grabbed her wrist as she tried to strike him and twisted it so violently she
cried out. "Caela was right," he said, "when she said you had
been bred within a dunghill, Swanne. You are the get of a worm and the night;
there is no sweetness within you at all, merely vileness."
Again Harold turned
from her, twisting off his boots and then his trousers
and tossing them
toward the chest.
Swanne nursed her
wrist, watching him with, finally, all of her loathing and contempt writhing
across her face. "And there is nothing for you but the dunghill, Harold. You cast your eyes toward the
throne, but you should know
that—"
She stopped suddenly,
both her eyes and those of Harold's flying to the
door that had
suddenly opened.
Tostig stood there,
his face equal amounts incredulity and humor as he regarded his naked brother
and Swanne standing before him.
"My, my,"
he said softly, closing the door and walking slowly into the room.
His eyes were very
wary.
O
"Is this the
future king and queen of England I see before me? Nay, I think not. This
behavior cannot surely be that of—"
"What do you
want, Tostig?" Harold said roughly.
Tostig had been
watching Swanne who, correctly reading the look on his face, took three or four
steps back, spreading her hands out at her sides. Now, he turned back to his
brother.
"Only this,
Harold," he said softly, "that Hardrada sends his greetings, and bids
you a well-earned death."
And, lightening
quick, he drew his dagger from the belt at his waist and plunged it toward
Harold's heart.
Harold had nothing
with which to defend himself save his hands. He grabbed Tostig's wrist just as
the dagger reached his chest, and managed to stop the blade before it had
penetrated more than a finger's thickness into his body. With all the strength
he had, he wrenched the dagger backward, but he could do nothing about Tostig's
weight that, leaning down with the force of his plunge forward, pushed Harold
back onto the bed.
"For God's sake,
Swanne!" Harold shouted. "Send for aid! Now!"
Swanne watched, her
face still slack in shock at the suddenness of the attack. Then, as Harold
screamed at her again, she smiled, very slightly, and stood back, folding her
arms across her breasts.
"No," she
said, and then laughed softly as the two men writhed their deadly dance across
the bed.
CAELA WAS ASLEEP,
WHEN SUDDENLY HER INNOCU-
ous dream slid into
horror.
His face was tom from her hands by a
great black shadow that loomed over them, and she saw a glint of metal that
swept in a vicious arc across Coel's throat. His body, still deep within hers,
convulsed, and she screamed, and blood spurted over her in a hot, sticky flood.
Brutus took a firmer grip on Coel's
hair, then he tore him from her, tearing him painfully out from her, and all
she could do was cry, "No! No! Oh, gods, Brutus, no! Not Coel!"
And then she heard Swanne laugh…
Caela jerked upright
in bed, shrieking so loudly that both Edward, Judith, and the bowerthegn woke
shouting as well.
"Assassins!"
Caela screamed, stumbling in her haste to leap from the bed and grabbing her
robe as soon as her feet hit the floor. "Assassins! Harold's chambers. Oh,
God, assassins! Help him!"
O
"No!"
hissed Edward, but by then both Judith and the bowerthegn had rushed from the
chamber and were rousing the guards.
"It will be too
late," Caela whispered, standing as if stunned, or still caught by dream.
"He is too far from us."
HAROLD AND TOSTIG
TWISTED ACROSS THE BED,
rolling this way and
that, each man grunting with effort, neither man able to gain the upper hand
from an opponent as strong and as battle-hardened
as the other.
"For the gods'
sakes, Tostig," Swanne muttered, her look now anxious.
"Do not
mismanage this as you have so many other matters!"
At that moment Harold
cried out, and Swanne saw a thick smear of blood
mar the surface of
the creamy bed linens. "Good," she said. "Very good."
THE PALACE WAS AWAKE
AND IN FULL CRY, GUARDS
grabbing weapons and
rushing through halls and chambers toward exits and, eventually, Harold's hall
to the south of Edward's palace.
Caela ran with them,
her robe flapping and barely knotted about her waist, terrified, hearing Swanne
laugh, hearing also Harold's cry of pain and fear.
They would never get there in time!
Summoning all the
power she could through her panic, she sent a shaft of alarm directly to the
men she knew stood guard within Harold's own hall.
Your lord fights away an assassin!
Aid him, aid him, now!
Then, to her immense
relief, Caela felt within her an echoing answer of panic as the guards within
Harold's hall rushed toward his bedchamber.
TOSTIG SUDDENLY CRIED
OUT, ROLLING AWAY FROM
Harold, a deep cut
across his belly. Harold lurched upright, his own chest and belly covered in
blood and, ignoring the dagger, struck Tostig an immense
blow to his jaw.
The blow sent Tostig
tumbling to the floor. Harold lurched forward, meaning to throw himself after
his brother, but one of his legs tangled in a sheet, and he fell, hitting the
floor with a heavy thud and cry of pain.
Tostig rolled to his
knees, gripping the dagger, and exchanging a quick glance with Swanne who was
stepping forth, her hands held out in entreaty— finish him! For the gods' sakes, finish him!—but just then Tostig heard the
distant footfalls
of the guards rushing up the stairs and, with a bitter curse, he
O
sheathed the dagger
in his belt, stumbled to his feet, and disappeared out the door.
WHEN CAELA ARRIVED
WITH JUDITH, THE BOWERTHEGN, and what seemed like an entire company of guards
from Edward's palace, it was to find Harold sitting on his bed, one of his
guards by his side holding a thick wad of bedding to Harold's chest and belly
to staunch the bleeding, and Swanne standing by the window, staring out, her
face closed, her arms folded.
"Harold!"
Caela said and ran to him, pushing away the guard's hand so that she could
examine her brother's wound. "Harold? Are you well? Oh, gods, I dreamed of
treachery—" 7 dreamed
that Genvissa had set Brutus to your death all over again "—and came as fast as I
could."
"It was
Tostig," Harold said, wincing as Caela's probing fingers bit a little too
deeply.
Caela went very
still. "Tostig?" she whispered. "Oh gods… Tostig…"
"Tostig was ever
the fool," Swanne said in a toneless voice. She still kept her back to
them as she stood by the window.
Harold looked his
wife's way, and the black hate in his eyes was enough to make Caela recoil.
"Swanne?"
she whispered. "Again?"
Swanne turned about.
"Me? Nay, Caela. I was surprised as any by Tostig's attack."
"She stood
back," Harold said. "She laughed, refusing to aid me."
"I was afraid
for my own life!" Swanne cried, her face now a mask of fright. "I
thought he would take his blade to me the instant he had done with you!"
Harold was about to
say more, but just then Saeweald pushed his way past the guards standing about,
and the movement was enough to make the bowerthegn spring into action.
"What are you
standing about for!" he cried, his face purpling. "Seek out the
assassin! Now!"
Within three
heartbeats, the chamber had almost emptied again as the bowerthegn hurried the
guards out the door, leaving for the moment only Harold, Swanne, Judith, and
Caela.
"Let me
see," said Saeweald as he sat on Harold's other side. He pushed away
Caela's hands, pulled back the wad of bedding that was being used to staunch
the bleeding and, with fingers considerably less gentle than Caela's had been,
pulled back the flap of skin on the cut that ran across Harold's belly, and
then probed the puncture wound in his chest.
Harold cursed,
pulling away, but Saeweald would not leave him be until he'd finished his
examination.
^wo
He grunted finally,
allowing Caela to wipe away the blood, and sat back. "You're lucky,"
Saeweald said. "The chest wound did not go deep enough to reach either
your heart or your lungs. It will be sore enough for a few days, but it will
leave you with hardly a scar. The belly wound I will need to stitch, but only
because of its length, it is even less deep than that wound in your
chest." Swanne laughed, harsh and bitter, making everyone jerk their heads
toward her. "Well now," she said, "what a scene this is. Is it
only someone with my sense of humor who could possibly enjoy it? Ah, I see no
need to pretend, not with who we have here in this chamber."
She sauntered
forward. "Lucky, lucky Caela," she said, very low, her eyes vicious,
"isn't this just what you always wanted? Sitting on a bed next to your
naked lover—only this time he has survived the assassin's knife. Tell me,
should we leave you in peace so you and your lover can consummate your love…
I'm sure those wounds won't stop him."
Caela's face hardened
as she opened her mouth to speak, but Harold forestalled her. He pushed aside
Saeweald's hands, strode over to his wife, and
grabbed her arm with
a tight hand.
"Get you gone
from here, you snake-tongued bitch," he said and, despite her protests,
pushed her through the door and slammed it shut after her. Then Harold turned
about, his face more determined now than angry, walked over to where Caela sat,
leaned down, and kissed her hard on the mouth.
"I am no longer
ashamed of what I feel for you," he said, standing upright again. "On
the night that my brother tried to murder me, and my wife begged him to
succeed, I have no reluctance in admitting before all present," his eyes
swept over Saeweald and Judith, "that I love you more than any other
woman,
more than life
itself."
Caela rose slowly,
her eyes riveted on Harold's. "Harold…" She sighed, closed her eyes
briefly, then leaned forward and kissed him very softly on the mouth. "We
cannot. We each have different paths to travel. If we were to act on this love,
it would destroy this realm. What we feel for each other would be used against
us, and this land and its people would be the ones to suffer. We cannot, and I,
for one, am most sorry for it."
She turned away, and,
her head bowed, left the chamber.
G6JM
Caela Speaks
AROLD CAME TO SEE
ME THE DAY AFTER TOSTIG'S
vile treachery. It
was in the late afternoon, and many among the
court, my husband
included, had gone to vespers services within
the abbey church.
Edward had only shrugged when told of the drama within
Harold's bedchamber
the previous night, and commented: "I'd thought Tostig
was a better marksman
than that."
I was seated before
the fire in the Lesser Hall that Edward and I used for our smaller courts when
Harold arrived. He nodded away Judith and the two other ladies who were seated
with me as I rose to greet him.
Under normal circumstances
I would have kissed him on the mouth—that was normal greeting between close
relatives—but "normal circumstance" between us had been shattered the
previous night. I took his hands between mine, and pressed them, then let them
go and silently cursed the awkwardness between us.
"Harold… are you
well? Your wounds?"
"They sting a
little," he said, and I could see that in the stiffness of his movement as
he lowered himself into the chair, "but they shall be no more trouble.
Saeweald has done well."
"And Tostig has
done badly," I said. "Oh, Harold, I cannot believe that our
brother—"
"Leave Tostig
for the moment," he said. "Caela, what happened last night, what I
said—"
"What you said
was truth, and best spoken," I said. "Do I feel this pull between us?
Yes, of course I do. But we cannot act on it, Harold. We cannot. We
are each more than just a man and a woman unhappily yearning each for the
other. What each of us does affects an entire realm and its people. We
cannot."
I cannot kill you again through my ill-considered
passions, Coel. Please understand that. Please.
IO
His mouth twisted
wryly. "You state your case as clearly as you did last night. I am sorry
that I have so discomforted you."
"You comfort me
through all my life, Harold," I said as softly and lovingly
as I could.
He looked away,
overcome, I think, with emotion, and for long moments
we were silent.
Finally, unable to
bear it any longer, I said, "Tostig?" He sighed. "Last night's
debacle was my own fault. You remember that when we sat in court in the
evening, I mentioned that I'd heard that Hardrada had agents within
Westminster, and I had the means to shortly discover them, and their
purpose?" I nodded.
His mouth twisted
wryly. "Even then I suspected Tostig. I had thought to goad him into
action… but I had no idea how deadly that action might be." I closed my
eyes momentarily, unable to bear the thought that Tostig might have succeeded.
"Have you found him?" "No. He slipped away." Aided, no doubt, by Swanne's witchcraft, I thought. How she must have
enjoyed last night.
He reached a hand out
and took one of mine. I tensed, but then relaxed. A hand was not much.
"You aided me," he said. "I am not sure how, but I know it was
you. My men said they were roused by the sound of your voice screaming in their
heads, screaming that an assassin was upon me."
I said nothing, but
my eyes filled with tears. All I could think of was how Brutus had torn him
from me, and ripped out his throat. To have that happen
again…
"Ah," he
said, very softly, "you do not deny it. Then I do owe you my life."
"You are very
beloved to me, Harold," I whispered.
He smiled, and it
contained no demands, nor hurt. Nothing but love.
"Swanne?" I
said, wanting to distract both him and myself.
"Ah, Swanne.
After Saeweald attended me last night I returned with him to his own chamber,
mostly to avoid my damnable wife, as to avoid the stink of murder in my
bedchamber, but also partly as a precaution should Tostig have decided to try
again. I have not seen her this morning, nor shall I seek
her out."
"Be wary of
her."
"You do not need
to warn me of that! God, Caela, she stood there and
laughed as Tostig
tried to murder me."
"She can do far
worse, Harold. Please…"
"I will be wary of her, my love. Now, to the reason I came to
you this morning, apart from my desire to lay my eyes on your beautiful face
yet again,
and to thank you for
saving my life. Caela, I need your aid further to what you have already done
for me."
"You have
it."
"You may not be
so willing to offer it when you hear what I need from you."
"You will always
have my aid, Harold. Whatever you plan."
"I have put it
about that in four days' time I intend to return to my home estates in Wessex.
My stewards have some problems that I need to attend. Besides, I need the peace
to recover from Tostig's brutal attack."
I inclined my head.
Nothing thus far seemed very difficult.
He held my eyes steady.
"But Wessex is not my true destination, sister."
I raised an eyebrow.
"I go to see
William of Normandy."
"Harold!"
"Shush! Keep
your voice down! No one must know of this, Caela! I need you to help maintain
the ruse that I am in Wessex."
"Why? Why?" My heart was pounding in my breast, and my
emotions were so tangled that I could not sort them out. Oh, gods, William was his murderer in his previous life… why go to see him now? "Why, Harold?"
"I need to know
William's intentions. I need to know his ambitions. Caela, the crows are
gathering for Edward's death. I need to know who my rivals for the throne shall
be. After last night, I can now be certain that Tostig will be against me, and
will probably ally with Hardrada—only the gods know what Hardrada has promised
Tostig in return. But William is an unknown. He could be either my rival or my
ally. What does he plan?"
Ah, mercies, I knew
exactly what he planned, but how could I tell Harold this without shaking him
to the very core of his being with the tale of his previous life? Harold needed
strength and equanimity to survive what faced him. Saeweald and Ecub were
surely right when they argued that he did not need to be distracted or perhaps
even tipped into uncertainty by what had happened to Coel. I believed that
Harold had a better chance against William without the burdens of both their
previous lives.
"I need him to
know, if he does not know it already," Harold said, "that England
shall stand united behind me. Perhaps if he knows that, then he will ally with
me, continue the partnership he had with Edward. He may not be such a willing
rival if he knows how England will stand behind me."
Ha! I thought, but again felt that it would be better
that Harold discovered now where William's ambitions lay than delude himself
with the hope he might be an ally. "The witan will elect you king?" I
said.
"Aye. They have
given me their word."
"And you hope
that, in informing William of this, he might retract his
ambitions? Reconsider
his likelihood of success? Consider instead an alliance
before a
challenge?"
"He already has
Normandy safe in hand. Why lust for England as well
when it might well
kill him?"
Oh, what could I say? That
William-once-Brutus would have no compunction in slaughtering the entire witan,
in razing the entire land, if he thought it would clear his way to London, to
Swanne, and to his Trojan kingship bands?
And yet what harm
could Harold's trip do?
Particularly if I
armed Harold as best I could for his venture.
Besides, this he did need to know.
"Harold," I
said, laying a hand on his knee. "I have some deeply privy information for
you that has only just come to my ears."
Had just come to my
own understanding, more like, but there was no means by which I could explain
this to Harold.
"Yes?" he
said.
"It will be
useful for you at William's court," I continued. "A weapon."
"Yes?"
"William has an
agent, a spy, within Edward's court."
He gave a harsh bark
of laughter. "I am not startled to hear of it. There are agents
everywhere, I think."
"It is
Swanne."
Nothing I could have
said would have shocked Harold more. Well, perhaps one or two revelations may
have shocked him more, but this one certainly had no small effect.
He stared,
white-faced. "Swanne?"
I nodded.
"Why? Why?"
What could I say but
the truth? "She lusts for him, and she lusts to sit as
queen beside
him."
Harold cursed.
"Then no wonder she stood by and laughed as Tostig tried to murder me. Ah,
I have misjudged both her and Tostig. I knew she disliked me, but to betray me
to William? I had not thought she would go that far."
What could I say?
That Swanne wanted William, not for the title as queen, but because he was her
Kingman, and with him she could achieve a greater immortality than she ever
could as wife to Harold?
Harold was a
hindrance to the Mistress of the Labyrinth. William was a
much-loved necessity.
"There can be no
doubt that I will set her aside after her behavior last night, as well knowing
her betrayal of me to William," Harold added, his face now rigid with
anger. "By Christ himself, Caela, does Swanne not know that William is
already wed, and securely so by all accounts?"
A wife has never stood in her path
before, I
thought, and she will not
allow one to do so now.
"Be
careful," I said, meaning so much with those two simple words.
"Aye,"
Harold said, smiling in what I suppose he hoped would be a reassuring manner.
He rose. "You will put it about that I am in Wessex, and perhaps send
communications to me there, so that all may think I truly am within my
estates?"
"Aye, of course.
Harold…" I took his hand as he was about to step away. "Will you do
something for me?"
"Anything."
"Will you talk
to Matilda, William's wife, and discover what kind of woman she is? I have
heard so many rumors of her, and I would like to hear a report from eyes I can
trust."
I was curious.
Feverishly so. Matilda might make all the difference if she was indeed as
strong as rumor had it. William had been married to her for some fifteen years.
They had many children together.
"Harold," I
continued, "will you tell me if… if she is someone William respects?"
I could see he was
agog with curiosity as to my motives, but he merely nodded. "Of
course."
And will you tell me of William? I wanted to ask, but did not.
Oh, merciful heavens,
how I wanted to be there when Coel-who-was and Brutus-who-was met again for the
first time in two thousand years.
I hoped that William
had learned enough that he would not instantly slide a sword through Harold's
throat.
ebspceR ecevejsi
/%/%/* HEN HAROLD HAD BEEN GONE THREE
DAYS,
ostensibly to visit
his estates in Wessex, and the court quieter-''' ened in its traditional lull
between harvest celebrations and Christmastide festivities, Caela lay asleep
beside her husband the king in the
quiet, dark night.
The night was very
still and, now that autumn had taken firm grip on the land, very cold, readying
itself for a heavy frost at dawn. Nothing moved, not so much as a night owl,
not even a breath of air.
King Edward's and
Queen Caela's bedchamber lay as still and cold as the rest of Edward's kingdom,
as heavy and unyielding as the wall Edward had built between himself and the
woman who lay at his side. It was a large chamber, its floorboards covered in
part with thick rugs, its timber-planked walls hung with woolen tapestries and
drapes. A great bed occupied the central portion of the chamber, its
embroidered drapes pulled partway about the great mattress where lay the king
and queen, their motionless forms huddled far
apart.
The king's bowerthegn
occupied a trestle bed closer to the door. Beside the bed, lying unscabbarded
on the floorboards, lay a sword so that the bowerthegn could set his hand to it
the instant danger threatened.
Unusually, the
bowerthegn appeared to have forgotten to shutter the windows before he retired
and now faint moonlight, occasionally shadowed by thin clouds that scudded
across the night sky, spilled through the chamber.
The sleepers did not
move, save in the gentle breath of sleep.
The moonlight
intensified, almost as if the moon had suddenly waxed to its full girth within
the space of a breath.
A stray cloud scudded
briefly across its face and, when it moved on, the strange, intense moonlight
flooded the chamber once more.
The chamber was not
as it had been before the cloud had so briefly
obscured the moon.
Now, in that expanse
of bare floorboards between the great bed and that of the bowerthegn by the
door, there appeared a trapdoor. As yet it was little more
than a faint
outlining of lines within the boards but, as the moonlight grew ever stronger
and the breathing of the sleepers ever heavier, the lines thickened and
deepened until the trapdoor became a new reality within the chamber.
Everyone slept on.
The trapdoor
quivered, then rose, achingly slowly, utterly silently.
An arm lifted with
the door, its hand gripping the bolt that raised the door. It was a very long
arm, browned, and roped with muscle. There was a moment of stillness, as if
whatever awaited beneath the trapdoor hesitated, to ensure all was well, then,
satisfied that all was as it should be, a Sidlesaghe rose entirely from the
trapdoor, laying it open silently against the floor.
Again the Sidlesaghe
hesitated, looking first at the bowerthegn, then at the sleeping king whose
lips rattled wetly as a small snore escaped his throat. Finally, content that
all was at it should be, the Sidlesaghe walked to Caela's side of the bed,
folded his hands before him, and waited.
A moment later
Caela's eyes opened. She saw the Sidlesaghe, and then, without comment, turned
back the bedclothes as he held out a hand for her.
Once she had risen,
the Sidlesaghe handed her a cloak that had mysteriously appeared in one of his
hands, then he nodded at the trapdoor.
She stared at it,
clearly puzzled, for directly beneath this bedchamber lay the dais of the Great
Hall. She looked at the Sidlesaghe, raising her eyebrows.
He merely nodded once
more at the blackness revealed in the mouth of the trapdoor.
Caela gave a slight
shrug, then walked to the trapdoor and descended through it into the unknown. The
Sidlesaghe stepped down after her, and in the next moment the trapdoor had
closed, and there was nothing in the chamber save for the smooth floor and the
heavy shadows of the beds, coffers and the two sleepers. There was no Great
Hall beneath the trapdoor, nor even the foundations of the Hall, nor even the
worm-infested earth that lay beneath. Instead, the Sidlesaghe led Caela into
the softly shadowed, barely discernible track of a vast forest. About her
reared massive trees—trees such as the land had last seen many millennia
ago—tangled with vines and sweetly scented flowers.
Was this the forest
and the land of her youth? Of Mag's youth?
Caela tipped back her
head and visibly stretched, almost catlike, and drew in a deep breath.
"This is so wondrous!" she said.
"Aye," said
the Sidlesaghe, coming to stand beside her. "Do you recognize it?"
She frowned, only
slightly, just enough to crinkle the skin between her brows. "This is the
land, as once it was. Yes?"
He shook his head.
"Not entirely correct. The land is not as once it was." She shivered,
and pulled the cloak a little more tightly about her shoulders,
as if she had
suddenly felt more acutely the fact of her nakedness beneath it.
"Ah," she said. "We are in the Game."
"Aye. This is
where Brutus and Silvius played the Game. This is where
Brutus murdered his
father." "Why are we here?"
"To learn,"
said the Sidlesaghe. "To remember."
She turned from her
regard of the forest and studied the Sidlesaghe. "Long Tom," she
said, "when you threw me into the waters, and I came to understand myself
as I truly am, I saw many things. I saw my lover, Og, running through the
forest," her eyes flickered about the great trees dwarfing them both,
"wearing the golden bands that once graced the Kingmen of Troy." Her
voice dropped almost to a whisper. "That once graced my husband's
limbs." "What did you learn from that vision, Caela? What
did it tell you?"
"It told me where the Game is going,
Long Tom. It told me where the land is going, and where I must, too,
tread."
"Aye."
"How?" she
said. "How did the Game and this land become as one? Can
you show me?"
In answer the
Sidlesaghe inclined his head, nodding to the path that had opened up through
the trees before them. "Will you walk with me?"
She nodded and,
taking his hand, they walked through the forest track. As they want, the
Sidlesaghe continued to speak. "The Game has grown, as you know. When you
were Cornelia, and you witnessed Brutus and Genvissa dance the Dance of the
Torches, what was the Troy Game then?" "A labyrinth, atop Og's Hill. A thing made of
stone and gravel."
"Aye. And then when you had murdered
Genvissa, and halted the Game before its completion, what became of the Game
and its stone and gravel
labyrinth?"
Caela licked her
lips, remembering. "Brutus buried it," she said. "He caused it
to sink into the hill, and atop it he built a temple." She laughed, short
and hard. "Which he dedicated to Artemis."
"And his
kingship bands? What did he do with those?" Caela stopped, and faced the
Sidlesaghe. "I don't know. I can't even feel them. They merely vanished. When Brutus pulled me
from my three-year confinement—and that was the first time I had set eyes on
him since that day I'd murdered Genvissa—he was not wearing them and, to be
frank, I was so much in fear of my life at that point, so much in fear of him, that I did not ask what had become of them. Not
ever.
"Silvius asked
me about those bands a few nights ago," she said, her mouth quirking in
either memory or humor. "Everyone wants to know about them." "They are vital," said the Sidlesaghe.
"We dream of them as well. But first,
I will show you what
happened to this land and to the Game in the two thousand years that have
passed, and then we will need to talk about the bands."
"You know where
they are, don't you?" she said, searching his face with her eyes.
The Sidlesaghe
smiled. "Of course! Did Brutus not bury them within this land? They have been itching at us for centuries."
She laughed,
delighted at the humor that lurked behind the Sidlesaghe's otherwise bleak
face, and allowed him to lead her farther down the track.
"The Troy Game
that Brutus made has grown," the Sidlesaghe said once more. "Now that
you understand who you are, and are beginning to understand the extent of
yourself, perhaps you can tell me exactly where we are within the Game."
Caela chewed her
lower lip, her eyes on the ground, thinking, feeling the ground beneath her feet.
"We are within
the Game, yes," she said eventually, her eyes still on the ground,
"but we are walking within that part of the Game that twists under the
northern shore of the River Thames. We were walking north, but are now moving
more eastward." She paused. "We are walking toward the heart of the
labyrinth. Toward St. Paul's within London, atop what was once Og's Hill. Gods,
Long Tom, how far does the Game extend?"
"As far south as
Westminster, and a little under the river on the opposite bank to Westminster
where once stood Llanbank, and where now stands the village of Lambeth.
Eastward the Game now encompasses all that stands within the walls of London.
To the northwest the Game stretches toward…"
"Toward the
Llandin," Caela said. "What the people now call the Meeting
Hill."
"Aye, and
north—"
"North to Pen
Hill. The Game has grown to encompass all of the Veiled Hills. Blessed
Lady," the Sidlesaghe stopped, and as he faced Caela he dropped the hand
he held and put both of his on her shoulders, "the Game wants to grow even
further. It needs to, if it is to overcome what lays ahead. You need to help it
do that."
She drew in a deep
breath, nodding. "I still need to know—"
"How it grew?
Yes, be patient now. We are almost there."
They resumed walking
again, and soon the sense of a close forest fell back. Light—not sunlight and
yet not quite moonlight either—filled the spaces between the trees, and the
borders to either side of the path broadened.
Caela visibly tensed,
as if she knew what they walked toward.
Then suddenly they
were there.
An emerald green
glade, encircled by trees. In the center of the glade lay a roughly circular
pond, its waters still.
On the far side of
the pond, perhaps some six or seven paces from the water's edge, and halfway
between the edge of the forest and the pond, lay the form of a white stag with
blood-red antlers.
His heart, half torn
from his body, lay on the creamy pelt of his chest. Caela groaned, and made as
if to step forward about the pond, but the Sidlesaghe seized her arm.
"No! Touch him
and you kill him!"
She twisted about,
partly trying to tear herself free from his grasp, partly in an agony of
emotion. "Why? Why can not I go to him? Why?"
"Because you are
not yet strong enough to heal him, or to help him in any manner. All you will
do is push him toward the final precipice. One day you will be able to aid him,
and midwive him through his rebirth, but you are not strong enough to do it
now!"
Caela sobbed, her
knees slowly bending until she sank to the ground, and
the Sidlesaghe let
her go.
"Can I not just
touch him?" Caela said through her tears. "Just lay a hand
to his face, and kiss
him?"
"No," the
Sidlesaghe said, then laid his own hand on the crown of her head. "He
knows you are here. It is enough for him for the moment. It is enough that he
knows you are reborn, and are growing
stronger."
Caela lowered her
face into her hands and cried disconsolately, rocking back and forth. The
Sidlesaghe, his own gray-brown eyes filled with tears, kept his hand on her
head, letting her cry out her sorrow.
"I want to touch
him," Caela said once more, but the Sidlesaghe did not respond. He knew
she said it, not to him, but to the Stag God himself, and he knew that she said
it as a comfort, both to Og and to herself.
Eventually Caela
composed herself, wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the backs of
her hands, and rose again. "Thank you," she said simply, and the
Sidlesaghe nodded. "We need to go to the pool," he said.
Again they walked
forward until they stood at the edge of the pool. Before Caela looked down to
the waters, she glanced upward, then gasped, truly
shocked.
Instead of a sky, or
the arching and intertwining branches of the trees, a
great golden dome
soared above them.
"We are in the
stone hall!" Caela cried.
"We are deep
under it," the Sidlesaghe said. "Deep under St. Paul's." He
paused. "Deep in the heart of the labyrinth." He looked across the
pond again, toward Og, and now Caela saw that Og lay not alone, but that a man
sat with him, cradling the wretched stag's head in his lap.
Silvius.
"And there lies
the evil the labyrinth attracts," the Sidlesaghe said, his voice hard,
merciless, nodding at Silvius.
"I know,"
Caela whispered. "Poor Silvius."
Silvius looked up as
if he had heard her, and he stretched out a hand. His face held both a
frightful yearning, as well a terrified aspect, and it unsettled Caela, for
Silvius had seemed so confident, so calm, on the two occasions she had met with
him. He opened his mouth, and it moved, but no words came out, and his eyes
filled with tears, and before Caela's appalled gaze Silvius began to cry.
Caela started
forward, but again the Sidlesaghe held her back. "Ignore him," he
said. "He is not why we are here now."
She gave Silvius a
half-sad, half-reassuring smile, hoping he knew why she could not approach him
at the moment. He held her gaze, than lowered his face, looking away from her
and back to the stag.
Caela watched him for
a further long moment, wishing she could speak with Silvius, and comfort him of
whatever had troubled him. Eventually she sighed, and looked again at the
water. "The waters will show me what happened to the Game?"
"Aye," said
the Sidlesaghe. "Of all people, you should know how to read them."
In answer she walked
forward a step or two until the water touched her bare toes.
For long minutes
Caela did nothing but stare at the water.
Then, she sighed,
only very slightly, but the entire surface of the pond rippled as if disturbed
by a heavy wind, and when it settled again, the waters showed Caela what she
wanted to know.
Brutus, standing and
screaming with grief and rage in the center of the labyrinth atop Og's Hill
under a sky laden with roiling black clouds.
Genvissa's body at
his feet, her cold pregnant belly mounding toward the sky.
Time, passing.
Brutus, again
standing atop Og's Hill, again under the laden black sky, but now Genvissa's
corpse lay atop a great burning pyre.
Time, passing.
Brutus, burying
Genvissa's ashes at the entrance to the labyrinth.
Then Brutus doing…
doing something, but his actions were cloaked
with the grayness of enchantment, and Caela could not discern his actions.
"He is hiding
the Trojan kingship bands," she murmured, and behind her the Sidlesaghe
nodded.
Time, passing. Much time passing. Many years.
Now a great temple
stood atop Og's Hill, hiding the labyrinth beneath its
G
stone flooring, but
somehow the waters of the pond showed Caela what was happening beneath the temple floor.
The labyrinth,
sinking.
Deeper and deeper,
writhing through the dirt and rock and gravel of the
hill like a worm.
And the hill,
embracing it.
Time passing.
Above, atop the hill,
swarms of blue-clay-daubed naked warriors led by a man of such beauty and such
evilness, that he appeared to suck all of the
world's life into
him.
Below, the labyrinth
sinking deeper, deeper, embraced by the land.
The naked warrior—Asterion!—raging as Brutus had once raged, but for
differing reasons.
Time, passing.
The labyrinth now lay
buried far into the land. As yet it had not grown appreciably in physical size
but, as Caela watched, she saw that small earthen creatures wandered its twists
and paths—worms and moles and beetles, and foxes and badgers, too, who had
burrowed deep to see what it was that hummed so beautifully within their midst.
Time, passing. Tree roots, extending (reaching)
out from the northern and western
forests, touched the
extremities of the labyrinth.
Drew back, then,
carefully, touched again.
And the tree roots,
as the moles and badgers and foxes and worms sighed, found that touch good, and
merged with the labyrinth.
It was a process that
Caela understood happened over many hundreds of years, perhaps over a
millennium, and she understood that it happened principally because Og rested
within the heart of the labyrinth, and his presence drew in the creatures and
the forest. But once met, the labyrinth—the Troy Game—and the land and its
creatures found each other well met, and discovered that they could live
together with ease, and that, above all, they could be
good for each other.
And this, Caela understood,
was what Mag-who-once-had-been and who now lived as Caela's flesh had known so
long ago, and what she had foreseen. The Sidlesaghe moved close enough behind
Caela that their bodies touched briefly, and Caela shuddered.
"See," he
whispered, extending a hand to the waters. "See how the Game has spread
its tentacles, grown its labyrinth under the area of the Veiled Hills. It
tunnels and it worms, and it waits." "For…"
"For you, of course, and for its
Kingman."
Caela's eyes
flickered to where Og lay motionless, then she looked back to the images within
the pond.
"Look," she
said, and now it was she who pointed.
A dark stain was
spreading over the pond from its eastern extremity. A cloud of malignancy.
"Asterion,"
the Sidlesaghe said.
"He lurks within
the court," said Caela. "But he is too powerful, too cunning for me
to perceive him. Long Tom, why is that so? I should be able to perceive him, to know him."
The Sidlesaghe
frowned, and his mouth dropped open in a low moan. "Oh," he said, and
the sound was more a low moan than a spoken word. "You cannot see him? You
cannot see him?"
"No. Long
Tom—"
"Oh! You cannot
know him?"
"Do you know who he is?" Caela said sharply.
The Sidlesaghe's
mouth thinned, and he shook his head.
"Are you
sure?" Caela asked.
The Sidlesaghe
nodded. "He is dangerous," he said. "Highly so."
"Yes. I
know."
"He wants to
destroy the Game."
"I know."
"We must keep it
safe."
"Yes, I know,
but, Long Tom—"
"Asterion is
very, very dangerous, dear girl."
"I know this,
Long Tom!" Now Caela was getting frustrated.
"We want you to
move the bands. Keep us safe. Keep the land safe. Both the Game and the land
want you to do this. It will aid both, but principally it will aid the Game to
grow in strength as well as in magnitude."
Caela's mouth dropped
open. "That is what the Game needs me to do
to help it?" Then, "Can I move them?"
The Sidlesaghe
regarded her, and for a moment Caela felt as if she were being judged.
"Yes," he said finally, "this is how you can help the Game, and,
yes, you will be able to move them. The Game wants you to move the kingship
bands of Troy. If Asterion cannot find the bands, then not only shall the Game
remain safe for the time being, but you shall have time to—"
"To discover the
means to persuade Swanne to hand to me her powers," Caela said, "and
to establish those circumstances in which Og can be reborn. Yes, I can
understand why the Game wants the bands moved."
The Sidlesaghe gave a
nod, his eyes still watchful.
"And it will not
be difficult." Caela had not said that as a question, but the
instant the words had
left her mouth the Sidlesaghe's eyes narrowed, and his very being stilled.
"Will it?"
Caela said.
The Sidlesaghe
hesitated. "Not inherently."
"Not 'inherently'?"
The Sidlesaghe
sighed. "The instant you touch the bands, Caela, Asterion will know. And
William and Swanne will know. And the instant they know the bands have been
found, and are being moved, they will panic… and then they
will hit out."
CUD6CV
Rouen, Normandy
ILLIAM'S BODY
MOVED EASILY WITH THAT OF
his horse, a great
bay stallion he'd bred and trained himself. His face was relaxed and his eyes
dreamy as he let his mind wander in the late autumn sunshine. He wore no armor,
merely a heavy tunic against the cool wind and a cloak thrown back over his
shoulders and left to drape as it would across the stallion's rump. A sword
hung at his left hip, a bow and quiver of arrows were slung across his back.
About him rode his
companions, nobles and retainers. No one spoke, easy in their companionship and
the delight of the day. All were in more or less the same state as the duke:
easy, dreamy, relaxed, waiting.
Some fifty paces
ahead of the band of riders spread a semicircle of twelve or thirteen men on
foot. In counterpoint to the men on horseback, they were taut and watchful,
their eyes constantly sliding about the sparse forest about them.
In their hands they
held either crossbows or short hand bows; quivers of arrows jounced across
their backs. At their heels stalked huge, well-trained, tense, silent pale
hounds.
It was a good morning
for the hunt. The sun was two hours risen, and the dawn mist cleared from the
ground. The quarry—deer and boar, and perhaps even a wolf—would be moving from
the open grass and meadowlands back into the comparative safety of the forest.
This was the part of
the hunt that William enjoyed the most. Oh, the heat and excitement of both
chase and kill were fine enough, and the back-slapping, jesting camaraderie
that came after, but nothing surpassed this gentle dreamtime as they stalked
the prey.
Did the stag and the boar know what
came? wondered
William. Did some primeval part of them, some forestal part of them, understand that today men would come
stalking, and that only strength and courage and daring might
save them from the
arrows that pierced the air? Were they even now standing still, quivering,
heads raised, ears and nostrils twitching, striving to catch that first noise,
that initial scent, which would give them leave to leap into
flight?
He drew in a deep
breath—part suppressed excitement, part sublime happiness—and exchanged a
glance and a smile with Walter Fitz Osbern who rode several paces away to his
right. How many hunts had they participated in together? How many times had
Walter stood to one side, sounding the horn, as William bent down with his
short, broad knife to finish off the stag at
his feet?
William relaxed
further, his every movement part of those of the horse beneath him. A small
smile played over his face as he remembered the previous night's loving with
Matilda. Gods, but he and Matilda were well-matched! He hadn't thought to find
one like her. William had known from an early age who he was, and what lay both
behind him and before him. Who lay behind and before him. When
William was a young man he'd hungered for Genvissa—for Swanne—and he'd
remembered Cornelia with bitterness and anger. He'd known he would take a wife,
but he'd thought she would simply be a bedmate, a mother to the heirs he
needed, a chatelaine for his estates and castles and manors, and someone to be
easily and quietly set aside when William had achieved what and whom he needed.
But Matilda! Ah! He
had not thought she would make such a difference to him and to his life.
Strong, loyal, passionate, a match and counterpoint to his every mood and want.
If he'd had her in
his earlier life… William grinned to himself. If it had been Matilda instead of
Cornelia who had plotted his ruin in Mesopotama, then William had no doubt that
he would have been murdered and cast into the bay beside the city. Matilda
would have succeeded with flair and triumph (and more than a few scorching
words), where Cornelia had only failed
miserably.
William remembered
what he'd said to Matilda that night a few weeks past: You have taught me a great deal during our marriage…
strength, and tolerance, and maturity. What I thought, and felt, fifteen years
ago, are no longer so
clear to me.
He'd thought about
those words a great deal since. William had initially spoken them as a comfort
to Matilda, but even as they slid smoothly from his lips, William had realized
their truth—and the greater truth that lay beneath them. Matilda had been
god-sent, he was sure of it. He had learned from her strength and
tolerance and maturity, and it was not simply that what he had felt fifteen
years ago was not now so clear to him.
What he had felt two thousand years ago was now not so clear to him. The great peaks of
love and hate he'd felt then had been smoothed out by his marriage to Matilda.
Bitterness and hatred and love all had been… modified.
Gentled. He did not
yearn for Swanne with the passion he once had, and when he thought on Caela,
then his thoughts were strangely tolerant, given his once all-consuming hatred
of her when she had been Cornelia. Above all, Matilda had taught him what it
was to be a good husband, and William was aware that he had once been a very
bad husband, indeed.
He shifted a little
on his horse, newly uncomfortable. How might his life have been different two
thousand years earlier if he had been a tolerant husband, rather than a hateful
one? How might his life have been altered if he had studied Cornelia with the
understanding Matilda had given him, rather than with Brutus' indifferent
callousness?
Suddenly one of the
hounds bayed, and the huntsmen shouted, and William jerked out of his reverie.
"There!"
cried Walter, and William followed his friend's pointing finger and, indeed,
there it ran—a huge red stag, bounding through the dappled shadows of the
forest.
William swept the bow
from his back and fitted an arrow, digging his heels into the flanks of his
stallion and guiding him only with voice and knees.
The horse surged
forward, his hooves pounding through the grassland, then crashing through the
first line of shrubs in the forest.
The stag careened
before William, leaping first this way, now that, his head raised, his eyes
panicked, his nostrils flaring.
Behind William
crashed the horses of his companions, but they raced a full six or seven paces
behind him, and it was William who had the first, clear shot.
The stag bounded
behind a dense thicket, and William let his arrow fly.
It struck, he heard it, as he heard the cry of the stag and the sound of
its heavy body plunging to the forest floor.
"I have
him!" William cried as he seized the reins of his stallion and pulled the
beast to a plunging, snorting halt. He lifted his right leg over the horse's
wither, jumping to the ground, and ran behind the thicket, his knife drawn.
The stag lay
convulsing in a carpet of fallen leaves and dried summer grasses, the arrow
through his left eye.
William's stride
slowed, and he drifted to a halt, staring at the stag.
Except it was no
longer a stag lying there at all, but his father, Silvius, his hands to the
arrow, his voice screaming to his son for aid.
Sick to his stomach, William
took a step forward, then stopped, the knife suddenly loose in his
sweat-dampened hand.
Silvius was no longer
screaming. Instead he stared at his son, his hands still about the arrow, blood
and gore dripping down his cheek. You shall not have her! he whispered within William's mind. Never have her! You had your
chance. She's mine, now.
"No!"
William said, very low. His gaze transfixed on his father.
Never have her…
Something flowed forth from Silvius, and William took an intuitive
step back. It was evil. Malignant evil, seeping from every pore of his father's
body.
You shall never have her… she's lost
to you, now…
"No!"
William said again.
And took another step
back.
"My lord?"
Walter Fitz Osbern walked up beside William, his eyes drifting between William
and the downed stag, now screaming with a harsh, guttural
cry. "My lord?
Should I…?"
There were more steps
behind William: other fellow hunters, and the huntsmen. They were quiet,
watching William, one or two of them wincing at the terrible sound made by the
stricken stag.
Walter's eyes settled
on William's face. The duke was staring fixedly at the stag, his skin pale and
clammy, as if he saw before him a devil, or some imp from hell. "My
lord?" he said yet one more time, hoping that William would break free of
whatever spell had claimed him.
Still no response,
and Walter exchanged a worried look with one of the
other nobles.
"Damn you!"
William suddenly whispered, and Walter jumped, thinking
his duke spoke to
him.
But William was still
staring fixedly at the stag, and now he stepped forward, almost stumbling. The
stag cried out yet more harshly, his hooves flailing dangerously, and Walter
was sure the duke would be struck, but somehow William managed to avoid the
stag's hooves and legs. He stepped around behind the stag, sheathed his knife,
grasped one of the stag's magnificent antlers to steady the beast's head, then
took the arrow with his other hand and, frightfully, sickeningly, thrust the
arrow deep into the stag's
brain.
The creature gave one
more frightful spasm, and then lay still, save for one
hind leg, which
continued to quiver slightly.
"Butcher
it," said William harshly, standing back. "Butcher it now.'"
He turned away, but
then staggered, and Walter stepped close and took
one of his arms to
steady him.
"My lord?"
"Will he never
leave me be?" whispered William, bending over as if he were going to
vomit. He gagged, then again a little more violently, before managing
to regain control of
his stomach. "Will he never leave me be?"
One of the huntsmen
came forward, taking William's other arm, but then William straightened, wiped
his mouth, and managed a smile.
"I am well
enough," he said, seemingly himself again, and the two men relaxed—as did
all the others standing about watching with worried countenances.
"Likely the meat
you took for breakfast was rotten," Walter said, and William accepted the
excuse.
"Aye, likely it
was. My apologies if I have concerned you, but I am well enough now. Where is
my horse? Ah, thank you, Ranuld."
He took the
stallion's reins from the huntsman who had brought him forward, and swung into
the saddle.
But just as he
settled on the horse's back, gathering up the reins, there came a distant
shout, then the sound of approaching hooves.
"What is
wrong?" said William, swinging his stallion about so he could see.
There was a rider
hurtling across the meadowlands toward the patch of forest where William had
downed the stag. He wore the duke's livery, and William recognized him as one
of the squires from his garrison within the castle of Rouen.
"It's
Oderic," mumbled Walter.
"And with dire
news," said Ranuld, the huntsman who had also come to William's aid.
"See the lather on his horse."
"My lord
duke!" Oderic called as he pulled his exhausted horse to a stumbling halt.
"My lord duke!"
"What?"
snarled William, kicking his stallion forth and grabbing Oderic by the shoulder
of his tunic before almost hauling Oderic from his mount. "What news,
man?"
"Earl Harold of
England," Oderic managed to gasp. "Earl Harold…"
"Yes? Yes"
William gave Oderic an impatient shake.
"Earl
Harold…" Oderic could barely speak, caught between the extremity of his
news, his desperate battle for breath, and his duke's furious grasp on his
shoulder.
"Yes?" William thought he would strangle the news
from the man if he did not spit out the words within an instant.
"Earl Harold
awaits in your castle, my lord duke."
"What?"
William was so surprised he let Oderic go, and the squire almost fell off his
horse as a surprised, concerned buzz of comment rose among William's retainers
and huntsmen.
Earl Harold awaited in Duke William's
castle?
"My castle?" said William stupidly, unable to
comprehend what Oderic said. "Here? In Rouen?"
"Aye, my lord. A
patrol discovered him last night, he had embarked from
a fishing vessel on
the coast two nights previous."
"What does he do here?" William mumbled to himself, then waved
away
the question.
"Never mind. Walter. We ride. Now!"
Part Four
Pay me my fare, or by Gog and Magog, you shall feel the smart of my whipcord!
Coachman to passengers at Barthlomew
Fair,
London, late 1700s, cited in William
Hone,
Ancient Mysteries
Described,
London, March
[ ADDY!
Dear gods, his daughter! He'd thought
her dead, a victim first of Genvissa's malevolence, and then of Asterion's.
And yet there she was, standing in
the street outside Frank's house, holding the two lost kingship bands of Troy,
and calling to him.
Skelton pulled on his uniform
trousers, fumbling with the buttons on his fly, then hauled on a shirt, opened
the door, and took the stairs three at a time before he'd done up a single
button.
Violet stepped out of the kitchen,
butter knife in hand. "Major?"
Skelton ignored her, opened the front
door and ran into the street.
The little girl was gone.
He stood there, barefooted, his shirt
flapping in the cold wind, staring up and down the street.
Gone.
"Major?" Violet was at the
front door now, her pretty face crinkled up with doubt, her voice cautious.
"Is there anything the matter?"
"Old chap?" said Frank, now
standing directly behind Violet, a hand on her shoulder, staring at Skelton. He
had raced out of his bedroom when he'd heard Skelton's mad dash for the front
door.
Skelton ignored them. He turned this
way, then that, his movements abrupt, frantic, his face distraught.
Frank's hand tightened momentarily on
Violet's shoulder, then he walked over to Skelton. "Old chap… what's
up?"
"She was here," Skelton
muttered, the skin of his face gray. "She was."
Frank glanced back at Violet.
"Who?"
"My daughter."
Now Frank openly stared. "I say,
I didn't know you had… in England?"
"A long time ago," Skelton
whispered.
The door to one of the neighbors'
houses opened, and two women came out. They were both in their late thirties,
their short waved hair freshly combed, and with matching dark blue candlewick
dressing gowns tied about their trim figures. Both looked somewhat
amused at the sight of Major Skelton standing half-naked
and crazed in the street.
Frank looked embarrassed. "I'm
sorry, Mrs. Flanders. A bit of a disturbance,
I'm afraid."
Mrs. Flanders pursed her lips, but
her eyes sparkled with humor. "And just as I have my sister staying, Mr.
Bentley. Mrs. Ecub is quite overwrought by such a
sight, I'm sure."
At that Skelton turned about and
stared at the two women. "My God," he said.
"Matilda? Ecub?"
They both grinned at him.
"We're all gathered," said
Matilda, whom Frank had addressed as Mrs. Flanders.
"Every one of us."
Skelton took a step forward.
"Where is my daughter?" he said.
"Perhaps Stella has her,"
said Mrs. Ecub.
"I do apologize," said
Frank, "But Mrs. Flanders, how can you possibly know
Major Skelton?"
"We've had many dealings over many years," said Matilda
Flanders. Then her face softened from humor into pity, and she stepped forward,
took Skelton's hands, and kissed him softly on the mouth. "Welcome back, my love," she said so softly that only he
could hear.
"Welcome back."
Caela Speaks
SAT WITH MY LADIES—HOW I HATED
THIS SITTING
about, spending my days in nothing
but courtly gossips and embroideries!—and understood that Harold had arrived in Rouen. I
shivered, unable to keep at bay that memory of William tearing Coel's lifeless
body from mine.
Coel's blood had been
so very warm, as he had himself been so very warm, and so very loving.
I could feel—very
faintly, but the knowledge was there—William's confusion, anger, and
uncertainty as he heard of Harold's arrival. Everything, in fact, he had felt
that night Genvissa had sent him to murder me.
Keep him safe, I prayed silently. Keep him safe.
I closed my eyes, and
in the strength of my prayer I think my body wavered somewhat, for instantly,
concerned voices were raised about me, and tentative hands touched my arm.
"Madam? Madam?
Are you well?"
I opened my eyes, and
caught Judith's gaze. She nodded, understanding.
"No," I
murmured, allowing my voice to waver just so very slightly. "I am not
well. I should rest awhile before our noonday meal. Judith…?"
She took my arm, and
I nodded a dismissal at the other women who clustered about me. Slowly we
retreated from the private solar, where I spent most of the day when I was not
in court, to the bedchamber, where I spent all my cold, loveless nights.
Once the door closed
behind us, I straightened and Judith dropped my arm.
"Madam?"
she said.
I smiled wryly. I
wished she would call me Caela in private, but now that I was doubly
"royal" in Judith's eyes, I doubted there would be little chance of
that now.
"I am glad that
we have this time alone," she said. "There is something I need to
speak of to you."
"Yes?"
"Saeweald… over
the past days I have spoken to Saeweald on many
occasions on this
matter…"
Her voice had drifted
off, her cheeks mottling, and her eyes avoiding
mine.
"Judith?" I
said. "What is wrong?"
"It is something
of which you spoke to us—that you and Og-reborn will complete the Game as
Mistress and Kingman of the Labyrinth." "You find this difficult to accept."
"It is difficult enough," she
said, "but this is not what eats at me."
"And that
is?"
She hesitated, mouth
hanging partly open, eyes averted. "It is that
Saeweald believes he
shall be Og-reborn."
There, it was out,
and Judith finally allowed herself to look at me from
under her lashes.
"Oh," I
said on a long breath, and now it was I who averted my eyes.
"Ah," said
Judith.
By the gods, we were playing some silly childish prattling game.' "Oh" here and
"Ah" there!
"Is Saeweald…?
Will he…?" Judith said.
Then, gods help me, I
lied, for if I told her who Og-reborn was
fated to be, then I would have lost her, as well Saeweald and Ecub, in one
foul-tasting
word.
"I cannot
know," I said, holding her gaze. "It shall be who the Troy Game and
the land demands. Maybe Saeweald, maybe not… but I dislike it that he already
has voiced his ambitions to the office." I put some distaste into that
final phrase, some goddess-like offense, and it diverted Judith magnificently.
"I should not have presumed—" "He should not have presumed!"
Judith dropped her
gaze again, her cheeks mottling an even deeper shade of humiliation. I placed a
hand on her arm. "I am sorry to snap, Judith. I had not thought that
Saeweald would have jumped so easily to that possibility. But it is nothing to
do with you, and I am glad you have told me. Here," I kissed her face.
"I am not cross with you."
"I will tell
him—"
"No. Do not
mention it. I shall speak to him when appropriate." And yet
when was appropriate? "I am
sorry, Saeweald, but you have no place in what is to come?" Oh, I could
not lose him so quickly. I had need of him yet. As did… as did he who would
become Og.
"And now,"
I continued, all business, "I asked you here because I have need of your
aid."
"Anything,"
Judith said, trying to atone.
I felt abashed, and
took her hand and led her to a covered chest, which stood beneath the chamber's
only window. We sat down, and I kept hold of her hand, although I think I was
trying to reassure myself more than her.
"Judith, there
are tasks I will need to do, places I shall need to go. I will need to spend
much time away from the palace. Both at night, and during the day."
She nodded, the
eagerness to please in her eyes intensifying. "This will be difficult for
me. I am the queen, I cannot just wander about the streets as I need—"
"But at
night…"
I shrugged slightly.
"Nights contain more freedom for me, surely, but even they are dangerous.
What if Edward or his bowerthegn should wake, and I not be there? More
importantly, there are days when I will have the need to leave the palace. I
need more freedom, far more than my existence as 'queen' allows."
I also needed more
security if I was to move the bands, or even to communicate with the
Sidlesaghes as I needed. I constantly worried that some action or
ill-considered word might draw either Swanne's or Asterion's suspicion; had I
already said or done something that may have alerted them? This concern ate at
me. I needed to move about both more freely and unobserved. How to do this as the constantly watched
queen, whose every movement was noted?
I had struggled with
this problem over the past few days, and could see only one solution. I hated
to do it, for it would put another in the danger that I sought to escape, but
if I was careful, then maybe she would not suffer.
Maybe.
"Judith, I need
a glamour."
Her eyes grew huge,
and she drew in a deep breath and held it for a long moment as she watched me
unblinkingly. "A glamour?" she said finally. "Do you want to use
me to—"
I shook my head.
"Not you, for I will need you awake and aware of what goes on about
me." I grinned briefly. "If I can drag you away from Saeweald's bed
long enough…"
She blushed, and I
thought that if she kept this up I would need to ask Saeweald for some
whitening alloy to dab on Judith's cheeks.
"No, I will need
someone else with which to create the glamour."
"Ah. You would
like me to find her for you?"
"Aye. Judith, I
hate to do this—to use an unwitting woman as my dupe. I
fear for her, and
what might happen to her if she… is discovered. But without her I shall be too
constrained for my purposes. Judith, do you know of anyone who lives in
Judith dropped her
gaze to where our hands lay entwined, thinking. Eventually she raised her face,
then nodded.
"There is a
woman who I think would serve you well. Her name is Damson, and she is the
widow of a stone-cutter and now partly earns her way as a laundress. She is,
oh, some forty-five or fifty years of age, and has the freedom of both
"I cannot 'ask,'
Judith. She must not have any understanding of what I do, or else the glamour
shall not work sufficiently—it will not be deep enough. Can you bring her to me, and say only that I
have need of her services? Would she accept that?" "Aye."
"When could you
bring her to me?"
"I saw Damson
about the palace courtyard this morning, probably looking for work in the
laundries, or even the dairy. If I find her quickly, then I could have her
before you within the hour." "Go, then, and find me this Damson."
GUDO
/bright day it might
be, but inside rouens
castle the sunshine
had yet to penetrate. The air was chilled and the breath frosted from the
mouths of those not fortunate enough to have secured a close position by the
fire that burned within Duke William's Great Hall.
Matilda and Earl
Harold were two of the fortunate few. They sat in intricately carved oak chairs
only two paces distant from where the fire cracked and leapt in the stone
hearth, cups of the duke's best wine in their hands, making conversation until
the duke himself could be summoned from the hunt. Rather than Norman French or
Anglo-Saxon, they spoke in the more general French dialect that most European
nobles (as merchants and craftsmen) learned as children.
Their ability to
converse in a mutually comfortable language was not the only reason both found
the conversation relatively effortless. Matilda was fascinated with the earl
and he, quite obviously, with her. This might be their first meeting, but each
had heard so much of the other over the years that they felt each other already
well acquainted.
"My husband
shall doubtless be surprised to find you here," said Matilda, gracing the
earl with a smile over the rim of her wine cup. She was deeply intrigued by his
face, for although it wore the hard lines of a warrior and man used to great
command, it also had an aura of sensitivity, even mysticism, that one found
generally only in the faces of poets, or religious recluses.
Or, indeed, in
lovers.
Apart from that sense
of mysticism, Harold was a highly attractive man, with his dark eyes framed by
his graying blond hair and darker beard. Matilda liked the fact that, unlike so
many Saxons, Harold kept that beard very short and neat, and did not hide
beneath a shrubby, flea-ridden haystack.
"There was a
time," said Harold, intrigued in his own way by this tiny, stern-faced
woman before him, "when dukes and earls and princes spent their time only
in the pursuit of the bloody sport of war, and it was with war that they solved
every one of their dilemmas. I like to think that I and your
husband are more
civilized men, and that words and vows might be used to accomplish more than
the agony and futility of war. I come to court an ally,
not to incense an
enemy."
"You are a poet!" Matilda murmured into her wine cup
before taking a sip
of the heavily spiced
wine within.
Harold gave a small,
sad smile. "I am a man, and a father, and a leader of many men and
fathers. I value life before needless death. Thus I sit here with you this fair
morn, waiting for your lord to return from the hunt."
"And for my
part," said Matilda, "I am more than pleased to have this chance to
sit and pass words with you. Tell me, how goes Edward?"
"Heavily, and
with bad grace," said Harold. "He thinks only of the next life, and
of his salvation. He is less the king, and more the repentant, mewling
constantly for a chance to redeem himself before whichever altar he can
find."
"And thus you
are here," said Matilda. "I understand. So, if Edward declines, then
may I ask after your own family? Your wife, and children? Your
sister, and brother?"
Harold studied her,
wondering what she knew. "My wife…" He shrugged as his voice drifted
off in uncertainty as to what to say, and was then surprised at the glint of
understanding in Matilda's face.
"She does not
suit you, then."
He did not answer,
and Matilda smiled into her wine as she sipped it.
"Your children
are well?"
This time she was
rewarded with a natural and very warm smile, and her
regard for the man
grew. He loved his children. "Aye," Harold said. "They are my delight." "The queen?" Matilda said. "I have
heard she has been unwell."
"She is better
now."
Harold's manner had
become extremely guarded, and Matilda wondered further if some of the more
salacious rumors she'd heard about Harold's relationship with his sister might,
in fact, have a kernel of truth to them.
"And
Tostig…" she said.
"Madam,"
Harold snapped, "your manner is more direct than any of the
Holy Father's
inquisitors!"
Matilda laughed.
"I have heard rumors of Tostig's penchant to treachery. Moreover, I
suspect that Hardrada is tempting Tostig away from his loyalty to
his family."
"Then I could do
with access to your intelligence, madam, for I think it
better than
mine."
Matilda began to say
something, but then there came a clatter of hooves in the courtyard beyond the
narrow windows, and the shouts of men.
"My
husband," she said, watching Harold carefully, and noting the manner in
which his face closed over and he set his wine cup aside with great care. He
took a deep breath, and Matilda saw that he was nervous.
Strangely, this gave
her no sense of satisfaction, nor of advantage, but only saddened her somewhat. This man, she thought, has no business seeking out the throne. He is too
good, and too valuable, to be wasted on kingship.
The doors at the end
of the Great Hall flung open, and William strode into the Hall.
Harold and Matilda
rose.
"My lord
duke," said Matilda as William strode up to them.
William ignored her.
He was sweaty from his hard ride back to the castle, his hair—even as short as
it was—was disheveled, and his black eyes were as hard as flint.
They did not waver
from Harold's face.
"My lord
duke," Matilda said again, unperturbed by William's disregard. "My
lord Harold, Earl of
There, she thought, glancing at Harold. I have done my best for you. Strangely, Matilda's sympathies
tended more to Harold in this encounter than to William, even though she lusted
for the spoils of
William suddenly
appeared to notice that Matilda had spoken, and he gave a brief nod in her
direction. His eyes did not move from Harold's face.
"I greet you
well, Harold," William said, recovering some of his usual calm demeanor,
and he stepped forward and offered Harold his hand. "Welcome to
Harold took William's
between both of his, and the instant he did so, William's world turned upside
down.
As Harold's flesh touched his, William knew who he was
reborn. Coel. Coel!
A thousand emotions
surged through William: jealousy and fright at their head. He remembered that
terrible night he'd burst into his house in Llanbank to find Coel atop
Cornelia's body, sweating in the labors of love. He remembered that appalling
moment that he'd caught his hand into Coel's hair, and hauled back his head so
that for an instant they'd stared deep into each other's souls, before Brutus
had sliced his sword across Coel's throat.
Cornelia's cry of
terror and loss, Coel's eyes still locked into his as he died.
Coel? Coel had reappeared in this
guise on the same day that Silvius had once again writhed on the forest floor
before him? What, in the gods' names was going on? What frightful magic had
them in its hold?
O
And why had Swanne not told him this?
Gods, Swanne had taken Coel to her bed, bred him children, and she had not told
William of it?
William recalled what
Swanne had said that day so long ago when they'd met. He'd asked her then if
Harold was anyone reborn, and she had said no. He was a mere man. Gods! She had lied to him! Why? Why? "William?"
William realized he
was not only still gripping Harold's hand, but he was staring maniacally at the
man. In the same moment William also realized that Harold had no memory of his
life as Coel. He had come only as Harold, Earl of Wessex and pretender to the
English throne, not as Cornelia's lover come for revenge… or whatever else it
might be that he sought.
But this was no coincidence. Surely.
And what was Coel doing back? What? "William?" Matilda said again.
"Forgive me," William managed, dropping
Harold's hand. He even managed to find the strength and fortitude of spirit to
give Harold a small smile. "Your arrival has truly surprised me, my lord
of
"Aye, I see that
it has." Harold, his hand now free, had taken a step back, and was
watching William speculatively.
"Wine,
husband?" Matilda murmured. She stood holding out a freshly poured cup to
her husband, and very apparently taken aback by her husband's reaction.
A servant hurried
forward with another chair, and William waved them all down, his equanimity now
apparently fully restored.
"It has been a
most surprising morning," William said. "First, I brought down a
great stag, who reproached me with his dying."
Matilda gasped in
superstitious dread, but Harold only watched William with narrowed eyes.
"And now,"
William continued, "I find before me
The question was half
rhetorical, half real. A most
strange and unexpected visitor, given the circumstances. There, answer me that,
Harold-Coel, if you dare. "No mysteries but those of mortal men," said Harold. He had
set his wine cup to one side, and now leaned forward in his chair. "You
must know why I am here, William."
To reproach me for your death? "To beg me to take
Matilda repressed a
wince at the bluntness of both men. So much for the soft beauty of poets.
Harold held William's
stare a long moment before answering. "I come for
William sat back in
his chair, his dark eyes hooded. "I am ally to Edward for only one reason,
my friend."
Harold's mouth
quirked at that "my friend." "Not ally, then."
William gave a small
smile, but his eyes were humorless.
"Edward is
heirless," Harold said, "and the unfortunateness about all this is
that we both have a claim to the throne. You through your great-aunt Emma,
Edward's Norman mother, I through my place and standing as England's
pre-eminent lord, defacto ruler throughout Edward's long, pious slide into
irrelevancy and death."
Ah, thought William. You and I again, Coel, standing on each side of the
chasm. You for the old, dark ways of the land, I for the new bright ways of the
foreigner. I won last time, Coel. What does that say about this encounter?
"I not only
claim through the distant blood of Emma," William said, "but also
through Edward's promise."
Harold raised a
patently disbelieving eyebrow.
"I sheltered
Edward for many years during his time of exile," William said.
"During those years when Cnut held
Something in
William's voice and face became aggressively confrontational with that last
sentence, and Harold frowned over it.
"There is no
heir, either walking or breeding," he said. "Caela remains chaste and
untouched. Gods' Concubine, they call her, for the fact that the saintly Edward
has so consistently refused to have dealings with her."
William gave a
strange half smile. "So, then, Edward's promise to me stands."
"
"Truly?"
said William, his tone now far more aggressive.
"
"
"Those interests
and offices shall not continue long past the day I am crowned," Harold
said, very quiet now. "The clergy shall be replaced with Saxon men, loyal
to
"You are afraid
of me," William said, his own voice now very quiet. "That, essentially, is the message you bring me."
"
Immortality, thought William, staring at
Harold. Power beyond knowing. The
"
Harold glanced at
Matilda. "You mean my brother Tostig." He put down his cup of wine,
then rolled up the short tunic he wore and undid his shirt.
His chest and upper
belly were marred by red scarcely healed scars.
"This is Tostig," said Harold softly. "He thought
to murder me." He did up his shirt and pulled his tunic down. "He
came to me as I and my wife were preparing for bed, and he thought to earn a
reward from Hardrada for his actions."
"But you bested
him, or you would not be here to show me the scars."
"Aye," said
Harold. "But only through the aid of my sister, who sent aid. My
wife," he spoke the word contemptuously, "merely stood back and
laughed as Tostig tried to murder me."
William went very
still, and Matilda sent him an unreadable look.
"That was not
the action of an honorable woman, let alone a wife," she said to Harold.
"It was the
action of a woman who lives by deceit," Harold said. "She is not a
woman to be trusted."
William dropped his
eyes to his wine, swirling it about his wine cup.
"I say
that," Harold said softly, not taking his eyes from William, "because
I think you need to know very particularly, my lord of Normandy."
William looked up,
his gaze unreadable.
"I know Swanne
is your eyes and ears at court, William. Does she send you her love
besides?"
Harold suddenly
shifted his gaze to Matilda. "Did you know, my lady
duchess, that my wife
Swanne thinks to plot against me for William, and against you as well? She
hopes to take your place at William's side, should he ever win for himself the
throne of England. She has said that William has promised her this."
Harold looked back to
William, sitting open-mouthed in shock, staring at Harold. "How long has
she been whoring for you, William? And how can you plan to set aside this wondrous wife of yours to
take Swanne Snake-Tongue as your queen, if you ever gain England?"
CbAPG6RGbR
Caela Speaks
WAS LYING ON THE
BED WHEN JUDITH BROUGHT
Damson to the
bedchamber, and as they entered I had to smile at / what my other ladies must
have thought of this simple woman who I admitted to my presence when they were
left in the solar.
Damson was a woman
well marked by her years and her travail. She was fair of hair, and ruddy of
complexion, with stooped shoulders wearied by life, and hands roughened and
gnarled by labor. Her eyes were pale water-blue, currently filled with anxiety.
"My lady
queen!" she cried the instant she saw me, dropping to her knees despite
Judith's hand on her arm. "I have meant no harm through my actions!"
I was rising from the bed as she said this, and my own eyes filled with tears
at the thought that the only reason Damson could conceive for her presence
before me was to be accused of some transgression.
"Of course not,
Damson," I said in as gentle a manner as I could. "I have asked you
before me only to serve me, not to reproach you."
Damson's face
crumpled in relief, and my sorrow for her increased.
"My lady Judith
has told me of your difficulties," I said, "and I thought
only to help."
And may all the gods
forgive me for that particular lie. Damson had her
hands clasped before her face, which was lowered almost to her breast: the poor
woman could not even look upon me.
What trials had this
land been through that women acted in such a manner? I shared a glance with
Judith, then bent to Damson, grasped her hands between mine, and raised her to
her feet.
Damson finally
managed to lift her face, and she visibly gulped, then blinked some of her
tears free from her eyes.
"I have many
fine linens, and rare embroideries," I said, "and I hear tell that
you are the finest and most trustworthy of laundresses. Will you take
charge of my linens,
Damson, and watch over them for me, and attend to them as needed?"
All those years I had
spent as unknowing Caela, my head bent over my sewing, watching the needle ply
in and out, in and out, in and out. Years, I
had spent curled about my damned needlework.
Frankly, I did not
care if Damson took the entire corpus of my embroideries and hurled them into
the mud of the river's low tide. I did not think I could bear a single hour
more bent over my needles and wools.
"My lady…"
Damson said.
"You
agree?" I said, and hated myself, for I was asking Damson to agree to much
more than the care of my ever-cursed linens.
"Oh. Aye, madam.
I would do anything for you! Anything!"
The hope and
happiness in her eyes almost made me waver, but I steeled myself.
"Damson," I
whispered and, summoning both courage and power, I leaned forward and kissed
her full on the mouth, sliding my tongue gently between her parted lips.
THE FIRST THING I BECAME AWARE OF AS I GAZED OUT
of Damson's eyes and
into my own bemused face was the scratchiness of her rough and ill-fitting
clothes. Then I became aware of the different weight and feel of her body, of
the way it moved. And then I became aware of its aches and pains, its sadnesses
and strains, and I almost wept for the poverty of this woman's life.
"What is
happening?" said my voice, issuing out of my face.
Poor Damson.
"It is nothing
but a dream," I said very softly, and reached forward and cradled Caela's
confused face in my hands. "Nothing but a dream. Sleep now, and when you wake
you will remember nothing of this."
"Sleep… yes, I
would like to sleep…" she said.
I led
Caela-inhabited-by-Damson to the bed, and lay her down, pulling a coverlet over
her.
Within an instant,
she was asleep.
Caela, so it would
appear to everyone who saw, asleep on her bed.
And so it was, but
only Caela's body, not her soul or her spirit. They now lived in Damson's body,
able to use Damson's body to move relatively unhindered wherever they wanted to
go.
"Madam?"
said Judith, and reached out a hand to my (Damson's) face.
"Aye," I
said. "It is me." I shivered, embarrassed that I so loathed this
body. I was grateful that Damson's thoughts and memories had traveled with
her into my body; I
did not think I could cope with whatever weight of worry she carried about with
her through her dreary days and nights.
"Madam, what if
I need you to return while you are gone? What can I do to summon you?"
I nodded at the
figure asleep on my bed. "Shake my—her shoulder, and call my name forcefully. I should
return at that." "In body?"
I hesitated.
"No. In soul and spirit only. So do this only if highly troubled, Judith.
Otherwise you risk having Damson wake within herself in circumstances which may
drive her witless."
"I understand."
She paused. "What will you do now?" "Now?" I grinned. "Why now I shall
gather some linens, and I shall walk from this chamber with my head and
shoulders bowed, and then I shall spend the rest of the day wandering
free."
My smile widened at
the thought, and then it faded. "Judith, stay here with…" I looked to
where Damson-in-Caela lay on the bed. "Stay with her, and let no one touch her. Tell everyone that I am
unwell, and want only to rest. I shall not be long. Not this first time."
Poor Caela. I had the
feeling that she was going to be spending a great many days lying unwell on her
bed over the coming months.
With another
reassuring smile for Judith, I gathered up some linens, and left the chamber.
CbAPCGR FOUR
V
ELL?"
Matilda's anger was
evident in the rigidity of her stance, her flinty eyes, and the tight, clipped
tone of her voice. She and William had retired to their bedchamber, Harold and
his companions seen to their own chamber and offered food and the means to
refresh themselves.
"He is bolder
than I had thought him." William turned his back to his wife, and walked
to the window, fiddling with the catch on one of the shutters.
"I was not
talking of Harold. I am talking of the fact that you have apparently promised
this Swanne a place at your side as queen."
"I have never
promised that!"
Matilda's only answer
consisted of her archly raised eyebrows.
"Never!"
"You swore that
you would not betray me," she said, walking to and fro in her agitation.
"You swore that I would be queen. Not Swanne! Did you lie? Do you truly mean me to be queen of England at your side? You have been
lying to one of us. So, which one? Me, or Swanne?"
He caught at her
wrist as she swished past him, and forced her to a halt. "You!" he
said, his voice low and vibrating with emotion. "You! I meant that vow… dammit, Matilda, Swanne will never
be my queen. You will. You!"
"Does she understand that?" Matilda asked quietly, then
gave a soft, harsh laugh as William averted his eyes.
"You promise me
one thing, husband, and you allow her to believe another. Where do any of us
stand in your affections, eh?"
"You will be my queen, Matilda."
"You cannot
trust her, William, if only because too many people know she is your agent. For
sweet Christ's sakes, husband, did you not hear what Harold said? That she
stood by and laughed as Tostig tried to murder her
husband?"
William closed his
eyes, trying to repress the memory of Coel lying dead at his feet, and Genvissa
standing before them, laughing…
"And you trust
that kind of witch?"
"I…" She lied to me about Harold. He is Coel. Coel! And she lied to me
about it…
"She does not
harbor a soul that can be trusted, husband," Matilda said very low.
"And Harold knows she is your agent! If he knows, then who else?" "For all we know, only Harold—"
"Harold is one
too many people, my love," she countered.
"Aye. I
know." William's shoulders suddenly slumped, and he walked to a chair and
sat down heavily.
"Harold is far
more knowledgeable than any of us thought. Had you ever considered that he knew
of his wife's efforts on your behalf?"
"No. I had not
thought he might know."
"And how does
that affect our plans, William?"
"I would imagine
it shall affect them very little."
"Don't play me
for a fool!" Matilda snapped. "Harold knows his wife has been your spy at Edward's
court! Have you
not thought through the implications?"
William was silent,
his face impassive. Matilda did not know if he was holding back, if he was so
furious to learn that Harold knew of Swanne's treachery that he could not yet
speak of it, or if this knowledge had so thrown him that he did not know what
to say, or how now to act.
"How long do you
think Harold has known, William?"
Silence.
"How long do you
think Harold has been feeding misinformation to his
wife and then to
us?"
William's face, if
anything, grew even more impassive.
Matilda all but
hissed. "You are so certain of this woman?'
William hesitated,
opened his mouth, and then closed it.
"Are you more
certain of her than you are of me?"
"No." He
finally met her eyes. "I have never been more certain of anyone in my life
than I am of you."
She softened
slightly. "My love, how can you trust a woman who stands by and laughs as her husband is murdered? That is not mere
disloyalty, that is witchcraft so bleak and so deadly that none can ever trust it! Not even you, my love, no matter
how much she protests that she loves you."
Swanne lied to me about Harold, William thought, unable to let
the thought go.
She lied to me about Harold.
Why? What purpose could that have served, save
to intentionally deceive me?
"William, what I
see in Harold is nothing but honor. What I understand about Swanne is that she
is a Darkwitch who will destroy anything and anyone who stands in her
path."
Cornelia's face
suddenly flashed before William's eyes, and he blinked.
"I cannot
believe that you are certain you are immune."
"Enough," William said wearily. "God,
does Harold have any understanding of how bitterly he has struck into the very
heart of my household?"
"It is Swanne
who has struck into the very heart of our household, husband. Not Harold."
Then Matilda sighed. "Ah, I shall not continue haranguing you about her.
Harold is the guest within our household, and it is with Harold that we should
concern ourselves."
Matilda walked over
to a table, which held a ewer of wine and some cups. "Harold is far
stronger than we thought," she said, pouring out two cups of wine, handing
one to her husband.
"Aye." He
took a long draught of the wine.
"Edward was
terrified of the father… how now should you feel of the son?"
"I am not
'terrified' of him!"
"I think you
should be very wary of him, William. He cannot be discounted."
Again William sighed.
"I know that." He is
Coel-rebom. He is back for a reason.
"William…"
Matilda came to his chair, and sank to her knees beside him. She placed her
hands on his thigh, and looked earnestly into his face. "William, England
is not going to lay down and offer itself to you on a golden plate the moment
Edward dies. What Harold says is truth—the Saxon earls are not going to want a
foreigner to rule over them. They will unite
behind him."
William was silent,
the fingers of one hand scratching through his clipped beard, his eyes
unfocused as he thought.
"You spent
thirty years uniting Normandy behind you," Matilda continued, her eyes
steady on her husband's face. "Can you afford to wait another thirty to
gain full control of England? Can any of us afford to wait that long? Is
England worth it, truly?"
"Yes!"
William said quietly. He looked down at Matilda's face, still looking into his
so earnestly, and smiled. "The mere fact that Harold is here tells me
something."
"Yes?"
"He is
uncertain. No man sure of his support would come all this way to tell me to
abandon my own ambitions. Tostig's attack—as Swanne's treachery—has unnerved
him."
"Perhaps he truly
thought he might persuade you to an alliance against Hardrada and Tostig.
Harold does not want his countrymen and women's blood wasted in futile
war."
"Harold fears
simultaneous invasions on Edward's death. He is here to try and deflect at
least one of them."
Matilda shrugged.
"Simultaneous invasions could work against you and me, and Hardrada, as well as against Harold."
O
"Aye…"
William's voice trailed off as he drifted back into thought.
"Caela,"
Matilda suddenly said, very firmly. "Caela is important."
"What?"
William jerked up in his chair. "Caela?"
Then he narrowed his eyes at his wife. "What has your own spy told
you?"
Matilda chose her
words carefully—not in any attempt to deceive her husband, but only because
she, and her agent at Edward's court, relied so greatly on their shared
intuition about the queen.
"She is,"
Matilda finally said, "so very quiet, some would say timid, and yet so
strong. People are drawn to her. I have heard it said by some military
strategists that the most important and influential person in any realm, or
battle, or diplomatic negotiation, is not the person who speaks the loudest, or
who bullies or acts in the most aggressive manner, but that person who sits
silent and watchful and then, at the critical moment, utters a single quiet
word, a word which alters the course of nations and history. Caela strikes me
as such a person. There is a storm gathering, husband, and she sits quiet and
unmoving, and so very, very strong, in the very heart of it."
"She sounds like
a person not to be trusted."
"I think that,
besides Harold, Caela is the person most to
be trusted in the tempest ahead of us. Not Swanne, William. Never Swanne."
William sighed, and
for a moment Matilda feared she had gone too far. "Then what do you
counsel me to do about Harold?" he said, and she
relaxed.
"I think you
should befriend him, husband, for he shall be a friend such as
you have never had
before."
THAT NIGHT, AS
WILLIAM SLEPT, HIS DREAMS DREW him back again to that terrible night when he'd
rushed from Genvissa's bed to find Coel atop Cornelia.
He recalled how he'd
been overwhelmed by an anger and—oh gods, and by a jealousy!—so profound, he had drawn his sword and acted
without thought.
Without humanity.
He saw again the
blood that had streamed from Coel's body, the tragedy
in Cornelia's face.
Genvissa, laughing.
In his dream, Matilda
stood there also, and she was studying him with such a mixture of pity and
disgust on her face that he could not bear it, and turned away.
CbAPCGR F1V
Caela Speaks
SPENT MANY DAYS
WANDERING IN DAMSON'S body, and I spent most of this time within London
itself. Here I / found many signs, subtle and otherwise, of the influence of
the Troy Game on the Londoners. Children, playing a hopping game on flagstones,
weaving a path through a maze of cracks and flagstone edgings to what they
called "home"—safety. "Step on a crack," they sang,
"and the monster will snatch." Women also, embroidering or weaving
simplified patterns of the labyrinth into their clothes: I found the pathways
of Brutus' labyrinth decorating many a collar and cuff, or twirling about the
hem of a robe. In the center of the marketplace that ran off Cheapside was
inscribed a stylized labyrinth: here traders and housewives alike could pause
in the business of market day and play a game with sticks and balls through the
labyrinth. They called the game "Threading Ariadne's Needle," which I
might have found amusing under any other circumstances.
And, of course, the
Troy Game that Silvius had led on Smithfield. As tempting as it might be to
believe he had directed the entire enterprise, apparently he had not. It was
the men of London who were responsible for the games that day. They had thought
up the game, patterning it on the legends of the fall of Troy. Silvius had only
come late to these preparations, suggesting himself as the leader of one of the
lines, and then proving his suitability on the practice field a week
beforehand. As the Troy Game had merged with
the land, so it had also merged with the city. Whatever was built on this site
would always become a living extension of the Troy Game. As the Londoners went
about their daily tasks, so also they stepped out in the intricate patterns of
the Game in a hundred different
ways. Even the
pattern of the streets… so many parts of the city now reflected the purpose of
the Game.
I wondered if Brutus
had ever realized how powerful his Game would
become.
During these wanders
I invariably found myself drawn to St. Paul's Cathedral. At first I supposed
this was because the cathedral sat directly over the site where Brutus had
originally built the labyrinth. The Game, and its labyrinth, had grown, I knew
that, but still here lay its heart.
Then, as I sat within
the nave, ignoring all the people who prayed and chattered and wept about me, I
came to another realization, one that stunned me. St. Paul's was the stone hall of my dream.
Not precisely. It was
not as grand as the stone hall of my dream, but there was something about it,
some sense, some voice tnat called silently to me, that told me this was,
indeed, the stone hall of my vision.
But my vision showed
it as it would one day be: not in this lifetime, but in
one to come.
And what that told me was that all would not be accomplished within
this lifetime. The hall had to grow, and once that was done, then I and the
Game could accomplish our mutual goal.
I can't say precisely
how my understanding that all would not be accomplished within this lifetime
made me feel. Sad, certainly. Frightened, a little. Frustrated, beyond measure.
Yet, unsurprised. Mag
and Hera had known, I think, that it would take a very long time. That there
were so many twists to be taken that several lives might be needed. But, oh, to
have to come back again and again…
Beyond all this, as I
sat in the gloomy, frigid interior of the cathedral, staring at the altar and
yet seeing none of it, I felt a deep fear.
I should have known
this, surely? Not only that St. Paul's was the stone hall of my vision, but
that the playing out of the Game to its conclusion would take so long? Mag and
Hera had known it… but was I not Mag-reborn? Did I not hold Mag and all that
she was within my flesh? Was I not everything that
she had been, yet more?
So why had I not
known this? Why had it taken me this long to realize,
rather than
instinctively know?
The sense deepened
that there was an emptiness, some "unrightness" about my power, my
bond with the land. I was far more than I had been as Cornelia, but I was not
yet all that I should be.
What was missing?
What had I yet to learn?
Was this some
omission on my part? Had Mag been wrong in trusting me
to be all that was
needed?
I wanted to talk to
one of the Sidlesaghes—oh, how I wished I had discussed
this with Long Tom
when we walked the forest paths of the Game—but no matter how much I wandered,
and wanted, I saw none of them. They seemed to have their own sense of time,
and of how events should be placed and paced out within that time, but I knew
none of it. Long Tom had told me I needed to move the bands, but had then left
me alone all this time—a week, longer, without a word.
And so I had
wandered, about Westminster, about London, and invariably to St. Paul's where I
sat, and worried.
One market day, when
the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats from the markets of
Cheapside disturbed even the relative calm of St. Paul's, I sat huddled on a
bench in one of the aisles. Many of the traders and their customers had come
inside the nave of the cathedral to do their business—I supposed it was raining
outside, and the cathedral more conducive to trade than the rain-washed
street—and the aisle was one of the few spots within the cathedral where
remained any peace. I had decided to return to Westminster, the walk would take
me an hour, and poor Damson needed her body back for her evening chores, and so
I had shuffled forward on the bench in preparation to rising, when a cloaked
figure dropped down beside me, making me cringe back on the bench. What was
this? A robber? A lecher? Worse, a monk come to pry out my sins?
"Don't
leave," said Silvius.
I stared at him, not
sure if he knew who it was within this poor woman's
body.
"My lord,"
I began, but Silvius laughed, and waved a hand in the air.
"Oh, no need for
such formalities, Caela. But this body…" His eyes traveled over Damson's
squat outlines with patent disapproval. "You could not find better?"
"How did you
know it was me?"
His teeth flashed
inside the hood. "I know all about glamours, Caela. I am no fool."
"I did not ever
mistake you for one," I said quietly. My eyes had got used to the darkness
beneath the enveloping hood, and now I could see his face clearly. He was
grinning, obviously enjoying my discomfiture.
"Glamours were
used in the ancient Aegean world, as well as here," he said. "Mag was
not the only one to know of them."
"Ah. I did not
know."
"I have watched
you these past days," he said, all teasing dropped from his voice.
"You keep coming back here. Why?"
"It is the stone
hall of my vision."
He nodded. "I
had wondered when you would see that."
"Is there
anything you do not know?"
Again he laughed.
"Very little, although I suspect that what I don't know is what you need
desperately to know, and perhaps why you sit here with Damson's rough-worked
face all wrinkled with worry."
I wondered how to
reply to that, then finally decided that it would not hurt to talk to Silvius.
I felt safe about him, cared for and comforted, and I knew he was someone in
whom I could confide.
"There are
several things all at worry within me," I said.
"And they
are?"
"Well… the
lesser is that Judith has told me that Saeweald expects himself to become
Og-reborn."
Silvius grinned.
"The pretentious fool," he said. "Has he no idea?"
I shook my head.
"Should I tell him?"
"Oh, nay. I
think not! Imagine the consequences. Ah, Caela, do not worry. He will come to
terms with his disappointment, I am sure. He will do what is
best for the
land."
"I hope
so," I said, lowly.
"He will."
I chewed at my lip,
then nodded.
"Very well. What
else eats at you?"
"There is
something missing within me," I said. "Some part of who I
should be is… not
there."
He frowned.
"What do you mean?"
I lifted one hand,
then let it drop uselessly. "An emptiness, Silvius. An un-rightness. I can
explain it no more than that."
"You are not all
you should be?"
"Yes. That is
it, perfectly."
He was silent, and I
looked at him. He was smiling gently, his face so like, and yet unlike, Brutus'
in its gentleness that I felt like weeping.
I was suddenly very
sorry that I was here in Damson's body and not my
true one.
His smile widened a
little. "I could tell you what is so amiss, but you might
not want to
know."
"What is
it?"
Now he was grinning
enough that I could see his teeth, and the wetness of his tongue behind them. I
smiled, responding to the mischievousness in his face, and to the warmth and
life dancing about in his remaining eye.
"Let me
see," he said. "How can I put this without having you shriek down
the cathedral?"
"Tell me!"
I said. Then I laughed, for suddenly it seemed as if Silvius had taken all my
cares into his capable hands, rolled them up into an insignificant ball, and
tossed them carelessly aside.
"Well now."
He struck a pose, as if considering deeply, and without thinking I reached out
and touched him.
"Tell me."
He took my hand,
curling it within his own.
His flesh was very
warm. Very dry. Very sensuous.
My heart began to
thud strangely within my breast, and I knew he could feel the pulse leap within
my wrist. "Let me see," he said
again, but now all the laughter had gone from his voice, and his gaze as it
held mine was direct and strong. Confrontational, but still reassuring.
"You are
Mag-reborn within Caela. Yes?"
My hesitation was
only slight. "Yes."
"And you are
queen of England, wife to the oh-so-pious Edward. Yes?"
"Yes."
"As Mag you are
the land, fertility personified, you are Mother Mag. You are the bounty of the land."
I had a glimmer where
he was going. "Oh."
"Oh, indeed. But
as Caela, queen of England, wife of Edward the Confessor, you are," his
lips twitched, "God's Concubine. A virgin. Imagine," he said,
"how this undermines everything you are as Mag-reborn."
"Oh." I let
out a long breath—I had not realized I'd been holding it.
"No wonder you
feel a lack," he said, and he laughed, breathily, and his hand tightened
about mine.
"But what can
I—"
He roared with
laughter, and I looked about, sure the entire cathedral would be staring at us.
But in the hustle and
bustle, no one was paying us any attention and so I looked back to Silvius.
"You are a poor
wretch indeed," he said, "if you do not know how to fix the
situation."
I could see nothing
but his black eye, feel nothing but the pressure of his hand, the warmth of his
body, the skittering of fets pulse. I could read the solution in his eye, feel
it in his touch.
"I am not my
son," he said, very softly. "Never mistake me for Brutus."
I knew what he
saying. Do not take me only
because I remind you of Brutus.
I swallowed, and
pulled my hand away.
He let it go easily.
"It would be best," he said, "that, if you do decide to
relinquish your state as God's Concubine, that you do not do it in Damson's
body."
"Yes," I
said, adding, without thinking, "she is no virgin, in any case."
"Is that
so?" He laughed again, and I colored.
I forced my mind back
to what he had said. As Caela
I was a virgin, and
that contradicted everything I
should be as Mag, as Mother of this land, as its
^ "The winter solstice approaches," Silvius
said. "It would be the best night." The best night in which to lose my virginity.
"In which to wed
yourself entirely to the land." His gaze had not once wandered from my
face. "To fill that lack."
He was right. Everything he said was right. Virginity was anathema to Mag and
to all she represented, and the night of the winter solstice, the night when
the land needed every particle of aid and fertility it could summon to see it
through the long, frigid winter, was the perfect occasion to… "To wed
myself entirely to the land," I whispered. "And to the Game," he
said, as low as I, "should you choose aright." Ah, I knew what he
suggested, and I knew then what I would do. "Do not come to me as
Damson," he said, and his voice was thick with desire. "Not as
Damson."
"No," I
whispered. "Not as Damson."
SI*
WANNE WAS FEELING
EDGIER BY THE DAY.
There was something
happening, yet she could not scry out the "what" of that happening.
Caela had changed, had become far more confident within herself, and Swanne did
not like that. The Game was setting children to hopping over lines in the
flagstones outside St. Paul's (and their fathers to battling out the Troy Game
in labyrinthine horse games). Harold had vanished, ostensibly to his estates in
Wessex, but Swanne had sent him a message there several days ago and he had yet
to reply.
Was it that Harold
was ignoring her… or was it that he was not in Wessex at all? Was this
punishment for her failure to aid him during Tostig's attack? For her laughter?
Damn! Swanne supposed she should have managed some pretense at caring… but
then, Harold was no threat, surely. Was he?
As Harold irritated
and worried Swanne, so also did William. Rather, his refusal to answer her
pleas for the location of the kingship bands of Troy irritated her. Gods, he
must know that Asterion hunted them down! He could not afford to let them lie
vulnerable!
To cap all of this
was Edward's decision to request Swanne to accompany himself, the queen, and a
small group of courtiers and clerics to view the almost-completed abbey of
Westminster. Swanne could not understand why he'd invited her. Edward and she
barely spoke, and Swanne only attended the king's court when Harold was in
attendance. On the occasions when they did speak, their mutual dislike was
obvious. Edward disliked the Danelaw wife of Harold, not only for the sensual
beauty that Swanne never bothered to drape with modesty, but because Swanne and
Harold's union was not recognized by the Holy Church and was therefore, in
Edward's eyes, a horribly sinful affair. He even had referred to her and
Harold's children as bastards on more than one occasion.
In Swanne's view,
Edward was a contemptuous and cowardly old man, hiding behind his religion and
his sharp, sarcastic tongue.
Edward's one great
love was the almost-completed abbey. It had been fifteen years in the building
(the fact that Edward had been married to
Caela for fifteen
years as well, and that his Grand Plan for the abbey was conceived at the same
time he wed her was the occasion of much ribald comment: Edward found in stones
and mortar what he could not find in his wife) and had absorbed one-tenth of
the entire wealth of the realm. Edward meant the building to be a marvel of its
kind, the most wondrous abbey in Europe and, Swanne supposed, most Christians
would think he had mostly
succeeded.
The abbey was
enormous, by far the largest single structure in England. It
occupied the western
portion of Thorney Isle, its central tower crowned with a cupola of wood,
rising some several hundred feet into the air, its cruciform layout (still a
novelty in Europe) stretching over five hundred feet east to west. The abbey
was constructed of great blocks of gray stone, unusual in a country where most
churches—indeed, most buildings—were constructed of wood or wattle and daub,
had a magnificent lead roof, a graceful rounded apse at its eastern end, and
dazzlingly beautiful stained glass filling its windows. In the two towers at
the western end of the abbey hung five great bells that were to be rung for the
first time this day. From the southern wall extended the foundations and partly
constructed walls of the cloisters, infirmary, rectory, and the infirmary
gardens: that would be completed within the
next few years.
Edward, accompanied
by Eadwine, abbot of Westminster, a bevy of other clerics including Aldred,
Wulfstan of Worcester, and the bishop of London, his queen, Caela, two or three
of her ladies, a handful of earls and a score of lesser thegns, guards,
hangers-on, and three ragged children who tacked themselves on to the very end
of the party, set out for the short walk on foot from his palace to the abbey
at midmorning. Swanne, who had decided that attending might give her a better
opportunity for observing Caela than that provided her within the confines of
court, walked a few paces behind the queen and her ladies. It was a fine day,
if crisp and cold, and most people had wrapped themselves in fur-lined cloaks
and heavy woolen robes, with sturdy leather boots on their feet. A fresh
southerly breeze blew, tugging at the veils of the women and making everyone's
eyes water.
Swanne kept her eyes
on the ground, her skirts lifted delicately away from the ever-present mud.
Gods, she thought, could not
Edward have seen to the laying of a few
flagstones to make the way a little easier?
As they approached
the eastern apse, the bells of the western towers
suddenly burst into
tongue.
Swanne flinched, as did
most people. Although everyone had known the bells were to sound out for the
first time this morning to welcome the great king into the new abbey, the
actuality of their tremendous peal was a shock to both ears and nerves.
If Swanne flinched,
then Edward stopped dead in his tracks (forcing everyone to stumble to a halt
behind him) and crowed with delight, clapping his hands and raising his face
heavenward.
"Glory be to God
on high!" he shouted, and the shout was dutifully taken up by the clerics
clustered in a small adoring flock behind him.
Glory be to God on high!
Swanne mumbled
something that she hoped would be taken for a similar response, feeling such a
rush of loathing for the entire Christian church and its damned crucified sons,
saints, and sundry martyrs that for an instant she had a surge of sentimental
longing for Mag. At least that silly bitch hadn't wrapped herself and her
followers about with ridiculous conditions, sins, and unachievable objectives
in order to keep them unthinking and under control.
At least Mag hadn't
demanded the building of cold, dark, and useless stone tombs in which to herd
her mindless minions.
Swanne looked ahead,
and realized with a jolt that Caela had turned and was looking at her with a
small smile on her face—almost as if she knew exactly what Swanne was thinking.
The fine linen veil Caela wore about her forehead and over her hair had
fluttered loose in the wind, as had a few wisps of her dark hair. The wind had
also brought a glow to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eye, and for a moment, a
single moment, Swanne was struck at how lovely the woman looked.
How certain. How
happy.
Then Swanne hardened
both her heart and her face, and Caela turned away as Edward resumed his
triumphant march into his abbey and his immortality.
AS SWANNE HAD EXPECTED, THE INTERNAL SPACE OF
the abbey could have
been a block of ice, for all its warmth. The abbey's nave was also full of
dust, dirt, and a few remaining scaffolds for workmen to put the final touches
to the sculptures about Edward's soaring walls.
At least the screech
of the bells was muted in here.
Edward was almost
capering in his joy, pointing out this and that for his equally joyous
sycophants.
Swanne turned away,
trying to seek out Caela in the shafts of weak sunlight that filtered through
the stained glass windows.
"Is this not a
sight to gladden one's heart?" came a voice behind her, and Swanne
managed, just, to put a pleasant smile on her face as she turned about.
It was Aldred, the
archbishop of York, beaming at her as if she would truly think this abbey the
most wondrous site in creation.
O
"Indeed,"
she said, inclining her head politely.
Aldred looked about,
checking that no one was within hearing distance. "And won't William enjoy
it, don't you think? So… Norman."
Swanne drew in a
sharp breath of dismay, her eyes glancing about, praying to whatever gods were
listening this morning that no one had heard Aldred's remark. The fat fool!
"You need not be
so indiscreet!" she hissed.
His face hardened.
"Indiscreet, madam, is passing written intelligence from your chamber to
his!"
"To which you
have ever been a willing party," she retorted. Aldred had been her means
to contact William for the past eight or nine years. He was a Norman who had
come to England when Edward returned from exile some twenty years previously.
As part of his admiration of all things Norman (and his desire to irritate the
Saxon Godwineson clan at every opportunity), Edward had elevated Aldred from
mere monk to bishop to, eventually, archbishop. The cleric's girth increasing
in direct proportion to the importance of each elevation. In between clerical
promotions, Edward also used Aldred as his ambassador to Rome, Cologne, and
Jerusalem, and as many smaller and less important realms.
Swanne found him
repulsive, but he was necessary to her cause. Aldred was a man of great
influence, who knew many people and was a Norman sympathizer. Over the years he
had told her (in foul-breathed whispers… his liking of sweet pastries had
rotted away most of his teeth) that he would like nothing else than to see
William ensconced on England's throne, and would work with her to ensure this
end.
Swanne wasn't sure if
she could truly trust the man… but he had not failed her over all the years
she'd been communicating with William, and Swanne was sure that if a treachery
was to have been forthcoming, then it would have engulfed her by now.
Now Aldred had his
hands clasped across his not-inconsiderable girth, his eyes narrowed as he
studied her. "I have heard that Harold has set Caela to procuring him a
more suitable wife, my dear. One who can comfortably sit next to him on a
Christian throne. One who is not…" he drew out his pause with infinite
delicacy "… tainted."
Swanne ignored the
jibe; Aldred, after all, was a cruel man underneath his jovial flab and enjoyed
a taunt almost as much as he enjoyed a pastry. "Are
you certain?"
Aldred raised an
eyebrow. "Of course, my dear. Now you are more, ahem, married to William's
cause than ever, eh? A pity about Matilda, though. I hear
also—"
Swanne gritted her
teeth.
"—that William
has promised Matilda that she shall be crowned next to him. What place for you
in all this, then? Neither man seems to want to publicly associate himself with
you. And yet, one or the other shall surely be England's king."
"William will
never—" she began, leaning close to the archbishop, when his eyes widened,
and one plump hand whipped out and seized her forearm.
Swanne snapped her
mouth closed.
"My good lord
archbishop," Caela said, inclining her head politely to both Aldred and
Swanne as she walked close, "do you find this abbey pleasing?"
"Most pleasing,
gracious queen," Aldred said. "It is a true monument to Edward."
Caela glanced about
the frigid, empty stone interior. "Oh, aye, it is that," she said,
not a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "And you, my lady sister, what think
you?"
Swanne tried to smile
politely, then abandoned the effort, realizing she was failing miserably.
"I find it empty," she said, tired with all the pretense and the
lies. "And cold."
Caela nodded slightly
at her, consideringly. "Not many people would have spoken such truth,
sister. That was well done of you."
Swanne momentarily
closed her eyes, fighting back the impulse to slap the patronizing bitch across
her glowing cheeks.
At that moment, one
of Swanne's sons, Alan, who had accompanied the party, came over and greeted
his mother and the archbishop. He exchanged one or two words with them, then
made a small bow to Caela.
"Madam," he
said, "forgive me for not speaking to you first, but your beauty this
morning, in this cold gray hall, struck me dumb, and I could not find the words
with which to adequately greet you."
His eyes sparkled as
he spoke, and Caela burst into delighted laughter.
"Ah, I was
standing in the good archbishop's shadow, my dear," she said, "and it
was only now that you saw me. You thought to cloak oversight with
flattery." She paused, her grin widening. "You shall make a true
courtier, indeed."
Well, well, thought Swanne. You grace my son with your laughter and insult the
archbishop all in one. From where did you discover this courage? She glanced at Aldred, saw his face tighten
with humiliation, and she had to dampen a moment's grudging admiration for
Caela.
Her boy had turned to
Aldred, engaging him in a conversation about the estates of his archbishopric,
and Caela moved a little closer to Swanne, taking her arm and moving her away a
pace or two.
"I am glad to
have you to myself a moment," she said, "and Alan's delightful
interruption has made me curious about something. Let me phrase this as
delicately as I might, considering always that there are other ears
about."
Swanne stiffened. She
held Caela's gaze with easy arrogance, but the queen did not let her eyes drop.
"Swanne,"
Caela said, "I remember that you, a very long time ago when I was but a
naive girl, said that you only ever wanted daughters. Yet here you are, a
mother of three fine sons to Harold. How can this be? Has my recently returned
memory somehow… misremembered?"
Swanne knew what
Caela was truly asking. How
does a Mistress of the Labyrinth bear sons
when she only truly wants daughters?
"I am glad for
the sons," Swanne said, sure she could actually hear her teeth grate,
"for otherwise Harold would have set me aside."
"Ah," said
Caela, and the expression on her face said: The truth of the matter. And then Swanne knew, as surely
as she drew breath, that Caela was hiding something from her. Something deep.
She remembered how
long ago, long, long ago, when she had been Genvissa and Caela had been
Cornelia, how she had continually felt something strange about Cornelia. Something
hidden.
Now she felt it
again. The woman was hiding something, something sly. What? What? Not Mag, for Mag was dead. What else?
Again Swanne felt a
shiver of fear slide through her. What else?
Alan had departed, and Swanne became aware that Aldred was looking most
peculiarly between the two woman.
Swanne laughed,
daintily and prettily, and patted his hand. "You must forgive us, Father,
for our chatter about babies. I am sure you are bored by it."
"Indeed not,
madam. You would be surprised at how much matters of the womb amuse me."
Then he changed the
subject, talking first about the abbey, and how splendid it must be for Eadwine
to be able to conduct services within its grandeur ("My cathedral of York
is, I am afraid, a sad affair, indeed"), then about Harold ("Has
anyone seen the great earl recently? I confess to have missed his wit about the
king's court this past week"), then about the River Thames itself
("So gray and lifeless, don't you think? I cannot but agree with those Holy
Fathers who preach that such wide expanses of water are but examples of sinful
wasteland, unfit for consideration"), before, eventually, bringing the
subject back to the matter of children. "My dear, gracious queen—"
Swanne looked at
Caela, and saw that her face was strained and paler than it had been. Either
Aldred himself was beginning to try her (a distinct possibility, as far as
Swanne was concerned) or some of what Aldred had bean talking about had somehow
upset her, and Swanne found herself intrigued by that possibility.
"—I have always
sorrowed that your womb has borne no fruit," Aldred continued, his face
all wrapped up in palpably false sorrow and concern. "It must be a great
tragedy for you that—"
"I am afraid, my
good archbishop, that I can see my husband looking about for me. I should
rejoin him."
Swanne's eyes had not
left Caela's face. So, she was upset over something.
"—you have
proved so barren," he finished. "Should I pray for you?"
From the corner of
her eye, Swanne saw something quite horrible slither across his face. She half
turned so she could see him more clearly, when Caela gave an audible, and
patently horrified, gasp.
Swanne looked back to
her, then saw that Caela was staring at the altar, some distance away.
Curious to see what
it was that had so distracted Caela, Swanne looked also…
… and froze, so
terrified she could barely continue to breathe.
The altar was not yet
fully completed, and there was still some scaffolding behind it. This scaffolding
was perhaps some fifteen or twenty feet high, and hanging from its central
supports, in a frightful parody of the Christian crucifixion, stretched
Asterion.
He was completely
naked, his muscular body gleaming with sweat, his black bull's head twisting
slowly from side to side as if he moaned in agony.
Swanne was vaguely
aware that Aldred was still babbling on about babies and wombs and barrenness,
but she could not truly distinguish a word he said. All she could see was
Asterion, crucified before her, blood trickling down his arms, his chest, his
belly.
Then, horrifyingly,
Asterion's head stopped rolling from side to side, and his eyes opened, and
they stared directly at Swanne.
Do you know, the Minotaur whispered in her
mind, of what Ariadne promised me? Do you know, of how much she enjoyed me?
Swanne realized,
frightfully, that the Minotaur was fully erect.
Do you have any idea of how much good
I could do you?
And then he was gone,
and Swanne was left staring open-mouthed at the altar, trembling so badly that
she thought she would tumble to the flagging floor at any moment.
"Swanne!"
she heard Caela say, and felt the woman grasp at her arm. "Swanne!"
And then, in her
mind, It was trickery, Swanne.
Ignore it! He thinks only to taunt you!
Swanne, so slowly she
could feel the tendons behind her eyes popping with the movement, dragged her
eyes away from the altar and to Caela. The woman was staring at her, looking
almost as horrified as Swanne felt.
"Swanne,"
Caela whispered, close enough now that she could put an arm about Swanne's
waist. "Ignore him, I beg you."
"Ignore
me?" Aldred said indignantly, staring bemusedly between the two women.
"Have I said something to upset such noble ladies?"
sevejN
XHAUSTED BY HIS DAY
SPENT INSPECTING THE
abbey, Edward fell
into a dreamless sleep as soon as he closed his eyes. The bowerthegn likewise,
prompted less by exhaustion than a little too much ale taken at supper. Judith,
who often slept in the trestle bed at the foot of the king and queen's great
bed, was not there. Caela had told her she could spend the night with Saeweald,
if she wished. That she, Caela, had no need for her.
In truth, Caela did
not want Judith—who had not realized Asterion's appearance—awake and near,
fretting over Caela's patent and unexplained worry. And so Caela lay awake and
alone, staring at the canopy over the bed, replaying the events of the day over
and over in her mind.
Her hands lay over
the bedcovers, twisting and warping the material until, eventually, broken
threads began to work themselves loose from the weave.
The night deepened.
Well past midnight,
when even the owls were silent, Caela's hands paused, and she raised herself up
on one elbow.
A trapdoor had
materialized within the floor.
"Praise the lady
moon!" Caela whispered and, rising from the bed, she threw a gown hastily
over her nakedness, slipped her feet into some shoes, and snatched at her cloak
that hung from the back of the doorway.
The trapdoor opened,
and an arm and hand emerged, beckoning Caela.
She stepped through
the trapdoor as the arm disappeared, unhesitant.
SHE WALKED WITH THE
SIDLESAGHE THROUGH A
tunnel that seemed
not of this world, or of any that Caela could remember. Above them and to
either side, curved walls made of red clay bricks of a uniformity of shape and
color and of size that Caela had never seen previously.
Even stranger, the
floor of the tunnel consisted of a thick layer of gravel upon which her feet
continually slipped and slithered. Stranger yet, through
this gravel ran two
ribbons of shiny metal as wide and as high as the palm of her hand.
Every so often Caela
noted that the ribbons of metal quivered violently, shaking to and fro, and
when they did this, then a moment later, there invariably came a rush of air so
violent that it almost blew Caela off her uncertain feet.
"We walk through
a part of the Game that is yet to be," said the Sidlesaghe.
"Sometimes this happens."
Caela nodded, curious
but not unbearably so. Asterion, his naked form, his malevolent words, rich
with unknown meaning, kept repeating themselves over and over in her head.
Eventually they came
to an opening within the wall on their right. It was the height and just over
the width of a man, and the Sidlesaghe turned and entered the aperture.
Caela followed,
swallowing down her apprehension.
The footing was
firmer here, gravel no longer, but what felt like brick.
Whatever relief the
footing afforded was consumed almost immediately by the fear caused by the
dark. Caela put her hands to either side of her, using the enclosing brick
walls to orientate herself and to give her some comfort within the blackness.
She could not see anything before her, but could hear the Sidlesaghe's
footsteps ahead of her.
Occasionally she
bumped into his back, and, whenever she did that, Caela lifted one of her hands
from the brick walls and rested it momentarily on the Sidlesaghe's shoulder,
seeking reassurance in his nearness and warmth.
They walked for what
seemed like hours, but which, Caela realized, was probably for only a fraction
of that time, until a faint light emerged before them.
A doorway into the
night.
Caela gave a great
sigh of relief as she followed the Sidlesaghe into the cold night, taking a
moment to recover from her claustrophobia before she looked about her.
They stood within
London before the northern approach to the bridge. Immediately before Caela was
the bridge itself; the two stones of Magog and Gog standing to either side of
its entrance-way.
The Sidlesaghe put a
hand in the small of Caela's back, and she walked forward.
As she did so, the
stones wavered in the gloom, and metamorphosed into Sidlesaghes, slightly
shorter than Long Tom, who had brought her through the tunnel, but otherwise
virtually indistinguishable.
"We saw
Asterion," said the one who had been the stone Magog.
Caela nodded, her
hands pulling the cloak closer about her shoulders.
"He spoke,"
said the one who was Gog.
"It was
vile," said Long Tom.
"What did he
mean?" said Caela, looking between the three Sidlesaghes. "What did
Ariadne promise Asterion?"
"Who can
tell?" said the Gog. "Perhaps it was a falsehood, sent to disturb
you, and Swanne also. Perhaps it was a truth."
"If it is a
truth," said Caela, "then it will be a dangerous one."
"We agree,"
said all three Sidlesaghes simultaneously.
"We have little
time," added Long Tom.
"The
bands," Caela said.
"You must move the
first one tomorrow night," said Magog. "Long Tom shall aid you."
Caela shivered, and
Long Tom placed a surprisingly warm hand on her shoulder.
eigbc
Rouen
HEY HAD LEFT THE
CASTLE AT ROUEN BEFORE
dawn, heavily cloaked
against the frost, their horses' hooves dull ^■p*"*" thuds on
the straw-strewn cobbles of the castle courtyard, and then the frost-hardened
mire of the streets that led to the city gate. They were a small party: William
of Normandy; Harold of Wessex; Walter Fitz Osbern; Ranuld the huntsman, on
horseback himself for this dangerous adventure; Thorkell, a thegn from Sussex,
and Hugh, a thegn from Kent, both of them close companions of Harold's who had
accompanied him on his journey to Normandy; and, finally, two men-at-arms from
William's own personal guard at Rouen. All eight men were heavily armed with
swords and knives and the men-at-arms also carried with them wickedly-sharp,
long pikes, two apiece, which they could share with any other of the hunters as
need be.
The gatekeepers were
awake and alert, having been forewarned of this expedition the previous night.
They bowed as William rode up on his black stallion, then set in motion the
grinding and clanking which signaled the rising of the portcullis. William and Harold
and their companions sat waiting silently, their eyes set ahead, their
expressions drawn, their thoughts on what lay before them, while their horses
stamped and flicked their tails with impatience, lowering their heads and
testing the strength of bit and rein and the hand of the man who held them.
The portcullis
rattled into its place in the heights of the gate, and the riders kicked their
horses forward.
"Which
way?" William said over his shoulder to Ranuld, riding several
paces behind.
Ranuld nodded toward the line of trees that stretched
along a creek some two miles distant. "There, my lord. The report I had
last night said they had nested along that creek bed."
"Take the
lead," William said, and Ranuld kicked his horse forward, guiding the
party toward the distant trees.
For the first few
minutes of the ride, they kept to the road, and William pulled his horse back
until he rode side by side with Harold. He'd given the Saxon earl one of his
best stallions, better even than the one William himself rode, and William
noted that Harold controlled the spirited bay easily and gently. The horse was
unmanageable for most riders, and William had given it to Harold as a test.
Strangely, as he'd
watched Harold gather the stallion's reins and mount, William had found himself
hoping that Harold would be able to control the beast. He
didn't want to see Harold tossed into the mire of the stable yard, or suffer
the humiliation of having the horse bolt from under him while half the garrison
watched from dormitory doorways or leaned over the parapets.
And why not? Brutus would have
relished the chance to arrange Coel's humiliation.
Wouldn't he?
The horse had given
one initial plunge as he felt Harold's weight settle on his back, but then
Harold had taken control, soothing the stallion with a calm but firm voice,
reining him in with a determined yet gentle hand, and stroking the horse's
muscled neck when he'd finally settled.
Then Harold had
turned amused eyes to William, knowing full well that he'd just been set a
test.
William had given the
earl a single nod—that was
well done—and
then mounted himself, leading the party out.
They'd not spoken
since. But now, riding through the hoar-frosted countryside beyond Rouen's walls,
William felt the need to talk.
Honestly.
Harold had been with
William now for some time, and all this time had, after their initial
conversation, been spent in hedging and wary verbal circling, interspersed with
long and significant periods of eye contact over the rims of wine cups. Neither
wanted to concede anything to the other, but both wanted to scry out the
other's strengths and weaknesses as much as possible.
They were, after all,
likely to meet on the battlefield, and this time spent together was as much a
part of that distant battle as would be the eventual clash of sword on sword.
Through all of this,
William had not forgotten Matilda's injunction to be Harold's friend. His wary
circling had as much been sounding out Harold's character as it had his
strengths and weaknesses.
And William had
discovered that he did, indeed, like Harold. The earl was as honest and true a
man as ever William had met, in either of his lives, and William had come to
regret bitterly the actions of his previous life.
Kb
William checked to
ensure that Ranuld, as the riders following them, were not within easy earshot,
and said, "Tell me of Swanne." He made no attempt at dissimulation,
for that would have been an insult to Harold's own integrity. "Did you
ever love her, and she you?" Is that why she lied to me about you, because
then she loved you?
Harold shot William a
wry look. "What is this, William? She has not told you everything that has
passed between us?"
No. "She has only mentioned that she is your wife,
but nothing more." Harold raised his eyebrows, although his gaze had
returned to the road before them. "I am her husband, I am the man who
should rightfully succeed Edward, and I am thus the one she betrays the most,
both as husband and as future king. How strange that she has not mentioned me,
apart from naming me as her husband."
He turned his head,
looking at William once more. "If Matilda betrayed you with, for instance,
the duke of Gascony, and plotted to hand him your duchy, would you not expect
her to hand him some reason for this betrayal? Would you not expect the duke to
ask, 'Why, madam, do you betray your husband and your homeland in this manner?'
I find it passing strange, William, that Swanne does not 'mention me.' You
never thought to ask?"
"I asked her
once, many years ago. She said you were but a man. Nothing
more."
Harold laughed
bitterly. "Just a man. Nothing more. When I first married her I loved her
more dearly than I had thought possible. She bewitched me. You have surely
heard of her loveliness, if not seen for yourself." William nodded, his
eyes now on the road before them. "God, William. I could not believe I had
won such a trophy to my bed. In the early years together, she provided me with
bed sport such as I'd never enjoyed before." William winced.
"And then…"
Harold hesitated. "And then…?"
"And then, as
years passed, I realized that Swanne's loveliness was only a brittle thing. A
sham, meant to bewilder and entrap. Swanne uses her beauty and love only as a
weapon." He paused. "I do not think Swanne knows what love is. Not
truly. William, how is it you have fallen under her spell? What did she use to
entrap you?"
Power. Ambition. The promise of
immortality.
"I am not 'trapped,'" William
said.
Harold grunted.
"I hear tell you
lust for your sister," William said, stung into attack. To his
amazement, Harold
only laughed.
i
"You would have
done far better to recruit Caela to your cause, William. Caela could have been
born the lowliest of peasant women, and still she would have been a
queen." He looked directly at William, forcing the duke to meet his gaze.
"She has true power, William, not
Swanne, and that is beauty of spirit, not darkness of soul."
"Caela is well
served in you, Harold. She has always been so."
"And I in
her," Harold said quietly, and for a time they rode in silence, each
wrapped in their own thoughts.
"Harold,"
William said eventually, "you cannot fight me. When Edward dies, I have
the closest blood link to the English throne. I will have the stronger claim.
Don't oppose me." Please.
Harold grinned, easy
and comfortable, and William felt his stomach turn over. Gods! Was this guilt? A conscience?
"A tenuous blood
link," said Harold, "through your great-aunt, and well you know that
the English throne is not handed automatically from father to son… or from king
to—what are you?—great nephew through marriage. The witan approves and elects
each new king. If there is a strong son with a good claim, then it will lean to
him… but they will not elect you, William. Never."
They lapsed into
silence again. Ranuld had led them from the road, and now their horses were
cantering through stubbled meadowlands, the hay long since cut and carted for
winter fodder. The pace had quickened, and everyone's hearts beat a little
faster.
The tree line of the
creek bed loomed.
"I will invade," William said. "Believe it."
Harold shrugged.
"Then you will meet the might of the Saxon army. You will meet England."
"For sweet
Christ's sake, Harold, I have a battle-hardened force second to none! I have
spent thirty years fighting for this duchy, and I will loose all that
experience on you!"
Unwittingly, Harold
echoed Matilda's words. "And you are prepared to waste another thirty
trying to seize England, William? For I assure you, thirty years of Norman
spilled blood is what it is going to take."
Furious now—although
at quite what, William was not sure—he kicked his horse forward with a terse, "As
you will."
They descended into
the all-but-dry creek bed, their horses slipping and sliding down the steep
slope before splashing into the bare inch of water that wound its sludgy way
around the larger of the stones of the bed.
At the head of the
party, Ranuld reined his horse to a halt and held up his hand. "Prepare
yourselves," he said once the seven other men had pulled up behind him.
"They are not far."
He extended the hand
he'd held up until it was pointing straight ahead. "There," he said,
his tone quieter now. "See? In those bushes lining that slope?"
The other men peered,
some swallowing in nervous anticipation, others tightening their mouths in grim
attempts at fortitude.
All reached for
weapons, and Thorkell and Hugh, Harold's men, took a pike each from the
men-at-arms.
All eight looked
between each other, then forward again, to the distant bushes.
At this time of
morning, when the sun had barely risen, the shadows were so long and strong
about the shrubs that it was difficult to distinguish detail.
Then a shadow moved,
deepened lightly, and a single ray of sunlight, penetrating the deep creek bed,
revealed the roundness of flesh.
A shoulder, perhaps,
or even a haunch.
The shadow moved,
shuffling about, and then, for an instant, the watchers saw a head with thick
curved tusks and small, bright, mean eyes.
William very slowly
withdrew his sword from its leather scabbard and, even with that slight sound,
the creature hiding in the bushes squealed in anger, and the world erupted into
a seething mass of leaves and branches and hot flesh and terrible grinding
tusks.
The riders scattered,
the horses—even as well trained as they were— terrified by the suddenness of
the attack.
A boar, half the size
of a horse, its hairy hide mottled tan and black and pink, had roared from the shrubs and charged down the creek bed toward
the group of riders. It moved with the agility, grace, and power of a master
swordsman, and it used its vicious, deadly tusks with as much effect, breaking
a leg on no less than three horses on its first charge.
The horses went down
in a flurry of snorting fear and flailing legs, tossing their riders onto the
sharp stones of the creek walls and bed.
A man-at-arms was one
of those who was tossed. Horribly, he had fallen directly in the path of the
boar, which had made a nimble turn, and was making a returning charge at the
now disarrayed hunting party.
The man screamed,
rolling away. He got to his knees, his hands reaching for the roots of a tree
higher up the bank, his feet scrabbling for purchase, then the boar slammed
into his back, driving its tusks deep into his ribs.
The man-at-arms
screeched, so terrified—or so paralyzed by pain and shock—that he did not even
think to reach for his sword or knife.
The boar twisted its
head and, aided by the immense muscles in its neck and shoulders, bodily lifted
the man off the ground and tossed him some feet away.
The man, still
screeching, landed with a sickening thud, his head smashing into a large rock.
He convulsed, then
lay still.
The rest of the party
had either gotten their horses back under control or, in the case of the two
riderless men who had regained their feet relatively uninjured, had grabbed
pikes. Now the remaining seven men closed in on the boar, which had now turned
its ire on one of the luckless horses, disemboweling it with two vicious sweeps
of its tusks.
Harold was the
closest and, guiding his horse in with the pressure of his knees and calves, he
hefted his sword. As the boar swung to meet him, he plunged it with all his
strength into the boar's back.
The blade of the
sword missed the boar's spinal cord by a mere inch, burying itself into the
thick muscle that bounded the creature's ribs.
Harold leaned back, meaning to pull the sword free so
he could strike again.
The boar screamed in
rage, rather than pain or despair. Before Harold could twist the sword free,
the boar twisted himself, throwing the weight of his body against the legs of
Harold's horse.
The stallion slipped
to its haunches and Harold, still gripping the haft of the sword, was pulled
out of the saddle both by the motion of the horse and by the continual maddened
twisting of the boar.
He fell, grunting in
surprise as he hit the stones of the creek bed, and slipped in the shallow
water as he tried to right himself.
The boar, Harold's
sword still sticking from its back, had turned and was now watching Harold with
his vicious, intelligent eyes.
Even though there
were other men and horses milling about, and even though Harold could hear the
frantic shouting of Ranuld and William, and of his two companions Thorkell and
Hugh, it felt to him as if there were only two creatures in this world on this
morn: himself, and the maddened, murderous boar.
Very slowly, Harold
managed to rise to his knees, his eyes never leaving those of the boar, and
slowly drew free the long-bladed knife from his belt.
To one side, William
kneed his horse forward, grabbing a pike from one of the other men, and hefting
it in his hand.
The boar had its back
to him, and would be an easy target.
"No,"
whispered Walter Fitz Osbern. Then, a little more strongly, "No!"
He grabbed at the
reins of William's horse, pulling it to a sudden halt and almost unseating
William.
"Let the boar
and Harold settle this," Walter said, meeting William's stunned and
furious gaze. "Let God decide who has the right to take England's throne,
here and now."
"You fool!"
William yelled, and, leaning forward, struck Walter a great blow across the
face that almost unseated the man from his horse.
Frantic, not even
wondering why he should be so frightened, nor so determined, William turned his
horse back toward where the boar faced Harold in the bed of the creek.
To his side, Thorkell
and Hugh were already moving forward.
They were all too
late.
The boar had charged.
Harold was still on
his knees, weaving backward and forward unsteadily from either the force of the
initial impact in the fall from his horse or in panic at the boar's murderous
rush, and had barely time to raise his knife.
"Harold!" William yelled, discarding the pike and
jumping down from his horse. He dashed forward, his sword drawn.
The boar was roaring
again, a horrible, terrible noise of squealing and grunting and screaming, all
in one, and as it came to within two paces of Harold, it tucked its head down
against its chest, presenting its tusks and broad
forehead.
In that instant, that
instant when the boar could not see, Harold fell back, his legs before him, the
back of his head slamming into the trickle of cold
water.
The boar was upon
him, terrible pounding feet, hot, foul breath, a grunting and screeching that
sounded as if it emanated from hell.
Harold cried out
involuntarily as the boar's front feet slammed into his belly and chest and
then, as the boar surged forward, as the boar's great pendulous abdomen brushed
over Harold's chest, Harold brought up the knife with all the strength he had
left, plunging it into the boar's soft underbelly and allowing the forward
motion of the creature to tear itself open.
Blood and bowels
erupted over Harold, smothering him, and in the next moment the entire weight
of the boar crashed into his neck and head, then, mercifully, rolled off to one
side.
"Harold!
Harold!"
William was upon him,
sure that the blood and entrails that coated Harold
must be the man's
own.
"Harold!"
William fell to his knees, straddling Harold's body, and pushing
aside the worst of
the gore.
Beneath it, Harold
slowly opened his eyes.
"Harold?"
Harold raised a hand,
waving it weakly from side to side. He was gasping for air, and William
realized that the boar's death plunge must have winded
him severely. If not worse. "Harold?" "I have… have… but lost… my breath…" Harold
eventually man-
aged. "And… and
my chest and belly throb from where the boar stood on Tostig's treacherous
scars. But I think it is nothing more than bruises."
William breathed a
sigh of unpretended relief. "Thank Christ, our Lord," he said.
"I thought the
boar had me," Harold said.
"I have never
seen such bravery," William said, and all who now crowded about heard the
admiration and respect in his voice.
William rose.
"I had thought
you might have hoped the boar would have taken me," said Harold, slowly
raising himself into a sitting position. He grimaced as he saw the blood and
entrails and pig shit that coated him, and in that grimace missed the cold look
that William shot Walter Fitz Osbern.
"You are my
guest, and my equal. I had not wanted you dead," William said.
Harold looked up at
him. "And you didn't think that my death here and now would be only to
your advantage?"
William stared at
Harold for a long moment before answering. "I did not want your death
now," he finally said, quietly but with great feeling, "as I do not
want it for the future. England would always be the sorrier place for your
lack, Harold. I would be the sorrier man for your death."
And he held out his
hand.
"You are a most
strange adversary," Harold said, gripping William's hand and using it to
pull himself upright.
"I am not your
enemy," William said. "I will not be one to laugh over your corpse,
Harold."
Now upright, Harold
changed his grasp so that now both men gripped each other by the forearm rather
than by the hand. Strangely, he seemed to know what William was thinking.
"Do not trust Swanne," Harold said softly, only for William's ears. "Never
trust her."
In answer, William
merely stared, then gave a very small nod. In this they understood each other.
Then he let Harold's
arm go, turned, and dealt Walter Fitz Osbern such a heavy blow to his chin that
the man staggered and fell to his knees.
"Never dishonor
me again," William said, then stalked off for his horse.
Caela Speaks
OVING THE BANDS HAD
SO MANY INHERENT
dangers, yet the
first and most difficult task (or so I believed at the time) was simply
ensuring I was not missed. Moving the i^c*nd was something Long Tom had told me
I could not do as Damson, so somehow I had to ensure that no one would make
note of the queen's absence for what might be virtually the entire night.
In the end, this
first obstacle was reasonably and easily accomplished. I gave a moan during our
supper, placed a hand on my belly, and looked apologetically at Edward, who had
paused with a spoon of broth half raised to his
open mouth.
I managed to color.
"My flux," I murmured, lowering my eyes modestly.
And so I removed
myself to the solar, where I usually slept during these phases of the moon.
Edward kept his bowerthegn, and I dismissed all my ladies, save for Judith.
There, at the darkest
hour of the night, Long Tom came to me. WE DESCENDED THROUGH ANOTHER OF
HIS STRANGE,
eerie trapdoors (I
resolved that I should ask him how he managed it, this descent into the twists
of the labyrinth), and into that even stranger tunnel he had led me only the
previous night. Again the metal rails that lined the gravel bed trembled and
vibrated from time to time, and again I was overwhelmed as, from time to time,
a great rush of air filled the tunnel and rushed past us.
A part of the Game that is yet to be.
"We will have to
be very careful tonight," the Sidlesaghe said, and I nodded, lost in
thought of what was to come.
"This will be
the one time you are going to be able to do this in relative safety," he
continued.
"I know," I
said. "Once Asterion and William and Swanne realize that one band has been
moved, then they will be alert for a further…" I stopped, not knowing how
to express myself.
"Intrusion,"
said the Sidlesaghe, and again I nodded. He took my hand, and squeezed it.
"So we will make the most of this night, eh?"
I tried to smile for
him, but in truth I was nervous. Not so much by the thought of Asterion's—or
any other's—wrath and reaction, but at touching the bands themselves. I
remembered how they had always been so much a part of Brutus, so much a wholeness with him, that I could barely imagine the thought of
the bands away from him.
And yet they were
apart from him, were they not? And were they not also to be given to another,
in time? I remembered the vision of the Stag God Og, alive and vibrating with
power, running through the forest, the bands about his legs. My lover, and thus I must be the one to take these
bands, and give them to him.
At this moment,
walking down this otherworldly tunnel with the Sidlesaghe, it all seemed
impossible.
"Faith,"
said Long Tom, giving my hand another squeeze. "What seems hopeless when
you look across a vast distance, to what must be ultimately accomplished, seems
possible when you only look at the task a step at a time. Tonight you will move
one of the bands and make the Game and this land just that little bit safer. In
a little while, perhaps a week, perhaps a month, you will move another band,
and we will cope together with whatever danger threatens us on that
occasion."
"You say I must move the bands. Are you not able to touch
them?"
"No," he
said. "Only the Kingman or the Mistress of the Labyrinth can truly touch
them, and not suffer."
"Then how can I?
I am not yet—"
"But you will one day be." The Sidlesaghe paused, both in
speech and in walking, and I stopped as well and watched him as he tried to
find words for what he wanted to express. "The Game sometimes shows
portions of itself which are yet to be," he said, "and sometimes it
can accept things that are not yet, but which will be."
"Because it
wants me to be the Mistress of—"
"No. Because you
will one day be the Mistress of the
Labyrinth."
My mouth twisted.
"The Game hopes?"
"The Game knows. It has already created the future, and in some
manner, already lives it."
I was suddenly,
inexplicably, angry. "Then why do I fight, or strive, if all this will be. Why do I worry, if all this is set into stone as surely as…
as…" I waved my hand about the strange tunnel.
Just then there was
an eerie whining in the tunnel, and one of those almost incomprehensible rushes
of air. The gravel rattled under our feet, and the metal strips vibrated and
sang, and both the Sidlesaghe and I had to take a deep breath and steady
ourselves until the phenomenon had passed.
"Because,"
the Sidlesaghe said, very gently once the wind had passed, and our world had
calmed, "the Game needs you to strive."
I stood there, gazing
into the creature's gentle face, and felt like weeping. At that moment I did
not feel like Mag, or the queen of England—I just felt… I just felt like poor,
lost Cornelia, caught in a struggle that she neither wished for nor instigated.
The Sidlesaghe
reached out his large hand and laid it softly, warmly against my cheek.
"There are many futures," he said, "all existing side by side.
We all need to strive to ensure we reach the right future."
I nodded wordlessly,
hating the tears in my eyes. That I could live with. The possibility of many
futures, not just one certain one.
"And in all of
them," he said, "you will be the Mistress of the Labyrinth. Thus you
can touch the bands."
I nodded again,
feeling a little better.
"And in some of
them," the Sidlesaghe continued, "you will also be Asterion's whore,
his creature, his vassal. We must avoid that future." My mouth dropped
open in my horror. "You can see—" "I know only of the possibilities," he said.
"No more." I shuddered, and we walked forward. We held our silence
for some time, then I spoke again, wanting to hear the Sidlesaghe's amicable
voice again.
"I sometimes feel an emptiness within me," I
said. "An incompleteness. Is this because I am a virgin, and this is
anathema to what I should be as Mag?" Long Tom nodded. "This is very
true. I am glad you thought of it." It was Silvius who had thought of it,
but I thought it best to let the Sidlesaghe believe I had come to this
understanding on my own. "I need to unite myself to the land. Mate with
it."
"Aye," the
Sidlesaghe said, looking sideways at me, his mouth curling in a smile.
"Choose well," he said, and winked.
I laughed, partly at
his mischievousness, but mostly because he had allayed those few niggling
reservations I'd had about what Silvius had suggested.
"Oh," I
said, "I shall." Who better than Silvius, who was so closely
associated with the Troy Game?
We lapsed into
silence once more, and eventually the Sidlesaghe led me into a side tunnel, as
narrow as that which once had brought me to the approach to London Bridge.
This time we did not
emerge before the bridge, but just before the great west gate of London. In
former times, when I had been Cornelia, the sad,
abused wife of
Brutus, this gate had been called Og's Gate. Now the people called it Ludgate,
after Lud Hill.
The gates—thick,
wooden constructions—hung between two ten-pace-high stone towers. The towers
had narrow slit windows so that archers could shoot at any approaching enemy—I
half expected an arrow to fly toward us at any moment—and parapets at their
tops where further archers and spearmen could let fly their missiles.
Beyond the gates
stretched the ancient stone and brick walls of London: part Roman construction,
part British, part Saxon and, for what I understood of them and of what had
founded them, of part magical construction as well.
I looked back to the
towers to either side of the barred gates. I knew that normally guards watched
atop these towers at night. I peered closely, and saw motionless shadows just
behind some of the stone ramparts.
I looked at the
Sidlesaghe.
"Shall they see
us?" he said softly, returning my querying look with one of his own.
It was a test, but of
understanding rather than of power.
"No," I
said. "We do not exist within their perception. We are here, but not
within their own expectations of reality. We are beyond what they expect, or can even imagine, and so they
will not see us."
"And if it were
Asterion, or Swanne, or William watching on those towers?"
"Then we would
be discovered."
"Aye.
Come."
We walked forward and
when we reached the gates, they swung open as if by invisible hands, closing
silently behind us once we had walked through. The Sidlesaghe led me through
the empty street leading to St. Paul's atop Lud Hill, and as he did so, I
thought about what I had said.
The guards could not see us because
we existed beyond their expectations of reality; beyond what they could even
imagine.
If that was so, then
what could I see if I truly opened my eyes?
The instant that
thought had passed through my mind, and I had opened myself to possibilities beyond what I expected, the empty street suddenly filled
with life. A great, shadowy crowd thronged the street. These people were not
alive, not in this present, but they were the
memories of people who had been and the possibilities of people who would be.
I stopped, gazing
open-mouthed at people dressed in the strangest of apparel, the great draperies
of Roman senators, or the tightly clothed passengers, who sat in horseless
vehicles that seemed to move of their own volition, placing burning fags in
their mouths, as if in enjoyment!
"Don't!" the Sidlesaghe said.
I jerked my eyes to
his face.
O
"We have not the
time for this now," he said.
And I heard his
unspoken thought, Besides, if
you see the myriad possibilities inherent in the many futures that await you,
then you may not have the heart
to continue.
I blinked,
suppressing… not the vision as such, but the understanding of
the possibility of
it.
Slowly, the shadowy,
unnatural throng faded from view.
"You have the
power to see too much," the Sidlesaghe said, more gently now, "and
you will overwhelm yourself. Now, come with me, and we will walk
softly for a
time."
In a short while we
stood at the base of the steps leading to the western— and main—doors of St.
Paul's. I raised my foot to begin the climb, but the Sidlesaghe's grip on my
hand tightened, and I stopped.
"We do not
enter?" I said.
"No."
"Where do we
go?" I said.
"Tonight we will
move the closest band. Brutus hid them both within the city, and about its
boundaries."
I turned slightly so
I could look down the street we had traveled to reach
St. Paul's.
"Ludgate?"
"Aye," he
said. "An obvious choice, and one Asterion himself thought of." "Why couldn't he find it, then? There cannot be
many places to hide a golden-limb band for one who is prepared to raze
everything to the foundations and beyond."
"Because the
band must be approached in a certain manner." He faced me completely,
taking both my hands in his. "Caela, what do you understand of Asterion?
Of his nature?"
I thought,
remembering all I had been told, and what I had gleaned during • my long wait
in death. "He is the Minotaur, the creature in the heart of the labyrinth
whom Theseus slew." "Aye. And…?"
"Asterion
controls great power, dark power, the power of the heart of the labyrinth,
which is… which is…" I did not know quite how to phrase it, and the
Sidlesaghe, seeing that I understood and lacked only the ability to explain in
words, finished the sentence for me.
"Asterion
controls the power of the heart of the labyrinth, his dark power is kept
in check by the labyrinth, by the Game, itself."
"Yes, thus
Asterion wants the Game destroyed so that he and his dark power can ravage free
across the world."
"Brutus hid the
golden kingship bands by using the power of the Game,
which—"
"Which Asterion
does not yet know how to use or control, thus he cannot find them!"
The Sidlesaghe
laughed in delight. "Yes!"
Now it was my turn to
smile. "But you know the Game, and you are of the land. Both land and Game
know where the bands lie. You know how to approach them."
I paused. "But only I can touch them."
"So I will show
you the path, and walk it with you, but when it comes to the band itself, you
are the only one who can touch it. You are
the only one who will be a part of their future."
I thought of my
lover, running wild and free and strong through the forest, the bands glinting
about his limbs. "Apart from… him."
"Aye."
Again he squeezed my hands. "Caela, I must say something. When we reach
the band, there will be a shock waiting there for you."
I did not like the
sound of this. "A shock?"
"Brutus,"
he said.
CbAPGGR G6JM
/^%T HE SWALLOWED, AND THE SIDLESAGHE COULD
•"T8"""""""1^
see the fear, and want, and the desperate love in her face.
"I do not know
if I dare see him again," she said, and began
to weep.
The Sidlesaghe
groaned, and gathered her to him, rocking her back and forth until her weeping
had abated somewhat. Caela might face dragons and imps from hell, and the
Sidlesaghe knew she would face them with courage and resolve, but confront her
with the man she had loved so desperately and Caela's resolve and courage vanished
in an instant.
"You must,"
he eventually said. "It will not be as difficult as you think."
"How so?"
she said, leaning back and dashing away her tears with her hand.
"He will not
know you are there, but only, only if you do not allow your eyes to
meet with his. I will be with you, and I must abide by the same command myself.
Neither of us can allow our eyes to meet with his. If we keep our eyes cast
down, then he will overlook us, just as the guards in the towers
overlooked us."
She nodded, some of
her composure regained. "And if he sees us?"
"Then we, and
this land, are undone. The band will vanish, turn to dust. Asterion shall have
won."
Caela closed her
eyes, drew in a deep breath, held it, then let it out. "Long Tom… where are
we going to move the band to?"
The Sidlesaghe
laughed, and stroked one of her cheeks with a thumb. "We will move this
one in honor of your brother, Harold."
She frowned, puzzled.
"To the west of
Westminster," the Sidlesaghe said, "is a small manor and village
where once Earl Harold held court in the hall of a trusted
friend."
Her frown deepened,
then suddenly cleared. "Cynesige, who controls the estates and village of
Chenesitun. He has ever been a true friend to not only Harold, but to our
entire family."
"Aye. Chenesitun
is the place to where the Game wants this first band moved."
"Why
there?"
"Because the
earl's court will become a focal point in the Game that is yet to be
played," the Sidlesaghe said, then grinned wryly at the confusion on
Caela's face. "Or where it is playing, in some corner of the Game's
existence. This is what the Game requires, and so this is what we shall do. It
will make the land a little stronger. Once the band has been moved, you will feel the renewed strength within yourself and within this
land."
"Long Tom,"
Caela said, frowning a little, "how is it that you—and your kind—and the
Game 'talk'? How do you know these things?"
The Sidlesaghe
laughed, joyous, and Caela realized that he must spend much of his existence
laughing. "We sing to each other, my love. Under the starlight. We hum."
"Oh," she
said, not quite able to imagine this.
The Sidlesaghe
grinned. "Now, are you ready?"
She nodded, but the
Sidlesaghe saw that her knuckles had whitened where her hands clutched at the
cloak.
"We will survive
this night, at least," he said, "if you remember what I said about
not meeting Brutus' eyes."
Again Caela nodded,
and so the Sidlesaghe took one of her hands, and he led her about St. Paul's,
first sun-wise, then counter-sun-wise. He walked deliberately but briskly,
keeping Caela close by his side so that they walked almost as one.
Once they had
completed the counter-sun-wise circuit of the boundary of St. Paul's, the
Sidlesaghe led her north along a narrow street, then after a few minutes
executed a sharp turn to the east, crossing through a vegetable garden.
"What…"
Caela began to ask, then apparently realized herself. "We are traversing
the labyrinth," she said.
"Aye. Not quite
the same labyrinth that Brutus caused to be built atop Og's Hill, but one very
similar if a little more convoluted. He hid each band within its own
labyrinth—or, rather, guarded it by its own labyrinthine enchantment—so that
only one skilled in the ways of the labyrinth could find them again." He
paused. "Or one whom the labyrinth allowed to enter."
"The Game will
not allow Asterion to traverse the labyrinthine ways to the bands."
"No. There are
six labyrinthine enchantments for each of the six golden bands of Troy, and
Asterion does not know them. He cannot traverse them."
"Without either
Brutus—William—or you, or another of your kind."
"Or you,"
the Sidlesaghe said, noting, but not this time laughing at, the
sudden frown on
Caela's face. "And he shall not have me, nor as many of the bands as we
can hide from William. Come, enough chatter. The night fades, and we have much
work to do before morning."
They continued to
walk through London, their pace picking up further speed, the greater distance
they traveled through the labyrinthine enchantment. The Sidlesaghe led Caela
through twists and turns, great circles and tight curves, traversing the
greater part of the city west of the bridge.
Eventually the
Sidlesaghe brought Caela to a stop before Ludgate.
Save that now the
twin towers and the walls and the very gates themselves had vanished.
Instead there rose
before them a small circle of standing stones, like, yet unlike, the Stone
Dances that Caela had seen in her travels as Cornelia. They were as tall as the
uprights in the Stone Dances, but more graceful, being composed of tapered
fluted columns, which were topped with stone scrollwork. There were twelve of
these columns, and they encircled a clear space that was lit with a soft golden
radiance.
"These
stones," Caela murmured, transfixed by the sight. "Are they…?"
"Aye. They are
of our number as well. When Brutus first constructed this enchantment, they
were of his world, bloodless, lifeless creatures. But as the years passed, we
inhabited them, one by one."
"So now the
Sidlesaghes stand guard over the bands."
"And you,
now." The Sidlesaghe's hold on Caela's hand tightened momentarily, then he
led her forward.
As they approached
the columned circle, he paused, and whispered against Caela's ear,
"Remember, do not meet his eyes."
She nodded, her eyes
on the radiance beyond the columns.
They walked forward
slowly.
As they reached the
columns, and paused between two of them, the Sidlesaghe felt Caela tense.
"Remember!" he whispered, and she managed a tight nod.
Brutus stood in the
center of the circle.
He was naked, save
for the six golden bands of Troy he wore about his limbs. His tightly curled
black hair flowed down his back, lifting a little in some unfelt breeze.
He was walking very
slowly and very deliberately about the center of the circle, his head down, his
eyes fixed on the ground intently, as if he studied it
for flaws.
Then suddenly he
stopped, and raised his head, and looked directly toward where the Sidlesaghe
and Caela stood.
The Sidlesaghe looked
at Caela's face, then tugged urgently at her hand.
Caela had been
looking straight at Brutus, as he'd stopped and raised his eyes to them, a look
of utter want on her face, and she only managed to jerk her eyes downward in
the barest instant before her gaze would have met that of Brutus'.
The Sidlesaghe kept
his eyes fixed on Caela's face. "Remember!" he hissed at her.
Brutus walked slowly
toward them.
The Sidlesaghe felt
Caela tremble.
Brutus halted a pace
away and the Sidlesaghe could sense his puzzlement, even if he could not
directly look at Brutus' face.
"Genvissa?"
Brutus said. "Is that you? Genvissa?"
Caela moaned, then
bit her lip, and the Sidlesaghe understood the effort it took her not to look
at Brutus.
"Genvissa?"
Brutus said one more time. He stood still, looking forward intently, and the
Sidlesaghe knew that Brutus felt something.
"Oh gods,"
Brutus said, his voice breaking, "where are you, Genvissa?"
The Sidlesaghe
thought Caela would break at that moment. Her breath was coming in short jerks,
her entire body was shaking, her head was trembling uncontrollably.
Any moment she was going to lift her
eyes to Brutus, and call his name.
"In one of your
futures," the Sidlesaghe said, very softly, "it will not be her name he calls, and then you will be able to lift your
head and meet his eyes. Remember that."
The compassion in his
voice steadied Caela. She closed her eyes, gained some control of herself, then
squeezed the Sidlesaghe's hand very slightly.
/ will not look.
"Genvissa?"
Brutus said one more time, but his tone was less sure now, less urgent, and
after a moment he turned and walked back to the center of the circle.
He stood—fortunately
now with his back to the Sidlesaghe and Caela, which meant they could watch him
directly—and looked down for a long time, then he sighed and seemed to come to
a decision within himself. He lifted his left hand and, slowly, with great
precision, slid the golden band that encircled his right forearm down over his
wrist.
He hesitated as it
reached his hand, and, the muscles of his back visibly clenching, he slid the
band over his hand, squatted, and placed the band on the ground before him. He
lifted his right hand, and made a complex movement over the band as it lay on
the ground.
"He is creating
the labyrinthine enchantment that we just traversed," the Sidlesaghe
whispered into Caela's ear, and she gave a small nod.
Brutus finished,
standing upright.
And then, in the
space of a breath, he vanished, and both Caela and the Sidlesaghe let out their
breaths in long, relieved sighs.
"Take it,"
the Sidlesaghe said, nodding to the band where it lay on the ground. "Take
it. You will be safe."
Caela paused, then
walked into the circle. She stood before the band, then leaned down and,
without any hesitation, picked it up.
Part Five
Don't jump on the cracks, or the
monster will snatch!
Traditional
children's hopscotch song
London, March
- '%//% ATILDA FLANDERS TURNED TO
FRANK BENTLEY,
who was still looking at her
open-mouthed. "Frank," she said, "I wasn't a staid widow all my
life. I was a young girl once." She glanced at Jack Skelton, then looked
back to Frank and winked. "And kicked up my heels a bit, if you know what
I mean."
Bentley blushed.
"With Major Skelton?"
Violet Bentley said.
"I wasn't always so old and
haggard," Skelton said dryly. "Matilda, Ecub, I need to speak with
you. Please."
"Major—" said
Frank.
"Just for fifteen minutes,"
said Skelton, turning to Bentley. "I won't hold you up. Go inside now, and
have that breakfast Violet has cooked."
Bentley stifled his curiosity,
nodded, then put his arm about Violet's shoulder and led her back into their
house.
The instant the door closed behind
them, Skelton turned back to the two women.
"Where is my daughter?"
Matilda and Ecub glanced at each
other.
"Probably with Stella," said Matilda. Then,
hastily, as Skelton's face registered his dismay, added, "Stella will—"
"My daughter is with the
greatest of Darkwitches that ever lived?" Skelton said, his voice rising.
"With Asterion's whore?"
Ecub stepped forward, grabbed his arm,
and pulled him toward Matilda's front door. "Don't be a fool, Jack.
'Asterion's whore' can take care of her as well as anyone."
"But—"
"For gods' sakes, Jack!" Ecub hissed. "Don't
you know that in her last life Cornelia asked Stella to look after the child
should …"
O
Her voice trailed away.
"Should Asterion take Cornelia," Skelton said
woodenly. "So Asterion does
have Cornelia."
"Come inside," said
Matilda, taking his hand, "and have a cup of tea."
©N
ATILDA WAS ALWAYS
A LIGHT SLEEPER,
drifting in and out
of awareness as a night progressed. She would wake to hear William's heavy
breathing beside her, and she would smile, and touch him, knowing all was well
with her world, and drift back into a deeper unconsciousness for a time.
William lapsed into deep sleep the instant he lay down, sleeping soundly the
entire night through, but Matilda did not for an instant begrudge him his deep
sleep. Those secret, brief moments when she would wake, and touch him, were
precious to her.
She woke this night
as she so often did, still half-dreaming, and reached out to touch William's
arm.
The instant her
fingertips touched his skin, he burst from the bed, shouting, screaming, incoherent with… what? Matilda did not know. She cried out herself,
stunned, unable for the moment to make any sense of a world that had so
suddenly erupted into the unexplainable.
Were they under
attack?
Were there assassins
in the bedchamber?
William was raging
about the chamber, crying out insensibly, beating at walls, at his head,
smashing a ewer and several wine cups halfway across the chamber.
The door burst open,
and men-at-arms and valets and chamberlains, groggy themselves with either
sleep or shock or both, staggered into the room to instantly reel out of the
way as William continued his maddened rampage.
"William!"
Matilda shouted, snatching at a robe to clothe herself as she stumbled from the
bed. "William!"
"The band!"
he screamed. "The band!"
Matilda burst into
terrified sobs, certain that her husband had been struck with a brain fever so
appalling he would shortly drop dead. She sank to her knees, unable to cope,
her hands laced over her bowed head, while above her William continued to
shout, to rage, and to roar.
"The
band! Who has laid hand to the band?"
LIKE WILLIAM, SWANNE
ALSO KNEW ONE OF THE bands had been touched, handled by someone other
than she or William.
Who? Who? Who?
Unlike William,
Swanne did not roar and rage. Instead she curled up in her bed, sweating in
terror, the coverlets pulled up about her chin, staring frantic-eyed about the
darkness of her chamber.
If it were William
who had laid a hand to the Kingman band, she would
have known it.
But this was not
William's doing. This was the work of someone else.
Who?
No! No! Not… Asterion?
Swanne whimpered,
feeling all her habitual arrogance and surety bleed away into the unknown
night. It was no accident, surely, that so soon after Asterion had taunted her (Do you know of what Ariadne promised me? Do you know
of how much she enjoyed me?) a band was moved.
Swanne fought back
panic.
She had never felt so
alone, so powerless, in her entire life.
ASTERION HAD BEEN
AWAKE, TORTURING WITH CRUEL
words and spiteful
fingers a small naked boy he had tied face down, spread-eagled across his bed.
He stopped suddenly,
frozen half-bent over the sobbing boy, then he slowly raised his head, his eyes
narrowed, his lips drawing back over his teeth in a silent snarl.
"Who?" he hissed. "Who? Who has found a
band?"
William? Had William slunk unnoticed
into the country?
Asterion felt a
moment of intense fear. He had
not expected William to be
this bold!
And yet, why not, eh?
What if William was not willing to dance to Asterion's tune? What if he had
decided to circumvent everything Asterion had so carefully planned?
What if William had donned the garb
of a merchant, or common seaman, and jumped off ship at a London dock, seeking
out the bands before Asterion was ready to intercept him?
"No!"
Asterion said. "It cannot be William. Think, man." He looked down to the boy who continued
to cry, save that now his wails grew louder as he twisted his face about and
saw the expression on the face of the man standing over him.
The man reached down
and touched the boy, tweaked him, and the boy shrieked.
"Not
William," said Asterion softly. "Not William at all."
Who then?
Her. It had to be. Damn her to all
hells. It had to be her.
"But how has she
found them? What magic has she employed?"
Was she stronger than he thought?
That thought
disturbed Asterion, and he sighed, and considered the boy. It would have been
fun to play with him a little longer, but…
He took hold of a
large wooden crucifix that hung on the wall next to the bed and dealt the boy a
shattering blow to the back of his head, then one to the back of his ribs, and
then yet again to the boy's neck.
When he had done, the
boy lay still, barely alive, blood seeping from his battered body.
In any other
circumstances, the sight would have stimulated Asterion into the heights of
sexual passion. Tonight, however, he merely tossed the crucifix down onto the
boy's body with a grunt, and reached for his robe.
When he had garbed
himself, and wiped away those splatters of the boy's blood that had marked his
face, he left the chamber.
"Throw him in
the river," he said to the shadowy man waiting patiently outside, and the
man nodded, and slipped inside the door.
By the time the
servant emerged, the boy's shattered body wrapped in a blanket, Asterion had
long vanished into the night.
"HAROLD!"
WILLIAM SUDDENLY DECLARED, AND
Matilda carefully
raised her head.
There had been the
suggestion of sanity in that single utterance.
"Harold,"
William said again, his voice firmer now. "Harold."
To Matilda, it seemed
as if William uttered that name as a mantra, as the lifeline that would pull
him back into reality.
She very carefully
rose to her feet. About the chamber stood various men-at-arms and servants, all
staring, none knowing what to do or say.
"Harold,"
William said one more time, then, as naked as that moment he'd erupted from the
bed, shouldered his way through the watching men, and half ran through the
halls and chambers of the castle toward Harold's chamber.
Grabbing a cloak,
Matilda hurried after him.
CbAPCGR GUDO
AROLD SHARED A
CHAMBER WITH THORKELL
and Hugh off a
cloistered walk some distance away in the castle complex.
That distance gave
William time to think.
At first he'd raced
from the bedchamber he shared with Matilda, as though every moment it took to
reach Harold would somehow mean another moment in which whoever it was had to steal the arm band away completely. William
could feel which band it was—the lower right
forearm band, which he'd secreted at the western gate of Troia Nova—and could
feel its movement away.
He couldn't have
explained that sense of "away" to anyone else, let alone himself. The
arm band, his kingship band,
his power, his future, was being stolen away from him.
Away.
And yet how could
this be? That band, all the
bands, were
protected by a labyrinthine enchantment that meant only another Kingman or
William's partner in the Game, Swanne, could touch it, let alone find it.
And it could not be
Swanne, for he had not told her where the bands were.
Yet she had asked for their location. Could she have scried out the
bands' resting places, and decided to move them anyway?
It was the only
explanation that William could think of, unless… unless Asterion had somehow
managed to find a band.
Could he move it?
William didn't know.
Possibly. Asterion was a creature of the labyrinth and of the Game; he was the
brother of Ariadne, the most powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth there had ever
been; and he had increased in power and knowledge through all the lives he had
passed through since Ariadne had set him free from both death and the Game.
Could it be Asterion?
"Oh God," William
groaned, and stumbled to a halt just as he reached the door of Harold's
chamber.
He was vaguely aware
that he'd been followed in his mad dash through the castle by a bevy of
servants, men-at-arms, and Matilda, all of whom doubtless thought he was about
to murder Harold in a state of dream-induced madness.
And what was he going
to do now that he was here? Break down the door, haul
Harold from his bed and demand the name of whoever it was who had the arm band?
Harold would not
know. He was not even aware of what part he played in this cursed Game.
Was he?
What if Harold was aware, and had thus far deluded William into thinking
he had no idea who he had been?
What if Harold and Swanne were in
league, against William?
No! No, that could
not be.
William suddenly
realized he was standing inanely by the closed door to Harold's chamber, so
close his forehead was actually resting on the wood, and the sentry who stood
further down the cloistered walk was staring at him as if he were moon-crazed.
William sighed,
straightened, and looking to where Matilda stood several paces away with his
cloak, smiled ruefully and held out his hand.
"Are you well,
husband?" she asked, as she stepped up to him. From what William could see
of her expression in this barely lit place, her eyes were narrowed and
suspicious.
"I have had ill
news given to me in dream," he said. "I need to speak with
Harold."
"Be
careful," she said, and William knew she was not saying Be careful of Harold, but, Do
not harm Harold.
William nodded, threw
the cloak about his shoulders, and dismissed the crowd of watchful, concerned
men who stood at some distance. "Go now," he said to them. "I am
sorry that I have disturbed your night."
"William?"
said Matilda.
"I will talk
awhile with Harold," he said, and bent down to kiss her. "Do not
fret. I shall not slaughter him. But perhaps he can calm my mind. Wait for me
in our chamber."
When she had gone,
the servants and men-at-arms trailing behind her, William turned once more to
Harold's door, and thumped softly on it with his fist.
It opened almost
immediately.
Harold stood behind
the door, fully dressed, his chamber glowing with the light of several lamps.
Thorkell and Hugh
stood only a pace behind Harold, their expressions wary, hands on the knives in
their belts.
"You're
awake?" said William, and again doubts assailed him. Why? Had he made
that much commotion in his mad race from his own bedchamber to Harold's?
"There is
trouble," Harold said, and William's eyes narrowed.
"Oh, aye, there is trouble. But how do you know of it?"
In answer, Harold
looked to Thorkell and Hugh, then to William, then back to his two companions.
"I would speak
awhile with William," he said, and, understanding the message, Thorkell
and Hugh left the chamber, pushing past William with set, careful expressions
on their faces.
"You will find
warmth and light and companionship in the kitchens," William said to them.
"I have no doubt that most of the castle is awake and restless this
night."
The instant Harold
closed the door behind him, William spoke again. "There is great trouble
in London," he said, searching Harold's face for knowledge of what had—was—happening.
"You dreamed
it?" Harold said. He walked to a stool by a glowing brazier,
and sat down heavily.
"Aye, I dreamed
of it. But it was a dream of reality, not of fancy." William stayed by the
door, watching Harold closely.
The Saxon earl looked
haggard, as if he, too, had dreamed horribly. William saw him rub gently at his
belly, and wince slightly as he shifted on the stool, and thought that the wild
boar's bruises must be paining him.
"Caela is in
danger," Harold said, and William's jaw almost sagged in surprise.
"Caela? You dreamed of Caela?" "Aye. She and I have ever been close—"
William's mouth twisted.
"—closer than
most brothers and sisters. Sometimes, when she has been frightened or unwell I
have known it, even though she be at a great distance. Tonight… tonight I
dreamed that a great beast, something monstrous,
pursued her through a land of broken stone and tumbled walls. Ah!" Harold
lifted his hand from his belly and rubbed at his eyes. "I cannot
understand it. What I do understand is that there is
trouble afoot, great trouble, and that somehow
it involves
Caela."
When has there ever been trouble
about that has not involved her? William thought, but there was no hatred in that thought. He
took a stool opposite Harold, pulling the cloak comfortably about his body, and
leaning forward close to the brazier. "Something is wrong tonight,"
he said. "I also had a dream."
"Of Caela?"
William looked at
Harold sharply, but saw nothing in the man's face other
than genuine concern
and puzzlement. "No," he said. "Just of… of trouble.
Harold…"
"Aye?"
"Harold, are you
in league with Swanne against me?"
Harold stared at
William, then grinned, genuinely and freely. "Nay, William. Put that from
your mind. I do not plot with Swanne against you. I may plot with the rest of
England against you, but I do not plot with Swanne."
William stared at
Harold, then laughed softly, deprecatingly. How twisted his life had become to
be so relieved that Harold only plotted with all of England against him, but
not with a single woman! And Harold was
telling the truth. William could see it. Coel had never lied, could never lie,
could not even begin to contemplate the art of dissimulation, and Coel's spirit
shone so true and bright from Harold's eyes that William believed utterly that
he was telling the truth.
Whatever else Harold
might be doing, he wasn't doing it in league with Swanne.
"Will you share
some wine?" said Harold, standing and walking to a chest, atop which stood
several jugs and cups. "I think Thorkell and Hugh may have left us a
drop."
"Aye," said
William. "Thank you."
But as he drank, and
as he exchanged friendly words with Harold, William's mind drifted back to
London, where he could feel the arm band moving farther and farther from that
place where he'd left it.
Caela? No, surely not. Surely?
And if so, how'?
William suddenly
remembered that moment when he and Genvissa had been dancing the final dance,
which would have completed the Game, building the gate of flowers to the
entrance of the labyrinth. He remembered that single horrifying moment when he
had seen Cornelia stepping forth, running forth, drawing from her robe
Asterion's wicked blade.
Caela?
Caela and Asterion?
God! Was Caela now so completely
Asterion's creature that she could manipulate the Game's mysteries?
William realized that
Harold had stopped, as if he'd said something that required William's comment.
"What?" he
said stupidly.
"I asked,"
said Harold, "if you would swear your support to my succession to the
English throne. Your lips were forming the word, 'Yes,' I think."
William shot him an
amused look. "That was not what you asked."
"Well… no. But I
thought you so lost in your own thoughts that I might
catch you unawares
and gain your support for my accession without a single blow being
struck."
"I do not want
to kill you, Harold."
"No,"
Harold said softly. "I don't believe you do. If you and I had met under
different circumstances, I think we would have been true friends."
William nodded,
accepting the truth of it. "Harold…" he said.
"Aye?"
"Will you tell
me of Caela?"
"How
strange," said Harold, "for when I return to my homeland, I have
every expectation that Caela will ask me to tell her of you."
cbRee
Caela Speaks
HE SIDLESAGHE HAD
TOLD ME THIS MOVING OF
the first Kingman
band would be a true test of my abilities and understanding, but I found it far
easier than he had intimated.
I picked up the band,
and held it in my cupped hands, studying it.
How it reminded me of
Brutus. How many times had this band and its fellows rubbed against me, pressed
against me, as Brutus lay with me? Earlier in our marriage I had loathed it,
for those bands and their pressing against me represented his victory over me.
Later, when I had come more to my senses, I had loved the feel of them against
my skin as I had loved the feel of Brutus against me.
Then, later still,
when I had murdered Genvissa, and Brutus had taken me back to wife in order to
hate and punish me, I had missed those bands. Brutus had hidden them, and their
lack represented all that had been buried and hidden between us: love, respect,
warmth, want.
I breathed in deeply,
feeling the band as it rested in my hands.
It was not cold, as one might expect metal—even golden metal—to be, but was
warm, as if it still retained the warmth and vitality of Brutus' body. Of
course, now I understood differently. These bands had power and life of their
own, and this warmth reflected that life as also the life and power of the
Game.
The band was
beautiful. Strangely, given that I had spent so much time with Brutus in the
two years or so before I destroyed everything before us in the interest of land
and Game, I had never truly examined them before this moment. Almost three
fingers wide, the band was incredibly finely wrought in metal that was itself
so refined it visibly glowed. About its surface, craftsmen had worked the
symbol of the Trojan kings: the stylized crown spinning over the labyrinth.
I rubbed a thumb over
the decoration, and as I did so, I swear that Brutus' scent rose from the gold.
OO
"Caela."
The Sidlesaghe's
voice brought me to my senses, and I looked up.
"This you must
do by yourself," he said from where he still stood just outside the circle
of columns.
I frowned. "You
will not come with me?"
"No. You must be
the one to move it. This travail only you can accomplish. Use your skills,
Caela. Take it to Chenesitun."
I looked back to the
band.
"You have not
long, Caela. You must be back in Edward's bed by dawn."
I was irritated with
the Sidlesaghe now, for all I truly wanted was to stand and inhale the feel and
scent of Brutus from this band… but he was right, and so I looked away from the
Sidlesaghe toward the southeastern quadrant of the circle.
I concentrated, my
eyes narrowing.
I became the land, and I saw.
There, a trail,
winding through a rocky landscape. Not the landscape that was reality, for that
was sweet meadowland and marsh where the grasses bordered the river, but some other landscape. I did not immediately recognize it, but it
felt safe to me, and right, and so I stepped forth.
The instant I left
the circle, the columns faded, but the golden radiance that had lit that circle
now strengthened to such a degree that I felt I was walking through the noonday
sunlight. A path stretched before me. Composed of dirt and scattered gravel, it
wound its way between great piles of
tumbled rock.
Paving, I saw as I
took my first steps along that path, the golden band still
held in my cupped
hands.
I was walking through
the ruins of a once great and mighty city.
Tears filled my eyes.
I knew this place, even though I had never been there. I knew it because I had
heard stories of it from so many people: Brutus, Hicetaon, Corineus, even
Aethylla. It was Troy. Troy destroyed.
I was seeing this
because this is what the band remembered. It had been here, it had barely escaped the destruction itself,
and it still sorrowed and wept for the great, beautiful city of its birth and
initial purpose.
I realized also that
I was seeing this for another and more vital reason. I had become the land in
order to find my way to Chenesitun, but what the land became—in conjunction
with the band—was Troy. My land—my self—
and the Game had merged to such an extent that this land was Troy. Or, at least, it had absorbed the vitality and
memories of that long-ruined place, until Troy's past had become part of its
own past.
Or was it that I saw only one of many
possible futures for this land that the Game played out, over and over?
OI
I continued walking.
Great drifts of tumbled masonry extended to either side of me. In some places
the stones still leaked smoke from fires that raged within, in other, sadder
places, bloodied bodies lay sprawled across the stones.
I wept, so sickened
was I by the destruction and the carnage.
All this a part of
Ariadne's Catastrophe. All this a part of her pact with her hateful brother,
the Minotaur Asterion.
And what was in that pact that
Asterion thought to use it to taunt Swanne? What part did I not understand?
Thought of Asterion
made me hurry my feet. They would know now that the band was being moved:
William, Swanne, and Asterion. Still in Normandy, William would do nothing but
rage and fret. Swanne? Swanne would rage as well, and she might also fly into
the night, seeking that person who had dared touch the band.
Or would she? In
Swanne's mind the only conceivable person who might touch the band apart from
William was Asterion, and I did not think Swanne ready for a confrontation with
him.
No, I thought it
unlikely that at this initial time Swanne would make a physical move.
That left Asterion,
and I admit that thought of him did worry me. I didn't know Asterion, I
couldn't scry him out, I didn't know the extent of his power, and I couldn't be
sure that he might not be lurking behind the next pile of rubble I walked
about.
So I hurried my feet.
I was walking amid enchantment, so that I knew the way to Chenesitun would take
me only a fraction of the time it would if I walked the land in reality, but
still I hurried. I began to fret about what I would find when I reached
Chenesitun—where could I hide the band? Did / have the skills to secret it from
Asterion, as well as William and Swanne?
About me the
destruction and horror grew even greater. The piles of masonry grew higher, the
smoke and fires thicker, the stench of the corpses more sickening. Blood now
trickled in small rivulets across the path, and every third or fourth step I
had to make a small leap to avoid soiling either my feet or robe.
My hands tightened
about the band, for I was fearful it might dislodge. Somehow I knew that if I
let it fall, if it rolled away between the tumbled stones, then it would be
lost forever.
My breathing grew
quicker, deeper, harsher, and I prayed silently that I would soon reach my
destination.
I dared a glance
ahead, and what I saw dismayed me. The smoking ruins of Troy seemingly
stretched on forever.
It would take me all
night, surely!
I began to panic and,
in that panic, one of my feet slipped on some loose
O
gravel. I almost lost
my footing, and I cried out as my hands grabbed frantically at the band.
I stopped walking,
taking a moment to try and calm myself. Gods, this was but the first band, and
surely was going to be the easiest to move! I could not let a vision of the
past upset me!
Or was this a vision of the future? Not of old Troy
destroyed, but of this Troy— London—destroyed ?
Panic again
threatened to overwhelm me, but then I pushed it down with every ounce of
strength that I had, and I pushed ahead, one foot after the other, one foot
after the other, and so I endured.
Within minutes, so it
seemed, I walked in the space of three footsteps from the devastation of Troy
into the strangest, most frightening chamber I had ever encountered. In all of my existences.
Somehow I knew that
this was Chenesitun, but not the Chenesitun I had once seen. Here were no
scattering of wattle and daub dwellings, here no low-roofed timber house of the
thegn called Cynesige. Here no barns or the soft lowing of cattle.
Instead, I stood
within a chamber so vast I could barely comprehend it. It reminded me somewhat
of my vision of the stone hall that I'd had as Cornelia, but only in its
dimensions. Here was no peace, but the madly scurrying bodies of people dressed
in alien clothes. Here was no joy, but the irritation of bustling people—I
could feel from them a cacophony of words and emotions: late, late, late, hurry, hurry, hurry, delay, delay,
delay, what is the time? Where is the platform? Where is my ticket? Have you a
timetable?
And then, more
ominously. Hurry! Flee! Down!
Down! The sirens have sounded!
A woman, dressed in a
close-cut coat and skirt of a weave and material I could barely imagine,
stepped up to me and stared me in the face. Her own face was garishly painted,
her shoulder-length hair was elaborately curled and stiffened by some unseen
agent. She held a small boy, dressed in close-cut clothes similar to hers, save
that he wore trousers rather than a skirt, and a striped cap pulled low over
his eyes.
"Do you know the
way?" she asked me, her eyes wild with fear, I thought, and perhaps even
some desperation. "Which platform do I need?"
"I…" What
could I say? Everything about me was so strange, so foreign, more terrifying
even than Troy's destruction.
"You cannot just
stand here!" the woman said.
"Save yourself!" Then, thankfully, she turned her back and scurried
off, pulling the boy behind her.
He sent me a single
pleading look over his shoulder, and then they vanished into the hurrying
crowd.
O
"My dear,"
said a voice, and it was so soft and familiar I grabbed on to it.
"My dear…"
I turned to my left,
and saw some ten or fifteen paces away a collection of tables and chairs. At
one of the tables sat a man who, even though he was sitting, was of noticeable
height. He was also very thin, and he had a calf-length brown coat belted
tightly about him, and a curiously-shaped soft hat pulled low over his long,
thin, pale face.
Even so curiously
disguised, I could recognize who it was.
A Sidlesaghe. Not
Long Tom, but one of his kind.
His soft voice
reached me again. "Old thing. Is that my cup of tea? I will have it, if
you please."
I looked down at my
hands, and noticed several things all at once. I was no longer dressed in my
robe and cloak, but a tightly belted dress of starched white material that
seemed like linen and yet was not. My legs were encased in fine, woolenlike
stockings, and on my feet were brown leather shoes of sturdy construction.
I no longer held the
golden band of Troy, but a small round platter on which stood a cup. Both were
made of a fine white pottery. The cup held a steaming, milky-brown substance.
"My cup of tea,
old thing, if you don't mind."
Again the
Sidlesaghe's voice cut into my thoughts, and I walked over to him.
His eyes locked into
mine.
"On the table,
there's a dear."
I hesitated, then
placed the cup before him.
The instant I set it
down he reached out a hand and grabbed my wrist.
"The band is
safe for the moment, but you must be careful, darling. He's coming up the stairs."
I knew immediately
who he meant, if not quite what he meant.
Asterion.
"Flee," the
Sidlesaghe said.
O
CbAPGGR FOUR
rHE GAME STRETCHED,
AND GREW. NOT IN power so much as in potential. One band had been moved and the
Game's boundaries had
been physically
expanded. Five more to go.
ASTERION HAD ASSUMED
HIS NATURAL APPEARANCE
the instant it was
safe for him to do so unobserved.
Power was so much
easier to manipulate when he walked in his man-bull
London was quiet and
dark-save for that glow in the northern section where a building appeared to be
afire. Asterion knew well what that was-a distraction, something to keep the
watch occupied while the real crime of the
night took place.
Asterion was close to
glow-in-the-dark furious. She-shel-^as
movmg a
Not only was she
shifting the band, but she accomplished it under a cloak of such enchantment
that he had difficulty sensing any information about it a all. To know that a
band was so close, so tantalizingly exposed,
and yet still so
out of reach… . ,
And how? How? The
unknowingness of that only fed Asterion's rage. Asterion roamed the streets of
London, seeking something, anything, that
could provide him
with a clue.
Nothing.
How
could he have so misjudged her?
His pace became ever
more frantic, his fury edging ever closer to the out-of-control, but still. . •
nothing. Quiet, dark streets. Here! Ah! Nothing but a dog, a cur of a beast
that was hiding behmd the
wheel of a cart.
Asterion slaughtered
it.
He moved on, dashing
in short bursts along the streets, pausing to sniff the air, to peer closely
into shadows, then lay a hand to a wall and feel, feel for anything, anything at all…
And, just before
dawn, he did feel it. Just a suggestion,
nothing more.
A memory that tugged
insistently in his mind… Troy. Troy.
Troy!
Asterion had been
there for the final destruction of Troy, as he had participated in the majority
of the destructions Ariadne had worked with her Catastrophe. He had walked
through the ruins, through the raging fires, through the piles of bodies—adding
to fire and ruin and death whenever he had the chance. During that wonderful
day, Asterion had known of the escape of Aeneas, the Kingman who had then worn
the kingship bands of Troy.
Then, of course,
Asterion had not known what a role these bands would play in a later life, but
even so, Asterion had tried to snatch Aeneas. It had been for fun, for joy, for
amusement, for the pleasure of the hunt. Aeneas was the son of Aphrodite, he
was wearing the golden bands that allowed him to play the Game, and Asterion
had thought it would be more than entertaining to tear the man apart limb from
limb. One more Kingman dead, one more set of bands destroyed, one more nail in
the coffin of the Game.
But Asterion had
never caught Aeneas. He'd tracked him through the ruins and through the
rivulets of blood. He had heard and seen and smelled him, but Asterion had
never managed to catch Aeneas. Aphrodite had aided him, of course—how else
could he have escaped?—but even so, Asterion had felt the trickery of the man
and his damnable bands…
And he was feeling
something similar here this night in London.
Asterion was close to
the western wall of London when these memories flooded back to haunt him, and
he stopped, and paused.
He sniffed the air,
his magnificent bull's head held high.
He sniffed again… and
then he hunched over, arms held out, as if he were ready to attack.
And then… he vanished.
HE RUSHED THROUGH THE
BLOODIED, TUMBLED
remains of Troy,
their smell and sight as vivid as that day he'd participated in the city's
destruction.
She was somehow using this landscape to do it!
And why not? Asterion
could understand that. The bands were of Troy, they had breathed the same air,
and she was using that ancient escape to
effect this one.
O
Grinning from ear to
ear, Asterion jogged through the ruins. He followed the same path of the band,
he could smell it, and any moment, any moment…
Any moment he would
be upon her… and the band would be his.
Asterion could have
howled in joy, but he didn't; not when he was hunting. He ran lightly,
effortlessly, down the path, his feet splashing through puddles of water and blood,
his eyes fixed ahead.
His right foot
splashed down into a puddle of water, and before it could lift again, a thin,
white hand reached out of the water and grasped Asterion's ankle tightly.
The Minotaur tumbled
over, hitting the ground with a great crack. Within the instant, he had half
risen, his own hands reaching for the hand that had his ankle.
Before they could
reach it, the strange hand had vanished amid a tinkle of feminine laughter.
Asterion scrambled to
his feet. A trap left by Aphrodite, he had no doubt. Even dead, that goddess
was proving more than trying. But that was of no concern to Asterion now. What
he needed to do was catch the bandshifter
who trod the path just a twist or two ahead in the ruins.
But he was too late.
Just as he rounded a corner, sure to find there the woman he sought, the
landscape of Troy fell away, and Asterion found himself standing in the midst
of a trackway that wound between several low farm buildings.
There was no one
there.
CbAPCGR Five
/- HE INSTANT CAELA MATERIALIZED ON
THE
§ trackway before him, the
Sidlesaghe Long Tom reached out and
I ^Itaw' grabbed her.
She gave a cry of
terror. "Asterion!"
"I know,"
the Sidlesaghe said. "He will be here at any moment. The band… it is
safe?"
She nodded.
"Yes, but—"
"There is no
time for 'buts' now. Quick, quick, if the band is safe, if it is here, then we can escape."
He dragged Caela
toward one of the farm buildings, pushing aside the unlatched, rough door with
a shoulder and all but threw Caela inside.
Inside there were no
cattle, or sheep, or pigs, nor even piles of new-mown hay. Instead there
stretched one of the Game's strange tunnels.
"Newly
built," said the Sidlesaghe, the relief evident in his voice as he hurried
Caela forward. "The instant you laid that band in its new resting
place."
"Asterion?"
"He cannot
follow us down here. The labyrinth, the Game, is still protected by those enchantments Brutus wove
over it. More protected, now that one of the bands is moved and the Game has
expanded. Now, hurry, hurry, hurry. Dawn is close, and Edward's eyes will
shortly open. Hurry, hurry, hurry."
ASTERION STOOD IN THE
CENTER OF THE TRACKWAY,
feeling the escape of the damnable
bandshifter, but not able to do anything about it.
Then he caught at his
thoughts, and he flushed hot at the realization that he didn't have to do anything about it, did he?
She could move the
bands all she liked, but so long as he managed that one small task that lay
ahead, then that was of no matter. That one, single,
G
pleasurable task,
then she could move them to the very sun and it wouldn't
matter, would it?
"My dear,"
he murmured. "You think you know which way the attack will
come. But you have no
idea, do you?"
The Sidlesaghe led
Caela to that place in the Game's magical tunnel that
lay beneath her
solar.
"Asterion smelt
you," he said. "When you walked the path to Chenesitun,
what path did the
game construct for you?"
"The ruins of
Troy," Caela said, glancing above her. She could feel Judith pacing back and forth, back and forth.
The Sidlesaghe sighed
softly. "Then no wonder he discovered it! Doubtless Asterion aided in
Troy's ruin as he must have aided in the ruin of so many wondrous cities.
Caela, we must be careful. We must wait awhile before you try to move another
band. He knows the path you will take… we cannot risk him waiting for you the next time, or any other time. Now, go.
Go! The world
wakes!"
She leaned forward,
laid a quick kiss on his mouth, then vanished.
SWANNE HUDDLED IN HER
LONELY BED, CONSUMED with the knowledge of what had happened this night. It
must be Asterion who had moved the band. Who else? Who else?
And if it was he,
then all was lost, surely.
"William,"
she whispered. "William…"
WILLIAM SAT BEFORE
THE NEWLY STOKED FIRE IN HIS
slowly lighting
bedchamber. He stared at the flames, but his thoughts were
elsewhere.
A band had been
moved, and yet the Game had not been harmed. Indeed, its strength had
increased. William could feel that even from this distance.
The Game had grown.
It was not Asterion
who had moved the band. If it had been, William would have felt the diminution,
or the alteration, in the Game's power that Asterion's touch would have caused.
But nothing like that had occurred. In fact, William could feel a faint echo of
Asterion's anger.
Asterion had been
caught as much unaware as William.
So who then had moved
the arm band?
Caela? Caela in
league with Asterion? William fretted it over. Caela had betrayed him with
Asterion once before to pull the Game to a wrenching halt.
GODS' CONCUBI
William knew he could
not afford to ignore betrayed him (and the Game) once more. 't
But if it was Caela
who had moved the » with Asterion, then would not William have 't within the
endeavor? If Caela had moved %.** and/or knowledge, then William would hav^^'
Yet the only presence
of Asterion's he h^ 't} tration. So not Caela under
Asterion's dire^ <A»nt,
Caela by herself? No,
no, it could not P) ^<n$ tainly no knowledge of where the
bands lay, ■ *" it. She was just a woman, a woman of n^ besides, the
band would not have allowed r^
It must have been Swanne. Swanne wa could have touched the
band and successfi of the Labyrinth, and cofounder of this Ga^ 't
But Swanne didn't
know where the banX'110*'1'' it? William wasn't sure. If
she had found th/ than William had thought.
It had to be Swanne.
It had to be. There then she was risking
everything. If AsteriojA those bands… gods, the thought was not be
William shifted in
his chair, uncomfortX -invade
now! If only he could take those bands 't't
But invasion was not
an option. Not du, V likely to wreck any invasion fleet within a ha) A ' , Kr
wL while Edward was still alive. To take England n oinno-private
armies) of several score noblemen ,->s v ^ss > • ders to Burgundy and all the duchies and kь he had
a legal claim to the English throne, ^ wt then they'd not hesitate to join him for a si't "
cha that his claim was not
legal (as it would be 't a * .. Edward rather than Harold), then they'd
h^ ^ °lKc dukes, and kings would denounce
the inva, it etne .;t place William and Normandy under
interdict away, and Edward's army (which would be the dying king!) would likely
defeat William
William's only
chance, and it was a gc^ H. Edward had died, when he could viably claj 't
Not before. 't
Not before, even if
an unknown "someoh
CO1H
fc
p
S
©
It must be Swanne! It must!
William sat and
stared into the flames.
On the bed, Matilda
sat and stared at William.
For hours, until well
after the sun had risen, neither moved, nor said a
word.
Then, as Matilda
dressed and made for the door, William raised his head.
"Matilda?"
She turned, and
looked at him.
"Can you ask
your agent, whosoever he or she may be, to watch both Swanne and Caela?"
"That is most
certainly possible."
William considered,
wording his request carefully. "Then can you ask if… if either ever
manages to escape the court unnoticed, or keeps strange company? Or if they…"
Oh gods, how to phrase this? "If they have within their
possession any finely wrought golden bands with a spinning crown over a
labyrinth worked into them."
Matilda's eyes
widened very slightly, but she understood that her husband was in no mood for
explanations. "I can do that for you."
"For us,"
William said softly. "For us."
six
w
ILLIAM GRUNTED,
THEN SIGHED. HE STILL
sat before the fire
in his bedchamber, but now Matilda was gone, and in her place—in a chair
opposite William rather than sitting on the bed—was Harold.
Between Harold and
William sat a chessboard on a low table.
The men had been
shifting pieces back and forth for almost an hour, and that time spent at the
one game did not reflect their skill, nor their determination to keep the other
at bay, but instead was an indication of both men's almost total lack of
interest in the game. Both had squandered chances to trap the other, both had
exposed their own men to the ravages of the other's, both still had most of their
pieces on the board.
"I am returning
to England," Harold eventually said. It was the first time either of them
had spoken since they'd sat down.
William grunted
again. He did not raise his eyes from the chessboard.
"You will not
hold me?" Harold said.
William shot him a
glance, but just as quickly returned his gaze to the board. "It would do
me no favor," he said. "I would alienate half of Europe, let alone
most of England." He paused, his long fingers hovering over his king. "Besides,
Edward would as likely as not disinherit me for the act."
"Edward would
likely as not spend an entire week capering about Westminster in joy if he
thought there was the faintest possibility you might put a sword through my
throat."
William's hand froze
over the chess piece, then he slowly sat back from the board and looked Harold
full in the face.
"Why did you
come, Harold?" Oh, William knew why Harold had come. It was the
unacknowledged Coel within him, driving him forward to meet face to face with
his doom. It is what Coel would have done, it is what drove Harold over to
Normandy. Still, William wanted to know what Harold believed had driven him
here.
"We will meet
one day on the battlefield," Harold said. "I wanted to know you
beforehand." He relaxed a little in his chair, his attention now as
removed
from the chessboard
as was William's. "And, of course, I had hoped to gain your total support
for my own succession to England's throne."
Both men grinned, and
then both men's grins faded as quickly.
"I needed to know you, William," Harold said again. "But I
did not expect to like you. I did not expect to respect you."
There was silence.
William's eyes dropped to his lap where he was slowly rubbing the thumb of one
hand between the forefinger and thumb of the other. He fiddled some minutes,
thinking. Aye, he liked Harold, too. He liked him. In other circumstances, William knew he could
probably have counted on Harold to be his most loyal and trustworthy companion.
Harold… Coel. Who would have thought it? But then, when had Brutus
ever taken the time to understand Coel, or even to know him beyond a passing
acquaintance?
William suddenly
understood that he needed to have reached this revelation, this state of liking
and of friendship, with Harold-who-was-once-Coel. It was something William
needed to do, just as Harold needed to like and respect him.
Why? What part of
what larger game was this?
Finally, William
raised his gaze back to Harold. "I wish…" he began, then could not
continue.
"Aye," said
Harold. He blinked, as if he had tears in his eyes, then leaned forward and
held out a hand to William.
William took it
without hesitation. "I do not want to kill you," he said.
"Aye, and I do
not want to have to kill you."
They gripped hands,
their eyes locking, then both let go and sat back, half-embarrassed smiles
playing over their faces.
"If I win,"
William said, only half-jokingly, "and you do not survive, may I say that
you pledged to me that I might take the throne?"
Harold considered.
Such a statement would inevitably blacken Harold's name. He had pledged to
William that he might take the throne on Edward's death, and then Harold had
backed down on his word, and sought through force to deny William his rights.
Yet the revelation of
such a vow would unite England as nothing else had done. It would prevent the
country from tearing itself apart trying to resist William's rule. If William
won on the battlefield, and then said that God had judged in William's favor
because Harold had reneged on his word, the English would accept it. They might
not like it, but they would accept it.
What did he want
more? His honor, or England's well-being?
He nodded. "Aye.
You may say that." He paused, a slow smile spreading over his mouth.
"If you also agree that should I win, and you die, then I can spread it
about that you were the motherless son of one of Hell's imps."
William burst out
laughing. "A deal!" He held out his hand as Harold had just held out
his.
But Harold hesitated.
"And that if you do so win against me, and I die on the battlefield, then
you shall respect the life and property of my sons and daughters, and that of
my sister, Caela. You shall honor my children, and my sister, and do them no
harm."
William's face grew
serious. "A deal, Harold."
Harold nodded, and
took William's hand.
"I wish you
well," said William softly.
"And I
you," said Harold.
And with those words,
each man felt an immense weight lifted off his shoulders, while, under London,
the Stag God Og stirred, and his heart (still lying so cruelly torn from his
breast) beat a fraction more strongly.
seveN
Caela Speaks
/I/DAY OR TWO
AFTER I HAD MOVED THE BAND, I
arranged it so that
Ecub, Judith, and Saeweald sat with me in some privacy within my solar. Again,
other ladies were in attendance, along with one or two of Edward's thegns
(paying attention to one or two of my ladies rather than me), but they were
grouped at some distance, and I felt that if I kept my voice low enough then we
should have seclusion enough.
I told them of the
moving of the band, and of how Asterion tried to snatch me and it. They
shuddered, as did I in the retelling, and begged me be careful in the future.
Then, because they
needed and deserved to know, I told them of how I had felt empty, un-right, of
how I had felt some loss of connection to the land. How I was not all that I
should be.
"But how can
this be?" Saeweald began, rather officious and put out, as if I had
conceived of this problem only to irritate him, and I held up a hand to quiet
him.
"I have talked
of this to both Silvius and the Sidlesaghes—"
"And not
us?" Saeweald said quietly.
"She talks of it
now!" snapped Ecub, and silently I blessed her for her intervention.
"Think yourself not so important that you be her first counsel on every
occasion."
Saeweald's mouth
thinned as he compressed his lips, but he said no more. Judith caught my eye,
but I looked away and resumed my speaking.
"I have talked
of this both to Silvius and the Sidlesaghes," I said, "and the answer
is alarmingly simple." I gave a soft, depreciatory laugh. "Here I am,
the enchanted representation of fertility and birth and growth, the health of
the land, and I am—" I lowered my voice "—a virgin! To unite
completely
with the land, to be
at one with whom I should be, I need to consummate my self with the land. Unite
completely with the land."
"Lose your
virginity," Ecub said, ever practical.
Gods help me, I
blushed. "Yes."
"With
whom?" said Saeweald, and I felt both his and Judith's eyes steady on me.
"Silvius,"
I said.
"Silvius?" Saeweald said.
"Shush!" I
said. "Is there better without Og-reborn to comfort me?" I kept my
eyes steady on Saeweald as I said this, and he dropped his eyes away from mine.
"He does not
truly represent the land," said Ecub. "Surely…"
"He represents
the Game," I said. "And the Game and the land are united. Allied. Besides," I softened my voice,
"it need only be a man, and I may choose as I will."
"He looks like
Brutus," Saeweald said, his voice hard. "That is why you chose
him."
"And if it is why, then that is no concern of yours!"
For a moment no one
spoke. Finally, Saeweald broke the silence.
"I put myself
forward," he said. "It would be appropriate."
Oh, gods, damn his ambition!
"I have chosen
as I think appropriate. I am not
looking for applications, Saeweald."
His face hardened,
and he looked away.
eigbc
N THE MORNING OF THE
FESTIVAL OF ST. THOMAS,
Edward accepted an
invitation from Spearhafoc, the bishop of London, to celebrate mass within St.
Paul's cathedral. Although Edward generally preferred to worship within
Westminster, whether at the abbey or the chapel within his palace, he did make
a point of worshipping within St. Paul's on four or five occasions a year. If
the weather was kind, then the king proceeded to St. Paul's via the road that
led from Westminster to the Strand and thence through Ludgate to the cathedral;
if, as on this day, the weather was inclement, then Edward and the immediate
members of his court rode the royal barge to St. Paul's wharf and then traveled
on horseback, under a canopy, up the hill to the cathedral.
Whichever way the
king traveled, the crowds always lined his processional route, often
three-or-four-people deep, cheering and applauding. Sometimes supplicants tried
to reach forth, but these poor folk were always kept at bay by the king's
men-at-arms.
Caela, of course, came
with the rest of the court. Although her previous visits to St. Paul's had held
little significance, she now, with her restored memory and new knowledge of who
and what she was, looked very greatly forward to the outing. Not to the
service, which Caela had every intention of ignoring, but merely the visit to
St. Paul's itself.
Today, as always for
a king's visit, the cathedral was packed. Caela and Edward, together with
several members of the witan, two earls, several thegns, and a variety of
wives, took their places on chairs set out for them to one side of the altar. A
large and beautifully carved wooden rood screen shielded them from the eyes of
the majority of the congregation; today, unusually, flowers had been woven
through the spaces in the screen, filling the royal seating area with the heady
scent of late autumn roses.
Caela took her seat
by her husband, resting her feet gratefully on the covered heated stone that
had been placed before it. The cathedral's interior was frigid, and Judith stepped
forward and ensured that Caela's fur-lined cloak sat
closely about the
queen's shoulders before she took her own place further back in the rows of
seats. The service began.
Halfway through, when
a visiting cleric was engaged in a lengthy dialogue about the sins of Adam and
Eve, Caela noticed a movement to her left, and glanced over.
She froze, her eyes
wide, disbelieving.
Silvius, in all his
Trojan finery, was walking toward her through the ranks of clerics, courtiers,
and sundry monks who filled the aisles to the side of the altar.
Having stared at
Silvius, Caela's eyes then flew to the people grouped about her, doubtlessly
expecting most of them to be staring gape-mouthed at this apparition who walked
so arrogantly among them.
But no one was paying any attention.
Caela looked back to
Silvius, who was now grinning at her confusion.
"Peace,
lady," he said as he walked to her chair, leaned down, and planted a light
kiss on her still-startled face. "They are unaware of me, and, as for you,
why, all they see is their queen with her head bowed in prayerful
contemplation."
Again Caela glanced
about her. It was as Silvius said. No one paid them any attention, and even the
movements of the cleric intoning before the altar were strangely slowed and
muted, as if in dream.
"You have done
this?" she said.
"Aye. Another
piece of Aegean trickery. Did Brutus never do this? Never play this particular
hoax on his comrades?"
"If so, then I
was unaware of it."
Silvius laughed,
softly, and dragged an empty chair close to Caela's. "The trick, my dear,
is to leave people unaware of it." His face sobered. "I needed to see
you, Caela."
Still rattled by
Silvius' piece of magicking, Caela only raised slightly her eyebrows.
Silvius put his hand on the back of her chair; he was
very close. "That was well done," he said, looking her in the eye.
"Moving the band."
She let out a long
breath. "Ah. You realized it?"
He gave a small
smile. "How could I not? I am, after all, a part of the Game." He
paused, his black eye roving slowly over the planes of Caela's face. "I
did not realize you were that powerful."
She gave a small
shrug. "I had help." Then she gave a small laugh at the puzzlement on
Silvius' face. "Long Tom, of course! I am surprised he has not told you
every detail himself."
Silvius managed a
grin, although it looked a little forced. "Of course. Long Tom. A true
friend, eh?"
"Better than you
know… or maybe you do. I am sure that you and he have spent many a long
conversation together. You remember, surely, when he brought me to see you and
Og within the heart of the labyrinth?"
