Gods' Concubine

  Where are you, Brutus? Where?

  Always that search had been frustrated over and again by circumstance.

  Swanne had been born in a county a long, long way from London to a nobleman of little consequence. For years, ever since she was some ten or eleven years old and had come to full awareness and remembrance, Swanne had been desperate to leave her father’s home and get to London. Somehow. Anyhow.

  To get back home.

  To find Brutus and to finish what had been so terribly interrupted.

  But Swanne had been reborn into a life and a world in which women had very little power, and even less say over the destiny of their lives. Her father had laughed at her pleadings to be allowed to live in London, and said that she needed a husband to tame her waywardness.

  The thought of a husband made Swanne even more desperate—the Mistress of the Labyrinth did not submit to a husband—but as she grew older, and rejected the hand of every suitor her father tossed her way, she grew ever more desperate. She hoped Brutus-reborn would one day ride into her father’s estate and claim her, but he did not, and Swanne realised he probably would not.

  The only way out of her father’s house, and the only way to London, was via that hateful institution of marriage. Maybe she would submit to a husband, if only to use him for her own ends.

  One day, Harold Godwineson had ridden laughing and strong into her father’s courtyard, and the instant Swanne had seen his face, felt his eyes upon her, she had known.

  She had known who Harold was, reborn, and she knew she could use him. He would be her bridge to Brutus-reborn and to London and the Game. Coel. Swanne wasn’t sure why he had been reborn, what had pulled him back, but the thought of using Coel-reborn to get to London, and eventually to Brutus, was of some amusement to Swanne.

  The blessing in all of this was that Harold himself had no memory of his past life. If this had not been so, Swanne would have had no chance at him at all. She had no idea as to the why of it—perhaps it was merely an indication of Harold’s complete meaninglessness in what was to come—but she was very, very grateful.

  Swanne had smiled and shaken out her jet-black hair and tilted her lovely head on its graceful neck, and had won Harold before he’d even dismounted from his horse. She went to his bed that night, and in return he had taken her from her father’s house the next morning.

  They were wed, but under Danelaw rather than Christian. That had been Swanne’s demand, and Harold, desperately in love with her, had agreed without complaint. Danelaw marriage gave Swanne more independence, and far more control over the extensive lands which had been her dowry, than a Christian marriage would have done. Under the hated Christian law, everything—her estates, her chattels, even her very soul—would have become Harold’s. Under Danelaw it remained Swanne’s.

  And thus to London.

  To be certain, they spent some time each year in Wessex, dreaded cold, rainy place that it was, but most of the year Godwine made sure his eldest son and heir kept him company within Edward’s court.

  Swanne had been certain that Brutus-reborn must linger somewhere within Westminster…but she had found it was not so, and in the eighteen months or so of her marriage Swanne had had to fight away despair.

  Where was Brutus? What was his name in this life?

  But now she knew, and all she wanted to do was go to him, and in this want and need Swanne succumbed to a fit of hating so great she actually sank to the floor, beating at her belly with her fists.

  All she wanted to do was go to her lover, to go to William, and here she was, almost seven months swollen with another man’s child.

  Harold! She spat the name, all her gratitude for his usefulness vanishing in her anguish. She wanted to go to William…she wanted to so badly she could taste the need in her mouth, feel it in her body, and here she was, large with another man’s child!

  Coel’s child.

  Swanne went cold with apprehension. Oh gods…Coel’s child. How could she explain that to William?

  She hit her belly hard with the closed fist of her right hand, beating at it until she bruised the skin beneath its linens and silks. Coel-Harold’s child.

  And a son.

  She conceived the baby only after many months of marriage, when it had become apparent to her that Brutus-reborn was nowhere within Edward’s court, and likely nowhere within England. She’d conceived a son, going against her every instinct and need as Mistress of the Labyrinth, because a son would bind Harold the tighter to her, and further ensure her a place within the Westminster court.

  “Curse you, Harold, for getting this child in me!” she said, low and vicious, and she barely avoided using her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to visit him with a death-dealing curse then and there.

