The women backed away, and Saeweald took Edward’s wrist and felt the pulse.
It was weak, fluttering feebly.
“My lord,” Saeweald said quietly. “What has happened?”
“The Devil has entered me,” Edward said, sending one more vicious glare in Caela’s direction.
She ignored it, her face set in respectful concern, and she took a hastily wetted cloth from one of the women and began to run it over one of Edward’s hands.
Edward looked back to Saeweald, and then to Wulfstan, who had maintained his position at the head of the bed opposite from Saeweald.
Wulfstan moaned theatrically, and with a wavering hand made the sign of the cross over Edward. “Begone, Devil!”
“Devil or not,” Saeweald muttered, “your chest is sorely congested.” With one hand flat on Edward’s chest, he tapped its back with the stiffened middle two fingers of his other.
Edward’s chest resounded with a thick, horrible thud at every tap. Then the king gasped, his face purpling, and he began to cough in great, hacking barks.
“What have you done?” cried Wulfstan, but Saeweald ignored him.
“Expel it!” he said to Edward, who was now bent almost double with the effort of his hacking. “Bring it forth!”
Saeweald grabbed the cloth from Caela, now sitting quite still as she stared in horror at her husband, and brought it to Edward’s mouth just as the king ejected a great clot of blood and pus.
There was a collective gasp of horror from those still gathered about the bed and, apart from Saeweald and Caela, everyone took a step back.
“Pestilence!” muttered the palace chamberlain, and his stance stiffened even more, if that were possible.
“Still your hysteria!” snapped Saeweald. “Your king has an evil congestion of his lungs, but this is not the pestilence.”
There were concerned glances among the onlookers. Pestilence had not struck in over three generations, but the stories of its horror were still whispered around fires and tables.
“Physician,” said Caela, leaning forward to touch Saeweald’s arm briefly. “What can you do? Please, tell me that you may save my husband’s life.”
The distress in her voice did not appear feigned.
“I shall bleed him this night,” said Saeweald, “and prepare a poultice for his chest and belly. Will you stay, madam, and aid me?”
“Gladly,” she said, then, as one of the women returned with a bowl of warmed rosewater, rinsed out the cloth thickened with the blood and pus and began gently to sponge down her husband’s body.
FOUR
In some deep, inner corner of her being Swanne realised she was drifting toward wakefulness, and she fought it with every ounce of her strength. Better sleep and unknowingness than facing what had occurred last night (as every night in recent, terrifying memory).
To no avail. She felt herself propelled towards consciousness, and at the same time she felt that ghastly, leaden, icy weight in her belly, and she knew the incubus was forcing her to wake.
Asterion must want her.
“No!” Swanne muttered as her eyes sprang open.
She stared directly upwards to the wooden ceiling of her chamber.
It looked so ordinary, so non-threatening, and Swanne wondered why its innocuous wooden planks did not somehow reflect the agony that gripped her.
She moaned, twisting a little in the bed. Her body throbbed and ached in a score of places, the hurt between her legs and deep within her belly the worst of all. There was a warm dampness on her thighs, and even without looking Swanne knew it was fresh blood.
The incubus? Breakfasting?
“William,” she moaned softly and, for the first time since Asterion had trapped her, and without thinking or considering the implications, acting only on deep need and on her even deeper terror, Swanne tried to reach out to him.
The next instant a bloodcurdling scream ripped through her throat and she convulsed on the bed. The incubus had sunk its teeth into the inner linings of her womb, and had ripped her flesh clean away.
As horrific as the pain was, worse was the frightful feel of the thing’s jaws working back and forth, back and forth, as it chewed its morsel.
“My lady?”
The door had burst open at the sound of Swanne’s cry, and Hawise and one other of Swanne’s attending ladies stood there.
The instant they entered they had halted, transfixed by the sight of Swanne writhing beneath her bloody sheets.