Silvius hesitated a
long moment before answering. "I did not speak to you then…"
"No. You need
not apologize for it. But, ah, what Long Tom showed me!"
"He is
powerful…"
"Oh, aye, he and
all his companions."
Silvius half lifted
his hand that rested on the back of the chair, hesitated with it elevated
slightly, then finished the movement, sliding Caela's veil back a little from
the crown of her head.
"Be
careful," Caela said, stiffening slightly. "I do not want your spell
snapped, and all to see me with my veil and hair disarranged." Her mouth
quirked. "My husband would surely claim that I had been visited by the
devil."
Silvius' hand slid
down to her cheek, his fingers very gently stroking at her smooth skin. "I
am sorry for that. Caela… have you given any more thought to what I said the
last time we met?"
"Here," she
said. "In this cathedral."
He smiled.
"Aye."
She gave a small nod.
"Yes, I have. What you suggested is right, and needed."
Silvius' smile
broadened.
"Long Tom also
agrees," Caela continued, and Silvius' smile slipped.
"Oh," she
said, "should I not have spoken of it to him?"
His grin reappeared.
"If he agrees, then I am rightly pleased that you did mention it! When, Caela? When?"
"The winter
solstice, you said."
He nodded. "Can
you manage an escape from… ?" He nodded to Edward.
"Yes.
Silvius…"
"No more
words," he said, and, leaning into the gap between them, placed his mouth
on hers, gently, not demanding.
She hesitated, but
only an instant, then she leaned forward into him, giving him her mouth. They
kissed, passionately, then Silvius managed to pull back, laughing softly,
breathlessly.
"I must stop,
for I cannot keep this sorcery intact much longer, Caela. Oh gods, I am
sorry." He rose, shifting his chair back to its original position as Caela
rearranged her veil.
"The
solstice," he said. "Meet me in your stone hall. Now, be still, and
bend your head back to prayer."
She did, and in the
next instant Silvius was gone, and all awakened about her.
Caela paid no
attention to the rest of the service, imagining only what it might be like to
have Silvius take her virginity.
Eventually, without
consciously realizing the transition, Caela's thoughts turned entirely to
Brutus, and she remembered that night she had offered herself to him under the
stars on the way to the Veiled Hills, and the passion with which they'd made
love… almost as if there had been love between them.
Meanwhile, at Thorney
Isle, a barge containing the earl of Wessex drew softly to Westminster's wharf.
AROLD STRODE INTO THE
BEDCHAMBER HE
shared with his wife,
tore the covers from Swanne's body and, before she could move or speak, grabbed
her hair and hauled her from their bed.
Swanne finally found
her voice as she half-tumbled naked to the floor. "What… ? Harold! No! No!"
Now he had her by her
arm and dragged Swanne to her feet. With his free hand he dealt her a stinging
blow to her cheek, and then another, and then yet one more, before she had time
to collect herself.
"That first was
for the damage done to me with your treachery," he snarled. "The
second was for the damage you have done to England! And the third, you
black-hearted witch, was for standing by and laughing as my brother sought to
murder me! Did you report that to William? Answer me!"
Swanne was stunned,
not only by the suddenness and savagery of Harold's attack, but by his
knowledge. How dare he lay a
hand to her! How did he know?
"I haven't… I
don't…" she stumbled, unable for the moment to string a coherent sentence
together.
"William told me
how much you delight in passing him your little tidbits of communication,"
Harold said, and pushed Swanne back so that she sprawled across the bed.
"Did he tell you also how he shares them with Matilda?" "No! William?" Shared with Matilda? No!
Swanne edged back in
the bed, trying to put as much distance between her and Harold as possible.
"I have been to
Normandy, Swanne. Did not William think to tell you?" "What were you doing there?" Swanne had
reached the far edge of the bed, and now carefully rose to her feet. She put
one hand to her reddened cheek, but made no attempt to otherwise cover her
nakedness. "Discussing your whoring ways with William."
"No," she
said, looking at him with all the contempt she could muster. "William
would not have told you."
Harold's face
twisted: Swanne did not even attempt to deny it. "We have reached an
agreement, William and I," he said, "and you form no part of
it."
"Liar!" she
spat.
"I renounce our
marriage, Swanne. You—"
"No!"
"What? You fear
to lose me? You? Who laughed as Tostig knifed
me?"
She stared at Harold,
her breasts rising and falling with the rapidity of her breathing. "I was
sure that Tostig would kill you. I was terrified. Terrified! I wanted to live.
I thought laughter would save me… I'm sorry. I know I should have leapt to your
aid… but I was so frightened. I was not thinking…" She let her voice drift
into a whimper with her last sentence, and contorted her features into
something approximating fear.
Harold's face twisted
with loathing. "It doomed you, witch. Begone from my life. You have your
estates and manors that your father and uncles bequeathed you. You shall lack
for nothing."
"You cannot do this!"
"Every noble,
every court in this country shall support me!" he snarled, striding about
the bed and grabbing Swanne's hand away from her cheek. "No man stands for
a wife who betrays him in this manner! I shall have a wife, but she shall be a
true wife, Swanne. Not what you have given me!"
"The Church will
not let you put me—"
"The Church did not ratify our marriage, they do
not recognize it. We were Danelaw-wed, Swanne. That was your insistence, not
mine. Well, now you reap the harvest of your insistence, your all-consuming
desire for independence. By God, Swanne, had you thought that once William was
in a position to fight for the throne that you could renounce me?"
Swanne tried to
wrench her arm away from Harold's grasp, but he would not let it go.
"I am pregnant
with your child," she said, her panic tipping her into the lie. William had shared their communications with Matilda? "You cannot set me to one
side."
"Truly?"
Harold raised his eyebrows, his eyes running slowly up and down her figure.
"Your slenderness belies that lie, my dear."
"You lay with me
before… before you left for your sly voyage to William. Why can't I be with
child?"
'Because I know you
too well. Because you would not want to be thick with my child when you think
you might have William instead! Be gone from my life, Swanne. I have had enough
of you."
"You cannot put me aside!"
"Ah, you do not
fear losing me, do you? You fear losing your place within this court, because
without me as your husband you shall be forced to retire to one of your country
estates. And what can you betray to William there? The state of the apple
harvest? How many ewes have lambed this spring? You'll be as useless to him as
you are now to me."
Swanne finally
managed to free her arm. "I
will be queen of this land beside William!"
"I have seen how
William regards his wife, Matilda. I suspect you shall be queen of nothing but
the peasant rabble who shall work your fields."
She spat at him, but
Harold could see the fear in her eyes, and he smiled coldly.
"Clothe
yourself, Swanne. I have already left instructions with the servants that you
shall be removing to the country by this afternoon."
And with that, Harold
turned and left the chamber.
Swanne stared after
him for long moments, her eyes wild, her expression a mixture of fear and shock
and disbelief. She could not afford to be banished to the countryside!
Gods… gods! How had Harold known? William could not have
betrayed her to Harold.
He could not.
Could he?
^_ AROLD WENT STRAIGHT
| to that of Caela's, hoping she 1^ / He burst
into her chambej, his own to find Judith and two other ladie*
"Harold!"
Caela spun about to face the same time.
"Caela, thank God
you have returned f across to her as the women left the shoulders, bent to kiss
her briefly and
"Aye, I am. But,
Harold… ah, thank ^ 't'|A
Harold managed a smile
and, checkinfc'ttoieevoy 't ladies
had left the room, said, William " *
man of Tostig's
treachery."
She let out a long
breath of sheer relies against his cheek. "What… ah, Harold, 't'
He took her by the
hand and led her b^'t down. As he talked, relating to her all tha^ ^ with
William, he kept her hand tight in hi$ V
"He is a good
man," Harold finished. '''t't iv^ him." He let out a short,
dry laugh. "Eve^ ^motlьtfV iV that is to say about a man who makes no at-
^ ignist 'tA u the English throne!"
"You liked
him," Caela said, her eyes
"Aye, that I did.
In a strange manner, vv, our ambitions make us sworn enemies. He
She smiled, and Harold
thought he'd v he has changed," she said. "I am glad. I aiv
Harold frowned. "
'How he has change^.'
Caela looked away, her
face closing ■ jutvOu
brother."
And William spoke of Caela in a
manner that made me wonder if ever he had met her, Harold thought. He lifted his
hand, and gently turned Caela's face back to meet his.
"Is Swanne the only one who has been secretly communicating with
William?" he said. "William was as interested in you as you have been
in him. Why all this interest, Caela?"
"I have had no
communication with William," she said, her gaze unflinching, and he
believed her.
"And I am interested in William for the same
reason you are, Harold. He seeks the English throne."
"You do not need
to fear him, Caela. Not personally. He has sworn to me that if… if fate favors
him in this wrestle for England, then he will do you no harm, nor harm to any
of my children."
"He said
that?" Caela smiled, although it was tinged with sadness. "I had
thought he might be vindictive… hard. It is what I had… heard of him."
"Vicious rumor
only. William is an honorable man," he said again.
"Ah, Harold, I
hope his promises never have to be kept."
There was a silence,
and Caela became uncomfortable under Harold's regard. "Harold, tell me,
what manner of man is William? Come now, hold nothing
back. Tell me of William and Matilda."
He laughed softly. "William is a tall man, and
strong in build. And handsome, with black, dancing eyes and a
magnetism about him that surely draws women to him like bees to the honey pot.
Mayhap you will think he will be a prettier face to have about this court than
mine."
"Never."
"Aye, well… I
think he looks at no one but Matilda. I do not think even Swanne can draw him
away from her."
"Do you think
that William knows Swanne for what she is, and thus leans toward Matilda?"
"William respects
and trusts and treasures his wife. I think he knows that is not something he
could achieve with Swanne."
Again Caela breathed
out as if in deep relief, and Harold looked carefully at her. "Caela, will
you promise me something?"
"Anything."
"If by wicked
fate, William defeats me to take the throne, will you support him?"
"How can you ask that of
me?"
"If I am
defeated I do not want to think that England will tear itself apart trying to
resist William. You will be the dowager queen; people will listen to you—"
"Listen to me? Gods' Concubine? The always-dismissed wife of
Edward? Harold, I do not think that—"
"You are far
more than that, Caela. Do you think I cannot see? That I do not watch the way
you move, and what you say, and watch how other people respond to you? In the
past weeks… I don't know… in the past weeks you have somehow come into your
true self. People have always listened to you, and respected you, whatever
Edward has said and done. Now, I think there might be something even more than
'respect' behind their regard." He sighed, dropped his eyes, and stroked
her hand where it rested in his.
"Caela, please.
Do this for me if you do nothing else. If William takes the throne over my dead
body, then support him. The witan will take what you say and consider it. They
will not dismiss you. The people will not dismiss you, nor what you say. Caela,
please, I ask you this for the sake of the land—"
Something flitted
across her face, an expression Harold could not read, and her hands jumped
slightly where they clasped his.
"—for England, and everything that it is, will you do this for me?
Will you support William if… if it comes to pass?"
"Oh,
Harold…" her voice broke. "Do not speak of your death!"
"Promise me this!"
She blinked away her
tears, then nodded. "For the land, I promise, Harold."
"Thank
you." He leaned forward and kissed her again, but this time did not
immediately draw away. Their mouths locked, and Harold's free hand slipped
behind Caela's head and pressed her the more firmly into him.
She moaned, softly,
and probably with desire rather than distress, but it was enough to make Harold
draw back.
"Oh God,"
he breathed. "Caela, I am sorry."
"No! Never say that! Be sorry for the fact we cannot be
together, but not for the fact that you love me."
He kissed her again,
softly, and then shifted his mouth to her ear. "Cruel fate," he
whispered.
"Cruder than you
realize," she said.
For a long moment
they sat there, their faces close, feeling the play of the other's breath over
their faces, then Harold sighed, and sat back.
"I have heard
news of Tostig this morning," he said softly.
"I do not know
if I want to hear of it."
"He has gone to
Hardrada."
She was silent.
"He will not
defeat me. I promise you this. But William… well, William I respect. That's why
I asked you to pledge as you did."
"What of
Swanne?" Caela said. "Have you seen her since you returned?"
"Ah, Swanne! I think William distrusts her as much as I do,
Caela."
"Really?"
"And, yes, I
have finally done with her. I visited our chamber before coming
here. I severed the
ties between us. She is gone, and you, my dear," he hesitated an instant,
"must find me a new wife, someone suitable to be a queen."
She looked away,
composed herself, then nodded. "I have found a woman," she said, her
face and voice very quiet. "Do you wish to hear of her?"
"Does she bear
your name?"
"Harold…"
"I am sorry.
Yes, tell me of this woman."
"Do you remember
Alditha, Harold? She is the sister of—"
"The earls Edwin
and Morcar, aye, I know of her. But she is married to that Welsh lord. Ah! I
can never remember his name!"
"He died some
months previous, Harold. And now the pretty lady Alditha, with all her lands
and estates and ancestry and alliances, sleeps unattended in the chamber, which
once was the bishop of Kent's. So close to yours."
Harold's eyes had
grown very dark. "I wish it were you lying unattended and alone in the chamber
of the bishop of Kent," he said. "I wish it were you lying alone and
widowed at night."
"I cannot,"
she whispered, her face stricken. "If you truly want this throne, Harold,
then I cannot!"
"What say you,
sister? That should I renounce my ambition for the throne, then you will be
mine?"
"We cannot,
Harold." She shifted on the bed, putting space between herself and him.
"Alditha is a good woman. I am sure you will manage."
"I would rather
a woman I could love." He saw the stricken expression on her face.
"Ah, I am sorry, Caela. This does neither of us any good. Aye. Alditha
will do well enough for me, and that you have chosen her, well, that will bless
the match. If you wish me to go to Alditha and warm her nights, then that I can
'manage.'"
Her face closed over,
and he sighed. "What happened three nights ago, Caela? Both William and I
had evil dreams, and mine was all about you. I thought you in great danger, and
thus I hurried from William's court back home."
"What happened?
Why, nothing, brother!" She smiled, but it was false, and Harold knew that
she kept something from him. "And William dreamed of me as well? What did
he say? What did he do?"
William again! thought Harold. Why does she speak so much about William?
"He did not say
he dreamed of you, Caela. He said he dreamed of great trouble."
"Ah. He was
angry?"
"Caela? You said
that nothing had happened. Is that the truth?"
"I am in no
danger, Harold. Believe it."
Harold didn't. She
was hiding something from him, just as surely as
William had hid
something from him that night he'd burst into Harold's chamber.
What was the interest these two had
in each other?
Harold felt a wave of jealousy wash over him.
"Caela—"
"Trust me,"
she whispered, her great blue eyes staring steadily into his. "Trust me.
Please."
This time he allowed
himself to believe her. "Yes," he said. "I do."
LATER, WHEN CAELA HAD SETTLED TO HER EVER-present needlework (claiming that
a headache kept her from the bustle of Edward's court), Swanne came to the
chamber, and requested an audience with the queen.
Surprised, Caela
allowed the request, then further granted Swanne some privacy by asking Judith
and the other ladies to retire some distance away.
"Harold has
doubtless spoken to you," Swanne said, her voice hard.
Caela inclined her
head. She did not look up from her needlework.
Swanne's lips
compressed into a hard, vicious line, "Grant me duty within your ladies. I
cannot lose my place at court."
Caela finally lifted
her eyes. "My attending ladies are my only haven of peace, sister. You
want that I should shatter that with your presence?" She sighed, shaking
her head slightly. "I cannot offer you a place within my own tiny court. It
would go against Harold's wishes."
"Harold! Have
you slept with him yet, little virgin girl? Are you the reason he has turned so
viciously against me?"
"How dare you
ask me that!" Spots of color reddened Caela's cheeks. "How dare you,
when—" she glanced at her ladies on the other side of the chamber,
ensuring they were not within hearing range "—when in our previous life it
was you who arranged his death! If he
turns 'viciously against' you, Swanne, do you think that my doing, or that of
Fate, weaving out what must be?"
"There is
nowhere for me to go."
"You have your
own lands and estates, Swanne."
"I cannot leave
court!"
"Why not? What
mischief do you plan? And if you want a court to shine within, then why not
choose William's?"
"Oh, I will. You
will never have a place at his side!"
"I do not wish
it," Caela said, calm again. "But neither do I think you will ever
have that queenly throne on his right hand, Swanne. From all reports, that is
Matilda's so firmly that you could wish the moon from the sky more easily than
wish for that seat. But have no fear, William has no doubt planned
a backroom for you.
If you wish, I can inform him of what remote county you linger in, and he can
send a horse for you."
Swanne rose, her face
stiff with anger. "Is this your little victory over me, then? Then enjoy
it, for one day—and soon—it shall be you cast into the cold, and crying out for
succor."
WHEN SHE HAD GONE,
CAELA LEANED HER HEAD
against the high back
of her chair, and closed her eyes. I should not have done that.
I should have offered a hand, and my friendship, not harsh words and the door.
Oh, merciful heavens, how could I have allowed my own petty need for revenge
dictate my actions?
ecevejM
Jb'LDRED, ARCHBISHOP
OF YORK, WAS SITTING AT
his noonday meal in
his palace just within the walls of London when one of his manservants hurried
over to him.
"My lord,"
he said, bowing respectfully. "The lady Swanne begs audience."
Aldred paused with a
knife, a tempting piece of juicy meat speared on its blade, halfway to his
mouth. He blinked, his mouth hanging open, a dribble of saliva glistening at
one corner, and stared at the servant.
"The lady
Swanne?" he said.
"Aye, my lord.
She begs audience. Urgently. My lord, she is in a state of some distress."
Aldred blinked again,
then slowly, and obviously very reluctantly, put the knife and its tempting
morsel back on the plate.
"Well, I suppose
I'd better see her," he said. Then, hopefully, "She might not wait
until I have finished eating?"
The servant glanced
at the table with its array of over fourteen different dishes. "I think
not, my lord. She does appear to be in some need."
Aldred sighed, and
rearranged his fleshy features into a scowl. "Oh, very well then. Send her
in."
The servant hurried
out, and as he went, one of the corners of Aldred's mouth upturned briefly, as
if in a smile.
SWANNE ENTERED IN A
SWISH OF SKIRTS AND CLOAK. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed (which
fortunately hid the slight bruise that was deepening on one of them) and her
abundant black hair artfully arranged atop her head.
She wore no veil, and
Aldred noted that her gown was most unseemly for this hour of the day. It was
one a noble lady might more properly wear to a private banquet, for its neck
was square cut and low, unlike the high necklines of public gowns.
"My lord!"
she said, and dropped in a deep curtsy.
Aldred blinked yet
once more, finding it difficult to lift his eyes away from the sight of her
breasts straining at that low neckline.
"Ahem," he
managed as Swanne rose to her feet. "What can be the matter, my dear
lady?"
"Harold has
abandoned me," she said. "He has renounced our marriage."
Aldred spluttered,
then succumbed to a fit of coughing so violent he had to cover his mouth with a
napkin lest he spray pieces of half-chewed food over the table.
"How is this
possible?" he finally asked. "Why? Why?"
"He wants a good
wife under Christian law," Swanne said, sitting down at a bench at the
side of the table. "He wants the throne, my good lord archbishop, as you
have doubtless known, and he thinks it more likely the church, witan, and
England will accept him with a Christian-law wife, rather than a Danelaw
one."
"But this is… is…
so…"
"After all I
have done for him!" Swanne's eyes filled with tears, and her breasts
heaved with the strength of her emotion. "What can I do? What? I have been
abandoned… abandoned!"
"My dear
woman," Aldred said, laying aside his napkin. "You need not pretend
such distress to me. Harold has discovered your communications with William,
yes? His reaction can hardly be of great surprise to you."
"Did you tell him?"
"No. I did
not."
"Well, that may
be as may be. My lord archbishop, I need your aid as never before. Your vast
palace has many spaces and chambers. May I not inhabit one of them?"
Aldred's mouth
dropped open yet again. "My lady! What would people think!"
Swanne shrugged.
"They can think what they like, my lord. Besides, it will do you no harm.
Many of the higher clerics keep mistresses, even wives, without any
repercussion."
"You are
offering yourself to me as… as…"
"No!"
Swanne fought briefly with herself, managing to keep the disgust from her face.
"No, not at all my lord. I was only arguing that even should people think
the blackest, it would not harm your reputation. Indeed, it may even add to
it." She attempted a coquettish smile, but it faded almost as soon as it
had lit her face. "I only want a chamber, my lord."
"But… why? You
have estates in your own right. I would have thought that—"
"No! No, I must
stay in Westminster, or London."
"Why?"
"For my
children's sakes, my lord. I need to be assured that Harold will not forsake
them as he has forsaken me. I fear that should I vanish to the countryside, he
will disinherit them as he has me." Swanne felt like screaming: I have to stay in London!
Aldred sighed.
"I asked you not to pretend with me, my lady. You have no thought for your
children. You never mention them, never think of them. They have only ever been
but a means to keep Harold tied to you, and thus you to Westminster and
Edward's court. You think Edward has not long to live, you think William is
coming, you want to be here to greet him. Thus you beg me for a chamber, and
care not what rumor suggests happens within that chamber."
He made a face, as if
disinterested. "You don't think that might ruin whatever you hope for with
William?"
"William and I
have an alliance that goes back much further than you can guess at, my lord. He
will not think any the worse of me for begging shelter from you."
Aldred shrugged.
"Very well, then, my lady. You may 'shelter' within my palace." And when I demand my price for this generosity, my dear
Swanne, you will wish you had never thought to throw yourself to my mercy.
CbAPG6RGUD6CV
^^ WANNE WAITED A
FULL DAY FOR A TIME WHEN
""^ she had
an hour or two undisturbed in the chamber that Aldred had given her, before she
succumbed to her sense of panic. Who
had moved the band?
How?
Had William told Harold about her?
Had he really shared her messages with Matilda? No, surely not. That was just
Harold's lies. Surely. And if William had… then why? Why? Why?
She needed answers,
she needed reassurance, and she needed both so badly that she knew she could
not wait for the slow passage of written communication, between her and
William.
Besides, she no
longer trusted Aldred completely. The man had been too sure of himself
recently. What did he plan behind her back?
No, she needed to see
William. To meet him again, face to face, as much to satisfy her emotional
needs and as much to answer her questions.
Since her first
meeting with William, Swanne had always been supremely careful with the use of
her power. She had never known where Asterion was, or if he would be able to
scry out her use of power, and, most importantly, what he might do if he felt
her use such power.
But the past day or
so had witnessed the loss of most of Swanne's assurance. She needed William again, if only for a moment or two,
just to see him, to reach out and touch him. To hear him reassure her that
Harold had only lied. And
so she did what she had not yet dared to do for the past fifteen
years.
She used her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to
visit William.
ONCE HAROLD HAD
DEPARTED, WILLIAM HAD TAKEN
his horse, a few
companions, and ridden for the coast to a small estate he had near Fecamp.
There he spent two days staring northwest from the tower of the small castle
that dominated the estate.
Then, on this
morning, he had ridden from the castle, curtly telling his companions to give
him time and space alone for a few hours, and galloped for the coast some three
miles distant.
He pulled his horse
to a halt on a small hill that overlooked the sea. Above his head wheeled
scores of seabirds, filling the air with their harsh voices; about him there
was nothing but the rolling turf of untilled meadows; before him there was
nothing but the wild gray sea, whipped into a frenzy by a bitter northerly
wind.
The distant view was
hazy, the nearer view distorted by the spray sent skyward by the crashing
waves, but William could feel England just beyond his eyesight.
There it lay, so close, so close…
Something within him tugged. Almost as if an invisible hand had laid hold of his
gut and pulled.
He groaned, bending
forward a little in the saddle, and his horse shifted uneasily underneath him.
Again, the strange,
painful tug, and this time William realized what it was.
"No!" he
cried. Damn, it was Swanne! "No! Stop!"
But it was too late.
Some twenty paces away, where the hill started to dip toward the rocky beach,
the haze consolidated into, first, a misty pillar, and then into a discernible
female form.
"Swanne! No!" William cried again, almost beside himself
with a crazed mixture of fear and anger. She dared not do this! She dared not! Not now, when it
was so dangerous!
He swung down from his horse and ran toward the figure just as it consolidated
into its final form.
Swanne, running to
meet him.
She looked older than
before, but just as beautiful: the black, curling hair, snapping free in the
wind; the sensuous figure; the round white arms held out to him; the face, more
beautiful than he could ever have imagined.
The red mouth
silently framing his name. William!
William!
"Swanne!"
he grunted in that instant before she hurled herself into his arms. She pulled
his head down and kissed him, but within a moment he pushed her back, his hands
on her shoulders, staring at her.
"Gods, Swanne!
What do you here?"
"William!"
she cried, and buried her face against his chest, her arms tight about him.
"William."
Again he pushed her
back, harder this time. "What do you here? What is wrong?"
"You know what!
Someone has moved a—"
"It was not
you?" William's hands tightened about Swanne's shoulders.
"No! No! I thought that perhaps you… somehow…"
"No."
William looked away from her and looked over the wild sea.
"Who? No one
could touch those bands but you and me. William… William, was it
Asterion?"
"No. I felt that
Asterion was as surprised as me. As you,
now, I find. Gods, Swanne, I was sure that you had moved the band." Had prayed that it was you who had moved the band.
Swanne's hands had
lessened their grip about William a little, and now she moved them to his
chest, and she leaned in closer, and pressed her hands against him. She could
feel the heat of his body radiating out through the layers of his tunic and
undershirt, and Swanne closed her eyes momentarily, and breathed in deeply.
"Then who?" she said.
"Caela,"
William said in a voice almost a whisper. He was still staring out to sea.
"No."
"No?"
William remembered what Matilda and Harold had said about her. "Are you
sure? She has surprised us before."
"She has no
power, William. Not like us." Again her hands pressed against him.
"Asterion destroyed Mag within her. She has nothing left."
"What?"
Swanne had finally said something that pulled William's eyes from the sea back
to her. "What in Hades' name do you mean?"
"Mag,"
Swanne said, "within Caela's womb. As she lived within Cornelia's womb.
Did you not…"
Swanne suddenly
stopped. Had Brutus ever known
of this? She had
not mentioned it to him, not in those few brief months between when she had
discovered it herself and when Cornelia, the bitch, had murdered her. And then
Cornelia would never, surely, have mentioned it.
Besides, Cornelia
would have had no chance to tell him, for Brutus would have killed her the
instant that Cornelia had stepped back from Genvissa's dead body.
Wouldn't he? Caela was speaking only
lies when she'd said she'd lived with Brutus for decades after Genvissa's
death, and borne him more children.
Wasn't she?
"How long did Cornelia live after she killed me?" Swanne
asked. "An hour? A day, at most?"
"As long as I
did, at least," said William, vaguely, not thinking through why Swanne
might have been asking this. "And that was, what? Some thirty years or
so."
"What? You did not kill her?"
William dropped his
hands and took a step backward, breaking the contact between Swanne and
himself. "No. Eventually I took her back as my wife, but I—"
"You kept her as your wife for some thirty years after
she had killed me?"
There
was a terrible pain
in her chest, and Swanne could hardly breathe for its fire.
Betrayal, she
realized dimly. That's what that pain was. Betrayal.
"I did it to
punish her, Swanne. I never spoke to her again."
Swanne gave a bitter
laugh. "But you lay with her." A pause. "Yes?"
He did not answer,
and that was all the answer Swanne needed.
Above them the
circling seabirds cried our in their harsh tones, as if barking in laughter at
Swanne's anguish.
She lifted a hand, as
if to strike William, but he seized it before she could act.
"And you told
Harold of our correspondence," she said, her voice flinty, trying but not
succeeding to wrench her wrist from William's grasp. "And, I discover,
shared it with Matilda] How could you betray me like
that? Ah!" She gave a hard laugh. "How stupid of me. If you could lay
with Cornelia after she'd murdered me, then what would such a small betrayal as
telling Harold of our communications and sharing it with your wife cost you? Eh? I swear before all gods, William, that
I believe you collect wives only so you can betray me with them!"
William remained
silent a long moment, staring at her with a face as tight and as angry as hers.
"How can you speak of betrayal, my love, when
you have been sleeping side by side with Coel all these years?"
There was a flash of
panic in Swanne's eyes, then she collected herself and pouted. "It was of
no importance."
"It was of no
importance," William repeated, then laughed hollowly. "No
importance…ha!"
Swanne's face
hardened. "You took your Matilda, did you not? I took Harold. There is no
difference."
"Matilda has no
part in this deadly game we play! But Coel!
That was something you held back deliberately. And I asked you about him!" William's voice hardened to
granite. "And you lied to me. You lied. Deliberately."
"I was afraid. I
did not want you jealous."
William's jaw
tightened, and he looked away from her.
"Is that why you
told him about you and me?" she said, watching William's expression
carefully. "You were upset when you realized Harold was Coel, and that I'd
kept that information from you? Is that why—"
"I did not tell
Harold," William said. "He knew before he came to my court."
"He knew?"
Swanne frowned, then her brow cleared. "Ah, well then, it must have been
Aldred, no doubt hedging his bets against a Harold victory rather than a
William victory."
"You were
speaking of Mag," William said, finally looking back at Swanne.
"Living within Cornelia's womb, you said?"
Swanne's mouth
twisted, but she managed to bring her emotions under
control. "Mag
hid herself within Cornelia's womb. If Cornelia allied with Asterion, then that
alliance was as much an alliance between Mag and Asterion as between Cornelia
and Asterion."
Now William's face
was wearing a strange, unreadable expression. "Cornelia carried Mag within
her womb? Truly?"
Whatever that
expression was, Swanne did not like it. "Aye. Both the bitches conspired
against you. And me. But we need not worry now.
Whatever assurances and promises Asterion made to Mag, whatever reward he
offered for her aid, he meant none of it. He destroyed Mag, murdered her
completely, a few months ago."
"And Caela?"
"What of Caela? Why speak of her when—"
"Because I need
to know if she has the power to move that band!" William shouted. "I need to know who it was!"
Swanne's face set
sulkily. "Caela has no power. Believe me, William, she does not have the
ability to find and move any of those kingship bands. She barely has the
capability to dress in the morning. It must have been
someone else. Who?"
"Very well,
then," William said finally, although his mind still rankled over what
Matilda and Harold had said about Caela; they had not described a woman who
didn't even have the power to "dress in the morning." "if not Caela, then…" He paused, thinking. Who?
Swanne gave a small
shrug. "I cannot tell. The puzzle has kept me awake at nights."
"Silvius,"
he said. "Perhaps it is Silvius."
"Your father?
How?"
William remembered
how he'd met Silvius in the heart of the labyrinth; how he'd killed him again
as he had that day so long ago when he, the fifteen-year-old Brutus, had killed
Silvius. And he remembered what Silvius had said to Brutus as he'd faced
Silvius yet one more time that day Loth had challenged Brutus: I am your conscience, I am this land, and I am the
Game.
"I am the
Game," William whispered. Then he refocused his eyes on Swanne.
"Silvius lives within the Game," he said. "And Silvius once wore
those bands. He knows those band, and they him. He
could have moved them."
He must have! Who else?
"Why?" said
Swanne.
"To foil
me," William said, a sad smile hovering about his face. "To murder my
ambitions."
Swanne cursed, foully
enough to make William stare at her in barely disguised distaste.
"What can we do
to stop him?" she said.
"At the moment,
not much." If only it
were Silvius.
William wanted to believe that very much; it made everything so simple. Still,
he was glad Matilda had her agent within Westminster. Just in case… someone…
was lying to him.
"If Silvius
moved them then I can find them," William said, trying to settle the
matter in his own mind. "We are of the same blood, the same training. If
he moved them, then I can find them."
William forced
himself to smile slightly. "It is not as desperate as I'd thought. It will
not be long before I can come," he said. "Do not worry."
Above them one of the
seabirds, now circling much lower, gave another harsh cry as if of laughter.
Swanne smiled, and
lifted her face to William's. "Kiss me," she said.
He did so, but not as
deeply as Swanne would have liked. She drew him close, meaning to kiss him
again, but William pushed her back. "Go now," he said. "Go. And
don't ever dare this again. It is too dangerous. It won't be long until I can
be with you in truth. It won't be."
"You said that
fifteen years ago."
"Fifteen years
ago I was a fool." Two
thousand years ago I was a fool, too. "It won't be long now, we can both feel it."
"William…"
"Go!" he
said, and gave her shoulders a push. "Go."
When she finally
disappeared, William was not so very surprised to feel a profound sense of
relief sweep through him.
Deep within the Game,
Og's heart beat infinitesimally stronger.
ASTERION SLOWLY
RECOMPOSED HIS AWARENESS FROM
the seabird—after
all, he was the master of glamours—back to his own body sprawled in a great
chair before the fire in his hall.
The silly witch,
thinking he would not have known she would do something like that.
In truth, Asterion
had been expecting it ever since Swanne had forced herself on Aldred, the obese
buffoon, and had been mildly surprised she'd waited as long as she had.
He thrust thoughts of
Swanne aside, and concentrated on the matter at hand. Silvius? They had decided
Silvius was moving the bands.
Asterion grinned,
staring into the flames. Silvius…
DAMSON WAS DOWN AT
THE RIVER'S EDGE, CAREFULLY
folding wet linens
and placing them within her basket, when the waterman poled his craft close to
her.
"Damson!"
he called softly, and she set her washing aside, lifted her skirts, and walked
over to him.
"A new
challenge," he said. "Our mistress requires you to watch the queen as
well as the Wessex witch. What company do they keep? Do they slip into the
night unattended?"
Damson rolled her
eyes. "A fine request indeed, and to come at such a time! The lady Swanne
had been bundled out of Westminster and has found solace within the archbishop
of York's house within London's walls. What does our mistress expect me to do,
scurry back and forth, back and forth, and expect no one to notice?"
The waterman leaned
on his pole and regarded Damson speculatively. "In the past weeks I have
seen you scurrying often between Westminster and London. What is one or two
more scurries among those you already accomplish?"
"I have not left
Westminster in months!"
The waterman
chuckled. "So you have a lover then, and seek to deny it. I hope you do
not confess our mistress' secrets to him."
Damson glared at him.
"I have not left Westminster!"
He shrugged. "As
you will. But, listen, there is more. Pray watch carefully, if you can, among
either the queen's or lady Swanne's possessions for a golden band or two, with
a spinning crown over a labyrinth set into them."
"She wishes me
to steal it?"
The waterman shook
his head. "Just to observe its presence."
"I can do
that."
"Give my best to
your lover," the waterman said, standing up straight and hefting the pole.
"He must be good if you seek to deny him so mightily."
Damson scowled,
marched back to her basket, then stalked off, leaving the sound of the
waterman's laughter ringing over the river.
Nldfai
night; that moment
when the sun either would triumph agai* and rise the next morning toward an
eventual spring, or it plunge the world and all creation into never-ending
gloom and
It was the night when
the land held its breath. If the su^ ^1 land failed, and spring would never
grace its body again. If then the land would wither and die, and all who lived
on also.
It was the night when
the land strived for the dawn, for i, resurgent fertility. *
It was the night
Caela could act, where she could do for tk
k
Vi
"MY LORD?"
Edward, who had been
contemplating something unfaa
V
middle distance of
the Great Hall in the palace of
study his wife. They
sat on the dais, digesting their evening ^
some minstrels play.
The Hall was all but
deserted, and this emptiness had put fc mood.
Tonight was the
winter solstice, and he knew that great planned for the fields and hills beyond
the northern walls Q dances and games were to be enacted by all and
sundry. Th, were aeons old, meant to encourage the sun's rise the follows ^e
fe^ 't 't to frighten away all evil spirits who hoped for the sun's deatk ^ %ni
^ ending gloom. Most of London's population, as well as that Qf^d fOr
'tV ing villages and hamlets, were gathering at Pen Hill, awaitьy&
^e$ur W^$, of the flint, and the first spark that would signal the
festivities ^ first 't^^
O
And half the court
had gone as well, if the emptiness of this Hall was any indication.
Edward had spent the
past week expressly forbidding the pagan ceremonies.
That not only the
general population, but also so many of the court had completely ignored him,
had sent him spinning into so ferocious a temper that Judith, who was sitting a
few paces away, wondered at Caela's courage in even speaking to him.
"Yes?"
Edward snapped.
"My lord, I beg
your sanction to take my leave of you this night. I would—"
"You also would take your part in these devilish
practices? You also want to dance with the
heathens? How dare you, wife! Christ's birthday is
but days away,
and you want to revel in
heathenish practices expressly forbidden by our Lord?" His vehemence was so great
that Edward peppered Caela's face with fine globules of spit.
Judith winced, hating
the king and all he stood for. She looked to Caela, knowing her mistress wanted
above all else to scream Yes.' Instead, Judith watched with growing admiration
as Caela kept her face humble and submissive.
"Never!"
Caela said. "I grieve for their souls in their ignorance. Nay, I wanted to
ask your leave not to join in these heathenish and most vile practices, but to
spend the night in humility before the altar of St. Paul's, that I might pray
for the souls of all who succumb to sin this night." Edward was momentarily lost for
words. Caela wanted to spend the night in prayer? He was consumed by a sudden
rush of warmth for his wife. Perhaps, in her maturity, she was learning a
greater grace and humility than he had ever thought her capable.
But…
"St.
Paul's?" he said. "Would you not be better served by our own abbey
church of Westminster? There I could join you."
Judith kept her face
impassive, but her stomach clenched.
"I have ever
felt closer to God in St. Paul's, my lord. And it is in the heart of London
itself." It is the heart
of London.
"There I feel my prayers might have the greater effect on the souls of
those Londoners who might otherwise lose themselves tonight. I beg you, grant
me my wish. I feel that much prayer shall be needed tonight to counter the
effects of these dire, devilish dances."
Judith had to bite
her lip at that last phrase, and she could see the corner of Caela's mouth
twitch as well. Control
yourself! Judith
thought, and in that instant Caela did, and her face became as a great pool of
sadness and piety.
"Caela!"
Edward said, and reached out both his hands to take one of Caela's. "I
wish that your brother had your sense of Christian duty, for I note full well
that he is also absent from the hall this night. Very well, I grant your wish,
and I shall send with you an escort of armed men that you may be kept safe
throughout your night of prayer."
Caela bowed her head
and, as Edward's attention drifted elsewhere, winked at Judith.
TWO HOURS LATER CAELA, ACCOMPANIED BY JUDITH,
Saeweald, an escort
numbering some thirty-five armed men (looking unhappy that duty called this
night when they would much rather be dancing on the hills), and seven monks
from Westminster Abbey, entered the cathedral of St. Paul's via the great
western doors.
There were few people
about. A priest or two, several Londoners—among those very few who had not
wanted to partake in the revelries—and an aged workman, huddled in one corner
with a tattered cloak wrapped about him.
It was very cold, and
the party's breath frosted about their faces.
"Madam?"
murmured Saeweald. He had been very quiet on the journey to St. Paul's.
"I will pray
before the altar," Caela said, and led the way through the nave toward the
great gilded altar. There burned several fat candles, and dishes of incense,
and, in the floor immediately before the altar, offerings of gold, oils, and
coins, left by pilgrims grateful to St. Paul for whatever healing he had
bestowed upon them.
Caela walked directly
to the altar, bent and kissed the crucifix, which sat upon it, then turned once
more to Judith and Saeweald, who stood close by her.
"I will lay
prostrate before the altar," Caela murmured. "For the entire
night."
"Madam,"
said Judith, glancing at Saeweald.
"What I
do," said Caela quietly, "I do for this land, not for any Christian monstrosity. I need to merge
entirely with the land so that it and I are seamless, and tonight… tonight,
this is what I shall accomplish."
"Caela," Saeweald
said slowly, "are you sure that you go to the right man?"
Should it not be me? As Og-reborn?
Caela studied
Saeweald, then smiled, and kissed him on the forehead. Briefly. Gently. No more
than a brush of dry lips. "This is right for me, here and now," she
said. "Later, perhaps… besides, you have other duties tonight."
He nodded. "I
understand." Saeweald paused. "Be well," he finished, and at his
blessing, grudging as it was, Caela's face relaxed.
"Caela…"
Judith began, her gaze darting between Caela and Saeweald.
"I need to do this," Caela said.
Judith sighed,
nodded, then kissed Caela's cheek. "Be well, then." She managed to
summon a small smile. "And enjoy, for it is meaningless without
enjoyment."
"I shall stay
all night," Caela said again. "When I am… gone, then there is no need
for either you or Saeweald to stay to watch over me. You shall be better
employed elsewhere. Perhaps," her eyes danced, "with Ecub, atop Pen
Hill?"
Judith looked at
Saeweald, both knowing that Caela's suggestion was in
fact more like a
command.
"Come,"
said Caela. "Aid me to this floor. And be here to greet me at dawn, when I
am sure my bones shall be still and cold from this stone!"
Judith took Caela's
elbow, and aided her to the floor where, having bowed several times and crossed
herself even more, Caela sank down until she lay prone, her arms extended to
the side, her face to the floor.
Saeweald gestured to
the escort to stand back at a respectful distance— they removed themselves
until they stood in a semicircle about the prostrate form of their queen at a
distance of some fifteen paces—and then he folded his hands inside his
voluminous sleeves, and bowed his head as if in
prayer
Slightly to his side,
and a pace behind him, Judith did the same. In reality, they had their eyes
fixed on Caela.
IN ROUEN, WHERE THE POPULATION WAS ENGAGED IN
much the same
activities as the Londoners, William begged leave from his
wife.
"I have drunk
too excessively of the wine this afternoon, my dear. My head throbs horribly. I
would retire, I think, and let it settle."
"What?"
said Matilda, her eyebrows raised. "You would miss the revels?"
Unlike Edward, she and William always normally attended the excitement of the
winter solstice fires.
"You go, if you
wish," said William, his face apologetic as he leaned forward and kissed
her mouth. "But I must to bed, or I think my head will burst. Nay, do not
think to stay and nurse me. It is but the wine."
Matilda shook her
head. William had drunk a little excessively this
day. "I should force you to drink only milk, like a child," she said.
William made a face,
then smiled, kissed her hand, and left her. He
went straight to his
bedchamber, where he disrobed and slid beneath the coverlets.
Despite the terrible
ache in his head, he was asleep within minutes.
JUDITH AND SAEWEALD
SAW THE INSTANT THAT CAELA
"left."
There was a sudden, strange stillness about her body, and although it still
breathed, they knew that Caela was no longer there.
Saeweald glanced
about at the armed men and monks standing about. They, too, seemed locked in an
eerie stillness.
He reached down and
grasped Judith's hand. "Come," he whispered. "The hills
call."
THE MAIN SITE OF THE
REVELS FOR LONDON WAS ON Pen Hill, a mile or so beyond the northern wall of the
city. Here crowds had been gathering since dusk and now, as full night fell,
they grew increasingly restless.
Atop the hill itself,
standing within the circle of worn stones, which had graced the hilltop since
antiquity, an elderly woman, clad in little more than a diaphanous robe, cried
out, and held aloft a burning brand.
The light revealed
her face, and those close enough could see that this year's mistress of the
ceremonies was, as it had been for the past twelve years, Ecub—the strange,
enigmatic prioress of St. Margaret the Martyr.
Standing just to
Ecub's right was a man and a woman, their eyes riveted on Ecub's face: Judith
and Saeweald, the hoods of their cloaks drawn about their faces.
Ecub dipped the brand
groundward with an inchoate cry, and fire erupted about the hilltop. A great
bone-fire burned, the stench of the bones meant to drive away evil spirits and
witches who might be flying overhead, and men and women rolled forward great
hay and wickerwork wheels.
The prioress gave a
signal, and from brands dipped in the bone-fire, the wheel holders lit the
wheels, and, once they were well alight, sent them rolling down the hill on all
sides.
It was the moment the
crowd had been waiting for. With a great roar, the revels began.
On the hill, Saeweald
turned to Judith and gathered her in hungry arms.
"May tonight
increase the herd," he said, thinking of Caela.
"May she tie
herself and this land in everlasting harmony," she whispered, and lifted
her mouth to his.
"Amen,"
murmured Ecub to one side.
THE STONE HALL STOOD
EMPTY, WAITING AS IT HAD
waited for so many
thousands of years. Tonight, however, there was an expectancy in the air,
almost a vibration.
There was a movement
in the deep shadows in one of the side aisles.
Then another. A
rustling, as if someone had dropped a cloak or a robe, and dragged it
momentarily across the stone flagging.
And then she walked
forth. Caela, yet not Caela. Mag, and yet not Mag. A woman, if nothing else, of
startling loveliness.
She was completely
naked, and utterly beautiful in that nakedness. Her glossy dark hair cascaded
down her back and across one shoulder. Her blue eyes were deep and very calm
and sure. Her body was slim, strong, lithe.
She walked into the
center of the stone hall, and looked about, as if expecting someone.
After a moment, she
began to pace impatiently.
William tossed and turned in his sleep
as dream gripped him.
He moaned, desperate, for this dream
was no stranger.
It had first come to him two thousand
years ago, when he had been Brutus and Caela had been his wife, Cornelia. Then,
the dream had undermined his marriage. Now, it terrified him.
He stood, as Brutus, in a stone hall
so vast that he could barely comprehend the skill required to build it. The
roof soared so far above his head he could hardly see it, while to either side,
long aisles of perfectly rounded stone columns guarded shadowy, esoteric
places.
This was a place of great mystery and
power.
There was a movement in the shadows
behind one of the ranks of columns, and Cornelia—utterly naked—walked
out into the open space of the hall.
Brutus drew in a sharp, audible
breath, but she did not acknowledge his presence, and Brutus was aware that
even though they stood close, she had no idea he was present.
Cornelia looked different, and it
took Brutus a long moment to work out why. She was older, perhaps by ten or
fifteen years, far more mature, far, far
lovelier.
Brutus realized he was holding his
breath and let it out slowly, studying her. Her body was leaner and stronger
than he knew it, her hips and breasts more rounded, her flanks and legs smoother
and more graceful. Her face had thinned, revealing a fine bone structure, and
there were lines of care and laughter about her eyes and mouth that accentuated
her loveliness rather than detracted from it.
"Cornelia," Brutus said,
and stretched out his hand.
She paid him no attention, wandering
back and forth, first this way, then that, her eyes anxious, and Brutus
understood that she was waiting for someone.
Completely unaware
that hundreds of miles away William was caught in a two-thousand-year-old
nightmare, Caela stopped, and stared, and breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"I thought you
would not come!" she said.
The approaching man
smiled, and held out his hands.
He was utterly naked,
save for the patch that covered his left eye.
She ran to him, and
took his hands. "Silvius." Her voice was filled with longing.
"It is the death of the year. It is time."
There was some
uncertainty in his face, even though he was clearly aroused by her naked body
and the yearning in her voice.
"I am not
Brutus," he said. "I am not—"
"You are
everything I want," she said, and drew him in against her. "Really.
This is truly a special night, Silvius."
"I pray I do
right by you."
He was trembling, and
she let go his hands and ran her hands over his body. He was lean, no fat, and
with hard muscles and clean limbs, and she found herself wanting him very, very
badly. She was Caela-Mag, she was this land, and she could bear her virginity
no longer.
Not on this night, of
all nights. Not on a night when those who still remembered, and cared, lit
fires and danced the ancient fertility rituals, begging the land to hold fast
through the winter and to emerge fertile and bountiful in spring. To allow her
virgin state to last beyond this night, of all nights, would have been vile.
"Tonight,"
she repeated, her voice little more than a murmur, "this land and I,
merged forever. This land and the Game,"
she touched his face, "wedded forever."
She ran her hands up
his back, and drew him in for a hard kiss.
He pulled his head
back, just for a moment, just so he could gaze at her with a strange,
triumphant light in his eye. "Wedded forever, you and I, the Game and the
land," he said. "Oh, aye. Aye."
Then he gathered her
to him fiercely.
William cried out in his sleep, his
arms flailing as he tossed and rolled over, tangling the covers about his legs.
"I thought you would not
come!" she said, and Brutus almost groaned at the love in her eyes and
voice.
"Cornelia!" Brutus said
again, taking a step forward, his heart gladder than he could have thought
possible.
And then he staggered as a man
brushed past him and walked toward Cornelia.
This was the man that Cornelia had
smiled at and spoken to, and he was as unaware of Brutus' presence as Cornelia
was.
A deep, vile anger consumed Brutus.
Who was this that she met?
The man was as naked as Cornelia, and
Brutus saw that he was fully roused. Who was he? Corineus? Yes… no. Brutus had
an unobstructed view of the man's face, yet could not make it out. First he was
sure that he wore Corineus' fair features, then they darkened, and became those
of a man unknown.
Cornelia said the man's name, her
voice rich with love, and it, too, was indiscernible to Brutus' ears.
"Do
you know the ways of Llangarlian love?" said the man.
"Of course," said Cornelia,
and she walked directly into the man's arms, her arms slipping softly about his
body, and offered her mouth to his.
They kissed, passionately, the kiss
of a man and a woman well used to each other, and Brutus found his hands were
clenched at his side.
"Caela,"
Silvius said, his voice rich with love. "Do you know the ways of
Llangarlian love?"
"Ah, I would
learn. Will you teach me?"
"I am not
Brutus. I am not my son. Know that."
"I know
that."
"Yet you choose
me? Freely?"
"Yes. Yes! Freely, yes!
Gods, Silvius, enough words! I have had enough of this virginity!"
"As you
wish," he whispered, and grabbed at her mouth once more with his, and
pulled her against him. She pressed her body against his, moaning, and together
they half sank, half fell to the floor.
All his apparent
doubts gone, Silvius wasted no time, nor did he seem to have a care for Caela's
sensibilities. He put a hand on one of her shoulders, pushing her hard against
the stone, and with the other hand he parted her legs and mounted her,
thrusting deep inside.
Caela cried out as
she felt the warmth of her virgin blood spill across the stone flooring. She
struggled a little under Silvius, but he did not tolerate any resistance, and,
both his hands now on her shoulders, he thrust again and again.
His face, and the one
eye that shone from it, were very hard.
After a short while
she subsided, accepting him, and then moaned.
"No!" William shouted, and
lurched upright in the bed, grabbing frantically at the bedclothes. His eyes
stared straight ahead, but they did not see his own bedchamber.
They only saw dream.
"No!" Brutus shouted, and
would have stepped forward and grabbed at the man now moving over Cornelia with
long, powerful strokes, save that he found himself unable to move.
He could witness, but he could not
interfere.
The lovers' tempo and passion
intensified, and Cornelia moaned and twisted, encouraging her lover in every
way she could, and they kissed again, their bodies now so completely entwined,
so completely merged, that they seemed but one.
Caela held on to
Silvius' shoulders, remembering with every one of his movements, those nights she
had lain with his son, remembering how Brutus had felt inside her, remembering
how he had made her feel, and she wept, silently and softly, because Silvius
made her feel none of these things. Silvius was a powerful lover, almost cruel
in his strength, but all he accomplished with his body and his sweat and his
effort was to make her long for his son.
Silvius saw her
tears, and his mouth caught at hers, demanding, powerful. He lifted his face
away from hers for a moment.
"Do not
weep," he rasped, "for this is all you asked for."
Then he lowered his
mouth again, his teeth biting and grabbing at her neck and breasts, drawing
blood here and there.
And then he paused,
still buried deep inside her, and raised himself on an elbow, looking down. His face was flushed and sweaty,
his black hair tangled, his breathing harsh and heavy.
"Do you wish I
was Brutus?" he said.
"No," she
said.
A strange look came
over his face. "You lie."
"I'm
sorry," she whispered.
"It does not
matter," he said, and she felt him move again inside her. "All that
matters is that I am here, and that you took me
freely."
His hips rocked back
and forth, smooth and practiced. "Hang on to me," he said, fiercely,
and her hands tightened about his shoulders, "and remember that you freely
accepted what now I give you."
"I feel
nothing," she said. "Silvius, what is wrong? I feel nothing."
"All that
matters," he said, then grunted, thrusting more fiercely than he
had heretofore,
"is that I feel, my lady, and that your body lies beneath
mine."
Caela closed her
eyes, wincing at Silvius' now violent action, and then, as she felt the sudden
wetness of his semen within her, cried out, her eyes flying open.
WILLIAM SAT UPRIGHT
IN BED, HIS BODY BATHED IN
sweat, his breath
heaving in and out.
His eyes still stared
wildly, his hands clutched among the bed linens.
He had seen, finally,
the man's face.
His father, Silvius,
lay with Cornelia-Caela and whatever else it was that
she had become.
And yet, Silvius
notwithstanding, in that terrible moment when William had seen his father's
face, and heard him cry out as he shuddered over Caela's body, William could
only see the vision, and how it had ended.
The man's form changed, blurring
slightly. He was grunting now, almost animalistic, and for the first time
Brutus saw that Cornelia had her hands on the man's shoulders as if to push him
off.
She cried out, and it was the sound
of pain, not passion.
Brutus still could not move, and he
watched in horror as the man's form blurred again, and became something
horrible and violent.
A man, yes, with a thick, muscled
body, but impossibly with the head of a
bull.
The creature tipped back its head and
roared, and both Cornelia and Brutus
screamed at the same moment.
The creature's movements became
violent, murderous, and Brutus saw that he
was using his body as a weapon.
There was blood now, smearing across
Cornelia's belly and flanks, and her head was tipped back, her face screwed up
in agony, and her fists beat a useless tattoo across the creature's back and
shoulders.
"Cornelia! Cornelia!"
Brutus screamed, and for once both Cornelia and the creature heard him, and
both turned their faces to him, and the creature roared once more, and Brutus
knew who it was.
Asterion. Cornelia had invited evil
incarnate to ride her.
"Caela?"
William whispered. He rose from the bed, throwing back the sheets angrily when
they tangled briefly in his legs, and walked to stand naked before the window.
"Caela?" he
whispered again, staring into the blackness and distance. "What have you
done?"
SILVIUS PULLED OUT
FROM CAELA'S BODY, BUT DID
not roll away.
Instead he gazed at her, his face hard and watchful.
She lay as if asleep,
her face flushed, her breasts rising and falling.
Silvius ran a hand
over them, and then down to her belly.
At that, her eyes
opened.
"Well?" he
said, his expression now soft.
She frowned. And then
smiled, but it was half-hearted, and troubled. "Thank you," she said.
"I was not what
you wanted," he said, and then laid a hand over her mouth as she tried to
speak. "Never mind," he continued, his voice a little hard, a little
disappointed. "You were all that / wanted."
Then he rose from
her, and was gone.
Oh gods, it was not what I had
expected. He had constantly told me he was not Brutus, and yet all I could
think about when he mounted me was Brutus, and all I wanted was Brutus.
"Do not take me only because I
remind you of Brutus," he'd said.
But I think that was why I had lain
with him, the only reason, because his face was that of Brutus', only kinder,
and his body was also that of Brutus', only sweeter and gentler.
And yet, when Silvius had mounted me,
I could barely restrain from shouting Brutus' name, from screaming for him.
Gods, it was as if he'd been there, watching. All I had wanted was Brutus. All
I had thought about was Brutus. All I had felt was Brutus.
So was that why I felt no different—save, of course, for that throbbing heat and the
lingering discomfort between my thighs? Is that why that emptiness still echoed
within me, why that sense of 'un-rightness' had, if anything, grown? Was this
my fault, my weakness?
I laid my hand on my belly. My womb
felt strangely sore, although I knew there would be no child from this
encounter. For that I was heartily glad. I hated to think what mischief my womb
might breed from lying with one man while all the while dreaming of another.
I let my head roll to one side.
"Brutus," I whispered. "How is it you can torment me so?"
And then I wept, for the sheer
stupidity of that question, and for all the good this night had done me.
O
LATER, WHEN CAELA HAD
LONG GONE, ASTERION STOOD IN the stone hall, staring at the dark stain of her
virgin blood on the stone floor. He stood there for a long while, his face
expressionless, then he finally permitted himself a tight smile, and vanished.
PRAY YOU, LADIES,
DO NOT RISE."
The three women who
slept in the chamber outside Swanne's bedchamber, still blinking sleep from
their eyes, glanced at each other in uncertainty.
"I merely go to
the lady Swanne," the archbishop of York said, grinning benignly, his
fingers laced over his huge stomach. "As her ladyship and I had agreed. As
part of our contract. Surely she mentioned this to you."
The senior among
Swanne's ladies, Hawise, slowly shook her head, her eyes fixed on the
archbishop.
Aldred grinned.
"What? Swanne modestly unforthcoming? I cannot believe this. And she begged me!"
"I cannot think
that my lady—" began Hawise.
"Well, my lady did agree," Aldred snapped, suddenly waspish.
"Do you think that I would have risked Edward and, for the sweet Lord's
sake, Harold's wrath merely out of the goodness
of my heart? No, my lady has a payment to make, and tonight she is going to
make good her debts."
And with that, he
brushed straight past the one among the women who had risen from her bed, and
opened the door into Swanne's bedchamber.
SWANNE HAD BEEN FAST
ASLEEP WHEN THE SOUND of a raised, querulous male voice, had started to pull
her from her dreams into wakefulness. Before she could fully rouse, the door to
her bedchamber had opened, and a vast bulk had moved through the opening, then
the door had closed again.
Firmly.
Then came the sound
of a bolt sliding home.
Alarmed, even though
she was not yet fully aware, Swanne half raised herself, clutching the bed
covers to her naked breasts.
"Who…?"
"Your beloved
archbishop, my dear. Come to claim his debt."
"What?"
Swanne had been so deeply asleep that she was still not completely awake.
The man—the vast bulk—moved close to her bed, and Swanne instinctively slid
away until the bare skin of her back touched the stone wall against which her
bed was placed.
Aldred—Swanne had
recognized him—started to fumble at the neckline of his robe, where ties held
it in place.
Swanne's mind
suddenly snapped into full alertness. Full awareness. "Begone from here!"
she hissed. "Get out!"
"Nonsense, my
dear." The robe now slid from his body and, in the faint light from the
partly unshuttered window, Swanne saw the immense expanse of dimpled white
flesh that stood before her.
The sight of this
sickening mass of a man, the very thought
of him clambering atop her, made Swanne feel nauseous, but that initial
reaction was instantly overridden by a wave of immense anger. "Remove
yourself!" she shouted.
Aldred took a single
pace forward, the numerous rolls of fat over his chest and down to the mound of
his belly undulating like a river at high tide, and placed a hand over Swanne's
mouth, forcing her back against the wall.
Swanne's round and
furious eyes glared at him over the top of her hand, and she opened her mouth
further, meaning to bite him, but just before she could bring her teeth down,
something surged through her… A sense of terror.
Her breath stopped.
The terror had not come from Aldred, nor from the situation in which she found
herself. Nor even from herself, for Swanne was furious, not terrified. It came
from memory.
It came from the
memory of a woman silently screaming inside Swanne's skull.
No! No! No!
Then Swanne did feel
the first inkling of dread, for she knew who that was.
Ariadne. No, no, no…
Aldred had clambered
onto the bed now, his hand still held brutally tight over Swanne's mouth, and
was kneeling over her, straddling her with his
legs.
Something, perhaps
the sound of Ariadne's terror, made Swanne look over
his shoulder.
The faint
illumination from the window cast Aldred's shadow on to the far
wall.
This shadow was not
that of the fat, loathsome man who straddled her.
It was of a fit man,
tightly muscled… and with the head of a bull.
Up to this moment
Swanne had been struggling with the huge man who had forced her back against
the wall. Now her efforts became utterly frenzied. She struck at him with her
fists, beating without pause, and tried to jerk her knees into him.
She tried to bite
him, but his hand had pushed her upper lip hard up against her nose, and she
could not force her jaw to close.
He laughed softly,
joyously.
"You know me for
who I am now, Swanne?"
She made a strangled
sound under his hand, her body trying to buck under his.
"Come now,
Swanne. No need for such histrionics. Ariadne didn't put up a fight like this.
You knew, of course, that she and I were lovers as well as siblings?
Swanne's eyes were
wide with terror, but still her efforts to repel him doubled.
"Enough!"
barked Aldred, and the hand and arm that held Swanne became as stone. He
shifted his hand slightly so that it covered both Swanne's nose and her mouth.
She stiffened
underneath him, her breasts heaving in their frantic fight for air.
Suddenly, desperate
beyond knowing, sure she was about to die, Swanne sent forth a surge of power,
trying to push him away with that power where her muscles had failed.
"No, my
dear," Aldred whispered. "We can't have that, can we?" Without
any seeming effort he blocked the power, and sent it churning back into Swanne.
She heaved beneath
him, unable to bear the twin agonies of lack of oxygen and the painful bite of
her power within her own flesh.
A moan gurgled in her
throat, and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her struggles lessened, her
hands relaxing away from their fists and sliding slowly down the broad expanse
of his back.
"Listen to
me," Aldred whispered, leaning over her until his eyes stared into her
dying ones. "I will not allow you to slip into either unconsciousness, or
even into death. None of that escape for you. Indeed, not. Instead, you can listen to what I have
to say, and watch what I have to show you." He paused. Then, "Can you
hear me, Swanne, my dear?"
Swanne's eyelids
slowly dropped in acknowledgment.
Aldred could feel her
body twisting beneath his, and he grinned, pleased.
She would exist in
this agony of half-death until he thought to release her.
Then, of course, she
would endure something much more terrible.
"Swanne,
beloved… I may call you that, yes?"
She made no response,
but Aldred carried on regardless.
"You may be
suffering under some disillusionment," he said. "You may think that
the darkcraft is yours, free and clear—even if it hasn't been of much use to
you in this life. You may have believed that Ariadne won it from me
completely."
His voice and body
both became rigid with threat. "But there was a condition, my sweet. A
condition. And now has come the time for you to pay it out."
Swanne, who lay
suspended half between life and death, found her mind filled with images so
clear, they might have been enacted before her.
Ariadne clasped to Asterion, the
Minotaur's hand in her waistband.
"Give me the darkcraft of the
heart of the labyrinth," she begged. "You are the only one who has
ever learned to manipulate the power in the dark heart of the Labyrinth. Now I
want you to teach me that darkcraft. I will combine your darkcraft with my
powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth, Asterion, to free you completely."
At this point Ariadne paused, and
rested her hands on Asterion Is ruined
chest. "I will combine our powers together, beloved brother, to tear apart
the Game once and for all. Never again will it ensnare you. That will be my
recompense to you for my stupidity in betraying you to Theseus and my payment
to you for giving me the power to tear apart Theseus and all he stands for."
"She was
persuasive, wasn't she?" Aldred whispered. "Who could resist such hair,
such eyes, such a mouth… and those breasts! She had just betrayed me to her
lover, she had arranged my murder, and here she was, cooing all over me,
offering herself to me, and asking me to give myself and my power to her
completely. Of course I allowed myself to be tempted! After all, Ariadne was
offering me the ultimate aphrodisiac: a life where I'd thought to endure only
death."
He paused, and he
grabbed at one of Swanne's breasts, squeezing it painfully. "Of course, I
was no fool for her completely."
He held her eyes steady, looking for
deception. 'You would destroy the Game? Free me completely so that I may be
reborn into life as I will?"
'Yes! This is something that only I
can do, you know that… but you must also know I need the use of your darkcraft
to do it. Teach it to me, I beg you."
"If you lie—"
"I do not!"
"If you do not destroy the Game—"
"I will!"
He gazed at her, unsure, unwilling to
believe her. "If I give to you the darkcraft,"
he said, "and you misuse it in
any manner—to trick me or trap me—then
I will destroy you."
She started to speak, but he hushed
her. "I will, for there is one thing else that I shall demand of you
Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth."
'Yes?"
"That in return for teaching you
the darkcraft, for opening to you completely the dark heart of the Labyrinth,
you shall not only destroy the Game forever, but you will allow me to become
your ruler. Your lord. Call it what you want, but know that if you ever attempt
to betray me again, if you do not destroy the Game completely, I demand that
you shall fall to the ground before me, and become my creature entirely."
"Of course!"
His expression did not change. "
'Of course!' ? With not even a breath to consider? How quickly you agree."
"I will not betray you again, Asterion. Teach me the
darkcraft and I swear—on the life of my
daughter!—that I will use it to destroy the Game utterly. It
shall never entrap you again."
Aldred's fingers were
still groping at Swanne's breasts, but the pain of his sharp-nailed fingers
could do nothing to eclipse the sickening dread that now coursed through
Swanne.
Aldred's hand on
Swanne's mouth and nose loosened a little, allowing a thin draught of air to
trickle between his fingers, and Swanne's chest bucked in its effort to heave
precious oxygen into her lungs.
"And what did
you do, Swanne-who-was-once-Genvissa?" Aldred whispered. "What did
you do? Why, you started the Game again, thinking that I was too far distant to
stop you. I don't care to hear of your excuses and your reasons, for I know
them all. All I do care to hear is your acknowledgment of Ariadne's oath. She
is the one who is going to destroy you, Swanne. Not me."
His hand removed
entirely from her mouth, and Swanne gulped air into her lungs. Aldred sat back,
sitting on her lower legs, one fat, dimpled knee to either side of her hips,
his hands to his own hips, regarding her with amusement.
"Well?" he
said.
"What?"
Swanne gasped, and then screamed, her body contorting again as Asterion's power
surged through her.
"Do you
acknowledge Ariadne's oath?"
She was still
shrieking, and Aldred lifted a hand and struck her hard across the face.
Blood spattered in an
arc across the bed.
"Do you acknowledge Ariadne's
oath?"
"Oh gods,"
Swanne moaned. "How can I…"
She screamed again as
a counter blow sent her head smashing into the wall.
"It was an oath
made on power and on the life of Ariadne's daughter, my dear. One that bound
not only Ariadne, but through that daughter, all Ariadne's daughter-heirs. What
a foremother, hey? What a legacy!" Aldred laughed, the sound rich and
deeply amused. "Now, do you acknowledge Ariadne's oath?"
She tried to deny it.
She tried with every fiber of her being, but, even desperate as she was, Swanne
could not force the denial from her throat again. Instead, there came a voice
from her mouth that was not so much hers, not only Ariadne's, but the voice of
all her foremothers, Ariadne and her five daughter-heirs before Genvissa.
"Yes," that
voice whispered, a ghastly, echoing utterance that coiled about the room.
"Yes, I—we—acknowledge the oath."
Aldred's body tensed,
and Swanne was dimly aware that it was because he had drawn in a great breath
of triumph. "You know what is going to happen now, Swanne, don't
you?"
Swanne whimpered. It
was all she could articulate in her overwhelming sense of horror.
"You are going
to fulfill Ariadne's bargain for her, seeing as she is no longer about to do so
herself. And well you should pay, Swanne, since it was you who
began the Game again! You who tried to trap me!"
"No, no! I beg
you. Anything but—"
"Everything, Swanne. Everything."
"Please…
no…"
Aldred's hands were
now fumbling under the great dewlap of his belly, and before Swanne's appalled
gaze, he brought forth his erection.
"No!"
"And now, my
lovely, we are going to cement Ariadne's bargain by the same means she and I
originally cemented it. Are you ready?"
Swanne tried to
scream, but she felt Asterion wrap his power about her, and she could do
nothing but whimper.
She tried to hit at
him, but her arms were leaden.
She tried to roll
away from him, but because Asterion still chose to cloak himself within
Aldred's massive bulk—the ultimate humiliation—she could do nothing.
Aldred lay down over
Swanne, resting his full weight on her, and grunted.
Swanne felt something
vile, something cold, probe at her.
She tried to writhe,
but could do nothing, nothing, as Aldred shifted his hips, and grunted again.
Something so cold and so painful that
it felt like splintered, jagged ice slithered its way inside her.
Aldred's hips bucked,
then pushed down deeply.
Agony coursed between
her hips and deep into her belly, but even beyond this, Swanne felt something
else.
Something cold and painful, a
splinter of sharp-edged ice, twisting its way into her soul.
"You're mine
now," whispered Aldred, and he forced his mouth over Swanne's, and pushed
his tongue inside her.
His hips began to work frantically, and Swanne knew
that she would have died under the suffering of his brutal assault—both on her
body and her soul—had not Asterion deliberately kept her alive.
Aldred lifted his
mouth a little away from hers, his fat face wobbling with his efforts, and
slicked with sweat that rolled from his skin's open pores.
"Everything you shall lay bare to me!" he said, and Swanne
felt her entire being sliced open, her every secret laid bare, her every
knowledge made understandable to this horror inside her.
She felt her soul,
her very being, kneeling in subjection before him.
And then something
terrifying, unendurably agonizing, exploded within her belly, and Swanne
mercifully lost consciousness.
WHEN SHE WOKE, HER
BODY THROBBING IN TOR-ment, Aldred was sitting—fully dressed—on the edge of her
bed.
"There," he
said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Swanne tried to
swallow, but her throat felt as if it had been stripped of its flesh, and she
gasped in agony partway through the movement.
"Poor
dear," Aldred said, and patted her hand where it lay on the bed.
Then his entire
demeanor changed, and malevolence shone through the man's fat features.
"You are now my creature entirely," he hissed, and his hand tightened
clawlike about hers. "You may make no move, and you may make no utterance
without my permission and guidance. You shall use your powers as Mistress of
the Labyrinth only as I direct. Do you understand me?"
Tears now coursed
down Swanne's face, but she managed a tiny nod.
And then a wince, as
if even that tiny movement caused her pain.
Aldred's rubbery lips
stretched in a grin. "I may not always be close, but there is a part of me
always with you, always watching you, always knowing. Do you feel it?"
Benumbed, Swanne
could do little but blink at him in incomprehension.
"This,"
said Aldred, and lifted Swanne's hand so that it lay on her belly.
He pressed her hand
down.
Swanne's eyes slowly
widened in appalled understanding. "My little incubus,"
said Aldred, his very voice as sibilant as a snake's. "Always within you,
always ready to bite and to whisper and to be. You are my
creature entirely,
Swanne." He laughed. "The Game is half mine."
Then Aldred sobered,
and bent his vile face close to Swanne's. "And all you have to do is
please me, my dear. To start with, I think you can bring me William.
A pause. "Won't
that be nice for you? Eh?"
Within her belly, the
incubus bit deep with its tiny, icy fangs, and Swanne's mouth opened in a
silent scream.
Her body arched and
bucked, and Aldred waited patiently until the agony had subsided enough that
Swanne lay relatively still again, even though her moans had not quietened.
"Later," he
said, "I might find some errands for you to run. Yes?"
She gave a single,
agonized nod.
"You will do whatever I want," he said, and Swanne sobbed,
hopeless, knowing that indeed, yes, she would do it.
Within her,
Asterion's little incubus twisted happily.
Darkcraft come to
life and form.
IN THE MORNING,
HAWISE EXCLAIMED IN HORROR AT the blood covering her mistress's sheet, and at
the haggard pain-filled face of Swanne herself.
But Aldred, arranging
the heavy golden crucifix on its chain over his chest, told Hawise that there
was little point. "It is but Swanne's monthly flux," he said. "A
little more burdensome than usual. No need to send for the physician."
He turned to Swanne,
fixing her with a cold, hard eye. "My lady should perhaps take as her
inspiration the queen, who so valiantly struggles with her own womanly
complaints. The physician is not needed, eh?"
Swanne looked at him,
then at Hawise, staring incredulously at her. "The physician is not
needed," she said hoarsely.
Part Six
With Edward's gentle piety was
blended a strange hardness towards those to whom he was most bound… his
alienation from his wife, even in that fantastic age, was thought extremely
questionable.
A. P. Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey,
London, March
HAT DO YOU KNOW OF EAVING?" SKELTON
said as he stirred the sugar into his
tea. He stared unabashedly at Ecub and Matilda, noting the similarities in
their finely drawn features. True-bom sisters now; twins, he thought, as there
was no age difference between them.
Who had controlled their rebirth?
Surely not Asterion. They must be a part of the Troy Game itself now, their
souls entwined with the labyrinth.
"Very little," said
Matilda. "Jack, you know me, and know what once I was to you. If I knew, I
would tell you."
"Is she with Coel?"
'You asked Loth that last
night," said Ecub. "Would you blame her if she was?"
"Curse you, Ecub!" Skelton
said, pushing aside his cup and saucer. "I love her! Where is she?"
"Coel has ever been the gentler
choice for her," Ecub responded.
"Coel is not the man for
her," Skelton responded, very quietly, his eyes steady on Ecub's.
"Now tell me, you ancient witch, where is Eaving? You are bound to her.
You must know where she is!"
Ecub looked at Matilda, then back to
Skelton. She smiled. "You are going to have to fight for both Eaving and
your daughter. Are you prepared to do that?"
"Yes, dammit. Yes!"
"Are you prepared to do everything in your power to—"
'Yes!"
Ecub raised her eyebrows, and shared
a look with Matilda.
"I will destroy the world if that is what it
takes," said Skelton. "Please …"
Ecub studied him, seeing in his
haggard face all she needed to know.
"What if I said to you,"
she said, "that 'destroying the world' means giving Eaving to Coel,
forever and aye?"
Skelton sat back in his chair and
studied Mother Ecub through narrowed eyes. "No," he said slowly.
"You say that only to taunt me. Giving Eaving to Coel is not required, nor
is it even a concept within the understanding of what Eaving is. She cannot be
given to Coel. Nor would he accept her."
"But you having her is a concept
within understanding?" Matilda asked.
Skelton looked at the woman who, so
many years ago, had once been his wife. His only answer was a small, tight
smile and the slightest of nods.
Both Ecub and Matilda burst into
delighted laughter as if he were a favorite child who had just passed a crucial
test. Matilda rose, and, stepping forward, placed her hand on his bare chest.
His skin was very warm, the muscles
beneath very tight, and her touch brought back many memories for the both of
them.
"Tell me what to do,"
Skelton said, "tell me what I have to do to win Eaving back from whatever
darkness consumes her."
o>ie
CAELA WAS TRAPPED
WITHIN HER MARRIAGE AND Edward's court throughout the Christmas
festivities. For six long days she smiled and danced and jested and, in the
mornings and evenings, attended chapel or abbey services with Edward.
At night she lay beside
Edward who, for once, did not sleep well, but tossed and turned and muttered
throughout the nights, gripped with a slight fever that presaged a chest cold.
If she left for even an instant he would have missed her.
There was no time to
herself. No time to talk with any of the Sidlesaghes, nor, hardly, with Judith.
No time to kiss
Damson on the mouth and effect a glamour so that, at least, she could move
within the laundress's body.
Caela had emerged
from her almost catatonic state before the altar of St. Paul's to find Judith
and Saeweald, and the remainder of her escort, waiting for her. There had been
no chance to talk then, not with the men-at-arms and monks so close, and little
chance once she returned to the palace, for Edward was in an unaccountably good
mood and insisted on sitting in her chamber (behind a blanket that Judith
hastily erected) while Caela took her bath and dressed.
From there it was to
chapel, and from there to court, and from there it was a merciless slide into
Yuletide and all those days of celebration that it entailed.
Normally Caela
enjoyed the Yuletide festivities. This year she loathed them.
She finally had a
chance to exchange a few hasty words with Judith on Christmas Eve, the day
after she'd returned from St. Paul's. They were sitting within Caela's solar,
and several other of the queen's attending ladies were present, but bending
over a chest full of linens in the far corner, muttering about some damp sheets
which would need to be aired.
"Madam?"
Judith whispered. "We have not had a chance to speak. How went it?"
Caela's eyes filled
with tears. "Not well. Oh," she said, glancing at Judith's face,
"I lost my virginity well enough, but it did not bring me the closeness to
the land I had thought it would. It was just…"
Bestial, she thought, and hated herself
for the calamity of that bare truth. If it was nothing but the humping and
grunting of animals, then that was, surely, her fault.
"It was not a
true marriage," Caela finished. "And I do not know why."
"You still feel
the emptiness?"
"Yes. I have
taken a wrong turning somewhere, and I do not know how, or what I should have
done instead." Caela rested a hand lightly on her belly. "Even my
womb feels it, for it pains me greatly." "Caela," Judith began,
laying a hand on the woman's shoulder, but then two of the other ladies came
over, a sheet draped over their arms, and distress written over their faces.
"Madam!"
one of them said. "Your bed linens have been quite soiled."
There was a silence, and Judith closed her eyes
briefly, appalled at the timing of the woman's concern.
"I am very well
aware of that," said Caela softly, and turned her head aside.
LATER, JUDITH SAID TO SAEWEALD: "IT DID NOT
WORK.
Caela still feels her
lack."
"And why am I
not surprised to hear of that?" said Saeweald, his voice weary despite the
inherent sarcasm of his words.
She chose wrong, he thought.
Christmas day itself was unseasonably
wild. A storm front surged down from the north, laying snow two feet deep on
the ground and trapping people inside with its icy blasts.
Thus it was that no one was about to
see, at dusk, the figure capering atop the Llandin, now known as the Meeting
Hill. It was something of the utmost evilness, now a man, now a bull, now
something even worse, shifting and twisting into shape after shape, growing
into something dark and humped and monstrous, then shrinking violently into
something that existed only as a spark of light dancing among the driving
snowflakes.
It was Asterion, celebrating.
Not Jesus Christ's nativity, but the
success of his own schemes.
"She's mine!" he sang,
again and again, arms wild, legs cavorting. "She's mine!"
And then stillness, only the darkness
of his eyes glowing through the storm.
"She has no will now, but
mine."
IT WAS SAEWEALD WHO
HELPED, IN THE END. FOUR DAYS after the celebration of Christ's Nativity, and
after a long discussion with Judith, Saeweald brought to the king in his
evening chamber a particularly strong sleeping draught.
"It is to aid
you to sleep, gracious lord," Saeweald said as Edward sat on the edge of
his bed in his nightshirt, his chest heaving in and out as he tried to catch
his breath.
On the other side of
the chamber Caela stood in her own night robe, a light wrap thrown over her
shoulders, her hair loose for the night. She looked as tired and drawn as the
king; more in need, in fact, of the sleeping draught than Edward.
Saeweald glanced at
her, then looked back to the king. "Madam your wife has told me how ill
you sleep," he said, his voice soothing and gentle. "Drink of this, I
pray you, for you cannot exist much longer without the restorative power of a
good sleep.
"Aye," said
Edward, sighing heavily. "Aye. You are right."
And he took the
draught, and drank heavily of it.
Later, when the king
was already fast asleep, snoring mightily, the bower-thegn accepted with a
smile the cup of spiced wine Judith brought to him.
Soon he, too, was
deep in sleep.
WHEN ALL WAS STILL,
AND THE ONLY SOUND THAT OF the snores of the two men, Caela rose. She slipped a
cloak about her shoulders, shivering a little in the coldness of the air,
slipped her feet into leather shoes, and padded quietly to stand in the center
of the chamber.
"Madam?" It
was Judith, half rising from the trestle bed at the foot of Caela and Edward's
bed.
Caela put her finger
to her lips. I go to the
Sidlesaghe, Judith. Be still.
"Be fast,"
Judith mouthed. "And be careful."
Caela nodded, then
stared at the floorboards.
A trapdoor slowly
materialized, and Caela bent down, lifted it and, with a smile for Judith,
vanished below.
THE SIDLESAGHE WAS
WAITING FOR HER IN THE
strange, brick-lined
tunnel.
"Oh, Long
Tom!" Caela said, and stepped forward so that he could wrap his strong
arms about her, and hug her to his chest.
"What is
wrong?" the Sidlesaghe said.
Caela sighed. "I
am still not as whole as I should be. I still… lack. Long Tom, what is wrong with me?"
He frowned, puzzled.
"You need to unite yourself to the land to attain your full self, sweet
one. You know that."
"But I
did!"
The Sidlesaghe's
expression of puzzlement deepened. "You did?"
"Yes! The night
of the winter solstice. I lay with Silvius. You said…" Caela stopped as
she finally looked at the Sidlesaghe's face.
"Silvius?"
he said. "He who sits and waits within the heart of the labyrinth?"
"Yes. Long
Tom—"
"You lay with
him?"
"Yes!"
The Sidlesaghe
shrugged. "No matter. Was he enjoyable?"
Caela gave a tiny
laugh. "Well enough, I suppose, although I thought of no one but…"
"But of him."
"Yes."
"Well, at that I
am not surprised."
"But did that
not destroy… well, whatever was supposed to happen? Long Tom, I feel such a
fool. Silvius tried so hard—"
The Sidlesaghe put a
hand to his mouth, and actually chuckled.
Caela could not help
herself, she laughed as well. "Well, you know what I mean. And, surely, by
thinking of no one but Brutus, and imagining him with me instead of Silvius, I
destroyed the magic that would have united me completely to the land."
The Sidlesaghe shook
his head. "It would have made no difference. You merely chose the wrong
partner."
"Oh? And who,
pray tell, is the right partner?"
The Sidlesaghe grew
soulful. "When you see him, lady, you will know."
"So I have lost
my virginity to the wrong man?"
"Your virginity
is neither here nor there, sweet one. A marriage can be effected with or
without it. But why do we talk of this inconsequential? There is greater danger
afoot."
Caela frowned.
"What?"
"Seven nights
ago," the Sidlesaghe said, "something bad invaded this land."
"How so?"
The Sidlesaghe was
now shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly agitated.
"There has been
a fundamental shift in the land," he said. "And, I think, in the Game. Something has happened.
Something corrupt. Something wrong."
"Asterion?"
He shook his head.
"Perhaps. Maybe. We don't know. Something has happened that has altered
the foundations of the Game and of this land… something has tilted it slightly… I cannot know how else to describe
it."
"Something
'bad'?"
"Oh, aye,"
the Sidlesaghe whispered. "Very bad." He had been looking down the
tunnel, but now he refocused on Caela's face. "You must move another band.
Tonight. And the others as soon as we may."
Caela shivered.
"Asterion…"
"He will be
waiting for us, yes. Surely."
"Long Tom…"
The Sidlesaghe
reached out a hand and took hers, enveloping it within his. "We will watch
for you," he said, his voice somehow immensely soothing. "As we have
always watched for you."
GUDO
LHIS TIME THE
SIDLESAGHE LED CAELA THROUGH a complex labyrinthine enchantment that eventually
brought them to the low arched opening in London's wall, which allowed the
Walbrook entry into the city. They stood once more just beyond the ring of
columns that encircled Brutus who, once again, was taking a band from his
arm—his left forearm this time—and placing it in the center of the columned
circle. He made the complex enchantment with his left hand, the band vanished,
and then so did Brutus.
As Brutus
disappeared, the Sidlesaghe felt Caela relax under his touch.
"One day,"
he whispered to her, "you can allow him to meet your eyes."
She made a dismissive
motion with her head, clearly not wanting to talk about Brutus.
"Sweet
one," said the Sidlesaghe, "if Asterion meets you within the ruins of
Troy while you are moving the band, he will kill you. Caela," the creature's voice
roughened, and he had to pause and clear his throat, "don't walk through
those ruins. Run. Run, for your life depends on
it."
She drew in a deep
breath. "To Holy Oak," she said. It had been the Holy Oak when she
had been Cornelia, and still it graced the tiny bubbling spring at the foot of
the Llandin.
Mag's Pond, still
there after all these years, and Caela's natural escape route, should she need
one.
"I will be there
to meet you," the Sidlesaghe said, and his voice had dropped so low that
Caela had to strain closer to hear him. "Be safe, sweet lady. Be safe on
the journey."
She touched his
cheek, then stepped forth into the circle of glowing light, and picked up the
band.
ASTERION WAS ROAMING.
HE'D KNOWN EVEN BEFORE the sun sank that tonight would be special, that tonight
she would attempt to move another of
the bands.
Asterion grinned. And
if she did move a band, it was of no matter. He didn't care if she moved it to
the cold heart of the moon, for he would still be able to find it.
Now that he
controlled her.
But he had to play
his part. There was no point in causing suspicion—and thus unexpected
behavior—through inactivity. So he needed to make it appear as if he wanted to
snatch the band as it was being moved. He needed to appear angry.
"Frustrated,"
he whispered. "Inept!"
And he laughed.
He did not want to
attempt the ruins of Troy again. The memory of that snatching hand was still
too vivid.
Besides, the ruins
bored him. Best to make an appearance where she would emerge… which was…
Asterion lifted his bull nose to the wind and sniffed.
North.
It would be north…
northwest.
Asterion's smile
stretched even further. He knew where she was going.
CAELA ONCE AGAIN
TRAVERSED THE TERRIBLE PATH
that wound through
the ruins of Troy, the band clutched tightly in her hands.
But this time,
mindful of the Sidlesaghe's concerns, she ran as fast as she could while still
able to avoid tripping over loose rocks or the rigid hand or foot of a corpse
that lay partway across the path.
Troy lay bloody about
her, the dead lay moldering in their stinking heaps as they had previously, but
Caela did not find them so disturbing this time. Instead she concentrated on
the band lying in her hands, keeping her every sense strained for indication of
pursuit. Every twenty or thirty steps she paused and half turned, her breath
still, her body motionless, her face white, listening.
Nothing, save the
dying of Troy.
Then she would hurry
forward, her face even more strained, perversely, but she did not hear the
sound of someone behind her.
Was he ahead? Crouching behind rocks
to her side?
The further Caela
moved through the destruction of Troy, the quicker became her steps, the tighter
her face.
Eventually, safely,
she reached the end of her journey.
ASTERION COULD FEEL THE PASSAGE OF THE BAND,
feel its movement closer and closer toward him. It almost
felt as if the band
G
were rushing to meet
him, and, as he stood before the rock pond under the Holy Oak, Asterion
literally held out his hands as he intuited her imminent arrival.
There was a sound, a
great sound of rushing water and wind and song, and suddenly a figure burst from the air before him, directly into his arms.
He laughed in sheer
enjoyment, but turned it into a roar, as if of fury, and grappled clumsily with
the figure, allowing it to slip partly from his grasp. He grabbed at it again,
meaning to pinch a little, but just as he tightened his fingers, it seemed as
if the air itself erupted about him.
Asterion's composure
evaporated entirely as tall, bleak figures surrounded him. He panicked, not so
much because he was afraid, but because these strangenesses were so entirely unexpected. The figure, she, slipped completely from his grip, but he was not
worried about that, only the who and the what of that which attacked him.
Gods, they were
singing, and such a mournful sound! Asterion began to flail about with his
arms, trying to see what it was that surrounded him, what gripped him, what was
trying to smother him, but all he could make out was enveloping grayness, as if
he were enclosed within a thick, viscous fog.
There was the sound
of water splashing, and he knew that she had
escaped. Furious (not with her escape, but with the unknowns that attacked
him), Asterion lashed out with virtually the full extent of his darkcraft.
The air exploded, and
there came the sound of moaning as the strange creatures fell back.
There came the sound
of a single sob, and then Asterion was standing alone by Mag's Pond, the
ancient Holy Oak stretching out its bare limbs cold and dark above him.
CAELA HEAVED IN GREAT GULPING BREATHS, HARDLY
daring to believe she
had escaped the Minotaur. Oh gods,
the feel of his hands upon her, the heat of his body, the stench of his breath!
She looked about. She
still stood close by the Holy Oak, save that now the countryside had vanished,
replaced with a terrible aspect that, for one frightening moment, made Caela
believe she had fallen back into the ruins of Troy.
She stood in a
landscape covered over with bricks and mortar, hard, pale, smooth stone, and a
wide roadway of hard blackness along which dreadful beasts roared. People moved
shadowlike about her, and Caela realized she was seeing with that same
awareness she'd tested inside Ludgate on the night she had moved the first
band.
Women, mostly,
bustling busily about with baskets over their arms, and
clothed in tight
gowns that came only to their knees. Most of them wore hats, silly, small round
bonnets that clung to stiffened curls. Some of the women had children with
them, or pushed babies before them in wheeled conveyances that looked to Caela
for all the world like backward running carts.
There were some men
hurrying among the crowded street. They were black, like ravens, and one or two
of them swung sticks covered in material in their hands.
What to do with the band? Where to
leave it?
She looked across the
road, and saw there a small redbrick building. It was accessed via a large
arch, which Caela could see led to an open paved area beyond the building.
People stood about on this paved area, looking anxiously about as if expecting
something.
She turned her
attention back to the building. Just inside was a small window in one of the
walls, barred with metal, and behind this window she could see the tall form of
a Sidlesaghe.
He was looking at
her, and once he saw that he had her attention, he lifted a hand and motioned
to her, slowly, yet managing to convey the utmost sense of urgency.
Again Caela looked
about her, her hands now gripping the band even tighter in her anxiety.
To reach the building
and the Sidlesaghe, she had to cross this strange roadway.
And there were great beasts that
periodically roared along the road, black and blue creatures, twice the size of
oxen, and red creatures the length of five oxen, and three times as high.
"Oh, gods,"
she whispered. "What possibility is this the Game has created for me?"
She looked at the
Sidlesaghe again—he was still motioning to her to hurry, hurry—and then back to the road.
It appeared to be
clear.
Taking a huge breath,
Caela stepped onto the road, moving as fast as she could without risking tripping
over the sodden robes that clung about her legs.
Something roared past
her.
She shrieked, almost
dropping the band, and stopped motionless in the middle of the road.
She didn't know what
to do. Her very will seemed frozen. She could step neither forward nor
backward, and Caela was certain that her life would be snatched by one of those
great speeding beasts at any moment.
"Here, now,
miss," said a soothing male voice, and Caela jerked as a firm hand took
her by her right elbow. "Can't have you standing about in the street like
this, you know."
She risked a glance
to her right—then sighed in relief. A Sidlesaghe stood there, although he was
dressed in the most extraordinary jacket and trousers of tightly-fitted and
very dark blue worsted cloth and with a blue and silver conical helmet on his
head held on by a strap under his chin.
"If you will,
miss," said the Sidlesaghe, his gray-brown eyes watchful and reassuring
beneath his strange helmet, and Caela allowed him to guide her across the
street and into the building and thence to the barred window.
There the Sidlesaghe,
who had been so impatiently motioning to her, said, "Where to, miss?"
Caela stared at him.
"Miss?"
said the Sidlesaghe who stood behind the counter at the window. Now that she
was close, Caela could see that he was dressed in similar fashion to the
Sidlesaghe in blue still standing beside her, but his close-fitted jacket and
trousers were of a maroon color, and on his head he had a peaked cap with a leather
brim.
"I think miss
would like to go home to Westminster," said the Sidlesaghe standing beside
her.
"Will that be a
first-class ticket, miss?" said the Sidlesaghe behind the window.
"Definitely,"
said the other Sidlesaghe.
Caela stood, her eyes
not moving off the Sidlesaghe behind the bars, unable to comprehend any part of
this conversation.
The Sidlesaghe behind
the window held out his hand, palm upward. "A first-class ticket demands
payment in gold, miss, if you don't mind. London Transport regulations."
Caela stared at him.
The Sidlesaghe stared
at her.
Caela slid the golden
band of Troy through the aperture under the bars.
"Thank you very
much, miss," said the Sidlesaghe, handing to her a small rectangle of
cardboard and placing the band into a drawer full of coins under the counter at
which he stood. Then he nodded to his left. "Train's through there, miss.
Should be arriving any minute now."
"Thank
you," said Caela, who still felt in a state of shocked unreality. "Is
Long Tom about?"
"I think you'll
find him waiting on the platform, miss," said the Sidlesaghe who had
helped her across the road and, hand still on her elbow, led her toward
Platform No. 1 at Gospel Oak Station.
IT WAS TOO MUCH. NOT
THAT THE BAND HAD BEEN
moved, but that her strange, unknown companions had thwarted him.
Asterion
was anxious,
unsettled, and, anxious and unsettled, determined to make circumstances just a
little more uncomfortable for… well, for everyone, really.
Time to begin the
process that would see William dead. To bring the Game under his control. Once
and for all.
Asterion moved
through the night as a shadow, an unreality, rather than as flesh. He entered
the palace at Westminster and slid under the door of Edward's bedchamber.
There was a
bowerthegn fast asleep on a bed by the door, and a woman on a pallet at the
foot of the king's bed.
There was no sign of
Caela, and Asterion was not concerned about the absence of the queen. She was
not what he needed this night.
His form shimmered,
coalescing into a black cloud of miasma, which hovered above the sleeping
Edward's face, then, suddenly, it slid down to cover the man's face, then
seeped inside his slightly open mouth.
There was a moment of
peace, of stillness, and then Edward suddenly reared forth, his eyes starting.
"The
Devil!" he screamed. "The Devil has taken me!"
CbR
ONG TOM WAS INDEED
WAITING FOR CAELA ON
the
"platform," and before she could speak, he took her elbow *"*•*
from the Sidlesaghe in blue, saying, "Hurry, there is mischief about at
the palace, and you have been missed."
As when she'd moved
the band to Chenesitun, a new tunnel awaited them, and Long Tom hurried her
along it.
"I have a
ticket," she said, holding out the rectangle of cardboard at the
Sidlesaghe.
He tut-tutted.
"We have no time for that now!" But he took it anyway.
Soon they were
underneath the palace of Westminster, and even here, deep in the magical tunnel
of possibility, Caela could sense the commotion above her.
"Go," said
Long Tom.
CAELA DID NOT DARE TO
REAPPEAR WITHIN HER BED-
chamber using her
power. It was too late. The entire palace was alive with shouting and
consternation.
What to do? What to do?
There was little she
could do, only one possibility, and Caela seized it. She reappeared in a still
corner of the palace—a storeroom that was partway between the royal quarters
and the bachelors' quarters—then slid stealthily into the palace proper,
arranging her features into those of the panicked wife (something, in truth,
she did not have to pretend too much) and ran back to her and Edward's
quarters.
People—clerics,
servants, thegns, chamberlains, men-at-arms—had thronged the approaches to the
quarters, but they stood back as Caela approached, glancing at her curiously.
Where had she been?
Caela ignored them,
restraining her pace to something more dignified, although she kept the worried
expression set on her face, moving
through the chambers
until she reached the antechamber just before the bedchamber.
Here thronged yet
more people—as well as the echoing sound of Edward's shouts—and, thankfully,
Judith, whose face reflected even more trepidation than Caela's.
"Madam!"
Judith said, then, in a softer tone, "Where have you been?"
Caela put a hand on
her arm, and drew her in close.
"Is Saeweald
here yet?"
Judith, her eyes
round and frightened, shook her head slightly.
Caela drew in a deep
breath, which Judith thought had the feel of sheer relief.
"How is my
lord?" Caela asked in a stronger voice. "I had felt a change in his
breathing as he slept, a horrid rasping, a deep difficulty, and saw a ghastly
pallor cross his face. I rose, dreading what this portended, and without thinking
to wake anyone else, fled for Saeweald."
Apart from Edward's
echoing shouts, the entire antechamber was silent, everyone staring at Caela,
watching.
Judith's tongue
flickered over her lips, then she managed to speak. "Aye, madam. It must
have been your rising that waked me just before my king shouted."
"You did not
think to wake me, or any other of the king's
servants?" said the bowerthegn, staring at Caela with patent disbelief.
"I
panicked," said Caela, keeping her voice calm. "I thought only of the
physician."
There was a movement
at the door, and the shadow of someone entering. Judith glanced over and then,
before anyone else could speak, said, "Ah, Saeweald! How fortunate that my
mistress reached you so quickly!"
Caela turned, and
managed a wan smile at Saeweald, who regarded both women carefully. "I am
sorry for rousing you so precipitously, Saeweald, and I thank you for
responding so quickly. My lord is ill, desperately so, and I fear greatly for
him."
Saeweald bowed
slightly to Caela. "The desperation in your voice, madam, roused me as
nothing else could have done. Our king is fortunate indeed that he has such a
caring wife at his side."
A great smile,
clearly one of relief, spread over Caela's face, and Judith hoped that most of
the observers standing about would think it merely relief that Saeweald had
arrived.
"I, and my king,
are fortunate in having you as a servant," she said. "Come,
physician, let us waste no more time."
With that, she
straightened her shoulders and led Saeweald, Judith directly behind, into the
bedchamber.
EDWARDS BED WAS
SURROUNDED BY ALMOST AS many people as had been waiting in the antechamber.
There were several clerics, of which Wulfstan was the greatest, all muttering
prayers or wailing invocations for the speedy aid of almost every saint
imaginable. Several women, a midwife among them (Judith supposed she had been
one of the few people within the immediate vicinity who had any claim to
healing skills, and so had been hauled into the chamber), rocked back and forth
on their feet, wailing and wringing their hands. The palace chamberlain held
position at the very head of the bed, an island of stillness and silence among
the commotion, his steely eyes roving about the chamber as if seeking someone
to blame for the current crisis. Armed men stood several paces back from the
bed, nervous, alert, unsure what they should do. The bowerthegn, entering
before Caela, went to stand at the foot of the bed. He picked up the coverlets
over the king's toes, squeezing and twisting the material until it seemed he
would rip it at any moment.
The instant people
realized that Caela, Judith, and Saeweald at her back, had entered the chamber,
the murmuring and crying and caterwauling ceased—even Edward, who was sitting
bolt upright in the center of the bed, bedclothes twisted to one side, stark
naked, sweat glistening over his entire body—and everyone turned to stare at
Caela.
"Wife!"
croaked Edward in a horrible, thick raspy voice. "Explain your
absence!"
"Thank God and
all His saints and angels that you still live!" Caela said, her voice one
of apparent joy. "See, I have brought Saeweald to your side."
"Your beloved
wife realized the change in your vitality even before you woke," Saeweald
said, pushing aside several of the clerics and women to reach the side of the
bed, Caela directly at his shoulder. "She came to me before anyone else
had thought of my name, weeping that you were ill, nigh unto death. How lucky
you are, my lord king, to have such a wife!"
Still close to the
door, Judith closed her eyes and sent a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness to all
water and forest gods in existence for Saeweald's quick wits.
Edward folded his
lips into a thin line, his bright, feverish eyes darting between Saeweald and
Caela. "You were not here," he finally said, his gaze settling on his
wife. "The Devil came a-visiting and you were not here."
"My lord,"
Caela said, and sat on the bed. "I was here, until I heard your breath gasp. Then I rushed
for the physician." She glanced at the women present. "Hasten now,
and bring me cloths and warm rosewater. I would wash this sweat from my lord's
flesh."
The women backed
away, and Saeweald took Edward's wrist and felt his pulse.
It was weak,
fluttering feebly.
"My lord,"
Saeweald said quietly. "What has happened?"
"The Devil has
entered me!" Edward said, sending one more vicious glare in Caela's
direction.
She ignored it, her
face set in respectful concern, and she took a hastily wetted cloth from one of
the women and began to run it over one of Edward's hands.
Edward looked back to
Saeweald, and then to Wulfstan, who had maintained his position at the head of
the bed opposite from Saeweald.
Wulfstan moaned
theatrically, and with a wavering hand made the sign of the cross over Edward.
"Begone, Devil!"
"Devil or
not," Saeweald muttered, "your chest is sorely congested." With
one hand flat on Edward's chest, he tapped its back with the stiffened middle
two fingers of his other.
Edward's chest
resounded with a thick, horrible thud at every tap. Then the king gasped, his
face purpling, and he began to cough in great hacking barks.
"What have you
done?" cried Wulfstan, but Saeweald ignored him.
"Expel it!"
he said to Edward, who was now bent almost double with the effort of his
hacking. "Bring it forth!"
Saeweald grabbed the
cloth from Caela, now sitting quite still as she stared in horror at her
husband, and brought it to Edward's mouth just as the king ejected a great clot
of blood and pus.
There was a
collective gasp of horror from those still gathered about the bed and, apart
from Saeweald and Caela, everyone took a step back.
"Pestilence!"
muttered the palace chamberlain, and his stance stiffened even more, if that
were possible.
"Still your
hysteria!" snapped Saeweald. "Your king has a great and evil
congestion of his lungs, but this is not the
pestilence!"
There were concerned
glances among the onlookers. Pestilence had not struck in over three
generations, but the stories of its horror were still whispered about fires and
tables.
"Physician,"
said Caela, leaning forward to touch Saeweald's arm briefly. "What can you
do? Please, tell me that you may save my husband's life!"
The distress in her
voice did not appear feigned.
"I shall bleed
him this night," said Saeweald, "and prepare a poultice for his chest
and belly. Will you stay, madam, and aid me?"
"Gladly,"
she said, then, as one of the women returned with a bowl of warmed rosewater,
she rinsed out the cloth thickened with the blood and pus and began gently to
sponge down her husband's body.
FOUR
S*
(V fo.
SOME DEEP, INNER
CORNER OF HER BEING,
Swanne realized she
was drifting toward wakefulness, and she fought it with every ounce of her
strength. Better sleep and unknowingness than facing what had occurred last
night (as every night in recent, terrifying memory).
To no avail- She felt
herself propelled toward consciousness, and at the same time she felt that
ghastly, leaden, icy weight in her belly, and she knew the incubus was forcing
her to wake. Asterion must want her.
"No!"
Swanne muttered as her eyes sprang open. She stared directly upward to the
wooden ceiling of her chamber. It looked so ordinary, so nonthreatening, and
Swanne wondered why its innocuous wooden planks did not somehow reflect the
agony that gripped her. She moaned, twisting a little in the bed. Her body
throbbed and ached in a score of places, the hurt between her legs and deep
within her belly the worst of all. There was a warm dampness on her thighs, and
even without looking Swanne knew it was fresh blood. The incubus? Breakfasting?
"William,"
she moaned softly and, for the first time since Asterion had trapped her,
without her thinking or considering the implications, acting only on deep need
and on her even deeper terror, Swanne tried to reach out to him. The next
instant a blood-curdling scream ripped through her throat and she convulsed on
the bed. The incubus had sunk its teeth into the inner lining of her womb, and
had ripped her flesh clean away.
As horrific as the
pain was, worse was the frightful feel of the thing's jaws working back and
forth, back and forth, as it chewed its morsel.
"My lady?"
The door had burst
open at the sound of Swanne's cry, and Hawise and another of Swanne's attending
ladies stood there.
The instant they'd
entered they'd halted, transfixed by the sight of Swanne writhing beneath her
bloody sheets.
"Madam!"
Hawise gasped, and would have moved forward save that at that moment Aldred
appeared behind them, grabbed both of the women's elbows, and forced them
backward toward the door.
"It is but her
monthly flux," he said soothingly. "It is still flowing—can you
credit it? A nuisance, indeed." He turned from the women and looked
benignly at Swanne. "That is the problem, is it not, my
dear?"
Swanne looked at
Aldred, and then felt the incubus within her open its jaws again. A wave of
hopelessness all but overwhelmed her.
"Aye," she whispered, and within her the
incubus closed its jaws. "It is but my flux. More burdensome than
usual."
"But…" said
Hawise.
"The flux,
Hawise," said Swanne, her voice flat. "Nothing more."
"And now,"
said Aldred, "if you will leave your ladyship and myself alone for a time.
We must talk a little over… arrangements."
The women, now
outside the door, stood motionless, still staring, as Aldred closed the door on
them, and then Swanne heard their footsteps retreat.
"No…" she
whispered, and wondered if that was going to be the only thing she could ever
say again.
For so long as her
life lasted… for so long as Asterion permitted her to live.
"I am glad to
see you awake," Aldred said, wobbling forth. "The night has seen some
intriguing happenings." He paused, and grinned maliciously. "Not only
the lovemaking that transpired between you and me. Yes?"
She said nothing, but
Aldred saw her throat constrict as she swallowed.
"I am awaiting
your response, my dear." Aldred's voice had hardened into ice, and Swanne
felt her head jerked back so that she was forced to stare at him.
"Yes," she
whispered, her mouth dry with terror.
"Another of the
bands has been moved. Did you not know of it?"
"My… my mind was
consumed with other things."
Aldred laughed, the
sound harsh. "Indeed you were. Indeed you were." He began to tug at
the neckline of his robe, pulling it away from his shoulders.
"No!"
Swanne cried out, and instantly the incubus inside her bit hard and viciously,
and her cry turned into a choked-off shriek, her back arching off the bed in
agony, her eyes almost popping from her head.
"I regret I may
have misunderstood your response, my dear," said Aldred, now naked.
"I thought you may have said no."
The agony had hardly
dissipated, but Swanne knew her life depended on being able to placate this
monster standing before her. All she had to do was survive, somehow to live,
and eventually she would be able to find a way to…
O
The incubus bit again,
harder and deeper, and the pain was so terrible that Swanne almost lost
consciousness. She opened her mouth, but the agony was such she could not draw
breath even to cry out.
Her eyes rolled up
into their sockets, and her body jerked, and then convulsed.
Aldred smiled amiably
and climbed onto the bed.
A moment passed, and
then, even though her body was still stiff with suffering, Swanne managed a
faint, "Yes."
"Yes… what, my
dear?"
"Yes, my lord. I
am grateful for your attention."
Aldred smiled, cold
and malevolent, and forced Swanne's legs apart with one hand. "This
bleeding is truly heavy, my dear. You really should learn to say 'Yes' to me a
little quicker. Yes?"
"Yes."
"Good
girl," he whispered and, grunting with both effort and pleasure, forced
himself once more inside her body.
SHE CONTINUED TO
EXIST, SOMEHOW, THROUGH THAT grunting, thrusting nightmare. The incubus roiled
within her, joyous to feel its master so close, and it nibbled and poked and
thrust itself so that her body, from her breasts to her ankles, seemed composed
of nothing other than screaming, tearing flesh.
When Aldred had done
and had rolled away from her, Swanne barely managed to conceal her tears of
relief.
He rose immediately,
garbing his hideous body with his robe, then turned back to Swanne who lay
motionless amid the dreadful, bloodied sheets.
"None of this
lying about, my dear. I have work for you to accomplish."
A tear rolled from
Swanne's left eye down her cheek, and the sight of it irritated Aldred. He
leaned down and dealt Swanne a blow across the face, making blood spurt from
her nose.
"Get up!"
he said. "Rise, and wash and clothe yourself. Now!"
Swanne managed to
struggle to her feet, but was unable to stifle the moan of pain as she did so.
She jerked, as if
expecting Aldred to strike her again, but he merely sat down on the bed and
regarded her with calm eyes. "Wash and clothe yourself," he repeated,
moving toward the door. "I have some matters to attend to elsewhere, but
will return shortly. Be waiting for me, a smile on your face."
Grateful that the
monster had departed, Swanne nonetheless did as she was told, although she
thought several times during the procedure that she
would faint with
pain. Her belly throbbed unbelievably, and blood continued to trickle from
between her legs.
Nothing she had ever
endured had been this bad, not even childbirth, and she wondered how she had
any blood left in her after the nightmare of the past week.
As she pulled her
gown over her shoulders, and twisted a little so she could manage the
fastenings, Swanne closed her eyes and indulged in a heartfelt moment of pure
hatred for Ariadne.
How could she have done this? How
could she have been so stupid? Why had she not warned her daughter-heirs? Had
she been so self-conceited, so stupid, so…?
"She was wrapped
in her own ambitions," said a voice behind her, and it was Asterion's
voice rather than Aldred's.
She felt his hands
fall about her waist, and she jerked, frightened almost to insensibility.
Asterion had only
come to her as Aldred since he'd first forced himself upon her, not in his true
form. Now Swanne's heart raced, her breath growing tight and shallow, as she
wondered what this portended.
Asterion's hands grew
heavy where they rested about her waist, and he turned her about.
The Minotaur stood
there, regarding her from his monstrous bull's head with beautiful liquid black
eyes.
Swanne grew rigid,
but could not tear her eyes from the bull's powerful face. Its terrible aspect
was almost hypnotic, and Swanne understood in a moment of clarity just why it was that Ariadne had consented to this single,
devastating condition.
She had been seduced
by the power—and the hope of power—in that great face.
She would have
offered him the world if he had asked for it, just for the power he offered.
Ah! What was she
thinking? Ariadne had with that single ill-considered
consent given her cursed brother the world!
Asterion's hands were
still about her waist, and now he slipped one of them downward to rub gently
over her belly.
Swanne tensed,
expecting further suffering, but unbelievably her pain began to dissipate until
it was little more than a dull ache. Her entire body sagged in relief, and for
an instant she almost loved the Minotaur for releasing her from the agony.
"Aldred has
treated you poorly," Asterion said, "Your belly is battered almost to
the point of uselessness."
What are you saying? Swanne thought. You have treated me "poorly"!
"Very
poorly," Asterion murmured, and Swanne relaxed a little further under the
touch of his hands, closing her eyes as even more of the pain abated. Just to
feel the cessation of pain, just for a moment, was worth this brief compliance.
"Do not judge me
by Aldred's actions," Asterion said.
Swanne could do
nothing but nod, just once, jerkily. Her eyes were still closed as she
concentrated on living every pain-free moment as desperately as she could.
"My dear, I need
you to look upon me" said Asterion.
Swanne reluctantly
opened her eyes.
"I wish you to
present yourself at Edward's side—"
"I cannot!
Harold dismissed me from court…" she stopped, terrified by the Minotaur's
thumbs which had suddenly dug into her belly.
"Remember what
Aldred put in you," he said, very softly, What I put
in you while I used Aldred's body.
"Yes," she
said dully. "I will do it. I will go to Edward's court."
"Good. Poor
Edward's health appears to have taken a turn for the worst. He is busily
engaged in his dying. I wish you to watch for me, be my eyes and ears."
"But you… but
Aldred has better reason to be there—"
"And be assured
he will be there. But you have your ear
attuned to the world of women, and can be admitted to their presence." He
stopped, his black brow wrinkling as if in perplexity. "Now, I know that
you and William— the sweet, sweet boy—believe Silvius is moving those bands.
That may be so. But whoever is moving them has aid. Someone aids
him. Or her. If someone is aiding Silvius—or whomever—then I
need to know who, or what, they might be."
He smiled, and ran
his hands up to Swanne's breasts, caressing them gently. "After all, my
sweet, you must have some duty to keep you occupied until you deliver William's
life into my hands, mustn't you?"
She moaned.
"You will deliver William's life into my hands, will you
not?"
Silence.
"Will you not?"
Swanne jerked her
head once in assent.
"Good."
Asterion let her go,
eventually, and Swanne, her face dull, lifted her cloak from where it lay
draped over a chest and moved to the door.
"Swanne, my
sweet," Asterion called to her just as she laid a hand to the door catch.
Her back stiffened as she heard his voice. "I heard a rumor that
I
Caela was not at Edward's side when he took ill last
night. I do rather hope you can discover for me who she might have been with.
This is most important. What strange company does Caela keep these nights when
she doesn't lie with Edward? You will ask her, won't you? I am most
curious to know."
LATER THAT MORNING,
ALDRED SAT IN HIS BATH,
slowly washing
himself, puzzling things over in his mind.
Everything this past
week had been so dim… and yet so vaguely pleasurable. Somehow he seemed to have
acquired the lady Swanne as a mistress, but he could not always remember those
nights he spent with her so very well.
Yet that he was
spending them with her was undoubted. Everyone was looking at him
differently—and Swanne herself, why she practically fell over herself to cater
to his every wish. The proud lady he'd known for so long seemed to have decided
to admit herself as his utter slave.
Aldred smiled, then
sighed happily. He wasn't sure about the "why" of his current
circumstances, but he wasn't about to complain.
F1V
Caela Speaks
A
rDWARD SAT THROUGH
THE DAY AND WHEEZED A little further into his dying with every breath, and
enjoyed every moment of it.
Finally, he was
vindicated. The Devil and his evil roamed everywhere and now, due to the
inattention of careless priests and the apathy of Edward's subjects, the king
had been struck down in all his glory.
No matter that Edward
was an old man anyway.
No matter that he'd
whined of his aches and pains and fevers for as long as I had known him (and
well before that if the mutterings of his long-suffering mother were any
guide).
No. He rambled and he
moaned all through that morning: See how your
lack of attention and love has
struck me down. See how your lack of piety has allowed the Devil into the very
heart and soul of the realm. If only you (and he took in the entire realm with that single
"you," although his feverish eyes did tend to linger on me as he said
it) had loved me and cared for
me and tended me as your duty insisted.
By noon I could
gladly have gone to the window, thrown back the shutters, and screamed for the
Devil to come back and finish the thing properly.
Oh, I knew it was
Asterion, and I knew why. He was pushing matters forward to suit his own pace.
Catch us off-balance. Snatch at the Game before any of us, whether William or
Swanne or Silvius or myself, or even Saeweald, could snatch back.
What was Asterion
planning? I wondered if Long Tom was pacing through the Game, wondering and
worrying. I wondered if Silvius worried, and I had an urge to see him, not only
to seek his forgiveness for what I could not give him on the night of the
solstice, but to just have him hold me, and tell me all would be well. I know I had spent the hours after my return, ignoring
Edward's vilenesses, wondering and worrying. I was outwardly the dutiful
wife, bending my head
in contrition at every barb Edward spat my way, aiding Saeweald as first he
bled Edward, then applied hot herbal and honey poultices to his armpits and
chest and groin, wiping down Edward's face and arms and legs to wash away his
stinking sweat.
About us hurried and
muttered various court and church officials, moaning and blessing and praying
and, no doubt, wondering how best to position themselves in the upheaval
following Edward's undoubted soon-to-be death.
Harold came to attend
the debacle as well. He'd hurried from Alditha's bed (Harold had wasted no time
in knocking at the door of Alditha's chamber, and I knew also that he had broached
the subject of marriage with her ecstatic family; I had no doubt that Harold
would be making sure of a legal heir as early as possible. He might not, after
all, have much time once Edward had succumbed), glanced worriedly at me, then,
with the rest of us, endured Edward's ranting throughout the remaining hours of
the night and through the morning. He'd pushed a chest against the far wall—as
far from Edward's bed as he could manage—and there he had sat and watched, his
face haggard, his eyes deep with worry. Occasionally one of the chamberlains or
counts or thegns or courtiers would bend close to him, and mutter, but Harold
only ever responded with a nod.
My eyes slid his way
more often than need be, I expect, but I had so little chance to see him, or be
with him, and the sight of him comforted me greatly.
I would have
liked—desperately liked—to be able to sit down next to him, and allow him to
wrap me in his arms, and to hold and comfort me, but that was impossible under
these circumstances.
Under any
circumstances, I expect.
Sweet gods, how close
had I come to discovery during the night? Or had I been discovered? Asterion would have noticed my
absence when he'd visited his little dance of death upon Edward. Would it have
seemed strange to him? Or would he have thought only that I slept in a
different chamber so that Edward's piety would not be disturbed by my female
form?
In which case, Asterion must have
wondered why my attending lady, Judith, slept on a pallet at the foot of the
bed.
Would Asterion have
remembered that brief moment when he'd held me by the magical waters of the
pond, and connected that woman with my absence from Edward's bed?
As the night
progressed, my worry combined with my fatigue to make me nauseous, and, when
one of the servants leaned close to me just after dawn and offered me a cup of
warm mead, I felt my stomach heave and sweat break out on my face.
Saeweald noticed as
well, and grabbed my arm just before I toppled from the bed.
"Madam," he
said, sharing a glance first with Harold and then with Judith, "you must
rest. You cannot do more for your husband at present than you have."
"What?"
screeched Edward, lurching up from where he'd been reclining against the
pillows. "The whore feels ill? What, Caela, a bastard child you're
breeding there to some peasant lover? A thick-witted boy you're going to claim
is mine? A bellyful of some lustful—"
"You go too far,
even for a king," snapped Harold, rising and coming to the bed. "If
you think yourself dying, Edward, then concentrate on that dying, and ensure
your own salvation rather than searching out imaginary faults in those who seek
only to aid you."
He turned his back on
Edward, who was spluttering and hacking his way through a coughing fit brought
on by his own outburst, and Harold took my arm, leading me back to the chest
where we both sat down.
Judith hurried over
with a freshly dampened cloth to wipe my face, and I smiled my thanks at her.
There was a clear
question in her eyes, and I shook my head slightly. There was no baby, I was
certain of that, even though my womb had been cramping badly in the past week
or so.
Judith wiped away my
sweat, then brought me a mixed cup of milk and egg and honey, and I took it
gratefully, thanking her as she turned to return to her stool by the door.
"He is dying?" Harold said softly, his lips barely
moving.
"Yes."
"Saeweald cannot
save him?"
"Do you want him
to?"
Harold, who had been
staring at Edward, now looked at me. "No," he admitted. "I do
not. It has come time for me to take my heritage."
I shivered, a black
wave of despair making me feel ill all over again. "Harold…"
"I know, my
love. I know."
That "my
love" almost undid me, and I had to set the half-drunk cup of milk down on
the floor.
Harold mistook the
reason for my distress, and took my hand, no longer caring, I think, what all
the watching eyes thought.
"I am strong. I
can face whatever comes at me. England will not accept either Hardrada or William."
Oh, Harold, my love, I thought, you have no idea at all what it is you will face. I had the sudden, crazed thought that I hoped
Asterion would best all who raged against him,
for then Harold would not have to die. He could reign
as king, never
knowing that beneath him reigned a far viler lord in a far more wretched land…
The thought vanished
even before I had completed it. England
would not accept Asterion either.
Harold's gaze
returned to Edward, now lying back on the pillows and struggling for breath. He
spoke again, keeping his voice very low. "Edward will die, and he chose
the best time of year to do so."
"What do you
mean?"
"It is the dead
of winter. Neither Hardrada nor William can invade until late summer at the
earliest. I have well over six months before…"
He stopped, and I
squeezed my eyes closed so that he might not see the pain in them. Oh, I knew
very well what that "before" encompassed.
Before William came home to kill Coel
all over again.
William would win
whatever battle he engaged in with Harold. William would become king. Hardrada,
if he was to be a player at all, would be little more than a nuisance.
"Do not fear for
me, Caela," Harold said in the gentlest voice I have ever heard from any
throat. He was going to say more—I was by this stage beyond any coherent
speech—but then his head jerked toward the door, and he cursed, not taking the
trouble to lower his voice.
I raised my head.
Swanne had entered
the room.
She looked… I don't
know… she looked different in some aspect. She was very pale, but then she'd
always had pale skin, but it did seem far more translucent than normal. Her
eyes were overbright, but then that might be because she had a winter chill.
There was a strange
rigidity in the manner in which she held her body, but that was likely because
she'd fully heard Harold's curse, and because she undoubtedly knew she would
not be much welcomed within this chamber.
Edward had always
disliked her (the man had some sense!), and Harold had made his
feelings for Swanne known all through the court.
Harold was within one
or two weeks, at the most, of being crowned the new king, and there was no one
in this chamber likely to try and alienate him by taking Swanne's side in their
rift.
The chamber was
already crowded, and there was little room for movement, but still somehow
people managed to draw back from Swanne as if she carried the pestilence within
her person.
"What do you
here?" Harold asked. He had let go my hand and risen.
Swanne's eyes moved
about the room, as if searching for supporters, but she answered Harold calmly
enough. "I am here to pay my respects to the
king," she said,
"and to offer my aid, in howsoever that may be required."
Without waiting for a
reply, Swanne moved to the side of Edward's bed— the opposite side from Harold
and myself—and sank to the floor in a graceful curtsy, bowing her head almost
fully down to her breast.
"My lord and
liege," she said to Edward as she finally raised her face to look at him,
and I was shocked to see her eyes glistening with tears, "I am sad to see
you in such distress. How may I best help?"
Edward was in no mood
for courtly niceties. "You can remove yourself from my presence," he
said, "and take that slut with you. I have had enough of her."
He waved a hand
feebly in my direction.
Harold tensed, and
before he could speak I rose myself and said calmly enough, "I will be
glad of the time to rest. Judith, perhaps you might bring some bread and cheese
so that the lady Swanne and I may break our fast together? We can sit in peace
in the solar, I think."
Away from all these
people. That would be a relief, at least, even if Swanne's company was not. I
determined to rid myself of her as soon as possible. All I wanted was to sleep…
Swanne seemed
curiously pleased at this suggestion, and she and I made our silent way to the
solar—gratefully empty. There was no fire burning in the brazier because of the
fuss Edward's sudden sickness had caused, but there were furs and blankets
enough to wrap about us, and Judith could send someone to attend to the fire
shortly.
"Swanne," I
said as we sat down in opposite chairs and arranged the furs about ourselves.
"How do you?"
It was but a
politeness, but her eyes gleamed strangely, and her mouth worked as if she
wanted to say something but dared not.
"Well
enough," she said finally. She was staring at me now with a disturbing
brightness, and I shifted, uncomfortable. I did not truly feel like trading
barbed comments with Swanne at the moment.
"And you are
comfortable at the archbishop's palace?" I said. The news of Swanne's move
to Aldred's residence had caused a great stir and even more comment in Edward's
court.
She jerked her head
in what seemed like assent.
I looked to the door,
wondering where Judith was. Even the presence of another person in this chamber
would be a welcome relief, even if she did nothing to ease the awkwardness of
this conversation.
"You must be
missing your children," I said.
"Do you remember
those golden bands Brutus wore about his limbs?" she said. Her entire body
was rigid, and she stared at me unblinkingly.
I froze, although I
truly should not have found this unexpected. Swanne
would have known another
band was moved last night, and I was the only living soul in England with whom
she might discuss the matter (apart from Asterion, of course, but then I could
not imagine Swanne interrogating him about the bands' movements!). She might
even suspect me, although she would not think me capable of their movement.
Still,
Swanne-who-once-was-Genvissa had been blaming me for most of the world's ills
for these past two thousand years, so that she would blame me for this—without
actually believing that I was responsible for it—was hardly a shock.
"Of
course," I said. "Brutus treasured them dearly."
"He hid them.
After you had murdered me."
"They vanished
from his limbs, that I know, but I did not know what he had done with
them." Not then.
"Now someone is
moving them."
I swallowed. It
wasn't so much the topic of conversation, but the strange, unreal directness of
it that perturbed me. There was something odd about Swanne. Something…
un-Swanne. It was the only way I could think of describing the strangeness that
hung about her.
Perhaps it was just
her anger and shock at the movement of the band.
"We think it is
Silvius," she said.
We? I thought.
"Silvius?" I said.
"Oh, come now,
you pathetic little wretch, you know who Silvius is."
I fought the urge to
drop my eyes from her direct stare. "Oh… Brutus' father. Yes? Swanne, you
must understand that in our dealings with each other, Brutus and I spent little
time talking."
There, let her make
of that what she would.
Swanne flushed, and I
knew my barb had hit home.
"There are
rumors, foul rumors, I am sure," she said, "that you were strangely
absent from Edward's bed when he took ill last night. How may that be
explained, do you think?"
It was not unexpected
that Swanne would have heard this, and certainly not unexpected that she would
comment on it to me… but that she would do so in the instant after discussing
both the band's movement and Silvius?
I gave her the same
explanation I'd given everyone else. I'd woken, realized Edward's distress, and
run to fetch Saeweald without thinking to wake anyone else.
I finished, but
Swanne said nothing. She just stared at me with that unusual light in her eyes.
"I've taken
Aldred to my bed," she said. "Did you know that?"
Perhaps if she had
said that she was really Og reincarnated, she may have stunned me more, but,
frankly, I doubt it. Not only was that comment so
O
totally unexpected,
so totally inappropriate to the conversation immediately preceding it, but the
fact that Swanne had taken
Aldred to her bed
was… unbelievable.
I cannot imagine any
woman willingly taking Aldred into her bed, but Swanne? Never! Not when events were so clearly moving toward
a reckoning. Not when William
was so closel
Later, of course, I may have recognized that comment
for what it was—a heavily-veiled scream for help—but at this moment I only sat
there, my mouth agape, and finally managed to splutter, "But what about
William?"
"He wasn't handy
at the time!" she snapped.
"But—"
"Do you know who
is moving the bands?"
Again, the sudden
twist in the conversation unnerved me. "No."
"Is it
Silvius?"
"I don't know to
what you refer, Swanne. I—"
"Are you moving
the bands, Caela?"
"Me? Me? How can I, Swanne? I do not even know why you are so
obsessed with these damned bands! And Brutus
hid them, not me! Surely you have enough wealth and estates. Why tinker after
some long-buried relic?"
"Are you moving
the bands, Caela?"
"Why are you
asking me this, Swanne?"
"You were not
with Edward last night when a band was moved."
Gods, and to think I'd been worrying
about what Asterion might have thought] "I have explained where —"
"Who do you keep
company with, Caela? What strange creatures aid you those nights you are not
with Edward?"
"What do you
mean?"
She rose suddenly to
her feet, the furs and coverlets tumbling about her feet. "Who else has come back from that terrible life we
endured? Who are your friends?"
I defended with
attack. I was now so truly confused, worried, and disorientated by Swanne's
bizarre behavior that I could think of no other way to respond.
I, too, leapt to my
feet, and with one fist I beat against my belly. "Do you not remember,
Swanne? Asterion tore Mag from my womb! I am no more than an ordinary woman—I have no insights! No secrets! What? Do you think that I am
still Asterion's pawn? Still dancing to his tune?"
Something in Swanne's
face changed. There was a moment when she seemed terrified, and I assumed that
her terror was because she might truly have thought I was Asterion's creature.
"Look," I
snarled, spreading my hands wide. "No knife."
She winced, but I
carried straight on.
"I want nothing
save to be left in peace, Swanne. I have no ambitions save to escape your
malevolence and jealousy and retire to some quiet hall in the country where I
might live quietly. I do not want to see your and William's triumph,
Swanne."
My face was twisting
in bitterness now, and I think it was that more than anything else that
convinced her. "I do not want William, Swanne. You can have him. I just
want to escape you and him and all that has happened. I just want
to escape!"
I burst into tears,
and as I put my hands to my face and sobbed, Judith entered the room, took one
appalled look at me, and hastened over.
"Madam!"
she said. "What—"
"My lady Swanne
is leaving, Judith. Perhaps you can close the door behind her."
Swanne gave me one
more strange, searching look, nodded tersely, then left.
TWO DAYS LATER, AS I
SAT EXHAUSTED IN EDWARD'S
chamber, Silvius came
to see me.
I was astounded at
his daring—for he did not bother with one of his Aegean sorceries, but came to
me openly—and grateful. In truth, Edward's death chamber (once our marital
chamber, but now utterly overtaken with the stink and business of his dying)
was thronged with clerics, supplicants, nuns, abbesses, physicians, herbalists,
nobles, members of the witan, sundry palace servants crowding in for a glimpse
of the fun, and a press of other bodies and ambitions I did not bother to
recognize. Jesus Christ himself could have entered that chamber, and it would
have elicited no comment.
I was sitting on a
linen chest on the far side of the chamber, all but hidden from the view of
those closely grouped about the bed by a group of nuns (from Mother Ecub's
order, I think, which may have given Silvius the courage, knowing they would do
their best to keep him hidden from view), when a close-hooded monk came to me,
murmured an apology for intruding, and sat on the chest beside me.
"My lady,"
he said, and took my hand.
I almost jerked it
out of the presumptuous man's grasp before I realized who it was. Silvius' good
eye gleamed at me from deep within his hood, and I almost burst into tears.
I almost spoke his
name, but he put his finger to his lips and winked.
I contented myself
with squeezing his hand. "What do you here?" I asked, lowly.
"Come to see if
you need any comfort."
Oh, he was too good
to me. "Oh," I said. "Good man—" Damn this audience for not allowing me to say his name! "—I am glad you are here. I
wish to say…
that…"
I wanted to apologize to him for how I had acted that night we
lay together, for not being what he deserved, but I did not know how to phrase
the words.
"Do not worry,
my lady, you were all that I deserved, and more. Tell me… have you lost that
emptiness?"
I shook my head
wordlessly.
"Ah, I am sorry
for it. I had hoped…"
"I know."
Again I squeezed his hand. "So much has changed in so few days."
He glanced at the
back of the closely grouped nuns, as if he could see Edward through their
substance. "I know. There is a disturbance in the Game."
"Long Tom has
felt it also." Silvius' eye jerked back to my face as I continued.
"The foundations of both land and Game have tilted slightly."
"And does he
know what has caused this?"
"No." Now
it was I who looked about the chamber. "Swanne is altered. I wonder if it
is she who has… has…"
"Has?"
"I don't
know." I felt close to tears, and Silvius lifted his free hand and touched
my forehead, making the gesture look like a blessing. I wished he could keep
his fingers on my face, but of necessity he needed to drop them away. I took a
deep breath and tried again. "Her manner. Her very being. It is different
in some way. Sharper, edgier. More acute."
"Then what has
happened, has happened to Swanne," he said.
"But what could
it be?"
He shrugged.
"Asterion?"
I asked, glancing about, wondering if fee was here, among us.
Undoubtedly.
"If Asterion did
anything to Swanne, it would be to kill her. That I could imagine. Especially if he was angered that
another band had been moved. Who else would he suspect, save for Swanne?"
said Silvius.
"He could
suspect me. He came to Edward while I and Long Tom moved the second band, and
he saw I was not here. Then Swanne came to me, and asked questions…"
"Lady,"
Silvius said very gently, "how could he suspect you? He is certain that
Mag has been killed. He cannot know you for who you truly are."
I shrugged again,
closer to tears than ever. If only I could sleep, rest, close my mind to
everything save the delicious relief of dream.
Silvius' hand
tightened about mine. "I can feel him," he said, beating his
GODS1
CONCUBINE
other hand in a
closed fist gently against his breast. "I can feel that motherless bastard
in here. He is confident. He is crowing with confidence. The Game has
shifted, and he has caused it. Swanne has 'shifted' and I cannot think but that
he has caused this, as well. Caela…"
"Yes?"
"If Asterion
murders Swanne or otherwise corrupts her, we are lost. You know that, don't
you?"
I closed my eyes, and
gripped Silvius' hand tightly.
"I know
that," I said.
CbAPGGR S1JX
th January
DWARD LAY DYING. HE'D
TAKEN ALMOST A WEEK
about it, but now, in
the heart of the bleak midwinter, it was his time.
He was screaming.
There was no need for
him to scream so, save that Edward was approaching his salvation, and he wanted
everyone to know that he was going to grab at it with both hands. There was no
possible means by which salvation was going to avoid him. No possible means by
which God and His saints were going to escape an eternity without the Confessor
by their side.
Humility had never
been Edward's strongest attribute.
His screams were
terrible to hear. As he gurgled with the blood and pus that now almost
completely filled his lungs, they rippled about the crowded chamber like a
rotten sea.
It appeared that
anyone who had even the faintest connection with the king had squeezed
themselves into the chamber.
Caela was there, the
chief mourner and witness. Her face was pale and expressionless, her every
movement measured, as if she kept herself under tight control.
Most of the highest
clergy, currently within a days' ride of London, were there: Wulfstan, bishop
of Worcester; Eadwine, the abbot of the newly consecrated Westminster Abbey;
Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury; Spearhafoc, the bishop of London;
Aldred, the archbishop of York, his eyes weeping, his chins wobbling, his plump
hands twisting and twining before his ample stomach; and sundry abbots, and
deacons, including many from Normandy.
Many earls and counts
and senior thegns were there, including the earls Edwin and Morcar, brothers to
Alditha, and who were there less to witness Edward's death than to ensure
Harold wed their sister as soon as possible. Among the other men of rank who
attended were at least eight members of
the witan. Their eyes
rested on Harold far more than they rested on Edward.
Swanne was there,
standing well back and hardly visible, but with her black eyes darting about
and watching the crowd more than they watched Edward.
Saeweald also
attended. He stood at the king's side, silently using linens to wipe away the
worst of the effluent that projected from the king's shrieking mouth before
handing them to Mother Ecub, prioress of St. Margaret the Martyr, who placed
them in a basket at the bed's head.
No doubt, once the
king was dead, the basket's contents would be sou-venired by eager hands, kept
against the inevitable day when Edward would be sanctified and the purulent
linens would become valuable relics.
Finally, packed at
the furthest distance and generally jammed against the walls of the chamber,
stood the king's most faithful servants: his bowerthegn, his palace
chamberlain, his royal men-at-arms, the laundresses (Damson among them) and
stable boys who had served Edward with love and devotion and who wondered if
Edward were to find himself a place with God and His saints this night, then
what place there might be for them in the new court.
This relatively small
group of servants were, truly, the only ones there whose primary concern was to
mourn.
Everyone else had
their own agendas, the most common of which was to ensure themselves a
prominent place in the new court. Doubtlessly, the sound first heard, in that
moment after Edward drew his final breath, would be the thud of knees hitting
the floor as men pledged their allegiance to the new king, Harold.
Edward's shrieks grew
louder, more incoherent. It was difficult to distinguish individual words, but
no one had much doubt as to their intent: Edward was letting God know of his
imminent arrival, and was telling the world that it would be a poorer place
indeed for his absence.
The dying king sat
propped upright against a welter of goose-down pillows. He had on a linen
nightshirt, open at the neck so that it revealed his thin, laboring ribs, and
it billowed about his skeletal arms as he waved them about. Edward's staring
eyes were fixed on the golden cross held in the trembling hands of a monk who
stood at the foot of the bed. The darkened chamber was lit only by eight or
nine fat candles in wall sconces, and what light did manage to find its way
through to Edward's bed consisted only of graying, shifting shadows.
As Edward's shrieking
shrilled yet higher, and the pustulence he emitted from his mouth became
thicker and more foul, several members of the witan, who stood close to the
huddled clerics, stepped forward and began urgently to whisper to Stigand,
Spearhafoc, and Aldred, the three senior clerics present.
The whispered
conversations grew heated. Both the members of the witan and the clerics
gesturing and, occasionally, looking worriedly at Edward.
Finally Aldred nodded
his head, as if he agreed with what the witan argued, and turned to his two
fellow clerics, adding his weight and influence to the reasonings of the witan.
After some moments,
Stigand and Spearhafoc nodded as well—by this stage most eyes were watching
this discussion rather than the king—and Aldred wobbled to the king's side and,
holding a careful sleeve to his mouth, lest the king splatter him with his
dying, began to speak to Edward in a low, but compelling voice.
"My dearest
liege," he said, "your time is upon you. See! God holds out his hands
before you! The saints chorus their jubilation!"
On the other side of
the bed Saeweald turned his head as he accepted a clean linen from Mother Ecub,
taking the opportunity to roll his eyes very slightly at her.
Ecub's face remained
expressionless, but Saeweald thought he could see a slight relaxation of the
muscles around her eyes: she was as amused as he.
"Yes! Yes!"
Edward shrieked—the first two coherent words he'd uttered in the past hour.
"Salvation
awaits!" Aldred continued, his eyes gleaming with a fanatical light.
"Heaven and the next world awaits! You shall live at God's side for
eternity!"
"Salvation!"
screamed Edward, his hands flapping at his bed linens. "Eternity!"
Caela winced, then
looked away.
"The Devil shall
be bested!" shouted Aldred, now working himself into a true fever.
"Bested!" shrieked
Edward.
"Evil shall be
overcome!"
"Overcome!"
"God and his
angels shall prevail!"
"Prevail!"
"Your subjects
shall be saved!"
"Saved!"
"Harold shall
reign, a true Christian king!"
"A true
Christian king!" Edward echoed. Then, more softly, and far more
suspiciously. "Harold?"
"Harold shall be
your heir!"
Edward said nothing,
but glared at Aldred.
Across the room
Harold also glared at Aldred, who flushed.
"My best and
truest lord," Aldred said, his tone unctuous, "evil thinks to
create disharmony and
confusion within your realm. There is unsurety about your heir. Name him now!
Best evil! Ensure that righteousness prevails! Name Harold—"
"Godwine's
cursed son?" Edward said. "You want a Godwineson to sit on the throne
of—"
He stopped, and
uncertainty appeared to overcome him. He coughed, spitting into the linen that
Saeweald provided, then looked with watering, tormented eyes to Eadwine, the
abbot of Westminster. "What should I do?" he whispered. "What
should I do?"
"You must do
what is best," Eadwine said.
"What is
best?" said Edward.
"Harold,"
said Eadwine, and, about the chamber breaths were released in profound relief.
"Harold?"
said Edward.
"Harold,"
said Eadwine.
Edward gave a small
nod, then looked back to Aldred. "Perhaps Harold would be best," he said.
"Name him,"
Aldred said very softly.
Edward sighed.
"Harold shall succeed me." He did not look at Harold as he said this.
For his part,
Harold's face flushed with relief. He had been named. He had the right to the
throne. If William or Hardrada or even a bevy of church mice tried to lay claim
to it then they would do so illegally, both in the sight of God and in the
sight of England.
"Harold…"
Edward said, and his tone was one of immense sadness, as if he felt he had
failed somehow, but was not quite sure of that "how."
Aldred laid a heavy
hand on Edward's shoulder. "Be at peace, my lord," he said, and with
those words Edward slipped quietly into death.
There was a silence,
then cries of "Harold! Harold! Harold!"
Through the tumult,
Aldred raised his face and caught Swanne's eye.
William, he whispered into her mind. William is on his way… and you shall hand me his life.
Yes?
A pause during which Swanne's face twisted in silent
agony and she grabbed with one hand at her belly.
Yes?
Yes, she whimpered back, and her eyes ran with tears.
sevejM
fr't
AROLD'S ELECTION
TO THE THRONE WAS A
foregone conclusion,
the result not only of Harold's careful and ceaseless canvasing of the members
of the witan as Edward lay a-dying over the Christmas season, but Aldred's
ability to wrangle a succession order from Edward in those moments before he
died. Within an hour after Edward's death, Harold's succession was proclaimed
over Westminster and through London; within a day it had spread to most parts
of the realm.
Edward's chamber was
abandoned virtually within moments of his passing, save for Damson, Caela, and
several other ladies who attended to his laying out. The rest of the witnesses,
the counts and earls, the chamberlains, chancellors, stewards and thegns, the
priests and bishops and abbots and abbesses and all their attendants had moved
with Harold to the Great Hall of the Westminster palace, there to plan the
coronation.
It would take place
in the morning at the very newly consecrated Westminster Abbey, directly after
the funeral service to bury Edward.
And directly after he
was crowned king, Harold would wed Alditha and crown her queen. All would be
settled before noon.
The morrow was going
to be a rushed day indeed, but that was, as Harold explained to his crowd of
old retainers and friends, heavily augmented with new hangers-on and applicants
to power, all to his advantage.
"If I leave my
coronation until the usual period of official mourning will have passed, then
William, Tostig, Hardrada, and half the aging Vikings still left in Norway, for
all I know, will have moved." Harold sat on the throne on the dais, having
marched there without hesitation the instant he entered the Great Hall.
One of the senior
members of the witan, Regenbald, who had been Edward's chancellor, stepped
forward. He was an old man, but still radiated a powerful virility, and was
renowned across half of Europe for his insights and sagacity.
"Mourning would
only take a month," he said. "No one is going to mount an invasion in
a month. Not in the bleakness of midwinter. To rush into a coronation might
appear to smack of… unseemly haste."
There were murmurs of
agreement in the nve-man-deep throng about Harold.
"Aldred, my
friend," said Harold. "What say you?"
The archbishop
visibly preened with pride; Harold's prompting for advice was a direct reward
for Aldred's success in securing a succession order from Edward.
"I cannot speak
for Hardrada," said Aldred, his eyes skimming quickly over the watching
faces before returning to Harold, "but I think I can for William. His
spies at this court—"
There were murmurs and
dark looks exchanged about the gathering, but Harold kept his own gaze steady
on Aldred.
"—will have
doubtless already sent word regarding Edward's demise," Aldred continued.
"William will have been waiting for this news. Surely, yes, he will swing
his plans for an invasion into place, but the first thing he will do is seek to claim the throne himself.
He has, as we are all too well aware, been claiming for years that Edward
promised him the throne many years ago when
Edward sheltered at the Norman court. William will proclaim loud and long all
over Europe, from the Papal court to the Holy Roman Empire to Flanders itself
that he is the legal king of England. He will do this because he will hope to
make the witan think twice about electing Harold. William will do everything he
can to make Harold's succession, should it happen, as illegal as
possible."
"We will never have a Norman king!" said Regenbald.
"We would never
elect William!" said Robert Fitzwimarch,
who had been a member of the witan even longer than Regenbald.
"A Norman and a bastard," muttered yet another witan member,
Ansgar.
Harold smiled.
"If he surrounded London with enough swords you would elect him willingly
enough," he said, then carried straight on through the howls of denials.
"Aldred is right. If I give William so much as a day of space he will have
petitioned most of the reigning princes, dukes, kings, and prelates of Europe
regarding his right to the throne and, knowing William's charm and his
reputation, most of them shall have agreed to his right to it. If I waited for
the full month of mourning before being crowned, I would have the weight of
European opinion against me, and William would have his excuse for an invasion.
This way," he paused momentarily, his face suddenly looking old and
haggard, "this way, perhaps I have a chance of circumventing him."
There was a silence.
"St.
Paul's?" said Aldred brightly. "I should send word to the dean that
he should ready the cathedral for your—"
"No," said
Harold. "I will be crowned in Westminster."
"But kings have
always been crowned in St. Paul's!" said Stigand, the
GG
archbishop of
Canterbury, and Spearhafoc, the bishop of London, as one. Stigand had always
been a stickler for tradition, and Spearhafoc could suddenly see the coronation
sliding out of his control into the eager hands of Eadwine, the abbot of
Westminster.
"Then I shall
start a new tradition!" snapped Harold. "Think, damn you! Edward had
stipulated that he be buried in Westminster Abbey, and I dare not go against
that lest I be seen to disrespect his wishes and his holy corpse. So the
funeral service for Edward, with every court member present, will be held in
Westminster Abbey in the morning. I am not then going to insist that everyone up and move
themselves, through the heart of a frozen winter's day, to St. Paul's for my
coronation! Westminster it is."
Harold leaned forward
on the throne and looked Stigand in the eye. "Is your matter still before
Alexander?"
Stigand looked down.
"Yes." For several years now Stigand's appointment as archbishop of
Canterbury had been in dispute. The matter had gone to the pope for a final
decision, but Alexander II, not known for his speed in dealing with business
matters not directly connected with either food or young girls, had not yet
proclaimed on the problem.
"Then Aldred
shall crown me," Harold said.
"No!"
Stigand cried, taking a half step forward. Harold raised his hand.
"I cannot afford
to be crowned by an archbishop whose appointment is in doubt!" Harold
said. "Damn it, Stigand, if Alexander does not rule in your favor, and you
have crowned me, then my coronation is
null and void. Aldred is the second most senior churchman in England, and there
is no dispute as to his right to the
title. He shall crown me."
Stigand shot Aldred a
foul look, but the obese archbishop was staring down at his hands laced across
his belly, a small smile on his face.
Harold stood up,
beckoning to the brothers Edwin and Morcar. "I need to speak to you about
your sister, Alditha. If I am to wed her in the morning, then you and I need to
finalize her dower arrangements tonight."
And with that, the
rest of the crowd was dismissed.
eigbc
/| LDRED HAD
SECURED FOR HIMSELF A SMALL BUT
private chamber
within the Westminster complex. Between the death of the one king and the
coronation of the next, there was little time to scurry to and from his palace
in London.
Besides he was
enjoying himself far too much to waste time in traveling along the frozen
Westminster to London road.
"And so then
Harold said, 'Aldred shall crown me'!" Aldred said, and grinned. "I
could hardly believe it. I… I, to crown the king of England!
Shall I crown William, too, my dear? Do you think?"
Swanne sat at the
very edge of the bed, as far away from Aldred as possible. She felt as though
she were locked into a black, cold night from which she could never escape. Her
belly ached from the incubus's horrid nibbling, her heart ached for all that
had happened and for what Asterion promised would happen, and her entire body
throbbed painfully from Aldred's just-completed bout of lovemaking… if such a
brutal assault could be in any way described as lovemaking'.
"Shall I, my
dear?" Aldred said, now much softer, and Swanne's head jerked in terrified
assent, knowing that the incubus could strike at any moment.
He was going to say
more, but just then came a knock at the door, and a mumbled request from one of
the abbey monks that the archbishop join the abbot of Westminster and the
archbishop of Canterbury within the abbot's private chambers as shortly as
possible.
Aldred sighed, patted
Swanne on the cheek, and departed.
A few minutes later,
surprising Swanne who had relaxed just enough to close her eyes, the door
reopened, and Asterion, now in his ancient form of the Minotaur, walked in.
He sat on the bed,
close to Swanne, who had shrunk back.
She tensed, her black
eyes growing huge and terrified, and Asterion reached out a hand and took one
of hers gently.
"I will not harm
you," he said, sliding close enough that their bodies touched at hip and
shoulder.
If anything, her eyes
grew even wider.
"I will not harm
you," he repeated, and ran his free hand softly over her shoulder, breast,
and belly, where the hand lingered a moment before continuing down to rest on
her thigh.
She was very cold,
and Asterion jerked his eyes toward the brazier.
Instantly a fire
roared into life, making Swanne tremble under Asterion's touch.
"Shush," he
said, and pulled her tense body close. "I do not mean to treat you
harshly."
She made a small
noise, part laughter, part groan.
The expression on
Asterion's great bull head changed into something curiously like a smile.
"Ariadne loved me, you know," he said. "Perhaps you might,
too."
"She wanted you
dead," Swanne said.
"Oh yes, she
did, and thus this." Asterion's hand again rested on Swanne's belly.
"I am not going to make the same error with you as I made with Ariadne.
But she did love me. A long time ago, when we
were but half brother and sister, and mated within the great mystery of the
labyrinth." He paused, and again smiled, this time more obviously.
"It was hardly as if she were a virgin when Theseus first took her, you
know."
For the first time since she'd managed to struggle
from under Aldred's body to this spot at the end of the bed, Swanne looked at
him. And for the first time in many days there was something other than fear in
her eyes. A questioning, perhaps.
"Think about
it," said Asterion. "Ariadne was the Mistress of the great founding
labyrinth. I was… almost her Kingman, if you like." His bestial mouth
brushed the top of her head, and Swanne winced. "And you well know what
relations exist between a Kingman and the Mistress of the Labyrinth,"
Asterion said, drawing back a little.
"You were not
the Kingman of that labyrinth," said Swanne. "You were the blackness
and malevolence she kept trapped within its heart."
He laughed. "Ah,
you know your history too well, Swanne, my love. Be that as it might, Ariadne
nevertheless visited me in the heart of the labyrinth on many an occasion. We were lovers, Swanne, and that is what made her betrayal of
me to Theseus the more… dreadful."
His voice had
hardened into ice on that last word, and Swanne shuddered.
"And yet still I
gifted her all that I had," Asterion went on. His hands were running all
over Swanne's body now, and, as they moved, they smoothed away all the pain and
aches she felt. Without realizing it, Swanne leaned very gradually against him.
Finally she relaxed enough to rest her face against his
O
broad chest, and to
feel without fear the play of his soft, warm breath over the crown of her head.
Swanne closed her
eyes. Oh gods, it felt so good
to have all the pain and fear soothed
away. She felt a
sudden rush of gratitude toward Asterion for taking away all the pain Aldred
had caused, and she did not even pause to think that thought strange.
"You are so very
much like her," Asterion continued, his voice now very soft. "Your
hair. Your face. Your form." Again he paused, although his hands still
kept moving, slowly, gently, soothingly. "Your ambition."
So greatly had she
relaxed that Swanne did not even tense at that last phrase, and Asterion smiled
to himself over the top of her head. She had learned to hate and loathe Aldred,
and that was good.
Better would be the
day when she automatically relaxed whenever he appeared as Asterion.
And best would be
that day she allowed herself to love him. That she would, he had no doubt. Once
she loved him, then Swanne would grant him any wish, if he promised to keep
Aldred at bay; a captive creature was all very well, but Swanne would do twice
as well for him, should love drive her actions rather than force. Aldred's
brutalization had been harsh, but it had been necessary.
"What do you
think I plan?" he asked Swanne, in that moment before she fell asleep.
She jerked a little,
not in fear, but merely in half-surprise at the question.
"To destroy the Troy Game," she murmured
against his chest. She had lifted one hand, and now it rested against his skin,
the tips of her fingers slightly tangled in the black hair that curled over his
chest.
He took her shoulders
and tipped her back so that she could see his face. "No," he said.
"I do not seek to destroy it, Swanne. Whatever gave you
that idea? Some strange half truth that Ariadne passed down through her
generations of daughter-heirs? I do not seek to destroy the Game, Swanne. I
seek to control it."
She frowned, and
would have spoken, save that Asterion laid the fingers of one hand over her
lips.
"And if I want
to control the Game, my love," he said, his voice now throbbing with
reassurance combined with heady promise, "I will need a Mistress of the
Labyrinth."
Her eyes widened,
then clouded with confusion. What
was he intimating?
"I will need a
Mistress of the Labyrinth, and I will need a set of kingship bands, of which
the Trojan bands are the only set left. Swanne, you want to control the Game, and for that you need a
Kingman and you need his bands. How are we at odds here?"
O
"But…" she
murmured behind his fingers.
"But…
what?"
"But you want to
destroy me."
"Nay," he
said, laughing softly, and planting a brief kiss on her forehead. "I
adored Ariadne. I can adore you, as well."
Swanne's forehead
creased as she tried to order her thoughts… but she was so warm, and so
grateful to be free of pain and fear. "William," she managed to say
finally.
Asterion's face
became dismissive. "Ah, William. He is not here, is he? He pouts uselessly
in some draughty Norman castle. Of what use is such a King-man to you?"
His mouth brushed her
forehead again, the touch firmer this time, and with his touch he used a barely
discernible element of his darkcraft. Love me,
Swanne.
Swanne suddenly
realized she did not find the touch of that great beast's mouth loathsome at
all.
His mouth brushed
against her forehead yet once more. Love me, Swanne. Trust in whatever I
say.
"When he arrives
in England, my dear, we shall have to negate him."
"Really?"
Swanne said, so under Asterion's enchantment now that she was not even mildly
curious at her total lack of concern at Asterion's proposal.
"Yes, really.
There is room for only one Kingman, after all, and to have William scrambling
about would be such a nuisance."
She was silent.
"Do you really
think," he said, whispering so that she could barely hear, "that
William is stronger than me?"
His hands were moving
again, firmer, more insistent. "Do you really think," he said,
directly into her ear so that his bull breath slid deep into her soul,
"that William is preferable to me?"
Love me, Swanne. Do whatever I want.
She moaned, and could
not think at all. All she could do was lean into Asterion's hands, against his
chest once more, and allow herself to be drawn back to the bed.
She felt no fear,
only a vague gratefulness that he was not angry at her, and the words he
whispered were not those of terror.
"You have the
darkcraft within you," he whispered. "I put it into Ariadne, and she
has passed it to you. Can you imagine, Swanne, my darling, what kind of Game we
could build, what kind of power we could command, if we used the
darkcraft to control the Game?"
He rolled on top of
her, and Swanne felt herself part her legs with some-
O
thing that felt a
little like eagerness. Caught in Asterion's sorcery, her mind had now
completely forgotten that Asterion also used Aldred's body from time to time.
Instead, they had become two separate personalities to her. Aldred caused her
pain and humiliation. Asterion relieved that pain, and offered her soft words…
and power.
"Why
William," he repeated, sliding sweetly and gently into her, "when you
have me?"
"Not
William," she whispered.
"No, my sweet.
Not William. When he arrives in England, will you kill him for me?"
Swanne moaned, not
simply from pleasure at the feel of Asterion's body within hers, but because
she could feel him sliding a small piece of the dark power back into her with
every thrust.
Oh, that was so sweet!
"Will you kill
him for me?"
"Yes! Anything,
anything…" She gasped, and moved sinuously under the Minotaur, encouraging
him with her body.
"And all you
will have to do, my love, is to seduce him back to your bed. That won't be too
difficult, will it?"
Swanne couldn't
think, let alone reason. "No. Anything. Please, give me more of the
darkcraft… please."
"When you have
killed William, I will give it all back to you."
She moaned.
SHE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HIM NOW. ANYTHING.
Asterion whistled as
he wandered along the river path. He'd had to escape Westminster and the
confines of petty men, and so had chosen this somewhat muddy walk for the
solitude it gave him. He wanted to shout and to scream his power, but in the
interest of maintaining some dignity, restrained himself to the occasional hop
and skip as he walked along.
The Troy Game was all
but his.
The bands he could
get any time.
He had his Mistress
of the Labyrinth.
All that stood in his
way was William.
Asterion sobered a
little. He well understood that William was indeed highly dangerous. As
dangerous as Theseus had once been—and Theseus' danger had been fatal.
Asterion needed
William negated. Murdered. Assassinated. Whatever. Dead.
O
Then nothing would
stand in his way. Nothing.
Asterion's face
resumed its cheerful aspect and, as he imagined what awaited William the
instant he gave into his lust for Swanne and slid inside her body, he chuckled
and then burst into laughter, startling the waterfowl which had been hiding in
the rushes.
Caela Speaks
DWARD HAD DIED,
AND I WAS FINALLY FREE.
At least, that is
what it felt like. No longer the queen, merely the
^tllьim relict of a
dead king, all interest in me evaporated the instant
Edward breathed his
last. I could have torn the robes from my body and run
shrieking about the
palace complex and, at best, I would have been regarded
with only mild
irritation for creating a noise.
Instead, Alditha
became the focus of attention (after Harold himself, naturally). Harold had
spread the word of his betrothal to her the day of Edward's death and now she,
the future queen, became the darling of the sycophants.
She was not the loathed wife.
She was not the detested bedmate.
Alditha was respected
and treated with deference by her future husband, and thus the entire court
respected and deferred to her.
I did not mind in the
least. Not for the world would I have had any other woman suffer what I did in
Edward's court. I visited her as soon as Edward had been respectably laid out,
and to her credit Alditha admitted me within an instant, dismissing all the
flatterers who crowded about her chair, and kissing me on the cheek before
embracing me tightly.
"I will not have
you move from your quarters," she said. "There is no need."
"There is every
need," I said, "for they stink of death. Mother Ecub, the prioress of
St. Margaret the Martyr, has offered me lodging and privacy, and I shall move
there without delay. You do not need me cluttering up your court, my
dear."
Harold had entered
then, and as he bent to kiss Alditha, I was pleased—if smitten with a pang of jealousy—that
there was clearly not only friendship between them, but the ease of physical
intimacy as well. Harold had not been wasting his nights at all.
O
He had the grace to
color slightly when he met my eyes and saw the understanding there. He put a
hand to Alditha's shoulder, and said, gently, "You have done well by me,
sister. I am grateful."
"And I,"
said Alditha. Then she sobered. "I think."
Harold and I both
burst into laughter, and the awkwardness dissipated.
"I heard you say
you were moving to St. Margaret the Martyr's," said Harold. "Caela,
there is no need."
"I do need to
quit this palace," I said. "It has nothing but bad memories for
me." And traps, and eyes, and ears. The freedom of Ecub's establishment
promised to be exhilarating. "You may visit me there whenever you wish,
Harold. Kingdom and new wife permitting."
Again we laughed, all
three of us, and spent some pleasant minutes in idle conversation. Then Harold
had to leave—the kingdom waited, and plans for his coronation—and I also did
not linger. Alditha had many matters to occupy her as well, and I did not want
my presence ever to become a strain.
As we stood, I leaned
forward and pressed my cheek against hers and, presumptuously, laid a hand
lightly on her belly. "You will have twin sons by Yuletide this
year," I whispered. "Do not fear for them."
Then, with Alditha
staring bewildered after me, I took my departure.
ALDRED CROWNED HAROLD
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY the next day, an hour after Edward had been laid to his
eternal rest inside his cold stone casket, inside his cold stone abbey.
I hoped it comforted
him, all that cold stone imprisoning him within his death.
Alditha was crowned
alongside Harold, the abbey alive with music and garlands and pennants and the
shouting of the Londoners outside. I stood to one side in the shadow of a side
aisle, Judith, Ecub, and Saeweald beside me, watching, both glad and saddened
for Harold.
I could almost hear
the sound of William sharpening his sword across the narrow straits of the sea.
I closed my eyes,
fighting to keep back the tears. Gods,
what this land needed was Harold as its king, not William!
I felt Judith's hand
touch my elbow in concern, and I opened my eyes, and gave her a small smile.
Then I looked back to
Harold, just as he was standing to receive the acclaim of the witan and the
nobles.
A stray shaft of
sunlight hit his head, highlighting the golden crown atop his brow, and I
frowned, for it seemed to me that I was seeing something very important at that
moment, yet not understanding it.
O
"Caela,"
Ecub whispered in my ear, and she nodded to a spot within the crowd hailing
Harold.
There stood Long Tom,
looking at Harold with eyes shining with reverence.
He must have felt me
watching, for the Sidlesaghe shifted his gaze from Harold to me. He frowned,
and nodded in Harold's direction, and then raised his hands and applauded as
most everyone else in the abbey was doing, his eyes constantly dancing between
Harold and myself, and then the tears did slip
down my cheeks, because I knew Long Tom was trying to tell me something, trying
to show me something, and I was fool
enough not to understand what.
THAT NIGHT, MY FIRST AT ST. MARGARET THE MARTYR'S,
I climbed to the
summit of Pen Hill, and there waited Long Tom.
I asked him what he
had been trying to tell me in the abbey, but he only shook his head, and would
not answer the question.
"We are
worried," he said, changing the subject when I tried to press. "The
land feels ill. You do not feel it?"
I shook my head. In
truth, the past week I had slept so little that I doubt I would have felt it
even if my right arm had been torn from my body.
Then I was consumed
by guilt, because I should have felt it. I was the land, and
if it was not right, then I should have felt it.
"It has an imp
within it," he said, and moaned so pitifully that I began to weep.
"We cannot see where, but that imp will eat at us and this green land and
its forests and waters until all are gone."
"Long Tom, I can
see and feel nothing. Why? What is wrong with me?"
And to that he did
not respond, either, saying only, "You must move another band tonight,
sweet lady. It is all we can do."
I did, moving a band
that Brutus had hid in the northeastern part of London's wall to a point far to
the south of the river, a place called Herne Hill, where waited for me a
similar scene as that had greeted me at the Holy Oak, save that this time I
handed the band to a man sitting behind a curious wheel in one of those
frightful black beasts, this time stationary by the entrance to a similar
redbrick building as had stood at Gospel Oak.
My heart raced the
entire time, but there was no sign of Asterion.
Somehow that worried
me more than anything.
G6J'tI
VES HAD BEEN AND
GONE, AND NOW WILLIAM
stood before Matilda
with the unfolded letter in his hands that the priest had delivered.
He was staring at it
without expression.
"Does it…?"
Matilda said, wanting to snatch at the letter but unable to tear her eyes from
her husband's face.
"Yes,"
William said, finally raising his own gaze from the letter to look at Matilda.
"It confirms the rumors we've heard for the past two days. Edward is dead.
And Harold has been elected and crowned and anointed king of England."
Matilda drew in a
sharp breath. "He moved fast. But then we always knew he would." She
nodded at the letter. "And Swanne? How has she positioned herself?"
William's mouth
twisted wryly, and he handed the letter to Matilda to read. "This is not
from Swanne, but rather Aldred."
Matilda took the
letter, her eyes scanning the thick inked lines. "The archbishop of
York?"
"Aye." They
had already heard that Harold had set Swanne to one side, and neither were
surprised at this intelligence. William wondered, however, just how deeply
Swanne had taken that to her heart.
He wondered, very
privately, and with an intensity that ate at him during those long wakeful
moments in the heart of the night, if it was her anger and undoubted
humiliation that had caused the "shift" he'd felt in the Game over
the past few weeks.
Something had
happened—distinct from the movement of the second and third bands that William supposed could be attributed
to Silvius—and it had happened as he had felt a simultaneous
"withdrawing" from Swanne. Apart from their two brief meetings,
they'd never been in close contact, but William had always been able to sense
her, feel her.
Now that sense had
faded.
What was happening?
Well, at least now he
had the excuse he needed to move. William too* deep breath, grateful at least
for Edward's dying.
At last… at last.
He looked to
Matilda's face and saw the excitement there, and for the first time he wondered
what would happen to her in this forthcoming battle. Dear gods,
let her not be hurt!
He reached out and
touched her face tenderly, and was rewarded by the slight pressure of her cheek
against the palm of his hand.
"You will be
king," she said.
He smiled, but it did
not reach his eyes. "Aye. After all this time…"
"William,"
she said. "I have had news from my agent as well."
"Yes?"
"Swanne has
moved into the archbishop of York's palace."
"What?"
"Harold put her
aside. This cannot be surprising news, surely."
"That Harold
should set Swanne aside? No. In truth, I expected it. But why would Swanne move
into the archbishop's household? In what capacity, has your agent discovered
that?"
Matilda watched her
husband closely as she picked her next words with some care. "It is
rumored that Swanne has become Aldred's lover."
William's mouth fell
open.
"My love,"
Matilda said. "After what Harold has told us of her, you cannot be
surprised that—"
"That Swanne has
chosen a lover? No, I am not surprised at that. I am sure she did it so that
she might retain a place at court. Unless she became a laundress—"
Matilda's eyes
widened very slightly, but otherwise her face remained remarkably
expressionless.
"—there could be
little else Swanne could do to keep a place within court.
Sweet Christ, Harold would not want her there! But Aldred… Aldred! Matilda, you have met him and seen him for what he
is. An obese flatterer with few qualities. He is useful, yes… but as a
lover…"
"Perhaps he is a
good lover."
William laughed
briefly, incredulously. "There are many other men within court who could
have served as well as Aldred. Swanne is a beautiful woman—"
"I wouldn't
know," murmured Matilda.
"—and she could
have any man she…" he stopped abruptly. He stepped to Matilda, and cradled
her face in his hands. "Matilda, you will
be queen beside me. I swear it to you."
"I expect to be,
William. And Swanne?"
"I don't
know." And he didn't. William didn't like to consider what Swanne
she learned Matilda
was not to be pensioned off to some nun-Vs. He remembered what she had done to
Cornelia, how she 'ler, come near to murdering her, taken her child from
her…cct you," William said to Matilda.
She frowned. What an
odd thing to say. Before she could question him on the matter, William had let
her go, walking to a chest beneath the window where lay several sheets of
parchment and vellum. He picked them up, shuffling them in his hands and
signaling through his action that he wanted the subject changed.
"The documents
are all prepared," he said, "and the riders are waiting. They will be
dispatched by this evening."
Matilda came to stand
by him, leaning in close as she stared at the letters before her.
They were addressed
to the leaders of Europe: Alexander II, the pope, leader of all Christendom;
Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, controller of the largest territory within
Europe; Count Baldwin V of Flanders, Matilda's kinsman, who was not only an
important prince in his own right, but was also the guardian to the young
French king, Philip I; as well as scores of other lesser nobles and prelates.
William was going to invade England, come what may, but he was going to make
damned sure that he had the political and armed support of Europe behind him.
"I have also
sent out word to my magnates," William said. "I will hold a great
council in Lillebonne in a few weeks. When they agree, I will have an undivided
Normandy behind me."
"Will they
agree?" she said.
"Yes. The
rewards will be too good to ignore."
"And the
ships?" She almost whispered the question.
"I sent word
yesterday, once the rumors grew strong." William had actually known the
instant Edward had died, but had been forced to stay his hand until he heard
the news by more conventional means. He didn't want whispers of murder by
poisoning circulating. "The wharves of Dives River are already ringing
with the sound of carpenters' hammers and adzes."
"When?" she
said, and she had to say no other word for William to know of what she spoke.
"Late
summer," he said. "Harold has until summer to enjoy his
kingdom."
His stomach clenched.
Only another few months, a few
months!
ecevejM
ro
HILE
INTELLECTUALLY, SWANNE SHOULD
have known that Aldred
and Asterion were one and the same man, one and the same beast, Asterion's subtle sorcery worked so well that
emotionally they were entirely separate in her conscious mind. Once the
coronation was past (and how she had hated
seeing Harold enthroned, and that pale-faced bitch beside him), Aldred had
settled her back into his London palace. Here, at least once a day, he
brutalized her both physically and emotionally until she cringed whenever she
heard his voice, or caught a whiff of his scent on bed linens or a discarded
robe.
Asterion usually came
to her once Aldred had departed. He would hold her, and soothe away her hurts,
and tell her how beautiful and powerful she was, and whisper how good it would
be when they ruled the Game together. Swanne never made the connection that
Asterion appeared to her immediately after Aldred brutalized her, so that
Swanne would grow so dependent on him, and so grateful to him, that she would
do anything he wanted. Aldred unhinged Swanne's mind and made her cruelly
vulnerable to Asterion's ensuing sweetness. Aldred was danger and pain;
Asterion was relief from that pain.
Swanne was so
grateful to Asterion, and now so desperately dependent on him, that it was
difficult for her to disagree with anything Asterion said to her, or asked of
her. Moreover, she found herself longing for those times when Asterion
appeared. In a strange, bizarre fashion, she almost enjoyed the worst of
Aldred's beatings and rapes because it meant that Asterion was likely to come
to her within an hour or so of Aldred, leaving her writhing in agony.
Swanne was not sure
what she wanted most from Asterion: the relief he represented; or the power he represented.
Strange that
previously she had never thought of Asterion as a possible partner in the Game.
She'd only ever considered Brutus, or William as he was now, as her Kingman.
But she didn't have to use William, did she? Asterion
was right. All she needed as Mistress of the Labyrinth was a Kingman.
It didn't matter which Kingman.
That realization had hit with almost a physical thud
one day after Aldred had left her bruised and bleeding.
All she really needed
was a Kingman.
She had selected
Brutus because she'd thought he was the only one left. Indeed, there was no selection about it at all. It was him, or no one. She'd come to
love him because of his power and attraction and vitality and because he was
what she needed to fulfill her ambitions.
But there had been
another choice apart from Brutus, hadn't there? Why hadn't she ever thought of
Asterion? This puzzled Swanne in those long, silent afternoons she spent sewing
with her ladies, their heads bent over their embroideries, unspeaking at their
mistress's demand.
Why hadn't she ever
thought of Asterion beyond considering him as a threat?
Asterion did not want
to destroy the Game. He wanted to control it—a perfectly understandable
ambition, had Swanne thought clearly enough about it before now.
To control the Game,
all Asterion needed were the bands. And Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Imagine the Game she
and he could build together!
The power…
The darkcraft in full
flower…
Swanne could feel her
ancient darkcraft reemerging. Every time Asterion lay with her, it became a
little bit stronger. Asterion had put the darkcraft into Ariadne, and now he
was putting it into Swanne.
She almost loved him
for it.
No… she did love him for it.
As the weeks passed,
Swanne found herself hardly thinking about William at all. All she wanted was
to be free again, to be the mistress of a resurgent Game.
And all she needed to
do that was to ensure that Asterion found the bands.
All she wanted was
power, and Asterion seemed to represent the quicker, surer pathway to that than
did William. GUD6CV
/^* AWISE HAD
SERVED AS SWANNE'S MAID AND THEN
as senior attending
woman for over twenty-five years. She'd known / Swanne as a child in her
father's manor, as the young woman who had seduced Harold to her bed, as the
mother who had borne him six children, and, by virtue of Swanne's connection
with Harold, as one of the most senior women at Edward's court.
Swanne had never been
an easy woman, even when Hawise had first known her. She had been reclusive,
demanding, cunning, charming. She had never been friendly, nor confiding. She
had always seemed sure… of something, as if even from childhood she
entertained a distant vision that only she could discern.
Even if she was never
Hawise's friend, Hawise was as close to a friend as Swanne was ever likely to
achieve. Thus, it was as a friend that Hawise asked Edward's physician Saeweald
to attend her mistress. (After all, it was not as if Edward needed the constant
attendance of the man now, was it?)
Swanne had shocked
Hawise (as all the other ladies, and as all they gossiped to when she had not
only moved herself to Aldred's palace in London, but accepted the corpulent
cleric into her bed. If Hawise had been shocked by that action, then she had
been stunned by the manner in which Aldred appeared to treat Swanne. Bruises.
Bite marks. Bleeding.
Her mistress's face
gaunt and haunted, and her eyes brimming with agony every morning.
Matters had improved
vastly in the time since Edward's death. On those nights Aldred spent with
Swanne (and that was most of them) there still came the sounds of muffled
sobbing from behind the locked door of the bedchamber, and often in the morning
there would be rusty streaks of dried blood staining the bed linens, but Swanne
seemed to have improved within herself, and her bruises and wounds were far
less, even nonexistent for days on end.
And yet…
Swanne was changed
somehow, and most definitely not for the better. Her loveliness had become
brittle. Her eyes, if possible, were darker, more
That realization had
hit with almost a physical thud one day after Aldred had left her bruised and
bleeding.
All she really needed
was a Kingman.
She had selected
Brutus because she'd thought he was the only one left. Indeed, there was no selection about it at all. It was him, or no one. She'd come to
love him because of his power and attraction and vitality and because he was
what she needed to fulfill her ambitions.
But there had been
another choice apart from Brutus, hadn't there? Why hadn't she ever thought of
Asterion? This puzzled Swanne in those long, silent afternoons she spent sewing
with her ladies, their heads bent over their embroideries, unspeaking at their
mistress's demand.
Why hadn't she ever
thought of Asterion beyond considering him as a threat?
Asterion did not want
to destroy the Game. He wanted to control it—a perfectly understandable
ambition, had Swanne thought clearly enough about it before now.
To control the Game,
all Asterion needed were the bands. And Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Imagine the Game she
and he could build together!
The power…
The darkcraft in full
flower…
Swanne could feel her
ancient darkcraft reemerging. Every time Asterion lay with her, it became a
little bit stronger. Asterion had put the darkcraft into Ariadne, and now he
was putting it into Swanne.
She almost loved him
for it.
No… she did love him for it.
As the weeks passed,
Swanne found herself hardly thinking about William at all. All she wanted was
to be free again, to be the mistress of a resurgent Game.
And all she needed to
do that was to ensure that Asterion found the bands.
All she wanted was
power, and Asterion seemed to represent the quicker, surer pathway to that than
did William.
GID6CV
/^L AWISE HAD SERVED AS SWANNE'S MAID AND THEN
as senior attending
woman for over twenty-five years. She'd known / Swanne as a child in her
father's manor, as the young woman who had seduced Harold to her bed, as the
mother who had borne him six children, and, by virtue of Swanne's connection
with Harold, as one of the most senior women at Edward's court.
Swanne had never been
an easy woman, even when Hawise had first known her. She had been reclusive,
demanding, cunning, charming. She had never been friendly, nor confiding. She
had always seemed sure… of something, as if even from childhood she
entertained a distant vision that only she could discern.
Even if she was never
Hawise's friend, Hawise was as close to a friend as Swanne was ever likely to
achieve. Thus, it was as a friend that Hawise asked Edward's physician Saeweald
to attend her mistress. (After all, it was not as if Edward needed the constant
attendance of the man now, was it?)
Swanne had shocked
Hawise (as all the other ladies, and as all they gossiped to when she had not
only moved herself to Aldred's palace in London, but accepted the corpulent
cleric into her bed. If Hawise had been shocked by that action, then she had
been stunned by the manner in which Aldred appeared to treat Swanne. Bruises.
Bite marks. Bleeding.
Her mistress's face
gaunt and haunted, and her eyes brimming with agony every morning.
Matters had improved
vastly in the time since Edward's death. On those nights Aldred spent with
Swanne (and that was most of them) there still came the sounds of muffled
sobbing from behind the locked door of the bedchamber, and often in the morning
there would be rusty streaks of dried blood staining the bed linens, but Swanne
seemed to have improved within herself, and her bruises and wounds were far
less, even nonexistent for days on end.
And yet…
Swanne was changed
somehow, and most definitely not for the better. Her loveliness had become
brittle. Her eyes, if possible, were darker, more
unknowable, and often
Hawise found Swanne watching her with a calculation and bleakness she found
deeply disturbing. And despite her almost incessant bleeding, Swanne also
appeared to be with child again (Hawise spent much time on her knees before
whatever altar she could find praying that this child was Harold's final gift,
and not Aldred's loathsome welcome), although Swanne denied it with vicious,
hard words that one time Hawise had dared to venture the question.
And Swanne was
growing thinner, as if the child (or whatever it was, if Swanne had been
telling truth) was eating her from within. In Swanne's previous pregnancies she
had never grown thin, but had blossomed and bloomed.
In essence, Swanne
was growing thinner, harder, and darker—and more sharp-tongued as each day
passed.
Hawise feared her
mistress had a fatal, malignant growth within her and, though she knew Swanne
would not thank her for it, took it upon herself to send for Saeweald. It was
all she could do, and that Hawise did that much for a woman who had never given
her much beyond harsh words, said a great deal about Hawise's generosity of
spirit.
"I DID NOT SEND
FOR YOU," SWANNE SAID AS Saeweald stood before her, one hand gently
fingering the copper box of herbs at his waist. In his other hand, he grasped
firmly a large leather satchel that Swanne presumed contained all the tricks of
his trade.
Swanne's mouth
curled. All Loth's "tricks of his trade" vanished that night he'd
murdered Og along with Blangan in Mag's Dance two thousand years before.
"A friend sent
for me," Saeweald said, and Swanne's eyes slid toward Hawise, standing
calmly a few paces away.
"No friend to me," Swanne said, and Saeweald had to refrain from
hitting the woman. Gods, as Genvissa she'd at least managed to maintain a
semblance of respect toward the women and mothers in her circle. Even as
Swanne, she'd managed a fragile veneer of sisterly communion with the women
about her.
But this naked
contempt. Swanne must be sure of herself indeed, and that worried Saeweald.
He'd been glad when
Hawise approached him, handing to him on a platter the perfect excuse to
visit—and examine, by all the luck of the gods!— Swanne. He'd heard from Caela
how Swanne had accused her, and then how the Sidlesaghes felt there was
something wrong with the Game and the land, some dark shift, and
that it possibly concerned Swanne.
Well, and that was no
surprise. Every "dark shift" always somehow con-
cerned
Swanne-Genvissa. If there was one lesson he'd learned in all his lives, then
that was it.
"Do not discard
friendship when it is offered to you," Saeweald said as he set his leather
satchel down by his feet. He expected Swanne to sneer again, but she smiled,
almost as if genuinely cheered by some thought that had come into her head, and
then laughed, and gestured for one of her women to bring a chair forward for
Saeweald.
To Saeweald's
surprise, he saw that it was Damson, and he asked after her as he took the
chair.
"Damson is well
enough," said Swanne before the woman had a chance herself to answer, and
waved her a dismissal.
"I'm surprised
to see Damson in the archbishop's household," Saeweald said as he sat
down.
Swanne raised her
brows. "I'm surprised you even know
her."
"I attended her
once for a fever."
"Well, she is of
no matter, her health of even less. Damson had asked if she might join my
household here, and I saw no harm in it. I suppose she thought it preferable to
serving that mealy-mouthed jade Harold took to wife."
They were sitting in
the chamber that Aldred had put at Swanne's disposal. Saeweald had never been
to the archbishop's London palace previously, and he had to admire the comforts
with which the good archbishop surrounded himself.
Swanne being one of
them, of course.
Like everyone else,
Saeweald had wondered about this liaison, particularly as he knew Swanne better
than most. Swanne could have had the pick of any noble male protector within
the court—but Aldred? It was not like Swanne to select
the most physically unattractive man about when, as Saeweald well knew from her
previous existence, she preferred someone more delectable.
"You look
amused," Swanne said, disdainfully raising one carefulry plucked black
eyebrow as only she could manage.
"I was imagining
you with Aldred," Saeweald said, not inclined to play polite word games
with her. "I was wondering why."
"It is none of
your concern," Swanne snapped.
"Everything you
do is my concern," Saeweald said. "You have a terrible penchant for
destroying my entire world."
She smiled again, but
this time it was so icy and so calculating, it made Saeweald's blood run cold.
He reached out a hand
and took Swanne's wrist.
She drew back
slightly, then relaxed and allowed Saeweald to feel her pulse.
Unable to bear her
black-eyed, shrewd scrutiny, Saeweald looked down at her wrist. Her skin was so
pale he could see the blue-veined blood vessels beneath, and he could feel the
delicate bones shifting beneath his fingers. Her pulse beat strong and full,
however.
Whatever had affected
Swanne, whatever had caused this pallor and thinness and strange light in her
eyes, it had not lessened her strength or, Saeweald suspected, her ambition and
purpose.
"You must have
heard from William recently," he murmured, making much fuss about feeling
her pulse from several points on her wrist and lower forearm.
Swanne gave a tiny
shrug of her shoulders.
"And you must be
excited that—perhaps—he will shortly be here. I have no doubt that you cannot
wait to see him again."
Swanne gave a small
sigh, as if the matter was of supreme disinterest to her.
Saeweald's eyes flew
to her face. That disinterested sigh had sounded genuine. Swanne? Didn't care if she saw William or not? It
could not be!
"You do not
spend every moment lusting for him?" Saeweald said.
Again that secretive
smile. "I have a better lover," Swanne said.
Saeweald gave up any
pretense of feeling Swanne's heartbeat. "Aldred?"
Something flashed
over Swanne's face, and for an instant Saeweald thought it terror, but then an
expression of the most supreme contentment took its place. "No," she
said. "Not Aldred."
"I had thought
the Mistress of the Labyrinth would spend her time lusting only for her
Kingman."
Yet again Swanne said
nothing, but held Saeweald's eyes with a disdain that told him she was hiding
something momentous.
What?
And who? Swanne would not just discard
William for an athletic lover, however skilled he might be in her bed. She
would not just discard her Kingman.
Saeweald felt the
germ of hope within him. Perhaps Swanne had changed. Perhaps she was prepared to abandon her
ambitions as Mistress of the—
"Never think that," Swanne said, her voice a low hiss,
and Saeweald screened his mind in sudden fright. "I will be the most
powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth that ever was. The Game will be mine."
"But for that
you will need William," Saeweald said, pushing the point.
Again that shrug, the
slight, disdainful lifting of an eyebrow.
Saeweald sighed, hiding his confusion and concern with
rummaging about in his satchel for a moment.
"I need none of
your potions," Swanne said, irritated by Saeweald's fidgeting. "I am
not ill."
Now it was Saeweald's
turn to raise an eyebrow. "You do not look particularly well," he
said. "You have lost much weight. There is a fever burning in your eyes.
Hawise says that you may be pregnant—"
"Hawise is a
fool!"
"Perhaps this
lover of yours is potent."
Swanne smiled.
"Oh, aye, that he is. But he fills me with… ah, this is not your concern,
Saeweald. It is far and away not your concern."
He fills me with power. Saeweald could almost hear the
words she had stopped.
"But enough of
me," Swanne said, her tone almost girlish now. "I admit myself
surprised, Saeweald, that you have not yourself sunk into a great blackness of
spirit now that Mag has finally been disposed of. Caela, poor lost soul, must
have been your final hope for some kind of… oh, some kind of purpose, I
suppose."
Saeweald dropped his
eyes, dampening that tiny gloat within him. Well may you think Mag dead, Swanne…
And then he looked
back at Swanne again, meaning to say something trivial, and saw the blaze of
understanding in her eyes, and knew that he had not been secretive enough.
"Mag is not
dead, is she?"
Swanne rose to her
feet, pushing Saeweald away. "Mag is not dead! Of course! The secretive,
treacherous bitch. I should have known she would do something like this!"
SHE WAITED UNTIL
ASTERION WAS ATOP HER, WITHIN
her, driving both her
and himself into a panting, moaning lust before she told him, gasping the words
as she felt Asterion climax within her.
"Mag is
alive."
"What?" He
pulled himself back from her, raising himself up on straightened arms, his
ebony face glistening with sweat.
There was a little
trickle of perspiration running down the center of his moist black nose, and
Swanne found herself momentarily fascinated by it. "Mag is not dead."
"Of course not.
I knew this."
"You thought you
killed her!"
He grinned, the
expression horrible on his bull's face. "Oh, but I mean to."
She narrowed her
eyes, and he thought she looked so beautifully sly that he had to bend his head
down and kiss her mouth.
"What do you know
that I don't?" she said, pulling her mouth free.
©
A great deal, he thought. "Only that we
have the means to finally trap her," he said. "Would you like that,
my love?"
She breathed in
deeply, and Asterion's eyes clouded over with renewed desire as he felt her
breasts move beneath his chest.
"Oh, aye,"
she said.
Caela Speaks
RETIRED, EDWARD'S
RELICT, TO ST. MARGARET
/*% m the Martyr's, that small priory I had endowed so many
years
The sense of
independence was astounding. Ecub gave me several small chambers that were at
the very end of the priory's main group of buildings. Here I had access to the
herb garden, the refectory, the chapel, and the outside as much as I wished. Of
all my ladies, Judith was the only one to come with me (the others gratefully
transfering themselves to Alditha's household), and Saeweald took the
opportunity to take over the running of the priory's herb garden and infirmary.
I have no idea what gossip ran through London about this arrangement—no doubt
that the physician spent most of his time sampling the wares within the
sisters' dormitory rather than tasting the sweetness of his medicinal
draughts—but none of that bothered us within the calm of St Margaret's.
Saeweald spent his nights with Judith, and I…
I spent my nights
either blessedly alone (ah! The wonder of not having to share a chamber, let
alone a bed!) or even more blessedly in company atop Pen Hill. Here I climbed
late at night, aye, even in the depths of winter, and here the Sidlesaghes came
to me, and sang, and comforted me. Ecub often joined me, and also Judith and
many of the sisters of Ecub's order. The cold did not perturb us, for we were
warm with power and shared femininity and a shared oneness with the land.
It cheered me to
think that not all had been lost, and that a few still remembered the old ways.
One day, I thought, I
would be able to dance here with my lover, with Og,
with the white stag
with the blood-red antlers and the bands of power about his limbs. One day.
ONE EVENING SAEWEALD
CAME TO VISIT ME, AS HE SO
often did.
I was seated with
Judith and Ecub, and Saeweald joined us about the small fire I had burning in
the hearth.
"I have seen
Swanne," he said as he sat.
A bleakness overcame
my heart. I had almost forgotten her existence. And at that realization I felt
dreadful, for I could not afford to forget Swanne, who somehow I had to
persuade to pass over her gifts as Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Saeweald's eyes
dropped to the hands in his lap. "But before I relate what news I gleaned
there, I must make a confession."
We waited. Saeweald
finally raised his eyes.
"I was
incautious," he said. "She gleaned from my mind that Mag is not as
dead as she had thought."
I felt a nasty jab of
fear, but quickly suppressed it. "And what can she do with this knowledge,
Saeweald? It is unfortunate, perhaps, but the main thing is that Asterion does
not know."
I saw Ecub and Judith
exchange a worried glance, but I spoke again quickly, before any of them could
voice their thoughts. "But what did you discover, Saeweald?"
"She has taken a
lover," he said.
Ecub, Judith, and I
shrugged simultaneously. Whether as Genvissa or as Swanne, the woman was always
taking lovers.
"A lover who has
supplanted William in her heart and in her estimation."
"I cannot
believe that!" I said. Then… "Has she…"
"Decided to
abandon the cause of the Game?" Saeweald said. "Forsworn her duties
as Mistress of the Labyrinth? Nay, I am afraid not, Caela. She made it very
clear to me that she is the Mistress of the Labyrinth, she will be the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and the Game is
hers to control as she pleases."
I felt a twinge of
worry. I kept waiting for some enlightenment as to how it was I might persuade
Swanne to hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth but that knowledge
continued to elude me. Still, I must trust, and surely it would become plain to
me.
But… Swanne had found
a lover to supplant William?
"She has taken a
lover who has supplanted William?" I said. "How can that possibly be?"
"Aldred,"
Judith said. "Who else."
Saeweald shot her a
disbelieving look. "Aldred the great lover who has made Swanne forget
William? I can hardly credit it."
I could no longer
bear inactivity, so I stood and paced back and forth in the narrow space of the
semicircle we made before the fire. "This must be the shift the Sidlesaghes felt in the Game
and the land," I said. "Swanne's lover."
I halted, and fixed
Saeweald with a penetrating glare. "Perhaps Swanne is misleading you about
this man, this lover, for her own purposes."
"No."
Saeweald said. "I would stake my life on her genuine affection and regard
for this man."
"But how can
that be!" I made an impatient gesture and resumed my pacing. "William
can be the only man for her. She needs a Kingman. She can't just dismiss William!"
"Aye,"
Saeweald said. "I do not like this. My foreboding merely grows the
stronger for this news."
"We need to know
who this man is," said Ecub. "We need to know more about Swanne. What
is happening with her? How can
she have decided to abandon William?"
I exchanged a glance
with Saeweald. "I could visit her and—"
"No!" Ecub
and Judith said as one.
"Too dangerous,
surely," Judith added. "Especially as she knows that Mag still
lives."
"Swanne examined
me after Asterion killed the false Mag," I said. "She knows there is
no Mag in me. She will think merely that Mag
has hopped elsewhere." I smiled with what I hoped was persuasion.
"Swanne might talk to me, if only to brag. She always did enjoy bragging
to me about her lovers."
"Still…"
said Ecub.
"Damson,"
Saeweald put in, his voice slow. "Damson is with Swanne."
"What?" I
said. "With Swanne? What is Damson doing with Swanne?"
Saeweald shrugged.
"Swanne said that Damson had asked if she might join Swanne's household at
Aldred's palace. I have no idea why, for Damson would just as surely have had a
place in Harold and Alditha's household as she had in Edward's."
Damson was my responsibility, I thought. I should have seen her settled somewhere safer—and obviously she felt unsettled enough to go into
service with Swanne, of all people. She was my responsibility.
"Caela…"
Saeweald said. "Damson is your means to watch Swanne with
far more safety than
if you attended the witch in person. Swanne will be unguarded about Damson
where she will be cunning and sly about you. Damson is your entry into Swanne's
world."
I sat silent, not
liking it. I had come to hate "using" sweet, trusting Damson in the
manner that I did, and to use her in this way was to place her in terrible
danger.
I could see that Ecub
and Judith were not happy with Saeweald's suggestion, either, but it was too
good an opportunity to lose.
"I can fetch her to you," Saeweald said
softly.
I looked down at my
hands curled tight in my lap, and lowered my head in agreement.
SAEWEALD ARRANGED MY
MEETING WITH DAMSON
some six days later.
By virtue of her service to Aldred, whose palace lay within the boundaries of
London, Damson could not stray from London itself, so, accompanied by Mother
Ecub and Judith, I traveled heavily draped and veiled to London to meet Damson
there. I occupied a room in a sister house to St. Margaret's—Mother Ecub said I
was a noble lady who needed solitude and privacy in order to pray for her dead
husband's soul—and there I waited.
In the late afternoon
Saeweald bought Damson to me.
He'd not told her
whom he brought her to meet, only that he needed some assistance with draining
fluid from the lungs of a woman who had the creeping blackness in her chest.
When Ecub opened the door to Saeweald's soft tap, and Damson saw who awaited
her within, her simple, clear face burst into a radiant smile, and she sank into
a deep curtsy before me.
"Madam!"
she said. "I have prayed for your happiness every night."
My guilt increased.
How could I use this woman as I did? I determined that, whatever happened,
Damson should not suffer for it.
"Damson," I
said, keeping my voice light. I took her hands in mine and raised her to her
feet and, leaning forward, kissed her on the mouth.
Instantly our souls
transposed.
As I entered Damson,
I felt a brief, lingering trace of her unfeigned joy at seeing me and my guilt
again stabbed deep.
/ would see this woman safe. I would.
ALDRED HAD HIMSELF A
FINE PALACE WITHIN London. It was richer and larger than most others—even the
bishop of London himself did not command such magnificence, let alone any of
the nobles
who maintained
residences within the city walls. Aldred had made himself rich indeed on
Edward's munificence, I thought, as I made my way through the halls and
chambers to where Saeweald had told me Swanne had her private apartments. I
took care to maintain Damson's habitual modesty of demeanor, and, keeping my
shoulders slumped and my face averted, I entered Swanne's outer chamber without
any challenge from the guards.
It was late afternoon
and Swanne was enjoying a light repast. Hawise, Swanne's senior attending
woman, made a sharp remark to me about my tardiness in returning from my
errand, but that was the only comment made.
"Here,"
Hawise said, handing me some linens. "His lordship has spent the afternoon
with my lady. Her bed shall need to be changed."
I took the linens
silently and, equally as silently, I slipped into Swanne's chamber.
Swanne was sitting by
a brazier to one end of the chamber, picking without much apparent interest at
a plate of food set before her. She paid me no attention as I made my way to
the bed, and I glanced surreptitiously at her.
She seemed very pale,
and had lost weight, but even so, she was still fabulously beautiful. Her hair
was bound under a veil, although several strands of it straggled over her neck
that was, I was concerned to see, slightly reddened in patches, as if someone
had grabbed at it with thick fingers.
