Gods' Concubine Read online

  Disaster, and death. A death that had lasted two thousand years. Why such a delay? William would have thought that his and Genvissa’s ambition, as well as the Troy Game’s need to be completed, would have brought them back centuries before this. Instead, they’d languished in death, frustrated at every attempt for rebirth, kept back from life by a power that they’d both taken a long time to accept: Asterion.

  Over two thousand years ago the Minotaur Asterion had spent his life trapped in the Great Founding Labyrinth on the island of Crete, but he had been released when Ariadne, the then Mistress of the Labyrinth and foremother of Genvissa, had destroyed the Game within the Aegean world. Now Asterion was the Game’s arch-enemy. He would do anything to ensure its complete destruction, for the Troy Game was the only thing in this world that could control him. Knowing this, after Genvissa’s death Brutus had secreted the ancient kingship bands of Troy about London; Asterion could not destroy the Game if he did not have the bands which had helped create it.

  William believed that it had been Asterion who had kept Brutus and Genvissa locked within death for so long, and Asterion who had finally removed the barriers to their rebirth. Both Brutus and Genvissa had constantly fought for rebirth, and had as constantly been rebuffed by Asterion’s bleak power. He’d been stronger than either had ever expected, and William thanked whatever ancient gods still existed in this strange world into which he’d been reborn that, as Brutus, he had hidden the kingship bands of Troy within such powerful magic.

  Why had Asterion kept William and Genvissa-reborn at bay for so long? Had Asterion wanted to find the bands and destroy the Game without risking their rebirth? Well, Asterion had not found the bands—William could still sense them, safe in their hiding places, buried under the city now called London—and so he’d allowed Brutus and Genvissa to be reborn, hoping, perhaps, that he could use one or the other to locate the bands.

  William had no doubt Asterion would have preferred Brutus to be reborn in Cathay rather than in Normandy. But if William had not managed to influence the timing of his rebirth, he had managed to ensure his rebirth relatively close to England. Close, but still frustratingly unreachable: Asterion kept William bound to Normandy by creating conditions of such uncertainty that William had no chance to think of England at all.

  Asterion was keeping William at bay for reasons of his own choosing.

  William crouched down before the hearth, stretching out his hands to what little warmth the embers contained. Oh, but England would be his, it would. England, and London, and the bands, and the Troy Game. All of it.

  And Genvissa.

  Genvissa had been reborn. William knew it, but he didn’t know who or where she was. Genvissa-reborn undoubtedly faced the same obstacle. That was their great dilemma. They needed each other desperately so they could reunite and complete the Game, but they did not know who the other was. But wherever or whoever, William knew one thing: Genvissa-reborn would not rest until she had achieved a place within London where the Troy Game was physically located. It was the lodestone for both of them, and unless Asterion had also managed to keep Genvissa-reborn away from the city, William knew she would be there somewhere.

  But who was she? Who?

  William pondered the fact that as this night was his own wedding night, so also it was Edward of England’s wedding night. He knew Edward well, the Saxon king having spent a number of his youthful years at William’s court while he was exiled from England by the murderous intentions of his stepfather, Cnut, and he wondered at this new bride of the man’s. Caela, daughter of Godwine, Earl of Wessex. William knew the marriage had been forced on Edward by Godwine, but Caela caught at William’s attention; he was aware that Genvissa, if not actually reborn within the region of London (the Veiled Hills, they’d once called it), would do everything in her power to return to London and to a position of power. What better position than queen?

  Genvissa would loathe the necessity of becoming a wife, as she would loathe the subjection to a man inherent in marriage in this Christian world. It went against her very nature as Mistress of the Labyrinth, an office of such feminine power and mystery that its incumbents refused to bind themselves to any man. Well might a Mistress form a partnership of power and lust and ambition with a Kingman, but never would she subject herself to him.

  William also knew that Genvissa-reborn would do whatever she had to in order to achieve her ambitions in a world where women had little power. No longer did Mothers rule over households and over their people; the idea of an Assembly of women setting the course of a society was unthinkable now. Unpalatable as it might be to her, Genvissa would bind herself in marriage if it meant gain.