  No, no, she must be careful. She must be prudent. She was aware that Asterion lurked somewhere, and after the mistakes of her past life Swanne was not going to make another ill-considered move until she knew precisely where Asterion was and what power he commanded in this world. As Genvissa she had thought he was weak and essentially powerless. What a fool she had been. Asterion had played them all, had toyed with them, and had used Cornelia to stop the Game in its tracks.

  Swanne had tried to scry out Asterion’s identity—she had managed it easily enough when she had been Genvissa and had realised the fact of Asterion’s rebirth within the Poiteran people—but now, in this life, Asterion appeared to have grown so greatly in power and in cunning that she could not know where, and who, he was.

  If she didn’t know who he was, then Swanne knew precisely what it was that Asterion wanted: to destroy the Game once and for all, and to destroy Swanne and William with it.

  No, you bastard, she thought, her eyes still closed, her lovely face set in uncommonly harsh lines, no. And this time you can be sure we won’t allow you to use Caela as your dagger hand.

  Ah, Caela! Swanne’s eyes opened, and they were hard with hatred. Caela! Swanne couldn’t believe it when she first met Harold’s sister. She would have murdered the bitch then and there had it not been for the fact that she still needed Harold’s goodwill (and body and bed and children) to assure her a place by his side at court.

  Then, as if her very existence were not bad enough, Caela had become queen! Still Swanne did nothing. The murder of Caela, even by a hired hand, would expose her to far too much risk. Not only would it alienate her from Harold (and how she despised being tied by need to the man) but it would overexpose her to Asterion. For all Swanne knew, Asterion was hoping that Swanne would murder Caela.

  So she stilled her hand, and contented herself with whispering viciousness into the poor girl’s ear whenever she had the chance.

  The blessing in all of this was the fact that Harold and Caela had been reborn as siblings. Swanne wasn’t sure who was responsible for that piece of mischief—whether fate or Asterion—but it had provided her with a never-ending source of amusement. Poor lost, insipid Caela, for whatever reason not remembering a thing of her previous life, horrified at her constant yearning for a man who was her brother. And the equally unremembering Harold’s yearning for her.

  All that suppressed lust.

  Swanne could understand why Harold might not remember his previous life (he was hardly important in the scheme of things, was he?) but she was surprised that Caela did not remember (gratifying also, as it gave Swanne so many opportunities to torment the woman). Caela still carried Mag within her womb (was there nothing that could eject that damn goddess from Cornelia-Caela’s womb?), but even Mag seemed faded, lost, forgetful.

  Useless.

  Swanne shrugged to herself. Well, neither of them was of much account now.

  Swanne slowly rose to her feet, drying her tears and straightening her robe, her thoughts now back to William. There was a large mirror of burnished bronze in the corner of the chamber, and Swanne walked over to it, regarding herself within its depths.

  Would he like her? Would he desire her? Pregnancy aside, Swanne was taller and sl
immer in this life than she had been as Genvissa; elegant, where once she had been earthy. Swanne pulled the veil from her head and tossed it contemptuously to the far corner of the chamber. All Anglo-Saxon ladies wore lawn or silk veils over their head in public, and Swanne loathed this single badge of womanly subjection more than any other. Who could imagine it? Veiling a woman’s beauty! Pulling the pins from her hair with almost the same amount of vigour as she’d pulled away the veil, Swanne tipped her head to one side, letting her heavy hair fall over her shoulder, admiring the way her long neck glowed ivory in the candlelight. As a child, Swanne had been named for her long, exquisite neck, and for the manner in which she held her head atop that neck. Even as a baby, apparently, her beauty had been remarkable.

  “Thank the gods this child has swollen only my belly and not my feet, or even my face,” Swanne muttered. She continued to study herself critically, unfastening her heavy outer surcoat and allowing it to fall away from her shoulders and arms to the floor so that she stood only in her under-gown of pale linen.

  She remembered how Tostig had lusted after her in the Great Hall earlier.

  She remembered how other men had followed her with their eyes.

  She remembered how Harold still used her body night after night in their bed.

