Gods' Concubine Page 22

  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 Venice.

  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 if it is because I have met him then 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 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.”

  Saeweald 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 any more. 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 upwards towards 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 honour…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 laid 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 the 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 careered 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 that life as well as this, Og’s judgement? If so, then Saeweald would never become Og-reborn.

  Whatever he himself believed.

  And if not Saeweald, then who?

  FIVE

  Swanne had noticed something different about Caela during the past few days, and it disturbed her 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 around 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 was 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, putting her needlework down, and lifting 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 demeanour 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 colour. “Never! I cannot believe that lie.”

  Caela shrugged slightly, uninterestedly.

  “He loathed you,” Swan
ne 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 upwards, 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 band).”

  “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, grey 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. Ah, 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, I will make you suffer once William is here, and the Game, and England, are ours.

  SIX

  CAELA SPEAKS

  Ilay at night beside my unmoving, 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 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, I thought that if I 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 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.

  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 jewellery about his fingers and dangling from his ears. His long, curly black hair was tied with a thong at the nape of his neck.

  Around Silvius’ limbs—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? 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…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 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 my son.”

  I let his hands go, and smiled apologetically. “I am sor
ry 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 in Silvius’empty socket were 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 her and me.”

  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 swivelled back to me again. “How can that be so when he caused you so much suffering?”