  Marriage to Edward would give her most gain of all: Queen of England. The highest power a woman could hope for if she held the kind of ambitions William knew Genvissa harboured.

  The moment William heard of Edward’s betrothal to Godwine’s daughter Caela, William had been almost certain she was Genvissa-reborn. True, Caela was by all reports very young, and as timid as a mouse, but maybe that was merely Genvissa’s way of disguising her true nature.

  William wondered idly what was happening in Edward’s bed this night. Had he enjoyed his bedding with the Mistress of the Labyrinth as much as William had enjoyed his with Matilda?

  William’s face sobered, and he flexed his fingers back and forth before the fading heat, slowly stretching out some of the tension in his body. He needed desperately to contact Genvissa-reborn. He wondered if Caela had any idea who he was. Did she suspect William was more than just a struggling Duke of Normandy, or did she merely think of him as some bastard upstart who brazened his way about the courts of counts and princes, of little consequence to her own life and ambitions.

  William stared into the fire, then grinned as a means of contacting Genvissa-reborn occurred to him. He would announce himself in no uncertain manner. She would know him by his actions, and by his message, and then she would make herself known to him.

  “Soon, my love, soon,” he whispered.

  “William?”

  His mind still caught in thoughts of Genvissa-reborn, William jerked to his feet, turning around.

  Matilda was sitting up in bed, the coverlets sliding down to her waist and exposing her small breasts. “What are you doing?”

  After a moment’s hesitation William walked to the bed, studying Matilda before he slid beneath the coverlet. “Wondering if I dared wake you again,” he said, “but look, now I find you have answered my dreams.”

  And with that he seized her shoulders, and drew her to him.

  “Matilda,” he said, “Matilda, Matilda, Matilda,” using the sound of her name in his mouth to suffocate his thoughts of Genvissa.

  THREE

  Westminster

  Two months later

  Swanne moved through King Edward’s crowded Great Hall at Westminster, smiling at those she favoured, ignoring those she did not. Rather than hold his court in the city, Edward, like many of England’s previous kings, preferred to keep his court in the community of Westminster on Thorney Isle, which lay at the junction of the Tyburn and the Thames a mile or so to the south-west of London. Westminster was independent of London, and of its noisy and troublesome crowds and its equally troublesome civil authority. Better, Westminster was the site of a longestablished community of monks—the name literally meant the minster, or church, west of London—and the pious Edward found them more pleasing company than the secular profanity of the Londoners. Indeed, Edward was so well disposed towards Westminster’s monks that he had summoned court this very day to announce that he would sponsor the rebuilding of the Westminster Abbey cathedral into the grandest in all of Europe.

  The monks were ecstatic, sundry other clerics present were grudging (why Westminster when Edward could have rebuilt their church or abbey?), Edward’s earls and thegns were resigned and, frankly, Swanne cared not a whit one way or the other whether Edward rebuilt the damned cathedral or not. She was happy to be back on Thorn
ey Isle, happy to be within the heart of the sacred Veiled Hills of England, happy to be here, now, sliding sinuously through the press of bodies, watching men’s eyes light up with desire at the sight of her and women’s eyes slide away in disapproval.

  Happy to be alive and breathing after so long locked in death.

  She saw Tostig’s eyes on her, saw the darkness in them, and she widened her smile and closed the short distance to his side. “Brother,” she said, “you do look well this morn.”

  His eyes darkened even further. “I am your husband’s brother, lady, not yours.”

  “As my husband’s, so also mine.” She leaned close, allowing her breast and rounded belly to brush against him, and kissed him softly on the mouth in a courtly greeting.

  As she drew back, Swanne heard his swift intake of breath and decided to deepen the tease. “How else should I think of you but as my brother?”