  She remembered how she and Brutus made love when, as Genvissa, she had been heavily pregnant with their daughter. Her belly hadn’t deterred him then…why would it now?

  She smiled. So her belly was all crowded out with child—that made her no less desirable.

  “I won’t tell him about Coel,” she murmured. “Why? What does it matter?”

  Her hands stilled, and her eyes stared at her reflection. “William,” she whispered. Ah, gods, he was so close! “William!”

  Then again, her voice riddled with desire: “William!” He had sent the message, he must be as consumed with the need to know her name as she had been to know his.

  Finally, her mind so inflamed with need and want and desire that all thought of Asterion and of prudence disappeared, Swanne opened her arms, cried out one more time, “William”, and vanished.

  FIVE

  Rouen, Normandy

  William stood in the tack room of the stable complex in his castle at Rouen, going over the saddles he used for hunting and war with his Master of the Horse, Alain Roussel. Several times a year they did this: checking war and hunting gear for faults, fractures or worn spots that needed repair. Better to spend a few hours in the relative warmth of the stables peering at metal and leather than to have it give way suddenly amidst the heat of battle.

  They had just decided that one of William’s most prized saddles needed a seam restitched when William suddenly raised his head and peered into the middle distance, his eyes unfocused, his face drawn.

  “My lord?” Roussel asked softly, wondering if his duke had heard the sounds of a distant battle that his own ageing ears had yet to discern.

  “Leave me,” William whispered.

  “My lord—”

  “Leave me!” Then, in a more moderate tone that was nonetheless tense, “Ensure that no one disturbs me.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Roussel bowed his head, turned on his heel, and left, closing the door behind him. Whatever he thought of the abrupt and strange command it did not show on his face.

  The instant Roussel had departed William began to pace back and forth within the relatively narrow confines of the tack room.

  Genvissa! She had seen, or heard about, his gift to Edward, and recognised it for what it was.

  She was on her way.

  William felt nerves flutter in his belly. Gods, he wanted to see her, to hold her! Yet, at the same time, William worried, his eyes roving from this dark corner to that, wondering if somehow this would expose Genvissa-reborn or himself; if somehow this demonstration of power on her part would awaken Asterion to madness…

  And then she was there, directly before him, breathless, laughing, tears running down her cheeks, her arms held out and William forgot everything else and went to her, holding her tight, laughing and crying with her, kissing her. She was pressing her body into his, grabbing at his arms, his shoulders, then her hands running through the short black curls on his head.

  “You’ve lost your great mane,” she said, somehow managing to get the words out between kisses.

  “It did not suit a Norman man of war,” he said. Then, summoning all his control, he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back a little so he could see her face, and study it.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, and the wonder and admiration in his voice made her laugh and cry all over again. “More beautiful than ever. Sweet Lord Christ, Genvissa, thank all the gods we’ve found each other!”

  “I was desperate, I didn’t know who you were, where…and then your damned envoy arrived this morning, and presented Edward with that wonderful ball of string, and I knew, I knew, I could hear you screaming for me…I came…”

  They embraced and kissed again, and then again William pushed her back, gently. “I had thought Edward a pious man,” he said, grinning at her, “but I see he has wasted no time getting an heir on you.”

  Swanne’s expression stilled. “What?”

  William laid a hand on her swollen belly. “You’ve been married only, what? Two months, and yet this is a six- or seven-month belly you carry.”

  She frowned all the more.

  William opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, “You are Caela, are you not?”

  Her reaction stunned William. She tore out of his arms, stepped back, and looked so angry that William almost thought she might hit him.

  “I am not that fool!” she said. “I am Swanne, a lady of Wessex. Caela! Caela? Why her? Why did you think I was her?”

  “Swanne—what a lovely name—Swanne, I am sorry. Like you I worried for years where you were, and who. Then I heard Edward was taking a wife, and I wondered if it was you. It seemed to fit…I knew you would do everything in your power to consolidate yourself within London and the Veiled Hills, and what better way than as queen?” He smiled, trying to restore her good humour, and ran a thumb down her cheek. “I was the fool, my love. I should have known. Caela is but a girl, is she not? And you…” His voice deepened. “You are a wondrous woman, all grown into what I need.”

