Gods' Concubine

  She could not have said anything else to more certainly stun William into silence. He gaped at her, his face paling away from its fury-induced red, Caela’s words bouncing over and over within his head.

  Swanne has betrayed you to Asterion. No. Those words could not mean what they seemed to. Swanne could never have betrayed him to…

  The taste of blood and decay suddenly overwhelmed William, and he grunted, as if someone had punched him in the belly, and he sat down quickly on a chair.

  Caela walked slowly, carefully, over to the chair, kneeling before it and taking one of William’s hands in hers. “This was none of my doing, William.”

  William was not looking at her, slowly shaking his head to and fro.

  “I do not know what powers or persuasions Asterion used to so capture Swanne’s heart and loyalty, but that he has is undoubted. William, Asterion does not want to destroy the Game. He wants to control it. He wants to become its Kingman, using Swanne as his Mistress. She has agreed to this, thinking that in Asterion she has a more powerful Kingman than you. If you ask why I have moved the bands, then that is why. To protect the Game, and through it the land, from Asterion and Swanne combined.”

  William was still shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, but Caela’s calm, soft words were beginning to make a terrible sense.

  Asterion wanted to control the Game, become its Kingman, dance his ambitions out with Swanne. Yes, that made sense. Why hadn’t he ever considered this?

  “Who is Asterion?” he asked finally, softly.

  “Aldred.”

  William winced. Aldred had been playing both him and Swanne all this time…

  “Asterion and Swanne want to trap you, to use you to find the bands. Then, once they have them…”

  “Stop!”

  “William, listen to me. Swanne is Asterion’s creature now. Everything she says and does is said and done on his behalf. Do not trust her. Do not—”

  “And everything you say and do is done on your behalf, yours and Silvius’, no doubt!”

  “Everything I say and do is for you, William.”

  “That is not what you have just been saying. In one breath you tell me you want me to relinquish all control I have of the Game into Saeweald’s or Harold’s hands—”

  “I never said that. What I said was—”

  “Get out, Caela. Get out!”

  “William, don’t push me away!” The words tumbled out of Caela’s mouth, so desperate was she to have him hear them. “Beware of Swanne and Aldred, and trust me. Trust me.”

  “Don’t you dare say that to me!” He grabbed at her hands and pushed her away roughly so that she sprawled on the floor.

  “William!” Caela cried. “Don’t push me away when I can—”

  “Get out.”

  She rose to her feet. “William, when you need me—

  “ Get out.”

  “When you need me, seek me out.”

  And then she was gone.

  SEVENTEEN

  The only space Swanne could find for herself in the abbey house was a small, dusty attic space within the roof of the building. It was filthy, there were rats and lice in the thatch, and she was forced to sleep on a pallet that was padded only with her cloak.

  It was an existence far different from that she’d enjoyed as Genvissa, or as Harold’s wife.

  But Swanne did not allow herself to think of such things. These discomforts became as nothing when she thought of what would be hers once she’d trapped and killed William, Asterion had the bands, and both of them controlled the Game.

  But for now she could neither dream of future powers and glories, nor even sneer at the terrible state of the thatch, for Asterion was with her, and he was angrier than she’d ever seen him before.

  “I cannot understand,” he said in a low hiss, “why it is that you have not yet taken William. How many weeks? How many opportunities?”

  “I have tried!” she said, her words stumbling in her haste to placate Asterion. “But…oh! He has some nauseous commitment to his wife. He is afraid of her. The simpering fool. He says he cannot abide to annoy Matilda. And she, the bitch, she won’t allow me near him.”

  Asterion’s hands were on Swanne’s shoulders now, soft and caressing, yet somehow managing to convey

  infinite threat in that caress. “Are you sure it is not you he cannot abide?”

  “Ha! I almost had him, even though he was terrified of his wife. I had him on the floor, and then that…that dwarf interrupted us.”

