Gods' Concubine Page 29

  “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 he did not know what to say or how 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, William, 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 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?

  “William, what I see in Harold is nothing but honour. What I understand about Swanne is that she is a dark witch 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. “Gods, 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-reborn. 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 lie down for you 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, 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. Perhaps 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.”

  “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 the 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 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, 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 forming 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.

  FIVE

  CAELA SPEAKS

  I 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 cloths: I found the pathways of Brutus’ Labyrinth decorating many a collar and cuff, or twirling about the hem of a robe. In the centre of the marketplace that ran off Cheapside was inscribed a stylised 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 circumstance.

  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 group of men who were responsible for the games that day who 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 extens
ion of the Troy Game. As the Londoners went about their daily tasks, so also they stepped out 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 realised how powerful his Game could 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 now, I knew that, but here still 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 realisation, one that stunned me.

  St Paul’s was the stone hall of my dream.

  Though not precisely. It was not as grand as the stone hall of my dream, but there was something about it—some sense, some voice that 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 the Game and I 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 visions, 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? Why had it taken me this long to realise, rather than instinctively know?

  The sense deepened of an emptiness, some “un-rightness” 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 wandered through Westminster, through 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 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 preparing to rise, 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 travelled over Damson’s squat outlines with 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 dreams.”

  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 desperately need 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 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, keeping my voice low.

  “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 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. Confro
ntational, 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 of 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 realised 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 his pulse. I could read the solution in his eye, feel it in his touch.

  “I am not my son,” he said, very soft. “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 coloured.

  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 fertility.

  “The winter solstice approaches,” Silvius said. “It would be the best night.”

  The best night in which to lose my virginity.