“Madam!” Hawise gasped, and would have moved forwards, but at that moment Aldred appeared behind them, grabbed both of the women’s elbows, and forced them backwards towards the door.
“It is but her monthly flux,” he said soothingly. “It is still flowing—can you credit it? A nuisance, indeed.” He turned from the woman and looked benignly at Swanne. “That is the problem, is it not, my dear?”
Swanne looked at Aldred, and then felt the incubus within her open its jaws again. A wave of hopelessness all but overwhelmed her.
“Aye,” she whispered, and within her the incubus closed its jaws. “It is but my flux. More burdensome than usual.”
“But…” said Hawise.
“The flux, Hawise,” said Swanne, her voice flat. “Nothing more.”
“And now,” said Aldred, “if you will leave her ladyship and myself alone for a time. We must talk a little over…arrangements.”
The women, now outside the door, stood motionless, still staring, as Aldred closed the door on them, and then Swanne heard their footsteps retreat.
“No…” she whispered, and wondered if it was going to be the only thing she could ever again say.
For so long as her life lasted…for so long as Asterion permitted her to live.
“I am glad to see you awake,” Aldred said, wobbling forth. “The night has seen some intriguing happenings.” He paused, and grinned maliciously. “Not only the lovemaking that transpired between you and me. Yes?”
She said nothing, but Aldred saw her throat constrict as she swallowed.
“I am awaiting your response, my dear.” Aldred’s voice had hardened into ice, and Swanne felt her head jerked back so that she was forced to stare at him.
“Yes,” she whispered, her mouth dry with terror.
“Another of the bands has been moved. Did you not know of it?”
“My…my mind was consumed with other things.”
Aldred laughed, the sound harsh. “Indeed you were. Indeed you were.” He began to tug at the neckline of his robe, pulling it away from his shoulders.
“No!” Swanne cried out, and instantly the incubus inside her bit hard and viciously, and her cry turned into a choked-off shriek, her back arching off the bed in agony, her eyes almost popping from her head.
“I regret I may have misunderstood your response, my dear,” said Aldred, now naked. “I thought you might have said no.”
The agony had hardly dissipated, but Swanne knew her life depended on being able to placate this monster standing before her. All she had to do was survive, somehow to live, and eventually she would be able to find a way to…
The incubus bit again, harder and deeper, and the pain was so terrible that Swanne almost lost consciousness. She opened her mouth, but the agony was such she could not draw breath even to cry out.
Her eyes rolled up into their sockets, and her body jerked, and then convulsed.
Aldred smiled amiably and climbed into the bed.
A moment passed, and then, even though her body was still stiff with suffering, Swanne managed a faint, “Yes.”
“Yes…what, my dear?”
“Yes, my lord. I am grateful for your attention.”
Aldred smiled, cold and malevolent, and forced Swanne’s legs apart with one hand. “This bleeding is truly heavy, my dear. You really should learn to say ‘Yes’ to me a little quicker. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl,” he whispered and, grunting with both effort and pleasure, forced himself
once more inside her body.
She continued to exist, somehow, through that grunting, thrusting nightmare. The incubus roiled within her, joyous to feel its master so close, and it nibbled and poked and thrust itself so that her body from her breasts to her ankles seemed composed of nothing other than screaming, tearing flesh.
When Aldred had done and had rolled away from her, Swanne barely managed to conceal her tears of relief.
He rose immediately, garbing his hideous body in a robe, then turned back to Swanne, who lay motionless amid the dreadful, bloodied sheets.
“None of this lying about, my dear. I have work for you to accomplish.”
A tear rolled from Swanne’s left eye down her cheek, and the sight of it irritated Aldred. He leaned down and dealt Swanne a blow across the face, making blood spurt from her nose.
“Get up!” he said. “Rise, and wash and clothe yourself. Now!”
Swanne managed to struggle to her feet, but was unable to stifle the moan of pain as she did so.