Swanne must have felt
my eyes on her, for she turned to me and snapped, "Just change the linens
and remove yourself, Damson. I have no interest in holding a
conversation."
I averted my head,
terrified she should have seen more than Damson in my eyes, but
Swanne said no more, and when I glanced once more at her, as I began to strip
the coverlets from the bed, I saw that her attention was back on the plate of
food.
I looked to the bed,
and barely managed to restrain a gasp of horror.
That Aldred had lain
with her recently was apparent—there were stains smeared across half the
bed—but what was appalling was that there were also great streaks of blood marring the creamy linens. Her flux? I thought, then dismissed it, for this blood was not
that of a woman's monthly courses, but the rich red of arterial flow.
By all the gods in existence, what was Aldred doing to
her? This was the lover she had crowed about to Saeweald?
I could feel Swanne's
eyes on me once more, so I hurriedly stripped the bed and remade it with the
fresh linens.
"Burn those
soiled linens," said Swanne. "They are unredeemable."
"Yes,
madam," I muttered, and scurried out, the offending linens stuffed under
my arm.
I WAS NOT INVITED
BACK INTO SWANNE'S CHAMBER
that day. No one
entered save Hawise, and I heard Swanne snarling at her on those brief
occasions when the door opened or closed.
Late at night, long
after the bells for compline had rung, Aldred himself returned. He rumbled into
the outer chamber, wrapped in furs against the night cold, and exuded charm and
bonhomie.
Hawise shot him a
black look, and did not meet his eyes. Frankly, I was not surprised. If Swanne
had been my lady, and even being Swanne, I
think I would have sunk a knife into the fat archbishop's belly for what he did
to her.
Aldred called for
wine and meat, then vanished into Swanne's chamber.
In the instant before
the door swung shut, I saw Swanne's white face.
It radiated sheer
dread.
A kitchen hand
appeared in due course with both wine and with meat, and Hawise took them in.
As she came out I
heard the door lock behind her.
An hour or so later,
as Hawise, myself, and several of Swanne's other women had settled on our
pallets for the night, I heard the first shriek.
The good archbishop
had patently finished his meal and had now commenced on the evening's
entertainment.
There came another
shriek and, despite myself, I raised myself up on an elbow and looked about the
chamber. Surely Hawise or the other women would do something?
But all I received
for my concern was a sharp reprimand from Hawise to go back to sleep.
The sounds of agony
issuing from Swanne's chamber were not, most apparently, my concern.
IT CONTINUED FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE HOURS—THAT
sobbing anguish from
behind the locked door. Eventually I could stand no more and, despite the
danger I knew it would bring to both myself and to Damson, I decided to do
something about it.
The other women,
while pretending to be asleep, were actually still very much awake, so I cast
over them a gentle enchantment of peace and rest and they slipped quietly into
slumber. Then I rose from my own pallet and approached the door.
I put my ear to it,
and heard nothing.
Perhaps they were
asleep.
I risked all. I
placed my eye against a slight crack between two of the
planks of the door
and, again using just a fraction of power, widened that gap so I could see into
the chamber.
For a moment all I
could make out were shifting shadows, but then they resolved themselves into
shapes. A single lamp had been left glowing by the chair where Swanne had been
seated earlier and by its shifting light I could make out the bed.
They were not asleep
at all. Aldred's massive form was humping over Swanne's gaunt white body, back
and forth, back and forth.
Her hands were to her
sides, hanging over the sides of the bed, her hands clenched into fists.
Aldred's tempo
increased, and something made me look from his body to the shadow his bulk cast
on the wall behind the bed.
It showed not his form at all, but that of a monstrous bull-headed man.
I DO NOT KNOW HOW I
MANAGED TO TEAR MYSELF
from that door, nor
how I managed to lay back on my pallet as if nothing had happened. I knew I
could not risk Damson by fleeing in sudden panic into the night. I would have
to wait until morning, then make some excuse so that I could slip back to where
Ecub, Judith, and Saeweald guarded my own sleeping form.
I lay there all
night, sleepless, terrified that Asterion would thunder from that chamber and
assault me.
No wonder that Swanne appeared ill.
No wonder she appeared changed. No wonder Silvius had felt something so wrong.
Aldred was Asterion.
Aldred had Swanne.
Asterion had her captive.
I remembered that day
so many weeks ago when Swanne had come to my chamber and questioned me about
the movement of the bands. How she had said to me, I've taken Aldred to my bed.
That had surely been
a plea for help, but I had not understood it.
How she had looked
terrified when I had said, "Do you think that I am still Asterion's pawn?
Still dancing to his tune?"
No, I was not the one
now dancing to Asterion's tune.
Swanne was now his
pawn, by some hold I could not yet understand.
I should have seen
it. I should have seen it.
I lay there,
sleepless, my eyes closed, and wept.
FOURGeejsl
V- WANNE WOKE CLOSE
TO DAWN, ACHING AND
■Hk bleeding,
and found Asterion pacing the chamber. 'ts_-^ She rose, glad beyond knowing,
and held out her arms.
He came to her,
gathering her close, and soothed away the hurts and bruises that Aldred had
given her.
"How I loathe
that man," she whispered as Asterion carried her back to the blood-sodden
bed and began to make love to her.
"I know,"
he whispered, moving sweetly over her. "I hate what he does to you as
well."
"I wish you
would come to me more often," Swanne said, weeping now. She was entirely
lost. Where once Swanne had known Asterion used Aldred's body to hurt her, now
she had become so dependent on Asterion she had forgotten it entirely. She was
totally incapable of realizing that Asterion continued to use Aldred to hurt
her so that Swanne would become ever more reliant on Asterion, ever more
willing to do whatever he asked of her, ever more vulnerable to his subtle
sorcery.
"I come to you
as often as I can," he said, bending down his face to kiss her.
"I adore
you," she said, cradling his monstrous head in her hands, loving the
bestial musk of his breath.
"I know."
"I will do
anything for you," she said, moaning now as he thrust into her, feeling
his darkcraft fill her.
"Indeed you
will," he said, and then they fell speechless as their moans and groans
consumed them.
Later, as dawn broke
and they heard Swanne's women rise and move about in the outer chamber,
Asterion nuzzled Swanne's ear and said, very low, "Mag was here last
night."
"What!"
Swanne almost fell out of bed as she struggled upright.
"She was
watching you with Aldred, using her power to scry through the door. You did not
feel it?"
Swanne frowned,
trying to remember, but all she could recall was the agony of Aldred. "Who
is she?" she said.
"One of the
women within Aldred's household," Asterion said.
"I'll kill the bitch! I'll kill them all, just to make sure!"
Asterion laughed, and
stroked Swanne's naked back, feeling his palm bump over successive ridges of
her spine. She was getting too thin. Way too thin, when Asterion needed her to
seduce William into her bed. Perhaps he should pull the imp back a little,
suppress his appetite a fraction. Even given Brutus and Genvissa's history,
Asterion doubted William would succumb to a walking corpse.
"Shall I lay the
trap for you, my dear?" he said.
She turned her face
to him, and smiled.
THAT NIGHT, IN THE
HOUR BEFORE DAWN, AS MONKS
and priests across
Europe were filing their cold, huddled groups into chapels and cathedrals to
sing Matins, a great fire appeared in the sky.
'tX AMSON HAD GONE BACK TO ALDRED'S PALACE,
and now Caela sat
white-faced and trembling before Ecub, Saeweald, and Judith. Silvius was there
also, having knocked quietly on the door a few moments after Caela returned. He
was standing by a chair, his face dark with worry as he regarded Caela.
The words tumbled out
of her mouth. "Aldred is Asterion! Aldred is Asterion. He has Swanne. He
has forced her to his will—I have no idea how. Oh, gods, gods… Silvius… my
friends… what are we going to do? He has Swanne!"
Silvius sat down on a
stool with a thump. He exchanged one shocked look with Saeweald, then clenched
his fists where they rested on his thighs. "Asterion has Swanne?" he
said. "Asterion has the Mistress of the Labyrinth? No wonder the Game has
felt so wrong!"
"The entire
world feels wrong," Saeweald said. "The great fire in the sky is sure
evidence of it."
There was silence,
several among the group shuddering. Everyone had risen this morning to the
news—Look! Look! Look to the
sky! All
London—all Christendom, surely—was jittery with nerves. It was a comet, the
more learned said, but no one had ever seen anything like this before. The
blazing fire covered almost a third of the sky. Who rode it? Some devil rider?
A fiend from hell itself? And what if it crashed earthward?
Who had it been sent to destroy?
"Caela,"
Saeweald said. "Do you know anything of this?
She shook her head.
"The fire in the sky is unfamiliar to me. It has nothing of the land or
the waters about it. It is cold, angry, alien. Worse even than Asterion."
She gave a tight, humorless smile.
No one returned it.
"There is
disaster coming," muttered Ecub. "None can doubt it."
"We can only
hope it prophesies disaster for Swanne and Asterion rather than for us,"
said Silvius.
"What if it
means Asterion is going to destroy the Game and all our hopes
with it?" Judith
said. "Is it coincidence that on the night Caela discovers the truth about
Swanne and her new lover that this great fire appears hanging above our
heads?"
"Asterion will use Swanne to destroy the Game," Ecub said.
"None can doubt it."
Silvius grunted.
"And you should become a prophetess of
doom, Mother Ecub. None should doubt that."
She shot him a black
look.
Saeweald looked at
Caela, now with Judith's arm about her shoulders for comfort, then to Silvius.
"If he has the
Mistress of the Labyrinth," he said, "and if he wanted to destroy the
Game, then all Asterion would need to do is kill her. Swanne is the only woman
alive who can command the powers of the Mistress. If Asterion has her alive,
then there is a reason for that, surely."
There was a silence,
disturbed only by Caela's deep, tremulous breathing as she brought her emotions
under control.
"What do you
mean?" Silvius said eventually.
Saeweald shrugged.
"For the gods' sakes, Silvius, do you not sit in the heart of the Game?
Were you not once a Kingman? What I am saying is that if Asterion wanted to destroy the Game, and
if he controls Swanne, then all he needs to do is to kill her." He paused.
"And if he hasn't, then there is a reason for that, and we should
determine what that might be."
"What does
Asterion need in order to destroy the Game?" Caela said to Silvius.
"Could he accomplish it by Swanne's murder?"
"No,"
Silvius said. "He would need both Swanne and control over the kingship
bands. That means he needs control over both Swanne and William."
"Then that is
why he hasn't killed Swanne!" Caela said. "He needs to take William
as well; whatever else, Asterion can't leave William free." She looked at
Silvius, then as quickly looked away again.
"But you are
moving the bands," Saeweald said.
"William can
still find them easily enough," Caela said. "He is their Kingman.
They call to him constantly."
"So Asterion
needs William to find the bands," Saeweald said. "And for this he
has—somehow—taken Swanne. She is both bait and trap. Ah! We may as well assume
William's loss now, for he will fall into Swanne's arms as easily as if he were
a babe seeking his mother's milk!" He looked at Caela. "And what do we need to control the Game, to wed it to this land
forever and trap Asterion in his turn?"
"We need Swanne
to pass on her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth to me, and we need—"
"William to pass
over his powers as Kingman to… to whoever shall rise
as Og," said
Saeweald. One of his hands raised momentarily to his chest, as if to touch the
tattoo beneath, then dropped back to his lap.
"Yes," said
Caela, her voice flat.
"Let us
concentrate on Swanne for the moment," said Ecub. "We cannot let her
remain within Asterion's grasp."
"Do you suggest
we somehow rescue her?" said Saeweald.
"A rescued
Swanne would undoubtedly be a very grateful Swanne," Judith said.
"Prepared, perhaps, to hand over her powers as Mistress of the
Labyrinth?"
Silvius nodded.
"My thoughts exactly." He turned to Caela. "Saeweald and Judith
are right, Caela. You told us earlier that you should have recognized Swanne's
scream for help when you heard it. Well, now you have heard it. We know that Swanne wants to be rescued from
Aldred-Asterion's grasp. One of your's, and this land's, greatest problems has
always been in the persuasion of Swanne to hand over to you her powers as
Mistress of the Labyrinth. Now, perhaps, Asterion has handed us our bargaining
power. If Swanne has the choice of handing the power to Asterion, or handing it
to you…"
"I don't
know," said Caela. "For many months I have sought out the means by
which Swanne might be persuaded to hand me her powers as Mistress of the
Labyrinth. I was—am—sure that when I saw or heard of
this means, I would recognize it. This does not feel right."
"Why?" said
Saeweald.
Caela made a helpless
gesture.
"You can't
ignore it," said Silvius. "Swanne must be desperate for release from
Asterion. This very well could be the chance you've been waiting for, Caela.
"Silvius is
right," said Saeweald. "We offer Swanne freedom in exchange for her
freely handing to Caela the powers of Mistress of the Labyrinth. Then, once
William realizes Swanne has handed on her powers, he will do so as well."
Ecub's mouth twisted.
This all sounded very naive to her. "I'm sorry to disagree," she said.
"But surely Swanne would prefer to see the world destroyed before she
'handed over' any of her powers? And why do you assume that she wants to escape
Asterion? Did she not boast to Saeweald of her new lover? Of how she apparently
preferred him to William? Does none of this sound a note of danger to any of
you?"
"There is no way that Swanne could ever want to ally herself with
Asterion," Silvius said forcefully. "None whatsoever. Why? He wants to destroy the Game, Swanne wants to use it
to achieve immortal power. She wants Asterion destroyed. She cannot possibly
want to ally with him."
J
There was a silence,
finally broken by Caela. "Yes," she said. "I agree with Silvius.
Swanne cannot be allied with him. If she has boasted of her new lover, then
they were words Asterion forced her to speak. What I saw in that chamber was
not an act of love and consent, but of violence and domination. Asterion is
murdering Swanne by slow degrees."
"Aye," said
Saeweald. "She is ill. This cannot be 'want' on her
part."
Ecub sighed and
nodded. "Very well."
Caela gave her a
smile, then addressed the group. "If we manage to free Swanne, can we hide
her from Asterion?"
"Yes," said
Silvius. "I think so. We can secret her within the Game itself. There she
can teach Caela."
"Possibly,"
said Caela. "I, for one, still doubt that any rescue, even one of this
magnitude, will make Swanne so pathetically grateful she'll just pass over her
powers. Ah, no need to look so concerned, Silvius. I agree we should at least
try. Who knows? Miracles can happen."
There were nods from
Silvius, Judith, and Saeweald, and a mild shrug of agreement from Ecub.
"How do we free
her from Asterion?" Caela asked. "Surely, if it was a simple matter
of just walking away…"
"We need to know just what power he holds over
her," said Silvius. "Caela, you will need to speak to her. Let her
know that she is not alone. That she will be
rescued."
Caela nodded.
"As
Damson."
"Oh, no!
Silvius… I do not want to do that! It was enough that I risked her as much as I
did when—"
"You cannot go as yourself!" Saeweald said. "It is too
dangerous—especially since Swanne now knows Mag is not dead. What if she has
told Asterion? Caela, if you use Damson, then you will have the chance of
escape should…"
"Should Asterion
discover what I do," said Caela, her tone bitter. "In which case
Damson will be killed."
"Better her than
you," Silvius said. "You know that."
"I owe Damson
more than this!"
"You owe this land more than Damson," Silvius retorted. "Never
lose sight of that."
There was a long
silence, then Caela gave one single, reluctant nod.
IN ANY EVENT, IT WAS
ALMOST SEVEN WEEKS BEFORE Caela could do anything about approaching Swanne. On
the morning that she told Silvius, Saeweald, and Judith of what she'd
discovered in Swanne's
bedchamber, Harold
ordered Aldred north to his see of York. Rebel sentiments were stirring, and
Harold needed Aldred to return to York to work on Harold's behalf.
Swanne went with him.
A few days after Swanne and Aldred had left, the great fire in the sky faded
and then vanished, and everyone breathed a little easier.
Doom had been
averted, it appeared.
In itself, Swanne's
journey north need not have delayed Silvius' plan to use Damson to approach
Swanne, but Damson herself had unexpectedly traveled to her home village in
Cornwall where her mother lay dying. Until Damson and Swanne were within the
same town, it would be impossible for Caela to use Damson to approach Swanne.
Meanwhile, and now
knowing who Asterion was, and, most important, where he was, the Sidlesaghes and Caela moved a fourth
band. This time Caela took a band from its hiding place close to the London
Bridge and shifted it five miles to the southwest of London to a small village
called Clope-ham where Caela handed the band to a Sidlesaghe sitting mournfully
on a stool at the junction of two roads.
There was no
interference, no trouble, no disturbance. The move was effected quickly and
smoothly.
Asterion made no
attempt to halt them, and Caela supposed that this time it was because he was
so far distant.
sixceejsi
WANNE ARCHED HER
BACK, STRETCHING OUT
her stiff muscles,
then bent her elegant neck slowly from side to X*__-> side. The journey back
from York had taken three days of hard riding, and three nights of…
Swanne forced her
mind away from Aldred. She would not think about those nights.
She wouldn't.
Swanne sat down in a
chair, as close to the fire as she could manage without setting her
rose-colored gown ablaze, thinking on Asterion. She hadn't seen him for over a
week. He'd appeared now and again while she and Aldred had been in the north,
but far more infrequently than he'd come to her here in London. Swanne missed him—and
resented his absences—horribly.
It was not only that
Asterion's gentle touch soothed Aldred's agonies, nor even that when he lay
with her he increased her darkcraft a fraction more. It was that Swanne simply
missed him.
How could she ever
have lain with Harold… and borne him six children?
How could she have
ever thought she loved William, and believed him her true mate in power?
How could she have
ignored Asterion for all these years? How could she never have realized?
Swanne's mind was now
so consumed with Asterion, with the need for his presence and touch, that her
conscious mind was no longer aware that Aldred and Asterion were one and the
same. That Aldred tormented her merely so that Asterion could soothe her.
Aldred she feared and
loathed beyond measure. Asterion she craved as much as life and power itself.
Another band had
moved during her absence from London (by Silvius, Swanne supposed). The night
it had moved, Asterion made one of his rare visits to Swanne while she was in
York. Aldred for once had left her alone—he'd gone to spend a day or so at a
monastery just to the west of York where he suspected the abbot was falsifying
his estate accounts.
Asterion had come to
Swanne, and soothed her and held her and loved her and said that the band's
movement did not matter.
"William will be
able to find it soon enough," he'd said. "As he will all of them. And
when William has the bands…"
"We
pounce," Swanne had whispered into the beast's mouth as he bent to kiss her.
"William will do
anything for you," Asterion said.
"Anything,"
Swanne murmured.
"And when we
have him… then he will do everything for us. Tell me, my love, do you think the bands will look
elegant encircling my limbs?"
Swanne had run her
hands over the creature's thickly muscled biceps. "They were meant for
you," she'd said, and Asterion had smiled, and had given her more of the
darkcraft that night than he had hitherto.
Now, Swanne sat by
the fire, shivering despite its heat, and waited.
Mag would come to her
today. She could feel it—not merely that Mag would
come, but that the trap she and Asterion had set was about to spring.
Swanne closed her
eyes, blessing Asterion for the renewed sense of dark-craft within her, then
composed her face and put upon it the expression of the battered victim—that of
equal parts; fear, hope, and submission.
The door opened.
Swanne took a deep
breath and opened her eyes… then could not help widening them as she saw who it
was.
Damson?
Ah! Mag had ever had
a penchant for obscure, worthless fools.
"Damson?"
Swanne said in her most chilling voice—she could not let the tiresome witch
know she'd been expected. "What do you here? The linens have already been
changed and I have no further use for you. You may leave."
But Damson did not
leave, as Swanne knew she would not.
"Madam,"
Damson said, carefully closing the door behind her and looking about the
chamber to ensure they were alone.
"Damson,"
Swanne said again, stiffening in her chair as if deeply affronted. 'You may leave!"
"I cannot,
Swanne," the Damson-who-was-not-quite-Damson said, and she came directly
to Swanne, hesitated, then pulled up a stool close to Swanne's chair and sat
herself down.
"How dare you sit
in my presence!" Swanne said, allowing a note of anger to creep into her
voice.
"I am not
Damson," said the woman. "Not entirely."
And she looked
directly into Swanne's eyes.
Swanne did not have
to fake the surprise that flared across her face.
"Gods!" she
whispered. "Mag?" This was not the Mag that
Swanne had
known in her earlier
life, but one infinitely more dangerous, far more powerful. This was, somehow,
a youthful Mag, a Mag at the beginning of
her promise, a Mag who could grow into a true threat.
How had she managed this? Swanne barely managed to keep
herself still in her chair. She had a wild urge to dash to the window and fling
aside the shutters, and scream for Asterion.
No, no. She must be
calm. He would be here soon enough.
And yet it wouldn't
be soon enough, would it? No time would be soon enough to rid themselves of
this unexpectedly powerful enemy.
"Mag,"
Swanne said again, her voice more controlled now.
Damson-Mag gave a
slight nod. "I am she who walks as the mother goddess of this land,"
she said. "Not dead, after all, Swanne."
"You always did
know how to slip away from danger, didn't you?"
"I draw on a
long association with the Darkwitches, Swanne. I have learned well."
Swanne bared her teeth
in equal amounts smile and snarl.
"And now you
have come to gloat?" she said.
Damson shook her
head. "Swanne, I have come to make you an offer."
Oh! The smugness of
it! "An offerl And what might that be?"
Damson took a deep
breath. "In return for your freedom from Asterion's malicious grip, in
return for your life, because Asterion is surely
murdering you by degrees, I need you to teach me the ways and powers of the
Mistress of the Labyrinth."
Swanne stared
unblinking at Damson, her lips slightly parted, shocked into total silence.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Damson could have said to
stun her more. "You… what?" she finally managed.
"The Game has
changed," Damson said. "Altered."
Swanne said nothing,
still staring at Damson as if she had turned into a frog before her eyes.
Damson took a deep
breath, as if coming to a decision within herself. "The Game has grown in
the two thousand years that Asterion kept everyone within death. It has merged
with the land itself, allied with it. Now the Game and the land have a single
purpose."
Swanne still said
nothing. Her mind was racing, trying to take in all Damson was saying, and what
this was leading to. Mag? Wanted to be the Mistress of the Labyrinth? Why?
In her lap, Swanne's
hands twisted over and over.
Again Damson took a
deep breath. "The Game wants myself and Og to complete it as the Mistress
and Kingman."
Swanne's mouth
dropped open even farther, and her eyes widened impossibly. It was not so much
that the Game and the land had apparently decided
between themselves
that Mag and Og should complete the Game as Mistress and Kingman, although that
was unbelievable enough, but that Og still lived! Og? Alive?
"Og…"
Swanne managed to get out, more a groan than a true word. "Og is… alive?"
Damson gave a single
nod.
Swanne slumped back
into her chair, unable for the moment to accept it. "But Loth slew him
when he slew his mother, Blangan."
"He almost did,
yes. But Mag was in that stone dance as well that night, secreted within
Cornelia's womb, and she cast an enchantment upon him that has kept him alive,
just, all these years. He rests, waiting."
Swanne noted that
Damson-Mag still did not say "I," but "Mag." Why that
distance? "Where?" she said.
Damson hesitated,
then apparently decided that truth would persuade Swanne more quickly than
falsehood. "In the heart of the Game."
"Gods,"
Swanne whispered. Her mind was still whirling. Asterion should know
this! Soon!
Damson mistook
Swanne's shock for indecision, and she leaned forward and took Swanne's hands
in her own.
Swanne did not
resist.
"Swanne, please,
let me help you. You and I share neither friendship, or even a semblance of
respect each for the other."
True enough, thought Swanne.
"But I can help
you. I can free you from Asterion. I know he masquerades as Aldred."
Swanne wanted to
scream at the stupid bitch that Asterion was not Aldred, but managed to hold
her tongue.
"If I aid you to
freedom, Swanne, I would that you teach me the ways of the Labyrinth in
return."
"Foolish" could not possibly encompass the inanity
of this suggestion,
Swanne
thought, allowing a frown of indecision to crease her forehead, as if she truly
considered what Damson offered. Hand
to her my powers as
Mistress of the Labyrinth? How
could she ever have thought that I would do such a thing?
"A deal,
Swanne," Damson said, now grasping Swanne's hands very tightly and leaning
in to her very close. "In return for your freedom from Asterion, you hand
to me your powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth."
"I…" Swanne
said, and then her eyes altered slightly, as if she saw something behind
Damson.
In an instant
Swanne's hands twisted in Damson's, grasping them in a cruel grip.
Damson pulled back,
but could not break free from Swanne's grasp, and in the next moment her own
face went as slack in shock as Swanne's had been for most of their
conversation.
Two heavy hands had
fallen on her shoulders, pinning her to the stool.
"Well, well,
Mag," said a chilling male voice. "What a posy of surprises you have turned out to be."
Damson struggled on
the stool, but she was caught in the twin grips of Swanne and Asterion.
Swanne looked to her
lover, an expression of unfeigned love and rapture on her face.
"Asterion," she breathed. "Oh, how I have missed you."
Both her expression
and words were enough for Damson to let out a shocked cry. "No! Swanne!
No! What are you doing?"
Swanne turned her
face back to Damson, her expression now twisted with hate and loathing.
"Think you that I would ever hand you my powers? Think you that I have any intention of
completing the Game with William? Nay, this is my lover, my partner, my mate, and this time, my dear darling Mag, you are to be given no
chance of flight at all."
She let go Damson's
hands and, although Caela-within-Damson tried to wrench herself tree of
Asterion's hands, and tried to use every piece of power she had against him, he
held both her form and her power in check with infinite ease.
Swanne rose and, with
deliberate slowness, reached with one hand into the pocket of her robe.
Very gradually, very
deliberately, keeping her own eyes steady on Damson's frantic face, she drew
her hand forth.
In it she clasped the
twisted horn-handled knife of Asterion.
"Do you
recognize it, you witless bitch?" Swanne whispered. "Do you remember
how you made Cornelia plunge this into me? Well, now you feel what it is like, Mag, to have
cold metal end your ambitions and hopes."
And with that she
hefted the knife, then plunged it into the soft, tender skin at the juncture of
Damson's neck and shoulder.
sevejMGeejsi
AEWEALD, ECUB, AND
JUDITH WERE SITTING
company with Caela's
body as it lay still on the bed. V*__-^-'' Within, Damson's soul slept
unknowing.
Then, suddenly, all
three gasped as a bright red spot appeared at the base of Caela's neck, and
then flowered into a crimson pool of blood. "No!" cried Saeweald, and
lunged forward.
"OH GODS,"
SWANNE MOANED, AS IF IN THE ECSTASY of love-making, "how I have longed to sink this knife into Mag! At last! At last!"
Behind Damson,
Asterion was almost doubled over with laughter, although he kept his hands
firmly on Damson's shoulders.
Swanne viciously
twisted the knife until the blade sank completely into Damson's body. "I
only wish you were Caela, bitch, then my happiness would be complete."
Damson's hands were
grasping at Swanne's, but they were slippery with the blood that now pumped out
of her neck, and she could not dislodge Swanne's grip on the knife.
"No," she
said in a horrible bubbling whisper. "No, Swanne, please…"
But Swanne was not
listening. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her mouth open, and her hands twisted
again and again as she leaned so hard on the knife that she forced even the
twisted-horn handle into Damson's body.
SAEWEALD GRABBED AT
CAELA'S SHOULDERS, SHAKING her as violently as he could. "Come back
now!" he shouted. "Now! For Og's sake, Caela! Now't"
Behind him Judith was
screaming something, and Ecub was shouting, but Saeweald took no notice of
them. "Return home now!" he shouted. "Now! Now!"
Caela's soul obeyed, even though it
did not want to, even though it was almost fatally mated with that twisting,
murderous knife in Damson's body.
It left Damson, and fled shrieking
back to its own body, passing Damson's soul halfway.
That soul seemed curiously resigned,
even peaceful, even though, as it neared its own body, it knew what awaited it.
Death.
CAELA'S BODY CAME TO
LIFE UNDER SAEWEALD'S
hands, and she
grasped instinctively at her neck where blood was pumping forth, even though,
strangely, her skin was apparently unbroken.
"No!" she
cried out, then fell insensible as the blood flowed from her.
"Stop the
bleeding!" Ecub said, rushing to Caela's side as Saeweald tried to staunch
the flow of blood.
"It won't stop
until Damson's heart stops beating," Saeweald said in a curiously flat
tone. "Pray that happens soon."
There was a single,
appalling silence.
"Or Caela will
die with her."
SWANNE WAS PANTING AS
SHE LEANED WITH ALL HER
strength into the
knife.
Damson had stopped
struggling, and was regarding Swanne with flat, hopeless eyes; beyond her
Asterion was hopping from foot to foot, his eyes almost popping out of his head
as he watched Swanne. This was
so much better than he'd planned!
Damson's hands were
fluttering at her sides, scattering bright drops of blood over both Swanne and
Asterion. Her mouth had fallen silent, even though it still moved.
The blood continued
to pump from her neck.
"CURSE HER
STURDY HEART!" CRIED SAEWEALD, AS HE
tried uselessly to
stem the flow of blood from Caela's neck. "Why can't the damned peasant
woman dieV
Judith took one
futile step toward the door, as if she meant to run to Aldred's palace and
wrench Damson's head from her body.
If Caela died now then all was lost,
for the Mag force within her would finally vanish.
DAMSON GAVE ONE GREAT
SHUDDER, AND SWANNE
let go the knife and
took a step back, staring wide-eyed at Damson.
Damson gave a soft
moan, shuddered again, then fell forward, snapping her head back as her chin
caught the edge of the stool, which she'd pushed before her during her
struggles.
Her neck snapped, and
with it snapped Damson's life, and the connection that bound her to Caela.
"IT HAS
STOPPED!" SAEWEALD SAID. "SHE HAS DIED AT
last. Thank all gods
in existence!"
Judith came back to
the bed. "Is she still alive?"
There was a long,
terrible pause.
"Just,"
Saeweald eventually said. "And only
just."
SWANNE LOOKED OVER DAMSON'S BODY TO
ASTERION.
Both of them were
covered in blood.
"My lover,"
she breathed, and he stepped forward over the corpse and took her in his arms.
LATER, WHILE
SAEWEALD, JUDITH, AND ECUB WERE
still grouped about
Caela, willing her every breath, Silvius rushed through the door, not even
bothering to knock.
"Gods!" he
cried. "What has happened?"
THE NEXT MORNING, AS
THE WATERMAN WAS POLING his craft from the fish wharves just below the bridge
toward Lambeth on the southern bank of the river, he saw a bloated white body
half submerged in the water.
It did not
immediately perturb him—the Thames was the final resting place for hundreds of
unfortunates every year—but as he passed it, the current surged, turning the
corpse over.
It was Damson, her
head almost severed from her body.
eigbceejsi
T TOOK SAEWEALD FIVE
DAYS AND NIGHTS—DAYS
and nights when he
hardly slept—before he could be sure that Caela would live. He dribbled broths
down her throat, he placed medicated lozenges in her mouth to slowly dissolve,
he coated her tongue with honey.
And finally, finally,
she began to respond to his treatment.
Ecub and Judith also kept vigil within Caela's
chamber, as did Silvius. More than anything else, all four wanted to move Caela
back to the relative safety of St. Margaret's. This small religious house
within London's walls was too close to Swanne and whatever had happened in that
chamber (and how they wanted Caela to wake, and to talk, so that they
would know what had happened!), but Caela lay so close to death
that there could be no thought of moving her.
Not yet.
On the sixth day, so
wan, she looked like a three-day dead corpse, Caela opened her eyes.
Saeweald, waving
Silvius, Judith, and Ecub back, gently fed her some broth with a spoon, then
wiped her face with a clean towel.
"Caela," he
said, gently. "You're back with us."
She started to weep.
"Damson is dead."
"We know,"
Saeweald said. "But—"
"I killed her. I
killed Damson."
"Enough,"
said Silvius, who had finally managed to find a place beside Saeweald. "It
was not you who killed—"
"I put her in
harm's way," said Caela, and then wept so violently that Saeweald again
motioned Silvius back with a frown, then held Caela's hand while she cried away
her grief and guilt.
When, eventually, her
tears had abated somewhat, Silvius said, "What happened?"
"Swanne…"
Caela said, her voice hoarse. Saeweald fed her some more spoonfuls of broth,
and she smiled at him gratefully.
The smile died almost
the instant it had appeared.
"Swanne had
Asterion's black knife," she said, "and with it she murdered Damson.
Swanne has allied with Asterion. He is her new lover."
There was a chorus of
voices, shocked, stunned, angry, disbelieving.
"Wait,"
Caela whispered. "There is worse. Swanne and Asterion mean to control the
Game between them."
"Asterion does
not want to destroy it?" Silvius said.
Caela gave a weak
shake of her head, prompting Saeweald to murmur in concern and to glare at
Silvius, as if his question had seriously weakened Caela.
"He means to
control it," Caela said. She began to cry again. "Become its Kingman
in place of William. Silvius… I am sorry… Silvius… I told Swanne—before I knew
of her bond with Asterion—what the Game has planned. Oh, Silvius, I am so
sorry. I should have—"
"Be still,"
Silvius said gently. "It could not be helped. They trapped you." He
took Caela's hand in his, stroking it gently.
Then, suddenly he
stilled, and his face went pale.
"What?"
said Saeweald, staring at Silvius.
"The Mag force
within Caela has gone," he said, his voice hoarse with disbelief and horror.
"The Mag within her has gone!"
A terrible,
bewildered silence.
"Swanne has
succeeded," Silvius went on, his voice now barely audible. "She has
killed Mag. She has finally killed Mag."
Part Seven
Among the school-boys in my memory
there was a pastime called Hop-Scotch, which was played in this manner; a
parallelogram about 4 or 5 feet wide, and 10 or 12 feet in length, was made
upon the ground and divided laterally into 18 or 20 different compartments
called beds… the players were each provided with a piece of tile… which they
cast by hand into the different beds in regular succession, and every time the
tile was cast, the player's business was to hop on one leg after it, and drive
it out of the boundaries at the end… if it passed out at the sides, or rested
upon any of the marks, it was necessary to repeat the whole of this operation. The boy who performed the whole of this operation by
the fewest casts was known as The Conqueror. Joseph Strutt, Sports & Pastimes of the People of England, Late 18th century
London, March
ORNELIA IS MINE, YOU KNOW,"
SAID ASTERION,
lounging against the closed door to
Skelton's bedroom as the Major slid home the knot on his tie.
Jack Skelton ignored the Minotaur as
he turned slightly, checking his reflection in the wardrobe mirror to make sure
his uniform sat straight.
"I've had her ever since that
moment she begged me to sleep with her," Asterion continued.
"Genvissa was right. Cornelia was always a tramp."
Skelton turned about so he could look
the Minotaur in the face. His eyes were weary, ringed with dark circles, the
expression in them resigned, almost hopeless.
"Then why hasn't she given you
the final two bands?" Skelton said.
The Minotaur laughed. "Oh, she
will, soon enough."
Skelton smiled. "Yes? Then why
traipse about over London after me? Why torment me, if there is no need?"
Asterion straightened, snarling.
"Because I enjoy it!"
Then he was gone, and Skelton was
left staring at the back of the bedroom door.
"Major?" Violet called from
the other side. "Frank's waiting for you. He has the motor outside."
She paused. "Waiting."
"Aye," whispered Skelton.
"Waiting, as are we all." He raised his voice. "I'll be but a
moment, Mrs Bentley!"
But Skelton did not immediately move.
Instead he continued to stand, staring at the closed door, one hand raised to
his shirt where he scratched softly at that spot where Matilda had touched him
earlier.
He could hear a rumble outside, and
Skelton knew that it was not, as might be expected, the sound of Bentley
starting up his motor.
Instead he recognized it for what it
was: the sound of the white stag with the blood-red antlers running wild
through the forest.
"I'm ready," he said, and
the only one who heard was the running stag.
JM6 Mid-September
HE NORTHERLY WIND
BLEW STRONG, WHIPPING
the waves in Somme
Estuary into man-high, cream-foamed crests that slapped against the hulls of
the scores of galleys at anchor.
On shore, standing
atop a tower, which overlooked the harbor and the small town of Saint-Valery,
William glanced yet once more at the weather vane on top of the church spire.
The northerly wind
showed no sign of abating.
Matilda, standing
with her husband, saw the direction of his glance. "Hardrada is
moving."
"With this wind?
Aye. His ships will be close to northern England by now."
The spring and summer
had been a curious mix of frantic activity and a soul-deadening wait for
intelligence. As William had built his military expedition and garnered support
from the European heads-of-state and Church (all of which had, thank Christ,
been forthcoming), so Harold had consolidated his hold on England, and built
his own forces up to meet the expected challenge from Normandy.
But Harold Hardrada of Norway was also moving. He'd
built up a huge flotilla of three hundred ships with which to invade the north
of England and, like William, now awaited propitious weather conditions in
which to launch his ambition.
This northerly wind
provided Hardrada his chance. William had received intelligence a week ago that
Hardrada had embarked. If he wasn't within sight of England now, then he would
be within the day. And while the norther-lies sped Hardrada toward England it
kept William pent up in the mouth of the Somme… waiting.
"And
Harold?" Matilda asked softly.
O
"Preparing to
meet him." William let out a pent-up breath. "At last. At last we are moving."
"But we are not moving," Matilda observed, and William turned to
her and grinned.
He leaned down and
planted a kiss on her forehead, and rested a hand briefly on her belly. Matilda
was five months gone with child, and William was grateful for no other reason
than the child would keep Matilda at home when otherwise she might have
insisted on embarking with him.
"We shall be
soon," he said. "This northerly will not last a lifetime, and the
instant it changes, we sail."
"Yet in the
meantime Hardrada threatens to seize England from us."
William shook his
head, his eyes now scanning the fleet as it bobbed at anchor. "Harold is
good. Very good. Hardrada may test him, but I doubt very much that he will best
him. He will tire him. With luck, my love,
Harold's force will be exhausted by the time it meets mine."
"I wish my agent was still in place,"
Matilda said, her voice sad. She'd heard some time ago of her agent's death,
and Matilda worried that it was her orders that had placed Damson in danger.
"We will manage
without her," William said, kissing the top of Matilda's head.
"I wish I knew
who killed her," she said.
"When I have
England, then we shall hunt down her murderer. I promise you that."
Matilda relaxed,
trusting in her husband. She, too, looked over the fleet, reviewing in her mind
all that had happened in the past months. The Norman magnates' enthusiastic
acceptance of William's plan; the pope's blessing; the aid—both monetary and in
the form of troops—sent by the nobles of Flanders, Maine, Brittany, Poitou,
Burgundy, five of the Italian states, and a score of others.
All lusting for the
spoils William promised would be theirs at his victory.
"I will keep
Normandy safe for you," she said, and William again smiled and kissed her.
He was leaving Matilda as coregent of Normandy with their eldest son, Robert.
At fourteen, Robert was coming into the age where he needed to shoulder the
responsibilities of the duchy, which would eventually be his. William had
needed to fight for decades to establish his right to rule Normandy; he intended
to make the process of succession much easier for his son. He loved his son, as
he loved Matilda, but not with the deep-hearted passion he was capable of. That he reserved for…
His eyes slipped over
the estuary and out to sea. Wondering what was really happening in England… in
London.
Swanne had been
quiet. Too quiet for his liking, and for the events that
were gathering. He'd
heard that she'd kept her place in Aldred's bed, and he found that increasingly
disturbing.
Why?
Harold, he had
understood (if not yet Swanne's neglect in telling him that Harold was
Coel-reborn). William's chance to take his rightful place on England's throne
(as England's Kingman) had been delayed by so many years because of the
(Asterion-driven) revolts within Normandy itself. In the meantime, Swanne had
needed to establish a place within the English court, and Harold had been the
perfect vehicle with which to do that.
William could forgive
her Harold. Could understand Harold.
But not Aldred. The
man was not unknown to William, for the corpulent archbishop of York had acted
as one of Edward's emissaries to Rome on numerous occasions, and when traveling
through Europe, Aldred had often stayed with William. Aldred's sympathies were
clearly with William—he'd acted as the go-between for the letters between
Swanne and William for years.
William repressed a
sigh. Perhaps that's why Swanne was with him. Payment owed?
No, that wasn't
Swanne at all.
"Your
thoughts?" Matilda said beside him, and William jumped a little guiltily.
"I was thinking
of Swanne," he said. "I was wondering why, out of all the
intelligence I've received from England, so little of it has been from her. I
had expected more."
Far more, dammit. There is not just a
throne riding on this!
"You're
worried," Matilda said.
"Yes." What was Asterion doing? Where was his hand in all of
this?
"You can do
nothing save what you have already done," Matilda said, leaning in against
him and placing her arm about his waist.
"Aye. You are
right. As usual." William lightened his face and tone. "Tell me, how
do you think I can possibly crown you queen of England when in all probability
you shall be too round and cumbersome to fit onto the throne?"
She laughed.
"You shall be a great king."
William's face
sobered. "I hope so."
GIDO
T WAS ALL FALLING
APART—HAD BEEN FOR
months—and Saeweald
had no idea how to stop it.
It had all seemed so
simple: pass control of the Game into the hands of Mag and a resurrected Og and
all would be well, for ever and aye.
The land would
flourish, and no one and nothing, ever, would be able to stain its brightness
again. Asterion and all malevolence would be contained, Swanne and William and
all their ambitions would be broken, Mag and Og would again reign supreme, and
the waters and the forests would rejoice.
Yet nothing had quite
happened that way, had it?
Saeweald had known
that Caela had always felt that she lacked something, an emptiness within her
where there should have been fullness, and that she somehow had failed to truly
connect to the land. Since the failure of her "marriage" to the land,
that night she'd lain with Silvius, that sense had become even greater,
undermining Caela's confidence within herself. Now, since that terrible day
when Swanne and Asterion had slaughtered Damson, Caela had rejected the Mag
within her completely.
It wasn't so much
that Mag, or her potential, was dead (as Silvius had so melodramatically
cried), it was that Caela had been so ill—physically and emotionally—for so
many months after Damson's death that she had completely suppressed the Mag
within her. She refused to acknowledge its existence, she would hear nothing of
the Game, would not speak to Silvius and barely to Saeweald and Judith… she wallowed in her guilt at Damson's death.
Even the Sidlesaghes,
undoubtedly knowing she would not want to see them, had stayed away.
Ah, Caela had allowed
her guilt to overwhelm her. In the months since Swanne and Asterion had killed
Damson, Caela had seemed to go into a fugue. She didn't know what to do, or
where to go, and to all suggestions that there must be some means of redressing
the emptiness within her, or fulfilling her potential as Mag, she had refused
to act. She had merely smiled sadly, and shaken her head, and then turned
aside. Caela continued to live quietly
within St. Margaret
the Martyr's, and Ecub and Judith stayed close. Silvius came occasionally, but
Caela did not respond to him any better than she did others, and so his visits
became less frequent. Caela spent her days sewing, talking quietly with one or
the other of the sisters of St. Margaret's, or, more and more, she took solace
in wandering the hills and meadows beyond the priory's walls.
She did not enter
London.
So far as Saeweald
was concerned, the Mag within Caela might not be dead, but it might as well be,
for Caela refused to acknowledge it.
And without Caela,
without the Mag within her, everything was
doomed.
Saeweald tried to
talk with Caela, tried to reason with her, tried, on one disastrous day, to
seduce her (if Silvius had not aided her, then Saeweald could have, surely!).
But to all efforts, words, hands or mouth, she had only smiled, shaken her
head, and laid a gentle hand to his cheek. For months, Saeweald had felt sure
that he was to be Og-reborn, but in his failure to touch Caela, to be able to
communicate with her, he now began to doubt even that. He wasn't strong enough.
And Caela wasn't
strong enough.
Meantime, Swanne and
Asterion went from strength to strength.
Or so Saeweald
supposed. He'd had very little to do with Swanne in recent months—he had no
reason to see her and would only arouse her suspicions if he insisted. Besides,
knowing of her alliance with Asterion, Saeweald frankly didn't feel like going
within a hundred paces of the woman. Instead, Saeweald heard of Swanne only
through gossip and the occasional glimpse of her moving through the streets of
London. He assumed that she and Asterion were biding their time, waiting for
William to arrive so they could…
Saeweald shuddered.
So they could seize him. William would arrive, fall straight into Swanne's
arms… and find himself trapped by Asterion.
Saeweald didn't know
what to do. These months of inactivity, of nothingness, had drained him. Caela turned aside her head,
Silvius had slunk off somewhere unknowable, Swanne and Asterion planned and
shared nights of passion, and Saeweald paced and fretted and wondered what in
creation's name he could do!
Warn William?
That would be the
sensible course of action, but how? Saeweald had no avenues of
communication open to him by which he could reliably reach William. Anything he
sent, whether spoken word or written, might well be intercepted by one of
Asterion's minions—and thus expose both Saeweald and, through him, Caela. If by
chance a communication did reach William, then Saeweald doubted seriously that
William would believe it. If he understood that it came from Loth-reborn then
he most certainly would not believe it.
Frankly, Saeweald
wasn't sure if anyone could convince William that Swanne had allied with
Asterion. He'd never believe it. Never.
Just as Saeweald and
Silvius and Caela had not thought it possible… had never considered it a
possibility.
Meanwhile the land
slid toward chaos and despair.
Almost two weeks ago,
Hardrada and Tostig had invaded the north, sailing up the Humber and defeating
the earls Edwin and Morcar in a desperate battle before seizing the northern
city of York. Harold had been caught surprised, even though he'd known of
Hardrada's intentions, and had marched north to meet the Norwegian king and his
own brother.
That had been ten
days ago. The only word that had reached the south was that a great battle had
been fought, but as yet no word of the victors and of the defeated.
In one hateful part
of his being, Saeweald almost hoped that Hardrada had been successful, that
Harold had been killed, and that England would suffer under a Norwegian king
rather than, briefly, a Norman one, before that king succumbed to a great
darkness.
But why pretend that
darkness belonged to the future? Wasn't it here already?
CbR
Caela Speaks
KNOW THAT THOSE
ABOUT ME REGARDED ME WITH
disappointment,
perhaps even with shame. I know they wanted me to rage, and do, and act.
But I could do none
of these things.
They thought I had
suppressed the Mag within me, had suppressed all that Mag had given me.
But I had not. Not
truly.
I was simply waiting.
Damson's death
shocked and appalled me. I had been responsible for it, not so much for
deciding to approach Swanne, for I truly believe I had little other choice, but
because I had not been able to protect Damson. If I'd been at full power, at
full strength, in command of all of me and without that damned lack within that
tormented me, I should have been able to protect her.
That I was not in
full command of my potential, that I had not reached the full height of that
potential, was my responsibility. Not fault so much, I did not think of it in
terms of fault (although I know Saeweald thought I spent much of my time
wallowing in guilt), but in terms of responsibility.
It was my
responsibility to reach that potential, to protect others, where before I could
not protect Damson.
I knew how to do it—I
needed to mate with the land, marry the land, meld with it
completely. Silvius had told me that. The Sidlesaghes had told me that.
But how? I had
thought that laying with Silvius would have accomplished it perfectly. After
all, he was the warm, breathing representative of the Game, and as the Game and
the land had merged…
Yet that had been a
failure, even if a reasonably enjoyable one.
The consequence of
that failure had been Damson's death, and I could not afford to fail again. The
next time, far more people would die.
I did not wallow in
guilt or grief, although I had to deal with both of those damaging emotions.
Instead, I waited.
I waited, and I
approached the problem from a different direction. In order to aid the land, I
needed to ritually mate with it, to meld completely with it. That was not only
my problem and responsibility, but that of the land as well.
It had to act. It had to do, as much as me.
I waited, and what I
waited for was the land to show me what to do and where to go.
CbAPGGR FOUR
AROLD HUNCHED ATOP
HIS WEARY, PLODDING
horse; he was
exhausted, bruised, despondent. His cloak clung to him in great sodden patches,
his hands—his gloves lost days ago— were gripped cold and tense about the
horse's reins as if they would never let go. About him rode the men of his
immediate command: the rest of the army was following as and when it could.
Harold's command sat
as hunched and bruised over their reins as did their king, their eyes fixed on
some point between their horses' ears, unblinking, unseeing.
The horses, under
little instruction from their riders, simply moved forward in the direction
their riders had set when they'd still retained some purpose. South, south,
ever south away from the battle that had been fought and toward the one that
still needed to be fought.
Stamford Bridge had
been a nightmare of rain and mud and blood. Harold had arrived in the north the
day after Alditha's brothers, the earls Edwin and Morcar, had met Hardrada and
Tostig in battle at Gate Fulford, two miles north of York.
The earls had been
routed. Indeed, so many Englishmen had died that it was rumored that Hardrada
reached the earls to take their surrender by walking across a fen of dead
bodies.
Harold then did what
few men could have done: he turned a disaster into a means of eventual victory.
While Hardrada and Tostig were celebrating, and conducting lengthy negotiations
with Edwin and Morcar over the fate of hostages, Harold and his army had
arrived unannounced from the south and attacked without even halting for
sustenance to fuel their effort.
The battle at
Stamford Bridge was long and desperate, and, apart from the surprise of his
attack, the only thing that tipped the balance in Harold's favor was that
Hardrada's men were either bone-weary, or drunk with their previous victory, or
both.
Hardrada had died on
the field. So had Tostig. Harold had faced him, in the end, battling his way
through the fighting bodies of the living and the
slumped bodies of the
dead, and had taken the head from his brother's body with such an immense swing
of his great sword that Harold had all but stumbled to the ground with the
weight he'd put behind it.
He'd not needed his
balance, for by then the invaders were themselves routed, their leaders dead,
the greater of their numbers dead or crippled enough to wish they had been killed.
Olaf, Hardrada's son,
had survived the carnage. Morcar, who had acquitted himself better in this
battle than in the one of the previous day, brought the young man before
Harold.
England's king was
standing before a sputtering fire, still in his chain mail and stained tunic,
his bloodied sword hanging at his side.
Olaf stood before
him, his head high, his eyes glittering proudly, expecting nothing less than
death.
"Take what
remains to you," Harold said, his voice harsh and exhausted, "and
take whatever ships you need, and go back whence you have come. I want you no
more in my land."
Olaf had stared, then
nodded tersely, bowed his head, and turned on his heel and left. In the end,
he'd needed less than twenty ships of the original fleet of three hundred to
take what remained home. The rest of the ships remained at anchor in the Ouse
River where they'd arrived a week or so earlier: their timbers kept
Yorkshiremen warm through the five following winters.
When Olaf had gone,
his pitiful twenty ships vanishing into the northern sea mists, Harold had
sighed, cleaned his sword, and turned south once more.
He'd won against
Hardrada, but at a frightful cost. Edwin and Morcar's original defeat had cost
him almost half of the men he could have summoned to battle William. Moreover,
many of the elite among Harold's personal troops had been killed or wounded at
Stamford Bridge.
Fate—and Hardrada's
ambition—had dealt William a kind hand.
HAROLD HAD EXISTED IN
A STATE OF HALF-WAKING for hours. He'd been riding for days, barely taking the
time to stop and rest, or take sustenance, or allow his horse to do likewise.
Now, when he was, at last in conscious thought, and about a half day's ride
from London, Harold was so exhausted he could barely think, let alone take note
of what was taking place about him.
The weather had closed
in. Misty rain had surrounded the horses and riders for hours; now it had
thickened into a dense fog that obscured most of the surrounding countryside.
Harold occasionally blinked and wiped the fog from
his eyes; whenever he
did so, he saw that his companions drifted in and out of the mist, almost as if
they were ghosts. Even the hoof-falls of the horses were curiously muffled, and
the constant jingling of bit and spur and bridle faded until it was little more
than a distant memory.
Harold had ceased
even to think. He sat, huddled within his soaked cloak, swaying to and fro with
the motion of his horse, and descended into a trance that was not quite a
sleep.
Thus he was not truly
surprised when he finally blinked himself into a state of semi-awareness and
saw that one of his men had dismounted and was now walking at the head of his
horse, a hand to its bridle, ensuring that his king's mount did not stray off
the road.
And then he saw that
the figure walking by his horse's head was not one of his men at all, and that
it had led his horse so far off the road that now it plodded silently through
sodden meadowlands.
"Who are
you?" said Harold, shaking himself and sitting more upright. "What
is—"
He stopped, for the
figure had halted the horse and then turned about, and Harold saw that it was
not a man at all. Oh, it wore the shape of a man, but there was something in
its long, bleak face, and in the knowledge in its gray-flecked eyes that told
Harold this was a creature of great enchantment, and no man at all.
Strangely, Harold did
not feel the least sense of fear. "Who are you?" he said, leaning
forward a little in the saddle. "Where do you take me? Are we in the realm
of faeries?"
That would not have
surprised Harold in the least. His sense of unreality had been growing stronger
and stronger over the past few days. Now he wondered if that had been the
precursor for this other-worldly journey.
The creature smiled,
but sadly, and Harold saw that his teeth were rimmed with light.
"I am Long
Tom," he said, "and I am taking you to your bride."
"Alditha?"
"No," Long
Tom said, drawing the word out until it was almost a moan. "To the woman
you will never leave."
Harold frowned, but
then the creature gestured to him to dismount.
"We need to take
a journey, you and I," he said.
"Where?"
said Harold, swinging his right leg over his horse's back and jumping lightly
to the ground. His weariness was falling away from him as if it had never been;
even the horse snorted and pranced a little as it felt the weight of its rider
vanish.
"Do you
remember?" said Long Tom.
O
"Remember
what?" said Harold. He was standing directly in front of the creature,
and, for all his own height, he had to crick his neck slightly in order to look
the creature in the eye.
"This," the
Sidlesaghe said, and nodded to his right.
Harold looked, and
the mist parted.
HE SAT NAKED IN A STEAMING ROCK POOL,
AND IN HIS
arms, very close, he held a young
woman, as naked as he. He was kissing her deeply, his hands tight against her
back so that he pushed her breasts against his chest.
"Coel," she said, pulling
her face away. "No."
"You want to," he said.
"I…" she said.
'Your mind has barely strayed from
the pleasures of the bed since we set out," he said.
"I was thinking of Brutus."
she said.
"Really? And now?"
HAROLD GROANED, AND
THE SIDLESAGHE RESTED A
hand on his forearm,
as if in support.
"Who was
she?" Long Tom asked.
"A woman I
loved," said Harold. His eyes brimmed with tears, and he held forth his
hand and cried out incoherently as the vision faded.
"What was her
name?" Long Tom said.
"I don't… I
don't know… how could I have
forgotten her?"
"Watch,"
said Long Tom.
HE BURST IN THROUGH THE DOOR, AND SAW
HER
kneeling, keening, in the center of
the house.
"Cornelia?" he cried, and
he could feel his heart breaking. "Ah, Cornelia, I am sorry. I had thought
to be here before you."
The woman rose, but slipped over in the
doing, sprawling inelegantly on the floor. He ran to her, and wrapped her in
his arms, and whispered to her soothing words.
'You knew that Brutus had gone to
Genvissa, and taken Achates, and everything I hold dear?" she said.
"I saw Hicetaon come for
Aethylla and the babies," he said. "I knew then. I wanted to be here
for you when you returned. I am so sorry. I came as quickly as I could."
She clung to him, her weeping
increasing, and the man rocked her back and forth.
"Cornelia," he whispered,
"don't cry, please don't cry."
"ENOUGH,"
SAID THE SIDLESAGHE. "YOU NEED SEE NO
more."
"I
remember," Harold said, his voice thick with tears. "Oh gods, I remember!" "Good," said the Sidlesaghe,
"for there is much more I need to tell you." He leaned close to
Harold, and he began to whisper at the speed of wind
in Harold's ear.
Five
Caela Speaks
HAD TAKEN TO WALKING
THE HILLS NORTH AND
west of St. Margaret
the Martyr's during these late summer days. _/ Here I could escape the
bewilderment in Saeweald's eyes and the vain hope in Judith's. Here I could
wipe my mind free (or as free as possible) of my responsibilities.
Here I could just
walk, and here, if ever it was going to, the land could speak to me, and tell
me what it wanted.
On this day I had
walked until I had exhausted my barely recovered body, and had sat down in the
center of the weathered circle of stones atop Pen Hill.
The view from here
was beautiful. Before me spread fields and meadows that ran down to the
silvered banks of the Thames, their purity marred only by the huddle of
buildings and roadways that consisted of London.
I tried not to look
at the city. I tried not to think on what it contained: not only Swanne and
Asterion, somewhere within its huddled walls, but the Game… waiting, as I
waited.
Well, they could
wait.
I tried also not to
look too closely at the stones that encircled me atop Pen Hill. Today I did not
want to see the Sidlesaghes. I did not want to see their long, mournful faces.
So today they were just stones.
To my relief, after I
had been atop Pen Hill for an hour or more, a low-lying thick mist closed in,
shutting out the view, but leaving the summit of the hill and myself in
sunlight. I was happy, for this meant I might sit amid the waving grasses and
flowers of Pen Hill, my arms wrapped about my raised knees, in solitude, and
not have to fear any disturbance.
Thus it was some
shock, eventually, to hear the faint thud of footfalls approaching up the
mist-shrouded lower reaches of the hill.
I was irritated, more
than anything. It would be Saeweald, come to ask me questions. Or Ecub or
Judith, come to sit with me and think to offer me some comfort. Or it would be
some peasant woman who, finding the space atop Pen Hill occupied by a former
queen (and one with her hair all loose and blowing in the wind at that) would
blush and mutter in confusion, and depart, taking my peace with her.
So I turned my face
very slightly in the direction of the footfalls (thud, thud, thud up the hill; whoever this was, they sounded as if
they had the gods at their heels), my chin still on my arms folded across my
knees, and I arranged my features in a scowl.
Not very welcoming, I
know, but I truly did not want company. As if in response to my irritation,
even the sky had clouded over.
Then, in the space of
a breath, Harold appeared out of the mist as if he were a spirit, striding
resolutely up the final few yards of the grassed slope to reach the summit of
Pen Hill.
He walked forward,
pausing between two of the upright stones, a hand resting on one of them. He
was clad as if for war, a tunic of chain mail, a light linen tunic of
war-stained scarlet embroidered with the dragon over the mail, a sword at his
hip.
He looked terrible.
He'd lost much weight and, while he'd always seemed lean, now appeared gaunt
under his mail.
His chest was
heaving, as if he'd found the climb tiresome.
His face…
But I did not see his
face, not immediately, for as my eyes traveled up his body, a ray of sunlight
burst through the thin clouds that had formed across the sky and caught Harold
in its grip.
I cried out, falling
a little sideways in my surprise, for that shaft of sunlight had crowned Harold
in gold as surely as Aldred (Asterion!) had crowned him in Westminster
Abbey; only here he had been crowned, not by a monster in the guise of a man,
but by the sun itself.
By the land.
And I understood. Harold was the landl
I scrambled to my
feet, painfully aware that my robe was loose and grass-stained, and my hair
all-tumbled about my shoulders and blowing about my face.
He didn't say a word,
not at first. He stood, his hand still on the stone, staring at me.
Then he just walked
forward, strode forward, grabbed me to him, and
kissed me, deep and passionate.
"Harold," I
said finally, when I managed to snatch some breath.
"Don't," he
replied, his voice harsh with desire, and something else… I
am not sure what.
"Don't say anything to me. Not yet." He buried his hands in my hair,
and groaned, and I think I did, too, and we kissed again, our bodies almost
writhing, each against the other.
He had remembered.
Someone had told him, or he'd simply just remembered.
"I cannot!"
I cried, suddenly, frightfully fearful. "To lie with you will be to kill
you!"
"I am your
king," he said, his mouth trailing over my jaw, my neck. "Do as I
ask."
"Coel…"I
whispered.
He grabbed at my
shoulders, and shook me, only a little, just enough to tumble the hair over my
face.
"I am this land
incarnate," he said. "Are you really going to refuse me?"
I was crying, I
think. Gently, but crying with all the strength of the emotions that were
surging through me, and with relief and fear and desire all combined.
Then he gentled.
"We are safe here, in this circle." He smiled, and my heart could
have broken at that moment for love of him. "Will you accept me, my
lady?"
And it was not just
Harold asking, but Coel, and the land besides. Harold would die, and he would
die through William's actions, as Coel had died, but this time, in this place,
we could bless each other… and the land.
Give me yourself, Caela, and you
grant me joy and life.
I do not know if he
spoke those words verbally, or in my mind, but I did not care. I smiled at him,
overcome with emotion, and I did not have to answer. Not verbally.
Take what you want of me, for it is
all yours.
And he gathered me
back into his arms.
When, finally, we lay
naked and entwined on the grass, and he entered me, I cried out with joy, my
arms extended into the skies, and wept at the feel of the land embracing me
completely, utterly, filling all my empty, desolate spaces.
WE MADE LOVE ALL
THROUGH THAT AFTERNOON, THE
gentle warmth of the
sun bathing our naked bodies, the mist still shrouding the lower portions of
the hill and the flatlands beyond. This was loving such as I had never
experienced, not even with Brutus, for this passion encompassed both earth and
sky and water as well, and they were blessed as well as I. This is what both I and the land had wanted.
This is what I had needed to open up those strange, dark
spaces inside me, and fill them.
I wept, and he kissed
away my tears.
"HOW DID YOU
KNOW?" I ASKED EVENTUALLY.
"I was riding the northern road, when a strange
mist enclosed me. A creature came, tall, and pale, and with—"
"The most
mournful face!" I said, and laughed, cupping Harold's own face in mine.
He smiled, too. Slow,
loving. "You know of what I speak?" I told him of the Sidlesaghes and
of Long Tom, and Harold nodded. "He is of the ancient folk." "Yes."
Harold grinned.
"He showed me that day, in the rock pool." I colored. Even now, after
all these years, and all that had happened (and even now, lying naked, with
this man), I still colored as easily as a girl at that memory.
"Now that is a memory to treasure," Harold said, kissing
my neck, my shoulder, his voice light and teasing. "Inside you, Brutus not
twenty paces away."
I did not smile, for
my mind had jumped then to that moment later, when Coel was inside me, and
Brutus, a great deal closer than twenty paces, and with a sword, gleaming sharp
and deadly in the lamplight.
Harold was looking at
me, his smile gone, but his face still relaxed. "He is not here now." "But he will—"
"Shush," he
said. "That does not matter. Not here, not now." "Oh, Harold," I said, my voice cracking, and
he gathered me tight, and held me, and I knew then that whatever else happened,
whoever else I loved, this man would always be… would, quite simply, always be.
Later, after we had
made love again, I looked over Harold's shoulder, and laughed.
"What?" he
said, rolling off me.
Then he jumped, using
his hands to cover his nakedness, and I laughed the harder, not bothering to
hide mine.
We were encircled by
Sidlesaghes, all standing with great smiles on their faces, all clapping,
slowly, soundlessly with their strong, brown hands.
"They are
happy," I said. Then I added, and where these words came from I have no
idea, "They are our children."
"Then they
should be in bed," said Harold tartly, and I rolled over, my sides aching
now with my laughter, and the Sidlesaghes clapped the harder.
AND THEN, YET MORE
TIME LATER.
Harold had decided to
ignore the Sidlesaghes, and began a long, slow, sensual stroking of my body. I
loved it. I sighed, and arched my back, and begged him never to stop.
"Will you do
something for me?" he said.
"Anything,"
I groaned, "so long as you complete here what you have begun."
He lowered his head,
and ran his tongue about one of my nipples, and I clutched at his hair, and
thought I would die with the strength of my wanting.
"When I am
gone," he whispered, lifting his mouth momentarily, agonizingly,
"will you be my future for me? Will you watch over this land for me, and
all those I should have been able to protect?"
"Harold…"
"Promise this to
me."
"Yes. You did
not have to ask."
He grinned, moving
his head just enough that his tongue could now draw the other nipple deep into
his mouth. For a long moment there was no talk, only the soft sound of my moan,
and his heavy breathing.
"Then my future
is assured," he whispered. Then he moved, pivoting across my body, burying
his hands tight in my hair, his face only inches from mine.
"The Sidlesaghe
showed me many things." His body was moving over mine now, and my legs, of
their own accord, parted under his weight.
"Yes?" I
whispered.
"Of how the Game
and the land are married."
"As you and
I."
He smiled, but only
briefly, his body moving very slowly, very teasingly atop mine. I wriggled,
trying to tempt him inside, but for the moment he stayed a breath away from
entering me.
"The Sidlesaghe
showed me how you are Mag-reborn."
"Yes." That
was more moan than word.
"And how Og one
day, too, will be reborn."
"Yes." Then
I had a sudden, horrible thought that I could hardly bear, and my body fell
still beneath his. "Harold—"
He kissed the tip of
my nose. "I know," he said. "I know that will not be me. And I
know who it will be, and I am content enough with that. This is a long path you
travel, my love. A long way to go."
"I know. There
is so far…"
"All every path
needs is but one step at a time."
I was silent.
He smiled, and the
warmth in it was stunning. "And all every path needs is a companion with
which to share it."
I was shocked at what
he suggested, particularly because of the understanding he'd shown just before
it. "But you know that at the end…"
"All I want is
to share the path with you. I know I cannot be your destination. I've always
known that."
I began to weep. What
had I ever done to deserve this man's love… to deserve what he now offered me?
"Oh, sweet gods,
now I've made you cry again!"
I started to laugh
through my tears, and, determining that I'd had enough of his teasing, I pulled
him down and into me. "At least you will never hear me say 'No!'
again!"
"Oh, my lady…
how I love you."
MUCH LATER, AS
EVENING DREW NEAR, ONE OF THE
Sidlesaghes wandered
over, waited until we both became aware of his presence, and gestured us to
follow him.
six
HEY ROSE, REACHED FOR THEIR CLOTHES, THEN
dropped them as
another of the Sidlesaghes—some forty or fifty were still gathered about—shook
its head.
A Sidlesaghe led them
down the northwest face of Pen Hill, the side farthest from London and closest
to the Llandin, toward a small grove of trees at the base of the hill.
Harold looked about
as they neared the trees. It was now almost twilight, the fading of the light
intensified by the close gathering of the Sidlesaghes. Gods, there must be
several hundred of them waiting just before the trees!
He looked to Caela.
She was close enough to him that he could feel the warmth of her skin, smell
the womanly scent of her rising in the coolness of the evening. He slipped an
arm about her waist, half-expecting her to pull away, then smiled as she
relaxed against him.
Harold kissed the top
of her head, then nodded at the Sidlesaghes. "What is happening?"
She gave a slight
shake of her head. "Something… momentous. Something good."
She shivered, and he
knew it was in anticipation. "Should I be here?"
She raised her face
to him, and smiled."I would not be here, if not for
you. This," she indicated the
encircling crowds of Sidlesaghes, "would not be happening if not for you.
I think, Harold of England, you are to be very welcomed in whatever is about to
happen."
"You are not
afraid." It was a statement, not a question.
"No. I am
content." She touched his bare chest, briefly. "I am whole."
Harold's eyes swept
over the Sidlesaghes. "Where have they all come from, Caela?"
"From the stones
of England," she said. "From the past. From the future. We have to
follow them. Look, they are moving into the grove of trees."
He looked, and saw
that she was right.
Caela took his hand,
and they followed.
The stand of trees
numbered only some twenty or thirty. They encircled a
small rock pool, its
waters emerald green and as still as the sky above them.
"I had not known
this was here," Harold muttered.
"Nor I,"
said Caela. She had stopped, looking strangely at the pool, then again she
turned to Harold. Under the trees it was almost full night, save for a gentle
glow that came from the water, and it lit up Caela's eyes and teeth as she
smiled. "It is for us," she said. "Just for us. A doorway."
"Into
what?"
Caela remembered a
conversation she'd had with Saeweald a long time ago, when she had been
Cornelia and he Loth.
"Into a light
cave," she said. "Pen Hill is a sacred mound, and I think that this
evening its sacredness is about to be revealed to us."
"Are you sure I
should—"
Before Caela had time
to even interrupt his protest, one of the Sidlesaghes had stepped to Harold's
other side, taken his hand, and led him forward toward the pool.
"I think that
might be a 'Yes,'" Caela said, and followed.
AT THE POOL'S EDGE
CAELA TOOK HAROLD'S OTHER
hand—he was now visibly tense—and together all three,
the king of England, a Sidlesaghe, and a woman who was about to become
something that not even she had yet fully realized, stepped into the water.
It was not wet.
Rather, it felt to Harold like the soft caress of a warm breeze. Led by the
Sidlesaghe and Caela, he walked forward until the water reached his chest, then
at the insistence tugging on both his hands, and with a quick, silent prayer in
his heart, he ducked beneath the level of the water.
It was a different
world beneath, and yet strangely similar. It was a reflection of the world
above, only smaller, more compact, and far, far more magical.
They stood in a green
meadow, the grasses weaving about their knees. Above them shone a clear sky—a
soft gray—and before them rose a low hill.
On its summit stood
something that Harold could not quite make out. It appeared to be a building
constructed of something so indistinct—almost so out of focus—that he could not
make out its lines.
He felt a slight
squeeze on his right hand—the Sidlesaghe had now let go of his left—and found
Caela smiling at him.
"Is this not
beautiful?" she said.
"Aye," he
said slowly, again looking about. Thousands
of Sidlesaghes were now wandering about this soft, gentle landscape. They
hummed—a sweet, reassuring melody.
"Aye,"
Harold said again, then paused. "What is it?"
O
"The
Otherworld."
Harold jumped. It was
not Caela who had replied, but a Sidlesaghe, standing a pace or so away.
"Am I
dead?" Harold said.
"No," said
Caela. "We are, I think, merely being granted an audience. Look." She
pointed to the hill.
A figure had emerged
from the indistinct structure atop the hill.
A small, dark, fey
woman.
Caela gasped and, her
hand still linked with Harold's, pulled him toward the hill.
By the time they
reached its summit Harold was out of breath, but Caela didn't seem affected by
the climb at all. She let go Harold's hand and wrapped the shorter woman in a
tight embrace. "Mag!"
Harold felt himself
freeze in awe. Mag? But was not Caela Mag-reborn?
The woman, Mag,
returned Caela's embrace, then smiled at Harold. "Caela is my heir, she is
not me," she said. She reached out a hand for Harold and, hesitatingly, he
took it.
Immediately a sense
of peace flowed through him.
"Will you come
into England's water cathedral?" said Mag, and she drew Caela and Harold
forward.
She led them into
wonder, and the moment they stepped inside, Harold realized why it was he found
it difficult to put this building in focus.
It was, unbelievably,
constructed entirely of water.
They had entered a
massive hall—columned and vaulted entirely in flowing water. It was the most
magical sight that Harold had ever seen, or could ever have imagined seeing.
The vast interior of the hall was colonnaded on either side by twin rows of
water columns rising to some fifteen or twenty paces above their heads, where
they merged into a gigantic circular domed vault that rose at least a further
twenty paces above their heads.
They walked to the
center of the hall, directly under the dome, and Harold looked down to the
floor.
It, too, was made of
water, although it felt solid under his feet. The water (floor) was of a deep, rich emerald color, but running
through it, apparently at random, were lines of blue that trailed haphazardly,
crisscrossing each other at random intervals.
Harold raised his
head to find Mag smiling at him.
"The island's
waterways," Mag said. Then she stepped forward and embraced Harold with
almost as much emotion as she'd hugged Caela. "Thank you for bringing her
to us," she said.
"It was my pleasure," Harold said, and Mag laughed, and
kissed him on the cheek.
"We wished she
could have found you sooner, but that she found you at all is a blessing
indeed."
Harold was going to
say something more, but then stopped as he saw that a score of shadowy womanly
figures had emerged from behind the columns to walk to within several paces of
where Mag, Caela, and Harold stood. Most appeared in their late middle age, but
apart from their shared femininity and the gentle smiles on their faces, that
was their only similarity. Some were fair, some dark, some tall, some slim,
some plump, some beautiful, some homely. Harold gave a small start… there
was one other thing all these woman shared in common. They all had knowledge
and power shining from their bright eyes.
For once, Caela
seemed as puzzled as he.
Mag took Caela's
hand, ignoring for the moment the other women. "Caela, you have had
trouble accepting the heritage I bequeathed you."
"Yes. It has
been… difficult. I felt myself empty. Lacking."
"Aye. For that
you have blamed yourself. Ah, my dear, that was my fault, not yours. Here, let
me explain."
Mag gestured to the
encircling women with her free hand. "These women are all my predecessors,
as I am yours."
Caela so forgot
herself that she gaped. "There were others before you?"
"Indeed. I will
explain, but first, if they may, my sisters will introduce themselves to
you."
"I am
Tool," said one of the women. "I came three before Mag."
"And I am
Raia," said another. "I came ten before Mag."
The women all
introduced themselves in turn. There were thirty-one.
Mag turned to Caela
and took both her hands in hers, giving the woman her undivided attention.
"I was the thirty-second in line from the dawn of time," she said.
"You will be the thirty-third. Each of us has lived long lives,
millennia-long, and at our given time we have passed into this world, handing
the responsibilities we shouldered to our successor. Part of that succession
was, first, ensuring that the woman we picked was mated with the land. That
normally happened before we left our successor to her
work. In your case," Mag smiled sadly, "well, in your case, events,
and Genvissa's darkcraft, intervened. I was not able to ensure that you had
mated with the land. No wonder you found it so difficult in this life."
"But," said
Caela, looking between Mag and Harold. "Coel and I…" She stopped,
remembering.
"Brutus murdered
Coel before the act was completed, before that moment when both of you sighed
in repletion. And besides, that act took place before I had told you of my
decision. That was not in any sense of the word a true mating of my chosen
successor with the land, although the souls were right.
You both needed to be
reborn into the places you are now to have accomplished the act you have."
Caela nodded. Mag had
told Cornelia, as she had been then, of her plans many months after Coel's
death; the night Genvissa had forced her daughter from her womb.
"Normally,"
Mag said, "the old Mother goddess of the land and the waters passes over
at the moment her successor and her mate have sighed in repletion. I went too
early. I could not aid you to the place that both of you found today."
"With the
Sidlesaghes' aid," said Harold.
"For my lack of
being there," Mag said, "I apologize from the bottom of my
heart."
"We all
do," said the woman who had called herself Raia, "for we all should
have aided you."
"And welcomed
you," said a woman called Golenta.
"But late is
better than never," said Mag, smiling. "You are here now. And
Harold," she nodded at him, "is here because he is a beloved man both
to you and to us, and because all of us need a witness when…" she stopped,
and arched a questioning eyebrow at Caela, to see if she understood.
"Ah," said
Caela, after a moment. "You said that only part of the responsibility in
handing on succession was ensuring that your chosen successor was mated and
married with the land. There is something else which needs to be accomplished,
and that needs a witness."
Mag nodded, pleased.
"None of us share the same name, my dear. And in the past few months, you
have felt awkward using the name 'Mag', have you not?"
"Yes,
indeed."
"You have
avoided using it," Mag continued. "It has not felt comfortable to
you. That is as it should be. My dear, when each of us came into our own, when
we came into that power, that embrace which you know as the essence of
this land, the soul of this land, we each chose for ourselves our own name.
"Now," she
said, "you must choose for yourself a name, as I chose Mag when I
shouldered the burden, and as all the other women present chose a name when
their turn came. Your name, your goddess-name, is not only most sacred, but
most powerful. One day you will wear it openly, but for the time being, until
this land is free of the burden that currently consumes it, it will be your secret
name, and the more powerful because of that."
"I can choose
any name I wish?"
"Indeed, my
sweet. But listen, for this is important. Your name will become your nature. It
will dictate who you are. You will never be able to act beyond
the confines of your
name, for be certain that your chosen name will confine you. Do you understand me?"
"I'm not
sure," Caela said.
"I chose the
name Mag when I ascended," Mag said. "In the language of the people
who inhabited this land, when I lived only as a mortal woman, it means
welcoming… intaking… nurturing. I thought it the essence of motherhood, and for
me, that is what I wanted to be for this land."
"Of course, thus
Mother Mag."
"Yes. And as I
had chosen that name, so it confined me—and eventually it damaged the land. Can
you know of what I speak?"
Harold saw Caela's
brow furrowing, then it cleared and understanding replaced the puzzlement on
her face.
"Ariadne. When
she came begging a home, you welcomed her. You took her in, because that was
your nature, that was your name."
"Yes. Mag was
who I was, and it meant that once I took
Ariadne in I could not reject her. What mother can reject any of her children?
The Darkwitches attacked me, and drew away my power, but that was not the only
reason I weakened. My time was coming when I needed to pass into this world and
pass on my responsibilities. 'Mag' was no longer what the land needed."
"You all passed
on when the 'who' of you became irrelevant?"
"Aye. And now
you must choose your own name, Caela. Your secret name, your power name, your
goddess name. Choose well and choose wisely, for it must be a name that will
provide this land with what it needs to repel the malevolence that assails
it."
Caela drew in a deep
breath, pulling her hands from those of Mag. Harold thought he saw a fleeting
expression of panic cross her face, and he didn't blame her. Choose well and choose wisely…
For if you don't…
Caela turned away,
her head down, thinking. She paced very slowly about the room, her arms wrapped
across her breasts as if in protection, then, after a few minutes of total
silence, with all eyes in the hall upon her, Caela came to a stop before
Harold.
She lifted her eyes,
staring at him, and Harold felt tears come into his own eyes at the depth of
expression and of love in hers.
"I have
chosen," she said softly, looking at no one but Harold.
There was silence,
and Harold felt the breath stop in his throat.
"Eaving,"
Caela said. "My name will be Eaving."
Harold's breath let
out a sob, and the tears that had welled now flowed down his cheeks.
Eaving! It was a rustic word, used
generally only by shepherds, herdsmen,
and sailors. Yet even
by these men, eaving was a word used only once or twice in their lives.
Superficially,
"eaving" meant shelter, but its meaning went a great deal deeper than
that. Eaving was used by shepherds and sailors, men who were exposed to the
worst of the elements, to mean "an unexpected haven from the
tempest." They used it when they and their flocks or ships were caught in
a storm that had blown down from nowhere, which threatened their very lives,
and from which there appeared to be no shelter. Then, suddenly, as if
god-given, there appeared as if out of nowhere the unexpected haven—an
overhanging cliff that protected the shepherd and his flock from the worst of
the weather, or a small bay or estuary in which a ship could ride out a storm.
Eaving, the
unexpected haven in which to ride out the storm and from where one could
reemerge into the sunlight.
"You wish to use
the name Eaving?" asked Mag. "Once you accept this name you will be
tied to it and by it."
Eaving turned to Mag,
then looked at each of the other women in turn. "It is who I have always
been," she said, "and what I want only to be. Eaving. I accept this
name."
"Then welcome,
Eaving," said Mag. "Welcome to yourself." She held out her arms,
as if she would embrace Caela—Eaving!—but then the hall appeared to
disintegrate into its elements, and water crashed about them, and the next
thing Harold knew, he was standing atop Pen Hill again, shivering in the cold
night air, alone save for Caela who lay at his feet.
FOR ONE TERRIBLE
MOMENT HE THOUGHT SHE WAS
dead, but then Caela
rolled on to her back and smiled at him.
"I feel
whole," she said. Then she held out her arms to him. "Let me make you
warm."
His shelter from the impending storm… and suddenly all of Harold's
fears and
anger and frustrations at his impending, unavoidable death vanished. He knelt
down beside her, then lay down, and felt her take him in her arms.
"Eaving,"
he whispered, and then she kissed him.
sevejM
i
/'t/% .^HEN SHE RETURNED TO HER CHAMBER
Iff within St. Margaret the Martyr's,
it was to find Judith,
* % Saeweald, Ecub, and Silvius
waiting for her.
't»-"What has
happened?" said Silvius, taking a step forward as Caela entered.
She looked at him as
if slightly puzzled, then smiled agreeably. "I have spent the afternoon
with Harold." "Harold?" Judith,
Saeweald, and Silvius said together.
To one side, Ecub
looked carefully at Caela, and nodded very slightly to herself.
"He is
tired," said Caela. "Dispirited." She paused, her brow furrowed
as if trying to remember something, then said, "Our brother Tostig is
dead. Harold killed him at Stamford Bridge."
Judith and Saeweald
looked at each other, not sure what to say.
"Caela,"
Saeweald said.
She came to him, and
kissed his cheek gently. "Forgive me for being so dispirited myself these
past months, Saeweald. I have come to my senses now. I will do what I
must."
"What has happened?" Silvius said. He walked forward, and
took Caela's chin in his hand. "Caela?"
"I am well and I
am at peace, Silvius," she said. "There are no more empty spaces. No
more lack. I am this land, I am the soul of its rivers and waters, the
wellspring for its fertility. I accept it. I have embraced it."
"How is this
so?" Silvius said. His black eye was narrowed, searching Caela's face.
"Why so confident, so…?"
"Unexpectedly
confident, Silvius?" Caela smiled, very gently, and moved her face so that
her chin slid from his grip. "I am tired," she said. "I would
rest. Do you mind… ?"
As they filed from
her chamber, Caela added, quietly, "Ecub, I beg you to stay a
moment."
"Harold?"
said Ecub once the door had closed behind the others.
Caela's face broke
into a huge grin. "Yes! Oh, Ecub, you cannot know—"
I i ^ guess,"
said Ecub, laughing. She stepped forward, taking both of ^s m hers. "He was your mate, yes? He was your means
to mating
h lif hld
the ] ^s m hers. He was your mate, yes? He was your mea g
ljav '% all should have seen that sooner. Even in the past
life, we should
the
g, Caela's grin
broadened, and Ecub laughed again, and enfolded »_ w woman into a tight
embrace. „ e'eis much I need to tell you," Caela
said as finally Ecub pulled back, vhat ^'" sa'd
Ecub. Her face was sober now, her eyes searching. "But
.,- *nt to know,
first, is why you tell me, and not the others." 100 lot
sure." Caela turned and walked to the window, gazing out to the than- ^aPe
°f Pen Hill in the darkness. "There was a caution within me ^
"nly when you were the last left in the room." She turned back to
face
onty when you were the 's
a c"b. "And
perhaps it is because you were the one with me at Mag's „ ' "oil were the
one to watch me dance Mag's Nuptial Dance." p " Siangan."
., * smiled, sadly.
"But she is not here now." >. ^°w are-' Ecub
breathed deeply, then bowed low at the waist. "Mother
Ma >.
"My
"No; bed
M Caela said, and
Ecub looked up, surprised. "Eaving," Caela said. 'ter ■ ^e is Eaving. Mag has passed, and only I
remain." Caela sat down on "pir . anc* patted the space
before her. "Sit, and I will tell you what tran-
. ^is afternoon. Oh,
Ecub, it was so beautiful!"
*lo'tv d Ur
later ^y stiu sat on Caela's bed,
their hands gripped, save that J'ter C|Jb was weeping,
shaken by what she had heard, and by the power of 11 joy. Oh, how fortunate she was that she should have lived
to hear this!
Dually ecub sniffed,
quieted her emotions,
, * to Caela,
"You are Eaving, the shelterer, but you also shall need a
t^r
^ ' and a
protector."
e'a's mouth curved in a
small smile. She had been right to trust this ' as the first—apart
from Harold, of course—among those who would >>, n ef for who she truly was.
^ne Said
Ecub, "and my sisters, will always be yours. We shall exist for only *'ter
rPose, and that shall be to provide you with a haven, in whatever
man-
» 'night need
it."
^he ^s a
powerful promise, and Caela's own eyes now brimmed with tears, forward, kissing
Ecub softly on the mouth. "I accept," she said, -j-i you may one day
regret—" ever!" said Ecub. Then, more softly. "Never.
I watched over Mag's
Dance, and saw you
come to your own within it. I will watch over you now, and ever so long as you
need me." Caela nodded. "Thank you."
MUCH LATER, WHEN
EVERYONE ELSE HAD GONE, ECUB
bedded Caela down in
her chamber. Judith had gone off with Saeweald, and Ecub was glad of it.
"What is it that
you 'must' do?" asked Ecub, tucking the bed linens about Caela's shoulders
as if she were a child. "Warn William? Move against Aster-ion?"
"I must
wait," said Caela. "I can do no more. I shelter. I cannot avenge. I
cannot warn."
"Do you not fear
for William?"
"Oh, aye, I do
not think I can sleep for the fear I hold for him. Swanne… oh, dear gods,
Swanne is his walking death. But I must be true to myself, Ecub. I cannot go to
him. I cannot seek him out. He must come to me. He must need the haven."
"Swanne and
Asterion will…"
"I know. I know. But I have to trust in myself and in what will be,
Ecub. I can do no more."
Ecub sighed, patted
Caela on the shoulder, then retreated to a stool under the window, blowing out
the candle as she did so. The stool was uncomfortable, but there was no point
in her sleeping; Matins service would begin within an hour or two, and she
might as well spend the time between now and then in contemplation… and thanks,
for the unexpected joy this life had brought her.
eigbc
ILLIAM HAD BEEN IN
ENGLAND ALMOST TWO
weeks, and during
this time he'd had barely the time to even think about the underlying "why" of his presence
here. Certainly he was here to win himself a kingdom and all the spoils it
could provide him, but there was far more at stake that he had not allowed
himself to consider.
There had been no
time.
He'd sailed from the
Somme Estuary on the night of the 28th of September, arriving at Pevensey Bay
early the next morning. Here William had constructed some initial defenses, but
then had decided that the small port town of Hastings, which lay a little
farther up the coast, would serve his purposes better. Hastings stood on a
small peninsula and could be more easily defended, and William wanted to
protect his ships, his men and, he admitted in his darker moments, his escape
route.
He was a more
cautious man now than he had been as Brutus. If Brutus had been forced to
linger in Normandy, or Poiteran as it had been then, for over thirty years he
would have marched on London the instant he'd landed. William was far more
circumspect. He knew the English would be hostile, he was not sure where Harold
and his army were… and he knew Asterion was here, somewhere, waiting for
William to make that one, grossly stupid move which would see him fail.
So William proceeded
with care, determined not to move so precipitously that it left him no escape
route. Just outside Hastings, William set his men to work, constructing earthen
defenses and a bailey castle. Neither defenses nor castle would withstand a
siege, nor even a sustained bombardment, but it would buy William the time he
would need during a forced retreat.
Now William was
standing atop the bailey castle, one booted foot tapping impatiently on the
floorboards, gazing northwest over the countryside. There were a few pillars of
smoke in the distance: his men had been out pillaging. William had not wanted
them to do it, but they had to be fed somehow, and William did not want to
deplete what few stores he'd brought with him. A few
paces away stood two
or three of his commanders, watching William more than the landscape.
William had called
his commanders for a war council, but that could wait for a few minutes.
A few moments more of
quiet, where he could think on the underlying reason for his invasion. The real
reason, the true reason why so many men were about to die.
To retrieve the
bands, and to then complete the Game with Swanne by dancing that final,
concluding dance of the Game, the Dance of the Flowers.
Ah, stated in so few and such bold
words, it sounded all so easy, didn't it? Just retrieve the bands, grab Swanne by the hand, and
execute the Dance of the Flowers. No need even for the accompanying dancers
that they'd had two thousand years ago. All that was really needed was the
Mistress and the King-man. Two people, six golden bands, a relatively
uncomplicated dance, a dab of magic, and all was done.
All so simple, so
easy, all so terrifyingly unachievable, should even one or two things go awry.
Like… Swanne. William
drew in a deep breath. Where was she? He could feel her, somewhere close (and yet somehow closed to him;
she was near, but he could not read her), but he knew there was no way she
could approach him openly at this stage.
Yet that did not
explain why he had not heard from her in months. Oh, Aldred wrote occasionally,
or sent word via trusted messengers, but Swanne had not contacted William since
that moment she'd appeared before him on the cliffs of Normandy, and that was
before last Christmastide. Ten
months! What was
she doing? Why this silence? Was Asterion too close for her to risk contact?
It was the only
reason William could think of for her silence, and it concerned him that Swanne
might be so close to danger.
It terrified him to
consider that there might be an even more terrible reason for Swanne's lack of
communication.
He tore his thoughts
away from Swanne. Yes, she was close, but he could feel others, too. Somehow,
the mere fact of setting foot on this land once more connected him to others.
Loth was here, much the same as he had been; William knew he would never like
Loth as he had learned to like and respect Harold. Erith was here, too, as
another Mother—he could not remember her name, but that woman was the one who
had been intimately connected with Mag's Dance.
And Caela. He could
feel her, far stronger than he would have thought possible. William closed his
eyes, scrying out the sense of her: contentment, peace, even a little
happiness, and something else that he could not identify… a depth that he could
not understand. He suddenly realized that he
G
could well meet her
soon; odd, that he'd never thought of that until now. If matters went well,
then he would soon meet Caela face to face.
His heart began to
race, and William opened his eyes, apparently staring ahead although he saw
nothing. Caela was lovelier now than she had been as Cornelia. What was she
doing? Did she still yearn for him?
What would he do if she came to him, and offered herself to him?
What would he do if
she did not? William found the idea that she
might not yearn for him anymore as unsettling as the thought that Swanne might
somehow be in danger. No, more unsettling. What if
Cornelia-now-Caela no longer yearned for him?
He recalled the
vision in which he'd seen her as Caela lie beneath his father, and he recalled
also his vision of two thousand years earlier when he'd seen her as Cornelia
lie down beneath another man, offering him her body.
Asterion, who had
then slaughtered her.
What did those two visions mean? Were
they truth? Or delusion?
Was Silvius the
reason for Caela's contentment now? William tried to scry out his father… and
found nothing. He frowned. Strange, for if Silvius was flesh, and ambitious
enough to seduce Caela, as well as shift the Trojan kingship bands, then he
would be flesh enough for William to feel. But there was nothing, almost as if
his father did not exist, or was a phantom of delusion only.
William realized that
his commanders were watching him impatiently, but he allowed his thoughts to
roam just a little further.
Harold. There had
been a great battle at Stamford Bridge, and it was long ago enough now that
details of it had reached William. Hardrada and Tostig had both been killed in
the struggle. Harold had come back to London, rested there some few days, and
was now… close. William could sense him. Very close indeed—and as strangely at
peace with himself, as content, as Caela seemed.
Was Harold so at
peace because he had come to terms with his own imminent death? At that thought
William felt a gut-wrenching sense of loss, the strongest emotion he'd felt
since he'd been standing here in the open air staring out into nothingness. He
didn't want to kill Harold. He didn't want to be a party to his death.
Not again.
Why hadn't he taken
the trouble to know Coel better?
Or Cornelia, as Caela
had once been? Why hadn't he taken the trouble to treat her better? To understand her?
William gave an
almost indiscernible shake of his head. He might as well
wish the sun to rise
in the west. Brutus had not taken the trouble to know anyone well, not even
himself.
"I have a
command," William said suddenly, making his commanders jump. "I would
that in the coming battle, if we prove victorious, that King Harold be taken
alive. I do not want him killed."
"My lord
duke," said Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle, one of William's most trusted men,
"is that wise? If we prove successful, then to have Harold still alive
would be to invite—"
William, keeping his
eyes on the landscape, had not looked at Montfort-sur-Risle as he spoke.
"I do not want him killed. Not by my hand, nor by any of my men."
William finally turned to looked at his commanders. "Is that
understood?"
As one, they bowed
their heads.
J
AROLD SAT ON HIS
HORSE ON A RIDGE SOME NINE
miles from Hastings.
Behind him came his army, weary, footsore, straggling in disjointed groups
rather than in the units into which they'd originally been organized. Harold
turned so he could see over his shoulder. He knew the true depth of his
command's exhaustion, and he wished he had the ability to bring the full
complement of men he'd commanded at Stamford Bridge against William.
But that could not
be. Many men were wounded, many more scattered along the long road between here
and the north. William had both Fate and Luck on his side.
Harold looked back to
Hastings. He could feel William. Somehow, in the few days
since he'd been with Caela, Harold had grown far more attuned to the land, to
its spaces and intimacies, and to those who trod upon it. William was out there
staring toward Harold as Harold now stared toward him.
There was no
animosity, only an infinite sadness, and that gave Harold great comfort.
William had changed in this life, and that meant there was hope for the land.
He may not have changed enough, but he had begun that road.
Harold closed his
eyes and thought on Caela… Eaving. He remembered the feel of her body, he
remembered her scent.
He remembered how she
had smiled into his eyes, and blessed him.
Whatever happened,
all would be well.
Eventually.
The sound of horses'
hooves behind Harold disturbed him, and he looked to see who it was.
One of the English
earls, come to receive orders about deploying what was left of their ragged
army.
"We will make
our stand here," Harold said, pointing along the long ridge. "The
escarpments to either side mean that William can only attack us from the front.
He cannot outflank us. We can make a good defensive stand here, my
friend."
"We will win the
day," the earl said, but Harold could hear the bravado in his voice.
"Of course we
will," said Harold.
SWANNE ALSO STOOD,
SECRETED WITHIN THE EDGES of a dark grove, staring across at Hastings. Like
Harold she could sense William's presence and feel his vitality, but unlike
Harold it was not her connection with the land which enabled her to do this,
but her ability with the darkcraft.
Asterion moved up
behind her, running his hands from her shoulders down her arms.
She nestled back
against him. "Bless you," she murmured.
He smiled. "The darkcraft
suits you. Imagine how much better you shall feel once William is dead."
"Soon."
"Oh, yes,
soon."
Asterion's fingers
kneaded slightly at her arms. She was really quite thin now, the imp within her
continuing to sap away at her vitality. But she remained beautiful, and
Asterion had no doubt that William, the fool, would not last for more than a
few moments against her writhings and pleadings.
"He will be
yours within a day," he murmured, his muzzle buried within Swanne's dark,
curling hair. "This time tomorrow you will be in his bed, trapping him
with your dark power."
With my imp, he thought. Finally working its vile talents to their full
potential.
Poor, dead William.
Swanne shuddered.
"I cannot bear the thought of lying with him."
Asterion's fingers
tightened where they rested on her upper arms. "You must. It is the only
means by which to kill him and utterly negate his power."
"Asterion, my
love, I don't really know if I can bear to—"
'You will He with him!"
She cried out,
stunned, and one of her hands fluttered to her belly. Why was
the imp nibbling now, when Aldred was not here?
"Yes," she
said, her voice dulled. "I will lie with him. If that is what you
wish."
"Blessed
woman," Asterion said, kissing her neck. "You will scream with
pleasure. You will."
She moaned, her
entire body relaxing back against his. "Aye, I will do that for you."
"But,"
Asterion whispered, his hands now running all over her body, "that
pleasure will be as
nothing compared to that we will feel together, as one, when we finally take
the Game."
She moaned again, and
turned about in the circle of his arms, and offered him her mouth. There was
nothing left now but her need for Asterion, and the thought of the power she
would enjoy with him when they led the Game.
EAVING.
The word came as a
low moan, a breath on the wind, and it made Caela shiver. She was standing atop
Pen Hill, staring south, feeling the swirling emotions that came from the land
about Hastings. Harold was there, and William, but so also were Asterion and
Swanne.
"Eaving."
She turned her head,
very slightly. A Sidlesaghe stood a pace or two to one side. No, several of
them, gathering about her on the breeze.
'Eaving!"
"What may I do
for you?" she murmured.
"We beg your
aid," said Long Tom, stepping forth.
"You have it,
you know that."
"Now that you
have achieved your union with the land," Long Tom said, "have you
felt it?"
Caela did not have to
ask him what he meant. "The dark stain in its soul," she said.
"The tilt in the Game. Yes, I have felt it. Asterion's hold over Swanne,
over the Mistress of the Labyrinth. The shadow that hangs over us all.
"What can I
do?"
"There are two
more bands left."
"Aye."
"Eaving,"
said another Sidlesaghe. "Shelter them."
"Move
them?" said Caela.
"No," said
Long Tom. "Shelter them."
"Moving the
bands may not be enough," said one other Sidlesaghe. "They can still
be found. William can always find them. And if William… if William…"
"If William is
trapped by Swanne and Asterion?"
"Aye," said
Long Tom. "Eaving, there are two final bands. Will you shelter them?"
"From William as
much as from Asterion," said Caela.
"Aye. In case.
Just in case."
She thought a long
time, staring sightlessly south, feeling all that the land told her.
"There is a
way," she said, finally.
* * *
IN ROUEN, MATILDA LAY
ABED. SHE SLEPT RESTLESSLY,
the bed covers
twisting about her body, her dark hair working its way free of its braids and
tangling on the pillow, her face covered in light perspiration, one of her
hands fluttering over her rounded belly.
In her dreams,
Matilda walked a strange and unknown landscape. About her tumbled the ruins of
a once great city. Columns and walls lay in piles of great masonry, flames
flickering from fires that still burned within them, dismembered bodies
sprawled in sickening heaps, a great pall of thick, noxious smoke hung over the
entire terrible landscape.
She did not recognize
the city. The architecture (what she could see of it amid the ruins) was of an
unknown and exotic form, and the bodies, which lay about, were clothed in armor
and held weapons of a type she had not seen before. This was somewhere she had
never visited, and, even within her dream, Matilda wondered at the power of her
imagination that it could conjure this vision to disrupt her dreams.
Matilda walked
carefully, avoiding as best she could the tumbled masonry and the bodies. She
turned a corner and came upon a cleared space.
She halted,
transfixed by the sight before her.
A stag lay in the
center of a clear space. He was magnificent, larger than any stag she had ever
seen before, with a pure white pelt and a full spread of bloodred antlers.
"You are a
king," she said, and the stag blinked at her as if it were suddenly aware
of her presence.
Matilda looked away,
studying the rest of the space. Initially she had thought the space was
entirely clear. Now she could see that it wasn't. A labyrinth had been carved
into the entire circular space—
Matilda's mind instantly leapt to
that strange gift her husband had sent Edward—the
ball of golden string that unwound into a labyrinth—the labyrinth he'd said was carved into the golden
bands he thought might be in the possession of either Caela or Swanne.
—and the stag lay
within its heart. Before the stag, also within the heart of the labyrinth, were
carved letters. They had been dug deep into the stone of the labyrinth floor, and
had been filled with red paint, or perhaps blood.
Matilda stepped
forward, unfearful, curious to see what the word was.
Matilda frowned, for
she knew her Latin well enough. / will rise again?
The stag began to
move, struggling to rise, and it distracted Matilda. She raised her eyes to the
stag, pitying the creature, for no matter how greatly it struggled, it did not
seem to be able to rise to its feet.
Then the stag paused,
its ears flickering as if it heard something, and its stunning head twisting so
it could look over its shoulder. It trembled, and its struggling doubled, and a
sense of great dread came over Matilda.
"What… ?"
she said, and the stag turned its head back to her, and looked at her with
black eyes that Matilda instantly recognized, and it said: Begone from
here, Matilda. Begone!
"William,"
she whispered, and stretched out her hands to aid it.
Begone! the stag screamed in her mind,
and Matilda wailed, and then she also screamed, for out of the tumbled ruins
that bordered the open space behind the stag crawled an abomination such as
Matilda had never dreamed before.
It was a gigantic
snake, or a lizard, she could not tell, but it had a sinuous, writhing body
covered in black scales, and a head with a mouth so vast and filled with fangs
that Matilda understood how it could eat entire cities (and had indeed eaten
this one, which is why it lay in ruins about her).
In the instant before
the snake-creature struck, Matilda also understood one other thing. That this
terrible demonic creature was a woman's revenge incarnate, and Matilda knew the
woman who had created this revenge must surely be the greatest Darkwitch that
had even walked the face of this earth.
The stag was
screaming continuously now, its struggles maddened as it sought to escape the
snake-creature writhing ever closer.
Matilda shrieked,
backing away several paces, her hands to her face.
The snake-creature
struck, lunging down with its vast mouth, and before Matilda could manage to
wrench herself from her dream, she saw the demon's fangs sink so deeply into
the stag's body that it tore asunder, and blood spattered all about.
SHE WOKE, DRENCHED IN
SWEAT, STILL CAUGHT IN
the terrible imagery
of the stag's murder. "William," she whispered.
CbAPGGR G6N
N THE FOLLOWING
MORNING, WHEN THE NOR-mans faced the English on the battlefield of Hastings,
there were not two forces ranged against each other, but many. Harold and
William were, and always would be, the face and tragedy of Hastings, but behind
them and at their side ranged other forces that influenced both the battle of
that day and that which would come over the following centuries: Asterion, the
Minotaur; the Troy Game itself, determined to ensure the future it wanted; the
land, and Eaving, who spoke on its behalf, as on the behalf of Og, her
all-but-dead future; and finally, Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. All of
them, in their own way, participated in the battle at Hastings.
Harold had massed his
army on the ridge that lay nine miles from Hastings. Fate could not have picked
for him a better site. The ridge was a natural fortress. Before it the land
sloped gently away before rising again toward another hill. To either side of
the ridge were steep escarpments that were in turn flanked by marshy streams.
If William wanted to attack Harold—and there was no way he could ignore the
English king and allow him time to build up his forces—then he would need to
attack from directly forward. There was no real hope of trying to outflank the
English, because that would mean lengthy delays and the splitting of the
already small Norman force into two or even three tiny and weak secondary
forces.
Harold was as ready
as he could ever be by the time the sun rose. He'd deployed his men so that
William would face a mighty shield wall. William had armored cavalry—but even
they would be of little use against a phalanx of armored and shielded men who
could range pikes, lances, axes, swords, stones, and arrows—as well as the
supporting landscape—against the attacking force.
Weary his men might
be, but Harold knew that in theory they had a very good chance.
Save that he knew
they would not win. Not in terms of a battle victory.
Where would the treachery come from? he wondered. WILLIAM ATTACKED SOON AFTER
DAYBREAK. HE'D
marched his army from
Hastings, massed on the hill opposite Harold's ridge, then sent in both cavalry
and infantry in three divisions.
If William thought to
break Harold's shield wall, then he was grossly disappointed. Harold's men
held, and wave after wave of Norman attackers were driven back.
By midmorning it
appeared that the battle was turning into a rout. The Normans were milling,
often ignoring the shouted commands of William, who fought within their midst,
and falling one after another to the axes and swords of the English.
William changed
tactics. He screamed at his archers to direct their missiles into three or four
concentrated areas of the English line, and then to his horsemen and knights to
follow up the arrow barrage with a concentrated attack on those areas. While
the English were still in disarray from the arrows, the knights stood a better
chance of breaking through the shield wall.
Crude, but effective.
Very gradually, as the day wore on, the English were worn down. Where they held
in the earlier part of the day, their weariness caused them to stumble during
the latter.
Very gradually, the
Normans began to break through the shield wall and engage the English in
terrible hand-to-hand combat.
"I want Harold alive!" William screamed to his men as he saw them
break through in a half a dozen different places. "I want him alive!"
"AND / DO
NOT!" MUTTERED SWANNE, STILL STANDING within the embrace of her dark
grove. She could not see the battle with her eyes, but she could with her
power. "Ah, what a fool you have become, William! The Game has no use for
such as you."
Then she relaxed. She
must not think this way. She must practice the pretty, smiling face she needed
to present to William. In the meantime, she needed to ensure that he actually
won this battle. The bands could be irretrievably lost (for this life at least)
if the damn fool was killed by some stray English sword.
"Harold!"
she whispered, and she spoke with the voice of passion.
HAROLD/
It stunned him, for
it automatically drew him back through the years to that time when he and
Swanne had been young lovers, and he'd entertained
no doubt that she
loved him, nor that she was anything else but that which she appeared.
Harold!
He was fighting
desperately in the very thick of the battle where the Normans had broken
through. Covered in sweat and grime and blood, hearing the shouts and grunts
and cries of those crowded about him, feeling their thrusts and hopelessness
and dying, still he heard Swanne's voice as clear
as a clarion call.
Harold!
He looked up, and
never saw the arrow that plunged directly into his eye, killing him instantly.
CAELA MOANED, ALMOST
DOUBLING OVER IN THE
intensity of her sorrow. How pitiful a death, to be so
duped by Swanne.
Then she managed to
collect herself, and wipe the grief from her eyes, and straighten, and compose
her features and smile.
She stood in the
stone hall—save that only the western end of the hall was stone. The eastern
half, which stood at Caela's back, was built entirely of flowing, emerald
water.
Caela stood at the
border of this life, and the next.
A figure appeared at
the far western end of the hall. He was not dressed in battle garb, nor did he
bear the stains of sweat and grime and death.
Instead he walked
straight and tall, as beautiful and as content as ever she had seen him.
England's king, as William would never be.
She drew in a deep
breath, and could hardly see for the tears of joy that now filled her eyes.
"Harold!"
she said as he drew near.
"Eaving."
He smiled, and it was composed of such pure love and acceptance that the tears
spilled from her eyes. He lowered his head and kissed her, then gathered her
into a tight embrace, lifting her from the floor and spinning her about.
"I had not thought to meet you here!"
"How could I let
you pass without…" she stopped.
"Saying
goodbye?"
"It will never
be goodbye," she said, very softly. "You should know that."
"Aye, I know
it."
She had pulled back
slightly from him now, and her face was grave and angry all in one.
"Swanne murdered you with her darkcraft."
"Again."
His voice was virtually inaudible.
"Do you
know," Eaving said, "that for this you are owed vengeance?"
Harold laughed
shortly. "When shall I collect it?"
O
Whenever you will. Harold, the
Sidlesaghes showed you, as well as me, the paths between this world and the
next. You can travel them as well as I.
"Whenever you
will, Harold," she said, her eyes locked into his.
"Ah,
Eaving," he said, resting the palm of his hand against her soft cheek, and
she knew that he'd put Swanne from his mind for the moment.
"Harold, I need
you to grant me a favor." "Anything."
"Take these with
you."
He looked at what she
had in her hands, then his eyes flew back to hers, shocked. "I cannot
touch those!"
"Please. For
me."
He laughed, the sound
bitter. "These will eventually take you from me."
"You already
knew that."
"Oh, gods,
Eaving…"
"Please, Harold.
Please."
He sighed, and
reached out, taking the two golden bands from her. "Where shall I put
them?"
She shrugged, and
suddenly he grinned, and then laughed. "You are so beautiful to me,"
he said.
Then, kissing her one
last time, Harold walked past Eaving, through the water cathedral and into the
Otherworld.
eceveN
ILLIAM HAD SPENT
ALL OF HIS LIFE, SINCE
/ the age of seven,
fighting battle after battle. He'd lost a few, he'd proved victorious in more,
and he'd walked the field of death in the aftermath of combat more often than
he cared to remember.
But never before had
he been as sickened as he was this evening as he picked his way slowly over the
ridge where Harold's army had made its stand.
It wasn't the
dismembered corpses—Norman as well as English—that lay about in their
thickened, coagulated blood.
It wasn't the moans
and the screams and the pleas for mercy or quick death that came from those
maimed men who lay twisted in indescribable agony amid their silent, dead
companions.
It wasn't the shrieks
of the crippled horses, or the stench of spilt blood, and split bowels.
It was sadness that
sickened William, and the fact that he could not quite understand the reason
for this sadness, nor even comprehend its depths, only made it worse.
He picked his way
slowly through the battlefield, stepping over the piled corpses, ignoring the
cries of the wounded, save for a jerk of his head to those companions who
trailed after him to see to their needs.
William was looking
for Harold. He'd not been among the captured, and William knew the man well
enough to know that neither would he have been among the few score of English
who'd managed to escape the field. Harold was lying here somewhere amid this
stinking, reeking, shrieking carpet of humanity, either dead or wounded, and
William feared very much that he was dead. He found himself praying over and
over that Harold would still be alive, but William knew that he was dead.
He could no longer
scry out his presence, although, oddly, he could still feel Harold's sense of
peace and contentment.
It was, finally, one
of Count Boulogne's captains who raised the shout, standing thirty or forty
paces away toward the northern end of the ridge, waving his arms slowly to and
fro above his head.
William's stomach
lurched, and he froze momentarily, staring at the man's waving arms as if he
signaled the end of the world, before he managed to collect himself and stride
over.
He stopped as he
reached the captain, then looked at the ground that lay between them.
Harold's body lay
bloodied and twisted, his legs half covered by the headless corpse of an
Englishman. The dead king's arms lay outstretched, as if Harold had willingly
relinquished his spirit; his body, so far as William could see, was unscathed.
Save for the arrow
that protruded from his left eye.
William could not
tear his eyes away from it. He stared, unblinking, then his stomach suddenly
roiled, and he turned away and retched.
The arrow! There as solidly as if
William had thrust it in himself.
As he had thrust the arrow into
Silvius' eye in order to seize his heritage.
Was he cursed to repeat this foulness
over and over, through this life and all others? Was everything he set his
heart on to be destroyed with the cruel thrust of an arrow deep into a brain?
William straightened,
and wiped his mouth. He did not look back at Harold.
"Take him from
here," he said to the men who had gathered about, "and treat him with
all respect. We will bury him tomorrow."
Then William turned,
and walked away.
BY MIDNIGHT, WILLIAM
WAS BACK WITHIN HASTINGS,
conferring with his
captains about the likelihood of the remaining English regrouping and
attacking, when a soldier entered the chamber, saluted, then stood expectantly
as if he had news of vast import to share.
"Yes?" said
William.
"My lord,"
said the soldier. "Harold's wife is here and craves an audience."
William froze,
staring at the man.
"The Queen
Alditha?" said Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle, frowning.
"No," said
the soldier. "The other one. The lady Swanne."
As one, everyone
looked to William.
He was sitting in his
chair, his face now expressionless, his eyes still glued to the soldier.
"Bid her enter," he said, finally, his voice very soft. "The
rest of you may leave. I think we have done this night."
Count Eustace of
Boulogne shared a glance with Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle. "My lord,"
he said, shifting his gaze back to William. "She might be dangerous."
William gave a soft,
harsh laugh. "Oh, I know that all too well. But I
will be safe enough,
my friends. Pray, leave me alone with the lady for the moment."
Again his men shared
concerned glances, but they did as he bid them, and as they filed slowly out,
the soldier reappeared with a darkly cloaked woman.
William nodded to the
soldier, and he turned and left, closing the door of the chamber behind him.
William rose slowly from
the chair. "Swanne."
"Aye!" She
threw back the hood of her cloak, then undid the laces about her throat and
discarded the heavy garment entirely
Beneath, Swanne wore
a simple white linen robe, a low scooped neckline revealing the first swell of
her breasts, her narrow waist spanned by a belt of plain leather, the heavy
skirt left to drape in folds to her feet.
The simplicity of the
robe, its starkness, set off her beauty as nothing else could have done.
William felt the breath catch in his throat. Even though she was a little too
thin, as if she had been ill recently, Swanne was still as desirable as she had
ever been.
And yet there was
something about her, something apart from her thinness. Something… harsh.
"William!"
she said, shaking her head so that her heavy, black curls shook free from their
bindings. "William!"
She held out her
arms, her eyes shining, her red mouth slightly parted, the tip of her tongue
glistening between the white tips of her teeth. "William!"
"Swanne,"
he said, feeling ridiculous, as if he'd been caught in a child's play. Gods! Could he do nothing but stand here and mutter
her name? Is this not what he had waited for, lusted for, so many years?
Then, in a moment of
a stunning—almost horrifying—revelation, William knew that she was not. Swanne
was not what he sought at all. She was merely his unavoidable companion.
Was this what Theseus felt when he
abandoned Ariadne on Naxos? Did he feel as I do now when I look on a woman I
once thought to love, and think, "Murderess?"
As cold as ice,
William stepped forward, took one of Swanne's outstretched hands, and laid his
lips to it in a courtly fashion.
His eyes never left
her face.
Something shadowy
crossed Swanne's countenance, but vanished within an instant.
"William!" she cried yet one more time as she threw
herself against him, pressing her body against the length of his, her arms
tight about his waist, her face uplifted to his. "Finally… finally …"
He gave a small,
tight smile, then lowered his face to hers, and, reluctantly, kissed her.
Her mouth grabbed at
his, her hands tangling within his hair, her body writhing against his flesh.
William felt as
though he were being devoured.
Worse, her mouth
tasted foul, as if it were full of the coppery aftertaste of old blood…
He pulled back,
pushing her away with his hands on her shoulders.
"William? I have
waited for this moment for so long. I have been through so much for this
moment! Shared Harold's bed—"
"Harold is
dead."
"Yes! Praise all
gods!" Swanne clasped her hands before her, her face alight with delight.
"And you must ensure his children die as well. You cannot have any of his
blood lurking in the hills, ready to make a play for your throne."
William's face froze.
"They are your children as well!"
"Ah," she
said, making a deprecatory gesture. "Mere necessities to keep Harold
happy. They are of no importance to me. A discomfort, only. I could not wait to
rid my body of their weight."
Swanne leaned froward
again, lifting her face to again be kissed, but William turned away. He walked
a short distance to a table where lay a scattering of parchments: intelligences
and reports.
He did not touch
them.
"William?"
Swanne stepped up behind him, and laid a hand on his back. "What is
wrong?"
"Harold is
dead."
"Yes…?"
"God damn you,
woman!" William swung about to face her. "You shared his bed for over
sixteen years! You bore his children! Have you not a care for the fact that
this man is dead?"
"Harold
discarded me!" she snarled. "No one discards me!"
Then she relaxed, and smiled again. "Have you seen his body, my
love?"
William gave a terse
nod.
"Did you like
the arrow? I thought it a nice touch. I thought…"
Swanne stopped,
appalled at the expression on William's face. "He was nothing to us,
William! Why look at me as if I were the most loathsome witch on earth?"
"He was a good
man, Swanne. He did not deserve to die. And not in that manner!" William paused, his face working. "And to
now beg me to murder his children? Your
children. I cannot credit it! Is there nothing within that breast of yours but hatred and ambition?
Nothing?"
"What is wrong
with you, William? You and / are the only things that
matter. And the Troy Game. Nothing else counts. We are here, we are together,
and we can complete
the Game. Nothing else matters! Why look at me as if I were a vile thing?"
He turned away again.
"I also used to think that nothing mattered but the Game," he said quietly.
"I used to think that nothing counted but that you and I would live
together, forever, caught in the immortality of the Game."
Swanne stared at his
back, her face a mixture of confusion and frustration. What was the matter with him?
"Forgive
me," William said, his voice now drained of all emotion. "I am tired.
I know I am not what you want me to be right now… but… I am tired."
"Of
course." Again she approached him and put a hand on his back, rubbing it
gently up and down before she reached for one of his hands, turning him about
as she lifted it and put it on one of her breasts. "I understand. Of
course I do. Perhaps in the morning… ?" She smiled seductively. "All
we need do is lie side by side tonight if you are too tired to…" Again she
grinned, and rubbed his hand back and forth over her breast.
He pulled it away,
watching her face cloud in anger. "I am tired, Swanne. I am sick in the stomach from the slaughter
that has ensued this day. I want to be alone. I want solitude. I want to grieve
for Harold, even if you do not. I am sorry if you thought that I would leap
instantly into your arms, but…"
He stopped, too tired
and heartsore to even continue arguing the point. The thought of lying with
Swanne—the thought of that
blood-sour mouth running over his body, taking him into her flesh—made his very stomach lurch over
in nausea. He grimaced, and that told Swanne more than words ever could.
"What?" she said, her body stiff, her brows arched.
"You think to lust after your damned Cornelia again? She's a pale,
hopeless wretch who has retreated into a convent, William. I can't see her
offering her body for your use!"
"I am married to
a woman whom I respect and honor," William said, holding Swanne's furious
stare. "I have no thought to demean Matilda by taking another to my
bed."
"I cannot
believe you said that!" Swanne said. "What is a wife when compared to me? First Cornelia, and now this Matilda?"
"A wife is an
honorable thing, Swanne."
"That is not
what you believed when you had Cornelia mewling at your side!"
"Perhaps I should have thought of it then," he said quietly.
"I am
your—"
"Matilda will be
my queen, Swanne."
To that, Swanne could
make no immediate verbal response. She merely stared at him, her mouth closed
grim and tight. Finally, she said, "I am your queen, William. I am your mate, your partner.
How have you forgotten that?"
"We will dance
the final enchantment together, Swanne. We will make the Game together. We
will—"
"How can you
possibly want another woman before me?"
Although Swanne was
still angry, her voice sounded genuinely bewildered, and William gave up trying
to argue with her. He took her in his arms, and pulled her close, and hugged
her. "I am tired, Swanne. Forgive me. My mind and mouth are too muddled to
make sense."
"Ah, my
sweet…" She lifted a hand to his cheek. "You must pardon me as well.
I know you must be exhausted, and we have eternity before us to consummate our
love. Our power. Kiss me one more time, and I will leave you in peace for this
night, at least."
She grinned
lasciviously, and William's mouth gave a tired twitch in response. Swanne
looked up at him, her body relaxing against his, and William gave a
capitulative sigh and leaned down to kiss her. After all, what was a kiss?
He pulled away almost
instantly, again appalled at the foulness he'd tasted in her mouth.
But Swanne did not
seem to notice his revulsion. She gave him a smile. "Soon," she said,
and left the room, picking up her cloak as she left.
William stared after
her, the fetid taste of death still filling his mouth.
GUD6CV
't^ WANNE GAVE
WILLIAM A FULL DAY AND NIGHT
■Hh before she came to him again. He'd
kept himself busy with the X»_,_ aftermath of the battle, with orders and
worries, and the sheer and unexpected weight of Harold's death, which he had
yet to deal with effectively.
Harold's death had
been a far more bitter blow than William had imagined. He hadn't known Harold
well, but what he had known…
And he had fought to
save him. Damn it! He had fought so hardl The fact that it hadn't been a Norman arrow that had
felled Harold gave William no comfort. Instead he felt even more responsible;
that it was Swanne's hand (again… no matter who wielded the weapon, it was
always Swanne who struck with it) made William feel even more guilty than he
would have otherwise.
So when Swanne had
herself admitted into his presence on the third day after the battle, William
raised his head wearily from the maps he'd been studying and gazed at her with
such clear aversion that any other woman would have turned on her heel and
walked straight from his presence. "I am weary, Swanne," William
said. "What is it you want from me?" "How can you ask that, my love? You must be
fatigued if you cannot even remember what we have fought toward for so
long." She smiled at him. "Come now, give me a kiss, and then we can,
perhaps, share our noonday meal and discuss what we should do. Whatever your
weariness, William, we must consolidate what we have gained. Asterion can no
longer keep us apart, and we must work toward the Game with all the strength we
may."
"You are
right." William called to his valet and asked him to bring some small ale
and whatever food he could barter from the kitchens, then he waved Swanne
toward his own chair, which sat before a brazier, while he took a bench. As the
valet set a platter of food before them—fresh bread and the remains of the
pigeon pie that William had partaken of the previous night— William gestured to
Swanne to eat as he poured some small ale from a jug into beakers.
"You're looking
thin, Swanne. You should eat."
"I have been
mildly unwell, but nothing of any true concern." She smiled, and once more
William found himself thinking that it looked more like a grimace than a
genuine expression of warmth. "And I have been aching for you. To be with
you."
Her smiled stretched,
becoming almost predatory. "I remember how we were interrupted that day in
your stables, when Matilda made her ungracious entrance. I think, William, that
it is time we consummated our union." She pushed aside the stool on which
sat the platter of food and, rising from the chair, unlaced the bodice of her
gown so that her breasts swung full and naked before William. "William, do
not deny me. We have already begun the partnership of the Game. You cannot now
turn your back on me, or on the Game. Once started, it can't not be finished. We have obligations we both need to
fulfill, and the sexual union of both Mistress and Kingman is the mightiest of
them."
He sat very still on
his bench, only his eyes moving as first they ran over her breasts then moved
back to her face. "Swanne…"
She knelt before him,
and lifted his hands to her breasts. "This does not arouse you?" she
said.
Now William shifted,
uncomfortable. In truth, it did arouse him, the memory of her foul-tasting
mouth notwithstanding. It had been many weeks since he had slept with Matilda,
and now, to have these warm, soft breasts filling his hands…
"William,"
Swanne whispered, running her hands up his thighs, kneading and rubbing, until
they reached his groin. "William…"
He slid down from the
bench, thinking, Just this
once… just this once… then she will be
satisfied and she will leave me alone… just this once… it will surely do no
harm…
"William!"
Swanne said, more powerfully this time, and she also slid so that she lay on
the floor, and she pulled William down atop her. His mouth ran along her
shoulder, her neck, her jaw, not touching her mouth, and his hands kneaded at
her breasts.
Smiling in triumph,
Swanne hauled her skirts over her hips, then began to fumble with the
fastenings at William's crotch. "Thank God," she said, "that
your petty wife is not about to interrupt us this time!"
"And I say,
'Thank God she is!'" came a voice, and William rolled off Swanne so fast
that he knocked over the stool carrying the platter. Food scattered everywhere
as he fumbled with his clothing while trying to rise at the same time.
Matilda walked into
the room, very calm, very dignified, very in control of herself.
"Husband,"
she said, nodding to him in greeting as if she'd disturbed him at nothing more
than his morning shave. Matilda continued into the chamber until she was close
to Swanne and then, very tightly, also nodded at her.
Swanne had made no
attempt to cover herself. She had propped herself up on her elbows so that she
could see the better, but her breasts still hung bare from the front of her
under tunic, and her naked body was exposed, from her hips downward.
"And thus you
expected to be queen beside my husband?" Matilda
said, letting both incredulity and disgust fill her voice.
The barb struck home,
for Swanne flushed, while with one hand she jerked her skirts down and with the
other pulled her bodice over her breasts. She looked to William to aid her
rise, but he had stepped several paces away and now stood slightly to Matilda's
left.
Unwittingly—or not,
as the case may have been—William had placed himself so that he and Matilda
stood together, confronting Swanne.
Swanne managed to
rise to her feet with as much dignity as she was capable. Her flush had
deepened, clearly now through anger rather than through humiliation, and her
eyes flashed. She opened her mouth, but Matilda forestalled her before she
could speak.
"You are the
lady Swanne, I think. Yes? Ah, William, look at that red mouth, and those sharp
teeth." Matilda's voice hardened. "Lady Snake, more like. Swanne is
too gracious a name for you, my dear."
"Matilda,"
said William. "What are you doing here? Are you well?" He kissed her
quickly on her mouth, recovering far more quickly from his initial fluster than
Swanne liked.
"I had a bad
dream," Matilda said, her voice now rich with love. She laid a hand on his
cheek. "A terrible dream, and so I acted on it." Her eyes slid back
to Swanne, and her tone and features became glacial. "Just in time, I see."
Swanne's mouth opened
and then closed as she fought to find something to say. As William and Matilda
continued to watch her with impassive faces, Swanne finally managed to summon
enough dignity to give Matilda a sharp nod, and William an even sharper look,
before she stalked for the door.
As it closed behind
her, William's shoulders visibly relaxed. He took his wife's face in his gentle
hands. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you."
She smiled, her eyes
full of love and relief.
"WHY NOT?"
CRIED ASTERION, STALKING BACK AND
forth before Swanne
as they stood in an unnoted corner of William's camp. "Why not?"
"I had
him," she ground out, still so angry that her flesh almost vibrated.
OO
"He was mine…
and then that damned wife intervened! Gods help me, I will
have her torn apart limb by limb!"
"You failed
me," Asterion said, and there was enough coldness in his voice to make
Swanne look at him in panic.
"I will have
him, I will! He cannot resist me for long.
Besides, she is pregnant, and so soon will be too unwieldy to take any man atop
her."
"I need William
dead, Swanne."
"I know! I know!
I promise you, my love. He will be!"
"Before we get to London! I do not need William breathing
over my shoulder when I retrieve those bands!"
She leaned against
him, placing her hands against his chest. "I will let nothing come between
us, Asterion. Believe me. William will be mine before we arrive in
London."
He nodded. "Make
sure of it." Damn her!
William should be dead by now! For a moment Asterion contemplated the possibility
that Swanne might not be able to seduce William. If that were the case, could
he use… ?
No, they were imps of
different natures. Swanne carried the deadly imp within her. The destroyer.
She was the only one
who could murder William safely.
"Make sure of
it," Asterion said again to Swanne, and there was enough threat in his
voice to make her blanch.
Caela Speaks
SAT WITHIN ST.
MARGARET THE MARTYR'S FOR THE
six weeks it took William
to reach London, and felt every pace he
/ and his army took
as England disintegrated before its conqueror.
From Hastings,
William marched on Canterbury, then farther east on the
road to London,
fighting skirmishes here and there, but facing no real
opposition.
The might of
England's earls and nobles had died on the field at Hastings. Not merely
Harold, although for my heart he was the most of it, but his brothers, his
uncles, Alditha's brothers, everyone who might have had a faint hope of uniting
the remnants of England's pride against William—all had died on the bloodied
field at Hastings.
London, as most of
England, was terrified. What would William do? Would he burn and rape and
pillage? Would he set England afire? Would he destroy lives?
If I had been able, I
would have answered them "Nay." William would want nothing but those
bands. He might strike down any who stood in his way, but if his way to London
remained open, then England would remain safe.
If I did not fear for
England, then I remained taut with worry about William himself. I knew Swanne
had gone to Hastings—and where Swanne walked then so must Asterion walk close
by—and I knew that Swanne and Asterion meant to trap William.
But had she—had they—managed it?
I didn't know. I
didn't think so. I was sure I would feel it if she had, feel her triumph if
nothing else, but I would also feel it through the land. I could still feel
that dark stain on the land, and that made me realize that Swanne was still alive,
but the darkness had not spread, and that gave me hope— William had probably
not yet been infected with Swanne's foulness. What
O
gave me more hope was
the news of Matilda's unexpected arrival in England. If William had Matilda by
his side, would he then still succumb to Swanne? I did not think so, but there
had been some days between Hastings and Matilda's arrival, and what could have
happened in those days was almost too frightful to contemplate. Yet for all my
concern I could do nothing until I laid eyes on William, and spoke to him, and
felt his warmth close to me. Until then I would not know for certain.
The Sidlesaghes
worried also. I often saw them, slowly circling atop Pen Hill, and sometimes on
the more distant Llandin. Long Tom, or one of the others, would also come to
see me from time to time, and sit with me for a while, silent, holding my hand
in his.
I tried to hope that
William would have enough sense to recognize the dark change in Swanne… but
then, he'd not let her darkness scare him away when she had been Genvissa, had
he? Then he'd willingly allowed himself to
be enveloped by it.
So why not this time?
William was not to know that in this life her darkness had a more frightening
edge to it, a fatal entrapment, so why would he view her any differently? Why
shouldn't William already be seduced into Asterion's trap?
Because Harold had
trusted him. Because Harold had thought him a changed man—and changed for the
better.
I had to trust
Harold. I had to…
I had to believe in what he had felt from William.
I had to trust
William.
I had to believe that
he had grown.
ONE GRAY, COLD
MORNING IN EARLY NOVEMBER,
Mother Ecub came to
me and said that four members of Harold's witan waited within the convent's
chapel to speak with me.
"They say,"
said Ecub, "that since Alditha has fled to the north—" Alditha was
heavy now with her unborn twin sons, and I cannot blame her for trying to put
as much space between her husband's nemesis and her husband's unborn children
"—that you are the voice of the nation. You are Edward's beloved
widow," her own mouth quirked at that, mirroring the action of my own,
"and they wish to hear your advice."
I rose, smoothing
down the folds of my robe and reaching for the cloak Ecub held out for me.
"How satisfying," I said. "Gods' Concubine has finally achieved
some purpose."
Ecub grinned.
"If only they knew the true extent of that purpose."
"Who is among
them?" I said.
©
"Regenbald,"
Ecub said, and I nodded. The Chancellor had been at the forefront of both
Edward's and Harold's witans. Of course he would be here.
"And Robert
Fitzwimarch," Ecub continued, ushering me toward the door, "Ralph
Aelfstan, and the archbishop of York."
I froze.
"Aldred,"
Ecub finished, watching me carefully, knowing the fear that name would cause
me.
"Aldred?" I
whispered.
"He was a member
of the witan as well, Eaving. He is doubtlessly here in that capacity, not as… as…"
"Asterion,"
I whispered. I closed my eyes, and collected myself. I should not fear. Aldred
would not recognize me for what I truly was. I had not shown myself to him as
Eaving as yet—nor to any, save Harold, Ecub, and the Sidlesaghes—and whatever
tiny "difference," if any, he picked up, he would undoubtedly put
down to Caela's much-lauded acceptance of God and religion since her time in
St. Margaret the Martyr's.
I was more powerful
now. I could hide myself and my true nature from him. I could. Besides, he
thought he'd murdered Mag in Damson. He would not be looking for her
replacement within me.
I merely had to be
Caela.
Ecub squeezed my hand
in comfort. "I will be waiting outside the chapel," she said.
"With an axe."
I burst out laughing.
"And I had thought to escape attention!"
And thus, smiling, we proceeded to the chapel.
"MY LORDS?"
I SAID SOFTLY, ENTERING THE CHAPEL
with my shoulders
bowed in Caela's habitual thralldom.
"My lady
Queen!" said Regenbald, stepping forward to greet me with great
courtliness and respect.
Oh, that I had
received this respect when I'd truly needed it as Edward's down-trodden wife!
"Disaster brings
you to me," I said, nodding to Fitzwimarch, Aelfstan, and Aldred, upon
whom I was careful not to allow my eyes to linger.
"Aye," said
Aelfstan bitterly. He was an aged man who had once been a renowned warrior, and
I could not imagine but that the events of the past weeks had caused him great
pain. No doubt Aelfstan wished he had died honorably in battle, rather than
being left among those few who would oversee England's complete humiliation.
"William marches
on London," Aldred said, stepping out of the shadow where he'd been
standing. "He is but a half day's march away. Good lady…"
O
Aldred was wringing
his fat hands over and over themselves, and I could not help but admire the
depth of the creature's disguise. Who could have thought this the dreaded Minotaur? "Good lady, we fear
greatly!"
"And… ?" I
said, looking between the four men, but wondering within me if Aldred's
presence here (Asterion's
presence)
indicated that he and Swanne had not been as successful with William as they'd
hoped. Or was this but another part of his greater plan?
"Lady
Queen," Regenbald said, "we face a stark choice. Lock London against
William, and watch it starve into submission over a half year, or capitulate it
to him without a fight, and watch him burn it to the ground."
"Oh, I doubt
that William would—" I began, but Fitzwimarch broke in.
"Lady Queen, we
would beg you that you surrender London to William, and in the doing, plead for
its life, and the life of its citizens. He would the easier listen to your
pleas, we think, than those of men he has good cause to loathe and
distrust."
I thought furiously.
This is undoubtedly what three of these emissaries thought, but what of Aldred?
Would he truly believe that William would listen to anything that
Cornelia-reborn pleaded? Did he hope that William would just push me to one
side and burn the city to the ground anyway?
Was he just here,
adding his silent support to this plan, merely because he needed to keep up his
disguise as wobbling fool for a while longer?
The hope that William
had thus far resisted Swanne grew stronger, and, I must admit to myself, the
thought of finally facing William was something I could not resist.
Finally. To see him
again, to be in his presence, if only briefly.
"I will do
it," I said, and did my best not to allow my anticipation to flood across
my face.
"What a good
girl you are," said Aldred, and the anticipation froze within me.
pociRcee>]
ILLIAM PACED BACK
AND FORTH, BACK AND
forth, knowing that
Matilda was standing and watching him and wondering why he was so nervous.
But he couldn't stop
himself from pacing. Back and forth, back and forth.
One of his men came
into the chamber with some trivial question and William snarled at him.
The man fled. Matilda
raised her eyebrows.
William made a
gesture composed of equal parts frustration and impatience, and forced himself
to sink into a chair. He gripped the armrests, for otherwise William thought he
might have sprung up almost as soon as he had sat down.
It had been six weeks
since Matilda had arrived, and in those six weeks little seemed to have been
accomplished. William had consolidated his hold on the southeastern county of
Kent, secured the port of Dover, and had moved on London, but had not managed
much else. London was William's prize, he wanted it desperately, but almost as
desperately he did not want to destroy it in the taking. London was a fortified
city, it could be defended, and it had by all accounts a good militia. The very
last thing William wanted was to become enmeshed in a siege that kept him from
his kingship bands for months, if not years.
So William had hedged
and threatened and negotiated, moving his army eastward, swinging south below
London, then marching west and crossing the Thames at Wallingford. From there
William moved his army to the small town of Berkhamsted. Here he had moved
himself, Matilda, and his immediate command into a large and comfortable abbey
house while his army made do with sleeping more roughly in the frosty meadow
fields or, if they were lucky, the outbuildings and barns of local farmers.
And so at Berkhamsted
William waited, until, two days ago, had come news that a delegation was moving
west from London to meet him.
And, perhaps, to
surrender.
Heading the
delegation was the dowager queen, Caela.
O
They were due this
afternoon; they had, in fact, arrived, and William and Matilda only waited for
the delegation to be escorted into their presence.
William, Matilda
thought, was far more nervous than he should be, and she wondered why.
Personally, Matilda
was more than looking forward to meeting Caela. She'd heard so many intriguing
things about the woman over the past years (although intimate, personal
information about the queen had largely ceased to come her way after Damson's
terrible loss) that now Matilda could barely restrain herself from hopping from
foot to foot.
Was Caela the reason William was so
nervous'?
Matilda suddenly wondered. And
if so, why?
At least Caela could
not possibly be the threat that Matilda knew Swanne posed. Since her arrival,
Swanne had kept her distance; from Matilda, at least, although Matilda had seen
Swanne talking to William on two or three occasions when she managed to catch
him at some distance from his wife.
There was a knock at
the door, and William of Warenne, one of William's senior commanders, entered.
"They are here,
waiting outside," he said.
Matilda saw William
draw in a deep breath and slowly rise from the chair.
She also saw him
briefly clench and then relax his hands.
"How many, and
who?" William said.
"The dowager
queen," said Warenne. "Harold's Chancellor, Regenbald. Aldred, the
archbishop of York. Robert Fitzwimarch. And a small retinue, unarmed."
William was silent, a
little too long, for Warenne glanced at Matilda in concern.
"Pray send in
only the queen," William said eventually. "Entertain the rest with
good wine and food and warmth, and tell them that I shall receive them
later."
Warenne nodded,
bowed, and left.
Matilda watched as
William drew in yet another deep breath, and again clenched and relaxed his
hands.
Sweet Christ Lord, she thought, what has he to be so nervous about?
And then the door
opened, and Edward's queen and Harold's sister entered, and Matilda took her
first step on a journey of mystery that she could never have imagined.
THE FIRST THING THAT
MATILDA NOTICED AS CAELA
hesitated just inside
the door was that the woman, if not stunningly beautiful according to court
tastes, was nonetheless one of the most arresting figures
O
Matilda had ever laid
eyes on. It was not her features so much, although Caela's face and form, and
most particularly her stunning deep blue eyes, were most pleasing, but that
Caela had a presence about her that was extraordinary. She was lovely in the
manner of a still summer's day, and she carried about her a sense of peace and
strength that Matilda would have given her right arm to acquire. She wore very
simply-cut clothing, and had left her dark hair unveiled and unworked, save for
a loosely bound plait that twisted over her left shoulder, but, even so, with
her presence Caela could be recognizable as nothing else but a queen.
The second thing
Matilda realized was that Caela was as nervous and as tense as William.
The third thing that
Matilda noticed was that William and Caela could not take their eyes off each
other.
Matilda was put out
by this, only in the sense that it was so unexpected. She did not feel any
presentiment of jealousy or of disquiet. She was consumed only by a sense of
great curiosity and by a desire to understand what lay behind this
extraordinary tension between her husband and Caela.
"My lady
queen," Matilda said softly, but with enough strength to make Caela's eyes
flicker, then move away from William to his duchess. "I do welcome you to
Berkhamsted, although"—Matilda smiled, quite genuinely, and reached out
both her hands as she walked over to Caela—"I confess I feel most awkward
in welcoming this land's queen into the presence of its invader."
Caela returned
Matilda's smile. "I am but its forgotten queen," she said. "The
wife of two kings past. Alditha should truly be here."
"No,"
William said, and Matilda was more than a little relieved to hear that his
voice was strong. "You are this land's queen, whatever
brief claim Alditha might have had to the title. Thus you are here now, not
Alditha."
He had also walked
over, and Caela took her hands from Matilda's and held them out for William.
As William took them,
Matilda had the sense that both William and Caela had quite forgotten she was
there.
And again, Matilda's
only reaction was one of deep curiosity.
What went on here?
"I am sorry
about Harold," William said.
Matilda noticed he
had not let go of Caela's hands.
Caela nodded, and
tears sprang to her eyes.
"It was none of
my doing," William said.
"It was Swanne's
doing," said Caela and Matilda as one, and both women looked at each
other, smiled, laughed softly, and, in that single moment, became friends and
allies.
"Harold told me
so much of you," the two women said together, and their
O
laughter deepened,
and whatever awkwardness had been in the chamber dissipated, and Caela let
William's hands go to lean forward and embrace Matilda.
"Thank
you," Caela murmured for Matilda's ears only, "for coming so quickly
to William's side. He is whole, thank all the gods."
"I would not
allow the snake to take him," Matilda muttered, and Caela leaned back, her
face sober now, and nodded at Matilda.
"We should speak
later," she said. "You and I.
"But now," she turned back to William,
"my lord of Normandy, I have come before you for two reasons."
He inclined his head,
his black eyes very steady on her face.
"The
first," Caela said, "is to beg for the lives of Harold's children,
and that of his wife, Alditha. She is currently with child, and greatly fearful
that you intend her harm."
"I did not wish
him dead, Caela. I would have done anything to prevent that."
"I know,"
she said softly.
"I vowed to
Harold that Alditha and his children would remain safe, Caela. And so they
shall. As shall you. He asked for your life as well. Did you know that?"
"I do not fear
you, William."
Matilda felt that she
should say something, if only to reassert her presence in the chamber.
"William has already hammered his orders into the heads of every one of
the Normans with us," she said. "They are not to be harmed, and given
every assistance possible."
"Then thank you
both," said Caela. "The safety of Harold's family means a great deal
to me. The second reason I stand before you is to hand you London." She
paused. "It is, after all, yours."
Matilda frowned at
that. What did Caela mean?
William's mouth
twitched in a tiny smile. "Then I will gladly accept London's surrender,
madam."
"Other members of the witan wait outside. Shall
you—"
"No, leave them
for now. Perhaps…"
"Perhaps William
and I can remember the more courtly among our manners," Matilda put in
smoothly, "and offer you a chance to sit and perhaps have a cup of fine
wine. Will you accept?"
Caela smiled.
"Gladly, my lady."
THEY SAT FOR SOME
TIME, SIPPING WINE, CHATTING
agreeably; every
look, every spoken word reinforcing Matilda's growing belief
that her husband and
this queen were only reacquainting themselves rather than establishing an
acquaintance.
William and Caela
also focused too much of their discussion on Matilda. What Matilda had expected
(before Caela had actually entered their chamber) was that there would be tense
verbal parrying as the queen tried to ensure the safety of her people and
country, and William tried to ensure every concession possible. Instead,
Matilda found herself in the slightly surreal situation of fielding constant
questions from both Caela and William as they both tried very desperately not
to engage the other one in anything other than banalities about the weather or
the state of the rushes on the floor. Caela asked a score of questions about
Matilda's children, and about her current pregnancy. William asked Matilda to
relate amusing incidents from their life together, and from that time in their
youth when they'd had to fight so hard to marry against what felt like all of
Europe combined against them.
It was only during
this last topic that there came a very deep and personal interaction between
William and Caela.
As Matilda finished
relating the three years of struggling with princely and papal objections,
Caela actually looked at William directly.
"How strange for
you," she said, "that you had to spend so much energy and time
fighting for the right to occupy your wife's bed. From what I know of you, I
should have thought you would only have taken her as you willed, and damned all
consequences. I had no idea objections had come to mean so much to you."
There was a stillness between them as Matilda tried to
frantically work out the hidden meaning in what Caela had just said.
"My
sensibilities have changed," William finally said.
"How fortunate
for Matilda," said Caela, and now there was a decided edge to her voice.
"There have been
deeds in my past that I have come to regret," William said. "I wish I
had not forced…"
He stopped suddenly,
his eyes sliding his wife's way.
You! Matilda thought, her face very calm. You! That's what you were about to say.
"I have learned
from my mistakes," he said, and now his voice was as hard as Caela's.
Caela inclined her
head toward Matilda. "Patently, my lord of Normandy."
"Matilda,"
William said very slowly, his eyes first on his goblet of wine and then lifting
to Caela, "has taught me how greatly I should have treasured…"
You! Matilda felt like standing and screaming that single
word that William was so loathe to utter. Yet for all the implications of this
conversation, Matilda still did not feel a single pang of jealousy or of
possessiveness. All she wanted
was to somehow
discover what these two were talking about, and how it was— Matilda took a deep
breath as she finally allowed the thought to form in her mind—how it was that
William and Caela had come to love each other so deeply.
Then, as Matilda
struggled within herself, Caela turned her lovely eyes to the duchess and said,
simply, "I am sorry…"
A pause, as Matilda
wondered what that apology referred to.
"I am
tired," Caela continued, "and I admit that my reception had worried
me so excessively on the journey to Berkhamsted that now I feel over-weary. I
speak nonsense, my lady. Forgive me."
You weren't speaking nonsense to
William, Matilda
thought, for you have not
begged forgiveness of him.
"We can find a
quiet space for you within this abbey house," Matilda said, "where
you might rest. Tonight, perhaps, you and your delegation may sup with the duke
and myself."
Caela inclined her
head, but Matilda had not yet done.
She turned to
William. "My lord," she said formally, and she saw the wariness
surface in his eyes; "my lord" was only a title Matilda bothered to
use when she wanted something of him. "My lord, may I request a boon from
you?"
William, still wary,
raised an eyebrow.
"I wonder if I
might request the presence of Queen Caela within my ladies. Not," she
added hurriedly, shooting Caela her own look of apology, "as a member of
my retinue, but as my honored companion and, indeed, my better. It would ensure
your safety," she said to Caela, "if you remained within the duke's
company, and would provide me with a companion for whom I would be most
grateful. I would like to know you better, Caela. I… you intrigue me."
There, best to be
honest. Caela looked at William.
"You would not
object?" he said.
She shook her head,
and smiled back at Matilda. "I, too, would like to deepen my acquaintance
with you, Matilda. I will stay awhile, gladly."
"Good,"
said Matilda.
THAT NIGHT, WHEN
MATILDA AND WILLIAM ENTERED
their bed, Matilda
turned to her husband, and offered him her mouth.
He made love to her,
sweetly and gently, and for that sacrifice, Matilda loved him more than ever.
CbAPGGR F1FC66JM
Caela Speaks
OH, BY ALL THE GODS
OF HEAVEN AND HELL, I could not believe he was so handsome. Brutus had been
good-looking enough, but his features had been too blunt for true handsomeness.
But William, William… I lay in my bed that night, grateful for its privacy, and
thought of him in bed with his wife, and I envied her so desperately that it
became a physical pain within my breast.
I had not expected
this: not his handsomeness, his vitality, nor my instinctive gut-longing for
him. I do not know if this was simple sexual desire (I cannot imagine any woman
coming into the presence of William the duke of Normandy and not feel her belly
turn to water as he looked at her), some greater depth of love, or that much
greater need I had of him for the future of both this land and the Game.
I was so grateful for
Matilda. I had mooned over William like some virgin girl, and she did not
berate me for it. He and I spoke in what were riddles to her, and she did not
ask for an explanation. Beyond that, I was most beholden to Matilda, for it was
stunningly obvious to me that William's transformation away from that
hard-hearted, ambitious brute he had once been into something more reasonable
was all her doing. But what I blessed Matilda for most of all was her gut
instinct about Swanne's danger, and her actions according to that instinct. I'd
heard that she'd come most unexpectedly to Hastings a day or so after the
battle, and I had no doubt that it was her arrival that had kept William whole.
Safe.
I had felt that from
him the moment I took his hands in mine. He was still safe from Swanne! I swear I almost threw myself at
his feet and wept in relief
at that moment of
realization. Instead, I did the better thing and embraced Matilda, for she was
the one responsible for his current wholeness.
Matilda had managed
to find for me a small, but, most gratefully, private space within the abbey
house. I had no women with me, not even Judith, and so I was almost like a
child in my sense of freedom as I did for myself that night (Matilda had
offered me one of her women, but I had declined). So I lay there, sleepless as
my thoughts tumbled about, thinking almost entirely of William (my thoughts
oscillating between relief at his wholeness to a slight feminine numbness at
his attractiveness), and occasionally of Matilda.
Eventually, my
thoughts were rudely drawn to Swanne.
She came to visit me
in the small hours of the night.
I had not been
asleep, but the soft footfalls approaching my tiny chamber nevertheless
disturbed me. At first I had thought they might be William, and I was
terrified, for I did not know what to say to him, but then I realized that
whoever it might be was far too light for his tall frame.
In the end, I wished
it had been William, for Swanne was far more terrifying than anything he could
have been.
I had not seen Swanne
since that terrible night when I had gone to her as Damson. There had been no
reason for us to meet, and I, most certainly, had not tried to instigate a
meeting. I had wanted to leave her well enough alone.
So, as I raised
myself to my elbow and studied the dark figure that slipped in my door, I had a
sudden, terrifying moment of sheer panic as I realized who my visitor was.
Could she harm me?
Could she see whom and what I had become?
And then I felt a
moment of self-loathing for my cowardice. I would need to deal with Swanne
eventually and, moreover, I needed Swanne. Nothing in my future
could be achieved without her aid.
Somehow.
But still, knowing
her alliance with Asterion, I simply could not help a tremor of fright as she
came to my bed, saw me looking up at her, and then sat down on the edge of the
mattress.
"Well, well,
Caela. Come to your man, have you?"
"He is not
'mine,'" I said, grateful my voice remained steady. "Nor shall he
ever be."
"Good
girl," Swanne said patronizingly, and reached out and patted my cheek.
"What do you here then?"
"I come to
surrender London into William's hands."
"And then run
back to your convent, I hope."
I said nothing. It
was difficult to see any details of Swanne's features or
her expression in the
dark, but, silhouetted against the faint light coming through the doorway, I
could make out an ever-changing landscape of lines and angles about the outline
of her face. "Snake," Matilda had called her, and I thought that an
apt name for her.
"I am amazed
that you lie here so quietly," Swanne said after a moment's silence,
"when William undoubtedly heaves and grunts over Matilda in their
chamber."
"I am unsurprised
to find you here so unquietly," I responded, "when William
undoubtedly makes love to Matilda in their chamber."
I saw her stiffen.
"She is
nothing," Swanne said.
"I do not think
so," I said.
"She is not the
Mistress of the Labyrinth!" Swanne hissed.
"She is far more
to him."
"You simpleton!
You have no idea—"
"To everything a
purpose," I said, edging myself up in the bed so that I sat upright.
"Is that not what the Bible says?"
"The Bible is
nothing but worthless—"
"Matilda is your
penance," I said, very softly, "for what you did to me in our former
life."
I think I struck her
dumb. I know she sat there, rigid with emotion, staring at me for a long time.
Finally, she broke the silence.
"And where have
you found your backbone, my lady?" she asked.
"From life, and
experience, and tragedy. Through loss of innocence, Swanne. For that loss, I
think, I have you to thank."
Again, a silence. I
considered her, and I remembered how powerful she had been as Genvissa, both as
MagaLlan and as Mistress of the Labyrinth. I remembered also her years as
Harold's wife, when she had been so influential within the court. Yet, as
Swanne, Asterion's creature, she had lost all power, whatever she may have
thought. Oh, she was still dangerous, and could command magic, but she had lost
completely that aura of extraordinariness that had once so set her apart from
everyone else.
I realized that
Swanne now, even as menacing as she remained, had become little more than a shadow
flitting like a forgotten ghost through the unlit hallways of whatever court
she thought to seek power within. Few people paid any attention to her, most
people had likely forgotten her existence, or ceased to care about it.
For the first time since
I had even known her, either as Swanne or as Genvissa, I felt sorry for her.
At that thought, my
mouth opened and words tumbled forth from some dark, intuitive place.
"Swanne, if ever
you need shelter, I will give it to you."
"What?"
"If ever you
need harbor, I am it." This
is what I should have said and done when I went to her as Damson! Suddenly I knew what I was
doing. It had become clear to me, as I had trusted it would. In offering Swanne
shelter, in offering to be her friend, I was opening the way to the day when
Swanne would hand to me the powers of the Mistress of the Labyrinth. Willingly.
As Damson, I had tried to bargain with Swanne, tried to exact the powers of the
Mistress of the Labyrinth from her as payment for services rendered. That had
been a foul thing to do. Instead, I should have offered her friendship.
Freely. No
conditions.
Swanne started to
draw back, but I reached out a hand and grabbed her wrist. "Swanne, if ever you need harbor, then I am it!"
"Let me go!"
She wrenched her wrist from my grip and rose, almost stumbling in her haste.
"Your wits are gone, Caela!"
"If ever you
need a friend, Swanne, then I am it." Suddenly, as I said that, I no
longer hated her, nor even feared her very much. Poor Swanne…
She took a step
backward, again almost stumbling as her heel caught in her skirts.
"If ever you
need a friend, Swanne…" then
I am it.
Then she was gone,
and I found that, as I lay back down to my pillow, sleep came easily to me, and
I slept dreamlessly until the following morning, when the sound of Normans
clattering down to their breakfast awakened me.
MATILDA AND I SAT, CHATTING, PASSING THE DAY IN
idleness while about
us men and horses bustled about the courtyard outside as William prepared to
march on London.
London had been
given; he wasted no time taking.
It seemed to me that
I had wasted a lifetime in idle chatter over needlework. I had certainly wasted
most of my marriage to Edward bent submissively over wools and silks. And here
I was yet again, a former queen with the queen yet to be crowned, talking of
children and babies and childbirth and, of course, wools and silks.
Thus it was that when
Matilda sighed, placed her needlework to one side, and said, "I am curious
as to how it can be that William loves you so deeply," I was somewhat
dumbfounded.
Then, as I stared at
her with, I am afraid, my mouth hanging slightly open,
wondering how on
earth to respond, she smiled with what seemed like genuine amusement. "I have misphrased that
question," Matilda said, "for I did not mean to suggest that it could
not be possible for William, or any other man, to love you, for you are a
greatly desirable woman, but that how it is that William can have come to love
you. Has he fallen in love only with rumor? Or did he somehow hold you as an
infant, he but a small boy, and conceive then his great passion for you?"
There was absolutely
nothing in her voice but intense curiosity, and I think that surprised me as
much as… as the idea that William loved me.
He hated me. He'd
always hated me.
"I… he can't
love me," I said.
In response, Matilda
simply nodded to my lap. "You're bleeding," she said.
I looked down. At
some point in the last few moments I'd stuck my needle almost completely
through my left index finger. I pulled it out hastily, wincing, and sucked at
the pinprick of a wound, feeling like a child.
"On our marriage
night," Matilda said, "William paid me the courtesy of being honest.
He said that I would never be the great love of his life. Ah, do not fret,
Caela. I accepted that then, and I accept it now. But for these past sixteen or
so years I have thought my great rival to be Swanne. Now I realize that it is
you that William loves beyond all others—and you him. Caela, I ask again, and
in simple curiosity and not in judgement, how can this be so?"
My left hand was back
in my lap, and now I looked down at it, and wondered what to say.
"And all my
marriage," Matilda continued in a soft voice, "I have known that
William was somehow very, very much more than 'just' the duke of Normandy. That
there is another level, another purpose to his life that he has kept entirely
from me. Is it you, or are you just a part of it?"
"A mere part of
it," I said.
She was silent,
waiting.
"Matilda, to
tell you would be to involve you in such dark witchery that—"
"Swanne is dark
witchery," Matilda said. "You are not. Swanne had the power to ruin
my life. You have the power to enrich it. I am not afraid nor threatened by
you, Caela. Please—"
"Matilda."
We both jumped
slightly, and looked to the door.
William stood there,
leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, his eyes unreadable.
I had no idea how
long he had been standing there.
"Matilda, my
love," he said, unfolding his arms and walking into the room. "I
would speak privately with Caela for a time. Do you mind?"
"Of course
not," Matilda said. She rose, kissed first me and then William on the
cheek, almost as if she were blessing us, and left.
Finally, my heart
pounding, I raised my eyes and looked into William's face.
?OU ARE WELL
SERVED IN YOUR WIFE," CAELA SAID after a long, uncomfortable pause. "She is a
better wife to me than you were," William said, taking Matilda's chair.
"She has made
you into a better husband than I managed," Caela said.
The skin about
William's eyes crinkled in humor. "So Cornelia is still buried in there
somewhere."
"We are all who
once we were, only…"
"Changed,"
he said. "You are far lovelier than you were as Cornelia, and that
loveliness is not just reflected in your features. You are calmer, more at
peace with yourself. Stronger. Wiser." And more still, he thought, but could not put words to that
difference.
"And you?"
"As you said, I
am a better husband."
Silence, as both
looked away from each other.
"Why did you lie
with my father?" William said eventually.
"You saw?"
"Yes. My father, Caela?"
"What care is it
of yours?" she said.
"Why?" His
voice was very soft now.
She lowered her gaze,
her wounded hand making a helpless gesture. "He reminded me of you. He had
your look, save gentler, and kinder. More weary, I was lonely and in need,
William. I was in no mood to reject what he offered. He was a mistake. I lay
with him only that once."
"Did he please
you?" His black eyes were steady on her face.
"No." She
paused. "Not as once you did. He was your father, but he was not
you."
"You should not
have lain with him, Caela."
"What concern is it of yours? What?"
Now it was William
who spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "None. I know that. I just… I
just wish you had not. Not with my father…"
"I'd wished it
was you," she said, "but I could not have you. I thought Silvius
could fill the void. I was wrong."
"I heard what
Matilda said to you, Caela. But I do not love you. There is too much shared
hatred for us to—"
"I know. You do
not have to explain."
"Dammit,"
he muttered, looking away.
"William—"
"I did not come here to talk to you of
love," William said. "There are more urgent matters, as I am sure you
realize."
"Yes."
"Caela, do you
remember those bands I wore about my limbs?"
Her shoulders
tensed»at this change in subject, and he did not miss it. "Yes."
"Someone has
been moving them."
"Yes."
There was a long,
heavy pause. "Do you know who?"
"Yes."
Another pause, and Caela kept her eyes directly on him. "I have."
William's mouth
dropped open, and he stared at her for so long and so incredulously that Caela
eventually had to look away.
"You shifted the bands?"
"Yes."
"How? How? Only I or the Mistress of the Labyrinth could have
touched those bands! And possibly Silvius, as he was once their
Kingman also." William's voice was rising, and Caela flinched as he slid
forward on the chair then stood up. "How could you have moved them, Caela?"
She studied her hands
clenched in her lap a long moment, then looked up. "The Troy Game has
changed, William."
"What do you know of the Game?"
Caela visibly steeled
herself. "The Game was left alone a long time, William. Uncompleted. It
changed." She gave a small, helpless shrug. "It became attuned to the
land, and the land to it. William, the Troy Game is no longer the passive thing
I think that maybe you believe it to be. Something that waits for your touch.
Yes, it wants completion. Yes, it wants the strength that will come with that.
But it also wants that completion and strength on its terms." She paused. "And this land wants the Game completed on its terms as well. The
land and the Game are agreed on how this should be done."
William stared at her
for a long moment in silence. How
was it that she spoke on behalf of the Game and the land? He spoke one single,
expressionless word: "Yes?"
"The Game wants
the male and female elements of this land to complete it, William. It means it
will become one with the land. Completely melded with it."
"Explain that to
me," William said, his voice now dangerously quiet.
"In simple
terms—"
"How good of
you."
Caela winced.
"The Game wants the female and male elements of this land, the ancient
gods Mag and Og, to complete the Game as the Mistress of the Labyrinth and the
Kingman. It does not want you or Swanne to—"
"What have you done?"
"I have done nothing! William, the Game has—"
"Are you still
Asterion's pawn?"
"No! William, I
beg you, listen to—"
"This Game is mine, and Swanne's!"
She took a moment to
respond, steadying her nerves and her voice. "The Game is its own, in
partnership with the Mistress of the Labyrinth and the Kingman."
"Who you say are
to be Mag and Og."
She nodded.
William abruptly
stood and walked over to a window. He stood for long minutes, staring outside.
"I have not come all this way to be told that," he said finally,
turning about. "I have no reason to believe you."
Caela stood, and
approached William. He tensed slightly as she neared, but made no move to stop
her when she lifted his hand and placed it flat against her breastbone.
"See who I am," she whispered, holding his eyes with her own.
He found himself standing within the
circle of stones he had once known as Mag's Dance.
Save that the stones were no longer
solid, nor even stationary, but instead appeared to have become creatures of
wraith and movement and song.
He spun about, both scared and
disorientated, and saw that a woman approached him through the spinning circle
of dancers.
It was Caela, clothed only in mist
and her loose, blowing hair and with such power in her eyes as William could
never have imagined her—or any woman— possessing.
"See," she said, and looked
to one side of the circle.
A white stag lay there, its head
crowned by bloodred antlers.
"He is my lover," she
whispered.
William snatched his
hand back from Caela. "By all the gods," he whispered.
"You are
Mag?"
She hesitated, then
nodded. "I am what she once was, yes."
"Ah," he
said. "Now I understand you. And to think that once all I thought
O
you wanted was my
attention and my babies. No. You wanted power. You wanted revenge, against both
me and Swanne. And this is it. You have now taken Swanne's place in the Game,
or at least fooled the Game into thinking you were what it wanted, which is why
it allowed you to touch the bands, and—"
"I am to this
land what Mag once was. And yes, I am what the Troy Game now wants—one half of
it, at least. I did not 'fool' it, William. I only accepted the decision of
both the Troy Game and the land."
"I cannot
believe that you would do this to me! And yet… how could I not expect it? You
always were ready with the dagger to plunge into my back. You were always ready
to—"
"Stop! No,
William! No! None of this is my plan, but that of the Game
itself, and of the land!"
"And who do
you—oh, I offer my apologies—the Game and the land think to replace me with, then? Loth-reborn, whoever he is?"
"His name is now
Saeweald, William. He is a physician tending the wounded as he tends this
land."
"Saeweald? Well,
Saeweald then. Oh, how it would please him to have me crawl to him and offer
him my powers! Or Harold? Is Harold the one who you mean to take as your mate
and partner? Yes, I can see that. Harold. I imagine you have a plan to raise
him from the dead."
"Don't do this,
William," Caela whispered. "Don't become that man of hate
again."
"Did you think
that you could walk in here and seduce me with face and body and tender voice
into betraying everything I have fought for… through two lives?"
He topped, swore, and
stalked away.
"William—"
"You are not the
Mistress of the Labyrinth," William said, turning back to face her.
"I don't care what else you are, but you are not the Mistress of the Labyrinth. You do not have the
power, and you do not know the steps to complete the Game. It cannot teach you. Silvius cannot teach you."
"One day,
eventually, Swanne will hand to me her powers as Mistress of the
Labyrinth."
"What? You have
lost your mind! She will never willingly hand over her powers! / will never willingly hand over… oh, I cannot believe I am having this conversation with you!"
"Will Swanne
willingly hand her responsibilities as Mistress of the Labyrinth to me one day?
Yes, she will." Caela's voice was very certain.
"You are a fool,
and out of your mind."
"Swanne has
betrayed you to Asterion."
She could not have
said anything else to more stun William into silence.
He gaped at her, his
face paling from its fury-induced red, Caela's words bouncing over and over
within his head. Swanne has
betrayed you to Asterion. No. Those words could not mean what they seemed to. Swanne could
never have betrayed him to…
The taste of blood
and decay suddenly overwhelmed William again, and he grunted, as if someone had
punched him in the belly, and he sat suddenly on a chair.
Caela walked very
slowly, very carefully, over to the chair, kneeling before it and taking one of
William's hands in hers. "This was none of my doing, William."
William was not
looking at her, slowly shaking his head to and fro.
"I do not know
what powers or persuasions Asterion used to so capture Swanne's heart and
loyalty, but that he has is undoubted. William, Asterion does not want to
destroy the Game. He wants to control it. He wants to become its Kingman, using Swanne as his
Mistress. She has agreed to this, thinking that in Asterion she has a more
powerful Kingman than in you. If you ask why I have moved the bands, then that
is why. To protect the Game, and through it, the land, from Asterion and Swanne
combined."
William was still
shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, but Caela's calm, soft words
were beginning to make terrible sense. Asterion wanted
to control the Game, become its Kingman, dance his ambitions out with Swanne.
Yes, that made sense. Why hadn't he ever considered this before?
"Who is
Asterion?" he asked finally, softly.
"Aldred."
William winced. Aldred had been playing both him and Swanne all this
time…
"Asterion and
Swanne want to trap you, to use you to find the bands. Then, once they have
them…"
"Stop!"
"William, listen to me! Swanne is Asterion's creature now! Everything
she says and does is said and done on his
behalf! Do not trust her. Do not—"
"And everything
you say and do is done on your behalf, yours and Silvius', no
doubt!"
"Everything I
say and do is for you, William."
"That is not
what you have just been saying. In one breath you tell me that you want me to
relinquish all control I have of the Game into Saeweald's or Harold's
hands."
"I never said
that. What I said was—"
"Get out, Caela!
Get out!"
"William, don't
push me away!" The words tumbled out of Caela's mouth, so desperate was
she to have him hear them. "Beware of Swanne and Aldred, and trust me. Trust me!"
"Don't you dare
say that to me!" He grabbed at her hands and pushed her away roughly so
that she sprawled on the floor.
"William!"
Caela cried. "Don't push me away when I can—"
"Get out!"
She rose to her feet.
"William, when you need me—"
"Get out!"
"When you need
me, whether in this life, or in any to follow, seek me out."
And then she was
gone.
sevejsiGeejsi
HE ONLY SPACE
SWANNE COULD FIND FOR HER-
self in the abbey
house was a small, dusty attic space within the
^fc^*1'
roof of the building. It was filthy, there were rats and lice in the thatch,
and she was forced to sleep on a pallet that was padded only with her cloak.
It was an existence
far different from the one she'd enjoyed as Genvissa, or even as Harold's wife.
But Swanne did not
allow herself to think of such things. These discomforts became as nothing when
she thought of what would be hers, once she'd trapped and killed William,
Asterion had the bands, and both of them controlled the Game.
But for now she could
neither dream of future powers and glories, nor even sneer at the terrible
state of the thatch, for Asterion was with her, and he was angrier than she'd
ever seen him before.
"I cannot
understand," he said in a low hiss, "why it is that you have not yet
taken William! How many weeks? How many opportunities?"
"I have
tried!" she said, her words stumbling in her haste to placate Asterion.
"But… oh! He has some nauseous commitment to his wife. He is afraid of her. The simpering fool. He says he cannot abide
to annoy Matilda. And she, the bitch, she won't allow me near
him."
Asterion's hands were
on Swanne's shoulders now, soft and caressing, yet somehow managing to convey
an infinite threat in that caress. "Are you sure it is not you he cannot
abide?"
"Ha! I almost
had him, even though he is terrified of his wife. I had him on the floor, and
then that… that dwarf interrupted us!"
"What manner of
woman are you," Asterion continued, "that you cannot even seduce a
man to your bed? What manner of Mistress of the Labyrinth is scared of a mere
'wife'?"
Swanne wrenched
herself away from his tight hands, furious at him, terrified at his anger.
"I have done all I can! Rubbed my nakedness against him! Taken his member
in my hands and roused him! Do not accuse me of—"
Asterion grabbed her
shoulders again and gave her a hard shake. "I need William dead, you fool!
Neither of us can dare to have him wandering about—"
"You are afraid
of him," Swanne said, wonderingly. "Perhaps I was wrong to think you
would make a good Kingman, after all. Perhaps William is the preferable—"
Swanne stopped as if
struck, then her eyes widened and a whine of sheer agony escaped her mouth. She
tried to say something, but couldn't. Instead, as Asterion let her go, she sank
to the floor and curled up about her belly, whimpering in agony.
"You will do what I need," whispered Asterion. "You will kill William, and you… will… do… it… soon. Before he
has a chance to ruin all our plans. Do you understand me?"
She gave a tiny nod,
and then visibly relaxed as the imp within her ceased its vicious nibbling.
"There's a good
girl," said Asterion in a sickenly soothing voice. He leaned down and
patted Swanne on the head. "There is no escaping me, my dear, and it is
far better to work with me than against me."
SWANNE LAY ON THE
FILTHY FLOOR OF THE ATTIC
space clutching at
her belly for hours after he had gone. She felt as if her world had
disintegrated about her.
Never before had
Asterion treated her so cruelly. Why? Did he hate her so much? Had she failed
him so badly?
Swanne succumbed to a
fit of weeping. She felt hate sweep over her, but not for Asterion. For
Matilda, who stood in her way, and for Caela, who had once thought to stand in
her way and who now had somehow managed to retreat into a smug complacency.
Why, Swanne had no idea.
She remembered what
Caela had said to her last night.
Swanne, if ever you need shelter, I
will give it to you. If ever you need harbor, I am it.
"Silly
bitch," Swanne muttered, and managed to struggle into a sitting position. Shelter from what, for the gods' sakes? All Swanne had to do was murder William, and then Asterion
would be grateful, and pleased, and would love her again, and would give her
all the dark power she craved.
"I'll kill
Matilda first," she said. "Yes. I'll kill Matilda, and then I'll take
William. Easy. Simple. I should have thought of it sooner."
They would be in
London soon, and there Swanne knew she would get what she needed.
eigbceejM
CHINKING ONLY OF
FLEEING WILLIAM'S
NOT unexpected anger, Caela did not immediately register the fact that
the door to the chamber had not been closed when she fled. All she could think
about was returning to her own small chamber, gathering her cloak, and then
making her way to the courtyard where she might prevail upon someone to escort
her back to London.
But the moment she
entered her own chamber, leaving the door open, as she only needed to snatch at
her cloak, Caela heard a footfall behind her, and then the sound of the door
closing.
She spun about.
Matilda stood there,
staring at her. Caela began to speak, but Matilda waved her to silence. She
closed the distance between them, lifted her hand, and placed it firmly on
Caela's breastbone.
"Show me what
you showed William," she said.
"Matilda—"
"Show me!"
And so Caela did.
Eventually, as
William had, Matilda stood back, her hand falling away from Caela, her face
pale. "Who are you?" she whispered. "What are you?"
"Matilda, I did
not want to involve you in this."
"I have been
involved ever since I married William! Tell me!"
Caela closed her
eyes, and tried one last time. "If I tell you, I will involve you in
witchcraft so malevolent that it will destroy…"
"What? My entire
life?"
"This life, and
all future lives," Caela said softly.
Matilda stared at
Caela, and suddenly everything fell into place. "That is why William and
you know each other so well… this is not your first life together, is it?"
Caela shook her head.
"But how can
this be so? Nothing that the Church teaches can explain—"
"We come from a
time long before the Church existed. It cannot know of us, and of what we
do."
"A time of dark
witchcraft!"
"And a time of
great beauty," Caela said gently.
"Tell me,"
Matilda said.
"Matilda, are
you sure that—"
"Tell me."
And so Caela drew
Matilda back to the bed where they sat, and Caela told her.
FOR HOURS AFTER CAELA HAD LEFT HIM, WILLIAM SAT
in the chair, head in
hands, his entire world a turmoil.
Aldred… Asterion.
Swanne… perhaps even
now lying with Asterion, plotting William's downfall.
Caela… a part of this
land as William had never imagined.
For the moment,
Asterion and Swanne, and what they planned, what they could accomplish, were too frightful to consider,
so William concentrated entirely on Caela.
Oh, God, how
beautiful and desirable she had been. Perhaps, strangely, he had no trouble
believing what she had told him about her nature as it was now, and not simply
because of what Caela had shown him of herself. He remembered how only
relatively recently Swanne had told him Caela (and Cornelia) had harbored Mag
within her womb. As Cornelia, she had loved this land the instant she'd seen
it. He remembered how she'd stood on the deck of the ship, their son Achates in
her arms, staring at the line of green cliffs in the distance. He remembered
how she had once told him that arriving in this new and strange land was not
"strange" at all, but felt rather as if she was finally coming home.
He remembered how she
had instinctively known what the Stone Dances were for, their purpose, their
magic.
He remembered how
effortlessly Cornelia had learned the Llangarlian language, as if she'd merely
been remembering it, not learning it at all.
He remembered how
immediately close she had been to the people of the land—to Erith and her
family.
To Blangan.
To Coel.
Cornelia had walked
onto this land and instantly become one with it.
He, as Brutus, had
walked onto this land and instantly become its enemy.
Why? Because he'd
only seen Genvissa? Only seen the power and lust she'd represented?
William's mind began
to worry at him as he tried to piece things together. Genvissa had been
Cornelia's instant enemy. Genvissa had done nothing but plot Cornelia's murder
from the instant she'd known about her. Genvissa had used the excuse that
Cornelia was Asterion's tool—but that wasn't only it, was it? Genvissa had seen
within Cornelia a terrible threat, and it had nothing to do with Asterion but
everything to do with this land.
William groaned,
wondering how he could have been so blind. How could he have so blithely
ignored everything Genvissa was? Everything she did?
Ariadne had wrapped
the Aegean world in catastrophe. Genvissa—and in her rebirth as Swanne—was
doing the same.
No wonder the
Llangarlians had been so antagonistic. No wonder they had fought so hard
against Genvissa and all she stood for.
William rose and
paced slowly about the room, thinking now on the Game. Caela said it had
changed, become attuned to the land.
Could it? William
tried to remember everything he had been taught about the Game, but nothing he
had been taught catered to the current situation. No Game had ever been left so
long uncompleted between the opening and closing dances.
Had the Game become
attuned to the land to the extent that it had all but merged with the land?
There was no reason
that it should not have. Two thousand years left uncompleted. Gods! It could have done anything in that time.
Slowly William's mind
began to unwind from its turmoil into a peculiar kind of peace, even though he
felt disjointed and a little disorientated. He found himself standing in the
center of his chamber, seeing not the cold stone walls, but the labyrinth as it
had stood atop Og's Hill, the maidens and youths with their flowers, dancing
about him and his Mistress.
He saw the Mistress
of the Labyrinth standing before him, dressed only in a hip-hugging white linen
skirt. He saw her lithe body, her breasts glowing in the torchlight.
He saw her deep blue
eyes and her smile, as they rested on him. He saw Caela, and William was
suddenly hit with such a longing that he again groaned, and doubled over, as if
in pain.
Could Caela be the
Mistress of the Labyrinth? Yes, of course she could, if she were taught, but
she had to be taught, and it could be
none of his teaching. The mysteries of the Mistress were alien to William. He
could dance with a Mistress as her partner, but he could never truly understand
her power. Was he angry that Caela sought to become the Mistress of the
Labyrinth?
No. Not truly.
What angered and
embittered him—even as he could not understand it— was that she did not want
him to dance with her as her Kingman.
What frightened him
was what he had seen when she had lain with Silvius.
When all was said and
done, she had possibly betrayed him as deeply as had Swanne.
"THERE," SAID CAELA EVENTUALLY. "YOU
HAVE IT ALL."
Matilda felt numbed
by what she'd heard, and yet she disbelieved none of it. Everything fit her own
experience and observation.
"You do not seem
overly surprised," said Caela, watching Matilda carefully.
"The details
have shocked me," Matilda replied, "but I do not find them difficult
to believe."
Caela took the other
woman's hands. "Matilda, listen to me carefully. Do not become involved in
this, no more than you are now. I could not bear that you should be injured in
a battle that has nothing to do with you. I have hurt and murdered too many
innocent people, sometimes willfully, sometimes unintentionally. I could not
bear to have your hurt or death on my conscience as well."
"'Murdered' is a
strong word, Caela."
"What else can I
call the death of my father, Pandrasus? And my nurse, Tavia? All the people of
Mesopotama? Damson! Oh, Damson…"
"Damson? How can
you blame yourself for Damson's death? Caela—"
"I used her
unwittingly, and sent her into danger. She was a sweet and simple woman
who—"
"A sweet and simple woman? Ah, Caela! Enough! I cannot have
you carry this burden. Listen to me… Damson knew precisely what she was doing.
And her greatest 'talent' in her life was that she fooled most people into
thinking she was 'sweet and simple.'"
"That is good of
you to try and make me feel better, Matilda, but—"
"For sixteen
years, Caela, Damson was my agent within Edward's court."
Caela's mouth dropped
open.
"Damson was a
cunning and knowing woman," Matilda continued, "Not 'sweet and
simple' at all. I met her several times in the days before I sent her to
Edward's court, and I am very well aware of precisely who and what she was. Do
not berate yourself on Damson's account. She had long previously accepted the
risks of the life she led, and if you want someone to blame for putting her in
Swanne's way, then blame me. I was the one who sent her to
Swanne when she moved to Aldred's palace."
"You sent her to spy on Swanne?"
"When I
discovered that William and Swanne were lovers in the first month or so of my
marriage, I sent Damson to be my own personal agent at Edward's court. She was
to report on Swanne to me… if Swanne moved to destroy my marriage and my life,
then I wanted to be warned of it. Later, my dear, I set Damson to watch you.
After Harold came to visit, I became increasingly curious about you."
"But…"
Caela still could not believe what she was hearing.
"Do not
fret." Matilda smiled. "Damson discovered nothing about you that she
could report to me, save a sense that you were far more than you appeared to
be." Matilda shrugged. "You thought you were using her. She was
spying on you. You thought you had sent Damson to her death. I already had.
Caela, Damson is not your guilt to bear. Nor mine neither. Damson had
responsibility for her own life."
Caela was silent.
"And your father
Pandrasus, and Tavia? Your fault? No. They were victims not of any single ill
will, but of circumstance. Mesopotama was destroyed by the miasma of hate,
Caela, not by any single person or action. Everyone hated: you, Brutus,
Membricus, Pandrasus, the Mesopotamans, the Trojans. A small boy walking down
the streets of Mesopotama could have sparked the disaster that ate it as much
as anything you did, or anything Brutus did. Forgive yourself, Caela. Don't
carry around a burden of useless and unearned guilt."
Caela gave a small
smile. "I wish you had been with me in my previous life, Matilda. I think
somehow it would have been a happier time for me."
"I can make it a
happier time for you in the future," Matilda said, and squeezed Caela's
hand where it lay in her lap.
CAELA AND MOTHER ECUB
STOOD ON PEN HILL, THE stones humming gently about them, and watched as William
the Conqueror took London.
His army had been
split into four, and it approached the city from four directions, entering from
the south via London Bridge, from the northeast via Aldgate, from the west via
Ludgate, and the largest column from the north via Cripplegate.
This last column
approached Cripplegate from the northern road, which took them past Pen Hill,
and it was with this column that William and Matilda rode.
Caela and Ecub could
just make him out: William was unmistakable in his brilliant jeweled armor.
"Did you tell
him?" Ecub asked.
Caela shook her head,
her eyes not leaving the distant figure. "He did not want to hear. He is
not ready."
Ecub sighed.
"His wife,
however," Caela continued, "did."
Ecub turned to Caela,
an eyebrow raised.
"Matilda will be
coming to visit you," Caela said. "Eventually."
Ecub laughed
delightedly. "Asterion has his own Gathering," she said. "And I
shall have mine."
William saw Matilda
glancing at the crest of the hill, and his mouth tightened.
"They are
watching," Matilda said. "Caela, and a woman I think must be Mother
Ecub."
WILLIAM SAID NOTHING,
HIS EYES NOW BACK ON THE road before him. He was still furious that Caela had
told Matilda.
Unbelieving that Caela had told Matilda.
It was not so much
anger that Matilda now knew—in a sense William was
relieved that he no
longer had to deceive her, or hold anything back from her—but anger because
William was terrified Caela had now trapped Matilda within the same maelstrom
of rebirth and disaster that caught so many others. Matilda did not deserve
that; she deserved only to live out this life with as much blessing and peace
as he could manage to give her, and then to die without lying on her deathbed
wondering how and when she would be drawn back.
William was also
angry because, of all things, Matilda's sympathies seemed to be leaning more
toward Caela in this mess than to him. Women!
Is it so bad that Caela might be the
Mistress of the Labyrinth? Matilda had asked him the previous night.
He had not answered
her, and, after a silence, Matilda had said softly. You do
not mind that at all, do you? You are truly only angry because you think she
has not chosen to dance the final enchantment with you. You are riven with
jealousy. You love her, you want her, you cannot bear her choosing another over
you.
At that, William had
been so infuriated that he had not picked up on Matilda's carefully chosen
words. I do not love her! he'd shouted.
Matilda had only
smiled at him.
"Keep away from
them," William now said as, gratefully, the hill slid past.
Matilda only smiled.
"I command
it!"
She tipped her head
in a gesture that might have been acquiescence.
Not wanting to fight
with her any longer, William nodded. "Good."
Tonight, he thought, the bands. Tonight I shall retrieve the bands.
CUDGJslGy
ONDON! IT LAY
SPREAD OUT BEFORE HIM,
windows and torches
glittering in the cold midnight. His't Cy^^^rn^ Finally.
Few Londoners had
taken to the streets to witness the conqueror take his city. Most had stayed
indoors, windows shuttered, anticipating, perhaps, riot and pillage.
But William had his
Normans under tight command. He established control of the city within hours,
securing it both within and without, then sent the majority of his army to
establish encampments a good distance without the walls, so that the Londoners
might not feel too severely the humiliation of Norman victory.
William took for
himself and Matilda the bishop of London's great house, preferring for the
moment not to remove himself to Westminster. To his captains he said that he
wanted to ensure that the Londoners felt the full power of his domination, but
privately William could not have borne to remove himself from that for which he
had lusted for so long.
He had entered
London.
He was not going to
willingly remove himself from it until he had what he wanted.
The Trojan kingship
bands. His limbs burned for their touch.
At dusk William had
come to St. Paul's atop Lud Hill. There he had brushed aside the murmured
concerns of the deacons and monks and strode down the nave toward the small
door that gave access to the eastern tower. Waving away his soldiers, saying
only that he wanted some solitude with which to gaze upon his new conquest,
William climbed the tower's rickety wooden stairs three at a time, emerging on
the flat-topped tower just as full night set in.
Here he'd stood for
hours, feeling, sensing out the bands. Oh,
William remembered where he'd buried them two thousand years before, but over
two thousand years the landscape had changed remarkably. The city had grown,
buildings stood where once had spread only orchards, streams had been enclosed…
and yet nothing had changed. The Troy Game was still here.
William could feel it
beneath his feet. By sheer luck (or design, perhaps?), this tower stood over
the very heart of the labyrinth, by now buried many feet below the crypt of the
cathedral. Now the power of the Troy Game throbbed up through soil, wood,
stone, and the leather soles of his boots, surging through William's body as
strongly as it had done when he stood with naked feet on the labyrinth itself.
More strongly.
Caela had said the Game
had changed, and William could feel it. It had grown… independent.
It was going to be
very hard to control.
It would be
impossible to control without his kingship bands.
William shivered, and
gazed over the nighttime city. Caela had moved all six of the bands; or, at
least, all six had been moved. William could feel four of them very clearly,
calling out to him, longing to be touched and slid over his flesh once more.
They were now scattered to the west, north, and south of the city, miles away,
but he could feel them, and could feel how the Game had grown to meet them.
The remaining two
bands…
They were not where
he'd left them two thousand years earlier. Caela had taken them, but he could
not sense them at all.
What had she done with them? Where
had she hid them?
"My, what a fine
man you have grown into. Taller than I imagined. I wonder if those bands will
still fit you… if you ever discover them."
William whipped
about. Silvius stood two paces away, his arms folded, dressed in the manner of
Troy, with nothing but a white waistcloth and boots.
His flesh was very
dark in the low light, but his good eye flashed, while of his left there was
nothing but a seething pit of darkness.
"What do you
here?" William said, trying to keep his voice level. Gods, how much
power had both Silvius and the Game accumulated if his father could appear this
solid, this real, this… here?
"Come to see my
son. What else?" Silvius let his arms fall to his side, and he took a half
pace forward. "Come to wonder."
"At what?"
"At you, of
course." Silvius paused. "Come to see what my son has made of
himself."
"Do you like
what you see?"
"Does it matter
anymore what I think or like?" Silvius paused, his eyes running up and
down William's body. "You have seen Caela. Did she tell you that she and
I—"
"Yes,"
William said curtly. "You have become most intimate with Caela, it
seems."
Silvius' face took on
a lecherous cast. "Very intimate. She has changed, and vastly for the better.
It seems you have not. Vile corruption has forever been your creed, has it not?
You founded this Game on it, and you seek it out still."
There was a strange
note to Silvius' voice, and William did not know what to make of it. "Did
it make you happy to lay with her? Did that give you satisfaction? She is not yours, Silvius."
Silvius laughed.
"Oh, yes, she is. She gave herself to me freely. Gave herself to me, William! Freely!" He paused, and
when Silvius resumed, his voice was roped with viciousness and contempt.
"You lost her two thousand years ago. She can never be yours now."
William regarded his
father with as much steadiness as he could summon. "Why do you interfere,
father? What has any of this to do with you?"
"You made me a part of it! You founded the Game on my
murder. I warned you not to found the Game on corruption, that fratricide was
no way to—"
"This is none of
your business, Silvius. Crawl away back to your death. Leave Caela alone. Leave
me alone. Leave the Game to play out as it will."
"The Game will
play out according to my will, William. Mine."
William's eyes
narrowed, and for a moment it appeared as if he did not breath. Then he said,
very softly, "No wonder my mother Claudia died in my birth. It was her only
means of escaping you."
Silvius' lip curled.
"You killed Claudia. Not me. You tore her apart."
William stared at
Silvius, his own eyes almost as clouded and dark as his father's empty eye
socket.
"You shall never
succeed," he said. "The Game is mine."
And with that he
pushed past Silvius, and disappeared down the stairwell.
WILLIAM RACED DOWN
THE STEPS AS IF HIS LIFE depended on it, his breathing harsh and ragged as it
tore through his throat. Four times he stumbled, almost falling, sliding
inelegantly down five or six steps before his scrabbling hands managed to find
purchase on the stone walls.
When he finally
reached the bottom, he took a moment to steady his breathing, glancing back up
the stairwell as if he expected Silvius to come bearing down upon him at any
moment, before he stepped out to meet the concerned faces of his men.
"Robert,"
William said to one of his most trusted men-at-arms, "there is a priory
about two miles out of the city on the northern road. Ride there, and deliver a
message to the dowager queen Caela. Let her pick the place, but
demand that she meet
with me tonight] Impress upon her the need for
urgency. You have that?"
Robert nodded, then
left at a trot.
William closed his
eyes, and took a deep breath. Gods,
let her agree! Let her agree!
The situation had
been bad before this night. Now it was almost irreparable.
When he had been
Brutus, and Silvius had been his living father, his mother's name had been
Lavinia.
Not Claudia.
Never Claudia. When
William had left her earlier that evening, Matilda waited until she'd heard the
clatter of his horse's hooves as it left the courtyard, and then she'd snapped
her fingers at one of his sergeants.
"Find me a quiet
mare to ride," she said, "and an escort. I need to visit a priory
just beyond the walls."
The sergeant thought
about arguing with his duchess for all of two heartbeats.
Then he nodded, and
within a half hour was riding with the escort surrounding Matilda through Cripplegate.
A half hour after
that, Matilda stood before the gates of the priory, watching as the door slowly
swung open.
"You are Mother
Ecub," she said to the woman who stood there, and Ecub nodded.
"Sister,"
she said, and stepped forward and embraced Matilda.
SWANNE SAT IN HER CHAMBER, ONCE AGAIN WITHIN Aldred's palace. She didn't know
where the good archbishop had got to, and she didn't care. Asterion was the
only one who came to her now, and for that she was heartily glad.
All Swanne could
think about was Matilda's, and then William's, murder.
Aldred's palace held
many comforts. One of those had been a blessed bath—Swanne had soaked for what
seemed like hours within a tub set before a fire—and the other had been having
access again to Hawise. Hawise had not accompanied Swanne south (Swanne had
told her to stay within London, thinking then that she'd be able to take
William and return to London herself within a day or so of the battle), and
Swanne had missed her sorely. Not for her company, for Swanne had grown to
detest Hawise's prattling, but because Hawise was one of the best people she
had ever met for procuring things.
Now Swanne sat in a
comfortable chair, holding in her hands a vial of one of the deadliest poisons
she had been able to concoct. Hawise, of course, had no idea she was procuring
a poison for Swanne, nor did she have any idea
what Swanne was going
to do with the collection of herbs her mistress had sent her out for.
But when Hawise had
brought those herbs back, Swanne had spent a delightful hour or two mixing and
fermenting them, distilling from them the purest, blackest poison she could
manage.
Matilda's death.
It would look like a
miscarriage gone terribly wrong. She would lose the child, and then bleed to
death. What could be simpler? All Swanne would have to do was slip the poison
into Matilda's wine cup herself or, more like, pay someone a handsome sum to do
it for her.
For gods' sakes,
London was full of resentful Saxons who would jump at the chance to hurt the
Norman cause in any manner they could.
And then poor
William. Distraught. In need of comfort.
Swanne smiled,
setting the vial to one side. Soon, within the day.
She closed her eyes
and imagined how it would be, when William finally rolled atop her, and entered
her, and the imp snatched…
She looked forward
very greatly to his scream of terror and agony, a scream that would, within the
moment, disintegrate into a whimper of submission. Then she could roll him
away, and leap from their bed, fall to her knees before Asterion, and say, I have done it! I have worked your will! Love me!
Meantime, she would
comb out her hair, and pinch some color into her cheeks, and perhaps Asterion
would come to her and would love her again.
Soon. Swanne closed
her eyes, dreaming.
"Will he love
you enough to take your imp, do you think?"
Swanne's eyes flew
open, her heart pounding, then she stumbled terrified to her feet. The far end
of the chamber seemed to have opened into a huge hall made entirely of emerald
water, and Swanne remembered enough of her previous life to have some idea of
what she was seeing.
"No!" she
whispered. "Go back! Go back!"
Harold was walking
toward her out of that watery emerald cathedral. He looked fit and well, better
than she could remember having seen him in many, many years.
He looked as he had
before he had touched her, except, more.
And however much she
screamed, and shrieked for aid, he kept walking toward her, closer and closer,
until she could see the terrible gleam in his eyes, and she understood it for
what it was.
Vengeance.
"I will not let
you do to William," he whispered, "what you did to me."
And he reached out
his hands, stretched them out over the three or four paces
that still separated them, and seized her by the neck.
ASTERION FOUND HER ON
THE FLOOR SOME TWO
hours later. Her neck
had been twisted until it had snapped.
Her black eyes,
dulled by death, were staring at something that Asterion could not even
imagine.
Who had done this? William? Those
strange and as yet undetermined companions who had aided Caela to move the
bands?
"Useless
bitch!" he snarled, and dealt Swanne's corpse such a massive blow with his
booted foot that it skidded away some three or four feet.
Asterion stepped
forward and kicked the corpse again. Curse the idiot bitch! Curse her! Not only had she failed to kill William, but she'd
managed to get herself killed instead.
And now Asterion was
left without a Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Damn her to all hells'. Now they'd
have to come back again!
Another life, another
set of years spent scheming, planning, maneuvering. Waiting!
Asterion's lips
curled, and he began to batter Swanne's body with slow, deliberate, hate-filled
fists.
After a long time,
time enough to almost cover himself in Swanne's blood, Asterion paused and
raised his head.
She was moving. She!
She was going to meet
with William.
Suddenly, in all his
anger and frustration, Asterion forgot his caution about meeting William face
to face.
"I think it
might be time to ruin a life or two," he muttered.
And grinned.
Caela Speaks
RECEIVED WILLIAM'S
MESSAGE AFTER SUPPER
when Ecub and Matilda
sat with me.
I had no choice but
to go. He had asked for me, and the last thing I'd said to him that night was
that should he need me, then he should seek me out. I could not refuse to go.
It was my nature not to refuse him, should he need shelter.
