Gods' Concubine Page 26

  Caela lowered her face into her hands and cried disconsolately, rocking back and forth. The Sidlesaghe, his own grey-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. “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 into the water, she glanced upward, then gasped, truly shocked.

  Instead of a sky, or the arching and intertwining branches of the trees, a golden dome soared high 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, 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, and 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 eye 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.”

  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, then lowered his face, looking away from her and back to the stag.

  Caela watched him, wishing she could speak with Silvius, and comfort him in whatever 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 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 screaming with grief and rage in the centre 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 towards 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 greyness of enchantment, and Caela could not discern his movements.

  “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 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 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 reason.

  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 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-whoonce-had-been, and who now lived as Caela’s flesh, had known so long ago and this was what she had foreseen.

  The Sidlesaghe moved closely 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 its mouth dropped open. “Oh,” it 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.

  “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!”

  “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 primarily 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.”

  TWELVE

  Rouen, Normandy

  William’s body moved easily with that of his horse, a strong 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 armour, 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.

  With 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 this way and that in the sparse forest through which they walked.

  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 and silent pale hounds.

  It was a good morning for the hunt. The sun was two hours risen, and the dawn mist had 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 dream time 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 who, he needed.

  But Matilda! Ah! He had not realised 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 strength, and tolerance, and you have given me 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 realised 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 not now 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 bounded 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 bounded forwards, his hooves pounding through the grassland, then crashing through the first line of shrubs in the forest.

  The stag careered 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 strides 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 sweatdampened 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 was fixed on his father.

&n
bsp; 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 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.

  “Unmake it,” said William harshly, standing back. “Unmake 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 once, then again a little more violently, before managing to regain control of his stomach. “Will he never leave me be?”