Gods' Concubine

by Sara Douglass

  Silvius’ hand tightened about mine. “I can feel him,” he said, beating his other hand in a closed fist gently against his breast. “I can feel that motherless bastard in here. He is confident. He is crowing with confidence. The Game has shifted, and he has caused it. Swanne has ‘shifted’ and I cannot think but that he has caused this as well. Caela…”

  “Yes?”

  “If Asterion murders Swanne or otherwise corrupts her, we are lost. You know that, don’t you?”

  I closed my eyes, and gripped Silvius’ hand tightly.

  “I know that,” I said.

  SIX

  6th January 1066

  Edward lay dying. He’d taken almost a week about it, but now, in the heart of the bleak midwinter, it was his time.

  He was screaming.

  There was no need for him to scream so, but Edward was approaching his salvation and he wanted everyone to know that he was going to grab at it with both hands. There was no possible means by which salvation was going to avoid him. No possible means by which God and His saints were going to escape an eternity without the Confessor by their side.

  Humility had never been Edward’s strongest attribute.

  His screams were terrible to hear. Gurgling with the blood and pus that now almost completely filled his lungs, they rippled about the crowded chamber like a rotten sea.

  It appeared that anyone who had even the faintest connection with the king had squeezed themselves into the chamber.

  Caela was there, the chief mourner and witness. Her face was pale and expressionless, her every movement measured, as if she kept herself under tight control.

  Most of the highest clergy currently within a day’s ride of London were there: Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester; Eadwine, the Abbot of the newly consecrated Westminster Abbey; Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury; Spearhafoc, the Bishop of London; Aldred, the Archbishop of York, his eyes weeping, his chins wobbling, his plump hands twisting and twining before his ample stomach; and sundry abbots and deacons, including many from Normandy.

  Many earls and counts and senior thegns were there, including the earls Edwin and Morcar, brothers to Alditha, who were there less to witness Edward’s death than to ensure Harold wed their sister as soon as possible. Among the other men of rank who attended were at least eight members of the witan. Their eyes rested on Harold far more than they rested on Edward.

  Swanne was there, standing well back and hardly visible, but with her black eyes darting about, watching the crowd more than they watched Edward.

  Saeweald also attended. He stood at the king’s side, silently using linens to wipe away the worst of the effluent that projected from the king’s shrieking mouth before handing them to Mother Ecub, prioress of St Margaret the Martyr, who placed them in a basket at the bedhead.

  No doubt, once the king was dead, the basket’s contents would be souvenired by eager hands, kept against the inevitable day when Edward would be sanctified and the purulent linens would become valuable relics.

  Finally, packed at the furthest distance and generally jammed against the walls of the chamber, stood the king’s most faithful servants: his bowerthegn, his palace chamberlain, his royal men-at-arms, the laundresses (Damson among them) and the stable boys who had served Edward with love and devotion and who wondered, if Edward were to find himself a place with God and His saints this night, what place there might be for them in the new court.

  This relatively small group of servants were, truly, the only ones there whose primary concern was to mourn.

  Everyone else had their own agenda, the most common of which was to ensure themselves a prominent place in the new court. The sound to be heard in that moment after Edward drew his final breath would be the thud of knees hitting the floor as men pledged their allegiance to the new king, Harold.

  Edward’s shrieks grew louder, more incoherent. It was difficult to distinguish individual words, but no one had much doubt as to their intent: Edward was letting God know of his imminent arrival, and was telling the world that it would be a poorer place indeed for his absence.

  The dying king sat propped upright against a welter of goosedown pillows. He had on a linen nightshirt, open at the neck so that it revealed his thin, labouring ribs, billowing out from his skeletal arms as he waved them around. Edward’s staring eyes were fixed on the golden cross held in the trembling hands of a monk who stood at the foot of the bed. The darkened chamber was lit by only eight or nine fat candles in wall sconces, and what light did manage to find its way through to Edward’s bed consisted of greying, shifting shadows.