Besides, I wanted to
see him again. I hungered for it.
So I told Ecub and
Matilda not to worry (a useless piece of wordage), and I sent William's man off
carrying a message containing place and time.
The time was
unimportant, save that William's need seemed so urgent that it needed to be as
soon as possible, but the place… the place…
I sent word to
William that he should meet me over his dead body.
I thought, if nothing
else, that would make his mouth curl in dry amusement.
So here now I stood,
early, wanting to have time before William arrived to contemplate what we had
been, what we were, and what we might be one day, all gods permitting.
This was the first
time I had been here (the first time while still breathing, of course). It was
unbearably sad.
The chamber, rounded
out of living rock, was bare, save for the two plinths of stone, each of which
bore a shrouded corpse. One, that which was Cornelia's corpse, had its
wrappings disturbed, and my fingers briefly touched the bracelet that still I
wore about my left wrist.
But my eyes were
drawn irresistibly to Brutus' wrapped figure. I stood a long time, staring at
it, before I walked over and, hesitatingly, rested a hand on its chest.
Brutus. Oh, gods, how I had loved him.
Why? I wondered. What was there
about Brutus to love?
He had mistreated me and abused me, humiliated me and abandoned me, and still I
could not resist him. Still I loved him, when there were others who would have
suited me better, and who offered me more than Brutus ever had.
But perhaps even then I had known.
My hand drifted
slowly up the wrappings covering his chest to his throat. Here had swarmed the
growth that had, finally, killed him. I remembered the long months of his
dying, his fading from strength into weakness, the rough rasp of his voice as
he ordered some servant or the other to remove me from his presence.
How he had hated me.
My eyes filled with
tears and I tore my mind away from the memory. I slid my hand further up, over
his cheek, and then his forehead, imagining the features that lay swathed below
my touch, to the crown of his head.
Did that wondrous,
thick, long curled hair still live beneath these tight shroudings? If I
unwrapped his beloved head would I be able to run my hand through its blue-black
crispness again?
Would there ever be
any way of recapturing that single moment we had, that moment in the hills
behind the Altars of the Philistines, when he had lowered his mouth to mine,
and for a heartbeat almost loved me?
A tight hand closed
about my throat, jerking me back, and, terrified, I let out a strangled cry.
"Caela," he
said, his mouth close to my ear, and pulled me back against his body.
His other hand was
now about my waist, as hard and as cruel as that about my throat. I was caught,
I could not move… I could barely breathe.
And then he let me
go, stood back from me and looked about the chamber. "This is where they
buried us? In this chamber?"
I nodded. I could not
take my eyes from him.
He walked slowly over
to the plinth on which lay poor Cornelia's corpse, and he touched the
wrappings. "They have been disturbed. Why?"
I raised my wrist,
and showed him the bracelet. "Silvius took this from the corpse, and put
it on my wrist."
William's eyes
darkened. "And why did he do that?"
"He thought to
make me remember. At that time I lagged in forgetfulness, remembering nothing.
It was a device to make Asterion think me no threat. To make him believe that
Mag was dead."
"And that
artifice worked, of course."
He was looking at me
strangely, and I found myself shivering. "Yes." In truth, of course,
Asterion had then found out about Damson, and had
O
"murdered"
poor Mag all over again, but I sensed that now was not the time to leap forth
into such explanations.
What was wrong with William? Why did
he regard me with such wild-eyed strangeness?
"William? What
is wrong? Why summon me here?" Sweet gods, was this the time for us? I felt a mad rush of hope and joy within me, and
even though I tried to suppress it, I knew I could not keep it entirely from my
face.
He lifted those
unsettling eyes from me and began to walk slowly about the chamber, sometimes
"running a hand about its walls, sometimes touching briefly one of the
plinths. "I have seen Silvius," he said.
"That cannot
have been pleasant."
He shot me a look,
but continued speaking in a normal tone. "From what you said to me, and
from what I have gleaned, he has been of great aid to you."
"And to this
land. I owe him a great deal."
"Be careful you
do not owe him too much," he said. "Caela, how much does he
know?"
I frowned. "Know
about what?"
"About the Game,
about the bands—and their locations—about you."
My frown deepened.
"He knows many things. He has been at my side for almost a year, now. And
at Saeweald's. He has become our closest ally."
At that, William
closed his eyes briefly, as if I had said something so painful he could hardly
bear it. And I suppose I had. Brutus had ever hated his father.
"You lay with him," William said. "You lay with him."
"I wanted
to," I said steadily, wishing William would leave this be. "I had no
wish to stay God's eternal virgin concubine."
"You gave him
your virginity," he said, his voice bitter. "That gives any man a
powerful hold over a woman."
"It certainly
gave you a powerful hold over me."
"But with
Silvius, even more power, Caela, considering what you are now."
I shrugged. "He
is my friend. He will not think to use it to—"
"The gods curse
you, Caela! Have you no wits?"
I flinched, taking a
step back. William's face was suffused with fury, and something else, which
frightened me far more than did his fury: fear.
"It is not the
time now to discover yourself jealous, William. I—" "Damn you for your unthinking naive stupidity!" He
strode forward and, before I could stop him, before I could even think, or
utter a protest, he seized me in cruel hands, and forced his mouth down to
mine.
For an instant I
resisted, and then all my want and need, all my desire for him flooded through
me, and I opened my mouth under his.
How many years had I wanted him to
kiss me?
Oh gods… I melted
against him.
"You
bitch!" he exclaimed, almost throwing me from him, and, horribly, wiping the
back of his mouth with his hand. "You corrupted piece of filth!"
I could not believe
it. How could he possibly say that to me?
"Don't you
understand, Caela?" he spat. "The apparition of Silvius which walks
this land is not my father, nor Brutus' father." He paused, and in that
instant, seeing the terror in his eyes, I suddenly knew what he was going to
say.
I went cold, frozen
with horror.
"Silvius is Asterion! Asterion may have used Aldred's body
from time to time, but
Asterion took Silvius' form as well! I tasted it, the corruption in your mouth. You are
as much his as is Swanne."
"No." I
gasped the word, taking yet another step back. My stomach coiled and then
clenched, and I thought I might vomit. "No!"
"Yes! Curse you
again, Caela! How much does he
know?"
I could not think. My
entire world had torn apart around me.
William had walked up
to me, and now he grabbed my shoulders, giving me a little shake. "How
much does he know?" he said again.
"Silvius cannot
be… he cannot be…"
"How much does he know?"
"Many
things," I managed to whisper, my mind churning. "Saeweald and I… we
trusted him. We trusted him. He knew so much that… things only Silvius could
have known…"
"And what did you know of what Silvius knew? Answer me that?"
"He knew the
Game… as he would, being your father…"
"No one knows
the Game better than Asterion. And no one knows it less than you, or Saeweald.
You were his willing fools. You knew nothing of Silvius, and nothing of
Asterion, save for their existence." His mouth twisted, and I could see
contempt burning in his eyes. "All he had to do was come to you, wearing
my face, and say, T hated Brutus, too. I was his victim, too. I want to help.'
And you fell into his arms. Literally. You were so grateful, you lay with
him."
He grunted,
disgusted, and pushed me away. "You lay with Asterion. You stupid, sorry bitch, Caela. What
have you done?"
I could say nothing
immediately. All I could do was stare at him, appalled more at myself than what
he'd said about Silvius. One thing stuck in my mind—how Silvius had known all
about glamours.
Of course he knew,
because he used them continually himself.
Eventually, running
my tongue over my lips to soften them away from their dryness, I managed to
speak. "How did you know?"
"When I was
Brutus, and you Cornelia, I had a vision. I saw you lying with
a man in the stone
hall, a man you loved. I could not then see his face, but as your loving
continued, he changed, changed into Asterion, and before my eyes, he murdered
you. You accepted him into your body, thinking he was a man who loved you, and
he took that and murdered you with it."
He paused. "The
night you lay with Silvius I again saw a vision, save that this time I did see
the man's face. My father's—or at least a glamour of him."
I was shaking my
head, desperate to deny what he was saying, but William continued on. "And
last night I saw him, he who pretends to be my father. I spoke to him of my
mother and his wife, Claudia. He talked of her as well."
"I do not
understand."
"My mother's
name was Lavinia. My father would have known that. Asterion
would not."
I raised trembling
hands to my face, finally facing the fact that William might be speaking the
truth.
"He does not
know where the bands are," I said. "Silvius never knew."
He almost spat in my
face. "He doesn't need to know where they are. He has you, Caela. He is going to reel you in at any moment. You
are his creature. You will take him to them!"
He stopped, his face roiling in contempt, and suddenly
the full enormity of what he'd told me hit me.
Everything I'd done
had been a jest. All those times I'd laughed with Silvius about fooling
Asterion. All the times I'd confided in him.
I remembered, in a
bolt of stunning clarity, how Silvius had made such a point of making me agree
that I lay with him freely, that it was my own choice. How he insisted that I
had to come to him as myself, and not as Damson.
I remembered how he'd
never appeared with me, or Saeweald, or Judith, or anyone else close to me,
when he was within Aldred's body.
And I'd given myself
to him. Freely. I'd given Asterion not only me, but Eaving… this land!
When I'd become
Eaving, I'd felt the shadow which hung over the land, the blight that tainted
it. I'd thought that shadow and blight was Swanne. I was wrong.
It was me.
"He has you,
thus he has the bands," William said softly, driving home each word with
cruel intent. "He has Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. He has the
Game, Caela, in his hands, and you and Swanne have given it to him!"
I gagged, nausea
suddenly overwhelming me. I could hear screaming, and I realized it was the
Sidlesaghes, atop a hill somewhere, tearing themselves apart in their agony.
And I, I, I, had done
this to them, and to this land.
I had given it to
Asterion.
There was a step
behind me, and strong hands seized my body and held it back hard against foul,
muscular flesh.
And then a voice
spoke, its breath caressing my cheek, its sound filling the chamber.
"Not Gods'
Concubine at all," said Asterion. "But mine."
OT GODS' CONCUBINE AT
ALL," SAID ASTERION.
Ґ I "But mine."
William sagged,
grabbing at one of the plinths for support, only at this moment finally
allowing himself to believe what he had shouted at Caela: that she'd given
herself to Asterion, that she was his creature as much as Swanne.
He'd wanted her to
somehow deny it, perhaps explain it, account for the stench of foulness he'd
tasted in her mouth as he'd tasted it in Swanne's.
But she was Asterion's creature. Both of them. Asterion's.
The Minotaur had his
eyes fixed on William, kept them on him, even as he lowered his head and
nuzzled at Caela's neck as a lover might.
Caela did not move,
but she stared at William, and in those eyes, William saw terror, and guilt,
and hopelessness, and desperation.
And something else.
An entreaty.
No!
Please! She begged him with her eyes as
Asterion's mouth moved to the back of her neck, then into her hair, a faint
trail of saliva clinging to her skin where his mouth had been. Please! Please!
No!
Gods, do this if you never do
anything else for me, my love.
And it was that
"my love" that persuaded him. That, and the fact that Caela resisted,
where Swanne had succumbed.
"Caela,"
William said and, stepping forward, snatched Caela from Asterion's surprised
hold.
"Caela."
Then, before the
Minotaur could move, William lowered his head, kissed Caela as fiercely as he
could and, as she grabbed at him, sank his sword deep into her belly.
Caela!
ASTERION WATCHED
CAELA, STILL SOMEHOW ALIVE,
sink to the floor,
the blood pumping from her belly, saw the expression of torment on William's
face—and laughed.
Caela lifted a bloody
hand and grabbed at William's wrist, her eyes locked into his, her lips moving
soundlessly.
"What?"
said Asterion, still chortling. "You think that will save you, and your
Game? She'll only be reborn, fool, at my behest, and then I shall have her. She shall be mine, all mine—mind, body, and spirit."
He paused, and the
laughter in his face and voice died as he saw that William watched only Caela
in her dying, and paid him no attention. "Never yours. Never."
Caela's hand slipped
away from William's wrist, and, as he tried to seize her, and lift her up, she
closed her eyes and breathed one last final sigh, blood bubbling from her
mouth.
There was a moment's
silence, a vast stillness, and then William let Caela's body slump to the
floor.
He took his sword,
lifted it, then tossed it across the chamber toward Asterion, now watching him
warily.
"Kill me, as
well," William said. "I see no reason to continue this charade."
But he said it to
empty air.
Asterion had
vanished.
E DIDN'T KNOW WHAT
TO DO WITH THE BODY.
Should he leave it
here, in this mausoleum? Carry it to the surface / and lay it before the
stunned, angry eyes of those who had cared for her?
He sank to his knees
before the body, gently straightening out its limbs, his eyes avoiding the
congealing blood across its abdomen, his heart racing, his mind screaming that
this wasn't happening, that this hadn't happened, that he could not have… he
could not have…
He had killed her?
"Caela,"
William whispered.
He had killed her? No, how could that be… Brutus
had constantly held his hand, and yet Brutus had hated her.
Hadn't he?
William moaned, and
bent forward until his forehead rested on Caela's still breast.
He had killed her.
That Caela herself
had begged him to do so was of no matter. He had killed her.
"Gods… gods…
gods…" he murmured, over and over, everything within him turning to ice.
"William,"
said a voice, and William jerked to his feet, wild-eyed, his hands spread
defensively to either side of his body.
Harold stood a little
distant away, dressed in the scarlet tunic with the great golden dragon
emblazoned across its breast that he'd been wearing when he'd been struck down
with Swanne's foul arrow, but without his warrior's chain mail beneath it,
merely simple cream linen trousers. His hair was pulled back and tied with a
thong in the nape of his neck, his beard close-trimmed to his cheeks, his face
calm as he regarded Caela laying dead at William's feet.
"You promised
you would not harm her," said Harold. "You vowed it to me!"
"I—"
"This is a bad
day," Harold said, then raised his eyes from Caela to William. They were
steady, impassive.
"I had no
choice—" William began.
"This is a bad
day that, after all the days and years and aeons you refused her that simple
grace of a kiss, the moment you do kiss her, you choose only to taste
foulness."
"I—"
"Did you taste
foulness because that is what you wanted
to taste, William?"
"She had lain
with Asterion, willingly. She was his creature."
"You are a fool,
William." Suddenly Harold had closed the distance between them, although
William did not actually see him move, and, his hand tight in William's hair,
had wrenched William's head back until he screamed in agony.
"You are a fool! You tasted only what you wanted! I lay with her, did
you know that?"
"I lay with her,
and kissed her mouth, and because I loved her, I tasted only sweetness and
goodness. You bring corruption to everything
you touch, William. No one else. You." He wrenched William's head again,
and the man cried out, but made no move to pull himself free. "Who
corrupted her, William? Asterion… or you,
that first night you lay with her in her father's palace in Mesopotama? That
night you raped her."
Harold let William's
head go and the man staggered a little as he regained his balance.
"No,"
Harold said, his voice thick with contempt. "No one has corrupted
Cornelia-Caela, not even you. She is incorruptible, did you not know
that?" "But she, too, thought that—"
"She thought so
because she looked into your eyes, and your face as you told her how depraved she was. She looked
at the man she has always loved, and what she saw in his eyes and his face made
her believe in her own corruption. She had waited aeons for that kiss, William,
lived only for it, and you used it to destroy her!"
Harold paused, his
chest heaving, then laughed hollowly. "Have neither you nor Asterion
thought, pitiful fools, that if Caela said to Asterion-as-Silvius, thinking he was Silvius, 'Yes, I lay with you willingly,' then that
promise was given to your father, even if he was not there, and not to Asterion?."
William stared at
Harold, his eyes unblinking, trying to make sense of what Harold said.
"You sent her
into death believing she is Asterion's creature," Harold said, his voice
now expressionless. "What a magnificent parting gift for the one woman who
has always loved you, eh? How you must always have hated her." "I do not hate her!"
Harold raised an
eyebrow.
"I do not hate her!"
Harold turned his
back.
"I have always
loved her," William whispered, sinking to his knees and holding out his
hands in supplication. "Always."
Harold turned his head
slightly, enough to see William over his shoulder. "Then may mercy save
her from a man who loves as you do," he said, and vanished.
CbAPGGR GUDejMGy-FOUR
OTHER ECUB HAD SAT
IN HER PRIORY WITH
Matilda at her side
and had known the moment Caela died.
Concomitant with that knowledge came such a terrible wave of despair and fear
that Ecub knew that Caela had died in the worst possible circumstances.
And then the
Sidlesaghes atop Pen Hill had wailed, and then lifted such a cacophony of
mourning to the night skies that Ecub understood that even "worst possible
circumstances" was possibly being a little too optimistic.
The women of the
priory, known among themselves now as Eaving's Sisters, came to sit with Mother
Ecub and with Matilda. They formed a circle, and held hands, and spoke quietly,
wondered, and wept.
Two hours after the
knowledge of Caela's death had overwhelmed Ecub, there came a ringing at the
priory gate.
"I will
go," said Ecub.
And she set her face
into harsh lines, rose, lifted a lamp, and walked to the gates. Matilda at her
heels.
When she swung them
open, she was not overly surprised to find William of Normandy—Brutus—standing there, Caela's bloody body in his arms.
Matilda gasped, her
hands flying to her face. She started forward, but Ecub held her back.
"Help me,"
William said. He did not seem surprised to see his wife standing with Ecub.
"Why?" Ecub
said.
"I loved
her," he said. "I want…"
"It is too late
to 'want' now," she said. But Ecub stood back once she had spoken, and
beckoned William inside. Having closed and bolted the gate, she led him to the
priory's chapel where she directed him to lay Caela's body on the altar.
Matilda followed
behind, crying silently.
The chapel's altar
was clothed in snowy linen, its hemline embroidered with depictions of the
running stag and the twists of the labyrinth. The altar's
O
surface was bare,
derelict of any Christian paraphernalia; waiting, perhaps, for a duty such as
this.
As Matilda
straightened Caela's limbs and smoothed her hair away from her brow, Ecub stood
behind the altar, arms folded, staring at William. "What happened?"
she said.
William's face was
haggard, that of an old man, and when he lifted a hand to rub at his close-shaven
beard, Ecub saw that it trembled.
He began to speak, in
a broken, stumbling voice, and he told Ecub everything that had happened in the
crypt. Everything that had been said, and everyone who had been present.
"And so you
killed her," Ecub said as he faltered to a close.
"It was what she
wanted."
Ecub did not reply,
not verbally, but her face set into hard, judgmental angles, and Matilda hissed
in disbelief.
"Mother
Ecub…" he began, then whipped about, shocked, as a new voice spoke.
"Well, well,
Brutus of Troy, William of Normandy," said the Sidlesaghe, walking slowly
forward from where he stood within the chapel doorway. "Grimly met, I
fear."
"Who are
you?" William said, one hand at his sword.
"William—"
Ecub began, fearful, but the Sidlesaghe waved her to silence.
"I am Long
Tom," he said. "I am a Sidlesaghe. I keep company, I sing, I watch
over her." He nodded at Caela's corpse.
William addressed the
Sidlesaghe again. "What
are you?"
"What I am does
not concern you at this moment. Tell me William of Normandy, Kingman of the
Troy Game, are you going to retrieve the bands of Trojan kingship now that you
are here?"
"What is the
point?" William said. "Asterion will only haunt me if I try to find
them, and as for Swanne, well she is so corrupted that—"
"Swanne is
dead," said Long Tom.
William just stared
at the Sidlesaghe, shocked.
"Harold came to
her before he came to you," Long Tom finished.
"Well, the night
has some joy in it, at least," said Matilda, speaking for the first time.
William shook his
head, as if trying to shake some understanding into it. "Gods," he
said. "What am I going to do?"
Ecub and the
Sidlesaghe shrugged simultaneously. What William did, so long as he let the
bands be, was of no concern to them.
"Go now,"
Ecub said finally. "There is nothing more you can do here." William
looked at her, then walked forward until he stood by the altar. He
laid a hand on
Caela's face and then, as Matilda had done, smoothed the hair back from her
brow. "Next time," he whispered.
And then, without
word or look to either Ecub or the Sidlesaghe, he turned and strode from the
chapel.
Matilda hesitated a
moment, looked at Ecub, then hurried after William.
As the door slammed
behind them, the Sidlesaghe smiled at Ecub. "Do not fear, Mother. All is
not lost. Asterion does not know about Eaving. He does not know about me. And
he does not know…" he raised his eyebrows at the Mother.
She nodded,
understanding. "He does not know about Harold."
"Yes." The
Sidlesaghe's smile broadened. Then he sobered, and looked again on Caela's
corpse. "Will you care for her?"
"Aye. We will
wash her, and stitch her wound, and clothe her in fine array, and then we will
bring her to you atop Pen Hill."
"And
there," the Sidlesaghe whispered, "we will watch over her."
epicogue
Christmas Day,
Lm LDRED' ARCHBISHOP OF
.-"7j| William
of Normandy and his wife Matilda as king and queen of "■ W"
It was a celebration
day in
Don't jump on the cracks, or the
monster will snatch!
The ceremony in the
abbey went well enough, save for a peculiar episode when Aldred lowered the
crown onto William's head.
"I find this
most amusing," Aldred whispered. "Crowning you, most witless of
fools, as king of
The eyes of the
entire abbey were on the king, sitting on his throne, and Aldred, standing with
his hands on the crown as it rested on William's head. Aldred had murmured
something, but most believed it to be a blessing.
They were stunned,
therefore, when William reached up his hands and seized Aldred's wrists.
"She promised to
Silvius, fool, not to you."
Aldred gave a small
laugh. "Her verbal promise meant nothing. It was a ruse to upset you only.
Don't you know how I shall control her? It is what I planted in her womb, as
what I planted in Swanne's womb, that binds her to me. She may not be a willing
tool, but she will be a tool."
Aldred stepped back,
wrenching his wrists from William's grasp.
"All hail the
king of
the nave between the
ranks of Normans who cheered both their new king and
their new realm.
Only their king,
sitting on his throne, knew how empty his kingdom truly
was.
THE STONE HALL STOOD
EMPTY.
Empty, that is, save
for the black imp that sat in the shadowy recesses of one aisle, playing with a
red woollen ball to while away the time.
Waiting.
It grinned suddenly,
and its teeth were white and sharp.
Waiting.
Its jaws snapped
closed, then chewed as if they had bitten off something delectable.
The black imp sat.
Waiting.
NAME INDEX
Alan: Second son of
harold and swanne.
Alditha: widow of a
Welsh lord, sister to edwin and morcar, wife to harold.
ALDRED: Archbishop of
ALEXANDER ь: Pope of the
Roman Catholic Church, 1061-1073.
ANSGAR: a member of
the WITAN.
ARIADNE: Mistress of
the labyrinth of
ASTERION: the
Minotaur.
beorn: eldest son of
harold and swanne.
BOLLASON, ORN: one of
hardrada's men.
BOWERTHEGN: the senior
chamberlain of the bower, or bedchamber.
BRUTUS: Kingman and
leader of the Trojans. Instigator, with GENVISSA, of the
Game on the banks of
the
CAELA (EADYTH): wife of EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, sister to
HAROLD.
CHENESITUN: a small
village to the west of
of Kensington.
CLOPEHAM: a small
village some six miles southwest of the City of
as Clapham.
CNUT: a Dane, and
former king of
hatred of his stepson
was the primary reason that EDWARD spent so much of his earlier
life in exile.
DAMSON: the
middle-aged widow of a stone mason living in
EADWINE: Abbot of
ECUB: Prioress of ST.
MARGARET THE martyr's, a priory established in a convent close to
Pen Hill north of
EDWARD: king of
edwin: a northern
Saxon earl and sister to alditha, brother to morcar.
GENVISSA: former
MagaLlan, Mistress of the Labyrinth, instigator, with BRUTUS, of the
Troy Game in
GERBERGA: a midwife.
GLAMOUR: an
enchantment which swaps souls from one body to another.
godwine: earl of
GYRTH: younger brother
to HAROLD and CAELA.
HAROLD: earl of
TOSTIG, husband to 1)
SWANNE and 2) ALDITHA.
HAROLD HARDRADA: king
of
hawise: attending lady
to swanne.
judith: a noble woman
attending Queen caela.
kingship BANDS: the
six golden limb bands of
enables the Kingman to
control the Troy Game.
LEO DC Pope of the
Roman Catholic Church, 1049-
leofwine: younger
brother to harold and caela.
late Bronze Age by
BRUTUS.
LONG TOM: one of the
more talkative among the sidlesaghes.
martel, guy: an envoy
of William of Normandy.
MATILDA: daughter of
the duke of
morcar: a northern
earl, brother to ALDITHA and edwin.
olafson, halldorr: one
of hardrada's men.
POITERAN: a Bronze Age
kingdom in the west of
ranuld: Duke William's
huntsman.
regenbald: a member of
the witan.
roussel, alain: Master
of the Horse to william of
SAEWEALD: physician.
ST. MARGARET THE
martyr's: a priory at the base of Pen Hill. It is run by Prioress ECUB.
sidlesaghe: a name
meaning "sad songster." A member of the ancient race of
silvius: father of
BRUTUS.
southwark: a small
community on the southern bank of the Thames from
is largely grouped
about the southern approaches to
SPEARHAFOC: bishop of
stigand: the
archbishop of
swanne: Danelaw wife
of Earl harold of
THAMES, river: the
major waterway which runs through
was named the
THESEUS: son and heir
of the Athenian king, he was sent as tribute and sacrifice to
lover ARIADNE, managed
to defeat the Minotaur and escape from
was the first lover of
Helen, whose abduction precipitated the eventual destruction of
THEGN: a Saxon noble
TOSTIG: earl of
troy: the fabulous
city of
IVlCllClilUS, IVlllg Ul Jp^ILd, piCCipiLdLlllg U11C
HUJdlJ YYO.L 1U WI11L.11 L11C l-liy-SUlLCS
<
ally destroyed due to
a combination of hubris, the betrayal of the gods, and Gre<
cunning. Those Trojans
who survived the destruction scattered about the lands of tl
VEILED hills, the: the
six sacred hills of ancient
llangarlia. These
sacred hills were clustered above the
the area now known as
minster); the Llandin,
the most sacred of the hills (now called Parliament Hill); P(
Hill; Og's or Lud Hill
(now called Ludgate Hill); Mag's Hill (Cornhill); and the Whi
Mount (Tower Hill).
The hills are intersected by three small rivers that flow into tl
mighty llan: the Magyl
(now called the Fleet), the Ty (now called the Tyburn), and tl
Wai (now called the
Walbrook).
william: Duke of
witan: council of
Saxon earls and elders.
WULFSTAN: Bishop of
yves: a priest in the
employ of aldred, the archbishop of
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FROM THE AUTHOR. -------------------------------------------- Book
Information: Genre:
Epic Fantasy Author:
Sarah Douglass Name:
God’s Concubine Series:
======================
God’s
Concubine The By Sarah Douglass
Part One
The Gathering
Standing on the banks of the Thames
on his arrival into
"I will here, our kind to enjoy,
A city for the love of
For
Troia Nova the name shall be…"
Then came a king, hud was his name,
And made a gate in [the wall of] the
same,
Caer hud the name became…
When Saxons came that name was
strange,
Their own speech they did prefer,
They called the city huden or hondon
And the name soon became
hondon in the Saxon tongue.
Robert
Mannyng of Brunne,
Chronicle, 1303, Translated by
Sara Douglass
THE TIMBER HALL WAS HUGE, FULLY EIGHTY FEET
end to end and twenty broad.
Doors leading to the outside pierced both of the long walls midway down their
length, allowing people exit to the latrines, or to the kitchens for more food,
while trapdoors in the sixty-foot high-beamed roof allowed the smoke egress
when weather permitted: otherwise the fumes from the four heating pits in the
floor drifted about the hall until they escaped whenever someone opened an
outer door. Many of the hall's upright timbers were painted red and gold in
interweaving Celtic designs; the heights were hung with almost one hundred
shields.
Tonight, both painted
designs and shields were barely visible. The hall was full of smoke, heat, and
raucous, good-humored noise. Men and women, warriors and monks, earls, thegns,
wives, and maidens sat at the trestle tables, which ran the length of the hall,
while thralls, children, and dogs scampered about, either serving wine, cider,
or ale, or nosing out the scraps of meat that had fallen to the rush-covered
floor. The wedding feast had been in progress some three hours. Now most of the
boiled and roasted meats had been consumed, the cheeses were all gone, the
sweet-spiced omelettes were little more than congealed yolky fragments on
platters, and the scores of loaves of crusty bread had been reduced to the odd
crumb that further marred the food and alcohol-stained table linens, and fed
the mice, in the rushes, darting among the booted feet of the revelers.
At the head of the
hall stood a dais. Before the dais, a juggler sat on a three-legged stool, so
drunk, his occasional attempts to tumble his woolen balls and his sharp-edged
knives achieved little else save to further bloody his fingers.
A group of musicians
with bagpipes and flutes—still sober, although they
desperately wished
otherwise—stood just to one side of the dais, their music lost within the
shouting and singing of the revelers, the thumping of tables by those demanding
their wine cups be refilled without delay, and the shrieks and barks of
children and dogs writhing hither and thither under the tables and between the
legs of the feasters.
In contrast to the
wild enthusiasm of the hundreds of guests within the body of the hall, most of
the fifteen or so people who sat at the table on the dais were noticeably
restrained.
At the center of the
table sat a man of some forty or forty-one years, although his long, almost
white-blond hair, his scraggly graying beard, his thin, ascetic face and the
almost perpetually down-turned corners of his tight mouth made him appear much
older. He wore a long, richly textured red and blue heavy linen tunic,
embroidered about its neck, sleeves and hem with silken threads and
semiprecious stones and girdled with gold and silver. His right hand, idly
toying with his golden and jeweled wine cup, was broad and strong, the hand of
a swordsman, although his begemmed fingers were soft and pale: it had been many
years since that hand had held anything but a pen or a wine cup.
His eyes were of the
palest blue, flinty enough to make any miscreant appearing before him blurt out
a confession without thought, cold enough to make any woman think twice before
attempting to use the arts of Eve upon him. Currently his eyes flitted about
the hall, marking every crude remark, every groping hand, every mouth stained
red with wine.
And with every
movement of his eyes, every sin noted, his mouth crimped just that little bit
more until it appeared that he had eaten something so foul his body would
insist on spewing it forth at any moment.
On his head rested a
golden crown, as thickly encrusted with jewels as his fingers.
He was Edward, king
of
Godwine sat on
Edward's left hand, booming with cheer and laughter where Edward sat quiet and
still. The earl was a large man, thickly muscled after almost forty-five years
spent on the battlefield, his begemmed hands when they lifted
his wine cup to his mouth, sinewy and tanned, his eyes as watchful as Edward's,
but without the judgment.
The reason for
Godwine's cheer and Edward's bilious silence, as for the entire tumultuous
celebration, sat on Edward's right, her eyes downcast to her hands folded
demurely in her lap, her food sitting largely untouched on the platter before
her.
She was Eadyth,
commonly called Caela, Godwine's cherished thirteen-year-old daughter, and now
Edward's wife and queen of
The marriage had been
a compromise, hateful to Edward, triumphant for Godwine. If Edward married the
earl's daughter, then Godwine would continue to support his throne. If not…
well, then Godwine would ensure that Edward would spend the last half of his
life in exile as he'd spent the first half (staying as far away from his
murderous stepfather, King Cnut, as possible). If Edward wanted to keep the
throne, then he needed Godwine's support, and Godwine's support came only at
the price of wedding his daughter.
She was a pretty
girl, her attractiveness resting more in her extraordinary stillness than in
any extravagant feature. Her glossy brown hair, currently tightly braided and
hidden under her silken ivory veil (which itself was held in place by a golden
circlet of some weight, which may have partly explained why Caela kept her face
downward facing for so much of the feast), was one of her best features, as
were also her sooty-lashed, deep blue eyes and her flawlessly smooth white
skin. Otherwise her features were regular, her teeth small and evenly spaced,
her hands dainty, their every movement considered. Caela was dressed almost as
richly as her new husband: a heavily embroidered blue surcoat, or outer tunic,
over a long, crisp, snowy linen under tunic embroidered with silver threads
about its hem and the cuffs of its slim-fitted sleeves. Unlike her husband and
her father, however, Caela wore little in the way of jeweled adornment, save
for the gold circlet of rank on her brow and a sparkling emerald ring on the
heart finger of her left hand.
Edward had shoved it
there not four hours earlier during the nuptial mass held in her father's
chapel. Now that nuptial ring's large square-cut stone hid a painful bruise on
Caela's finger.
Caela's eyes rarely
moved from the hands in her lap—someone who did not know her well might have
thought she sat admiring that great cold emerald— and she spoke only
monosyllabic replies to any who addressed her.
That was rare enough.
Edward had not said a word to her, and the only other person who addressed
Caela (apart from the occasional shouted enthusiasm from her gloating father)
was the man who sat on her right side.
This man, unhappy
looking where Edward was sullen and Godwine buoyant, was considerably younger
than either of the other two men. In his early twenties, Harold Godwineson was
the earl's eldest surviving son and thus heir to all that Godwine controlled
(lands, estates, offices, and riches, as well as the English throne, which
meant that Edward loathed Harold as much as he did Godwine).
Like his father,
Harold was a warrior, blooded and proved in a score of savage, death-ridden
battles, but, unlike Godwine, a man who also had the sensitive soul of a bard.
That bard's sensibility showed in Harold's face and his dark eyes, in the
manner of his movements and his engaging ability to give any who spoke to him
his full and undivided attention. His hair was dark
blond, already
stranded with gray, which he kept warrior-short, as he did the faint stubble of
his darker beard. He was a serious man who rarely laughed, but who, when he
smiled, could lighten the heart of whomever that smile graced.
Harold was not so
richly accoutred as his father and his new brother-in-law, although
well-dressed and jewelled enough as befitted his status of one of the most
powerful men in
Unlike Edward, Harold
spent a great deal of time watching his sister, occasionally reaching out to
touch her with a reassuring hand, or to lean close and whisper something that
sometimes, almost, made the girl's mouth twitch upward. Harold had adored Caela
from birth, had watched over her, had spent an inordinate amount of time with
her, and had argued fiercely with their father when he proposed the match with
Edward.
Some people had
rumored that it was not so much the match that Harold raged about, but that the
girl was to be wedded and bedded at all. In recent years, as Caela approached
her womanhood, Harold's attachment to his sister had attracted much sniggering
comment. There was more than one person in the hall this night who, under the
influence of unwatered wine or rich cider and who thought themselves far enough
distant from the dais to dare the whisper, had proposed that Godwine's
flamboyant happiness this eve was due more to his relief that he'd managed to
get his daughter as a virgin to Edward's bed than at the marriage itself, as
advantageous as that might be.
If one were to guess,
one might think that Harold's wife, sitting on his other side, had been party
to (if not the instigator of) many of these whispers. Swanne (also an Eadyth,
but known far and wide as Swanne for her beautiful long white neck and elegant
head carriage) sat almost as still as Caela, but with her head held high on her
lovely neck, her almond-shaped black eyes watching both her husband and his
sister with much private amusement.
Swanne was a
stunningly beautiful woman. Of an age with Harold, or perhaps a year or two
older, she had black hair that, when unveiled and unbound, snapped and twisted
down her back in wild abandon. Her skin was as pale as Caela's, but drawn over
a face more finely wrought, and framing lips far plumper and redder than her
much younger sister-in-law's.
And her eyes… a man
could sink and drown in those eyes. They were as black as a witch-night, great
pools of mystery that entrapped men and savaged their souls.
When combined with
her tall, lithe body… ah, most men in this hall envied Harold even as they
whispered about him (the envy, of course, fueling many of the whispers). Even
now, sitting leaning back in her great chair so that her swollen five-month belly
strained at the fabric of her white surcoat,
most men lusted after
Swanne as they had lusted after little else in their lives. She was a woman
bred to trigger every man's wildest sexual fantasy, and she was the reason why
over a score of men had already dragged female thralls outside to be pushed
against a wall and savagely assaulted in a vain attempt to assuage their lust
for the lady Swanne.
On this occasion
Swanne did not watch her husband or his sister, her black eyes trailed
languidly over the hall, her mouth lifted in a knowing smile as she saw men
staring at her, lowering frantic hands below the table to grab at the lust
straining at their trousers. Swanne was a woman who enjoyed every moment of her
dominance, yet loathed those who succumbed to her spell.
Among the other
members of the wedding party on the dais sat Harold's younger brother, Tostig,
a bright-eyed, lively faced youth, and sundry other noblemen, earls or thegns
closely allied with Godwine. But King Edward had a few supporters, two Norman
noblemen who had remained at Edward's side since he had returned from his
twenty-year exile in Normandy at the young duke's court, and the rising young
Norman cleric, Aldred. Aldred had also come to
Aldred was not known
for the austerity of his tastes.
He snatched a
congealing piece of roast goose from the platter of a Saxon thegn, stuffing the
morsel inside his mouth.
All the time his
eyes—strange, cool gray eyes—never left Swanne's form.
EVENTUALLY CAME THAT
MOMENT WHEN GODWINE
decided that the
wedding was not enough, and that the bedding must now be accomplished.
At his signal (shout,
rather), Swanne rose from her husband Harold's side and, together with several
other ladies, took Caela and led her toward the stairs at the rear of the hall,
which led to the bedchambers above.
The largest and best
of the bedchambers had been prepared for the king and his new bride, and once
Swanne had Caela inside, she and the other ladies began to strip the girl of
her finery.
There were no words
spoken, and Swanne's eyes, when they occasionally met Caela's, were harsh and
cold.
When Caela at last
stood naked, Swanne stood back a pace and regarded the girl's pubescent flesh.
Caela's hips were still narrow, her buttocks scrawny, and her pubic hair thin
and sparse. Her waist remained that of a girl's: straight and without any of
that sweet narrowing that might lead a man's hands toward those delights both
above and below it. Her breasts had barely plumped out from their childish
flatness.
Swanne ran her eyes
down Caela's body, then looked the girl in the eye.
Caela had lifted her
hands to her breasts, and was now trembling slightly.
"You have not
much to tempt a husband's embraces," Swanne said. She moved slightly,
sensuously, her breasts and hips and belly straining against her robes, and
then smiled coldly. "I cannot imagine how any husband could want to part
your legs, my dear."
At that Caela
blinked, flushing in humiliation.
Swanne sighed
extravagantly, and the other ladies present smiled, preferring to ally with
Swanne rather than this girl who, even now, wedded to the king, promised less
prospect of benefaction than did the powerful lady Swanne.
"But we must do
what we can," said Swanne and clapped her hands, making Caela start.
"The wool, I think, and the posset I prepared earlier."
One of the ladies
handed to Swanne a small pouch of linen and a length of red wool, and Swanne
stepped close to Caela once more.
"Now," Swanne said, both eyes and voice cold
with contempt, "do not flinch. This will get you an heir better than
anything… save that wild thrusting of a man's thickened member."
She put a hand on her
own belly as she spoke, rolling her eyes prettily, and the ladies burst into
shrieks of laughter, their hands to their cheeks.
Caela flushed an even
darker red.
Swanne bent
gracefully to her knees before Caela and first tied the length of wool about
the small linen pouch, then tied the pouch to Caela's inner thigh. "This
contains the seeds of henbane and coriander, my dear. So long as it doesn't
confuse Edward's member too greatly, it will surely drive him to those
exertions needed to put a child in that…" she paused, her eyes running over
Caela's flat abdomen, "child's belly of yours."
Again the ladies
standing about giggled, but then came the sound of footsteps approaching up the
stairs, and the rumble of men's voices and laughter.
"In the bed, I
suppose," said Swanne. "He's bound to remember why she's there once he climbs in."
With that, the women
bustled Caela to the bed, drew back the coverlets over the rich, snowy
whiteness of the bridal linens, and bade Caela to slide in.
"We hope to see
the red and cream flowers of love spread all over that linen in the morning, my
love," said Swanne, pulling the coverlets back to
<ji men
cover ^aeia's
naKeuness jusi as me gj. entered the chamber.
As Swanne and her
ladies had done, so now these men, numbering among them Godwine and his sons
Harold and Tostig, attended to Edward, divesting him of his jewels and apparel,
and stripping him as naked as Caela.
Then Godwine drew
back the coverlets on Edward's side of the bed, and the king, his genitals
pitifully white and shriveled in the coldness of the room, clambered into the
bed and sat stiffly alongside Caela.
Once he was in bed,
one of the men handed him a goblet filled with spiced wine and the raw, sliced
genitals of a hare.
"Drink,"
said Godwine, "and my daughter will soon breed you a fine son."
Edward looked at the
goblet, very slowly and reluctantly raised it to his mouth, made a show of
sipping it, then placed the goblet on a chest at the side of the bed.
Harold looked at
Caela, caught her eyes, and tried to smile for her.
Across the room
Swanne laughed, rich and throaty. She pulled her shoulders back, aware that the
eyes of most were on her, and splayed her hands over the rich roundness of her
belly. "I wish you well, my lord," she said to Edward. "I hope your
screams of pleasure, as those of your bride, keep us awake throughout the long
hours of this wedding night."
Tostig giggled, and
Swanne shot her young brother-in-law an amused glance even as Harold hissed at
him to be silent.
As Tostig subsided,
Aldred stepped forward, staggering a little djunkenly on his feet, and raised
his hand for a mumbled blessing. Then Godwine said something coarse, everyone
laughed (save Harold, who watched Caela with eyes filled with sorrow), and then
Swanne began to direct people out of the room.
"Our king's
member can never rise with this many witnesses," she murmured, to more
good-humored laughter.
Swanne was the final
person to leave. She stood in the doorway to the chamber, her hand on the
latch, and regarded the two stiff people in the bed with a gleam in her
wondrous dark eyes.
"Queen at last,
Caela," she said. "You must be so pleased."
And then she was
gone.
THEY SAT, STIFF,
SILENT, COLD, STARING AT THE closed door.
Finally Caela,
summoning every piece of courage she could, took her husband's chilled hand and
placed it on her breast.
He snatched it away.
"I find you most
displeasing," he said, then slid down the bed, rolled over so that his
back faced Caela, and stayed like that the entire night.
IN THE MORNING, WHEN
SWANNE AND THE REST OF
the (largely still
drunken) attendants pulled back the covers from the naked pair, there was a
moment's silence as the eyes took in the unsullied bleached linens.
Swanne's eyes slowly
traveled to Caela's white face, and then she smiled in slow, malicious triumph
before she turned her back and left the chamber.
CbAPGGR GUDO
N THE SAME NIGHT THAT
CAELA, QUEEN OF EN-
gland, lay sleepless
beside her new husband, Edward so also the duke of
But where Edward and
Caela's wedding night remained coldly chaste, William and Matilda's night had
been filled with much loving and laughter. Theirs had been a marriage that they had made, and for which they'd had to combat the
combined disapproval of most of the princes of Europe as well the Holy Father
in
William lay on his
side, his head resting on a hand, his black eyes gentle as he regarded the sleeping
Matilda. Gods, he'd had to
fight so hard for her! They'd
first met just over three years ago at the court of Matilda's father, Baldwin,
the count of
/vs it, some rumored,
he somehow managed to draw on the experience of a past life as a victorious
king instead of a few meager years as the son of a tannery wench.
Thirteen years he'd struggled, and then William had
met Matilda. On that fateful day, William's only thought, as he strode toward
the count's dais, had been of Baldwin and what the count could do for him, but
then his eyes had fallen on the tiny form of Baldwin's daughter standing by her
father's throne. William had muttered a cursory greeting to
At that remark there
were several audible gasps and one hastily swallowed giggle from among the
members of William was six and a half feet—an
amazing height in an age when most men were grateful to achieve five and a
half—and with broad shoulders and heavy, tight muscles. Combined with his dark,
exotic looks (some questioned the tannery wench maternity, and opined that the
previous duke had got his son on some lost Greek princess) and bold demeanor
and bearing, William cut an imposing figure.
He certainly looked
too large to wed the dainty Matilda without causing her serious bodily damage.
But Matilda had not
cared about William's bastardy, nor worried about his large-than-life
physicality. She wanted him the instant his mouth grazed her hand and he spoke
those words: You were made for
me.
William smiled softly
as he lay watching his bride sleep. He lifted a hand and pushed a strand of her
dark hair back from her forehead. It was tangled, and damp with sweat, and
William's smile grew broader as he remembered
the enthusiasm with
which both had (finally!) consummated their union. Whatever
whispers may have rumored, the physical contrast in their heights and builds
had made not a single difference to the ease and joy with which they dispensed
with Matilda's virginity.
He stroked Matilda's
forehead again, his touch less gentle this time, and she sighed, shifted a
little in their bed, and opened her eyes. "I adore you," she
whispered.
He leaned down and
kissed her, but did not speak.
"And you?"
she said very softly, once his mouth lifted from hers.
William hesitated,
remembering that other time (so
long ago) when
he had made (forced) another marriage. This time, he
determined, he would not start with deception and lies.
"You are my
wife, my duchess, and I will honor you before any other woman, but___"
His nerve failed him
at that moment, and so Matilda did what she had to do in order to found their
marriage in such strength that it would never fail.
"But I will not
be the great love of your life." she said, propping herself up on one
elbow.
"That does not
worry you?" he said.
"You and
I," she said, tracing one of her tiny hands through the black curls that
scattered across his chest, "will make one of the greatest marriages
Christendom has ever known. What more could I ask?"
"That is not
what I expected to hear," he said, laughing softly in wonderment.
"That is not what I had learned to expect from wives." He reached up
a hand and cradled her face within its great expanse.
"You have
honored and respected me by telling me," Matilda said. "I can accept
this." She paused. "You will not dishonor me with her?"
"Never!" William
said.
"Romantic love
can so often destroy a marriage," said Matilda, "when what is needed
is unity of purpose, and unified strength. I will be the best of wives to you,
and you shall be the best of husbands to me, and we will marry our ambitions
and strengths, and we will never, never regret the choice that we have
made."
"I wish I had
found you earlier," William said, and Matilda could not have known that
with that statement he referred to a time two thousand years past when a former
marriage had resulted in such a ruination of dreams and ambitions that a nation
had foundered into chaos and disaster. As Brutus, he had failed with Cornelia;
William was determined to make a better marriage with this woman.
They made love once
again, and then Matilda slipped back to sleep. Once he was sure that she was
lost deep in her dreams, William rose from their bed
and walked to stand
naked before the dying embers of the fire in the hearth of their bedchamber.
The conversation with
Matilda had unsettled him. First, the maturity of Matilda's response had
astounded William, even though he well knew that she was a princess such as
Cornelia had never been, and made him appreciate even more the woman he'd taken
to wife. Second, the nature of the conversation had recalled to him Cornelia,
and Genvissa, and so much of his previous life.
When he had lived as
Brutus, two thousand years previously, in a world wracked by war and
catastrophe, he had been a supremely ambitious man. Brutus had allowed nothing
to stand in his way. At fifteen, Brutus murdered his father Silvius and took
from his dead father's limbs the six golden kingship bands of
In this new land,
Llangarlia, now known as
Even more
uncomfortable now that he was thinking of Cornelia, William glanced over his
shoulder at Matilda. Gods, there was nothing to compare them! Cornelia wept and
sulked and plotted murder. Matilda used reason and wit, and she accepted where
Cornelia would have argued. Cornelia had fought with everything she had against
Brutus' love for Genvissa. Matilda had shrugged and accepted it as of little
consequence to their marriage.
William closed his
eyes, feeling the heat of the embers on his face, and finally allowed thoughts
of Genvissa to fill his mind. Ah, she had been so beautiful, so powerful! She'd
been his Mistress of the Labyrinth, his partner in the Troy Game.
And then she had been
cruelly struck down by Cornelia before Brutus or Genvissa could complete the
Game.
Had he truly loved Genvissa? William stood, contemplating
the issue. After this night with Matilda, and most particularly after their
conversation, William wondered if what he'd felt for Genvissa had been an
astounding excitement generated by their mutual meeting of ambition and power
rather than love. Oh, there had been lust aplenty, but there had been no
tenderness, and little sweetness. Instead, William believed, he and Genvissa
had been
swept away by the
realization that united they could achieve immortality through their
construction and then manipulation of the Troy Game. They could make both
themselves and the Game they controlled immortal.
William smiled wryly.
That realization and that ambition had been far, far headier than love.
But both their
ambitions foundered into disaster, as Asterion manipulated Cornelia into murdering
Genvissa and putting a halt to the Game that would have trapped the Minotaur
back into its dark heart.
Disaster, and death.
A death that had lasted two thousand years. Why such a delay? William would
have thought that his and Genvissa's ambition, as well as the Troy Game's need
to be completed, would have brought them back centuries before this. Instead
they'd languished in death, frustrated at every attempt at rebirth, kept back
from life by a power that they'd both taken a long time to accept: Asterion.
Over two thousand
years ago, the Minotaur Asterion had spent his life trapped in the Great
Founding Labyrinth on the
William believed that
it had been Asterion who had kept Brutus and Genvissa locked within death for
so long, and Asterion who had finally removed the barriers to their rebirth.
Both Brutus and Genvissa had constantly fought for rebirth, and had as
constantly been rebuffed by Asterion's bleak power. He'd been stronger than
either had ever expected, and William had thanked whatever ancient gods who
still existed, in this strange world into which he'd been reborn, that as
Brutus he had secreted the kingship bands of
Why had Asterion kept
William-reborn and Genvissa-reborn at bay for so long? Had Asterion wanted to
find the bands and destroy the Game without risking their rebirth? Well,
Asterion had not found the bands— William could
still sense them, safe in their secret hiding places buried under the city now
called London—and so he'd caused Brutus and Genvissa to be reborn, hoping,
perhaps, that he could use one or the other to locate the bands.
Asterion had also
caused Brutus to be reborn far from
William had had no
chance to think of
William crouched down
before the hearth, stretching out his hands to what little warmth the embers
emitted. Oh, but
And Genvissa.
Genvissa had been
reborn. William knew it, but he didn't know who, or where, she was.
Genvissa-reborn undoubtedly faced the same obstacle. That was their great
dilemma. They needed each other desperately so they could reunite and complete
the Game, but they did not know who the other was. But wherever or whoever,
William knew one thing: Genvissa-reborn would not rest until she had achieved a
place within
But who was she? Who?
William pondered the
fact that as this night was his own wedding night, so also it was Edward of
England's wedding night. He knew Edward well, the Saxon king having spent a
number of his youthful years at William's court while he was exiled from
Genvissa would loathe
the necessity of becoming a wife, as she would loathe the inherent subjection
to a man that marriage meant in this Christian world. It went against her very
nature as Mistress of the Labyrinth, an office of such feminine power and
mystery that its incumbents refused to subject themselves to any man. Well
might a Mistress form a partnership of power and lust and ambition with a
Kingman, but never would she subject herself to him.
But William also knew
that Genvissa-reborn would do whatever she had to do in order to achieve her
ambitions. In this world women had little power. No longer did Mothers rule
over households and over their people; the idea of an Assembly of women setting
the course of a society was unthinkable now, when men ruled and subjected women
to their every whim. Unpalatable as it might be to her, Genvissa would subject herself to marriage, if it meant gain.
Marriage to Edward would give her the most gain of all. Queen of
The moment William
heard of Edward's betrothal to Godwine's daughter Caela, William had been
almost certain she was Genvissa-reborn. True, Caela
was by all reports very young, and as timid as a mouse, but maybe that was
merely Genvissa's way of disguising her true nature.
William idly wondered
what was happening in Edward's bed this night. Had he enjoyed his bedding with
the Mistress of the Labyrinth as much as William had enjoyed his with Matilda?
William's face
sobered, and he flexed his fingers back and forth before the fading heat,
slowly stretching out some of the tension in his body. He needed desperately to
contact Genvissa-reborn. He wondered if Caela had any idea who he was. Did she suspect William was more than just a
struggling duke of Normandy, or did she merely think of him as some bastard
upstart who brazened his way about the courts of counts and princes, and of
little consequence to her own life and ambitions.
William stared into
the fire, then grinned as a means of contacting Genvissa-reborn occurred to
him. He would announce himself in no uncertain manner.
She would know him by his actions, and by his message, and then she would make
herself known to him.
"Soon, my love,
soon," he whispered.
"William?"
His mind still caught
in thoughts of Genvissa-reborn, William jerked to his feet, turning about.
Matilda was sitting up
in bed, the coverlets sliding down to her waist and exposing her small breasts.
"What are you doing?"
After a moment's
hesitation, William walked to the bed, studying Matilda before he slid beneath
the coverlets. "Wondering if I dared wake you again," he said.
"But, look, now I find you have answered my dreams."
And with that he
seized her shoulders, and pushed her back on the bed.
"Matilda,"
he said, "Matilda, Matilda, Matilda," using the sound of her name in
his mouth to suffocate his thoughts of Genvissa.
cbRee
%. WANNE MOVED
THROUGH KING EDWARDS crowded Great Hall at
The monks were
ecstatic, sundry other clerics present were grudging (why
Happy to be alive and breathing after so long locked in death.
She saw Tostig's eyes
on her, saw the darkness in them, and she widened her smile and closed the
short distance to his side. "Brother," she said, "you do look
well this morn."
His eyes darkened
even further. "I am your husband's brother, lady. Not
yours."
"As my
husband's, so also mine." She leaned close, allowing her breast and
rounded belly to brush against him, and kissed him softly on the mouth in a
courtly greeting.
As she drew back,
Swanne heard his swift intake of breath and decided to deepen the tease.
"How else should I think of you but as my
brother?" Now Tostig flushed, and Swanne
laughed and laid the palm of her hand gently against his cheek, pleased at his
patent desire. At fifteen, Tostig still had not learned to conceal his thoughts
and needs, nor to discern, or even to realize, that the carefully chosen
expressions of others so often concealed contradictory thoughts.
Tostig began to
speak, struggling over some meaningless words, and Swanne studied him
indulgently. He was not, nor would ever be, as handsome as Harold, but he had a
certain charm about him, a darkness of both visage and spirit that Swanne found
immensely appealing.
He could be so
useful.
"Tostig,"
she said, and slipped one arm through his. "I am finding this crush quite
discomforting. Will you escort me through the hall to my husband's side?"
She leaned against him. "I feel quite faint amid this airlessness."
"Of course, my
lady!" Tostig said, relieved to have been given something to do, yet
flustered all the more by Swanne's attention and the press of her flesh against
his. He suddenly found himself wishing that he'd laid eyes on her before
Harold, and that he had been the one to demand her hand and her virginity.
"Aside! Aside
for the lady Swanne!" he cried, paying no attention to the irritated
glances of thegns and their wives. No one said anything, not to a son of the
powerful earl of
Within moments,
Tostig had led Swanne into the clearer space before Edward's dais. The Great
Hall, only recently completed, formed the focus of Edward's entire palace complex
at
The focus of the hall
was the dais at the southern end. Here Edward currently sat, conversing with
Harold who stood just to one side and slightly
Denina me kings
throne, and with Eadwine, the newly appointed abbot of
Tostig halted as soon
as they'd moved into clearer space, and now he stared toward the queen.
"Will there be a child soon?" he asked quietly of Swanne.
She laughed, the
sound musical and deep, and for an instant Tostig felt her body press the
harder against his. "Nay," she said. "There will never be a
child oithat union."
"How can you be
so sure?"
Swanne put her lips
against Tostig's ear, and felt him shudder. "He will not lay with
her," she said. "He believes fornication to be such a great evil that
he will not participate in it." She paused. "Especially with a
daughter of Godwine. He will have no Godwine heir to the throne. My dear,"
she said, allowing a little breathlessness to creep into her voice, "can you imagine such restraint?"
"With you in his
bed, no man, not even Edward, would be capable of it."
"You flatter me
with smooth words," she said, but let Tostig see by the warmth in her eyes
how well she had received his words.
"But…"
Tostig struggled to keep his voice even, "but if he has no child of his
body, then surely then there will be a Godwine heir."
"My
husband," she said, laughing. "For surely, for who else? To think,
Tostig, you stand here now with the future queen of
Emboldened by her
words and touch, Tostig said, "That you will be queen of England there can
be no doubt, but who the lucky Godwine brother is that sits beside you as your
lord can still be open to question."
That I will be queen of England is
undoubted,
Swanne thought, laughing with Tostig, encouraging his foolish words, but that you will ever sit beside me, or Harold, can never be. I have a greater lord
awaiting me in the shadows, a mightier lover, a Kingman, and the day he
appears, so shall all the Godwine boys be crushed into the dust.
At that moment Harold
looked up from his discussion with Edward, and saw his wife standing too
familiarly close to Tostig. He frowned, and spoke swiftly to one of his thegns
who stood behind him.
The next moment the
thegn had stepped from the dais and was approaching Tostig and Swanne. "My lady and lord," he
said, bowing slightly, "the lord Harold begs leave to interrupt your mirth
and requests that his wife join him on the dais. We have
received word that a
deputation trom the auKe 01 iNormanuy nas amvcu, <mu the king wishes to receive
him."
"I am not invited?" said Tostig.
"You are not my
lord's wife," said the thegn.
"I am a
Godwineson!" Tostig said, seething.
The thegn was a man
of enough years and experience not to be intimidated by the brashness of youth.
"All the more reason why our king would not want you standing beside
him," he said. "Harold stands there as representative of his father,
who cannot attend. Edward tolerates him, but only him. My lady, if you will accompany me."
And with that, the
thegn led Swanne away, leaving Tostig standing red-faced and humiliated.
HAROLD TOOK SWANNE'S
HAND AS SHE MOUNTED the dais, and helped her to a chair. "Was Tostig
annoying you?" he asked, smiling gently at his wife. By God, even now he
could hardly believe he'd won
such a treasure!
"He is a
youth," Swanne said, her expression now demure as she sat. "All
youths are abrasive,
and annoying."
"I will speak to
him," Harold said.
"Oh, no!"
Swanne said. "It would embarrass him, and only create bad blood. Let it
rest, I pray you."
Harold began to say
something else, but just then Edward leaned over and hushed them both, waving
Harold to his own chair to the king's left.
"I dislike
people whispering behind my back!" Edward said, and Harold bowed his head
in apology as he sat. Once Edward had returned his attention to the Hall,
Harold leaned back, looking behind Edward's throne to where Caela's own throne
sat aligned with Harold's chair. He tried to catch her eye, but she was so
determinedly focused on her embroidery that she did not, or chose not to,
notice his gaze.
Sighing, Harold
turned his eyes back to the front. He'd had so little chance to speak with
Caela in the past two months, and no chance at all to ask of her in privacy why
she wore such a face of misery to the world.
Damn their father for giving such a
wondrous girl to such a monstrous
husband!
In truth, Harold
would vastly have preferred to have spent the morning out hunting, but he'd had
to stand in for his father who was not well. Despite the strained and often
hostile relations between the earl of
I
noblemen advisers,
and thus sat, by right, on the dais beside Edward. If God-wine could not
attend, then it was best his eldest son and heir do so in his place. Not only
would Harold represent Godwine during court proceedings, but his presence would
also further cement the
Godwine was
determined that one day either he, or his son Harold, or the far less likely
prospect of his grandson by Caela, would take the throne of
Once the dais was
still, Edward waved to the court chamberlain to admit the duke of
Edward had two great
weapons to use against the Godwine clan: the first was his refusal to get an
heir on Caela; the second, his deep ties with the Norman court that carried
with it the possibility that Edward would name the duke of
As far as Edward was
concerned, William was not only a friend and an ally, he was one of the few
weapons Edward had against Godwine and his sons.
Edward liked William
very much.
The Norman entourage
entered the Great Hall with a flourish of horns, drums, the sound of booted and
spurred feet ringing out across the flagstones, and the sweep of heavy cloaks
flowing back from broad shoulders. Edward grinned as he recognized several
among the entourage that he knew personally.
There were some
twenty or twenty-two
Guy Martel led his
entourage to within three paces of the dais, then halted, bending to one knee
in a gesture of great gracefulness.
Behind him, each
member ot the entourage likewise dropped to a Knee, bowing his head.
"My greatest
lord," Martel said, his voice ringing through the Hall, "I greet you
well on behalf of my lord, William of Normandy, and convey to you his heartiest
congratulations on the occasion of your marriage."
Edward grunted.
On her chair, Swanne
shifted slightly, bored with proceedings. She tried to catch Tostig's eye for
some amusement—he was standing to one side of the Hall—but failed. She sighed,
and rubbed her belly, wishing she were anywhere but here at this moment. Her
mind began to drift, as it so often did, to thoughts of Brutus-reborn, and
where he might be, and if he were thinking of
her.
"My lord wishes
to present you with a token of his love and respect," Martel continued,
"and hopes that you are as blessed in your marriage as he
is in his."
With that, Martel
reached under his cloak, and withdrew a small unadorned wooden box. "My
lord, if I may approach…"
Mildly curious—and
yet disappointed that William's gift was not more proudly packaged—Edward gestured
Martel forward, taking the box from him.
"What is
this?" he said, opening the lid and staring incredulously at what
lay within.
It was nothing but a
ball of string. Impressively golden string, but a ball of
string nonetheless.
This is what William thought to offer
a king as a gift?
Caught by the offense
underlying Edward's words, Swanne looked over, wondering what the duke of
"What is
this?" Edward repeated, and withdrew the ball of string from the box,
holding it up and staring at it.
Swanne went cold, and
her heart began to pound. She was so shocked that she could not for the moment
form a coherent thought.
"A ball of
string?" Edward said, the anger in his voice now perfectly apparent.
"If I may,"
said Martel, taking the string from Edward. "This is a treasure of great
mystery." He continued, "May I be permitted to show to you its
secret?"
Edward nodded,
slowly, reluctantly. A
treasure of great mystery?
Trembling so badly
she could hardly move, Swanne edged forward on her seat. Oh, please, gods, let this be what I want it to be!
Please, gods, please!
Martel began to
unwind the string, which was indeed made of golden thread. His entourage had
now formed a long line behind him, and Martel
siowiy waiKea aown
the line, spinning out the string so a portion of it lay in the hands of each
member of the line. Once the string had been entirely played out—there were
perhaps fifteen or twenty feet of string between each man—Martel walked back
toward Edward's dais, holding the end of the string.
Again he bowed.
"Pray let me show you," he said, "the road to salvation."
And with that, still
keeping a firm hold of the end of the string, he stepped back, and nodded at his
men.
They began to move,
and within only a moment or two, it became obvious that they moved in a
well-choreographed and practiced dance of great beauty. They moved this way and
that, in circles and arcs, until each watcher held his or her breath, sure the
string was about to become horribly and irredeemably tangled. But it never did,
and the men continued in their dance, their faces somber, their movements
careful and supple.
Of all the watchers,
only Swanne knew what she was truly watching, and only she knew what that ball
of string represented: Ariadne's Thread. The secret to the labyrinth.
And gift to Edward be damned. This
was a message for her, and her alone!
"Brutus,"
she whispered, now at the very edge of her seat, her eyes staring wildly at the
Brutus… none other than William of
"Thank all the
gods in creation," she said, again in a whisper, and her eyes filled with
tears and her heart pounded with such great emotion that Swanne was not
entirely sure that she would not faint with the strength of it at any moment.
With a final flourish
the dancers halted, paused, and then in a concluding, single movement, each
laid his portion of the string on the ground, and then moved away from it,
their task completed.
Soon the flagstone
area before Edward's throne was empty, save for the golden thread, now laid out
in a perfect representation of the pathways of a unicursal labyrinth.
Edward had risen to
his feet, and his eyes moved slowly between the golden labyrinth laid out on
the floor and Guy Martel.
"The road to
salvation?" he said in a puzzled tone.
"My lord duke
well knows of your piety," Martel said, "and of your great
disappointment that you have been unable to tread those paths within
you enter the heart
of the labyrinth that Christ and his redemption await you. When you exit the
labyrinth, retracing your steps through its twisting paths, you do so in a
state of grace, and you will truly be stepping on the pathway toward your own
redemption. This labyrinth, great lord and king of
No, thought Swanne, the tears running freely down her
cheeks, this is Brutus-reborn's gift to me.
Edward was clapping
his hands, his cheeks pink with joy, and he began to converse animatedly with
Martel. But Harold was staring at Swanne, and leaned over to her, concerned.
"My dear, what ails you?"
Clearly overcome with
emotion, her eyes locked onto the golden labyrinth, Swanne had to struggle to
speak. When she did, her voice was only a hoarse whisper.
"The
child," she said, and rested a trembling hand on her belly. "The
child has caused me some upset. I will retire to our chamber, I think, and
rest."
Harold leaned closer,
worry now clearly etched on his face. "Should I send for the
midwives?"
"No! No, I need
only to rest. The heat and the crowd in this Hall have made me feel faint. I
will be well enough. Please, Harold, let me be."
And with that she
rose and, a little unsteadily at first, made her way from the Hall.
Harold might have
followed her, but as Swanne passed behind Caela's chair, he saw that his sister
was staring at the labyrinth with almost as much emotion as Swanne had been.
Harold sent a final glance Swanne's way—she was walking much more steadily now,
and his worry for her eased—then he rose himself and went to Caela's side.
"Sister, what ails you?"
She tore her eyes
from the labyrinth, and looked at Harold. "How do we know," she said,
"that Christ is in the heart of the labyrinth, instead of some dark
monster? Promise me, Harold, that you will never enter that pathway." He
attempted a smile for her. "Should you not be warning your husband?" "I care not who he meets within the heart of the
labyrinth, brother. Christ, or a monster."
And with that she,
too, was gone, rising to exit with her ladies.
LATER, AS MARTEL WAS
SHOWING EDWARD THE INTRI-cacies of laying out the string into the form of the
labyrinth, a man leaned
against the wall of
the Great Hall and watched with a cynical half smile on his face as the king of
He was a man of some
influence within Edward's court, and that influence was growing stronger day by
day. He was a man liked and trusted by many, disliked by some others,
overlooked by many more, and used by none. He was a man far greater than his
outward appearance and station within society would suggest.
He was Asterion, the
great Minotaur, lover of Ariadne, and victim of Theseus. Many thousands of
years ago, Asterion had been trapped within the heart of the Great Founding
Labyrinth of Crete. There Theseus had come to him and, aided by Ariadne,
Asterion's half sister, had slain him. But then Theseus had abandoned Ariadne
and, in revenge, she colluded with Asterion's shade, promising him rebirth into
the world of the living if he passed over to her the Darkcraft, the dark power
of evil that the Game had been created to imprison. Asterion had agreed,
handing over to Ariadne the ancient Dark-craft for her promise that she would
destroy the Game completely.
But Ariadne had lied,
and one of her daughter-heirs, Genvissa, had sought to resurrect the Game with
her lover Kingman, Brutus. That attempt had ended in disaster and death—two of
the things Asterion was best at manipulating— but the attempt had given
Asterion cause for thought.
What if, instead of
completely destroying the Game, he sought to control it?
Asterion stood within
the Great Hall of Westminster, clothed in the guise he wore every day to
confuse and deflect, watching Edward in his labyrinth, his thoughts all on that
great prize: the Troy Game. To control the Game, Asterion needed the six
kingship bands of
The bands were a
pitiful prize, considering that Asterion had the power to raise and destroy
empires, but these bands continued to elude him as they had from that moment
when Asterion, in his rebirth as Amorian the Poiteran, had invaded and razed
Brutus' Troia Nova. He had not been able to find the bands then. He had
continued to fail in their retrieval for two thousand years. Brutus had hid
them well, embuing their secret places with such protective magic that they
remained hidden from Asterion.
And, by all the gods
and imps in creation, how Asterion had tried to uncover their location! He had
thrown everything he had at the city in order to
discover their locations. He knew they were somewhere within
Asterion knew it,
because every time he destroyed the city, whether in sheer fury or in order to
try again to unearth the bands, the city regrew. Under Asterion's direction,
the Celts, the Romans, the Scotti, the Picts, the
various tribes of the
Anglo-Saxons, and finally the Vikings had invaded the land and razed or
otherwise destroyed
corpses.
Every time the city
was struck down, it somehow recovered. Perhaps not overnight, but it did recover. Other cities would have succumbed and
vanished beneath the waving grasses of wild meadows. But not
stay dead.
This told Asterion
several things. One, that the bands were
still here, for otherwise the Troy Game would not be able to function. Two,
that the Game begun so long ago remained alive and well and grew more vital
with each disaster, as it absorbed the evil that attacked it. Finally, the
city's continued regeneration told Asterion where the Game was—where lay its
heart.
When Asterion, as
Amorian, had razed Brutus' Troia Nova, he had not been able to determine the
location of the actual Troy Game itself, where lay the labyrinth. For decades
the area surrounding the
Flushed with their
success, which they attributed to the benefice of the gods, the town's citizens
built a temple of standing stones atop Og's Hill. The town grew space—and was
then torn apart by Asterion's fury in the guise of the invading Celts. The area
surrounding the ancient Veiled Hills remained desolate for almost a century.
Then the Celtic
Britons built there a larger town this time, in the same spot that Brutus had
erected Troia Nova, their streets following the contours of his streets. The
town prospered, and the Celtic Druids erected a circle atop Og's Hill, which
they now called Lud Hill after one of their gods. This community Asterion
murdered with disease—a horrific plague that wiped out much of the population
of southern
Diana, the Roman
Goddess of the Hunt, who had been known during the time of the Greeks as
Artemis.
Asterion, who walked
through Roman London as one of
The labyrinth was
there. It had to be. It attracted to it the veneration and temples of every
people who lived within the city.
And yet the Game and
the labyrinth it hid would not allow Asterion to uncover it. No matter how many
times he caused the temples and churches atop Lud Hill to be razed, Asterion
could never discover the labyrinth.
No matter how deep he
caused his minions to dig. Now a Christian cathedral graced
the top of the hill.
To his eyes, still
yearning for the grace and color and beauty of the temples and halls of the
ancient Aegean world,
Suddenly Asterion's
eyes refocused on Edward in the Great Hall. The fool had worked his way through
the labyrinth to its heart, and then back out again. Now he was calling for
cups of wine to be handed about so he could raise a toast to William of
Normandy.
A servant handed
Asterion a cup, and Asterion put a smile on his face, nodding cheerfully to
Edward when the king looked at him, and toasted William of Normandy with wine
while in his heart he cursed him.
Asterion was wary of
William. Very wary. As Brutus, William's magic had been powerful enough to
outwit Asterion in his hunt for the kingship bands. Brutus' power was the
principal reason Asterion had for two thousand years kept those blocks in place
that prevented William and Genvissa's rebirth (and thus preventing everyone
else's rebirth who had been caught up in this battle).
But Asterion had not
been able to discover the bands, and thus, a few decades ago, frustrated beyond
measure, he had removed the blocks. One by one, women across western Europe had
fallen pregnant and given birth to babies who, as they grew, drew on the
remembered experiences and ambitions of a past life to shape their decision in
this life.
Asterion had taken
the added caution of ensuring that, first, William was reborn far from London
(a nice touch, Asterion thought, remembering how Genvissa's mother, Herron, had
caused Asterion to be reborn far from Llangarlia so many lifetimes ago), and,
secondly, William was kept busy and
distracted with
problems within his own duchy. Asterion did not want to meet William until he,
Asterion, was well and ready.
And Asterion did not
want to meet William, or to have to cope with the problem of William, until he
had the bands and… her.
His eyes slid from
Edward to the door through which Swanne had
vanished.
"Enjoy what
happiness you can find, Swanne," Asterion said. "It won't last
long."
CbAPGGR FOUR
ARRIAGE TO HAROLD
HAD BROUGHT SWANNE
many benefits—her
current proximity to
She had brushed aside
Harold's concerns, she had brushed aside the concerns of her attending woman
Hawise, and now Swanne stood wonderfully alone, her back against the closed
door of the bedchamber.
"Brutus,"
she whispered, the tears now flowing again down her cheeks. Then, more loudly,
more emphatically, "William!"
William of
Once again he would
reign as king over
"William,"
she whispered yet one more time, rolling the word about her mouth, loving the
feel of it, joyous in her new discovery.
He had sent that ball of string as a
message to her! He yearned for her as much as she for him!
It seemed such a
simple thing, discovering what name Brutus went by in this life, but its lack
had meant that Swanne had not, to this point, been able to discover or contact
Brutus-reborn. She needed to know who he was to be able to contact him, and
likewise he had to know her name. Much of her life to this point had been spent
in that search: Where are you
Brutus? Where?
Always that search
had been frustrated over and over again by circumstance.
Swanne had been born
in a county a long, long way from
or eleven years old
and had come to a full awareness—and remembrance— Swanne had been desperate to
leave her father's home and get to
To get back home.
To find Brutus and to
finish what had been so terribly interrupted.
But Swanne had been
reborn into a life and a world in which women had very little power, and even
less say over the destiny of their lives. Her father had laughed at her
pleadings to be allowed to live in
The thought of a husband made Swanne even more desperate—no Mistress of the
Labyrinth submitted to a husband—but as she grew older, and
rejected the hand of every suitor her father tossed her way, she grew ever more
desperate. She'd hoped Brutus-reborn would one day ride into her father's
estate and claim her, but he didn't, and Swanne realized he probably wouldn't.
As she did not know
him, so he did not know her.
The only way out of
her father's house, and the only way to
Then one day Harold
Godwineson had ridden, laughing and strong, into her father's courtyard, and
the instant Swanne had seen his face, felt his eyes upon her, she had known.
She had known who
Harold was reborn, and she knew she could use him. He would be her bridge to
Brutus-reborn and to
The blessing in all
of this was that Harold himself had no memory of his past life. If he'd had,
Swanne would have had no chance at him at all. She had no idea as to why this
was so—perhaps it was merely an indication of Harold's complete meaningless in
what was to come—but she was very, very grateful.
And so Swanne had
smiled, and shaken out her jet-black hair, and tilted her lovely head on her
graceful neck, and had won Harold before he'd even dismounted from his horse.
She went to his bed that night, and in return he had taken her from her
father's house the next morning.
They were wed, but
under Danelaw rather than Christian. That had been Swanne's demand, and Harold,
desperately in love with her, had agreed without complaint. A Danelaw marriage
gave Swanne more independence, and far more control over her extensive lands,
which had been her dowry, than a Christian
©
marriage would have
done. Under the hated Christian law, everything—her estates, her chattels, even
her very soul—would have become Harold's. Under Danelaw it remained Swanne's
And thus to
Where was Brutus? What was his name
in this reborn life?
But now she
knew, and all she wanted to do was go to him, and, in this want and need,
Swanne succumbed to a fit of hatred so great that she actually sank to the
floor, beating at her belly with her fists.
All she wanted to do
was go to her lover, to go to William, and here she was, almost seven months
swollen with another man's child.
Harold! She spat the name, all her
gratefulness for his usefulness vanishing in her anguish. She wanted to go to
William. She wanted to so
badly, she could taste the need in her mouth, feel it in her
body, and here she was, great with another man's child! Coel's child.
Swanne went cold with
apprehension. Oh gods… Coel's child. How could she explain that to William?
She hit her belly
hard with the closed fist of her right hand, beating at it until she bruised her
skin beneath its linens and silks. Coel-Harold's child. And a son.
She conceived the
baby only after many months of marriage, when it had become apparent to her
that Brutus-reborn was nowhere within Edward's court, and likely nowhere within
"Curse you, Harold, for getting this child in me!" she said, low and vicious,
and she barely
avoided using her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to visit him with a
death-dealing curse then and there.
No, no, she must be
careful. She must be prudent. She was very well aware that Asterion lurked
somewhere, and, after the mistakes of the past life, Swanne was not going to
make another ill-considered move until she knew precisely where Asterion was
and what power he commanded. As Genvissa, she had thought he was weak and
essentially powerless. What a fool she had been. Asterion had played with them
all, had toyed with them, and had used Cornelia
to stop the Game in its tracks.
Swanne had tried to
scry out Asterion's identity—she had managed it easily enough when she had been
Genvissa and had realized the fact of Asterion's rebirth within the Poiteran
people—but now, in this life, Asterion appeared to have grown so greatly in
power and in cunning that she could not know where, or who, he was.
Even if she didn't
know who he was, Swanne knew precisely what Asterion wanted. To destroy the
Game once and for all, and to destroy Swanne and William with it.
No, you bastard, she thought, her eyes still
closed, her lovely face set in uncommonly harsh lines. No. And this time you can be sure we won't allow you
to use Caela as your dagger's hand.
Ah, Caela! Swanne's
eyes opened, and they were hard with hatred. Caela! Swanne couldn't believe it when she first met
Harold's sister. She would have murdered the bitch then and there, had it not
been for the fact that she still needed Harold's goodwill (and body and bed and
children) to assure her a place by his side at court.
Then, as if her very
existence were not bad enough, Caela had become queen! Still Swanne did nothing. The murder of Caela would
expose her to far too much risk. Not only would it alienate her from Harold
(and how she despised being tied by need to the man) but it would overexpose
her to Asterion. For all Swanne knew, Asterion was hoping that Swanne would murder Caela.
So she stilled her
hand, and contented herself with whispering viciousness into the poor girl's
ear whenever she had the chance.
The blessing in all
of this was the fact that Harold and Caela had been reborn as siblings. Swanne
wasn't sure who was responsible for that piece of mischief—whether fate or
Asterion—but it had provided her with a never-ending source of amusement. Poor,
lost, insipid Caela, for whatever reason, not remembering a thing of her
previous life, and horrified at her constant yearning for a man who was her
brother. And the equally un-remembering Harold yearning for her.
All that suppressed
lust.
Swanne could
understand why Harold might not remember his previous life (he was hardly
important in the scheme of things, was he?), but she was surprised that Caela
did not remember (if also gratifying, as it gave Swanne so many opportunities
to torment the woman). Caela still carried the ancient mother goddess Mag within her womb (was there nothing that could eject that damn goddess
from Cornelia-Caela's womb?), but even Mag seemed faded, lost, forgetful.
Useless.
Swanne shrugged to
herself. Well, neither of them were of much account now.
Swanne slowly rose to
her feet, drying her tears and straightening her robe, her thoughts now back to
William. There was a large mirror of burnished bronze in the corner of the
chamber, and Swanne walked over to it, regarding herself within its depths.
Would he like her? Would he desire
her? Pregnancy
aside, Swanne was taller and slimmer in this life than she had been as
Genvissa. Elegant, where once she had been earthy. Swanne pulled the veil from
her head and tossed it contemptuously to the far corner of the chamber: all
Anglo-Saxon ladies wore lawn or silk veils over their head in public, and
Swanne loathed this single badge of womanly subjection more than any other. Who
could imagine it? Veiling a woman's beauty! Pulling the pins from her hair with
almost the same amount of vigor as she'd pulled away the veil, Swanne tipped
her head to one side, letting her heavy hair fall over her shoulder, admiring
the way her long neck glowed like ivory in the candlelight. As a child, Swanne
had been named for her long, exquisite neck, combined with her manner of
holding her head. Even as a baby, apparently, her beauty had been remarkable.
Now, as a mature woman, she could stop men open-mouthed in their tracks.
"Thank the gods
this child has swollen only my belly and not my feet, or even my face,"
Swanne muttered. She continued to study herself critically, unfastening her
heavy outer surcoat and allowing it to fall away from her shoulders and arms to
the floor so that she stood only in her under gown of pale linen.
She remembered how
Tostig had lusted after her in the Great Hall earlier.
She remembered how
other men had followed her with their eyes.
She remembered how
Harold still used her body, night after night, in their bed.
She remembered how
she and Brutus used to make love when, as Genvissa, she had been heavily
pregnant with their daughter. Her belly hadn't deterred him then… why would it
now?
She smiled. So her
belly was all crowded out with child—that made her no less desirable.
"I won't tell
him about Coel," she murmured. "Why? What does it matter?"
Her hands stilled, and
her eyes stared at her reflection. "William," she whispered. Ah, gods, he was so close! "William!"
Then again, her voice
riddled with desire: "William!"
Finally, her mind so
consumed with need and want and desire that all thought of Asterion and of
prudence disappeared, Swanne opened her arms, cried out one more time, "William!" and vanished.
CbAPGGR F1V
ILLIAM STOOD IN
THE TACK ROOM OF THE
stable complex in his
castle at
They had just decided
that one of William's most prized saddles needed one of its seams restitched
when William suddenly raised his head and peered into the middle distance, his
eyes unfocused, his face drawn.
"My lord?"
Roussel asked softly, wondering if his duke had heard the sounds of a distant
battle that his own aging ears had yet to discern.
"Leave me,"
William whispered.
"My lord—"
"Leave
me!" Then,
in a more moderate tone that was nonetheless tense, "Ensure that no one
disturbs me."
"Yes, my
lord." Roussel bowed his head, turned on his heel, and left. Whatever he
thought at the abrupt and strange command did not show on his face.
The instant Roussel
had departed, William began to pace back and forth within the relatively narrow
confines of the tack room.
Genvissa! She had seen, or heard about,
his gift to Edward, and recognized it for what it was.
She was on her way.
William felt nerves
flutter in his belly. Gods, he
wanted to see her, to hold her! Yet, at the same time, William worried, his eyes
roving from this dark corner to that, wondering if somehow this would expose
Genvissa-reborn or himself. If somehow this demonstration of power on her part
would awake Asterion into madness…
I
And then she was
there, directly before him, breathless, laughing, tears running down her
cheeks, her arms held out, and William forgot everything else and snatched her
into his arms, holding her tight, laughing and crying with her. He was kissing
her, she was pressing her body into his, her hands grabbing at his arms, his
shoulders, running through the short black curls on his head.
"You've lost
your great mane," she said, somehow managing to get the words out between
kisses.
"It did not suit
a Norman man-of-war," he said. Then, summoning all his control, he put his
hands on her shoulders and pushed her back a little so he could see her face,
and study it.
"You're beautiful,"
he said, and the wonder and admiration in his voice made her laugh and cry all
over again. "More beautiful than ever. Sweet Lord Christ, Genvissa, thank all the gods that we've found each other!"
"I was
desperate. I didn't know who you were, where… and then your damned envoy
arrived this morning, and presented Edward with that wonderful ball of string,
and I knew, I knew, I could hear you screaming for
me… I came…"
They embraced and
kissed again, and then again William pushed her back, gently. "I had
thought Edward a pious man," he said, grinning at her, "but I see he
has wasted no time getting an heir on you."
Swanne's expression
stilled. "What?"
William laid a hand
on her swollen belly. "You've been married only, what? Two months? And yet
this is a six or seven month belly you carry."
She frowned all the
more.
William opened his
mouth, hesitated, then said, "You are Caela, are you not?"
Her reaction stunned
William. She tore out of his arms, stepped back, and looked so angry that
William almost thought she might hit him.
"I am not that fool!" she said. "I am Swanne, lady of
"Swanne—what a
lovely name—Swanne, I am sorry. Like you, I worried for years where you were,
and who. Then I heard Edward was taking a wife, and I wondered if this was you.
It seemed to fit… I knew you would do everything in your power to consolidate
yourself within
Swanne was not
appeased. "Caela is Cornelia-reborn."
William stilled, his
hand partway down Swanne's cheek. "Cornelia? By the gods, what is she doing here? What mischief
does she plan?"
Swanne's mouth
curled. "She couldn't plan the curdling of a milk pudding, my dear. Fate
has this time been kind to us. Cornelia has been reborn as the timid, helpless
daughter of Godwine, so sexless and so undesirable, thatsfee at least will
never be swelling with child. William, hate her all you might, for that at
least she deserves, but do not fear her. She has been reborn into such weakness
that she does not even remember her past life!"
William frowned.
"She doesn't remember?"
"No." Now
Swanne moved back into him again, running her hands over his body, and her
mouth, slowly and teasingly, over his neck and jaw.
He drew in a deep
breath, and she smiled, and nipped at him with her teeth. "She is of no
account," she whispered. "None."
Again he breathed
deeply, then ran a hand over her belly. "So who gave you this then, if not
Edward? You said you were a lady of
"Aye. His eldest
son, Harold."
There was something
in her voice, a tightness, and William took her face between his fingers and
tilted her face up to his. "Harold? A powerful catch."
"He has been my
path into
"And who is Harold, Swanne?"
She twisted her face
out of his fingers and kissed his neck again. "No one. Only a man."
"He is no one
reborn?"
She laughed
throatily. "Of course not." Her teeth nipped into his skin, and he
felt tiny pinpricks of pain as her sharp teeth drew blood, and he forgot Harold
in the rising tide of his desire.
"You should have
chosen a better place to come to me, my love. This dusty tack room isn't
quite—"
"It will
do," she said, and loosened the laces holding together the neck of her under
robe so that he could run his hand over her breasts. "For all the gods'
sakes, William…"
The agony of wanting
in her voice undid him. He hauled the skirts of her gown up, running his hands
over her thighs and bare buttocks. Then he lifted her up, resting her buttocks
on a shelf and, as she wrapped her legs about his hips, fumbled desperately
with his own clothing that he might bury himself within her.
As he did so, as he
moaned and dug his fingers into her buttocks, pulling her hard against him,
there came the faint memory of Matilda's words two months earlier: You will not dishonor me with her?
Never! He had cried.
Never.
He thrust deeply into
Swanne again, and then again, and she cried out and tightened her legs about
him. Never. And then William became aware of
that damned belly of Swanne's digging into his, and he wondered if she had
cried out like this under Harold of Wes-sex, and whether or not she had ever
promised Harold what William had promised Matilda. Never.
"I can't,"
he said, groaning, and pulled out of Swanne abruptly so that she almost tumbled
to the floor.
She flushed, and he
knew her well enough to know it was anger. "Not yet," he said,
readjusting his own clothing. "What?" she hissed. "You don't
want to dishonor your wife?" William's face
reddened—she had picked up his thoughts. "She is important to me," he
said.
"And I not?" Swanne said, dangerously quiet.
"Listen to me,
Swanne." William stepped close to her and took her chin between fingers
less gently than they had been earlier. "Neither of us can afford to relax
our guard. Each of us has a part to play so that, eventually, we can both play
our parts together. Yes, Matilda is important to me.
She brings at her back military might and alliances that I can ill afford to
ignore if I am to seize the throne of
She had quietened and
relaxed a little as he spoke, and now she reluctantly gave a small nod.
"You think Asterion sends these armies to annoy you?"
"Aye. Again and
again they come back. That's Asterion's hand, none other." He paused.
"Is he in
She shook her head.
"I cannot tell who he is, but the 'where'… well, I am certain he is in
"We must be
wary, Swanne."
"Yes. I
know."
He kissed her.
"It won't be long. Surely… not now."
She gave a half
smile. "No. It won't be long." Then… "Where are your Kingship
bands, William? You feel naked without them."
He grimaced.
"After… after you died—"
"After my murder at that bitch's hands!"
"Aye. After
Cornelia murdered you, I burned you atop a great pyre on Og's Hill. Then,
mindful of your warning—Save the
Game! Hide it, for Asterion is surely on his way!—I took the bands from my limbs
and secreted them about
She shivered, and moved in close against him. "I
do not know what amazes me more, William. That for two thousand years Asterion
sought those bands— and kept us apart—or that you have such power that you
could frustrate him for that long. William, can you still feel the bands? You
know they are safe?"
He nodded. "They
are safe. I would know the instant anyone touched them."
"And the
Game?" she said. "Do you feel it, even as far from it as you
are?"
He nodded. "It
is strong still. Unweakened by the time it has been left by itself."
There was a small
silence.
"It is
different, William."
He hesitated before
answering. Yes, the Game was different.
"Could the Game
have changed in the two thousand years it was left alone?" Swanne said.
"Perhaps,"
William said, but his voice was slow and unreassuring. "We had not closed
it, it was still alive, and still in that phase of its existence where it was
actively growing. Who knows what…"
He stopped then, but
his unspoken words were clear. Who
knows what it could have grown into.
"Oh, gods,
William," Swanne said. "How long before you can come?"
He gave a small
shrug. "With the resources Matilda brings at her back? With her father and
her entire clan as allies? A year, maybe two at the most. Swanne, listen to
me—we cannot risk this again."
"Meeting like
this? Are you afraid that next time your Matilda might discover us?"
He tensed, and she
knew the truth of her words.
"I cannot afford
to alienate her, Swanne. But, no, I fear more for what Asterion might do. You
can be sure that he's somewhere, watching us. Manipulating us." He paused.
"Is there anyone at Edward's court that you can trust to carry messages
between us?"
She thought,
frowning, then her brow cleared. "Yes. Do you know the cleric Aldred? He
is a
"Yes, indeed. I
know him well." William paused, thought, then gave a decisive nod.
"He is an excellent choice. Either he, or some of his subordinates, travel
to and from
"And he favors
you. I have heard him talk well of you to Edward."
William smiled.
"Aldred then. But be careful, for—"
He stopped suddenly,
his head up. "Gods, Matilda is but fifty paces away! She is looking for
me! Go, Swanne, Go!"
"William…"
"Go!" He kissed her once, hard. "Go! It won't
be long. I swear. It won't be
long… go!"
And then she was
gone, and William staggered, caught his balance, and looked up to see Matilda
staring at him from the doorway.
CbЈPG6R SIX
HE WAS ONLY
SEVENTEEN, THE CROWN OF HER
head scarcely reached
his chest, and she had none of the mystical power of the woman who had just
left him, but Matilda's simple, still presence and her clear, questioning gaze
made William's heart thud with nerves.
"There has been
someone with you," she said, and walked into the room, her eyes now
sliding this way and that about the tack room.
Suddenly her eyes
were back on him, very still. "Someone unsettling enough that your breath
rasps in your throat and your cheeks flush. What is this, William? That look I
only thought to see in the more intimate moments of our marriage."
"You surprised
me."
"I think I
should have surprised you a moment or two earlier than I did. Yes?"
William thought of
what Matilda might have seen had she been that bit
earlier. Swanne, legs about his hips, moaning in abandon? Gods…
"You
vowed," Matilda's voice was harsher now, and William could hear the grate
of pain and judgment underlying it, "that you would never dishonor me with
her. Not two months since."
Gods, what had she seen? Or was
Matilda more perceptive than he had credited?
William thought of
all the lies he could tell, would have told had this been Cornelia
instead of Matilda, and he thought that when he began to speak, one of those
glib lies would slip smoothly out. But he found himself remembering their
marriage night, and what benefits the truth had brought him then, and so when
he spoke, it was truth rather than falsehoods. "She was here, that woman
of whom I spoke, and she begged me to take her. Oh God, Matilda, I wanted to.
Thus my breath. Thus my flushed cheeks."
"And you did
not?" Matilda had not moved, and her eyes were very steady on his.
"I began,"
he said. "I was roused, and for a moment I did not think. Then I
remembered you, and I stepped back from her."
"You remembered
what I bring at my back, more like."
O
"I remembered you, Matilda. If it had been your dowry at the forefront
of my mind then I could have lied to you just now."
"Who is she,
William?"
"She is the lady
Swanne, Harold of Wessex's wife."
"I have heard of
her, and of her legendary beauty. How came she here, William?"
Oh gods, how to explain this to her?
"She was raised
among the ancient ways," he said, "and when a baby suckled at the
breasts of faeries. She… she commands powers that many would condemn."
Matilda stared at her
husband for many long minutes, digesting this piece of information. "A
witch?" she said finally, her voice a mere whisper.
William opened, then
closed his mouth. He gave a single nod.
"By Christ
himself, William, what interest has she in you?"
"Even witches
can find me attractive, Matilda."
Matilda laughed, and
William was profoundly relieved to hear genuine amusement in it.
"As also
daughters of
"No. Matilda… I
have spoken long and often to you of my plans for my… for our future. But there is one burning ambition of which I
have not yet spoken to you."
She raised an
eyebrow.
"I long for the
throne of
She gave a
disbelieving laugh. "Fighting for
"When
"Those bits of it you command," she said
sotto voce.
"How much more
would you like to be queen of
She thought about it.
"Very much, I think. I have heard it is a fine land, and rich, and its
people pliable. But I have also heard that there are many people who lust for
He grinned,
mischievously. "I thought the challenge would appeal to you."
"Oh, aye,
challenge does appeal to me. Why else marry
you?"
They both laughed,
their eyes locking, and William relaxed even more. He moved close to her, and
bent down to kiss her, but she moved away.
"Not when your
mouth still stinks of this Swanne. Later, perhaps, when you have washed away
her taste with wine."
William was not
perturbed by Matilda's refusal, for there was no hatred or viciousness in her
voice. Indeed, her tone had been matter-of-fact, as if all she had complained
about was that his mouth still stank of the leeks he'd eaten for his noon meal.
"I will secure
"Not this
Swanne?"
He shook his head,
his eyes unwavering. "No. You. Swanne is… Swanne is my eyes and ears
within Edward's court. My ambition for
"And yet she
does not want to be your queen in return for all this disloyalty to her country
and husband?"
"What she might want," William said quietly, "is not what she
might necessarily get." Stunningly, he realized that was no lie.
She regarded him very
steadily for some time before finally speaking. "Do you not want to know
the reason I came seeking you? What made me dare the stables and all its
dirt?"
He smiled.
"What, my love?"
Now she drew close to
him and, taking his hand, put it on her stomach. "The midwives have just
confirmed to me what I have suspected now for a week or more. I am with child,
William."
He looked at her,
then drew her in close, holding her in silence for a long time. Eventually
Matilda drew back, her face softer than it had been at any time before in this
conversation.
"Do you think
you could still bear to make love to me when I am swollen with this child,
William?"
He smiled, but for a
moment the memory of Swanne's pregnant body pressed against his consumed him.
"I will find it no difficulty at all," he said.
"Then let us
quit this tired and dusty stable, and seek our bedchamber and some wine to wash
the taste of Swanne from your mouth. I do not think that tightness of breath
nor that flush in your cheeks should be wasted."
HE SLEPT ONCE THEY'D
MADE LOVE, BUT MATILDA
lay awake under the
heaviness of his body, thinking over all that had happened this day.
Matilda had known the
instant she'd stepped into that tack room what had been happening, although
she'd not been able to understand the how of it,
for there was no exit
from that chamber save the doorway she herself stood in.
But there William had
stood before her, as aroused as ever she'd seen him, and behind her had stood
the Master of the Horse, Alain Roussel, who had begged her not to enter.
So Matilda had done
the only thing she could. She had closed the door on Roussel and had done what
she had to in order to not only save her marriage from disintegrating into
sham, but to fashion it into something even stronger than it had been.
William had been
engaged in making love with another woman (and a witch, no less!) that he'd
already admitted (on their wedding night, no less!) was the first love of his
life. Matilda could have whined and sulked, or she could have cried and stormed
and threatened, but she did none of these things, realizing that would have
lost her William's respect. Instead she had remained calm and reasonable,
allowing William to judge himself by his own words rather than by hers. She
realized also that a marriage could be made on stronger ties than love and
that, in the end, these ties would defeat whatever love or lust William felt
for this lady Swanne.
Whatever William had
said to her, Matilda was not entirely sure that it was love that bound these two. Something else bound them…
their equal ambition for the throne of
You might be a witch, lady Swanne, Matilda thought, but you have not yet matched your wits against a
daughter of
William sighed, then
half waking, shifted his body a little, running a hand over Matilda's breast and
cupping it gently in his hand before falling back into a deeper sleep.
And you are not the one lying under
his body, and with his child in her belly. Beautiful and powerful you might be,
Swanne, but you are deluded if you think that love and lust will mean more to
William than loyalty and friendship and the bonds of a strong marriage.
Matilda resolved to
never tax William with Swanne again. If she did so, then it would be Matilda
herself who would fracture their marriage.
No, she would not tax
William about Swanne, but she would do her utmost to make sure that she had her ears and eyes at Edward's court.
Two agents were better than one when it came to a throne… and a marriage.
CbAPGGR
N THE SIX MONTHS
FOLLOWING EDWARD'S MAR-
riage to Caela, the
court at
To cater to the
growing workforce, as also the growing complexity of Edward's court, so also
the numbers of servants and their families grew.
Many new arrivals
thronged the community of
Some three months
after Edward's marriage, a young widowed and destitute peasant woman had come
to the palace, asking for work as a laundress, or perhaps a dairy maid…
whatever work there was, she begged. Damson, she called herself, after a
variety of exotic plum.
A damson, thought
Edward's chamberlain, studying her silently, was the last thing she looked
like. The woman was already tired and worn, despite her relative youth, with
stooped shoulders, waxen cheeks marred by broken veins, and pale blue eyes that
looked about to fade away to nothing. Nevertheless, she claimed to be a skilled
laundress, and with a queen in residence, and all the ladies she attracted
about her, and all the linens they wore, or sewed, or commissioned… well,
another laundress was always needed.
"Very well,
then," said the chamberlain severely, "but you'll work under my
direct orders for the time being, until I can be sure you're trustworthy."
Damson's eyes
brightened at the prospect of a home, and the chamberlain softened. He patted
her on her cheek and sent her away to join the women already carrying heavy
wicker baskets of laundry down to the river.
Within a week he had
forgotten about her.
Edward was a
particularly pious king, and among the builders and laborers
and sundry
laundresses that flocked to
One he almost turned
away was a woman of a particularly annoying frankness and air of independence.
She presented herself at Edward's court in order to petition him to fund the
establishment of a female religious priory.
"In honor of St.
Margaret the Martyr," the woman said to the king as she knelt before his
throne.
Edward watched her
silently, not only wondering precisely who St. Margaret the Martyr was (possibly one of those
forgettable Roman noblewomen who had somehow managed to achieve martyrdom and
subsequent sainthood on the strength of their donations to the emerging church)
but how he could rid himself and his court of this unsettling woman as quickly
as possible. She was of some forty years, rotund and with a cheerful round
face… but the strength and determination underlaying that cheerfulness did
truly unsettle Edward. Women should know their place, and he was not sure that
this one did at all.
"I am
afraid—" he began, when, to his amazement, his wife broke in, leaning
forward in her own throne and speaking to her husband.
"My husband, may
I perhaps take this care from your already over-burdened shoulders?"
Edward stared at
Caela, his mouth open. This was the first time he could ever remember her
speaking openly in court, let alone interrupting him.
"My father has
endowed me well," Caela continued, her cheeks flushed as if she realized
her transgression, "and I would like this opportunity to repay Christ and
His saints for their goodness to me. Perhaps I could use a small portion of my
own reserves to endow this holy woman's priory?"
At this, her courage
failed her—by this time over half the court were staring open-mouthed at
Caela—but Edward smiled, suddenly pleased with her. If she was this pious, then
perhaps she could eventually retire to the order she founded and he could be
rid of her.
His smile broadened.
"Of course, my dear. As you will."
Caela blushed even
further, perhaps astounded at her own temerity, but she turned to the woman
still kneeling before Edward (but with her round and generous face now turned
to Caela) and asked of her, her name.
"You may call me
Mother Ecub," said the woman, and then looked at Caela as if she expected
some reaction.
But Caela only smiled
in politeness, and begged Mother Ecub to visit her within her own private
chamber on the morrow.
Mother Ecub bowed,
rose to her feet, and left.
And as she left, so
she locked eyes momentarily with Swanne, Harold of
Thus was the Priory
of St. Margaret the Martyr founded, with Mother Ecub as its prioress. The small
priory was built at the foot of Pen Hill just to the north of
It pleased Mother
Ecub no end.
The third arrival
into Edward's court, in this first year of his marriage, caused great comment
where the other two had caused scarcely a ripple. King Edward had recently
suffered pain caused by increased swelling and heat in the joints of his hands,
elbows and knees. Many physicians attended him, but there was only one who
consistently relieved Edward's discomfort, and he was the youngest of all those
who presented the king with their herbals and unguents.
His name was
Saeweald, and was but some eighteen or nineteen years of age. Born to the north
of
Saeweald attracted
much attention, but not only because of his youth and his talent. He was very
dark, bespeaking more of the ancient British blood than the Saxon in his veins,
but this was not what made him stand out physically at court. Saeweald's right
hip and leg had been brutally mangled during his birth, and the newly appointed
royal physician walked only with the greatest difficulty, dragging his deformed
leg behind him, and, on his worst days, requiring crutches to stand upright. In
a strange manner this endeared him to many. Saeweald's rasping breath of
discomfort, the drag of his leg, the tap of his crutches and the constant
jingling of the small copper boxes of herbs, which hung at his belt, announced
his imminent arrival more efficiently than any clarion of horn; no one could
ever accuse the physician of spying, for there was no means by which he could
creep unheard upon any conversation.
Yet Saeweald himself
did keep secrets, and it was Tostig, younger brother to Harold of Wessex, who
discovered one of these a few months after Saeweald's appointment as royal
physician. Tostig and Saeweald had become friends soon after the physician's
arrival at court. To many onlookers this outwardly seemed a strange friendship,
for Tostig was a youth dedicated to the military arts, to heroic action, and to
the bravado of the warrior, while
Saeweald was far more
introspective and given to the pursuit of thought and mystery rather than a warrior's
heroisms.
This was, after all,
all that his leg would allow him.
Tostig and Saeweald
did find some common ground, however, perhaps their mutual youth, as well as
their mutual indulgence in some of the fleshly delights the court and community
of
Edward had given
Saeweald three chambers (an unheard of private space for this crowded
community) in one of the palace outbuildings. Saeweald used the space to live
and sleep, as well as store and dispense his herbs. The first chamber was given
over to the herbs and a dispensary, the second, Saeweald used as his sleeping
and living quarters, and the third… well, the third Tostig had never entered.
But this day, as he walked silently through the first and then second chamber
seeking his friend, Tostig heard the sound of splashing coming from this third
chamber, and so, without any announcement (assuming his friend was merely
enjoying a soak) Tostig walked straight in.
Saeweald jumped in
surprise—which was unfortunate, because it was that action that instantly gave
Tostig full view of something he'd not ever suspected of his friend. True,
previously he'd never seen Saeweald utterly naked, but Tostig had always
assumed that was because Saeweald was sensitive about his deformed hip and leg.
Now he saw there was
another reason—a far darker one.
"What is
this?" he said quietly, coming to stand at the side of the tub.
Saeweald had sunk
under the water, but now, seeing the expression on Tostig's face, he allowed
himself to sit upright, allowing Tostig full view of his chest.
Tostig looked at
Saeweald's chest, then at his face, then back to the man's chest. He stepped
closer and, very slowly, lowered his hand onto Saeweald's wet skin.
Saeweald's skin
jumped a little as Tostig's hand touched him, and the man tensed, but then he
relaxed as he saw the expression on Tostig's face.
Awe. Reverence.
Tostig breathed in
very deeply and, as Saeweald remained still, moved his fingers over Saeweald's
chest and shoulders, their-tips tracing the dark blue tattooed outline of a
full magnificent spread of stag antlers.
"I should have
known," Tostig whispered.
Saeweald said
nothing, his still, dark eyes unmoving from Tostig's face.
"You follow the
ancient ways," said Tostig, still very quiet. "By the gods, Saeweald,
no wonder you are so skilled with the healing herbs!"
He lifted his hand
from Saeweald's chest and looked the man full in the face. "This mark is
enough, my friend, to have you executed at the order of our most Christian of
kings."
Still Saeweald said
nothing, still he watched Tostig carefully.
Tostig breathed in
deeply again, deeply affected by what he had discovered. "Moreover, this
tattoo marks you as just not a follower of the ancient ways, but as… as…"
"Are you too
afraid to say it, Tostig? Then I will, for already you know enough to have me
killed. I am Saeweald, but I am also of that direct bloodline that traces back
to the ancient priests of this land. I am the heir to that bloodline, and to
the power of the ancient Stag God of the forests."
Tostig paled, and
took a step back, his round eyes fixed on Saeweald's face, but Saeweald
continued on remorselessly.
"One day that god will rise from his grave,
Tostig, and on that day / will speak with his voice."
"You are his
Druid," Tostig whispered.
"Aye. I am his
Druid," Saeweald said, using a word and concept Tostig would understand.
Tostig blinked, and
with heartfelt relief Saeweald saw tears slide down the youth's cheeks.
"Then I am your
man, and you have more friends here at court than you can possibly
realize."
Saeweald grimaced.
"There is more at this court than you can possibly realize, my friend."
Tostig held out his
hand, and Saeweald took it, using his friend's strength to pull himself out of
the tub. Tostig stood watching Saeweald as the man dried himself. "Have
you met my brother Harold, yet?"
Saeweald shook his
head. "He has been south in his estates for some weeks. No doubt I will
make his acquaintance soon enough."
"He needs to see
this, too, Saeweald." Tostig reached out once more and touched gently the
mark on Saeweald's chest. "I think he is going to be as a good a friend to
you as I am."
A MONTH AFTER THIS
INCIDENT, A MONTH DURING which Edward became increasingly reliant on his young,
brilliant physician, the king asked Saeweald to attend his wife.
Saeweald stood before
Edward who had retired from his Great Hall to hold his evening court within his
private chambers situated above the Hall.
Here gathered
relatively few people: some of the king's closest attendants, three or four of
the queen's attending ladies, a few servants, invariably the abbot of
Despite his demeanor,
Saeweald was intensely aware of everyone in the chamber. On his way through the
door, he had caught the eye of the lady Swanne, here this evening without her
husband.
They had known each
other instantly, and Saeweald was somewhat surprised that the silent bolt of
hatred that shot between them had not sent the entire court into chaos.
But now Saeweald had
all but forgotten Swanne. He was intently aware of Caela, who sat in a carved
wooden throne a pace or two to Edward's right, and who was almost as rigid as
the frame of her chair.
"My wife,"
Edward began, flickering to Caela, "is unwell. Consistently unwell. She
suffers from a great disquiet of her womb, which causes me some anxiety."
Saeweald understood
very well by this that Edward was not anxious for Caela's sake, but anxious and
irritated that she displayed such womanly weakness. No doubt, Saeweald thought,
Edward would believe in the physical manifestation of Eve's sinful presence
within all women and, as such, undeserving of any sympathy. He looked at Caela
from under the lowered lids of his eyes.
She was, if possible,
even more rigid, and pink with humiliation.
"Sire,"
said Saeweald in the strong, quiet voice he always used with the king, "I
have many medications that will ease the problem. Be assured that I can ease
your anxiety." For an instant Saeweald's mind was consumed with that
terrible night so long ago when Caela had been Cornelia, and he Loth, and
Cornelia had lain on the floor of her house, her womb and the child it had
carried lying torn and bloody between her legs.
"Good. Perhaps
you can attend her now?"
Saeweald bowed his
head, more to hide his jubilation than in any real respect for Edward. Finally, he was going to have a chance to speak with
Caela!
Caela rose stiffly
from her chair, her eyes staring ahead so that she did not have to see either
her husband or Saeweald, and she walked from the chamber, two of her ladies in
close attendance.
With a final bow to
the king, Saeweald followed. WITHIN THE REGAL BEDCHAMBER,
SAEWEALD'S
"examination"
consisted of merely holding Caela's hand in his, feeling the
fluttering of her
nervous pulse, and asking her a few quiet questions. The queen's two ladies
stood a respectful distance away, and, although they kept their eyes on the
proceedings, Saeweald was able to converse with Caela in relative privacy.
"Madam,"
Saeweald began, "I am sorry to hear of your affliction."
She said nothing,
merely turning her face very slightly aside.
"It might not be
so unexpected, however?"
She turned back to
study him. "What do you mean, physician?"
Saeweald did not know
what to expect at the distance within her voice. Surely she knew who he was?
"Your previous
troubles…" Saeweald murmured, hoping that Caela would realize he spoke of
her life as Cornelia, and Genvissa's terrible attack on her.
She did not reply,
and Saeweald could sense an immense withdrawal within her.
"Cornelia,"
he whispered. "Do you not know me? I am Loth, reborn."
She snatched her hand
from his. "Are your wits addled, physician?"
Her words were angry,
but Saeweald could hear a desperate fear beneath them.
Gods, he thought, what is going on?
"Madam," he
said, "I am sorry." His thoughts raced, wondering what he should do
or say next. Why wouldn't she
recognize him?
"I took a concoction for the ache in my leg earlier this evening, and I
fear that somehow it has muddled my thoughts."
He felt her relax
and, very gently, he took her hand back in his. She was so frail. . . For a few minutes Saeweald asked her questions
about her monthly fluxes, how they had changed in recent times, and how they
discomforted her.
Despite the intimacy
of their discussion, Caela relaxed further at the detached tone of his voice.
"You are not
with child?" Saeweald asked eventually.
"No."
"There is no
possibility…?"
"No."
Saeweald licked his
lips, phrasing his next questions as delicately as he could. "Madam, has
the king ever—"
To his relief, she
answered before he had time to form all the words. "No. He will not lie
with me."
Saeweald could not
help the sudden twitch of his lips. "And does that bother madam over
much?"
He more than half
expected Caela to snatch her hand from his, but to his astonishment her lips
curled in a very slight smile as well. "You are the first person not to
offer me sympathy over the issue, physician."
©
He grinned,
delighted, for in that single instant he saw some of Cornelia's old spirit
light Caela's face. She was
there, but buried deep. Caela had also responded to him as an intimate friend—something they
were not yet in this life—for that question should have seen any person,
favored royal physician or not, immediately ejected from the queen's presence.
"There are many
men more deserving of you, madam," he said, and then, not wanting to push
Caela any further, began to speak of some of the medications he would mix for
her.
When Saeweald
eventually sat back, setting Caela's hand loose, he risked one more incursion
into their shared past. "Do not think your womb is useless," he said.
"It harbors a greater power than I think you can currently know."
Or remember.
She frowned at him.
"Mag," he
said, hoping that this single word, the name of the goddess who had inhabited
Caela in her previous life, would summon some response from the queen.
Mag, are you there?
But Caela's frown
only deepened, and, with a brief, respectful few words, Saeweald rose and left
her.
THREE DAYS LATER, SAEWEALD WAS IN THE FRONT
room of his chambers,
which served as a dispensary, when the outer door opened and a woman came in.
Saeweald stared at
her, then stepped forward, taking the woman's hands in his and kissing both her
cheeks in welcome before enveloping her in a huge embrace.
"Mother
Ecub!"
"Aye," she
said, hugging him as tightly as he did her. "Mother Ecub indeed—and still Mother Ecub."
"I know,"
Saeweald said, standing back and grinning at her. "I have heard of you. I
have never heard of a more undevout Christian prioress!"
"The priory
serves me well enough," said Ecub, "and I have gathered to my side
many sisters who, while mouthing their Christian prayers, instead turn for
inspiration and hope to the circle of stones standing atop Pen Hill. Whatever
Edward and his flock of clerics want to believe, the ancient ways still throb
deep within the hearts and souls of the people. But, oh, Saeweald, look at you!
How can Fate treat you so badly?"
He touched his hip
and grimaced. "I have learned to live with this, Mother Ecub. You need
spare no pity for me." Then he smiled. "Just the sight of you, and
the knowledge you are back, has eased so much of my pain."
Ecub knew he was not
referring only to his physical aches.
"Who else?"
she said, softly.
"Genvissa, but
then you must know that."
Now it was Ecub who
made the face. "Yes. The gracious and beautiful lady Swanne. She and I
have exchanged bitter looks, and a few even more bitter words, but my duties
within the priory—and to the stones atop Pen Hill— allows me to avoid much of
her poison. You?"
"We have spoken
only once when she crowed with delight at this." Again Saeweald tapped his
hip. "As with you, I avoid her."
"Harold?"
Ecub said very softly, watching Saeweald's face.
"Oh, Ecub! How
did that witch trap him?"
"He does not
remember, does he?"
Saeweald shook his
head. "In the past few weeks I have come to know him well. We have
re-formed our old friendship and bonds, although Harold is not consciously
aware of it." He sighed. "Ecub… it is a mercy for him, I believe,
that he does not remember. I think it best that way. But that Cornelia and Coel
were reborn as brother and sister! To yearn for each other, and yet to believe
that to touch would be the ultimate vice! What evil mischief is this? Fate, or
Asterion?"
"Who can tell,
Saeweald. But you are sure that Harold is Coel-reborn?"
"Yes. Yes. Like so many people, he adheres to the old ways
while he mouths Christian pieties. He is my old and beloved friend, Ecub. Ah!
How I hate to see him tied to that witch!"
Ecub grinned.
"But he is her husband, and thus she his chattel by the Christian law of
this land. Is that not deliciously amusing? Have you not thought how Swanne
must chafe under that? And she must bear him sons… oh, I laughed when I heard
she had birthed a male child. How that must have riled the oh-so-powerful
Mistress of the Labyrinth."
"Where is
Brutus, do you think?"
"You know where
and who he is, as well as I. You have seen that 'gift' he sent to Edward, and
have seen Edward crawling through that evil labyrinth on his hands and knees,
thinking he is crawling toward Jerusalem and salvation instead of toward
monstrous terror."
"Aye. I know who
he is, and knowing that, I can foresee the sorrow that is to come. It will be
Coel against Brutus, Harold against William, the moment that Edward dies.
Edward means to get no heir on Caela. Thus, when he dies,
"Coel against
Brutus," Ecub repeated softly, "Harold against William. And Swanne,
rising in all her malevolent witchcraft to ensure that it shall be William to
succeed. Gods, Saeweald, how long do we have?
"How long do we
have for what, Ecub?"
She was silent,
dropping her face to study her work-worn hands.
"Caela,"
Saeweald said for both of them, finally bringing up the name they had both been
avoiding. "I can understand why Harold does not remember his previous life
as Coel—that is nothing short of a kindness to him. But Caela? Gods, Ecub! She carries Mag within her womb. She is our
only hope against Swanne and William and the ever-cursed Troy Game! And she does not remember!"
"You have spoken
to her, then."
Saeweald nodded
tersely.
"As have
I," Ecub said. "We have engaged in several conversations over the
past months. Sometimes I push a little—mention a name, a deed—but she does not
respond, save to stiffen, as if the name I mention causes her great fear. And
yet Cornelia is there. Caela founded my priory
when she had no need to, and I hear her womb bleeds, as if Mag weeps within
her."
Again Saeweald
nodded.
"Then there is
nothing we can do," said Ecub, "but to wait and trust in both Mag and
Caela."
"And wait for
Edward to die," said Saeweald.
"And wait for
the storm to gather," said Ecub. "Saeweald, sometimes I sit on Pen
Hill and cast my eyes down to London, to the cathedral of St. Paul's that now
sits atop Genvissa and Brutus' foul piece of Aegean magic, and I shudder in
horror. It still lives there, Saeweald. I can feel it, festering under the city and the feet of the
people who inhabit it, poisoning this land."
"Ecub,"
Saeweald said. "We can do nothing until Caela—"
At that moment they
both jumped as the outer door opened, jerking their heads about as if this were
the storm approaching now, or perhaps even the Game itself stepping out to
consume them.
But it was only the
laundress, Damson, come to collect Saeweald's linens, and both Saeweald and
Ecub relaxed into silence as the unassuming peasant woman did her task, then
left.
Part Two
Autumn
As in days of old, the labyrinth in
lofty Crete is said to have possessed a way, emmeshed 'mid baffling walls and
the tangled mystery of a thousand paths, that there, a trickery that none could
grasp, and whence was no return… just so the sons of Troy entangle their paths
at a gallop, and interweave flight and combat in sport… this mode of exercise
and these contests first did Ascanius* revive, when he girdled Alba Longa with
walls, and taught our Latin forefathers to celebrate after the fashion in which
he himself when a boy, and with him the Trojan youth, had celebrated them… even
now the game is called Troy, and the boys are called the Trojan Band.
Virgil, The Aeneid, Book V
* Father of Silvius
and grandfather of Brutus.
ACK SKELTON WOKE JUST BEFORE DAWN.
HE LAY IN
the cold gray light, staring at the
just-discemible shape of his uniform hanging on the back of the door. Violet
Bentley had put him in the tiny spare bedroom on the first floor of her and
Frank's cramped terrace house in Highbury. It was a child's bedroom, really,
kitted out with what was probably either Frank's or Violet's own childhood
single bed that was far too short for Skel-ton's tall frame, and with a
garishly bright hooked rug on the floor, plywood closet, a ladder-backed wooden
chair, and floral cotton curtains that were, if the roll of heavy black twill
behind the chair was any indication, soon to be replaced with blackout
curtains.
Skelton thought he'd never been in a
more depressing room, not in any of his lives. Its melancholy lay not in the
cheap hand-me-down furniture, nor in its austerity, but in the sad attempt to
make it homely. If Violet had just managed to resist the rug then the room may
have managed some dignity.
If only.
But then, was not life full of
"if onlys"?
If only he'd recognized earlier
Genvissa's true nature.
If only he'd realized earlier the
treasure he'd had in Cornelia.
If only he'd reached
Jack lay still, barely breathing,
dragging his mind away from that terrible moment when the rafters had given
way. He thought about his walk through London last night, remembered Genvissa—Stella Wentworth now—and
her stunning beauty, and the way she had turned away from him when he had asked
after Cornelia. Had she not known where Cornelia was, or did she not want to
tell him? He remembered Loth, Walter Herne now, who had tormented him with
questions and who had promised him nothing.
And Asterion, haunting his footsteps
as he had haunted them for three thousand years. Always one step ahead.
"Cornelia?" Skelton
whispered into the sorry gray dawn light.
Then, after a long moment:
"Earing?"
There was no reply, and Skelton had
not truly expected one.
CbAPGGR 0JM
Autumn
OTHER ECUB,
PRIORESS OF THE SMALL BUT
well-endowed Priory
of St. Margaret the Martyr, which lay just off the northern road from
She did not sit in
the chapel of her priory, which had been well constructed of the best local
stone and decorated with beautiful carvings and statues, as well as rare and
costly stained glass windows.
Neither did Mother
Ecub sit before the altar in her solitary cell, nor in the refectory where hung
a cross on the wall, nor even in the herb and vegetable gardens of the priory,
which were close enough to the wall of the chapel to access in a crisis.
Mother Ecub did not
worship within the walls of the priory, nor even within shouting distance of
them.
Rather, Mother Ecub
sat worshiping atop the small hill, which rose two hundred paces west of the
priory.
Pen Hill, as it was
known both in ancient times and in present.
The ring of stones
that had graced the hill two thousand years ago still stood, although they were
now far more weather-beaten than once they had been, and there were gaps where
the Romans had hauled away the better stones to use as milestones on their
roads. Two of these milestones now stood guarding the London-side approach to
the bridge over the
Their faith made
Mother Ecub, and the seventeen personally picked female members of her order,
smile and manage to keep the faith. If people
remembered the
ancient gods of this land, the stag-god Og and the mother-goddess Mag, even in
this corrupted form, then that was all well and good.
Then all was not
lost.
Mother Ecub had come
to the top of Pen Hill not only to worship the land, which she could see spread
about her (and where better for her to do that?), but to gather her thoughts
for this evening's audience with Queen
Caela.
She shuddered at the
thought, distracting herself with the view. To the south, some three or four
miles distant, lay
For that matter,
nothing could make the Christian faithful give up their right to be buried as
close to their church as possible. After all, come Judgment Day, when all the
dead would rise once more, one didn't want to totter too far to get to the
church altar and, hopefully, eternal salvation, on barely held-together bits of
crumbled bone and rotted flesh.
Ecub's mouth twisted
in derision at the thought, and she made a convoluted gesture with her left
hand, which, to the initiated, would have instantly recalled the movements of
Mag's Nuptial Dance, which Ecub had once watched Blangan and Cornelia perform
within Mag's Dance itself.
She squinted a little
in the winter sun, focusing on the stone cathedral that sat atop Lud Hill—once
Og's Hill. Here, where Brutus had constructed his labyrinth, now stood a great
Christian cathedral:
How alive it was.
Ecub's face, as
wrinkled as it was with lines of laughter and care, went completely
expressionless as a momentary hopelessness overcame her.
It had been fifteen
years now since she'd first come to
the ancient gods Mag
and Og could once again take their place within the land and restore its
harmony and goodness.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years she and
Saeweald had waited, the last three shared with a noblewoman called Judith, who
was Erith-reborn. The widow Judith had come to
Ecub and Saeweald had
hoped that Judith's appearance had been what Caela or Mag had been waiting for…
but nothing. Caela persisted in her unremembering; Mag still lingered useless
and ineffectual within the queen's womb.
Why this delay? Ecub
did not know. Was it the Game itself? Asterion? Mere fate? Mag? No one was
sure, but what Ecub knew for certain was that if Caela or Mag did not do
something soon then all hope would be lost.
Edward was now an old
man. He would not last many more years. When he died, Ecub knew that Duke
William would swarm across the seas and reclaim the Darkwitch (his former
lover) and the city and the Game… taking the throne of
Even worse was the
possibility that Edward's death would sting Asterion into some terrible action.
Ecub knew of Asterion from Loth, as well as from the knowledge she had gained
during the long death between her last life and this one. Asterion might want
the same end as she and Saeweald, the destruction of the Game, but what he
would replace it with—the frightful reign of the unrestrained malevolence of
the Minotaur—was even a more frightful future than a Troy Game triumphant.
"I trust in
Mag," Ecub muttered, "I trust in Mag," repeating the mantra over
and over until she restored some peace in her heart.
Caela's continuing
forgetfulness no doubt kept the Darkwitch Swanne giggling in delight, but it
left Ecub, Saeweald, and Judith in despair. They could do little but stay close
to Caela and support her, and wait for her to come to her senses and do
whatever it was that Mag required of her. Still, there was hope, as Saeweald
constantly reminded Ecub and Judith. Caela had endowed Ecub's priory, and
continued to support it, when Edward had refused (and Caela had done this for
no other religious order). Caela had also taken Erith-reborn, Judith, under her
wing as the most senior of her attending ladies without any prompting from
either Saeweald or Ecub. She kept Saeweald and Ecub close to her, although she
did not have to. She was patently drawn to
her allies from her former life… but she just would not recall them from this
former life.
O
"Mag directs her
thoughts and action," Saeweald often told Ecub, and with this Ecub had to
be content. Although in her darkest moment, she wondered if Mag had forgotten
as well.
Ecub sighed and
thought about rising. She was almost sixty years old, far too old to be
spending an entire morning sitting cross-legged in this damp grass, even if
such close proximity to one of the sacred sites of Llangarlia brought her peace
of mind and spirit. Damp grass aside, Ecub needed to return to the priory to
brush out her robes, and set out on the slow ride south to
What Caela would want
to hear were accounts of how many hours a day the sisters of St. Margaret the
Martyr spent on their knees in prayer to the Virgin herself, or how many days a
week they spent attending the needs of the sick and ill, or how best they had
distributed the alms Caela provided among the small community of lepers that
lived five miles further to the north.
What Ecub could tell her, if she had had the nerve, was how many
nights the sisters spent dancing naked among the ancient stones of Pen Hill, or
how they whispered to the milestones of Gog and Magog on their numerous visits
to London, and of their efforts in keeping alive the ancient ways and beliefs
among the people in and about London.
Or perhaps Ecub could
tell the queen of how she and the sisters of St. Margaret the Martyr spent
their nights praying to Mag within Caela's womb to give them a sign, and to
show them she still lived and cared, and that there was hope for this land amid
all the horror that had visited it.
"And perhaps
not," muttered Ecub, wincing at the ache in her joints as, finally, she
rose slowly to her feet. She spent a moment testing her legs to make sure they
could bear her weight, and straightened her somewhat grass-stained and dampened
robe, before taking the first step toward the slope that led back to St.
Margaret the Martyr's priory.
One step only, and
then Ecub froze, her heart thudding in her chest.
Something was… wrong.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and the breath
in her throat caught
and held.
Something was … different.
Very carefully,
trying to keep her fright under control, Ecub slowly turned about, looking
around the top of the hill.
Nothing. A blue sky,
interspersed with heavy dark clouds that foretold
rain for the
afternoon.
Thick, wet green
grass that moved sluggishly in the slight breeze.
Stones, twenty-five
or -six of them, encircling the entire hilltop…
Ecub's heart felt as
though it had stopped entirely.
The stones.
There was something
about the stones.
"Oh, sweet
Mother Mag," Ecub whispered and, unaware of the discomfort, dropped to her
knees and clasped her hands before her.
The stones were
humming.
Ecub's mind could hardly comprehend it.
The stones were hummingl Moreover, their harsh outlines were softening, as
though the stones were dissolving into warmth and movement.
As though they were living.
In her previous life,
Ecub had heard of tales that were ancient, even in that time. Tales of how the
stone circles had come to be, and why they were so important to the worship of
Mag herself.
Could it possibly be that they were
true?
"You are
singing!" Ecub exclaimed, her mind still struggling to comprehend what was
happening about her.
Indeed, the stones
were now singing—a sad, haunting, lilting melody.
Moreover, the stones
were now swaying back and forth in a liquid, delicious movement, as if they
wanted to dance.
Then, before Ecub's
astounded eyes, they let go the shape of stones and took on their true forms.
Although each had
individual aspects, all shared similar characteristics. They were tall with
rather long, sinewy arms, their hands broad and long-fingered. Above their thin
mobile mouths and hooked noses, each had dark brown hair, shot through with
flecks of iron gray; their eyes were of the same color, also flecked with gray,
and despite their bleakness, managed to convey a surprising sense of humor,
perhaps even mischievousness.
They were very
watchful, these eyes, and Ecub realized that all the creatures' eyes moved at
the same time; if one looked slightly to the left, all eyes looked slightly to
the left. It was very unsettling, and gave Ecub the impression that they shared
a silent communication.
All wore the same
clothes: undistinguished and well-worn leather jerkins and trousers.
All had bare feet,
their toes curling into the grass.
All sang, the sound
humming through their thin-lipped mouths, and the song was very sad, and very
bleak, and very beautiful. It reminded Ecub of the whispering, sorrowing sound
that the wind made when it hummed through the stones of Mag's Dance.
She felt conflicting
emotions surge through her. Joy, that she should have been privileged to see
this. Fear, that the stones' metamorphosis portended doom. Reverence, before
the oldest and most sacred creatures this land had
ever known.
Terror, that she
should not prove worthy of…
The Sidlesaghes. The
most ancient inhabitants of this land, so ancient, they were the land, who
rested within the stones.
By Mag herself, Ecub thought, I had thought them only legend! She momentarily closed her eyes,
blinking away her tears. Very slowly, inch-by-inch, hand-in-hand, the
Sidlesaghes closed their circle about Ecub.
When, finally, not a
handspan separated Ecub from the circle of Sidlesaghes, the tallest and most
watchful of them leaned forward, touched Ecub on top of her head, and began to
speak.
SOME SIX MILES TO THE
SOUTHWEST STOOD ANOTHER
of the sacred hills
of the ancient and forgotten realm of Llangarlia. While Pen Hill still retained
a similar aspect to that of two thousand years previously, Tot Hill, now
Tothill, had changed enormously. In Brutus and Genvissa's time it had housed
only a simple rectangular building, the Meeting House, and a platform of stone
at its peak. Now Tothill boasted a thriving community consisting of Westminster
itself as well as King Edward's vast palace complex—not merely the Great Hall,
but the kitchens, dormitories, barracks, chapels, storerooms, infirmaries,
scriptoriums, as well as offices for a score of officials, a dairy,
meat-houses, bake-houses, and all the other buildings, orchards, her-beries,
vegetable gardens, and necessities required for a lively and growing community.
Fifteen years ago,
Edward had begun the reconstruction of the abbey. Now the almost-finished abbey
reared into the sky, one of the greatest constructions in western Europe, and a
monument not so much to God, but to
Edward's piety.
Here in Westminster,
just to the north of the palace in an open space on Tothill that overlooked the
gray-green sweep of the Thames to the east and the smudge of London on the
great northeast bend of the river, stood the man who would control not only
Westminster, but London, and all of England, and
all of everything
else besides.
Asterion. He stood,
staring northeast toward
watchful.
He could feel the
Troy Game moving. A shudder, part apprehension and part excitement, swept
through Asterion's body.
The Troy Game was
moving, and it was time for Asterion to put into motion the plan that he had
spent this entire lifetime constructing.
He turned slightly so
that Edward's palace came into view. There she waited. The one who would
deliver to him everything. The bands. The Game. William. Power.
"It is
time," Asterion muttered. "Time to begin my game."
A death, a seduction,
followed by another death. A plan of beauteous simplicity. That's all it would
take, and the kingship bands and the Troy Game would be his.
CbAPGGROUDO
Caela Speaks
WONDER HOW MANY
WOMEN KNOW WHAT IT IS
/"*"% m like to endure the hatred of one's husband for fifteen
long years? Many, I suppose, for while marriage might be a consecrated thing in
the sight of God, His saints and the Holy Church, it was often a burden to us
lesser mortals, the daughters of Eve who had to bear the torturous punishment
for her Great Sin in our marriage and childbeds.
Not that I had to
bear anything but the sharpness of Edward's tongue in our marriage bed and, for
total lack of the warmth of his body, I never had to endure the agonies of
childbed.
Fifteen years a wife,
and still a virgin. It was a shameful thing, and not one I had to bear alone,
for Edward made sure that the entire court knew that he'd never laid a finger
on me. I remembered our marriage night so long ago when, a nervous and excited
thirteen-year-old, I had allowed my sister-in-law to settle me into my marital
bed with my new husband.
I had been so
fearful, and yet still excited. Not only had I become a wife, soon to learn the
secrets of my marital bed (or so I had naively thought then) and chatelaine
over the realm of my own household; I was also queen of
Without my father's
support, Edward would have lost his crown years ago. Edward hated me, for I was
the constant visible reminder of his humiliating dependence on Godwine and,
later, his equally humiliating dependence on my eldest brother Harold who
assumed the earldom of
induction into
womanhood, and of the joy and pride I would feel as I bore Edward an heir.
When Edward, sullen
and joyless, joined me in bed that first night, he turned to me, gazed at me
with the greatest contempt, and said: "I find you most displeasing."
Then he humped over,
and went to sleep, and I was left trembling and silently weeping, wondering
what I had done wrong.
I eventually slept
that night, and when I did I dreamed. I dreamed of another man, his face lost
in shadows, who regarded me with contempt, and who spat at me words of hatred.
He also had called me
"wife."
I had gone to sleep
weeping, and I woke weeping, and it seemed that the first five or six years of
my marriage were spent weeping.
Everyone at court knew that Edward would
not lay with me. Edward put it about variously that I was a whore (on one
occasion he even sent me into exile for a year over that particular lie); then,
when I protested my virginity and had it proven by a midwifely examination, he
said that I refused his attempts to make a true wife of me. Latterly, Edward
liked to claim that I was Satan's temptation put into his path to tease him
away from salvation.
Edward the Confessor,
his people had taken to calling my husband, in tribute to his piety.
Gods' Concubine, they
called me, for it appeared that in Edward's pious disinterest he had passed
over the sexual proprietorship of his wife to God Himself (not that God seemed
interested, either). Some smirked at this appellation, and pitied me, but most
seemed to feel that Edward's saintliness had somehow rubbed off on me (how, I
have no idea, for most certainly our flesh had never rubbed enough for the
transfer).
Gods' Concubine. I
hated that label. Ho doubt some wit would soon make the connection and start
calling me the Virgin Mary's apprentice.
Latterly, Edward's
attempts to humiliate me had taken a more disturbing turn. My father Godwine
had died some years previously, and now my eldest brother Harold held sway, not
only as earl of
Harold and I were
close, and Edward saw that closeness, and made of it a terrible thing. He hinted
to me in our cold bed in the dark hours of night—he
would not dare say it
aloud where Harold might hear the words—that he knew Harold and I were
unnatural lovers. He watched the way that Harold's laughing eyes followed me
about a chamber and said that Harold lusted
for me.
This tactic terrified
me. I feared for Harold far more than for myself. I wished great things for
Harold—the throne, for one, once my frightful husband had departed for his
place at God's right hand, but above all, joy and contentment and achievement.
Edward could destroy
this with a single, hateful remark. I could imagine it now. Edward finally
deciding that he no longer needed Harold's support for this throne and
remarking at court, as if in passing, "Ah, yes, the earl of Wessex. His
sister's lover, don't you know?"
Maybe that would not
be enough to destroy Harold. Maybe my brother was powerful enough to overcome
even that slur.
Maybe.
And maybe Edward's
threat had so much power over me because, in my heart of hearts, I wished that
it were true. Because, in my dreams at
night, I often imagined myself in Harold's bed.
I closed my eyes
tight, hating myself. I could hear Edward's voice murmuring as he spoke to some
of his pet priests, and I felt more loathsome than
the darkest worm.
Mother Mary, I was repulsive! To lust after my own brother! When I was a child, I
adored Harold. As I grew, that adoration grew into something… else. Something
that should not grow between a brother and a sister. Harold knew it, for
sometimes I caught him watching me strangely, darkly, as if I represented a
threat to him.
It was rare now that
Harold allowed himself to be in a chamber alone with me. We should have been
close, Harold and I, but instead we found ourselves avoiding each other,
sliding our eyes away from the other, our words stumbling to an awkward close
whenever we found ourselves addressing each other.
Edward had noticed
it, and I am sure most others did also. I know that Harold's achingly desirable wife, Swanne, saw it
and recognized the awkwardness for what it was.
I know it for a fact,
for one day soon after my loveless marriage had begun, Swanne leaned her
elegant, beautiful head close to me, and with her soft, red lips whispered in
my ear, "Shall I tell you, my dear, of how fine a lover your brother is?
How he makes me squeal and twist under him? Would you like to hear that, my
poor virgin girl? Would you? Would you like it, my dear? I'm sure Harold has enough for you as
well."
And then she'd leaned
back, and laughed, and made a comment so crude that even now I could not bear
to form the words in my head.
"Wife?"
I jumped, then
blushed, for I was sure that somehow Edward could read my thoughts. He sat in a
chair some distance from me, although not, unfortunately, so far distant that
it prohibited conversation. About us in the Lesser Hall (that smaller hall we
used when not holding great court), our small evening court had fallen silent,
watching, and wondering what humiliation Edward had in store for his wife
tonight.
A tongue-lashing,
perhaps?
An order to spend the
night on her knees confessing her sins to Eadwine, the abbot of
A tirade on the sins
of the flesh, at the least…
"My dear…"
Only Edward could
make an insult of those two words.
"Are you not
going to greet the Lady Prioress? She has been standing before you for the past
few minutes while you have wandered in your thoughts. You have duties as queen,
Caela. I would that you occasionally remembered them."
Humiliated, and not
the least because I knew I deserved the reprimand, I looked before me.
There, sure enough,
her own cheeks stained pink in embarrassment, stood Mother Ecub as she had
probably been standing waiting for my regard for the past half an hour.
"Mother," I
said, stammering in my discomfiture, "I beg you forgive me." I held
out my hand, and Mother Ecub shuffled forward—Lord Christ, when had she grown so old and arthritic?—and took it briefly, laying her
mouth against the great emerald ring I wore on my heart finger.
Edward had given me
that as a wedding ring. Christ alone knew he had never kissed it.
"My apologies to
you, good prioress," I said, as Ecub stepped back and slowly straightened.
"I have kept you standing far longer than I should. Judith…" I turned
my head slightly, and beckoned to the favorite and most senior of my ladies.
"Fetch a chair for Mother Ecub, I beg you."
As Judith hurried to
do my will, the court slowly relaxed, and muted conversation started to again
fill the background. Our evenings were usually spent in this smaller hall
rather than the great audience hall, and only the closest and most valued among
the court attended us after supper. About Edward clustered several members of
the witan, all looking grave, perhaps with the latest news from
Just behind that
group stood Saeweald, physician to both Edward and myself. He saw me looking at
him, and lowered one eyelid in a slow, reassuring wink.
I looked away, both
grateful for the gesture and annoyed at his presumption. I liked Saeweald, I
truly did (how could a man stay so cheerful when his right leg and hip were so
twisted as to make every one of his steps a painful, tottering journey?), but
that liking had taken years to mature. Saeweald had been attending court since
the first year of my marriage, but my liking for him had taken some time to
establish itself. During the first six months at court, he had greatly
unsettled me.
When first we met,
Saeweald had called me by another name—what was it again? Corvessa? Contaleia?
Analia?—and had seemed irritated with me when I would not respond to it. I had
tried to be patient—after all, the pain in his leg must surely addle his mind
somewhat from time to time—but all the same his insistence had greatly
unsettled me. Over a period of some weeks and months, Saeweald tried to talk to
me of a time long ago, and I had bade him to be silent, for I had no mind to
hear of the witchery that must have made him scry out such memories of so long
ago. He begged me to remember a woman, Mag, he called her, to whom I apparently
owed a debt… or some
such…
I would have none of his
wanderings, and commanded him to silence with the greatest sharpness. I had
said to him that even though he be the greatest physician within Christendom, I
would have none of him at court if he carried
on so.
I wept.
Eventually Saeweald,
weeping himself, had lowered himself to his knees before me (and what agony
that must have been for him!) and had said that he would talk of these matters
no more. I had nodded, once, stiffly, and motioned him to rise, and Saeweald
had done so, and had kissed my hand, and had kept his word and held his tongue.
That had been many
years ago now, and even if Saeweald had held his tongue, I still often came
upon him watching me as though he expected me to… to do what, I do not know, but that very expectation in his gaze
unsettled me.
I had grown close to
him, nonetheless. He was witty, and comforting, and largely nonjudgmental, and,
through several murmured remarks over the years, I knew that Saeweald honored
me far above my husband. That was largely a novel sentiment (only Judith and
Mother Ecub seemed to feel thus), and one that predisposed me toward much good
feeling for the man.
And, last, I liked
Saeweald because as my physician he was the only person who had the requisite
skill with herbs and potions to ease my monthly fluxes, which had become an
increasing trouble over the past few years. One might have thought that my
womb, finding itself not needed, would have settled into a quietude of
resignation, but, no, apparently it resented its empty
state so greatly that
it wept increasingly copiously and painfully each month. Ecub had settled
herself before me by this stage, and I smiled at her, and paid her my full
attention.
"My good
prioress," I said. "What have you to report?" Ecub began a monotony
of her priory's good works, and even though I kept my eyes on her and a
half-smile on my face, my mind drifted off again. I could hear Aldred, the
archbishop of
There, my mind had
betrayed me once again!
"Ah, Ecub,"
I said, blushing yet once again (one would think me still thirteen years old,
and not the twenty-eight-year-old woman I was). "You must forgive me this
evening. I cannot think what has come over me. I… I…"
Oddly, for she never
usually was so bold, Ecub leaned forward to close the space between us and held
my hand briefly.
"You will feel
better soon, madam," she said. "I have it on good authority." "Ecub?"
But the prioress was
already rising. "I will stay the night within the women's dormitory, if it
pleases you. The way back to St. Margaret the Martyr is long and cold for an
old woman like myself, and I would rather attempt it on the morrow than
tonight."
"Of
course," I said, rising also (a movement that made Edward half-start up,
as if he suspected I was going to dash for the palace portal as if I were a
hind escaping the huntsmen; my bevy of twittering ladies started likewise,
their needlework shuffling to the floor with the suddenness of their movement).
"Perhaps, if it
please you madam," Ecub continued, looking at me with those intense brown
eyes of hers, "I might stay a day or two beyond this night? I have need to
consult with Master Saeweald, and perhaps also to gossip with the lady Judith
about mutual memories."
"Of
course," I said again, feeling stupider by the moment. What "mutual
O
memories"? I wondered momentarily if
Saeweald had a potion against stupidity secreted somewhere, then managing to
summon the few wits that remained to me, smiled graciously at Ecub, murmured my
apologies to my husband, stating that my head ached and I must needs to bed,
then made my exit accompanied by Judith and the other of my ladies. Perhaps
sleep would untwist my wits.
SLEEP BROUGHT ME NO PEACE.
INSTEAD, I SWEAR
that as soon as I had
closed my eyes I slipped into a dream.
I dreamed I walked
through the center of a stone hall so vast there appeared to be no end to it.
It stretched east to west—I felt, if not saw, the presence of the rising sun
toward the very top of the hall—and above me a golden dome soared into the
heavens. Beneath my feet lay a beautifully patterned marbled floor; to my sides
soared stone arches protecting shadowy, mysterious spaces. Even though great
thick walls rose beyond those arches, I could still somehow see through them to
the countryside beyond where a majestic silver river wound its way through
gentle verdant hills and fertile pastures. It was an ancient and deeply
mysterious land, and it was my land,
I turned my eyes back
to the hall. Although this was a strange, vast place, I felt no fear, only a
sense of homecoming. I also had the sense that I had spent many nights dreaming
of this hall, although I never remembered the
dream in the
mornings.
Suddenly I realized I
was not alone. A small, fey, dark woman walked
toward me.
My eyes filled with
tears, although I did not know why.
"Peace, lovely
lady," the woman said as she reached me. She half started forward as if
she meant to embrace me, but then thought better of it and merely reached up a
hand to touch briefly a cheek.
"Are you
ready?" she said.
"Ready for
what?"
"The battle
begins," she replied. "You must be ready, Cornelia, my dear."
I frowned, for this was the name Saeweald had called me so many years
ago. Was this woman as deluded as he?
"Remember,"
the woman said, "to meet us in the water cathedral beyond
death."
"What are you
talking about?" I said, taking a step back. The woman was
mad! A witch, no
doubt!
She laughed, as if I
had made a jest, "Then follow Long Tom, my darling
girl. Listen to him.
He will show you—"
"You! Will I never be rid of
you?"
A man's voice thundered
about us, and the small, dark woman gave a sad half smile, then vanished with
only a word or two reverberating in my mind. Remember, Cornelia, my dear… remember… remember… "What do you here?"
I forgot the woman,
and looked at the man striding toward me. I gasped, for although I swear I did
not recognize him, nonetheless I felt I knew him intimately. Tall and
well-built, the man had cropped, almost blue-black hair, a strong, handsome,
and clean-shaven face and compelling dark eyes that seemed to have noted my
every flaw, for, as he neared, an expression of distaste seemed to come over
his face. He was dressed in the finery of a Norman nobleman: a vivid blue and
stunningly embroidered knee-length tunic over breeches and boots, and a sword
at his hip.
For some reason my
eyes kept blurring, and I saw him with short black curls one moment, then with
long curls that streamed and snapped in the breeze.
"Cornelia? Is
this you?" He looked at me puzzled, as if I was some half remembered
companion to him.
"I am not
Cornelia!" I cried. "I am Caela. Caela!"
He had stopped before
me now, his black eyes unreadable. "You will always be Cornelia," he
said. "Always ready to betray me to Asterion—"
I do not know why,
but at the mention of that name a feeling of such fear came over me that I
thought I would collapse.
He took another step
toward me, very close now, and he grasped my chin in his hand. "You are
much more beautiful now than you were as Cornelia." He paused, his black
eyes running over my face as if he wanted to consume it. "Far more
beautiful… but still as desirable."
His mouth twisted,
cold, and malicious. "But if the reports I hear are true, then Edward has
more sense than I would have credited him, and has not touched you. I should have known better than to lay with you, bitch
daughter of Hades."
At the contempt in
his voice I cried out, and tried to wrench my chin from his hand. But he was
too strong, and I remained caught in his hateful
grip-
"You want me to
kiss you? Well, I will not kiss you, Cornelia, or Caela, as now you are, my
queen of
His face bent closer,
and his breath fanned over my cheek. I shuddered, and he felt it. Then his
mouth grazed the skin beneath my ear, then grabbed and
held it, and I cried
out, and would have sagged had he not let go my chin and caught my shoulders.
Something occurred to
me, almost a memory, save I know I had never met this man before, and I said:
"Do you hate me still?"
He had raised his
head away from me, and I saw his lips form the word "Yes," but then
his own face became puzzled. "I never hated you," he said.
"Not
really."
"But you just
called me," God help me,
I wanted him to hold me close again, and do again with his mouth what he had
just done,
"bitch daughter of
Hades."
He laughed, low and
soft, and pulled me close enough that he did lay his mouth against my cheek again. "I am
sorry for that. That was habit. Who knows if you deserve that epithet
now?"
"They call me
God's Concubine," I said, relaxing even more with this
strange
"You should have
children," he said, standing back from me. "You were a
good mother."
Now it was I who
laughed. "I? A good mother? And when, pray, did I have
a chance for that?"
"Tell me,"
he said. "How is Swanne?"
"Swanne?"
"It is so long
since I have seen her. Fifteen years. I miss her. I want her. Will you tell her
that? Will you tell her how much I want her?"
He was walking away
now, his booted strides ringing out through the
stone hall.
"Tell Swanne I
want her," he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder, "and
that I cannot wait for that happy day when we can be together."
Then he was gone, and
I stood there in that cold stone hall, and wept, for that I felt so alone, and
so empty.
Far away, in
his bed.
At his side, Matilda roused, muttered
sleepily, then sat herself, laying a loving
hand on his arm.
"William, what ails you?"
He smiled, although it was an effort.
"A bad dream only, my love. Let it not
concern you."
Then he took her chin in gentle
fingers, and lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed away the memory of that
cursed stone hall and the woman who haunted it.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON
SWANNE JOINED MY CIRCLE of women as we sat and gossiped over our needlework. I
sighed, for I had good enough reason to dislike my brother's wife, but her
presence reminded me abruptly of the strange dream that had gripped me the
previous
night.
"My lady
Swanne," I said, putting my needle down, "I dreamed most
unusually last
night."
She tipped her head
slightly, the movement one of supreme indifference. "I dreamed of a most
handsome man, a Norman, with close-cropped black
curls."
Several of the
younger women tittered, and I managed to fight down the urge to blush. No doubt
they thought I sought my pleasure in dream where I could not find it in my
marriage bed. Suddenly I wished I had not brought up the topic, and would have
dismissed it with a laugh had not Swanne leaned forward, her pale face now
almost bloodless, her own dark eyes intense.
"Yes?" she
said.
I made a deprecatory
gesture. "Oh, I am sure it was nothing, save that this dream-man asked to
be remembered to you."
"Yes?" The
word sounded as if Swanne had forced it through lips of stone.
I almost smiled as I
remembered his message. "He told me to say, T want her and I cannot wait
for that happy day when we can be together.' He said it had been fifteen years
since you had been together, and that he missed you. Why, sister, who can this
be that is not your husband?"
Swanne sat upright,
rigid with emotion. Her eyes glistened, and she seemed unaware that everyone in
our circle now stared at her.
"Who is this
man?" I asked again, softly.
"A lord such as
shall never love you," she said, then rose and
made her exit.
CbAPG6RGbR
't, AEWEALD SAT
WITH ECUB BY THE DYING FIRE IN
■"""•l
the pit in the center of the Lesser Hall where Edward held his evening court.
Edward and Caela had long retired, and the only people left in the chamber,
save for them, were two servants, sweeping away the detritus of the night's
activities.
They were silent.
Uncomfortably so, on Saeweald's part, for he wanted to grip Ecub by the
shoulders and shake out of her whatever it was that she had to say to him, and
far more comfortably so on Ecub's part, for she still basked in the glow of
what the Sidlesaghes had said to her.
They awaited Judith,
who had to complete her evening attendance on the queen before she could join
them.
They sat, silent,
eyes set to the floor, until even the servants had gone for
the night.
The moment the door
had closed behind the last of them, Saeweald turned
to Ecub and opened
his mouth.
"Wait," she
said, forestalling whatever it was he'd been about to say.
He mumbled something
inaudible, then turned back to resume his silent
vigil.
Eventually Judith
joined them, looking both weary and worried, a reflection of Saeweald's own
expression. She drew a stool up to Ecub and Saeweald, glanced at the physician,
then looked at Ecub.
"What has
happened?" she said.
Ecub took a very
long, deep breath, then beamed, her entire face almost splitting in two with
the width of her smile. "Today I sat amid the stones atop Pen Hill,"
she said.
"Yes?" said
Saeweald.
"They spoke to
me."
There was a long
moment of complete silence, during which time Saeweald and Judith stared at
Ecub, their minds trying to make sense of what she'd just
said.
"They 'spoke' to
you?" Saeweald finally said, enunciating very carefully.
"Aye, they did.
Saeweald, what do you know of the ancient tales of the Stone Dances?"
"Only that they
were raised by hands unknown, long ago, before even the Llangarlians came to
step on this land."
"Aye, that is
what you would have heard. But I think that Judith may have heard something
else. Judith?"
Judith looked at
Saeweald, but he was still staring at Ecub. She looked back to the prioress,
who was studying her with a maddening calm, and licked her lips, trying to
remember.
"They were
raised in monument to Mag, to the Mother and the land," she said.
"They are more Mag-monument than Og, although by association—"
"Yes, yes,"
said Ecub. "But tell me what you know of their raising."
Judith made a
disparaging gesture, unsettled by Ecub's questioning. "Oh, Ecub, they were
only tales that children told each other."
"Often the
greatest mysteries are hidden within children's tales," Ecub said.
"What safer place for them? Where every adult will discount them?"
Again Judith looked
at Saeweald, and this time he met her eyes.
"Judith,"
he said. "What tales?"
Judith shrugged her
shoulders, not ready to believe that the tales she'd heard as a child in her
previous life were fact rather than sheer childish imagination. "I heard…
it was told…"
"Judith,"
Ecub said, "just spit the words out!"
"The Stone
Dances, or, rather, the stones themselves, are in actuality the surviving
memory of the ancient creatures who walked this land long before mankind set
foot here."
"Very
good," said Ecub. "And their names?"
"Sidlesaghes,"
said Judith. "The Sad Songsters." Then, surprisingly, her mouth
quirked in amusement. "Long Toms, we used to call them, for the height of
the stones. Children's tales, though. Surely."
"Yet all
this," Ecub said, soft but clear, "is true, my dears. Come now,
Judith, tell me more of your 'children's tales.' Why do the Sidlesaghes stand
as stones and not trail their melancholy amid the meadows?"
Judith's mouth fell
open, and she stared wide-eyed and unbelieving at Ecub, as her mind suddenly
made the leap to what Ecub was trying to get her to say.
"They…"
Judith's voice hoarsened, and she had to clear her throat before she could
continue. "They only wake and sing when it is time to midwife Mag's
birth."
Ecub nodded, smiling.
"Aye." She looked apologetically at Saeweald, who was looking
goggle-eyed between the two women. "This is a mystery only discussed among
girl-children, my dear. You would probably not have heard it as Loth. Midwifery
and birth are the realms of women only."
"Wait,"
said Saeweald, shaking his head as if he were trying to shake his thoughts into
some kind of order. "I don't understand. Are you saying that, when you
were atop Pen Hill, these 'Sidlesaghes' appeared to you?"
"Aye."
"And you agree
with what Judith just said, that they only 'wake and sing'
when it is time to
midwife Mag's birth?"
"Aye."
"But Mag already
is! How can she be born again?"
"Because
tomorrow, Asterion is going to murder her, my loves. And then Mag is going to
need to be reborn."
Saeweald and Judith
just stared at Ecub, aghast, then they both began to
babble at once.
Ecub let them speak
for a few minutes, then she held up her hand for silence, and repeated to them
what the Sidlesaghes had told her.
Finally, Saeweald
said, "But why can't Caela remember?"
"For her own
protection, Saeweald. For her own protection. She will remember soon enough. Be
patient."
But Judith frowned,
and looked at Ecub. "But… but where will Mag be
reborn? In who?"
Ecub smiled
beatifically, then shrugged. "With that knowledge they did
not grace me."
CbAPGGR FOUR
OSTIG SAT WITH HIS
BROTHER HAROLD BEFORE
one of the fire pits
in Harold's own great hall that Harold had built two years previously just to
the south of Edward's palace complex in
The past fifteen
years had treated Harold and Tostig kindly. Both had grown: Harold into a
greater maturity—the only physical changes wrought by the passing years were
the sprinkling of gray through his dark blond hair and some more creases of
care about his eyes—and Tostig into full manhood. Eight years previously
Godwine had settled the earldom of
Tostig was a dark,
handsome man. The insecurities of youth, which had once so amused Swanne, had
been set aside for a sometimes overbearing assurance of manner that could
border on the arrogant. Now, as he and Harold sat before the glowing embers of
the fire, alone, save for the soft presence of servants clearing away the
tables in the hall behind them, Tostig leaned forward, his face set, his eyes
snapping, and stabbed a finger at Harold.
"Their insolence
is unbelievable!" Tostig said.
Harold, slouched back
in his chair as if half asleep, sent Tostig an unreadable look from under
lowered lids, but said nothing.
"They demand
that I step down from the earldom!"
Harold closed his
eyes briefly, resisting the urge to lean across to Tostig and shake some sense
into the man. Tostig had ruled
"Tostig,"
Harold said, "stifling opposition by murdering the voices who speak it has
never been the best course of action."
"I have had to
withdraw forces from the border regions closer to home," Tostig went on, ignoring
Harold, "with the result that now the Scots threaten to invade. Harold,
you must aid me."
Harold leaned forward
and emptied the dregs of his wine cup into the
fire pit.
The embers hissed
momentarily, then fell quiet.
"No," he
said.
"No?"
"That earldom is
yours to keep or to lose as you will, Tostig. If you currently find yourself
mired in mutinous resentment, then may I suggest you have only yourself to
blame."
"You have an army at your disposal," Tostig hissed. "Give it
to me!"
Harold sat up
straight in his chair, his hands resting on the armrests, the only sign of his
anger, the gentle thrumming of his fingers against the wood.
"No."
Tostig stared at his
brother, then abruptly spat into the fire. "You think
only of
yourself."
"I think only of
Tostig sneered.
"Edward is
old," Harold continued in an even voice. "His days are numbered. He
has no heir and, in his own sweet recalcitrant manner, refuses to name one. If
he takes this truculence to the grave with him,
"You mean you
want to grab the throne yourself. I can go to hell for all you
care."
Harold took a moment
to respond. "My primary responsibility is to the
realm, Tostig. Not to
you."
Tostig rose, his face
twisted with anger. "Desert your family, brother, and you may find
yourself without either throne or realm!"
With that, Tostig
turned on his heel and stalked off.
Harold sighed,
refilled his wine cup, and spent the next hour staring into the fire as he
slowly sipped the wine.
Finally he rose, and
went to his bedchamber for the night.
Five
AWISE CHECKED TO
MAKE SURE THAT HER LADY'S
gown was safely
folded and set into the chest, then turned back to her mistress. Swanne sat
before a burnished mirror, brushing out her thick mass of curly ebony hair with
long, slow strokes, and Hawise hesitated before walking over and taking her
leave for the night.
Sweet Mother Mary, but she was
beautiful!
In the mirror,
Swanne's eyes slid Hawise's way, and the woman dropped her own eyes and
fidgeted with her skirt, embarrassed at being caught staring.
"I am done with
you for the night," Swanne said.
Hawise nodded,
colored a little—she had served Swanne for twenty-five years, but the woman
still retained the ability to make her uncomfortable— dropped a small curtsy
and walked from the private bedchamber that sat above Harold's hall.
As the heavy drapery
that served as a door fell closed behind Hawise, Swanne smiled at herself in
the mirror. "Oh, aye, my dear," she murmured, "I am beautiful
indeed."
Then her smile faded
a little. What use was such beauty when William lingered within
Fifteen years since
she had seen him. Fifteen years of frustration and of being tied to Harold. Swanne had never loved Harold, but now she resented
him as she never had previously. Fifteen years of Harold when she could have
had William.
And it had been that bitch whom he
had visited in dream! It still rankled her that William had graced Caela's dreams, and not
hers. William was so
©
concerned about
Asterion that he kept his mind and powers closely shuttered; Swanne had tried
to touch him through dream previously and had not been able to get past the
barriers he'd put in place.
But he'd visited
Caela in dream. It mattered not that William had apparently done nothing but
speak of Swanne.
He had visited Caela in dream and not Swannel
"You foolish
virgin bitch," Swanne muttered, "even now you can't resist trying
your petty, childish charms on him, can you?"
There was a movement
at the door.
Harold.
Swanne smiled easily
at him—at least those fifteen years had made her the mistress of deception—and
turned back to her reflection in the mirror as Harold undressed and slid
beneath the bedcovers.
Finally, tiring of
her pose, Swanne shook her head so that her ebony hair rippled luxuriously down
her back, and put down the brush. She stood, slowly and elegantly, aware of
every movement that she made, and smoothed down over her body (still slim and
fine after the six children she'd borne to remain in Harold's graces, thank the
gods!) the thin lawn nightrobe whose delicate weave scarcely hid any detail of
the body over which it was draped.
She placed a hand
over her stomach, flattening the lawn against her body, and again admired
herself in the mirror. "Do you think yourself with child again?"
For an instant,
Swanne's eyes hardened to a flat bleakness, but then she turned to the man who
had spoken, and in that movement she masked her hatred with a well-practiced
coquetry.
"Are six
children not enough for you, my love? Do you want me to swell again so that
your manhood can be proven before all at court yet one more
time?"
He was laying on his
back on the bed, the covers pulled down to his stomach, exposing his
well-muscled chest, hands behind his head, studying her with unreadable eyes.
"Are you with child?"
"No."
Swanne sauntered over to the bed, allowing herself to admire the man's physique
and handsome face even if she loathed who and what he was. Swanne parted her
lips, allowing him to see the wetness of her tongue between her white teeth.
Slowly she tugged the robe over her shoulders so that it fell to the floor,
then climbed onto the bed, pulling the bed covers further down over his body,
then lifting one leg over him so that she straddled his body as she settled her
weight atop his warmth.
His eyes darkened
almost to blackness, and she could see the muscles tense in his upper arms. You are a very lucky man, Harold, she thought, to have me in your bed at night.
Her lips parted even
more, and she moved her hips very slowly atop his. He moved his hands, and
grasped her hips, pulling her the tighter against
him.
She drew in a deep
breath, and watched his eyes drift to her breasts. I should have taken you as a lover when you were Coel.
You were wasted on Cornelia.
"Harold,"
she said, and leaned down so that he could take one of her nipples between his
teeth. Hate him she might, but for the moment Swanne saw no reason to deny
herself his body and the skills he employed as a lover.
LATER, WHEN SHE COULD
HEAR HIM BREATHING IN
the deep steadiness
of sleep, she moved away from the warmth of his body, rose from the bed, and
used the washbowl that Hawise had left to wipe away the traces of his semen
from her thighs. Tomorrow she would take the bag of herbs she had secreted at
the bottom of her clothes chest, and brew a cupful of the tea that would ensure
she'd not conceive. Six children were enough, indeed, and the last thing Swanne
wanted was to be big-bellied with child when… When he would soon be here, please to the gods!
Swanne dried herself,
then wrapped about her nakedness the robe she had discarded earlier, shivering
a little in the cold night air. She sat on a stool by the brazier, warming
herself, and looked back to check that Harold was indeed fast asleep.
He was breathing
deep, and Swanne relaxed. She turned back to the brazier, placed her hands on
her knees, closed her eyes, and sent her senses scrying out into the night.
There was only one benefit that Harold brought her, and that was to give her
the excuse to live so close to the Game.
Ah, there… there it
was…
Swanne relaxed even
further, wrapping her senses about the Game, feeling its strength. Gods, it was
powerful! She and Brutus had built it so well. Whenever Swanne was despondent,
or frustrated, or felt that she could cope no longer with Harold, or with the
pointlessness of her life in this damnable Christian court, Swanne found a
quiet place so that she could communicate with the Game. Touch its power, feel
its promise, believe in the future that she and William would build together
once they'd completed the Game and trapped Asterion within its dark heart.
So powerful, and yet…
different. Swanne recalled again, as she so often did, that conversation she'd
had with William in that single brief encounter fifteen years earlier.
Could the Game have changed in the
two thousand years it was left alone? she'd asked.
Perhaps, he'd answered too slowly, his
own concern obvious. We had
not
closed
it, it was still alive, and still in that phase of its
existence where it was actively growing. Who knows what…
He'd stopped then,
but even now the unspoken words rang in Swanne's mind. Who knows what it could have grown into.
Swanne reached out
with her power and touched the Game. Always
before, it had
responded to her.
Tonight, although she
could feel its presence and vitality, it did not. A coldness swept through
Swanne, and for one panicky moment she almost succumbed to her terror and
projected herself into William's presence. But she didn't; it was too
dangerous. As well as the Game, Swanne could feel Asterion more strongly than
ever before. He was stalking the grounds and spaces of the
And so Swanne drew in
a deep breath, steadied herself. Then she rose and, ensuring Harold still lay
asleep, she went to her needlework basket and withdrew from its depths a small
scrap of parchment upon which she scribbled a few lines of writing with a piece
of sharpened charcoal.
IN THE HOUR AFTER SHE
AND HAROLD HAD BROKEN
their fast, and
Harold had departed to meet with some of his thegns, Swanne took the parchment,
now folded and sealed, and handed it to her woman
Hawise.
"Take
this," she said, "and hand it to the good archbishop of
merely nodded and
slipped the parchment into the pocket of her robe.
DEEP UNDER
that surrounded it,
the Troy Game dreamed as it had dreamed for aeons.
It dreamed of a time
when its Mistress and Kingman would return and complete it, when it would be
whole, and strong, and clean. It dreamed of a time when the kingship bands
would be restored to the limbs of the Kingman, and when he and his Mistress
would dance out the Game into
immortality.
The Game also dreamed
of things that its creators, Brutus and Genvissa, could never have realized. It
dreamed of the stone circles that still dotted the land, and it dreamed of
those ancient days when the stones danced under the
stars.
In its dreaming, the
Game began to whisper, the stones responded, and
the dream turned into
reality.
CbAPGGR SIX
AEWEALD?"
Saeweald jerked from
sleep, the dark-haired woman beside ^^. -*S him murmuring sleepily.
"It is I,
Tostig."
Saeweald relaxed a
little, but not a great deal. He and Tostig had once been great friends, but as
Tostig had grown first into manhood, and then into his distant earldom, their
friendship had ebbed away.
Saeweald slowly swung
his legs out of bed, wincing as his right hip caught within the blankets and
twisted uncomfortably.
The woman beside him
also started to rise, but he laid a hand on her shoulder. "No, keep my
space warm for me, Judith. I will not be long."
Tostig had
disappeared into one of the outer chambers, and now he returned with a small
oil lamp. He grinned at the sight of the woman. "I know you," he
said. "You are one of the queen's ladies."
Judith inclined her head. "Indeed," she
said, "and a better mistress I could not hope to serve."
"Does she know
you spend your nights here?"
"I cannot
imagine that the queen would object," Saeweald said tersely, pulling on
his robe and belting it about his waist. "Tostig, what do you here?'
Tostig shifted his
eyes from Judith to the physician. "I need your advice," he said.
"And your… Sight."
Again his eyes slid
back to Judith.
"She knows who
and what I am," Saeweald said. "You need have no concern for
her."
He led Tostig back
into the next chamber. "What can be so urgent that you need to wake me
from my bed?"
"Edward,"
Tostig said, then grinned charmingly, which instantly put Saeweald on guard.
"I need to know how long he shall live."
"You and most of
"I… I am
concerned for my brother. I need to know what I can do that shall most aid him
to the throne."
ZJ -
Saeweald studied the
earl of
not what you want to
know."
Tostig abandoned his
charm. He grabbed at Saeweald's arm. "I want to know my future," he
said. "I want to know where I stand."
"Why?"
"Does not every
man want to know what lies before him?" Saeweald gave a hollow laugh.
"Some say that a wise man would give all his worldly goods not to know,
Tostig."
"I want to know. Why won't you tell me… do you want gold? Is that it?
Does the physician Druid need gold to share his Sight?"
"If you think
yourself brave enough, Tostig, then I can share my Sight with you. Give your
gold to the beggars who haunt the wastelands beyond the gates of
Saeweald reached for
the oil lamp that Tostig still held. The lamp consisted of a small, shallow
pottery dish in which swilled oil rendered from animal fats. A wick extended
partway out, resting on the rim of the dish, spluttering and
flickering.
Saeweald rested the
shallow dish in the palm of his left hand, passing his
right palm over it
several times. "Well?" Tostig demanded.
Saeweald's eyes
lifted from the lamp, and in the thin glimmer of light, they appeared very
dark, as if they had turned to obsidian rather than their usual
green.
Wait, he mouthed before bending his face back down to the
lamp.
Tostig stared at
Saeweald, then lowered his own eyes.
And gasped, taking an
involuntarily step backward.
That tiny lamp seemed
to have grown until it appeared half an arm's length in diameter, although it still
balanced easily in Saeweald's hand. The oil was now black and odorless, lapping
at the rim of the dish as if caught in some
great magical tide.
The wick sputtered,
and the smoke that rose from it thickened and then sank, twisting into the oil itself
until the dish of the lamp contained a writhing mass of smoke and black liquid.
What do you wish to know?
"How long does
Edward have to live?" said Tostig, unaware that Saeweald
had not spoken with
his own voice.
The oil and smoke boiled,
then cleared and in its depths Tostig saw Edward lying wan and skeletal on his
bed, a dark, loathsome miasma clouding above
his nostrils and
mouth.
"What does it
mean?" he asked.
The clouds gather. He does not have
long. What else do you want to know?
"Harold,"
Tostig said in a tight voice. "Tell me of Harold."
Again the oil and
smoke boiled then cleared, and Tostig bent close.
He saw Harold
climbing a hill. He was dressed in battle gear, although he did not carry a
sword, and he appeared weary and disheartened. He reached the top of the hill,
and suddenly a shaft of light slid down from the heavens, wrapping Harold in
gold, and Tostig saw that Harold wore a crown on his head and that the
weariness had lifted from his face.
Then Harold turned
about, and Tostig drew in a sharp breath, for Harold's face was both beautiful
and wrathful and consumed with power all at once. As Tostig stared, Harold very
slowly raised his hands, palms upward, and light shone forth from them, as if they
carried living, breathing gold within them.
"By the
gods!" Saeweald muttered, and he suddenly dropped the dish, spattering oil
over both men's robes and legs.
"I need to see
more!" cried Tostig, but Saeweald shook his head. "You have seen enough,"
he said. "Edward has not long, and Harold will be a king such as
Tostig stared through
the gloom toward Saeweald, but he could not make out the man's face. Then,
wordlessly, he turned on his heel and left.
Saeweald stood very
still for a long time; the remnants of the oil dripping down his robe.
Eventually he turned,
went back to the bedchamber, disrobed, and crawled back in beside Judith.
"I think I know
why Coel is back," he said.
sevejM
wind ruttling tnc
snun v.
ing him narrow his
almost-black eyes. Behind him a group of his men-at-arms chattered quietly
where they stood by the horses, and his close friend Walter Fitz Osbern sat in
the grass, watching him carefully.
To his side stood
Matilda. She was heavily pregnant, only weeks away from giving birth, and she
and William were engaged in what had become one of the rituals of their
marriage. In each of her pregnancies, a few weeks before she gave birth,
Matilda asked William to bring her to the coast where she could stand and feel
the sea wind in her hair and ruffling through her clothes. It was this, and its
memory, which enabled her to endure the weeks of confinement just before and
after the birth of a child. Matilda hated the sense of detainment, almost of
capture, that surrounded the rituals of childbirth; this single day of freedom,
of feeling the wind in her hair and her husband standing beside her, gave
Matilda enough strength to endure it. Despite her diminutive stature, Matilda
gave birth easily, although she found it desperately painful: this child would
be their seventh.
Matilda also liked to
stand here, her belly swelling toward the sea, because it gave her a sense of
superiority over this witch that William still dreamed of. Well might Swanne be
the first love of William's life, but it was not she who bore his children, and
it was not she who stood here now, William's companion and mate.
She looked at William,
and saw that he had his eyes fixed on the wild tossing gray seas, and that
faint smudge in the far distance, that line of white
cliffs.
"How you lust
for that land," she murmured, and William flickered his
eyes her way.
"Aye. And it will be mine soon enough."
She nodded. In the
past two years, William had finally managed to bring
evaporated, and
William enjoyed power such as he'd never had previously.
Their marriage was
strong, stronger than Matilda had ever envisaged in their early months
together. They had both agreed that truth was the only possible foundation on
which they could build their partnership, and the truth had served them well.
Of course, there were
always a few small secrets and, on William's part, the occasional infidelity,
but neither small secrets nor infidelities rocked the essential core of their
marriage: Matilda and William were good for each other. Together, they managed
far more than either of them could have managed individually.
"When?"
said Matilda, although she well knew the answer.
"When Edward
dies," he said. William was strong enough to venture an invasion now, but
he also wanted to coat his claim with legitimacy, and he could not do that if
he tried to wrest a throne from the incumbent king.
Once Edward was dead,
however, then the path would be open for him.
William shifted
slightly, as if uncomfortable, and he frowned as he gazed across the gray
waters of the channel that separated
"What is
it?" said Matilda.
"There is
something about to happen… matters are moving," he said. He lifted his
closed fist and beat it softly against his chest, underscoring his words.
"I feel it in here."
Matilda felt a thrill
of superstitious awe run up and down her spine. Fifteen years had been far long
enough for her to realize that there were depths to her husband that she had
not yet plumbed.
If the witch Swanne loved him, then
why was that so? Was it because some power in William called to Swanne?
"It is not
Edward," she said, and William looked at her.
"How so? What do
you know?"
Matilda managed to
suppress the small smile that threatened to break through. One of the
"small" secrets she had kept from William was that Matilda had her
own agent in place within Edward's court.
"I think you
will find," Matilda said, "that Edward's queen shall be at the heart
of it."
"Caela?
Why?"
Now Matilda allowed
that secretive smile to break through. "A woman's intuition, my dear.
Nothing else."
Caela intrigued
Matilda. Initially, Matilda had set her agent to watching Swanne, but that
watchfulness had, over the years, grown to include the
queen as well. At
first this had been because Swanne so clearly and evidently hated Caela, and
that made Matilda wonder if Swanne feared the queen as well, and further
wondered why this might be so. But then, as the years passed, Matilda came to
understand, via her agent, that there was a small but dedicated coterie that
surrounded the queen, and that Caela herself sometimes exuded an air of
strangeness that Matilda's agent found difficult to
express.
"Caela is
nothing," William said, and the harsh tone of his voice made
Matilda look sharply
at him. I wonder, she thought. AS WILLIAM LIFTED MATILDA BACK TO
HER HORSE,
his mind drifted to
the dream he'd had some nights previously. Cornelia, or Caela, as she was now
called, in her stone hall. That dream had been so real. The stone had felt hard
beneath his feet, Caela's flesh so warm beneath his
fingers.
The plea in her eyes
as vivid as if he'd stood there in reality. William had dreamed of her
previously—would this woman never cease to torment him?—but never had the dream
seemed so real.
Nor Caela so close. She
was older than she had been as Cornelia, and lovelier. Her hair was darker, her
skin paler, but her eyes still had that strange depth of blue that they had two
thousand years previously.
She had still held
her face up to his, and yearned for him to kiss her. And he had wanted to kiss her, whatever he might have said to
her. He'd wanted to kiss her more than he'd ever wanted anything else in his
life. More than the Game? Aye, at that moment, when Caela's face had been so
close, William thought he might have squandered even the Game itself in order
to feel her mouth yield under his, to taste her sweetness… Yet he'd stopped
himself, just in time. Was she the trap Asterion had laid?
Again?
William turned from
Matilda—watching him curiously—and stared back
across the wild
tossing seas.
Soon. It was starting
today—he could feel it surging through his blood—
and within a year all
would be won or lost.
eigbc
The Great Hall,
AROLD GODWINESON,
EARL OF
slouched in his great
chair in its habitual place to the right of King / Edward's dais. His dark eyes
were hooded, his right hand rubbed through the short dark hairs of his
moustache and beard, his left arm lay draped, apparently relaxed, over the
carved armrest of the great chair, his legs stretched out before him, one foot
idly tapping out a rhythm only Harold could hear.
He looked almost half
asleep, but in reality Harold was coiled, tense and waiting. Harold had spent
his life either at court or on the battlefield, and over the years he'd
developed a sense of danger so acute he could almost smell its approach.
His nose had been
full of the stink of danger ever since last night.
Ever since Swanne had
dropped her robe and straddled him with her naked, tight body.
Ever since he'd lain
awake all night, observing her sitting before the brazier through his
heavy-lidded eyes.
Ever since he'd seen
her scratch out that secret communication and hide it within the folds of her
clothes.
Now he watched and
waited, more certain of this than anything else he'd known in this life. There
was danger afoot, and Swanne was somehow connected with it. Harold knew he
should worry about Tostig as well, but for the moment the sense of danger that
seemed to surround Swanne was so acute that he pushed all thought of his
brother to the side.
His eyes moved slowly
over the crowd gathered for King Edward's harvest court in the vast Great Hall
of Westminster palace, seeking Swanne out. Ah, there she was, chatting with
several members of the witan.
Harold's expression
remained studiously neutral as he watched his wife. This morning she looked
lovelier than ever, her ivory gown clinging to the
IOO
swell of her breasts
and hips, pinching in about the narrowness of her waist, both swell and
slenderness emphasized every time she moved.
He no longer loved
her, nor even respected her. Oh, once he had adored her, patterned his life
about her every movement and want. But that lovelorn man had been left behind years
ago, murdered through years of cohabitation with the lady he'd taken as his
common-law wife. Now that the delusion of love had been stripped from his eyes,
Harold could see that there was a coldness about Swanne that even she, most
expert of deceivers, could not entirely hide. There was a sense of waiting about her that made him think of the dead-liness of a
coiled snake about to strike.
Harold had absolutely
no doubt that, were it to suit her purposes, Swanne
would not hesitate to
murder him.
A great wave of
blackness washed over him, and Harold had to close his eyes momentarily, trying
to recover his equilibrium. All his life he'd been plagued with terrible
dreams, of a love and a land lost; of Swanne standing over his murdered body,
laughing; of a man with raging, snapping black hair reaching out over his
corpse to a woman whose face was that of… that of… Harold opened his eyes,
staring at Swanne, forcing his mind away from his dreams. In his youth, they'd
been the province of the night only, nightmares he could laugh away in the
sanity of wakefulness. But over the past few months, they'd been taking over
his waking hours as well.
And whenever he
looked at his sister, his mind was filled with such carnal thoughts that Harold
was sure the devil himself must have ensnared him.
Last night, when
Swanne had lowered herself to him, he'd closed his eyes and imagined that it
was not Swanne atop him, but…
No! He must stop this. God, what was happening to him?
Was this some sickness of the mind? Some devilish possession? Desperate for
distraction, Harold looked slowly about the Great Hall, seeking whatever it was
(apart from his thoughts of his sister) that was causing chills to run up and
down his spine, and nerves to flutter in his belly.
The Hall was filled
with Normans… who would imagine that this was a Saxon kingdom, and at its head
a Saxon king? No wonder his nerves were afire when his king preferred the
This Hall was far
vaster than the one his father had built in
Currently, Edward sat
on his carved wooden throne on his dais, his snowy hair and beard flowing over
his shoulders and chest, robed in the Norman manner as if he were a woman
rather than a warrior, a crucifix in his hand, an expression of wisdom and
dignity affixed on his aged face. Harold's eyes
IOI
narrowed. Edward
cultivated the demeanor of the scholarly yet shrewd king, but Harold doubted
that any honest appraisal of the man would value him at anything more than the
mediocre. Edward had begun his reign twenty-five years previously in a burst of
bright hope, and it looked as if he'd end it in an agony of indecision.
Edward's
advisers—sycophants all—were gathered about him, nodding and smiling and
agreeing and sympathizing as the occasion demanded. A Norman nobleman, no doubt
from Duke William's court, was smiling and laughing and presenting the duke's
compliments. Several churchmen, never slow to flatter such a powerful
benefactor, bowed their heads in assumed wisdom and piety. Within the cluster,
Harold recognized Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester and the much traveled Norman
sympathizer Aldred, archbishop of York (now much fatter than he'd been when
he'd officiated at Edward's wedding so many years previously). There also was
Eadwine, the abbot of Westminster Abbey, nodding and smiling whenever Edward so
much as looked his way.
Fools, all.
Saeweald stood
slightly behind and to one side of the adoring cluster, his copper vials of
herbs and potions dangling from his belt and catching the light. He leaned on a
crutch that Harold knew he only used on days of supreme discomfort. The
physician's face was masked in blandness, but Harold knew him well enough to
recognize the irony that lay behind his expression. Saeweald hated the
Saeweald caught
Harold's appraisal and, very slowly, lowered one eyelid in a wink.
Despite his
continuing sense of imminent danger, Harold's mouth twitched beneath his hand.
It was Tostig who had first introduced him to the physician many years ago, but
despite the current tension between Harold and his brother, his friendship with
Saeweald remained strong. It was not simple liking that bound the two men
(although sometimes Harold wondered at the rapidity with which they had
established such a deep friendship, almost as if they'd been renewing it, not
forming it) but also their common preference to the ancient pagan ways of the
country. They shared a mutual loving and reverence for the land itself, for the
turf and the stones and the meanderings of the streams and rivulets. A love and
reverence that meant far more to them than the petty mouthings of Christian
priests. Sometimes, in the depths of winter, Saeweald would take Harold to the
top of one of the hills that surrounded London, and there he would shuck off
his robe and, naked save for the tattoo that marked him as a priest of the
ancient paths, would take Harold on journeys of such mystery and power that
left the earl shaking for hours afterward.
Always, after these
mysteries, Saeweald would half smile at Harold and say, One day… one day…
IO
IO
Harold never knew
what he meant, and never dared ask. Saeweald also took Harold to some far less
private, although still very exclusive, celebrations. On the winter solstices,
the equinoxes, the festivals of Beltane, of Maytide and of the Green Man,
Saeweald took Harold to the very top of Pen Hill to meet with (Harold had
laughed in disbelief the first night he'd attended such a celebration) Mother
Ecub and her very unvirginal nuns, as well as a host of men and women he'd
recognized from the councils and markets of London. There he'd partaken in the
dances and meanderings, the fires and the spirit-soarings, the choruses and
(Harold shivered with remembered longing) the strange matings within the
circles of stone about the hills
of
Harold's mouth curled
behind his hand: if only Edward knew what went
on in his realm while
he knelt before his altar…
A snippet of
conversation from around the king reached Harold's ears. Abbot Eadwine had
begun a long and loud boast about the beauty of the
almost-completed
abbey.
Edward was hanging on
every word, almost drooling in his excitement, and Harold's lips thinned in
disgust. Eadwine was Edward's special creature. Many years previously, the king
had selected Eadwine, from among the gaggle of black-robed monks who lived
within the abbey precincts, to be the new abbot and had then glorified both abbey and abbot by financing
one of the most spectacular building programs ever seen in England—or
Europe—come to that. Westminster Abbey had gone from being a damp, dark, sullen
stone church, with too many draughts for any but the most desperately pious to
enjoy, to an imposing church and abbey that now rose atop Tothill. The new abbey,
due to be completed within the next few months, was one of the most beautiful
and impressive churches within all of Christendom.
Edward meant it as a
fitting burial chamber and memorial to his reign. Harold thought the entire
matter beyond contempt. Other men, other kings, would have preferred that their
deeds and victories remain as their memorials. Not Edward. Childless,
victory-less, and increasingly meaningless in his essential impotence and
powerlessness, even within his own kingdom, Edward had chosen to erect a
monument of stone to his glory.
Harold had no doubt
that the Church would eventually canonize the king for it. Spectacular
donations were ever the easy road to sainthood.
Saeweald was still
watching Harold, and seemed to understand some of the earl's thoughts, for his
own mouth curled in amusement.
Harold finally looked
away from Saeweald. Soon the damned physician would have him smiling openly,
and in this court that would never do.
His gaze drifted, as
it so often did, to Caela. She looked particularly beautiful—and particularly
sad within that beauty—on this morning. She was
robed in soft blue
silk over a crisp white under tunic, a mantle of snowy linen about her
shoulders and draped demurely over her dark hair. The colors suited her, and
Harold found himself thinking on how beautiful she would look, were she within
her and Edward's private chambers, where she could remove her veil, and let
that blue silk shimmer against the darkness of her hair…
Caela turned slightly
on her seat, handing some needlework to a woman behind her, and as she did so
the material of her robe twisted and tightened about her waist and breasts.
Harold stilled, his
very breathing stopped.
Caela spoke softly to
the woman, and then laughed at some small jest the woman made to her, and
Harold let his breath out, horrified to hear its raggedness.
Damn it! Look elsewhere, lecher!
Desperate, Harold
dragged his gaze away from his sister and toward the back of the Great Hall
where thronged the thegns and stewards, and even several ceorls, who came each
day to court in the hope of gaining a moment of the king's time for their
supplications.
Harold saw several
that he knew, and nodded a terse greeting to them. And there was Tostig, just
entered.
Tostig saw Harold
looking, even across this distance, and pointedly looked away.
Harold sighed.
Perhaps he should send one of his thegns down to his brother and bid him sit
with Harold. Then they could talk, perhaps, and jest away the tensions that had
arisen between them the previous night.
But, just as he was
about to summon a thegn and send him to Tostig, Harold stilled in puzzlement.
To the very rear of
the Hall, where opened the doors to the outer chambers, stood a tall, pale
figure.
Harold blinked, for
the figure seemed very slightly out of focus… as if it stood behind a veil of
water. Whatever—whoever—it was, the figure was very tall, and dressed in plain,
poorly sewn garments.
A beggar, come to
elicit pennies?
For an instant, just
an instant, the veil lifted, and Harold found himself staring at intense
gray-flecked brown eyes. The eyes transfixed him, they were so clear, even from
this distance, that he did not think to expand his view to the larger face.
Then the veil was
back again, and the figure muted.
Suddenly his sense of
imminent danger exploded, and Harold straightened and slid to the edge of his
chair, a hand to the knife at his belt.
Even as Harold was
rising, the strange, discomforting figure gave a
IO*
discernible moan,
raised a long, thin, almost diaphanous arm, and pointed
toward Caela.
Before Harold could
say or do anything further, Caela half rose from her t
seat, her face a mask
of terror and pain, and cried out with a half-strangled j
moan. J
Asterion marched through the stone
hall that represented Caela's womb, his booted footsteps ringing most satisfactorily.
It was time, finally, to make the opening move in this most exquisite, if
deadly,
of dances.
Asterion laughed aloud—and to think only he knew the tune! Then he sobered,
and slowed his pace as he walked through the hall, his head swinging this way
and that as he tried to spy out where she'd put herself.
She wouldn't have hidden herself too
well, that he knew. After all, Mag was the one who wanted herself murdered.
Wasn't that all a part of her Grand
Plan?
Asterion almost laughed again,
remembering how, in their previous life, Mag and Hera had plotted to outwit
Asterion. Hera, the
dying Greek goddess, had
called to the Llangarlian goddess Mag, telling her that they could use Cornelia to trick Asterion into an alliance
with Mag.
Then Mag, using Cornelia, could turn
against Asterion. Neither Hera nor Mag realized that Asterion knew of their
entire, inept plan. Gods thought to outwit him, Mistresses of the Labyrinth
thought to deceive him, and Asterion was a step ahead of all of them. They
would dance to his tune,
not he to theirs.
"Come on, Mag," Asterion
whispered. "Show thyself. It is, after all, your execution day, and you
wouldn't want to be tardy for such an important appointment,
would you?"
There was a slight movement to one
side, within one of the shadowy recesses of
the arched side aisles.
Nothing. A trickery only. Something
designed to make him feel as though what
he did now was real. Worthwhile, even. <
"Oh come on, you silly
bitch," Asterion muttered. "I haven't got all day." Ah! There
she was! About time…
Asterion's gait increased in pace
and, as it did so, so his entire form became huge and black, a great amorphous
mass of murderous intent.
Mag had appeared at the far end of
the stone hall. She looked tiny and wizened from her long period of inactivity,
and darted terrified from the shadow of one great column to the next. She
wailed, the sound thin and frightened, and she clasped her hands about her
shoulders as if that single, futile gesture might save her.
O
Oh, for goodness sake, thought
Asterion, that act wouldn't fool a toddling child.
"Did you think that you had
outwitted me?" he snarled (one had to play out the absurdity, after all).
"No!" Mag cried. "No! Let me be, Asterion. I
can help you! I can—"
Something dark and horrible, a bear's
claw although magnified ten times over, roared through the air, and Mag threw
herself to one side.
The claw buried itself in one of the
great columns of the stone hall, and blood gushed forth from the stone.
Asterion began to giggle.
"I beg you!" screamed Mag. "I beg—"
The claw flashed through the air once
more, save that this time it became as the head of a great cat halfway through
its swing, and its fangs snapped, barely missing the goddess, who rolled
desperately across the floor.
"Bitch!" seethed Asterion,
and he leaped high into the air. His form turned into a murderous cloud, its
entire bulk shrouding Mag completely. From a cloud it changed into a bubbling
mass of plague, sorrow, and death, and it poured itself over Mag, it flowed
over her, and in that one movement, that one moment, Asterion did what Genvissa
had always wanted to do.
He destroyed the goddess. He annihilated her.
Just as she wanted.
Blood flowed.
Asterion laughed.
So many things
happened all at once within the Great Hall that all Harold could do was leap
from his chair, and then just stand, helpless and appalled.
Caela staggered from
her chair, her face suddenly so pale that all the life appeared to have drained
from her, her eyes wide, her mouth in a surprised "O," her hands
clutching to her belly. Blood—a
flood of it!—stained
first about her lower belly and then thickened down her lower skirts until her
feet slipped in it and she fell to the timber flooring.
Edward, his own face
stunned, stumbled from his throne to stand, staring at his wife as she writhed
in agony on the floor.
Caela's ladies,
standing together in one amorphous mass, hands to mouths, eyes wide in shock. What queen ever acted this way?
Swanne turned from
the three men she'd been seducing with her grace and wit and loveliness and
regarded Caela's sudden, unexplained agony with something akin to speculation.
Judith was the first
to make any attempt to aid Caela, bending down to her and gathering the
stricken woman in her arms. The next instant, Saeweald had joined her, almost
falling to the floor as he tossed aside his crutch.
IG
IO
Harold also went
forward, his eyes glancing back to where the strange, pale figure had stood—it
was gone, now—and bent down beside Saeweald and Judith. Appalled at his
sister's distress, Harold lifted his head to say something to Edward, who was
standing close by with an expression of revulsion on his face, when he was
forestalled by Aldred, the archbishop of
"See," the
archbishop said, his voice roiling with contempt, "your queen miscarries
of a child. I had not known, majesty, that you had put one in her. You should
have been more forthcoming in boasting of your achievement."
Edward gasped, his
rosy cheeks turning almost as wan as Caela's now bloodless ones. "The
whore!" he said. "I have remained celibate of her body! I have put no
child within her!"
And he turned, his
face now triumphant, and stared at Harold. "For mercy's sake!" Harold
shouted, murderously furious at Edward and frightened for Caela all in one.
"Your wife bleeds to death before you, and all you can think of is to
accuse her of whoredom?"
He spun his face
about in Caela's ladies who, too terrified both by Caela's sudden, horrifying
hemorrhage and by Edward's accusation, stood incapable of movement. "Aid
her!" Harold cried. "Aid her, for sweet mercy!"
He rose, as if he
meant to force the ladies down to help Judith and Saeweald, but then the
physician himself spoke. "Send for the midwives," Saeweald said.
"Now!"
Then, stunningly, he
grabbed at Harold's wrist, pulled him close, and whispered, "Be at peace,
Harold. This is not as bad as it might appear."
MUCH LATER, WHEN THE
COURT WAS STILL ABUZZ
with shock and
speculation, the head midwife, a woman called Gerberga,
came before Edward.
"Well?"
said the king. "What can you tell me of my wife's shame?" To one
side, Harold made as if he would stand forth and speak, but Edward waved him to
silence with a curt gesture. "Well?" said the king. "Speak!"
Gerberga's eyes
flitted to Harold, then settled on the king. She raised her head, and spoke
clearly. "Your wife the queen carries no shame, Your Majesty. She remains
a virgin still, as intact as when she was birthed. To this I swear, as will any
other of the five midwives who have examined her."
"But she
miscarried!" Edward said, his hands tightened about the armrests of his
throne.
Gerberga shook her
head slowly from side to side. "She did not miscarry, my king. Some women,
if left virgin too long, grow congested and cramped
within their wombs.
What happened today was the sudden release of such congestion. A monthly flux,
although far worse than what most women endure."
"Caela will
recover?" Harold said.
"Aye," said
Gerberga, "although she shall need rest and good food and sweet words of
comfort."
"Then she shall
have it," said Harold.
Edward snorted, and
relaxed back in the throne. "The court
shall be the sweeter place without her," he observed, and, by his side,
Archbishop Aldred laughed.