  “What manner of woman are you,” Asterion continued, “that you cannot even seduce a man to your bed? What manner of Mistress of the Labyrinth is scared of a mere ‘wife’?”

  Swanne wrenched herself away from his tight hands, furious at him, terrified at his anger. “I have done all I can. Rubbed my nakedness against him. Taken his member in my hands and roused him! Do not accuse me of—”

  Asterion grabbed her shoulders again and gave her a hard shake. “I need William dead, you fool. Neither of us can dare to have him wandering about—”

  “You are afraid of him,” Swanne said, wonderingly. “Perhaps I was wrong to think you would make a good Kingman, after all. Perhaps William is the preferable—”

  Swanne stopped as if struck, then her eyes widened and a whine of sheer agony escaped her mouth. She tried to say something, but couldn’t. Instead, as Asterion let her go, she sank to the floor and curled up, whimpering in agony.

  “You will do what I need,” whispered Asterion. “You will kill William, and you…will…do…it…soon. Before he has a chance to ruin all our plans. Do you understand me?”

  She gave a tiny nod, and then visibly relaxed as the imp within her ceased its vicious nibbling.

  “There’s a good girl,” said Asterion in a sickeningly soothing voice. He leaned down and patted Swanne on the head. “There is no escaping me, my dear, and it is far better to work with me than against me.”

  Swanne lay on the filthy floor of the attic space clutching at her belly for hours after he had gone. She felt as if her world had disintegrated about her.

  Never before had Asterion treated her so cruelly. Why? Did he hate her so much? Had she failed him so badly?

  Swanne succumbed to a fit of weeping. She felt hate sweep over her, but not for Asterion. For Matilda, who stood in her way, and for Caela, who had once thought to stand in her way and who had now retreated into a smug complacency.

  Why, Swanne had no idea.

  She remembered what Caela had said to her last night.

  Swanne, if ever you need shelter, I will give it to you. If ever you need harbour, then I am it.

  “Silly bitch,” Swanne muttered, and managed to struggle into a sitting position. Shelter from what, for the gods’ sakes? All Swanne had to do was murder William, and then Asterion would be grateful, and pleased, and would love her again, and would give her all the dark power she craved.

  “I’ll kill Matilda first,” she said. “Yes. I’ll kill Matilda, and then I’ll take William. Easy. Simple. I should have thought of it sooner.”

  They would be in London soon and, there, Swanne knew she could get what she needed.

  EIGHTEEN

  Thinking only of fleeing William’s not-unexpected anger, Caela did not immediately register the fact that the door to the chamber had not been closed when she fled through. All she could think about was returning to her own small chamber, gathering her cloak and then making her way to the courtyard where she might prevail upon someone to escort her back to London.

  But the moment she entered her chamber, leaving the door open as she only needed to snatch at her cloak, Caela heard a footfall behind her, and then the sound of the door closing.

  She spun around.

  Matilda stood there, staring at her. Caela began to speak, but Matilda waved her to silence. She closed the distance between them, lifted her hand, and placed it firmly on Caela’s breastbone.

  “Show me what you showed William,” she said.


  “Matilda—”

  “Show me!”

  And so Caela did.

  Eventually, as William had, Matilda stood back, her hand falling away from Caela, her face pale. “Who are you?” she whispered. “What are you?”

  “Matilda, I did not want to involve you in this.”

  “I have been involved ever since I married William! Tell me.”

  Caela closed her eyes, and tried one last time. “If I tell you, I will involve you in witchcraft so malevolent that it will destroy—”

  “What? My entire life?”

  “This life, and all future lives,” Caela said softly.

  Matilda stared at Caela, and suddenly everything fell into place. “That is why William and you know each other so well…this is not your first life together, is it?”

  Caela shook her head.

  “But how can this be so? Nothing that the Church teaches can explain—”

  “We come from a time long before the Church existed. It cannot know of us, and of what we do.”

  “A time of dark witchcraft!”

  “And a time of great beauty,” Caela said gently.

  “Tell me,” Matilda said.