  As Edward’s shrieking shrilled yet higher, and the pustulence he emitted from his mouth became thicker and more foul, several members of the witan who stood close to the huddled clerics stepped forward and urgently began to whisper to Stigand, Spearhafoc and Aldred, the three senior clerics present.

  The whispered conversations grew heated, both the members of the witan and the clerics gesturing and, occasionally, looking worriedly at Edward.

  Finally Aldred nodded his head, as if he agreed with what the witan argued, and turned to his two fellow clerics, adding his weight and influence to the reasonings of the witan.

  After some moments Stigand and Spearhafoc nodded as well—by this stage most eyes were watching this discussion rather than the king—and Aldred wobbled to the king’s side and, holding a careful sleeve to his mouth lest the king spatter him with his dying, began to speak to Edward in a low, but compelling, voice.

  “My dearest liege,” he said, “your time is upon you. See! God holds out his hands before you! The saints chorus their jubilation!”

  On the other side of the bed Saeweald turned his head as he accepted a clean linen from Mother Ecub, taking the opportunity to roll his eyes very slightly at her.

  Ecub’s face remained expressionless, but Saeweald thought he could see a slight relaxation of the muscles around her eyes: she was as amused as he.

  “Yes! Yes!” Edward shrieked, the first two coherent words he’d uttered in the past hour.

  “Salvation awaits,” Aldred continued, his eyes gleaming with a fanatical light. “Heaven and the next world awaits. You shall live at God’s side for eternity.”

  “Salvation!” screamed Edward, his hands flapping at his bed linens. “Eternity!”

  Caela winced, then looked away.

  “The Devil shall be bested,” shouted Aldred, now working himself into a true fever.

  “Bested!” shrieked Edward.

  “Evil shall be overcome.”

  “Overcome!”

  “God and His angels shall prevail.”

  “Prevail!”

  “Your subjects shall be saved.”

  “Saved!”

  “Harold shall reign a true Christian king.”

  “A true Christian king!” Edward echoed. Then, more softly, and far more suspiciously: “Harold?”

  “Harold shall be your heir.”

  Edward said nothing, but glared at Aldred.

  Across the room Harold also glared at Aldred, who flushed.

  “My best and truest lord,” Aldred said, his tone unctuous, “evil thinks to create disharmony and confusion within your realm. There is no surety as to your heir. Name him now. Best the evil! Ensure that righteousness prevails! Name Harold—”

  “Godwine’s cursed son?” Edward said. “You want a Godwineson to sit the throne of—?”

  He stopped, and uncertainty appeared to overcome him. He coughed, spitting into the linen that Saeweald provided, then looked with watering, tormented eyes at Eadwine, the Abbot of Westminster. “What should I do?” he whispered. “What should I do?”

  “You must do what is best,” Eadwine said.

  “What is best?” said Edward.

  “Harold,” said Eadwine, and about the chamber breaths were released in profound relief.

  “Harold?” said Edward.

  “Harold,” said Eadwine.

  Edward gave a small nod, then looked back to Aldred. �
�Perhaps Harold would be best,” he said.

  “Name him,” Aldred said very softly.

  Edward sighed. “Harold shall succeed me.” He did not look at Harold as he said this.

  For his part, Harold’s face flushed with relief. He had been named. He had the right to the throne. If William or Hardrada or even a bevy of church mice tried to lay claim to it then they would do so illegally, both in the sight of God and in the sight of England.

  “Harold…” Edward said, and his tone was one of immense sadness, as if he felt he had failed somehow, but was not quite sure of that “how”.

  Aldred laid a heavy hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Be at peace, my lord,” he said, and with those words Edward slipped quietly into death.

  There was a silence, then cries of “Harold! Harold! Harold!”

  Through the tumult, Aldred raised his face and caught Swanne’s eye.

  William, he whispered into her mind. William is on his way…and you shall hand me his life. Yes?

  A pause during which Swanne’s face twisted in silent agony and she grabbed with one hand at her belly.

  Yes?