  Now Tostig flushed, and Swanne laughed and laid the palm of her hand gently against his cheek, pleased at his obvious desire. At fifteen Tostig still had not learned to conceal his thoughts and needs, nor to discern, or even to realise, that the carefully chosen expressions of others so often concealed contradictory thoughts.

  Tostig began to speak, struggling over some meaningless words, and Swanne studied him indulgently. He was not, nor would ever be, as handsome as Harold, but he had a certain charm about him, a darkness of both visage and spirit that Swanne found immensely appealing.

  He could be so useful.

  “Tostig,” she said, and slipped one arm through his, “I am finding this crush quite discomforting. Will you escort me through the hall to my husband’s side?” She leaned against him. “I feel quite faint amid this airlessness.”

  “Of course, my lady,” Tostig said, relieved to have been given something to do, yet flustered all the more by Swanne’s attention and the press of her flesh against his. He suddenly found himself wishing that he’d laid eyes on her before Harold, and that he had been the one to demand her hand and her virginity.

  Flushing all the deeper with the direction of his thoughts, Tostig began to roughly shove his way through the crowd, Swanne keeping close to his side.

  “Aside! Aside for the Lady Swanne!” he cried, paying no attention to the irritated glances of thegns and their wives. No one said anything, not to a son of the powerful Earl of Wessex, but there were more than a few muttered words spoken as soon as Tostig and Swanne had passed on their way.

  Within moments Tostig had led Swanne into the clearer space before Edward’s dais. The Great Hall, only recently completed, formed the focus of Edward’s entire palace complex at Westminster. It was massive, far vaster than the one Tostig’s father had built in Wessex: twice as large again, its walls great stone blocks for the first twenty feet, then rising another eighty in thick timber planks. Above the ceiling of the hall, reached by a great curving staircase behind the dais at the southern end, was a warren of timber-walled chambers that Edward used for his private apartments, as well as those of his closest retainers.

  The focus of the hall was the dais. Here Edward currently sat conversing with Harold, who stood just to one side and slightly behind the king’s throne, and with Eadwine, the newly appointed abbot of Westminster. Caela, the king’s wife, sat ignored on her smaller throne set to her husband’s right. Her head was down, her attention on the needlework in her lap, an isolated and lonely figure amid the hubbub of the Great Hall.

  Tostig halted as soon as they’d moved into clearer space, and now he stared towards the queen. “Will there be a child soon?” he asked quietly of Swanne.

  She laughed, the sound musical and deep, and for an instant Tostig felt her body press the harder against his. “Nay,” she said, “there will never be a child of that union.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Swanne put her lips against Tostig’s ear, and felt him shudder. “He will not lie with her,” she said. “He believes fornication to be such great evil that he will not participate in it…” she paused, “especially with a daughter of Godwine. He will have no Godwine heir to the throne. My dear,” she said, allowing a little breathlessness to creep into her voice, “can you imagine such restraint?”

  “With you in his bed, no man, not even Edward, would be capable of it.”

  “You flatter me with smooth words,” she said, but let Tostig see by the warmth in her eyes how well she had received his words.

  “But…” Tostig struggled to keep his voice even, “but if he has no child of his body, then surely there will be a Godwine heir.”

  “My husband,” she said. “For surely, who else? To think, Tostig, you stand here now with the future Queen of England pressing herself against you like a foolish young girl. How do you feel?”

  Emboldened by her words and touch, Tostig said, “That you will be Queen of England there can be no doubt, but who the lucky Godwine brother is that sits beside you as your lord can still be open to question.”

  That I will be Queen of England is undoubted, Swanne thought, laughing with Tostig, encouraging his foolish words, but that you will ever sit beside me, or Harold, can never be. I have a greater lord awaiting me in the shadows; a mightier lover, a Kingman, and the day he appears, so shall all the Godwine boys be crushed into the dust.

  At that moment Harold looked up from his discussion with Edward, and saw his wife standing too familiarly close to Tostig. He frowned, and spoke swiftly to one of his thegns who stood behind him.

  The next moment the thegn had stepped from the dais and was approaching Tostig and Swanne.