TOSTIG HAD OBSERVED
THE ENTIRE DRAMA FROM HIS
place far back in the
Hall. He had not moved to aid Caela, nor even to make inquiries after her
health, contenting himself instead with watching the words and actions of those
on the dais with a cynical half smile on his lips.
As he turned to
leave, a man standing just behind him made a small bow of respect, stepping
back to allow Tostig to pass.
But, just as the earl
made to step forward, the man said, "You must be concerned for your
sister, my lord. How fortunate that all seems better than first it
appeared."
Tostig snorted.
"That farce? It concerned me not.
"Edward…"
the man half shrugged dismissively. "He is an old man, and weak because of
it. But Harold…"
"Harold is as
weak and foolish," Tostig snapped, "for his wits are so addled he
cares not for any within this kingdom save our sister. Now stand aside, man,
for I would pass."
As the earl pushed
by, the man looked across the Hall to where a companion stood. They exchanged a
glance, and then each turned aside with a small smile of satisfaction on their
faces.
Tostig would bear watching.
ry ISGUISED IN THE
BODY HE INHABITED FROM
time to time,
Asterion walked through Edward's Great Hall, mounted the stairs at its far end,
and moved through the upper floor toward the chamber where lay Caela.
As he passed, people
stood to one side and bowed in respect. Many of them asked for his blessing,
and Asterion was pleased to pause, and make above their heads the sign of the
cross, and to murmur a few words
of prayer to comfort
them.
So amusing. So
quaint. The world was full of fools.
When he reached
Caela's chamber, the midwives allowed him entry instantly, standing aside as he
approached her bed. Further back, the physician Saeweald sat in a chair,
looking tired and wrung out, as if it were he who had suffered the flux rather
than the queen.
Saeweald rose
awkwardly, made a small bow of respect, then sank down again at Asterion's
good-natured gesture.
"My beloved
lady," Asterion said, his voice an extravagance of sympathy, turning now
to the queen in her bed, "the entire court expresses its concern for your
malaise. The well-wishes are many and rich."
Caela lay very still
and very white under the coverlets. "I doubt that very
much, my lord."
"We were all
shocked," Asterion said, accepting the stool that one of the midwives
brought to him, and pulling it close enough to the bed that he could take
Caela's still, cold hand. "Some of us perhaps uttered hasty words."
He made a small moue of regret.
Caela gave a small,
humorless smile, and remained silent. Asterion sent out his power, searching,
as the queen's hand lay in his. He knew what he would find, but it always paid
to be careful, and he had to go through the motions. To do what was expected of
him. People were watching, and who knew their powers of perception?
As he had expected,
there was nothing. Mag was gone from Caela's womb as surely as if… she had
never been there.
IO
Asterion smirked,
then turned it quickly into an expression of concern as he patted Caela's hand.
"Poor
child," he said. "You have suffered so terribly."
And shall suffer even more.
Then he rose,
mumbling something conciliatory, winked at Saeweald, and walked away, well
pleased with himself.
The trap was set, but
he must not rest upon his achievements thus far. The Game was moving, and he
must needs move with it.
Once he reached the
stairs that led down to the Great Hall, Asterion began whistling a cheerful
little ditty that he'd heard used by the fishermen at the wharves.
C6JM
AELA LAY, DEEPLY ASLEEP. HER HUSBAND,
THE
king, had taken
himself off to another chamber for the night, ^i*p»"'* claiming he did not
wish to disturb his wife in her recovery.
He fooled no one.
Edward had forever been repulsed by the normal workings of a woman's body and
had always insisted Caela move to a different bed during the nights of her
monthly flux. His decision on this occasion to quit the marital chamber instead
of requiring Caela to do so was a singular event, and perhaps a further
expression of regret for his thoughtless accusations at court earlier in the
day. Edward had visited his wife, along with a dozen other notables who had
dropped in one by one, had patted her hand awkwardly, muttered some even more
awkward words, and had then left with patent
relief.
Now, as night closed
in, Saeweald, Judith, and Ecub sat about the brazier on the far side of the
chamber from Caela's heavily curtained bed. The midwives had gone, Caela's bevy
of lesser-attending ladies had gone, and now only the physician, the prioress,
and the senior of the queen's ladies
remained.
For a long time they
sat without speaking, perhaps being careful, perhaps
just bone-weary
themselves.
Finally, with a sigh,
Saeweald spoke. "It has happened as the Sidlesaghes
said it would."
"Aye," said
Ecub.
"Asterion showed
his hand," Saeweald said.
"In a
manner," said Ecub. "He acted, yes, but who saw his hand, then?
You? Or you,
Judith?"
"All of
us," said Judith, repressing a shiver. "We were at court this
morning… and we all
know he would have been among those to come to
this chamber this
afternoon or evening. To make sure Mag was gone." "Oh, aye, indeed," Ecub said very softly.
"But which one was he?" All three knew from their previous lives, from
their conversations with
Cornelia in that time
between when she'd "died" during the dreadful birth of
III
her daughter, a time
when Mag had spoken to her, and the time that Cornelia had murdered Genvissa,
that Mag had made an alliance with Asterion. Mag had warned Cornelia then—and
Cornelia had subsequently mentioned this to Loth—that in the next life Asterion
would renege on the alliance. For him, Mag was nothing but a complication and a
nuisance. Something which must needs be removed on his path to destroying the
Game.
Until very recently,
neither Ecub, Saeweald, nor Judith had any idea what Mag had planned. They'd
thought that the presence of Mag within Caela's womb was the real Mag, but from
the Sidlesaghes, Ecub had discovered that this Mag was only a sham, an
illusion, set within Cornelia's stone hall, her womb, to deceive Asterion. To
trick him into thinking he had disposed of Mag.
They'd known from the
instant Caela had collapsed in court what was happening. At least the Sidlesaghes'
warning had meant they were not as terrified or distraught as they would have
been, had they thought Asterion was truly murdering Mag, but even so, Caela's
distress had sickened and frightened them.
As had the procession
of people into Caela's bedchamber throughout the day. Ostensibly all these
visitors were there to assure themselves of the queen's well-being, that she
had not bled, nor would not bleed, to death, but the three friends knew that
among these visitors almost certainly would have been the disguised Asterion,
come to check that Mag had indeed been killed.
"It could have
been any one of them—and as much one of the women as one of the men," said
Saeweald.
Ecub harrumphed.
"And not a single one of them stank of bull."
Again, silence as
they sat, watching the curtains pulled about Caela's bed, listening to her
quiet breathing.
"Where is
Mag?" said Judith. "Where has she
been hiding all this time? How will she be reborn?"
Both Saeweald and
Ecub shrugged.
"She should know," Saeweald said, nodding at the bed.
"Mag would have told her."
"Cornelia never
told you?" Ecub said.
Saeweald shook his
head.
"Caela should know, but Caela is unchanged!" Judith said,
despair making her voice higher than it normally was. "She has not opened
her eyes and said, T remember.' She has simply opened her eyes and been as she
has always been in this life—unknowing, unwitting, unremembering."
"The Sidlesaghes
told me," Ecub said, "that all will come to pass as it should. So we shall
wait, my friends. We shall wait and we shall trust."
Saeweald was about to
respond, but just then there came a knock at the door, and all three seated
about the fire jumped.
It was Haroiu, i~~—o
sleep.
He walked quietly to
the bed, held aside one of the drapes momentarily as
he looked down on his
sleeping sister, then came over to the fire where Judith
had rejoined Ecub and
Saeweald.
Ecub began to rise,
her eyes on a stool standing in a corner, but Harold motioned her to remain
seated, and fetched the stool himself.
"My sister the
queen?" he said softly as he sat down with them. "She will be well
enough," Saeweald said. "Her monthly flux was bloodier than normal,
but that is all that it was. With rest and good food, Caela shall be
well enough."
Gods, how he hated to lie to this
man, but it were better Harold not know of
the love and loss of his previous
life. To know would be only to torment.
"To so accuse
her!" Harold said, low and angry, and it took the others a moment to
realize that he referred to Edward's hateful accusation at court. "My
sister should have babies and love and laughter, but all she has is… is this!" He waved a hand about the chamber, but taking
in with that gesture the entire palace and her life as Edward's wife.
To that there was
nothing to say, so the others merely nodded. Harold's shoulders slumped and his
face suddenly looked old and gray. "I wanted to come sooner, but Edward
detained me, first with this nonsense and then that, and then sent me to
interrogate some fool who had imagined he'd seen a pair of dragons mating in
the skies over
Ecub nodded, and
Harold gave a small half smile. "Tell me," he said, "has
Tostig been here to
ask after Caela?"
Saeweald shook his
head, and Harold sighed. "Ah well, I expect he was
detained as was
I."
He rose, made his
farewells, and was gone.
When he had gone,
Ecub sighed. "Such a waste," she said, and even though she did not
elucidate on that statement, the other two knew precisely what
she meant.
"And now,"
Ecub continued, smiling at Saeweald and Judith, "I will sit
with the queen
through the night, and you two can have some precious time
together."
"—^a +r, nrotest, but Saeweald took her hand, squeezed it
so that
she subsided, and
smiled in his turn at Ecub. "I thank you, Mother Ecub," he said.
"You will send for us if…?"
"If there is any
trouble, which there shall not be," the prioress said. Then she winked.
"Enjoy your rest."
SAEWEALD'S APARTMENTS
WITHIN THE
complex were spacious
and well-appointed, a sign of the regard in which Edward held him. Situated in
a long, half-timbered, half-stone building situated fifty paces from the palace
and (for Saeweald) a comfortable one hundred paces from the abbey complex, his
building housed the domestic apartments of various court officials, the
occasional visiting nobleman and his family, and a few highly placed servants.
Saeweald's quarters, three well-sized and airy chambers, were at the very end
of the building, and he had his own entrance-way so that he could make his way
to the beds of the sick at all times of the night and day without disturbing
the other residents of the building.
Of course, this also
meant that Saeweald had far more privacy than others when it came to the
comings and goings from his chambers.
Now, several hours
after they had left Caela's chambers, he and Judith lounged naked before the
hearth on coverlets they'd pulled from the bed. They had made love, but the
greatest intimacy came now, when Judith gently, lovingly, massaged soothing
oils into Saeweald's twisted leg and hip. This was an intimacy that he allowed
no one else, the touching of his deformity, and that he allowed Judith to was a
measure of the love and trust he held for her.
They'd been lovers
ever since she'd come to court to serve Caela. The instant they first met in
this life, and knew, there had been such a sense of
relief and of companionship renewed, that their first bedding had been
accomplished with unseemly haste.
In a stable, which
had been the first place they'd been able to find that had some relative
privacy.
Save for the resident
horse, of course, who had been quite agitated and who had snorted his disquiet
for the fifteen turgid minutes it had taken the pair to sort themselves out.
Since that day,
Saeweald and Judith found every spare hour they could to spend together. The
love-making was evidence not so much of lust, but of the deepest friendship and
respect and of shared purpose. To serve Caela
and Mag, and to serve the land, in whatever means that were possible.
They were extremely
discreet. Ecub knew, of course, and Judith thought that Caela, and perhaps even
Harold, suspected, but (apart from the horse, still watched them warily
whenever he saw one or the other cross the
a ix ax
stable yard and
tended to utter panic when he saw both of them together) no one else knew. In
King Edward's court, stiff with morality and piety, that was
just as well.
In a world where
Asterion strode, unknowable and unrestrainable, their
secret was doubly
important, for even this simple knowledge may have given the Minotaur a piece
of priceless information he could use at his destructive
leisure.
Judith ran her hands
down Saeweald's leg, leaning her weight into his
crippled flesh,
massaging away tensions and cramps and aches. Saeweald's hip had been so
brutally twisted during his birth (and who had commanded that midwife's hands? Judith had often wondered. Fate?
Brutus' deadly hand from two thousand years' previous? Asterion? Genvissa's
lingering malicious humor?) that the ball of his hip joint jutted out beneath
his right buttock, making even sitting uncomfortable for the man. As a
consequence, Saeweald either stood, or balanced precariously on the very edge
of stools and seats; when he rode, as he needed to if he was to get about at
all, he had to sit twisted on the saddle so that his left buttock bore most of
his weight. Even
then, riding was
often agony.
At least he could
walk. Praise Mag that at least he could walk. "What do you think will
happen?" Judith said.
Saeweald, who was
lying on his left side, his head propped up on a hand, watched the movement of
Judith's body in the firelight appreciatively.
"Hmmm?" he
said.
Judith looked at him,
then grinned. "You would have me to be your slave forever, would you not,
physician? Bending over your body, rubbing away
your aches…"
"Are you
offering?"
Her expression sobered.
"Would it help?"
In response he only
held out his free hand, and she gripped it silently. They locked eyes, and for
a moment nothing at all needed to be spoken. "Mag," Judith finally
said. "Where is she, do you think?" Saeweald sighed. "Caela would
know… but how to make her remember. Ah! She cannot be pushed, yet…" " 'Be patient,' Ecub said."
Saeweald muttered
something that Judith was rather glad she did not catch. She grinned again, and
was about to say something when, stunningly, horrifyingly, the door to the
chamber swung open and a man stepped through.
"STAY," HE
SAID TO THE STARTLED COUPLE, RAISING A
hand, palm up, a
gesture that was both conciliatory and reassuring.
Judith looked at
Saeweald, who stared unbelievingly at the man, then she unhurriedly reached for
her linen under tunic and pulled it over her shoulders. "Your name, good
man?" she said.
The stranger's mouth
lifted in a small, admiring smile at her composure. He was a strikingly
good-looking man of middle age. His long black curly hair was pulled back into
a leather thong behind his neck, a few strands escaping to trail over his broad
shoulders. His chest was broad and well muscled, his limbs long and strong. He
wore nothing but a snowy white waistcloth threaded over a wide leather belt and
leather-strapped sandals.
His face was stern
and handsome, and not at all marred by the leather patch he wore over his left
eye. His right eye was dark, gleaming with humor and power.
It was not the
stranger who answered Judith, but Saeweald.
"Silvius,"
he breathed, leaning forward so that Judith, now standing, could lend him her
hand and aid him up.
At the mention of
that name, Judith's eyes flew sharply to the man. Silvius? Brutus' father? The man Brutus had murdered
at fifteen in order to seize his heritage?
"Aye," the
man said, "Silvius, indeed. It has been a long time, Loth, since we met
within the dark heart of the labyrinth." His eyes slid down Saeweald's
body, marking the deformities. "My God, boy, does Brutus' hand still mark
you?"
"As much as it
marks you," Saeweald said, his tone still cautious, but nodding toward the
patch over Silvius' empty left eye socket. Judith passed Saeweald his robe and
he, too, clothed himself. "Silvius, what…"
"What do I
here?" Silvius' face suddenly seemed weary, and he raised his eyebrows at
a chair that stood to one side of the hearth.
Saeweald nodded, and
Silvius sat down with an audible sigh. "I am as trapped as you, Saeweald,
and," he looked at Judith, "as I suppose you are, my dear. I take it
from your intimacy with Loth here—"
"Saeweald,"
Judith put in quietly.
"Your intimacy
with Saeweald here, that you, too, are reborn from that time previous when we
all suffered at the hands of Brutus and that woman," he spat the word out,
"he tried to make the Game with?"
"Aye," she
said. "My name was Erith then, and now I am Judith."
Silvius nodded, his
expression still weary. "Asterion is back."
"We know,"
said Saeweald. "Silvius. What
do you here? And how?"
"Brutus trapped
me at the heart of his Game with my murder," Silvius said. "I am as
trapped as any of you."
"But you seem
flesh, not shade," Saeweald said.
Silvius grunted.
"You'd be astounded at what has happened in the past two
v
thousand years, my
boy. I sat there within the heart of the labyrinth, and somehow I took power
from the Game. I am as much a player in the battle that is to come as either of
you two are."
"But you cannot
move from the Game," Saeweald said. "You were trapped
within its
heart."
Silvius looked up at
him, his one good eye seething with knowledge and power. "Who says I have
moved from the Game?" he said quietly.
Saeweald and Judith
said nothing.
"The Game was
left unfinished," Silvius continued. "It continued to attract
evil… and it
grew."
"Grew?"
said Saeweald. He shared an appalled glance with Judith. "Oh, aye. Grew.
Grew in power and knowledge and in magnitude, my boy. You think
that the Game, the labyrinth, occupies only the top of Og's Hill— Lud Hill, as
now you call it—where my son first built it?" The other two were silent,
staring at Silvius.
Silvius' mouth
twisted. "Nay," he said, very softly now, and he threw his hand
about, as if encompassing not only Saeweald's chamber, but all the
Then Silvius leaned
forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and looked at them intently.
"I have had enough of this disaster my son helped construct. I feel partly
responsible, and so I am here to help you." He paused. "To help
Caela."
Saeweald narrowed his
eyes suspiciously. "Caela?"
"Oh, for the
gods' sakes, boy! You think me a fool? I know Caela is Cornelia-reborn, and I
know how important she is to you, and to your Mag and Og besides. And I know
she does not remember, and this she needs to do.
Yes?"
Silence.
"And Caela is
the only one who is likely to know where Mag truly is, yes?"
More silence.
"Yes, and yes
again," Silvius answered for them. "Caela needs to remember very
badly, for if she does not then all of our causes are lost. Saeweald, perhaps
all that Cornelia needs is something from her past life to jolt her into awareness."
"What?"
said Saeweald, finally, grudgingly deciding to trust Silvius just a little bit.
"What possibly remains from her previous life, save want and need
and hope?"
Silvius grinned,
holding Saeweald's eye. "A bracelet," he said. Saeweald frowned, but
it was Judith who spoke. "Saeweald, you may have never seen it, but
Cornelia had a bracelet, a beautiful thing of gold and rubies
that she brought with
her from her life as a princess of Mesopotama. She rarely wore it here in Llangarlia,
but I know she looked upon it occasionally, remembering her life as a
girl."
"Aye," said
Silvius. "That bracelet. What would happen, do
you think, if we slipped it on her wrist again?"
Saeweald was still
frowning. "And you know where it is?"
Silvius nodded.
"But to retrieve it safely I need you and whatever ancient magic of this
land you still command. Saeweald, will you aid me?"
"No,"
Judith said, but it was already too late, for she could see the light in
Saeweald's eyes.
eceve>i
I
wark.
ERY LATE THAT
NIGHT, WHEN THE MOON HAD
sunk and the streets
of
wark.
"They will not
allow us to pass," Saeweald muttered, squirming uncomfortably in the
saddle. His mare, Maggie, was well used to her rider's habitual wriggling, and
strode on unperturbed.
"Is that
so?" said Silvius, his teeth flashing white in the darkness, and Saeweald
saw him make a gesture with his left hand. "A sign of the Game,"
Silvius said. "Look."
Ahead was a
guardhouse that protected the entrance to the bridge. Normally four or five men
stood night watch here, but as they approached, Saeweald saw through the open
doorway into the dimly lit interior that all
slouched dozing about
a brazier.
"They shall not
wake," said Silvius. "And likewise with the guards who stand watch at
the other end of the bridge. The way shall be open for us."
"You can
manipulate the power of the Game?" Saeweald said, and Silvius glanced at
him, hearing the distrust in his voice.
"I was a
Kingman, too, remember? Yes, 1 can use parts of the Game's power. But, believe
me, Saeweald, I want what you do—to stop my son at any cost from completing the
Game with his Darkwitch. I do not want him finding those bands and
completing his horror."
Silvius visibly
shuddered, and Saeweald relaxed slightly. "You look so much like
him," Saeweald said. "I am sorry if I remain on guard." "I tried to help you before, didn't I?"
"Yes. Yes, you
did," Saeweald said, remembering how Silvius had tried to aid Loth when
he'd challenged Brutus to battle within the heart of the
labyrinth. "I am
sorry, Silvius."
Silvius nodded,
accepting Saeweald's apology, and led the way on to the bridge, which was
largely built over with houses and shops, leaving only a nar-Јm foot and horse
passengers to walk. The horses'
hooves echoed loudly
in the enclosed space, and Saeweald glanced back at the guardhouse.
There was no movement.
"They remain unaware," said Silvius.
From the bridge they
turned right along "Where do we go?" Saeweald said, having to
raise his voice above the clattering of hooves.
Silvius nodded ahead.
There, rising out of the gloom, was the White Mount that occupied the
eastern-most corner of
"The Romans were
a people from the same world as the Trojans, although from a later time, when
the mysteries of the Game had been forgotten. They were drawn to this land and
to this place by the siren song of the Game, although they did not recognize
it. On this mound, one of your sacred hills, they built a great lighthouse, a
beacon tower." "But the tower is of no importance."
"No. You are right." "It is what lies beneath it." "Aye."
"The well,"
Saeweald said. The Romans had built their lighthouse atop the White Mount,
which, in Saeweald's previous lifetime, covered a sacred well. Brutus had
caused the opening to the well to be covered over when he built his palace atop
the mound, but Saeweald supposed the well was still there, guarding its
mysteries.
But what was the
bracelet doing down the well?
"Cornelia was
buried there," Silvius said softly. "Did you not know? Ah, of course
not, for you were dead many years before she. When Brutus died, and then
Cornelia took her own life, their sons carried them to the well, and buried
them within it."
"And the bracelet was buried with her," said
Saeweald. "Indeed."
The horses climbed
the grassy slopes of the mount toward the derelict tower, Saeweald clinging to
Maggie's saddle and studying the tower as she
I2O
climbed. The Romans
had built the tower of white ragstone, well-buttressed and founded. It had once
soared over thirty paces into the air, but during the past nine hundred years
the top courses of stonework had tumbled down to lie in untidy heaps about the
foundations, and the highest rooms were open to the night air. The Romans had
used this tower to watch the river approaches to the city, and to set atop its
heights a great beacon to warn both
At the tower's base,
Silvius and Saeweald dismounted from their horses,
leaving their reins
untied so they could nibble the grass about the top of the hill.
Once inside, Silvius
led Saeweald to the tower's lowest rooms. The approaches
to the basements were
half obscured with tumbled beams and stones, and
Saeweald reluctantly
had to allow Silvius to aid him over the obstructions.
Eventually they stood
in the very lowest level of the tower where stood an uneven floor of great
stone slabs.
Here Silvius dropped
his cloak to one side.
"Cornelia's and
Brutus' corpses are beneath these slabs?" Saeweald asked.
"Aye."
"And you want me to lift these slabs?"
"No. Your power
I shall need later." With one hand Silvius made another gesture over the
stone flagging. "That was but a slight alteration to that magic that would
have raised the flower gate," he said. "Never forget that once I,
too, was—"
"A Kingman. Yes,
Silvius. I remember."
Then Saeweald gasped,
for just as he spoke, several of the flagstones wavered and then vanished,
revealing a great chasm.
Silvius stepped
close, his feet careful about the edge of the chasm, and
peered down.
"Gods," he
murmured. "I had not expected this to be so beautiful." Saeweald
looked away from Silvius and back to the well, drawing himself carefully
closer. The way opened into a rough circular shape that spiraled downward in
great twists of rough rock. Far, far beneath rippled an emerald pool of water,
and Saeweald knew that the depths of this pool were unknowable, even to such as
himself. As he watched, the waters surged, their waves lapping higher and
higher up the wild walls of the well, as if trying to reach
him. A dull roar
reached his ears.
Shaken by the power
of the raging waters, Saeweald studied the rock walls of the well. They did not
consist of the well-finished masonry of human hands, but instead twisted and
spiraled down in wild, sharp ledges. This was a savage and untamed cleft, and a
place of great magic and power.
Saeweald's face
sagged in astonishment. "I can't believe the well still retains this much
power! Gods, Silvius, did Brutus and Cornelia's sons see this when they buried their parents?"
"No," said
Silvius. "They saw only ordinariness, and a convenient place to rest their
parents."
"How in all
that's good and merciful," Saeweald said, "did Brutus and Cornelia's
sons manage their way down?"
"The well made
it easy for them," shouted Silvius. "All they and the mourners saw
were smooth, even courses of stones for the walls, a dribble of a puddle far
below, and a easy flight of steps that wound its way about the side of the
well. To them this place was nothing more than a source of water for Brutus'
palace, and not a very reliable one at that."
"I have never
seen the well so vibrant," Seaweald said.
"You know it as
a vital part of this land," said Silvius. "But did you know that
there are others about the world?"
Saeweald finally
dragged his eyes from the well to Silvius. "No."
"There was one
like this in my world also—we called it God's Well. It was the heart of the
city of
"Thank the gods
that Genvissa didn't manage to destroy this one," said Saeweald.
"And to why I
need you here," said Silvius. "The well is open now, and who knows
who can feel it, besides you and me? Saeweald—"
"I cannot go
down," Saeweald said, looking again at the rough walls. It was not the
magic which deterred him, but the simple fact that his twisted body would not
allow him to even attempt the climb down. "You need me to stay here, and
guard the entrance to the well with whatever power I can summon, while you
retrieve the bracelet. In case…"
"Aye," said
Silvius. "I will be as fast as I might, but still…" He stepped close
to Saeweald, and put a hand on the man's shoulder. "One day, my friend,
you will be whole again, and then you also
may go down."
"Be
careful," said Saeweald.
Silvius nodded, then
dropped to the edge of the well, carefully lowering himself down to the first
of the twisting edges. Above him, Saeweald stripped off his robe and, naked,
the light from the well playing over the antler tattoo over his chest and
shoulders, began to hum a strange melody.
Within moments the
entrance to the well had clouded over, and then vanished, as if all that
Saeweald stared at was a rough, uneven flooring of gravel.
Silvius glanced above
to make sure that Saeweald had concealed the entrance, grinned, then
concentrated on the climb. The way down was
difficult, but not impossible,
and Silvius' pace quickened once he became more confident in finding his hand
and footholds.
After some time had
passed, Silvius spied what he was looking for: an opening into the rock wall,
partway around the well from where he clung to a ledge. The roaring from the
waters—still far below—had now increased greatly in volume, and the rocks had
grown ever more slippery with condensation, and Silvius was more than glad he
had found the entrance to the burial chamber. Even more careful, now that his
destination was in sight, Silvius concentrated on climbing about the rock walls
to the opening.
In a few short
minutes he breathed a sigh of relief and leaped lightly down to the floor of
the passageway. He made a gesture with his hand, and immediately the passageway
was filled with a soft, golden light.
Unlike the rock walls
of the well, the passageway had smooth walls and an
even, dustless rock
floor, and Silvius wasted no time in striding down its length.
It was only some
thirty or thirty-five paces long, leading directly into a
rounded chamber that
looked as if it had been water-carved from the living
rock.
In the center of the
chamber were two waist-high rock plinths, some three feet wide and seven long,
and on each of these plinths rested cloth-wrapped
figures.
The corpses of Brutus
and Cornelia.
Silvius halted the
instant he stepped inside the chamber, staring at the
plinths.
A sardonic smile
creased his face as he walked to the plinth that bore the
larger and taller of
the cloth-wrapped corpses. He lifted his hands and rested them gently, almost
hesitantly, on the wrappings that covered the corpse's head. "So much
power that you have wasted, Brutus."
Silvius drew in a
deep breath, then raised both his head and his hands
from the corpse of
his son.
"Cornelia,"
he said, as he stared at the corpse that lay on the other plinth.
"Poor
Cornelia," he said very slowly. "Poor, dead Cornelia. Used and abused
by all about you." He walked over. "Cornelia," Silvius said
again, "is it
time to wake?"
He grinned to
himself. "Why, I do believe so!" Then he reached down with both hands
to the cloths that wove about her breasts and, sliding his fingers between
them, tore them apart. "Cornelia!"
Something fell from
amid the bandages, then toppled from the plinth and clattered to the floor
where it lay glinting.
Silvius drew in a
deep breath, then leaned down and picked it up. "Gods," he whispered,
"the Greeks always knew how to make a fine piece of jewelry."
In his palm nestled
an exquisitely worked gold and ruby bracelet. Then, suddenly, Silvius' head
jerked upward.
SAEWEALD FELT IT
BEFORE HE ACTUALLY HEARD OR
saw anything.
A coldness seeping
out from the cracks of the lighthouse basement's stone walls that rose about
him. The night was cold, yes, but this was different.
Malevolent.
Seeing.
Saeweald glanced at
the well, made sure the conjuration hiding the well's opening remained in
place, then he twisted about, trying to see in every direction at once,
tottering and almost falling as he tried to find a place to hide. Cursed his
power that enabled him to hide (however insubstantially) other objects, but not
himself!
You poor fool. What brought you back
to this calamity?
Saeweald felt the
voice, rather than heard it. He turned about, trying to locate it.
There was a movement
in the air. Something large, shifting. Behind him? No! To his left!
Do you look for me?
Saeweald cried out,
terrified. The Minotaur had materialized directly in front of him, no more than
two paces away. He was massive, taller than any man Saeweald had ever seen,
tightly muscled, overpowering in his presence.
His ebony bull's
head, almost majestic, swayed slowly from side to side, and bright, savage eyes
pinned Saeweald where he stood.
Tell me—what do you here?
Saeweald found
himself compelled to speak. It was though a ghostly hand had seized his throat,
squeezing the words from him. "I am tied to the land! I am for the land!"
That's pathetic. I am for power, did
you know that?
The word was crushed
from Saeweald's chest. "Yes."
And what is this then, that you try
so miserably to hide? Suddenly the gravel dissolved, and the God Well lay exposed. The Minotaur's
gaze jerked back to Saeweald, and the man cried out as invisible claws ripped
agonizingly into his body.
"It is… ah! It
is a God Well!" Saeweald's body began to shake, jerking up and down as the
Minotaur's power began to crush him.
Asterion began to
laugh, a great belly-shaking amusement that filled the basement with his
merriment. A God Well! How
sweet! Shall I destroy it?
Saeweald had begun to
cry. He was no longer capable of speech.
SARA D
OUGLASS
Shall I destroy you, friend?
Then, just as
Saeweald was sure he was about to be torn to shreds, the Minotaur's eyes
widened, and the creature snarled. Who is here with you?
Who?
Saeweald somewhere
found breath enough to speak a single word. "Silvius."
A Kingman? The Minotaur was still staring at the God Well. The
next moment he'd taken a step back, then another, and then he was fading from
view. A Kingman?
And then he was gone,
and Saeweald collapsed unknowingly to the ground.
HE WOKE TO FIND
SILVIUS CROUCHED OVER HIM.
"What
happened?" Silvius said. "Asterion …" "Asterion was fcere?"
Saeweald nodded. His
body was throbbing horribly, but it felt as if the Minotaur had not quite torn
him to shreds after all. It had just felt like it at the time. "Aid me to
rise. Please."
Silvius lent him his
hand. "What happened?" _
Saeweald briefly told
him as he managed to regain his balance, a hand on
Silvius' shoulder for
support. "The instant he heard your name, he vanished.
'A Kingman?' he said,
as if it were the last thing he wanted to hear, and then
he was gone."
Silvius frowned.
"I had not thought I had the power to overly perturb
him," he said.
"You are the one
who keeps reminding me that you were once a Kingman. Maybe Asterion has not
forgotten it, even if occasionally I do." He managed a small smile.
"Perhaps I will trust you, after all, Silvius. Having about me a man who
can terrify even Asterion is bound to come in handy."
Silvius patted
Saeweald's hand where it still rested on his shoulder. "I need to see you
safe back to your chambers." He managed his own grin, but it was a weak
thing. "I think you have need of Judith's ministering hands."
"Did you find
it?"
Silvius nodded, and
held out a hand. In its palm rested the bracelet.
"Pray to Mag
that it works," muttered Saeweald.
GID6CV
Caela Speaks
HEN I WOKE THE NEXT
MORNING, I LAY FOR A
very long time, cold
and stiff, my belly a terrible, painful weight, and waited for my usual sense
of futility to sweep over me.
This futility was my
own constant burden. I had carried it about ever since that first night with
Edward (/ find you most
displeasing) and
I had born it as a woman, as a wife, as a queen. Poor Caela, they whispered.
Poor Caela. How I hated it!
The drapes were
partly pulled back from the bed—and, oh, the sweetness of having this bed to
myself for an entire night—and I could see that someone sat by the hearth, her
chin on her chest.
Slim build, delicate
face, dark sweep of hair escaping from the veil askew over her brow.
Judith. I smiled
drowsily, happy in this moment. Alone in my bed, watched over by Judith.
"You're
awake."
Startled, my eyes
jerked to the person who now stood by my side: he must have been sitting toward
the head of the bed where the drapes had obscured him.
"Saeweald."
Sweet Lord Christ, he looked worse than I felt. There were great dark circles
under his eyes, his skin was blotched, and there were deep lines of pain about
his mouth. "Saeweald," I said again, holding out my hand. "Have
you not slept?"
He took my hand and
kissed it. "You seem rested, madam."
"I am well
enough, Saeweald." And, surprisingly, I was well enough. Although my belly ached, the great wave
of futility and melancholy that had so often been my intimate companion had,
apparently, decided to stay away
i/so
for this day.
"But you? Saeweald… have you been battling demons all
night?"
He laughed.
"Indeed, madam. Keeping them from your bed." Judith appeared at his
shoulder, her tiny hands lifting to straighten her veil and push away the dark
wing of hair that had fallen loose.
Saeweald had sobered,
and now he looked at me with an unreadable expression. "Did you dream
well, madam?"
Ah, sweet lord, why
did he so constantly inquire after my dreams? "I slept dreamlessly,
physician. I am sorry to disappoint you."
Judith and Saeweald
shared a glance, and for some reason that made me
angry.
"I am sorry to
disappoint you," I said again, my tone decidedly waspish
now. "If I had
known you were so concerned at my dreaming I would have had a nightmare to
delight you."
"I did not mean
to offend you, madam," Saeweald said. I sighed, turning aside my face. How
I hated these strange, uncomfortable conversations with Saeweald. He always
seemed to be waiting for me to say something for which I could not form the
words. At times he appeared to be teetering forward on his uncertain legs, as
if I were supposed to remember something of great import and then hand it to
him to enchant him.
Although I could not
see it, I felt Judith and Saeweald glance at
each other
once more.
"Bring me
water," I said, looking back to Judith, "and cloths. I am not so sick
that I want to break my fast stinking of my night sweat. Saeweald, I feel
greatly improved this morning. You may take some of your own rest, and, should
you need to again inquire after my health, then you may do so this
afternoon."
And with that, and
yet one more of those cursed glances between
the two, Saeweald bowed and retired.
LATER, WHEN I HAD
EATEN A SMALL BOWL OF BROTH
and a piece of
new-baked bread, washed, and assured both myself and Judith (who would
doubtless report the fact to Saeweald) that I had not bled afresh during the night,
and when the linens of my bed had been changed and the coverlets shaken, I lay
back upon my pillows and prepared to receive what visitors there were. I would
have risen, save that apparently Saeweald had threatened both Judith and
everyone of my other attending ladies with dire warnings of my undoubted demise
should I rise from my bed too soon, and so
I was condemned to
yet another day's rest within my bedchamber.
To be honest, I was
not so very unhappy with that thought. A day abed
meant a day of peace:
Edward would avoid me, the majority of the court
would find other
scandals and intrigues to amuse themselves, and perhaps… perhaps Harold might
come to talk awhile with me.
He had not come
yesterday, at least not while I was awake.
I remembered that
there had been a constant stream of people come to view me, to poke and prod
me, physically, emotionally and spiritually, to ensure I was still breathing
and to depart with further gossip for the court. None of them had been Harold; none
of them had been particularly welcome. Edward had come, and said words that I
think he meant to be conciliatory (but how could I forget him standing over me,
as I lay in humiliation on the floor of his court, screaming at me that I was a
whore? How could I ever set
that memory aside?),
and had then, gratefully, departed, all thin-lipped and pinch-nosed. Several
churchmen had come, and leaned forward with wet lips and gleaming eyes to hear
what sins of the flesh I had to confess (of which I, boring creature that I am,
had none at all, save a weakness of the womb, which was neither my fault nor
theirs). A woman or two, wives of senior members of the court, had come, and
twittered all about me.
Judith saw them off
with thankful alacrity.
Today, perhaps,
Harold would come to see me. I closed my eyes, the soft movements of my ladies
about the chamber a soothing lullaby and, thinking of Harold, drifted into a
light doze.
I DREAMED OF THAT STRANGE STONE HALL AGAIN,
and in this dream it
felt such a familiar place to me that I knew I had dreamed of it previously;
and often at that.
I smiled in my dream,
for now, at least, I might have something to tell Saeweald.
I walked through the
hall, noting as I went that there were great patches of dried blood staining
the columns and the floor. Oddly, this did not disturb me, nor did I seem to
find it strange.
There was a step
behind me and I turned. Harold! And yet not Harold, for this man wore no beard,
and he was dressed in strange clothes, and his face had a different aspect—and
yet still I knew it was Harold.
"Harold!" I
said, and, glad beyond knowing, I held out my hands.
Joy lit his face, and
he strode toward me. "Cornelia," he said. "How strange you
appear to me."
I laughed, thinking
this some jest of Harold's. "My name is not Cornelia."
"Is that
so?" he said, and then he had taken my hands, and pulled me in toward him,
and I had no thought at all of stopping him. He leaned down until our mouths
almost touched—and at this moment I abruptly recalled another dream I'd had
recently… a night ago, two nights ago?… when
DOUGLASS
atner umu..___
mine.
He had called me Hades' daughter, and I knew I'd heard
those words before—
shouted at me, as if in accusation.
And I had known that man intimately, too. But where? Where? In dream? Or in
some unknown day or week or month of my life that I'd somehow managed to
forget? Who was he, this man of whom I dreamed? I tensed, my mind in turmoil, but Harold only smiled
gentry, and lowered
his mouth to mine.
I should not allow this, I thought. He is my brother.
And yet, even
thinking so, I opened my mouth under his, and felt the sweet bitter taste of
his tongue, and then the pressure of his hand against my back as he pressed me
against him.
And then, to one
side, a sweet laugh.
Harold and I pulled
apart. Standing not three or four paces from us was the most compelling
creature I had ever seen. He was very tall, and wore only a crudely fashioned
leather jerkin and trousers. His face was both bleak and joyful all at once,
his eyes great mysteries that saw far more than just the objects within their
sight. He laughed, raising his hands at the end of long, thin, strong arms, and
I saw that his square teeth were rimmed with light, as if he would always be
incapable of speaking anything but the truth.
Harold's arm
tightened about me, but I could feel that he was not frightened of this
apparition, nor angry at its imposition into our intimacy,
"Are you one of
the ancient ones?" Harold asked of the strange creature. "I am Long
Tom," the creature said, and I frowned, trying to remember something that
tugged at my mind. Hadn't a
wise woman said something to me about a Long Tom only recently? What was it?
What…?
The creature began to
say something else, but then it turned slightly, and
cried out at what it
saw.
Then Harold was
wrenched from my arms, and I saw the man who had called me Hades' daughter, and
now he had a sword in his angry hand, and as Harold fell over backward, his
throat white and vulnerable, the sword came slashing down…
I THINK I SCREAMED. I
KNOW I JERKED AWAKE WITH
such violence I
almost fell from my bed.
That I did not was
due to the fact that someone—a man—was holding my
shoulders.
I twisted away, sure
that it was that brutal man of my nightmare come to murder me, but whoever it
was tightened his hands, keeping me safe, and a -~"<-Vi heloved voice
cried out.
"Caela! Caela!
Wake, I beg you, for this is nothing but a dream." My eyes cleared, and
Harold's face came into focus before me. "Caela," he said again, his
voice now a groan, and I took a deep breath, and stilled, and then fell forward
into his arms.
There was a moment, a
long moment, when Harold's hand cupped the back of my head, tipping it back,
and his face lowered to mine, his mouth so close to mine I could feel its
warmth, and then he gave a harsh laugh and laid me back against the pillows.
Sweet Christ, he had almost kissed me! The memory of my dream still
lingered, and I knew that if he had, I would have responded. What were we,
Harold and I, that this sin consumed us?
"By all the
spirits of the night, Caela, of what were you dreaming?" I could not lie,
not after what had just—almost—happened. "I dreamed of you, that you were
with me—" He winced, "—and that—" "Caela, do not say it!"
I stopped, and drew
in a deep breath. "I dreamed I saw a "Caela…"
"I wish to
God," I said very quietly, holding his eyes, "that I had not been
born your sister."
There was a silence,
neither of us looking away from the other. The silence grew intense, and I
wondered if we were both teetering at the edge of a cliff, and if I would truly
mind very much if we fell over. He sighed, and the sound was ragged.
"Harold…" "Caela, we can't—"
I sat forward, the
memory of his sweet dream kiss still very much with me, and laid my mouth very
softly against his.
I didn't know how to
progress. I had never been kissed in passion before, and I was not sure…
Harold's mouth moved
against mine. Very slowly, very gently, and I felt his breath mingle with mine.
I opened my mouth, pressing it more firmly against his.
I felt him hesitate,
then respond, and then he was pushing me back again. Caela, we can't. Someone
could well walk in."
Not "We can't, for it is a shameful thing." But only,
"Someone could well walk in." I smiled. At that moment I was so intensely
happy that I did not care that we had, for a moment, slipped over the edge of
that precipice. "I love you, Harold," I said.
RA DOUGLASS
I3O ani't/»
He slid a hand over
my mouth, but I could see the emotion in his eyes, part joy, part longing, part
fear of what we had done. It was not the kiss that was so frightening to him, I
think, but the fact that we'd opened a door that might prove impossible to
close again.
"Not now,"
he whispered, and his hand fell away from my mouth. "Harold," I said,
trying to lighten the mood somewhat. "You are here, at last. I looked for
you yesterday. I wanted to thank you for what you said in court. For a moment I
thought no one would dare a word in my defense."
"Your husband
does not deserve you," he said, and in my mind 1 heard what he meant to
say. I would be the better
husband for you.
"I did come last night, but late, and you were already asleep. I did not
want to wake you."
"So he came to
me, instead," said another voice, and I felt my own face stiffen even as I
saw Harold's lose all expression as Swanne's face appeared
over his shoulder.
"You quite
enlivened your husband's court yesterday, my dear," Swanne
said. "Are you
quite well now?"
Harold's eyes had
dropped away from both of us, his head turned slightly down and away. I felt a
great sorrow then, for I understood that where once Harold had loved Swanne,
now he found her irritating, and an embarrassment.
"Aye,
sister," I replied. "It was but my monthly flux, more burdensome
than usual."
"Is that truly
so?" she said. A very slight frown creased her forehead, then she lifted
her hand from Harold's shoulder and placed it on the coverlets of
the bed, over my
belly.
"Swanne…"
Harold began, but I shook my head—she could surely do no
harm—and he subsided. "Is that truly so?"
Swanne repeated, and her frown increased. Something shadowy and unknowable
darkened her eyes and the pressure of her hand increased slightly, although not
uncomfortably so.
"My lady?"
I said, glancing at Harold who was watching Swanne's face. "Your womb is
empty," Swanne said, and her voice was slightly puzzled. She leaned back,
raising her hand away from me, and looked at me, the frown
still marking her
lovely face.
"Do you believe,
too, that I have a lover, and lost his child?" I said, bitterly.
"I am a virgin
still, Swanne."
My eyes briefly,
meaningfully, locked with Harold's.
She nodded, and made
a small smile with her mouth, but I could see that her mind was consumed with
something other than our conversation.
"So," she
said softly. "He has made his first move. I wonder why this was so
important to him…" Her voice drifted off.
By now both Harold
and myself were staring at her. "Swanne?" Harold said. "Of whom
do you speak?"
She blinked, and her
face set into hard, cold lines. "Of no one who concerns you, my
dear."
And with that she
turned and left us.
't^ WANNE WALKED
FROM THE QUEEN'S APART-
"■■■k
ments, her
gait smooth and elegant, her shoulders back, her X*^^-*^ beautiful face held high.
She walked until she reached the head of the staircase where windows overlooked
the
She had felt nothing
in Caela's womb. Nothing, and yet, for all the time she's known Caela in this
life, the woman's womb had always held a faint
trace of Mag.
Swanne sighed,
ignoring the stares of servants and officials who hurried by, and once more a
small frown wrinkled the otherwise smooth skin of her forehead. Swanne had been
reborn into this life with her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth intact, but
with her two other sources of power strangely muted. In her former life as
Genvissa, Swanne had been the powerful MagaLlan, or high priestess to the
goddess Mag, commanding great powers of magic that she drew from the goddess
herself. In this life her powers as MagaLlan were virtually nonexistent. This
had not surprised Swanne. Mag was all but dead, clinging to life only in the
dim recesses of Caela's womb (and, as a virgin, Caela would have provided the
goddess of fertility and motherhood with no power at all) and the ancient power
of the land that Swanne had known as Genvissa was hidden under a heavy cloak of
time and forgetfulness. There was no source of power for a MagaLlan, and Swanne
spent no time weeping over what she had lost.
What did frighten
Swanne was that the dark power of the heart of the labyrinth, which she'd
inherited from her foremothers, and which Ariadne had won from Asterion, was
all but gone as well. Why? Was that Asterion's malicious hand? Or because her
mother in this life had been but an ordinary woman, and Swanne had needed the
direct blood link from a mother who wielded the darkcraft in order to wield it
herself? She didn't know, and that
frustrated and
frightened her.
Her power as Mistress
of the Labyrinth should be all that she needed, but
Swanne had wanted the
darkcraft as well. Badly.
If she had it now, perhaps she'd have more of an idea of
what was happening about her. She would certainly have more hope of influencing
and directing it.
Whatever power she
did or did not command, Swanne had managed enough of it to be able to recognize
the faint trace of Mag within Caela's womb. Today, even that faint trace was
gone.
Its absence could
have been attributable to a number of causes: Mag had simply faded away
completely, Swanne had perhaps lost touch with enough of her own remaining
power to lose contact with Mag, something, or someone else had destroyed Mag
within Caela's womb.
Swanne knew it was
the latter. Caela had been attacked yesterday, and whatever faint trace of Mag
remained had been deliberately murdered.
And there was only
one person who had the power to accomplish that and had possible reason to want to accomplish Mag's
death. Asterion.
Swanne stared out at
the gray waters of the
"Why?"
Swanne whispered. "Why?"
Why would Asterion want that final,
helpless remnant of Mag dead? Swanne well knew of the previous life's alliance between Mag
and Asterion, using Cornelia to destroy Genvissa and stop the completion of the
Game. Swanne could also understand why Asterion might want to tidy up loose
ends; if nothing else, the Minotaur was a methodical creature, and he most
certainly needed neither Mag's nor Caela's, all but useless, hand.
So why not kill Caela and dispose of both of them at the
same time? Why leave Caela alive?
Why go to all the
trouble of removing Mag in such a spectacular fashion when he could just as
easily have murdered Caela and left no loose ends at all?
What are you up to, Asterion? Swanne thought. To be honest,
Swanne had no idea why even she was alive. Asterion wanted to
destroy the Game. If that was all he wanted, then that was easily enough
accomplished.
Kill her. Kill the
Mistress of the Labyrinth. If there was no Mistress of the Labyrinth, there was
no Game. As simple as that.
Or kill William,
Brutus-reborn. If there was no Kingman, then there was no Game.
What was happening
that she couldn't understand? Swanne's frown deepened, and she chewed her lower
lip as her thoughts tumbled over and over. The Game had changed, she could feel
that herself. Even incomplete, was it a danger to Asterion? Did he fear to be
trapped by it, even though she
IJ-T
and Brutus-reborn
hadn't managed the final Dance? Was the only way Aster-ion could destroy the
Game completely was to use either her or William?
"The
bands," she muttered, keeping her face turned full to the window so that
none of the passersby could see her mumbling to herself. "It must be
Brutus' kingship bands. Asterion needs those, either to destroy them, or to use
them to destroy the Game. Dammit, Brutus, where did you hide them? Where?" Suddenly irritated beyond
measure by her inaction, Swanne abruptly turned away from the window and
walked, as fast as possible without attracting undue attention, down the
stairs, through the Great Hall and back to the
quarters she shared
with Harold.
She could put to good
use the free time Harold had given her by his spending the morning mooning over
his sister's sickbed.
HAROLD LISTENED TO
THE SOUND OF HIS WIFE'S
footsteps fading
away. Gods, had she seen what
was going on? Another moment or two and Harold had been sure he
would have thrown all caution to the wind and taken his sister there and then.
What a fine sight
that would have been for Swanne, had she been a few moments later. Her husband
squirming frantically atop his own sister's body. It would have cost him
everything. It would have cost Caela more.
For the first time in
his life, Harold cursed the high birth of himself and his sister. If they had
been lowly peasants, they could have simply moved to a far distant village, and
lived as man and wife.
But the earl of
Harold pulled his
thoughts back into order. Where
had his self-control gone? "Do not ask me to interpret what she means,
Caela, for I cannot!"
"Sometimes she
makes me feel as though she carries about with her such a great secret that
could destroy all our lives," Caela said. "Sometimes when she looks
at me… ah!" She gave a small smile. "I do not know what to make
of your wife,
Harold."
"Nor I,
indeed," he said, then paused. "She envies you, I think. She thinks
she would do better
wearing the crown herself."
Caela studied him
silently for a moment. "And will she wear it, Harold?" Harold took
Caela's hand between both of his, using the excuse to drop his eyes away from her scrutiny. By all the gods, what did she mean with that question? He rubbed at the back of her hand with his thumbs,
gently, caressingly,
deciding to take
Caela's question at face value, and using the time it bought him to think over
all the issues it raised.
Ah, the throne.
Edward was an old man, likely to die within the next few years, and still he
had to name a successor. In theory, the members of the witan elected a new
king, but in practice whoever was named by the former king had a powerful
claim.
Edward was driving
his witan, and well most of the Anglo-Saxon nobles in
Caela watched Harold's
face, knowing what he was thinking. "You are the only one who can take the
throne, Harold. Even Edward must know that." Harold snorted softly.
"And has Edward actually spoken to you of this?" "Does Edward speak to me of the succession?"
Caela laughed softly, bitterly. "Nay, of course he does not. He has
'spoken' only with his body, keeping it from me, that I may not breed him a
Godwineson as his heir."
For an instant Harold
entertained the vision of Edward making love to Caela, and his heart almost
went cold in horror. "Then he is a fool. Better, surely, that a child of
his own body take the throne than risk the slaughter of half of
There was a lengthy
silence, neither looking at the other, which was finally broken by Caela.
"I have not seen
Tostig," she said, "yet I know he lingers about
"We have
fought," he said, "and now Tostig wastes his time in sulks. I wish that
he put aside his disagreement with me long enough to wish you well." "Over what have you disagreed?"
"Tostig wants me
to send my army north to subdue
"Tostig has not
done well this past year," Caela said. "If only…" "Yes," Harold said. "If only,
indeed."
She squeezed his
hand. "All will be well, Harold. Surely. You are brothers, and
disagreements will be set aside soon enough."
"Brothers can be
enemies as well as any other men, Caela. I pray only that we can resolve our
differences before Edward dies."
"And what,"
Caela said, determined to change the subject yet again, "have
you heard of
William?"
Harold sighed, and
sat back, letting Caela's hand drop to the coverlet. Tostig was a trifling
threat when compared to William of Normandy. Not only was William a seasoned
warrior with a seasoned army behind him (he'd spent over twenty-five years
battling half of Europe to keep
Personally, Harold
did not believe it. No man, surely, could hand over a throne in gratitude for
some bread and wine and a bed for a few years.
Could he? Harold shook his head very slightly. Edward was fool
enough for anything, and who knew what he might have promised William one
drunken night when Edward might have thought he'd never regain the English
throne
from Cnut?
"Edward has
never said anything?" he said to Caela.
Caela shook her head.
"I know only that they exchange letters."
Harold grunted.
"William is preparing the ground to claim that Edward
has always wanted him
as heir."
"Edward is
preparing that ground," Caela said, "with the
keeps at court."
Harold said nothing.
God knows Edward had brought enough of
Had any of those
treaties encompassed a promise that William could have the throne after
Edward's death? No one knew, least of all Harold, and that lack of knowledge
kept him awake many hours into too many nights.
Harold wanted the
throne. Moreover, he felt that he deserved it. He alone had kept Edward safe
from internal disputes and the ambitions of the Saxon earls. He alone had the
moral and military strength behind him to not only take the throne, but to hold
it once Edward died.
He was the only
choice, the only Saxon choice, unless
wanted a foreigner.
Or, if a foreigner
decided he wanted
Now, as Edward
declined into old age, and as it became obvious that he would never consent to
get an heir on Caela, the issue of who was to succeed him was becoming ever
more critical.
"If I take the
throne," Harold said, reverting to Caela's original question, "Swanne
will not be my queen."
Caela arched an
eyebrow, but there was a strange relief in her eyes.
"Once, perhaps,
I would have fought to the death to have her crowned at my side."
He paused, and Caela
did not speak.
"Once,"
Harold finally continued. "Not now. She and I have grown apart in these
past few years. Strangers, almost."
"Then that must
explain the birth of your sixth child and third son last year."
Harold took a moment
to respond to that. "She has ceased to please me, even in bed," he
finally said. "We rarely touch… and even when we do, I find myself
thinking of…"
He stopped suddenly,
unable to say that you.
A silence where both
avoided each others' eyes, then Harold resumed. "Swanne cannot be my
queen, even should I wish it. We were wed under Danelaw, not Christian, and the
Church does not recognize our union.
"You will put
her aside?" Caela looked incredulous, as if she could not believe for a
moment that Swanne would be content to be "put aside."
"If I am to be
accepted by the Church… if my claim to the throne is to be backed by the Church, then, yes, I must put her aside."
"She knows
this?"
"We have not
spoken of it but, yes, I think she knows of it." He made a harsh sound in
his throat. "It would certainly explain her growing distance and coldness
this past year and more."
Caela thought for a
moment, then said, "And who will you take for a wife? For your
queen?"
The instant she
spoke, the awkwardness again rose between them. "That was a foolish thing
for me to ask," she said, "considering how stu-Pidly I behaved
earlier."
"There could
never be a better queen for this country than you," Harold said.
"I shall find
you a queen," Caela said, her voice forced. "A good woman, and worthy
of you."
Harold reached out,
hand and touched he, mouth briefly with his finger-tips. . . i _-,ft.i., "Vint never
so much as
from the bed and
left.
CbAPCGR
ACH YEAR the (hopefully) successful
conclusion of the harvest. It was held in conjunction with the more important
autumn hiring and poultry fairs, with the city guilds, the merchants, and the
folk of at least a dozen of the outlying villages. This festival was held on a
Saturday (the preceding three days being taken up with the market fairs), and
was one of the few occasions in the year when the city came to an almost
complete standstill for the celebrations. In the morning the guilds held a
great parade through the streets of
Edward and Caela, as
most of the court, usually attended the afternoon's festivities at
This year promised
even greater enjoyment.
The night before the
festival, Edward had succumbed to a black headache. He'd retired to his bed,
and demanded that he be left alone, save for two monks who were to sit in a
corner and recite psalms. Saeweald had given him a broth and applied a poultice
that had eased the king's aching head somewhat, but when Saturday dawned, and
Edward's head still throbbed uncomfortably and his belly threatened to spew
forth with every movement, the king decided to forgo the fun of Smithfield for
the continued stillness and peace of his bedchamber.
The queen should
still attend, Harold escorting her—this was, indeed, a true indication of just
how deeply Edward's aching head had disturbed his state of mind. To make
matters even better for Caela (and for Harold), Swanne
O
I4O j «
decided to remain
behind as well, vaguely stating some indisposition, which she felt would only
be exacerbated by the noise and frivolity of
Thus it was that, two
hours past noon, Caela found herself seated with Harold in a great temporary
wooden stand on the north side of
every movement.
She was dressed
splendidly in a deep ruby silken surcoat embroidered all over with golden English
dragons, a matching golden veil, and a jeweled crown. Beside her, Harold had
dressed somewhat similarly, if in bright sky blue rather than ruby. His surcoat
was also embroidered with English dragons, although his beasts snarled and
struck out with their talons while Caela's merely scampered playfully. Harold
wore a golden circlet on his brow, gold-encrusted embroidery weighting down the
tight-fitting lower sleeves of his linen undertunic, heavy jeweled rings on his
fingers and, to remind everyone of his exploits and renown as a warrior, a
great sword hanging at his hip. He looked the king as Edward never had: vital,
healthy, handsome, powerful, and the crowd gathered in
their places.
They stood to receive
the cheers, waving and smiling, and the breeze
caught at Caela's
veil and blew it back from her face. "They adore you," Harold said,
softly. "They adore you," she responded, turning to
laugh at him. The crowd continued to roar, and as the sound pounded over them
in wave after wave, Harold took Caela's hand and held her eyes. "I meant
what I said to you, that day I came to you in your bedchamber," he said,
his voice only loud enough that she could hear him. "There could be no better
queen for me than you. No woman I could want more."
The laughter died
from her face. "Harold…"
"I know,"
he said. "I know. But I needed to say that. Just once." His face
lightened away from its seriousness. "And what better place than here, and
now, when perhaps we can pretend?" "Harold, it can't be."
"Of course
not," he said, and leaned forward and kissed her cheek, where perhaps his
lips lingered a moment longer than they should and where, as he finally moved
his face away, too slowly, she felt the soft momentary graze of
his tongue.
"Unfortunately,"
he finished, and then the sound was fading away, and
they sat, and Caela
used the excuse of settling her skirts to hide her pinked cheeks from her
brother.
Behind and to one
side of them, Judith and Saeweald exchanged a worried glance.
THE AFTERNOON WAS FILLED
WITH GOOD-NATURED
sport and
competitions. Men wrestled, ran, leaped and shot arrows into distant targets.
To each winner, Caela graciously gave a prize: a carved box here, a fine linen
shirt there, a copper ring to someone else. Each time she rose, and the
successful sweating combatant knelt down before her, the crowd cheered, and
called good-natured jests, and when Caela had done with handing the victor his
gift, then she smiled, and waved and patently reveled in the good cheer of the
day.
The final event was
something the city guilds and fathers had spent weeks planning. It was a new
contest, one designed not only to demonstrate the grace and athletic abilities
of its participants, but also to delight and astound the crowd.
A man, clothed only
in trousers, strode into the center of the arena, beating a drum that hung from
a cord about his neck. He was a fine man, tall and well-muscled, and had been
the winner of two of the earlier events. He walked to a spot some ten paces
before the stand in which Caela, Harold, and their attendants sat and, still
beating the drum, cried: "Behold!"
At his word two lines
of horsemen entered the arena from opposite gates. They rode bareback, the
horses controled only with bridles through which had been threaded late autumn
greenery, while the riders themselves wore only trousers, leaving their
shoulders and chests bare. Each man carried a long wooden lance, tipped with
iron. Each line was headed by a rider dressed slightly more elaborately than
those he led. At the head of one line rode a man wearing a chain mail tunic and
Saxon helmet. He carried a bow, fitted with an arrow.
At the head of the
other line rode a man wearing nothing but a snowy white waist cloth, sandals on
otherwise muscular brown bare legs, and a great bronze helmet, of a design and
shape that was not only unfamiliar but markedly exotic. A plait of very black,
oiled hair protruded from beneath the helmet, and hung halfway down the man's
back. About his biceps and upper forearms twined lengths of scarlet ribbon, as
about his legs, just below his knees. This man carried a sword.
Caela frowned,
leaning forward slightly. "What event is this?" she asked softly, but
to her side Harold only shrugged, and no one else had a response.
't<'t*
The man beating the
drum waited until all the riders were in the arena, the lines pulled to a halt
on opposite sides of the great square, then he abruptly gave a flurry of much louder
and more insistent beats, then his hands
fell still.
"Behold,"
he cried. "The
The crowd roared,
intrigued at the display thus far and at the novelty of the event. Judith and
Saeweald went rigid with shock. Harold grinned, anticipating some military game
that might well prove entertaining, while Caela's
frown merely
deepened.
"The Troy
Game," she whispered to herself, and shivered. "Behold!" cried
the man with the drum once more. "Listen well to the rules of the Game! Two
lines, two ambitions, two corps of riders skilled beyond compare. Two kings!
One the king of the Greeks," he indicated the man wearing the chain mail
and the Saxon helmet, "and one the monarch of that ancient, wondrous
realm—
The crowd roared
again. History pageants and games of all sorts were
always popular.
The king of the
Greeks kicked his horse forward a few paces, as did the king of
"What can we
do?" whispered Judith, her face drained of all color. "Nothing, but
watch and see," said Saeweald. He was watching the king of
"We propose a
dance!" cried the drummer. "He who is quickest and most agile, he who
is most skilled shall win. He who falls first… loses!" Again the crowd roared in anticipation.
As the drummer ran to
safety, the two lines of horsemen began to move. First at a walk, then a trot,
then at a carefully controled canter the lines of horsemen moved into an
intricate and dangerous dance, the two lines first interweaving as they each
crossed the arena on opposite diagonals, then in a dozen different points as
the lines performed circles and serpentines.
As the horses
cantered, their paces carefully measured, the riders swung their lances in
great arcs from side to side: at all the intersecting points where the opposing
lines crossed there was only ever a half a breath between the flashing down of
one lance and the passage of another rider. A single misstep, a minor
miscalculation, and the wicked blade, which tipped the end of one lance, might
cut another rider in half.
The drummer had climbed atop the fence, which kept the
crowd safe from the riders, and was now speaking again, calling out over the
riders with a <-1ear. carrying voice. He was minus his drum now, the thud of
the horses'
hooves and the wicked
swishing of the swinging lances the only accompaniment he needed.
"See!" he
cried. "The Trojan king re-creates the walls of
Harold was leaning
forward now, his eyes gleaming. "By God!" he said. "See their
skill!"
Caela was staring at
the performance before her, her face expressionless, her hands carefully folded
and very still in her lap.
The two leaders, the
"kings," controlled the tempo of the dangerous dance. It was they who
sped up, or slowed down the rhythm of their followers, and each had to keep a
wary eye on the other. If one slowed down too soon, or too late, or if one did
not take speedy note of what the other commanded, then his line of warriors
would be broken by the lances of his foe. The two lines of riders were now
interweaving at an impossible pace, the tips of their lances gleaming in the
sun, sweat dripping from shoulders, horses snorting as they fought both for
balance and for breath.
The crowd had begun
to scream for their favorites. "
Then, as it appeared
that the speed of the dance could not possibly grow faster, or the swinging of
the lances more dangerous, there came a surprised grunt from one quadrant of
the arena as a horse, turned too tight, lost its balance and collapsed,
throwing its rider under the flashing hooves of those who came behind.
Instantly there was
mayhem. Horses and riders collided everywhere, the rhythm of the dance was
entirely lost, and the crowd began to shriek in appreciation as the blood
spattered through the air.
Then, stunningly, from
out of the melee, came one line of riders still in perfect formation, their
lances still flashing back and forth in a controlled manner, their riders
untouched, save for their sweat.
It was the line led
by the Trojan king.
They cantered in a
line across the back of the arena, their foes lying mostly unhorsed and
bleeding in the center of the arena, then all turned in one beautifully
coordinated movement so that they faced into the arena, looking toward the
royal stand at the far end.
The Trojan king
raised his sword, then pointed it toward the stand. The line exploded forward
as the horses, still perfectly in line, galloped toward the royal stand.
As they met the
confusion in the center of the arena, each horse leapt in perfect alignment with
its neighbors so that for an instant, the entire line was
suspended high in the
air, then every horse thudded back to earth, their vanquished foes safely
behind them, and galloped to the end of the arena beneath the royal stand,
where their leader brought them to a stunning, perfectly controlled halt.
Harold leapt to his
feet, shouting, punching his fist into the air, applauding the victor.
Caela sat, still
motionless, expressionless, staring at the Trojan king, now
sitting on his horse directly
before her.
The man's chest
heaved as he fought to get air into his lungs, his face was mostly hidden by
his helmet—but still nothing could hide his great toothy
smile.
"My lady,"
he cried, brandishing his sword. "I hand you
CbAPGGR F1FG66JM
Caela Speaks
STARED,
GAPE-MOUTHED. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT
had come over me. I
felt disembodied, dislocated, disorientated. "Climb up!" cried Harold
beside me, and I swear I leapt almost a foot, he surprised me so. "Climb
up and accept your prize!"
At least he'd broken
the trance that had claimed me. I managed to look at Harold: he was bright-eyed
and flushed, flashing a brilliant smile.
"By God,
Caela," Harold said to me as the Trojan king was clattering up the wooden
steps that led to the small platform before our seats, "never before have
I seen such skill! Such horsemanship!"
And then the man was
with us, his heat and his sweat and the powerful presence of his body
commanding my attention. He stood before us, and bowed deeply.
"You honor us,
sir," said Harold. "May we know your face? Your name?"
That great toothy
grin flashed again in the darkness behind the helmet, and the man lifted both
his hands to his helmet (his sword already taken by one of Harold's men-at-arms)
and raised it from his head.
I must confess, my
heart was racing. Who was it?
"A stranger to
our shores, by your countenance," Harold said. "Who are you, and your
allegiance?"
For the moment the
man did not reply. He was staring at me, and I at him. The instant he'd taken
the helmet from his head I felt overwhelmed by a strange disappointment. His
face was familiar—
Almost the face of the man who had
come to me in dream, and who had almost but not quite kissed me.
—and yet not. Not the
face some part of me seemed to have been expecting.
Oh, but he was
handsome! He had dark skin and very black hair. Very long, very curly. Regular,
strong features… and that smile, it was stunning. The only discordant note in
his entire aspect was the leather patch over his
left eye, yet even
that lent him a rakish air that moderated his otherwise overpowering presence.
"I am
Silvius," said the man, replying to Harold but not taking his eyes from
me. "And I am truly king of
And he lifted his
hand, took mine, and kissed it before any could move to
stop him.
Harold laughed, but
the laughter held a trace of tenseness in it now, and,
glancing at him, I
saw that his smile had died.
"Well,
then," he said, "welcome, king of
your military
skills."
Now this man Silvius
did look at Harold. "Oh, I have had many years in
which to hone them,
my lord. Very many indeed."
"Your prize,
good man," I said, collecting myself. I turned, ready to take the gift of
a finely woven and embroidered mantle from Judith, who stood behind me (and, by
heaven, she was staring at this strange king
of
Silvius spoke again.
"Nay, my lady.
Lay that aside, I beg you. It is I who shall gift the prize, I
who shall award the
honor."
"A most strange man," said Harold, watching Silvius
warily.
I noticed that
several men-at-arms had moved quietly closer.
Silvius reached into
his helmet, then withdrew from it the most beautifully worked bracelet that I
think I have ever seen. (And
yet some part of me insisted that I had seen it previously.) It was of twisted gold, and set
with a score of cut
rubies.
"In my
world," said Silvius, his voice now very soft, "it belonged to a
princess and a great queen. It deserves no better home now than on your arm,
gracious lady."
He reached forward, then stopped as both Harold and
the men-at-arms laid hands to their swords. The mood was now very tense among
us, and I wondered at that, at what had changed between us that Harold should
now
be so wary.
"Madam,"
Judith said very softly behind me, and in that word she somehow managed to
convey both reassurance and the message that I should,
indeed, accept the
gift.
"Ah," I
said, smiling a little too brightly at Harold, "put away your sword,
brother. Shall this bracelet bite? Shall it sting? Nay, of course not."
Then, to Silvius.
"This is most gracious of you, and I shall not be so churlish as to
refuse." I held out my left hand, stretching it slightly so that the
sleeve drew back from my wrist.
Silvius reached it
forth and, just before he snapped it closed about my wrist, he said, "It
is very ancient, my lady, and contains many memories."
It clicked shut, its
metal cold about the heat of my skin, and I blinked, and looked at Silvius.
And saw before me,
not Silvius, but a man very much like him but with, if possible, an even more
powerful presence, and whose face made my stomach clench.
It was the man from
my dream, save with long hair and dressed as Silvius was now dressed.
And with great golden
bands about his limbs where Silvius wore scarlet
wool.
Then the man who was not Silvius
spoke, and he said: "I am Brutus, and I am god-favored. It is not wise to
deny me." He smiled, holding my eyes, and it was one of the coldest
expressions I have ever seen. "I control Mesopotama. I control this
palace. 1 control you. Be wise. Do not deny me."
"Brutus?" I
whispered.
And then I fainted.
I HAVE ONLY JUDITH AND HAROLD'S RELATION TO SAY
what happened next.
Harold and Judith both grabbed at me, and the men-at-arms lunged forth, sure
that the strange man Silvius had somehow murdered me.
In the confusion,
apparently he slipped away. Harold sent men after him, but he was never
discovered. When Harold questioned the guildsmen who had taken part in the
strange event, they shrugged and said that he was a foreign merchant who had
seemed perfect for the role as king of
The man Silvius was
never found.
I woke after only a
few moments, seemingly well, and Harold calmed down once he saw me smiling and
apologizing for the fuss. I lifted my arm, and studied the bracelet. It was beautiful, and the stones glittered in the late afternoon
sunshine, and so I decided that it would do me no harm to wear it an hour or
two longer.
So, as the crowds
dispersed, Harold and I and our retinue made our way back to
I left the bracelet
on as I slept. I do not know why, but perhaps it was that which caused me again
to dream strangely.
* * *
I walked through the great stone hall in which I'd found
myself previously. And there, as if waiting for me, was
this man called Silvius. He stepped forward and, as if the most natural thing
in the world, kissed me
hard on the mouth.
I wondered if this were my frustrated
virginity causing me to dream of all these
men who kissed me.
"You and I," he said,
"shall he greater friends than you can possibly realize." Then he was
gone, and I slipped out of the stone hall and back into dream-
lessness.
In the morning, as
she aided me to dress, Judith said, "Madam… are you
well?"
I frowned, because I
felt there was much more to her question than her bold words. "Of course I
am, Judith. Now, watch what you do with that sleeve,
it is all
twisted."
Much later, at court
(Edward having risen, his ache dissipated), I saw Judith lean close to
Saeweald. He asked a question, glancing at me, and she shook her head, as if
imparting news of the greatest sorrow.
I do not know the
import of that question, but Judith's answer made Saeweald frown, and sigh,
then turn away, and I had to fight down an unwarranted irritation at their
behavior.
AROLD HAD KEPT
LATE HOURS WITH SEVERAL OF
his thegns, returning
to his bedchamber when Swanne was already asleep, so it was that she only heard
of what had happened at
Harold, imparting the
news as if it were of not much interest to her, was stunned by her reaction.
In all his years of
intimacy with Swanne, he'd never seen her so shocked that she could barely
speak.
"They played what?" she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Harold watched her
carefully, trying to discern the reason behind her shock. "The
"Describe
it," she said.
"Two lines of
riders, each executing a series of twists and turns that intersected and
interwove." He paused, thinking. "Labyrinthianlike, truly."
Swanne paled, but
Harold kept on speaking. "The Trojan king, who led one of the lines, and
was the ultimate victor, re-created the walls of
She gave a light
laugh, but Harold could see the effort it cost her. "It is not something I
could ever imagine the common guildsmen re-creating, my love. The legend of
"Many, my
lady," said Hawise, who had just entered the chamber to see to the bed
linens.
Swanne, who had
literally jumped when Hawise spoke, now regarded her with a frown. "Many?
Explain yourself, Hawise."
The woman licked her
lips, wondering if she had spoken out of turn.
"Hawise?"
said Harold, curious himself.
O
"The story of
There was a silence,
during which Swanne continued to stare at Hawise
and Harold looked at
Swanne.
Then Swanne smiled,
an expression that seemed to Harold to be one of the few genuine smiles he had
ever seen her give, and touched Hawise gently
on the cheek.
"So it is
said," Swanne said softly. "And so it may be. And do the Londoners
say anything else about the Troy Game?"
"Oh," said
Hawise, "it is but a foolish game, my lady. Children have played it in the
streets for years, dancing a pretty pattern across the flagstones outside
"And that is
what the horse game of yesterday was based on, Hawise?"
Harold said.
"Aye, my lord.
One of the guildsmen was watching his daughters dancing out their childish game
across the flagstones when he thought that perhaps their play could be modified
and made into a far more spectacular sport."
"Well,"
said Harold wryly, turning away to pick up his over-mantle, "it surely was
that."
WHEN, MUCH LATER, SHE
MANAGED TO FIND SOME
quiet time to herself
in the palace orchard, closely wrapped in a heavy woolen cloak, Swanne finally
allowed herself to take a deep breath and think on what
she had heard.
The Londoners were playing the
Whether children or
skilled horsemen mattered not… they
were playing
the
Oh, it was not the
Game that she and William would control, but it was clearly a derivative of it.
It would not command the magic and power of the Game she and William would
play, but it was surely a memory of it.
How had they known?
How had this come to be?
There were many
possibilities, the least unsettling of which was that the Trojans of Troia Nova
had passed the Dance of the Torches (that they had witnessed her and Brutus
dancing) down to their children. The story of the Troy Game may well have
survived the generations between that day Brutus alighted on the shores of
Llangarlia and now, even if the city and surrounding
country had been
ravaged so many times, and so mercilessly. It took only one person to remember
the tales, and to speak them, for a memory to become a permanent myth.
And yet what Harold
had described, and then what Hawise had said about the children's games, was
too accurate to be "myth." The horsed game had been devised by an
expert, someone who had known the Game intimately.
Or… Swanne took
another deep breath… or the entire event had somehow been arranged by the Game
itself.
Was the Game seeping up through the
very foundations of
For years, ever since
she had come to
But this aware? Gods, that was terrifying. What if it refused
to allow her and William control over it?
Swanne gave a small,
disbelieving laugh. What if the Game decided it would rather have some
dirt-smudged child from
"My lady?"
Swanne jumped again,
some stray disassociated part of her mind thinking that she truly needed to ask
Saeweald for some herbal potion to calm her nerves.
It was Aldred, the
archbishop of
"My lady,"
he said, grunting with effort as he sat on the bench beside her. "I do
hope I am not disturbing you. It is just that I saw you sitting alone in the
orchard while I was taking my afternoon stroll, and I thought to pass a few
words."
Taking my afternoon stroll, indeed! thought Swanne. / have never before seen you walk farther than from one
banqueting table to the next.
"I was
thinking," she said, "about that spectacular horsed game the Londoners
put on yesterday in
"Ah, yes,"
Aldred said, tweaking at a corner of his robe where it had become uncomfortably
stuck under his bulk. "I have heard tell of that extravagance myself."
"You were not
there?"
"Alas, no, my
lady. I thought it better to stay close to our beloved king, should he need
me."
Thought it better to stay close so
that you could insinuate yourself even further into his graces, she thought.
"Aldred,"
Swanne said slowly. "I may have another letter for you to pass on within
the day. You will be able to arrange… ?"
"I shall be able
to expedite its delivery, my lady, with all speed."
She inclined her
head. "I do thank you, my good archbishop." He beamed, and patted her
knee, which made Swanne wince.
ANOTHER MEETING TOOK
PLACE IN THE ORCHARD
that afternoon, but
an hour or two after Swanne and Aldred had abandoned
the trees.
Tostig was walking
through the orchard on his way from his own quarters to Edward's palace when he
heard the sound of a footfall behind him.
Stopping, and both
turning about and drawing his dagger in one fluid movement, Tostig saw that two
men approached, one of whom he recognized as that man who had talked to him as
he'd left the Great Hall after Caela's
sudden illness.
"My lord,"
both the men said, and bowed as one.
Tostig's hand had not
left his dagger.
"What is it you
wish?" he said.
"To talk only,
my lord," said the first of the men. Both of them were fair, but this
man's hair and beard were fair to the point of whiteness, and even in the weak
afternoon sun it shone brilliantly.
"I am Halldorr
Olafson," said the man, "and this is my companion Orn Bollason.
Because we want you to trust us, and believe in us, we give you our true names,
and not those we go under while at Edward's court."
Tostig narrowed his
eyes. His hand had not strayed from the haft of his dagger. "You are
Hardrada's men," he said. He'd heard that the Norwegian king had agents
within Edward's court… but what were they doing approaching
him?
"We mean you no
harm," said Bollason. "Indeed, we speak with
Hardrada's voice. Our
words are his, and spoken with his authority." "And they are… ?" said Tostig.
"Hardrada wants
him."
Tostig snorted, and
half turned to walk away.
"In
return," said Bollason, "he will give you all of the north. Not just
Tostig stopped,
although he did not look at the two men.
"Hardrada is a
fair man," said Olafson. "He does not need it all. He has asked us to
treaty with you. If you pave the way for Hardrada's successful ascension to the
English throne after Edward's death…"
"Then I get the north?" said Tostig, turning
back to stare searchingly at each of the two men who faced him. "And the
means by which to hold it?" "And the means by which to hold it."
I
"Talk on,"
said Tostig, and his hand fell away from his dagger.
While they talked,
all three men noticed the round-shouldered woman walking through the orchard
ten or fifteen paces to their left carrying a wicker basket of late-fallen
winter apples. They saw her, but they paid her no attention.
She was but a serving
woman, scrounging the orchard for something to see her and her family through
the long winter months.
They did not know
that, instead of carrying the apples to where Damson kept her pitifully few
belongings, she instead went straight to the river where, after a few moments
waiting, a waterman poled his flat skiff to where she waited. Damson handed the
basket to the waterman, then bent close for a hurried conversation.
The waterman nodded
and then, as Damson walked away, continued on his journey down the
LATE THAT NIGHT, WHEN
MOST OF
His name he had long
forgotten, but he had grown used to the childish whims of the men and women who
had peopled this island after he and his kind had taken to their stonelike
watchfulness, and so this Sidlesaghe called himself Long Tom. As he walked, his
every movement soft and fluid, Long Tom hummed to himself snatches of melody,
the fingers of one hand occasionally snapping in time to the beat of his music.
The Sidlesaghe
skirted
"Soon!" the
Sidlesaghe whispered, and the river subsided.
Soon.
"Soon," the
Sidlesaghe said again, and shivered in excitement.
Far beneath his feet,
something rumbled and hissed, as if a great dragon was passing through a
long-forgotten mine.
"One day,"
said the Sidlesaghe, "but not yet, not yet."
The beast beneath his
feet fell still, and groaned.
Long Tom's pace
picked up as he neared
A woman who could
bring him what he needed.
* * *
JUDITH HAD SPENT THE
GREATER PART OF THE NIGHT
with Saeweald. Now,
as dawn approached, she made her way swiftly and silently from Saeweald's
chambers back toward the palace. Locked in thought—and her warm memories of the
night past—Judith almost passed out from fright when a long arm grabbed at her
from the darkness.
Before she could
shriek—and she'd drawn a huge breath to do just that— a large, hard hand had
enveloped half of her face.
"Peace, little
lady," said the Sidlesaghe, drawing close. "It is only I." The
moment Judith saw the long, hook-nosed face with those strange, watchful,
melancholy eyes, Judith recognized it immediately for a Sidlesaghe. She
relaxed, not much, but enough, and the Sidlesaghe managed a small
smile and let her go.
"How may I aid
you?" Judith said, not sure what she should say to the
Sidlesaghe, but
deciding that question was as good as any.
"It is time for
Caela," said the Sidlesaghe. "Time for her to remember."
"But the
bracelet did no good."
"The
bracelet?" The Sidlesaghe's face crinkled up into a hundred lines of
question.
"The ancient
bracelet of Mesopotama, that which Silvius gave her yesterday."
"Silvius?"
"Yes! Silvius!"
"Silvius was out
of the heart of the labyrinth?"
"Yes."
Judith repressed a sigh. "At
Long Tom was looking
increasingly puzzled.
"The
into remembering.
"Oh," the
Sidlesaghe said, sighing hugely, then smiling. "Yes. That's why I
am here. Caela needs
to take her place within the Game."
Now it was Judith who
was confused. "I am sorry. I do not know how I
might aid you."
The Sidlesaghe leaned
forward and enveloped both of her hands in his large ones. "You already do
more than enough," he said. "But seeing as you offer… bring Caela to
the banks of the "At night? She will not come! How can I—"
He squeezed her
hands. "That is for you to determine, my dear. Tomorrow night, on the
banks of the
Then he was gone, and
Judith was left to stare into the night, feeling both bewildered and blessed.
ADAM?" JUDITH
LOOKED CAREFULLY AT HER
mistress. The evening
was closing in, and she couldn't help a quick, impatient look at the as-yet
unshuttered windows in the queen's chamber. Caela sat by the fire, some
needlework in her hands, her lovely face relaxed almost to the point of
dreaminess. Twelve days after her hemorrhage she looked rested and well, buoyed
by good food, rest, and twice daily visits both from Harold and from Saeweald
who kept their voices and words light, and made her laugh with every third
remark. The outing to
"Madam?"
Judith said again, trying to gain the attention of Caela who had drifted away
somewhere unknowable over her embroidery. Tonight Judith somehow had to
inveigle Caela down to the banks of the
Caela gave a slight
start, then looked to Judith and smiled. "If you have finished your
duties," she said, "perhaps you would like to sit and aid me with
this embroidery. It is for the high altar in
"Madam… I had
wondered…"
Caela gave up all
pretense at her needlework, allowing it to slip to her lap as she raised her
face to Judith and laughed. "Am I keeping you from some great pleasure,
Judith?"
Judith blushed, more
from her current state of tension than embarrassment.
Caela's smile died
and she set her embroidery to one side. "What is it, Judith?"
Judith abandoned
caution and plunged straight into the lie. "Madam, your brother Harold
spoke to me earlier."
Caela raised an
eyebrow, no more than mildly curious.
"He asked that I
bring you to the banks of the
Caela's face retained
its pleasant expression, but Judith could see the incomprehension growing in
her eyes.
"Your husband
has decided to spend the night in prayer on his knees before the altar in the
abbey, madam." Judith had told Saeweald and Ecub (visiting this day from
her priory) about the visit from the Sidlesaghe. Edward's decision to spend all
night in prayer was Saeweald's doing, although Judith had no idea how he'd
managed it. Did he inform the king that if he prayed all night before the altar,
his amulet against the arthritis would double its potency? Or was this just a
sign of Edward's increasing piety? "He will not notice you gone."
"Judith—"
"Madam, Harold
was most insistent."
Caela's brow creased,
and she looked cross. "Judith, before heaven, what is Harold doing?
Sneaking about like a mischievous child? A surreptitious midnight picnic by
water's edge? What is going on?" "Madam, please. I beg you, Harold needs you." "Then why not beg me himself? Why ask through
you?"
"It
is about Swanne," Judith said, desperate now. "Swanne… Swanne
is…"
"Ah…" said
Caela, and her posture relaxed very slightly. "Swanne is
causing
trouble." She furrowed her brow, thinking. "It must be that Swanne
and… and Tostig, perhaps…" "The palace has ears,
madam." Judith had no idea quite what she meant by that, but it seemed to
confirm something in Caela's mind.
"Yes." She
nodded. "What chamber is safe in this palace, eh? I swear
that Edward has paid ears against every door." Then Caela smiled, and it
was the kind of smile that Judith had never seen her give: girlish,
mischievous, uninhibited. Judith's breath caught in her throat. Sweet gods, if ever she smiled that
way upon a man…
Then Caela's smile
faded. "But how can I leave the palace? I can have no excuse, and the fact
of my leaving will surely reach Edward's ears long before
dawn."
Judith allowed her
shoulders to relax: she had not been aware how tense she had been. Pray that Caela forgive her when she realizes the deception. "I shall fetch you my
third-best robe, and we shall drape a serving woman's hood and cloak about you,
and none shall be the wiser."
THEY WAITED UNTIL
WELL-PAST MIDNIGHT, THEN,
heavily cloaked and
veiled, made their way to one of the postern gates in the wall about
Perhaps some ten or
fifteen paces ahead of them, waiting on a broad expanse of gravel laid bare by
low tide, waited three cloaked figures.
"Who can be with
Harold?" said Caela.
"Saeweald,"
said Judith. "See how he drags that leg?"
Caela nodded. One of
the figures had moved slightly at their approach, and he did indeed drag his
right leg in the manner of Saeweald.
"Saeweald!"
Judith called softly as she and Caela approached. "Is that you?"
"Aye."
Saeweald threw back the hood of his cloak. "Madam, you are well? We thank
you for agreeing to come."
Caela peered at the
smaller of the remaining figures, and it turned about, revealing Ecub.
"Mother
Ecub," said Caela, "what do you here?"
Ecub bowed her head,
a gesture of deep respect, and smiled, but she did not respond with words.
Caela stared at her,
then looked to the final figure. Strange, for out here in the night Harold
looked much taller than—
The other figure
turned about, and as it did so, the cloak about its form faded as if it had
never been, and Caela saw that it was—stunningly—the same creature that she had
seen in her dream.
Long Tom.
"It is a
Sidlesaghe, my dear," said Ecub, but Caela was staring at the creature in
horror, taking a step backward.
"Caela,"
Saeweald said softly, hobbling forward a little. "Please, it is all right.
You will be safe."
Caela shrunk back
from him, her eyes riveted on the Sidlesaghe, standing with a strange, dark,
watchful expression about two or three paces from her. His eyes, as dark as
they were, seemed to reflect the small amount of moonlight, and they glittered
at Caela eerily.
"What… is…
this?" Caela said very slowly, enunciating every word very carefully. She
shot Saeweald a look, and it was full of anger.
"Madam,"
Judith said, placing a hand on Caela's elbow.
"Don't touch
me!" Caela hissed. Her eyes swung between Saeweald, Ecub, and Judith.
"What have you done?"
Whatever they may
have said was forestalled by the Sidlesaghe, who suddenly almost doubled over
in a sweeping, elegant gesture of reverence.
"My lady,"
he said, "forgive the means by which these three delivered you to
me."
Caela stared at the
Sidlesaghe, her posture as tense as that of a startled deer. "What are
you?" she said harshly.
The Sidlesaghe
smiled, his teeth gleaming in the trickle of moonlight. "I
am your
welcomer," he said. "Do you not remember the last time I greeted
you?"
For a moment Caela
did not respond. Then she shook her head slowly. "I am here once
more," said the Sidlesaghe, "as is all my kind." He lifted one
of his long-fingered hands and gestured.
Caela's eyes darted
around her, and she gasped. Where a moment before had been empty graveled
shoreline, now stood rank upon rank of creatures similar to the one that stood
before her.
"We are all
here," the Sidlesaghe, "to welcome you anew." "Caela," said Saeweald, his tone pleading.
"Please trust—"
"No," she said, and took another
step backward. Then she glanced over her shoulder, as if ensuring her way were
still open.
"It is
time," said the Sidlesaghe, and, with a movement as quick and as fluid as
that of the fox, darted forward and seized Caela.
She gave a half shriek,
grabbing at the Sidlesaghe as if she meant to push it away, but the creature
cradled her against his body, holding her almost as if she were a baby. Caela
struggled, but caught in the Sidlesaghe's firm, loving
grip, she could do
nothing.
For an instant the
Sidlesaghe stood, Caela in his arms close against his body, smiling at her as
if she were his own much beloved child.
Then, stunningly, he
lifted her high above his head and, as all the Sidle-saghes let out a long
moan, tossed her into the river.
Caela hit the water
with a frightful splash and almost instantly sank
beneath its surface.
The final sight that
Judith had of Caela was of her terrified white face, and then her extended arms
and hands as, slowly, inevitably, she sank into the rolling gray waters.
Caela Speaks
H, GODS, THE TOUCH OF THAT WATER!
Something ruptured
within my head—the pain was excruciating, overwhelming, and within the space of
a single breath that agony had become my entire existence.
I was terrified, but
what of I cannot say. Not of the water, nor even of death (an activity I was
undoubtedly engaged in, for the water flowed down my throat as I gasped and
gulped, and some tiny part of me understood that it was filling my lungs), but
of the fact that I was in the grip of something so powerful, so unknowable,
that even death could not save me from it.
Death could not be an escape from it.
My head was on fire,
the pain now beyond the excruciating, and I gave up even trying to stay afloat.
I sank down through the waters—strangely deep for the shallows of the
river—descending into an icy bleakness.
And still my head
rang with agony.
I screamed, and river
water surged down my throat.
Now my lungs felt as
if they, too, were going to explode with the weight of the river within them
and I gave myself over entirely to the water and the pain, and hoped only that
they would have done with me as fast as they possibly could.
My last single
coherent thought was that if Edward could see me now he would only nod his head
knowingly, and turn his head to say to one of his ever-present sycophants: / always knew the Devil was in her.
The instant she gave up the struggle,
tiny hands reached out for her, pulling her deeper and deeper, not so much into
the river, although that was what encased them, but deeper into a realm that
was unknowable to any who watched from above.
I6O
The water sprites waited until her
body was cold and still, drifting lifeless in the current, and then they stripped
her of all her clothing, leaving only the ruby and gold bracelet she wore about
her wrist.
I blinked, and woke,
and found myself lying curled into a tight ball on a cold stone floor, utterly
naked and dripping wet. For the longest time I did not move. I just lay there,
my arms hugging my knees to my chest (not quite naked, for I could feel a band
of jewelry about my wrist that cut into the soft flesh just below one of my
knees), blinking, not thinking, just being.
Then, very softly,
the sound of a name being called. Was it my name? I did not think so, but then,
lying there, I was not even sure of what my
name
was.
Then the faint sound
of thrumming hooves, coming ever closer, and I raised myself on one elbow just
as, at the very reaches of my vision, a white stag burst into the stone hall in
which I lay.
He was huge, vital,
brimming with power and sexuality and meaning, and he lifted his head and cried
out, trumpeted out, tidings of such joy that I
cried out myself, and raised myself to my knees.
The stag ran closer,
closer, and I could feel his heat and feel his breath on
me, and then I saw…
I saw…
I saw about his
delicate, tightly muscled limbs the golden bands of
And I remembered… and I knew where we
were going and where we had been.
I gave one incoherent
cry, and then, as the beast came to a halt before me, and lowered his noble
head, and I felt his lips gently move within my river-dampened hair, I said:
"Og, Og, can we truly manage this?"
He said, "We
must…" And then he groaned, and I both felt and saw his body crumble about
me, crumble away to nothingness until there was nothing but six golden bands,
rolling about on the stone floor…
I woke, and I was no longer who once I had been,
although I was what I
had always been.
I LAY NAKED AT TIDE'S
EDGE, MY LOWER BODY STILL
rocked by the gentle
waves of the river.
The Sidlesaghe was
leaning down over me, his dark face smiling with such
love I thought I
could not bear it.
"Resurgam, pretty lady," he said, and his voice was full
of simple,
unrestrained joy.
Part Three
It is an opinion generally received,
that the tournament originated from a childish pastime practised by youths
called Ludus Troia (the Troy Game), said to have been so named because it was
derived from the Trojans…
In the middle ages, when the
tournaments were in their splendour, the Troy Game was still continued, and
distinguished by a different denomination; it was then called in Latin, behordicum, and in French, bohourt or
behourt, and was a kind of
lance game, in which the young nobility exercised themselves, to acquire
address in handling of their arms, and to prove their strength.
Joseph Strutt, Sports & Pastimes of the
People of
Late 18th century
AVING?" JACK SKELTON
WHISPERED INTO THE SORRY
gray dawn light of the Bentley's
spare bedroom, unable to let go of his need. "Eaving!"
For a moment nothing, then a creaking
noise somewhere deep within the house.
Skelton leaped out of bed, his heart
racing, and then realized, horribly, that Violet Bentley had made the noise.
She was moving from her and Frank's bedroom, down the stairs, and to the small
kitchen on the ground floor where she was doubtless about to prepare Skelton
one of those horribly fatty English fried breakfasts.
Skelton subsided back to the bed,
almost hating Violet for causing him to hope so terribly, and so momentarily.
Eventually
he made the effort to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He
paused there, then dropped his head into his hands, trying to find the energy
to rise and wash and then dress for his first day in his new posting.
And then it came. From outside the
window this time, not inside where Violet was making an increasing amount of
clatter over the breakfast.
The sound of a child's voice. A
breathless, joyful catch of laughter. A spoken word, murmured.
Daddy.
"Gods!" Skelton said, his
voice a harsh, shocked whisper.
She was dead! Dead! He'd recovered
her charred bones from the ruins of St. Paul's himself, wept over them, refused
to allow anyone else to touch them.
Her bones, as those of her mother's.
She was dead. Dead!
Daddy.
Skelton felt the hope rise like bile
in his throat. He scrambled to the window, almost falling in his haste, and
stared out.
On the street below, looking up at
the window, was a little girl of some seven or
eight years. She had very black curly
hair, an image of Skelton's own, and a pale face with deep blue eyes ringed
with sooty lashes.
Daddy, she mouthed.
And then she held out her hands.
In each palm rested one of the golden
kingship bands of
The two lost bands of
CbAPGGR
ATILDA, DUCHESS OF
slightly in her
chair, easing her still-tender muscles, and looked to where her husband sat on
his dais at the head of the ight, commodious hall. William had returned from
his morning hunt not an hour before, and now sprawled in his great chair, his
face still flushed with excitement, one hand gesturing effusively as he relived
the chase with his two closest companions, Walter Fitz Osbern and Roger
Montgomery.
She smiled, happy
that he was, for the moment, content.
Then she sighed, and
shifted yet again to ease her aching muscles. She'd given birth a few weeks
previously—another daughter—and had only just rejoined William's public court.
She would also, Matilda thought, as she watched William's eye slipping to
wander over the form of one of her more youthful waiting women, shortly have to
rejoin him in their marital bed. William's natural lusts made him wander
sometimes, and Matilda knew full well that on occasion he bedded a village
woman and had sired three or four bastards about his many estates, but the
knowledge did not perturb her overmuch.
She was the woman he respected and honored before all
others, she was the one to whom he confided
his most secret thoughts and greatest ambitions, and she was the one to whom he turned to for advice and
counsel.
Matilda felt a tiny
kernel of fear. She was the woman he trusted and honored and respected above
all others, but what would happen once he won
WILLIAM GRINNED AT THE EXPRESSION ON HIS WIFE'S
face, knowing full
well she'd seen him ogling the luscious form of Adeliza.
Adeliza would be sent
home to her family estates and Matilda would be back in his bed before a new
day dawned.
That thought
contented William. The tedium of birthing always annoyed him; he appreciated
the fine healthy children Matilda gave him, but he was irritated that it should
remove Matilda from his bed in the weeks immediately preceding and then
following the birth. He missed those hours holding her, and talking through his
problems with her, in that one place where they had utter privacy and need not
guard their words.
Matilda was worth to
him more than all the gold in Christendom. William did not think he could have
borne the uncertainty and fear of the past years if it had not been for her.
He valued her beyond
measure… and yet he had not found within himself the courage to talk to her of
that one thing which consumed so much of his life.
The
How could he ever explain that to
her?
So William couched
his thoughts of the Game within talk of his ambition for the English throne,
and that ambition Matilda understood very well. All men lusted for more estates
and power, and what was more normal than William, having finally secured his
own duchy, to lust for a throne to which he had some small right, in any case?
A sound distracted
William from his thoughts, and he looked to the doorway.
The guards had
admitted a short and very slight priest, still with his stained traveling cloak
flapping wetly about his shoulders, and now that priest was striding toward
where William sat.
William tensed,
sitting a little higher in his chair, and his companions Walter and Roger
shared knowing glances.
"My good
lord," said the priest, sweeping in a low bow before the duke's chair,
"I greet you well, and am glad to have arrived in your sweet abode after
the mud and strain of the road."
"Greetings,
Yves," William said. "I welcome you indeed." He waved to his
chamberlain, who sent a man forward with a stool for the priest. "You were
not troubled by brigands on your way?"
"Nay," said
Yves, handing his cloak to the chamberlain and seating himself with patent relief,
"just the rain and the sleet. Winter has set in early."
"I welcome you
also, Yves," said Matilda, wandering over to stand by William's side. She
perched one hand on his shoulder. "It is too long since we have seen
you."
There was something
in her tone that made William glance at her face, but she wore a bland,
unreadable expression that gave no clue as to her thoughts. He looked back to
Walter and Roger, sitting forward on their seats with expressions of perfectly
readable curiosity on their faces, and he turned those expressions into ones of
disappointment by asking them to leave himself and his wife alone for a while
with the new arrival.
"We have matters
of some delicacy to discuss," William said, and Walter and Roger, who were
certain as to what those matters might be, reluctantly rose, bowed to both
their duke and duchess, and joined the greater part of the court seated at some
distance from the dais.
Matilda took one of
the chairs vacated by the departing men. She folded her hands in her lap and
waited, leaving it to her husband to conduct the conversation.
"Well?"
said William softly.
"I have a
communication for you," said Yves and, glancing about in a manner that
must have incited the suspicions of the entire court, handed to William a
carefully cloth-wrapped small bundle.
"From my
husband's agent at Edward's court?" said Matilda.
Yves inclined his
head, and Matilda and William shared a meaningful glance. William would not
open this now, not here.
"And how goes Edward's
court?" said William.
"The king ages
apace," said Yves. "His mind lingers less on worldly matters than on
the salvation that awaits him. Most days he spends with the monks and priests
of Westminster Abbey, or walking within its rising walls. He thinks to build
for himself a place of great glory, so that the world might not forget him when
death takes him."
William grunted,
turning the small cloth-wrapped bundle over and over in his hands, as if
impatient to read its contents.
"There is no
sign of an heir?" he said.
Yves gave a short
laugh. "Queen Caela is not so blessed as my lady here," he said,
inclining his head to Matilda, who accepted the compliment with a small, polite
smile. "Edward refuses to corrupt his piety, or his possible salvation and
deification, with any sins of the flesh. There will be no heir of his
body."
He hesitated, and
William looked at him sharply.
"What do you not say?" he said.
"Only that Queen
Caela was struck with a most untimely bloody flux of her womb at court two
weeks before I left," said Yves. "Some said that she had miscarried
of a bastard child, but the midwives who examined her said she was a virgin
still. Edward," again Yves gave his short, strange bark of laughter, "has
his reputation as intact as his wife's virginity."
Matilda had been
watching her husband as Yves spoke, and she frowned, puzzled, at what she saw
in his face. Regret? Unhappiness? Uncertainty?
She could not read it, nor understand it completely. Again she resolved to discover
all she could about this enigmatic queen.
"Harold?"
William asked, and Matilda relaxed, for now there was nothing in William's face
at all but ambition and cunning.
"His strength
grows, my lord," said Yves. "He knows, as does everyone, that Edward
has his eyes more on the next world than he does on this one."
"And so how does
Harold conduct himself, knowing the throne shall be vacant in so little a
time?" said Matilda.
"He sits, and
watches, and gathers his forces. The witan is all but sure to elect him to the
throne on Edward's death—"
"But William has
the greater claim," said Matilda, unable to suppress an outburst of
loyalty. "Edward all but promised it to him when my husband sheltered him
in his court during the man's exile, and through Emma, Edward's mother, William
and Edward are close cousins. There is no one closer in blood
than William."
Yves shrugged.
"The witan will not want a foreigner marching in and forcing the Saxon
earls to his will."
"They may have
to accept it!" snapped Matilda.
William smiled at
her, then looked back to Yves. "I thank you for your care in bringing
this," he tapped the bundle, "to me. Will you accept my hospitality
for the next few days as I decide whether or not to respond?"
Yves rose, knowing a
dismissal when he heard one. He bowed, first to William, then to Matilda, and
left the hall.
The instant he had
turned his back, both William and Matilda looked at
the bundle he held.
"I will open it
later," William said, and slipped it inside his tunic.
"We will open it
together," Matilda said firmly, and William sighed, and nodded.
CbAPGGR GUDO
Caela Speaks
OW CAN I EXPLAIN
HOW I FELT AT THAT MOMENT?
When I opened my eyes
and saw the Sidlesaghe look down at me, and smile, and say "Resurgam, pretty lady!" with such joy and welcome?
I felt relief. That
was the first, overwhelming emotion. Sheer, thankful relief. We'd managed
it—Hera, Mag, and I. The first and most critical part of our journey was done.
And who was I? Why Caela, of course, as I had been Cornelia, but
far more than that.
Far more.
How can I put into
words what that felt like? It is as if… it is as if you had wandered naked all
your life, and then someone approached and placed a mantle about your
shoulders. This mantle protected and nurtured, and because of the warmth and
comfort it gave, it made you much more than you had been when naked. Moreover,
the threads of the mantle magically wound themselves into your flesh so that it
became an integral and living part of you.
The mantle had not
truly changed who you were, it had just made you more.
I lay at tide's edge
that still, cold night, and I felt the land beneath my back and the waters
about my legs. It was not just that I felt their solidity or wetness, I felt them. The essence of them—how they felt, how they turned,
their wants and needs and loves as well. I could feel the land closing in upon
itself for its winter death-sleep; I could feel the seeds of spring and the bones
of the dead sleeping within its flesh; I could feel the roots of the trees
stretching down, down, down; and I could feel the chatter of the moles and the
bark of foxes and the sweetness of the worms who inhabited its flesh.
My flesh.
In the waters I could
hear the laughter of distant lands, and feel the siren
song of the moon, for
love of whom the tides and inlets danced. I could feel my heart in its depths,
and feel the love of the water-sprites who, with the ancient ones, the
Sidlesaghes, had overseen my birth.
I was aware that the
water-sprites still hovered close to the surface of the water, and that the
Sidlesaghes lined the banks of the river in their thousands, and that Ecub and
Saeweald and Judith stood close by, staring down upon my naked flesh in varying
degrees of stupefaction and awe, but, for the moment, I concentrated only on
myself.
I closed my eyes, and
did what Judith, Saeweald, and Ecub had been wanting me to do for so long. I remembered.
I remembered that
terrible night when Genvissa had torn my daughter from my body, and I had died.
I remembered how Mag had come to me then (even as Loth was sobbing over my
cooling flesh), and how she had talked to me, and shown me the way ahead.
I remembered how
dismayed I had been, not only dismayed at the thought of how far we had to go, the intricacies involved (where so much
could go wrong) and the dangers inherent in that journey, but of how unworthy I
was of the responsibility. But Mag had loved me, and held me, and promised me
that all would be well. That all I had to do was to believe and to trust, and
to summon the courage to dare.
I lay there at tide's
edge, my eyes closed, my heart full of contentment, and felt the land and
waters move about me. When, as Cornelia, I had stabbed myself in the neck, thus
causing my own death, Mag within my womb had died with me. When I had been
reborn as Caela, so had Mag—or her potential, rather than her precisely—been
reborn also, but not within my
womb.
Within me. As much a
part of my flesh as that imagined mantle.
There was no
difference between us now. I was not only Caela, Cornelia-reborn, but also
everything that Mag had been.
Mag-reborn. That
strange mantle, seamlessly wound through my flesh, that made me more than I had
been previously. Not different, just more.
I knew that about me
stood those who needed a word, and who needed reassurance, but first I wanted
to do one more thing… I allowed my memory to roam free. Oh, but it encompassed
so much! I could remember when this land was still young, when it was still
bound by a thin land bridge to the great continent to the east, and when great
bear and elk and wolves scampered across that bridge to fill this bounteous
land.
I remembered when Mag
had walked across that land bridge, and was welcomed to this land by the
Sidlesaghes who now stood about me, welcomers once more.
I remembered the joy
of turning about one day, and seeing standing there the great white stag, and
knowing that he would be my one mate throughout eternity.
And I remembered that
bleak day when the Darkwitch Ariadne came to this land, and Mag welcomed her,
not realizing her malignancy and her contempt.
Finally, I remembered
the arrival of the Trojans, carrying with them Mag nurtured within the womb of
their leader's wife, Cornelia. Mag, arriving once more to this land, bringing
with her… me.
Filled with joy, I
looked deeper.
And found an empty
space. A well of nothingness. An incompleteness.
Had something failed? Had my
transformation not been complete?
Startled, and not a
little scared at that discovery, I opened my eyes. I would think on it later
when I had peace and solitude. This was only the beginning, after all. I could
not expect everything all at once.
The Sidlesaghe
reached down his hand and I took it, and rose, glimpsing as I did so at the
gold and ruby bracelet that glinted about my wrist. I half smiled at that,
seeing in it everything that Cornelia had suffered but yet would become, then I
looked to my three faithful companions who had been reborn into this life with
me, and, in turn, I took their faces in my hands and kissed them softly on
their mouths.
"You are
Mag?" stammered Saeweald.
I hesitated. I was
not Mag precisely, but did not know how best to express myself. So, foolishly
perhaps, I let him think what he wanted, for it was easier. "Aye," I
said, and felt a faint flutter of discomfort deep within my belly.
"But… I had no
idea… I would not have…"
"Wait," I
said. "This is not the place nor the time to discuss it." I turned
back to the Sidlesaghe, and I kissed him also on the mouth. "Long
Tom," I said, for that was truly his name, "thank you for greeting
me. I am sorry I was so nervous and that I attempted to obstruct you."
Long Tom smiled, and,
as I had in my dream, I saw a faint suggestion of light spill from his mouth.
"We are happy to see you as well, lady. Do not worry for what you may have
said. We are happy only to see you."
My smile slipped.
"I need to speak with you."
"Aye, and we
with you. But not now. I will come to you again. We will walk the paths."
"Aye," I
said, "that we will."
Then I turned back to
Saeweald and the two women, and I grimaced, and I said, "May I borrow a
cloak or some other covering from you? This night is chill, and there is a long
walk back to the palace."
And so, huddled
beneath Saeweald's cloak, with the Sidlesaghes fading into the night, and the
physician, the prioress and my attending lady beside me, I
went back to the palace
via the graveled flats of the Thames until we reached the wharves of
Then I opened the
door, and walked inside and, shucking away the cloak, crawled into my empty,
cold bed (Edward was, most apparently, still on his knees before his altar, and
the bowerthegn who usually slept by the door must
also be with him).
I lay down naked, and
I closed my eyes, and I put my hands on my breasts, and I dreamed—not of the
young boy Melanthus whom I had thought to love in my previous life as Cornelia,
nor even of Brutus-now-William, but I dreamed of my beloved white stag with the
bloodred antlers, pounding through the forest toward me.
One day, I thought. One day, beloved.
And then I began to
weep.
Silently, deep into
the night.
GbR
ATILDA WATCHED
THROUGH HOODED EYES AS
William, as naked as
the day he had been born, stood before the fire in their bedchamber, reading
the letter that Yves had slivered earlier.
They had retired some
hours ago, made love (which Matilda hoped had driven all thought of Adeliza
from William's mind for the time being), talked, and then William had waited
until he thought Matilda asleep.
Now he stood before
the fire, his head bent over the letter, frowning.
HE
COULDN'T ALLOW MATILDA TO SEE THIS! WILLIAM thanked all the gods that existed that he'd delayed
opening the communication until Matilda had been asleep. Previously, Swanne
always had been circumspect in her communications, but now she had abandoned
caution. Swanne wanted him to tell her where the kingship bands were. She
wanted to move them before Asterion could get to them. She needed to do it
before William arrived, or else it would be too late. She wrote of the strange
events of the day the Troy Game was enacted in
William understood
Swanne's fear about Asterion. It was evident that matters were careening toward
a head: Edward was sliding toward death, the new abbey was almost complete… and
now the Londoners were dancing the Troy Game? Children playing it across paving
stones?
To be honest, William
was not surprised at the manifestation of the Game above the stones. It had
existed for two thousand years, it was no shock to find that the people who
lived their daily lives above it should also find their feet moving unwittingly
in its steps. Swanne's belief that the Game was trying to take matters into its
own hands, however, was an overreaction. William
could not conceive for
a moment that the Game would ever try to divorce itself from its Mistress and
its Kingman.
But the bands. On
that subject William was prepared to share Swanne's concern. The golden bands
of
gone.
If William could retrieve them, however…
William's body
tensed, his eyes staring unfocused into the fire. If he had the
hands, if he wore them, and if he and Swanne had the time and space to raise
the Flower Gate…
Then all would be
won, and he and Swanne would live forever within the
stones of
Strange, that he
should feel no joy at this thought. "I must be getting old," William
muttered. Once, every bone in his body would have been screaming with joy at
the thought of controlling the Game completely.
Again William
collected his thoughts and concentrated on what Swanne asked him: Tell me where lie the bands of
The tone of that last
sentence irritated William immensely. What did she think, that he had idled his
life away in his court of Normandy? Drinking fine wines and laughing at the
antics of court jesters? By the gods, did she not know that he'd had to battle
rivals and enemies for the past thirty years? That he'd spent each and every
day of those thirty years ensuring his survival? That there had not been a
single chance—not a one't—to turn his armies for England
and for London so that he could, at last, take his rightful place on its
throne?
William well realized
that his troubles had been caused by Asterion's meddling. He knew that Asterion
had his own dark, malevolent reasons for ensuring William kept his distance
from
And William knew,
with every instinct in his body, that the fact that all these internal problems
within Normandy had miraculously receded over the past couple of years meant
that Asterion was preparing the way for the confrontation they all knew was
coming.
"What
news?" said Matilda from their bed, surprising William so much he
visibly jumped.
"Little,"
he said as lightly as he could, and tossed the paper into the fire. It
crackled, flaring in sudden flame and burning to ash within moments. "You
did not want me to read it?" Matilda said.
"No."
"Why?"
"Swanne was
incautious." William looked Matilda directly in the eye. "She spoke
of things I did not want you to see."
"What
things?" Matilda hissed, finally allowing her jealousy free reign. She
rose from the bed, snatching at a robe to cover herself as she did so, hating
the fact that her body was still swollen from the child she had so recently
borne, and hating Swanne even more bitterly for the fact that all the news
Matilda received of her spoke of a beautiful and elegant woman, despite the six
children she'd birthed.
"She did not
speak of love," William said, walking over to Matilda and kissing her
gently on the forehead. "But there are matters so terrible that you will
be safer not knowing of them. I speak nothing but truth, Matilda, when I say
that what Swanne wrote has irritated me. I did not throw that letter into the
flames because I am a shame-faced adulterer, but because I was angry with she
who wrote it."
"I should not
have taxed you over the matter," Matilda said, more angry with herself now
that she'd allowed her jealousy to speak tartly.
"You had every
right," William said very softly, his lips resting in her hair. "You
are my wife, and I honor you before all others."
"But Swanne is
the great love of your life," Matilda said, keeping her voice light.
"When I spoke
those words to you, fifteen years ago," he said, "then I thought I
spoke truth. Now I am not so sure."
"What do you
mean?" Matilda leaned back so she could see his face.
Again William paused,
trying to find the best words with which to respond. "You have taught me a
great deal during our marriage," he said eventually. "You have taught
me strength, and tolerance, and you have given me maturity. What I thought, and
felt, fifteen years ago, are no longer so clear to me."
Again Matilda arched
an eyebrow. "Are you saying that I have suddenly become the great love of
your life?"
William laughed,
knowing from all their years together that she jested with him. "What I am
saying, my dear, is that 'great love' no longer appeals to me as once it
did."
She held his eyes,
her jesting manner vanished. "When you win
When, not if. William loved her for that.
"—a marriage to
Swanne would consolidate your hold on the throne, especially if, as we expect,
the witan elects Harold as king to succeed Edward.
When you have dealt
with Harold, what better move for you than to marry his
widow?"
"I will never
renounce you!" William said. "Never! You will be queen of
Matilda, studying the
fervor in his eyes, believed it, and was content.
FOUR
UDITH THOUGHT THE
CHANGE IN CAELA
SO
stunningly obvious
that the entire realm would have taken one
gigantic breath and
screamed its incredulity, but she supposed, on
second thought, that
maybe most people who came into contact with the
queen on that
following day thought her "eccentricity" merely a result of the
turbulent state of
her womb.
She woke Caela as she
usually did, just after dawn, with a murmured word and the offering of a warm,
damp flannel with which to wipe the sleep from her eyes.
Caela took the cloth,
smiling, and wiped her face. Then she stretched catlike under the covers, then
pushed them back and rose in one fluid, beautiful movement, apparently
unconcerned at her nakedness.
Edward's bowerthegn,
or bed chamberlain, aiding his king to dress, stilled and stared.
Normally, Caela
stayed modestly covered in bed until both her husband and his servants had left
the chamber.
Now she walked slowly
over to one of the closed windows, threw back the shutters, and stood
gloriously outlined—and gloriously naked—in the dawning light.
"Wife! What do
you? Clothe yourself instantly!"
Judith froze,
wondering if Caela would strike him down.
Instead Caela only
inclined her head toward Edward's direction, as if she found his presence
mildly surprising. "My nakedness disturbs you?" she asked.
And turned about.
Judith bit her lip,
suppressing a deadly desire to giggle. Both Edward and the bowerthegn were
staring goggle-eyed at the queen.
Caela smiled, sweet
and innocent, and drew in a deep breath.
The bowerthegn's
mouth dropped open, and, frankly, Judith was not surprised. Caela looked
magnificent, her pale skin subtly shaded by the rosy light of dawn, her mussed
hair gleaming in an aura about her face and shoulders.
Her body, which
Judith knew so intimately from their long association,
appeared somehow
different, and it took Judith a moment to realize that where once Caela's body,
although slim, had been soft from her life of inactivity at court, was now taut
and finely muscled, as if she spent her time, not at rest at her needlework,
but running through the forests, or slipping wraith-like through the waters.
"A robe perhaps,
Judith," Caela murmured, turning slightly so that the slack-jawed men
could see her body in profile.
Judith hurried to
comply, not daring to look at Caela's face. "That was most unseemly,
wife," said Edward.
"I am sorry my
nakedness offends," said Caela, allowing Judith to slip a soft woolen robe
over her head and shoulders.
Even then, the soft
robe clinging to every curve and hugging every narrowness, Caela managed to
give the impression of nakedness as she moved slowly about the chamber, lifting
this, inspecting that, and Edward finished his dressing in red-cheeked affront
before he hurried from the room.
The bowerthegn,
hastening after him, shot Caela one final wide-eyed glance, which made Caela
grin.
"How sad,"
she remarked to Judith, dropping the robe from her body so that she might wash,
"that Edward should be so afraid of a woman's body, and that the
bowerthegn should be so shy in admiring it."
Fortunately for
Judith's peace of mind, Caela managed to perform her usual duties about court
demurely and quietly, although with an air of slight distraction. Several
people looked at her oddly, frowning, as if trying to place what was unusual
about Caela (among them Swanne, who stopped dead when first she saw Caela enter
court, then wrinkled her brow as she patently tried to discern exactly what was
different about the queen on this
morning).
When Harold came to
her, and wished her a good morning, Caela visibly glowed, and Harold responded
in kind. He, too, looked puzzled by her, but also pleased, and he stayed longer
than he normally would when he had business elsewhere, laughing and chatting
over inconsequential matters as other members of the court circled close by.
I wonder if some part of him knows, wondered Judith, hovering nearby
and wondering if Caela was being a trifle indiscreet with her openness and
patent happiness in the presence of her brother. There was a subdued sexuality
to every one of her movements that had never been there before, and Judith
prayed that no other observer noted it and spread further dark and malignant
gossip about the queen and her brother.
Edward, certainly,
kept a close eye on his wife, closer than usual.
However, when Caela
bid her brother a good morning, and turned her attention instead to chatting
with one of her more recently arrived attending
ladies, a young widow
called Alditha, then Edward relaxed and allowed himself to be distracted by the
priests and bishops who hovered about him.
In the late morning,
Caela beckoned Judith closer. "I have decided to take an interest in my
lady Alditha," she said, gracing the said lady with a lovely smile.
"I wonder if you could see to it that her sleeping arrangements are
changed. Currently poor Alditha shares with five other of my ladies, as well as
one of the under-cooks, and she sleeps badly. Perhaps…" Caela paused as if
thinking, one finger tapping gently against her lower lip. "Perhaps
Alditha can take over that chamber in the annex that runs between our palace
and Harold's hall? You know the one, surely. The bishop of
Judith blinked,
trying to mask her confusion. She glanced at Alditha, a pretty woman with a
heart-shaped face and generous hazel eyes, who looked as confused with the
attention she was receiving as Judith felt. And the chamber of the (sorrowfully
now deceased) bishop of
And one so close to
Harold's own private apartments?
"Of course, madam,"
she said, inclining her head.
"And when you
have done that, and settled Alditha comfortably," Caela continued, "I
wonder if you might bring the physician Saeweald to attend me? And the prioress
Ecub? Mother Ecub has been complaining so greatly recently about her aching
knees that I think it time I grant her a consultation with Edward's own
physician. Don't you think?"
"Yes,
madam." Judith locked eyes with Caela, understanding.
"Perhaps in my
solar," said Caela. "I think I may withdraw for a little while."
"Yes,
madam."
"I AM SORRY THAT
FOR SO LONG I HAD NO MEMORY,
and that you were
sorrowed and troubled because of it," Caela said, once Saeweald, Ecub, and
Judith had gathered in her solar. They were not entirely alone, for below the
windows sat three of the queen's ladies, their heads bent over their
needlework, but Caela and her three companions were far enough distant in their
chairs about the hearth that they could talk in reasonable privacy. To have
insisted that the ladies take their needlework elsewhere was to have invited
gossip and unwelcome curiosity.
"But you
remember now… madam?" Saeweald said. He hesitated at the
I8O
end of the question
before adding the "madam." His concern was obvious. How should he
address this woman, his friend, queen and, now, reborn
goddess?
Caela nodded.
"Most things, yes, although there are still some vaguenesses." She
shifted a little in her chair, her eyes glancing over at the group of ladies
under the window. "My friends, I am still Caela to you in private, and
madam in public. I am nothing else." "You are Mag," Ecub said.
Caela hesitated a
fraction before replying. "I have her within me, her power and knowledge
and memory, but I am still Caela, Cornelia-reborn. I am simply more than she had once been."
Ecub gave a small
smile, her creased face kind and loving. "And perhaps not. When you first
came to this land we knew you were somehow different. You were always, and will
always be, beloved."
At that Caela lowered
her face, drawing in a deep breath as she blinked back tears. "I say
again," she said, as she raised her face and looked in turn at each of the
three, "that I have been well served in you and that you have my unending
gratitude for staying by me, even when you thought I had no memory, and when
you had every reason to suspect me of uselessness in the struggle that is to
come."
"To destroy the
Game," Saeweald said.
Caela looked at him,
her gaze clear and direct. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it
again, having reconsidered. "Let me tell you, briefly, how things came to
pass. In the world where Cornelia came from, the Aegean world, there was a
great goddess named Hera. She had once been all-powerful, magnificent, but had
been cruelly crippled by Ariadne's darkcraft. Before she died, she approached
Mag—also suffering from the Darkwitches' malevolence—and suggested a plan. A
means by which the Darkwitches could be outwitted, and Mag's land saved."
"But not Hera's
world?" Judith said.
"No. That was
too badly corrupted. It was dying. There was nothing Hera or Mag could do about
that. But Hera could aid Mag and Mag's land, and she did so by passing on her
knowledge and cunning."
"How to destroy
the Game," Saeweald said, and again Caela glanced at him, this time with
her brow very slightly furrowed.
"Mag needed a
place to hide," Caela continued, "and Hera showed her Cornelia. But
Cornelia… but I… was not simply a place to hide. In rebirth—and Hera and Mag
knew that what needed to be done would take more than one lifetime—Mag would be
reborn within my flesh, giving her power and potential new vitality."
Judith frowned.
"But Mag was within your womb…"
"No," Caela
said. "That was merely a phantom. A decoy, if you will. Hera and Mag had
known about Asterion, and had known of his malevolence and danger. Mag
pretended an alliance with the Minotaur, but knew that eventually he would turn
against her. She had no illusions about that. Thus the phantom within my womb
that he could murder, and my lack of memory. Asterion had to be convinced that
he had disposed of Mag, and subsequently that I was no threat. He did just
that, murdering the phantom Mag, and convincing himself that poor Caela was of
no consequence. Now I am safe, we are safe, for Asterion thinks us all of
little consequence or danger to him in the Game ahead."
"And the
Sidlesaghes?" asked Ecub.
"The Sidlesaghes
have always been intimately connected with a goddess's rebirth. They also knew
something of Mag's plan. When they felt Asterion readying himself, they walked.
When Asterion murdered Mag, and convinced himself that I was no threat, then it
would be time to rebirth the goddess."
"And thus they
approached me," said Ecub, "and then Judith."
"Yes," said
Caela.
"Tell us, great
Mother," said Saeweald, his face alive with eagerness, "how will you
destroy the Game? How shall you return this land to its purity?"
There was a moment's
silence, a stillness, during which Caela visibly steeled herself.
"I have no intention of destroying the
Game," she said eventually, watching Saeweald carefully.
"What?"
Saeweald said, tensing as if to rise.
"Be still!"
Caela hissed, and Saeweald subsided at the command in her voice.
Again Caela glanced
at the ladies under the window, but they had not moved, nor glanced up from
their needlework.
"The Troy Game
will save this land," Caela continued,
her voice low and compelling. "It will be completed, but not by Swanne and
William. Not by Genvissa- and Brutus-reborn."
Her three companions
stared at her, their bewilderment patent.
"I will complete
the Game," Caela said. "With Og-reborn."
There was a long hush
as Saeweald, Ecub, and Judith stared at Caela, then exchanged glances between
themselves.
"Og-reborn?"
Saeweald said, very slowly, and a flush mottled his cheeks. Og-reborn! He could not help a thrill of excitement.
"How can this be
so?" Ecub said eventually. "My lady, we… we do not understand. The
Game completed? By you, and Og-reborn?"
"The Troy Game
is not the evil thing that you believe," Caela said. "You only saw it
so because its creators, Genvissa and Brutus, worked it with corruption rather
than with good intention and meaning. Used correctly, the Game is a
powerful and
beneficial thing, and it can be used to protect this land as nothing else can.
But to use the Game to its full potential, to use it to aid this land, then we
need to wrest control of it away from Swanne and William."
"Gods,"
Ecub muttered. "No wonder you needed to divert Asterion's attention away
from you. It is enough that you have set yourself against Swanne and William;
you do not need to contend with Asterion as well."
"Since the time
Genvissa and Brutus left the Game unfinished," Caela said, "the Game
has all but merged with the land. The land and the Troy Game have, if you like,
negotiated an alliance. Hera told Mag that this would be so. That if the
Darkwitch and Brutus were stopped before they completed the Game, and the Game
and the land upon which it sat were left to their own devices, then they would
come to an understanding, if you will."
"Og-reborn?"
said Saeweald, who had paid little attention to anything else Caela had said.
"Where? When?" He paused. "In whom?"
Caela smiled, and
leaned forward so she could put a warm hand on Saeweald's arm. "Not
yet," she said. "He will not be reborn until it is safe for
him to be so."
In whom? Saeweald thought, and would have
repeated the question save
that Ecub spoke
first.
"When will it be
safe for Og to be reborn?" she said.
"When Asterion
is negated, and when…" Caela faltered, then resumed, "and when Swanne
can pass on to me the arts and secrets of the Mistress of
the Labyrinth."
Judith's mouth fell
open, her expression mirroring that of Saeweald's and Ecub's. "Swanne hand to you the powers of the Mistress of the
Labyrinth?"
"I will need
them in order to complete the Game, as so also will Og-reborn require the
powers of the Kingman. Land and Game merged, completely. Mag and Og, Mistress
and Kingman of the Labyrinth."
"That is not my
query," said Judith, still aghast, "but this: how in creation's
name will you get Swanne to hand to
you her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth?"
"There is a way,
I know this," Caela beat a clenched
hand softly against her
breast. "But for
the moment this way remains unknown to me. Eventually I
will find it—or it
will find me."
Saeweald gave a
short, harsh bark of laughter, making the ladies under the
window look at him in
surprise.
He waited until their
attention had returned to their needlework. "I wish I had your certainty,
Caela. Swanne will never do it, just as William will never hand to Og his
powers as Kingman! Both are too devoted to their ambitions, and to their shared
vision of immortality. They will never do it!"
"You misjudge
both of them," Caela said quietly. "I think they will. Eventually.
When circumstances are right."
There was quiet for a
while, each lost in their own thoughts. Judith and Ecub were trying to come to
terms with the idea that they should actually use the Game, rather than destroy
it; Saeweald's mind remained consumed with the idea of Og-reborn. Who? Who? Who?
The thoughts of all
three stumbled at the idea that Caela, Mag-reborn, actually thought she could
make Swanne hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth, and that William
would do likewise with his powers as Kingman.
Eventually Caela,
having watched the doubts flood the faces of the other three, shrugged her
shoulders as if in a silent apology. "There is still much to be decided. I
will need to speak with the Sidlesaghes. They have been watching these past two
thousand years. They will show me the direction I should take."
Ecub, somewhat reluctantly,
gave a single nod. "May I ask, great lady, whom Asterion masquerades as?
He is among us, we can all feel that, but who is he?"
Caela colored
slightly. "I do not know."
"You do not know?" Saeweald said, incredulously.
Caela shot him another
hard glance, but Saeweald met it unhesitatingly.
"He hides
himself well," she said curtly. "Too well. I cannot know him. But he
must have come to see me in the hours after Mag's death. Who visited me then?
My mind was sleepy and muddled, and I can remember only a procession of vague
faces."
"Half the cursed
court visited you," Saeweald muttered. "How is it you cannot tell
Asterion's guise? By all the stars in heaven, Caela, you do not know how to
persuade Swanne to hand over her powers, you do not know who Asterion is… what
else do you 'not know' ?"
"There are still
vaguenesses, and still things I need to learn," Caela said. "I am not
omniscient, neither was Mag, nor even Og. But, if you worry about Asterion,
then pray put that to one side. For the moment Asterion is concentrating on
Swanne and William. I am no longer of any concern to him." She drew in a
deep breath. "Now, I have some questions of you. Harold…" her voice
broke a little. "For all the gods' sakes, why does he not remember? Why have
none of you told him?"
"As to why he
cannot remember," Saeweald said, "I do not understand this, but I
suspect it is because it is kinder to him that it be so. And that is the reason
none of us have taken him aside, and explained to him the tragedy of his
previous life. What would you have had us say, my lady? That his sister in this
life is the great love of his life? That if he indulges in that love, he not
only threatens her well-being, but throws away all he could attain in this
life? By all the gods, Caela! Harold is the man who can lead
against William, but
with his own
sister!"
"But he is
married to Swanne!" Caela said.
"And that
marriage took place before any of us knew him," said Ecub.
"That fact
changes little."
Caela's face twisted
in revulsion. "But Swanne… she arranged his murder in his
last life."
"And what can
you do about it?" said Saeweald. "If you walk up to him now, and
reveal all that can be revealed, then you risk destroying his life."
Caela did not answer.
Saeweald again leaned
forward. "Is Harold Og-reborn?"
Caela shook her head.
"Then what
purpose is there in revealing his past to him?" said Saeweald. "What
purpose, save to batter his emotions, and show him what he cannot
have in this
life?"
Caela nodded with
obvious reluctance.
"Silvius,"
she said, lifting her wrist a little so she could see the bracelet he'd given
her. "What in heaven's name does he do here?"
"He is part of
the Game," Saeweald said. "Brutus made him so." "He says he is here to help," Judith put in.
"He thought that the bracelet might make you remember. None of us then
knew quite what you truly were, or what was needed to make you remember…"
There was a slight
reproach in her last remark, and Caela's cheeks again
colored a little at
it. "Well," she said, "I suppose I will speak to him
eventually."
She was about to say
more, but at that moment the door to the solar
opened, and Edward's
chamberlain entered with a request that Caela rejoin
her husband to greet
an ambassador from
With a smile, and a
gracious inclination of her head, Caela rose.
LATER THAT NIGHT,
WHEN JUDITH STOOD BEHIND
Caela in her
bedchamber, combing out her long hair, Caela half turned, and
spoke quietly.
"Judith…"
Caela hesitated. "William… I have not met him in this life… have I? He and
Edward were very close when Edward was younger— gods, Edward spent a decade or
more at William's court when he was exiled by Cnut—but I do not think William
has come to our English court. Has he? Ah, I have searched my memory and cannot
remember, and I do not know if that is because I have not in truth met him, or
because if I have met him then I dismissed him, not knowing who he was…"
Her voice broke a
little on that last, and Judith frowned.
"Caela, remember
how this William treated you in your former life. He was vile to you! He—"
"I loved him. And now I need to know. Judith, tell me… have we met?"
"You have not
met."
Caela sighed.
"And his wife, Matilda? I have paid little attention to what I've ever
heard of her. What do you know?"
"Caela, you can
be doing yourself little good by—"
"I want to know.
Please."
"She is a strong
woman, quick to temper, sure of herself and her place in life. I… I have heard
that she and William have made a good pairing."
"And
children?" Caela said.
"Many, sons as
well as daughters."
Caela winced.
"They have been
blessed," Judith finished.
Caela turned aside
her head.
"Caela…"
Judith said softly.
"My hair is
untangled enough, Judith. You may leave me now."
Judith went to
Saeweald, needing to talk through all she had heard that day.
"I still find it
difficult," she said, as she lay naked in Saeweald's arms on his bed,
bundles of drying herbs hanging from the low beam above them, "that the
reborn Mag and Og will complete the Game instead of destroying it. For so long
we have hated and loathed the Troy Game, wanted it gone. Now… now we must
reconcile ourselves to the idea that it will be with us always. Part of
us."
Seaweald did not
immediately reply, and, curious at his silence, Judith raised herself on an
elbow so she could see his face. "Saeweald?"
"While you spent
the evening with Caela, I went to sit on the edge of the river. I prayed, and
thought, and sought answers."
"And did you
find any?"
His hand stroked
gently over Judith's shoulder, and down her upper arm, making her shiver and
smile. "Aye. Caela—Mag—is right. Imagine the power and
strength of this land if it is wedded to the Game."
"But the Game is
so… foreign."
"Now? After so
many years? I don't believe so, not anymore. You may as well say that Caela is
'foreign' and unacceptable, yet Mag chose her for her rebirth. The Sidlesaghes,
most ancient of creatures, have accepted both Caela and the Game. Imagine the power of all these things combined—the ancients,
the gods, and the Troy Game."
Judith frowned a
little at Saeweald's emphasis on power. "And if Caela is
Mag-reborn, and will
become the Mistress of the Labyrinth, then who is to
become
Og-reborn?"
Saeweald was silent,
but he smiled very slightly as he stared upward toward
the ceiling where
strings of drying herbs swung gently in the warm air that
radiated out from the
brazier.
"By Mag
herself," Judith said softly, "you think it will be you!"
Saeweald focused on
her face. "And who else, eh? I cannot think myself
worthy of the honor…
but who else? Not Harold, for Caela said so,
and surely he is the only other one among us who Og's spirit could
inhabit."
"Saeweald…"
He grinned, and
lifted his head enough to kiss the tip of her nose. "Ah, I know. You think
of the intimacy that must exist between the Mistress and the Kingman, but that
is a mere part of the ritual, a step in the dance, and you should not take it
personally. Besides, when did you assume such a cloak of Christian morality? We
have both had different lovers, in both our lives."
"That was not
what I meant."
"Then
what?"
She hesitated, then
gave a half smile and lay her head back on his chest so that he could no longer
see her face. "Nothing," she said. "I think it is all just too
much to absorb at once. Mag and Og, reborn, and dancing the Game.
Imagine."
He laughed, and they
chatted some more about inconsequential things, and then they made love, and
Saeweald spoke no more of his ambition to
become Og
reincarnate.
But all Judith could
think of, as she lay with Saeweald through that night, was that moment in their
previous life when Loth had challenged Brutus within the labyrinth. Brutus had
seized Loth, and had lifted his sword to take the man's head off, but then Og
himself, by some supernatural effort, had careened from the forest and
dislodged Brutus' sword arm so that, instead of decapitating Loth, Brutus had
merely crippled him.
Had that been
happenchance (Brutus' sword must go somewhere, and better in Loth's spine than
through his neck), or design? Had that sword stroke been as much Og's judgement
on Loth as Brutus' displaced anger?
Was Loth's crippling,
in this life as well as then, Og's judgment? If so, then Saeweald would never
become Og-reborn.
Whatever he himself believed.
And if not Saeweald, then who?
Five
't>, WANNE HAD
NOTICED SOMETHING DIFFERENT
about Caela during
the past few days, and it disturbed her
Xw_^*'
greatly. There was something altered in the way that Caela
moved, in the way that
she sat—very, very still—and in the way Caela looked
about her when she
observed her husband's court.
There was certainly
something very different in the manner Caela looked at Swanne—with sadness and
regret, almost—and that difference was driving Swanne almost to distraction.
There was already
enough to worry about. She did not need to fret about what Caela was doing as
well.
Consequently, when an
opportunity presented itself one afternoon when the court had adjourned for the
day (Edward had retired to murmur and mutter in a chapel), Swanne took it in
both hands. She asked for admittance into Caela's private chamber, received it,
and then asked that she and the queen be allowed to speak in some privacy for a
time.
As Caela's serving women
and attending ladies retreated, Swanne took a seat close to where Caela sat at
her ever-present needlework.
"You wonder what
is changed about me," Caela said simply, put her needlework down, and
lifted her deep blue eyes to Swanne's face. "It is merely this: I have
remembered."
Momentarily shocked,
Swanne's expression froze. "Remembered what?" she said, stupidly.
"That I
am," Caela said in a very even voice, "merely a body to be penetrated
and a pair of legs to be parted… if I remember rightly how you taunted me so
long ago."
Swanne stared, saying
nothing, still trying to absorb the shock.
"Why
Harold?" said Caela. "Why him?
What pleasure did you take, then, in seducing Coel-reborn to your bed?"
"Do you want him now?" said Swanne, finally finding her
voice. "I find that I have tired of him, somewhat."
"William must be
close then. Do you send him reports of Harold? Beg him to invade and take
you?"
Swanne's face
flushed. "He will ever be distant to you!" "Did you not know," Caela said, her
demeanor remaining very calm, "that once you were dead he took me back as
his wife? Back to his bed? I bore him two more children." Caela lowered
her face, resuming her needlework as if this conversation were of no importance
to her.
Now Swanne's face
drained of all color. "Never/1 cannot believe that lie." Caela
shrugged slightly, disinterestedly.
"He loathed
you," Swanne continued. "He found you vile!" She drew in a deep
breath, then resumed in a more even tone. "How is it that you have
suddenly remembered all that you were, and all that you did? Did Asterion draw
close, and plant an enchanted kiss upon your lips to wake you?"
Caela's needle
threaded in and out, in and out. "Asterion has not—" "Has he roused you from your slumber so that you
might once again work his will? Hark!" Swanne put her hands to her face in
mock fright. "Is that a dagger I see at your girdle?"
Despite herself,
Caela's eyes jerked upward, and her cheeks reddened. She immediately looked
away, hating the smile of triumph on Swanne's face. "Where is he, Caela?
Where is Asterion?" "I do not know."
"Ah! Do not expect me to believe
that! You are his handmaiden! His
dagger-hand!"
"No! I will not
again—"
"Have you taken
him to your bed yet, Caela? If I caused the midwives to examine you again,
would they now not find you the same virgin you were a
few weeks past?"
"I am a virgin
still, Swanne. Unlike yourself, I do not need to use my bed
to make my way in
life."
"Ah, poor little
virgin, can you not even find one man eager to take it from you? And now even
Mag has deserted you. Poor worthless bitch goddess. Dead. Was that what woke you, Caela? The corpse of your one true
friend slithering dead in the hot blood running down your thighs?"
Ignoring the look of
distaste on Caela's face, Swanne leaned forward, jerked the needlework out of
the way, then took Caela's hands in her own. To any of Caela's ladies watching
from across the chamber it seemed only that the lady Swanne was comforting
their queen.
"My only regret
is that Asterion did not murder you as well. You are as useless as ever you
were, Caela. Take my advice and cast yourself into the cold waters of the
Thames. Who wants you? No one. You are a pathetic queen—even your husband
cannot bear to take you. When William comes,
and come he will,
Caela, then I shall be his queen, and you shall
be locked away in a nunnery in the cold, gray reaches of the north where even
the scurrying rats will be hard put to remember your name."
She let go Caela's
hands and sat back.
"You were ever
the failure at being the wife. An, no! I lie! There is one small thing at which
you ever excelled as the wife, Caela, and that is in attracting husbands who
despise you, and who can hardly bear to touch you."
Finished, Swanne
raised an eyebrow, as if daring Caela to even attempt a response.
"How
strange," said Caela very softly, her eyes unwavering on Swanne's face,
"that you should say that my husbands despise me, Swanne, when you have
misnamed both my husbands."
Swanne's face assumed
an expression of affected curiosity.
"I am married to
this land, Swanne, and it is not me that this land despises."
Swanne's expression
froze, and she did not move as Caela rose and walked away, brushing aside
Swanne's skirts as she did so.
By all the gods, Caela, Swanne thought, keeping her face
expressionless under the regard of the other ladies in the chamber, / will make you suffer once William is here, and the Game, and England are ours.
CbAPGCRSl-X
Caela Speaks
LAY AT NIGHT
BESIDE MY STILL, COLD HUSBAND—
one part of me
thinking that, ironically, nothing had changed—and tested my memory and powers.
It all felt so
comfortable and so overwhelmingly right,
but still… still… There was still something missing, as I had felt it on the
banks of the Thames. Something not quite as it should be. An emptiness. In that
first euphoric day after the Sidlesaghe had thrown me into the river, and I had
remembered and, in remembering, I had thought that if I had actually felt
anything wrong, then that was merely because of the newness of my awareness.
Now, in the days
following that awakening, and, more particularly, during the long nights
following, I had more than adequate time to investigate.
That exploration
unnerved me. I found a fullness of memory and experience, a growing sense of
power and knowledge, but at the very heart of all this… a cold emptiness. Not
so much that there was something "missing," but that I could not
determine what it was.
Only that I was
slightly "emptier" than I should be.
I consoled myself
with the thought that the Sidlesaghes still had to come to me. I knew that they
had visions to show me, and words to share, and I thought that what was
"missing" (whatever it was) could be supplied by them. They would be
the ones to show me how Swanne could be persuaded to part with her powers. They
were the ones to show me the means whereby Asterion
could be subdued.
They would be the
ones to show me how William… no, I would not dare to think about that now.
There was too much else to be accomplished before
then.
On the fourth night
after that of my awakening, I lay beside Edward thinking deep into the early
hours of the morning. Finally I fell into a fitful sleep.
I dreamed.
I walked the stone
hall again, my stone hall, my special place. I
studied it, seeing that perhaps one day it could be a place of great joy.
Perhaps. If all went
well.
I recalled that, not
so long ago, when I had been Caela-unremembering, William had come to me in
this hall and so, when I heard the soft footfall behind me, I turned, a glad
smile on my face, thinking that it would be him again.
It was Silvius, and
some of the gladness went out of my smile.
Oh, but he was so
much like Brutus! He was as tall, and as dark, but not so heavily muscled, and
his face, almost a mirror of Brutus' own (save for that patch over his empty
eye), was gentler and far more weary than I had ever remembered my husband's.
That gentleness and weariness made my gut wrench, and endeared him to me as
nothing else could have done.
Silvius was dressed
as he would have been in his Trojan prime: beautifully tooled-leather
waistband, soft ivory waistcloth, laced boots that came partway up his calves,
and a variety of gold and bronze jewelry about his fingers and dangling from
his ears. His long, curly black hair was tied with a thong in the nape of his
neck.
About Silvius' limbs,
around his biceps, forearms, and just below his knees, circled broad bands of
paler flesh, as if someone had only recently taken from him the bands that had
once graced his body.
I saw that my fading
smile had hurt him, and so I held out my hands in greeting, and rearranged the
smile upon my face.
"Silvius,"
I said. "What do you here?"
He took my hands, one
of his fingers reaching out to touch the bracelet on my wrist, and smiled in
answer to my own. "Come to see this lovely, magical woman," he said.
"Why, oh why, did Brutus never appreciate you? Not know what a treasure he
held in his arms?"
His hands tightened
about mine as he spoke, and their warmth and dry softness made the breath catch
in my throat. Oh, he was so
much like Brutus!
"What do you
here?" I asked again, hearing the quaver in my voice and hoping Silvius
would not know the reason for it. "What have you been doing, wandering the
streets above, and conversing with Saeweald and Judith?"
"I am a part of
the Game," he said. "Brutus left me to wander its twists eternally.
That is what I do here. I am part of the Game." With his hands, he drew me
in close to him, so that I could feel the heat from his flesh, and feel the
waft of his breath across my face.
"Gods," he
whispered. "I am so glad to see you as you truly should be."
And then he leaned
forward and kissed me, gently, warmly, lingeringly, on my mouth.
I was stunned at my
reaction. Silvius had just dared far too much, but…
lyz
oh, I had always
longed to have Brutus kiss me, and had hated it that this was
the one intimacy he
denied me.
And so, when Silvius
leaned forward and presumed so greatly as to place his mouth on mine, I sighed,
mingling my breath with his, and opened my
mouth under his.
He was surprised, I
think, for he drew back, half-laughing. "Lady," he said,
"do not mistake
me for your son."
I let his hands go,
and smiled apologetically. "I am sorry for that. For a
moment…"
"I am not my
son."
"I know."
To distract him, and
myself, I lifted a hand to the patch over his eye. For a moment, I hesitated,
and then I lifted the patch, and winced at the shadows that I saw writhing
within the empty socket.
For two thousand years the Troy Game
had been attracting evil into its heart, and for two thousand years Silvius had
waited within that same heart, where Brutus' corruption had placed him. The
shadows I saw within Silvius' empty socket was the physical manifestation of
evil at the heart of the Game. "You carry this about with you?" I
whispered.
He nodded. "I
must."
I turned away, unable
to bear it. "I wish I could undo that which Brutus
has done to
you."
"Perhaps one day
you will."
Distracted, both by
his presence, and by the thought of what Silvius had been forced to bear these
two thousand years, I lifted my left arm and allowed the bracelet to sparkle
between us. "I thank you for this. It was a fine gift." "It did not make you remember."
"A little." I allowed myself to
look at him again. "It prepared the way, I
think."
He laughed softly.
"You are very kind." He stepped close to me again, and touched my
hair. "When you killed Genvissa, Brutus kept you imprisoned in a dank,
airless hovel for three years. And then for another twenty-four he took you
back to his bed and tormented you. Oh gods, how is it that I had bred
such a son!"
Abruptly he turned
away. "Do you know," he said, half looking over his shoulder,
"that when my wife was pregnant with Brutus, a seer told me that I should
cause the child to be aborted, for it would be the death of both me and
her."
He laughed shortly.
"She was wrong. He was far more than just the death
of me, He imprisoned
me in torment, as he did you. He—"
"Stop," I
said. "Please."
"You still love
him," he said, wonderingly. "How can that be so?" Now he
swiveled back to me again. "How can that be so when he caused you so much
suffering?"
"But you still love him."
His eye went very
dark, and his face stilled. "Oh, aye, I still love him. He is my son. My
flesh." Silvius hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was soft,
pleading. "Caela, will you come see me sometime, and allow me to come to
you? I have been so lonely…"
"Of
course." I would be glad of it, I thought, to speak with Brutus' father. And it would serve both Brutus and myself in good
stead, when it came time for Brutus-reborn to make his peace with his father,
and with himself.
Thus I reasoned,
although, in truth, when I looked at Silvius, all I really saw was Brutus'
face. It was a selfish foolishness on my part, but I had been a woman
helplessly in love, and despite whom I had become, a part of that love still
lingered.
"Tell me,"
Silvius said, "Now that you are in touch with your true nature, and know
of where you must go—"
The doubt at his
knowledge of that must have shown on my face, for he laughed.
"Of course I
know what you plan, and where you want to go. I have sat in the heart of the
Game, remember? Do you think that I do not know? You want to complete the Game yourself, with your
lover, and make of it a shining thing, rather than the corrupt monster of
Genvissa and Brutus' construction."
I let most of my
doubts go at that point, and laughed slightly. "Is there anything you do not know?"
He made a show of
thinking, and I grinned even more. Silvius had a sense of fun about him that
his son had never demonstrated. I felt doubly attracted to him, and now it was
not merely because of his resemblance to Brutus.
"Aye,"
Silvius said eventually. "Do you know," he touched the pale flesh
about his biceps, "that even though I was once a Kingman, and had kinship
with the bands of Troy, that I cannot feel where Brutus has put them. Can you
feel them?"
I frowned, then shook
my head. "No. He will find them, eventually. Surely."
"Aye. He will.
Meantime, there is but you and me."
He smiled, and it
made him look so handsome, and so appealing, that I felt my heart race a
little, and I knew that he realized it.
"Caela,"
Silvius said, then he stepped close to me, and leaned forward °nce more, and
laid his mouth on mine, and the last thing I remember as
I rose toward
wakefulness was the taste and strength of his tongue in my mouth, and I swear
that taste stayed with me all through the day, and at times that memory made me
tremble and wonder if Silvius was everything that Brutus had not been.
sevejM
% ILLIAM? WILLIAM?" MATILDA SHOOK HER
husband's shoulder,
concerned at his tossing and muttering, Sweet Christ, of what was he dreaming?
"William!" 't—He jerked away, suddenly
sitting upright so abruptly he almost knocked Matilda out of the way.
"Ah," he
said, blinking. "I am sorry, my love. A nightmare engulfed me, and for a
moment I thought I was lost to it."
"A
nightmare?" She slid an arm about his waist, pulling him gently against
her, and kissed his shoulder. "Tell me of it, for then it will lose all
power over you."
He licked his lips,
and for a moment Matilda thought he would not respond, but just as she was
about to broach the silence he began to speak in a harsh tone.
"I dreamed I was
in the labyrinth, trying to save… I don't know whom, but someone who was so
important to me that I would have died if I could have given this person
freedom."
"The
labyrinth?" Matilda said softly, kissing his shoulder once again.
"She was
trapped—"
Matilda held her
breath at that "she."
"—and I could
not find her. The blackness swarmed all about, and I thought it would overwhelm
me… had overwhelmed her… ah, Matilda,
this is making no sense, and I am sorry for it. It makes no sense to me,
either."
"But why dream
of a labyrinth?"
He gave a half shrug.
"It no doubt has meaning that the local village wise-woman can decode for
me."
"Perhaps it
represents England, and your fear that England shall be a trap."
"Perhaps,"
he said eventually.
"William,"
Matilda said, unnerved by her husband's dream, "there is something I
should say to you."
She saw a flash of
his white teeth as he grinned. "What, wife? You feel the
need to confess a passion for the stableman? For the
houndsman? You need to tell me that none of my children were fathered by me,
but by a variety of
rough-speaking
peasants?"
She did not grin as
he had expected her to. "Matilda?"
"William, perhaps
England will be a trap."
"What do you
know?"
"Hardrada lusts
for England. You know this."
He nodded. "The
king of Norway has long cast envious eyes south. What
of it?"
"It is possible
that he conspires with Tostig, Harold's brother."
"Against
Harold?"
"Who else?"
"How do you know
this?" William asked eventually.
"Womanly gossip,
my love."
He regarded her
silently for some time, then nodded. If she would not tell
him, he would respect
that for the moment. For the moment.
eigbc
WANNE GLANCED OVER
HER SHOULDER, SAW
that Harold was
ensconced in some doubtless dry conversation with Earl Ralph, Edward's nephew;
Wulfstan, the bishop of Worcester; and his younger brother, Tostig. Swanne knew
there had been some bad blood between Harold and Tostig recently, but they
seemed to have resolved whatever differences they had in the past few days, and
now were back to their old, easy friendship. There was an empty chair set next
to Harold's: Swanne's chair, but she had no intention of filling it this
evening. Just behind the group of men, sitting attentive on a bench, were
Harold and Swanne's eldest sons, Beorn and Alan. Saeweald was sitting with the
boys as well, and managed to catch Swanne's eye during her brief glance.
She arched an eyebrow
at him, then deliberately turned her back, walking slowly and gracefully down
the hall toward a gathering of southern thegns listening to the sweet voice of
a Welsh bard. Swanne smiled as the group rose to greet her, then accepted a
seat from one of the thegns.
This would be a far
pleasanter means of spending the evening than having to pretend a smile at
Harold. Truly, now that events moved apace, and William was surely so close,
she would not have to submit to him for much longer.
The king had retired
early, well before Vespers, whining about a headache and a congestion of his
belly. Freed from the necessity of attending the king during evening court,
Harold and his retinue had retired thankfully to the earl's own hall and
chambers at the southern end of the palace complex. Caela, Swanne assumed as
she settled down and allowed the thegns and bard to fawn over her, was trapped
with her husband, wiping either his brow or his arse, whichever needed the most
attention at the moment.
Her grin broadening,
Swanne relaxed and tried to concentrate on the song the bard was now singing
for her. In truth, she'd not had many settled moments these past few days.
Something had happened… something had shifted.
Oh, yes, part of it
was Caela suddenly recalling all that had been—for no apparent reason—but that
was not all.
Was it something
about the land? The very soil and the forests and the waters? It made Swanne
uncomfortable. Once she would have known. Once she had been the MagaLlan, and nothing occurred within and to the land without her being
fully apprised of it. But Swanne's powers as MagaLlan had passed with her
previous life, and her darkcraft lay untouchable, and something was moving
beneath her feet that she was not privy to.
Asterion, no doubt.
Damn you, William, Swanne thought, keeping the
smile light on her mouth and the desperation from her eyes, Reach out to me! Let me know that you, at
least, are well/
William still hadn't
replied to her request that he tell her where the golden bands of Troy were. Damn him for delaying the information! They were all in danger
of dancing to Asterion's call… and Swanne had no doubt at all that Asterion
would be trying to locate those bands before
William arrived in England to claim his throne and his heritage.
Hadn't that been what
Asterion had been doing these two thousand years,
while delaying their
rebirth?
She had to find those bands now!
Before Asterion.
Swanne could not
entirely prevent the shiver of apprehension that shot from the base of her
spine to her neck. If Asterion found those bands, then he would effectively
prevent William and her from dancing the final Dance of the Flowers and
completing the Game. It was all Asterion had to do. He need not
even face William.
He only had to find
and hide, or destroy, those bands.
From the corner of
her eye, Swanne saw the great door at the end of the
Hall open, and
glanced over.
More churchmen! Was the entire land swarming with them?
The archbishop of York, Aldred, and Eadwine, abbot of Westminster Abbey, had
entered, smiling and nodding, and—damn them!—were making their way
toward Swanne and her group of musicians and admirers.
Swanne's smile
slipped, but she had it back in place by the time Aldred and Eadwine sat
themselves down a few places from her, bobbing their heads pleasantly to all
about. Eadwine began a muted conversation with the thegn beside him, while
Aldred waved the bard to continue as he sat back, and, closing his eyes, folded
his hands over his huge belly. His expression relaxed into one of total
enjoyment, and Swanne had to admit that perhaps the archbishop did find the
soulful music of the Welsh bard a more enjoyable entertainment than the
constant wail of sinners and beggars, and the incoherent mumble of monkish
prayers that must surely fill most of his days.
The great door opened
again, admitting yet another party, but this time
Swanne ignored it, as
she finally relaxed under the spell of the bard's beautiful voice.
It would be another
group of clerics, or sycophants perhaps, come to scry out the lay of the land
in the court of, possibly, the king to follow Edward.
If only they knew, Swanne thought, closing her eyes
herself and allowing her body to sway slightly to the rhythm of the bard's
music. If only they knew.
William, her lips formed slowly, and,
briefly, the tip of her tongue glistened between her teeth.
Asterion saw her from his place
within the hall, and read her thoughts, and kept his face bland and pleasant,
and his thoughts to himself.
When Swanne reopened
her eyes, it was to notice that the entire world seemed to have changed.
No longer was she the
sole object of attention within her circle of clerics, thegns, and musicians.
Instead, all of their
eyes—indeed, every eye within the hall!—was watching as Caela and several of
her attending ladies walked slowly and assuredly up the hall toward Harold and
his company.
It must have been Caela and her party who had entered the hall after Aldred.
But why wasn't Caela with her husband? What was she doing here? Swanne had never known Caela to
do something like this.
It was far too bold
for the contemptuous wretch.
And the way she
walked. She was so confident, so majestic.
So sure of herself.
Every eye in the hall
was riveted on Caela, and not merely because of her surprising entrance.
Because of the way she walked. That wasn't like Caela at all.
Not even a Caela who had suddenly recalled her previous life.
Swanne felt her heart
thudding within her chest. There was something about the way Caela moved,
something in the way she held herself. Something Swanne should have recognized,
and yet remained curiously just out of recognition's reach. Damn her!
She swiveled about on
her seat, and stared toward Caela who was, by now, within ten paces of Harold.
And the empty chair
beside him.
Nausea and cold
disbelief gripped Swanne in equal amounts. Caela was about to take Swanne's place at Harold's side!
Apart from making an
inelegant and highly embarrassing dash to get to the chair before Caela, there
was absolutely nothing Swanne could do about it.
OO
GI
Caela was about to take Swanne's place at the top of the
hall. Caela!
That Caela, both as
queen of England and as Harold's sister and equal, had every right to take that
chair, did not enter Swanne's mind. That she herself had disdained to sit with
Harold did not for a moment occur to Swanne. All she could think of was that
Caela was going to take her place at the head of the hall.
Then, just as Caela
reached the group of now-standing men, she turned
about in a move so
elegant and lissome that Swanne had trouble believing
that it was Caela
standing there at all. She faced Swanne, and extended one
long, white, graceful
hand and arm behind her to the chair by Harold's side.
"If I may,
sister?" she said, smiling with great sweetness at Swanne. "This
is your seat, after
all."
Swanne was so furious
that her entire body tensed, and she almost growled. Caela had her trapped.
Swanne simply could not refuse her permission without
appearing scandalously ungracious. Every eye in the hall was on her. A moment
passed.
Something changed
within Caela's smile, something so subtle that Swanne was sure no one but her
would have noted it. Swanne realized that Caela was deliberately provoking her.
For the sheer enjoyment of it.
"As my queen
wishes," Swanne said. Then, as Caela bowed her head in acceptance, and
started to turn back to Harold, Swanne added, "And, if you wish, you can
also take my place in your brother's bed. We all know how much
you have both lusted
for it."
Absolute silence
filled the hall. No one could believe Swanne had said that. Rumor and innuendo
was one thing, outright accusation another.
As one, eyes turned
from Swanne to Caela.
Among them, Asterion was absolutely
incredulous. If he didn't mind his way, Swanne would dig her own grave before
he could manage it for her! Gods! The
Intemperance of the woman!
He narrowed his eyes, intrigued as to
how Caela would react.
Caela tilted her head
slightly, her still face composed, and regarded Swanne thoughtfully. "Even
if your own tastes have been bred within the dung heap, sister, you should
think twice before ascribing them to others. If you find my purity unbearable,
then think not to besmirch it with your own foulness." Swanne froze in
humiliation and fury, unable for the moment to respond. Caela's eyes shifted
slightly, looking to Archbishop Aldred, sitting a few places from Swanne, and
looking as shocked as everyone else. "Perhaps, my Lord Archbishop,"
she said, "you might take my lady Swanne aside for some instruction in
manners. Such careless accusations, bred within privy pits and
spoken with
spitefulness, are the wont only of barnyard sows accustomed to rolling in muck.
They are not becoming to those who believe themselves great ladies of the
realm."
With that, Caela
turned her back to Swanne, smiled at Harold (who had been glaring at Swanne
with silent promises of later retribution), took his hand and allowed herself
to be escorted to the chair beside his.
Behind her, thegns
slowly began to drift away from Swanne's group, thinning it to such an extent
that within minutes there remained only Swanne, the highly embarrassed
archbishop, the equally embarrassed, but also angry, abbot, and a Welsh bard,
who looked as if he did not know whether to continue singing or not.
"I am most sorry
for that," Harold murmured as Caela sat down. He was studying her as many
others were, surprised that the queen had managed to best Swanne in the verbal
exchange. "You spoke well, sister. Swanne has ever had a vicious tongue,
and that little jest of hers was unbecoming in the extreme." It was what Harold had to say,
even if, in his heart, he was writhing in shame. What
had Swanne seen when she'd walked in on him and Caela that single time they'd
let their passions rule their heads?
Caela shrugged,
looking utterly unperturbed. "Swanne is… Swanne. It is no matter to me,
brother. Now, Judith shall stay with me, and my other ladies may interest
themselves as they may in the hall."
She waved away her
attending ladies, save for Judith, who sat on a stool Saeweald had placed
beside Caela's chair, and nodded greetings to her brother Tostig and the other
men who were now resuming their seats about Harold. Tostig was regarding her as
thoughtfully as most others were: that exchange was not what he would have
suspected from the girl he had known so many years.
"What great
conference have I interrupted, Harold, Tostig?" Caela said. "Such
grave faces you all wear!"
Harold glanced at
Judith, and Caela reached down a hand to the woman, keeping her eyes steady on
Harold's face. "I trust Judith with my life," she said. "You
may, also."
Harold looked again
to Judith, then to Saeweald, who gave a very slight nod.
"Very
well," he said, then he sighed, and rubbed a hand over his suddenly
haggard face. "Not good news, Caela. I have heard that Harold Hardrada has
agents within this court. I fear their intent."
Tostig rolled his
eyes. "Our brother has turned to womanly fancies, sister."
"The
intelligence is good!" Harold snapped.
"Of what do you
fear, Harold?" Caela said.
O
"Hardrada wants
England, he has made no secret of this. I worry that he will try to smooth his
way to the throne with some silent, treacherous action."
"Do you fear for
yourself, Harold?" Tostig asked softly. "Why, the last I heard, you
had surrounded yourself with an army to keep unwanted daggers
at bay."
Harold gave Tostig a
dark look, but did not respond to his taunt.
"Can you
discover who they are?" Caela said.
Harold nodded.
"Within a day or two. My men know where one of the agents, a man named
Olafson, hides. I will have him taken, and questioned."
Caela grimaced. She
knew precisely what Harold meant by "questioned."
To one side, Tostig's
face had suddenly gone very still.
"Ah!"
Harold continued, "If only I had the knowledge of the angels on my side,
and knew when Edward will finally gasp his last. Then I could plan the better
to meet any challengers. But," he shrugged, smiling wryly now, "who
can know such
things."
Caela started to
speak, then stopped, indecision written across her face. She exchanged a glance
with Saeweald, then dropped her gaze to her lap.
"What do you
know, sister?" Harold asked very quietly. "You share his chamber
intimately. Is there something you can share?"
She lifted her eyes to
his. "Edward will not live more than a few days past the New Year
celebrations."
There was an utter
silence as everyone stared at her. "How can you know this?" asked
Wulfstan, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Such knowledge is witchery,
surely."
Caela regarded the
bishop very calmly. "I know this," she said, "because, as Harold
has said, I am my husband's wife, and I know his every breath and manner. And I
know this because my husband's physician," again she glanced at Saeweald,
"tells me that Edward has not long to live. And… and I have dreamed it. An
angel has indeed come to me and told me as much."
People nodded,
accepting her explanation. But again, as before, Tostig's face was very still,
his eyes watchful.
"And my
fate?" asked Harold. "What is my fate, then, if you speak to
angels in your
dreams?"
Caela leaned forward
and took both of Harold's hands in hers. Her expression was one of great
sadness and joy combined. "You will become a hero such as this land has
never seen before," she said. "You will live in glory."
To his side, Tostig
and Saeweald exchanged glances, then as quickly looked away from each other
again.
Harold stared at her,
then his mouth quirked. "That may be read as either a glorious death, or a
glorious reign, sister. No! Do not explain yourself, for I regret the asking of
the question in the first place. But do tell me, since you
O
seem to know so much,
who is it I should fear the most? Who stands as the greatest obstacle between
me and the throne of England?"
She tipped her head,
and regarded him. "Your enemies shall flock like crows, Harold. I am not
the warrior to tell you which one shall be the most cunning."
Harold gave a hard
bark of laughter. "You do not want to
tell me!"
Something hardened in
Caela's eyes. "Beware of William, brother, for at his back shall ride the
greatest enemy this land shall ever know."
"Now you speak
in riddles, Caela. Should I fear his wife, Matilda? But, oh yes, William…"
he drifted into silence, one hand rubbing at his short, stub-bled beard.
"Has there been
any more spoken," said Wulfstan, "of that contract Edward and William
are rumored to have made between them fourteen years ago?"
Harold chewed his
lip. Twelve years ago Edward had moved briefly—but with great effect—against
the Godwine clan. The entire family, even Caela, had been exiled for almost a
year, and only the great cunning of Earl Godwine himself had seen their
eventual restoration to power. They had regained their place, but ever since
that time it had been rumored that, while free of the Godwine family's
influence, Edward had made a pact with William, promising him the throne of
England on Edward's death.
"There is always
a great deal rumored about William," Harold said quietly, his eyes
unfocused, "and very little spoken that is known fact. What does William
plan? How shall he justify his ambitions before God and the other thrones of
Europe? I don't know… I don't know…"
And there lies the rub, thought Harold. No one knows what William is or is not planning. And
without that knowledge, anything I plan is certain to be torn asunder the
instant I act on it. What are you planning, William? Will you content yourself
with Normandy, or do you want this green isle, as well?
HE HUMILIATED ME, AND YOU SAID NOTHING!"
Swanne said, as she
watched her husband disrobe.
Harold remained
silent, unlacing his tunic, sliding it over his
head and tossing it
across a chest.
Swanne stalked
closer, her hands balled into fists, her face white with fury, her black eyes
snapping. "You have a duty to me. I am your wife. I—"
Harold suddenly
turned about from laying his shirt atop his tunic and grabbed her chin in his
hand. "You have a vile tongue, Swanne, and, I am learning, a mind to go
with it! Be silent, I beg you, before I lose what little
regard I have left
for you!"
She twisted out of
his grip. "You've always lusted after her."
He went white, but
said or did nothing.
"You dream about
it, don't you? I've heard you, mumbling at night, planning your incestuous
assault on your sister's body—"
He slapped her, then
grabbed her wrist as she tried to strike him and twisted it so violently she
cried out. "Caela was right," he said, "when she said you had
been bred within a dunghill, Swanne. You are the get of a worm and the night;
there is no sweetness within you at all, merely vileness."
Again Harold turned
from her, twisting off his boots and then his trousers
and tossing them
toward the chest.
Swanne nursed her
wrist, watching him with, finally, all of her loathing and contempt writhing
across her face. "And there is nothing for you but the dunghill, Harold. You cast your eyes toward the
throne, but you should know
that—"
She stopped suddenly,
both her eyes and those of Harold's flying to the
door that had
suddenly opened.
Tostig stood there,
his face equal amounts incredulity and humor as he regarded his naked brother
and Swanne standing before him.
"My, my,"
he said softly, closing the door and walking slowly into the room.
His eyes were very
wary.
O
"Is this the
future king and queen of England I see before me? Nay, I think not. This
behavior cannot surely be that of—"
"What do you
want, Tostig?" Harold said roughly.
Tostig had been
watching Swanne who, correctly reading the look on his face, took three or four
steps back, spreading her hands out at her sides. Now, he turned back to his
brother.
"Only this,
Harold," he said softly, "that Hardrada sends his greetings, and bids
you a well-earned death."
And, lightening
quick, he drew his dagger from the belt at his waist and plunged it toward
Harold's heart.
Harold had nothing
with which to defend himself save his hands. He grabbed Tostig's wrist just as
the dagger reached his chest, and managed to stop the blade before it had
penetrated more than a finger's thickness into his body. With all the strength
he had, he wrenched the dagger backward, but he could do nothing about Tostig's
weight that, leaning down with the force of his plunge forward, pushed Harold
back onto the bed.
"For God's sake,
Swanne!" Harold shouted. "Send for aid! Now!"
Swanne watched, her
face still slack in shock at the suddenness of the attack. Then, as Harold
screamed at her again, she smiled, very slightly, and stood back, folding her
arms across her breasts.
"No," she
said, and then laughed softly as the two men writhed their deadly dance across
the bed.
CAELA WAS ASLEEP,
WHEN SUDDENLY HER INNOCU-
ous dream slid into
horror.
His face was tom from her hands by a
great black shadow that loomed over them, and she saw a glint of metal that
swept in a vicious arc across Coel's throat. His body, still deep within hers,
convulsed, and she screamed, and blood spurted over her in a hot, sticky flood.
Brutus took a firmer grip on Coel's
hair, then he tore him from her, tearing him painfully out from her, and all
she could do was cry, "No! No! Oh, gods, Brutus, no! Not Coel!"
And then she heard Swanne laugh…
Caela jerked upright
in bed, shrieking so loudly that both Edward, Judith, and the bowerthegn woke
shouting as well.
"Assassins!"
Caela screamed, stumbling in her haste to leap from the bed and grabbing her
robe as soon as her feet hit the floor. "Assassins! Harold's chambers. Oh,
God, assassins! Help him!"
O
"No!"
hissed Edward, but by then both Judith and the bowerthegn had rushed from the
chamber and were rousing the guards.
"It will be too
late," Caela whispered, standing as if stunned, or still caught by dream.
"He is too far from us."
HAROLD AND TOSTIG
TWISTED ACROSS THE BED,
rolling this way and
that, each man grunting with effort, neither man able to gain the upper hand
from an opponent as strong and as battle-hardened
as the other.
"For the gods'
sakes, Tostig," Swanne muttered, her look now anxious.
"Do not
mismanage this as you have so many other matters!"
At that moment Harold
cried out, and Swanne saw a thick smear of blood
mar the surface of
the creamy bed linens. "Good," she said. "Very good."
THE PALACE WAS AWAKE
AND IN FULL CRY, GUARDS
grabbing weapons and
rushing through halls and chambers toward exits and, eventually, Harold's hall
to the south of Edward's palace.
Caela ran with them,
her robe flapping and barely knotted about her waist, terrified, hearing Swanne
laugh, hearing also Harold's cry of pain and fear.
They would never get there in time!
Summoning all the
power she could through her panic, she sent a shaft of alarm directly to the
men she knew stood guard within Harold's own hall.
Your lord fights away an assassin!
Aid him, aid him, now!
Then, to her immense
relief, Caela felt within her an echoing answer of panic as the guards within
Harold's hall rushed toward his bedchamber.
TOSTIG SUDDENLY CRIED
OUT, ROLLING AWAY FROM
Harold, a deep cut
across his belly. Harold lurched upright, his own chest and belly covered in
blood and, ignoring the dagger, struck Tostig an immense
blow to his jaw.
The blow sent Tostig
tumbling to the floor. Harold lurched forward, meaning to throw himself after
his brother, but one of his legs tangled in a sheet, and he fell, hitting the
floor with a heavy thud and cry of pain.
Tostig rolled to his
knees, gripping the dagger, and exchanging a quick glance with Swanne who was
stepping forth, her hands held out in entreaty— finish him! For the gods' sakes, finish him!—but just then Tostig heard the
distant footfalls
of the guards rushing up the stairs and, with a bitter curse, he
O
sheathed the dagger
in his belt, stumbled to his feet, and disappeared out the door.
WHEN CAELA ARRIVED
WITH JUDITH, THE BOWERTHEGN, and what seemed like an entire company of guards
from Edward's palace, it was to find Harold sitting on his bed, one of his
guards by his side holding a thick wad of bedding to Harold's chest and belly
to staunch the bleeding, and Swanne standing by the window, staring out, her
face closed, her arms folded.
"Harold!"
Caela said and ran to him, pushing away the guard's hand so that she could
examine her brother's wound. "Harold? Are you well? Oh, gods, I dreamed of
treachery—" 7 dreamed
that Genvissa had set Brutus to your death all over again "—and came as fast as I
could."
"It was
Tostig," Harold said, wincing as Caela's probing fingers bit a little too
deeply.
Caela went very
still. "Tostig?" she whispered. "Oh gods… Tostig…"
"Tostig was ever
the fool," Swanne said in a toneless voice. She still kept her back to
them as she stood by the window.
Harold looked his
wife's way, and the black hate in his eyes was enough to make Caela recoil.
"Swanne?"
she whispered. "Again?"
Swanne turned about.
"Me? Nay, Caela. I was surprised as any by Tostig's attack."
"She stood
back," Harold said. "She laughed, refusing to aid me."
"I was afraid
for my own life!" Swanne cried, her face now a mask of fright. "I
thought he would take his blade to me the instant he had done with you!"
Harold was about to
say more, but just then Saeweald pushed his way past the guards standing about,
and the movement was enough to make the bowerthegn spring into action.
"What are you
standing about for!" he cried, his face purpling. "Seek out the
assassin! Now!"
Within three
heartbeats, the chamber had almost emptied again as the bowerthegn hurried the
guards out the door, leaving for the moment only Harold, Swanne, Judith, and
Caela.
"Let me
see," said Saeweald as he sat on Harold's other side. He pushed away
Caela's hands, pulled back the wad of bedding that was being used to staunch
the bleeding and, with fingers considerably less gentle than Caela's had been,
pulled back the flap of skin on the cut that ran across Harold's belly, and
then probed the puncture wound in his chest.
Harold cursed,
pulling away, but Saeweald would not leave him be until he'd finished his
examination.
^wo
He grunted finally,
allowing Caela to wipe away the blood, and sat back. "You're lucky,"
Saeweald said. "The chest wound did not go deep enough to reach either
your heart or your lungs. It will be sore enough for a few days, but it will
leave you with hardly a scar. The belly wound I will need to stitch, but only
because of its length, it is even less deep than that wound in your
chest." Swanne laughed, harsh and bitter, making everyone jerk their heads
toward her. "Well now," she said, "what a scene this is. Is it
only someone with my sense of humor who could possibly enjoy it? Ah, I see no
need to pretend, not with who we have here in this chamber."
She sauntered
forward. "Lucky, lucky Caela," she said, very low, her eyes vicious,
"isn't this just what you always wanted? Sitting on a bed next to your
naked lover—only this time he has survived the assassin's knife. Tell me,
should we leave you in peace so you and your lover can consummate your love…
I'm sure those wounds won't stop him."
Caela's face hardened
as she opened her mouth to speak, but Harold forestalled her. He pushed aside
Saeweald's hands, strode over to his wife, and
grabbed her arm with
a tight hand.
"Get you gone
from here, you snake-tongued bitch," he said and, despite her protests,
pushed her through the door and slammed it shut after her. Then Harold turned
about, his face more determined now than angry, walked over to where Caela sat,
leaned down, and kissed her hard on the mouth.
"I am no longer
ashamed of what I feel for you," he said, standing upright again. "On
the night that my brother tried to murder me, and my wife begged him to
succeed, I have no reluctance in admitting before all present," his eyes
swept over Saeweald and Judith, "that I love you more than any other
woman,
more than life
itself."
Caela rose slowly,
her eyes riveted on Harold's. "Harold…" She sighed, closed her eyes
briefly, then leaned forward and kissed him very softly on the mouth. "We
cannot. We each have different paths to travel. If we were to act on this love,
it would destroy this realm. What we feel for each other would be used against
us, and this land and its people would be the ones to suffer. We cannot, and I,
for one, am most sorry for it."
She turned away, and,
her head bowed, left the chamber.
G6JM
Caela Speaks
AROLD CAME TO SEE
ME THE DAY AFTER TOSTIG'S
vile treachery. It
was in the late afternoon, and many among the
court, my husband
included, had gone to vespers services within
the abbey church.
Edward had only shrugged when told of the drama within
Harold's bedchamber
the previous night, and commented: "I'd thought Tostig
was a better marksman
than that."
I was seated before
the fire in the Lesser Hall that Edward and I used for our smaller courts when
Harold arrived. He nodded away Judith and the two other ladies who were seated
with me as I rose to greet him.
Under normal circumstances
I would have kissed him on the mouth—that was normal greeting between close
relatives—but "normal circumstance" between us had been shattered the
previous night. I took his hands between mine, and pressed them, then let them
go and silently cursed the awkwardness between us.
"Harold… are you
well? Your wounds?"
"They sting a
little," he said, and I could see that in the stiffness of his movement as
he lowered himself into the chair, "but they shall be no more trouble.
Saeweald has done well."
"And Tostig has
done badly," I said. "Oh, Harold, I cannot believe that our
brother—"
"Leave Tostig
for the moment," he said. "Caela, what happened last night, what I
said—"
"What you said
was truth, and best spoken," I said. "Do I feel this pull between us?
Yes, of course I do. But we cannot act on it, Harold. We cannot. We
are each more than just a man and a woman unhappily yearning each for the
other. What each of us does affects an entire realm and its people. We
cannot."
I cannot kill you again through my ill-considered
passions, Coel. Please understand that. Please.
IO
His mouth twisted
wryly. "You state your case as clearly as you did last night. I am sorry
that I have so discomforted you."
"You comfort me
through all my life, Harold," I said as softly and lovingly
as I could.
He looked away,
overcome, I think, with emotion, and for long moments
we were silent.
Finally, unable to
bear it any longer, I said, "Tostig?" He sighed. "Last night's
debacle was my own fault. You remember that when we sat in court in the
evening, I mentioned that I'd heard that Hardrada had agents within
Westminster, and I had the means to shortly discover them, and their
purpose?" I nodded.
His mouth twisted
wryly. "Even then I suspected Tostig. I had thought to goad him into
action… but I had no idea how deadly that action might be." I closed my
eyes momentarily, unable to bear the thought that Tostig might have succeeded.
"Have you found him?" "No. He slipped away." Aided, no doubt, by Swanne's witchcraft, I thought. How she must have
enjoyed last night.
He reached a hand out
and took one of mine. I tensed, but then relaxed. A hand was not much.
"You aided me," he said. "I am not sure how, but I know it was
you. My men said they were roused by the sound of your voice screaming in their
heads, screaming that an assassin was upon me."
I said nothing, but
my eyes filled with tears. All I could think of was how Brutus had torn him
from me, and ripped out his throat. To have that happen
again…
"Ah," he
said, very softly, "you do not deny it. Then I do owe you my life."
"You are very
beloved to me, Harold," I whispered.
He smiled, and it
contained no demands, nor hurt. Nothing but love.
"Swanne?" I
said, wanting to distract both him and myself.
"Ah, Swanne.
After Saeweald attended me last night I returned with him to his own chamber,
mostly to avoid my damnable wife, as to avoid the stink of murder in my
bedchamber, but also partly as a precaution should Tostig have decided to try
again. I have not seen her this morning, nor shall I seek
her out."
"Be wary of
her."
"You do not need
to warn me of that! God, Caela, she stood there and
laughed as Tostig
tried to murder me."
"She can do far
worse, Harold. Please…"
"I will be wary of her, my love. Now, to the reason I came to
you this morning, apart from my desire to lay my eyes on your beautiful face
yet again,
and to thank you for
saving my life. Caela, I need your aid further to what you have already done
for me."
"You have
it."
"You may not be
so willing to offer it when you hear what I need from you."
"You will always
have my aid, Harold. Whatever you plan."
"I have put it
about that in four days' time I intend to return to my home estates in Wessex.
My stewards have some problems that I need to attend. Besides, I need the peace
to recover from Tostig's brutal attack."
I inclined my head.
Nothing thus far seemed very difficult.
He held my eyes steady.
"But Wessex is not my true destination, sister."
I raised an eyebrow.
"I go to see
William of Normandy."
"Harold!"
"Shush! Keep
your voice down! No one must know of this, Caela! I need you to help maintain
the ruse that I am in Wessex."
"Why? Why?" My heart was pounding in my breast, and my
emotions were so tangled that I could not sort them out. Oh, gods, William was his murderer in his previous life… why go to see him now? "Why, Harold?"
"I need to know
William's intentions. I need to know his ambitions. Caela, the crows are
gathering for Edward's death. I need to know who my rivals for the throne shall
be. After last night, I can now be certain that Tostig will be against me, and
will probably ally with Hardrada—only the gods know what Hardrada has promised
Tostig in return. But William is an unknown. He could be either my rival or my
ally. What does he plan?"
Ah, mercies, I knew
exactly what he planned, but how could I tell Harold this without shaking him
to the very core of his being with the tale of his previous life? Harold needed
strength and equanimity to survive what faced him. Saeweald and Ecub were
surely right when they argued that he did not need to be distracted or perhaps
even tipped into uncertainty by what had happened to Coel. I believed that
Harold had a better chance against William without the burdens of both their
previous lives.
"I need him to
know, if he does not know it already," Harold said, "that England
shall stand united behind me. Perhaps if he knows that, then he will ally with
me, continue the partnership he had with Edward. He may not be such a willing
rival if he knows how England will stand behind me."
Ha! I thought, but again felt that it would be better
that Harold discovered now where William's ambitions lay than delude himself
with the hope he might be an ally. "The witan will elect you king?" I
said.
"Aye. They have
given me their word."
"And you hope
that, in informing William of this, he might retract his
ambitions? Reconsider
his likelihood of success? Consider instead an alliance
before a
challenge?"
"He already has
Normandy safe in hand. Why lust for England as well
when it might well
kill him?"
Oh, what could I say? That
William-once-Brutus would have no compunction in slaughtering the entire witan,
in razing the entire land, if he thought it would clear his way to London, to
Swanne, and to his Trojan kingship bands?
And yet what harm
could Harold's trip do?
Particularly if I
armed Harold as best I could for his venture.
Besides, this he did need to know.
"Harold," I
said, laying a hand on his knee. "I have some deeply privy information for
you that has only just come to my ears."
Had just come to my
own understanding, more like, but there was no means by which I could explain
this to Harold.
"Yes?" he
said.
"It will be
useful for you at William's court," I continued. "A weapon."
"Yes?"
"William has an
agent, a spy, within Edward's court."
He gave a harsh bark
of laughter. "I am not startled to hear of it. There are agents
everywhere, I think."
"It is
Swanne."
Nothing I could have
said would have shocked Harold more. Well, perhaps one or two revelations may
have shocked him more, but this one certainly had no small effect.
He stared,
white-faced. "Swanne?"
I nodded.
"Why? Why?"
What could I say but
the truth? "She lusts for him, and she lusts to sit as
queen beside
him."
Harold cursed.
"Then no wonder she stood by and laughed as Tostig tried to murder me. Ah,
I have misjudged both her and Tostig. I knew she disliked me, but to betray me
to William? I had not thought she would go that far."
What could I say?
That Swanne wanted William, not for the title as queen, but because he was her
Kingman, and with him she could achieve a greater immortality than she ever
could as wife to Harold?
Harold was a
hindrance to the Mistress of the Labyrinth. William was a
much-loved necessity.
"There can be no
doubt that I will set her aside after her behavior last night, as well knowing
her betrayal of me to William," Harold added, his face now rigid with
anger. "By Christ himself, Caela, does Swanne not know that William is
already wed, and securely so by all accounts?"
A wife has never stood in her path
before, I
thought, and she will not
allow one to do so now.
"Be
careful," I said, meaning so much with those two simple words.
"Aye,"
Harold said, smiling in what I suppose he hoped would be a reassuring manner.
He rose. "You will put it about that I am in Wessex, and perhaps send
communications to me there, so that all may think I truly am within my
estates?"
"Aye, of course.
Harold…" I took his hand as he was about to step away. "Will you do
something for me?"
"Anything."
"Will you talk
to Matilda, William's wife, and discover what kind of woman she is? I have
heard so many rumors of her, and I would like to hear a report from eyes I can
trust."
I was curious.
Feverishly so. Matilda might make all the difference if she was indeed as
strong as rumor had it. William had been married to her for some fifteen years.
They had many children together.
"Harold," I
continued, "will you tell me if… if she is someone William respects?"
I could see he was
agog with curiosity as to my motives, but he merely nodded. "Of
course."
And will you tell me of William? I wanted to ask, but did not.
Oh, merciful heavens,
how I wanted to be there when Coel-who-was and Brutus-who-was met again for the
first time in two thousand years.
I hoped that William
had learned enough that he would not instantly slide a sword through Harold's
throat.
ebspceR ecevejsi
/%/%/* HEN HAROLD HAD BEEN GONE THREE
DAYS,
ostensibly to visit
his estates in Wessex, and the court quieter-''' ened in its traditional lull
between harvest celebrations and Christmastide festivities, Caela lay asleep
beside her husband the king in the
quiet, dark night.
The night was very
still and, now that autumn had taken firm grip on the land, very cold, readying
itself for a heavy frost at dawn. Nothing moved, not so much as a night owl,
not even a breath of air.
King Edward's and
Queen Caela's bedchamber lay as still and cold as the rest of Edward's kingdom,
as heavy and unyielding as the wall Edward had built between himself and the
woman who lay at his side. It was a large chamber, its floorboards covered in
part with thick rugs, its timber-planked walls hung with woolen tapestries and
drapes. A great bed occupied the central portion of the chamber, its
embroidered drapes pulled partway about the great mattress where lay the king
and queen, their motionless forms huddled far
apart.
The king's bowerthegn
occupied a trestle bed closer to the door. Beside the bed, lying unscabbarded
on the floorboards, lay a sword so that the bowerthegn could set his hand to it
the instant danger threatened.
Unusually, the
bowerthegn appeared to have forgotten to shutter the windows before he retired
and now faint moonlight, occasionally shadowed by thin clouds that scudded
across the night sky, spilled through the chamber.
The sleepers did not
move, save in the gentle breath of sleep.
The moonlight
intensified, almost as if the moon had suddenly waxed to its full girth within
the space of a breath.
A stray cloud scudded
briefly across its face and, when it moved on, the strange, intense moonlight
flooded the chamber once more.
The chamber was not
as it had been before the cloud had so briefly
obscured the moon.
Now, in that expanse
of bare floorboards between the great bed and that of the bowerthegn by the
door, there appeared a trapdoor. As yet it was little more
than a faint
outlining of lines within the boards but, as the moonlight grew ever stronger
and the breathing of the sleepers ever heavier, the lines thickened and
deepened until the trapdoor became a new reality within the chamber.
Everyone slept on.
The trapdoor
quivered, then rose, achingly slowly, utterly silently.
An arm lifted with
the door, its hand gripping the bolt that raised the door. It was a very long
arm, browned, and roped with muscle. There was a moment of stillness, as if
whatever awaited beneath the trapdoor hesitated, to ensure all was well, then,
satisfied that all was as it should be, a Sidlesaghe rose entirely from the
trapdoor, laying it open silently against the floor.
Again the Sidlesaghe
hesitated, looking first at the bowerthegn, then at the sleeping king whose
lips rattled wetly as a small snore escaped his throat. Finally, content that
all was at it should be, the Sidlesaghe walked to Caela's side of the bed,
folded his hands before him, and waited.
A moment later
Caela's eyes opened. She saw the Sidlesaghe, and then, without comment, turned
back the bedclothes as he held out a hand for her.
Once she had risen,
the Sidlesaghe handed her a cloak that had mysteriously appeared in one of his
hands, then he nodded at the trapdoor.
She stared at it,
clearly puzzled, for directly beneath this bedchamber lay the dais of the Great
Hall. She looked at the Sidlesaghe, raising her eyebrows.
He merely nodded once
more at the blackness revealed in the mouth of the trapdoor.
Caela gave a slight
shrug, then walked to the trapdoor and descended through it into the unknown. The
Sidlesaghe stepped down after her, and in the next moment the trapdoor had
closed, and there was nothing in the chamber save for the smooth floor and the
heavy shadows of the beds, coffers and the two sleepers. There was no Great
Hall beneath the trapdoor, nor even the foundations of the Hall, nor even the
worm-infested earth that lay beneath. Instead, the Sidlesaghe led Caela into
the softly shadowed, barely discernible track of a vast forest. About her
reared massive trees—trees such as the land had last seen many millennia
ago—tangled with vines and sweetly scented flowers.
Was this the forest
and the land of her youth? Of Mag's youth?
Caela tipped back her
head and visibly stretched, almost catlike, and drew in a deep breath.
"This is so wondrous!" she said.
"Aye," said
the Sidlesaghe, coming to stand beside her. "Do you recognize it?"
She frowned, only
slightly, just enough to crinkle the skin between her brows. "This is the
land, as once it was. Yes?"
He shook his head.
"Not entirely correct. The land is not as once it was." She shivered,
and pulled the cloak a little more tightly about her shoulders,
as if she had
suddenly felt more acutely the fact of her nakedness beneath it.
"Ah," she said. "We are in the Game."
"Aye. This is
where Brutus and Silvius played the Game. This is where
Brutus murdered his
father." "Why are we here?"
"To learn,"
said the Sidlesaghe. "To remember."
She turned from her
regard of the forest and studied the Sidlesaghe. "Long Tom," she
said, "when you threw me into the waters, and I came to understand myself
as I truly am, I saw many things. I saw my lover, Og, running through the
forest," her eyes flickered about the great trees dwarfing them both,
"wearing the golden bands that once graced the Kingmen of Troy." Her
voice dropped almost to a whisper. "That once graced my husband's
limbs." "What did you learn from that vision, Caela? What
did it tell you?"
"It told me where the Game is going,
Long Tom. It told me where the land is going, and where I must, too,
tread."
"Aye."
"How?" she
said. "How did the Game and this land become as one? Can
you show me?"
In answer the
Sidlesaghe inclined his head, nodding to the path that had opened up through
the trees before them. "Will you walk with me?"
She nodded and,
taking his hand, they walked through the forest track. As they want, the
Sidlesaghe continued to speak. "The Game has grown, as you know. When you
were Cornelia, and you witnessed Brutus and Genvissa dance the Dance of the
Torches, what was the Troy Game then?" "A labyrinth, atop Og's Hill. A thing made of
stone and gravel."
"Aye. And then when you had murdered
Genvissa, and halted the Game before its completion, what became of the Game
and its stone and gravel
labyrinth?"
Caela licked her
lips, remembering. "Brutus buried it," she said. "He caused it
to sink into the hill, and atop it he built a temple." She laughed, short
and hard. "Which he dedicated to Artemis."
"And his
kingship bands? What did he do with those?" Caela stopped, and faced the
Sidlesaghe. "I don't know. I can't even feel them. They merely vanished. When Brutus pulled me
from my three-year confinement—and that was the first time I had set eyes on
him since that day I'd murdered Genvissa—he was not wearing them and, to be
frank, I was so much in fear of my life at that point, so much in fear of him, that I did not ask what had become of them. Not
ever.
"Silvius asked
me about those bands a few nights ago," she said, her mouth quirking in
either memory or humor. "Everyone wants to know about them." "They are vital," said the Sidlesaghe.
"We dream of them as well. But first,
I will show you what
happened to this land and to the Game in the two thousand years that have
passed, and then we will need to talk about the bands."
"You know where
they are, don't you?" she said, searching his face with her eyes.
The Sidlesaghe
smiled. "Of course! Did Brutus not bury them within this land? They have been itching at us for centuries."
She laughed,
delighted at the humor that lurked behind the Sidlesaghe's otherwise bleak
face, and allowed him to lead her farther down the track.
"The Troy Game
that Brutus made has grown," the Sidlesaghe said once more. "Now that
you understand who you are, and are beginning to understand the extent of
yourself, perhaps you can tell me exactly where we are within the Game."
Caela chewed her
lower lip, her eyes on the ground, thinking, feeling the ground beneath her feet.
"We are within
the Game, yes," she said eventually, her eyes still on the ground,
"but we are walking within that part of the Game that twists under the
northern shore of the River Thames. We were walking north, but are now moving
more eastward." She paused. "We are walking toward the heart of the
labyrinth. Toward St. Paul's within London, atop what was once Og's Hill. Gods,
Long Tom, how far does the Game extend?"
"As far south as
Westminster, and a little under the river on the opposite bank to Westminster
where once stood Llanbank, and where now stands the village of Lambeth.
Eastward the Game now encompasses all that stands within the walls of London.
To the northwest the Game stretches toward…"
"Toward the
Llandin," Caela said. "What the people now call the Meeting
Hill."
"Aye, and
north—"
"North to Pen
Hill. The Game has grown to encompass all of the Veiled Hills. Blessed
Lady," the Sidlesaghe stopped, and as he faced Caela he dropped the hand
he held and put both of his on her shoulders, "the Game wants to grow even
further. It needs to, if it is to overcome what lays ahead. You need to help it
do that."
She drew in a deep
breath, nodding. "I still need to know—"
"How it grew?
Yes, be patient now. We are almost there."
They resumed walking
again, and soon the sense of a close forest fell back. Light—not sunlight and
yet not quite moonlight either—filled the spaces between the trees, and the
borders to either side of the path broadened.