She jerked, as if expecting Aldred to strike her, but he merely regarded her with calm eyes. “Wash and clothe yourself,” he repeated, moving towards the door. “I have some matters to attend to elsewhere, but will return shortly. Be waiting for me, a smile on your face.”
Grateful that the monster had departed, Swanne nonetheless did as she was told, although she thought several times during the procedure that she would faint with pain. Her belly throbbed unbelievably, and blood continued to trickle from between her legs.
Nothing she had ever endured had been this bad, not even childbirth, and she wondered how she had any blood left in her after the nightmare of the past week.
As she pulled her gown over her shoulders, and twisted a little so she could manage the fastenings, Swanne closed her eyes and indulged in a heartfelt moment of pure hatred for Ariadne. How could she have done this? How could she have been so stupid? Why had she not warned her daughter-heirs? Had she been so self-conceited, so stupid, so…?
“She was wrapped in her own ambitions,” said a voice behind her, and it was Asterion’s voice rather than Aldred’s.
She felt his hands fall about her waist, and she jerked, frightened almost to insensibility.
Asterion had come to her only in the guise of Aldred since he’d first forced himself upon her, not in his true form. Now Swanne’s heart raced, her breath growing tight and shallow, as she wondered what this portended.
Asterion’s hands grew heavy where they rested about her waist, and he turned her about.
The Minotaur stood there, regarding her with his monstrous bull’s head from beautiful liquid black eyes.
Swanne grew rigid, but could not tear her eyes from the bull’s powerful face. Its terrible aspect was almost hypnotic, and Swanne understood in a moment of clarity just why Ariadne had consented to that single, devastating condition.
She had been seduced by the power—and the hope of power—in that face.
She would have offered him the world if he had asked for it, just for the power he offered.
Ah! What was she thinking? Ariadne had, with that single ill-considered consent, given her cursed brother the world.
Asterion’s hands were still about her waist, and now he slipped one of them downwards to rub gently over her belly.
Swanne tensed, expecting further suffering, but, unbelievably, her pain began to dissipate until it was little more than a dull ache. Her entire body sagged in relief, and for an instant she almost loved the Minotaur for releasing her from the agony.
“Aldred has treated you poorly,” Asterion said. “Your belly is battered almost to the point of uselessness.”
What are you saying? Swanne thought. You have treated me “poorly”.
“Very poorly,” Asterion murmured, and Swanne relaxed a little further under the touch of his hands, closing her eyes as even the ache abated. To feel such a cessation of pain, just for a moment, was worth this brief compliance.
“Do not judge me by Aldred’s actions,” Asterion said.
Swanne could do nothing but nod, just once, jerkily. Her eyes were still closed as she desperately concentrated on savouring the living of every pain-free moment.
“My dear, I need you to look upon me,” said Asterion.
Swanne reluctantly opened her eyes.
“I wish you to present yourself at Edward’s side—”
“I cannot. Harold dismissed me from court…” She stopped, terrified by the Minotaur’s thumbs which had suddenly dug into her belly.
“Remember what Aldred put in you,” he said, very softly.
“Yes,” she said dully. “I will do it. I will go to Edward’s court.”
“Good. Poor Edward’s health appears to have taken a turn for the worse. He is busily engaged in his dying. I wish you to watch for me, be my eyes and ears.”
“But you…but Aldred has better reason to be there—”
“And be assured he will be there. But you have your ear attuned to the world of women, and can be admitted to their presence.” He stopped, his black brow wrinkling as if in perplexity. “Now, I know that you and William—the sweet, sweet boy—believe Silvius is moving those bands. That may be so. But whoever is moving them has assistance. Someone aids him. Or her. If someone is aiding Silvius—or whomever—then I need to know who, or what, they might be.”
He smiled, and ran his hands up to Swanne’s breasts, caressing them gently. “After all, my sweet, you must have some duty to keep you occupied until you deliver William’s life into my hands, mustn’t you?”
She moaned.
