Gods' Concubine Page 21

  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 inclined her head in Edward’s direction, as if she found his presence mildly surprising. “My nakedness disturbs you?” she asked.

  And turned her back to the open window.

  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 realise that where once Caela’s body, although slim, had been soft from her life of inactivity at court, it 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 woollen 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 of the 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 unobtrusively 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, seemed 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.

  I wonder if some part of him knows, thought 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 to 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 bade 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, Edward relaxed and allowed himself to be distracted by the priests and bishops gathered around 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 the chamber in that annexe which runs between our palace and Harold’s hall? You know the one, surely. The Bishop of Kent occupied it before he so sorrowfully succumbed to his ailments.”

  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 just as confused with the attention she was receiving as felt Judith. And the chamber of the (sorrowfully now deceased) Bishop of Kent? Why, not only was that a sumptuous chamber, it was also a very private chamber in a palace complex where privacy was a highly valued thing indeed. She wondered what Caela was up to…why establish Alditha in such a fine, and finely private, chamber?

  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 recently about her aching knees and I think it time I grant her a consultation with Edward’s own physician. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, madam.” Judith locked eyes with Caela, understanding.

  “Perhaps in my solar,” said Caela. “I will 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 another 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 the ladies take their needlework elsewhere would have invited gossip and unwelcome curiosity.

  “But you remember now…madam?” Saeweald said. He hesitated at the 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 is still some vagueness.” 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 eyes 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 have 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 malevolence of the Darkwitches—and suggested a plan. A means to outwit the Darkwitches and Mag’s land saved.”

  “But not Hera’s world?” Judith said.

  “No. That was too badly cor
rupted. 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 her 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 his malevolence and the danger he presented. 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 matter or danger to him in the game ahead.”

  “And the Sidlesaghes?” asked Ecub.

  “The Sidlesaghes have always been intimately connected with a goddess’ rebirth. They also knew something of Mag’s plan. When they felt Asterion readying himself, they walked. When Asterion ‘murdered’ Mag, then 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 will 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.

  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 clear.

  “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. “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 could be. 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 had 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.”

  “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 distracted, and when…” Caela faltered, then resumed, “and when Swanne can pass on to me the arts and secrets of Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

  Judith’s mouth fell open, her expression mirroring that of Ecub’s and Saeweald’s. “Swanne hand to you the powers of Mistress of the Labyrinth?”

  “I will need them in order to complete the Game, just as Og-reborn will 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 silence among them 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 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, who Asterion masquerades as? He is among us, we can all feel that, but who is he?”

  Caela coloured 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…” H
er 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, but I suspect it is because it is kinder to him that it be so. And that is the reason none of us has 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 is the love of his life? That if he indulges in that love then he not only threatens her wellbeing, but throws away all he could attain in this life? By all the gods, Caela! Harold is the man who can lead England to a victory against William, but England will not follow him if he is accused of fornication 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. “The 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 now he cannot have?”

  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 coloured a little at it. “Well,” she said, “I suppose I will speak to him eventually.”