Caela visibly tensed,
as if she knew what they walked toward.
Then suddenly they
were there.
An emerald green
glade, encircled by trees. In the center of the glade lay a roughly circular
pond, its waters still.
On the far side of
the pond, perhaps some six or seven paces from the water's edge, and halfway
between the edge of the forest and the pond, lay the form of a white stag with
blood-red antlers.
His heart, half torn
from his body, lay on the creamy pelt of his chest. Caela groaned, and made as
if to step forward about the pond, but the Sidlesaghe seized her arm.
"No! Touch him
and you kill him!"
She twisted about,
partly trying to tear herself free from his grasp, partly in an agony of
emotion. "Why? Why can not I go to him? Why?"
"Because you are
not yet strong enough to heal him, or to help him in any manner. All you will
do is push him toward the final precipice. One day you will be able to aid him,
and midwive him through his rebirth, but you are not strong enough to do it
now!"
Caela sobbed, her
knees slowly bending until she sank to the ground, and
the Sidlesaghe let
her go.
"Can I not just
touch him?" Caela said through her tears. "Just lay a hand
to his face, and kiss
him?"
"No," the
Sidlesaghe said, then laid his own hand on the crown of her head. "He
knows you are here. It is enough for him for the moment. It is enough that he
knows you are reborn, and are growing
stronger."
Caela lowered her
face into her hands and cried disconsolately, rocking back and forth. The
Sidlesaghe, his own gray-brown eyes filled with tears, kept his hand on her
head, letting her cry out her sorrow.
"I want to touch
him," Caela said once more, but the Sidlesaghe did not respond. He knew
she said it, not to him, but to the Stag God himself, and he knew that she said
it as a comfort, both to Og and to herself.
Eventually Caela
composed herself, wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the backs of
her hands, and rose again. "Thank you," she said simply, and the
Sidlesaghe nodded. "We need to go to the pool," he said.
Again they walked
forward until they stood at the edge of the pool. Before Caela looked down to
the waters, she glanced upward, then gasped, truly
shocked.
Instead of a sky, or
the arching and intertwining branches of the trees, a
great golden dome
soared above them.
"We are in the
stone hall!" Caela cried.
"We are deep
under it," the Sidlesaghe said. "Deep under St. Paul's." He
paused. "Deep in the heart of the labyrinth." He looked across the
pond again, toward Og, and now Caela saw that Og lay not alone, but that a man
sat with him, cradling the wretched stag's head in his lap.
Silvius.
"And there lies
the evil the labyrinth attracts," the Sidlesaghe said, his voice hard,
merciless, nodding at Silvius.
"I know,"
Caela whispered. "Poor Silvius."
Silvius looked up as
if he had heard her, and he stretched out a hand. His face held both a
frightful yearning, as well a terrified aspect, and it unsettled Caela, for
Silvius had seemed so confident, so calm, on the two occasions she had met with
him. He opened his mouth, and it moved, but no words came out, and his eyes
filled with tears, and before Caela's appalled gaze Silvius began to cry.
Caela started
forward, but again the Sidlesaghe held her back. "Ignore him," he
said. "He is not why we are here now."
She gave Silvius a
half-sad, half-reassuring smile, hoping he knew why she could not approach him
at the moment. He held her gaze, than lowered his face, looking away from her
and back to the stag.
Caela watched him for
a further long moment, wishing she could speak with Silvius, and comfort him of
whatever had troubled him. Eventually she sighed, and looked again at the
water. "The waters will show me what happened to the Game?"
"Aye," said
the Sidlesaghe. "Of all people, you should know how to read them."
In answer she walked
forward a step or two until the water touched her bare toes.
For long minutes
Caela did nothing but stare at the water.
Then, she sighed,
only very slightly, but the entire surface of the pond rippled as if disturbed
by a heavy wind, and when it settled again, the waters showed Caela what she
wanted to know.
Brutus, standing and
screaming with grief and rage in the center of the labyrinth atop Og's Hill
under a sky laden with roiling black clouds.
Genvissa's body at
his feet, her cold pregnant belly mounding toward the sky.
Time, passing.
Brutus, again
standing atop Og's Hill, again under the laden black sky, but now Genvissa's
corpse lay atop a great burning pyre.
Time, passing.
Brutus, burying
Genvissa's ashes at the entrance to the labyrinth.
Then Brutus doing…
doing something, but his actions were cloaked
with the grayness of enchantment, and Caela could not discern his actions.
"He is hiding
the Trojan kingship bands," she murmured, and behind her the Sidlesaghe
nodded.
Time, passing. Much time passing. Many years.
Now a great temple
stood atop Og's Hill, hiding the labyrinth beneath its
G
stone flooring, but
somehow the waters of the pond showed Caela what was happening beneath the temple floor.
The labyrinth,
sinking.
Deeper and deeper,
writhing through the dirt and rock and gravel of the
hill like a worm.
And the hill,
embracing it.
Time passing.
Above, atop the hill,
swarms of blue-clay-daubed naked warriors led by a man of such beauty and such
evilness, that he appeared to suck all of the
world's life into
him.
Below, the labyrinth
sinking deeper, deeper, embraced by the land.
The naked warrior—Asterion!—raging as Brutus had once raged, but for
differing reasons.
Time, passing.
The labyrinth now lay
buried far into the land. As yet it had not grown appreciably in physical size
but, as Caela watched, she saw that small earthen creatures wandered its twists
and paths—worms and moles and beetles, and foxes and badgers, too, who had
burrowed deep to see what it was that hummed so beautifully within their midst.
Time, passing. Tree roots, extending (reaching)
out from the northern and western
forests, touched the
extremities of the labyrinth.
Drew back, then,
carefully, touched again.
And the tree roots,
as the moles and badgers and foxes and worms sighed, found that touch good, and
merged with the labyrinth.
It was a process that
Caela understood happened over many hundreds of years, perhaps over a
millennium, and she understood that it happened principally because Og rested
within the heart of the labyrinth, and his presence drew in the creatures and
the forest. But once met, the labyrinth—the Troy Game—and the land and its
creatures found each other well met, and discovered that they could live
together with ease, and that, above all, they could be
good for each other.
And this, Caela understood,
was what Mag-who-once-had-been and who now lived as Caela's flesh had known so
long ago, and what she had foreseen. The Sidlesaghe moved close enough behind
Caela that their bodies touched briefly, and Caela shuddered.
"See," he
whispered, extending a hand to the waters. "See how the Game has spread
its tentacles, grown its labyrinth under the area of the Veiled Hills. It
tunnels and it worms, and it waits." "For…"
"For you, of course, and for its
Kingman."
Caela's eyes
flickered to where Og lay motionless, then she looked back to the images within
the pond.
"Look," she
said, and now it was she who pointed.
A dark stain was
spreading over the pond from its eastern extremity. A cloud of malignancy.
"Asterion,"
the Sidlesaghe said.
"He lurks within
the court," said Caela. "But he is too powerful, too cunning for me
to perceive him. Long Tom, why is that so? I should be able to perceive him, to know him."
The Sidlesaghe
frowned, and his mouth dropped open in a low moan. "Oh," he said, and
the sound was more a low moan than a spoken word. "You cannot see him? You
cannot see him?"
"No. Long
Tom—"
"Oh! You cannot
know him?"
"Do you know who he is?" Caela said sharply.
The Sidlesaghe's
mouth thinned, and he shook his head.
"Are you
sure?" Caela asked.
The Sidlesaghe
nodded. "He is dangerous," he said. "Highly so."
"Yes. I
know."
"He wants to
destroy the Game."
"I know."
"We must keep it
safe."
"Yes, I know,
but, Long Tom—"
"Asterion is
very, very dangerous, dear girl."
"I know this,
Long Tom!" Now Caela was getting frustrated.
"We want you to
move the bands. Keep us safe. Keep the land safe. Both the Game and the land
want you to do this. It will aid both, but principally it will aid the Game to
grow in strength as well as in magnitude."
Caela's mouth dropped
open. "That is what the Game needs me to do
to help it?" Then, "Can I move them?"
The Sidlesaghe
regarded her, and for a moment Caela felt as if she were being judged.
"Yes," he said finally, "this is how you can help the Game, and,
yes, you will be able to move them. The Game wants you to move the kingship
bands of Troy. If Asterion cannot find the bands, then not only shall the Game
remain safe for the time being, but you shall have time to—"
"To discover the
means to persuade Swanne to hand to me her powers," Caela said, "and
to establish those circumstances in which Og can be reborn. Yes, I can
understand why the Game wants the bands moved."
The Sidlesaghe gave a
nod, his eyes still watchful.
"And it will not
be difficult." Caela had not said that as a question, but the
instant the words had
left her mouth the Sidlesaghe's eyes narrowed, and his very being stilled.
"Will it?"
Caela said.
The Sidlesaghe
hesitated. "Not inherently."
"Not 'inherently'?"
The Sidlesaghe
sighed. "The instant you touch the bands, Caela, Asterion will know. And
William and Swanne will know. And the instant they know the bands have been
found, and are being moved, they will panic… and then they
will hit out."
CUD6CV
Rouen, Normandy
ILLIAM'S BODY
MOVED EASILY WITH THAT OF
his horse, a great
bay stallion he'd bred and trained himself. His face was relaxed and his eyes
dreamy as he let his mind wander in the late autumn sunshine. He wore no armor,
merely a heavy tunic against the cool wind and a cloak thrown back over his
shoulders and left to drape as it would across the stallion's rump. A sword
hung at his left hip, a bow and quiver of arrows were slung across his back.
About him rode his
companions, nobles and retainers. No one spoke, easy in their companionship and
the delight of the day. All were in more or less the same state as the duke:
easy, dreamy, relaxed, waiting.
Some fifty paces
ahead of the band of riders spread a semicircle of twelve or thirteen men on
foot. In counterpoint to the men on horseback, they were taut and watchful,
their eyes constantly sliding about the sparse forest about them.
In their hands they
held either crossbows or short hand bows; quivers of arrows jounced across
their backs. At their heels stalked huge, well-trained, tense, silent pale
hounds.
It was a good morning
for the hunt. The sun was two hours risen, and the dawn mist cleared from the
ground. The quarry—deer and boar, and perhaps even a wolf—would be moving from
the open grass and meadowlands back into the comparative safety of the forest.
This was the part of
the hunt that William enjoyed the most. Oh, the heat and excitement of both
chase and kill were fine enough, and the back-slapping, jesting camaraderie
that came after, but nothing surpassed this gentle dreamtime as they stalked
the prey.
Did the stag and the boar know what
came? wondered
William. Did some primeval part of them, some forestal part of them, understand that today men would come
stalking, and that only strength and courage and daring might
save them from the
arrows that pierced the air? Were they even now standing still, quivering,
heads raised, ears and nostrils twitching, striving to catch that first noise,
that initial scent, which would give them leave to leap into
flight?
He drew in a deep
breath—part suppressed excitement, part sublime happiness—and exchanged a
glance and a smile with Walter Fitz Osbern who rode several paces away to his
right. How many hunts had they participated in together? How many times had
Walter stood to one side, sounding the horn, as William bent down with his
short, broad knife to finish off the stag at
his feet?
William relaxed
further, his every movement part of those of the horse beneath him. A small
smile played over his face as he remembered the previous night's loving with
Matilda. Gods, but he and Matilda were well-matched! He hadn't thought to find
one like her. William had known from an early age who he was, and what lay both
behind him and before him. Who lay behind and before him. When
William was a young man he'd hungered for Genvissa—for Swanne—and he'd
remembered Cornelia with bitterness and anger. He'd known he would take a wife,
but he'd thought she would simply be a bedmate, a mother to the heirs he
needed, a chatelaine for his estates and castles and manors, and someone to be
easily and quietly set aside when William had achieved what and whom he needed.
But Matilda! Ah! He
had not thought she would make such a difference to him and to his life.
Strong, loyal, passionate, a match and counterpoint to his every mood and want.
If he'd had her in
his earlier life… William grinned to himself. If it had been Matilda instead of
Cornelia who had plotted his ruin in Mesopotama, then William had no doubt that
he would have been murdered and cast into the bay beside the city. Matilda
would have succeeded with flair and triumph (and more than a few scorching
words), where Cornelia had only failed
miserably.
William remembered
what he'd said to Matilda that night a few weeks past: You have taught me a great deal during our marriage…
strength, and tolerance, and maturity. What I thought, and felt, fifteen years
ago, are no longer so
clear to me.
He'd thought about
those words a great deal since. William had initially spoken them as a comfort
to Matilda, but even as they slid smoothly from his lips, William had realized
their truth—and the greater truth that lay beneath them. Matilda had been
god-sent, he was sure of it. He had learned from her strength and
tolerance and maturity, and it was not simply that what he had felt fifteen
years ago was not now so clear to him.
What he had felt two thousand years ago was now not so clear to him. The great peaks of
love and hate he'd felt then had been smoothed out by his marriage to Matilda.
Bitterness and hatred and love all had been… modified.
Gentled. He did not
yearn for Swanne with the passion he once had, and when he thought on Caela,
then his thoughts were strangely tolerant, given his once all-consuming hatred
of her when she had been Cornelia. Above all, Matilda had taught him what it
was to be a good husband, and William was aware that he had once been a very
bad husband, indeed.
He shifted a little
on his horse, newly uncomfortable. How might his life have been different two
thousand years earlier if he had been a tolerant husband, rather than a hateful
one? How might his life have been altered if he had studied Cornelia with the
understanding Matilda had given him, rather than with Brutus' indifferent
callousness?
Suddenly one of the
hounds bayed, and the huntsmen shouted, and William jerked out of his reverie.
"There!"
cried Walter, and William followed his friend's pointing finger and, indeed,
there it ran—a huge red stag, bounding through the dappled shadows of the
forest.
William swept the bow
from his back and fitted an arrow, digging his heels into the flanks of his
stallion and guiding him only with voice and knees.
The horse surged
forward, his hooves pounding through the grassland, then crashing through the
first line of shrubs in the forest.
The stag careened
before William, leaping first this way, now that, his head raised, his eyes
panicked, his nostrils flaring.
Behind William
crashed the horses of his companions, but they raced a full six or seven paces
behind him, and it was William who had the first, clear shot.
The stag bounded
behind a dense thicket, and William let his arrow fly.
It struck, he heard it, as he heard the cry of the stag and the sound of
its heavy body plunging to the forest floor.
"I have
him!" William cried as he seized the reins of his stallion and pulled the
beast to a plunging, snorting halt. He lifted his right leg over the horse's
wither, jumping to the ground, and ran behind the thicket, his knife drawn.
The stag lay
convulsing in a carpet of fallen leaves and dried summer grasses, the arrow
through his left eye.
William's stride
slowed, and he drifted to a halt, staring at the stag.
Except it was no
longer a stag lying there at all, but his father, Silvius, his hands to the
arrow, his voice screaming to his son for aid.
Sick to his stomach, William
took a step forward, then stopped, the knife suddenly loose in his
sweat-dampened hand.
Silvius was no longer
screaming. Instead he stared at his son, his hands still about the arrow, blood
and gore dripping down his cheek. You shall not have her! he whispered within William's mind. Never have her! You had your
chance. She's mine, now.
"No!"
William said, very low. His gaze transfixed on his father.
Never have her…
Something flowed forth from Silvius, and William took an intuitive
step back. It was evil. Malignant evil, seeping from every pore of his father's
body.
You shall never have her… she's lost
to you, now…
"No!"
William said again.
And took another step
back.
"My lord?"
Walter Fitz Osbern walked up beside William, his eyes drifting between William
and the downed stag, now screaming with a harsh, guttural
cry. "My lord?
Should I…?"
There were more steps
behind William: other fellow hunters, and the huntsmen. They were quiet,
watching William, one or two of them wincing at the terrible sound made by the
stricken stag.
Walter's eyes settled
on William's face. The duke was staring fixedly at the stag, his skin pale and
clammy, as if he saw before him a devil, or some imp from hell. "My
lord?" he said yet one more time, hoping that William would break free of
whatever spell had claimed him.
Still no response,
and Walter exchanged a worried look with one of the
other nobles.
"Damn you!"
William suddenly whispered, and Walter jumped, thinking
his duke spoke to
him.
But William was still
staring fixedly at the stag, and now he stepped forward, almost stumbling. The
stag cried out yet more harshly, his hooves flailing dangerously, and Walter
was sure the duke would be struck, but somehow William managed to avoid the
stag's hooves and legs. He stepped around behind the stag, sheathed his knife,
grasped one of the stag's magnificent antlers to steady the beast's head, then
took the arrow with his other hand and, frightfully, sickeningly, thrust the
arrow deep into the stag's
brain.
The creature gave one
more frightful spasm, and then lay still, save for one
hind leg, which
continued to quiver slightly.
"Butcher
it," said William harshly, standing back. "Butcher it now.'"
He turned away, but
then staggered, and Walter stepped close and took
one of his arms to
steady him.
"My lord?"
"Will he never
leave me be?" whispered William, bending over as if he were going to
vomit. He gagged, then again a little more violently, before managing
to regain control of
his stomach. "Will he never leave me be?"
One of the huntsmen
came forward, taking William's other arm, but then William straightened, wiped
his mouth, and managed a smile.
"I am well
enough," he said, seemingly himself again, and the two men relaxed—as did
all the others standing about watching with worried countenances.
"Likely the meat
you took for breakfast was rotten," Walter said, and William accepted the
excuse.
"Aye, likely it
was. My apologies if I have concerned you, but I am well enough now. Where is
my horse? Ah, thank you, Ranuld."
He took the
stallion's reins from the huntsman who had brought him forward, and swung into
the saddle.
But just as he
settled on the horse's back, gathering up the reins, there came a distant
shout, then the sound of approaching hooves.
"What is
wrong?" said William, swinging his stallion about so he could see.
There was a rider
hurtling across the meadowlands toward the patch of forest where William had
downed the stag. He wore the duke's livery, and William recognized him as one
of the squires from his garrison within the castle of Rouen.
"It's
Oderic," mumbled Walter.
"And with dire
news," said Ranuld, the huntsman who had also come to William's aid.
"See the lather on his horse."
"My lord
duke!" Oderic called as he pulled his exhausted horse to a stumbling halt.
"My lord duke!"
"What?"
snarled William, kicking his stallion forth and grabbing Oderic by the shoulder
of his tunic before almost hauling Oderic from his mount. "What news,
man?"
"Earl Harold of
England," Oderic managed to gasp. "Earl Harold…"
"Yes? Yes"
William gave Oderic an impatient shake.
"Earl
Harold…" Oderic could barely speak, caught between the extremity of his
news, his desperate battle for breath, and his duke's furious grasp on his
shoulder.
"Yes?" William thought he would strangle the news
from the man if he did not spit out the words within an instant.
"Earl Harold
awaits in your castle, my lord duke."
"What?"
William was so surprised he let Oderic go, and the squire almost fell off his
horse as a surprised, concerned buzz of comment rose among William's retainers
and huntsmen.
Earl Harold awaited in Duke William's
castle?
"My castle?" said William stupidly, unable to
comprehend what Oderic said. "Here? In Rouen?"
"Aye, my lord. A
patrol discovered him last night, he had embarked from
a fishing vessel on
the coast two nights previous."
"What does he do here?" William mumbled to himself, then waved
away
the question.
"Never mind. Walter. We ride. Now!"
Part Four
Pay me my fare, or by Gog and Magog, you shall feel the smart of my whipcord!
Coachman to passengers at Barthlomew
Fair,
London, late 1700s, cited in William
Hone,
Ancient Mysteries
Described,
London, March
[ ADDY!
Dear gods, his daughter! He'd thought
her dead, a victim first of Genvissa's malevolence, and then of Asterion's.
And yet there she was, standing in
the street outside Frank's house, holding the two lost kingship bands of Troy,
and calling to him.
Skelton pulled on his uniform
trousers, fumbling with the buttons on his fly, then hauled on a shirt, opened
the door, and took the stairs three at a time before he'd done up a single
button.
Violet stepped out of the kitchen,
butter knife in hand. "Major?"
Skelton ignored her, opened the front
door and ran into the street.
The little girl was gone.
He stood there, barefooted, his shirt
flapping in the cold wind, staring up and down the street.
Gone.
"Major?" Violet was at the
front door now, her pretty face crinkled up with doubt, her voice cautious.
"Is there anything the matter?"
"Old chap?" said Frank, now
standing directly behind Violet, a hand on her shoulder, staring at Skelton. He
had raced out of his bedroom when he'd heard Skelton's mad dash for the front
door.
Skelton ignored them. He turned this
way, then that, his movements abrupt, frantic, his face distraught.
Frank's hand tightened momentarily on
Violet's shoulder, then he walked over to Skelton. "Old chap… what's
up?"
"She was here," Skelton
muttered, the skin of his face gray. "She was."
Frank glanced back at Violet.
"Who?"
"My daughter."
Now Frank openly stared. "I say,
I didn't know you had… in England?"
"A long time ago," Skelton
whispered.
The door to one of the neighbors'
houses opened, and two women came out. They were both in their late thirties,
their short waved hair freshly combed, and with matching dark blue candlewick
dressing gowns tied about their trim figures. Both looked somewhat
amused at the sight of Major Skelton standing half-naked
and crazed in the street.
Frank looked embarrassed. "I'm
sorry, Mrs. Flanders. A bit of a disturbance,
I'm afraid."
Mrs. Flanders pursed her lips, but
her eyes sparkled with humor. "And just as I have my sister staying, Mr.
Bentley. Mrs. Ecub is quite overwrought by such a
sight, I'm sure."
At that Skelton turned about and
stared at the two women. "My God," he said.
"Matilda? Ecub?"
They both grinned at him.
"We're all gathered," said
Matilda, whom Frank had addressed as Mrs. Flanders.
"Every one of us."
Skelton took a step forward.
"Where is my daughter?" he said.
"Perhaps Stella has her,"
said Mrs. Ecub.
"I do apologize," said
Frank, "But Mrs. Flanders, how can you possibly know
Major Skelton?"
"We've had many dealings over many years," said Matilda
Flanders. Then her face softened from humor into pity, and she stepped forward,
took Skelton's hands, and kissed him softly on the mouth. "Welcome back, my love," she said so softly that only he
could hear.
"Welcome back."
Caela Speaks
SAT WITH MY LADIES—HOW I HATED
THIS SITTING
about, spending my days in nothing
but courtly gossips and embroideries!—and understood that Harold had arrived in Rouen. I
shivered, unable to keep at bay that memory of William tearing Coel's lifeless
body from mine.
Coel's blood had been
so very warm, as he had himself been so very warm, and so very loving.
I could feel—very
faintly, but the knowledge was there—William's confusion, anger, and
uncertainty as he heard of Harold's arrival. Everything, in fact, he had felt
that night Genvissa had sent him to murder me.
Keep him safe, I prayed silently. Keep him safe.
I closed my eyes, and
in the strength of my prayer I think my body wavered somewhat, for instantly,
concerned voices were raised about me, and tentative hands touched my arm.
"Madam? Madam?
Are you well?"
I opened my eyes, and
caught Judith's gaze. She nodded, understanding.
"No," I
murmured, allowing my voice to waver just so very slightly. "I am not
well. I should rest awhile before our noonday meal. Judith…?"
She took my arm, and
I nodded a dismissal at the other women who clustered about me. Slowly we
retreated from the private solar, where I spent most of the day when I was not
in court, to the bedchamber, where I spent all my cold, loveless nights.
Once the door closed
behind us, I straightened and Judith dropped my arm.
"Madam?"
she said.
I smiled wryly. I
wished she would call me Caela in private, but now that I was doubly
"royal" in Judith's eyes, I doubted there would be little chance of
that now.
"I am glad that
we have this time alone," she said. "There is something I need to
speak of to you."
"Yes?"
"Saeweald… over
the past days I have spoken to Saeweald on many
occasions on this
matter…"
Her voice had drifted
off, her cheeks mottling, and her eyes avoiding
mine.
"Judith?" I
said. "What is wrong?"
"It is something
of which you spoke to us—that you and Og-reborn will complete the Game as
Mistress and Kingman of the Labyrinth." "You find this difficult to accept."
"It is difficult enough," she
said, "but this is not what eats at me."
"And that
is?"
She hesitated, mouth
hanging partly open, eyes averted. "It is that
Saeweald believes he
shall be Og-reborn."
There, it was out,
and Judith finally allowed herself to look at me from
under her lashes.
"Oh," I
said on a long breath, and now it was I who averted my eyes.
"Ah," said
Judith.
By the gods, we were playing some silly childish prattling game.' "Oh" here and
"Ah" there!
"Is Saeweald…?
Will he…?" Judith said.
Then, gods help me, I
lied, for if I told her who Og-reborn was
fated to be, then I would have lost her, as well Saeweald and Ecub, in one
foul-tasting
word.
"I cannot
know," I said, holding her gaze. "It shall be who the Troy Game and
the land demands. Maybe Saeweald, maybe not… but I dislike it that he already
has voiced his ambitions to the office." I put some distaste into that
final phrase, some goddess-like offense, and it diverted Judith magnificently.
"I should not have presumed—" "He should not have presumed!"
Judith dropped her
gaze again, her cheeks mottling an even deeper shade of humiliation. I placed a
hand on her arm. "I am sorry to snap, Judith. I had not thought that
Saeweald would have jumped so easily to that possibility. But it is nothing to
do with you, and I am glad you have told me. Here," I kissed her face.
"I am not cross with you."
"I will tell
him—"
"No. Do not
mention it. I shall speak to him when appropriate." And yet
when was appropriate? "I am
sorry, Saeweald, but you have no place in what is to come?" Oh, I could
not lose him so quickly. I had need of him yet. As did… as did he who would
become Og.
"And now,"
I continued, all business, "I asked you here because I have need of your
aid."
"Anything,"
Judith said, trying to atone.
I felt abashed, and
took her hand and led her to a covered chest, which stood beneath the chamber's
only window. We sat down, and I kept hold of her hand, although I think I was
trying to reassure myself more than her.
"Judith, there
are tasks I will need to do, places I shall need to go. I will need to spend
much time away from the palace. Both at night, and during the day."
She nodded, the
eagerness to please in her eyes intensifying. "This will be difficult for
me. I am the queen, I cannot just wander about the streets as I need—"
"But at
night…"
I shrugged slightly.
"Nights contain more freedom for me, surely, but even they are dangerous.
What if Edward or his bowerthegn should wake, and I not be there? More
importantly, there are days when I will have the need to leave the palace. I
need more freedom, far more than my existence as 'queen' allows."
I also needed more
security if I was to move the bands, or even to communicate with the
Sidlesaghes as I needed. I constantly worried that some action or
ill-considered word might draw either Swanne's or Asterion's suspicion; had I
already said or done something that may have alerted them? This concern ate at
me. I needed to move about both more freely and unobserved. How to do this as the constantly watched
queen, whose every movement was noted?
I had struggled with
this problem over the past few days, and could see only one solution. I hated
to do it, for it would put another in the danger that I sought to escape, but
if I was careful, then maybe she would not suffer.
Maybe.
"Judith, I need
a glamour."
Her eyes grew huge,
and she drew in a deep breath and held it for a long moment as she watched me
unblinkingly. "A glamour?" she said finally. "Do you want to use
me to—"
I shook my head.
"Not you, for I will need you awake and aware of what goes on about
me." I grinned briefly. "If I can drag you away from Saeweald's bed
long enough…"
She blushed, and I
thought that if she kept this up I would need to ask Saeweald for some
whitening alloy to dab on Judith's cheeks.
"No, I will need
someone else with which to create the glamour."
"Ah. You would
like me to find her for you?"
"Aye. Judith, I
hate to do this—to use an unwitting woman as my dupe. I
fear for her, and
what might happen to her if she… is discovered. But without her I shall be too
constrained for my purposes. Judith, do you know of anyone who lives in
Judith dropped her
gaze to where our hands lay entwined, thinking. Eventually she raised her face,
then nodded.
"There is a
woman who I think would serve you well. Her name is Damson, and she is the
widow of a stone-cutter and now partly earns her way as a laundress. She is,
oh, some forty-five or fifty years of age, and has the freedom of both
"I cannot 'ask,'
Judith. She must not have any understanding of what I do, or else the glamour
shall not work sufficiently—it will not be deep enough. Can you bring her to me, and say only that I
have need of her services? Would she accept that?" "Aye."
"When could you
bring her to me?"
"I saw Damson
about the palace courtyard this morning, probably looking for work in the
laundries, or even the dairy. If I find her quickly, then I could have her
before you within the hour." "Go, then, and find me this Damson."
GUDO
/bright day it might
be, but inside rouens
castle the sunshine
had yet to penetrate. The air was chilled and the breath frosted from the
mouths of those not fortunate enough to have secured a close position by the
fire that burned within Duke William's Great Hall.
Matilda and Earl
Harold were two of the fortunate few. They sat in intricately carved oak chairs
only two paces distant from where the fire cracked and leapt in the stone
hearth, cups of the duke's best wine in their hands, making conversation until
the duke himself could be summoned from the hunt. Rather than Norman French or
Anglo-Saxon, they spoke in the more general French dialect that most European
nobles (as merchants and craftsmen) learned as children.
Their ability to
converse in a mutually comfortable language was not the only reason both found
the conversation relatively effortless. Matilda was fascinated with the earl
and he, quite obviously, with her. This might be their first meeting, but each
had heard so much of the other over the years that they felt each other already
well acquainted.
"My husband
shall doubtless be surprised to find you here," said Matilda, gracing the
earl with a smile over the rim of her wine cup. She was deeply intrigued by his
face, for although it wore the hard lines of a warrior and man used to great
command, it also had an aura of sensitivity, even mysticism, that one found
generally only in the faces of poets, or religious recluses.
Or, indeed, in
lovers.
Apart from that sense
of mysticism, Harold was a highly attractive man, with his dark eyes framed by
his graying blond hair and darker beard. Matilda liked the fact that, unlike so
many Saxons, Harold kept that beard very short and neat, and did not hide
beneath a shrubby, flea-ridden haystack.
"There was a
time," said Harold, intrigued in his own way by this tiny, stern-faced
woman before him, "when dukes and earls and princes spent their time only
in the pursuit of the bloody sport of war, and it was with war that they solved
every one of their dilemmas. I like to think that I and your
husband are more
civilized men, and that words and vows might be used to accomplish more than
the agony and futility of war. I come to court an ally,
not to incense an
enemy."
"You are a poet!" Matilda murmured into her wine cup
before taking a sip
of the heavily spiced
wine within.
Harold gave a small,
sad smile. "I am a man, and a father, and a leader of many men and
fathers. I value life before needless death. Thus I sit here with you this fair
morn, waiting for your lord to return from the hunt."
"And for my
part," said Matilda, "I am more than pleased to have this chance to
sit and pass words with you. Tell me, how goes Edward?"
"Heavily, and
with bad grace," said Harold. "He thinks only of the next life, and
of his salvation. He is less the king, and more the repentant, mewling
constantly for a chance to redeem himself before whichever altar he can
find."
"And thus you
are here," said Matilda. "I understand. So, if Edward declines, then
may I ask after your own family? Your wife, and children? Your
sister, and brother?"
Harold studied her,
wondering what she knew. "My wife…" He shrugged as his voice drifted
off in uncertainty as to what to say, and was then surprised at the glint of
understanding in Matilda's face.
"She does not
suit you, then."
He did not answer,
and Matilda smiled into her wine as she sipped it.
"Your children
are well?"
This time she was
rewarded with a natural and very warm smile, and her
regard for the man
grew. He loved his children. "Aye," Harold said. "They are my delight." "The queen?" Matilda said. "I have
heard she has been unwell."
"She is better
now."
Harold's manner had
become extremely guarded, and Matilda wondered further if some of the more
salacious rumors she'd heard about Harold's relationship with his sister might,
in fact, have a kernel of truth to them.
"And
Tostig…" she said.
"Madam,"
Harold snapped, "your manner is more direct than any of the
Holy Father's
inquisitors!"
Matilda laughed.
"I have heard rumors of Tostig's penchant to treachery. Moreover, I
suspect that Hardrada is tempting Tostig away from his loyalty to
his family."
"Then I could do
with access to your intelligence, madam, for I think it
better than
mine."
Matilda began to say
something, but then there came a clatter of hooves in the courtyard beyond the
narrow windows, and the shouts of men.
"My
husband," she said, watching Harold carefully, and noting the manner in
which his face closed over and he set his wine cup aside with great care. He
took a deep breath, and Matilda saw that he was nervous.
Strangely, this gave
her no sense of satisfaction, nor of advantage, but only saddened her somewhat. This man, she thought, has no business seeking out the throne. He is too
good, and too valuable, to be wasted on kingship.
The doors at the end
of the Great Hall flung open, and William strode into the Hall.
Harold and Matilda
rose.
"My lord
duke," said Matilda as William strode up to them.
William ignored her.
He was sweaty from his hard ride back to the castle, his hair—even as short as
it was—was disheveled, and his black eyes were as hard as flint.
They did not waver
from Harold's face.
"My lord
duke," Matilda said again, unperturbed by William's disregard. "My
lord Harold, Earl of
There, she thought, glancing at Harold. I have done my best for you. Strangely, Matilda's sympathies
tended more to Harold in this encounter than to William, even though she lusted
for the spoils of
William suddenly
appeared to notice that Matilda had spoken, and he gave a brief nod in her
direction. His eyes did not move from Harold's face.
"I greet you
well, Harold," William said, recovering some of his usual calm demeanor,
and he stepped forward and offered Harold his hand. "Welcome to
Harold took William's
between both of his, and the instant he did so, William's world turned upside
down.
As Harold's flesh touched his, William knew who he was
reborn. Coel. Coel!
A thousand emotions
surged through William: jealousy and fright at their head. He remembered that
terrible night he'd burst into his house in Llanbank to find Coel atop
Cornelia's body, sweating in the labors of love. He remembered that appalling
moment that he'd caught his hand into Coel's hair, and hauled back his head so
that for an instant they'd stared deep into each other's souls, before Brutus
had sliced his sword across Coel's throat.
Cornelia's cry of
terror and loss, Coel's eyes still locked into his as he died.
Coel? Coel had reappeared in this
guise on the same day that Silvius had once again writhed on the forest floor
before him? What, in the gods' names was going on? What frightful magic had
them in its hold?
O
And why had Swanne not told him this?
Gods, Swanne had taken Coel to her bed, bred him children, and she had not told
William of it?
William recalled what
Swanne had said that day so long ago when they'd met. He'd asked her then if
Harold was anyone reborn, and she had said no. He was a mere man. Gods! She had lied to him! Why? Why? "William?"
William realized he
was not only still gripping Harold's hand, but he was staring maniacally at the
man. In the same moment William also realized that Harold had no memory of his
life as Coel. He had come only as Harold, Earl of Wessex and pretender to the
English throne, not as Cornelia's lover come for revenge… or whatever else it
might be that he sought.
But this was no coincidence. Surely.
And what was Coel doing back? What? "William?" Matilda said again.
"Forgive me," William managed, dropping
Harold's hand. He even managed to find the strength and fortitude of spirit to
give Harold a small smile. "Your arrival has truly surprised me, my lord
of
"Aye, I see that
it has." Harold, his hand now free, had taken a step back, and was
watching William speculatively.
"Wine,
husband?" Matilda murmured. She stood holding out a freshly poured cup to
her husband, and very apparently taken aback by her husband's reaction.
A servant hurried
forward with another chair, and William waved them all down, his equanimity now
apparently fully restored.
"It has been a
most surprising morning," William said. "First, I brought down a
great stag, who reproached me with his dying."
Matilda gasped in
superstitious dread, but Harold only watched William with narrowed eyes.
"And now,"
William continued, "I find before me
The question was half
rhetorical, half real. A most
strange and unexpected visitor, given the circumstances. There, answer me that,
Harold-Coel, if you dare. "No mysteries but those of mortal men," said Harold. He had
set his wine cup to one side, and now leaned forward in his chair. "You
must know why I am here, William."
To reproach me for your death? "To beg me to take
Matilda repressed a
wince at the bluntness of both men. So much for the soft beauty of poets.
Harold held William's
stare a long moment before answering. "I come for
William sat back in
his chair, his dark eyes hooded. "I am ally to Edward for only one reason,
my friend."
Harold's mouth
quirked at that "my friend." "Not ally, then."
William gave a small
smile, but his eyes were humorless.
"Edward is
heirless," Harold said, "and the unfortunateness about all this is
that we both have a claim to the throne. You through your great-aunt Emma,
Edward's Norman mother, I through my place and standing as England's
pre-eminent lord, defacto ruler throughout Edward's long, pious slide into
irrelevancy and death."
Ah, thought William. You and I again, Coel, standing on each side of the
chasm. You for the old, dark ways of the land, I for the new bright ways of the
foreigner. I won last time, Coel. What does that say about this encounter?
"I not only
claim through the distant blood of Emma," William said, "but also
through Edward's promise."
Harold raised a
patently disbelieving eyebrow.
"I sheltered
Edward for many years during his time of exile," William said.
"During those years when Cnut held
Something in
William's voice and face became aggressively confrontational with that last
sentence, and Harold frowned over it.
"There is no
heir, either walking or breeding," he said. "Caela remains chaste and
untouched. Gods' Concubine, they call her, for the fact that the saintly Edward
has so consistently refused to have dealings with her."
William gave a
strange half smile. "So, then, Edward's promise to me stands."
"
"Truly?"
said William, his tone now far more aggressive.
"
"
"Those interests
and offices shall not continue long past the day I am crowned," Harold
said, very quiet now. "The clergy shall be replaced with Saxon men, loyal
to
"You are afraid
of me," William said, his own voice now very quiet. "That, essentially, is the message you bring me."
"
Immortality, thought William, staring at
Harold. Power beyond knowing. The
"
Harold glanced at
Matilda. "You mean my brother Tostig." He put down his cup of wine,
then rolled up the short tunic he wore and undid his shirt.
His chest and upper
belly were marred by red scarcely healed scars.
"This is Tostig," said Harold softly. "He thought
to murder me." He did up his shirt and pulled his tunic down. "He
came to me as I and my wife were preparing for bed, and he thought to earn a
reward from Hardrada for his actions."
"But you bested
him, or you would not be here to show me the scars."
"Aye," said
Harold. "But only through the aid of my sister, who sent aid. My
wife," he spoke the word contemptuously, "merely stood back and
laughed as Tostig tried to murder me."
William went very
still, and Matilda sent him an unreadable look.
"That was not
the action of an honorable woman, let alone a wife," she said to Harold.
"It was the
action of a woman who lives by deceit," Harold said. "She is not a
woman to be trusted."
William dropped his
eyes to his wine, swirling it about his wine cup.
"I say
that," Harold said softly, not taking his eyes from William, "because
I think you need to know very particularly, my lord of Normandy."
William looked up,
his gaze unreadable.
"I know Swanne
is your eyes and ears at court, William. Does she send you her love
besides?"
Harold suddenly
shifted his gaze to Matilda. "Did you know, my lady
duchess, that my wife
Swanne thinks to plot against me for William, and against you as well? She
hopes to take your place at William's side, should he ever win for himself the
throne of England. She has said that William has promised her this."
Harold looked back to
William, sitting open-mouthed in shock, staring at Harold. "How long has
she been whoring for you, William? And how can you plan to set aside this wondrous wife of yours to
take Swanne Snake-Tongue as your queen, if you ever gain England?"
CbAPG6RGbR
Caela Speaks
WAS LYING ON THE
BED WHEN JUDITH BROUGHT
Damson to the
bedchamber, and as they entered I had to smile at / what my other ladies must
have thought of this simple woman who I admitted to my presence when they were
left in the solar.
Damson was a woman
well marked by her years and her travail. She was fair of hair, and ruddy of
complexion, with stooped shoulders wearied by life, and hands roughened and
gnarled by labor. Her eyes were pale water-blue, currently filled with anxiety.
"My lady
queen!" she cried the instant she saw me, dropping to her knees despite
Judith's hand on her arm. "I have meant no harm through my actions!"
I was rising from the bed as she said this, and my own eyes filled with tears
at the thought that the only reason Damson could conceive for her presence
before me was to be accused of some transgression.
"Of course not,
Damson," I said in as gentle a manner as I could. "I have asked you
before me only to serve me, not to reproach you."
Damson's face
crumpled in relief, and my sorrow for her increased.
"My lady Judith
has told me of your difficulties," I said, "and I thought
only to help."
And may all the gods
forgive me for that particular lie. Damson had her
hands clasped before her face, which was lowered almost to her breast: the poor
woman could not even look upon me.
What trials had this
land been through that women acted in such a manner? I shared a glance with
Judith, then bent to Damson, grasped her hands between mine, and raised her to
her feet.
Damson finally
managed to lift her face, and she visibly gulped, then blinked some of her
tears free from her eyes.
"I have many
fine linens, and rare embroideries," I said, "and I hear tell that
you are the finest and most trustworthy of laundresses. Will you take
charge of my linens,
Damson, and watch over them for me, and attend to them as needed?"
All those years I had
spent as unknowing Caela, my head bent over my sewing, watching the needle ply
in and out, in and out, in and out. Years, I
had spent curled about my damned needlework.
Frankly, I did not
care if Damson took the entire corpus of my embroideries and hurled them into
the mud of the river's low tide. I did not think I could bear a single hour
more bent over my needles and wools.
"My lady…"
Damson said.
"You
agree?" I said, and hated myself, for I was asking Damson to agree to much
more than the care of my ever-cursed linens.
"Oh. Aye, madam.
I would do anything for you! Anything!"
The hope and
happiness in her eyes almost made me waver, but I steeled myself.
"Damson," I
whispered and, summoning both courage and power, I leaned forward and kissed
her full on the mouth, sliding my tongue gently between her parted lips.
THE FIRST THING I BECAME AWARE OF AS I GAZED OUT
of Damson's eyes and
into my own bemused face was the scratchiness of her rough and ill-fitting
clothes. Then I became aware of the different weight and feel of her body, of
the way it moved. And then I became aware of its aches and pains, its sadnesses
and strains, and I almost wept for the poverty of this woman's life.
"What is
happening?" said my voice, issuing out of my face.
Poor Damson.
"It is nothing
but a dream," I said very softly, and reached forward and cradled Caela's
confused face in my hands. "Nothing but a dream. Sleep now, and when you wake
you will remember nothing of this."
"Sleep… yes, I
would like to sleep…" she said.
I led
Caela-inhabited-by-Damson to the bed, and lay her down, pulling a coverlet over
her.
Within an instant,
she was asleep.
Caela, so it would
appear to everyone who saw, asleep on her bed.
And so it was, but
only Caela's body, not her soul or her spirit. They now lived in Damson's body,
able to use Damson's body to move relatively unhindered wherever they wanted to
go.
"Madam?"
said Judith, and reached out a hand to my (Damson's) face.
"Aye," I
said. "It is me." I shivered, embarrassed that I so loathed this
body. I was grateful that Damson's thoughts and memories had traveled with
her into my body; I
did not think I could cope with whatever weight of worry she carried about with
her through her dreary days and nights.
"Madam, what if
I need you to return while you are gone? What can I do to summon you?"
I nodded at the
figure asleep on my bed. "Shake my—her shoulder, and call my name forcefully. I should
return at that." "In body?"
I hesitated.
"No. In soul and spirit only. So do this only if highly troubled, Judith.
Otherwise you risk having Damson wake within herself in circumstances which may
drive her witless."
"I understand."
She paused. "What will you do now?" "Now?" I grinned. "Why now I shall
gather some linens, and I shall walk from this chamber with my head and
shoulders bowed, and then I shall spend the rest of the day wandering
free."
My smile widened at
the thought, and then it faded. "Judith, stay here with…" I looked to
where Damson-in-Caela lay on the bed. "Stay with her, and let no one touch her. Tell everyone that I am
unwell, and want only to rest. I shall not be long. Not this first time."
Poor Caela. I had the
feeling that she was going to be spending a great many days lying unwell on her
bed over the coming months.
With another
reassuring smile for Judith, I gathered up some linens, and left the chamber.
CbAPCGR FOUR
V
ELL?"
Matilda's anger was
evident in the rigidity of her stance, her flinty eyes, and the tight, clipped
tone of her voice. She and William had retired to their bedchamber, Harold and
his companions seen to their own chamber and offered food and the means to
refresh themselves.
"He is bolder
than I had thought him." William turned his back to his wife, and walked
to the window, fiddling with the catch on one of the shutters.
"I was not
talking of Harold. I am talking of the fact that you have apparently promised
this Swanne a place at your side as queen."
"I have never
promised that!"
Matilda's only answer
consisted of her archly raised eyebrows.
"Never!"
"You swore that
you would not betray me," she said, walking to and fro in her agitation.
"You swore that I would be queen. Not Swanne! Did you lie? Do you truly mean me to be queen of England at your side? You have been
lying to one of us. So, which one? Me, or Swanne?"
He caught at her
wrist as she swished past him, and forced her to a halt. "You!" he
said, his voice low and vibrating with emotion. "You! I meant that vow… dammit, Matilda, Swanne will never
be my queen. You will. You!"
"Does she understand that?" Matilda asked quietly, then
gave a soft, harsh laugh as William averted his eyes.
"You promise me
one thing, husband, and you allow her to believe another. Where do any of us
stand in your affections, eh?"
"You will be my queen, Matilda."
"You cannot
trust her, William, if only because too many people know she is your agent. For
sweet Christ's sakes, husband, did you not hear what Harold said? That she
stood by and laughed as Tostig tried to murder her
husband?"
William closed his
eyes, trying to repress the memory of Coel lying dead at his feet, and Genvissa
standing before them, laughing…
"And you trust
that kind of witch?"
"I…" She lied to me about Harold. He is Coel. Coel! And she lied to me
about it…
"She does not
harbor a soul that can be trusted, husband," Matilda said very low.
"And Harold knows she is your agent! If he knows, then who else?" "For all we know, only Harold—"
"Harold is one
too many people, my love," she countered.
"Aye. I
know." William's shoulders suddenly slumped, and he walked to a chair and
sat down heavily.
"Harold is far
more knowledgeable than any of us thought. Had you ever considered that he knew
of his wife's efforts on your behalf?"
"No. I had not
thought he might know."
"And how does
that affect our plans, William?"
"I would imagine
it shall affect them very little."
"Don't play me
for a fool!" Matilda snapped. "Harold knows his wife has been your spy at Edward's
court! Have you
not thought through the implications?"
William was silent,
his face impassive. Matilda did not know if he was holding back, if he was so
furious to learn that Harold knew of Swanne's treachery that he could not yet
speak of it, or if this knowledge had so thrown him that he did not know what
to say, or how now to act.
"How long do you
think Harold has known, William?"
Silence.
"How long do you
think Harold has been feeding misinformation to his
wife and then to
us?"
William's face, if
anything, grew even more impassive.
Matilda all but
hissed. "You are so certain of this woman?'
William hesitated,
opened his mouth, and then closed it.
"Are you more
certain of her than you are of me?"
"No." He
finally met her eyes. "I have never been more certain of anyone in my life
than I am of you."
She softened
slightly. "My love, how can you trust a woman who stands by and laughs as her husband is murdered? That is not mere
disloyalty, that is witchcraft so bleak and so deadly that none can ever trust it! Not even you, my love, no matter
how much she protests that she loves you."
Swanne lied to me about Harold, William thought, unable to let
the thought go.
She lied to me about Harold.
Why? What purpose could that have served, save
to intentionally deceive me?
"William, what I
see in Harold is nothing but honor. What I understand about Swanne is that she
is a Darkwitch who will destroy anything and anyone who stands in her
path."
Cornelia's face
suddenly flashed before William's eyes, and he blinked.
"I cannot
believe that you are certain you are immune."
"Enough," William said wearily. "God,
does Harold have any understanding of how bitterly he has struck into the very
heart of my household?"
"It is Swanne
who has struck into the very heart of our household, husband. Not Harold."
Then Matilda sighed. "Ah, I shall not continue haranguing you about her.
Harold is the guest within our household, and it is with Harold that we should
concern ourselves."
Matilda walked over
to a table, which held a ewer of wine and some cups. "Harold is far
stronger than we thought," she said, pouring out two cups of wine, handing
one to her husband.
"Aye." He
took a long draught of the wine.
"Edward was
terrified of the father… how now should you feel of the son?"
"I am not
'terrified' of him!"
"I think you
should be very wary of him, William. He cannot be discounted."
Again William sighed.
"I know that." He is
Coel-rebom. He is back for a reason.
"William…"
Matilda came to his chair, and sank to her knees beside him. She placed her
hands on his thigh, and looked earnestly into his face. "William, England
is not going to lay down and offer itself to you on a golden plate the moment
Edward dies. What Harold says is truth—the Saxon earls are not going to want a
foreigner to rule over them. They will unite
behind him."
William was silent,
the fingers of one hand scratching through his clipped beard, his eyes
unfocused as he thought.
"You spent
thirty years uniting Normandy behind you," Matilda continued, her eyes
steady on her husband's face. "Can you afford to wait another thirty to
gain full control of England? Can any of us afford to wait that long? Is
England worth it, truly?"
"Yes!"
William said quietly. He looked down at Matilda's face, still looking into his
so earnestly, and smiled. "The mere fact that Harold is here tells me
something."
"Yes?"
"He is
uncertain. No man sure of his support would come all this way to tell me to
abandon my own ambitions. Tostig's attack—as Swanne's treachery—has unnerved
him."
"Perhaps he truly
thought he might persuade you to an alliance against Hardrada and Tostig.
Harold does not want his countrymen and women's blood wasted in futile
war."
"Harold fears
simultaneous invasions on Edward's death. He is here to try and deflect at
least one of them."
Matilda shrugged.
"Simultaneous invasions could work against you and me, and Hardrada, as well as against Harold."
O
"Aye…"
William's voice trailed off as he drifted back into thought.
"Caela,"
Matilda suddenly said, very firmly. "Caela is important."
"What?"
William jerked up in his chair. "Caela?"
Then he narrowed his eyes at his wife. "What has your own spy told
you?"
Matilda chose her
words carefully—not in any attempt to deceive her husband, but only because
she, and her agent at Edward's court, relied so greatly on their shared
intuition about the queen.
"She is,"
Matilda finally said, "so very quiet, some would say timid, and yet so
strong. People are drawn to her. I have heard it said by some military
strategists that the most important and influential person in any realm, or
battle, or diplomatic negotiation, is not the person who speaks the loudest, or
who bullies or acts in the most aggressive manner, but that person who sits
silent and watchful and then, at the critical moment, utters a single quiet
word, a word which alters the course of nations and history. Caela strikes me
as such a person. There is a storm gathering, husband, and she sits quiet and
unmoving, and so very, very strong, in the very heart of it."
"She sounds like
a person not to be trusted."
"I think that,
besides Harold, Caela is the person most to
be trusted in the tempest ahead of us. Not Swanne, William. Never Swanne."
William sighed, and
for a moment Matilda feared she had gone too far. "Then what do you
counsel me to do about Harold?" he said, and she
relaxed.
"I think you
should befriend him, husband, for he shall be a friend such as
you have never had
before."
THAT NIGHT, AS
WILLIAM SLEPT, HIS DREAMS DREW him back again to that terrible night when he'd
rushed from Genvissa's bed to find Coel atop Cornelia.
He recalled how he'd
been overwhelmed by an anger and—oh gods, and by a jealousy!—so profound, he had drawn his sword and acted
without thought.
Without humanity.
He saw again the
blood that had streamed from Coel's body, the tragedy
in Cornelia's face.
Genvissa, laughing.
In his dream, Matilda
stood there also, and she was studying him with such a mixture of pity and
disgust on her face that he could not bear it, and turned away.
CbAPCGR F1V
Caela Speaks
SPENT MANY DAYS
WANDERING IN DAMSON'S body, and I spent most of this time within London
itself. Here I / found many signs, subtle and otherwise, of the influence of
the Troy Game on the Londoners. Children, playing a hopping game on flagstones,
weaving a path through a maze of cracks and flagstone edgings to what they
called "home"—safety. "Step on a crack," they sang,
"and the monster will snatch." Women also, embroidering or weaving
simplified patterns of the labyrinth into their clothes: I found the pathways
of Brutus' labyrinth decorating many a collar and cuff, or twirling about the
hem of a robe. In the center of the marketplace that ran off Cheapside was
inscribed a stylized labyrinth: here traders and housewives alike could pause
in the business of market day and play a game with sticks and balls through the
labyrinth. They called the game "Threading Ariadne's Needle," which I
might have found amusing under any other circumstances.
And, of course, the
Troy Game that Silvius had led on Smithfield. As tempting as it might be to
believe he had directed the entire enterprise, apparently he had not. It was
the men of London who were responsible for the games that day. They had thought
up the game, patterning it on the legends of the fall of Troy. Silvius had only
come late to these preparations, suggesting himself as the leader of one of the
lines, and then proving his suitability on the practice field a week
beforehand. As the Troy Game had merged with
the land, so it had also merged with the city. Whatever was built on this site
would always become a living extension of the Troy Game. As the Londoners went
about their daily tasks, so also they stepped out in the intricate patterns of
the Game in a hundred different
ways. Even the
pattern of the streets… so many parts of the city now reflected the purpose of
the Game.
I wondered if Brutus
had ever realized how powerful his Game would
become.
During these wanders
I invariably found myself drawn to St. Paul's Cathedral. At first I supposed
this was because the cathedral sat directly over the site where Brutus had
originally built the labyrinth. The Game, and its labyrinth, had grown, I knew
that, but still here lay its heart.
Then, as I sat within
the nave, ignoring all the people who prayed and chattered and wept about me, I
came to another realization, one that stunned me. St. Paul's was the stone hall of my dream.
Not precisely. It was
not as grand as the stone hall of my dream, but there was something about it,
some sense, some voice tnat called silently to me, that told me this was,
indeed, the stone hall of my vision.
But my vision showed
it as it would one day be: not in this lifetime, but in
one to come.
And what that told me was that all would not be accomplished within
this lifetime. The hall had to grow, and once that was done, then I and the
Game could accomplish our mutual goal.
I can't say precisely
how my understanding that all would not be accomplished within this lifetime
made me feel. Sad, certainly. Frightened, a little. Frustrated, beyond measure.
Yet, unsurprised. Mag
and Hera had known, I think, that it would take a very long time. That there
were so many twists to be taken that several lives might be needed. But, oh, to
have to come back again and again…
Beyond all this, as I
sat in the gloomy, frigid interior of the cathedral, staring at the altar and
yet seeing none of it, I felt a deep fear.
I should have known
this, surely? Not only that St. Paul's was the stone hall of my vision, but
that the playing out of the Game to its conclusion would take so long? Mag and
Hera had known it… but was I not Mag-reborn? Did I not hold Mag and all that
she was within my flesh? Was I not everything that
she had been, yet more?
So why had I not
known this? Why had it taken me this long to realize,
rather than
instinctively know?
The sense deepened
that there was an emptiness, some "unrightness" about my power, my
bond with the land. I was far more than I had been as Cornelia, but I was not
yet all that I should be.
What was missing?
What had I yet to learn?
Was this some
omission on my part? Had Mag been wrong in trusting me
to be all that was
needed?
I wanted to talk to
one of the Sidlesaghes—oh, how I wished I had discussed
this with Long Tom
when we walked the forest paths of the Game—but no matter how much I wandered,
and wanted, I saw none of them. They seemed to have their own sense of time,
and of how events should be placed and paced out within that time, but I knew
none of it. Long Tom had told me I needed to move the bands, but had then left
me alone all this time—a week, longer, without a word.
And so I had
wandered, about Westminster, about London, and invariably to St. Paul's where I
sat, and worried.
One market day, when
the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats from the markets of
Cheapside disturbed even the relative calm of St. Paul's, I sat huddled on a
bench in one of the aisles. Many of the traders and their customers had come
inside the nave of the cathedral to do their business—I supposed it was raining
outside, and the cathedral more conducive to trade than the rain-washed
street—and the aisle was one of the few spots within the cathedral where
remained any peace. I had decided to return to Westminster, the walk would take
me an hour, and poor Damson needed her body back for her evening chores, and so
I had shuffled forward on the bench in preparation to rising, when a cloaked
figure dropped down beside me, making me cringe back on the bench. What was
this? A robber? A lecher? Worse, a monk come to pry out my sins?
"Don't
leave," said Silvius.
I stared at him, not
sure if he knew who it was within this poor woman's
body.
"My lord,"
I began, but Silvius laughed, and waved a hand in the air.
"Oh, no need for
such formalities, Caela. But this body…" His eyes traveled over Damson's
squat outlines with patent disapproval. "You could not find better?"
"How did you
know it was me?"
His teeth flashed
inside the hood. "I know all about glamours, Caela. I am no fool."
"I did not ever
mistake you for one," I said quietly. My eyes had got used to the darkness
beneath the enveloping hood, and now I could see his face clearly. He was
grinning, obviously enjoying my discomfiture.
"Glamours were
used in the ancient Aegean world, as well as here," he said. "Mag was
not the only one to know of them."
"Ah. I did not
know."
"I have watched
you these past days," he said, all teasing dropped from his voice.
"You keep coming back here. Why?"
"It is the stone
hall of my vision."
He nodded. "I
had wondered when you would see that."
"Is there
anything you do not know?"
Again he laughed.
"Very little, although I suspect that what I don't know is what you need
desperately to know, and perhaps why you sit here with Damson's rough-worked
face all wrinkled with worry."
I wondered how to
reply to that, then finally decided that it would not hurt to talk to Silvius.
I felt safe about him, cared for and comforted, and I knew he was someone in
whom I could confide.
"There are
several things all at worry within me," I said.
"And they
are?"
"Well… the
lesser is that Judith has told me that Saeweald expects himself to become
Og-reborn."
Silvius grinned.
"The pretentious fool," he said. "Has he no idea?"
I shook my head.
"Should I tell him?"
"Oh, nay. I
think not! Imagine the consequences. Ah, Caela, do not worry. He will come to
terms with his disappointment, I am sure. He will do what is
best for the
land."
"I hope
so," I said, lowly.
"He will."
I chewed at my lip,
then nodded.
"Very well. What
else eats at you?"
"There is
something missing within me," I said. "Some part of who I
should be is… not
there."
He frowned.
"What do you mean?"
I lifted one hand,
then let it drop uselessly. "An emptiness, Silvius. An un-rightness. I can
explain it no more than that."
"You are not all
you should be?"
"Yes. That is
it, perfectly."
He was silent, and I
looked at him. He was smiling gently, his face so like, and yet unlike, Brutus'
in its gentleness that I felt like weeping.
I was suddenly very
sorry that I was here in Damson's body and not my
true one.
His smile widened a
little. "I could tell you what is so amiss, but you might
not want to
know."
"What is
it?"
Now he was grinning
enough that I could see his teeth, and the wetness of his tongue behind them. I
smiled, responding to the mischievousness in his face, and to the warmth and
life dancing about in his remaining eye.
"Let me
see," he said. "How can I put this without having you shriek down
the cathedral?"
"Tell me!"
I said. Then I laughed, for suddenly it seemed as if Silvius had taken all my
cares into his capable hands, rolled them up into an insignificant ball, and
tossed them carelessly aside.
"Well now."
He struck a pose, as if considering deeply, and without thinking I reached out
and touched him.
"Tell me."
He took my hand,
curling it within his own.
His flesh was very
warm. Very dry. Very sensuous.
My heart began to
thud strangely within my breast, and I knew he could feel the pulse leap within
my wrist. "Let me see," he said
again, but now all the laughter had gone from his voice, and his gaze as it
held mine was direct and strong. Confrontational, but still reassuring.
"You are
Mag-reborn within Caela. Yes?"
My hesitation was
only slight. "Yes."
"And you are
queen of England, wife to the oh-so-pious Edward. Yes?"
"Yes."
"As Mag you are
the land, fertility personified, you are Mother Mag. You are the bounty of the land."
I had a glimmer where
he was going. "Oh."
"Oh, indeed. But
as Caela, queen of England, wife of Edward the Confessor, you are," his
lips twitched, "God's Concubine. A virgin. Imagine," he said,
"how this undermines everything you are as Mag-reborn."
"Oh." I let
out a long breath—I had not realized I'd been holding it.
"No wonder you
feel a lack," he said, and he laughed, breathily, and his hand tightened
about mine.
"But what can
I—"
He roared with
laughter, and I looked about, sure the entire cathedral would be staring at us.
But in the hustle and
bustle, no one was paying us any attention and so I looked back to Silvius.
"You are a poor
wretch indeed," he said, "if you do not know how to fix the
situation."
I could see nothing
but his black eye, feel nothing but the pressure of his hand, the warmth of his
body, the skittering of fets pulse. I could read the solution in his eye, feel
it in his touch.
"I am not my
son," he said, very softly. "Never mistake me for Brutus."
I knew what he
saying. Do not take me only
because I remind you of Brutus.
I swallowed, and
pulled my hand away.
He let it go easily.
"It would be best," he said, "that, if you do decide to
relinquish your state as God's Concubine, that you do not do it in Damson's
body."
"Yes," I
said, adding, without thinking, "she is no virgin, in any case."
"Is that
so?" He laughed again, and I colored.
I forced my mind back
to what he had said. As Caela
I was a virgin, and
that contradicted everything I
should be as Mag, as Mother of this land, as its
^ "The winter solstice approaches," Silvius
said. "It would be the best night." The best night in which to lose my virginity.
"In which to wed
yourself entirely to the land." His gaze had not once wandered from my
face. "To fill that lack."
He was right. Everything he said was right. Virginity was anathema to Mag and
to all she represented, and the night of the winter solstice, the night when
the land needed every particle of aid and fertility it could summon to see it
through the long, frigid winter, was the perfect occasion to… "To wed
myself entirely to the land," I whispered. "And to the Game," he
said, as low as I, "should you choose aright." Ah, I knew what he
suggested, and I knew then what I would do. "Do not come to me as
Damson," he said, and his voice was thick with desire. "Not as
Damson."
"No," I
whispered. "Not as Damson."
SI*
WANNE WAS FEELING
EDGIER BY THE DAY.
There was something
happening, yet she could not scry out the "what" of that happening.
Caela had changed, had become far more confident within herself, and Swanne did
not like that. The Game was setting children to hopping over lines in the
flagstones outside St. Paul's (and their fathers to battling out the Troy Game
in labyrinthine horse games). Harold had vanished, ostensibly to his estates in
Wessex, but Swanne had sent him a message there several days ago and he had yet
to reply.
Was it that Harold
was ignoring her… or was it that he was not in Wessex at all? Was this
punishment for her failure to aid him during Tostig's attack? For her laughter?
Damn! Swanne supposed she should have managed some pretense at caring… but
then, Harold was no threat, surely. Was he?
As Harold irritated
and worried Swanne, so also did William. Rather, his refusal to answer her
pleas for the location of the kingship bands of Troy irritated her. Gods, he
must know that Asterion hunted them down! He could not afford to let them lie
vulnerable!
To cap all of this
was Edward's decision to request Swanne to accompany himself, the queen, and a
small group of courtiers and clerics to view the almost-completed abbey of
Westminster. Swanne could not understand why he'd invited her. Edward and she
barely spoke, and Swanne only attended the king's court when Harold was in
attendance. On the occasions when they did speak, their mutual dislike was
obvious. Edward disliked the Danelaw wife of Harold, not only for the sensual
beauty that Swanne never bothered to drape with modesty, but because Swanne and
Harold's union was not recognized by the Holy Church and was therefore, in
Edward's eyes, a horribly sinful affair. He even had referred to her and
Harold's children as bastards on more than one occasion.
In Swanne's view,
Edward was a contemptuous and cowardly old man, hiding behind his religion and
his sharp, sarcastic tongue.
Edward's one great
love was the almost-completed abbey. It had been fifteen years in the building
(the fact that Edward had been married to
Caela for fifteen
years as well, and that his Grand Plan for the abbey was conceived at the same
time he wed her was the occasion of much ribald comment: Edward found in stones
and mortar what he could not find in his wife) and had absorbed one-tenth of
the entire wealth of the realm. Edward meant the building to be a marvel of its
kind, the most wondrous abbey in Europe and, Swanne supposed, most Christians
would think he had mostly
succeeded.
The abbey was
enormous, by far the largest single structure in England. It
occupied the western
portion of Thorney Isle, its central tower crowned with a cupola of wood,
rising some several hundred feet into the air, its cruciform layout (still a
novelty in Europe) stretching over five hundred feet east to west. The abbey
was constructed of great blocks of gray stone, unusual in a country where most
churches—indeed, most buildings—were constructed of wood or wattle and daub,
had a magnificent lead roof, a graceful rounded apse at its eastern end, and
dazzlingly beautiful stained glass filling its windows. In the two towers at
the western end of the abbey hung five great bells that were to be rung for the
first time this day. From the southern wall extended the foundations and partly
constructed walls of the cloisters, infirmary, rectory, and the infirmary
gardens: that would be completed within the
next few years.
Edward, accompanied
by Eadwine, abbot of Westminster, a bevy of other clerics including Aldred,
Wulfstan of Worcester, and the bishop of London, his queen, Caela, two or three
of her ladies, a handful of earls and a score of lesser thegns, guards,
hangers-on, and three ragged children who tacked themselves on to the very end
of the party, set out for the short walk on foot from his palace to the abbey
at midmorning. Swanne, who had decided that attending might give her a better
opportunity for observing Caela than that provided her within the confines of
court, walked a few paces behind the queen and her ladies. It was a fine day,
if crisp and cold, and most people had wrapped themselves in fur-lined cloaks
and heavy woolen robes, with sturdy leather boots on their feet. A fresh
southerly breeze blew, tugging at the veils of the women and making everyone's
eyes water.
Swanne kept her eyes
on the ground, her skirts lifted delicately away from the ever-present mud.
Gods, she thought, could not
Edward have seen to the laying of a few
flagstones to make the way a little easier?
As they approached
the eastern apse, the bells of the western towers
suddenly burst into
tongue.
Swanne flinched, as did
most people. Although everyone had known the bells were to sound out for the
first time this morning to welcome the great king into the new abbey, the
actuality of their tremendous peal was a shock to both ears and nerves.
If Swanne flinched,
then Edward stopped dead in his tracks (forcing everyone to stumble to a halt
behind him) and crowed with delight, clapping his hands and raising his face
heavenward.
"Glory be to God
on high!" he shouted, and the shout was dutifully taken up by the clerics
clustered in a small adoring flock behind him.
Glory be to God on high!
Swanne mumbled
something that she hoped would be taken for a similar response, feeling such a
rush of loathing for the entire Christian church and its damned crucified sons,
saints, and sundry martyrs that for an instant she had a surge of sentimental
longing for Mag. At least that silly bitch hadn't wrapped herself and her
followers about with ridiculous conditions, sins, and unachievable objectives
in order to keep them unthinking and under control.
At least Mag hadn't
demanded the building of cold, dark, and useless stone tombs in which to herd
her mindless minions.
Swanne looked ahead,
and realized with a jolt that Caela had turned and was looking at her with a
small smile on her face—almost as if she knew exactly what Swanne was thinking.
The fine linen veil Caela wore about her forehead and over her hair had
fluttered loose in the wind, as had a few wisps of her dark hair. The wind had
also brought a glow to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eye, and for a moment, a
single moment, Swanne was struck at how lovely the woman looked.
How certain. How
happy.
Then Swanne hardened
both her heart and her face, and Caela turned away as Edward resumed his
triumphant march into his abbey and his immortality.
AS SWANNE HAD EXPECTED, THE INTERNAL SPACE OF
the abbey could have
been a block of ice, for all its warmth. The abbey's nave was also full of
dust, dirt, and a few remaining scaffolds for workmen to put the final touches
to the sculptures about Edward's soaring walls.
At least the screech
of the bells was muted in here.
Edward was almost
capering in his joy, pointing out this and that for his equally joyous
sycophants.
Swanne turned away,
trying to seek out Caela in the shafts of weak sunlight that filtered through
the stained glass windows.
"Is this not a
sight to gladden one's heart?" came a voice behind her, and Swanne
managed, just, to put a pleasant smile on her face as she turned about.
It was Aldred, the
archbishop of York, beaming at her as if she would truly think this abbey the
most wondrous site in creation.
O
"Indeed,"
she said, inclining her head politely.
Aldred looked about,
checking that no one was within hearing distance. "And won't William enjoy
it, don't you think? So… Norman."
Swanne drew in a
sharp breath of dismay, her eyes glancing about, praying to whatever gods were
listening this morning that no one had heard Aldred's remark. The fat fool!
"You need not be
so indiscreet!" she hissed.
His face hardened.
"Indiscreet, madam, is passing written intelligence from your chamber to
his!"
"To which you
have ever been a willing party," she retorted. Aldred had been her means
to contact William for the past eight or nine years. He was a Norman who had
come to England when Edward returned from exile some twenty years previously.
As part of his admiration of all things Norman (and his desire to irritate the
Saxon Godwineson clan at every opportunity), Edward had elevated Aldred from
mere monk to bishop to, eventually, archbishop. The cleric's girth increasing
in direct proportion to the importance of each elevation. In between clerical
promotions, Edward also used Aldred as his ambassador to Rome, Cologne, and
Jerusalem, and as many smaller and less important realms.
Swanne found him
repulsive, but he was necessary to her cause. Aldred was a man of great
influence, who knew many people and was a Norman sympathizer. Over the years he
had told her (in foul-breathed whispers… his liking of sweet pastries had
rotted away most of his teeth) that he would like nothing else than to see
William ensconced on England's throne, and would work with her to ensure this
end.
Swanne wasn't sure if
she could truly trust the man… but he had not failed her over all the years
she'd been communicating with William, and Swanne was sure that if a treachery
was to have been forthcoming, then it would have engulfed her by now.
Now Aldred had his
hands clasped across his not-inconsiderable girth, his eyes narrowed as he
studied her. "I have heard that Harold has set Caela to procuring him a
more suitable wife, my dear. One who can comfortably sit next to him on a
Christian throne. One who is not…" he drew out his pause with infinite
delicacy "… tainted."
Swanne ignored the
jibe; Aldred, after all, was a cruel man underneath his jovial flab and enjoyed
a taunt almost as much as he enjoyed a pastry. "Are
you certain?"
Aldred raised an
eyebrow. "Of course, my dear. Now you are more, ahem, married to William's
cause than ever, eh? A pity about Matilda, though. I hear
also—"
Swanne gritted her
teeth.
"—that William
has promised Matilda that she shall be crowned next to him. What place for you
in all this, then? Neither man seems to want to publicly associate himself with
you. And yet, one or the other shall surely be England's king."
"William will
never—" she began, leaning close to the archbishop, when his eyes widened,
and one plump hand whipped out and seized her forearm.
Swanne snapped her
mouth closed.
"My good lord
archbishop," Caela said, inclining her head politely to both Aldred and
Swanne as she walked close, "do you find this abbey pleasing?"
"Most pleasing,
gracious queen," Aldred said. "It is a true monument to Edward."
Caela glanced about
the frigid, empty stone interior. "Oh, aye, it is that," she said,
not a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "And you, my lady sister, what think
you?"
Swanne tried to smile
politely, then abandoned the effort, realizing she was failing miserably.
"I find it empty," she said, tired with all the pretense and the
lies. "And cold."
Caela nodded slightly
at her, consideringly. "Not many people would have spoken such truth,
sister. That was well done of you."
Swanne momentarily
closed her eyes, fighting back the impulse to slap the patronizing bitch across
her glowing cheeks.
At that moment, one
of Swanne's sons, Alan, who had accompanied the party, came over and greeted
his mother and the archbishop. He exchanged one or two words with them, then
made a small bow to Caela.
"Madam," he
said, "forgive me for not speaking to you first, but your beauty this
morning, in this cold gray hall, struck me dumb, and I could not find the words
with which to adequately greet you."
His eyes sparkled as
he spoke, and Caela burst into delighted laughter.
"Ah, I was
standing in the good archbishop's shadow, my dear," she said, "and it
was only now that you saw me. You thought to cloak oversight with
flattery." She paused, her grin widening. "You shall make a true
courtier, indeed."
Well, well, thought Swanne. You grace my son with your laughter and insult the
archbishop all in one. From where did you discover this courage? She glanced at Aldred, saw his face tighten
with humiliation, and she had to dampen a moment's grudging admiration for
Caela.
Her boy had turned to
Aldred, engaging him in a conversation about the estates of his archbishopric,
and Caela moved a little closer to Swanne, taking her arm and moving her away a
pace or two.
"I am glad to
have you to myself a moment," she said, "and Alan's delightful
interruption has made me curious about something. Let me phrase this as
delicately as I might, considering always that there are other ears
about."
Swanne stiffened. She
held Caela's gaze with easy arrogance, but the queen did not let her eyes drop.
"Swanne,"
Caela said, "I remember that you, a very long time ago when I was but a
naive girl, said that you only ever wanted daughters. Yet here you are, a
mother of three fine sons to Harold. How can this be? Has my recently returned
memory somehow… misremembered?"
Swanne knew what
Caela was truly asking. How
does a Mistress of the Labyrinth bear sons
when she only truly wants daughters?
"I am glad for
the sons," Swanne said, sure she could actually hear her teeth grate,
"for otherwise Harold would have set me aside."
"Ah," said
Caela, and the expression on her face said: The truth of the matter. And then Swanne knew, as surely
as she drew breath, that Caela was hiding something from her. Something deep.
She remembered how
long ago, long, long ago, when she had been Genvissa and Caela had been
Cornelia, how she had continually felt something strange about Cornelia. Something
hidden.
Now she felt it
again. The woman was hiding something, something sly. What? What? Not Mag, for Mag was dead. What else?
Again Swanne felt a
shiver of fear slide through her. What else?
Alan had departed, and Swanne became aware that Aldred was looking most
peculiarly between the two woman.
Swanne laughed,
daintily and prettily, and patted his hand. "You must forgive us, Father,
for our chatter about babies. I am sure you are bored by it."
"Indeed not,
madam. You would be surprised at how much matters of the womb amuse me."
Then he changed the
subject, talking first about the abbey, and how splendid it must be for Eadwine
to be able to conduct services within its grandeur ("My cathedral of York
is, I am afraid, a sad affair, indeed"), then about Harold ("Has
anyone seen the great earl recently? I confess to have missed his wit about the
king's court this past week"), then about the River Thames itself
("So gray and lifeless, don't you think? I cannot but agree with those Holy
Fathers who preach that such wide expanses of water are but examples of sinful
wasteland, unfit for consideration"), before, eventually, bringing the
subject back to the matter of children. "My dear, gracious queen—"
Swanne looked at
Caela, and saw that her face was strained and paler than it had been. Either
Aldred himself was beginning to try her (a distinct possibility, as far as
Swanne was concerned) or some of what Aldred had bean talking about had somehow
upset her, and Swanne found herself intrigued by that possibility.
"—I have always
sorrowed that your womb has borne no fruit," Aldred continued, his face
all wrapped up in palpably false sorrow and concern. "It must be a great
tragedy for you that—"
"I am afraid, my
good archbishop, that I can see my husband looking about for me. I should
rejoin him."
Swanne's eyes had not
left Caela's face. So, she was upset over something.
"—you have
proved so barren," he finished. "Should I pray for you?"
From the corner of
her eye, Swanne saw something quite horrible slither across his face. She half
turned so she could see him more clearly, when Caela gave an audible, and
patently horrified, gasp.
Swanne looked back to
her, then saw that Caela was staring at the altar, some distance away.
Curious to see what
it was that had so distracted Caela, Swanne looked also…
… and froze, so
terrified she could barely continue to breathe.
The altar was not yet
fully completed, and there was still some scaffolding behind it. This scaffolding
was perhaps some fifteen or twenty feet high, and hanging from its central
supports, in a frightful parody of the Christian crucifixion, stretched
Asterion.
He was completely
naked, his muscular body gleaming with sweat, his black bull's head twisting
slowly from side to side as if he moaned in agony.
Swanne was vaguely
aware that Aldred was still babbling on about babies and wombs and barrenness,
but she could not truly distinguish a word he said. All she could see was
Asterion, crucified before her, blood trickling down his arms, his chest, his
belly.
Then, horrifyingly,
Asterion's head stopped rolling from side to side, and his eyes opened, and
they stared directly at Swanne.
Do you know, the Minotaur whispered in her
mind, of what Ariadne promised me? Do you know, of how much she enjoyed me?
Swanne realized,
frightfully, that the Minotaur was fully erect.
Do you have any idea of how much good
I could do you?
And then he was gone,
and Swanne was left staring open-mouthed at the altar, trembling so badly that
she thought she would tumble to the flagging floor at any moment.
"Swanne!"
she heard Caela say, and felt the woman grasp at her arm. "Swanne!"
And then, in her
mind, It was trickery, Swanne.
Ignore it! He thinks only to taunt you!
Swanne, so slowly she
could feel the tendons behind her eyes popping with the movement, dragged her
eyes away from the altar and to Caela. The woman was staring at her, looking
almost as horrified as Swanne felt.
"Swanne,"
Caela whispered, close enough now that she could put an arm about Swanne's
waist. "Ignore him, I beg you."
"Ignore
me?" Aldred said indignantly, staring bemusedly between the two women.
"Have I said something to upset such noble ladies?"
sevejN
XHAUSTED BY HIS DAY
SPENT INSPECTING THE
abbey, Edward fell
into a dreamless sleep as soon as he closed his eyes. The bowerthegn likewise,
prompted less by exhaustion than a little too much ale taken at supper. Judith,
who often slept in the trestle bed at the foot of the king and queen's great
bed, was not there. Caela had told her she could spend the night with Saeweald,
if she wished. That she, Caela, had no need for her.
In truth, Caela did
not want Judith—who had not realized Asterion's appearance—awake and near,
fretting over Caela's patent and unexplained worry. And so Caela lay awake and
alone, staring at the canopy over the bed, replaying the events of the day over
and over in her mind.
Her hands lay over
the bedcovers, twisting and warping the material until, eventually, broken
threads began to work themselves loose from the weave.
The night deepened.
Well past midnight,
when even the owls were silent, Caela's hands paused, and she raised herself up
on one elbow.
A trapdoor had
materialized within the floor.
"Praise the lady
moon!" Caela whispered and, rising from the bed, she threw a gown hastily
over her nakedness, slipped her feet into some shoes, and snatched at her cloak
that hung from the back of the doorway.
The trapdoor opened,
and an arm and hand emerged, beckoning Caela.
She stepped through
the trapdoor as the arm disappeared, unhesitant.
SHE WALKED WITH THE
SIDLESAGHE THROUGH A
tunnel that seemed
not of this world, or of any that Caela could remember. Above them and to
either side, curved walls made of red clay bricks of a uniformity of shape and
color and of size that Caela had never seen previously.
Even stranger, the
floor of the tunnel consisted of a thick layer of gravel upon which her feet
continually slipped and slithered. Stranger yet, through
this gravel ran two
ribbons of shiny metal as wide and as high as the palm of her hand.
Every so often Caela
noted that the ribbons of metal quivered violently, shaking to and fro, and
when they did this, then a moment later, there invariably came a rush of air so
violent that it almost blew Caela off her uncertain feet.
"We walk through
a part of the Game that is yet to be," said the Sidlesaghe.
"Sometimes this happens."
Caela nodded, curious
but not unbearably so. Asterion, his naked form, his malevolent words, rich
with unknown meaning, kept repeating themselves over and over in her head.
Eventually they came
to an opening within the wall on their right. It was the height and just over
the width of a man, and the Sidlesaghe turned and entered the aperture.
Caela followed,
swallowing down her apprehension.
The footing was
firmer here, gravel no longer, but what felt like brick.
Whatever relief the
footing afforded was consumed almost immediately by the fear caused by the
dark. Caela put her hands to either side of her, using the enclosing brick
walls to orientate herself and to give her some comfort within the blackness.
She could not see anything before her, but could hear the Sidlesaghe's
footsteps ahead of her.
Occasionally she
bumped into his back, and, whenever she did that, Caela lifted one of her hands
from the brick walls and rested it momentarily on the Sidlesaghe's shoulder,
seeking reassurance in his nearness and warmth.
They walked for what
seemed like hours, but which, Caela realized, was probably for only a fraction
of that time, until a faint light emerged before them.
A doorway into the
night.
Caela gave a great
sigh of relief as she followed the Sidlesaghe into the cold night, taking a
moment to recover from her claustrophobia before she looked about her.
They stood within
London before the northern approach to the bridge. Immediately before Caela was
the bridge itself; the two stones of Magog and Gog standing to either side of
its entrance-way.
The Sidlesaghe put a
hand in the small of Caela's back, and she walked forward.
As she did so, the
stones wavered in the gloom, and metamorphosed into Sidlesaghes, slightly
shorter than Long Tom, who had brought her through the tunnel, but otherwise
virtually indistinguishable.
"We saw
Asterion," said the one who had been the stone Magog.
Caela nodded, her
hands pulling the cloak closer about her shoulders.
"He spoke,"
said the one who was Gog.
"It was
vile," said Long Tom.
"What did he
mean?" said Caela, looking between the three Sidlesaghes. "What did
Ariadne promise Asterion?"
"Who can
tell?" said the Gog. "Perhaps it was a falsehood, sent to disturb
you, and Swanne also. Perhaps it was a truth."
"If it is a
truth," said Caela, "then it will be a dangerous one."
"We agree,"
said all three Sidlesaghes simultaneously.
"We have little
time," added Long Tom.
"The
bands," Caela said.
"You must move the
first one tomorrow night," said Magog. "Long Tom shall aid you."
Caela shivered, and
Long Tom placed a surprisingly warm hand on her shoulder.
eigbc
Rouen
HEY HAD LEFT THE
CASTLE AT ROUEN BEFORE
dawn, heavily cloaked
against the frost, their horses' hooves dull ^■p*"*" thuds on
the straw-strewn cobbles of the castle courtyard, and then the frost-hardened
mire of the streets that led to the city gate. They were a small party: William
of Normandy; Harold of Wessex; Walter Fitz Osbern; Ranuld the huntsman, on
horseback himself for this dangerous adventure; Thorkell, a thegn from Sussex,
and Hugh, a thegn from Kent, both of them close companions of Harold's who had
accompanied him on his journey to Normandy; and, finally, two men-at-arms from
William's own personal guard at Rouen. All eight men were heavily armed with
swords and knives and the men-at-arms also carried with them wickedly-sharp,
long pikes, two apiece, which they could share with any other of the hunters as
need be.
The gatekeepers were
awake and alert, having been forewarned of this expedition the previous night.
They bowed as William rode up on his black stallion, then set in motion the
grinding and clanking which signaled the rising of the portcullis. William and Harold
and their companions sat waiting silently, their eyes set ahead, their
expressions drawn, their thoughts on what lay before them, while their horses
stamped and flicked their tails with impatience, lowering their heads and
testing the strength of bit and rein and the hand of the man who held them.
The portcullis
rattled into its place in the heights of the gate, and the riders kicked their
horses forward.
"Which
way?" William said over his shoulder to Ranuld, riding several
paces behind.
Ranuld nodded toward the line of trees that stretched
along a creek some two miles distant. "There, my lord. The report I had
last night said they had nested along that creek bed."
"Take the
lead," William said, and Ranuld kicked his horse forward, guiding the
party toward the distant trees.
For the first few
minutes of the ride, they kept to the road, and William pulled his horse back
until he rode side by side with Harold. He'd given the Saxon earl one of his
best stallions, better even than the one William himself rode, and William
noted that Harold controlled the spirited bay easily and gently. The horse was
unmanageable for most riders, and William had given it to Harold as a test.
Strangely, as he'd
watched Harold gather the stallion's reins and mount, William had found himself
hoping that Harold would be able to control the beast. He
didn't want to see Harold tossed into the mire of the stable yard, or suffer
the humiliation of having the horse bolt from under him while half the garrison
watched from dormitory doorways or leaned over the parapets.
And why not? Brutus would have
relished the chance to arrange Coel's humiliation.
Wouldn't he?
The horse had given
one initial plunge as he felt Harold's weight settle on his back, but then
Harold had taken control, soothing the stallion with a calm but firm voice,
reining him in with a determined yet gentle hand, and stroking the horse's
muscled neck when he'd finally settled.
Then Harold had
turned amused eyes to William, knowing full well that he'd just been set a
test.
William had given the
earl a single nod—that was
well done—and
then mounted himself, leading the party out.
They'd not spoken
since. But now, riding through the hoar-frosted countryside beyond Rouen's walls,
William felt the need to talk.
Honestly.
Harold had been with
William now for some time, and all this time had, after their initial
conversation, been spent in hedging and wary verbal circling, interspersed with
long and significant periods of eye contact over the rims of wine cups. Neither
wanted to concede anything to the other, but both wanted to scry out the
other's strengths and weaknesses as much as possible.
They were, after all,
likely to meet on the battlefield, and this time spent together was as much a
part of that distant battle as would be the eventual clash of sword on sword.
Through all of this,
William had not forgotten Matilda's injunction to be Harold's friend. His wary
circling had as much been sounding out Harold's character as it had his
strengths and weaknesses.
And William had
discovered that he did, indeed, like Harold. The earl was as honest and true a
man as ever William had met, in either of his lives, and William had come to
regret bitterly the actions of his previous life.
Kb
William checked to
ensure that Ranuld, as the riders following them, were not within easy earshot,
and said, "Tell me of Swanne." He made no attempt at dissimulation,
for that would have been an insult to Harold's own integrity. "Did you
ever love her, and she you?" Is that why she lied to me about you, because
then she loved you?
Harold shot William a
wry look. "What is this, William? She has not told you everything that has
passed between us?"
No. "She has only mentioned that she is your wife,
but nothing more." Harold raised his eyebrows, although his gaze had
returned to the road before them. "I am her husband, I am the man who
should rightfully succeed Edward, and I am thus the one she betrays the most,
both as husband and as future king. How strange that she has not mentioned me,
apart from naming me as her husband."
He turned his head,
looking at William once more. "If Matilda betrayed you with, for instance,
the duke of Gascony, and plotted to hand him your duchy, would you not expect
her to hand him some reason for this betrayal? Would you not expect the duke to
ask, 'Why, madam, do you betray your husband and your homeland in this manner?'
I find it passing strange, William, that Swanne does not 'mention me.' You
never thought to ask?"
"I asked her
once, many years ago. She said you were but a man. Nothing
more."
Harold laughed
bitterly. "Just a man. Nothing more. When I first married her I loved her
more dearly than I had thought possible. She bewitched me. You have surely
heard of her loveliness, if not seen for yourself." William nodded, his
eyes now on the road before them. "God, William. I could not believe I had
won such a trophy to my bed. In the early years together, she provided me with
bed sport such as I'd never enjoyed before." William winced.
"And then…"
Harold hesitated. "And then…?"
"And then, as
years passed, I realized that Swanne's loveliness was only a brittle thing. A
sham, meant to bewilder and entrap. Swanne uses her beauty and love only as a
weapon." He paused. "I do not think Swanne knows what love is. Not
truly. William, how is it you have fallen under her spell? What did she use to
entrap you?"
Power. Ambition. The promise of
immortality.
"I am not 'trapped,'" William
said.
Harold grunted.
"I hear tell you
lust for your sister," William said, stung into attack. To his
amazement, Harold
only laughed.
i
"You would have
done far better to recruit Caela to your cause, William. Caela could have been
born the lowliest of peasant women, and still she would have been a
queen." He looked directly at William, forcing the duke to meet his gaze.
"She has true power, William, not
Swanne, and that is beauty of spirit, not darkness of soul."
"Caela is well
served in you, Harold. She has always been so."
"And I in
her," Harold said quietly, and for a time they rode in silence, each
wrapped in their own thoughts.
"Harold,"
William said eventually, "you cannot fight me. When Edward dies, I have
the closest blood link to the English throne. I will have the stronger claim.
Don't oppose me." Please.
Harold grinned, easy
and comfortable, and William felt his stomach turn over. Gods! Was this guilt? A conscience?
"A tenuous blood
link," said Harold, "through your great-aunt, and well you know that
the English throne is not handed automatically from father to son… or from king
to—what are you?—great nephew through marriage. The witan approves and elects
each new king. If there is a strong son with a good claim, then it will lean to
him… but they will not elect you, William. Never."
They lapsed into
silence again. Ranuld had led them from the road, and now their horses were
cantering through stubbled meadowlands, the hay long since cut and carted for
winter fodder. The pace had quickened, and everyone's hearts beat a little
faster.
The tree line of the
creek bed loomed.
"I will invade," William said. "Believe it."
Harold shrugged.
"Then you will meet the might of the Saxon army. You will meet England."
"For sweet
Christ's sake, Harold, I have a battle-hardened force second to none! I have
spent thirty years fighting for this duchy, and I will loose all that
experience on you!"
Unwittingly, Harold
echoed Matilda's words. "And you are prepared to waste another thirty
trying to seize England, William? For I assure you, thirty years of Norman
spilled blood is what it is going to take."
Furious now—although
at quite what, William was not sure—he kicked his horse forward with a terse, "As
you will."
They descended into
the all-but-dry creek bed, their horses slipping and sliding down the steep
slope before splashing into the bare inch of water that wound its sludgy way
around the larger of the stones of the bed.
At the head of the
party, Ranuld reined his horse to a halt and held up his hand. "Prepare
yourselves," he said once the seven other men had pulled up behind him.
"They are not far."
He extended the hand
he'd held up until it was pointing straight ahead. "There," he said,
his tone quieter now. "See? In those bushes lining that slope?"
The other men peered,
some swallowing in nervous anticipation, others tightening their mouths in grim
attempts at fortitude.
All reached for
weapons, and Thorkell and Hugh, Harold's men, took a pike each from the
men-at-arms.
All eight looked
between each other, then forward again, to the distant bushes.
At this time of
morning, when the sun had barely risen, the shadows were so long and strong
about the shrubs that it was difficult to distinguish detail.
Then a shadow moved,
deepened lightly, and a single ray of sunlight, penetrating the deep creek bed,
revealed the roundness of flesh.
A shoulder, perhaps,
or even a haunch.
The shadow moved,
shuffling about, and then, for an instant, the watchers saw a head with thick
curved tusks and small, bright, mean eyes.
William very slowly
withdrew his sword from its leather scabbard and, even with that slight sound,
the creature hiding in the bushes squealed in anger, and the world erupted into
a seething mass of leaves and branches and hot flesh and terrible grinding
tusks.
The riders scattered,
the horses—even as well trained as they were— terrified by the suddenness of
the attack.
A boar, half the size
of a horse, its hairy hide mottled tan and black and pink, had roared from the shrubs and charged down the creek bed toward
the group of riders. It moved with the agility, grace, and power of a master
swordsman, and it used its vicious, deadly tusks with as much effect, breaking
a leg on no less than three horses on its first charge.
The horses went down
in a flurry of snorting fear and flailing legs, tossing their riders onto the
sharp stones of the creek walls and bed.
A man-at-arms was one
of those who was tossed. Horribly, he had fallen directly in the path of the
boar, which had made a nimble turn, and was making a returning charge at the
now disarrayed hunting party.
The man screamed,
rolling away. He got to his knees, his hands reaching for the roots of a tree
higher up the bank, his feet scrabbling for purchase, then the boar slammed
into his back, driving its tusks deep into his ribs.
The man-at-arms
screeched, so terrified—or so paralyzed by pain and shock—that he did not even
think to reach for his sword or knife.
The boar twisted its
head and, aided by the immense muscles in its neck and shoulders, bodily lifted
the man off the ground and tossed him some feet away.
The man, still
screeching, landed with a sickening thud, his head smashing into a large rock.
He convulsed, then
lay still.
The rest of the party
had either gotten their horses back under control or, in the case of the two
riderless men who had regained their feet relatively uninjured, had grabbed
pikes. Now the remaining seven men closed in on the boar, which had now turned
its ire on one of the luckless horses, disemboweling it with two vicious sweeps
of its tusks.
Harold was the
closest and, guiding his horse in with the pressure of his knees and calves, he
hefted his sword. As the boar swung to meet him, he plunged it with all his
strength into the boar's back.
The blade of the
sword missed the boar's spinal cord by a mere inch, burying itself into the
thick muscle that bounded the creature's ribs.
Harold leaned back, meaning to pull the sword free so
he could strike again.
The boar screamed in
rage, rather than pain or despair. Before Harold could twist the sword free,
the boar twisted himself, throwing the weight of his body against the legs of
Harold's horse.
The stallion slipped
to its haunches and Harold, still gripping the haft of the sword, was pulled
out of the saddle both by the motion of the horse and by the continual maddened
twisting of the boar.
He fell, grunting in
surprise as he hit the stones of the creek bed, and slipped in the shallow
water as he tried to right himself.
The boar, Harold's
sword still sticking from its back, had turned and was now watching Harold with
his vicious, intelligent eyes.
Even though there
were other men and horses milling about, and even though Harold could hear the
frantic shouting of Ranuld and William, and of his two companions Thorkell and
Hugh, it felt to him as if there were only two creatures in this world on this
morn: himself, and the maddened, murderous boar.
Very slowly, Harold
managed to rise to his knees, his eyes never leaving those of the boar, and
slowly drew free the long-bladed knife from his belt.
To one side, William
kneed his horse forward, grabbing a pike from one of the other men, and hefting
it in his hand.
The boar had its back
to him, and would be an easy target.
"No,"
whispered Walter Fitz Osbern. Then, a little more strongly, "No!"
He grabbed at the
reins of William's horse, pulling it to a sudden halt and almost unseating
William.
"Let the boar
and Harold settle this," Walter said, meeting William's stunned and
furious gaze. "Let God decide who has the right to take England's throne,
here and now."
"You fool!"
William yelled, and, leaning forward, struck Walter a great blow across the
face that almost unseated the man from his horse.
Frantic, not even
wondering why he should be so frightened, nor so determined, William turned his
horse back toward where the boar faced Harold in the bed of the creek.
To his side, Thorkell
and Hugh were already moving forward.
They were all too
late.
The boar had charged.
Harold was still on
his knees, weaving backward and forward unsteadily from either the force of the
initial impact in the fall from his horse or in panic at the boar's murderous
rush, and had barely time to raise his knife.
"Harold!" William yelled, discarding the pike and
jumping down from his horse. He dashed forward, his sword drawn.
The boar was roaring
again, a horrible, terrible noise of squealing and grunting and screaming, all
in one, and as it came to within two paces of Harold, it tucked its head down
against its chest, presenting its tusks and broad
forehead.
In that instant, that
instant when the boar could not see, Harold fell back, his legs before him, the
back of his head slamming into the trickle of cold
water.
The boar was upon
him, terrible pounding feet, hot, foul breath, a grunting and screeching that
sounded as if it emanated from hell.
Harold cried out
involuntarily as the boar's front feet slammed into his belly and chest and
then, as the boar surged forward, as the boar's great pendulous abdomen brushed
over Harold's chest, Harold brought up the knife with all the strength he had
left, plunging it into the boar's soft underbelly and allowing the forward
motion of the creature to tear itself open.
Blood and bowels
erupted over Harold, smothering him, and in the next moment the entire weight
of the boar crashed into his neck and head, then, mercifully, rolled off to one
side.
"Harold!
Harold!"
William was upon him,
sure that the blood and entrails that coated Harold
must be the man's
own.
"Harold!"
William fell to his knees, straddling Harold's body, and pushing
aside the worst of
the gore.
Beneath it, Harold
slowly opened his eyes.
"Harold?"
Harold raised a hand,
waving it weakly from side to side. He was gasping for air, and William
realized that the boar's death plunge must have winded
him severely. If not worse. "Harold?" "I have… have… but lost… my breath…" Harold
eventually man-
aged. "And… and
my chest and belly throb from where the boar stood on Tostig's treacherous
scars. But I think it is nothing more than bruises."
William breathed a
sigh of unpretended relief. "Thank Christ, our Lord," he said.
"I thought the
boar had me," Harold said.
"I have never
seen such bravery," William said, and all who now crowded about heard the
admiration and respect in his voice.
William rose.
"I had thought
you might have hoped the boar would have taken me," said Harold, slowly
raising himself into a sitting position. He grimaced as he saw the blood and
entrails and pig shit that coated him, and in that grimace missed the cold look
that William shot Walter Fitz Osbern.
"You are my
guest, and my equal. I had not wanted you dead," William said.
Harold looked up at
him. "And you didn't think that my death here and now would be only to
your advantage?"
William stared at
Harold for a long moment before answering. "I did not want your death
now," he finally said, quietly but with great feeling, "as I do not
want it for the future. England would always be the sorrier place for your
lack, Harold. I would be the sorrier man for your death."
And he held out his
hand.
"You are a most
strange adversary," Harold said, gripping William's hand and using it to
pull himself upright.
"I am not your
enemy," William said. "I will not be one to laugh over your corpse,
Harold."
Now upright, Harold
changed his grasp so that now both men gripped each other by the forearm rather
than by the hand. Strangely, he seemed to know what William was thinking.
"Do not trust Swanne," Harold said softly, only for William's ears. "Never
trust her."
In answer, William
merely stared, then gave a very small nod. In this they understood each other.
Then he let Harold's
arm go, turned, and dealt Walter Fitz Osbern such a heavy blow to his chin that
the man staggered and fell to his knees.
"Never dishonor
me again," William said, then stalked off for his horse.
Caela Speaks
OVING THE BANDS HAD
SO MANY INHERENT
dangers, yet the
first and most difficult task (or so I believed at the time) was simply
ensuring I was not missed. Moving the i^c*nd was something Long Tom had told me
I could not do as Damson, so somehow I had to ensure that no one would make
note of the queen's absence for what might be virtually the entire night.
In the end, this
first obstacle was reasonably and easily accomplished. I gave a moan during our
supper, placed a hand on my belly, and looked apologetically at Edward, who had
paused with a spoon of broth half raised to his
open mouth.
I managed to color.
"My flux," I murmured, lowering my eyes modestly.
And so I removed
myself to the solar, where I usually slept during these phases of the moon.
Edward kept his bowerthegn, and I dismissed all my ladies, save for Judith.
There, at the darkest
hour of the night, Long Tom came to me. WE DESCENDED THROUGH ANOTHER OF
HIS STRANGE,
eerie trapdoors (I
resolved that I should ask him how he managed it, this descent into the twists
of the labyrinth), and into that even stranger tunnel he had led me only the
previous night. Again the metal rails that lined the gravel bed trembled and
vibrated from time to time, and again I was overwhelmed as, from time to time,
a great rush of air filled the tunnel and rushed past us.
A part of the Game that is yet to be.
"We will have to
be very careful tonight," the Sidlesaghe said, and I nodded, lost in
thought of what was to come.
"This will be
the one time you are going to be able to do this in relative safety," he
continued.
"I know," I
said. "Once Asterion and William and Swanne realize that one band has been
moved, then they will be alert for a further…" I stopped, not knowing how
to express myself.
"Intrusion,"
said the Sidlesaghe, and again I nodded. He took my hand, and squeezed it.
"So we will make the most of this night, eh?"
I tried to smile for
him, but in truth I was nervous. Not so much by the thought of Asterion's—or
any other's—wrath and reaction, but at touching the bands themselves. I
remembered how they had always been so much a part of Brutus, so much a wholeness with him, that I could barely imagine the thought of
the bands away from him.
And yet they were
apart from him, were they not? And were they not also to be given to another,
in time? I remembered the vision of the Stag God Og, alive and vibrating with
power, running through the forest, the bands about his legs. My lover, and thus I must be the one to take these
bands, and give them to him.
At this moment,
walking down this otherworldly tunnel with the Sidlesaghe, it all seemed
impossible.
"Faith,"
said Long Tom, giving my hand another squeeze. "What seems hopeless when
you look across a vast distance, to what must be ultimately accomplished, seems
possible when you only look at the task a step at a time. Tonight you will move
one of the bands and make the Game and this land just that little bit safer. In
a little while, perhaps a week, perhaps a month, you will move another band,
and we will cope together with whatever danger threatens us on that
occasion."
"You say I must move the bands. Are you not able to touch
them?"
"No," he
said. "Only the Kingman or the Mistress of the Labyrinth can truly touch
them, and not suffer."
"Then how can I?
I am not yet—"
"But you will one day be." The Sidlesaghe paused, both in
speech and in walking, and I stopped as well and watched him as he tried to
find words for what he wanted to express. "The Game sometimes shows
portions of itself which are yet to be," he said, "and sometimes it
can accept things that are not yet, but which will be."
"Because it
wants me to be the Mistress of—"
"No. Because you
will one day be the Mistress of the
Labyrinth."
My mouth twisted.
"The Game hopes?"
"The Game knows. It has already created the future, and in some
manner, already lives it."
I was suddenly,
inexplicably, angry. "Then why do I fight, or strive, if all this will be. Why do I worry, if all this is set into stone as surely as…
as…" I waved my hand about the strange tunnel.
Just then there was
an eerie whining in the tunnel, and one of those almost incomprehensible rushes
of air. The gravel rattled under our feet, and the metal strips vibrated and
sang, and both the Sidlesaghe and I had to take a deep breath and steady
ourselves until the phenomenon had passed.
"Because,"
the Sidlesaghe said, very gently once the wind had passed, and our world had
calmed, "the Game needs you to strive."
I stood there, gazing
into the creature's gentle face, and felt like weeping. At that moment I did
not feel like Mag, or the queen of England—I just felt… I just felt like poor,
lost Cornelia, caught in a struggle that she neither wished for nor instigated.
The Sidlesaghe
reached out his large hand and laid it softly, warmly against my cheek.
"There are many futures," he said, "all existing side by side.
We all need to strive to ensure we reach the right future."
I nodded wordlessly,
hating the tears in my eyes. That I could live with. The possibility of many
futures, not just one certain one.
"And in all of
them," he said, "you will be the Mistress of the Labyrinth. Thus you
can touch the bands."
I nodded again,
feeling a little better.
"And in some of
them," the Sidlesaghe continued, "you will also be Asterion's whore,
his creature, his vassal. We must avoid that future." My mouth dropped
open in my horror. "You can see—" "I know only of the possibilities," he said.
"No more." I shuddered, and we walked forward. We held our silence
for some time, then I spoke again, wanting to hear the Sidlesaghe's amicable
voice again.
"I sometimes feel an emptiness within me," I
said. "An incompleteness. Is this because I am a virgin, and this is
anathema to what I should be as Mag?" Long Tom nodded. "This is very
true. I am glad you thought of it." It was Silvius who had thought of it,
but I thought it best to let the Sidlesaghe believe I had come to this
understanding on my own. "I need to unite myself to the land. Mate with
it."
"Aye," the
Sidlesaghe said, looking sideways at me, his mouth curling in a smile.
"Choose well," he said, and winked.
I laughed, partly at
his mischievousness, but mostly because he had allayed those few niggling
reservations I'd had about what Silvius had suggested.
"Oh," I
said, "I shall." Who better than Silvius, who was so closely
associated with the Troy Game?
We lapsed into
silence once more, and eventually the Sidlesaghe led me into a side tunnel, as
narrow as that which once had brought me to the approach to London Bridge.
This time we did not
emerge before the bridge, but just before the great west gate of London. In
former times, when I had been Cornelia, the sad,
abused wife of
Brutus, this gate had been called Og's Gate. Now the people called it Ludgate,
after Lud Hill.
The gates—thick,
wooden constructions—hung between two ten-pace-high stone towers. The towers
had narrow slit windows so that archers could shoot at any approaching enemy—I
half expected an arrow to fly toward us at any moment—and parapets at their
tops where further archers and spearmen could let fly their missiles.
Beyond the gates
stretched the ancient stone and brick walls of London: part Roman construction,
part British, part Saxon and, for what I understood of them and of what had
founded them, of part magical construction as well.
I looked back to the
towers to either side of the barred gates. I knew that normally guards watched
atop these towers at night. I peered closely, and saw motionless shadows just
behind some of the stone ramparts.
I looked at the
Sidlesaghe.
"Shall they see
us?" he said softly, returning my querying look with one of his own.
It was a test, but of
understanding rather than of power.
"No," I
said. "We do not exist within their perception. We are here, but not
within their own expectations of reality. We are beyond what they expect, or can even imagine, and so they
will not see us."
"And if it were
Asterion, or Swanne, or William watching on those towers?"
"Then we would
be discovered."
"Aye.
Come."
We walked forward and
when we reached the gates, they swung open as if by invisible hands, closing
silently behind us once we had walked through. The Sidlesaghe led me through
the empty street leading to St. Paul's atop Lud Hill, and as he did so, I
thought about what I had said.
The guards could not see us because
we existed beyond their expectations of reality; beyond what they could even
imagine.
If that was so, then
what could I see if I truly opened my eyes?
The instant that
thought had passed through my mind, and I had opened myself to possibilities beyond what I expected, the empty street suddenly filled
with life. A great, shadowy crowd thronged the street. These people were not
alive, not in this present, but they were the
memories of people who had been and the possibilities of people who would be.
I stopped, gazing
open-mouthed at people dressed in the strangest of apparel, the great draperies
of Roman senators, or the tightly clothed passengers, who sat in horseless
vehicles that seemed to move of their own volition, placing burning fags in
their mouths, as if in enjoyment!
"Don't!" the Sidlesaghe said.
I jerked my eyes to
his face.
O
"We have not the
time for this now," he said.
And I heard his
unspoken thought, Besides, if
you see the myriad possibilities inherent in the many futures that await you,
then you may not have the heart
to continue.
I blinked,
suppressing… not the vision as such, but the understanding of
the possibility of
it.
Slowly, the shadowy,
unnatural throng faded from view.
"You have the
power to see too much," the Sidlesaghe said, more gently now, "and
you will overwhelm yourself. Now, come with me, and we will walk
softly for a
time."
In a short while we
stood at the base of the steps leading to the western— and main—doors of St.
Paul's. I raised my foot to begin the climb, but the Sidlesaghe's grip on my
hand tightened, and I stopped.
"We do not
enter?" I said.
"No."
"Where do we
go?" I said.
"Tonight we will
move the closest band. Brutus hid them both within the city, and about its
boundaries."
I turned slightly so
I could look down the street we had traveled to reach
St. Paul's.
"Ludgate?"
"Aye," he
said. "An obvious choice, and one Asterion himself thought of." "Why couldn't he find it, then? There cannot be
many places to hide a golden-limb band for one who is prepared to raze
everything to the foundations and beyond."
"Because the
band must be approached in a certain manner." He faced me completely,
taking both my hands in his. "Caela, what do you understand of Asterion?
Of his nature?"
I thought,
remembering all I had been told, and what I had gleaned during • my long wait
in death. "He is the Minotaur, the creature in the heart of the labyrinth
whom Theseus slew." "Aye. And…?"
"Asterion
controls great power, dark power, the power of the heart of the labyrinth,
which is… which is…" I did not know quite how to phrase it, and the
Sidlesaghe, seeing that I understood and lacked only the ability to explain in
words, finished the sentence for me.
"Asterion
controls the power of the heart of the labyrinth, his dark power is kept
in check by the labyrinth, by the Game, itself."
"Yes, thus
Asterion wants the Game destroyed so that he and his dark power can ravage free
across the world."
"Brutus hid the
golden kingship bands by using the power of the Game,
which—"
"Which Asterion
does not yet know how to use or control, thus he cannot find them!"
The Sidlesaghe
laughed in delight. "Yes!"
Now it was my turn to
smile. "But you know the Game, and you are of the land. Both land and Game
know where the bands lie. You know how to approach them."
I paused. "But only I can touch them."
"So I will show
you the path, and walk it with you, but when it comes to the band itself, you
are the only one who can touch it. You are
the only one who will be a part of their future."
I thought of my
lover, running wild and free and strong through the forest, the bands glinting
about his limbs. "Apart from… him."
"Aye."
Again he squeezed my hands. "Caela, I must say something. When we reach
the band, there will be a shock waiting there for you."
I did not like the
sound of this. "A shock?"
"Brutus,"
he said.
CbAPGGR G6JM
/^%T HE SWALLOWED, AND THE SIDLESAGHE COULD
•"T8"""""""1^
see the fear, and want, and the desperate love in her face.
"I do not know
if I dare see him again," she said, and began
to weep.
The Sidlesaghe
groaned, and gathered her to him, rocking her back and forth until her weeping
had abated somewhat. Caela might face dragons and imps from hell, and the
Sidlesaghe knew she would face them with courage and resolve, but confront her
with the man she had loved so desperately and Caela's resolve and courage vanished
in an instant.
"You must,"
he eventually said. "It will not be as difficult as you think."
"How so?"
she said, leaning back and dashing away her tears with her hand.
"He will not
know you are there, but only, only if you do not allow your eyes to
meet with his. I will be with you, and I must abide by the same command myself.
Neither of us can allow our eyes to meet with his. If we keep our eyes cast
down, then he will overlook us, just as the guards in the towers
overlooked us."
She nodded, some of
her composure regained. "And if he sees us?"
"Then we, and
this land, are undone. The band will vanish, turn to dust. Asterion shall have
won."
Caela closed her
eyes, drew in a deep breath, held it, then let it out. "Long Tom… where are
we going to move the band to?"
The Sidlesaghe
laughed, and stroked one of her cheeks with a thumb. "We will move this
one in honor of your brother, Harold."
She frowned, puzzled.
"To the west of
Westminster," the Sidlesaghe said, "is a small manor and village
where once Earl Harold held court in the hall of a trusted
friend."
Her frown deepened,
then suddenly cleared. "Cynesige, who controls the estates and village of
Chenesitun. He has ever been a true friend to not only Harold, but to our
entire family."
"Aye. Chenesitun
is the place to where the Game wants this first band moved."
"Why
there?"
"Because the
earl's court will become a focal point in the Game that is yet to be
played," the Sidlesaghe said, then grinned wryly at the confusion on
Caela's face. "Or where it is playing, in some corner of the Game's
existence. This is what the Game requires, and so this is what we shall do. It
will make the land a little stronger. Once the band has been moved, you will feel the renewed strength within yourself and within this
land."
"Long Tom,"
Caela said, frowning a little, "how is it that you—and your kind—and the
Game 'talk'? How do you know these things?"
The Sidlesaghe
laughed, joyous, and Caela realized that he must spend much of his existence
laughing. "We sing to each other, my love. Under the starlight. We hum."
"Oh," she
said, not quite able to imagine this.
The Sidlesaghe
grinned. "Now, are you ready?"
She nodded, but the
Sidlesaghe saw that her knuckles had whitened where her hands clutched at the
cloak.
"We will survive
this night, at least," he said, "if you remember what I said about
not meeting Brutus' eyes."
Again Caela nodded,
and so the Sidlesaghe took one of her hands, and he led her about St. Paul's,
first sun-wise, then counter-sun-wise. He walked deliberately but briskly,
keeping Caela close by his side so that they walked almost as one.
Once they had
completed the counter-sun-wise circuit of the boundary of St. Paul's, the
Sidlesaghe led her north along a narrow street, then after a few minutes
executed a sharp turn to the east, crossing through a vegetable garden.
"What…"
Caela began to ask, then apparently realized herself. "We are traversing
the labyrinth," she said.
"Aye. Not quite
the same labyrinth that Brutus caused to be built atop Og's Hill, but one very
similar if a little more convoluted. He hid each band within its own
labyrinth—or, rather, guarded it by its own labyrinthine enchantment—so that
only one skilled in the ways of the labyrinth could find them again." He
paused. "Or one whom the labyrinth allowed to enter."
"The Game will
not allow Asterion to traverse the labyrinthine ways to the bands."
"No. There are
six labyrinthine enchantments for each of the six golden bands of Troy, and
Asterion does not know them. He cannot traverse them."
"Without either
Brutus—William—or you, or another of your kind."
"Or you,"
the Sidlesaghe said, noting, but not this time laughing at, the
sudden frown on
Caela's face. "And he shall not have me, nor as many of the bands as we
can hide from William. Come, enough chatter. The night fades, and we have much
work to do before morning."
They continued to
walk through London, their pace picking up further speed, the greater distance
they traveled through the labyrinthine enchantment. The Sidlesaghe led Caela
through twists and turns, great circles and tight curves, traversing the
greater part of the city west of the bridge.
Eventually the
Sidlesaghe brought Caela to a stop before Ludgate.
Save that now the
twin towers and the walls and the very gates themselves had vanished.
Instead there rose
before them a small circle of standing stones, like, yet unlike, the Stone
Dances that Caela had seen in her travels as Cornelia. They were as tall as the
uprights in the Stone Dances, but more graceful, being composed of tapered
fluted columns, which were topped with stone scrollwork. There were twelve of
these columns, and they encircled a clear space that was lit with a soft golden
radiance.
"These
stones," Caela murmured, transfixed by the sight. "Are they…?"
"Aye. They are
of our number as well. When Brutus first constructed this enchantment, they
were of his world, bloodless, lifeless creatures. But as the years passed, we
inhabited them, one by one."
"So now the
Sidlesaghes stand guard over the bands."
"And you,
now." The Sidlesaghe's hold on Caela's hand tightened momentarily, then he
led her forward.
As they approached
the columned circle, he paused, and whispered against Caela's ear,
"Remember, do not meet his eyes."
She nodded, her eyes
on the radiance beyond the columns.
They walked forward
slowly.
As they reached the
columns, and paused between two of them, the Sidlesaghe felt Caela tense.
"Remember!" he whispered, and she managed a tight nod.
Brutus stood in the
center of the circle.
He was naked, save
for the six golden bands of Troy he wore about his limbs. His tightly curled
black hair flowed down his back, lifting a little in some unfelt breeze.
He was walking very
slowly and very deliberately about the center of the circle, his head down, his
eyes fixed on the ground intently, as if he studied it
for flaws.
Then suddenly he
stopped, and raised his head, and looked directly toward where the Sidlesaghe
and Caela stood.
The Sidlesaghe looked
at Caela's face, then tugged urgently at her hand.
Caela had been
looking straight at Brutus, as he'd stopped and raised his eyes to them, a look
of utter want on her face, and she only managed to jerk her eyes downward in
the barest instant before her gaze would have met that of Brutus'.
The Sidlesaghe kept
his eyes fixed on Caela's face. "Remember!" he hissed at her.
Brutus walked slowly
toward them.
The Sidlesaghe felt
Caela tremble.
Brutus halted a pace
away and the Sidlesaghe could sense his puzzlement, even if he could not
directly look at Brutus' face.
"Genvissa?"
Brutus said. "Is that you? Genvissa?"
Caela moaned, then
bit her lip, and the Sidlesaghe understood the effort it took her not to look
at Brutus.
"Genvissa?"
Brutus said one more time. He stood still, looking forward intently, and the
Sidlesaghe knew that Brutus felt something.
"Oh gods,"
Brutus said, his voice breaking, "where are you, Genvissa?"
The Sidlesaghe
thought Caela would break at that moment. Her breath was coming in short jerks,
her entire body was shaking, her head was trembling uncontrollably.
Any moment she was going to lift her
eyes to Brutus, and call his name.
"In one of your
futures," the Sidlesaghe said, very softly, "it will not be her name he calls, and then you will be able to lift your
head and meet his eyes. Remember that."
The compassion in his
voice steadied Caela. She closed her eyes, gained some control of herself, then
squeezed the Sidlesaghe's hand very slightly.
/ will not look.
"Genvissa?"
Brutus said one more time, but his tone was less sure now, less urgent, and
after a moment he turned and walked back to the center of the circle.
He stood—fortunately
now with his back to the Sidlesaghe and Caela, which meant they could watch him
directly—and looked down for a long time, then he sighed and seemed to come to
a decision within himself. He lifted his left hand and, slowly, with great
precision, slid the golden band that encircled his right forearm down over his
wrist.
He hesitated as it
reached his hand, and, the muscles of his back visibly clenching, he slid the
band over his hand, squatted, and placed the band on the ground before him. He
lifted his right hand, and made a complex movement over the band as it lay on
the ground.
"He is creating
the labyrinthine enchantment that we just traversed," the Sidlesaghe
whispered into Caela's ear, and she gave a small nod.
Brutus finished,
standing upright.
And then, in the
space of a breath, he vanished, and both Caela and the Sidlesaghe let out their
breaths in long, relieved sighs.
"Take it,"
the Sidlesaghe said, nodding to the band where it lay on the ground. "Take
it. You will be safe."
Caela paused, then
walked into the circle. She stood before the band, then leaned down and,
without any hesitation, picked it up.
Part Five
Don't jump on the cracks, or the
monster will snatch!
Traditional
children's hopscotch song
London, March
- '%//% ATILDA FLANDERS TURNED TO
FRANK BENTLEY,
who was still looking at her
open-mouthed. "Frank," she said, "I wasn't a staid widow all my
life. I was a young girl once." She glanced at Jack Skelton, then looked
back to Frank and winked. "And kicked up my heels a bit, if you know what
I mean."
Bentley blushed.
"With Major Skelton?"
Violet Bentley said.
"I wasn't always so old and
haggard," Skelton said dryly. "Matilda, Ecub, I need to speak with
you. Please."
"Major—" said
Frank.
"Just for fifteen minutes,"
said Skelton, turning to Bentley. "I won't hold you up. Go inside now, and
have that breakfast Violet has cooked."
Bentley stifled his curiosity,
nodded, then put his arm about Violet's shoulder and led her back into their
house.
The instant the door closed behind
them, Skelton turned back to the two women.
"Where is my daughter?"
Matilda and Ecub glanced at each
other.
"Probably with Stella," said Matilda. Then,
hastily, as Skelton's face registered his dismay, added, "Stella will—"
"My daughter is with the
greatest of Darkwitches that ever lived?" Skelton said, his voice rising.
"With Asterion's whore?"
Ecub stepped forward, grabbed his arm,
and pulled him toward Matilda's front door. "Don't be a fool, Jack.
'Asterion's whore' can take care of her as well as anyone."
"But—"
"For gods' sakes, Jack!" Ecub hissed. "Don't
you know that in her last life Cornelia asked Stella to look after the child
should …"
O
Her voice trailed away.
"Should Asterion take Cornelia," Skelton said
woodenly. "So Asterion does
have Cornelia."
"Come inside," said
Matilda, taking his hand, "and have a cup of tea."
©N
ATILDA WAS ALWAYS
A LIGHT SLEEPER,
drifting in and out
of awareness as a night progressed. She would wake to hear William's heavy
breathing beside her, and she would smile, and touch him, knowing all was well
with her world, and drift back into a deeper unconsciousness for a time.
William lapsed into deep sleep the instant he lay down, sleeping soundly the
entire night through, but Matilda did not for an instant begrudge him his deep
sleep. Those secret, brief moments when she would wake, and touch him, were
precious to her.
She woke this night
as she so often did, still half-dreaming, and reached out to touch William's
arm.
The instant her
fingertips touched his skin, he burst from the bed, shouting, screaming, incoherent with… what? Matilda did not know. She cried out herself,
stunned, unable for the moment to make any sense of a world that had so
suddenly erupted into the unexplainable.
Were they under
attack?
Were there assassins
in the bedchamber?
William was raging
about the chamber, crying out insensibly, beating at walls, at his head,
smashing a ewer and several wine cups halfway across the chamber.
The door burst open,
and men-at-arms and valets and chamberlains, groggy themselves with either
sleep or shock or both, staggered into the room to instantly reel out of the
way as William continued his maddened rampage.
"William!"
Matilda shouted, snatching at a robe to clothe herself as she stumbled from the
bed. "William!"
"The band!"
he screamed. "The band!"
Matilda burst into
terrified sobs, certain that her husband had been struck with a brain fever so
appalling he would shortly drop dead. She sank to her knees, unable to cope,
her hands laced over her bowed head, while above her William continued to
shout, to rage, and to roar.
"The
band! Who has laid hand to the band?"
LIKE WILLIAM, SWANNE
ALSO KNEW ONE OF THE bands had been touched, handled by someone other
than she or William.
Who? Who? Who?
Unlike William,
Swanne did not roar and rage. Instead she curled up in her bed, sweating in
terror, the coverlets pulled up about her chin, staring frantic-eyed about the
darkness of her chamber.
If it were William
who had laid a hand to the Kingman band, she would
have known it.
But this was not
William's doing. This was the work of someone else.
Who?
No! No! Not… Asterion?
Swanne whimpered,
feeling all her habitual arrogance and surety bleed away into the unknown
night. It was no accident, surely, that so soon after Asterion had taunted her (Do you know of what Ariadne promised me? Do you know
of how much she enjoyed me?) a band was moved.
Swanne fought back
panic.
She had never felt so
alone, so powerless, in her entire life.
ASTERION HAD BEEN
AWAKE, TORTURING WITH CRUEL
words and spiteful
fingers a small naked boy he had tied face down, spread-eagled across his bed.
He stopped suddenly,
frozen half-bent over the sobbing boy, then he slowly raised his head, his eyes
narrowed, his lips drawing back over his teeth in a silent snarl.
"Who?" he hissed. "Who? Who has found a
band?"
William? Had William slunk unnoticed
into the country?
Asterion felt a
moment of intense fear. He had
not expected William to be
this bold!
And yet, why not, eh?
What if William was not willing to dance to Asterion's tune? What if he had
decided to circumvent everything Asterion had so carefully planned?
What if William had donned the garb
of a merchant, or common seaman, and jumped off ship at a London dock, seeking
out the bands before Asterion was ready to intercept him?
"No!"
Asterion said. "It cannot be William. Think, man." He looked down to the boy who continued
to cry, save that now his wails grew louder as he twisted his face about and
saw the expression on the face of the man standing over him.
The man reached down
and touched the boy, tweaked him, and the boy shrieked.
"Not
William," said Asterion softly. "Not William at all."
Who then?
Her. It had to be. Damn her to all
hells. It had to be her.
"But how has she
found them? What magic has she employed?"
Was she stronger than he thought?
That thought
disturbed Asterion, and he sighed, and considered the boy. It would have been
fun to play with him a little longer, but…
He took hold of a
large wooden crucifix that hung on the wall next to the bed and dealt the boy a
shattering blow to the back of his head, then one to the back of his ribs, and
then yet again to the boy's neck.
When he had done, the
boy lay still, barely alive, blood seeping from his battered body.
In any other
circumstances, the sight would have stimulated Asterion into the heights of
sexual passion. Tonight, however, he merely tossed the crucifix down onto the
boy's body with a grunt, and reached for his robe.
When he had garbed
himself, and wiped away those splatters of the boy's blood that had marked his
face, he left the chamber.
"Throw him in
the river," he said to the shadowy man waiting patiently outside, and the
man nodded, and slipped inside the door.
By the time the
servant emerged, the boy's shattered body wrapped in a blanket, Asterion had
long vanished into the night.
"HAROLD!"
WILLIAM SUDDENLY DECLARED, AND
Matilda carefully
raised her head.
There had been the
suggestion of sanity in that single utterance.
"Harold,"
William said again, his voice firmer now. "Harold."
To Matilda, it seemed
as if William uttered that name as a mantra, as the lifeline that would pull
him back into reality.
She very carefully
rose to her feet. About the chamber stood various men-at-arms and servants, all
staring, none knowing what to do or say.
"Harold,"
William said one more time, then, as naked as that moment he'd erupted from the
bed, shouldered his way through the watching men, and half ran through the
halls and chambers of the castle toward Harold's chamber.
Grabbing a cloak,
Matilda hurried after him.
CbAPCGR GUDO
AROLD SHARED A
CHAMBER WITH THORKELL
and Hugh off a
cloistered walk some distance away in the castle complex.
That distance gave
William time to think.
At first he'd raced
from the bedchamber he shared with Matilda, as though every moment it took to
reach Harold would somehow mean another moment in which whoever it was had to steal the arm band away completely. William
could feel which band it was—the lower right
forearm band, which he'd secreted at the western gate of Troia Nova—and could
feel its movement away.
He couldn't have
explained that sense of "away" to anyone else, let alone himself. The
arm band, his kingship band,
his power, his future, was being stolen away from him.
Away.
And yet how could
this be? That band, all the
bands, were
protected by a labyrinthine enchantment that meant only another Kingman or
William's partner in the Game, Swanne, could touch it, let alone find it.
And it could not be
Swanne, for he had not told her where the bands were.
Yet she had asked for their location. Could she have scried out the
bands' resting places, and decided to move them anyway?
It was the only
explanation that William could think of, unless… unless Asterion had somehow
managed to find a band.
Could he move it?
William didn't know.
Possibly. Asterion was a creature of the labyrinth and of the Game; he was the
brother of Ariadne, the most powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth there had ever
been; and he had increased in power and knowledge through all the lives he had
passed through since Ariadne had set him free from both death and the Game.
Could it be Asterion?
"Oh God," William
groaned, and stumbled to a halt just as he reached the door of Harold's
chamber.
He was vaguely aware
that he'd been followed in his mad dash through the castle by a bevy of
servants, men-at-arms, and Matilda, all of whom doubtless thought he was about
to murder Harold in a state of dream-induced madness.
And what was he going
to do now that he was here? Break down the door, haul
Harold from his bed and demand the name of whoever it was who had the arm band?
Harold would not
know. He was not even aware of what part he played in this cursed Game.
Was he?
What if Harold was aware, and had thus far deluded William into thinking
he had no idea who he had been?
What if Harold and Swanne were in
league, against William?
No! No, that could
not be.
William suddenly
realized he was standing inanely by the closed door to Harold's chamber, so
close his forehead was actually resting on the wood, and the sentry who stood
further down the cloistered walk was staring at him as if he were moon-crazed.
William sighed,
straightened, and looking to where Matilda stood several paces away with his
cloak, smiled ruefully and held out his hand.
"Are you well,
husband?" she asked, as she stepped up to him. From what William could see
of her expression in this barely lit place, her eyes were narrowed and
suspicious.
"I have had ill
news given to me in dream," he said. "I need to speak with
Harold."
"Be
careful," she said, and William knew she was not saying Be careful of Harold, but, Do
not harm Harold.
William nodded, threw
the cloak about his shoulders, and dismissed the crowd of watchful, concerned
men who stood at some distance. "Go now," he said to them. "I am
sorry that I have disturbed your night."
"William?"
said Matilda.
"I will talk
awhile with Harold," he said, and bent down to kiss her. "Do not
fret. I shall not slaughter him. But perhaps he can calm my mind. Wait for me
in our chamber."
When she had gone,
the servants and men-at-arms trailing behind her, William turned once more to
Harold's door, and thumped softly on it with his fist.
It opened almost
immediately.
Harold stood behind
the door, fully dressed, his chamber glowing with the light of several lamps.
Thorkell and Hugh
stood only a pace behind Harold, their expressions wary, hands on the knives in
their belts.
"You're
awake?" said William, and again doubts assailed him. Why? Had he made
that much commotion in his mad race from his own bedchamber to Harold's?
"There is
trouble," Harold said, and William's eyes narrowed.
"Oh, aye, there is trouble. But how do you know of it?"
In answer, Harold
looked to Thorkell and Hugh, then to William, then back to his two companions.
"I would speak
awhile with William," he said, and, understanding the message, Thorkell
and Hugh left the chamber, pushing past William with set, careful expressions
on their faces.
"You will find
warmth and light and companionship in the kitchens," William said to them.
"I have no doubt that most of the castle is awake and restless this
night."
The instant Harold
closed the door behind him, William spoke again. "There is great trouble
in London," he said, searching Harold's face for knowledge of what had—was—happening.
"You dreamed
it?" Harold said. He walked to a stool by a glowing brazier,
and sat down heavily.
"Aye, I dreamed
of it. But it was a dream of reality, not of fancy." William stayed by the
door, watching Harold closely.
The Saxon earl looked
haggard, as if he, too, had dreamed horribly. William saw him rub gently at his
belly, and wince slightly as he shifted on the stool, and thought that the wild
boar's bruises must be paining him.
"Caela is in
danger," Harold said, and William's jaw almost sagged in surprise.
"Caela? You dreamed of Caela?" "Aye. She and I have ever been close—"
William's mouth twisted.
"—closer than
most brothers and sisters. Sometimes, when she has been frightened or unwell I
have known it, even though she be at a great distance. Tonight… tonight I
dreamed that a great beast, something monstrous,
pursued her through a land of broken stone and tumbled walls. Ah!" Harold
lifted his hand from his belly and rubbed at his eyes. "I cannot
understand it. What I do understand is that there is
trouble afoot, great trouble, and that somehow
it involves
Caela."
When has there ever been trouble
about that has not involved her? William thought, but there was no hatred in that thought. He
took a stool opposite Harold, pulling the cloak comfortably about his body, and
leaning forward close to the brazier. "Something is wrong tonight,"
he said. "I also had a dream."
"Of Caela?"
William looked at
Harold sharply, but saw nothing in the man's face other
than genuine concern
and puzzlement. "No," he said. "Just of… of trouble.
Harold…"
"Aye?"
"Harold, are you
in league with Swanne against me?"
Harold stared at
William, then grinned, genuinely and freely. "Nay, William. Put that from
your mind. I do not plot with Swanne against you. I may plot with the rest of
England against you, but I do not plot with Swanne."
William stared at
Harold, then laughed softly, deprecatingly. How twisted his life had become to
be so relieved that Harold only plotted with all of England against him, but
not with a single woman! And Harold was
telling the truth. William could see it. Coel had never lied, could never lie,
could not even begin to contemplate the art of dissimulation, and Coel's spirit
shone so true and bright from Harold's eyes that William believed utterly that
he was telling the truth.
Whatever else Harold
might be doing, he wasn't doing it in league with Swanne.
"Will you share
some wine?" said Harold, standing and walking to a chest, atop which stood
several jugs and cups. "I think Thorkell and Hugh may have left us a
drop."
"Aye," said
William. "Thank you."
But as he drank, and
as he exchanged friendly words with Harold, William's mind drifted back to
London, where he could feel the arm band moving farther and farther from that
place where he'd left it.
Caela? No, surely not. Surely?
And if so, how'?
William suddenly
remembered that moment when he and Genvissa had been dancing the final dance,
which would have completed the Game, building the gate of flowers to the
entrance of the labyrinth. He remembered that single horrifying moment when he
had seen Cornelia stepping forth, running forth, drawing from her robe
Asterion's wicked blade.
Caela?
Caela and Asterion?
God! Was Caela now so completely
Asterion's creature that she could manipulate the Game's mysteries?
William realized that
Harold had stopped, as if he'd said something that required William's comment.
"What?" he
said stupidly.
"I asked,"
said Harold, "if you would swear your support to my succession to the
English throne. Your lips were forming the word, 'Yes,' I think."
William shot him an
amused look. "That was not what you asked."
"Well… no. But I
thought you so lost in your own thoughts that I might
catch you unawares
and gain your support for my accession without a single blow being
struck."
"I do not want
to kill you, Harold."
"No,"
Harold said softly. "I don't believe you do. If you and I had met under
different circumstances, I think we would have been true friends."
William nodded,
accepting the truth of it. "Harold…" he said.
"Aye?"
"Will you tell
me of Caela?"
"How
strange," said Harold, "for when I return to my homeland, I have
every expectation that Caela will ask me to tell her of you."
cbRee
Caela Speaks
HE SIDLESAGHE HAD
TOLD ME THIS MOVING OF
the first Kingman
band would be a true test of my abilities and understanding, but I found it far
easier than he had intimated.
I picked up the band,
and held it in my cupped hands, studying it.
How it reminded me of
Brutus. How many times had this band and its fellows rubbed against me, pressed
against me, as Brutus lay with me? Earlier in our marriage I had loathed it,
for those bands and their pressing against me represented his victory over me.
Later, when I had come more to my senses, I had loved the feel of them against
my skin as I had loved the feel of Brutus against me.
Then, later still,
when I had murdered Genvissa, and Brutus had taken me back to wife in order to
hate and punish me, I had missed those bands. Brutus had hidden them, and their
lack represented all that had been buried and hidden between us: love, respect,
warmth, want.
I breathed in deeply,
feeling the band as it rested in my hands.
It was not cold, as one might expect metal—even golden metal—to be, but was
warm, as if it still retained the warmth and vitality of Brutus' body. Of
course, now I understood differently. These bands had power and life of their
own, and this warmth reflected that life as also the life and power of the
Game.
The band was
beautiful. Strangely, given that I had spent so much time with Brutus in the
two years or so before I destroyed everything before us in the interest of land
and Game, I had never truly examined them before this moment. Almost three
fingers wide, the band was incredibly finely wrought in metal that was itself
so refined it visibly glowed. About its surface, craftsmen had worked the
symbol of the Trojan kings: the stylized crown spinning over the labyrinth.
I rubbed a thumb over
the decoration, and as I did so, I swear that Brutus' scent rose from the gold.
OO
"Caela."
The Sidlesaghe's
voice brought me to my senses, and I looked up.
"This you must
do by yourself," he said from where he still stood just outside the circle
of columns.
I frowned. "You
will not come with me?"
"No. You must be
the one to move it. This travail only you can accomplish. Use your skills,
Caela. Take it to Chenesitun."
I looked back to the
band.
"You have not
long, Caela. You must be back in Edward's bed by dawn."
I was irritated with
the Sidlesaghe now, for all I truly wanted was to stand and inhale the feel and
scent of Brutus from this band… but he was right, and so I looked away from the
Sidlesaghe toward the southeastern quadrant of the circle.
I concentrated, my
eyes narrowing.
I became the land, and I saw.
There, a trail,
winding through a rocky landscape. Not the landscape that was reality, for that
was sweet meadowland and marsh where the grasses bordered the river, but some other landscape. I did not immediately recognize it, but it
felt safe to me, and right, and so I stepped forth.
The instant I left
the circle, the columns faded, but the golden radiance that had lit that circle
now strengthened to such a degree that I felt I was walking through the noonday
sunlight. A path stretched before me. Composed of dirt and scattered gravel, it
wound its way between great piles of
tumbled rock.
Paving, I saw as I
took my first steps along that path, the golden band still
held in my cupped
hands.
I was walking through
the ruins of a once great and mighty city.
Tears filled my eyes.
I knew this place, even though I had never been there. I knew it because I had
heard stories of it from so many people: Brutus, Hicetaon, Corineus, even
Aethylla. It was Troy. Troy destroyed.
I was seeing this
because this is what the band remembered. It had been here, it had barely escaped the destruction itself,
and it still sorrowed and wept for the great, beautiful city of its birth and
initial purpose.
I realized also that
I was seeing this for another and more vital reason. I had become the land in
order to find my way to Chenesitun, but what the land became—in conjunction
with the band—was Troy. My land—my self—
and the Game had merged to such an extent that this land was Troy. Or, at least, it had absorbed the vitality and
memories of that long-ruined place, until Troy's past had become part of its
own past.
Or was it that I saw only one of many
possible futures for this land that the Game played out, over and over?
OI
I continued walking.
Great drifts of tumbled masonry extended to either side of me. In some places
the stones still leaked smoke from fires that raged within, in other, sadder
places, bloodied bodies lay sprawled across the stones.
I wept, so sickened
was I by the destruction and the carnage.
All this a part of
Ariadne's Catastrophe. All this a part of her pact with her hateful brother,
the Minotaur Asterion.
And what was in that pact that
Asterion thought to use it to taunt Swanne? What part did I not understand?
Thought of Asterion
made me hurry my feet. They would know now that the band was being moved:
William, Swanne, and Asterion. Still in Normandy, William would do nothing but
rage and fret. Swanne? Swanne would rage as well, and she might also fly into
the night, seeking that person who had dared touch the band.
Or would she? In
Swanne's mind the only conceivable person who might touch the band apart from
William was Asterion, and I did not think Swanne ready for a confrontation with
him.
No, I thought it
unlikely that at this initial time Swanne would make a physical move.
That left Asterion,
and I admit that thought of him did worry me. I didn't know Asterion, I
couldn't scry him out, I didn't know the extent of his power, and I couldn't be
sure that he might not be lurking behind the next pile of rubble I walked
about.
So I hurried my feet.
I was walking amid enchantment, so that I knew the way to Chenesitun would take
me only a fraction of the time it would if I walked the land in reality, but
still I hurried. I began to fret about what I would find when I reached
Chenesitun—where could I hide the band? Did / have the skills to secret it from
Asterion, as well as William and Swanne?
About me the
destruction and horror grew even greater. The piles of masonry grew higher, the
smoke and fires thicker, the stench of the corpses more sickening. Blood now
trickled in small rivulets across the path, and every third or fourth step I
had to make a small leap to avoid soiling either my feet or robe.
My hands tightened
about the band, for I was fearful it might dislodge. Somehow I knew that if I
let it fall, if it rolled away between the tumbled stones, then it would be
lost forever.
My breathing grew
quicker, deeper, harsher, and I prayed silently that I would soon reach my
destination.
I dared a glance
ahead, and what I saw dismayed me. The smoking ruins of Troy seemingly
stretched on forever.
It would take me all
night, surely!
I began to panic and,
in that panic, one of my feet slipped on some loose
O
gravel. I almost lost
my footing, and I cried out as my hands grabbed frantically at the band.
I stopped walking,
taking a moment to try and calm myself. Gods, this was but the first band, and
surely was going to be the easiest to move! I could not let a vision of the
past upset me!
Or was this a vision of the future? Not of old Troy
destroyed, but of this Troy— London—destroyed ?
Panic again
threatened to overwhelm me, but then I pushed it down with every ounce of
strength that I had, and I pushed ahead, one foot after the other, one foot
after the other, and so I endured.
Within minutes, so it
seemed, I walked in the space of three footsteps from the devastation of Troy
into the strangest, most frightening chamber I had ever encountered. In all of my existences.
Somehow I knew that
this was Chenesitun, but not the Chenesitun I had once seen. Here were no
scattering of wattle and daub dwellings, here no low-roofed timber house of the
thegn called Cynesige. Here no barns or the soft lowing of cattle.
Instead, I stood
within a chamber so vast I could barely comprehend it. It reminded me somewhat
of my vision of the stone hall that I'd had as Cornelia, but only in its
dimensions. Here was no peace, but the madly scurrying bodies of people dressed
in alien clothes. Here was no joy, but the irritation of bustling people—I
could feel from them a cacophony of words and emotions: late, late, late, hurry, hurry, hurry, delay, delay,
delay, what is the time? Where is the platform? Where is my ticket? Have you a
timetable?
And then, more
ominously. Hurry! Flee! Down!
Down! The sirens have sounded!
A woman, dressed in a
close-cut coat and skirt of a weave and material I could barely imagine,
stepped up to me and stared me in the face. Her own face was garishly painted,
her shoulder-length hair was elaborately curled and stiffened by some unseen
agent. She held a small boy, dressed in close-cut clothes similar to hers, save
that he wore trousers rather than a skirt, and a striped cap pulled low over
his eyes.
"Do you know the
way?" she asked me, her eyes wild with fear, I thought, and perhaps even
some desperation. "Which platform do I need?"
"I…" What
could I say? Everything about me was so strange, so foreign, more terrifying
even than Troy's destruction.
"You cannot just
stand here!" the woman said.
"Save yourself!" Then, thankfully, she turned her back and scurried
off, pulling the boy behind her.
He sent me a single
pleading look over his shoulder, and then they vanished into the hurrying
crowd.
O
"My dear,"
said a voice, and it was so soft and familiar I grabbed on to it.
"My dear…"
I turned to my left,
and saw some ten or fifteen paces away a collection of tables and chairs. At
one of the tables sat a man who, even though he was sitting, was of noticeable
height. He was also very thin, and he had a calf-length brown coat belted
tightly about him, and a curiously-shaped soft hat pulled low over his long,
thin, pale face.
Even so curiously
disguised, I could recognize who it was.
A Sidlesaghe. Not
Long Tom, but one of his kind.
His soft voice
reached me again. "Old thing. Is that my cup of tea? I will have it, if
you please."
I looked down at my
hands, and noticed several things all at once. I was no longer dressed in my
robe and cloak, but a tightly belted dress of starched white material that
seemed like linen and yet was not. My legs were encased in fine, woolenlike
stockings, and on my feet were brown leather shoes of sturdy construction.
I no longer held the
golden band of Troy, but a small round platter on which stood a cup. Both were
made of a fine white pottery. The cup held a steaming, milky-brown substance.
"My cup of tea,
old thing, if you don't mind."
Again the
Sidlesaghe's voice cut into my thoughts, and I walked over to him.
His eyes locked into
mine.
"On the table,
there's a dear."
I hesitated, then
placed the cup before him.
The instant I set it
down he reached out a hand and grabbed my wrist.
"The band is
safe for the moment, but you must be careful, darling. He's coming up the stairs."
I knew immediately
who he meant, if not quite what he meant.
Asterion.
"Flee," the
Sidlesaghe said.
O
CbAPGGR FOUR
rHE GAME STRETCHED,
AND GREW. NOT IN power so much as in potential. One band had been moved and the
Game's boundaries had
been physically
expanded. Five more to go.
ASTERION HAD ASSUMED
HIS NATURAL APPEARANCE
the instant it was
safe for him to do so unobserved.
Power was so much
easier to manipulate when he walked in his man-bull
London was quiet and
dark-save for that glow in the northern section where a building appeared to be
afire. Asterion knew well what that was-a distraction, something to keep the
watch occupied while the real crime of the
night took place.
Asterion was close to
glow-in-the-dark furious. She-shel-^as
movmg a
Not only was she
shifting the band, but she accomplished it under a cloak of such enchantment
that he had difficulty sensing any information about it a all. To know that a
band was so close, so tantalizingly exposed,
and yet still so
out of reach… . ,
And how? How? The
unknowingness of that only fed Asterion's rage. Asterion roamed the streets of
London, seeking something, anything, that
could provide him
with a clue.
Nothing.
How
could he have so misjudged her?
His pace became ever
more frantic, his fury edging ever closer to the out-of-control, but still. . •
nothing. Quiet, dark streets. Here! Ah! Nothing but a dog, a cur of a beast
that was hiding behmd the
wheel of a cart.
Asterion slaughtered
it.
He moved on, dashing
in short bursts along the streets, pausing to sniff the air, to peer closely
into shadows, then lay a hand to a wall and feel, feel for anything, anything at all…
And, just before
dawn, he did feel it. Just a suggestion,
nothing more.
A memory that tugged
insistently in his mind… Troy. Troy.
Troy!
Asterion had been
there for the final destruction of Troy, as he had participated in the majority
of the destructions Ariadne had worked with her Catastrophe. He had walked
through the ruins, through the raging fires, through the piles of bodies—adding
to fire and ruin and death whenever he had the chance. During that wonderful
day, Asterion had known of the escape of Aeneas, the Kingman who had then worn
the kingship bands of Troy.
Then, of course,
Asterion had not known what a role these bands would play in a later life, but
even so, Asterion had tried to snatch Aeneas. It had been for fun, for joy, for
amusement, for the pleasure of the hunt. Aeneas was the son of Aphrodite, he
was wearing the golden bands that allowed him to play the Game, and Asterion
had thought it would be more than entertaining to tear the man apart limb from
limb. One more Kingman dead, one more set of bands destroyed, one more nail in
the coffin of the Game.
But Asterion had
never caught Aeneas. He'd tracked him through the ruins and through the
rivulets of blood. He had heard and seen and smelled him, but Asterion had
never managed to catch Aeneas. Aphrodite had aided him, of course—how else
could he have escaped?—but even so, Asterion had felt the trickery of the man
and his damnable bands…
And he was feeling
something similar here this night in London.
Asterion was close to
the western wall of London when these memories flooded back to haunt him, and
he stopped, and paused.
He sniffed the air,
his magnificent bull's head held high.
He sniffed again… and
then he hunched over, arms held out, as if he were ready to attack.
And then… he vanished.
HE RUSHED THROUGH THE
BLOODIED, TUMBLED
remains of Troy,
their smell and sight as vivid as that day he'd participated in the city's
destruction.
She was somehow using this landscape to do it!
And why not? Asterion
could understand that. The bands were of Troy, they had breathed the same air,
and she was using that ancient escape to
effect this one.
O
Grinning from ear to
ear, Asterion jogged through the ruins. He followed the same path of the band,
he could smell it, and any moment, any moment…
Any moment he would
be upon her… and the band would be his.
Asterion could have
howled in joy, but he didn't; not when he was hunting. He ran lightly,
effortlessly, down the path, his feet splashing through puddles of water and blood,
his eyes fixed ahead.
His right foot
splashed down into a puddle of water, and before it could lift again, a thin,
white hand reached out of the water and grasped Asterion's ankle tightly.
The Minotaur tumbled
over, hitting the ground with a great crack. Within the instant, he had half
risen, his own hands reaching for the hand that had his ankle.
Before they could
reach it, the strange hand had vanished amid a tinkle of feminine laughter.
Asterion scrambled to
his feet. A trap left by Aphrodite, he had no doubt. Even dead, that goddess
was proving more than trying. But that was of no concern to Asterion now. What
he needed to do was catch the bandshifter
who trod the path just a twist or two ahead in the ruins.
But he was too late.
Just as he rounded a corner, sure to find there the woman he sought, the
landscape of Troy fell away, and Asterion found himself standing in the midst
of a trackway that wound between several low farm buildings.
There was no one
there.
CbAPCGR Five
/- HE INSTANT CAELA MATERIALIZED ON
THE
§ trackway before him, the
Sidlesaghe Long Tom reached out and
I ^Itaw' grabbed her.
She gave a cry of
terror. "Asterion!"
"I know,"
the Sidlesaghe said. "He will be here at any moment. The band… it is
safe?"
She nodded.
"Yes, but—"
"There is no
time for 'buts' now. Quick, quick, if the band is safe, if it is here, then we can escape."
He dragged Caela
toward one of the farm buildings, pushing aside the unlatched, rough door with
a shoulder and all but threw Caela inside.
Inside there were no
cattle, or sheep, or pigs, nor even piles of new-mown hay. Instead there
stretched one of the Game's strange tunnels.
"Newly
built," said the Sidlesaghe, the relief evident in his voice as he hurried
Caela forward. "The instant you laid that band in its new resting
place."
"Asterion?"
"He cannot
follow us down here. The labyrinth, the Game, is still protected by those enchantments Brutus wove
over it. More protected, now that one of the bands is moved and the Game has
expanded. Now, hurry, hurry, hurry. Dawn is close, and Edward's eyes will
shortly open. Hurry, hurry, hurry."
ASTERION STOOD IN THE
CENTER OF THE TRACKWAY,
feeling the escape of the damnable
bandshifter, but not able to do anything about it.
Then he caught at his
thoughts, and he flushed hot at the realization that he didn't have to do anything about it, did he?
She could move the
bands all she liked, but so long as he managed that one small task that lay
ahead, then that was of no matter. That one, single,
G
pleasurable task,
then she could move them to the very sun and it wouldn't
matter, would it?
"My dear,"
he murmured. "You think you know which way the attack will
come. But you have no
idea, do you?"
The Sidlesaghe led
Caela to that place in the Game's magical tunnel that
lay beneath her
solar.
"Asterion smelt
you," he said. "When you walked the path to Chenesitun,
what path did the
game construct for you?"
"The ruins of
Troy," Caela said, glancing above her. She could feel Judith pacing back and forth, back and forth.
The Sidlesaghe sighed
softly. "Then no wonder he discovered it! Doubtless Asterion aided in
Troy's ruin as he must have aided in the ruin of so many wondrous cities.
Caela, we must be careful. We must wait awhile before you try to move another
band. He knows the path you will take… we cannot risk him waiting for you the next time, or any other time. Now, go.
Go! The world
wakes!"
She leaned forward,
laid a quick kiss on his mouth, then vanished.
SWANNE HUDDLED IN HER
LONELY BED, CONSUMED with the knowledge of what had happened this night. It
must be Asterion who had moved the band. Who else? Who else?
And if it was he,
then all was lost, surely.
"William,"
she whispered. "William…"
WILLIAM SAT BEFORE
THE NEWLY STOKED FIRE IN HIS
slowly lighting
bedchamber. He stared at the flames, but his thoughts were
elsewhere.
A band had been
moved, and yet the Game had not been harmed. Indeed, its strength had
increased. William could feel that even from this distance.
The Game had grown.
It was not Asterion
who had moved the band. If it had been, William would have felt the diminution,
or the alteration, in the Game's power that Asterion's touch would have caused.
But nothing like that had occurred. In fact, William could feel a faint echo of
Asterion's anger.
Asterion had been
caught as much unaware as William.
So who then had moved
the arm band?
Caela? Caela in
league with Asterion? William fretted it over. Caela had betrayed him with
Asterion once before to pull the Game to a wrenching halt.
GODS' CONCUBI
William knew he could
not afford to ignore betrayed him (and the Game) once more. 't
But if it was Caela
who had moved the » with Asterion, then would not William have 't within the
endeavor? If Caela had moved %.** and/or knowledge, then William would hav^^'
Yet the only presence
of Asterion's he h^ 't} tration. So not Caela under
Asterion's dire^ <A»nt,
Caela by herself? No,
no, it could not P) ^<n$ tainly no knowledge of where the
bands lay, ■ *" it. She was just a woman, a woman of n^ besides, the
band would not have allowed r^
It must have been Swanne. Swanne wa could have touched the
band and successfi of the Labyrinth, and cofounder of this Ga^ 't
But Swanne didn't
know where the banX'110*'1'' it? William wasn't sure. If
she had found th/ than William had thought.
It had to be Swanne.
It had to be. There then she was risking
everything. If AsteriojA those bands… gods, the thought was not be
William shifted in
his chair, uncomfortX -invade
now! If only he could take those bands 't't
But invasion was not
an option. Not du, V likely to wreck any invasion fleet within a ha) A ' , Kr
wL while Edward was still alive. To take England n oinno-private
armies) of several score noblemen ,->s v ^ss > • ders to Burgundy and all the duchies and kь he had
a legal claim to the English throne, ^ wt then they'd not hesitate to join him for a si't "
cha that his claim was not
legal (as it would be 't a * .. Edward rather than Harold), then they'd
h^ ^ °lKc dukes, and kings would denounce
the inva, it etne .;t place William and Normandy under
interdict away, and Edward's army (which would be the dying king!) would likely
defeat William
William's only
chance, and it was a gc^ H. Edward had died, when he could viably claj 't
Not before. 't
Not before, even if
an unknown "someoh
CO1H
fc
p
S
©
It must be Swanne! It must!
William sat and
stared into the flames.
On the bed, Matilda
sat and stared at William.
For hours, until well
after the sun had risen, neither moved, nor said a
word.
Then, as Matilda
dressed and made for the door, William raised his head.
"Matilda?"
She turned, and
looked at him.
"Can you ask
your agent, whosoever he or she may be, to watch both Swanne and Caela?"
"That is most
certainly possible."
William considered,
wording his request carefully. "Then can you ask if… if either ever
manages to escape the court unnoticed, or keeps strange company? Or if they…"
Oh gods, how to phrase this? "If they have within their
possession any finely wrought golden bands with a spinning crown over a
labyrinth worked into them."
Matilda's eyes
widened very slightly, but she understood that her husband was in no mood for
explanations. "I can do that for you."
"For us,"
William said softly. "For us."
six
w
ILLIAM GRUNTED,
THEN SIGHED. HE STILL
sat before the fire
in his bedchamber, but now Matilda was gone, and in her place—in a chair
opposite William rather than sitting on the bed—was Harold.
Between Harold and
William sat a chessboard on a low table.
The men had been
shifting pieces back and forth for almost an hour, and that time spent at the
one game did not reflect their skill, nor their determination to keep the other
at bay, but instead was an indication of both men's almost total lack of
interest in the game. Both had squandered chances to trap the other, both had
exposed their own men to the ravages of the other's, both still had most of their
pieces on the board.
"I am returning
to England," Harold eventually said. It was the first time either of them
had spoken since they'd sat down.
William grunted
again. He did not raise his eyes from the chessboard.
"You will not
hold me?" Harold said.
William shot him a
glance, but just as quickly returned his gaze to the board. "It would do
me no favor," he said. "I would alienate half of Europe, let alone
most of England." He paused, his long fingers hovering over his king. "Besides,
Edward would as likely as not disinherit me for the act."
"Edward would
likely as not spend an entire week capering about Westminster in joy if he
thought there was the faintest possibility you might put a sword through my
throat."
William's hand froze
over the chess piece, then he slowly sat back from the board and looked Harold
full in the face.
"Why did you
come, Harold?" Oh, William knew why Harold had come. It was the
unacknowledged Coel within him, driving him forward to meet face to face with
his doom. It is what Coel would have done, it is what drove Harold over to
Normandy. Still, William wanted to know what Harold believed had driven him
here.
"We will meet
one day on the battlefield," Harold said. "I wanted to know you
beforehand." He relaxed a little in his chair, his attention now as
removed
from the chessboard
as was William's. "And, of course, I had hoped to gain your total support
for my own succession to England's throne."
Both men grinned, and
then both men's grins faded as quickly.
"I needed to know you, William," Harold said again. "But I
did not expect to like you. I did not expect to respect you."
There was silence.
William's eyes dropped to his lap where he was slowly rubbing the thumb of one
hand between the forefinger and thumb of the other. He fiddled some minutes,
thinking. Aye, he liked Harold, too. He liked him. In other circumstances, William knew he could
probably have counted on Harold to be his most loyal and trustworthy companion.
Harold… Coel. Who would have thought it? But then, when had Brutus
ever taken the time to understand Coel, or even to know him beyond a passing
acquaintance?
William suddenly
understood that he needed to have reached this revelation, this state of liking
and of friendship, with Harold-who-was-once-Coel. It was something William
needed to do, just as Harold needed to like and respect him.
Why? What part of
what larger game was this?
Finally, William
raised his gaze back to Harold. "I wish…" he began, then could not
continue.
"Aye," said
Harold. He blinked, as if he had tears in his eyes, then leaned forward and
held out a hand to William.
William took it
without hesitation. "I do not want to kill you," he said.
"Aye, and I do
not want to have to kill you."
They gripped hands,
their eyes locking, then both let go and sat back, half-embarrassed smiles
playing over their faces.
"If I win,"
William said, only half-jokingly, "and you do not survive, may I say that
you pledged to me that I might take the throne?"
Harold considered.
Such a statement would inevitably blacken Harold's name. He had pledged to
William that he might take the throne on Edward's death, and then Harold had
backed down on his word, and sought through force to deny William his rights.
Yet the revelation of
such a vow would unite England as nothing else had done. It would prevent the
country from tearing itself apart trying to resist William's rule. If William
won on the battlefield, and then said that God had judged in William's favor
because Harold had reneged on his word, the English would accept it. They might
not like it, but they would accept it.
What did he want
more? His honor, or England's well-being?
He nodded. "Aye.
You may say that." He paused, a slow smile spreading over his mouth.
"If you also agree that should I win, and you die, then I can spread it
about that you were the motherless son of one of Hell's imps."
William burst out
laughing. "A deal!" He held out his hand as Harold had just held out
his.
But Harold hesitated.
"And that if you do so win against me, and I die on the battlefield, then
you shall respect the life and property of my sons and daughters, and that of
my sister, Caela. You shall honor my children, and my sister, and do them no
harm."
William's face grew
serious. "A deal, Harold."
Harold nodded, and
took William's hand.
"I wish you
well," said William softly.
"And I
you," said Harold.
And with those words,
each man felt an immense weight lifted off his shoulders, while, under London,
the Stag God Og stirred, and his heart (still lying so cruelly torn from his
breast) beat a fraction more strongly.
seveN
Caela Speaks
/I/DAY OR TWO
AFTER I HAD MOVED THE BAND, I
arranged it so that
Ecub, Judith, and Saeweald sat with me in some privacy within my solar. Again,
other ladies were in attendance, along with one or two of Edward's thegns
(paying attention to one or two of my ladies rather than me), but they were
grouped at some distance, and I felt that if I kept my voice low enough then we
should have seclusion enough.
I told them of the
moving of the band, and of how Asterion tried to snatch me and it. They
shuddered, as did I in the retelling, and begged me be careful in the future.
Then, because they
needed and deserved to know, I told them of how I had felt empty, un-right, of
how I had felt some loss of connection to the land. How I was not all that I
should be.
"But how can
this be?" Saeweald began, rather officious and put out, as if I had
conceived of this problem only to irritate him, and I held up a hand to quiet
him.
"I have talked
of this to both Silvius and the Sidlesaghes—"
"And not
us?" Saeweald said quietly.
"She talks of it
now!" snapped Ecub, and silently I blessed her for her intervention.
"Think yourself not so important that you be her first counsel on every
occasion."
Saeweald's mouth
thinned as he compressed his lips, but he said no more. Judith caught my eye,
but I looked away and resumed my speaking.
"I have talked
of this both to Silvius and the Sidlesaghes," I said, "and the answer
is alarmingly simple." I gave a soft, depreciatory laugh. "Here I am,
the enchanted representation of fertility and birth and growth, the health of
the land, and I am—" I lowered my voice "—a virgin! To unite
completely
with the land, to be
at one with whom I should be, I need to consummate my self with the land. Unite
completely with the land."
"Lose your
virginity," Ecub said, ever practical.
Gods help me, I
blushed. "Yes."
"With
whom?" said Saeweald, and I felt both his and Judith's eyes steady on me.
"Silvius,"
I said.
"Silvius?" Saeweald said.
"Shush!" I
said. "Is there better without Og-reborn to comfort me?" I kept my
eyes steady on Saeweald as I said this, and he dropped his eyes away from mine.
"He does not
truly represent the land," said Ecub. "Surely…"
"He represents
the Game," I said. "And the Game and the land are united. Allied. Besides," I softened my voice,
"it need only be a man, and I may choose as I will."
"He looks like
Brutus," Saeweald said, his voice hard. "That is why you chose
him."
"And if it is why, then that is no concern of yours!"
For a moment no one
spoke. Finally, Saeweald broke the silence.
"I put myself
forward," he said. "It would be appropriate."
Oh, gods, damn his ambition!
"I have chosen
as I think appropriate. I am not
looking for applications, Saeweald."
His face hardened,
and he looked away.
eigbc
N THE MORNING OF THE
FESTIVAL OF ST. THOMAS,
Edward accepted an
invitation from Spearhafoc, the bishop of London, to celebrate mass within St.
Paul's cathedral. Although Edward generally preferred to worship within
Westminster, whether at the abbey or the chapel within his palace, he did make
a point of worshipping within St. Paul's on four or five occasions a year. If
the weather was kind, then the king proceeded to St. Paul's via the road that
led from Westminster to the Strand and thence through Ludgate to the cathedral;
if, as on this day, the weather was inclement, then Edward and the immediate
members of his court rode the royal barge to St. Paul's wharf and then traveled
on horseback, under a canopy, up the hill to the cathedral.
Whichever way the
king traveled, the crowds always lined his processional route, often
three-or-four-people deep, cheering and applauding. Sometimes supplicants tried
to reach forth, but these poor folk were always kept at bay by the king's
men-at-arms.
Caela, of course, came
with the rest of the court. Although her previous visits to St. Paul's had held
little significance, she now, with her restored memory and new knowledge of who
and what she was, looked very greatly forward to the outing. Not to the
service, which Caela had every intention of ignoring, but merely the visit to
St. Paul's itself.
Today, as always for
a king's visit, the cathedral was packed. Caela and Edward, together with
several members of the witan, two earls, several thegns, and a variety of
wives, took their places on chairs set out for them to one side of the altar. A
large and beautifully carved wooden rood screen shielded them from the eyes of
the majority of the congregation; today, unusually, flowers had been woven
through the spaces in the screen, filling the royal seating area with the heady
scent of late autumn roses.
Caela took her seat
by her husband, resting her feet gratefully on the covered heated stone that
had been placed before it. The cathedral's interior was frigid, and Judith stepped
forward and ensured that Caela's fur-lined cloak sat
closely about the
queen's shoulders before she took her own place further back in the rows of
seats. The service began.
Halfway through, when
a visiting cleric was engaged in a lengthy dialogue about the sins of Adam and
Eve, Caela noticed a movement to her left, and glanced over.
She froze, her eyes
wide, disbelieving.
Silvius, in all his
Trojan finery, was walking toward her through the ranks of clerics, courtiers,
and sundry monks who filled the aisles to the side of the altar.
Having stared at
Silvius, Caela's eyes then flew to the people grouped about her, doubtlessly
expecting most of them to be staring gape-mouthed at this apparition who walked
so arrogantly among them.
But no one was paying any attention.
Caela looked back to
Silvius, who was now grinning at her confusion.
"Peace,
lady," he said as he walked to her chair, leaned down, and planted a light
kiss on her still-startled face. "They are unaware of me, and, as for you,
why, all they see is their queen with her head bowed in prayerful
contemplation."
Again Caela glanced
about her. It was as Silvius said. No one paid them any attention, and even the
movements of the cleric intoning before the altar were strangely slowed and
muted, as if in dream.
"You have done
this?" she said.
"Aye. Another
piece of Aegean trickery. Did Brutus never do this? Never play this particular
hoax on his comrades?"
"If so, then I
was unaware of it."
Silvius laughed,
softly, and dragged an empty chair close to Caela's. "The trick, my dear,
is to leave people unaware of it." His face sobered. "I needed to see
you, Caela."
Still rattled by
Silvius' piece of magicking, Caela only raised slightly her eyebrows.
Silvius put his hand on the back of her chair; he was
very close. "That was well done," he said, looking her in the eye.
"Moving the band."
She let out a long
breath. "Ah. You realized it?"
He gave a small
smile. "How could I not? I am, after all, a part of the Game." He
paused, his black eye roving slowly over the planes of Caela's face. "I
did not realize you were that powerful."
She gave a small
shrug. "I had help." Then she gave a small laugh at the puzzlement on
Silvius' face. "Long Tom, of course! I am surprised he has not told you
every detail himself."
Silvius managed a
grin, although it looked a little forced. "Of course. Long Tom. A true
friend, eh?"
"Better than you
know… or maybe you do. I am sure that you and he have spent many a long
conversation together. You remember, surely, when he brought me to see you and
Og within the heart of the labyrinth?"
Silvius hesitated a
long moment before answering. "I did not speak to you then…"
"No. You need
not apologize for it. But, ah, what Long Tom showed me!"
"He is
powerful…"
"Oh, aye, he and
all his companions."
Silvius half lifted
his hand that rested on the back of the chair, hesitated with it elevated
slightly, then finished the movement, sliding Caela's veil back a little from
the crown of her head.
"Be
careful," Caela said, stiffening slightly. "I do not want your spell
snapped, and all to see me with my veil and hair disarranged." Her mouth
quirked. "My husband would surely claim that I had been visited by the
devil."
Silvius' hand slid
down to her cheek, his fingers very gently stroking at her smooth skin. "I
am sorry for that. Caela… have you given any more thought to what I said the
last time we met?"
"Here," she
said. "In this cathedral."
He smiled.
"Aye."
She gave a small nod.
"Yes, I have. What you suggested is right, and needed."
Silvius' smile
broadened.
"Long Tom also
agrees," Caela continued, and Silvius' smile slipped.
"Oh," she
said, "should I not have spoken of it to him?"
His grin reappeared.
"If he agrees, then I am rightly pleased that you did mention it! When, Caela? When?"
"The winter
solstice, you said."
He nodded. "Can
you manage an escape from… ?" He nodded to Edward.
"Yes.
Silvius…"
"No more
words," he said, and, leaning into the gap between them, placed his mouth
on hers, gently, not demanding.
She hesitated, but
only an instant, then she leaned forward into him, giving him her mouth. They
kissed, passionately, then Silvius managed to pull back, laughing softly,
breathlessly.
"I must stop,
for I cannot keep this sorcery intact much longer, Caela. Oh gods, I am
sorry." He rose, shifting his chair back to its original position as Caela
rearranged her veil.
"The
solstice," he said. "Meet me in your stone hall. Now, be still, and
bend your head back to prayer."
She did, and in the
next instant Silvius was gone, and all awakened about her.
Caela paid no
attention to the rest of the service, imagining only what it might be like to
have Silvius take her virginity.
Eventually, without
consciously realizing the transition, Caela's thoughts turned entirely to
Brutus, and she remembered that night she had offered herself to him under the
stars on the way to the Veiled Hills, and the passion with which they'd made
love… almost as if there had been love between them.
Meanwhile, at Thorney
Isle, a barge containing the earl of Wessex drew softly to Westminster's wharf.
AROLD STRODE INTO THE
BEDCHAMBER HE
shared with his wife,
tore the covers from Swanne's body and, before she could move or speak, grabbed
her hair and hauled her from their bed.
Swanne finally found
her voice as she half-tumbled naked to the floor. "What… ? Harold! No! No!"
Now he had her by her
arm and dragged Swanne to her feet. With his free hand he dealt her a stinging
blow to her cheek, and then another, and then yet one more, before she had time
to collect herself.
"That first was
for the damage done to me with your treachery," he snarled. "The
second was for the damage you have done to England! And the third, you
black-hearted witch, was for standing by and laughing as my brother sought to
murder me! Did you report that to William? Answer me!"
Swanne was stunned,
not only by the suddenness and savagery of Harold's attack, but by his
knowledge. How dare he lay a
hand to her! How did he know?
"I haven't… I
don't…" she stumbled, unable for the moment to string a coherent sentence
together.
"William told me
how much you delight in passing him your little tidbits of communication,"
Harold said, and pushed Swanne back so that she sprawled across the bed.
"Did he tell you also how he shares them with Matilda?" "No! William?" Shared with Matilda? No!
Swanne edged back in
the bed, trying to put as much distance between her and Harold as possible.
"I have been to
Normandy, Swanne. Did not William think to tell you?" "What were you doing there?" Swanne had
reached the far edge of the bed, and now carefully rose to her feet. She put
one hand to her reddened cheek, but made no attempt to otherwise cover her
nakedness. "Discussing your whoring ways with William."
"No," she
said, looking at him with all the contempt she could muster. "William
would not have told you."
Harold's face
twisted: Swanne did not even attempt to deny it. "We have reached an
agreement, William and I," he said, "and you form no part of
it."
"Liar!" she
spat.
"I renounce our
marriage, Swanne. You—"
"No!"
"What? You fear
to lose me? You? Who laughed as Tostig knifed
me?"
She stared at Harold,
her breasts rising and falling with the rapidity of her breathing. "I was
sure that Tostig would kill you. I was terrified. Terrified! I wanted to live.
I thought laughter would save me… I'm sorry. I know I should have leapt to your
aid… but I was so frightened. I was not thinking…" She let her voice drift
into a whimper with her last sentence, and contorted her features into
something approximating fear.
Harold's face twisted
with loathing. "It doomed you, witch. Begone from my life. You have your
estates and manors that your father and uncles bequeathed you. You shall lack
for nothing."
"You cannot do this!"
"Every noble,
every court in this country shall support me!" he snarled, striding about
the bed and grabbing Swanne's hand away from her cheek. "No man stands for
a wife who betrays him in this manner! I shall have a wife, but she shall be a
true wife, Swanne. Not what you have given me!"
"The Church will
not let you put me—"
"The Church did not ratify our marriage, they do
not recognize it. We were Danelaw-wed, Swanne. That was your insistence, not
mine. Well, now you reap the harvest of your insistence, your all-consuming
desire for independence. By God, Swanne, had you thought that once William was
in a position to fight for the throne that you could renounce me?"
Swanne tried to
wrench her arm away from Harold's grasp, but he would not let it go.
"I am pregnant
with your child," she said, her panic tipping her into the lie. William had shared their communications with Matilda? "You cannot set me to one
side."
"Truly?"
Harold raised his eyebrows, his eyes running slowly up and down her figure.
"Your slenderness belies that lie, my dear."
"You lay with me
before… before you left for your sly voyage to William. Why can't I be with
child?"
'Because I know you
too well. Because you would not want to be thick with my child when you think
you might have William instead! Be gone from my life, Swanne. I have had enough
of you."
"You cannot put me aside!"
"Ah, you do not
fear losing me, do you? You fear losing your place within this court, because
without me as your husband you shall be forced to retire to one of your country
estates. And what can you betray to William there? The state of the apple
harvest? How many ewes have lambed this spring? You'll be as useless to him as
you are now to me."
Swanne finally
managed to free her arm. "I
will be queen of this land beside William!"
"I have seen how
William regards his wife, Matilda. I suspect you shall be queen of nothing but
the peasant rabble who shall work your fields."
She spat at him, but
Harold could see the fear in her eyes, and he smiled coldly.
"Clothe
yourself, Swanne. I have already left instructions with the servants that you
shall be removing to the country by this afternoon."
And with that, Harold
turned and left the chamber.
Swanne stared after
him for long moments, her eyes wild, her expression a mixture of fear and shock
and disbelief. She could not afford to be banished to the countryside!
Gods… gods! How had Harold known? William could not have
betrayed her to Harold.
He could not.
Could he?
^_ AROLD WENT STRAIGHT
| to that of Caela's, hoping she 1^ / He burst
into her chambej, his own to find Judith and two other ladie*
"Harold!"
Caela spun about to face the same time.
"Caela, thank God
you have returned f across to her as the women left the shoulders, bent to kiss
her briefly and
"Aye, I am. But,
Harold… ah, thank ^ 't'|A
Harold managed a smile
and, checkinfc'ttoieevoy 't ladies
had left the room, said, William " *
man of Tostig's
treachery."
She let out a long
breath of sheer relies against his cheek. "What… ah, Harold, 't'
He took her by the
hand and led her b^'t down. As he talked, relating to her all tha^ ^ with
William, he kept her hand tight in hi$ V
"He is a good
man," Harold finished. '''t't iv^ him." He let out a short,
dry laugh. "Eve^ ^motlьtfV iV that is to say about a man who makes no at-
^ ignist 'tA u the English throne!"
"You liked
him," Caela said, her eyes
"Aye, that I did.
In a strange manner, vv, our ambitions make us sworn enemies. He
She smiled, and Harold
thought he'd v he has changed," she said. "I am glad. I aiv
Harold frowned. "
'How he has change^.'
Caela looked away, her
face closing ■ jutvOu
brother."
And William spoke of Caela in a
manner that made me wonder if ever he had met her, Harold thought. He lifted his
hand, and gently turned Caela's face back to meet his.
"Is Swanne the only one who has been secretly communicating with
William?" he said. "William was as interested in you as you have been
in him. Why all this interest, Caela?"
"I have had no
communication with William," she said, her gaze unflinching, and he
believed her.
"And I am interested in William for the same
reason you are, Harold. He seeks the English throne."
"You do not need
to fear him, Caela. Not personally. He has sworn to me that if… if fate favors
him in this wrestle for England, then he will do you no harm, nor harm to any
of my children."
"He said
that?" Caela smiled, although it was tinged with sadness. "I had
thought he might be vindictive… hard. It is what I had… heard of him."
"Vicious rumor
only. William is an honorable man," he said again.
"Ah, Harold, I
hope his promises never have to be kept."
There was a silence,
and Caela became uncomfortable under Harold's regard. "Harold, tell me,
what manner of man is William? Come now, hold nothing
back. Tell me of William and Matilda."
He laughed softly. "William is a tall man, and
strong in build. And handsome, with black, dancing eyes and a
magnetism about him that surely draws women to him like bees to the honey pot.
Mayhap you will think he will be a prettier face to have about this court than
mine."
"Never."
"Aye, well… I
think he looks at no one but Matilda. I do not think even Swanne can draw him
away from her."
"Do you think
that William knows Swanne for what she is, and thus leans toward Matilda?"
"William respects
and trusts and treasures his wife. I think he knows that is not something he
could achieve with Swanne."
Again Caela breathed
out as if in deep relief, and Harold looked carefully at her. "Caela, will
you promise me something?"
"Anything."
"If by wicked
fate, William defeats me to take the throne, will you support him?"
"How can you ask that of
me?"
"If I am
defeated I do not want to think that England will tear itself apart trying to
resist William. You will be the dowager queen; people will listen to you—"
"Listen to me? Gods' Concubine? The always-dismissed wife of
Edward? Harold, I do not think that—"
"You are far
more than that, Caela. Do you think I cannot see? That I do not watch the way
you move, and what you say, and watch how other people respond to you? In the
past weeks… I don't know… in the past weeks you have somehow come into your
true self. People have always listened to you, and respected you, whatever
Edward has said and done. Now, I think there might be something even more than
'respect' behind their regard." He sighed, dropped his eyes, and stroked
her hand where it rested in his.
"Caela, please.
Do this for me if you do nothing else. If William takes the throne over my dead
body, then support him. The witan will take what you say and consider it. They
will not dismiss you. The people will not dismiss you, nor what you say. Caela,
please, I ask you this for the sake of the land—"
Something flitted
across her face, an expression Harold could not read, and her hands jumped
slightly where they clasped his.
"—for England, and everything that it is, will you do this for me?
Will you support William if… if it comes to pass?"
"Oh,
Harold…" her voice broke. "Do not speak of your death!"
"Promise me this!"
She blinked away her
tears, then nodded. "For the land, I promise, Harold."
"Thank
you." He leaned forward and kissed her again, but this time did not
immediately draw away. Their mouths locked, and Harold's free hand slipped
behind Caela's head and pressed her the more firmly into him.
She moaned, softly,
and probably with desire rather than distress, but it was enough to make Harold
draw back.
"Oh God,"
he breathed. "Caela, I am sorry."
"No! Never say that! Be sorry for the fact we cannot be
together, but not for the fact that you love me."
He kissed her again,
softly, and then shifted his mouth to her ear. "Cruel fate," he
whispered.
"Cruder than you
realize," she said.
For a long moment
they sat there, their faces close, feeling the play of the other's breath over
their faces, then Harold sighed, and sat back.
"I have heard
news of Tostig this morning," he said softly.
"I do not know
if I want to hear of it."
"He has gone to
Hardrada."
She was silent.
"He will not
defeat me. I promise you this. But William… well, William I respect. That's why
I asked you to pledge as you did."
"What of
Swanne?" Caela said. "Have you seen her since you returned?"
"Ah, Swanne! I think William distrusts her as much as I do,
Caela."
"Really?"
"And, yes, I
have finally done with her. I visited our chamber before coming
here. I severed the
ties between us. She is gone, and you, my dear," he hesitated an instant,
"must find me a new wife, someone suitable to be a queen."
She looked away,
composed herself, then nodded. "I have found a woman," she said, her
face and voice very quiet. "Do you wish to hear of her?"
"Does she bear
your name?"
"Harold…"
"I am sorry.
Yes, tell me of this woman."
"Do you remember
Alditha, Harold? She is the sister of—"
"The earls Edwin
and Morcar, aye, I know of her. But she is married to that Welsh lord. Ah! I
can never remember his name!"
"He died some
months previous, Harold. And now the pretty lady Alditha, with all her lands
and estates and ancestry and alliances, sleeps unattended in the chamber, which
once was the bishop of Kent's. So close to yours."
Harold's eyes had
grown very dark. "I wish it were you lying unattended and alone in the chamber
of the bishop of Kent," he said. "I wish it were you lying alone and
widowed at night."
"I cannot,"
she whispered, her face stricken. "If you truly want this throne, Harold,
then I cannot!"
"What say you,
sister? That should I renounce my ambition for the throne, then you will be
mine?"
"We cannot,
Harold." She shifted on the bed, putting space between herself and him.
"Alditha is a good woman. I am sure you will manage."
"I would rather
a woman I could love." He saw the stricken expression on her face.
"Ah, I am sorry, Caela. This does neither of us any good. Aye. Alditha
will do well enough for me, and that you have chosen her, well, that will bless
the match. If you wish me to go to Alditha and warm her nights, then that I can
'manage.'"
Her face closed over,
and he sighed. "What happened three nights ago, Caela? Both William and I
had evil dreams, and mine was all about you. I thought you in great danger, and
thus I hurried from William's court back home."
"What happened?
Why, nothing, brother!" She smiled, but it was false, and Harold knew that
she kept something from him. "And William dreamed of me as well? What did
he say? What did he do?"
William again! thought Harold. Why does she speak so much about William?
"He did not say
he dreamed of you, Caela. He said he dreamed of great trouble."
"Ah. He was
angry?"
"Caela? You said
that nothing had happened. Is that the truth?"
"I am in no
danger, Harold. Believe it."
Harold didn't. She
was hiding something from him, just as surely as
William had hid
something from him that night he'd burst into Harold's chamber.
What was the interest these two had
in each other?
Harold felt a wave of jealousy wash over him.
"Caela—"
"Trust me,"
she whispered, her great blue eyes staring steadily into his. "Trust me.
Please."
This time he allowed
himself to believe her. "Yes," he said. "I do."
LATER, WHEN CAELA HAD SETTLED TO HER EVER-present needlework (claiming that
a headache kept her from the bustle of Edward's court), Swanne came to the
chamber, and requested an audience with the queen.
Surprised, Caela
allowed the request, then further granted Swanne some privacy by asking Judith
and the other ladies to retire some distance away.
"Harold has
doubtless spoken to you," Swanne said, her voice hard.
Caela inclined her
head. She did not look up from her needlework.
Swanne's lips
compressed into a hard, vicious line, "Grant me duty within your ladies. I
cannot lose my place at court."
Caela finally lifted
her eyes. "My attending ladies are my only haven of peace, sister. You
want that I should shatter that with your presence?" She sighed, shaking
her head slightly. "I cannot offer you a place within my own tiny court. It
would go against Harold's wishes."
"Harold! Have
you slept with him yet, little virgin girl? Are you the reason he has turned so
viciously against me?"
"How dare you
ask me that!" Spots of color reddened Caela's cheeks. "How dare you,
when—" she glanced at her ladies on the other side of the chamber,
ensuring they were not within hearing range "—when in our previous life it
was you who arranged his death! If he
turns 'viciously against' you, Swanne, do you think that my doing, or that of
Fate, weaving out what must be?"
"There is
nowhere for me to go."
"You have your
own lands and estates, Swanne."
"I cannot leave
court!"
"Why not? What
mischief do you plan? And if you want a court to shine within, then why not
choose William's?"
"Oh, I will. You
will never have a place at his side!"
"I do not wish
it," Caela said, calm again. "But neither do I think you will ever
have that queenly throne on his right hand, Swanne. From all reports, that is
Matilda's so firmly that you could wish the moon from the sky more easily than
wish for that seat. But have no fear, William has no doubt planned
a backroom for you.
If you wish, I can inform him of what remote county you linger in, and he can
send a horse for you."
Swanne rose, her face
stiff with anger. "Is this your little victory over me, then? Then enjoy
it, for one day—and soon—it shall be you cast into the cold, and crying out for
succor."
WHEN SHE HAD GONE,
CAELA LEANED HER HEAD
against the high back
of her chair, and closed her eyes. I should not have done that.
I should have offered a hand, and my friendship, not harsh words and the door.
Oh, merciful heavens, how could I have allowed my own petty need for revenge
dictate my actions?
ecevejM
Jb'LDRED, ARCHBISHOP
OF YORK, WAS SITTING AT
his noonday meal in
his palace just within the walls of London when one of his manservants hurried
over to him.
"My lord,"
he said, bowing respectfully. "The lady Swanne begs audience."
Aldred paused with a
knife, a tempting piece of juicy meat speared on its blade, halfway to his
mouth. He blinked, his mouth hanging open, a dribble of saliva glistening at
one corner, and stared at the servant.
"The lady
Swanne?" he said.
"Aye, my lord.
She begs audience. Urgently. My lord, she is in a state of some distress."
Aldred blinked again,
then slowly, and obviously very reluctantly, put the knife and its tempting
morsel back on the plate.
"Well, I suppose
I'd better see her," he said. Then, hopefully, "She might not wait
until I have finished eating?"
The servant glanced
at the table with its array of over fourteen different dishes. "I think
not, my lord. She does appear to be in some need."
Aldred sighed, and
rearranged his fleshy features into a scowl. "Oh, very well then. Send her
in."
The servant hurried
out, and as he went, one of the corners of Aldred's mouth upturned briefly, as
if in a smile.
SWANNE ENTERED IN A
SWISH OF SKIRTS AND CLOAK. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed (which
fortunately hid the slight bruise that was deepening on one of them) and her
abundant black hair artfully arranged atop her head.
She wore no veil, and
Aldred noted that her gown was most unseemly for this hour of the day. It was
one a noble lady might more properly wear to a private banquet, for its neck
was square cut and low, unlike the high necklines of public gowns.
"My lord!"
she said, and dropped in a deep curtsy.
Aldred blinked yet
once more, finding it difficult to lift his eyes away from the sight of her
breasts straining at that low neckline.
"Ahem," he
managed as Swanne rose to her feet. "What can be the matter, my dear
lady?"
"Harold has
abandoned me," she said. "He has renounced our marriage."
Aldred spluttered,
then succumbed to a fit of coughing so violent he had to cover his mouth with a
napkin lest he spray pieces of half-chewed food over the table.
"How is this
possible?" he finally asked. "Why? Why?"
"He wants a good
wife under Christian law," Swanne said, sitting down at a bench at the
side of the table. "He wants the throne, my good lord archbishop, as you
have doubtless known, and he thinks it more likely the church, witan, and
England will accept him with a Christian-law wife, rather than a Danelaw
one."
"But this is… is…
so…"
"After all I
have done for him!" Swanne's eyes filled with tears, and her breasts
heaved with the strength of her emotion. "What can I do? What? I have been
abandoned… abandoned!"
"My dear
woman," Aldred said, laying aside his napkin. "You need not pretend
such distress to me. Harold has discovered your communications with William,
yes? His reaction can hardly be of great surprise to you."
"Did you tell him?"
"No. I did
not."
"Well, that may
be as may be. My lord archbishop, I need your aid as never before. Your vast
palace has many spaces and chambers. May I not inhabit one of them?"
Aldred's mouth
dropped open yet again. "My lady! What would people think!"
Swanne shrugged.
"They can think what they like, my lord. Besides, it will do you no harm.
Many of the higher clerics keep mistresses, even wives, without any
repercussion."
"You are
offering yourself to me as… as…"
"No!"
Swanne fought briefly with herself, managing to keep the disgust from her face.
"No, not at all my lord. I was only arguing that even should people think
the blackest, it would not harm your reputation. Indeed, it may even add to
it." She attempted a coquettish smile, but it faded almost as soon as it
had lit her face. "I only want a chamber, my lord."
"But… why? You
have estates in your own right. I would have thought that—"
"No! No, I must
stay in Westminster, or London."
"Why?"
"For my
children's sakes, my lord. I need to be assured that Harold will not forsake
them as he has forsaken me. I fear that should I vanish to the countryside, he
will disinherit them as he has me." Swanne felt like screaming: I have to stay in London!
Aldred sighed.
"I asked you not to pretend with me, my lady. You have no thought for your
children. You never mention them, never think of them. They have only ever been
but a means to keep Harold tied to you, and thus you to Westminster and
Edward's court. You think Edward has not long to live, you think William is
coming, you want to be here to greet him. Thus you beg me for a chamber, and
care not what rumor suggests happens within that chamber."
He made a face, as if
disinterested. "You don't think that might ruin whatever you hope for with
William?"
"William and I
have an alliance that goes back much further than you can guess at, my lord. He
will not think any the worse of me for begging shelter from you."
Aldred shrugged.
"Very well, then, my lady. You may 'shelter' within my palace." And when I demand my price for this generosity, my dear
Swanne, you will wish you had never thought to throw yourself to my mercy.
CbAPG6RGUD6CV
^^ WANNE WAITED A
FULL DAY FOR A TIME WHEN
""^ she had
an hour or two undisturbed in the chamber that Aldred had given her, before she
succumbed to her sense of panic. Who
had moved the band?
How?
Had William told Harold about her?
Had he really shared her messages with Matilda? No, surely not. That was just
Harold's lies. Surely. And if William had… then why? Why? Why?
She needed answers,
she needed reassurance, and she needed both so badly that she knew she could
not wait for the slow passage of written communication, between her and
William.
Besides, she no
longer trusted Aldred completely. The man had been too sure of himself
recently. What did he plan behind her back?
No, she needed to see
William. To meet him again, face to face, as much to satisfy her emotional
needs and as much to answer her questions.
Since her first
meeting with William, Swanne had always been supremely careful with the use of
her power. She had never known where Asterion was, or if he would be able to
scry out her use of power, and, most importantly, what he might do if he felt
her use such power.
But the past day or
so had witnessed the loss of most of Swanne's assurance. She needed William again, if only for a moment or two,
just to see him, to reach out and touch him. To hear him reassure her that
Harold had only lied. And
so she did what she had not yet dared to do for the past fifteen
years.
She used her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to
visit William.
ONCE HAROLD HAD
DEPARTED, WILLIAM HAD TAKEN
his horse, a few
companions, and ridden for the coast to a small estate he had near Fecamp.
There he spent two days staring northwest from the tower of the small castle
that dominated the estate.
Then, on this
morning, he had ridden from the castle, curtly telling his companions to give
him time and space alone for a few hours, and galloped for the coast some three
miles distant.
He pulled his horse
to a halt on a small hill that overlooked the sea. Above his head wheeled
scores of seabirds, filling the air with their harsh voices; about him there
was nothing but the rolling turf of untilled meadows; before him there was
nothing but the wild gray sea, whipped into a frenzy by a bitter northerly
wind.
The distant view was
hazy, the nearer view distorted by the spray sent skyward by the crashing
waves, but William could feel England just beyond his eyesight.
There it lay, so close, so close…
Something within him tugged. Almost as if an invisible hand had laid hold of his
gut and pulled.
He groaned, bending
forward a little in the saddle, and his horse shifted uneasily underneath him.
Again, the strange,
painful tug, and this time William realized what it was.
"No!" he
cried. Damn, it was Swanne! "No! Stop!"
But it was too late.
Some twenty paces away, where the hill started to dip toward the rocky beach,
the haze consolidated into, first, a misty pillar, and then into a discernible
female form.
"Swanne! No!" William cried again, almost beside himself
with a crazed mixture of fear and anger. She dared not do this! She dared not! Not now, when it
was so dangerous!
He swung down from his horse and ran toward the figure just as it consolidated
into its final form.
Swanne, running to
meet him.
She looked older than
before, but just as beautiful: the black, curling hair, snapping free in the
wind; the sensuous figure; the round white arms held out to him; the face, more
beautiful than he could ever have imagined.
The red mouth
silently framing his name. William!
William!
"Swanne!"
he grunted in that instant before she hurled herself into his arms. She pulled
his head down and kissed him, but within a moment he pushed her back, his hands
on her shoulders, staring at her.
"Gods, Swanne!
What do you here?"
"William!"
she cried, and buried her face against his chest, her arms tight about him.
"William."
Again he pushed her
back, harder this time. "What do you here? What is wrong?"
"You know what!
Someone has moved a—"
"It was not
you?" William's hands tightened about Swanne's shoulders.
"No! No! I thought that perhaps you… somehow…"
"No."
William looked away from her and looked over the wild sea.
"Who? No one
could touch those bands but you and me. William… William, was it
Asterion?"
"No. I felt that
Asterion was as surprised as me. As you,
now, I find. Gods, Swanne, I was sure that you had moved the band." Had prayed that it was you who had moved the band.
Swanne's hands had
lessened their grip about William a little, and now she moved them to his
chest, and she leaned in closer, and pressed her hands against him. She could
feel the heat of his body radiating out through the layers of his tunic and
undershirt, and Swanne closed her eyes momentarily, and breathed in deeply.
"Then who?" she said.
"Caela,"
William said in a voice almost a whisper. He was still staring out to sea.
"No."
"No?"
William remembered what Matilda and Harold had said about her. "Are you
sure? She has surprised us before."
"She has no
power, William. Not like us." Again her hands pressed against him.
"Asterion destroyed Mag within her. She has nothing left."
"What?"
Swanne had finally said something that pulled William's eyes from the sea back
to her. "What in Hades' name do you mean?"
"Mag,"
Swanne said, "within Caela's womb. As she lived within Cornelia's womb.
Did you not…"
Swanne suddenly
stopped. Had Brutus ever known
of this? She had
not mentioned it to him, not in those few brief months between when she had
discovered it herself and when Cornelia, the bitch, had murdered her. And then
Cornelia would never, surely, have mentioned it.
Besides, Cornelia
would have had no chance to tell him, for Brutus would have killed her the
instant that Cornelia had stepped back from Genvissa's dead body.
Wouldn't he? Caela was speaking only
lies when she'd said she'd lived with Brutus for decades after Genvissa's
death, and borne him more children.
Wasn't she?