“You will deliver William’s life into my hands, will you not?”
Silence.
“Will you not?”
Swanne jerked her head once in assent.
“Good.”
Asterion let her go, eventually, and Swanne, her face dull, lifted her cloak from where it lay draped over a chest and moved to the door.
“Swanne, my sweet,” Asterion called to her just as she laid a hand to the door catch. Her back stiffened as she heard his voice. “I heard a rumour that Caela was not at Edward’s side when he took ill last night. I do rather hope you can discover for me where she was…and who she might have been with. This is most important. What strange company does Caela keep these nights when she doesn’t lie with Edward? You will ask her, won’t you? I am most curious to know.”
Later that morning Aldred sat in his bath, slowly washing himself, puzzling things over in his mind.
Everything this past week had been so dim…and yet so vaguely pleasurable. Somehow he seemed to have acquired the Lady Swanne as a mistress, but he could not always remember those nights he spent with her so very well.
That he was spending them with her was undoubted. Everyone was looking at him differently—and Swanne herself, why, she practically fell over herself to cater to his every wish. The proud lady he’d known for so long seemed to have decided to admit herself his utter slave.
Aldred smiled, then sighed happily. He wasn’t sure about the “why” of his current circumstances, but he wasn’t about to complain.
FIVE
CAELA SPEAKS
Edward sat through the day and wheezed a little further into his dying with every breath, and enjoyed every moment of it.
Finally, he was vindicated. The Devil and his evil roamed everywhere and now, due to the inattention of careless priests and the apathy of Edward’s subjects, the king had been struck down in all his glory.
No matter that Edward was an old man anyway.
No matter that he’d whined of his aches and pains and fevers for as long as I had known him (and well before that if the mutterings of his long-suffering mother were any guide).
No. He rambled and he moaned all through that morning: See how your lack of attention and love has struck me down. See how your lack of piety has allowed the Devil into the very heart and soul of the realm. If only you (and he took in the entire realm with that single “you”, although his feverish eyes
did tend to linger on me as he said it) had loved me and cared for me and tended me as your duty insisted.
By noon I could gladly have gone to the window, thrown back the shutters, and screamed for the Devil to come back and finish the thing properly.
Oh, I knew it was Asterion, and I knew why. He was pushing matters forward to suit his own pace. Catch us off-balance. Snatch at the Game before any of us—whether William or Swanne or Silvius or myself, or even Saeweald—could snatch back.
What was Asterion planning? I wondered if Long Tom was pacing through the Game, wondering and worrying. I wondered if Silvius worried, and I had an urge to see him, not only to seek his forgiveness for what I could not give him on the night of the solstice, but to just have him hold me, and tell me all would be well. I know I spent the hours after my return ignoring Edward’s vilenesses and wondering and worrying. I was outwardly the dutiful wife, bending my head in contrition at every barb Edward spat my way, aiding Saeweald as first he bled Edward, then applied hot herbal and honey poultices to his armpits and chest and groin, then wiping down Edward’s face and arms and legs to wash away his stinking sweat.
Around us hurried and muttered various court and church officials, moaning and blessing and praying and, no doubt, wondering how best to position themselves in the upheaval following Edward’s undoubted soon-to-be death.
Harold came to attend the debacle as well. He’d hurried from Alditha’s bed (Harold had wasted no time in knocking at the door of Alditha’s chamber, and I knew also that he had broached the subject of marriage with her ecstatic family; I had no doubt that Harold would be making sure he had a legal heir as soon as possible. He might not, after all, have much time once Edward had succumbed), glanced worriedly at me, then, with the rest of us, endured Edward’s ranting throughout the remaining hours of the night and through the morning. He’d pushed a chest against the far wall—as far from Edward’s bed as he could manage—and there he’d sat and watched, his face haggard, his eyes deep with worry. Occasionally one of the chamberlains or counts or thegns or courtiers would bend close to him, and mutter, but Harold only ever responded with a nod.