  “Matilda, are you sure that—?”

  “Tell me.”

  And so Caela drew Matilda back to the bed where they sat, and Caela told her.

  For hours after Caela had left him, William sat in the chair, head in hands, his entire world a turmoil.

  Aldred…Asterion.

  Swanne…perhaps even now lying with Asterion, plotting William’s downfall.

  Caela, a part of this land in a way William had never imagined.

  For the moment, Asterion and Swanne, and what they planned, what they could accomplish, was too frightful to consider, so William concentrated entirely on Caela.

  Oh, God, how beautiful and desirable she had been. Perhaps oddly, he had no trouble believing what she had told him about her nature as it was now, and not simply because of what Caela had shown him of herself. He remembered how only relatively recently Swanne

  had told him Caela (and Cornelia) had harboured Mag within her womb. As Cornelia she had loved this land the instant she’d seen it. He remembered how she’d stood on the deck of the ship, their son Achates in her arms, staring at the line of green cliffs in the distance. He remembered how she had once told him that arriving in this new and strange land was not “strange” at all, but felt rather as if she was finally coming home.

  He remembered how she had instinctively known what the Stone Dances were for, their purpose, their magic.

  He remembered how effortlessly Cornelia had learned the Llangarlian language, as if she’d merely been remembering it.

  He remembered how immediately she had become close to the people of the land—to Erith and her family.

  To Blangan.

  To Coel.

  Cornelia had walked on to this land and instantly become one with it.

  He, as Brutus, had walked on to this land and instantly become its enemy.

  Why? Because he’d only seen Genvissa? Only seen the power and lust she’d represented?

  William’s mind began to worry at him as he tried to piece things together. Genvissa had been Cornelia’s instant enemy. Genvissa had done nothing but plot Cornelia’s murder from the moment she’d known about her. Genvissa had used the excuse that Cornelia was Asterion’s tool—but that wasn’t it, was it? Genvissa had seen within Cornelia a terrible threat, and it had nothing to do with Asterion but everything to do with this land.

  William groaned, wondering how he could have been so blind. How could he have so blithely ignored everything Genvissa was? Everything she did?

  Ariadne had wrapped the Aegean world in catastrophe. Genvissa—and in her rebirth as Swanne—was doing the same here.

  No wonder the Llangarlians had been so antagonistic. No wonder they had fought so hard against Genvissa and all she stood for.

  William rose and paced slowly about the room, thinking now on the Game. Caela said it had changed, become attuned to the land.

  Could it? William tried to remember everything he had been taught about the Game, but nothing he had been taught catered for the current situation. No Game had ever been left so long incomplete between the opening and closing dances.

  Had the Game become attuned to the land to the extent that it had all but merged with the land?

  There was no reason that it should not have. Two thousand years left uncompleted. Gods! It could have done anything in that time.

  Slowly William’s mind began to unwind from its turmoil into a peculiar kind of peace, even though he felt disjointed and a little disorientated. He found himself standing in the centre of his chamber, seeing not the cold stone walls, but the Labyrinth as it had stood atop Og’s Hill, the maidens and youths with their flowers dancing around him and his Mistress.

  He saw the Mistress of the Labyrinth standing before him, dressed only in the hip-hugging white linen skirt. He saw her lithe body, her breasts glowing in the torchlight.

  He saw her deep blue eyes and her smile as they rested on him.

  He saw Caela, and William was suddenly hit with such a longing that he again groaned, and doubled over, as if in pain.

  Could Caela be the Mistress of the Labyrinth? Yes, of course she could, if she was taught, but she had to be

  taught, and it could be none of his teaching. The mysteries of the Mistress were alien to William. He could dance with a Mistress as her partner, but he could never truly understand her power.

  Was he angry that Caela sought to become the Mistress of the Labyrinth?

  No. Not truly.

  What angered and embittered him—even as he could not understand it—was that she did not want him to dance with her as her Kingman.