"How long did Cornelia live after she killed me?" Swanne
asked. "An hour? A day, at most?"
"As long as I
did, at least," said William, vaguely, not thinking through why Swanne
might have been asking this. "And that was, what? Some thirty years or
so."
"What? You did not kill her?"
William dropped his
hands and took a step backward, breaking the contact between Swanne and
himself. "No. Eventually I took her back as my wife, but I—"
"You kept her as your wife for some thirty years after
she had killed me?"
There
was a terrible pain
in her chest, and Swanne could hardly breathe for its fire.
Betrayal, she
realized dimly. That's what that pain was. Betrayal.
"I did it to
punish her, Swanne. I never spoke to her again."
Swanne gave a bitter
laugh. "But you lay with her." A pause. "Yes?"
He did not answer,
and that was all the answer Swanne needed.
Above them the
circling seabirds cried our in their harsh tones, as if barking in laughter at
Swanne's anguish.
She lifted a hand, as
if to strike William, but he seized it before she could act.
"And you told
Harold of our correspondence," she said, her voice flinty, trying but not
succeeding to wrench her wrist from William's grasp. "And, I discover,
shared it with Matilda] How could you betray me like
that? Ah!" She gave a hard laugh. "How stupid of me. If you could lay
with Cornelia after she'd murdered me, then what would such a small betrayal as
telling Harold of our communications and sharing it with your wife cost you? Eh? I swear before all gods, William, that
I believe you collect wives only so you can betray me with them!"
William remained
silent a long moment, staring at her with a face as tight and as angry as hers.
"How can you speak of betrayal, my love, when
you have been sleeping side by side with Coel all these years?"
There was a flash of
panic in Swanne's eyes, then she collected herself and pouted. "It was of
no importance."
"It was of no
importance," William repeated, then laughed hollowly. "No
importance…ha!"
Swanne's face
hardened. "You took your Matilda, did you not? I took Harold. There is no
difference."
"Matilda has no
part in this deadly game we play! But Coel!
That was something you held back deliberately. And I asked you about him!" William's voice hardened to
granite. "And you lied to me. You lied. Deliberately."
"I was afraid. I
did not want you jealous."
William's jaw
tightened, and he looked away from her.
"Is that why you
told him about you and me?" she said, watching William's expression
carefully. "You were upset when you realized Harold was Coel, and that I'd
kept that information from you? Is that why—"
"I did not tell
Harold," William said. "He knew before he came to my court."
"He knew?"
Swanne frowned, then her brow cleared. "Ah, well then, it must have been
Aldred, no doubt hedging his bets against a Harold victory rather than a
William victory."
"You were
speaking of Mag," William said, finally looking back at Swanne.
"Living within Cornelia's womb, you said?"
Swanne's mouth
twisted, but she managed to bring her emotions under
control. "Mag
hid herself within Cornelia's womb. If Cornelia allied with Asterion, then that
alliance was as much an alliance between Mag and Asterion as between Cornelia
and Asterion."
Now William's face
was wearing a strange, unreadable expression. "Cornelia carried Mag within
her womb? Truly?"
Whatever that
expression was, Swanne did not like it. "Aye. Both the bitches conspired
against you. And me. But we need not worry now.
Whatever assurances and promises Asterion made to Mag, whatever reward he
offered for her aid, he meant none of it. He destroyed Mag, murdered her
completely, a few months ago."
"And Caela?"
"What of Caela? Why speak of her when—"
"Because I need
to know if she has the power to move that band!" William shouted. "I need to know who it was!"
Swanne's face set
sulkily. "Caela has no power. Believe me, William, she does not have the
ability to find and move any of those kingship bands. She barely has the
capability to dress in the morning. It must have been
someone else. Who?"
"Very well,
then," William said finally, although his mind still rankled over what
Matilda and Harold had said about Caela; they had not described a woman who
didn't even have the power to "dress in the morning." "if not Caela, then…" He paused, thinking. Who?
Swanne gave a small
shrug. "I cannot tell. The puzzle has kept me awake at nights."
"Silvius,"
he said. "Perhaps it is Silvius."
"Your father?
How?"
William remembered
how he'd met Silvius in the heart of the labyrinth; how he'd killed him again
as he had that day so long ago when he, the fifteen-year-old Brutus, had killed
Silvius. And he remembered what Silvius had said to Brutus as he'd faced
Silvius yet one more time that day Loth had challenged Brutus: I am your conscience, I am this land, and I am the
Game.
"I am the
Game," William whispered. Then he refocused his eyes on Swanne.
"Silvius lives within the Game," he said. "And Silvius once wore
those bands. He knows those band, and they him. He
could have moved them."
He must have! Who else?
"Why?" said
Swanne.
"To foil
me," William said, a sad smile hovering about his face. "To murder my
ambitions."
Swanne cursed, foully
enough to make William stare at her in barely disguised distaste.
"What can we do
to stop him?" she said.
"At the moment,
not much." If only it
were Silvius.
William wanted to believe that very much; it made everything so simple. Still,
he was glad Matilda had her agent within Westminster. Just in case… someone…
was lying to him.
"If Silvius
moved them then I can find them," William said, trying to settle the
matter in his own mind. "We are of the same blood, the same training. If
he moved them, then I can find them."
William forced
himself to smile slightly. "It is not as desperate as I'd thought. It will
not be long before I can come," he said. "Do not worry."
Above them one of the
seabirds, now circling much lower, gave another harsh cry as if of laughter.
Swanne smiled, and
lifted her face to William's. "Kiss me," she said.
He did so, but not as
deeply as Swanne would have liked. She drew him close, meaning to kiss him
again, but William pushed her back. "Go now," he said. "Go. And
don't ever dare this again. It is too dangerous. It won't be long until I can
be with you in truth. It won't be."
"You said that
fifteen years ago."
"Fifteen years
ago I was a fool." Two
thousand years ago I was a fool, too. "It won't be long now, we can both feel it."
"William…"
"Go!" he
said, and gave her shoulders a push. "Go."
When she finally
disappeared, William was not so very surprised to feel a profound sense of
relief sweep through him.
Deep within the Game,
Og's heart beat infinitesimally stronger.
ASTERION SLOWLY
RECOMPOSED HIS AWARENESS FROM
the seabird—after
all, he was the master of glamours—back to his own body sprawled in a great
chair before the fire in his hall.
The silly witch,
thinking he would not have known she would do something like that.
In truth, Asterion
had been expecting it ever since Swanne had forced herself on Aldred, the obese
buffoon, and had been mildly surprised she'd waited as long as she had.
He thrust thoughts of
Swanne aside, and concentrated on the matter at hand. Silvius? They had decided
Silvius was moving the bands.
Asterion grinned,
staring into the flames. Silvius…
DAMSON WAS DOWN AT
THE RIVER'S EDGE, CAREFULLY
folding wet linens
and placing them within her basket, when the waterman poled his craft close to
her.
"Damson!"
he called softly, and she set her washing aside, lifted her skirts, and walked
over to him.
"A new
challenge," he said. "Our mistress requires you to watch the queen as
well as the Wessex witch. What company do they keep? Do they slip into the
night unattended?"
Damson rolled her
eyes. "A fine request indeed, and to come at such a time! The lady Swanne
had been bundled out of Westminster and has found solace within the archbishop
of York's house within London's walls. What does our mistress expect me to do,
scurry back and forth, back and forth, and expect no one to notice?"
The waterman leaned
on his pole and regarded Damson speculatively. "In the past weeks I have
seen you scurrying often between Westminster and London. What is one or two
more scurries among those you already accomplish?"
"I have not left
Westminster in months!"
The waterman
chuckled. "So you have a lover then, and seek to deny it. I hope you do
not confess our mistress' secrets to him."
Damson glared at him.
"I have not left Westminster!"
He shrugged. "As
you will. But, listen, there is more. Pray watch carefully, if you can, among
either the queen's or lady Swanne's possessions for a golden band or two, with
a spinning crown over a labyrinth set into them."
"She wishes me
to steal it?"
The waterman shook
his head. "Just to observe its presence."
"I can do
that."
"Give my best to
your lover," the waterman said, standing up straight and hefting the pole.
"He must be good if you seek to deny him so mightily."
Damson scowled,
marched back to her basket, then stalked off, leaving the sound of the
waterman's laughter ringing over the river.
Nldfai
night; that moment
when the sun either would triumph agai* and rise the next morning toward an
eventual spring, or it plunge the world and all creation into never-ending
gloom and
It was the night when
the land held its breath. If the su^ ^1 land failed, and spring would never
grace its body again. If then the land would wither and die, and all who lived
on also.
It was the night when
the land strived for the dawn, for i, resurgent fertility. *
It was the night
Caela could act, where she could do for tk
k
Vi
"MY LORD?"
Edward, who had been
contemplating something unfaa
V
middle distance of
the Great Hall in the palace of
study his wife. They
sat on the dais, digesting their evening ^
some minstrels play.
The Hall was all but
deserted, and this emptiness had put fc mood.
Tonight was the
winter solstice, and he knew that great planned for the fields and hills beyond
the northern walls Q dances and games were to be enacted by all and
sundry. Th, were aeons old, meant to encourage the sun's rise the follows ^e
fe^ 't 't to frighten away all evil spirits who hoped for the sun's deatk ^ %ni
^ ending gloom. Most of London's population, as well as that Qf^d fOr
'tV ing villages and hamlets, were gathering at Pen Hill, awaitьy&
^e$ur W^$, of the flint, and the first spark that would signal the
festivities ^ first 't^^
O
And half the court
had gone as well, if the emptiness of this Hall was any indication.
Edward had spent the
past week expressly forbidding the pagan ceremonies.
That not only the
general population, but also so many of the court had completely ignored him,
had sent him spinning into so ferocious a temper that Judith, who was sitting a
few paces away, wondered at Caela's courage in even speaking to him.
"Yes?"
Edward snapped.
"My lord, I beg
your sanction to take my leave of you this night. I would—"
"You also would take your part in these devilish
practices? You also want to dance with the
heathens? How dare you, wife! Christ's birthday is
but days away,
and you want to revel in
heathenish practices expressly forbidden by our Lord?" His vehemence was so great
that Edward peppered Caela's face with fine globules of spit.
Judith winced, hating
the king and all he stood for. She looked to Caela, knowing her mistress wanted
above all else to scream Yes.' Instead, Judith watched with growing admiration
as Caela kept her face humble and submissive.
"Never!"
Caela said. "I grieve for their souls in their ignorance. Nay, I wanted to
ask your leave not to join in these heathenish and most vile practices, but to
spend the night in humility before the altar of St. Paul's, that I might pray
for the souls of all who succumb to sin this night." Edward was momentarily lost for
words. Caela wanted to spend the night in prayer? He was consumed by a sudden
rush of warmth for his wife. Perhaps, in her maturity, she was learning a
greater grace and humility than he had ever thought her capable.
But…
"St.
Paul's?" he said. "Would you not be better served by our own abbey
church of Westminster? There I could join you."
Judith kept her face
impassive, but her stomach clenched.
"I have ever
felt closer to God in St. Paul's, my lord. And it is in the heart of London
itself." It is the heart
of London.
"There I feel my prayers might have the greater effect on the souls of
those Londoners who might otherwise lose themselves tonight. I beg you, grant
me my wish. I feel that much prayer shall be needed tonight to counter the
effects of these dire, devilish dances."
Judith had to bite
her lip at that last phrase, and she could see the corner of Caela's mouth
twitch as well. Control
yourself! Judith
thought, and in that instant Caela did, and her face became as a great pool of
sadness and piety.
"Caela!"
Edward said, and reached out both his hands to take one of Caela's. "I
wish that your brother had your sense of Christian duty, for I note full well
that he is also absent from the hall this night. Very well, I grant your wish,
and I shall send with you an escort of armed men that you may be kept safe
throughout your night of prayer."
Caela bowed her head
and, as Edward's attention drifted elsewhere, winked at Judith.
TWO HOURS LATER CAELA, ACCOMPANIED BY JUDITH,
Saeweald, an escort
numbering some thirty-five armed men (looking unhappy that duty called this
night when they would much rather be dancing on the hills), and seven monks
from Westminster Abbey, entered the cathedral of St. Paul's via the great
western doors.
There were few people
about. A priest or two, several Londoners—among those very few who had not
wanted to partake in the revelries—and an aged workman, huddled in one corner
with a tattered cloak wrapped about him.
It was very cold, and
the party's breath frosted about their faces.
"Madam?"
murmured Saeweald. He had been very quiet on the journey to St. Paul's.
"I will pray
before the altar," Caela said, and led the way through the nave toward the
great gilded altar. There burned several fat candles, and dishes of incense,
and, in the floor immediately before the altar, offerings of gold, oils, and
coins, left by pilgrims grateful to St. Paul for whatever healing he had
bestowed upon them.
Caela walked directly
to the altar, bent and kissed the crucifix, which sat upon it, then turned once
more to Judith and Saeweald, who stood close by her.
"I will lay
prostrate before the altar," Caela murmured. "For the entire
night."
"Madam,"
said Judith, glancing at Saeweald.
"What I
do," said Caela quietly, "I do for this land, not for any Christian monstrosity. I need to merge
entirely with the land so that it and I are seamless, and tonight… tonight,
this is what I shall accomplish."
"Caela," Saeweald
said slowly, "are you sure that you go to the right man?"
Should it not be me? As Og-reborn?
Caela studied
Saeweald, then smiled, and kissed him on the forehead. Briefly. Gently. No more
than a brush of dry lips. "This is right for me, here and now," she
said. "Later, perhaps… besides, you have other duties tonight."
He nodded. "I
understand." Saeweald paused. "Be well," he finished, and at his
blessing, grudging as it was, Caela's face relaxed.
"Caela…"
Judith began, her gaze darting between Caela and Saeweald.
"I need to do this," Caela said.
Judith sighed,
nodded, then kissed Caela's cheek. "Be well, then." She managed to
summon a small smile. "And enjoy, for it is meaningless without
enjoyment."
"I shall stay
all night," Caela said again. "When I am… gone, then there is no need
for either you or Saeweald to stay to watch over me. You shall be better
employed elsewhere. Perhaps," her eyes danced, "with Ecub, atop Pen
Hill?"
Judith looked at
Saeweald, both knowing that Caela's suggestion was in
fact more like a
command.
"Come,"
said Caela. "Aid me to this floor. And be here to greet me at dawn, when I
am sure my bones shall be still and cold from this stone!"
Judith took Caela's
elbow, and aided her to the floor where, having bowed several times and crossed
herself even more, Caela sank down until she lay prone, her arms extended to
the side, her face to the floor.
Saeweald gestured to
the escort to stand back at a respectful distance— they removed themselves
until they stood in a semicircle about the prostrate form of their queen at a
distance of some fifteen paces—and then he folded his hands inside his
voluminous sleeves, and bowed his head as if in
prayer
Slightly to his side,
and a pace behind him, Judith did the same. In reality, they had their eyes
fixed on Caela.
IN ROUEN, WHERE THE POPULATION WAS ENGAGED IN
much the same
activities as the Londoners, William begged leave from his
wife.
"I have drunk
too excessively of the wine this afternoon, my dear. My head throbs horribly. I
would retire, I think, and let it settle."
"What?"
said Matilda, her eyebrows raised. "You would miss the revels?"
Unlike Edward, she and William always normally attended the excitement of the
winter solstice fires.
"You go, if you
wish," said William, his face apologetic as he leaned forward and kissed
her mouth. "But I must to bed, or I think my head will burst. Nay, do not
think to stay and nurse me. It is but the wine."
Matilda shook her
head. William had drunk a little excessively this
day. "I should force you to drink only milk, like a child," she said.
William made a face,
then smiled, kissed her hand, and left her. He
went straight to his
bedchamber, where he disrobed and slid beneath the coverlets.
Despite the terrible
ache in his head, he was asleep within minutes.
JUDITH AND SAEWEALD
SAW THE INSTANT THAT CAELA
"left."
There was a sudden, strange stillness about her body, and although it still
breathed, they knew that Caela was no longer there.
Saeweald glanced
about at the armed men and monks standing about. They, too, seemed locked in an
eerie stillness.
He reached down and
grasped Judith's hand. "Come," he whispered. "The hills
call."
THE MAIN SITE OF THE
REVELS FOR LONDON WAS ON Pen Hill, a mile or so beyond the northern wall of the
city. Here crowds had been gathering since dusk and now, as full night fell,
they grew increasingly restless.
Atop the hill itself,
standing within the circle of worn stones, which had graced the hilltop since
antiquity, an elderly woman, clad in little more than a diaphanous robe, cried
out, and held aloft a burning brand.
The light revealed
her face, and those close enough could see that this year's mistress of the
ceremonies was, as it had been for the past twelve years, Ecub—the strange,
enigmatic prioress of St. Margaret the Martyr.
Standing just to
Ecub's right was a man and a woman, their eyes riveted on Ecub's face: Judith
and Saeweald, the hoods of their cloaks drawn about their faces.
Ecub dipped the brand
groundward with an inchoate cry, and fire erupted about the hilltop. A great
bone-fire burned, the stench of the bones meant to drive away evil spirits and
witches who might be flying overhead, and men and women rolled forward great
hay and wickerwork wheels.
The prioress gave a
signal, and from brands dipped in the bone-fire, the wheel holders lit the
wheels, and, once they were well alight, sent them rolling down the hill on all
sides.
It was the moment the
crowd had been waiting for. With a great roar, the revels began.
On the hill, Saeweald
turned to Judith and gathered her in hungry arms.
"May tonight
increase the herd," he said, thinking of Caela.
"May she tie
herself and this land in everlasting harmony," she whispered, and lifted
her mouth to his.
"Amen,"
murmured Ecub to one side.
THE STONE HALL STOOD
EMPTY, WAITING AS IT HAD
waited for so many
thousands of years. Tonight, however, there was an expectancy in the air,
almost a vibration.
There was a movement
in the deep shadows in one of the side aisles.
Then another. A
rustling, as if someone had dropped a cloak or a robe, and dragged it
momentarily across the stone flagging.
And then she walked
forth. Caela, yet not Caela. Mag, and yet not Mag. A woman, if nothing else, of
startling loveliness.
She was completely
naked, and utterly beautiful in that nakedness. Her glossy dark hair cascaded
down her back and across one shoulder. Her blue eyes were deep and very calm
and sure. Her body was slim, strong, lithe.
She walked into the
center of the stone hall, and looked about, as if expecting someone.
After a moment, she
began to pace impatiently.
William tossed and turned in his sleep
as dream gripped him.
He moaned, desperate, for this dream
was no stranger.
It had first come to him two thousand
years ago, when he had been Brutus and Caela had been his wife, Cornelia. Then,
the dream had undermined his marriage. Now, it terrified him.
He stood, as Brutus, in a stone hall
so vast that he could barely comprehend the skill required to build it. The
roof soared so far above his head he could hardly see it, while to either side,
long aisles of perfectly rounded stone columns guarded shadowy, esoteric
places.
This was a place of great mystery and
power.
There was a movement in the shadows
behind one of the ranks of columns, and Cornelia—utterly naked—walked
out into the open space of the hall.
Brutus drew in a sharp, audible
breath, but she did not acknowledge his presence, and Brutus was aware that
even though they stood close, she had no idea he was present.
Cornelia looked different, and it
took Brutus a long moment to work out why. She was older, perhaps by ten or
fifteen years, far more mature, far, far
lovelier.
Brutus realized he was holding his
breath and let it out slowly, studying her. Her body was leaner and stronger
than he knew it, her hips and breasts more rounded, her flanks and legs smoother
and more graceful. Her face had thinned, revealing a fine bone structure, and
there were lines of care and laughter about her eyes and mouth that accentuated
her loveliness rather than detracted from it.
"Cornelia," Brutus said,
and stretched out his hand.
She paid him no attention, wandering
back and forth, first this way, then that, her eyes anxious, and Brutus
understood that she was waiting for someone.
Completely unaware
that hundreds of miles away William was caught in a two-thousand-year-old
nightmare, Caela stopped, and stared, and breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"I thought you
would not come!" she said.
The approaching man
smiled, and held out his hands.
He was utterly naked,
save for the patch that covered his left eye.
She ran to him, and
took his hands. "Silvius." Her voice was filled with longing.
"It is the death of the year. It is time."
There was some
uncertainty in his face, even though he was clearly aroused by her naked body
and the yearning in her voice.
"I am not
Brutus," he said. "I am not—"
"You are
everything I want," she said, and drew him in against her. "Really.
This is truly a special night, Silvius."
"I pray I do
right by you."
He was trembling, and
she let go his hands and ran her hands over his body. He was lean, no fat, and
with hard muscles and clean limbs, and she found herself wanting him very, very
badly. She was Caela-Mag, she was this land, and she could bear her virginity
no longer.
Not on this night, of
all nights. Not on a night when those who still remembered, and cared, lit
fires and danced the ancient fertility rituals, begging the land to hold fast
through the winter and to emerge fertile and bountiful in spring. To allow her
virgin state to last beyond this night, of all nights, would have been vile.
"Tonight,"
she repeated, her voice little more than a murmur, "this land and I,
merged forever. This land and the Game,"
she touched his face, "wedded forever."
She ran her hands up
his back, and drew him in for a hard kiss.
He pulled his head
back, just for a moment, just so he could gaze at her with a strange,
triumphant light in his eye. "Wedded forever, you and I, the Game and the
land," he said. "Oh, aye. Aye."
Then he gathered her
to him fiercely.
William cried out in his sleep, his
arms flailing as he tossed and rolled over, tangling the covers about his legs.
"I thought you would not
come!" she said, and Brutus almost groaned at the love in her eyes and
voice.
"Cornelia!" Brutus said
again, taking a step forward, his heart gladder than he could have thought
possible.
And then he staggered as a man
brushed past him and walked toward Cornelia.
This was the man that Cornelia had
smiled at and spoken to, and he was as unaware of Brutus' presence as Cornelia
was.
A deep, vile anger consumed Brutus.
Who was this that she met?
The man was as naked as Cornelia, and
Brutus saw that he was fully roused. Who was he? Corineus? Yes… no. Brutus had
an unobstructed view of the man's face, yet could not make it out. First he was
sure that he wore Corineus' fair features, then they darkened, and became those
of a man unknown.
Cornelia said the man's name, her
voice rich with love, and it, too, was indiscernible to Brutus' ears.
"Do
you know the ways of Llangarlian love?" said the man.
"Of course," said Cornelia,
and she walked directly into the man's arms, her arms slipping softly about his
body, and offered her mouth to his.
They kissed, passionately, the kiss
of a man and a woman well used to each other, and Brutus found his hands were
clenched at his side.
"Caela,"
Silvius said, his voice rich with love. "Do you know the ways of
Llangarlian love?"
"Ah, I would
learn. Will you teach me?"
"I am not
Brutus. I am not my son. Know that."
"I know
that."
"Yet you choose
me? Freely?"
"Yes. Yes! Freely, yes!
Gods, Silvius, enough words! I have had enough of this virginity!"
"As you
wish," he whispered, and grabbed at her mouth once more with his, and
pulled her against him. She pressed her body against his, moaning, and together
they half sank, half fell to the floor.
All his apparent
doubts gone, Silvius wasted no time, nor did he seem to have a care for Caela's
sensibilities. He put a hand on one of her shoulders, pushing her hard against
the stone, and with the other hand he parted her legs and mounted her,
thrusting deep inside.
Caela cried out as
she felt the warmth of her virgin blood spill across the stone flooring. She
struggled a little under Silvius, but he did not tolerate any resistance, and,
both his hands now on her shoulders, he thrust again and again.
His face, and the one
eye that shone from it, were very hard.
After a short while
she subsided, accepting him, and then moaned.
"No!" William shouted, and
lurched upright in the bed, grabbing frantically at the bedclothes. His eyes
stared straight ahead, but they did not see his own bedchamber.
They only saw dream.
"No!" Brutus shouted, and
would have stepped forward and grabbed at the man now moving over Cornelia with
long, powerful strokes, save that he found himself unable to move.
He could witness, but he could not
interfere.
The lovers' tempo and passion
intensified, and Cornelia moaned and twisted, encouraging her lover in every
way she could, and they kissed again, their bodies now so completely entwined,
so completely merged, that they seemed but one.
Caela held on to
Silvius' shoulders, remembering with every one of his movements, those nights she
had lain with his son, remembering how Brutus had felt inside her, remembering
how he had made her feel, and she wept, silently and softly, because Silvius
made her feel none of these things. Silvius was a powerful lover, almost cruel
in his strength, but all he accomplished with his body and his sweat and his
effort was to make her long for his son.
Silvius saw her
tears, and his mouth caught at hers, demanding, powerful. He lifted his face
away from hers for a moment.
"Do not
weep," he rasped, "for this is all you asked for."
Then he lowered his
mouth again, his teeth biting and grabbing at her neck and breasts, drawing
blood here and there.
And then he paused,
still buried deep inside her, and raised himself on an elbow, looking down. His face was flushed and sweaty,
his black hair tangled, his breathing harsh and heavy.
"Do you wish I
was Brutus?" he said.
"No," she
said.
A strange look came
over his face. "You lie."
"I'm
sorry," she whispered.
"It does not
matter," he said, and she felt him move again inside her. "All that
matters is that I am here, and that you took me
freely."
His hips rocked back
and forth, smooth and practiced. "Hang on to me," he said, fiercely,
and her hands tightened about his shoulders, "and remember that you freely
accepted what now I give you."
"I feel
nothing," she said. "Silvius, what is wrong? I feel nothing."
"All that
matters," he said, then grunted, thrusting more fiercely than he
had heretofore,
"is that I feel, my lady, and that your body lies beneath
mine."
Caela closed her
eyes, wincing at Silvius' now violent action, and then, as she felt the sudden
wetness of his semen within her, cried out, her eyes flying open.
WILLIAM SAT UPRIGHT
IN BED, HIS BODY BATHED IN
sweat, his breath
heaving in and out.
His eyes still stared
wildly, his hands clutched among the bed linens.
He had seen, finally,
the man's face.
His father, Silvius,
lay with Cornelia-Caela and whatever else it was that
she had become.
And yet, Silvius
notwithstanding, in that terrible moment when William had seen his father's
face, and heard him cry out as he shuddered over Caela's body, William could
only see the vision, and how it had ended.
The man's form changed, blurring
slightly. He was grunting now, almost animalistic, and for the first time
Brutus saw that Cornelia had her hands on the man's shoulders as if to push him
off.
She cried out, and it was the sound
of pain, not passion.
Brutus still could not move, and he
watched in horror as the man's form blurred again, and became something
horrible and violent.
A man, yes, with a thick, muscled
body, but impossibly with the head of a
bull.
The creature tipped back its head and
roared, and both Cornelia and Brutus
screamed at the same moment.
The creature's movements became
violent, murderous, and Brutus saw that he
was using his body as a weapon.
There was blood now, smearing across
Cornelia's belly and flanks, and her head was tipped back, her face screwed up
in agony, and her fists beat a useless tattoo across the creature's back and
shoulders.
"Cornelia! Cornelia!"
Brutus screamed, and for once both Cornelia and the creature heard him, and
both turned their faces to him, and the creature roared once more, and Brutus
knew who it was.
Asterion. Cornelia had invited evil
incarnate to ride her.
"Caela?"
William whispered. He rose from the bed, throwing back the sheets angrily when
they tangled briefly in his legs, and walked to stand naked before the window.
"Caela?" he
whispered again, staring into the blackness and distance. "What have you
done?"
SILVIUS PULLED OUT
FROM CAELA'S BODY, BUT DID
not roll away.
Instead he gazed at her, his face hard and watchful.
She lay as if asleep,
her face flushed, her breasts rising and falling.
Silvius ran a hand
over them, and then down to her belly.
At that, her eyes
opened.
"Well?" he
said, his expression now soft.
She frowned. And then
smiled, but it was half-hearted, and troubled. "Thank you," she said.
"I was not what
you wanted," he said, and then laid a hand over her mouth as she tried to
speak. "Never mind," he continued, his voice a little hard, a little
disappointed. "You were all that / wanted."
Then he rose from
her, and was gone.
Oh gods, it was not what I had
expected. He had constantly told me he was not Brutus, and yet all I could
think about when he mounted me was Brutus, and all I wanted was Brutus.
"Do not take me only because I
remind you of Brutus," he'd said.
But I think that was why I had lain
with him, the only reason, because his face was that of Brutus', only kinder,
and his body was also that of Brutus', only sweeter and gentler.
And yet, when Silvius had mounted me,
I could barely restrain from shouting Brutus' name, from screaming for him.
Gods, it was as if he'd been there, watching. All I had wanted was Brutus. All
I had thought about was Brutus. All I had felt was Brutus.
So was that why I felt no different—save, of course, for that throbbing heat and the
lingering discomfort between my thighs? Is that why that emptiness still echoed
within me, why that sense of 'un-rightness' had, if anything, grown? Was this
my fault, my weakness?
I laid my hand on my belly. My womb
felt strangely sore, although I knew there would be no child from this
encounter. For that I was heartily glad. I hated to think what mischief my womb
might breed from lying with one man while all the while dreaming of another.
I let my head roll to one side.
"Brutus," I whispered. "How is it you can torment me so?"
And then I wept, for the sheer
stupidity of that question, and for all the good this night had done me.
O
LATER, WHEN CAELA HAD
LONG GONE, ASTERION STOOD IN the stone hall, staring at the dark stain of her
virgin blood on the stone floor. He stood there for a long while, his face
expressionless, then he finally permitted himself a tight smile, and vanished.
PRAY YOU, LADIES,
DO NOT RISE."
The three women who
slept in the chamber outside Swanne's bedchamber, still blinking sleep from
their eyes, glanced at each other in uncertainty.
"I merely go to
the lady Swanne," the archbishop of York said, grinning benignly, his
fingers laced over his huge stomach. "As her ladyship and I had agreed. As
part of our contract. Surely she mentioned this to you."
The senior among
Swanne's ladies, Hawise, slowly shook her head, her eyes fixed on the
archbishop.
Aldred grinned.
"What? Swanne modestly unforthcoming? I cannot believe this. And she begged me!"
"I cannot think
that my lady—" began Hawise.
"Well, my lady did agree," Aldred snapped, suddenly waspish.
"Do you think that I would have risked Edward and, for the sweet Lord's
sake, Harold's wrath merely out of the goodness
of my heart? No, my lady has a payment to make, and tonight she is going to
make good her debts."
And with that, he
brushed straight past the one among the women who had risen from her bed, and
opened the door into Swanne's bedchamber.
SWANNE HAD BEEN FAST
ASLEEP WHEN THE SOUND of a raised, querulous male voice, had started to pull
her from her dreams into wakefulness. Before she could fully rouse, the door to
her bedchamber had opened, and a vast bulk had moved through the opening, then
the door had closed again.
Firmly.
Then came the sound
of a bolt sliding home.
Alarmed, even though
she was not yet fully aware, Swanne half raised herself, clutching the bed
covers to her naked breasts.
"Who…?"
"Your beloved
archbishop, my dear. Come to claim his debt."
"What?"
Swanne had been so deeply asleep that she was still not completely awake.
The man—the vast bulk—moved close to her bed, and Swanne instinctively slid
away until the bare skin of her back touched the stone wall against which her
bed was placed.
Aldred—Swanne had
recognized him—started to fumble at the neckline of his robe, where ties held
it in place.
Swanne's mind
suddenly snapped into full alertness. Full awareness. "Begone from here!"
she hissed. "Get out!"
"Nonsense, my
dear." The robe now slid from his body and, in the faint light from the
partly unshuttered window, Swanne saw the immense expanse of dimpled white
flesh that stood before her.
The sight of this
sickening mass of a man, the very thought
of him clambering atop her, made Swanne feel nauseous, but that initial
reaction was instantly overridden by a wave of immense anger. "Remove
yourself!" she shouted.
Aldred took a single
pace forward, the numerous rolls of fat over his chest and down to the mound of
his belly undulating like a river at high tide, and placed a hand over Swanne's
mouth, forcing her back against the wall.
Swanne's round and
furious eyes glared at him over the top of her hand, and she opened her mouth
further, meaning to bite him, but just before she could bring her teeth down,
something surged through her… A sense of terror.
Her breath stopped.
The terror had not come from Aldred, nor from the situation in which she found
herself. Nor even from herself, for Swanne was furious, not terrified. It came
from memory.
It came from the
memory of a woman silently screaming inside Swanne's skull.
No! No! No!
Then Swanne did feel
the first inkling of dread, for she knew who that was.
Ariadne. No, no, no…
Aldred had clambered
onto the bed now, his hand still held brutally tight over Swanne's mouth, and
was kneeling over her, straddling her with his
legs.
Something, perhaps
the sound of Ariadne's terror, made Swanne look over
his shoulder.
The faint
illumination from the window cast Aldred's shadow on to the far
wall.
This shadow was not
that of the fat, loathsome man who straddled her.
It was of a fit man,
tightly muscled… and with the head of a bull.
Up to this moment
Swanne had been struggling with the huge man who had forced her back against
the wall. Now her efforts became utterly frenzied. She struck at him with her
fists, beating without pause, and tried to jerk her knees into him.
She tried to bite
him, but his hand had pushed her upper lip hard up against her nose, and she
could not force her jaw to close.
He laughed softly,
joyously.
"You know me for
who I am now, Swanne?"
She made a strangled
sound under his hand, her body trying to buck under his.
"Come now,
Swanne. No need for such histrionics. Ariadne didn't put up a fight like this.
You knew, of course, that she and I were lovers as well as siblings?
Swanne's eyes were
wide with terror, but still her efforts to repel him doubled.
"Enough!"
barked Aldred, and the hand and arm that held Swanne became as stone. He
shifted his hand slightly so that it covered both Swanne's nose and her mouth.
She stiffened
underneath him, her breasts heaving in their frantic fight for air.
Suddenly, desperate
beyond knowing, sure she was about to die, Swanne sent forth a surge of power,
trying to push him away with that power where her muscles had failed.
"No, my
dear," Aldred whispered. "We can't have that, can we?" Without
any seeming effort he blocked the power, and sent it churning back into Swanne.
She heaved beneath
him, unable to bear the twin agonies of lack of oxygen and the painful bite of
her power within her own flesh.
A moan gurgled in her
throat, and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her struggles lessened, her
hands relaxing away from their fists and sliding slowly down the broad expanse
of his back.
"Listen to
me," Aldred whispered, leaning over her until his eyes stared into her
dying ones. "I will not allow you to slip into either unconsciousness, or
even into death. None of that escape for you. Indeed, not. Instead, you can listen to what I have
to say, and watch what I have to show you." He paused. Then, "Can you
hear me, Swanne, my dear?"
Swanne's eyelids
slowly dropped in acknowledgment.
Aldred could feel her
body twisting beneath his, and he grinned, pleased.
She would exist in
this agony of half-death until he thought to release her.
Then, of course, she
would endure something much more terrible.
"Swanne,
beloved… I may call you that, yes?"
She made no response,
but Aldred carried on regardless.
"You may be
suffering under some disillusionment," he said. "You may think that
the darkcraft is yours, free and clear—even if it hasn't been of much use to
you in this life. You may have believed that Ariadne won it from me
completely."
His voice and body
both became rigid with threat. "But there was a condition, my sweet. A
condition. And now has come the time for you to pay it out."
Swanne, who lay
suspended half between life and death, found her mind filled with images so
clear, they might have been enacted before her.
Ariadne clasped to Asterion, the
Minotaur's hand in her waistband.
"Give me the darkcraft of the
heart of the labyrinth," she begged. "You are the only one who has
ever learned to manipulate the power in the dark heart of the Labyrinth. Now I
want you to teach me that darkcraft. I will combine your darkcraft with my
powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth, Asterion, to free you completely."
At this point Ariadne paused, and
rested her hands on Asterion Is ruined
chest. "I will combine our powers together, beloved brother, to tear apart
the Game once and for all. Never again will it ensnare you. That will be my
recompense to you for my stupidity in betraying you to Theseus and my payment
to you for giving me the power to tear apart Theseus and all he stands for."
"She was
persuasive, wasn't she?" Aldred whispered. "Who could resist such hair,
such eyes, such a mouth… and those breasts! She had just betrayed me to her
lover, she had arranged my murder, and here she was, cooing all over me,
offering herself to me, and asking me to give myself and my power to her
completely. Of course I allowed myself to be tempted! After all, Ariadne was
offering me the ultimate aphrodisiac: a life where I'd thought to endure only
death."
He paused, and he
grabbed at one of Swanne's breasts, squeezing it painfully. "Of course, I
was no fool for her completely."
He held her eyes steady, looking for
deception. 'You would destroy the Game? Free me completely so that I may be
reborn into life as I will?"
'Yes! This is something that only I
can do, you know that… but you must also know I need the use of your darkcraft
to do it. Teach it to me, I beg you."
"If you lie—"
"I do not!"
"If you do not destroy the Game—"
"I will!"
He gazed at her, unsure, unwilling to
believe her. "If I give to you the darkcraft,"
he said, "and you misuse it in
any manner—to trick me or trap me—then
I will destroy you."
She started to speak, but he hushed
her. "I will, for there is one thing else that I shall demand of you
Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth."
'Yes?"
"That in return for teaching you
the darkcraft, for opening to you completely the dark heart of the Labyrinth,
you shall not only destroy the Game forever, but you will allow me to become
your ruler. Your lord. Call it what you want, but know that if you ever attempt
to betray me again, if you do not destroy the Game completely, I demand that
you shall fall to the ground before me, and become my creature entirely."
"Of course!"
His expression did not change. "
'Of course!' ? With not even a breath to consider? How quickly you agree."
"I will not betray you again, Asterion. Teach me the
darkcraft and I swear—on the life of my
daughter!—that I will use it to destroy the Game utterly. It
shall never entrap you again."
Aldred's fingers were
still groping at Swanne's breasts, but the pain of his sharp-nailed fingers
could do nothing to eclipse the sickening dread that now coursed through
Swanne.
Aldred's hand on
Swanne's mouth and nose loosened a little, allowing a thin draught of air to
trickle between his fingers, and Swanne's chest bucked in its effort to heave
precious oxygen into her lungs.
"And what did
you do, Swanne-who-was-once-Genvissa?" Aldred whispered. "What did
you do? Why, you started the Game again, thinking that I was too far distant to
stop you. I don't care to hear of your excuses and your reasons, for I know
them all. All I do care to hear is your acknowledgment of Ariadne's oath. She
is the one who is going to destroy you, Swanne. Not me."
His hand removed
entirely from her mouth, and Swanne gulped air into her lungs. Aldred sat back,
sitting on her lower legs, one fat, dimpled knee to either side of her hips,
his hands to his own hips, regarding her with amusement.
"Well?" he
said.
"What?"
Swanne gasped, and then screamed, her body contorting again as Asterion's power
surged through her.
"Do you
acknowledge Ariadne's oath?"
She was still
shrieking, and Aldred lifted a hand and struck her hard across the face.
Blood spattered in an
arc across the bed.
"Do you acknowledge Ariadne's
oath?"
"Oh gods,"
Swanne moaned. "How can I…"
She screamed again as
a counter blow sent her head smashing into the wall.
"It was an oath
made on power and on the life of Ariadne's daughter, my dear. One that bound
not only Ariadne, but through that daughter, all Ariadne's daughter-heirs. What
a foremother, hey? What a legacy!" Aldred laughed, the sound rich and
deeply amused. "Now, do you acknowledge Ariadne's oath?"
She tried to deny it.
She tried with every fiber of her being, but, even desperate as she was, Swanne
could not force the denial from her throat again. Instead, there came a voice
from her mouth that was not so much hers, not only Ariadne's, but the voice of
all her foremothers, Ariadne and her five daughter-heirs before Genvissa.
"Yes," that
voice whispered, a ghastly, echoing utterance that coiled about the room.
"Yes, I—we—acknowledge the oath."
Aldred's body tensed,
and Swanne was dimly aware that it was because he had drawn in a great breath
of triumph. "You know what is going to happen now, Swanne, don't
you?"
Swanne whimpered. It
was all she could articulate in her overwhelming sense of horror.
"You are going
to fulfill Ariadne's bargain for her, seeing as she is no longer about to do so
herself. And well you should pay, Swanne, since it was you who
began the Game again! You who tried to trap me!"
"No, no! I beg
you. Anything but—"
"Everything, Swanne. Everything."
"Please…
no…"
Aldred's hands were
now fumbling under the great dewlap of his belly, and before Swanne's appalled
gaze, he brought forth his erection.
"No!"
"And now, my
lovely, we are going to cement Ariadne's bargain by the same means she and I
originally cemented it. Are you ready?"
Swanne tried to
scream, but she felt Asterion wrap his power about her, and she could do
nothing but whimper.
She tried to hit at
him, but her arms were leaden.
She tried to roll
away from him, but because Asterion still chose to cloak himself within
Aldred's massive bulk—the ultimate humiliation—she could do nothing.
Aldred lay down over
Swanne, resting his full weight on her, and grunted.
Swanne felt something
vile, something cold, probe at her.
She tried to writhe,
but could do nothing, nothing, as Aldred shifted his hips, and grunted again.
Something so cold and so painful that
it felt like splintered, jagged ice slithered its way inside her.
Aldred's hips bucked,
then pushed down deeply.
Agony coursed between
her hips and deep into her belly, but even beyond this, Swanne felt something
else.
Something cold and painful, a
splinter of sharp-edged ice, twisting its way into her soul.
"You're mine
now," whispered Aldred, and he forced his mouth over Swanne's, and pushed
his tongue inside her.
His hips began to work frantically, and Swanne knew
that she would have died under the suffering of his brutal assault—both on her
body and her soul—had not Asterion deliberately kept her alive.
Aldred lifted his
mouth a little away from hers, his fat face wobbling with his efforts, and
slicked with sweat that rolled from his skin's open pores.
"Everything you shall lay bare to me!" he said, and Swanne
felt her entire being sliced open, her every secret laid bare, her every
knowledge made understandable to this horror inside her.
She felt her soul,
her very being, kneeling in subjection before him.
And then something
terrifying, unendurably agonizing, exploded within her belly, and Swanne
mercifully lost consciousness.
WHEN SHE WOKE, HER
BODY THROBBING IN TOR-ment, Aldred was sitting—fully dressed—on the edge of her
bed.
"There," he
said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Swanne tried to
swallow, but her throat felt as if it had been stripped of its flesh, and she
gasped in agony partway through the movement.
"Poor
dear," Aldred said, and patted her hand where it lay on the bed.
Then his entire
demeanor changed, and malevolence shone through the man's fat features.
"You are now my creature entirely," he hissed, and his hand tightened
clawlike about hers. "You may make no move, and you may make no utterance
without my permission and guidance. You shall use your powers as Mistress of
the Labyrinth only as I direct. Do you understand me?"
Tears now coursed
down Swanne's face, but she managed a tiny nod.
And then a wince, as
if even that tiny movement caused her pain.
Aldred's rubbery lips
stretched in a grin. "I may not always be close, but there is a part of me
always with you, always watching you, always knowing. Do you feel it?"
Benumbed, Swanne
could do little but blink at him in incomprehension.
"This,"
said Aldred, and lifted Swanne's hand so that it lay on her belly.
He pressed her hand
down.
Swanne's eyes slowly
widened in appalled understanding. "My little incubus,"
said Aldred, his very voice as sibilant as a snake's. "Always within you,
always ready to bite and to whisper and to be. You are my
creature entirely,
Swanne." He laughed. "The Game is half mine."
Then Aldred sobered,
and bent his vile face close to Swanne's. "And all you have to do is
please me, my dear. To start with, I think you can bring me William.
A pause. "Won't
that be nice for you? Eh?"
Within her belly, the
incubus bit deep with its tiny, icy fangs, and Swanne's mouth opened in a
silent scream.
Her body arched and
bucked, and Aldred waited patiently until the agony had subsided enough that
Swanne lay relatively still again, even though her moans had not quietened.
"Later," he
said, "I might find some errands for you to run. Yes?"
She gave a single,
agonized nod.
"You will do whatever I want," he said, and Swanne sobbed,
hopeless, knowing that indeed, yes, she would do it.
Within her,
Asterion's little incubus twisted happily.
Darkcraft come to
life and form.
IN THE MORNING,
HAWISE EXCLAIMED IN HORROR AT the blood covering her mistress's sheet, and at
the haggard pain-filled face of Swanne herself.
But Aldred, arranging
the heavy golden crucifix on its chain over his chest, told Hawise that there
was little point. "It is but Swanne's monthly flux," he said. "A
little more burdensome than usual. No need to send for the physician."
He turned to Swanne,
fixing her with a cold, hard eye. "My lady should perhaps take as her
inspiration the queen, who so valiantly struggles with her own womanly
complaints. The physician is not needed, eh?"
Swanne looked at him,
then at Hawise, staring incredulously at her. "The physician is not
needed," she said hoarsely.
Part Six
With Edward's gentle piety was
blended a strange hardness towards those to whom he was most bound… his
alienation from his wife, even in that fantastic age, was thought extremely
questionable.
A. P. Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey,
London, March
HAT DO YOU KNOW OF EAVING?" SKELTON
said as he stirred the sugar into his
tea. He stared unabashedly at Ecub and Matilda, noting the similarities in
their finely drawn features. True-bom sisters now; twins, he thought, as there
was no age difference between them.
Who had controlled their rebirth?
Surely not Asterion. They must be a part of the Troy Game itself now, their
souls entwined with the labyrinth.
"Very little," said
Matilda. "Jack, you know me, and know what once I was to you. If I knew, I
would tell you."
"Is she with Coel?"
'You asked Loth that last
night," said Ecub. "Would you blame her if she was?"
"Curse you, Ecub!" Skelton
said, pushing aside his cup and saucer. "I love her! Where is she?"
"Coel has ever been the gentler
choice for her," Ecub responded.
"Coel is not the man for
her," Skelton responded, very quietly, his eyes steady on Ecub's.
"Now tell me, you ancient witch, where is Eaving? You are bound to her.
You must know where she is!"
Ecub looked at Matilda, then back to
Skelton. She smiled. "You are going to have to fight for both Eaving and
your daughter. Are you prepared to do that?"
"Yes, dammit. Yes!"
"Are you prepared to do everything in your power to—"
'Yes!"
Ecub raised her eyebrows, and shared
a look with Matilda.
"I will destroy the world if that is what it
takes," said Skelton. "Please …"
Ecub studied him, seeing in his
haggard face all she needed to know.
"What if I said to you,"
she said, "that 'destroying the world' means giving Eaving to Coel,
forever and aye?"
Skelton sat back in his chair and
studied Mother Ecub through narrowed eyes. "No," he said slowly.
"You say that only to taunt me. Giving Eaving to Coel is not required, nor
is it even a concept within the understanding of what Eaving is. She cannot be
given to Coel. Nor would he accept her."
"But you having her is a concept
within understanding?" Matilda asked.
Skelton looked at the woman who, so
many years ago, had once been his wife. His only answer was a small, tight
smile and the slightest of nods.
Both Ecub and Matilda burst into
delighted laughter as if he were a favorite child who had just passed a crucial
test. Matilda rose, and, stepping forward, placed her hand on his bare chest.
His skin was very warm, the muscles
beneath very tight, and her touch brought back many memories for the both of
them.
"Tell me what to do,"
Skelton said, "tell me what I have to do to win Eaving back from whatever
darkness consumes her."
o>ie
CAELA WAS TRAPPED
WITHIN HER MARRIAGE AND Edward's court throughout the Christmas
festivities. For six long days she smiled and danced and jested and, in the
mornings and evenings, attended chapel or abbey services with Edward.
At night she lay beside
Edward who, for once, did not sleep well, but tossed and turned and muttered
throughout the nights, gripped with a slight fever that presaged a chest cold.
If she left for even an instant he would have missed her.
There was no time to
herself. No time to talk with any of the Sidlesaghes, nor, hardly, with Judith.
No time to kiss
Damson on the mouth and effect a glamour so that, at least, she could move
within the laundress's body.
Caela had emerged
from her almost catatonic state before the altar of St. Paul's to find Judith
and Saeweald, and the remainder of her escort, waiting for her. There had been
no chance to talk then, not with the men-at-arms and monks so close, and little
chance once she returned to the palace, for Edward was in an unaccountably good
mood and insisted on sitting in her chamber (behind a blanket that Judith
hastily erected) while Caela took her bath and dressed.
From there it was to
chapel, and from there to court, and from there it was a merciless slide into
Yuletide and all those days of celebration that it entailed.
Normally Caela
enjoyed the Yuletide festivities. This year she loathed them.
She finally had a
chance to exchange a few hasty words with Judith on Christmas Eve, the day
after she'd returned from St. Paul's. They were sitting within Caela's solar,
and several other of the queen's attending ladies were present, but bending
over a chest full of linens in the far corner, muttering about some damp sheets
which would need to be aired.
"Madam?"
Judith whispered. "We have not had a chance to speak. How went it?"
Caela's eyes filled
with tears. "Not well. Oh," she said, glancing at Judith's face,
"I lost my virginity well enough, but it did not bring me the closeness to
the land I had thought it would. It was just…"
Bestial, she thought, and hated herself
for the calamity of that bare truth. If it was nothing but the humping and
grunting of animals, then that was, surely, her fault.
"It was not a
true marriage," Caela finished. "And I do not know why."
"You still feel
the emptiness?"
"Yes. I have
taken a wrong turning somewhere, and I do not know how, or what I should have
done instead." Caela rested a hand lightly on her belly. "Even my
womb feels it, for it pains me greatly." "Caela," Judith began,
laying a hand on the woman's shoulder, but then two of the other ladies came
over, a sheet draped over their arms, and distress written over their faces.
"Madam!"
one of them said. "Your bed linens have been quite soiled."
There was a silence, and Judith closed her eyes
briefly, appalled at the timing of the woman's concern.
"I am very well
aware of that," said Caela softly, and turned her head aside.
LATER, JUDITH SAID TO SAEWEALD: "IT DID NOT
WORK.
Caela still feels her
lack."
"And why am I
not surprised to hear of that?" said Saeweald, his voice weary despite the
inherent sarcasm of his words.
She chose wrong, he thought.
Christmas day itself was unseasonably
wild. A storm front surged down from the north, laying snow two feet deep on
the ground and trapping people inside with its icy blasts.
Thus it was that no one was about to
see, at dusk, the figure capering atop the Llandin, now known as the Meeting
Hill. It was something of the utmost evilness, now a man, now a bull, now
something even worse, shifting and twisting into shape after shape, growing
into something dark and humped and monstrous, then shrinking violently into
something that existed only as a spark of light dancing among the driving
snowflakes.
It was Asterion, celebrating.
Not Jesus Christ's nativity, but the
success of his own schemes.
"She's mine!" he sang,
again and again, arms wild, legs cavorting. "She's mine!"
And then stillness, only the darkness
of his eyes glowing through the storm.
"She has no will now, but
mine."
IT WAS SAEWEALD WHO
HELPED, IN THE END. FOUR DAYS after the celebration of Christ's Nativity, and
after a long discussion with Judith, Saeweald brought to the king in his
evening chamber a particularly strong sleeping draught.
"It is to aid
you to sleep, gracious lord," Saeweald said as Edward sat on the edge of
his bed in his nightshirt, his chest heaving in and out as he tried to catch
his breath.
On the other side of
the chamber Caela stood in her own night robe, a light wrap thrown over her
shoulders, her hair loose for the night. She looked as tired and drawn as the
king; more in need, in fact, of the sleeping draught than Edward.
Saeweald glanced at
her, then looked back to the king. "Madam your wife has told me how ill
you sleep," he said, his voice soothing and gentle. "Drink of this, I
pray you, for you cannot exist much longer without the restorative power of a
good sleep.
"Aye," said
Edward, sighing heavily. "Aye. You are right."
And he took the
draught, and drank heavily of it.
Later, when the king
was already fast asleep, snoring mightily, the bower-thegn accepted with a
smile the cup of spiced wine Judith brought to him.
Soon he, too, was
deep in sleep.
WHEN ALL WAS STILL,
AND THE ONLY SOUND THAT OF the snores of the two men, Caela rose. She slipped a
cloak about her shoulders, shivering a little in the coldness of the air,
slipped her feet into leather shoes, and padded quietly to stand in the center
of the chamber.
"Madam?" It
was Judith, half rising from the trestle bed at the foot of Caela and Edward's
bed.
Caela put her finger
to her lips. I go to the
Sidlesaghe, Judith. Be still.
"Be fast,"
Judith mouthed. "And be careful."
Caela nodded, then
stared at the floorboards.
A trapdoor slowly
materialized, and Caela bent down, lifted it and, with a smile for Judith,
vanished below.
THE SIDLESAGHE WAS
WAITING FOR HER IN THE
strange, brick-lined
tunnel.
"Oh, Long
Tom!" Caela said, and stepped forward so that he could wrap his strong
arms about her, and hug her to his chest.
"What is
wrong?" the Sidlesaghe said.
Caela sighed. "I
am still not as whole as I should be. I still… lack. Long Tom, what is wrong with me?"
He frowned, puzzled.
"You need to unite yourself to the land to attain your full self, sweet
one. You know that."
"But I
did!"
The Sidlesaghe's
expression of puzzlement deepened. "You did?"
"Yes! The night
of the winter solstice. I lay with Silvius. You said…" Caela stopped as
she finally looked at the Sidlesaghe's face.
"Silvius?"
he said. "He who sits and waits within the heart of the labyrinth?"
"Yes. Long
Tom—"
"You lay with
him?"
"Yes!"
The Sidlesaghe
shrugged. "No matter. Was he enjoyable?"
Caela gave a tiny
laugh. "Well enough, I suppose, although I thought of no one but…"
"But of him."
"Yes."
"Well, at that I
am not surprised."
"But did that
not destroy… well, whatever was supposed to happen? Long Tom, I feel such a
fool. Silvius tried so hard—"
The Sidlesaghe put a
hand to his mouth, and actually chuckled.
Caela could not help
herself, she laughed as well. "Well, you know what I mean. And, surely, by
thinking of no one but Brutus, and imagining him with me instead of Silvius, I
destroyed the magic that would have united me completely to the land."
The Sidlesaghe shook
his head. "It would have made no difference. You merely chose the wrong
partner."
"Oh? And who,
pray tell, is the right partner?"
The Sidlesaghe grew
soulful. "When you see him, lady, you will know."
"So I have lost
my virginity to the wrong man?"
"Your virginity
is neither here nor there, sweet one. A marriage can be effected with or
without it. But why do we talk of this inconsequential? There is greater danger
afoot."
Caela frowned.
"What?"
"Seven nights
ago," the Sidlesaghe said, "something bad invaded this land."
"How so?"
The Sidlesaghe was
now shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly agitated.
"There has been
a fundamental shift in the land," he said. "And, I think, in the Game. Something has happened.
Something corrupt. Something wrong."
"Asterion?"
He shook his head.
"Perhaps. Maybe. We don't know. Something has happened that has altered
the foundations of the Game and of this land… something has tilted it slightly… I cannot know how else to describe
it."
"Something
'bad'?"
"Oh, aye,"
the Sidlesaghe whispered. "Very bad." He had been looking down the
tunnel, but now he refocused on Caela's face. "You must move another band.
Tonight. And the others as soon as we may."
Caela shivered.
"Asterion…"
"He will be
waiting for us, yes. Surely."
"Long Tom…"
The Sidlesaghe
reached out a hand and took hers, enveloping it within his. "We will watch
for you," he said, his voice somehow immensely soothing. "As we have
always watched for you."
GUDO
LHIS TIME THE
SIDLESAGHE LED CAELA THROUGH a complex labyrinthine enchantment that eventually
brought them to the low arched opening in London's wall, which allowed the
Walbrook entry into the city. They stood once more just beyond the ring of
columns that encircled Brutus who, once again, was taking a band from his
arm—his left forearm this time—and placing it in the center of the columned
circle. He made the complex enchantment with his left hand, the band vanished,
and then so did Brutus.
As Brutus
disappeared, the Sidlesaghe felt Caela relax under his touch.
"One day,"
he whispered to her, "you can allow him to meet your eyes."
She made a dismissive
motion with her head, clearly not wanting to talk about Brutus.
"Sweet
one," said the Sidlesaghe, "if Asterion meets you within the ruins of
Troy while you are moving the band, he will kill you. Caela," the creature's voice
roughened, and he had to pause and clear his throat, "don't walk through
those ruins. Run. Run, for your life depends on
it."
She drew in a deep
breath. "To Holy Oak," she said. It had been the Holy Oak when she
had been Cornelia, and still it graced the tiny bubbling spring at the foot of
the Llandin.
Mag's Pond, still
there after all these years, and Caela's natural escape route, should she need
one.
"I will be there
to meet you," the Sidlesaghe said, and his voice had dropped so low that
Caela had to strain closer to hear him. "Be safe, sweet lady. Be safe on
the journey."
She touched his
cheek, then stepped forth into the circle of glowing light, and picked up the
band.
ASTERION WAS ROAMING.
HE'D KNOWN EVEN BEFORE the sun sank that tonight would be special, that tonight
she would attempt to move another of
the bands.
Asterion grinned. And
if she did move a band, it was of no matter. He didn't care if she moved it to
the cold heart of the moon, for he would still be able to find it.
Now that he
controlled her.
But he had to play
his part. There was no point in causing suspicion—and thus unexpected
behavior—through inactivity. So he needed to make it appear as if he wanted to
snatch the band as it was being moved. He needed to appear angry.
"Frustrated,"
he whispered. "Inept!"
And he laughed.
He did not want to
attempt the ruins of Troy again. The memory of that snatching hand was still
too vivid.
Besides, the ruins
bored him. Best to make an appearance where she would emerge… which was…
Asterion lifted his bull nose to the wind and sniffed.
North.
It would be north…
northwest.
Asterion's smile
stretched even further. He knew where she was going.
CAELA ONCE AGAIN
TRAVERSED THE TERRIBLE PATH
that wound through
the ruins of Troy, the band clutched tightly in her hands.
But this time,
mindful of the Sidlesaghe's concerns, she ran as fast as she could while still
able to avoid tripping over loose rocks or the rigid hand or foot of a corpse
that lay partway across the path.
Troy lay bloody about
her, the dead lay moldering in their stinking heaps as they had previously, but
Caela did not find them so disturbing this time. Instead she concentrated on
the band lying in her hands, keeping her every sense strained for indication of
pursuit. Every twenty or thirty steps she paused and half turned, her breath
still, her body motionless, her face white, listening.
Nothing, save the
dying of Troy.
Then she would hurry
forward, her face even more strained, perversely, but she did not hear the
sound of someone behind her.
Was he ahead? Crouching behind rocks
to her side?
The further Caela
moved through the destruction of Troy, the quicker became her steps, the tighter
her face.
Eventually, safely,
she reached the end of her journey.
ASTERION COULD FEEL THE PASSAGE OF THE BAND,
feel its movement closer and closer toward him. It almost
felt as if the band
G
were rushing to meet
him, and, as he stood before the rock pond under the Holy Oak, Asterion
literally held out his hands as he intuited her imminent arrival.
There was a sound, a
great sound of rushing water and wind and song, and suddenly a figure burst from the air before him, directly into his arms.
He laughed in sheer
enjoyment, but turned it into a roar, as if of fury, and grappled clumsily with
the figure, allowing it to slip partly from his grasp. He grabbed at it again,
meaning to pinch a little, but just as he tightened his fingers, it seemed as
if the air itself erupted about him.
Asterion's composure
evaporated entirely as tall, bleak figures surrounded him. He panicked, not so
much because he was afraid, but because these strangenesses were so entirely unexpected. The figure, she, slipped completely from his grip, but he was not
worried about that, only the who and the what of that which attacked him.
Gods, they were
singing, and such a mournful sound! Asterion began to flail about with his
arms, trying to see what it was that surrounded him, what gripped him, what was
trying to smother him, but all he could make out was enveloping grayness, as if
he were enclosed within a thick, viscous fog.
There was the sound
of water splashing, and he knew that she had
escaped. Furious (not with her escape, but with the unknowns that attacked
him), Asterion lashed out with virtually the full extent of his darkcraft.
The air exploded, and
there came the sound of moaning as the strange creatures fell back.
There came the sound
of a single sob, and then Asterion was standing alone by Mag's Pond, the
ancient Holy Oak stretching out its bare limbs cold and dark above him.
CAELA HEAVED IN GREAT GULPING BREATHS, HARDLY
daring to believe she
had escaped the Minotaur. Oh gods,
the feel of his hands upon her, the heat of his body, the stench of his breath!
She looked about. She
still stood close by the Holy Oak, save that now the countryside had vanished,
replaced with a terrible aspect that, for one frightening moment, made Caela
believe she had fallen back into the ruins of Troy.
She stood in a
landscape covered over with bricks and mortar, hard, pale, smooth stone, and a
wide roadway of hard blackness along which dreadful beasts roared. People moved
shadowlike about her, and Caela realized she was seeing with that same
awareness she'd tested inside Ludgate on the night she had moved the first
band.
Women, mostly,
bustling busily about with baskets over their arms, and
clothed in tight
gowns that came only to their knees. Most of them wore hats, silly, small round
bonnets that clung to stiffened curls. Some of the women had children with
them, or pushed babies before them in wheeled conveyances that looked to Caela
for all the world like backward running carts.
There were some men
hurrying among the crowded street. They were black, like ravens, and one or two
of them swung sticks covered in material in their hands.
What to do with the band? Where to
leave it?
She looked across the
road, and saw there a small redbrick building. It was accessed via a large
arch, which Caela could see led to an open paved area beyond the building.
People stood about on this paved area, looking anxiously about as if expecting
something.
She turned her
attention back to the building. Just inside was a small window in one of the
walls, barred with metal, and behind this window she could see the tall form of
a Sidlesaghe.
He was looking at
her, and once he saw that he had her attention, he lifted a hand and motioned
to her, slowly, yet managing to convey the utmost sense of urgency.
Again Caela looked
about her, her hands now gripping the band even tighter in her anxiety.
To reach the building
and the Sidlesaghe, she had to cross this strange roadway.
And there were great beasts that
periodically roared along the road, black and blue creatures, twice the size of
oxen, and red creatures the length of five oxen, and three times as high.
"Oh, gods,"
she whispered. "What possibility is this the Game has created for me?"
She looked at the
Sidlesaghe again—he was still motioning to her to hurry, hurry—and then back to the road.
It appeared to be
clear.
Taking a huge breath,
Caela stepped onto the road, moving as fast as she could without risking tripping
over the sodden robes that clung about her legs.
Something roared past
her.
She shrieked, almost
dropping the band, and stopped motionless in the middle of the road.
She didn't know what
to do. Her very will seemed frozen. She could step neither forward nor
backward, and Caela was certain that her life would be snatched by one of those
great speeding beasts at any moment.
"Here, now,
miss," said a soothing male voice, and Caela jerked as a firm hand took
her by her right elbow. "Can't have you standing about in the street like
this, you know."
She risked a glance
to her right—then sighed in relief. A Sidlesaghe stood there, although he was
dressed in the most extraordinary jacket and trousers of tightly-fitted and
very dark blue worsted cloth and with a blue and silver conical helmet on his
head held on by a strap under his chin.
"If you will,
miss," said the Sidlesaghe, his gray-brown eyes watchful and reassuring
beneath his strange helmet, and Caela allowed him to guide her across the
street and into the building and thence to the barred window.
There the Sidlesaghe,
who had been so impatiently motioning to her, said, "Where to, miss?"
Caela stared at him.
"Miss?"
said the Sidlesaghe who stood behind the counter at the window. Now that she
was close, Caela could see that he was dressed in similar fashion to the
Sidlesaghe in blue still standing beside her, but his close-fitted jacket and
trousers were of a maroon color, and on his head he had a peaked cap with a leather
brim.
"I think miss
would like to go home to Westminster," said the Sidlesaghe standing beside
her.
"Will that be a
first-class ticket, miss?" said the Sidlesaghe behind the window.
"Definitely,"
said the other Sidlesaghe.
Caela stood, her eyes
not moving off the Sidlesaghe behind the bars, unable to comprehend any part of
this conversation.
The Sidlesaghe behind
the window held out his hand, palm upward. "A first-class ticket demands
payment in gold, miss, if you don't mind. London Transport regulations."
Caela stared at him.
The Sidlesaghe stared
at her.
Caela slid the golden
band of Troy through the aperture under the bars.
"Thank you very
much, miss," said the Sidlesaghe, handing to her a small rectangle of
cardboard and placing the band into a drawer full of coins under the counter at
which he stood. Then he nodded to his left. "Train's through there, miss.
Should be arriving any minute now."
"Thank
you," said Caela, who still felt in a state of shocked unreality. "Is
Long Tom about?"
"I think you'll
find him waiting on the platform, miss," said the Sidlesaghe who had
helped her across the road and, hand still on her elbow, led her toward
Platform No. 1 at Gospel Oak Station.
IT WAS TOO MUCH. NOT
THAT THE BAND HAD BEEN
moved, but that her strange, unknown companions had thwarted him.
Asterion
was anxious,
unsettled, and, anxious and unsettled, determined to make circumstances just a
little more uncomfortable for… well, for everyone, really.
Time to begin the
process that would see William dead. To bring the Game under his control. Once
and for all.
Asterion moved
through the night as a shadow, an unreality, rather than as flesh. He entered
the palace at Westminster and slid under the door of Edward's bedchamber.
There was a
bowerthegn fast asleep on a bed by the door, and a woman on a pallet at the
foot of the king's bed.
There was no sign of
Caela, and Asterion was not concerned about the absence of the queen. She was
not what he needed this night.
His form shimmered,
coalescing into a black cloud of miasma, which hovered above the sleeping
Edward's face, then, suddenly, it slid down to cover the man's face, then
seeped inside his slightly open mouth.
There was a moment of
peace, of stillness, and then Edward suddenly reared forth, his eyes starting.
"The
Devil!" he screamed. "The Devil has taken me!"
CbR
ONG TOM WAS INDEED
WAITING FOR CAELA ON
the
"platform," and before she could speak, he took her elbow *"*•*
from the Sidlesaghe in blue, saying, "Hurry, there is mischief about at
the palace, and you have been missed."
As when she'd moved
the band to Chenesitun, a new tunnel awaited them, and Long Tom hurried her
along it.
"I have a
ticket," she said, holding out the rectangle of cardboard at the
Sidlesaghe.
He tut-tutted.
"We have no time for that now!" But he took it anyway.
Soon they were
underneath the palace of Westminster, and even here, deep in the magical tunnel
of possibility, Caela could sense the commotion above her.
"Go," said
Long Tom.
CAELA DID NOT DARE TO
REAPPEAR WITHIN HER BED-
chamber using her
power. It was too late. The entire palace was alive with shouting and
consternation.
What to do? What to do?
There was little she
could do, only one possibility, and Caela seized it. She reappeared in a still
corner of the palace—a storeroom that was partway between the royal quarters
and the bachelors' quarters—then slid stealthily into the palace proper,
arranging her features into those of the panicked wife (something, in truth,
she did not have to pretend too much) and ran back to her and Edward's
quarters.
People—clerics,
servants, thegns, chamberlains, men-at-arms—had thronged the approaches to the
quarters, but they stood back as Caela approached, glancing at her curiously.
Where had she been?
Caela ignored them,
restraining her pace to something more dignified, although she kept the worried
expression set on her face, moving
through the chambers
until she reached the antechamber just before the bedchamber.
Here thronged yet
more people—as well as the echoing sound of Edward's shouts—and, thankfully,
Judith, whose face reflected even more trepidation than Caela's.
"Madam!"
Judith said, then, in a softer tone, "Where have you been?"
Caela put a hand on
her arm, and drew her in close.
"Is Saeweald
here yet?"
Judith, her eyes
round and frightened, shook her head slightly.
Caela drew in a deep
breath, which Judith thought had the feel of sheer relief.
"How is my
lord?" Caela asked in a stronger voice. "I had felt a change in his
breathing as he slept, a horrid rasping, a deep difficulty, and saw a ghastly
pallor cross his face. I rose, dreading what this portended, and without thinking
to wake anyone else, fled for Saeweald."
Apart from Edward's
echoing shouts, the entire antechamber was silent, everyone staring at Caela,
watching.
Judith's tongue
flickered over her lips, then she managed to speak. "Aye, madam. It must
have been your rising that waked me just before my king shouted."
"You did not
think to wake me, or any other of the king's
servants?" said the bowerthegn, staring at Caela with patent disbelief.
"I
panicked," said Caela, keeping her voice calm. "I thought only of the
physician."
There was a movement
at the door, and the shadow of someone entering. Judith glanced over and then,
before anyone else could speak, said, "Ah, Saeweald! How fortunate that my
mistress reached you so quickly!"
Caela turned, and
managed a wan smile at Saeweald, who regarded both women carefully. "I am
sorry for rousing you so precipitously, Saeweald, and I thank you for
responding so quickly. My lord is ill, desperately so, and I fear greatly for
him."
Saeweald bowed
slightly to Caela. "The desperation in your voice, madam, roused me as
nothing else could have done. Our king is fortunate indeed that he has such a
caring wife at his side."
A great smile,
clearly one of relief, spread over Caela's face, and Judith hoped that most of
the observers standing about would think it merely relief that Saeweald had
arrived.
"I, and my king,
are fortunate in having you as a servant," she said. "Come,
physician, let us waste no more time."
With that, she
straightened her shoulders and led Saeweald, Judith directly behind, into the
bedchamber.
EDWARDS BED WAS
SURROUNDED BY ALMOST AS many people as had been waiting in the antechamber.
There were several clerics, of which Wulfstan was the greatest, all muttering
prayers or wailing invocations for the speedy aid of almost every saint
imaginable. Several women, a midwife among them (Judith supposed she had been
one of the few people within the immediate vicinity who had any claim to
healing skills, and so had been hauled into the chamber), rocked back and forth
on their feet, wailing and wringing their hands. The palace chamberlain held
position at the very head of the bed, an island of stillness and silence among
the commotion, his steely eyes roving about the chamber as if seeking someone
to blame for the current crisis. Armed men stood several paces back from the
bed, nervous, alert, unsure what they should do. The bowerthegn, entering
before Caela, went to stand at the foot of the bed. He picked up the coverlets
over the king's toes, squeezing and twisting the material until it seemed he
would rip it at any moment.
The instant people
realized that Caela, Judith, and Saeweald at her back, had entered the chamber,
the murmuring and crying and caterwauling ceased—even Edward, who was sitting
bolt upright in the center of the bed, bedclothes twisted to one side, stark
naked, sweat glistening over his entire body—and everyone turned to stare at
Caela.
"Wife!"
croaked Edward in a horrible, thick raspy voice. "Explain your
absence!"
"Thank God and
all His saints and angels that you still live!" Caela said, her voice one
of apparent joy. "See, I have brought Saeweald to your side."
"Your beloved
wife realized the change in your vitality even before you woke," Saeweald
said, pushing aside several of the clerics and women to reach the side of the
bed, Caela directly at his shoulder. "She came to me before anyone else
had thought of my name, weeping that you were ill, nigh unto death. How lucky
you are, my lord king, to have such a wife!"
Still close to the
door, Judith closed her eyes and sent a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness to all
water and forest gods in existence for Saeweald's quick wits.
Edward folded his
lips into a thin line, his bright, feverish eyes darting between Saeweald and
Caela. "You were not here," he finally said, his gaze settling on his
wife. "The Devil came a-visiting and you were not here."
"My lord,"
Caela said, and sat on the bed. "I was here, until I heard your breath gasp. Then I rushed
for the physician." She glanced at the women present. "Hasten now,
and bring me cloths and warm rosewater. I would wash this sweat from my lord's
flesh."
The women backed
away, and Saeweald took Edward's wrist and felt his pulse.
It was weak,
fluttering feebly.
"My lord,"
Saeweald said quietly. "What has happened?"
"The Devil has
entered me!" Edward said, sending one more vicious glare in Caela's
direction.
She ignored it, her
face set in respectful concern, and she took a hastily wetted cloth from one of
the women and began to run it over one of Edward's hands.
Edward looked back to
Saeweald, and then to Wulfstan, who had maintained his position at the head of
the bed opposite from Saeweald.
Wulfstan moaned
theatrically, and with a wavering hand made the sign of the cross over Edward.
"Begone, Devil!"
"Devil or
not," Saeweald muttered, "your chest is sorely congested." With
one hand flat on Edward's chest, he tapped its back with the stiffened middle
two fingers of his other.
Edward's chest
resounded with a thick, horrible thud at every tap. Then the king gasped, his
face purpling, and he began to cough in great hacking barks.
"What have you
done?" cried Wulfstan, but Saeweald ignored him.
"Expel it!"
he said to Edward, who was now bent almost double with the effort of his
hacking. "Bring it forth!"
Saeweald grabbed the
cloth from Caela, now sitting quite still as she stared in horror at her
husband, and brought it to Edward's mouth just as the king ejected a great clot
of blood and pus.
There was a
collective gasp of horror from those still gathered about the bed and, apart
from Saeweald and Caela, everyone took a step back.
"Pestilence!"
muttered the palace chamberlain, and his stance stiffened even more, if that
were possible.
"Still your
hysteria!" snapped Saeweald. "Your king has a great and evil
congestion of his lungs, but this is not the
pestilence!"
There were concerned
glances among the onlookers. Pestilence had not struck in over three
generations, but the stories of its horror were still whispered about fires and
tables.
"Physician,"
said Caela, leaning forward to touch Saeweald's arm briefly. "What can you
do? Please, tell me that you may save my husband's life!"
The distress in her
voice did not appear feigned.
"I shall bleed
him this night," said Saeweald, "and prepare a poultice for his chest
and belly. Will you stay, madam, and aid me?"
"Gladly,"
she said, then, as one of the women returned with a bowl of warmed rosewater,
she rinsed out the cloth thickened with the blood and pus and began gently to
sponge down her husband's body.
FOUR
S*
(V fo.
SOME DEEP, INNER
CORNER OF HER BEING,
Swanne realized she
was drifting toward wakefulness, and she fought it with every ounce of her
strength. Better sleep and unknowingness than facing what had occurred last
night (as every night in recent, terrifying memory).
To no avail- She felt
herself propelled toward consciousness, and at the same time she felt that
ghastly, leaden, icy weight in her belly, and she knew the incubus was forcing
her to wake. Asterion must want her.
"No!"
Swanne muttered as her eyes sprang open. She stared directly upward to the
wooden ceiling of her chamber. It looked so ordinary, so nonthreatening, and
Swanne wondered why its innocuous wooden planks did not somehow reflect the
agony that gripped her. She moaned, twisting a little in the bed. Her body
throbbed and ached in a score of places, the hurt between her legs and deep
within her belly the worst of all. There was a warm dampness on her thighs, and
even without looking Swanne knew it was fresh blood. The incubus? Breakfasting?
"William,"
she moaned softly and, for the first time since Asterion had trapped her,
without her thinking or considering the implications, acting only on deep need
and on her even deeper terror, Swanne tried to reach out to him. The next
instant a blood-curdling scream ripped through her throat and she convulsed on
the bed. The incubus had sunk its teeth into the inner lining of her womb, and
had ripped her flesh clean away.
As horrific as the
pain was, worse was the frightful feel of the thing's jaws working back and
forth, back and forth, as it chewed its morsel.
"My lady?"
The door had burst
open at the sound of Swanne's cry, and Hawise and another of Swanne's attending
ladies stood there.
The instant they'd
entered they'd halted, transfixed by the sight of Swanne writhing beneath her
bloody sheets.
"Madam!"
Hawise gasped, and would have moved forward save that at that moment Aldred
appeared behind them, grabbed both of the women's elbows, and forced them
backward toward the door.
"It is but her
monthly flux," he said soothingly. "It is still flowing—can you
credit it? A nuisance, indeed." He turned from the women and looked
benignly at Swanne. "That is the problem, is it not, my
dear?"
Swanne looked at
Aldred, and then felt the incubus within her open its jaws again. A wave of
hopelessness all but overwhelmed her.
"Aye," she whispered, and within her the
incubus closed its jaws. "It is but my flux. More burdensome than
usual."
"But…" said
Hawise.
"The flux,
Hawise," said Swanne, her voice flat. "Nothing more."
"And now,"
said Aldred, "if you will leave your ladyship and myself alone for a time.
We must talk a little over… arrangements."
The women, now
outside the door, stood motionless, still staring, as Aldred closed the door on
them, and then Swanne heard their footsteps retreat.
"No…" she
whispered, and wondered if that was going to be the only thing she could ever
say again.
For so long as her
life lasted… for so long as Asterion permitted her to live.
"I am glad to
see you awake," Aldred said, wobbling forth. "The night has seen some
intriguing happenings." He paused, and grinned maliciously. "Not only
the lovemaking that transpired between you and me. Yes?"
She said nothing, but
Aldred saw her throat constrict as she swallowed.
"I am awaiting
your response, my dear." Aldred's voice had hardened into ice, and Swanne
felt her head jerked back so that she was forced to stare at him.
"Yes," she
whispered, her mouth dry with terror.
"Another of the
bands has been moved. Did you not know of it?"
"My… my mind was
consumed with other things."
Aldred laughed, the
sound harsh. "Indeed you were. Indeed you were." He began to tug at
the neckline of his robe, pulling it away from his shoulders.
"No!"
Swanne cried out, and instantly the incubus inside her bit hard and viciously,
and her cry turned into a choked-off shriek, her back arching off the bed in
agony, her eyes almost popping from her head.
"I regret I may
have misunderstood your response, my dear," said Aldred, now naked.
"I thought you may have said no."
The agony had hardly
dissipated, but Swanne knew her life depended on being able to placate this
monster standing before her. All she had to do was survive, somehow to live,
and eventually she would be able to find a way to…
O
The incubus bit again,
harder and deeper, and the pain was so terrible that Swanne almost lost
consciousness. She opened her mouth, but the agony was such she could not draw
breath even to cry out.
Her eyes rolled up
into their sockets, and her body jerked, and then convulsed.
Aldred smiled amiably
and climbed onto the bed.
A moment passed, and
then, even though her body was still stiff with suffering, Swanne managed a
faint, "Yes."
"Yes… what, my
dear?"
"Yes, my lord. I
am grateful for your attention."
Aldred smiled, cold
and malevolent, and forced Swanne's legs apart with one hand. "This
bleeding is truly heavy, my dear. You really should learn to say 'Yes' to me a
little quicker. Yes?"
"Yes."
"Good
girl," he whispered and, grunting with both effort and pleasure, forced
himself once more inside her body.
SHE CONTINUED TO
EXIST, SOMEHOW, THROUGH THAT grunting, thrusting nightmare. The incubus roiled
within her, joyous to feel its master so close, and it nibbled and poked and
thrust itself so that her body, from her breasts to her ankles, seemed composed
of nothing other than screaming, tearing flesh.
When Aldred had done
and had rolled away from her, Swanne barely managed to conceal her tears of
relief.
He rose immediately,
garbing his hideous body with his robe, then turned back to Swanne who lay
motionless amid the dreadful, bloodied sheets.
"None of this
lying about, my dear. I have work for you to accomplish."
A tear rolled from
Swanne's left eye down her cheek, and the sight of it irritated Aldred. He
leaned down and dealt Swanne a blow across the face, making blood spurt from
her nose.
"Get up!"
he said. "Rise, and wash and clothe yourself. Now!"
Swanne managed to
struggle to her feet, but was unable to stifle the moan of pain as she did so.
She jerked, as if
expecting Aldred to strike her again, but he merely sat down on the bed and
regarded her with calm eyes. "Wash and clothe yourself," he repeated,
moving toward the door. "I have some matters to attend to elsewhere, but
will return shortly. Be waiting for me, a smile on your face."
Grateful that the
monster had departed, Swanne nonetheless did as she was told, although she
thought several times during the procedure that she
would faint with
pain. Her belly throbbed unbelievably, and blood continued to trickle from
between her legs.
Nothing she had ever
endured had been this bad, not even childbirth, and she wondered how she had
any blood left in her after the nightmare of the past week.
As she pulled her
gown over her shoulders, and twisted a little so she could manage the
fastenings, Swanne closed her eyes and indulged in a heartfelt moment of pure
hatred for Ariadne.
How could she have done this? How
could she have been so stupid? Why had she not warned her daughter-heirs? Had
she been so self-conceited, so stupid, so…?
"She was wrapped
in her own ambitions," said a voice behind her, and it was Asterion's
voice rather than Aldred's.
She felt his hands
fall about her waist, and she jerked, frightened almost to insensibility.
Asterion had only
come to her as Aldred since he'd first forced himself upon her, not in his true
form. Now Swanne's heart raced, her breath growing tight and shallow, as she
wondered what this portended.
Asterion's hands grew
heavy where they rested about her waist, and he turned her about.
The Minotaur stood
there, regarding her from his monstrous bull's head with beautiful liquid black
eyes.
Swanne grew rigid,
but could not tear her eyes from the bull's powerful face. Its terrible aspect
was almost hypnotic, and Swanne understood in a moment of clarity just why it was that Ariadne had consented to this single,
devastating condition.
She had been seduced
by the power—and the hope of power—in that great face.
She would have
offered him the world if he had asked for it, just for the power he offered.
Ah! What was she
thinking? Ariadne had with that single ill-considered
consent given her cursed brother the world!
Asterion's hands were
still about her waist, and now he slipped one of them downward to rub gently
over her belly.
Swanne tensed,
expecting further suffering, but unbelievably her pain began to dissipate until
it was little more than a dull ache. Her entire body sagged in relief, and for
an instant she almost loved the Minotaur for releasing her from the agony.
"Aldred has
treated you poorly," Asterion said, "Your belly is battered almost to
the point of uselessness."
What are you saying? Swanne thought. You have treated me "poorly"!
"Very
poorly," Asterion murmured, and Swanne relaxed a little further under the
touch of his hands, closing her eyes as even more of the pain abated. Just to
feel the cessation of pain, just for a moment, was worth this brief compliance.
"Do not judge me
by Aldred's actions," Asterion said.
Swanne could do
nothing but nod, just once, jerkily. Her eyes were still closed as she
concentrated on living every pain-free moment as desperately as she could.
"My dear, I need
you to look upon me" said Asterion.
Swanne reluctantly
opened her eyes.
"I wish you to
present yourself at Edward's side—"
"I cannot!
Harold dismissed me from court…" she stopped, terrified by the Minotaur's
thumbs which had suddenly dug into her belly.
"Remember what
Aldred put in you," he said, very softly, What I put
in you while I used Aldred's body.
"Yes," she
said dully. "I will do it. I will go to Edward's court."
"Good. Poor
Edward's health appears to have taken a turn for the worst. He is busily
engaged in his dying. I wish you to watch for me, be my eyes and ears."
"But you… but
Aldred has better reason to be there—"
"And be assured
he will be there. But you have your ear
attuned to the world of women, and can be admitted to their presence." He
stopped, his black brow wrinkling as if in perplexity. "Now, I know that
you and William— the sweet, sweet boy—believe Silvius is moving those bands.
That may be so. But whoever is moving them has aid. Someone aids
him. Or her. If someone is aiding Silvius—or whomever—then I
need to know who, or what, they might be."
He smiled, and ran
his hands up to Swanne's breasts, caressing them gently. "After all, my
sweet, you must have some duty to keep you occupied until you deliver William's
life into my hands, mustn't you?"
She moaned.
"You will deliver William's life into my hands, will you
not?"
Silence.
"Will you not?"
Swanne jerked her
head once in assent.
"Good."
Asterion let her go,
eventually, and Swanne, her face dull, lifted her cloak from where it lay
draped over a chest and moved to the door.
"Swanne, my
sweet," Asterion called to her just as she laid a hand to the door catch.
Her back stiffened as she heard his voice. "I heard a rumor that
I
Caela was not at Edward's side when he took ill last
night. I do rather hope you can discover for me who she might have been with.
This is most important. What strange company does Caela keep these nights when
she doesn't lie with Edward? You will ask her, won't you? I am most
curious to know."
LATER THAT MORNING,
ALDRED SAT IN HIS BATH,
slowly washing
himself, puzzling things over in his mind.
Everything this past
week had been so dim… and yet so vaguely pleasurable. Somehow he seemed to have
acquired the lady Swanne as a mistress, but he could not always remember those
nights he spent with her so very well.
Yet that he was
spending them with her was undoubted. Everyone was looking at him
differently—and Swanne herself, why she practically fell over herself to cater
to his every wish. The proud lady he'd known for so long seemed to have decided
to admit herself as his utter slave.
Aldred smiled, then
sighed happily. He wasn't sure about the "why" of his current
circumstances, but he wasn't about to complain.
F1V
Caela Speaks
A
rDWARD SAT THROUGH
THE DAY AND WHEEZED A little further into his dying with every breath, and
enjoyed every moment of it.
Finally, he was
vindicated. The Devil and his evil roamed everywhere and now, due to the
inattention of careless priests and the apathy of Edward's subjects, the king
had been struck down in all his glory.
No matter that Edward
was an old man anyway.
No matter that he'd
whined of his aches and pains and fevers for as long as I had known him (and
well before that if the mutterings of his long-suffering mother were any
guide).
No. He rambled and he
moaned all through that morning: See how your
lack of attention and love has
struck me down. See how your lack of piety has allowed the Devil into the very
heart and soul of the realm. If only you (and he took in the entire realm with that single
"you," although his feverish eyes did tend to linger on me as he said
it) had loved me and cared for
me and tended me as your duty insisted.
By noon I could
gladly have gone to the window, thrown back the shutters, and screamed for the
Devil to come back and finish the thing properly.
Oh, I knew it was
Asterion, and I knew why. He was pushing matters forward to suit his own pace.
Catch us off-balance. Snatch at the Game before any of us, whether William or
Swanne or Silvius or myself, or even Saeweald, could snatch back.
What was Asterion
planning? I wondered if Long Tom was pacing through the Game, wondering and
worrying. I wondered if Silvius worried, and I had an urge to see him, not only
to seek his forgiveness for what I could not give him on the night of the
solstice, but to just have him hold me, and tell me all would be well. I know I had spent the hours after my return, ignoring
Edward's vilenesses, wondering and worrying. I was outwardly the dutiful
wife, bending my head
in contrition at every barb Edward spat my way, aiding Saeweald as first he
bled Edward, then applied hot herbal and honey poultices to his armpits and
chest and groin, wiping down Edward's face and arms and legs to wash away his
stinking sweat.
About us hurried and
muttered various court and church officials, moaning and blessing and praying
and, no doubt, wondering how best to position themselves in the upheaval
following Edward's undoubted soon-to-be death.
Harold came to attend
the debacle as well. He'd hurried from Alditha's bed (Harold had wasted no time
in knocking at the door of Alditha's chamber, and I knew also that he had broached
the subject of marriage with her ecstatic family; I had no doubt that Harold
would be making sure of a legal heir as early as possible. He might not, after
all, have much time once Edward had succumbed), glanced worriedly at me, then,
with the rest of us, endured Edward's ranting throughout the remaining hours of
the night and through the morning. He'd pushed a chest against the far wall—as
far from Edward's bed as he could manage—and there he had sat and watched, his
face haggard, his eyes deep with worry. Occasionally one of the chamberlains or
counts or thegns or courtiers would bend close to him, and mutter, but Harold
only ever responded with a nod.
My eyes slid his way
more often than need be, I expect, but I had so little chance to see him, or be
with him, and the sight of him comforted me greatly.
I would have
liked—desperately liked—to be able to sit down next to him, and allow him to
wrap me in his arms, and to hold and comfort me, but that was impossible under
these circumstances.
Under any
circumstances, I expect.
Sweet gods, how close
had I come to discovery during the night? Or had I been discovered? Asterion would have noticed my
absence when he'd visited his little dance of death upon Edward. Would it have
seemed strange to him? Or would he have thought only that I slept in a
different chamber so that Edward's piety would not be disturbed by my female
form?
In which case, Asterion must have
wondered why my attending lady, Judith, slept on a pallet at the foot of the
bed.
Would Asterion have
remembered that brief moment when he'd held me by the magical waters of the
pond, and connected that woman with my absence from Edward's bed?
As the night
progressed, my worry combined with my fatigue to make me nauseous, and, when
one of the servants leaned close to me just after dawn and offered me a cup of
warm mead, I felt my stomach heave and sweat break out on my face.
Saeweald noticed as
well, and grabbed my arm just before I toppled from the bed.
"Madam," he
said, sharing a glance first with Harold and then with Judith, "you must
rest. You cannot do more for your husband at present than you have."
"What?"
screeched Edward, lurching up from where he'd been reclining against the
pillows. "The whore feels ill? What, Caela, a bastard child you're
breeding there to some peasant lover? A thick-witted boy you're going to claim
is mine? A bellyful of some lustful—"
"You go too far,
even for a king," snapped Harold, rising and coming to the bed. "If
you think yourself dying, Edward, then concentrate on that dying, and ensure
your own salvation rather than searching out imaginary faults in those who seek
only to aid you."
He turned his back on
Edward, who was spluttering and hacking his way through a coughing fit brought
on by his own outburst, and Harold took my arm, leading me back to the chest
where we both sat down.
Judith hurried over
with a freshly dampened cloth to wipe my face, and I smiled my thanks at her.
There was a clear
question in her eyes, and I shook my head slightly. There was no baby, I was
certain of that, even though my womb had been cramping badly in the past week
or so.
Judith wiped away my
sweat, then brought me a mixed cup of milk and egg and honey, and I took it
gratefully, thanking her as she turned to return to her stool by the door.
"He is dying?" Harold said softly, his lips barely
moving.
"Yes."
"Saeweald cannot
save him?"
"Do you want him
to?"
Harold, who had been
staring at Edward, now looked at me. "No," he admitted. "I do
not. It has come time for me to take my heritage."
I shivered, a black
wave of despair making me feel ill all over again. "Harold…"
"I know, my
love. I know."
That "my
love" almost undid me, and I had to set the half-drunk cup of milk down on
the floor.
Harold mistook the
reason for my distress, and took my hand, no longer caring, I think, what all
the watching eyes thought.
"I am strong. I
can face whatever comes at me. England will not accept either Hardrada or William."
Oh, Harold, my love, I thought, you have no idea at all what it is you will face. I had the sudden, crazed thought that I hoped
Asterion would best all who raged against him,
for then Harold would not have to die. He could reign
as king, never
knowing that beneath him reigned a far viler lord in a far more wretched land…
The thought vanished
even before I had completed it. England
would not accept Asterion either.
Harold's gaze
returned to Edward, now lying back on the pillows and struggling for breath. He
spoke again, keeping his voice very low. "Edward will die, and he chose
the best time of year to do so."
"What do you
mean?"
"It is the dead
of winter. Neither Hardrada nor William can invade until late summer at the
earliest. I have well over six months before…"
He stopped, and I
squeezed my eyes closed so that he might not see the pain in them. Oh, I knew
very well what that "before" encompassed.
Before William came home to kill Coel
all over again.
William would win
whatever battle he engaged in with Harold. William would become king. Hardrada,
if he was to be a player at all, would be little more than a nuisance.
"Do not fear for
me, Caela," Harold said in the gentlest voice I have ever heard from any
throat. He was going to say more—I was by this stage beyond any coherent
speech—but then his head jerked toward the door, and he cursed, not taking the
trouble to lower his voice.
I raised my head.
Swanne had entered
the room.
She looked… I don't
know… she looked different in some aspect. She was very pale, but then she'd
always had pale skin, but it did seem far more translucent than normal. Her
eyes were overbright, but then that might be because she had a winter chill.
There was a strange
rigidity in the manner in which she held her body, but that was likely because
she'd fully heard Harold's curse, and because she undoubtedly knew she would
not be much welcomed within this chamber.
Edward had always
disliked her (the man had some sense!), and Harold had made his
feelings for Swanne known all through the court.
Harold was within one
or two weeks, at the most, of being crowned the new king, and there was no one
in this chamber likely to try and alienate him by taking Swanne's side in their
rift.
The chamber was
already crowded, and there was little room for movement, but still somehow
people managed to draw back from Swanne as if she carried the pestilence within
her person.
"What do you
here?" Harold asked. He had let go my hand and risen.
Swanne's eyes moved
about the room, as if searching for supporters, but she answered Harold calmly
enough. "I am here to pay my respects to the
king," she said,
"and to offer my aid, in howsoever that may be required."
Without waiting for a
reply, Swanne moved to the side of Edward's bed— the opposite side from Harold
and myself—and sank to the floor in a graceful curtsy, bowing her head almost
fully down to her breast.
"My lord and
liege," she said to Edward as she finally raised her face to look at him,
and I was shocked to see her eyes glistening with tears, "I am sad to see
you in such distress. How may I best help?"
Edward was in no mood
for courtly niceties. "You can remove yourself from my presence," he
said, "and take that slut with you. I have had enough of her."
He waved a hand
feebly in my direction.
Harold tensed, and
before he could speak I rose myself and said calmly enough, "I will be
glad of the time to rest. Judith, perhaps you might bring some bread and cheese
so that the lady Swanne and I may break our fast together? We can sit in peace
in the solar, I think."
Away from all these
people. That would be a relief, at least, even if Swanne's company was not. I
determined to rid myself of her as soon as possible. All I wanted was to sleep…
Swanne seemed
curiously pleased at this suggestion, and she and I made our silent way to the
solar—gratefully empty. There was no fire burning in the brazier because of the
fuss Edward's sudden sickness had caused, but there were furs and blankets
enough to wrap about us, and Judith could send someone to attend to the fire
shortly.
"Swanne," I
said as we sat down in opposite chairs and arranged the furs about ourselves.
"How do you?"
It was but a
politeness, but her eyes gleamed strangely, and her mouth worked as if she
wanted to say something but dared not.
"Well
enough," she said finally. She was staring at me now with a disturbing
brightness, and I shifted, uncomfortable. I did not truly feel like trading
barbed comments with Swanne at the moment.
"And you are
comfortable at the archbishop's palace?" I said. The news of Swanne's move
to Aldred's residence had caused a great stir and even more comment in Edward's
court.
She jerked her head
in what seemed like assent.
I looked to the door,
wondering where Judith was. Even the presence of another person in this chamber
would be a welcome relief, even if she did nothing to ease the awkwardness of
this conversation.
"You must be
missing your children," I said.
"Do you remember
those golden bands Brutus wore about his limbs?" she said. Her entire body
was rigid, and she stared at me unblinkingly.
I froze, although I
truly should not have found this unexpected. Swanne
would have known another
band was moved last night, and I was the only living soul in England with whom
she might discuss the matter (apart from Asterion, of course, but then I could
not imagine Swanne interrogating him about the bands' movements!). She might
even suspect me, although she would not think me capable of their movement.
Still,
Swanne-who-once-was-Genvissa had been blaming me for most of the world's ills
for these past two thousand years, so that she would blame me for this—without
actually believing that I was responsible for it—was hardly a shock.
"Of
course," I said. "Brutus treasured them dearly."
"He hid them.
After you had murdered me."
"They vanished
from his limbs, that I know, but I did not know what he had done with
them." Not then.
"Now someone is
moving them."
I swallowed. It
wasn't so much the topic of conversation, but the strange, unreal directness of
it that perturbed me. There was something odd about Swanne. Something…
un-Swanne. It was the only way I could think of describing the strangeness that
hung about her.
Perhaps it was just
her anger and shock at the movement of the band.
"We think it is
Silvius," she said.
We? I thought.
"Silvius?" I said.
"Oh, come now,
you pathetic little wretch, you know who Silvius is."
I fought the urge to
drop my eyes from her direct stare. "Oh… Brutus' father. Yes? Swanne, you
must understand that in our dealings with each other, Brutus and I spent little
time talking."
There, let her make
of that what she would.
Swanne flushed, and I
knew my barb had hit home.
"There are
rumors, foul rumors, I am sure," she said, "that you were strangely
absent from Edward's bed when he took ill last night. How may that be
explained, do you think?"
It was not unexpected
that Swanne would have heard this, and certainly not unexpected that she would
comment on it to me… but that she would do so in the instant after discussing
both the band's movement and Silvius?
I gave her the same
explanation I'd given everyone else. I'd woken, realized Edward's distress, and
run to fetch Saeweald without thinking to wake anyone else.
I finished, but
Swanne said nothing. She just stared at me with that unusual light in her eyes.
"I've taken
Aldred to my bed," she said. "Did you know that?"
Perhaps if she had
said that she was really Og reincarnated, she may have stunned me more, but,
frankly, I doubt it. Not only was that comment so
O
totally unexpected,
so totally inappropriate to the conversation immediately preceding it, but the
fact that Swanne had taken
Aldred to her bed
was… unbelievable.
I cannot imagine any
woman willingly taking Aldred into her bed, but Swanne? Never! Not when events were so clearly moving toward
a reckoning. Not when William
was so closel
Later, of course, I may have recognized that comment
for what it was—a heavily-veiled scream for help—but at this moment I only sat
there, my mouth agape, and finally managed to splutter, "But what about
William?"
"He wasn't handy
at the time!" she snapped.
"But—"
"Do you know who
is moving the bands?"
Again, the sudden
twist in the conversation unnerved me. "No."
"Is it
Silvius?"
"I don't know to
what you refer, Swanne. I—"
"Are you moving
the bands, Caela?"
"Me? Me? How can I, Swanne? I do not even know why you are so
obsessed with these damned bands! And Brutus
hid them, not me! Surely you have enough wealth and estates. Why tinker after
some long-buried relic?"
"Are you moving
the bands, Caela?"
"Why are you
asking me this, Swanne?"
"You were not
with Edward last night when a band was moved."
Gods, and to think I'd been worrying
about what Asterion might have thought] "I have explained where —"
"Who do you keep
company with, Caela? What strange creatures aid you those nights you are not
with Edward?"
"What do you
mean?"
She rose suddenly to
her feet, the furs and coverlets tumbling about her feet. "Who else has come back from that terrible life we
endured? Who are your friends?"
I defended with
attack. I was now so truly confused, worried, and disorientated by Swanne's
bizarre behavior that I could think of no other way to respond.
I, too, leapt to my
feet, and with one fist I beat against my belly. "Do you not remember,
Swanne? Asterion tore Mag from my womb! I am no more than an ordinary woman—I have no insights! No secrets! What? Do you think that I am
still Asterion's pawn? Still dancing to his tune?"
Something in Swanne's
face changed. There was a moment when she seemed terrified, and I assumed that
her terror was because she might truly have thought I was Asterion's creature.
"Look," I
snarled, spreading my hands wide. "No knife."
She winced, but I
carried straight on.
"I want nothing
save to be left in peace, Swanne. I have no ambitions save to escape your
malevolence and jealousy and retire to some quiet hall in the country where I
might live quietly. I do not want to see your and William's triumph,
Swanne."
My face was twisting
in bitterness now, and I think it was that more than anything else that
convinced her. "I do not want William, Swanne. You can have him. I just
want to escape you and him and all that has happened. I just want
to escape!"
I burst into tears,
and as I put my hands to my face and sobbed, Judith entered the room, took one
appalled look at me, and hastened over.
"Madam!"
she said. "What—"
"My lady Swanne
is leaving, Judith. Perhaps you can close the door behind her."
Swanne gave me one
more strange, searching look, nodded tersely, then left.
TWO DAYS LATER, AS I
SAT EXHAUSTED IN EDWARD'S
chamber, Silvius came
to see me.
I was astounded at
his daring—for he did not bother with one of his Aegean sorceries, but came to
me openly—and grateful. In truth, Edward's death chamber (once our marital
chamber, but now utterly overtaken with the stink and business of his dying)
was thronged with clerics, supplicants, nuns, abbesses, physicians, herbalists,
nobles, members of the witan, sundry palace servants crowding in for a glimpse
of the fun, and a press of other bodies and ambitions I did not bother to
recognize. Jesus Christ himself could have entered that chamber, and it would
have elicited no comment.
I was sitting on a
linen chest on the far side of the chamber, all but hidden from the view of
those closely grouped about the bed by a group of nuns (from Mother Ecub's
order, I think, which may have given Silvius the courage, knowing they would do
their best to keep him hidden from view), when a close-hooded monk came to me,
murmured an apology for intruding, and sat on the chest beside me.
"My lady,"
he said, and took my hand.
I almost jerked it
out of the presumptuous man's grasp before I realized who it was. Silvius' good
eye gleamed at me from deep within his hood, and I almost burst into tears.
I almost spoke his
name, but he put his finger to his lips and winked.
I contented myself
with squeezing his hand. "What do you here?" I asked, lowly.
"Come to see if
you need any comfort."
Oh, he was too good
to me. "Oh," I said. "Good man—" Damn this audience for not allowing me to say his name! "—I am glad you are here. I
wish to say…
that…"
I wanted to apologize to him for how I had acted that night we
lay together, for not being what he deserved, but I did not know how to phrase
the words.
"Do not worry,
my lady, you were all that I deserved, and more. Tell me… have you lost that
emptiness?"
I shook my head
wordlessly.
"Ah, I am sorry
for it. I had hoped…"
"I know."
Again I squeezed his hand. "So much has changed in so few days."
He glanced at the
back of the closely grouped nuns, as if he could see Edward through their
substance. "I know. There is a disturbance in the Game."
"Long Tom has
felt it also." Silvius' eye jerked back to my face as I continued.
"The foundations of both land and Game have tilted slightly."
"And does he
know what has caused this?"
"No." Now
it was I who looked about the chamber. "Swanne is altered. I wonder if it
is she who has… has…"
"Has?"
"I don't
know." I felt close to tears, and Silvius lifted his free hand and touched
my forehead, making the gesture look like a blessing. I wished he could keep
his fingers on my face, but of necessity he needed to drop them away. I took a
deep breath and tried again. "Her manner. Her very being. It is different
in some way. Sharper, edgier. More acute."
"Then what has
happened, has happened to Swanne," he said.
"But what could
it be?"
He shrugged.
"Asterion?"
I asked, glancing about, wondering if fee was here, among us.
Undoubtedly.
"If Asterion did
anything to Swanne, it would be to kill her. That I could imagine. Especially if he was angered that
another band had been moved. Who else would he suspect, save for Swanne?"
said Silvius.
"He could
suspect me. He came to Edward while I and Long Tom moved the second band, and
he saw I was not here. Then Swanne came to me, and asked questions…"
"Lady,"
Silvius said very gently, "how could he suspect you? He is certain that
Mag has been killed. He cannot know you for who you truly are."
I shrugged again,
closer to tears than ever. If only I could sleep, rest, close my mind to
everything save the delicious relief of dream.
Silvius' hand
tightened about mine. "I can feel him," he said, beating his
GODS1
CONCUBINE
other hand in a
closed fist gently against his breast. "I can feel that motherless bastard
in here. He is confident. He is crowing with confidence. The Game has
shifted, and he has caused it. Swanne has 'shifted' and I cannot think but that
he has caused this, as well. Caela…"
"Yes?"
"If Asterion
murders Swanne or otherwise corrupts her, we are lost. You know that, don't
you?"
I closed my eyes, and
gripped Silvius' hand tightly.
"I know
that," I said.
CbAPGGR S1JX
th January
DWARD LAY DYING. HE'D
TAKEN ALMOST A WEEK
about it, but now, in
the heart of the bleak midwinter, it was his time.
He was screaming.
There was no need for
him to scream so, save that Edward was approaching his salvation, and he wanted
everyone to know that he was going to grab at it with both hands. There was no
possible means by which salvation was going to avoid him. No possible means by
which God and His saints were going to escape an eternity without the Confessor
by their side.
Humility had never
been Edward's strongest attribute.
His screams were
terrible to hear. As he gurgled with the blood and pus that now almost
completely filled his lungs, they rippled about the crowded chamber like a
rotten sea.
It appeared that
anyone who had even the faintest connection with the king had squeezed
themselves into the chamber.
Caela was there, the
chief mourner and witness. Her face was pale and expressionless, her every
movement measured, as if she kept herself under tight control.
Most of the highest
clergy, currently within a days' ride of London, were there: Wulfstan, bishop
of Worcester; Eadwine, the abbot of the newly consecrated Westminster Abbey;
Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury; Spearhafoc, the bishop of London;
Aldred, the archbishop of York, his eyes weeping, his chins wobbling, his plump
hands twisting and twining before his ample stomach; and sundry abbots, and
deacons, including many from Normandy.
Many earls and counts
and senior thegns were there, including the earls Edwin and Morcar, brothers to
Alditha, and who were there less to witness Edward's death than to ensure
Harold wed their sister as soon as possible. Among the other men of rank who
attended were at least eight members of
the witan. Their eyes
rested on Harold far more than they rested on Edward.
Swanne was there,
standing well back and hardly visible, but with her black eyes darting about
and watching the crowd more than they watched Edward.
Saeweald also
attended. He stood at the king's side, silently using linens to wipe away the
worst of the effluent that projected from the king's shrieking mouth before
handing them to Mother Ecub, prioress of St. Margaret the Martyr, who placed
them in a basket at the bed's head.
No doubt, once the
king was dead, the basket's contents would be sou-venired by eager hands, kept
against the inevitable day when Edward would be sanctified and the purulent
linens would become valuable relics.
Finally, packed at
the furthest distance and generally jammed against the walls of the chamber,
stood the king's most faithful servants: his bowerthegn, his palace
chamberlain, his royal men-at-arms, the laundresses (Damson among them) and
stable boys who had served Edward with love and devotion and who wondered if
Edward were to find himself a place with God and His saints this night, then
what place there might be for them in the new court.
This relatively small
group of servants were, truly, the only ones there whose primary concern was to
mourn.
Everyone else had
their own agendas, the most common of which was to ensure themselves a
prominent place in the new court. Doubtlessly, the sound first heard, in that
moment after Edward drew his final breath, would be the thud of knees hitting
the floor as men pledged their allegiance to the new king, Harold.
Edward's shrieks grew
louder, more incoherent. It was difficult to distinguish individual words, but
no one had much doubt as to their intent: Edward was letting God know of his
imminent arrival, and was telling the world that it would be a poorer place
indeed for his absence.
The dying king sat
propped upright against a welter of goose-down pillows. He had on a linen
nightshirt, open at the neck so that it revealed his thin, laboring ribs, and
it billowed about his skeletal arms as he waved them about. Edward's staring
eyes were fixed on the golden cross held in the trembling hands of a monk who
stood at the foot of the bed. The darkened chamber was lit only by eight or
nine fat candles in wall sconces, and what light did manage to find its way
through to Edward's bed consisted only of graying, shifting shadows.
As Edward's shrieking
shrilled yet higher, and the pustulence he emitted from his mouth became
thicker and more foul, several members of the witan, who stood close to the
huddled clerics, stepped forward and began urgently to whisper to Stigand,
Spearhafoc, and Aldred, the three senior clerics present.
The whispered
conversations grew heated. Both the members of the witan and the clerics
gesturing and, occasionally, looking worriedly at Edward.
Finally Aldred nodded
his head, as if he agreed with what the witan argued, and turned to his two
fellow clerics, adding his weight and influence to the reasonings of the witan.
After some moments,
Stigand and Spearhafoc nodded as well—by this stage most eyes were watching
this discussion rather than the king—and Aldred wobbled to the king's side and,
holding a careful sleeve to his mouth, lest the king splatter him with his
dying, began to speak to Edward in a low, but compelling voice.
"My dearest
liege," he said, "your time is upon you. See! God holds out his hands
before you! The saints chorus their jubilation!"
On the other side of
the bed Saeweald turned his head as he accepted a clean linen from Mother Ecub,
taking the opportunity to roll his eyes very slightly at her.
Ecub's face remained
expressionless, but Saeweald thought he could see a slight relaxation of the
muscles around her eyes: she was as amused as he.
"Yes! Yes!"
Edward shrieked—the first two coherent words he'd uttered in the past hour.
"Salvation
awaits!" Aldred continued, his eyes gleaming with a fanatical light.
"Heaven and the next world awaits! You shall live at God's side for
eternity!"
"Salvation!"
screamed Edward, his hands flapping at his bed linens. "Eternity!"
Caela winced, then
looked away.
"The Devil shall
be bested!" shouted Aldred, now working himself into a true fever.
"Bested!" shrieked
Edward.
"Evil shall be
overcome!"
"Overcome!"
"God and his
angels shall prevail!"
"Prevail!"
"Your subjects
shall be saved!"
"Saved!"
"Harold shall
reign, a true Christian king!"
"A true
Christian king!" Edward echoed. Then, more softly, and far more
suspiciously. "Harold?"
"Harold shall be
your heir!"
Edward said nothing,
but glared at Aldred.
Across the room
Harold also glared at Aldred, who flushed.
"My best and
truest lord," Aldred said, his tone unctuous, "evil thinks to
create disharmony and
confusion within your realm. There is unsurety about your heir. Name him now!
Best evil! Ensure that righteousness prevails! Name Harold—"
"Godwine's
cursed son?" Edward said. "You want a Godwineson to sit on the throne
of—"
He stopped, and
uncertainty appeared to overcome him. He coughed, spitting into the linen that
Saeweald provided, then looked with watering, tormented eyes to Eadwine, the
abbot of Westminster. "What should I do?" he whispered. "What
should I do?"
"You must do
what is best," Eadwine said.
"What is
best?" said Edward.
"Harold,"
said Eadwine, and, about the chamber breaths were released in profound relief.
"Harold?"
said Edward.
"Harold,"
said Eadwine.
Edward gave a small
nod, then looked back to Aldred. "Perhaps Harold would be best," he said.
"Name him,"
Aldred said very softly.
Edward sighed.
"Harold shall succeed me." He did not look at Harold as he said this.
For his part,
Harold's face flushed with relief. He had been named. He had the right to the
throne. If William or Hardrada or even a bevy of church mice tried to lay claim
to it then they would do so illegally, both in the sight of God and in the
sight of England.
"Harold…"
Edward said, and his tone was one of immense sadness, as if he felt he had
failed somehow, but was not quite sure of that "how."
Aldred laid a heavy
hand on Edward's shoulder. "Be at peace, my lord," he said, and with
those words Edward slipped quietly into death.
There was a silence,
then cries of "Harold! Harold! Harold!"
Through the tumult,
Aldred raised his face and caught Swanne's eye.
William, he whispered into her mind. William is on his way… and you shall hand me his life.
Yes?
A pause during which Swanne's face twisted in silent
agony and she grabbed with one hand at her belly.
Yes?
Yes, she whimpered back, and her eyes ran with tears.
sevejM
fr't
AROLD'S ELECTION
TO THE THRONE WAS A
foregone conclusion,
the result not only of Harold's careful and ceaseless canvasing of the members
of the witan as Edward lay a-dying over the Christmas season, but Aldred's
ability to wrangle a succession order from Edward in those moments before he
died. Within an hour after Edward's death, Harold's succession was proclaimed
over Westminster and through London; within a day it had spread to most parts
of the realm.
Edward's chamber was
abandoned virtually within moments of his passing, save for Damson, Caela, and
several other ladies who attended to his laying out. The rest of the witnesses,
the counts and earls, the chamberlains, chancellors, stewards and thegns, the
priests and bishops and abbots and abbesses and all their attendants had moved
with Harold to the Great Hall of the Westminster palace, there to plan the
coronation.
It would take place
in the morning at the very newly consecrated Westminster Abbey, directly after
the funeral service to bury Edward.
And directly after he
was crowned king, Harold would wed Alditha and crown her queen. All would be
settled before noon.
The morrow was going
to be a rushed day indeed, but that was, as Harold explained to his crowd of
old retainers and friends, heavily augmented with new hangers-on and applicants
to power, all to his advantage.
"If I leave my
coronation until the usual period of official mourning will have passed, then
William, Tostig, Hardrada, and half the aging Vikings still left in Norway, for
all I know, will have moved." Harold sat on the throne on the dais, having
marched there without hesitation the instant he entered the Great Hall.
One of the senior
members of the witan, Regenbald, who had been Edward's chancellor, stepped
forward. He was an old man, but still radiated a powerful virility, and was
renowned across half of Europe for his insights and sagacity.
"Mourning would
only take a month," he said. "No one is going to mount an invasion in
a month. Not in the bleakness of midwinter. To rush into a coronation might
appear to smack of… unseemly haste."
There were murmurs of
agreement in the nve-man-deep throng about Harold.
"Aldred, my
friend," said Harold. "What say you?"
The archbishop
visibly preened with pride; Harold's prompting for advice was a direct reward
for Aldred's success in securing a succession order from Edward.
"I cannot speak
for Hardrada," said Aldred, his eyes skimming quickly over the watching
faces before returning to Harold, "but I think I can for William. His
spies at this court—"
There were murmurs and
dark looks exchanged about the gathering, but Harold kept his own gaze steady
on Aldred.
"—will have
doubtless already sent word regarding Edward's demise," Aldred continued.
"William will have been waiting for this news. Surely, yes, he will swing
his plans for an invasion into place, but the first thing he will do is seek to claim the throne himself.
He has, as we are all too well aware, been claiming for years that Edward
promised him the throne many years ago when
Edward sheltered at the Norman court. William will proclaim loud and long all
over Europe, from the Papal court to the Holy Roman Empire to Flanders itself
that he is the legal king of England. He will do this because he will hope to
make the witan think twice about electing Harold. William will do everything he
can to make Harold's succession, should it happen, as illegal as
possible."
"We will never have a Norman king!" said Regenbald.
"We would never
elect William!" said Robert Fitzwimarch,
who had been a member of the witan even longer than Regenbald.
"A Norman and a bastard," muttered yet another witan member,
Ansgar.
Harold smiled.
"If he surrounded London with enough swords you would elect him willingly
enough," he said, then carried straight on through the howls of denials.
"Aldred is right. If I give William so much as a day of space he will have
petitioned most of the reigning princes, dukes, kings, and prelates of Europe
regarding his right to the throne and, knowing William's charm and his
reputation, most of them shall have agreed to his right to it. If I waited for
the full month of mourning before being crowned, I would have the weight of
European opinion against me, and William would have his excuse for an invasion.
This way," he paused momentarily, his face suddenly looking old and
haggard, "this way, perhaps I have a chance of circumventing him."
There was a silence.
"St.
Paul's?" said Aldred brightly. "I should send word to the dean that
he should ready the cathedral for your—"
"No," said
Harold. "I will be crowned in Westminster."
"But kings have
always been crowned in St. Paul's!" said Stigand, the
GG
archbishop of
Canterbury, and Spearhafoc, the bishop of London, as one. Stigand had always
been a stickler for tradition, and Spearhafoc could suddenly see the coronation
sliding out of his control into the eager hands of Eadwine, the abbot of
Westminster.
"Then I shall
start a new tradition!" snapped Harold. "Think, damn you! Edward had
stipulated that he be buried in Westminster Abbey, and I dare not go against
that lest I be seen to disrespect his wishes and his holy corpse. So the
funeral service for Edward, with every court member present, will be held in
Westminster Abbey in the morning. I am not then going to insist that everyone up and move
themselves, through the heart of a frozen winter's day, to St. Paul's for my
coronation! Westminster it is."
Harold leaned forward
on the throne and looked Stigand in the eye. "Is your matter still before
Alexander?"
Stigand looked down.
"Yes." For several years now Stigand's appointment as archbishop of
Canterbury had been in dispute. The matter had gone to the pope for a final
decision, but Alexander II, not known for his speed in dealing with business
matters not directly connected with either food or young girls, had not yet
proclaimed on the problem.
"Then Aldred
shall crown me," Harold said.
"No!"
Stigand cried, taking a half step forward. Harold raised his hand.
"I cannot afford
to be crowned by an archbishop whose appointment is in doubt!" Harold
said. "Damn it, Stigand, if Alexander does not rule in your favor, and you
have crowned me, then my coronation is
null and void. Aldred is the second most senior churchman in England, and there
is no dispute as to his right to the
title. He shall crown me."
Stigand shot Aldred a
foul look, but the obese archbishop was staring down at his hands laced across
his belly, a small smile on his face.
Harold stood up,
beckoning to the brothers Edwin and Morcar. "I need to speak to you about
your sister, Alditha. If I am to wed her in the morning, then you and I need to
finalize her dower arrangements tonight."
And with that, the
rest of the crowd was dismissed.
eigbc
/| LDRED HAD
SECURED FOR HIMSELF A SMALL BUT
private chamber
within the Westminster complex. Between the death of the one king and the
coronation of the next, there was little time to scurry to and from his palace
in London.
Besides he was
enjoying himself far too much to waste time in traveling along the frozen
Westminster to London road.
"And so then
Harold said, 'Aldred shall crown me'!" Aldred said, and grinned. "I
could hardly believe it. I… I, to crown the king of England!
Shall I crown William, too, my dear? Do you think?"
Swanne sat at the
very edge of the bed, as far away from Aldred as possible. She felt as though
she were locked into a black, cold night from which she could never escape. Her
belly ached from the incubus's horrid nibbling, her heart ached for all that
had happened and for what Asterion promised would happen, and her entire body
throbbed painfully from Aldred's just-completed bout of lovemaking… if such a
brutal assault could be in any way described as lovemaking'.
"Shall I, my
dear?" Aldred said, now much softer, and Swanne's head jerked in terrified
assent, knowing that the incubus could strike at any moment.
He was going to say
more, but just then came a knock at the door, and a mumbled request from one of
the abbey monks that the archbishop join the abbot of Westminster and the
archbishop of Canterbury within the abbot's private chambers as shortly as
possible.
Aldred sighed, patted
Swanne on the cheek, and departed.
A few minutes later,
surprising Swanne who had relaxed just enough to close her eyes, the door
reopened, and Asterion, now in his ancient form of the Minotaur, walked in.
He sat on the bed,
close to Swanne, who had shrunk back.
She tensed, her black
eyes growing huge and terrified, and Asterion reached out a hand and took one
of hers gently.
"I will not harm
you," he said, sliding close enough that their bodies touched at hip and
shoulder.
If anything, her eyes
grew even wider.
"I will not harm
you," he repeated, and ran his free hand softly over her shoulder, breast,
and belly, where the hand lingered a moment before continuing down to rest on
her thigh.
She was very cold,
and Asterion jerked his eyes toward the brazier.
Instantly a fire
roared into life, making Swanne tremble under Asterion's touch.
"Shush," he
said, and pulled her tense body close. "I do not mean to treat you
harshly."
She made a small
noise, part laughter, part groan.
The expression on
Asterion's great bull head changed into something curiously like a smile.
"Ariadne loved me, you know," he said. "Perhaps you might,
too."
"She wanted you
dead," Swanne said.
"Oh yes, she
did, and thus this." Asterion's hand again rested on Swanne's belly.
"I am not going to make the same error with you as I made with Ariadne.
But she did love me. A long time ago, when we
were but half brother and sister, and mated within the great mystery of the
labyrinth." He paused, and again smiled, this time more obviously.
"It was hardly as if she were a virgin when Theseus first took her, you
know."
For the first time since she'd managed to struggle
from under Aldred's body to this spot at the end of the bed, Swanne looked at
him. And for the first time in many days there was something other than fear in
her eyes. A questioning, perhaps.
"Think about
it," said Asterion. "Ariadne was the Mistress of the great founding
labyrinth. I was… almost her Kingman, if you like." His bestial mouth
brushed the top of her head, and Swanne winced. "And you well know what
relations exist between a Kingman and the Mistress of the Labyrinth,"
Asterion said, drawing back a little.
"You were not
the Kingman of that labyrinth," said Swanne. "You were the blackness
and malevolence she kept trapped within its heart."
He laughed. "Ah,
you know your history too well, Swanne, my love. Be that as it might, Ariadne
nevertheless visited me in the heart of the labyrinth on many an occasion. We were lovers, Swanne, and that is what made her betrayal of
me to Theseus the more… dreadful."
His voice had
hardened into ice on that last word, and Swanne shuddered.
"And yet still I
gifted her all that I had," Asterion went on. His hands were running all
over Swanne's body now, and, as they moved, they smoothed away all the pain and
aches she felt. Without realizing it, Swanne leaned very gradually against him.
Finally she relaxed enough to rest her face against his
O
broad chest, and to
feel without fear the play of his soft, warm breath over the crown of her head.
Swanne closed her
eyes. Oh gods, it felt so good
to have all the pain and fear soothed
away. She felt a
sudden rush of gratitude toward Asterion for taking away all the pain Aldred
had caused, and she did not even pause to think that thought strange.
"You are so very
much like her," Asterion continued, his voice now very soft. "Your
hair. Your face. Your form." Again he paused, although his hands still
kept moving, slowly, gently, soothingly. "Your ambition."
So greatly had she
relaxed that Swanne did not even tense at that last phrase, and Asterion smiled
to himself over the top of her head. She had learned to hate and loathe Aldred,
and that was good.
Better would be the
day when she automatically relaxed whenever he appeared as Asterion.
And best would be
that day she allowed herself to love him. That she would, he had no doubt. Once
she loved him, then Swanne would grant him any wish, if he promised to keep
Aldred at bay; a captive creature was all very well, but Swanne would do twice
as well for him, should love drive her actions rather than force. Aldred's
brutalization had been harsh, but it had been necessary.
"What do you
think I plan?" he asked Swanne, in that moment before she fell asleep.
She jerked a little,
not in fear, but merely in half-surprise at the question.
"To destroy the Troy Game," she murmured
against his chest. She had lifted one hand, and now it rested against his skin,
the tips of her fingers slightly tangled in the black hair that curled over his
chest.
He took her shoulders
and tipped her back so that she could see his face. "No," he said.
"I do not seek to destroy it, Swanne. Whatever gave you
that idea? Some strange half truth that Ariadne passed down through her
generations of daughter-heirs? I do not seek to destroy the Game, Swanne. I
seek to control it."
She frowned, and
would have spoken, save that Asterion laid the fingers of one hand over her
lips.
"And if I want
to control the Game, my love," he said, his voice now throbbing with
reassurance combined with heady promise, "I will need a Mistress of the
Labyrinth."
Her eyes widened,
then clouded with confusion. What
was he intimating?
"I will need a
Mistress of the Labyrinth, and I will need a set of kingship bands, of which
the Trojan bands are the only set left. Swanne, you want to control the Game, and for that you need a
Kingman and you need his bands. How are we at odds here?"
O
"But…" she
murmured behind his fingers.
"But…
what?"
"But you want to
destroy me."
"Nay," he
said, laughing softly, and planting a brief kiss on her forehead. "I
adored Ariadne. I can adore you, as well."
Swanne's forehead
creased as she tried to order her thoughts… but she was so warm, and so
grateful to be free of pain and fear. "William," she managed to say
finally.
Asterion's face
became dismissive. "Ah, William. He is not here, is he? He pouts uselessly
in some draughty Norman castle. Of what use is such a King-man to you?"
His mouth brushed her
forehead again, the touch firmer this time, and with his touch he used a barely
discernible element of his darkcraft. Love me,
Swanne.
Swanne suddenly
realized she did not find the touch of that great beast's mouth loathsome at
all.
His mouth brushed
against her forehead yet once more. Love me, Swanne. Trust in whatever I
say.
"When he arrives
in England, my dear, we shall have to negate him."
"Really?"
Swanne said, so under Asterion's enchantment now that she was not even mildly
curious at her total lack of concern at Asterion's proposal.
"Yes, really.
There is room for only one Kingman, after all, and to have William scrambling
about would be such a nuisance."
She was silent.
"Do you really
think," he said, whispering so that she could barely hear, "that
William is stronger than me?"
His hands were moving
again, firmer, more insistent. "Do you really think," he said,
directly into her ear so that his bull breath slid deep into her soul,
"that William is preferable to me?"
Love me, Swanne. Do whatever I want.
She moaned, and could
not think at all. All she could do was lean into Asterion's hands, against his
chest once more, and allow herself to be drawn back to the bed.
She felt no fear,
only a vague gratefulness that he was not angry at her, and the words he
whispered were not those of terror.
"You have the
darkcraft within you," he whispered. "I put it into Ariadne, and she
has passed it to you. Can you imagine, Swanne, my darling, what kind of Game we
could build, what kind of power we could command, if we used the
darkcraft to control the Game?"
He rolled on top of
her, and Swanne felt herself part her legs with some-
O
thing that felt a
little like eagerness. Caught in Asterion's sorcery, her mind had now
completely forgotten that Asterion also used Aldred's body from time to time.
Instead, they had become two separate personalities to her. Aldred caused her
pain and humiliation. Asterion relieved that pain, and offered her soft words…
and power.
"Why
William," he repeated, sliding sweetly and gently into her, "when you
have me?"
"Not
William," she whispered.
"No, my sweet.
Not William. When he arrives in England, will you kill him for me?"
Swanne moaned, not
simply from pleasure at the feel of Asterion's body within hers, but because
she could feel him sliding a small piece of the dark power back into her with
every thrust.
Oh, that was so sweet!
"Will you kill
him for me?"
"Yes! Anything,
anything…" She gasped, and moved sinuously under the Minotaur, encouraging
him with her body.
"And all you
will have to do, my love, is to seduce him back to your bed. That won't be too
difficult, will it?"
Swanne couldn't
think, let alone reason. "No. Anything. Please, give me more of the
darkcraft… please."
"When you have
killed William, I will give it all back to you."
She moaned.
SHE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HIM NOW. ANYTHING.
Asterion whistled as
he wandered along the river path. He'd had to escape Westminster and the
confines of petty men, and so had chosen this somewhat muddy walk for the
solitude it gave him. He wanted to shout and to scream his power, but in the
interest of maintaining some dignity, restrained himself to the occasional hop
and skip as he walked along.
The Troy Game was all
but his.
The bands he could
get any time.
He had his Mistress
of the Labyrinth.
All that stood in his
way was William.
Asterion sobered a
little. He well understood that William was indeed highly dangerous. As
dangerous as Theseus had once been—and Theseus' danger had been fatal.
Asterion needed
William negated. Murdered. Assassinated. Whatever. Dead.
O
Then nothing would
stand in his way. Nothing.
Asterion's face
resumed its cheerful aspect and, as he imagined what awaited William the
instant he gave into his lust for Swanne and slid inside her body, he chuckled
and then burst into laughter, startling the waterfowl which had been hiding in
the rushes.
Caela Speaks
DWARD HAD DIED,
AND I WAS FINALLY FREE.
At least, that is
what it felt like. No longer the queen, merely the
^tllьim relict of a
dead king, all interest in me evaporated the instant
Edward breathed his
last. I could have torn the robes from my body and run
shrieking about the
palace complex and, at best, I would have been regarded
with only mild
irritation for creating a noise.
Instead, Alditha
became the focus of attention (after Harold himself, naturally). Harold had
spread the word of his betrothal to her the day of Edward's death and now she,
the future queen, became the darling of the sycophants.
She was not the loathed wife.
She was not the detested bedmate.
Alditha was respected
and treated with deference by her future husband, and thus the entire court
respected and deferred to her.
I did not mind in the
least. Not for the world would I have had any other woman suffer what I did in
Edward's court. I visited her as soon as Edward had been respectably laid out,
and to her credit Alditha admitted me within an instant, dismissing all the
flatterers who crowded about her chair, and kissing me on the cheek before
embracing me tightly.
"I will not have
you move from your quarters," she said. "There is no need."
"There is every
need," I said, "for they stink of death. Mother Ecub, the prioress of
St. Margaret the Martyr, has offered me lodging and privacy, and I shall move
there without delay. You do not need me cluttering up your court, my
dear."
Harold had entered
then, and as he bent to kiss Alditha, I was pleased—if smitten with a pang of jealousy—that
there was clearly not only friendship between them, but the ease of physical
intimacy as well. Harold had not been wasting his nights at all.
O
He had the grace to
color slightly when he met my eyes and saw the understanding there. He put a
hand to Alditha's shoulder, and said, gently, "You have done well by me,
sister. I am grateful."
"And I,"
said Alditha. Then she sobered. "I think."
Harold and I both
burst into laughter, and the awkwardness dissipated.
"I heard you say
you were moving to St. Margaret the Martyr's," said Harold. "Caela,
there is no need."
"I do need to
quit this palace," I said. "It has nothing but bad memories for
me." And traps, and eyes, and ears. The freedom of Ecub's establishment
promised to be exhilarating. "You may visit me there whenever you wish,
Harold. Kingdom and new wife permitting."
Again we laughed, all
three of us, and spent some pleasant minutes in idle conversation. Then Harold
had to leave—the kingdom waited, and plans for his coronation—and I also did
not linger. Alditha had many matters to occupy her as well, and I did not want
my presence ever to become a strain.
As we stood, I leaned
forward and pressed my cheek against hers and, presumptuously, laid a hand
lightly on her belly. "You will have twin sons by Yuletide this
year," I whispered. "Do not fear for them."
Then, with Alditha
staring bewildered after me, I took my departure.
ALDRED CROWNED HAROLD
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY the next day, an hour after Edward had been laid to his
eternal rest inside his cold stone casket, inside his cold stone abbey.
I hoped it comforted
him, all that cold stone imprisoning him within his death.
Alditha was crowned
alongside Harold, the abbey alive with music and garlands and pennants and the
shouting of the Londoners outside. I stood to one side in the shadow of a side
aisle, Judith, Ecub, and Saeweald beside me, watching, both glad and saddened
for Harold.
I could almost hear
the sound of William sharpening his sword across the narrow straits of the sea.
I closed my eyes,
fighting to keep back the tears. Gods,
what this land needed was Harold as its king, not William!
I felt Judith's hand
touch my elbow in concern, and I opened my eyes, and gave her a small smile.
Then I looked back to
Harold, just as he was standing to receive the acclaim of the witan and the
nobles.
A stray shaft of
sunlight hit his head, highlighting the golden crown atop his brow, and I
frowned, for it seemed to me that I was seeing something very important at that
moment, yet not understanding it.
O
"Caela,"
Ecub whispered in my ear, and she nodded to a spot within the crowd hailing
Harold.
There stood Long Tom,
looking at Harold with eyes shining with reverence.
He must have felt me
watching, for the Sidlesaghe shifted his gaze from Harold to me. He frowned,
and nodded in Harold's direction, and then raised his hands and applauded as
most everyone else in the abbey was doing, his eyes constantly dancing between
Harold and myself, and then the tears did slip
down my cheeks, because I knew Long Tom was trying to tell me something, trying
to show me something, and I was fool
enough not to understand what.
THAT NIGHT, MY FIRST AT ST. MARGARET THE MARTYR'S,
I climbed to the
summit of Pen Hill, and there waited Long Tom.
I asked him what he
had been trying to tell me in the abbey, but he only shook his head, and would
not answer the question.
"We are
worried," he said, changing the subject when I tried to press. "The
land feels ill. You do not feel it?"
I shook my head. In
truth, the past week I had slept so little that I doubt I would have felt it
even if my right arm had been torn from my body.
Then I was consumed
by guilt, because I should have felt it. I was the land, and
if it was not right, then I should have felt it.
"It has an imp
within it," he said, and moaned so pitifully that I began to weep.
"We cannot see where, but that imp will eat at us and this green land and
its forests and waters until all are gone."
"Long Tom, I can
see and feel nothing. Why? What is wrong with me?"
And to that he did
not respond, either, saying only, "You must move another band tonight,
sweet lady. It is all we can do."
I did, moving a band
that Brutus had hid in the northeastern part of London's wall to a point far to
the south of the river, a place called Herne Hill, where waited for me a
similar scene as that had greeted me at the Holy Oak, save that this time I
handed the band to a man sitting behind a curious wheel in one of those
frightful black beasts, this time stationary by the entrance to a similar
redbrick building as had stood at Gospel Oak.
My heart raced the
entire time, but there was no sign of Asterion.
Somehow that worried
me more than anything.
G6J'tI
VES HAD BEEN AND
GONE, AND NOW WILLIAM
stood before Matilda
with the unfolded letter in his hands that the priest had delivered.
He was staring at it
without expression.
"Does it…?"
Matilda said, wanting to snatch at the letter but unable to tear her eyes from
her husband's face.
"Yes,"
William said, finally raising his own gaze from the letter to look at Matilda.
"It confirms the rumors we've heard for the past two days. Edward is dead.
And Harold has been elected and crowned and anointed king of England."
Matilda drew in a
sharp breath. "He moved fast. But then we always knew he would." She
nodded at the letter. "And Swanne? How has she positioned herself?"
William's mouth
twisted wryly, and he handed the letter to Matilda to read. "This is not
from Swanne, but rather Aldred."
Matilda took the
letter, her eyes scanning the thick inked lines. "The archbishop of
York?"
"Aye." They
had already heard that Harold had set Swanne to one side, and neither were
surprised at this intelligence. William wondered, however, just how deeply
Swanne had taken that to her heart.
He wondered, very
privately, and with an intensity that ate at him during those long wakeful
moments in the heart of the night, if it was her anger and undoubted
humiliation that had caused the "shift" he'd felt in the Game over
the past few weeks.
Something had
happened—distinct from the movement of the second and third bands that William supposed could be attributed
to Silvius—and it had happened as he had felt a simultaneous
"withdrawing" from Swanne. Apart from their two brief meetings,
they'd never been in close contact, but William had always been able to sense
her, feel her.
Now that sense had
faded.
What was happening?
Well, at least now he
had the excuse he needed to move. William too* deep breath, grateful at least
for Edward's dying.
At last… at last.
He looked to
Matilda's face and saw the excitement there, and for the first time he wondered
what would happen to her in this forthcoming battle. Dear gods,
let her not be hurt!
He reached out and
touched her face tenderly, and was rewarded by the slight pressure of her cheek
against the palm of his hand.
"You will be
king," she said.
He smiled, but it did
not reach his eyes. "Aye. After all this time…"
"William,"
she said. "I have had news from my agent as well."
"Yes?"
"Swanne has
moved into the archbishop of York's palace."
"What?"
"Harold put her
aside. This cannot be surprising news, surely."
"That Harold
should set Swanne aside? No. In truth, I expected it. But why would Swanne move
into the archbishop's household? In what capacity, has your agent discovered
that?"
Matilda watched her
husband closely as she picked her next words with some care. "It is
rumored that Swanne has become Aldred's lover."
William's mouth fell
open.
"My love,"
Matilda said. "After what Harold has told us of her, you cannot be
surprised that—"
"That Swanne has
chosen a lover? No, I am not surprised at that. I am sure she did it so that
she might retain a place at court. Unless she became a laundress—"
Matilda's eyes
widened very slightly, but otherwise her face remained remarkably
expressionless.
"—there could be
little else Swanne could do to keep a place within court.
Sweet Christ, Harold would not want her there! But Aldred… Aldred! Matilda, you have met him and seen him for what he
is. An obese flatterer with few qualities. He is useful, yes… but as a
lover…"
"Perhaps he is a
good lover."
William laughed
briefly, incredulously. "There are many other men within court who could
have served as well as Aldred. Swanne is a beautiful woman—"
"I wouldn't
know," murmured Matilda.
"—and she could
have any man she…" he stopped abruptly. He stepped to Matilda, and cradled
her face in his hands. "Matilda, you will
be queen beside me. I swear it to you."
"I expect to be,
William. And Swanne?"
"I don't
know." And he didn't. William didn't like to consider what Swanne
she learned Matilda
was not to be pensioned off to some nun-Vs. He remembered what she had done to
Cornelia, how she 'ler, come near to murdering her, taken her child from
her…cct you," William said to Matilda.
She frowned. What an
odd thing to say. Before she could question him on the matter, William had let
her go, walking to a chest beneath the window where lay several sheets of
parchment and vellum. He picked them up, shuffling them in his hands and
signaling through his action that he wanted the subject changed.
"The documents
are all prepared," he said, "and the riders are waiting. They will be
dispatched by this evening."
Matilda came to stand
by him, leaning in close as she stared at the letters before her.
They were addressed
to the leaders of Europe: Alexander II, the pope, leader of all Christendom;
Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, controller of the largest territory within
Europe; Count Baldwin V of Flanders, Matilda's kinsman, who was not only an
important prince in his own right, but was also the guardian to the young
French king, Philip I; as well as scores of other lesser nobles and prelates.
William was going to invade England, come what may, but he was going to make
damned sure that he had the political and armed support of Europe behind him.
"I have also
sent out word to my magnates," William said. "I will hold a great
council in Lillebonne in a few weeks. When they agree, I will have an undivided
Normandy behind me."
"Will they
agree?" she said.
"Yes. The
rewards will be too good to ignore."
"And the
ships?" She almost whispered the question.
"I sent word
yesterday, once the rumors grew strong." William had actually known the
instant Edward had died, but had been forced to stay his hand until he heard
the news by more conventional means. He didn't want whispers of murder by
poisoning circulating. "The wharves of Dives River are already ringing
with the sound of carpenters' hammers and adzes."
"When?" she
said, and she had to say no other word for William to know of what she spoke.
"Late
summer," he said. "Harold has until summer to enjoy his
kingdom."
His stomach clenched.
Only another few months, a few
months!
ecevejM
ro
HILE
INTELLECTUALLY, SWANNE SHOULD
have known that Aldred
and Asterion were one and the same man, one and the same beast, Asterion's subtle sorcery worked so well that
emotionally they were entirely separate in her conscious mind. Once the
coronation was past (and how she had hated
seeing Harold enthroned, and that pale-faced bitch beside him), Aldred had
settled her back into his London palace. Here, at least once a day, he
brutalized her both physically and emotionally until she cringed whenever she
heard his voice, or caught a whiff of his scent on bed linens or a discarded
robe.
Asterion usually came
to her once Aldred had departed. He would hold her, and soothe away her hurts,
and tell her how beautiful and powerful she was, and whisper how good it would
be when they ruled the Game together. Swanne never made the connection that
Asterion appeared to her immediately after Aldred brutalized her, so that
Swanne would grow so dependent on him, and so grateful to him, that she would
do anything he wanted. Aldred unhinged Swanne's mind and made her cruelly
vulnerable to Asterion's ensuing sweetness. Aldred was danger and pain;
Asterion was relief from that pain.
Swanne was so
grateful to Asterion, and now so desperately dependent on him, that it was
difficult for her to disagree with anything Asterion said to her, or asked of
her. Moreover, she found herself longing for those times when Asterion
appeared. In a strange, bizarre fashion, she almost enjoyed the worst of
Aldred's beatings and rapes because it meant that Asterion was likely to come
to her within an hour or so of Aldred, leaving her writhing in agony.
Swanne was not sure
what she wanted most from Asterion: the relief he represented; or the power he represented.
Strange that
previously she had never thought of Asterion as a possible partner in the Game.
She'd only ever considered Brutus, or William as he was now, as her Kingman.
But she didn't have to use William, did she? Asterion
was right. All she needed as Mistress of the Labyrinth was a Kingman.
It didn't matter which Kingman.
That realization had hit with almost a physical thud
one day after Aldred had left her bruised and bleeding.
All she really needed
was a Kingman.
She had selected
Brutus because she'd thought he was the only one left. Indeed, there was no selection about it at all. It was him, or no one. She'd come to
love him because of his power and attraction and vitality and because he was
what she needed to fulfill her ambitions.
But there had been
another choice apart from Brutus, hadn't there? Why hadn't she ever thought of
Asterion? This puzzled Swanne in those long, silent afternoons she spent sewing
with her ladies, their heads bent over their embroideries, unspeaking at their
mistress's demand.
Why hadn't she ever
thought of Asterion beyond considering him as a threat?
Asterion did not want
to destroy the Game. He wanted to control it—a perfectly understandable
ambition, had Swanne thought clearly enough about it before now.
To control the Game,
all Asterion needed were the bands. And Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Imagine the Game she
and he could build together!
The power…
The darkcraft in full
flower…
Swanne could feel her
ancient darkcraft reemerging. Every time Asterion lay with her, it became a
little bit stronger. Asterion had put the darkcraft into Ariadne, and now he
was putting it into Swanne.
She almost loved him
for it.
No… she did love him for it.
As the weeks passed,
Swanne found herself hardly thinking about William at all. All she wanted was
to be free again, to be the mistress of a resurgent Game.
And all she needed to
do that was to ensure that Asterion found the bands.
All she wanted was
power, and Asterion seemed to represent the quicker, surer pathway to that than
did William. GUD6CV
/^* AWISE HAD
SERVED AS SWANNE'S MAID AND THEN
as senior attending
woman for over twenty-five years. She'd known / Swanne as a child in her
father's manor, as the young woman who had seduced Harold to her bed, as the
mother who had borne him six children, and, by virtue of Swanne's connection
with Harold, as one of the most senior women at Edward's court.
Swanne had never been
an easy woman, even when Hawise had first known her. She had been reclusive,
demanding, cunning, charming. She had never been friendly, nor confiding. She
had always seemed sure… of something, as if even from childhood she
entertained a distant vision that only she could discern.
Even if she was never
Hawise's friend, Hawise was as close to a friend as Swanne was ever likely to
achieve. Thus, it was as a friend that Hawise asked Edward's physician Saeweald
to attend her mistress. (After all, it was not as if Edward needed the constant
attendance of the man now, was it?)
Swanne had shocked
Hawise (as all the other ladies, and as all they gossiped to when she had not
only moved herself to Aldred's palace in London, but accepted the corpulent
cleric into her bed. If Hawise had been shocked by that action, then she had
been stunned by the manner in which Aldred appeared to treat Swanne. Bruises.
Bite marks. Bleeding.
Her mistress's face
gaunt and haunted, and her eyes brimming with agony every morning.
Matters had improved
vastly in the time since Edward's death. On those nights Aldred spent with
Swanne (and that was most of them) there still came the sounds of muffled
sobbing from behind the locked door of the bedchamber, and often in the morning
there would be rusty streaks of dried blood staining the bed linens, but Swanne
seemed to have improved within herself, and her bruises and wounds were far
less, even nonexistent for days on end.
And yet…
Swanne was changed
somehow, and most definitely not for the better. Her loveliness had become
brittle. Her eyes, if possible, were darker, more
That realization had
hit with almost a physical thud one day after Aldred had left her bruised and
bleeding.
All she really needed
was a Kingman.
She had selected
Brutus because she'd thought he was the only one left. Indeed, there was no selection about it at all. It was him, or no one. She'd come to
love him because of his power and attraction and vitality and because he was
what she needed to fulfill her ambitions.
But there had been
another choice apart from Brutus, hadn't there? Why hadn't she ever thought of
Asterion? This puzzled Swanne in those long, silent afternoons she spent sewing
with her ladies, their heads bent over their embroideries, unspeaking at their
mistress's demand.
Why hadn't she ever
thought of Asterion beyond considering him as a threat?
Asterion did not want
to destroy the Game. He wanted to control it—a perfectly understandable
ambition, had Swanne thought clearly enough about it before now.
To control the Game,
all Asterion needed were the bands. And Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Imagine the Game she
and he could build together!
The power…
The darkcraft in full
flower…
Swanne could feel her
ancient darkcraft reemerging. Every time Asterion lay with her, it became a
little bit stronger. Asterion had put the darkcraft into Ariadne, and now he
was putting it into Swanne.
She almost loved him
for it.
No… she did love him for it.
As the weeks passed,
Swanne found herself hardly thinking about William at all. All she wanted was
to be free again, to be the mistress of a resurgent Game.
And all she needed to
do that was to ensure that Asterion found the bands.
All she wanted was
power, and Asterion seemed to represent the quicker, surer pathway to that than
did William.
GID6CV
/^L AWISE HAD SERVED AS SWANNE'S MAID AND THEN
as senior attending
woman for over twenty-five years. She'd known / Swanne as a child in her
father's manor, as the young woman who had seduced Harold to her bed, as the
mother who had borne him six children, and, by virtue of Swanne's connection
with Harold, as one of the most senior women at Edward's court.
Swanne had never been
an easy woman, even when Hawise had first known her. She had been reclusive,
demanding, cunning, charming. She had never been friendly, nor confiding. She
had always seemed sure… of something, as if even from childhood she
entertained a distant vision that only she could discern.
Even if she was never
Hawise's friend, Hawise was as close to a friend as Swanne was ever likely to
achieve. Thus, it was as a friend that Hawise asked Edward's physician Saeweald
to attend her mistress. (After all, it was not as if Edward needed the constant
attendance of the man now, was it?)
Swanne had shocked
Hawise (as all the other ladies, and as all they gossiped to when she had not
only moved herself to Aldred's palace in London, but accepted the corpulent
cleric into her bed. If Hawise had been shocked by that action, then she had
been stunned by the manner in which Aldred appeared to treat Swanne. Bruises.
Bite marks. Bleeding.
Her mistress's face
gaunt and haunted, and her eyes brimming with agony every morning.
Matters had improved
vastly in the time since Edward's death. On those nights Aldred spent with
Swanne (and that was most of them) there still came the sounds of muffled
sobbing from behind the locked door of the bedchamber, and often in the morning
there would be rusty streaks of dried blood staining the bed linens, but Swanne
seemed to have improved within herself, and her bruises and wounds were far
less, even nonexistent for days on end.
And yet…
Swanne was changed
somehow, and most definitely not for the better. Her loveliness had become
brittle. Her eyes, if possible, were darker, more
unknowable, and often
Hawise found Swanne watching her with a calculation and bleakness she found
deeply disturbing. And despite her almost incessant bleeding, Swanne also
appeared to be with child again (Hawise spent much time on her knees before
whatever altar she could find praying that this child was Harold's final gift,
and not Aldred's loathsome welcome), although Swanne denied it with vicious,
hard words that one time Hawise had dared to venture the question.
And Swanne was
growing thinner, as if the child (or whatever it was, if Swanne had been
telling truth) was eating her from within. In Swanne's previous pregnancies she
had never grown thin, but had blossomed and bloomed.
In essence, Swanne
was growing thinner, harder, and darker—and more sharp-tongued as each day
passed.
Hawise feared her
mistress had a fatal, malignant growth within her and, though she knew Swanne
would not thank her for it, took it upon herself to send for Saeweald. It was
all she could do, and that Hawise did that much for a woman who had never given
her much beyond harsh words, said a great deal about Hawise's generosity of
spirit.
"I DID NOT SEND
FOR YOU," SWANNE SAID AS Saeweald stood before her, one hand gently
fingering the copper box of herbs at his waist. In his other hand, he grasped
firmly a large leather satchel that Swanne presumed contained all the tricks of
his trade.
Swanne's mouth
curled. All Loth's "tricks of his trade" vanished that night he'd
murdered Og along with Blangan in Mag's Dance two thousand years before.
"A friend sent
for me," Saeweald said, and Swanne's eyes slid toward Hawise, standing
calmly a few paces away.
"No friend to me," Swanne said, and Saeweald had to refrain from
hitting the woman. Gods, as Genvissa she'd at least managed to maintain a
semblance of respect toward the women and mothers in her circle. Even as
Swanne, she'd managed a fragile veneer of sisterly communion with the women
about her.
But this naked
contempt. Swanne must be sure of herself indeed, and that worried Saeweald.
He'd been glad when
Hawise approached him, handing to him on a platter the perfect excuse to
visit—and examine, by all the luck of the gods!— Swanne. He'd heard from Caela
how Swanne had accused her, and then how the Sidlesaghes felt there was
something wrong with the Game and the land, some dark shift, and
that it possibly concerned Swanne.
Well, and that was no
surprise. Every "dark shift" always somehow con-
cerned
Swanne-Genvissa. If there was one lesson he'd learned in all his lives, then
that was it.
"Do not discard
friendship when it is offered to you," Saeweald said as he set his leather
satchel down by his feet. He expected Swanne to sneer again, but she smiled,
almost as if genuinely cheered by some thought that had come into her head, and
then laughed, and gestured for one of her women to bring a chair forward for
Saeweald.
To Saeweald's
surprise, he saw that it was Damson, and he asked after her as he took the
chair.
"Damson is well
enough," said Swanne before the woman had a chance herself to answer, and
waved her a dismissal.
"I'm surprised
to see Damson in the archbishop's household," Saeweald said as he sat
down.
Swanne raised her
brows. "I'm surprised you even know
her."
"I attended her
once for a fever."
"Well, she is of
no matter, her health of even less. Damson had asked if she might join my
household here, and I saw no harm in it. I suppose she thought it preferable to
serving that mealy-mouthed jade Harold took to wife."
They were sitting in
the chamber that Aldred had put at Swanne's disposal. Saeweald had never been
to the archbishop's London palace previously, and he had to admire the comforts
with which the good archbishop surrounded himself.
Swanne being one of
them, of course.
Like everyone else,
Saeweald had wondered about this liaison, particularly as he knew Swanne better
than most. Swanne could have had the pick of any noble male protector within
the court—but Aldred? It was not like Swanne to select
the most physically unattractive man about when, as Saeweald well knew from her
previous existence, she preferred someone more delectable.
"You look
amused," Swanne said, disdainfully raising one carefulry plucked black
eyebrow as only she could manage.
"I was imagining
you with Aldred," Saeweald said, not inclined to play polite word games
with her. "I was wondering why."
"It is none of
your concern," Swanne snapped.
"Everything you
do is my concern," Saeweald said. "You have a terrible penchant for
destroying my entire world."
She smiled again, but
this time it was so icy and so calculating, it made Saeweald's blood run cold.
He reached out a hand
and took Swanne's wrist.
She drew back
slightly, then relaxed and allowed Saeweald to feel her pulse.
Unable to bear her
black-eyed, shrewd scrutiny, Saeweald looked down at her wrist. Her skin was so
pale he could see the blue-veined blood vessels beneath, and he could feel the
delicate bones shifting beneath his fingers. Her pulse beat strong and full,
however.
Whatever had affected
Swanne, whatever had caused this pallor and thinness and strange light in her
eyes, it had not lessened her strength or, Saeweald suspected, her ambition and
purpose.
"You must have
heard from William recently," he murmured, making much fuss about feeling
her pulse from several points on her wrist and lower forearm.
Swanne gave a tiny
shrug of her shoulders.
"And you must be
excited that—perhaps—he will shortly be here. I have no doubt that you cannot
wait to see him again."
Swanne gave a small
sigh, as if the matter was of supreme disinterest to her.
Saeweald's eyes flew
to her face. That disinterested sigh had sounded genuine. Swanne? Didn't care if she saw William or not? It
could not be!
"You do not
spend every moment lusting for him?" Saeweald said.
Again that secretive
smile. "I have a better lover," Swanne said.
Saeweald gave up any
pretense of feeling Swanne's heartbeat. "Aldred?"
Something flashed
over Swanne's face, and for an instant Saeweald thought it terror, but then an
expression of the most supreme contentment took its place. "No," she
said. "Not Aldred."
"I had thought
the Mistress of the Labyrinth would spend her time lusting only for her
Kingman."
Yet again Swanne said
nothing, but held Saeweald's eyes with a disdain that told him she was hiding
something momentous.
What?
And who? Swanne would not just discard
William for an athletic lover, however skilled he might be in her bed. She
would not just discard her Kingman.
Saeweald felt the
germ of hope within him. Perhaps Swanne had changed. Perhaps she was prepared to abandon her
ambitions as Mistress of the—
"Never think that," Swanne said, her voice a low hiss,
and Saeweald screened his mind in sudden fright. "I will be the most
powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth that ever was. The Game will be mine."
"But for that
you will need William," Saeweald said, pushing the point.
Again that shrug, the
slight, disdainful lifting of an eyebrow.
Saeweald sighed, hiding his confusion and concern with
rummaging about in his satchel for a moment.
"I need none of
your potions," Swanne said, irritated by Saeweald's fidgeting. "I am
not ill."
Now it was Saeweald's
turn to raise an eyebrow. "You do not look particularly well," he
said. "You have lost much weight. There is a fever burning in your eyes.
Hawise says that you may be pregnant—"
"Hawise is a
fool!"
"Perhaps this
lover of yours is potent."
Swanne smiled.
"Oh, aye, that he is. But he fills me with… ah, this is not your concern,
Saeweald. It is far and away not your concern."
He fills me with power. Saeweald could almost hear the
words she had stopped.
"But enough of
me," Swanne said, her tone almost girlish now. "I admit myself
surprised, Saeweald, that you have not yourself sunk into a great blackness of
spirit now that Mag has finally been disposed of. Caela, poor lost soul, must
have been your final hope for some kind of… oh, some kind of purpose, I
suppose."
Saeweald dropped his
eyes, dampening that tiny gloat within him. Well may you think Mag dead, Swanne…
And then he looked
back at Swanne again, meaning to say something trivial, and saw the blaze of
understanding in her eyes, and knew that he had not been secretive enough.
"Mag is not
dead, is she?"
Swanne rose to her
feet, pushing Saeweald away. "Mag is not dead! Of course! The secretive,
treacherous bitch. I should have known she would do something like this!"
SHE WAITED UNTIL
ASTERION WAS ATOP HER, WITHIN
her, driving both her
and himself into a panting, moaning lust before she told him, gasping the words
as she felt Asterion climax within her.
"Mag is
alive."
"What?" He
pulled himself back from her, raising himself up on straightened arms, his
ebony face glistening with sweat.
There was a little
trickle of perspiration running down the center of his moist black nose, and
Swanne found herself momentarily fascinated by it. "Mag is not dead."
"Of course not.
I knew this."
"You thought you
killed her!"
He grinned, the
expression horrible on his bull's face. "Oh, but I mean to."
She narrowed her
eyes, and he thought she looked so beautifully sly that he had to bend his head
down and kiss her mouth.
"What do you know
that I don't?" she said, pulling her mouth free.
©
A great deal, he thought. "Only that we
have the means to finally trap her," he said. "Would you like that,
my love?"
She breathed in
deeply, and Asterion's eyes clouded over with renewed desire as he felt her
breasts move beneath his chest.
"Oh, aye,"
she said.
Caela Speaks
RETIRED, EDWARD'S
RELICT, TO ST. MARGARET
/*% m the Martyr's, that small priory I had endowed so many
years
The sense of
independence was astounding. Ecub gave me several small chambers that were at
the very end of the priory's main group of buildings. Here I had access to the
herb garden, the refectory, the chapel, and the outside as much as I wished. Of
all my ladies, Judith was the only one to come with me (the others gratefully
transfering themselves to Alditha's household), and Saeweald took the
opportunity to take over the running of the priory's herb garden and infirmary.
I have no idea what gossip ran through London about this arrangement—no doubt
that the physician spent most of his time sampling the wares within the
sisters' dormitory rather than tasting the sweetness of his medicinal
draughts—but none of that bothered us within the calm of St Margaret's.
Saeweald spent his nights with Judith, and I…
I spent my nights
either blessedly alone (ah! The wonder of not having to share a chamber, let
alone a bed!) or even more blessedly in company atop Pen Hill. Here I climbed
late at night, aye, even in the depths of winter, and here the Sidlesaghes came
to me, and sang, and comforted me. Ecub often joined me, and also Judith and
many of the sisters of Ecub's order. The cold did not perturb us, for we were
warm with power and shared femininity and a shared oneness with the land.
It cheered me to
think that not all had been lost, and that a few still remembered the old ways.
One day, I thought, I
would be able to dance here with my lover, with Og,
with the white stag
with the blood-red antlers and the bands of power about his limbs. One day.
ONE EVENING SAEWEALD
CAME TO VISIT ME, AS HE SO
often did.
I was seated with
Judith and Ecub, and Saeweald joined us about the small fire I had burning in
the hearth.
"I have seen
Swanne," he said as he sat.
A bleakness overcame
my heart. I had almost forgotten her existence. And at that realization I felt
dreadful, for I could not afford to forget Swanne, who somehow I had to
persuade to pass over her gifts as Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Saeweald's eyes
dropped to the hands in his lap. "But before I relate what news I gleaned
there, I must make a confession."
We waited. Saeweald
finally raised his eyes.
"I was
incautious," he said. "She gleaned from my mind that Mag is not as
dead as she had thought."
I felt a nasty jab of
fear, but quickly suppressed it. "And what can she do with this knowledge,
Saeweald? It is unfortunate, perhaps, but the main thing is that Asterion does
not know."
I saw Ecub and Judith
exchange a worried glance, but I spoke again quickly, before any of them could
voice their thoughts. "But what did you discover, Saeweald?"
"She has taken a
lover," he said.
Ecub, Judith, and I
shrugged simultaneously. Whether as Genvissa or as Swanne, the woman was always
taking lovers.
"A lover who has
supplanted William in her heart and in her estimation."
"I cannot
believe that!" I said. Then… "Has she…"
"Decided to
abandon the cause of the Game?" Saeweald said. "Forsworn her duties
as Mistress of the Labyrinth? Nay, I am afraid not, Caela. She made it very
clear to me that she is the Mistress of the Labyrinth, she will be the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and the Game is
hers to control as she pleases."
I felt a twinge of
worry. I kept waiting for some enlightenment as to how it was I might persuade
Swanne to hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth but that knowledge
continued to elude me. Still, I must trust, and surely it would become plain to
me.
But… Swanne had found
a lover to supplant William?
"She has taken a
lover who has supplanted William?" I said. "How can that possibly be?"
"Aldred,"
Judith said. "Who else."
Saeweald shot her a
disbelieving look. "Aldred the great lover who has made Swanne forget
William? I can hardly credit it."
I could no longer
bear inactivity, so I stood and paced back and forth in the narrow space of the
semicircle we made before the fire. "This must be the shift the Sidlesaghes felt in the Game
and the land," I said. "Swanne's lover."
I halted, and fixed
Saeweald with a penetrating glare. "Perhaps Swanne is misleading you about
this man, this lover, for her own purposes."
"No."
Saeweald said. "I would stake my life on her genuine affection and regard
for this man."
"But how can
that be!" I made an impatient gesture and resumed my pacing. "William
can be the only man for her. She needs a Kingman. She can't just dismiss William!"
"Aye,"
Saeweald said. "I do not like this. My foreboding merely grows the
stronger for this news."
"We need to know
who this man is," said Ecub. "We need to know more about Swanne. What
is happening with her? How can
she have decided to abandon William?"
I exchanged a glance
with Saeweald. "I could visit her and—"
"No!" Ecub
and Judith said as one.
"Too dangerous,
surely," Judith added. "Especially as she knows that Mag still
lives."
"Swanne examined
me after Asterion killed the false Mag," I said. "She knows there is
no Mag in me. She will think merely that Mag
has hopped elsewhere." I smiled with what I hoped was persuasion.
"Swanne might talk to me, if only to brag. She always did enjoy bragging
to me about her lovers."
"Still…"
said Ecub.
"Damson,"
Saeweald put in, his voice slow. "Damson is with Swanne."
"What?" I
said. "With Swanne? What is Damson doing with Swanne?"
Saeweald shrugged.
"Swanne said that Damson had asked if she might join Swanne's household at
Aldred's palace. I have no idea why, for Damson would just as surely have had a
place in Harold and Alditha's household as she had in Edward's."
Damson was my responsibility, I thought. I should have seen her settled somewhere safer—and obviously she felt unsettled enough to go into
service with Swanne, of all people. She was my responsibility.
"Caela…"
Saeweald said. "Damson is your means to watch Swanne with
far more safety than
if you attended the witch in person. Swanne will be unguarded about Damson
where she will be cunning and sly about you. Damson is your entry into Swanne's
world."
I sat silent, not
liking it. I had come to hate "using" sweet, trusting Damson in the
manner that I did, and to use her in this way was to place her in terrible
danger.
I could see that Ecub
and Judith were not happy with Saeweald's suggestion, either, but it was too
good an opportunity to lose.
"I can fetch her to you," Saeweald said
softly.
I looked down at my
hands curled tight in my lap, and lowered my head in agreement.
SAEWEALD ARRANGED MY
MEETING WITH DAMSON
some six days later.
By virtue of her service to Aldred, whose palace lay within the boundaries of
London, Damson could not stray from London itself, so, accompanied by Mother
Ecub and Judith, I traveled heavily draped and veiled to London to meet Damson
there. I occupied a room in a sister house to St. Margaret's—Mother Ecub said I
was a noble lady who needed solitude and privacy in order to pray for her dead
husband's soul—and there I waited.
In the late afternoon
Saeweald bought Damson to me.
He'd not told her
whom he brought her to meet, only that he needed some assistance with draining
fluid from the lungs of a woman who had the creeping blackness in her chest.
When Ecub opened the door to Saeweald's soft tap, and Damson saw who awaited
her within, her simple, clear face burst into a radiant smile, and she sank into
a deep curtsy before me.
"Madam!"
she said. "I have prayed for your happiness every night."
My guilt increased.
How could I use this woman as I did? I determined that, whatever happened,
Damson should not suffer for it.
"Damson," I
said, keeping my voice light. I took her hands in mine and raised her to her
feet and, leaning forward, kissed her on the mouth.
Instantly our souls
transposed.
As I entered Damson,
I felt a brief, lingering trace of her unfeigned joy at seeing me and my guilt
again stabbed deep.
/ would see this woman safe. I would.
ALDRED HAD HIMSELF A
FINE PALACE WITHIN London. It was richer and larger than most others—even the
bishop of London himself did not command such magnificence, let alone any of
the nobles
who maintained
residences within the city walls. Aldred had made himself rich indeed on
Edward's munificence, I thought, as I made my way through the halls and
chambers to where Saeweald had told me Swanne had her private apartments. I
took care to maintain Damson's habitual modesty of demeanor, and, keeping my
shoulders slumped and my face averted, I entered Swanne's outer chamber without
any challenge from the guards.
It was late afternoon
and Swanne was enjoying a light repast. Hawise, Swanne's senior attending
woman, made a sharp remark to me about my tardiness in returning from my
errand, but that was the only comment made.
"Here,"
Hawise said, handing me some linens. "His lordship has spent the afternoon
with my lady. Her bed shall need to be changed."
I took the linens
silently and, equally as silently, I slipped into Swanne's chamber.
Swanne was sitting by
a brazier to one end of the chamber, picking without much apparent interest at
a plate of food set before her. She paid me no attention as I made my way to
the bed, and I glanced surreptitiously at her.
She seemed very pale,
and had lost weight, but even so, she was still fabulously beautiful. Her hair
was bound under a veil, although several strands of it straggled over her neck
that was, I was concerned to see, slightly reddened in patches, as if someone
had grabbed at it with thick fingers.
Swanne must have felt
my eyes on her, for she turned to me and snapped, "Just change the linens
and remove yourself, Damson. I have no interest in holding a
conversation."
I averted my head,
terrified she should have seen more than Damson in my eyes, but
Swanne said no more, and when I glanced once more at her, as I began to strip
the coverlets from the bed, I saw that her attention was back on the plate of
food.
I looked to the bed,
and barely managed to restrain a gasp of horror.
That Aldred had lain
with her recently was apparent—there were stains smeared across half the
bed—but what was appalling was that there were also great streaks of blood marring the creamy linens. Her flux? I thought, then dismissed it, for this blood was not
that of a woman's monthly courses, but the rich red of arterial flow.
By all the gods in existence, what was Aldred doing to
her? This was the lover she had crowed about to Saeweald?
I could feel Swanne's
eyes on me once more, so I hurriedly stripped the bed and remade it with the
fresh linens.
"Burn those
soiled linens," said Swanne. "They are unredeemable."
"Yes,
madam," I muttered, and scurried out, the offending linens stuffed under
my arm.
I WAS NOT INVITED
BACK INTO SWANNE'S CHAMBER
that day. No one
entered save Hawise, and I heard Swanne snarling at her on those brief
occasions when the door opened or closed.
Late at night, long
after the bells for compline had rung, Aldred himself returned. He rumbled into
the outer chamber, wrapped in furs against the night cold, and exuded charm and
bonhomie.
Hawise shot him a
black look, and did not meet his eyes. Frankly, I was not surprised. If Swanne
had been my lady, and even being Swanne, I
think I would have sunk a knife into the fat archbishop's belly for what he did
to her.
Aldred called for
wine and meat, then vanished into Swanne's chamber.
In the instant before
the door swung shut, I saw Swanne's white face.
It radiated sheer
dread.
A kitchen hand
appeared in due course with both wine and with meat, and Hawise took them in.
As she came out I
heard the door lock behind her.
An hour or so later,
as Hawise, myself, and several of Swanne's other women had settled on our
pallets for the night, I heard the first shriek.
The good archbishop
had patently finished his meal and had now commenced on the evening's
entertainment.
There came another
shriek and, despite myself, I raised myself up on an elbow and looked about the
chamber. Surely Hawise or the other women would do something?
But all I received
for my concern was a sharp reprimand from Hawise to go back to sleep.
The sounds of agony
issuing from Swanne's chamber were not, most apparently, my concern.
IT CONTINUED FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE HOURS—THAT
sobbing anguish from
behind the locked door. Eventually I could stand no more and, despite the
danger I knew it would bring to both myself and to Damson, I decided to do
something about it.
The other women,
while pretending to be asleep, were actually still very much awake, so I cast
over them a gentle enchantment of peace and rest and they slipped quietly into
slumber. Then I rose from my own pallet and approached the door.
I put my ear to it,
and heard nothing.
Perhaps they were
asleep.
I risked all. I
placed my eye against a slight crack between two of the
planks of the door
and, again using just a fraction of power, widened that gap so I could see into
the chamber.
For a moment all I
could make out were shifting shadows, but then they resolved themselves into
shapes. A single lamp had been left glowing by the chair where Swanne had been
seated earlier and by its shifting light I could make out the bed.
They were not asleep
at all. Aldred's massive form was humping over Swanne's gaunt white body, back
and forth, back and forth.
Her hands were to her
sides, hanging over the sides of the bed, her hands clenched into fists.
Aldred's tempo
increased, and something made me look from his body to the shadow his bulk cast
on the wall behind the bed.
It showed not his form at all, but that of a monstrous bull-headed man.
I DO NOT KNOW HOW I
MANAGED TO TEAR MYSELF
from that door, nor
how I managed to lay back on my pallet as if nothing had happened. I knew I
could not risk Damson by fleeing in sudden panic into the night. I would have
to wait until morning, then make some excuse so that I could slip back to where
Ecub, Judith, and Saeweald guarded my own sleeping form.
I lay there all
night, sleepless, terrified that Asterion would thunder from that chamber and
assault me.
No wonder that Swanne appeared ill.
No wonder she appeared changed. No wonder Silvius had felt something so wrong.
Aldred was Asterion.
Aldred had Swanne.
Asterion had her captive.
I remembered that day
so many weeks ago when Swanne had come to my chamber and questioned me about
the movement of the bands. How she had said to me, I've taken Aldred to my bed.
That had surely been
a plea for help, but I had not understood it.
How she had looked
terrified when I had said, "Do you think that I am still Asterion's pawn?
Still dancing to his tune?"
No, I was not the one
now dancing to Asterion's tune.
Swanne was now his
pawn, by some hold I could not yet understand.
I should have seen
it. I should have seen it.
I lay there,
sleepless, my eyes closed, and wept.
FOURGeejsl
V- WANNE WOKE CLOSE
TO DAWN, ACHING AND
■Hk bleeding,
and found Asterion pacing the chamber. 'ts_-^ She rose, glad beyond knowing,
and held out her arms.
He came to her,
gathering her close, and soothed away the hurts and bruises that Aldred had
given her.
"How I loathe
that man," she whispered as Asterion carried her back to the blood-sodden
bed and began to make love to her.
"I know,"
he whispered, moving sweetly over her. "I hate what he does to you as
well."
"I wish you
would come to me more often," Swanne said, weeping now. She was entirely
lost. Where once Swanne had known Asterion used Aldred's body to hurt her, now
she had become so dependent on Asterion she had forgotten it entirely. She was
totally incapable of realizing that Asterion continued to use Aldred to hurt
her so that Swanne would become ever more reliant on Asterion, ever more
willing to do whatever he asked of her, ever more vulnerable to his subtle
sorcery.
"I come to you
as often as I can," he said, bending down his face to kiss her.
"I adore
you," she said, cradling his monstrous head in her hands, loving the
bestial musk of his breath.
"I know."
"I will do
anything for you," she said, moaning now as he thrust into her, feeling
his darkcraft fill her.
"Indeed you
will," he said, and then they fell speechless as their moans and groans
consumed them.
Later, as dawn broke
and they heard Swanne's women rise and move about in the outer chamber,
Asterion nuzzled Swanne's ear and said, very low, "Mag was here last
night."
"What!"
Swanne almost fell out of bed as she struggled upright.
"She was
watching you with Aldred, using her power to scry through the door. You did not
feel it?"
Swanne frowned,
trying to remember, but all she could recall was the agony of Aldred. "Who
is she?" she said.
"One of the
women within Aldred's household," Asterion said.
"I'll kill the bitch! I'll kill them all, just to make sure!"
Asterion laughed, and
stroked Swanne's naked back, feeling his palm bump over successive ridges of
her spine. She was getting too thin. Way too thin, when Asterion needed her to
seduce William into her bed. Perhaps he should pull the imp back a little,
suppress his appetite a fraction. Even given Brutus and Genvissa's history,
Asterion doubted William would succumb to a walking corpse.
"Shall I lay the
trap for you, my dear?" he said.
She turned her face
to him, and smiled.
THAT NIGHT, IN THE
HOUR BEFORE DAWN, AS MONKS
and priests across
Europe were filing their cold, huddled groups into chapels and cathedrals to
sing Matins, a great fire appeared in the sky.
'tX AMSON HAD GONE BACK TO ALDRED'S PALACE,
and now Caela sat
white-faced and trembling before Ecub, Saeweald, and Judith. Silvius was there
also, having knocked quietly on the door a few moments after Caela returned. He
was standing by a chair, his face dark with worry as he regarded Caela.
The words tumbled out
of her mouth. "Aldred is Asterion! Aldred is Asterion. He has Swanne. He
has forced her to his will—I have no idea how. Oh, gods, gods… Silvius… my
friends… what are we going to do? He has Swanne!"
Silvius sat down on a
stool with a thump. He exchanged one shocked look with Saeweald, then clenched
his fists where they rested on his thighs. "Asterion has Swanne?" he
said. "Asterion has the Mistress of the Labyrinth? No wonder the Game has
felt so wrong!"
"The entire
world feels wrong," Saeweald said. "The great fire in the sky is sure
evidence of it."
There was silence,
several among the group shuddering. Everyone had risen this morning to the
news—Look! Look! Look to the
sky! All
London—all Christendom, surely—was jittery with nerves. It was a comet, the
more learned said, but no one had ever seen anything like this before. The
blazing fire covered almost a third of the sky. Who rode it? Some devil rider?
A fiend from hell itself? And what if it crashed earthward?
Who had it been sent to destroy?
"Caela,"
Saeweald said. "Do you know anything of this?
She shook her head.
"The fire in the sky is unfamiliar to me. It has nothing of the land or
the waters about it. It is cold, angry, alien. Worse even than Asterion."
She gave a tight, humorless smile.
No one returned it.
"There is
disaster coming," muttered Ecub. "None can doubt it."
"We can only
hope it prophesies disaster for Swanne and Asterion rather than for us,"
said Silvius.
"What if it
means Asterion is going to destroy the Game and all our hopes
with it?" Judith
said. "Is it coincidence that on the night Caela discovers the truth about
Swanne and her new lover that this great fire appears hanging above our
heads?"
"Asterion will use Swanne to destroy the Game," Ecub said.
"None can doubt it."
Silvius grunted.
"And you should become a prophetess of
doom, Mother Ecub. None should doubt that."
She shot him a black
look.
Saeweald looked at
Caela, now with Judith's arm about her shoulders for comfort, then to Silvius.
"If he has the
Mistress of the Labyrinth," he said, "and if he wanted to destroy the
Game, then all Asterion would need to do is kill her. Swanne is the only woman
alive who can command the powers of the Mistress. If Asterion has her alive,
then there is a reason for that, surely."
There was a silence,
disturbed only by Caela's deep, tremulous breathing as she brought her emotions
under control.
"What do you
mean?" Silvius said eventually.
Saeweald shrugged.
"For the gods' sakes, Silvius, do you not sit in the heart of the Game?
Were you not once a Kingman? What I am saying is that if Asterion wanted to destroy the Game, and
if he controls Swanne, then all he needs to do is to kill her." He paused.
"And if he hasn't, then there is a reason for that, and we should
determine what that might be."
"What does
Asterion need in order to destroy the Game?" Caela said to Silvius.
"Could he accomplish it by Swanne's murder?"
"No,"
Silvius said. "He would need both Swanne and control over the kingship
bands. That means he needs control over both Swanne and William."
"Then that is
why he hasn't killed Swanne!" Caela said. "He needs to take William
as well; whatever else, Asterion can't leave William free." She looked at
Silvius, then as quickly looked away again.
"But you are
moving the bands," Saeweald said.
"William can
still find them easily enough," Caela said. "He is their Kingman.
They call to him constantly."
"So Asterion
needs William to find the bands," Saeweald said. "And for this he
has—somehow—taken Swanne. She is both bait and trap. Ah! We may as well assume
William's loss now, for he will fall into Swanne's arms as easily as if he were
a babe seeking his mother's milk!" He looked at Caela. "And what do we need to control the Game, to wed it to this land
forever and trap Asterion in his turn?"
"We need Swanne
to pass on her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth to me, and we need—"
"William to pass
over his powers as Kingman to… to whoever shall rise
as Og," said
Saeweald. One of his hands raised momentarily to his chest, as if to touch the
tattoo beneath, then dropped back to his lap.
"Yes," said
Caela, her voice flat.
"Let us
concentrate on Swanne for the moment," said Ecub. "We cannot let her
remain within Asterion's grasp."
"Do you suggest
we somehow rescue her?" said Saeweald.
"A rescued
Swanne would undoubtedly be a very grateful Swanne," Judith said.
"Prepared, perhaps, to hand over her powers as Mistress of the
Labyrinth?"
Silvius nodded.
"My thoughts exactly." He turned to Caela. "Saeweald and Judith
are right, Caela. You told us earlier that you should have recognized Swanne's
scream for help when you heard it. Well, now you have heard it. We know that Swanne wants to be rescued from
Aldred-Asterion's grasp. One of your's, and this land's, greatest problems has
always been in the persuasion of Swanne to hand over to you her powers as
Mistress of the Labyrinth. Now, perhaps, Asterion has handed us our bargaining
power. If Swanne has the choice of handing the power to Asterion, or handing it
to you…"
"I don't
know," said Caela. "For many months I have sought out the means by
which Swanne might be persuaded to hand me her powers as Mistress of the
Labyrinth. I was—am—sure that when I saw or heard of
this means, I would recognize it. This does not feel right."
"Why?" said
Saeweald.
Caela made a helpless
gesture.
"You can't
ignore it," said Silvius. "Swanne must be desperate for release from
Asterion. This very well could be the chance you've been waiting for, Caela.
"Silvius is
right," said Saeweald. "We offer Swanne freedom in exchange for her
freely handing to Caela the powers of Mistress of the Labyrinth. Then, once
William realizes Swanne has handed on her powers, he will do so as well."
Ecub's mouth twisted.
This all sounded very naive to her. "I'm sorry to disagree," she said.
"But surely Swanne would prefer to see the world destroyed before she
'handed over' any of her powers? And why do you assume that she wants to escape
Asterion? Did she not boast to Saeweald of her new lover? Of how she apparently
preferred him to William? Does none of this sound a note of danger to any of
you?"
"There is no way that Swanne could ever want to ally herself with
Asterion," Silvius said forcefully. "None whatsoever. Why? He wants to destroy the Game, Swanne wants to use it
to achieve immortal power. She wants Asterion destroyed. She cannot possibly
want to ally with him."
J
There was a silence,
finally broken by Caela. "Yes," she said. "I agree with Silvius.
Swanne cannot be allied with him. If she has boasted of her new lover, then
they were words Asterion forced her to speak. What I saw in that chamber was
not an act of love and consent, but of violence and domination. Asterion is
murdering Swanne by slow degrees."
"Aye," said
Saeweald. "She is ill. This cannot be 'want' on her
part."
Ecub sighed and
nodded. "Very well."
Caela gave her a
smile, then addressed the group. "If we manage to free Swanne, can we hide
her from Asterion?"
"Yes," said
Silvius. "I think so. We can secret her within the Game itself. There she
can teach Caela."
"Possibly,"
said Caela. "I, for one, still doubt that any rescue, even one of this
magnitude, will make Swanne so pathetically grateful she'll just pass over her
powers. Ah, no need to look so concerned, Silvius. I agree we should at least
try. Who knows? Miracles can happen."
There were nods from
Silvius, Judith, and Saeweald, and a mild shrug of agreement from Ecub.
"How do we free
her from Asterion?" Caela asked. "Surely, if it was a simple matter
of just walking away…"
"We need to know just what power he holds over
her," said Silvius. "Caela, you will need to speak to her. Let her
know that she is not alone. That she will be
rescued."
Caela nodded.
"As
Damson."
"Oh, no!
Silvius… I do not want to do that! It was enough that I risked her as much as I
did when—"
"You cannot go as yourself!" Saeweald said. "It is too
dangerous—especially since Swanne now knows Mag is not dead. What if she has
told Asterion? Caela, if you use Damson, then you will have the chance of
escape should…"
"Should Asterion
discover what I do," said Caela, her tone bitter. "In which case
Damson will be killed."
"Better her than
you," Silvius said. "You know that."
"I owe Damson
more than this!"
"You owe this land more than Damson," Silvius retorted. "Never
lose sight of that."
There was a long
silence, then Caela gave one single, reluctant nod.
IN ANY EVENT, IT WAS
ALMOST SEVEN WEEKS BEFORE Caela could do anything about approaching Swanne. On
the morning that she told Silvius, Saeweald, and Judith of what she'd
discovered in Swanne's
bedchamber, Harold
ordered Aldred north to his see of York. Rebel sentiments were stirring, and
Harold needed Aldred to return to York to work on Harold's behalf.
Swanne went with him.
A few days after Swanne and Aldred had left, the great fire in the sky faded
and then vanished, and everyone breathed a little easier.
Doom had been
averted, it appeared.
In itself, Swanne's
journey north need not have delayed Silvius' plan to use Damson to approach
Swanne, but Damson herself had unexpectedly traveled to her home village in
Cornwall where her mother lay dying. Until Damson and Swanne were within the
same town, it would be impossible for Caela to use Damson to approach Swanne.
Meanwhile, and now
knowing who Asterion was, and, most important, where he was, the Sidlesaghes and Caela moved a fourth
band. This time Caela took a band from its hiding place close to the London
Bridge and shifted it five miles to the southwest of London to a small village
called Clope-ham where Caela handed the band to a Sidlesaghe sitting mournfully
on a stool at the junction of two roads.
There was no
interference, no trouble, no disturbance. The move was effected quickly and
smoothly.
Asterion made no
attempt to halt them, and Caela supposed that this time it was because he was
so far distant.
sixceejsi
WANNE ARCHED HER
BACK, STRETCHING OUT
her stiff muscles,
then bent her elegant neck slowly from side to X*__-> side. The journey back
from York had taken three days of hard riding, and three nights of…
Swanne forced her
mind away from Aldred. She would not think about those nights.
She wouldn't.
Swanne sat down in a
chair, as close to the fire as she could manage without setting her
rose-colored gown ablaze, thinking on Asterion. She hadn't seen him for over a
week. He'd appeared now and again while she and Aldred had been in the north,
but far more infrequently than he'd come to her here in London. Swanne missed him—and
resented his absences—horribly.
It was not only that
Asterion's gentle touch soothed Aldred's agonies, nor even that when he lay
with her he increased her darkcraft a fraction more. It was that Swanne simply
missed him.
How could she ever
have lain with Harold… and borne him six children?
How could she have
ever thought she loved William, and believed him her true mate in power?
How could she have
ignored Asterion for all these years? How could she never have realized?
Swanne's mind was now
so consumed with Asterion, with the need for his presence and touch, that her
conscious mind was no longer aware that Aldred and Asterion were one and the
same. That Aldred tormented her merely so that Asterion could soothe her.
Aldred she feared and
loathed beyond measure. Asterion she craved as much as life and power itself.
Another band had
moved during her absence from London (by Silvius, Swanne supposed). The night
it had moved, Asterion made one of his rare visits to Swanne while she was in
York. Aldred for once had left her alone—he'd gone to spend a day or so at a
monastery just to the west of York where he suspected the abbot was falsifying
his estate accounts.
Asterion had come to
Swanne, and soothed her and held her and loved her and said that the band's
movement did not matter.
"William will be
able to find it soon enough," he'd said. "As he will all of them. And
when William has the bands…"
"We
pounce," Swanne had whispered into the beast's mouth as he bent to kiss her.
"William will do
anything for you," Asterion said.
"Anything,"
Swanne murmured.
"And when we
have him… then he will do everything for us. Tell me, my love, do you think the bands will look
elegant encircling my limbs?"
Swanne had run her
hands over the creature's thickly muscled biceps. "They were meant for
you," she'd said, and Asterion had smiled, and had given her more of the
darkcraft that night than he had hitherto.
Now, Swanne sat by
the fire, shivering despite its heat, and waited.
Mag would come to her
today. She could feel it—not merely that Mag would
come, but that the trap she and Asterion had set was about to spring.
Swanne closed her
eyes, blessing Asterion for the renewed sense of dark-craft within her, then
composed her face and put upon it the expression of the battered victim—that of
equal parts; fear, hope, and submission.
The door opened.
Swanne took a deep
breath and opened her eyes… then could not help widening them as she saw who it
was.
Damson?
Ah! Mag had ever had
a penchant for obscure, worthless fools.
"Damson?"
Swanne said in her most chilling voice—she could not let the tiresome witch
know she'd been expected. "What do you here? The linens have already been
changed and I have no further use for you. You may leave."
But Damson did not
leave, as Swanne knew she would not.
"Madam,"
Damson said, carefully closing the door behind her and looking about the
chamber to ensure they were alone.
"Damson,"
Swanne said again, stiffening in her chair as if deeply affronted. 'You may leave!"
"I cannot,
Swanne," the Damson-who-was-not-quite-Damson said, and she came directly
to Swanne, hesitated, then pulled up a stool close to Swanne's chair and sat
herself down.
"How dare you sit
in my presence!" Swanne said, allowing a note of anger to creep into her
voice.
"I am not
Damson," said the woman. "Not entirely."
And she looked
directly into Swanne's eyes.
Swanne did not have
to fake the surprise that flared across her face.
"Gods!" she
whispered. "Mag?" This was not the Mag that
Swanne had
known in her earlier
life, but one infinitely more dangerous, far more powerful. This was, somehow,
a youthful Mag, a Mag at the beginning of
her promise, a Mag who could grow into a true threat.
How had she managed this? Swanne barely managed to keep
herself still in her chair. She had a wild urge to dash to the window and fling
aside the shutters, and scream for Asterion.
No, no. She must be
calm. He would be here soon enough.
And yet it wouldn't
be soon enough, would it? No time would be soon enough to rid themselves of
this unexpectedly powerful enemy.
"Mag,"
Swanne said again, her voice more controlled now.
Damson-Mag gave a
slight nod. "I am she who walks as the mother goddess of this land,"
she said. "Not dead, after all, Swanne."
"You always did
know how to slip away from danger, didn't you?"
"I draw on a
long association with the Darkwitches, Swanne. I have learned well."
Swanne bared her teeth
in equal amounts smile and snarl.
"And now you
have come to gloat?" she said.
Damson shook her
head. "Swanne, I have come to make you an offer."
Oh! The smugness of
it! "An offerl And what might that be?"
Damson took a deep
breath. "In return for your freedom from Asterion's malicious grip, in
return for your life, because Asterion is surely
murdering you by degrees, I need you to teach me the ways and powers of the
Mistress of the Labyrinth."
Swanne stared
unblinking at Damson, her lips slightly parted, shocked into total silence.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Damson could have said to
stun her more. "You… what?" she finally managed.
"The Game has
changed," Damson said. "Altered."
Swanne said nothing,
still staring at Damson as if she had turned into a frog before her eyes.
Damson took a deep
breath, as if coming to a decision within herself. "The Game has grown in
the two thousand years that Asterion kept everyone within death. It has merged
with the land itself, allied with it. Now the Game and the land have a single
purpose."
Swanne still said
nothing. Her mind was racing, trying to take in all Damson was saying, and what
this was leading to. Mag? Wanted to be the Mistress of the Labyrinth? Why?
In her lap, Swanne's
hands twisted over and over.
Again Damson took a
deep breath. "The Game wants myself and Og to complete it as the Mistress
and Kingman."
Swanne's mouth
dropped open even farther, and her eyes widened impossibly. It was not so much
that the Game and the land had apparently decided
between themselves
that Mag and Og should complete the Game as Mistress and Kingman, although that
was unbelievable enough, but that Og still lived! Og? Alive?
"Og…"
Swanne managed to get out, more a groan than a true word. "Og is… alive?"
Damson gave a single
nod.
Swanne slumped back
into her chair, unable for the moment to accept it. "But Loth slew him
when he slew his mother, Blangan."
"He almost did,
yes. But Mag was in that stone dance as well that night, secreted within
Cornelia's womb, and she cast an enchantment upon him that has kept him alive,
just, all these years. He rests, waiting."
Swanne noted that
Damson-Mag still did not say "I," but "Mag." Why that
distance? "Where?" she said.
Damson hesitated,
then apparently decided that truth would persuade Swanne more quickly than
falsehood. "In the heart of the Game."
"Gods,"
Swanne whispered. Her mind was still whirling. Asterion should know
this! Soon!
Damson mistook
Swanne's shock for indecision, and she leaned forward and took Swanne's hands
in her own.
Swanne did not
resist.
"Swanne, please,
let me help you. You and I share neither friendship, or even a semblance of
respect each for the other."
True enough, thought Swanne.
"But I can help
you. I can free you from Asterion. I know he masquerades as Aldred."
Swanne wanted to
scream at the stupid bitch that Asterion was not Aldred, but managed to hold
her tongue.
"If I aid you to
freedom, Swanne, I would that you teach me the ways of the Labyrinth in
return."
"Foolish" could not possibly encompass the inanity
of this suggestion,
Swanne
thought, allowing a frown of indecision to crease her forehead, as if she truly
considered what Damson offered. Hand
to her my powers as
Mistress of the Labyrinth? How
could she ever have thought that I would do such a thing?
"A deal,
Swanne," Damson said, now grasping Swanne's hands very tightly and leaning
in to her very close. "In return for your freedom from Asterion, you hand
to me your powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth."
"I…" Swanne
said, and then her eyes altered slightly, as if she saw something behind
Damson.
In an instant
Swanne's hands twisted in Damson's, grasping them in a cruel grip.
Damson pulled back,
but could not break free from Swanne's grasp, and in the next moment her own
face went as slack in shock as Swanne's had been for most of their
conversation.
Two heavy hands had
fallen on her shoulders, pinning her to the stool.
"Well, well,
Mag," said a chilling male voice. "What a posy of surprises you have turned out to be."
Damson struggled on
the stool, but she was caught in the twin grips of Swanne and Asterion.
Swanne looked to her
lover, an expression of unfeigned love and rapture on her face.
"Asterion," she breathed. "Oh, how I have missed you."
Both her expression
and words were enough for Damson to let out a shocked cry. "No! Swanne!
No! What are you doing?"
Swanne turned her
face back to Damson, her expression now twisted with hate and loathing.
"Think you that I would ever hand you my powers? Think you that I have any intention of
completing the Game with William? Nay, this is my lover, my partner, my mate, and this time, my dear darling Mag, you are to be given no
chance of flight at all."
She let go Damson's
hands and, although Caela-within-Damson tried to wrench herself tree of
Asterion's hands, and tried to use every piece of power she had against him, he
held both her form and her power in check with infinite ease.
Swanne rose and, with
deliberate slowness, reached with one hand into the pocket of her robe.
Very gradually, very
deliberately, keeping her own eyes steady on Damson's frantic face, she drew
her hand forth.
In it she clasped the
twisted horn-handled knife of Asterion.
"Do you
recognize it, you witless bitch?" Swanne whispered. "Do you remember
how you made Cornelia plunge this into me? Well, now you feel what it is like, Mag, to have
cold metal end your ambitions and hopes."
And with that she
hefted the knife, then plunged it into the soft, tender skin at the juncture of
Damson's neck and shoulder.
sevejMGeejsi
AEWEALD, ECUB, AND
JUDITH WERE SITTING
company with Caela's
body as it lay still on the bed. V*__-^-'' Within, Damson's soul slept
unknowing.
Then, suddenly, all
three gasped as a bright red spot appeared at the base of Caela's neck, and
then flowered into a crimson pool of blood. "No!" cried Saeweald, and
lunged forward.