  Swanne was not appeased. “Caela is Cornelia-reborn. ”

  William stilled, his hand partway down Swanne’s cheek. “Cornelia? By the gods, what is she doing here? What mischief does she plan?”

  Swanne’s mouth curled. “She couldn’t plan the curdling of a milk pudding, my dear. Fate has this time been kind to us. Cornelia has been reborn as the timid, helpless daughter of Godwine, so sexless and so undesirable that she at least will never be swelling with child. William, hate her all you might, for that at least she deserves, but do not fear her. She has been reborn into such weakness that she does not even remember her past life.”

  William frowned. “She doesn’t remember?”

  “No.” Now Swanne moved back into him again, running her hands over his body, and her mouth, slowly and teasingly, over his neck and jaw.

  He drew in a deep breath, and she smiled, and nipped at him with her teeth. “She is of no account,” she whispered. “None.”

  Again he breathed deeply, then ran a hand over her belly. “So who gave you this then, if not Edward? You said you were a lady of Wessex…you have married into Godwine’s family?”

  “Aye. His eldest son, Harold.”

  There was something in her voice, a tightness, and William took her face between his fingers and tilted her face up to his. “Harold? A powerful catch.”

  “He has been my path into London, and into the centre of power.” Her face twisted a little. “To think, that circumstance should force me to stoop to marriage. Me, a Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

  “And who is Harold, Swanne?”

  She twisted her face out of his fingers and kissed his neck again. “No one. A man only.”


  “He is no one reborn?”

  She laughed throatily. “Of course not.” Her teeth nipped into his skin, and he felt tiny pinpricks of pain as her teeth drew blood, and he forgot Harold in the rising tide of his desire.

  “You should have chosen a better place to come to me, my love. This dusty tack room isn’t quite—”

  “It will do,” she said, and loosened the laces holding together the neck of her under-robe so that he could run his hand over her breasts. “For all the gods’ sake, William…”

  The agony of wanting in her voice undid him. He hauled the skirts of her gown up, running his hands over her thighs and bare buttocks. Then he lifted her up, resting her buttocks on a shelf and, as she wrapped her legs about his hips, fumbled desperately with his own clothing that he might bury himself within her, and as he did so, as he moaned and dug his fingers into her buttocks, pulling her hard against him, there came the faint memory of Matilda’s words two months earlier: You will not dishonour me with her?

  Never! he had cried.

  Never…

  He thrust deeply into Swanne again, and then again, and she cried out and tightened her legs about him.

  Never.

  And then William became aware of that damned belly of Swanne’s digging into his, and he wondered if she had cried out like this under Harold of Wessex, and whether or not she had ever promised Harold what William had promised Matilda.

  Never.

  “I can’t,” he said, groaning, and pulled out of Swanne so abruptly she almost tumbled to the floor.

  She flushed, and he knew her well enough to know it was anger.

  “Not yet,” he said, readjusting his own clothing.

  “What?” she hissed. “You don’t want to dishonour your wife?”

  William’s face reddened—she had picked up his thoughts. “She is important to me.”

  “And I am not?” Swanne said, dangerously quiet.

  “Listen to me, Swanne.” William stepped close to her and took her chin between fingers less gentle than they had been earlier. “Neither of us can afford to relax our guard. Each of us has a part to play so that, eventually, we can both play our parts together. Yes, Matilda is important to me. She brings at her back military might and alliances that I can ill afford to ignore if I am to seize the throne of England. For the love of Christ and His army of damned Christian saints, Swanne, have you not heard of my dilemma? I spend eleven months of the year, year in, year out, fighting rival claimants to Normandy; men and armies sent by Asterion, I have no doubt, to keep me occupied and away from England. I need Matilda, her dowry of military support and alliances, if ever I am to consolidate my hold on Normandy and then turn to England. Matilda…damn it, Swanne, Matilda is my way to you and to the Troy Game!”