"Sara Douglass - The Troy Game 2 - God's Concubine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

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 Troy. In his early thirties, Brutus
snatched at the chance to lead the lost Trojan people to a new land and rebuild Troy itself,
using the ancient power of the Troy Game which he, as a Kingman, controlled.
In this new land, Llangarlia, now known as England, Brutus had met Genvissa, the
Mistress of the Labyrinth, and his partner in the intricate dances of the Troy Game. He
and Genvissa had almost succeeded, in their ambition, to build the Game on the banks of
the Llan, or Thames, when disaster struck in the form of Brutus' unwilling and unloved
wife, Cornelia. Wracked by jealousy, Cornelia had become the pawn of Asterion, the
ancient Minotaur and archenemy of the Game, and had murdered Genvissa just as she and

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 Sarah Douglass - God's Concubin


Brutus were about to complete the Game.
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.