"OH GODS,"
SWANNE MOANED, AS IF IN THE ECSTASY of love-making, "how I have longed to sink this knife into Mag! At last! At last!"
Behind Damson,
Asterion was almost doubled over with laughter, although he kept his hands
firmly on Damson's shoulders.
Swanne viciously
twisted the knife until the blade sank completely into Damson's body. "I
only wish you were Caela, bitch, then my happiness would be complete."
Damson's hands were
grasping at Swanne's, but they were slippery with the blood that now pumped out
of her neck, and she could not dislodge Swanne's grip on the knife.
"No," she
said in a horrible bubbling whisper. "No, Swanne, please…"
But Swanne was not
listening. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her mouth open, and her hands twisted
again and again as she leaned so hard on the knife that she forced even the
twisted-horn handle into Damson's body.
SAEWEALD GRABBED AT
CAELA'S SHOULDERS, SHAKING her as violently as he could. "Come back
now!" he shouted. "Now! For Og's sake, Caela! Now't"
Behind him Judith was
screaming something, and Ecub was shouting, but Saeweald took no notice of
them. "Return home now!" he shouted. "Now! Now!"
Caela's soul obeyed, even though it
did not want to, even though it was almost fatally mated with that twisting,
murderous knife in Damson's body.
It left Damson, and fled shrieking
back to its own body, passing Damson's soul halfway.
That soul seemed curiously resigned,
even peaceful, even though, as it neared its own body, it knew what awaited it.
Death.
CAELA'S BODY CAME TO
LIFE UNDER SAEWEALD'S
hands, and she
grasped instinctively at her neck where blood was pumping forth, even though,
strangely, her skin was apparently unbroken.
"No!" she
cried out, then fell insensible as the blood flowed from her.
"Stop the
bleeding!" Ecub said, rushing to Caela's side as Saeweald tried to staunch
the flow of blood.
"It won't stop
until Damson's heart stops beating," Saeweald said in a curiously flat
tone. "Pray that happens soon."
There was a single,
appalling silence.
"Or Caela will
die with her."
SWANNE WAS PANTING AS
SHE LEANED WITH ALL HER
strength into the
knife.
Damson had stopped
struggling, and was regarding Swanne with flat, hopeless eyes; beyond her
Asterion was hopping from foot to foot, his eyes almost popping out of his head
as he watched Swanne. This was
so much better than he'd planned!
Damson's hands were
fluttering at her sides, scattering bright drops of blood over both Swanne and
Asterion. Her mouth had fallen silent, even though it still moved.
The blood continued
to pump from her neck.
"CURSE HER
STURDY HEART!" CRIED SAEWEALD, AS HE
tried uselessly to
stem the flow of blood from Caela's neck. "Why can't the damned peasant
woman dieV
Judith took one
futile step toward the door, as if she meant to run to Aldred's palace and
wrench Damson's head from her body.
If Caela died now then all was lost,
for the Mag force within her would finally vanish.
DAMSON GAVE ONE GREAT
SHUDDER, AND SWANNE
let go the knife and
took a step back, staring wide-eyed at Damson.
Damson gave a soft
moan, shuddered again, then fell forward, snapping her head back as her chin
caught the edge of the stool, which she'd pushed before her during her
struggles.
Her neck snapped, and
with it snapped Damson's life, and the connection that bound her to Caela.
"IT HAS
STOPPED!" SAEWEALD SAID. "SHE HAS DIED AT
last. Thank all gods
in existence!"
Judith came back to
the bed. "Is she still alive?"
There was a long,
terrible pause.
"Just,"
Saeweald eventually said. "And only
just."
SWANNE LOOKED OVER DAMSON'S BODY TO
ASTERION.
Both of them were
covered in blood.
"My lover,"
she breathed, and he stepped forward over the corpse and took her in his arms.
LATER, WHILE
SAEWEALD, JUDITH, AND ECUB WERE
still grouped about
Caela, willing her every breath, Silvius rushed through the door, not even
bothering to knock.
"Gods!" he
cried. "What has happened?"
THE NEXT MORNING, AS
THE WATERMAN WAS POLING his craft from the fish wharves just below the bridge
toward Lambeth on the southern bank of the river, he saw a bloated white body
half submerged in the water.
It did not
immediately perturb him—the Thames was the final resting place for hundreds of
unfortunates every year—but as he passed it, the current surged, turning the
corpse over.
It was Damson, her
head almost severed from her body.
eigbceejsi
T TOOK SAEWEALD FIVE
DAYS AND NIGHTS—DAYS
and nights when he
hardly slept—before he could be sure that Caela would live. He dribbled broths
down her throat, he placed medicated lozenges in her mouth to slowly dissolve,
he coated her tongue with honey.
And finally, finally,
she began to respond to his treatment.
Ecub and Judith also kept vigil within Caela's
chamber, as did Silvius. More than anything else, all four wanted to move Caela
back to the relative safety of St. Margaret's. This small religious house
within London's walls was too close to Swanne and whatever had happened in that
chamber (and how they wanted Caela to wake, and to talk, so that they
would know what had happened!), but Caela lay so close to death
that there could be no thought of moving her.
Not yet.
On the sixth day, so
wan, she looked like a three-day dead corpse, Caela opened her eyes.
Saeweald, waving
Silvius, Judith, and Ecub back, gently fed her some broth with a spoon, then
wiped her face with a clean towel.
"Caela," he
said, gently. "You're back with us."
She started to weep.
"Damson is dead."
"We know,"
Saeweald said. "But—"
"I killed her. I
killed Damson."
"Enough,"
said Silvius, who had finally managed to find a place beside Saeweald. "It
was not you who killed—"
"I put her in
harm's way," said Caela, and then wept so violently that Saeweald again
motioned Silvius back with a frown, then held Caela's hand while she cried away
her grief and guilt.
When, eventually, her
tears had abated somewhat, Silvius said, "What happened?"
"Swanne…"
Caela said, her voice hoarse. Saeweald fed her some more spoonfuls of broth,
and she smiled at him gratefully.
The smile died almost
the instant it had appeared.
"Swanne had
Asterion's black knife," she said, "and with it she murdered Damson.
Swanne has allied with Asterion. He is her new lover."
There was a chorus of
voices, shocked, stunned, angry, disbelieving.
"Wait,"
Caela whispered. "There is worse. Swanne and Asterion mean to control the
Game between them."
"Asterion does
not want to destroy it?" Silvius said.
Caela gave a weak
shake of her head, prompting Saeweald to murmur in concern and to glare at
Silvius, as if his question had seriously weakened Caela.
"He means to
control it," Caela said. She began to cry again. "Become its Kingman
in place of William. Silvius… I am sorry… Silvius… I told Swanne—before I knew
of her bond with Asterion—what the Game has planned. Oh, Silvius, I am so
sorry. I should have—"
"Be still,"
Silvius said gently. "It could not be helped. They trapped you." He
took Caela's hand in his, stroking it gently.
Then, suddenly he
stilled, and his face went pale.
"What?"
said Saeweald, staring at Silvius.
"The Mag force
within Caela has gone," he said, his voice hoarse with disbelief and horror.
"The Mag within her has gone!"
A terrible,
bewildered silence.
"Swanne has
succeeded," Silvius went on, his voice now barely audible. "She has
killed Mag. She has finally killed Mag."
Part Seven
Among the school-boys in my memory
there was a pastime called Hop-Scotch, which was played in this manner; a
parallelogram about 4 or 5 feet wide, and 10 or 12 feet in length, was made
upon the ground and divided laterally into 18 or 20 different compartments
called beds… the players were each provided with a piece of tile… which they
cast by hand into the different beds in regular succession, and every time the
tile was cast, the player's business was to hop on one leg after it, and drive
it out of the boundaries at the end… if it passed out at the sides, or rested
upon any of the marks, it was necessary to repeat the whole of this operation. The boy who performed the whole of this operation by
the fewest casts was known as The Conqueror. Joseph Strutt, Sports & Pastimes of the People of England, Late 18th century
London, March
ORNELIA IS MINE, YOU KNOW,"
SAID ASTERION,
lounging against the closed door to
Skelton's bedroom as the Major slid home the knot on his tie.
Jack Skelton ignored the Minotaur as
he turned slightly, checking his reflection in the wardrobe mirror to make sure
his uniform sat straight.
"I've had her ever since that
moment she begged me to sleep with her," Asterion continued.
"Genvissa was right. Cornelia was always a tramp."
Skelton turned about so he could look
the Minotaur in the face. His eyes were weary, ringed with dark circles, the
expression in them resigned, almost hopeless.
"Then why hasn't she given you
the final two bands?" Skelton said.
The Minotaur laughed. "Oh, she
will, soon enough."
Skelton smiled. "Yes? Then why
traipse about over London after me? Why torment me, if there is no need?"
Asterion straightened, snarling.
"Because I enjoy it!"
Then he was gone, and Skelton was
left staring at the back of the bedroom door.
"Major?" Violet called from
the other side. "Frank's waiting for you. He has the motor outside."
She paused. "Waiting."
"Aye," whispered Skelton.
"Waiting, as are we all." He raised his voice. "I'll be but a
moment, Mrs Bentley!"
But Skelton did not immediately move.
Instead he continued to stand, staring at the closed door, one hand raised to
his shirt where he scratched softly at that spot where Matilda had touched him
earlier.
He could hear a rumble outside, and
Skelton knew that it was not, as might be expected, the sound of Bentley
starting up his motor.
Instead he recognized it for what it
was: the sound of the white stag with the blood-red antlers running wild
through the forest.
"I'm ready," he said, and
the only one who heard was the running stag.
JM6 Mid-September
HE NORTHERLY WIND
BLEW STRONG, WHIPPING
the waves in Somme
Estuary into man-high, cream-foamed crests that slapped against the hulls of
the scores of galleys at anchor.
On shore, standing
atop a tower, which overlooked the harbor and the small town of Saint-Valery,
William glanced yet once more at the weather vane on top of the church spire.
The northerly wind
showed no sign of abating.
Matilda, standing
with her husband, saw the direction of his glance. "Hardrada is
moving."
"With this wind?
Aye. His ships will be close to northern England by now."
The spring and summer
had been a curious mix of frantic activity and a soul-deadening wait for
intelligence. As William had built his military expedition and garnered support
from the European heads-of-state and Church (all of which had, thank Christ,
been forthcoming), so Harold had consolidated his hold on England, and built
his own forces up to meet the expected challenge from Normandy.
But Harold Hardrada of Norway was also moving. He'd
built up a huge flotilla of three hundred ships with which to invade the north
of England and, like William, now awaited propitious weather conditions in
which to launch his ambition.
This northerly wind
provided Hardrada his chance. William had received intelligence a week ago that
Hardrada had embarked. If he wasn't within sight of England now, then he would
be within the day. And while the norther-lies sped Hardrada toward England it
kept William pent up in the mouth of the Somme… waiting.
"And
Harold?" Matilda asked softly.
O
"Preparing to
meet him." William let out a pent-up breath. "At last. At last we are moving."
"But we are not moving," Matilda observed, and William turned to
her and grinned.
He leaned down and
planted a kiss on her forehead, and rested a hand briefly on her belly. Matilda
was five months gone with child, and William was grateful for no other reason
than the child would keep Matilda at home when otherwise she might have
insisted on embarking with him.
"We shall be
soon," he said. "This northerly will not last a lifetime, and the
instant it changes, we sail."
"Yet in the
meantime Hardrada threatens to seize England from us."
William shook his
head, his eyes now scanning the fleet as it bobbed at anchor. "Harold is
good. Very good. Hardrada may test him, but I doubt very much that he will best
him. He will tire him. With luck, my love,
Harold's force will be exhausted by the time it meets mine."
"I wish my agent was still in place,"
Matilda said, her voice sad. She'd heard some time ago of her agent's death,
and Matilda worried that it was her orders that had placed Damson in danger.
"We will manage
without her," William said, kissing the top of Matilda's head.
"I wish I knew
who killed her," she said.
"When I have
England, then we shall hunt down her murderer. I promise you that."
Matilda relaxed,
trusting in her husband. She, too, looked over the fleet, reviewing in her mind
all that had happened in the past months. The Norman magnates' enthusiastic
acceptance of William's plan; the pope's blessing; the aid—both monetary and in
the form of troops—sent by the nobles of Flanders, Maine, Brittany, Poitou,
Burgundy, five of the Italian states, and a score of others.
All lusting for the
spoils William promised would be theirs at his victory.
"I will keep
Normandy safe for you," she said, and William again smiled and kissed her.
He was leaving Matilda as coregent of Normandy with their eldest son, Robert.
At fourteen, Robert was coming into the age where he needed to shoulder the
responsibilities of the duchy, which would eventually be his. William had
needed to fight for decades to establish his right to rule Normandy; he intended
to make the process of succession much easier for his son. He loved his son, as
he loved Matilda, but not with the deep-hearted passion he was capable of. That he reserved for…
His eyes slipped over
the estuary and out to sea. Wondering what was really happening in England… in
London.
Swanne had been
quiet. Too quiet for his liking, and for the events that
were gathering. He'd
heard that she'd kept her place in Aldred's bed, and he found that increasingly
disturbing.
Why?
Harold, he had
understood (if not yet Swanne's neglect in telling him that Harold was
Coel-reborn). William's chance to take his rightful place on England's throne
(as England's Kingman) had been delayed by so many years because of the
(Asterion-driven) revolts within Normandy itself. In the meantime, Swanne had
needed to establish a place within the English court, and Harold had been the
perfect vehicle with which to do that.
William could forgive
her Harold. Could understand Harold.
But not Aldred. The
man was not unknown to William, for the corpulent archbishop of York had acted
as one of Edward's emissaries to Rome on numerous occasions, and when traveling
through Europe, Aldred had often stayed with William. Aldred's sympathies were
clearly with William—he'd acted as the go-between for the letters between
Swanne and William for years.
William repressed a
sigh. Perhaps that's why Swanne was with him. Payment owed?
No, that wasn't
Swanne at all.
"Your
thoughts?" Matilda said beside him, and William jumped a little guiltily.
"I was thinking
of Swanne," he said. "I was wondering why, out of all the
intelligence I've received from England, so little of it has been from her. I
had expected more."
Far more, dammit. There is not just a
throne riding on this!
"You're
worried," Matilda said.
"Yes." What was Asterion doing? Where was his hand in all of
this?
"You can do
nothing save what you have already done," Matilda said, leaning in against
him and placing her arm about his waist.
"Aye. You are
right. As usual." William lightened his face and tone. "Tell me, how
do you think I can possibly crown you queen of England when in all probability
you shall be too round and cumbersome to fit onto the throne?"
She laughed.
"You shall be a great king."
William's face
sobered. "I hope so."
GIDO
T WAS ALL FALLING
APART—HAD BEEN FOR
months—and Saeweald
had no idea how to stop it.
It had all seemed so
simple: pass control of the Game into the hands of Mag and a resurrected Og and
all would be well, for ever and aye.
The land would
flourish, and no one and nothing, ever, would be able to stain its brightness
again. Asterion and all malevolence would be contained, Swanne and William and
all their ambitions would be broken, Mag and Og would again reign supreme, and
the waters and the forests would rejoice.
Yet nothing had quite
happened that way, had it?
Saeweald had known
that Caela had always felt that she lacked something, an emptiness within her
where there should have been fullness, and that she somehow had failed to truly
connect to the land. Since the failure of her "marriage" to the land,
that night she'd lain with Silvius, that sense had become even greater,
undermining Caela's confidence within herself. Now, since that terrible day
when Swanne and Asterion had slaughtered Damson, Caela had rejected the Mag
within her completely.
It wasn't so much
that Mag, or her potential, was dead (as Silvius had so melodramatically
cried), it was that Caela had been so ill—physically and emotionally—for so
many months after Damson's death that she had completely suppressed the Mag
within her. She refused to acknowledge its existence, she would hear nothing of
the Game, would not speak to Silvius and barely to Saeweald and Judith… she wallowed in her guilt at Damson's death.
Even the Sidlesaghes,
undoubtedly knowing she would not want to see them, had stayed away.
Ah, Caela had allowed
her guilt to overwhelm her. In the months since Swanne and Asterion had killed
Damson, Caela had seemed to go into a fugue. She didn't know what to do, or
where to go, and to all suggestions that there must be some means of redressing
the emptiness within her, or fulfilling her potential as Mag, she had refused
to act. She had merely smiled sadly, and shaken her head, and then turned
aside. Caela continued to live quietly
within St. Margaret
the Martyr's, and Ecub and Judith stayed close. Silvius came occasionally, but
Caela did not respond to him any better than she did others, and so his visits
became less frequent. Caela spent her days sewing, talking quietly with one or
the other of the sisters of St. Margaret's, or, more and more, she took solace
in wandering the hills and meadows beyond the priory's walls.
She did not enter
London.
So far as Saeweald
was concerned, the Mag within Caela might not be dead, but it might as well be,
for Caela refused to acknowledge it.
And without Caela,
without the Mag within her, everything was
doomed.
Saeweald tried to
talk with Caela, tried to reason with her, tried, on one disastrous day, to
seduce her (if Silvius had not aided her, then Saeweald could have, surely!).
But to all efforts, words, hands or mouth, she had only smiled, shaken her
head, and laid a gentle hand to his cheek. For months, Saeweald had felt sure
that he was to be Og-reborn, but in his failure to touch Caela, to be able to
communicate with her, he now began to doubt even that. He wasn't strong enough.
And Caela wasn't
strong enough.
Meantime, Swanne and
Asterion went from strength to strength.
Or so Saeweald
supposed. He'd had very little to do with Swanne in recent months—he had no
reason to see her and would only arouse her suspicions if he insisted. Besides,
knowing of her alliance with Asterion, Saeweald frankly didn't feel like going
within a hundred paces of the woman. Instead, Saeweald heard of Swanne only
through gossip and the occasional glimpse of her moving through the streets of
London. He assumed that she and Asterion were biding their time, waiting for
William to arrive so they could…
Saeweald shuddered.
So they could seize him. William would arrive, fall straight into Swanne's
arms… and find himself trapped by Asterion.
Saeweald didn't know
what to do. These months of inactivity, of nothingness, had drained him. Caela turned aside her head,
Silvius had slunk off somewhere unknowable, Swanne and Asterion planned and
shared nights of passion, and Saeweald paced and fretted and wondered what in
creation's name he could do!
Warn William?
That would be the
sensible course of action, but how? Saeweald had no avenues of
communication open to him by which he could reliably reach William. Anything he
sent, whether spoken word or written, might well be intercepted by one of
Asterion's minions—and thus expose both Saeweald and, through him, Caela. If by
chance a communication did reach William, then Saeweald doubted seriously that
William would believe it. If he understood that it came from Loth-reborn then
he most certainly would not believe it.
Frankly, Saeweald
wasn't sure if anyone could convince William that Swanne had allied with
Asterion. He'd never believe it. Never.
Just as Saeweald and
Silvius and Caela had not thought it possible… had never considered it a
possibility.
Meanwhile the land
slid toward chaos and despair.
Almost two weeks ago,
Hardrada and Tostig had invaded the north, sailing up the Humber and defeating
the earls Edwin and Morcar in a desperate battle before seizing the northern
city of York. Harold had been caught surprised, even though he'd known of
Hardrada's intentions, and had marched north to meet the Norwegian king and his
own brother.
That had been ten
days ago. The only word that had reached the south was that a great battle had
been fought, but as yet no word of the victors and of the defeated.
In one hateful part
of his being, Saeweald almost hoped that Hardrada had been successful, that
Harold had been killed, and that England would suffer under a Norwegian king
rather than, briefly, a Norman one, before that king succumbed to a great
darkness.
But why pretend that
darkness belonged to the future? Wasn't it here already?
CbR
Caela Speaks
KNOW THAT THOSE
ABOUT ME REGARDED ME WITH
disappointment,
perhaps even with shame. I know they wanted me to rage, and do, and act.
But I could do none
of these things.
They thought I had
suppressed the Mag within me, had suppressed all that Mag had given me.
But I had not. Not
truly.
I was simply waiting.
Damson's death
shocked and appalled me. I had been responsible for it, not so much for
deciding to approach Swanne, for I truly believe I had little other choice, but
because I had not been able to protect Damson. If I'd been at full power, at
full strength, in command of all of me and without that damned lack within that
tormented me, I should have been able to protect her.
That I was not in
full command of my potential, that I had not reached the full height of that
potential, was my responsibility. Not fault so much, I did not think of it in
terms of fault (although I know Saeweald thought I spent much of my time
wallowing in guilt), but in terms of responsibility.
It was my
responsibility to reach that potential, to protect others, where before I could
not protect Damson.
I knew how to do it—I
needed to mate with the land, marry the land, meld with it
completely. Silvius had told me that. The Sidlesaghes had told me that.
But how? I had
thought that laying with Silvius would have accomplished it perfectly. After
all, he was the warm, breathing representative of the Game, and as the Game and
the land had merged…
Yet that had been a
failure, even if a reasonably enjoyable one.
The consequence of
that failure had been Damson's death, and I could not afford to fail again. The
next time, far more people would die.
I did not wallow in
guilt or grief, although I had to deal with both of those damaging emotions.
Instead, I waited.
I waited, and I
approached the problem from a different direction. In order to aid the land, I
needed to ritually mate with it, to meld completely with it. That was not only
my problem and responsibility, but that of the land as well.
It had to act. It had to do, as much as me.
I waited, and what I
waited for was the land to show me what to do and where to go.
CbAPGGR FOUR
AROLD HUNCHED ATOP
HIS WEARY, PLODDING
horse; he was
exhausted, bruised, despondent. His cloak clung to him in great sodden patches,
his hands—his gloves lost days ago— were gripped cold and tense about the
horse's reins as if they would never let go. About him rode the men of his
immediate command: the rest of the army was following as and when it could.
Harold's command sat
as hunched and bruised over their reins as did their king, their eyes fixed on
some point between their horses' ears, unblinking, unseeing.
The horses, under
little instruction from their riders, simply moved forward in the direction
their riders had set when they'd still retained some purpose. South, south,
ever south away from the battle that had been fought and toward the one that
still needed to be fought.
Stamford Bridge had
been a nightmare of rain and mud and blood. Harold had arrived in the north the
day after Alditha's brothers, the earls Edwin and Morcar, had met Hardrada and
Tostig in battle at Gate Fulford, two miles north of York.
The earls had been
routed. Indeed, so many Englishmen had died that it was rumored that Hardrada
reached the earls to take their surrender by walking across a fen of dead
bodies.
Harold then did what
few men could have done: he turned a disaster into a means of eventual victory.
While Hardrada and Tostig were celebrating, and conducting lengthy negotiations
with Edwin and Morcar over the fate of hostages, Harold and his army had
arrived unannounced from the south and attacked without even halting for
sustenance to fuel their effort.
The battle at
Stamford Bridge was long and desperate, and, apart from the surprise of his
attack, the only thing that tipped the balance in Harold's favor was that
Hardrada's men were either bone-weary, or drunk with their previous victory, or
both.
Hardrada had died on
the field. So had Tostig. Harold had faced him, in the end, battling his way
through the fighting bodies of the living and the
slumped bodies of the
dead, and had taken the head from his brother's body with such an immense swing
of his great sword that Harold had all but stumbled to the ground with the
weight he'd put behind it.
He'd not needed his
balance, for by then the invaders were themselves routed, their leaders dead,
the greater of their numbers dead or crippled enough to wish they had been killed.
Olaf, Hardrada's son,
had survived the carnage. Morcar, who had acquitted himself better in this
battle than in the one of the previous day, brought the young man before
Harold.
England's king was
standing before a sputtering fire, still in his chain mail and stained tunic,
his bloodied sword hanging at his side.
Olaf stood before
him, his head high, his eyes glittering proudly, expecting nothing less than
death.
"Take what
remains to you," Harold said, his voice harsh and exhausted, "and
take whatever ships you need, and go back whence you have come. I want you no
more in my land."
Olaf had stared, then
nodded tersely, bowed his head, and turned on his heel and left. In the end,
he'd needed less than twenty ships of the original fleet of three hundred to
take what remained home. The rest of the ships remained at anchor in the Ouse
River where they'd arrived a week or so earlier: their timbers kept
Yorkshiremen warm through the five following winters.
When Olaf had gone,
his pitiful twenty ships vanishing into the northern sea mists, Harold had
sighed, cleaned his sword, and turned south once more.
He'd won against
Hardrada, but at a frightful cost. Edwin and Morcar's original defeat had cost
him almost half of the men he could have summoned to battle William. Moreover,
many of the elite among Harold's personal troops had been killed or wounded at
Stamford Bridge.
Fate—and Hardrada's
ambition—had dealt William a kind hand.
HAROLD HAD EXISTED IN
A STATE OF HALF-WAKING for hours. He'd been riding for days, barely taking the
time to stop and rest, or take sustenance, or allow his horse to do likewise.
Now, when he was, at last in conscious thought, and about a half day's ride
from London, Harold was so exhausted he could barely think, let alone take note
of what was taking place about him.
The weather had closed
in. Misty rain had surrounded the horses and riders for hours; now it had
thickened into a dense fog that obscured most of the surrounding countryside.
Harold occasionally blinked and wiped the fog from
his eyes; whenever he
did so, he saw that his companions drifted in and out of the mist, almost as if
they were ghosts. Even the hoof-falls of the horses were curiously muffled, and
the constant jingling of bit and spur and bridle faded until it was little more
than a distant memory.
Harold had ceased
even to think. He sat, huddled within his soaked cloak, swaying to and fro with
the motion of his horse, and descended into a trance that was not quite a
sleep.
Thus he was not truly
surprised when he finally blinked himself into a state of semi-awareness and
saw that one of his men had dismounted and was now walking at the head of his
horse, a hand to its bridle, ensuring that his king's mount did not stray off
the road.
And then he saw that
the figure walking by his horse's head was not one of his men at all, and that
it had led his horse so far off the road that now it plodded silently through
sodden meadowlands.
"Who are
you?" said Harold, shaking himself and sitting more upright. "What
is—"
He stopped, for the
figure had halted the horse and then turned about, and Harold saw that it was
not a man at all. Oh, it wore the shape of a man, but there was something in
its long, bleak face, and in the knowledge in its gray-flecked eyes that told
Harold this was a creature of great enchantment, and no man at all.
Strangely, Harold did
not feel the least sense of fear. "Who are you?" he said, leaning
forward a little in the saddle. "Where do you take me? Are we in the realm
of faeries?"
That would not have
surprised Harold in the least. His sense of unreality had been growing stronger
and stronger over the past few days. Now he wondered if that had been the
precursor for this other-worldly journey.
The creature smiled,
but sadly, and Harold saw that his teeth were rimmed with light.
"I am Long
Tom," he said, "and I am taking you to your bride."
"Alditha?"
"No," Long
Tom said, drawing the word out until it was almost a moan. "To the woman
you will never leave."
Harold frowned, but
then the creature gestured to him to dismount.
"We need to take
a journey, you and I," he said.
"Where?"
said Harold, swinging his right leg over his horse's back and jumping lightly
to the ground. His weariness was falling away from him as if it had never been;
even the horse snorted and pranced a little as it felt the weight of its rider
vanish.
"Do you
remember?" said Long Tom.
O
"Remember
what?" said Harold. He was standing directly in front of the creature,
and, for all his own height, he had to crick his neck slightly in order to look
the creature in the eye.
"This," the
Sidlesaghe said, and nodded to his right.
Harold looked, and
the mist parted.
HE SAT NAKED IN A STEAMING ROCK POOL,
AND IN HIS
arms, very close, he held a young
woman, as naked as he. He was kissing her deeply, his hands tight against her
back so that he pushed her breasts against his chest.
"Coel," she said, pulling
her face away. "No."
"You want to," he said.
"I…" she said.
'Your mind has barely strayed from
the pleasures of the bed since we set out," he said.
"I was thinking of Brutus."
she said.
"Really? And now?"
HAROLD GROANED, AND
THE SIDLESAGHE RESTED A
hand on his forearm,
as if in support.
"Who was
she?" Long Tom asked.
"A woman I
loved," said Harold. His eyes brimmed with tears, and he held forth his
hand and cried out incoherently as the vision faded.
"What was her
name?" Long Tom said.
"I don't… I
don't know… how could I have
forgotten her?"
"Watch,"
said Long Tom.
HE BURST IN THROUGH THE DOOR, AND SAW
HER
kneeling, keening, in the center of
the house.
"Cornelia?" he cried, and
he could feel his heart breaking. "Ah, Cornelia, I am sorry. I had thought
to be here before you."
The woman rose, but slipped over in the
doing, sprawling inelegantly on the floor. He ran to her, and wrapped her in
his arms, and whispered to her soothing words.
'You knew that Brutus had gone to
Genvissa, and taken Achates, and everything I hold dear?" she said.
"I saw Hicetaon come for
Aethylla and the babies," he said. "I knew then. I wanted to be here
for you when you returned. I am so sorry. I came as quickly as I could."
She clung to him, her weeping
increasing, and the man rocked her back and forth.
"Cornelia," he whispered,
"don't cry, please don't cry."
"ENOUGH,"
SAID THE SIDLESAGHE. "YOU NEED SEE NO
more."
"I
remember," Harold said, his voice thick with tears. "Oh gods, I remember!" "Good," said the Sidlesaghe,
"for there is much more I need to tell you." He leaned close to
Harold, and he began to whisper at the speed of wind
in Harold's ear.
Five
Caela Speaks
HAD TAKEN TO WALKING
THE HILLS NORTH AND
west of St. Margaret
the Martyr's during these late summer days. _/ Here I could escape the
bewilderment in Saeweald's eyes and the vain hope in Judith's. Here I could
wipe my mind free (or as free as possible) of my responsibilities.
Here I could just
walk, and here, if ever it was going to, the land could speak to me, and tell
me what it wanted.
On this day I had
walked until I had exhausted my barely recovered body, and had sat down in the
center of the weathered circle of stones atop Pen Hill.
The view from here
was beautiful. Before me spread fields and meadows that ran down to the
silvered banks of the Thames, their purity marred only by the huddle of
buildings and roadways that consisted of London.
I tried not to look
at the city. I tried not to think on what it contained: not only Swanne and
Asterion, somewhere within its huddled walls, but the Game… waiting, as I
waited.
Well, they could
wait.
I tried also not to
look too closely at the stones that encircled me atop Pen Hill. Today I did not
want to see the Sidlesaghes. I did not want to see their long, mournful faces.
So today they were just stones.
To my relief, after I
had been atop Pen Hill for an hour or more, a low-lying thick mist closed in,
shutting out the view, but leaving the summit of the hill and myself in
sunlight. I was happy, for this meant I might sit amid the waving grasses and
flowers of Pen Hill, my arms wrapped about my raised knees, in solitude, and
not have to fear any disturbance.
Thus it was some
shock, eventually, to hear the faint thud of footfalls approaching up the
mist-shrouded lower reaches of the hill.
I was irritated, more
than anything. It would be Saeweald, come to ask me questions. Or Ecub or
Judith, come to sit with me and think to offer me some comfort. Or it would be
some peasant woman who, finding the space atop Pen Hill occupied by a former
queen (and one with her hair all loose and blowing in the wind at that) would
blush and mutter in confusion, and depart, taking my peace with her.
So I turned my face
very slightly in the direction of the footfalls (thud, thud, thud up the hill; whoever this was, they sounded as if
they had the gods at their heels), my chin still on my arms folded across my
knees, and I arranged my features in a scowl.
Not very welcoming, I
know, but I truly did not want company. As if in response to my irritation,
even the sky had clouded over.
Then, in the space of
a breath, Harold appeared out of the mist as if he were a spirit, striding
resolutely up the final few yards of the grassed slope to reach the summit of
Pen Hill.
He walked forward,
pausing between two of the upright stones, a hand resting on one of them. He
was clad as if for war, a tunic of chain mail, a light linen tunic of
war-stained scarlet embroidered with the dragon over the mail, a sword at his
hip.
He looked terrible.
He'd lost much weight and, while he'd always seemed lean, now appeared gaunt
under his mail.
His chest was
heaving, as if he'd found the climb tiresome.
His face…
But I did not see his
face, not immediately, for as my eyes traveled up his body, a ray of sunlight
burst through the thin clouds that had formed across the sky and caught Harold
in its grip.
I cried out, falling
a little sideways in my surprise, for that shaft of sunlight had crowned Harold
in gold as surely as Aldred (Asterion!) had crowned him in Westminster
Abbey; only here he had been crowned, not by a monster in the guise of a man,
but by the sun itself.
By the land.
And I understood. Harold was the landl
I scrambled to my
feet, painfully aware that my robe was loose and grass-stained, and my hair
all-tumbled about my shoulders and blowing about my face.
He didn't say a word,
not at first. He stood, his hand still on the stone, staring at me.
Then he just walked
forward, strode forward, grabbed me to him, and
kissed me, deep and passionate.
"Harold," I
said finally, when I managed to snatch some breath.
"Don't," he
replied, his voice harsh with desire, and something else… I
am not sure what.
"Don't say anything to me. Not yet." He buried his hands in my hair,
and groaned, and I think I did, too, and we kissed again, our bodies almost
writhing, each against the other.
He had remembered.
Someone had told him, or he'd simply just remembered.
"I cannot!"
I cried, suddenly, frightfully fearful. "To lie with you will be to kill
you!"
"I am your
king," he said, his mouth trailing over my jaw, my neck. "Do as I
ask."
"Coel…"I
whispered.
He grabbed at my
shoulders, and shook me, only a little, just enough to tumble the hair over my
face.
"I am this land
incarnate," he said. "Are you really going to refuse me?"
I was crying, I
think. Gently, but crying with all the strength of the emotions that were
surging through me, and with relief and fear and desire all combined.
Then he gentled.
"We are safe here, in this circle." He smiled, and my heart could
have broken at that moment for love of him. "Will you accept me, my
lady?"
And it was not just
Harold asking, but Coel, and the land besides. Harold would die, and he would
die through William's actions, as Coel had died, but this time, in this place,
we could bless each other… and the land.
Give me yourself, Caela, and you
grant me joy and life.
I do not know if he
spoke those words verbally, or in my mind, but I did not care. I smiled at him,
overcome with emotion, and I did not have to answer. Not verbally.
Take what you want of me, for it is
all yours.
And he gathered me
back into his arms.
When, finally, we lay
naked and entwined on the grass, and he entered me, I cried out with joy, my
arms extended into the skies, and wept at the feel of the land embracing me
completely, utterly, filling all my empty, desolate spaces.
WE MADE LOVE ALL
THROUGH THAT AFTERNOON, THE
gentle warmth of the
sun bathing our naked bodies, the mist still shrouding the lower portions of
the hill and the flatlands beyond. This was loving such as I had never
experienced, not even with Brutus, for this passion encompassed both earth and
sky and water as well, and they were blessed as well as I. This is what both I and the land had wanted.
This is what I had needed to open up those strange, dark
spaces inside me, and fill them.
I wept, and he kissed
away my tears.
"HOW DID YOU
KNOW?" I ASKED EVENTUALLY.
"I was riding the northern road, when a strange
mist enclosed me. A creature came, tall, and pale, and with—"
"The most
mournful face!" I said, and laughed, cupping Harold's own face in mine.
He smiled, too. Slow,
loving. "You know of what I speak?" I told him of the Sidlesaghes and
of Long Tom, and Harold nodded. "He is of the ancient folk." "Yes."
Harold grinned.
"He showed me that day, in the rock pool." I colored. Even now, after
all these years, and all that had happened (and even now, lying naked, with
this man), I still colored as easily as a girl at that memory.
"Now that is a memory to treasure," Harold said, kissing
my neck, my shoulder, his voice light and teasing. "Inside you, Brutus not
twenty paces away."
I did not smile, for
my mind had jumped then to that moment later, when Coel was inside me, and
Brutus, a great deal closer than twenty paces, and with a sword, gleaming sharp
and deadly in the lamplight.
Harold was looking at
me, his smile gone, but his face still relaxed. "He is not here now." "But he will—"
"Shush," he
said. "That does not matter. Not here, not now." "Oh, Harold," I said, my voice cracking, and
he gathered me tight, and held me, and I knew then that whatever else happened,
whoever else I loved, this man would always be… would, quite simply, always be.
Later, after we had
made love again, I looked over Harold's shoulder, and laughed.
"What?" he
said, rolling off me.
Then he jumped, using
his hands to cover his nakedness, and I laughed the harder, not bothering to
hide mine.
We were encircled by
Sidlesaghes, all standing with great smiles on their faces, all clapping,
slowly, soundlessly with their strong, brown hands.
"They are
happy," I said. Then I added, and where these words came from I have no
idea, "They are our children."
"Then they
should be in bed," said Harold tartly, and I rolled over, my sides aching
now with my laughter, and the Sidlesaghes clapped the harder.
AND THEN, YET MORE
TIME LATER.
Harold had decided to
ignore the Sidlesaghes, and began a long, slow, sensual stroking of my body. I
loved it. I sighed, and arched my back, and begged him never to stop.
"Will you do
something for me?" he said.
"Anything,"
I groaned, "so long as you complete here what you have begun."
He lowered his head,
and ran his tongue about one of my nipples, and I clutched at his hair, and
thought I would die with the strength of my wanting.
"When I am
gone," he whispered, lifting his mouth momentarily, agonizingly,
"will you be my future for me? Will you watch over this land for me, and
all those I should have been able to protect?"
"Harold…"
"Promise this to
me."
"Yes. You did
not have to ask."
He grinned, moving
his head just enough that his tongue could now draw the other nipple deep into
his mouth. For a long moment there was no talk, only the soft sound of my moan,
and his heavy breathing.
"Then my future
is assured," he whispered. Then he moved, pivoting across my body, burying
his hands tight in my hair, his face only inches from mine.
"The Sidlesaghe
showed me many things." His body was moving over mine now, and my legs, of
their own accord, parted under his weight.
"Yes?" I
whispered.
"Of how the Game
and the land are married."
"As you and
I."
He smiled, but only
briefly, his body moving very slowly, very teasingly atop mine. I wriggled,
trying to tempt him inside, but for the moment he stayed a breath away from
entering me.
"The Sidlesaghe
showed me how you are Mag-reborn."
"Yes." That
was more moan than word.
"And how Og one
day, too, will be reborn."
"Yes." Then
I had a sudden, horrible thought that I could hardly bear, and my body fell
still beneath his. "Harold—"
He kissed the tip of
my nose. "I know," he said. "I know that will not be me. And I
know who it will be, and I am content enough with that. This is a long path you
travel, my love. A long way to go."
"I know. There
is so far…"
"All every path
needs is but one step at a time."
I was silent.
He smiled, and the
warmth in it was stunning. "And all every path needs is a companion with
which to share it."
I was shocked at what
he suggested, particularly because of the understanding he'd shown just before
it. "But you know that at the end…"
"All I want is
to share the path with you. I know I cannot be your destination. I've always
known that."
I began to weep. What
had I ever done to deserve this man's love… to deserve what he now offered me?
"Oh, sweet gods,
now I've made you cry again!"
I started to laugh
through my tears, and, determining that I'd had enough of his teasing, I pulled
him down and into me. "At least you will never hear me say 'No!'
again!"
"Oh, my lady…
how I love you."
MUCH LATER, AS
EVENING DREW NEAR, ONE OF THE
Sidlesaghes wandered
over, waited until we both became aware of his presence, and gestured us to
follow him.
six
HEY ROSE, REACHED FOR THEIR CLOTHES, THEN
dropped them as
another of the Sidlesaghes—some forty or fifty were still gathered about—shook
its head.
A Sidlesaghe led them
down the northwest face of Pen Hill, the side farthest from London and closest
to the Llandin, toward a small grove of trees at the base of the hill.
Harold looked about
as they neared the trees. It was now almost twilight, the fading of the light
intensified by the close gathering of the Sidlesaghes. Gods, there must be
several hundred of them waiting just before the trees!
He looked to Caela.
She was close enough to him that he could feel the warmth of her skin, smell
the womanly scent of her rising in the coolness of the evening. He slipped an
arm about her waist, half-expecting her to pull away, then smiled as she
relaxed against him.
Harold kissed the top
of her head, then nodded at the Sidlesaghes. "What is happening?"
She gave a slight
shake of her head. "Something… momentous. Something good."
She shivered, and he
knew it was in anticipation. "Should I be here?"
She raised her face
to him, and smiled."I would not be here, if not for
you. This," she indicated the
encircling crowds of Sidlesaghes, "would not be happening if not for you.
I think, Harold of England, you are to be very welcomed in whatever is about to
happen."
"You are not
afraid." It was a statement, not a question.
"No. I am
content." She touched his bare chest, briefly. "I am whole."
Harold's eyes swept
over the Sidlesaghes. "Where have they all come from, Caela?"
"From the stones
of England," she said. "From the past. From the future. We have to
follow them. Look, they are moving into the grove of trees."
He looked, and saw
that she was right.
Caela took his hand,
and they followed.
The stand of trees
numbered only some twenty or thirty. They encircled a
small rock pool, its
waters emerald green and as still as the sky above them.
"I had not known
this was here," Harold muttered.
"Nor I,"
said Caela. She had stopped, looking strangely at the pool, then again she
turned to Harold. Under the trees it was almost full night, save for a gentle
glow that came from the water, and it lit up Caela's eyes and teeth as she
smiled. "It is for us," she said. "Just for us. A doorway."
"Into
what?"
Caela remembered a
conversation she'd had with Saeweald a long time ago, when she had been
Cornelia and he Loth.
"Into a light
cave," she said. "Pen Hill is a sacred mound, and I think that this
evening its sacredness is about to be revealed to us."
"Are you sure I
should—"
Before Caela had time
to even interrupt his protest, one of the Sidlesaghes had stepped to Harold's
other side, taken his hand, and led him forward toward the pool.
"I think that
might be a 'Yes,'" Caela said, and followed.
AT THE POOL'S EDGE
CAELA TOOK HAROLD'S OTHER
hand—he was now visibly tense—and together all three,
the king of England, a Sidlesaghe, and a woman who was about to become
something that not even she had yet fully realized, stepped into the water.
It was not wet.
Rather, it felt to Harold like the soft caress of a warm breeze. Led by the
Sidlesaghe and Caela, he walked forward until the water reached his chest, then
at the insistence tugging on both his hands, and with a quick, silent prayer in
his heart, he ducked beneath the level of the water.
It was a different
world beneath, and yet strangely similar. It was a reflection of the world
above, only smaller, more compact, and far, far more magical.
They stood in a green
meadow, the grasses weaving about their knees. Above them shone a clear sky—a
soft gray—and before them rose a low hill.
On its summit stood
something that Harold could not quite make out. It appeared to be a building
constructed of something so indistinct—almost so out of focus—that he could not
make out its lines.
He felt a slight
squeeze on his right hand—the Sidlesaghe had now let go of his left—and found
Caela smiling at him.
"Is this not
beautiful?" she said.
"Aye," he
said slowly, again looking about. Thousands
of Sidlesaghes were now wandering about this soft, gentle landscape. They
hummed—a sweet, reassuring melody.
"Aye,"
Harold said again, then paused. "What is it?"
O
"The
Otherworld."
Harold jumped. It was
not Caela who had replied, but a Sidlesaghe, standing a pace or so away.
"Am I
dead?" Harold said.
"No," said
Caela. "We are, I think, merely being granted an audience. Look." She
pointed to the hill.
A figure had emerged
from the indistinct structure atop the hill.
A small, dark, fey
woman.
Caela gasped and, her
hand still linked with Harold's, pulled him toward the hill.
By the time they
reached its summit Harold was out of breath, but Caela didn't seem affected by
the climb at all. She let go Harold's hand and wrapped the shorter woman in a
tight embrace. "Mag!"
Harold felt himself
freeze in awe. Mag? But was not Caela Mag-reborn?
The woman, Mag,
returned Caela's embrace, then smiled at Harold. "Caela is my heir, she is
not me," she said. She reached out a hand for Harold and, hesitatingly, he
took it.
Immediately a sense
of peace flowed through him.
"Will you come
into England's water cathedral?" said Mag, and she drew Caela and Harold
forward.
She led them into
wonder, and the moment they stepped inside, Harold realized why it was he found
it difficult to put this building in focus.
It was, unbelievably,
constructed entirely of water.
They had entered a
massive hall—columned and vaulted entirely in flowing water. It was the most
magical sight that Harold had ever seen, or could ever have imagined seeing.
The vast interior of the hall was colonnaded on either side by twin rows of
water columns rising to some fifteen or twenty paces above their heads, where
they merged into a gigantic circular domed vault that rose at least a further
twenty paces above their heads.
They walked to the
center of the hall, directly under the dome, and Harold looked down to the
floor.
It, too, was made of
water, although it felt solid under his feet. The water (floor) was of a deep, rich emerald color, but running
through it, apparently at random, were lines of blue that trailed haphazardly,
crisscrossing each other at random intervals.
Harold raised his
head to find Mag smiling at him.
"The island's
waterways," Mag said. Then she stepped forward and embraced Harold with
almost as much emotion as she'd hugged Caela. "Thank you for bringing her
to us," she said.
"It was my pleasure," Harold said, and Mag laughed, and
kissed him on the cheek.
"We wished she
could have found you sooner, but that she found you at all is a blessing
indeed."
Harold was going to
say something more, but then stopped as he saw that a score of shadowy womanly
figures had emerged from behind the columns to walk to within several paces of
where Mag, Caela, and Harold stood. Most appeared in their late middle age, but
apart from their shared femininity and the gentle smiles on their faces, that
was their only similarity. Some were fair, some dark, some tall, some slim,
some plump, some beautiful, some homely. Harold gave a small start… there
was one other thing all these woman shared in common. They all had knowledge
and power shining from their bright eyes.
For once, Caela
seemed as puzzled as he.
Mag took Caela's
hand, ignoring for the moment the other women. "Caela, you have had
trouble accepting the heritage I bequeathed you."
"Yes. It has
been… difficult. I felt myself empty. Lacking."
"Aye. For that
you have blamed yourself. Ah, my dear, that was my fault, not yours. Here, let
me explain."
Mag gestured to the
encircling women with her free hand. "These women are all my predecessors,
as I am yours."
Caela so forgot
herself that she gaped. "There were others before you?"
"Indeed. I will
explain, but first, if they may, my sisters will introduce themselves to
you."
"I am
Tool," said one of the women. "I came three before Mag."
"And I am
Raia," said another. "I came ten before Mag."
The women all
introduced themselves in turn. There were thirty-one.
Mag turned to Caela
and took both her hands in hers, giving the woman her undivided attention.
"I was the thirty-second in line from the dawn of time," she said.
"You will be the thirty-third. Each of us has lived long lives,
millennia-long, and at our given time we have passed into this world, handing
the responsibilities we shouldered to our successor. Part of that succession
was, first, ensuring that the woman we picked was mated with the land. That
normally happened before we left our successor to her
work. In your case," Mag smiled sadly, "well, in your case, events,
and Genvissa's darkcraft, intervened. I was not able to ensure that you had
mated with the land. No wonder you found it so difficult in this life."
"But," said
Caela, looking between Mag and Harold. "Coel and I…" She stopped,
remembering.
"Brutus murdered
Coel before the act was completed, before that moment when both of you sighed
in repletion. And besides, that act took place before I had told you of my
decision. That was not in any sense of the word a true mating of my chosen
successor with the land, although the souls were right.
You both needed to be
reborn into the places you are now to have accomplished the act you have."
Caela nodded. Mag had
told Cornelia, as she had been then, of her plans many months after Coel's
death; the night Genvissa had forced her daughter from her womb.
"Normally,"
Mag said, "the old Mother goddess of the land and the waters passes over
at the moment her successor and her mate have sighed in repletion. I went too
early. I could not aid you to the place that both of you found today."
"With the
Sidlesaghes' aid," said Harold.
"For my lack of
being there," Mag said, "I apologize from the bottom of my
heart."
"We all
do," said the woman who had called herself Raia, "for we all should
have aided you."
"And welcomed
you," said a woman called Golenta.
"But late is
better than never," said Mag, smiling. "You are here now. And
Harold," she nodded at him, "is here because he is a beloved man both
to you and to us, and because all of us need a witness when…" she stopped,
and arched a questioning eyebrow at Caela, to see if she understood.
"Ah," said
Caela, after a moment. "You said that only part of the responsibility in
handing on succession was ensuring that your chosen successor was mated and
married with the land. There is something else which needs to be accomplished,
and that needs a witness."
Mag nodded, pleased.
"None of us share the same name, my dear. And in the past few months, you
have felt awkward using the name 'Mag', have you not?"
"Yes,
indeed."
"You have
avoided using it," Mag continued. "It has not felt comfortable to
you. That is as it should be. My dear, when each of us came into our own, when
we came into that power, that embrace which you know as the essence of
this land, the soul of this land, we each chose for ourselves our own name.
"Now," she
said, "you must choose for yourself a name, as I chose Mag when I
shouldered the burden, and as all the other women present chose a name when
their turn came. Your name, your goddess-name, is not only most sacred, but
most powerful. One day you will wear it openly, but for the time being, until
this land is free of the burden that currently consumes it, it will be your secret
name, and the more powerful because of that."
"I can choose
any name I wish?"
"Indeed, my
sweet. But listen, for this is important. Your name will become your nature. It
will dictate who you are. You will never be able to act beyond
the confines of your
name, for be certain that your chosen name will confine you. Do you understand me?"
"I'm not
sure," Caela said.
"I chose the
name Mag when I ascended," Mag said. "In the language of the people
who inhabited this land, when I lived only as a mortal woman, it means
welcoming… intaking… nurturing. I thought it the essence of motherhood, and for
me, that is what I wanted to be for this land."
"Of course, thus
Mother Mag."
"Yes. And as I
had chosen that name, so it confined me—and eventually it damaged the land. Can
you know of what I speak?"
Harold saw Caela's
brow furrowing, then it cleared and understanding replaced the puzzlement on
her face.
"Ariadne. When
she came begging a home, you welcomed her. You took her in, because that was
your nature, that was your name."
"Yes. Mag was
who I was, and it meant that once I took
Ariadne in I could not reject her. What mother can reject any of her children?
The Darkwitches attacked me, and drew away my power, but that was not the only
reason I weakened. My time was coming when I needed to pass into this world and
pass on my responsibilities. 'Mag' was no longer what the land needed."
"You all passed
on when the 'who' of you became irrelevant?"
"Aye. And now
you must choose your own name, Caela. Your secret name, your power name, your
goddess name. Choose well and choose wisely, for it must be a name that will
provide this land with what it needs to repel the malevolence that assails
it."
Caela drew in a deep
breath, pulling her hands from those of Mag. Harold thought he saw a fleeting
expression of panic cross her face, and he didn't blame her. Choose well and choose wisely…
For if you don't…
Caela turned away,
her head down, thinking. She paced very slowly about the room, her arms wrapped
across her breasts as if in protection, then, after a few minutes of total
silence, with all eyes in the hall upon her, Caela came to a stop before
Harold.
She lifted her eyes,
staring at him, and Harold felt tears come into his own eyes at the depth of
expression and of love in hers.
"I have
chosen," she said softly, looking at no one but Harold.
There was silence,
and Harold felt the breath stop in his throat.
"Eaving,"
Caela said. "My name will be Eaving."
Harold's breath let
out a sob, and the tears that had welled now flowed down his cheeks.
Eaving! It was a rustic word, used
generally only by shepherds, herdsmen,
and sailors. Yet even
by these men, eaving was a word used only once or twice in their lives.
Superficially,
"eaving" meant shelter, but its meaning went a great deal deeper than
that. Eaving was used by shepherds and sailors, men who were exposed to the
worst of the elements, to mean "an unexpected haven from the
tempest." They used it when they and their flocks or ships were caught in
a storm that had blown down from nowhere, which threatened their very lives,
and from which there appeared to be no shelter. Then, suddenly, as if
god-given, there appeared as if out of nowhere the unexpected haven—an
overhanging cliff that protected the shepherd and his flock from the worst of
the weather, or a small bay or estuary in which a ship could ride out a storm.
Eaving, the
unexpected haven in which to ride out the storm and from where one could
reemerge into the sunlight.
"You wish to use
the name Eaving?" asked Mag. "Once you accept this name you will be
tied to it and by it."
Eaving turned to Mag,
then looked at each of the other women in turn. "It is who I have always
been," she said, "and what I want only to be. Eaving. I accept this
name."
"Then welcome,
Eaving," said Mag. "Welcome to yourself." She held out her arms,
as if she would embrace Caela—Eaving!—but then the hall appeared to
disintegrate into its elements, and water crashed about them, and the next
thing Harold knew, he was standing atop Pen Hill again, shivering in the cold
night air, alone save for Caela who lay at his feet.
FOR ONE TERRIBLE
MOMENT HE THOUGHT SHE WAS
dead, but then Caela
rolled on to her back and smiled at him.
"I feel
whole," she said. Then she held out her arms to him. "Let me make you
warm."
His shelter from the impending storm… and suddenly all of Harold's
fears and
anger and frustrations at his impending, unavoidable death vanished. He knelt
down beside her, then lay down, and felt her take him in her arms.
"Eaving,"
he whispered, and then she kissed him.
sevejM
i
/'t/% .^HEN SHE RETURNED TO HER CHAMBER
Iff within St. Margaret the Martyr's,
it was to find Judith,
* % Saeweald, Ecub, and Silvius
waiting for her.
't»-"What has
happened?" said Silvius, taking a step forward as Caela entered.
She looked at him as
if slightly puzzled, then smiled agreeably. "I have spent the afternoon
with Harold." "Harold?" Judith,
Saeweald, and Silvius said together.
To one side, Ecub
looked carefully at Caela, and nodded very slightly to herself.
"He is
tired," said Caela. "Dispirited." She paused, her brow furrowed
as if trying to remember something, then said, "Our brother Tostig is
dead. Harold killed him at Stamford Bridge."
Judith and Saeweald
looked at each other, not sure what to say.
"Caela,"
Saeweald said.
She came to him, and
kissed his cheek gently. "Forgive me for being so dispirited myself these
past months, Saeweald. I have come to my senses now. I will do what I
must."
"What has happened?" Silvius said. He walked forward, and
took Caela's chin in his hand. "Caela?"
"I am well and I
am at peace, Silvius," she said. "There are no more empty spaces. No
more lack. I am this land, I am the soul of its rivers and waters, the
wellspring for its fertility. I accept it. I have embraced it."
"How is this
so?" Silvius said. His black eye was narrowed, searching Caela's face.
"Why so confident, so…?"
"Unexpectedly
confident, Silvius?" Caela smiled, very gently, and moved her face so that
her chin slid from his grip. "I am tired," she said. "I would
rest. Do you mind… ?"
As they filed from
her chamber, Caela added, quietly, "Ecub, I beg you to stay a
moment."
"Harold?"
said Ecub once the door had closed behind the others.
Caela's face broke
into a huge grin. "Yes! Oh, Ecub, you cannot know—"
I i ^ guess,"
said Ecub, laughing. She stepped forward, taking both of ^s m hers. "He was your mate, yes? He was your means
to mating
h lif hld
the ] ^s m hers. He was your mate, yes? He was your mea g
ljav '% all should have seen that sooner. Even in the past
life, we should
the
g, Caela's grin
broadened, and Ecub laughed again, and enfolded »_ w woman into a tight
embrace. „ e'eis much I need to tell you," Caela
said as finally Ecub pulled back, vhat ^'" sa'd
Ecub. Her face was sober now, her eyes searching. "But
.,- *nt to know,
first, is why you tell me, and not the others." 100 lot
sure." Caela turned and walked to the window, gazing out to the than- ^aPe
°f Pen Hill in the darkness. "There was a caution within me ^
"nly when you were the last left in the room." She turned back to
face
onty when you were the 's
a c"b. "And
perhaps it is because you were the one with me at Mag's „ ' "oil were the
one to watch me dance Mag's Nuptial Dance." p " Siangan."
., * smiled, sadly.
"But she is not here now." >. ^°w are-' Ecub
breathed deeply, then bowed low at the waist. "Mother
Ma >.
"My
"No; bed
M Caela said, and
Ecub looked up, surprised. "Eaving," Caela said. 'ter ■ ^e is Eaving. Mag has passed, and only I
remain." Caela sat down on "pir . anc* patted the space
before her. "Sit, and I will tell you what tran-
. ^is afternoon. Oh,
Ecub, it was so beautiful!"
*lo'tv d Ur
later ^y stiu sat on Caela's bed,
their hands gripped, save that J'ter C|Jb was weeping,
shaken by what she had heard, and by the power of 11 joy. Oh, how fortunate she was that she should have lived
to hear this!
Dually ecub sniffed,
quieted her emotions,
, * to Caela,
"You are Eaving, the shelterer, but you also shall need a
t^r
^ ' and a
protector."
e'a's mouth curved in a
small smile. She had been right to trust this ' as the first—apart
from Harold, of course—among those who would >>, n ef for who she truly was.
^ne Said
Ecub, "and my sisters, will always be yours. We shall exist for only *'ter
rPose, and that shall be to provide you with a haven, in whatever
man-
» 'night need
it."
^he ^s a
powerful promise, and Caela's own eyes now brimmed with tears, forward, kissing
Ecub softly on the mouth. "I accept," she said, -j-i you may one day
regret—" ever!" said Ecub. Then, more softly. "Never.
I watched over Mag's
Dance, and saw you
come to your own within it. I will watch over you now, and ever so long as you
need me." Caela nodded. "Thank you."
MUCH LATER, WHEN
EVERYONE ELSE HAD GONE, ECUB
bedded Caela down in
her chamber. Judith had gone off with Saeweald, and Ecub was glad of it.
"What is it that
you 'must' do?" asked Ecub, tucking the bed linens about Caela's shoulders
as if she were a child. "Warn William? Move against Aster-ion?"
"I must
wait," said Caela. "I can do no more. I shelter. I cannot avenge. I
cannot warn."
"Do you not fear
for William?"
"Oh, aye, I do
not think I can sleep for the fear I hold for him. Swanne… oh, dear gods,
Swanne is his walking death. But I must be true to myself, Ecub. I cannot go to
him. I cannot seek him out. He must come to me. He must need the haven."
"Swanne and
Asterion will…"
"I know. I know. But I have to trust in myself and in what will be,
Ecub. I can do no more."
Ecub sighed, patted
Caela on the shoulder, then retreated to a stool under the window, blowing out
the candle as she did so. The stool was uncomfortable, but there was no point
in her sleeping; Matins service would begin within an hour or two, and she
might as well spend the time between now and then in contemplation… and thanks,
for the unexpected joy this life had brought her.
eigbc
ILLIAM HAD BEEN IN
ENGLAND ALMOST TWO
weeks, and during
this time he'd had barely the time to even think about the underlying "why" of his presence
here. Certainly he was here to win himself a kingdom and all the spoils it
could provide him, but there was far more at stake that he had not allowed
himself to consider.
There had been no
time.
He'd sailed from the
Somme Estuary on the night of the 28th of September, arriving at Pevensey Bay
early the next morning. Here William had constructed some initial defenses, but
then had decided that the small port town of Hastings, which lay a little
farther up the coast, would serve his purposes better. Hastings stood on a
small peninsula and could be more easily defended, and William wanted to
protect his ships, his men and, he admitted in his darker moments, his escape
route.
He was a more
cautious man now than he had been as Brutus. If Brutus had been forced to
linger in Normandy, or Poiteran as it had been then, for over thirty years he
would have marched on London the instant he'd landed. William was far more
circumspect. He knew the English would be hostile, he was not sure where Harold
and his army were… and he knew Asterion was here, somewhere, waiting for
William to make that one, grossly stupid move which would see him fail.
So William proceeded
with care, determined not to move so precipitously that it left him no escape
route. Just outside Hastings, William set his men to work, constructing earthen
defenses and a bailey castle. Neither defenses nor castle would withstand a
siege, nor even a sustained bombardment, but it would buy William the time he
would need during a forced retreat.
Now William was
standing atop the bailey castle, one booted foot tapping impatiently on the
floorboards, gazing northwest over the countryside. There were a few pillars of
smoke in the distance: his men had been out pillaging. William had not wanted
them to do it, but they had to be fed somehow, and William did not want to
deplete what few stores he'd brought with him. A few
paces away stood two
or three of his commanders, watching William more than the landscape.
William had called
his commanders for a war council, but that could wait for a few minutes.
A few moments more of
quiet, where he could think on the underlying reason for his invasion. The real
reason, the true reason why so many men were about to die.
To retrieve the
bands, and to then complete the Game with Swanne by dancing that final,
concluding dance of the Game, the Dance of the Flowers.
Ah, stated in so few and such bold
words, it sounded all so easy, didn't it? Just retrieve the bands, grab Swanne by the hand, and
execute the Dance of the Flowers. No need even for the accompanying dancers
that they'd had two thousand years ago. All that was really needed was the
Mistress and the King-man. Two people, six golden bands, a relatively
uncomplicated dance, a dab of magic, and all was done.
All so simple, so
easy, all so terrifyingly unachievable, should even one or two things go awry.
Like… Swanne. William
drew in a deep breath. Where was she? He could feel her, somewhere close (and yet somehow closed to him;
she was near, but he could not read her), but he knew there was no way she
could approach him openly at this stage.
Yet that did not
explain why he had not heard from her in months. Oh, Aldred wrote occasionally,
or sent word via trusted messengers, but Swanne had not contacted William since
that moment she'd appeared before him on the cliffs of Normandy, and that was
before last Christmastide. Ten
months! What was
she doing? Why this silence? Was Asterion too close for her to risk contact?
It was the only
reason William could think of for her silence, and it concerned him that Swanne
might be so close to danger.
It terrified him to
consider that there might be an even more terrible reason for Swanne's lack of
communication.
He tore his thoughts
away from Swanne. Yes, she was close, but he could feel others, too. Somehow,
the mere fact of setting foot on this land once more connected him to others.
Loth was here, much the same as he had been; William knew he would never like
Loth as he had learned to like and respect Harold. Erith was here, too, as
another Mother—he could not remember her name, but that woman was the one who
had been intimately connected with Mag's Dance.
And Caela. He could
feel her, far stronger than he would have thought possible. William closed his
eyes, scrying out the sense of her: contentment, peace, even a little
happiness, and something else that he could not identify… a depth that he could
not understand. He suddenly realized that he
G
could well meet her
soon; odd, that he'd never thought of that until now. If matters went well,
then he would soon meet Caela face to face.
His heart began to
race, and William opened his eyes, apparently staring ahead although he saw
nothing. Caela was lovelier now than she had been as Cornelia. What was she
doing? Did she still yearn for him?
What would he do if she came to him, and offered herself to him?
What would he do if
she did not? William found the idea that she
might not yearn for him anymore as unsettling as the thought that Swanne might
somehow be in danger. No, more unsettling. What if
Cornelia-now-Caela no longer yearned for him?
He recalled the
vision in which he'd seen her as Caela lie beneath his father, and he recalled
also his vision of two thousand years earlier when he'd seen her as Cornelia
lie down beneath another man, offering him her body.
Asterion, who had
then slaughtered her.
What did those two visions mean? Were
they truth? Or delusion?
Was Silvius the
reason for Caela's contentment now? William tried to scry out his father… and
found nothing. He frowned. Strange, for if Silvius was flesh, and ambitious
enough to seduce Caela, as well as shift the Trojan kingship bands, then he
would be flesh enough for William to feel. But there was nothing, almost as if
his father did not exist, or was a phantom of delusion only.
William realized that
his commanders were watching him impatiently, but he allowed his thoughts to
roam just a little further.
Harold. There had
been a great battle at Stamford Bridge, and it was long ago enough now that
details of it had reached William. Hardrada and Tostig had both been killed in
the struggle. Harold had come back to London, rested there some few days, and
was now… close. William could sense him. Very close indeed—and as strangely at
peace with himself, as content, as Caela seemed.
Was Harold so at
peace because he had come to terms with his own imminent death? At that thought
William felt a gut-wrenching sense of loss, the strongest emotion he'd felt
since he'd been standing here in the open air staring out into nothingness. He
didn't want to kill Harold. He didn't want to be a party to his death.
Not again.
Why hadn't he taken
the trouble to know Coel better?
Or Cornelia, as Caela
had once been? Why hadn't he taken the trouble to treat her better? To understand her?
William gave an
almost indiscernible shake of his head. He might as well
wish the sun to rise
in the west. Brutus had not taken the trouble to know anyone well, not even
himself.
"I have a
command," William said suddenly, making his commanders jump. "I would
that in the coming battle, if we prove victorious, that King Harold be taken
alive. I do not want him killed."
"My lord
duke," said Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle, one of William's most trusted men,
"is that wise? If we prove successful, then to have Harold still alive
would be to invite—"
William, keeping his
eyes on the landscape, had not looked at Montfort-sur-Risle as he spoke.
"I do not want him killed. Not by my hand, nor by any of my men."
William finally turned to looked at his commanders. "Is that
understood?"
As one, they bowed
their heads.
J
AROLD SAT ON HIS
HORSE ON A RIDGE SOME NINE
miles from Hastings.
Behind him came his army, weary, footsore, straggling in disjointed groups
rather than in the units into which they'd originally been organized. Harold
turned so he could see over his shoulder. He knew the true depth of his
command's exhaustion, and he wished he had the ability to bring the full
complement of men he'd commanded at Stamford Bridge against William.
But that could not
be. Many men were wounded, many more scattered along the long road between here
and the north. William had both Fate and Luck on his side.
Harold looked back to
Hastings. He could feel William. Somehow, in the few days
since he'd been with Caela, Harold had grown far more attuned to the land, to
its spaces and intimacies, and to those who trod upon it. William was out there
staring toward Harold as Harold now stared toward him.
There was no
animosity, only an infinite sadness, and that gave Harold great comfort.
William had changed in this life, and that meant there was hope for the land.
He may not have changed enough, but he had begun that road.
Harold closed his
eyes and thought on Caela… Eaving. He remembered the feel of her body, he
remembered her scent.
He remembered how she
had smiled into his eyes, and blessed him.
Whatever happened,
all would be well.
Eventually.
The sound of horses'
hooves behind Harold disturbed him, and he looked to see who it was.
One of the English
earls, come to receive orders about deploying what was left of their ragged
army.
"We will make
our stand here," Harold said, pointing along the long ridge. "The
escarpments to either side mean that William can only attack us from the front.
He cannot outflank us. We can make a good defensive stand here, my
friend."
"We will win the
day," the earl said, but Harold could hear the bravado in his voice.
"Of course we
will," said Harold.
SWANNE ALSO STOOD,
SECRETED WITHIN THE EDGES of a dark grove, staring across at Hastings. Like
Harold she could sense William's presence and feel his vitality, but unlike
Harold it was not her connection with the land which enabled her to do this,
but her ability with the darkcraft.
Asterion moved up
behind her, running his hands from her shoulders down her arms.
She nestled back
against him. "Bless you," she murmured.
He smiled. "The darkcraft
suits you. Imagine how much better you shall feel once William is dead."
"Soon."
"Oh, yes,
soon."
Asterion's fingers
kneaded slightly at her arms. She was really quite thin now, the imp within her
continuing to sap away at her vitality. But she remained beautiful, and
Asterion had no doubt that William, the fool, would not last for more than a
few moments against her writhings and pleadings.
"He will be
yours within a day," he murmured, his muzzle buried within Swanne's dark,
curling hair. "This time tomorrow you will be in his bed, trapping him
with your dark power."
With my imp, he thought. Finally working its vile talents to their full
potential.
Poor, dead William.
Swanne shuddered.
"I cannot bear the thought of lying with him."
Asterion's fingers
tightened where they rested on her upper arms. "You must. It is the only
means by which to kill him and utterly negate his power."
"Asterion, my
love, I don't really know if I can bear to—"
'You will He with him!"
She cried out,
stunned, and one of her hands fluttered to her belly. Why was
the imp nibbling now, when Aldred was not here?
"Yes," she
said, her voice dulled. "I will lie with him. If that is what you
wish."
"Blessed
woman," Asterion said, kissing her neck. "You will scream with
pleasure. You will."
She moaned, her
entire body relaxing back against his. "Aye, I will do that for you."
"But,"
Asterion whispered, his hands now running all over her body, "that
pleasure will be as
nothing compared to that we will feel together, as one, when we finally take
the Game."
She moaned again, and
turned about in the circle of his arms, and offered him her mouth. There was
nothing left now but her need for Asterion, and the thought of the power she
would enjoy with him when they led the Game.
EAVING.
The word came as a
low moan, a breath on the wind, and it made Caela shiver. She was standing atop
Pen Hill, staring south, feeling the swirling emotions that came from the land
about Hastings. Harold was there, and William, but so also were Asterion and
Swanne.
"Eaving."
She turned her head,
very slightly. A Sidlesaghe stood a pace or two to one side. No, several of
them, gathering about her on the breeze.
'Eaving!"
"What may I do
for you?" she murmured.
"We beg your
aid," said Long Tom, stepping forth.
"You have it,
you know that."
"Now that you
have achieved your union with the land," Long Tom said, "have you
felt it?"
Caela did not have to
ask him what he meant. "The dark stain in its soul," she said.
"The tilt in the Game. Yes, I have felt it. Asterion's hold over Swanne,
over the Mistress of the Labyrinth. The shadow that hangs over us all.
"What can I
do?"
"There are two
more bands left."
"Aye."
"Eaving,"
said another Sidlesaghe. "Shelter them."
"Move
them?" said Caela.
"No," said
Long Tom. "Shelter them."
"Moving the
bands may not be enough," said one other Sidlesaghe. "They can still
be found. William can always find them. And if William… if William…"
"If William is
trapped by Swanne and Asterion?"
"Aye," said
Long Tom. "Eaving, there are two final bands. Will you shelter them?"
"From William as
much as from Asterion," said Caela.
"Aye. In case.
Just in case."
She thought a long
time, staring sightlessly south, feeling all that the land told her.
"There is a
way," she said, finally.
* * *
IN ROUEN, MATILDA LAY
ABED. SHE SLEPT RESTLESSLY,
the bed covers
twisting about her body, her dark hair working its way free of its braids and
tangling on the pillow, her face covered in light perspiration, one of her
hands fluttering over her rounded belly.
In her dreams,
Matilda walked a strange and unknown landscape. About her tumbled the ruins of
a once great city. Columns and walls lay in piles of great masonry, flames
flickering from fires that still burned within them, dismembered bodies
sprawled in sickening heaps, a great pall of thick, noxious smoke hung over the
entire terrible landscape.
She did not recognize
the city. The architecture (what she could see of it amid the ruins) was of an
unknown and exotic form, and the bodies, which lay about, were clothed in armor
and held weapons of a type she had not seen before. This was somewhere she had
never visited, and, even within her dream, Matilda wondered at the power of her
imagination that it could conjure this vision to disrupt her dreams.
Matilda walked
carefully, avoiding as best she could the tumbled masonry and the bodies. She
turned a corner and came upon a cleared space.
She halted,
transfixed by the sight before her.
A stag lay in the
center of a clear space. He was magnificent, larger than any stag she had ever
seen before, with a pure white pelt and a full spread of bloodred antlers.
"You are a
king," she said, and the stag blinked at her as if it were suddenly aware
of her presence.
Matilda looked away,
studying the rest of the space. Initially she had thought the space was
entirely clear. Now she could see that it wasn't. A labyrinth had been carved
into the entire circular space—
Matilda's mind instantly leapt to
that strange gift her husband had sent Edward—the
ball of golden string that unwound into a labyrinth—the labyrinth he'd said was carved into the golden
bands he thought might be in the possession of either Caela or Swanne.
—and the stag lay
within its heart. Before the stag, also within the heart of the labyrinth, were
carved letters. They had been dug deep into the stone of the labyrinth floor, and
had been filled with red paint, or perhaps blood.
Matilda stepped
forward, unfearful, curious to see what the word was.
Matilda frowned, for
she knew her Latin well enough. / will rise again?
The stag began to
move, struggling to rise, and it distracted Matilda. She raised her eyes to the
stag, pitying the creature, for no matter how greatly it struggled, it did not
seem to be able to rise to its feet.
Then the stag paused,
its ears flickering as if it heard something, and its stunning head twisting so
it could look over its shoulder. It trembled, and its struggling doubled, and a
sense of great dread came over Matilda.
"What… ?"
she said, and the stag turned its head back to her, and looked at her with
black eyes that Matilda instantly recognized, and it said: Begone from
here, Matilda. Begone!
"William,"
she whispered, and stretched out her hands to aid it.
Begone! the stag screamed in her mind,
and Matilda wailed, and then she also screamed, for out of the tumbled ruins
that bordered the open space behind the stag crawled an abomination such as
Matilda had never dreamed before.
It was a gigantic
snake, or a lizard, she could not tell, but it had a sinuous, writhing body
covered in black scales, and a head with a mouth so vast and filled with fangs
that Matilda understood how it could eat entire cities (and had indeed eaten
this one, which is why it lay in ruins about her).
In the instant before
the snake-creature struck, Matilda also understood one other thing. That this
terrible demonic creature was a woman's revenge incarnate, and Matilda knew the
woman who had created this revenge must surely be the greatest Darkwitch that
had even walked the face of this earth.
The stag was
screaming continuously now, its struggles maddened as it sought to escape the
snake-creature writhing ever closer.
Matilda shrieked,
backing away several paces, her hands to her face.
The snake-creature
struck, lunging down with its vast mouth, and before Matilda could manage to
wrench herself from her dream, she saw the demon's fangs sink so deeply into
the stag's body that it tore asunder, and blood spattered all about.
SHE WOKE, DRENCHED IN
SWEAT, STILL CAUGHT IN
the terrible imagery
of the stag's murder. "William," she whispered.
CbAPGGR G6N
N THE FOLLOWING
MORNING, WHEN THE NOR-mans faced the English on the battlefield of Hastings,
there were not two forces ranged against each other, but many. Harold and
William were, and always would be, the face and tragedy of Hastings, but behind
them and at their side ranged other forces that influenced both the battle of
that day and that which would come over the following centuries: Asterion, the
Minotaur; the Troy Game itself, determined to ensure the future it wanted; the
land, and Eaving, who spoke on its behalf, as on the behalf of Og, her
all-but-dead future; and finally, Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. All of
them, in their own way, participated in the battle at Hastings.
Harold had massed his
army on the ridge that lay nine miles from Hastings. Fate could not have picked
for him a better site. The ridge was a natural fortress. Before it the land
sloped gently away before rising again toward another hill. To either side of
the ridge were steep escarpments that were in turn flanked by marshy streams.
If William wanted to attack Harold—and there was no way he could ignore the
English king and allow him time to build up his forces—then he would need to
attack from directly forward. There was no real hope of trying to outflank the
English, because that would mean lengthy delays and the splitting of the
already small Norman force into two or even three tiny and weak secondary
forces.
Harold was as ready
as he could ever be by the time the sun rose. He'd deployed his men so that
William would face a mighty shield wall. William had armored cavalry—but even
they would be of little use against a phalanx of armored and shielded men who
could range pikes, lances, axes, swords, stones, and arrows—as well as the
supporting landscape—against the attacking force.
Weary his men might
be, but Harold knew that in theory they had a very good chance.
Save that he knew
they would not win. Not in terms of a battle victory.
Where would the treachery come from? he wondered. WILLIAM ATTACKED SOON AFTER
DAYBREAK. HE'D
marched his army from
Hastings, massed on the hill opposite Harold's ridge, then sent in both cavalry
and infantry in three divisions.
If William thought to
break Harold's shield wall, then he was grossly disappointed. Harold's men
held, and wave after wave of Norman attackers were driven back.
By midmorning it
appeared that the battle was turning into a rout. The Normans were milling,
often ignoring the shouted commands of William, who fought within their midst,
and falling one after another to the axes and swords of the English.
William changed
tactics. He screamed at his archers to direct their missiles into three or four
concentrated areas of the English line, and then to his horsemen and knights to
follow up the arrow barrage with a concentrated attack on those areas. While
the English were still in disarray from the arrows, the knights stood a better
chance of breaking through the shield wall.
Crude, but effective.
Very gradually, as the day wore on, the English were worn down. Where they held
in the earlier part of the day, their weariness caused them to stumble during
the latter.
Very gradually, the
Normans began to break through the shield wall and engage the English in
terrible hand-to-hand combat.
"I want Harold alive!" William screamed to his men as he saw them
break through in a half a dozen different places. "I want him alive!"
"AND / DO
NOT!" MUTTERED SWANNE, STILL STANDING within the embrace of her dark
grove. She could not see the battle with her eyes, but she could with her
power. "Ah, what a fool you have become, William! The Game has no use for
such as you."
Then she relaxed. She
must not think this way. She must practice the pretty, smiling face she needed
to present to William. In the meantime, she needed to ensure that he actually
won this battle. The bands could be irretrievably lost (for this life at least)
if the damn fool was killed by some stray English sword.
"Harold!"
she whispered, and she spoke with the voice of passion.
HAROLD/
It stunned him, for
it automatically drew him back through the years to that time when he and
Swanne had been young lovers, and he'd entertained
no doubt that she
loved him, nor that she was anything else but that which she appeared.
Harold!
He was fighting
desperately in the very thick of the battle where the Normans had broken
through. Covered in sweat and grime and blood, hearing the shouts and grunts
and cries of those crowded about him, feeling their thrusts and hopelessness
and dying, still he heard Swanne's voice as clear
as a clarion call.
Harold!
He looked up, and
never saw the arrow that plunged directly into his eye, killing him instantly.
CAELA MOANED, ALMOST
DOUBLING OVER IN THE
intensity of her sorrow. How pitiful a death, to be so
duped by Swanne.
Then she managed to
collect herself, and wipe the grief from her eyes, and straighten, and compose
her features and smile.
She stood in the
stone hall—save that only the western end of the hall was stone. The eastern
half, which stood at Caela's back, was built entirely of flowing, emerald
water.
Caela stood at the
border of this life, and the next.
A figure appeared at
the far western end of the hall. He was not dressed in battle garb, nor did he
bear the stains of sweat and grime and death.
Instead he walked
straight and tall, as beautiful and as content as ever she had seen him.
England's king, as William would never be.
She drew in a deep
breath, and could hardly see for the tears of joy that now filled her eyes.
"Harold!"
she said as he drew near.
"Eaving."
He smiled, and it was composed of such pure love and acceptance that the tears
spilled from her eyes. He lowered his head and kissed her, then gathered her
into a tight embrace, lifting her from the floor and spinning her about.
"I had not thought to meet you here!"
"How could I let
you pass without…" she stopped.
"Saying
goodbye?"
"It will never
be goodbye," she said, very softly. "You should know that."
"Aye, I know
it."
She had pulled back
slightly from him now, and her face was grave and angry all in one.
"Swanne murdered you with her darkcraft."
"Again."
His voice was virtually inaudible.
"Do you
know," Eaving said, "that for this you are owed vengeance?"
Harold laughed
shortly. "When shall I collect it?"
O
Whenever you will. Harold, the
Sidlesaghes showed you, as well as me, the paths between this world and the
next. You can travel them as well as I.
"Whenever you
will, Harold," she said, her eyes locked into his.
"Ah,
Eaving," he said, resting the palm of his hand against her soft cheek, and
she knew that he'd put Swanne from his mind for the moment.
"Harold, I need
you to grant me a favor." "Anything."
"Take these with
you."
He looked at what she
had in her hands, then his eyes flew back to hers, shocked. "I cannot
touch those!"
"Please. For
me."
He laughed, the sound
bitter. "These will eventually take you from me."
"You already
knew that."
"Oh, gods,
Eaving…"
"Please, Harold.
Please."
He sighed, and
reached out, taking the two golden bands from her. "Where shall I put
them?"
She shrugged, and
suddenly he grinned, and then laughed. "You are so beautiful to me,"
he said.
Then, kissing her one
last time, Harold walked past Eaving, through the water cathedral and into the
Otherworld.
eceveN
ILLIAM HAD SPENT
ALL OF HIS LIFE, SINCE
/ the age of seven,
fighting battle after battle. He'd lost a few, he'd proved victorious in more,
and he'd walked the field of death in the aftermath of combat more often than
he cared to remember.
But never before had
he been as sickened as he was this evening as he picked his way slowly over the
ridge where Harold's army had made its stand.
It wasn't the
dismembered corpses—Norman as well as English—that lay about in their
thickened, coagulated blood.
It wasn't the moans
and the screams and the pleas for mercy or quick death that came from those
maimed men who lay twisted in indescribable agony amid their silent, dead
companions.
It wasn't the shrieks
of the crippled horses, or the stench of spilt blood, and split bowels.
It was sadness that
sickened William, and the fact that he could not quite understand the reason
for this sadness, nor even comprehend its depths, only made it worse.
He picked his way
slowly through the battlefield, stepping over the piled corpses, ignoring the
cries of the wounded, save for a jerk of his head to those companions who
trailed after him to see to their needs.
William was looking
for Harold. He'd not been among the captured, and William knew the man well
enough to know that neither would he have been among the few score of English
who'd managed to escape the field. Harold was lying here somewhere amid this
stinking, reeking, shrieking carpet of humanity, either dead or wounded, and
William feared very much that he was dead. He found himself praying over and
over that Harold would still be alive, but William knew that he was dead.
He could no longer
scry out his presence, although, oddly, he could still feel Harold's sense of
peace and contentment.
It was, finally, one
of Count Boulogne's captains who raised the shout, standing thirty or forty
paces away toward the northern end of the ridge, waving his arms slowly to and
fro above his head.
William's stomach
lurched, and he froze momentarily, staring at the man's waving arms as if he
signaled the end of the world, before he managed to collect himself and stride
over.
He stopped as he
reached the captain, then looked at the ground that lay between them.
Harold's body lay
bloodied and twisted, his legs half covered by the headless corpse of an
Englishman. The dead king's arms lay outstretched, as if Harold had willingly
relinquished his spirit; his body, so far as William could see, was unscathed.
Save for the arrow
that protruded from his left eye.
William could not
tear his eyes away from it. He stared, unblinking, then his stomach suddenly
roiled, and he turned away and retched.
The arrow! There as solidly as if
William had thrust it in himself.
As he had thrust the arrow into
Silvius' eye in order to seize his heritage.
Was he cursed to repeat this foulness
over and over, through this life and all others? Was everything he set his
heart on to be destroyed with the cruel thrust of an arrow deep into a brain?
William straightened,
and wiped his mouth. He did not look back at Harold.
"Take him from
here," he said to the men who had gathered about, "and treat him with
all respect. We will bury him tomorrow."
Then William turned,
and walked away.
BY MIDNIGHT, WILLIAM
WAS BACK WITHIN HASTINGS,
conferring with his
captains about the likelihood of the remaining English regrouping and
attacking, when a soldier entered the chamber, saluted, then stood expectantly
as if he had news of vast import to share.
"Yes?" said
William.
"My lord,"
said the soldier. "Harold's wife is here and craves an audience."
William froze,
staring at the man.
"The Queen
Alditha?" said Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle, frowning.
"No," said
the soldier. "The other one. The lady Swanne."
As one, everyone
looked to William.
He was sitting in his
chair, his face now expressionless, his eyes still glued to the soldier.
"Bid her enter," he said, finally, his voice very soft. "The
rest of you may leave. I think we have done this night."
Count Eustace of
Boulogne shared a glance with Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle. "My lord,"
he said, shifting his gaze back to William. "She might be dangerous."
William gave a soft,
harsh laugh. "Oh, I know that all too well. But I
will be safe enough,
my friends. Pray, leave me alone with the lady for the moment."
Again his men shared
concerned glances, but they did as he bid them, and as they filed slowly out,
the soldier reappeared with a darkly cloaked woman.
William nodded to the
soldier, and he turned and left, closing the door of the chamber behind him.
William rose slowly from
the chair. "Swanne."
"Aye!" She
threw back the hood of her cloak, then undid the laces about her throat and
discarded the heavy garment entirely
Beneath, Swanne wore
a simple white linen robe, a low scooped neckline revealing the first swell of
her breasts, her narrow waist spanned by a belt of plain leather, the heavy
skirt left to drape in folds to her feet.
The simplicity of the
robe, its starkness, set off her beauty as nothing else could have done.
William felt the breath catch in his throat. Even though she was a little too
thin, as if she had been ill recently, Swanne was still as desirable as she had
ever been.
And yet there was
something about her, something apart from her thinness. Something… harsh.
"William!"
she said, shaking her head so that her heavy, black curls shook free from their
bindings. "William!"
She held out her
arms, her eyes shining, her red mouth slightly parted, the tip of her tongue
glistening between the white tips of her teeth. "William!"
"Swanne,"
he said, feeling ridiculous, as if he'd been caught in a child's play. Gods! Could he do nothing but stand here and mutter
her name? Is this not what he had waited for, lusted for, so many years?
Then, in a moment of
a stunning—almost horrifying—revelation, William knew that she was not. Swanne
was not what he sought at all. She was merely his unavoidable companion.
Was this what Theseus felt when he
abandoned Ariadne on Naxos? Did he feel as I do now when I look on a woman I
once thought to love, and think, "Murderess?"
As cold as ice,
William stepped forward, took one of Swanne's outstretched hands, and laid his
lips to it in a courtly fashion.
His eyes never left
her face.
Something shadowy
crossed Swanne's countenance, but vanished within an instant.
"William!" she cried yet one more time as she threw
herself against him, pressing her body against the length of his, her arms
tight about his waist, her face uplifted to his. "Finally… finally …"
He gave a small,
tight smile, then lowered his face to hers, and, reluctantly, kissed her.
Her mouth grabbed at
his, her hands tangling within his hair, her body writhing against his flesh.
William felt as
though he were being devoured.
Worse, her mouth
tasted foul, as if it were full of the coppery aftertaste of old blood…
He pulled back,
pushing her away with his hands on her shoulders.
"William? I have
waited for this moment for so long. I have been through so much for this
moment! Shared Harold's bed—"
"Harold is
dead."
"Yes! Praise all
gods!" Swanne clasped her hands before her, her face alight with delight.
"And you must ensure his children die as well. You cannot have any of his
blood lurking in the hills, ready to make a play for your throne."
William's face froze.
"They are your children as well!"
"Ah," she
said, making a deprecatory gesture. "Mere necessities to keep Harold
happy. They are of no importance to me. A discomfort, only. I could not wait to
rid my body of their weight."
Swanne leaned froward
again, lifting her face to again be kissed, but William turned away. He walked
a short distance to a table where lay a scattering of parchments: intelligences
and reports.
He did not touch
them.
"William?"
Swanne stepped up behind him, and laid a hand on his back. "What is
wrong?"
"Harold is
dead."
"Yes…?"
"God damn you,
woman!" William swung about to face her. "You shared his bed for over
sixteen years! You bore his children! Have you not a care for the fact that
this man is dead?"
"Harold
discarded me!" she snarled. "No one discards me!"
Then she relaxed, and smiled again. "Have you seen his body, my
love?"
William gave a terse
nod.
"Did you like
the arrow? I thought it a nice touch. I thought…"
Swanne stopped,
appalled at the expression on William's face. "He was nothing to us,
William! Why look at me as if I were the most loathsome witch on earth?"
"He was a good
man, Swanne. He did not deserve to die. And not in that manner!" William paused, his face working. "And to
now beg me to murder his children? Your
children. I cannot credit it! Is there nothing within that breast of yours but hatred and ambition?
Nothing?"
"What is wrong
with you, William? You and / are the only things that
matter. And the Troy Game. Nothing else counts. We are here, we are together,
and we can complete
the Game. Nothing else matters! Why look at me as if I were a vile thing?"
He turned away again.
"I also used to think that nothing mattered but the Game," he said quietly.
"I used to think that nothing counted but that you and I would live
together, forever, caught in the immortality of the Game."
Swanne stared at his
back, her face a mixture of confusion and frustration. What was the matter with him?
"Forgive
me," William said, his voice now drained of all emotion. "I am tired.
I know I am not what you want me to be right now… but… I am tired."
"Of
course." Again she approached him and put a hand on his back, rubbing it
gently up and down before she reached for one of his hands, turning him about
as she lifted it and put it on one of her breasts. "I understand. Of
course I do. Perhaps in the morning… ?" She smiled seductively. "All
we need do is lie side by side tonight if you are too tired to…" Again she
grinned, and rubbed his hand back and forth over her breast.
He pulled it away,
watching her face cloud in anger. "I am tired, Swanne. I am sick in the stomach from the slaughter
that has ensued this day. I want to be alone. I want solitude. I want to grieve
for Harold, even if you do not. I am sorry if you thought that I would leap
instantly into your arms, but…"
He stopped, too tired
and heartsore to even continue arguing the point. The thought of lying with
Swanne—the thought of that
blood-sour mouth running over his body, taking him into her flesh—made his very stomach lurch over
in nausea. He grimaced, and that told Swanne more than words ever could.
"What?" she said, her body stiff, her brows arched.
"You think to lust after your damned Cornelia again? She's a pale,
hopeless wretch who has retreated into a convent, William. I can't see her
offering her body for your use!"
"I am married to
a woman whom I respect and honor," William said, holding Swanne's furious
stare. "I have no thought to demean Matilda by taking another to my
bed."
"I cannot
believe you said that!" Swanne said. "What is a wife when compared to me? First Cornelia, and now this Matilda?"
"A wife is an
honorable thing, Swanne."
"That is not
what you believed when you had Cornelia mewling at your side!"
"Perhaps I should have thought of it then," he said quietly.
"I am
your—"
"Matilda will be
my queen, Swanne."
To that, Swanne could
make no immediate verbal response. She merely stared at him, her mouth closed
grim and tight. Finally, she said, "I am your queen, William. I am your mate, your partner.
How have you forgotten that?"
"We will dance
the final enchantment together, Swanne. We will make the Game together. We
will—"
"How can you
possibly want another woman before me?"
Although Swanne was
still angry, her voice sounded genuinely bewildered, and William gave up trying
to argue with her. He took her in his arms, and pulled her close, and hugged
her. "I am tired, Swanne. Forgive me. My mind and mouth are too muddled to
make sense."
"Ah, my
sweet…" She lifted a hand to his cheek. "You must pardon me as well.
I know you must be exhausted, and we have eternity before us to consummate our
love. Our power. Kiss me one more time, and I will leave you in peace for this
night, at least."
She grinned
lasciviously, and William's mouth gave a tired twitch in response. Swanne
looked up at him, her body relaxing against his, and William gave a
capitulative sigh and leaned down to kiss her. After all, what was a kiss?
He pulled away almost
instantly, again appalled at the foulness he'd tasted in her mouth.
But Swanne did not
seem to notice his revulsion. She gave him a smile. "Soon," she said,
and left the room, picking up her cloak as she left.
William stared after
her, the fetid taste of death still filling his mouth.
GUD6CV
't^ WANNE GAVE
WILLIAM A FULL DAY AND NIGHT
■Hh before she came to him again. He'd
kept himself busy with the X»_,_ aftermath of the battle, with orders and
worries, and the sheer and unexpected weight of Harold's death, which he had
yet to deal with effectively.
Harold's death had
been a far more bitter blow than William had imagined. He hadn't known Harold
well, but what he had known…
And he had fought to
save him. Damn it! He had fought so hardl The fact that it hadn't been a Norman arrow that had
felled Harold gave William no comfort. Instead he felt even more responsible;
that it was Swanne's hand (again… no matter who wielded the weapon, it was
always Swanne who struck with it) made William feel even more guilty than he
would have otherwise.
So when Swanne had
herself admitted into his presence on the third day after the battle, William
raised his head wearily from the maps he'd been studying and gazed at her with
such clear aversion that any other woman would have turned on her heel and
walked straight from his presence. "I am weary, Swanne," William
said. "What is it you want from me?" "How can you ask that, my love? You must be
fatigued if you cannot even remember what we have fought toward for so
long." She smiled at him. "Come now, give me a kiss, and then we can,
perhaps, share our noonday meal and discuss what we should do. Whatever your
weariness, William, we must consolidate what we have gained. Asterion can no
longer keep us apart, and we must work toward the Game with all the strength we
may."
"You are
right." William called to his valet and asked him to bring some small ale
and whatever food he could barter from the kitchens, then he waved Swanne
toward his own chair, which sat before a brazier, while he took a bench. As the
valet set a platter of food before them—fresh bread and the remains of the
pigeon pie that William had partaken of the previous night— William gestured to
Swanne to eat as he poured some small ale from a jug into beakers.
"You're looking
thin, Swanne. You should eat."
"I have been
mildly unwell, but nothing of any true concern." She smiled, and once more
William found himself thinking that it looked more like a grimace than a
genuine expression of warmth. "And I have been aching for you. To be with
you."
Her smiled stretched,
becoming almost predatory. "I remember how we were interrupted that day in
your stables, when Matilda made her ungracious entrance. I think, William, that
it is time we consummated our union." She pushed aside the stool on which
sat the platter of food and, rising from the chair, unlaced the bodice of her
gown so that her breasts swung full and naked before William. "William, do
not deny me. We have already begun the partnership of the Game. You cannot now
turn your back on me, or on the Game. Once started, it can't not be finished. We have obligations we both need to
fulfill, and the sexual union of both Mistress and Kingman is the mightiest of
them."
He sat very still on
his bench, only his eyes moving as first they ran over her breasts then moved
back to her face. "Swanne…"
She knelt before him,
and lifted his hands to her breasts. "This does not arouse you?" she
said.
Now William shifted,
uncomfortable. In truth, it did arouse him, the memory of her foul-tasting
mouth notwithstanding. It had been many weeks since he had slept with Matilda,
and now, to have these warm, soft breasts filling his hands…
"William,"
Swanne whispered, running her hands up his thighs, kneading and rubbing, until
they reached his groin. "William…"
He slid down from the
bench, thinking, Just this
once… just this once… then she will be
satisfied and she will leave me alone… just this once… it will surely do no
harm…
"William!"
Swanne said, more powerfully this time, and she also slid so that she lay on
the floor, and she pulled William down atop her. His mouth ran along her
shoulder, her neck, her jaw, not touching her mouth, and his hands kneaded at
her breasts.
Smiling in triumph,
Swanne hauled her skirts over her hips, then began to fumble with the
fastenings at William's crotch. "Thank God," she said, "that
your petty wife is not about to interrupt us this time!"
"And I say,
'Thank God she is!'" came a voice, and William rolled off Swanne so fast
that he knocked over the stool carrying the platter. Food scattered everywhere
as he fumbled with his clothing while trying to rise at the same time.
Matilda walked into
the room, very calm, very dignified, very in control of herself.
"Husband,"
she said, nodding to him in greeting as if she'd disturbed him at nothing more
than his morning shave. Matilda continued into the chamber until she was close
to Swanne and then, very tightly, also nodded at her.
Swanne had made no
attempt to cover herself. She had propped herself up on her elbows so that she
could see the better, but her breasts still hung bare from the front of her
under tunic, and her naked body was exposed, from her hips downward.
"And thus you
expected to be queen beside my husband?" Matilda
said, letting both incredulity and disgust fill her voice.
The barb struck home,
for Swanne flushed, while with one hand she jerked her skirts down and with the
other pulled her bodice over her breasts. She looked to William to aid her
rise, but he had stepped several paces away and now stood slightly to Matilda's
left.
Unwittingly—or not,
as the case may have been—William had placed himself so that he and Matilda
stood together, confronting Swanne.
Swanne managed to
rise to her feet with as much dignity as she was capable. Her flush had
deepened, clearly now through anger rather than through humiliation, and her
eyes flashed. She opened her mouth, but Matilda forestalled her before she
could speak.
"You are the
lady Swanne, I think. Yes? Ah, William, look at that red mouth, and those sharp
teeth." Matilda's voice hardened. "Lady Snake, more like. Swanne is
too gracious a name for you, my dear."
"Matilda,"
said William. "What are you doing here? Are you well?" He kissed her
quickly on her mouth, recovering far more quickly from his initial fluster than
Swanne liked.
"I had a bad
dream," Matilda said, her voice now rich with love. She laid a hand on his
cheek. "A terrible dream, and so I acted on it." Her eyes slid back
to Swanne, and her tone and features became glacial. "Just in time, I see."
Swanne's mouth opened
and then closed as she fought to find something to say. As William and Matilda
continued to watch her with impassive faces, Swanne finally managed to summon
enough dignity to give Matilda a sharp nod, and William an even sharper look,
before she stalked for the door.
As it closed behind
her, William's shoulders visibly relaxed. He took his wife's face in his gentle
hands. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you."
She smiled, her eyes
full of love and relief.
"WHY NOT?"
CRIED ASTERION, STALKING BACK AND
forth before Swanne
as they stood in an unnoted corner of William's camp. "Why not?"
"I had
him," she ground out, still so angry that her flesh almost vibrated.
OO
"He was mine…
and then that damned wife intervened! Gods help me, I will
have her torn apart limb by limb!"
"You failed
me," Asterion said, and there was enough coldness in his voice to make
Swanne look at him in panic.
"I will have
him, I will! He cannot resist me for long.
Besides, she is pregnant, and so soon will be too unwieldy to take any man atop
her."
"I need William
dead, Swanne."
"I know! I know!
I promise you, my love. He will be!"
"Before we get to London! I do not need William breathing
over my shoulder when I retrieve those bands!"
She leaned against
him, placing her hands against his chest. "I will let nothing come between
us, Asterion. Believe me. William will be mine before we arrive in
London."
He nodded. "Make
sure of it." Damn her!
William should be dead by now! For a moment Asterion contemplated the possibility
that Swanne might not be able to seduce William. If that were the case, could
he use… ?
No, they were imps of
different natures. Swanne carried the deadly imp within her. The destroyer.
She was the only one
who could murder William safely.
"Make sure of
it," Asterion said again to Swanne, and there was enough threat in his
voice to make her blanch.
Caela Speaks
SAT WITHIN ST.
MARGARET THE MARTYR'S FOR THE
six weeks it took William
to reach London, and felt every pace he
/ and his army took
as England disintegrated before its conqueror.
From Hastings,
William marched on Canterbury, then farther east on the
road to London,
fighting skirmishes here and there, but facing no real
opposition.
The might of
England's earls and nobles had died on the field at Hastings. Not merely
Harold, although for my heart he was the most of it, but his brothers, his
uncles, Alditha's brothers, everyone who might have had a faint hope of uniting
the remnants of England's pride against William—all had died on the bloodied
field at Hastings.
London, as most of
England, was terrified. What would William do? Would he burn and rape and
pillage? Would he set England afire? Would he destroy lives?
If I had been able, I
would have answered them "Nay." William would want nothing but those
bands. He might strike down any who stood in his way, but if his way to London
remained open, then England would remain safe.
If I did not fear for
England, then I remained taut with worry about William himself. I knew Swanne
had gone to Hastings—and where Swanne walked then so must Asterion walk close
by—and I knew that Swanne and Asterion meant to trap William.
But had she—had they—managed it?
I didn't know. I
didn't think so. I was sure I would feel it if she had, feel her triumph if
nothing else, but I would also feel it through the land. I could still feel
that dark stain on the land, and that made me realize that Swanne was still alive,
but the darkness had not spread, and that gave me hope— William had probably
not yet been infected with Swanne's foulness. What
O
gave me more hope was
the news of Matilda's unexpected arrival in England. If William had Matilda by
his side, would he then still succumb to Swanne? I did not think so, but there
had been some days between Hastings and Matilda's arrival, and what could have
happened in those days was almost too frightful to contemplate. Yet for all my
concern I could do nothing until I laid eyes on William, and spoke to him, and
felt his warmth close to me. Until then I would not know for certain.
The Sidlesaghes
worried also. I often saw them, slowly circling atop Pen Hill, and sometimes on
the more distant Llandin. Long Tom, or one of the others, would also come to
see me from time to time, and sit with me for a while, silent, holding my hand
in his.
I tried to hope that
William would have enough sense to recognize the dark change in Swanne… but
then, he'd not let her darkness scare him away when she had been Genvissa, had
he? Then he'd willingly allowed himself to
be enveloped by it.
So why not this time?
William was not to know that in this life her darkness had a more frightening
edge to it, a fatal entrapment, so why would he view her any differently? Why
shouldn't William already be seduced into Asterion's trap?
Because Harold had
trusted him. Because Harold had thought him a changed man—and changed for the
better.
I had to trust
Harold. I had to…
I had to believe in what he had felt from William.
I had to trust
William.
I had to believe that
he had grown.
ONE GRAY, COLD
MORNING IN EARLY NOVEMBER,
Mother Ecub came to
me and said that four members of Harold's witan waited within the convent's
chapel to speak with me.
"They say,"
said Ecub, "that since Alditha has fled to the north—" Alditha was
heavy now with her unborn twin sons, and I cannot blame her for trying to put
as much space between her husband's nemesis and her husband's unborn children
"—that you are the voice of the nation. You are Edward's beloved
widow," her own mouth quirked at that, mirroring the action of my own,
"and they wish to hear your advice."
I rose, smoothing
down the folds of my robe and reaching for the cloak Ecub held out for me.
"How satisfying," I said. "Gods' Concubine has finally achieved
some purpose."
Ecub grinned.
"If only they knew the true extent of that purpose."
"Who is among
them?" I said.
©
"Regenbald,"
Ecub said, and I nodded. The Chancellor had been at the forefront of both
Edward's and Harold's witans. Of course he would be here.
"And Robert
Fitzwimarch," Ecub continued, ushering me toward the door, "Ralph
Aelfstan, and the archbishop of York."
I froze.
"Aldred,"
Ecub finished, watching me carefully, knowing the fear that name would cause
me.
"Aldred?" I
whispered.
"He was a member
of the witan as well, Eaving. He is doubtlessly here in that capacity, not as… as…"
"Asterion,"
I whispered. I closed my eyes, and collected myself. I should not fear. Aldred
would not recognize me for what I truly was. I had not shown myself to him as
Eaving as yet—nor to any, save Harold, Ecub, and the Sidlesaghes—and whatever
tiny "difference," if any, he picked up, he would undoubtedly put
down to Caela's much-lauded acceptance of God and religion since her time in
St. Margaret the Martyr's.
I was more powerful
now. I could hide myself and my true nature from him. I could. Besides, he
thought he'd murdered Mag in Damson. He would not be looking for her
replacement within me.
I merely had to be
Caela.
Ecub squeezed my hand
in comfort. "I will be waiting outside the chapel," she said.
"With an axe."
I burst out laughing.
"And I had thought to escape attention!"
And thus, smiling, we proceeded to the chapel.
"MY LORDS?"
I SAID SOFTLY, ENTERING THE CHAPEL
with my shoulders
bowed in Caela's habitual thralldom.
"My lady
Queen!" said Regenbald, stepping forward to greet me with great
courtliness and respect.
Oh, that I had
received this respect when I'd truly needed it as Edward's down-trodden wife!
"Disaster brings
you to me," I said, nodding to Fitzwimarch, Aelfstan, and Aldred, upon
whom I was careful not to allow my eyes to linger.
"Aye," said
Aelfstan bitterly. He was an aged man who had once been a renowned warrior, and
I could not imagine but that the events of the past weeks had caused him great
pain. No doubt Aelfstan wished he had died honorably in battle, rather than
being left among those few who would oversee England's complete humiliation.
"William marches
on London," Aldred said, stepping out of the shadow where he'd been
standing. "He is but a half day's march away. Good lady…"
O
Aldred was wringing
his fat hands over and over themselves, and I could not help but admire the
depth of the creature's disguise. Who could have thought this the dreaded Minotaur? "Good lady, we fear
greatly!"
"And… ?" I
said, looking between the four men, but wondering within me if Aldred's
presence here (Asterion's
presence)
indicated that he and Swanne had not been as successful with William as they'd
hoped. Or was this but another part of his greater plan?
"Lady
Queen," Regenbald said, "we face a stark choice. Lock London against
William, and watch it starve into submission over a half year, or capitulate it
to him without a fight, and watch him burn it to the ground."
"Oh, I doubt
that William would—" I began, but Fitzwimarch broke in.
"Lady Queen, we
would beg you that you surrender London to William, and in the doing, plead for
its life, and the life of its citizens. He would the easier listen to your
pleas, we think, than those of men he has good cause to loathe and
distrust."
I thought furiously.
This is undoubtedly what three of these emissaries thought, but what of Aldred?
Would he truly believe that William would listen to anything that
Cornelia-reborn pleaded? Did he hope that William would just push me to one
side and burn the city to the ground anyway?
Was he just here,
adding his silent support to this plan, merely because he needed to keep up his
disguise as wobbling fool for a while longer?
The hope that William
had thus far resisted Swanne grew stronger, and, I must admit to myself, the
thought of finally facing William was something I could not resist.
Finally. To see him
again, to be in his presence, if only briefly.
"I will do
it," I said, and did my best not to allow my anticipation to flood across
my face.
"What a good
girl you are," said Aldred, and the anticipation froze within me.
pociRcee>]
ILLIAM PACED BACK
AND FORTH, BACK AND
forth, knowing that
Matilda was standing and watching him and wondering why he was so nervous.
But he couldn't stop
himself from pacing. Back and forth, back and forth.
One of his men came
into the chamber with some trivial question and William snarled at him.
The man fled. Matilda
raised her eyebrows.
William made a
gesture composed of equal parts frustration and impatience, and forced himself
to sink into a chair. He gripped the armrests, for otherwise William thought he
might have sprung up almost as soon as he had sat down.
It had been six weeks
since Matilda had arrived, and in those six weeks little seemed to have been
accomplished. William had consolidated his hold on the southeastern county of
Kent, secured the port of Dover, and had moved on London, but had not managed
much else. London was William's prize, he wanted it desperately, but almost as
desperately he did not want to destroy it in the taking. London was a fortified
city, it could be defended, and it had by all accounts a good militia. The very
last thing William wanted was to become enmeshed in a siege that kept him from
his kingship bands for months, if not years.
So William had hedged
and threatened and negotiated, moving his army eastward, swinging south below
London, then marching west and crossing the Thames at Wallingford. From there
William moved his army to the small town of Berkhamsted. Here he had moved
himself, Matilda, and his immediate command into a large and comfortable abbey
house while his army made do with sleeping more roughly in the frosty meadow
fields or, if they were lucky, the outbuildings and barns of local farmers.
And so at Berkhamsted
William waited, until, two days ago, had come news that a delegation was moving
west from London to meet him.
And, perhaps, to
surrender.
Heading the
delegation was the dowager queen, Caela.
O
They were due this
afternoon; they had, in fact, arrived, and William and Matilda only waited for
the delegation to be escorted into their presence.
William, Matilda
thought, was far more nervous than he should be, and she wondered why.
Personally, Matilda
was more than looking forward to meeting Caela. She'd heard so many intriguing
things about the woman over the past years (although intimate, personal
information about the queen had largely ceased to come her way after Damson's
terrible loss) that now Matilda could barely restrain herself from hopping from
foot to foot.
Was Caela the reason William was so
nervous'?
Matilda suddenly wondered. And
if so, why?
At least Caela could
not possibly be the threat that Matilda knew Swanne posed. Since her arrival,
Swanne had kept her distance; from Matilda, at least, although Matilda had seen
Swanne talking to William on two or three occasions when she managed to catch
him at some distance from his wife.
There was a knock at
the door, and William of Warenne, one of William's senior commanders, entered.
"They are here,
waiting outside," he said.
Matilda saw William
draw in a deep breath and slowly rise from the chair.
She also saw him
briefly clench and then relax his hands.
"How many, and
who?" William said.
"The dowager
queen," said Warenne. "Harold's Chancellor, Regenbald. Aldred, the
archbishop of York. Robert Fitzwimarch. And a small retinue, unarmed."
William was silent, a
little too long, for Warenne glanced at Matilda in concern.
"Pray send in
only the queen," William said eventually. "Entertain the rest with
good wine and food and warmth, and tell them that I shall receive them
later."
Warenne nodded,
bowed, and left.
Matilda watched as
William drew in yet another deep breath, and again clenched and relaxed his
hands.
Sweet Christ Lord, she thought, what has he to be so nervous about?
And then the door
opened, and Edward's queen and Harold's sister entered, and Matilda took her
first step on a journey of mystery that she could never have imagined.
THE FIRST THING THAT
MATILDA NOTICED AS CAELA
hesitated just inside
the door was that the woman, if not stunningly beautiful according to court
tastes, was nonetheless one of the most arresting figures
O
Matilda had ever laid
eyes on. It was not her features so much, although Caela's face and form, and
most particularly her stunning deep blue eyes, were most pleasing, but that
Caela had a presence about her that was extraordinary. She was lovely in the
manner of a still summer's day, and she carried about her a sense of peace and
strength that Matilda would have given her right arm to acquire. She wore very
simply-cut clothing, and had left her dark hair unveiled and unworked, save for
a loosely bound plait that twisted over her left shoulder, but, even so, with
her presence Caela could be recognizable as nothing else but a queen.
The second thing
Matilda realized was that Caela was as nervous and as tense as William.
The third thing that
Matilda noticed was that William and Caela could not take their eyes off each
other.
Matilda was put out
by this, only in the sense that it was so unexpected. She did not feel any
presentiment of jealousy or of disquiet. She was consumed only by a sense of
great curiosity and by a desire to understand what lay behind this
extraordinary tension between her husband and Caela.
"My lady
queen," Matilda said softly, but with enough strength to make Caela's eyes
flicker, then move away from William to his duchess. "I do welcome you to
Berkhamsted, although"—Matilda smiled, quite genuinely, and reached out
both her hands as she walked over to Caela—"I confess I feel most awkward
in welcoming this land's queen into the presence of its invader."
Caela returned
Matilda's smile. "I am but its forgotten queen," she said. "The
wife of two kings past. Alditha should truly be here."
"No,"
William said, and Matilda was more than a little relieved to hear that his
voice was strong. "You are this land's queen, whatever
brief claim Alditha might have had to the title. Thus you are here now, not
Alditha."
He had also walked
over, and Caela took her hands from Matilda's and held them out for William.
As William took them,
Matilda had the sense that both William and Caela had quite forgotten she was
there.
And again, Matilda's
only reaction was one of deep curiosity.
What went on here?
"I am sorry
about Harold," William said.
Matilda noticed he
had not let go of Caela's hands.
Caela nodded, and
tears sprang to her eyes.
"It was none of
my doing," William said.
"It was Swanne's
doing," said Caela and Matilda as one, and both women looked at each
other, smiled, laughed softly, and, in that single moment, became friends and
allies.
"Harold told me
so much of you," the two women said together, and their
O
laughter deepened,
and whatever awkwardness had been in the chamber dissipated, and Caela let
William's hands go to lean forward and embrace Matilda.
"Thank
you," Caela murmured for Matilda's ears only, "for coming so quickly
to William's side. He is whole, thank all the gods."
"I would not
allow the snake to take him," Matilda muttered, and Caela leaned back, her
face sober now, and nodded at Matilda.
"We should speak
later," she said. "You and I.
"But now," she turned back to William,
"my lord of Normandy, I have come before you for two reasons."
He inclined his head,
his black eyes very steady on her face.
"The
first," Caela said, "is to beg for the lives of Harold's children,
and that of his wife, Alditha. She is currently with child, and greatly fearful
that you intend her harm."
"I did not wish
him dead, Caela. I would have done anything to prevent that."
"I know,"
she said softly.
"I vowed to
Harold that Alditha and his children would remain safe, Caela. And so they
shall. As shall you. He asked for your life as well. Did you know that?"
"I do not fear
you, William."
Matilda felt that she
should say something, if only to reassert her presence in the chamber.
"William has already hammered his orders into the heads of every one of
the Normans with us," she said. "They are not to be harmed, and given
every assistance possible."
"Then thank you
both," said Caela. "The safety of Harold's family means a great deal
to me. The second reason I stand before you is to hand you London." She
paused. "It is, after all, yours."
Matilda frowned at
that. What did Caela mean?
William's mouth
twitched in a tiny smile. "Then I will gladly accept London's surrender,
madam."
"Other members of the witan wait outside. Shall
you—"
"No, leave them
for now. Perhaps…"
"Perhaps William
and I can remember the more courtly among our manners," Matilda put in
smoothly, "and offer you a chance to sit and perhaps have a cup of fine
wine. Will you accept?"
Caela smiled.
"Gladly, my lady."
THEY SAT FOR SOME
TIME, SIPPING WINE, CHATTING
agreeably; every
look, every spoken word reinforcing Matilda's growing belief
that her husband and
this queen were only reacquainting themselves rather than establishing an
acquaintance.
William and Caela
also focused too much of their discussion on Matilda. What Matilda had expected
(before Caela had actually entered their chamber) was that there would be tense
verbal parrying as the queen tried to ensure the safety of her people and
country, and William tried to ensure every concession possible. Instead,
Matilda found herself in the slightly surreal situation of fielding constant
questions from both Caela and William as they both tried very desperately not
to engage the other one in anything other than banalities about the weather or
the state of the rushes on the floor. Caela asked a score of questions about
Matilda's children, and about her current pregnancy. William asked Matilda to
relate amusing incidents from their life together, and from that time in their
youth when they'd had to fight so hard to marry against what felt like all of
Europe combined against them.
It was only during
this last topic that there came a very deep and personal interaction between
William and Caela.
As Matilda finished
relating the three years of struggling with princely and papal objections,
Caela actually looked at William directly.
"How strange for
you," she said, "that you had to spend so much energy and time
fighting for the right to occupy your wife's bed. From what I know of you, I
should have thought you would only have taken her as you willed, and damned all
consequences. I had no idea objections had come to mean so much to you."
There was a stillness between them as Matilda tried to
frantically work out the hidden meaning in what Caela had just said.
"My
sensibilities have changed," William finally said.
"How fortunate
for Matilda," said Caela, and now there was a decided edge to her voice.
"There have been
deeds in my past that I have come to regret," William said. "I wish I
had not forced…"
He stopped suddenly,
his eyes sliding his wife's way.
You! Matilda thought, her face very calm. You! That's what you were about to say.
"I have learned
from my mistakes," he said, and now his voice was as hard as Caela's.
Caela inclined her
head toward Matilda. "Patently, my lord of Normandy."
"Matilda,"
William said very slowly, his eyes first on his goblet of wine and then lifting
to Caela, "has taught me how greatly I should have treasured…"
You! Matilda felt like standing and screaming that single
word that William was so loathe to utter. Yet for all the implications of this
conversation, Matilda still did not feel a single pang of jealousy or of
possessiveness. All she wanted
was to somehow
discover what these two were talking about, and how it was— Matilda took a deep
breath as she finally allowed the thought to form in her mind—how it was that
William and Caela had come to love each other so deeply.
Then, as Matilda
struggled within herself, Caela turned her lovely eyes to the duchess and said,
simply, "I am sorry…"
A pause, as Matilda
wondered what that apology referred to.
"I am
tired," Caela continued, "and I admit that my reception had worried
me so excessively on the journey to Berkhamsted that now I feel over-weary. I
speak nonsense, my lady. Forgive me."
You weren't speaking nonsense to
William, Matilda
thought, for you have not
begged forgiveness of him.
"We can find a
quiet space for you within this abbey house," Matilda said, "where
you might rest. Tonight, perhaps, you and your delegation may sup with the duke
and myself."
Caela inclined her
head, but Matilda had not yet done.
She turned to
William. "My lord," she said formally, and she saw the wariness
surface in his eyes; "my lord" was only a title Matilda bothered to
use when she wanted something of him. "My lord, may I request a boon from
you?"
William, still wary,
raised an eyebrow.
"I wonder if I
might request the presence of Queen Caela within my ladies. Not," she
added hurriedly, shooting Caela her own look of apology, "as a member of
my retinue, but as my honored companion and, indeed, my better. It would ensure
your safety," she said to Caela, "if you remained within the duke's
company, and would provide me with a companion for whom I would be most
grateful. I would like to know you better, Caela. I… you intrigue me."
There, best to be
honest. Caela looked at William.
"You would not
object?" he said.
She shook her head,
and smiled back at Matilda. "I, too, would like to deepen my acquaintance
with you, Matilda. I will stay awhile, gladly."
"Good,"
said Matilda.
THAT NIGHT, WHEN
MATILDA AND WILLIAM ENTERED
their bed, Matilda
turned to her husband, and offered him her mouth.
He made love to her,
sweetly and gently, and for that sacrifice, Matilda loved him more than ever.
CbAPGGR F1FC66JM
Caela Speaks
OH, BY ALL THE GODS
OF HEAVEN AND HELL, I could not believe he was so handsome. Brutus had been
good-looking enough, but his features had been too blunt for true handsomeness.
But William, William… I lay in my bed that night, grateful for its privacy, and
thought of him in bed with his wife, and I envied her so desperately that it
became a physical pain within my breast.
I had not expected
this: not his handsomeness, his vitality, nor my instinctive gut-longing for
him. I do not know if this was simple sexual desire (I cannot imagine any woman
coming into the presence of William the duke of Normandy and not feel her belly
turn to water as he looked at her), some greater depth of love, or that much
greater need I had of him for the future of both this land and the Game.
I was so grateful for
Matilda. I had mooned over William like some virgin girl, and she did not
berate me for it. He and I spoke in what were riddles to her, and she did not
ask for an explanation. Beyond that, I was most beholden to Matilda, for it was
stunningly obvious to me that William's transformation away from that
hard-hearted, ambitious brute he had once been into something more reasonable
was all her doing. But what I blessed Matilda for most of all was her gut
instinct about Swanne's danger, and her actions according to that instinct. I'd
heard that she'd come most unexpectedly to Hastings a day or so after the
battle, and I had no doubt that it was her arrival that had kept William whole.
Safe.
I had felt that from
him the moment I took his hands in mine. He was still safe from Swanne! I swear I almost threw myself at
his feet and wept in relief
at that moment of
realization. Instead, I did the better thing and embraced Matilda, for she was
the one responsible for his current wholeness.
Matilda had managed
to find for me a small, but, most gratefully, private space within the abbey
house. I had no women with me, not even Judith, and so I was almost like a
child in my sense of freedom as I did for myself that night (Matilda had
offered me one of her women, but I had declined). So I lay there, sleepless as
my thoughts tumbled about, thinking almost entirely of William (my thoughts
oscillating between relief at his wholeness to a slight feminine numbness at
his attractiveness), and occasionally of Matilda.
Eventually, my
thoughts were rudely drawn to Swanne.
She came to visit me
in the small hours of the night.
I had not been
asleep, but the soft footfalls approaching my tiny chamber nevertheless
disturbed me. At first I had thought they might be William, and I was
terrified, for I did not know what to say to him, but then I realized that
whoever it might be was far too light for his tall frame.
In the end, I wished
it had been William, for Swanne was far more terrifying than anything he could
have been.
I had not seen Swanne
since that terrible night when I had gone to her as Damson. There had been no
reason for us to meet, and I, most certainly, had not tried to instigate a
meeting. I had wanted to leave her well enough alone.
So, as I raised
myself to my elbow and studied the dark figure that slipped in my door, I had a
sudden, terrifying moment of sheer panic as I realized who my visitor was.
Could she harm me?
Could she see whom and what I had become?
And then I felt a
moment of self-loathing for my cowardice. I would need to deal with Swanne
eventually and, moreover, I needed Swanne. Nothing in my future
could be achieved without her aid.
Somehow.
But still, knowing
her alliance with Asterion, I simply could not help a tremor of fright as she
came to my bed, saw me looking up at her, and then sat down on the edge of the
mattress.
"Well, well,
Caela. Come to your man, have you?"
"He is not
'mine,'" I said, grateful my voice remained steady. "Nor shall he
ever be."
"Good
girl," Swanne said patronizingly, and reached out and patted my cheek.
"What do you here then?"
"I come to
surrender London into William's hands."
"And then run
back to your convent, I hope."
I said nothing. It
was difficult to see any details of Swanne's features or
her expression in the
dark, but, silhouetted against the faint light coming through the doorway, I
could make out an ever-changing landscape of lines and angles about the outline
of her face. "Snake," Matilda had called her, and I thought that an
apt name for her.
"I am amazed
that you lie here so quietly," Swanne said after a moment's silence,
"when William undoubtedly heaves and grunts over Matilda in their
chamber."
"I am unsurprised
to find you here so unquietly," I responded, "when William
undoubtedly makes love to Matilda in their chamber."
I saw her stiffen.
"She is
nothing," Swanne said.
"I do not think
so," I said.
"She is not the
Mistress of the Labyrinth!" Swanne hissed.
"She is far more
to him."
"You simpleton!
You have no idea—"
"To everything a
purpose," I said, edging myself up in the bed so that I sat upright.
"Is that not what the Bible says?"
"The Bible is
nothing but worthless—"
"Matilda is your
penance," I said, very softly, "for what you did to me in our former
life."
I think I struck her
dumb. I know she sat there, rigid with emotion, staring at me for a long time.
Finally, she broke the silence.
"And where have
you found your backbone, my lady?" she asked.
"From life, and
experience, and tragedy. Through loss of innocence, Swanne. For that loss, I
think, I have you to thank."
Again, a silence. I
considered her, and I remembered how powerful she had been as Genvissa, both as
MagaLlan and as Mistress of the Labyrinth. I remembered also her years as
Harold's wife, when she had been so influential within the court. Yet, as
Swanne, Asterion's creature, she had lost all power, whatever she may have
thought. Oh, she was still dangerous, and could command magic, but she had lost
completely that aura of extraordinariness that had once so set her apart from
everyone else.
I realized that
Swanne now, even as menacing as she remained, had become little more than a shadow
flitting like a forgotten ghost through the unlit hallways of whatever court
she thought to seek power within. Few people paid any attention to her, most
people had likely forgotten her existence, or ceased to care about it.
For the first time since
I had even known her, either as Swanne or as Genvissa, I felt sorry for her.
At that thought, my
mouth opened and words tumbled forth from some dark, intuitive place.
"Swanne, if ever
you need shelter, I will give it to you."
"What?"
"If ever you
need harbor, I am it." This
is what I should have said and done when I went to her as Damson! Suddenly I knew what I was
doing. It had become clear to me, as I had trusted it would. In offering Swanne
shelter, in offering to be her friend, I was opening the way to the day when
Swanne would hand to me the powers of the Mistress of the Labyrinth. Willingly.
As Damson, I had tried to bargain with Swanne, tried to exact the powers of the
Mistress of the Labyrinth from her as payment for services rendered. That had
been a foul thing to do. Instead, I should have offered her friendship.
Freely. No
conditions.
Swanne started to
draw back, but I reached out a hand and grabbed her wrist. "Swanne, if ever you need harbor, then I am it!"
"Let me go!"
She wrenched her wrist from my grip and rose, almost stumbling in her haste.
"Your wits are gone, Caela!"
"If ever you
need a friend, Swanne, then I am it." Suddenly, as I said that, I no
longer hated her, nor even feared her very much. Poor Swanne…
She took a step
backward, again almost stumbling as her heel caught in her skirts.
"If ever you
need a friend, Swanne…" then
I am it.
Then she was gone,
and I found that, as I lay back down to my pillow, sleep came easily to me, and
I slept dreamlessly until the following morning, when the sound of Normans
clattering down to their breakfast awakened me.
MATILDA AND I SAT, CHATTING, PASSING THE DAY IN
idleness while about
us men and horses bustled about the courtyard outside as William prepared to
march on London.
London had been
given; he wasted no time taking.
It seemed to me that
I had wasted a lifetime in idle chatter over needlework. I had certainly wasted
most of my marriage to Edward bent submissively over wools and silks. And here
I was yet again, a former queen with the queen yet to be crowned, talking of
children and babies and childbirth and, of course, wools and silks.
Thus it was that when
Matilda sighed, placed her needlework to one side, and said, "I am curious
as to how it can be that William loves you so deeply," I was somewhat
dumbfounded.
Then, as I stared at
her with, I am afraid, my mouth hanging slightly open,
wondering how on
earth to respond, she smiled with what seemed like genuine amusement. "I have misphrased that
question," Matilda said, "for I did not mean to suggest that it could
not be possible for William, or any other man, to love you, for you are a
greatly desirable woman, but that how it is that William can have come to love
you. Has he fallen in love only with rumor? Or did he somehow hold you as an
infant, he but a small boy, and conceive then his great passion for you?"
There was absolutely
nothing in her voice but intense curiosity, and I think that surprised me as
much as… as the idea that William loved me.
He hated me. He'd
always hated me.
"I… he can't
love me," I said.
In response, Matilda
simply nodded to my lap. "You're bleeding," she said.
I looked down. At
some point in the last few moments I'd stuck my needle almost completely
through my left index finger. I pulled it out hastily, wincing, and sucked at
the pinprick of a wound, feeling like a child.
"On our marriage
night," Matilda said, "William paid me the courtesy of being honest.
He said that I would never be the great love of his life. Ah, do not fret,
Caela. I accepted that then, and I accept it now. But for these past sixteen or
so years I have thought my great rival to be Swanne. Now I realize that it is
you that William loves beyond all others—and you him. Caela, I ask again, and
in simple curiosity and not in judgement, how can this be so?"
My left hand was back
in my lap, and now I looked down at it, and wondered what to say.
"And all my
marriage," Matilda continued in a soft voice, "I have known that
William was somehow very, very much more than 'just' the duke of Normandy. That
there is another level, another purpose to his life that he has kept entirely
from me. Is it you, or are you just a part of it?"
"A mere part of
it," I said.
She was silent,
waiting.
"Matilda, to
tell you would be to involve you in such dark witchery that—"
"Swanne is dark
witchery," Matilda said. "You are not. Swanne had the power to ruin
my life. You have the power to enrich it. I am not afraid nor threatened by
you, Caela. Please—"
"Matilda."
We both jumped
slightly, and looked to the door.
William stood there,
leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, his eyes unreadable.
I had no idea how
long he had been standing there.
"Matilda, my
love," he said, unfolding his arms and walking into the room. "I
would speak privately with Caela for a time. Do you mind?"
"Of course
not," Matilda said. She rose, kissed first me and then William on the
cheek, almost as if she were blessing us, and left.
Finally, my heart
pounding, I raised my eyes and looked into William's face.
?OU ARE WELL
SERVED IN YOUR WIFE," CAELA SAID after a long, uncomfortable pause. "She is a
better wife to me than you were," William said, taking Matilda's chair.
"She has made
you into a better husband than I managed," Caela said.
The skin about
William's eyes crinkled in humor. "So Cornelia is still buried in there
somewhere."
"We are all who
once we were, only…"
"Changed,"
he said. "You are far lovelier than you were as Cornelia, and that
loveliness is not just reflected in your features. You are calmer, more at
peace with yourself. Stronger. Wiser." And more still, he thought, but could not put words to that
difference.
"And you?"
"As you said, I
am a better husband."
Silence, as both
looked away from each other.
"Why did you lie
with my father?" William said eventually.
"You saw?"
"Yes. My father, Caela?"
"What care is it
of yours?" she said.
"Why?" His
voice was very soft now.
She lowered her gaze,
her wounded hand making a helpless gesture. "He reminded me of you. He had
your look, save gentler, and kinder. More weary, I was lonely and in need,
William. I was in no mood to reject what he offered. He was a mistake. I lay
with him only that once."
"Did he please
you?" His black eyes were steady on her face.
"No." She
paused. "Not as once you did. He was your father, but he was not
you."
"You should not
have lain with him, Caela."
"What concern is it of yours? What?"
Now it was William
who spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "None. I know that. I just… I
just wish you had not. Not with my father…"
"I'd wished it
was you," she said, "but I could not have you. I thought Silvius
could fill the void. I was wrong."
"I heard what
Matilda said to you, Caela. But I do not love you. There is too much shared
hatred for us to—"
"I know. You do
not have to explain."
"Dammit,"
he muttered, looking away.
"William—"
"I did not come here to talk to you of
love," William said. "There are more urgent matters, as I am sure you
realize."
"Yes."
"Caela, do you
remember those bands I wore about my limbs?"
Her shoulders
tensed»at this change in subject, and he did not miss it. "Yes."
"Someone has
been moving them."
"Yes."
There was a long,
heavy pause. "Do you know who?"
"Yes."
Another pause, and Caela kept her eyes directly on him. "I have."
William's mouth
dropped open, and he stared at her for so long and so incredulously that Caela
eventually had to look away.
"You shifted the bands?"
"Yes."
"How? How? Only I or the Mistress of the Labyrinth could have
touched those bands! And possibly Silvius, as he was once their
Kingman also." William's voice was rising, and Caela flinched as he slid
forward on the chair then stood up. "How could you have moved them, Caela?"
She studied her hands
clenched in her lap a long moment, then looked up. "The Troy Game has
changed, William."
"What do you know of the Game?"
Caela visibly steeled
herself. "The Game was left alone a long time, William. Uncompleted. It
changed." She gave a small, helpless shrug. "It became attuned to the
land, and the land to it. William, the Troy Game is no longer the passive thing
I think that maybe you believe it to be. Something that waits for your touch.
Yes, it wants completion. Yes, it wants the strength that will come with that.
But it also wants that completion and strength on its terms." She paused. "And this land wants the Game completed on its terms as well. The
land and the Game are agreed on how this should be done."
William stared at her
for a long moment in silence. How
was it that she spoke on behalf of the Game and the land? He spoke one single,
expressionless word: "Yes?"
"The Game wants
the male and female elements of this land to complete it, William. It means it
will become one with the land. Completely melded with it."
"Explain that to
me," William said, his voice now dangerously quiet.
"In simple
terms—"
"How good of
you."
Caela winced.
"The Game wants the female and male elements of this land, the ancient
gods Mag and Og, to complete the Game as the Mistress of the Labyrinth and the
Kingman. It does not want you or Swanne to—"
"What have you done?"
"I have done nothing! William, the Game has—"
"Are you still
Asterion's pawn?"
"No! William, I
beg you, listen to—"
"This Game is mine, and Swanne's!"
She took a moment to
respond, steadying her nerves and her voice. "The Game is its own, in
partnership with the Mistress of the Labyrinth and the Kingman."
"Who you say are
to be Mag and Og."
She nodded.
William abruptly
stood and walked over to a window. He stood for long minutes, staring outside.
"I have not come all this way to be told that," he said finally,
turning about. "I have no reason to believe you."
Caela stood, and
approached William. He tensed slightly as she neared, but made no move to stop
her when she lifted his hand and placed it flat against her breastbone.
"See who I am," she whispered, holding his eyes with her own.
He found himself standing within the
circle of stones he had once known as Mag's Dance.
Save that the stones were no longer
solid, nor even stationary, but instead appeared to have become creatures of
wraith and movement and song.
He spun about, both scared and
disorientated, and saw that a woman approached him through the spinning circle
of dancers.
It was Caela, clothed only in mist
and her loose, blowing hair and with such power in her eyes as William could
never have imagined her—or any woman— possessing.
"See," she said, and looked
to one side of the circle.
A white stag lay there, its head
crowned by bloodred antlers.
"He is my lover," she
whispered.
William snatched his
hand back from Caela. "By all the gods," he whispered.
"You are
Mag?"
She hesitated, then
nodded. "I am what she once was, yes."
"Ah," he
said. "Now I understand you. And to think that once all I thought
O
you wanted was my
attention and my babies. No. You wanted power. You wanted revenge, against both
me and Swanne. And this is it. You have now taken Swanne's place in the Game,
or at least fooled the Game into thinking you were what it wanted, which is why
it allowed you to touch the bands, and—"
"I am to this
land what Mag once was. And yes, I am what the Troy Game now wants—one half of
it, at least. I did not 'fool' it, William. I only accepted the decision of
both the Troy Game and the land."
"I cannot
believe that you would do this to me! And yet… how could I not expect it? You
always were ready with the dagger to plunge into my back. You were always ready
to—"
"Stop! No,
William! No! None of this is my plan, but that of the Game
itself, and of the land!"
"And who do
you—oh, I offer my apologies—the Game and the land think to replace me with, then? Loth-reborn, whoever he is?"
"His name is now
Saeweald, William. He is a physician tending the wounded as he tends this
land."
"Saeweald? Well,
Saeweald then. Oh, how it would please him to have me crawl to him and offer
him my powers! Or Harold? Is Harold the one who you mean to take as your mate
and partner? Yes, I can see that. Harold. I imagine you have a plan to raise
him from the dead."
"Don't do this,
William," Caela whispered. "Don't become that man of hate
again."
"Did you think
that you could walk in here and seduce me with face and body and tender voice
into betraying everything I have fought for… through two lives?"
He topped, swore, and
stalked away.
"William—"
"You are not the
Mistress of the Labyrinth," William said, turning back to face her.
"I don't care what else you are, but you are not the Mistress of the Labyrinth. You do not have the
power, and you do not know the steps to complete the Game. It cannot teach you. Silvius cannot teach you."
"One day,
eventually, Swanne will hand to me her powers as Mistress of the
Labyrinth."
"What? You have
lost your mind! She will never willingly hand over her powers! / will never willingly hand over… oh, I cannot believe I am having this conversation with you!"
"Will Swanne
willingly hand her responsibilities as Mistress of the Labyrinth to me one day?
Yes, she will." Caela's voice was very certain.
"You are a fool,
and out of your mind."
"Swanne has
betrayed you to Asterion."
She could not have
said anything else to more stun William into silence.
He gaped at her, his
face paling from its fury-induced red, Caela's words bouncing over and over
within his head. Swanne has
betrayed you to Asterion. No. Those words could not mean what they seemed to. Swanne could
never have betrayed him to…
The taste of blood
and decay suddenly overwhelmed William again, and he grunted, as if someone had
punched him in the belly, and he sat suddenly on a chair.
Caela walked very
slowly, very carefully, over to the chair, kneeling before it and taking one of
William's hands in hers. "This was none of my doing, William."
William was not
looking at her, slowly shaking his head to and fro.
"I do not know
what powers or persuasions Asterion used to so capture Swanne's heart and
loyalty, but that he has is undoubted. William, Asterion does not want to
destroy the Game. He wants to control it. He wants to become its Kingman, using Swanne as his
Mistress. She has agreed to this, thinking that in Asterion she has a more
powerful Kingman than in you. If you ask why I have moved the bands, then that
is why. To protect the Game, and through it, the land, from Asterion and Swanne
combined."
William was still
shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, but Caela's calm, soft words
were beginning to make terrible sense. Asterion wanted
to control the Game, become its Kingman, dance his ambitions out with Swanne.
Yes, that made sense. Why hadn't he ever considered this before?
"Who is
Asterion?" he asked finally, softly.
"Aldred."
William winced. Aldred had been playing both him and Swanne all this
time…
"Asterion and
Swanne want to trap you, to use you to find the bands. Then, once they have
them…"
"Stop!"
"William, listen to me! Swanne is Asterion's creature now! Everything
she says and does is said and done on his
behalf! Do not trust her. Do not—"
"And everything
you say and do is done on your behalf, yours and Silvius', no
doubt!"
"Everything I
say and do is for you, William."
"That is not
what you have just been saying. In one breath you tell me that you want me to
relinquish all control I have of the Game into Saeweald's or Harold's
hands."
"I never said
that. What I said was—"
"Get out, Caela!
Get out!"
"William, don't
push me away!" The words tumbled out of Caela's mouth, so desperate was
she to have him hear them. "Beware of Swanne and Aldred, and trust me. Trust me!"
"Don't you dare
say that to me!" He grabbed at her hands and pushed her away roughly so
that she sprawled on the floor.
"William!"
Caela cried. "Don't push me away when I can—"
"Get out!"
She rose to her feet.
"William, when you need me—"
"Get out!"
"When you need
me, whether in this life, or in any to follow, seek me out."
And then she was
gone.
sevejsiGeejsi
HE ONLY SPACE
SWANNE COULD FIND FOR HER-
self in the abbey
house was a small, dusty attic space within the
^fc^*1'
roof of the building. It was filthy, there were rats and lice in the thatch,
and she was forced to sleep on a pallet that was padded only with her cloak.
It was an existence
far different from the one she'd enjoyed as Genvissa, or even as Harold's wife.
But Swanne did not
allow herself to think of such things. These discomforts became as nothing when
she thought of what would be hers, once she'd trapped and killed William,
Asterion had the bands, and both of them controlled the Game.
But for now she could
neither dream of future powers and glories, nor even sneer at the terrible
state of the thatch, for Asterion was with her, and he was angrier than she'd
ever seen him before.
"I cannot
understand," he said in a low hiss, "why it is that you have not yet
taken William! How many weeks? How many opportunities?"
"I have
tried!" she said, her words stumbling in her haste to placate Asterion.
"But… oh! He has some nauseous commitment to his wife. He is afraid of her. The simpering fool. He says he cannot abide
to annoy Matilda. And she, the bitch, she won't allow me near
him."
Asterion's hands were
on Swanne's shoulders now, soft and caressing, yet somehow managing to convey
an infinite threat in that caress. "Are you sure it is not you he cannot
abide?"
"Ha! I almost
had him, even though he is terrified of his wife. I had him on the floor, and
then that… that dwarf interrupted us!"
"What manner of
woman are you," Asterion continued, "that you cannot even seduce a
man to your bed? What manner of Mistress of the Labyrinth is scared of a mere
'wife'?"
Swanne wrenched
herself away from his tight hands, furious at him, terrified at his anger.
"I have done all I can! Rubbed my nakedness against him! Taken his member
in my hands and roused him! Do not accuse me of—"
Asterion grabbed her
shoulders again and gave her a hard shake. "I need William dead, you fool!
Neither of us can dare to have him wandering about—"
"You are afraid
of him," Swanne said, wonderingly. "Perhaps I was wrong to think you
would make a good Kingman, after all. Perhaps William is the preferable—"
Swanne stopped as if
struck, then her eyes widened and a whine of sheer agony escaped her mouth. She
tried to say something, but couldn't. Instead, as Asterion let her go, she sank
to the floor and curled up about her belly, whimpering in agony.
"You will do what I need," whispered Asterion. "You will kill William, and you… will… do… it… soon. Before he
has a chance to ruin all our plans. Do you understand me?"
She gave a tiny nod,
and then visibly relaxed as the imp within her ceased its vicious nibbling.
"There's a good
girl," said Asterion in a sickenly soothing voice. He leaned down and
patted Swanne on the head. "There is no escaping me, my dear, and it is
far better to work with me than against me."
SWANNE LAY ON THE
FILTHY FLOOR OF THE ATTIC
space clutching at
her belly for hours after he had gone. She felt as if her world had
disintegrated about her.
Never before had
Asterion treated her so cruelly. Why? Did he hate her so much? Had she failed
him so badly?
Swanne succumbed to a
fit of weeping. She felt hate sweep over her, but not for Asterion. For
Matilda, who stood in her way, and for Caela, who had once thought to stand in
her way and who now had somehow managed to retreat into a smug complacency.
Why, Swanne had no idea.
She remembered what
Caela had said to her last night.
Swanne, if ever you need shelter, I
will give it to you. If ever you need harbor, I am it.
"Silly
bitch," Swanne muttered, and managed to struggle into a sitting position. Shelter from what, for the gods' sakes? All Swanne had to do was murder William, and then Asterion
would be grateful, and pleased, and would love her again, and would give her
all the dark power she craved.
"I'll kill
Matilda first," she said. "Yes. I'll kill Matilda, and then I'll take
William. Easy. Simple. I should have thought of it sooner."
They would be in
London soon, and there Swanne knew she would get what she needed.
eigbceejM
CHINKING ONLY OF
FLEEING WILLIAM'S
NOT unexpected anger, Caela did not immediately register the fact that
the door to the chamber had not been closed when she fled. All she could think
about was returning to her own small chamber, gathering her cloak, and then
making her way to the courtyard where she might prevail upon someone to escort
her back to London.
But the moment she
entered her own chamber, leaving the door open, as she only needed to snatch at
her cloak, Caela heard a footfall behind her, and then the sound of the door
closing.
She spun about.
Matilda stood there,
staring at her. Caela began to speak, but Matilda waved her to silence. She
closed the distance between them, lifted her hand, and placed it firmly on
Caela's breastbone.
"Show me what
you showed William," she said.
"Matilda—"
"Show me!"
And so Caela did.
Eventually, as
William had, Matilda stood back, her hand falling away from Caela, her face
pale. "Who are you?" she whispered. "What are you?"
"Matilda, I did
not want to involve you in this."
"I have been
involved ever since I married William! Tell me!"
Caela closed her
eyes, and tried one last time. "If I tell you, I will involve you in
witchcraft so malevolent that it will destroy…"
"What? My entire
life?"
"This life, and
all future lives," Caela said softly.
Matilda stared at
Caela, and suddenly everything fell into place. "That is why William and
you know each other so well… this is not your first life together, is it?"
Caela shook her head.
"But how can
this be so? Nothing that the Church teaches can explain—"
"We come from a
time long before the Church existed. It cannot know of us, and of what we
do."
"A time of dark
witchcraft!"
"And a time of
great beauty," Caela said gently.
"Tell me,"
Matilda said.
"Matilda, are
you sure that—"
"Tell me."
And so Caela drew
Matilda back to the bed where they sat, and Caela told her.
FOR HOURS AFTER CAELA HAD LEFT HIM, WILLIAM SAT
in the chair, head in
hands, his entire world a turmoil.
Aldred… Asterion.
Swanne… perhaps even
now lying with Asterion, plotting William's downfall.
Caela… a part of this
land as William had never imagined.
For the moment,
Asterion and Swanne, and what they planned, what they could accomplish, were too frightful to consider,
so William concentrated entirely on Caela.
Oh, God, how
beautiful and desirable she had been. Perhaps, strangely, he had no trouble
believing what she had told him about her nature as it was now, and not simply
because of what Caela had shown him of herself. He remembered how only
relatively recently Swanne had told him Caela (and Cornelia) had harbored Mag
within her womb. As Cornelia, she had loved this land the instant she'd seen
it. He remembered how she'd stood on the deck of the ship, their son Achates in
her arms, staring at the line of green cliffs in the distance. He remembered
how she had once told him that arriving in this new and strange land was not
"strange" at all, but felt rather as if she was finally coming home.
He remembered how she
had instinctively known what the Stone Dances were for, their purpose, their
magic.
He remembered how
effortlessly Cornelia had learned the Llangarlian language, as if she'd merely
been remembering it, not learning it at all.
He remembered how
immediately close she had been to the people of the land—to Erith and her
family.
To Blangan.
To Coel.
Cornelia had walked
onto this land and instantly become one with it.
He, as Brutus, had
walked onto this land and instantly become its enemy.
Why? Because he'd
only seen Genvissa? Only seen the power and lust she'd represented?
William's mind began
to worry at him as he tried to piece things together. Genvissa had been
Cornelia's instant enemy. Genvissa had done nothing but plot Cornelia's murder
from the instant she'd known about her. Genvissa had used the excuse that
Cornelia was Asterion's tool—but that wasn't only it, was it? Genvissa had seen
within Cornelia a terrible threat, and it had nothing to do with Asterion but
everything to do with this land.
William groaned,
wondering how he could have been so blind. How could he have so blithely
ignored everything Genvissa was? Everything she did?
Ariadne had wrapped
the Aegean world in catastrophe. Genvissa—and in her rebirth as Swanne—was
doing the same.
No wonder the
Llangarlians had been so antagonistic. No wonder they had fought so hard
against Genvissa and all she stood for.
William rose and
paced slowly about the room, thinking now on the Game. Caela said it had
changed, become attuned to the land.
Could it? William
tried to remember everything he had been taught about the Game, but nothing he
had been taught catered to the current situation. No Game had ever been left so
long uncompleted between the opening and closing dances.
Had the Game become
attuned to the land to the extent that it had all but merged with the land?
There was no reason
that it should not have. Two thousand years left uncompleted. Gods! It could have done anything in that time.
Slowly William's mind
began to unwind from its turmoil into a peculiar kind of peace, even though he
felt disjointed and a little disorientated. He found himself standing in the
center of his chamber, seeing not the cold stone walls, but the labyrinth as it
had stood atop Og's Hill, the maidens and youths with their flowers, dancing
about him and his Mistress.
He saw the Mistress
of the Labyrinth standing before him, dressed only in a hip-hugging white linen
skirt. He saw her lithe body, her breasts glowing in the torchlight.
He saw her deep blue
eyes and her smile, as they rested on him. He saw Caela, and William was
suddenly hit with such a longing that he again groaned, and doubled over, as if
in pain.
Could Caela be the
Mistress of the Labyrinth? Yes, of course she could, if she were taught, but
she had to be taught, and it could be
none of his teaching. The mysteries of the Mistress were alien to William. He
could dance with a Mistress as her partner, but he could never truly understand
her power. Was he angry that Caela sought to become the Mistress of the
Labyrinth?
No. Not truly.
What angered and
embittered him—even as he could not understand it— was that she did not want
him to dance with her as her Kingman.
What frightened him
was what he had seen when she had lain with Silvius.
When all was said and
done, she had possibly betrayed him as deeply as had Swanne.
"THERE," SAID CAELA EVENTUALLY. "YOU
HAVE IT ALL."
Matilda felt numbed
by what she'd heard, and yet she disbelieved none of it. Everything fit her own
experience and observation.
"You do not seem
overly surprised," said Caela, watching Matilda carefully.
"The details
have shocked me," Matilda replied, "but I do not find them difficult
to believe."
Caela took the other
woman's hands. "Matilda, listen to me carefully. Do not become involved in
this, no more than you are now. I could not bear that you should be injured in
a battle that has nothing to do with you. I have hurt and murdered too many
innocent people, sometimes willfully, sometimes unintentionally. I could not
bear to have your hurt or death on my conscience as well."
"'Murdered' is a
strong word, Caela."
"What else can I
call the death of my father, Pandrasus? And my nurse, Tavia? All the people of
Mesopotama? Damson! Oh, Damson…"
"Damson? How can
you blame yourself for Damson's death? Caela—"
"I used her
unwittingly, and sent her into danger. She was a sweet and simple woman
who—"
"A sweet and simple woman? Ah, Caela! Enough! I cannot have
you carry this burden. Listen to me… Damson knew precisely what she was doing.
And her greatest 'talent' in her life was that she fooled most people into
thinking she was 'sweet and simple.'"
"That is good of
you to try and make me feel better, Matilda, but—"
"For sixteen
years, Caela, Damson was my agent within Edward's court."
Caela's mouth dropped
open.
"Damson was a
cunning and knowing woman," Matilda continued, "Not 'sweet and
simple' at all. I met her several times in the days before I sent her to
Edward's court, and I am very well aware of precisely who and what she was. Do
not berate yourself on Damson's account. She had long previously accepted the
risks of the life she led, and if you want someone to blame for putting her in
Swanne's way, then blame me. I was the one who sent her to
Swanne when she moved to Aldred's palace."
"You sent her to spy on Swanne?"
"When I
discovered that William and Swanne were lovers in the first month or so of my
marriage, I sent Damson to be my own personal agent at Edward's court. She was
to report on Swanne to me… if Swanne moved to destroy my marriage and my life,
then I wanted to be warned of it. Later, my dear, I set Damson to watch you.
After Harold came to visit, I became increasingly curious about you."
"But…"
Caela still could not believe what she was hearing.
"Do not
fret." Matilda smiled. "Damson discovered nothing about you that she
could report to me, save a sense that you were far more than you appeared to
be." Matilda shrugged. "You thought you were using her. She was
spying on you. You thought you had sent Damson to her death. I already had.
Caela, Damson is not your guilt to bear. Nor mine neither. Damson had
responsibility for her own life."
Caela was silent.
"And your father
Pandrasus, and Tavia? Your fault? No. They were victims not of any single ill
will, but of circumstance. Mesopotama was destroyed by the miasma of hate,
Caela, not by any single person or action. Everyone hated: you, Brutus,
Membricus, Pandrasus, the Mesopotamans, the Trojans. A small boy walking down
the streets of Mesopotama could have sparked the disaster that ate it as much
as anything you did, or anything Brutus did. Forgive yourself, Caela. Don't
carry around a burden of useless and unearned guilt."
Caela gave a small
smile. "I wish you had been with me in my previous life, Matilda. I think
somehow it would have been a happier time for me."
"I can make it a
happier time for you in the future," Matilda said, and squeezed Caela's
hand where it lay in her lap.
CAELA AND MOTHER ECUB
STOOD ON PEN HILL, THE stones humming gently about them, and watched as William
the Conqueror took London.
His army had been
split into four, and it approached the city from four directions, entering from
the south via London Bridge, from the northeast via Aldgate, from the west via
Ludgate, and the largest column from the north via Cripplegate.
This last column
approached Cripplegate from the northern road, which took them past Pen Hill,
and it was with this column that William and Matilda rode.
Caela and Ecub could
just make him out: William was unmistakable in his brilliant jeweled armor.
"Did you tell
him?" Ecub asked.
Caela shook her head,
her eyes not leaving the distant figure. "He did not want to hear. He is
not ready."
Ecub sighed.
"His wife,
however," Caela continued, "did."
Ecub turned to Caela,
an eyebrow raised.
"Matilda will be
coming to visit you," Caela said. "Eventually."
Ecub laughed
delightedly. "Asterion has his own Gathering," she said. "And I
shall have mine."
William saw Matilda
glancing at the crest of the hill, and his mouth tightened.
"They are
watching," Matilda said. "Caela, and a woman I think must be Mother
Ecub."
WILLIAM SAID NOTHING,
HIS EYES NOW BACK ON THE road before him. He was still furious that Caela had
told Matilda.
Unbelieving that Caela had told Matilda.
It was not so much
anger that Matilda now knew—in a sense William was
relieved that he no
longer had to deceive her, or hold anything back from her—but anger because
William was terrified Caela had now trapped Matilda within the same maelstrom
of rebirth and disaster that caught so many others. Matilda did not deserve
that; she deserved only to live out this life with as much blessing and peace
as he could manage to give her, and then to die without lying on her deathbed
wondering how and when she would be drawn back.
William was also
angry because, of all things, Matilda's sympathies seemed to be leaning more
toward Caela in this mess than to him. Women!
Is it so bad that Caela might be the
Mistress of the Labyrinth? Matilda had asked him the previous night.
He had not answered
her, and, after a silence, Matilda had said softly. You do
not mind that at all, do you? You are truly only angry because you think she
has not chosen to dance the final enchantment with you. You are riven with
jealousy. You love her, you want her, you cannot bear her choosing another over
you.
At that, William had
been so infuriated that he had not picked up on Matilda's carefully chosen
words. I do not love her! he'd shouted.
Matilda had only
smiled at him.
"Keep away from
them," William now said as, gratefully, the hill slid past.
Matilda only smiled.
"I command
it!"
She tipped her head
in a gesture that might have been acquiescence.
Not wanting to fight
with her any longer, William nodded. "Good."
Tonight, he thought, the bands. Tonight I shall retrieve the bands.
CUDGJslGy
ONDON! IT LAY
SPREAD OUT BEFORE HIM,
windows and torches
glittering in the cold midnight. His't Cy^^^rn^ Finally.
Few Londoners had
taken to the streets to witness the conqueror take his city. Most had stayed
indoors, windows shuttered, anticipating, perhaps, riot and pillage.
But William had his
Normans under tight command. He established control of the city within hours,
securing it both within and without, then sent the majority of his army to
establish encampments a good distance without the walls, so that the Londoners
might not feel too severely the humiliation of Norman victory.
William took for
himself and Matilda the bishop of London's great house, preferring for the
moment not to remove himself to Westminster. To his captains he said that he
wanted to ensure that the Londoners felt the full power of his domination, but
privately William could not have borne to remove himself from that for which he
had lusted for so long.
He had entered
London.
He was not going to
willingly remove himself from it until he had what he wanted.
The Trojan kingship
bands. His limbs burned for their touch.
At dusk William had
come to St. Paul's atop Lud Hill. There he had brushed aside the murmured
concerns of the deacons and monks and strode down the nave toward the small
door that gave access to the eastern tower. Waving away his soldiers, saying
only that he wanted some solitude with which to gaze upon his new conquest,
William climbed the tower's rickety wooden stairs three at a time, emerging on
the flat-topped tower just as full night set in.
Here he'd stood for
hours, feeling, sensing out the bands. Oh,
William remembered where he'd buried them two thousand years before, but over
two thousand years the landscape had changed remarkably. The city had grown,
buildings stood where once had spread only orchards, streams had been enclosed…
and yet nothing had changed. The Troy Game was still here.
William could feel it
beneath his feet. By sheer luck (or design, perhaps?), this tower stood over
the very heart of the labyrinth, by now buried many feet below the crypt of the
cathedral. Now the power of the Troy Game throbbed up through soil, wood,
stone, and the leather soles of his boots, surging through William's body as
strongly as it had done when he stood with naked feet on the labyrinth itself.
More strongly.
Caela had said the Game
had changed, and William could feel it. It had grown… independent.
It was going to be
very hard to control.
It would be
impossible to control without his kingship bands.
William shivered, and
gazed over the nighttime city. Caela had moved all six of the bands; or, at
least, all six had been moved. William could feel four of them very clearly,
calling out to him, longing to be touched and slid over his flesh once more.
They were now scattered to the west, north, and south of the city, miles away,
but he could feel them, and could feel how the Game had grown to meet them.
The remaining two
bands…
They were not where
he'd left them two thousand years earlier. Caela had taken them, but he could
not sense them at all.
What had she done with them? Where
had she hid them?
"My, what a fine
man you have grown into. Taller than I imagined. I wonder if those bands will
still fit you… if you ever discover them."
William whipped
about. Silvius stood two paces away, his arms folded, dressed in the manner of
Troy, with nothing but a white waistcloth and boots.
His flesh was very
dark in the low light, but his good eye flashed, while of his left there was
nothing but a seething pit of darkness.
"What do you
here?" William said, trying to keep his voice level. Gods, how much
power had both Silvius and the Game accumulated if his father could appear this
solid, this real, this… here?
"Come to see my
son. What else?" Silvius let his arms fall to his side, and he took a half
pace forward. "Come to wonder."
"At what?"
"At you, of
course." Silvius paused. "Come to see what my son has made of
himself."
"Do you like
what you see?"
"Does it matter
anymore what I think or like?" Silvius paused, his eyes running up and
down William's body. "You have seen Caela. Did she tell you that she and
I—"
"Yes,"
William said curtly. "You have become most intimate with Caela, it
seems."
Silvius' face took on
a lecherous cast. "Very intimate. She has changed, and vastly for the better.
It seems you have not. Vile corruption has forever been your creed, has it not?
You founded this Game on it, and you seek it out still."
There was a strange
note to Silvius' voice, and William did not know what to make of it. "Did
it make you happy to lay with her? Did that give you satisfaction? She is not yours, Silvius."
Silvius laughed.
"Oh, yes, she is. She gave herself to me freely. Gave herself to me, William! Freely!" He paused, and
when Silvius resumed, his voice was roped with viciousness and contempt.
"You lost her two thousand years ago. She can never be yours now."
William regarded his
father with as much steadiness as he could summon. "Why do you interfere,
father? What has any of this to do with you?"
"You made me a part of it! You founded the Game on my
murder. I warned you not to found the Game on corruption, that fratricide was
no way to—"
"This is none of
your business, Silvius. Crawl away back to your death. Leave Caela alone. Leave
me alone. Leave the Game to play out as it will."
"The Game will
play out according to my will, William. Mine."
William's eyes
narrowed, and for a moment it appeared as if he did not breath. Then he said,
very softly, "No wonder my mother Claudia died in my birth. It was her only
means of escaping you."
Silvius' lip curled.
"You killed Claudia. Not me. You tore her apart."
William stared at
Silvius, his own eyes almost as clouded and dark as his father's empty eye
socket.
"You shall never
succeed," he said. "The Game is mine."
And with that he
pushed past Silvius, and disappeared down the stairwell.
WILLIAM RACED DOWN
THE STEPS AS IF HIS LIFE depended on it, his breathing harsh and ragged as it
tore through his throat. Four times he stumbled, almost falling, sliding
inelegantly down five or six steps before his scrabbling hands managed to find
purchase on the stone walls.
When he finally
reached the bottom, he took a moment to steady his breathing, glancing back up
the stairwell as if he expected Silvius to come bearing down upon him at any
moment, before he stepped out to meet the concerned faces of his men.
"Robert,"
William said to one of his most trusted men-at-arms, "there is a priory
about two miles out of the city on the northern road. Ride there, and deliver a
message to the dowager queen Caela. Let her pick the place, but
demand that she meet
with me tonight] Impress upon her the need for
urgency. You have that?"
Robert nodded, then
left at a trot.
William closed his
eyes, and took a deep breath. Gods,
let her agree! Let her agree!
The situation had
been bad before this night. Now it was almost irreparable.
When he had been
Brutus, and Silvius had been his living father, his mother's name had been
Lavinia.
Not Claudia.
Never Claudia. When
William had left her earlier that evening, Matilda waited until she'd heard the
clatter of his horse's hooves as it left the courtyard, and then she'd snapped
her fingers at one of his sergeants.
"Find me a quiet
mare to ride," she said, "and an escort. I need to visit a priory
just beyond the walls."
The sergeant thought
about arguing with his duchess for all of two heartbeats.
Then he nodded, and
within a half hour was riding with the escort surrounding Matilda through Cripplegate.
A half hour after
that, Matilda stood before the gates of the priory, watching as the door slowly
swung open.
"You are Mother
Ecub," she said to the woman who stood there, and Ecub nodded.
"Sister,"
she said, and stepped forward and embraced Matilda.
SWANNE SAT IN HER CHAMBER, ONCE AGAIN WITHIN Aldred's palace. She didn't know
where the good archbishop had got to, and she didn't care. Asterion was the
only one who came to her now, and for that she was heartily glad.
All Swanne could
think about was Matilda's, and then William's, murder.
Aldred's palace held
many comforts. One of those had been a blessed bath—Swanne had soaked for what
seemed like hours within a tub set before a fire—and the other had been having
access again to Hawise. Hawise had not accompanied Swanne south (Swanne had
told her to stay within London, thinking then that she'd be able to take
William and return to London herself within a day or so of the battle), and
Swanne had missed her sorely. Not for her company, for Swanne had grown to
detest Hawise's prattling, but because Hawise was one of the best people she
had ever met for procuring things.
Now Swanne sat in a
comfortable chair, holding in her hands a vial of one of the deadliest poisons
she had been able to concoct. Hawise, of course, had no idea she was procuring
a poison for Swanne, nor did she have any idea
what Swanne was going
to do with the collection of herbs her mistress had sent her out for.
But when Hawise had
brought those herbs back, Swanne had spent a delightful hour or two mixing and
fermenting them, distilling from them the purest, blackest poison she could
manage.
Matilda's death.
It would look like a
miscarriage gone terribly wrong. She would lose the child, and then bleed to
death. What could be simpler? All Swanne would have to do was slip the poison
into Matilda's wine cup herself or, more like, pay someone a handsome sum to do
it for her.
For gods' sakes,
London was full of resentful Saxons who would jump at the chance to hurt the
Norman cause in any manner they could.
And then poor
William. Distraught. In need of comfort.
Swanne smiled,
setting the vial to one side. Soon, within the day.
She closed her eyes
and imagined how it would be, when William finally rolled atop her, and entered
her, and the imp snatched…
She looked forward
very greatly to his scream of terror and agony, a scream that would, within the
moment, disintegrate into a whimper of submission. Then she could roll him
away, and leap from their bed, fall to her knees before Asterion, and say, I have done it! I have worked your will! Love me!
Meantime, she would
comb out her hair, and pinch some color into her cheeks, and perhaps Asterion
would come to her and would love her again.
Soon. Swanne closed
her eyes, dreaming.
"Will he love
you enough to take your imp, do you think?"
Swanne's eyes flew
open, her heart pounding, then she stumbled terrified to her feet. The far end
of the chamber seemed to have opened into a huge hall made entirely of emerald
water, and Swanne remembered enough of her previous life to have some idea of
what she was seeing.
"No!" she
whispered. "Go back! Go back!"
Harold was walking
toward her out of that watery emerald cathedral. He looked fit and well, better
than she could remember having seen him in many, many years.
He looked as he had
before he had touched her, except, more.
And however much she
screamed, and shrieked for aid, he kept walking toward her, closer and closer,
until she could see the terrible gleam in his eyes, and she understood it for
what it was.
Vengeance.
"I will not let
you do to William," he whispered, "what you did to me."
And he reached out
his hands, stretched them out over the three or four paces
that still separated them, and seized her by the neck.
ASTERION FOUND HER ON
THE FLOOR SOME TWO
hours later. Her neck
had been twisted until it had snapped.
Her black eyes,
dulled by death, were staring at something that Asterion could not even
imagine.
Who had done this? William? Those
strange and as yet undetermined companions who had aided Caela to move the
bands?
"Useless
bitch!" he snarled, and dealt Swanne's corpse such a massive blow with his
booted foot that it skidded away some three or four feet.
Asterion stepped
forward and kicked the corpse again. Curse the idiot bitch! Curse her! Not only had she failed to kill William, but she'd
managed to get herself killed instead.
And now Asterion was
left without a Mistress of the Labyrinth.
Damn her to all hells'. Now they'd
have to come back again!
Another life, another
set of years spent scheming, planning, maneuvering. Waiting!
Asterion's lips
curled, and he began to batter Swanne's body with slow, deliberate, hate-filled
fists.
After a long time,
time enough to almost cover himself in Swanne's blood, Asterion paused and
raised his head.
She was moving. She!
She was going to meet
with William.
Suddenly, in all his
anger and frustration, Asterion forgot his caution about meeting William face
to face.
"I think it
might be time to ruin a life or two," he muttered.
And grinned.
Caela Speaks
RECEIVED WILLIAM'S
MESSAGE AFTER SUPPER
when Ecub and Matilda
sat with me.
I had no choice but
to go. He had asked for me, and the last thing I'd said to him that night was
that should he need me, then he should seek me out. I could not refuse to go.
It was my nature not to refuse him, should he need shelter.
Besides, I wanted to
see him again. I hungered for it.
So I told Ecub and
Matilda not to worry (a useless piece of wordage), and I sent William's man off
carrying a message containing place and time.
The time was
unimportant, save that William's need seemed so urgent that it needed to be as
soon as possible, but the place… the place…
I sent word to
William that he should meet me over his dead body.
I thought, if nothing
else, that would make his mouth curl in dry amusement.
So here now I stood,
early, wanting to have time before William arrived to contemplate what we had
been, what we were, and what we might be one day, all gods permitting.
This was the first
time I had been here (the first time while still breathing, of course). It was
unbearably sad.
The chamber, rounded
out of living rock, was bare, save for the two plinths of stone, each of which
bore a shrouded corpse. One, that which was Cornelia's corpse, had its
wrappings disturbed, and my fingers briefly touched the bracelet that still I
wore about my left wrist.
But my eyes were
drawn irresistibly to Brutus' wrapped figure. I stood a long time, staring at
it, before I walked over and, hesitatingly, rested a hand on its chest.
Brutus. Oh, gods, how I had loved him.
Why? I wondered. What was there
about Brutus to love?
He had mistreated me and abused me, humiliated me and abandoned me, and still I
could not resist him. Still I loved him, when there were others who would have
suited me better, and who offered me more than Brutus ever had.
But perhaps even then I had known.
My hand drifted
slowly up the wrappings covering his chest to his throat. Here had swarmed the
growth that had, finally, killed him. I remembered the long months of his
dying, his fading from strength into weakness, the rough rasp of his voice as
he ordered some servant or the other to remove me from his presence.
How he had hated me.
My eyes filled with
tears and I tore my mind away from the memory. I slid my hand further up, over
his cheek, and then his forehead, imagining the features that lay swathed below
my touch, to the crown of his head.
Did that wondrous,
thick, long curled hair still live beneath these tight shroudings? If I
unwrapped his beloved head would I be able to run my hand through its blue-black
crispness again?
Would there ever be
any way of recapturing that single moment we had, that moment in the hills
behind the Altars of the Philistines, when he had lowered his mouth to mine,
and for a heartbeat almost loved me?
A tight hand closed
about my throat, jerking me back, and, terrified, I let out a strangled cry.
"Caela," he
said, his mouth close to my ear, and pulled me back against his body.
His other hand was
now about my waist, as hard and as cruel as that about my throat. I was caught,
I could not move… I could barely breathe.
And then he let me
go, stood back from me and looked about the chamber. "This is where they
buried us? In this chamber?"
I nodded. I could not
take my eyes from him.
He walked slowly over
to the plinth on which lay poor Cornelia's corpse, and he touched the
wrappings. "They have been disturbed. Why?"
I raised my wrist,
and showed him the bracelet. "Silvius took this from the corpse, and put
it on my wrist."
William's eyes
darkened. "And why did he do that?"
"He thought to
make me remember. At that time I lagged in forgetfulness, remembering nothing.
It was a device to make Asterion think me no threat. To make him believe that
Mag was dead."
"And that
artifice worked, of course."
He was looking at me
strangely, and I found myself shivering. "Yes." In truth, of course,
Asterion had then found out about Damson, and had
O
"murdered"
poor Mag all over again, but I sensed that now was not the time to leap forth
into such explanations.
What was wrong with William? Why did
he regard me with such wild-eyed strangeness?
"William? What
is wrong? Why summon me here?" Sweet gods, was this the time for us? I felt a mad rush of hope and joy within me, and
even though I tried to suppress it, I knew I could not keep it entirely from my
face.
He lifted those
unsettling eyes from me and began to walk slowly about the chamber, sometimes
"running a hand about its walls, sometimes touching briefly one of the
plinths. "I have seen Silvius," he said.
"That cannot
have been pleasant."
He shot me a look,
but continued speaking in a normal tone. "From what you said to me, and
from what I have gleaned, he has been of great aid to you."
"And to this
land. I owe him a great deal."
"Be careful you
do not owe him too much," he said. "Caela, how much does he
know?"
I frowned. "Know
about what?"
"About the Game,
about the bands—and their locations—about you."
My frown deepened.
"He knows many things. He has been at my side for almost a year, now. And
at Saeweald's. He has become our closest ally."
At that, William
closed his eyes briefly, as if I had said something so painful he could hardly
bear it. And I suppose I had. Brutus had ever hated his father.
"You lay with him," William said. "You lay with him."
"I wanted
to," I said steadily, wishing William would leave this be. "I had no
wish to stay God's eternal virgin concubine."
"You gave him
your virginity," he said, his voice bitter. "That gives any man a
powerful hold over a woman."
"It certainly
gave you a powerful hold over me."
"But with
Silvius, even more power, Caela, considering what you are now."
I shrugged. "He
is my friend. He will not think to use it to—"
"The gods curse
you, Caela! Have you no wits?"
I flinched, taking a
step back. William's face was suffused with fury, and something else, which
frightened me far more than did his fury: fear.
"It is not the
time now to discover yourself jealous, William. I—" "Damn you for your unthinking naive stupidity!" He
strode forward and, before I could stop him, before I could even think, or
utter a protest, he seized me in cruel hands, and forced his mouth down to
mine.
For an instant I
resisted, and then all my want and need, all my desire for him flooded through
me, and I opened my mouth under his.
How many years had I wanted him to
kiss me?
Oh gods… I melted
against him.
"You
bitch!" he exclaimed, almost throwing me from him, and, horribly, wiping the
back of his mouth with his hand. "You corrupted piece of filth!"
I could not believe
it. How could he possibly say that to me?
"Don't you
understand, Caela?" he spat. "The apparition of Silvius which walks
this land is not my father, nor Brutus' father." He paused, and in that
instant, seeing the terror in his eyes, I suddenly knew what he was going to
say.
I went cold, frozen
with horror.
"Silvius is Asterion! Asterion may have used Aldred's body
from time to time, but
Asterion took Silvius' form as well! I tasted it, the corruption in your mouth. You are
as much his as is Swanne."
"No." I
gasped the word, taking yet another step back. My stomach coiled and then
clenched, and I thought I might vomit. "No!"
"Yes! Curse you
again, Caela! How much does he
know?"
I could not think. My
entire world had torn apart around me.
William had walked up
to me, and now he grabbed my shoulders, giving me a little shake. "How
much does he know?" he said again.
"Silvius cannot
be… he cannot be…"
"How much does he know?"
"Many
things," I managed to whisper, my mind churning. "Saeweald and I… we
trusted him. We trusted him. He knew so much that… things only Silvius could
have known…"
"And what did you know of what Silvius knew? Answer me that?"
"He knew the
Game… as he would, being your father…"
"No one knows
the Game better than Asterion. And no one knows it less than you, or Saeweald.
You were his willing fools. You knew nothing of Silvius, and nothing of
Asterion, save for their existence." His mouth twisted, and I could see
contempt burning in his eyes. "All he had to do was come to you, wearing
my face, and say, T hated Brutus, too. I was his victim, too. I want to help.'
And you fell into his arms. Literally. You were so grateful, you lay with
him."
He grunted,
disgusted, and pushed me away. "You lay with Asterion. You stupid, sorry bitch, Caela. What
have you done?"
I could say nothing
immediately. All I could do was stare at him, appalled more at myself than what
he'd said about Silvius. One thing stuck in my mind—how Silvius had known all
about glamours.
Of course he knew,
because he used them continually himself.
Eventually, running
my tongue over my lips to soften them away from their dryness, I managed to
speak. "How did you know?"
"When I was
Brutus, and you Cornelia, I had a vision. I saw you lying with
a man in the stone
hall, a man you loved. I could not then see his face, but as your loving
continued, he changed, changed into Asterion, and before my eyes, he murdered
you. You accepted him into your body, thinking he was a man who loved you, and
he took that and murdered you with it."
He paused. "The
night you lay with Silvius I again saw a vision, save that this time I did see
the man's face. My father's—or at least a glamour of him."
I was shaking my
head, desperate to deny what he was saying, but William continued on. "And
last night I saw him, he who pretends to be my father. I spoke to him of my
mother and his wife, Claudia. He talked of her as well."
"I do not
understand."
"My mother's
name was Lavinia. My father would have known that. Asterion
would not."
I raised trembling
hands to my face, finally facing the fact that William might be speaking the
truth.
"He does not
know where the bands are," I said. "Silvius never knew."
He almost spat in my
face. "He doesn't need to know where they are. He has you, Caela. He is going to reel you in at any moment. You
are his creature. You will take him to them!"
He stopped, his face roiling in contempt, and suddenly
the full enormity of what he'd told me hit me.
Everything I'd done
had been a jest. All those times I'd laughed with Silvius about fooling
Asterion. All the times I'd confided in him.
I remembered, in a
bolt of stunning clarity, how Silvius had made such a point of making me agree
that I lay with him freely, that it was my own choice. How he insisted that I
had to come to him as myself, and not as Damson.
I remembered how he'd
never appeared with me, or Saeweald, or Judith, or anyone else close to me,
when he was within Aldred's body.
And I'd given myself
to him. Freely. I'd given Asterion not only me, but Eaving… this land!
When I'd become
Eaving, I'd felt the shadow which hung over the land, the blight that tainted
it. I'd thought that shadow and blight was Swanne. I was wrong.
It was me.
"He has you,
thus he has the bands," William said softly, driving home each word with
cruel intent. "He has Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. He has the
Game, Caela, in his hands, and you and Swanne have given it to him!"
I gagged, nausea
suddenly overwhelming me. I could hear screaming, and I realized it was the
Sidlesaghes, atop a hill somewhere, tearing themselves apart in their agony.
And I, I, I, had done
this to them, and to this land.
I had given it to
Asterion.
There was a step
behind me, and strong hands seized my body and held it back hard against foul,
muscular flesh.
And then a voice
spoke, its breath caressing my cheek, its sound filling the chamber.
"Not Gods'
Concubine at all," said Asterion. "But mine."
OT GODS' CONCUBINE AT
ALL," SAID ASTERION.
Ґ I "But mine."
William sagged,
grabbing at one of the plinths for support, only at this moment finally
allowing himself to believe what he had shouted at Caela: that she'd given
herself to Asterion, that she was his creature as much as Swanne.
He'd wanted her to
somehow deny it, perhaps explain it, account for the stench of foulness he'd
tasted in her mouth as he'd tasted it in Swanne's.
But she was Asterion's creature. Both of them. Asterion's.
The Minotaur had his
eyes fixed on William, kept them on him, even as he lowered his head and
nuzzled at Caela's neck as a lover might.
Caela did not move,
but she stared at William, and in those eyes, William saw terror, and guilt,
and hopelessness, and desperation.
And something else.
An entreaty.
No!
Please! She begged him with her eyes as
Asterion's mouth moved to the back of her neck, then into her hair, a faint
trail of saliva clinging to her skin where his mouth had been. Please! Please!
No!
Gods, do this if you never do
anything else for me, my love.
And it was that
"my love" that persuaded him. That, and the fact that Caela resisted,
where Swanne had succumbed.
"Caela,"
William said and, stepping forward, snatched Caela from Asterion's surprised
hold.
"Caela."
Then, before the
Minotaur could move, William lowered his head, kissed Caela as fiercely as he
could and, as she grabbed at him, sank his sword deep into her belly.
Caela!
ASTERION WATCHED
CAELA, STILL SOMEHOW ALIVE,
sink to the floor,
the blood pumping from her belly, saw the expression of torment on William's
face—and laughed.
Caela lifted a bloody
hand and grabbed at William's wrist, her eyes locked into his, her lips moving
soundlessly.
"What?"
said Asterion, still chortling. "You think that will save you, and your
Game? She'll only be reborn, fool, at my behest, and then I shall have her. She shall be mine, all mine—mind, body, and spirit."
He paused, and the
laughter in his face and voice died as he saw that William watched only Caela
in her dying, and paid him no attention. "Never yours. Never."
Caela's hand slipped
away from William's wrist, and, as he tried to seize her, and lift her up, she
closed her eyes and breathed one last final sigh, blood bubbling from her
mouth.
There was a moment's
silence, a vast stillness, and then William let Caela's body slump to the
floor.
He took his sword,
lifted it, then tossed it across the chamber toward Asterion, now watching him
warily.
"Kill me, as
well," William said. "I see no reason to continue this charade."
But he said it to
empty air.
Asterion had
vanished.
E DIDN'T KNOW WHAT
TO DO WITH THE BODY.
Should he leave it
here, in this mausoleum? Carry it to the surface / and lay it before the
stunned, angry eyes of those who had cared for her?
He sank to his knees
before the body, gently straightening out its limbs, his eyes avoiding the
congealing blood across its abdomen, his heart racing, his mind screaming that
this wasn't happening, that this hadn't happened, that he could not have… he
could not have…
He had killed her?
"Caela,"
William whispered.
He had killed her? No, how could that be… Brutus
had constantly held his hand, and yet Brutus had hated her.
Hadn't he?
William moaned, and
bent forward until his forehead rested on Caela's still breast.
He had killed her.
That Caela herself
had begged him to do so was of no matter. He had killed her.
"Gods… gods…
gods…" he murmured, over and over, everything within him turning to ice.
"William,"
said a voice, and William jerked to his feet, wild-eyed, his hands spread
defensively to either side of his body.
Harold stood a little
distant away, dressed in the scarlet tunic with the great golden dragon
emblazoned across its breast that he'd been wearing when he'd been struck down
with Swanne's foul arrow, but without his warrior's chain mail beneath it,
merely simple cream linen trousers. His hair was pulled back and tied with a
thong in the nape of his neck, his beard close-trimmed to his cheeks, his face
calm as he regarded Caela laying dead at William's feet.
"You promised
you would not harm her," said Harold. "You vowed it to me!"
"I—"
"This is a bad
day," Harold said, then raised his eyes from Caela to William. They were
steady, impassive.
"I had no
choice—" William began.
"This is a bad
day that, after all the days and years and aeons you refused her that simple
grace of a kiss, the moment you do kiss her, you choose only to taste
foulness."
"I—"
"Did you taste
foulness because that is what you wanted
to taste, William?"
"She had lain
with Asterion, willingly. She was his creature."
"You are a fool,
William." Suddenly Harold had closed the distance between them, although
William did not actually see him move, and, his hand tight in William's hair,
had wrenched William's head back until he screamed in agony.
"You are a fool! You tasted only what you wanted! I lay with her, did
you know that?"
"I lay with her,
and kissed her mouth, and because I loved her, I tasted only sweetness and
goodness. You bring corruption to everything
you touch, William. No one else. You." He wrenched William's head again,
and the man cried out, but made no move to pull himself free. "Who
corrupted her, William? Asterion… or you,
that first night you lay with her in her father's palace in Mesopotama? That
night you raped her."
Harold let William's
head go and the man staggered a little as he regained his balance.
"No,"
Harold said, his voice thick with contempt. "No one has corrupted
Cornelia-Caela, not even you. She is incorruptible, did you not know
that?" "But she, too, thought that—"
"She thought so
because she looked into your eyes, and your face as you told her how depraved she was. She looked
at the man she has always loved, and what she saw in his eyes and his face made
her believe in her own corruption. She had waited aeons for that kiss, William,
lived only for it, and you used it to destroy her!"
Harold paused, his
chest heaving, then laughed hollowly. "Have neither you nor Asterion
thought, pitiful fools, that if Caela said to Asterion-as-Silvius, thinking he was Silvius, 'Yes, I lay with you willingly,' then that
promise was given to your father, even if he was not there, and not to Asterion?."
William stared at
Harold, his eyes unblinking, trying to make sense of what Harold said.
"You sent her
into death believing she is Asterion's creature," Harold said, his voice
now expressionless. "What a magnificent parting gift for the one woman who
has always loved you, eh? How you must always have hated her." "I do not hate her!"
Harold raised an
eyebrow.
"I do not hate her!"
Harold turned his
back.
"I have always
loved her," William whispered, sinking to his knees and holding out his
hands in supplication. "Always."
Harold turned his head
slightly, enough to see William over his shoulder. "Then may mercy save
her from a man who loves as you do," he said, and vanished.
CbAPGGR GUDejMGy-FOUR
OTHER ECUB HAD SAT
IN HER PRIORY WITH
Matilda at her side
and had known the moment Caela died.
Concomitant with that knowledge came such a terrible wave of despair and fear
that Ecub knew that Caela had died in the worst possible circumstances.
And then the
Sidlesaghes atop Pen Hill had wailed, and then lifted such a cacophony of
mourning to the night skies that Ecub understood that even "worst possible
circumstances" was possibly being a little too optimistic.
The women of the
priory, known among themselves now as Eaving's Sisters, came to sit with Mother
Ecub and with Matilda. They formed a circle, and held hands, and spoke quietly,
wondered, and wept.
Two hours after the
knowledge of Caela's death had overwhelmed Ecub, there came a ringing at the
priory gate.
"I will
go," said Ecub.
And she set her face
into harsh lines, rose, lifted a lamp, and walked to the gates. Matilda at her
heels.
When she swung them
open, she was not overly surprised to find William of Normandy—Brutus—standing there, Caela's bloody body in his arms.
Matilda gasped, her
hands flying to her face. She started forward, but Ecub held her back.
"Help me,"
William said. He did not seem surprised to see his wife standing with Ecub.
"Why?" Ecub
said.
"I loved
her," he said. "I want…"
"It is too late
to 'want' now," she said. But Ecub stood back once she had spoken, and
beckoned William inside. Having closed and bolted the gate, she led him to the
priory's chapel where she directed him to lay Caela's body on the altar.
Matilda followed
behind, crying silently.
The chapel's altar
was clothed in snowy linen, its hemline embroidered with depictions of the
running stag and the twists of the labyrinth. The altar's
O
surface was bare,
derelict of any Christian paraphernalia; waiting, perhaps, for a duty such as
this.
As Matilda
straightened Caela's limbs and smoothed her hair away from her brow, Ecub stood
behind the altar, arms folded, staring at William. "What happened?"
she said.
William's face was
haggard, that of an old man, and when he lifted a hand to rub at his close-shaven
beard, Ecub saw that it trembled.
He began to speak, in
a broken, stumbling voice, and he told Ecub everything that had happened in the
crypt. Everything that had been said, and everyone who had been present.
"And so you
killed her," Ecub said as he faltered to a close.
"It was what she
wanted."
Ecub did not reply,
not verbally, but her face set into hard, judgmental angles, and Matilda hissed
in disbelief.
"Mother
Ecub…" he began, then whipped about, shocked, as a new voice spoke.
"Well, well,
Brutus of Troy, William of Normandy," said the Sidlesaghe, walking slowly
forward from where he stood within the chapel doorway. "Grimly met, I
fear."
"Who are
you?" William said, one hand at his sword.
"William—"
Ecub began, fearful, but the Sidlesaghe waved her to silence.
"I am Long
Tom," he said. "I am a Sidlesaghe. I keep company, I sing, I watch
over her." He nodded at Caela's corpse.
William addressed the
Sidlesaghe again. "What
are you?"
"What I am does
not concern you at this moment. Tell me William of Normandy, Kingman of the
Troy Game, are you going to retrieve the bands of Trojan kingship now that you
are here?"
"What is the
point?" William said. "Asterion will only haunt me if I try to find
them, and as for Swanne, well she is so corrupted that—"
"Swanne is
dead," said Long Tom.
William just stared
at the Sidlesaghe, shocked.
"Harold came to
her before he came to you," Long Tom finished.
"Well, the night
has some joy in it, at least," said Matilda, speaking for the first time.
William shook his
head, as if trying to shake some understanding into it. "Gods," he
said. "What am I going to do?"
Ecub and the
Sidlesaghe shrugged simultaneously. What William did, so long as he let the
bands be, was of no concern to them.
"Go now,"
Ecub said finally. "There is nothing more you can do here." William
looked at her, then walked forward until he stood by the altar. He
laid a hand on
Caela's face and then, as Matilda had done, smoothed the hair back from her
brow. "Next time," he whispered.
And then, without
word or look to either Ecub or the Sidlesaghe, he turned and strode from the
chapel.
Matilda hesitated a
moment, looked at Ecub, then hurried after William.
As the door slammed
behind them, the Sidlesaghe smiled at Ecub. "Do not fear, Mother. All is
not lost. Asterion does not know about Eaving. He does not know about me. And
he does not know…" he raised his eyebrows at the Mother.
She nodded,
understanding. "He does not know about Harold."
"Yes." The
Sidlesaghe's smile broadened. Then he sobered, and looked again on Caela's
corpse. "Will you care for her?"
"Aye. We will
wash her, and stitch her wound, and clothe her in fine array, and then we will
bring her to you atop Pen Hill."
"And
there," the Sidlesaghe whispered, "we will watch over her."
epicogue
Christmas Day,
Lm LDRED' ARCHBISHOP OF
.-"7j| William
of Normandy and his wife Matilda as king and queen of "■ W"
It was a celebration
day in
Don't jump on the cracks, or the
monster will snatch!
The ceremony in the
abbey went well enough, save for a peculiar episode when Aldred lowered the
crown onto William's head.
"I find this
most amusing," Aldred whispered. "Crowning you, most witless of
fools, as king of
The eyes of the
entire abbey were on the king, sitting on his throne, and Aldred, standing with
his hands on the crown as it rested on William's head. Aldred had murmured
something, but most believed it to be a blessing.
They were stunned,
therefore, when William reached up his hands and seized Aldred's wrists.
"She promised to
Silvius, fool, not to you."
Aldred gave a small
laugh. "Her verbal promise meant nothing. It was a ruse to upset you only.
Don't you know how I shall control her? It is what I planted in her womb, as
what I planted in Swanne's womb, that binds her to me. She may not be a willing
tool, but she will be a tool."
Aldred stepped back,
wrenching his wrists from William's grasp.
"All hail the
king of
the nave between the
ranks of Normans who cheered both their new king and
their new realm.
Only their king,
sitting on his throne, knew how empty his kingdom truly
was.
THE STONE HALL STOOD
EMPTY.
Empty, that is, save
for the black imp that sat in the shadowy recesses of one aisle, playing with a
red woollen ball to while away the time.
Waiting.
It grinned suddenly,
and its teeth were white and sharp.
Waiting.
Its jaws snapped
closed, then chewed as if they had bitten off something delectable.
The black imp sat.
Waiting.
NAME INDEX
Alan: Second son of
harold and swanne.
Alditha: widow of a
Welsh lord, sister to edwin and morcar, wife to harold.
ALDRED: Archbishop of
ALEXANDER ь: Pope of the
Roman Catholic Church, 1061-1073.
ANSGAR: a member of
the WITAN.
ARIADNE: Mistress of
the labyrinth of
ASTERION: the
Minotaur.
beorn: eldest son of
harold and swanne.
BOLLASON, ORN: one of
hardrada's men.
BOWERTHEGN: the senior
chamberlain of the bower, or bedchamber.
BRUTUS: Kingman and
leader of the Trojans. Instigator, with GENVISSA, of the
Game on the banks of
the
CAELA (EADYTH): wife of EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, sister to
HAROLD.
CHENESITUN: a small
village to the west of
of Kensington.
CLOPEHAM: a small
village some six miles southwest of the City of
as Clapham.
CNUT: a Dane, and
former king of
hatred of his stepson
was the primary reason that EDWARD spent so much of his earlier
life in exile.
DAMSON: the
middle-aged widow of a stone mason living in
EADWINE: Abbot of
ECUB: Prioress of ST.
MARGARET THE martyr's, a priory established in a convent close to
Pen Hill north of
EDWARD: king of
edwin: a northern
Saxon earl and sister to alditha, brother to morcar.
GENVISSA: former
MagaLlan, Mistress of the Labyrinth, instigator, with BRUTUS, of the
Troy Game in
GERBERGA: a midwife.
GLAMOUR: an
enchantment which swaps souls from one body to another.
godwine: earl of
GYRTH: younger brother
to HAROLD and CAELA.
HAROLD: earl of
TOSTIG, husband to 1)
SWANNE and 2) ALDITHA.
HAROLD HARDRADA: king
of
hawise: attending lady
to swanne.
judith: a noble woman
attending Queen caela.
kingship BANDS: the
six golden limb bands of
enables the Kingman to
control the Troy Game.
LEO DC Pope of the
Roman Catholic Church, 1049-
leofwine: younger
brother to harold and caela.
late Bronze Age by
BRUTUS.
LONG TOM: one of the
more talkative among the sidlesaghes.
martel, guy: an envoy
of William of Normandy.
MATILDA: daughter of
the duke of
morcar: a northern
earl, brother to ALDITHA and edwin.
olafson, halldorr: one
of hardrada's men.
POITERAN: a Bronze Age
kingdom in the west of
ranuld: Duke William's
huntsman.
regenbald: a member of
the witan.
roussel, alain: Master
of the Horse to william of
SAEWEALD: physician.
ST. MARGARET THE
martyr's: a priory at the base of Pen Hill. It is run by Prioress ECUB.
sidlesaghe: a name
meaning "sad songster." A member of the ancient race of
silvius: father of
BRUTUS.
southwark: a small
community on the southern bank of the Thames from
is largely grouped
about the southern approaches to
SPEARHAFOC: bishop of
stigand: the
archbishop of
swanne: Danelaw wife
of Earl harold of
THAMES, river: the
major waterway which runs through
was named the
THESEUS: son and heir
of the Athenian king, he was sent as tribute and sacrifice to
lover ARIADNE, managed
to defeat the Minotaur and escape from
was the first lover of
Helen, whose abduction precipitated the eventual destruction of
THEGN: a Saxon noble
TOSTIG: earl of
troy: the fabulous
city of
IVlCllClilUS, IVlllg Ul Jp^ILd, piCCipiLdLlllg U11C
HUJdlJ YYO.L 1U WI11L.11 L11C l-liy-SUlLCS
<
ally destroyed due to
a combination of hubris, the betrayal of the gods, and Gre<
cunning. Those Trojans
who survived the destruction scattered about the lands of tl
VEILED hills, the: the
six sacred hills of ancient
llangarlia. These
sacred hills were clustered above the
the area now known as
minster); the Llandin,
the most sacred of the hills (now called Parliament Hill); P(
Hill; Og's or Lud Hill
(now called Ludgate Hill); Mag's Hill (Cornhill); and the Whi
Mount (Tower Hill).
The hills are intersected by three small rivers that flow into tl
mighty llan: the Magyl
(now called the Fleet), the Ty (now called the Tyburn), and tl
Wai (now called the
Walbrook).
william: Duke of
witan: council of
Saxon earls and elders.
WULFSTAN: Bishop of
yves: a priest in the
employ of aldred, the archbishop of
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