  What frightened him was what he had seen when she lay with Silvius.

  When all was said and done, she had betrayed him as deeply as had Swanne.

  “There,” said Caela eventually, “you have it all.”

  Matilda felt numbed by what she’d heard, and yet she disbelieved none of it. Everything fitted her own experience and observation.

  “You do not seem overly surprised,” said Caela, watching Matilda carefully.

  “The details have shocked me,” Matilda replied, “but I do not find them difficult to believe.”

  Caela took the other woman’s hands. “Matilda, listen to me carefully. Do not become involved in this any more than you are now. I could not bear that you should be injured in a battle which has nothing to do with you. I have hurt and murdered too many innocent people, sometimes wilfully, sometimes unintentionally. I could not bear to have your hurt or death on my conscience as well.”

  “‘Murdered’ is a strong word, Caela.”

  “What else can I call the death of my father, Pandrasus? And my nurse, Tavia? All the people of Mesopotama? Damson! Oh, Damson…”

  “Damson? How can you blame yourself for Damson’s death? Caela—”

  “I used her unwittingly, and sent her into danger. She was a sweet and simple woman who—”

  “A sweet and simple woman? Ah, Caela! Enough. I cannot have you carry this burden. Listen to me…Damson knew precisely what she was doing. And her greatest ‘talent’ in life was that she fooled most people into thinking she was ‘sweet and simple’.”

  “It is good of you to try and make me feel better, Matilda, but—”

  “For sixteen years, Caela, Damson was my agent within Edward’s court.”

  Caela’s mouth dropped open.

  “Damson was a cunning and knowing woman,” Matilda continued, “not sweet and simple at all. I met her several times in the days before I sent her to Edward’s court, and I am very well aware of precisely who and what she was. Do not berate yourself on Damson’s account. She had long accepted the risks of the life she led, and if you want someone to blame for putting her in Swanne’s way, then blame me. I was the one who sent her to Swanne when she moved to Aldred’s palace.
”

  “You sent her to spy on Swanne?”

  “When I discovered that William and Swanne were lovers, in the first month or so of my marriage, I sent Damson to be my own personal agent at Edward’s court. She was to report on Swanne to me…if Swanne moved to destroy my marriage and my life, then I wanted to be warned of it. Later, my dear, I set Damson to watch you. After Harold came to visit, I became increasingly curious about you.”

  “But…” Caela still could not believe what she was hearing.

  “Do not fret.” Matilda smiled. “Damson discovered nothing about you that she could report to me, apart from a sense that you were far more than you appeared to be.” Matilda shrugged. “You thought you were using

  her. She was spying on you. You thought you had sent Damson to her death. I already had. Caela, Damson is not your guilt to bear. Nor mine either. Damson had responsibility for her own life.”

  Caela was silent.

  “And your father, Pandrasus, and Tavia? Your fault? No. They were victims not of any single act of ill will, but of circumstance. Mesopotama was destroyed by the miasma of hate, Caela, not by any single person or action. Everyone hated: you, Brutus, Membricus, Pandrasus, the Mesopotamans, the Trojans. A small boy walking down the streets of Mesopotama could have sparked the disaster that ate it as much as anything you did, or anything Brutus did. Forgive yourself, Caela. Don’t carry around a burden of useless and unearned guilt.”

  Caela gave a small smile. “I wish you had been with me in my previous life, Matilda. I think somehow it would have been a happier time for me.”

  “I can make it a happier time for you in the future,” Matilda said, and squeezed Caela’s hand where it lay in her lap.

  NINETEEN

  Caela and Mother Ecub stood on Pen Hill, the stones humming gently, and watched as William the Conqueror took London.

  His army had been split into four and so it approached the city from four directions, entering from the south via London Bridge, from the north-east via Aldgate, from the west via Ludgate, and the largest column from the north via Cripplegate.

  This last column approached Cripplegate from the northern road, which took them past Pen Hill, and it was with this column that William and Matilda rode.