  “My lady and lord,” he said, bowing slightly, “the Lord Harold begs leave to interrupt your mirth and requests that his wife join him on the dais. We have received word that a deputation from the Duke of Normandy has arrived, and the king wishes to receive him.”

  “I am not invited?” said Tostig.

  “You are not my lord’s wife,” said the thegn.

  “I am a Godwineson!” Tostig said, seething.

  The thegn was a man of enough years and experience not to be intimidated by the brashness of youth. “All the more reason why our king would not want you standing beside him,” he said. “Harold stands there as representative of his father, who cannot attend. Edward tolerates him, but only him. My lady, if you will accompany me.”

  And with that, the thegn led Swanne away, leaving Tostig standing red-faced and humiliated.

  Harold took Swanne’s hand as she mounted the dais, and led her to a chair. “Was Tostig annoying you?” he asked, smiling gently at his wife. By God, even now he could hardly believe he’d won such a treasure.

  “He is a youth,” Swanne said, her expression now demure as she sat. “All youths are abrasive, and annoying.”

  “I will speak to him,” Harold said.

  “No,” Swanne said. “It would embarrass him, and only create bad blood. Let it rest, I pray you.”

  Harold began to say something else, but just then Edward leaned over and hushed them both, waving Harold to his own chair on the king’s left.

  “I dislike people whispering behind my back,” Edward said, and Harold bowed his head in apology as he sat. Once Edward had returned his attention to the hall, Harold leaned back, looking behind Edward’s throne to where Caela’s own throne sat aligned with Harold’s chair. He tried to catch her eye, but she was so determinedly focused on her embroidery that she did not, or chose not to, notice his gaze.

  Sighing, Harold turned his eyes back to the front. He’d had so little chance to speak with Caela in the past two months, and no chance at all to ask her, in privacy, why she wore such a face of misery to the world.

  Damn their father for giving such a wondrous girl to such a monstrous husband!

  In truth, Harold would have vastly preferred to have spent the morning out hunting, but he’d had to stand in for his father who was not well. Despite the strained and often hostile relations between the Earl of Wessex and Edward, Godwine was the leading member of Edward’s witan,
a council of noblemen advisers, and thus by right sat on the dais beside Edward. If Godwine could not attend, then it was best his eldest son and heir do so in his place. Not only would Harold represent Godwine during court proceedings, but his presence would also further cement the Wessex claim to the throne should Edward’s piety prevent him from getting an heir on Caela.

  Godwine was determined that one day either he, or his son Harold, or the far less likely prospect of his grandson by Caela, would take the throne of England.

  Once the dais was still, Edward waved to the court chamberlain to admit the Duke of Normandy’s entourage. As the double doors at the other end of the hall slowly swung open, and the press of bodies within the hall parted to allow the entourage passage, Edward allowed himself to relax a little more in his throne. His friendship with Duke William was not only deep, but of long standing. Many years earlier Edward had been forced into a lengthy exile by his stepfather, King Cnut. Edward had spent the majority of that exile in the Duke of Normandy’s court where he had come to deeply respect the young William. Not merely respect, but trust. In his own kingdom Edward had to continually fight to maintain his independence from the cursed Godwine clan. Godwine and his family had sunk their claws of influence and power deep into most of the noble Anglo-Saxon clans, and one of the very few ways that Edward could maintain his authority was to surround himself with Normans, whether in the secular or clerical branches of England’s administration.

  Edward had two great weapons to use against the Godwine clan. The first was his refusal to get an heir on Caela; the second was his deep ties to the Norman court, which carried with it the possibility that Edward would name the Duke of Normandy as his heir.

  As far as Edward was concerned, William was not only a friend and an ally, he was one of the few weapons Edward had against Godwine and his sons.

  Edward liked William very much.

  The Norman entourage entered the Great Hall with a flourish of horns, drums, the sound of booted and spurred feet ringing out across the flagstones and the sweep of heavy cloaks flowing back from broad shoulders. Edward grinned as he recognised several among the entourage whom he knew personally.