  Yes, she whimpered back, and her eyes ran with tears.

  SEVEN

  Harold’s election to the throne was a foregone conclusion, the result not only of Harold’s careful and ceaseless canvassing of the members of the witan as Edward lay a-dying over the Christmas season, but Aldred’s ability to wangle a succession order from Edward in those moments before he died. Within an hour of Edward’s death Harold’s succession was proclaimed over Westminster and through London; within a day it had spread to most parts of the realm.

  Edward’s chamber was abandoned within moments of his passing, save for Damson, Caela and several other ladies who attended to his laying out. The rest of the witnesses, the counts and earls, the chamberlains, chancellors, stewards and thegns, the priests and bishops and abbots and abbesses and all their attendants, had moved with Harold to the Great Hall of the Westminster palace, there to plan the coronation.

  It would take place in the morning at the newly consecrated Westminster Abbey, directly after the funeral service to bury Edward.

  And directly after he was crowned king, Harold would wed Alditha and crown her queen. All would be settled before noon.

  The morrow was going to be a rushed day indeed, but that was, as Harold explained to his crowd of old retainers and friends, heavily augmented with new hangers-on and applicants for powerful positions, all to his advantage.

  “If I leave my coronation until the usual period of official mourning has passed then William, Tostig, Hardrada and half the ageing Vikings still left in Norway, for all I know, will have moved.” Harold sat the throne on the dais, having marched there without hesitation the instant he entered the Great Hall.

  One of the senior members of the witan, Regenbald, who had been Edward’s chancellor, stepped forward. He was an old man, but still radiated a powerful virility, and was renowned across half of Europe for his insights and sagacity.

  “Mourning will only take a month,” he said. “No one is going to mount an invasion in a month. Not in the bleakness of midwinter. To rush into a coronation might appear to smack of…unseemly haste.”

  There were murmurs of agreement in the five-deep throng about Harold.

  “Aldred, my friend,” said Harold. “What say you?”

  The archbishop visibly preened with pride; Harold’s prompting for advice was a direct reward for Aldred’s securing of a succession order from Edward.

  “I cannot speak for Hardrada,” said Aldred, his eyes skimming quickly over the watching faces before returning to Harold, “but I think I can for William. His spies at this court—”

  There were murmurs and dark looks exchanged about the gathering, but Harold kept his own gaze steady on Aldred.

  “—will have already sent word regarding Edward’s demise,” Aldred continued. “William will have been waiting for this news. Surely, yes, he will swing his plans for an invasion into place, but the first thing he will do is seek to claim the throne himself. He has, as we are all too well aware, been protesting for years that Edward promised him the throne many years ago when Edward sheltered at the Norman court. William will proclaim loud and long all over Europe, from the papal court to the Holy Roman Empire to Flanders itself that he is the legal King of England. He will do this because he will hope to make the witan think twice about electing Harold. William will do everything he can to make Harold’s succession, should it happen, as illegal as possible.”

  “We will never have a Norman king,” said Regenbald.

  “We would never elect William,” said Robert Fitzwimarch, who had been a member of the witan even longer than Regenbald.

  “A Norman and a bastard,” muttered yet another witan member, Ansgar.

  Harold smiled. “If he surrounded London with enough swords you would elect him willingly enough,” he said, then carried straight on through the howls of denials. “Aldred is right. If I give William so much as a day of space he will have petitioned most of the reigning princes, dukes, kings and prelates of Europe regarding his right to the throne and, knowing William’s charm and his reputation, most of them will have agreed to his right to it. If I waited for the full month of mourning before being crowned then I would have the weight of European opinion behind me, and William would have his excuse for an invasion. This way,” he paused momentarily, his face suddenly looking old and haggard, “this way, perhaps I have a chance of circumventing him.”

  There was a silence.

  “St Paul’s?” said Aldred brightly. “I will send word to the dean that he should ready the cathedral for your—”

  “No,” said Harold, “I will be crowned in Westminster.”

  “But kings have always been crowned in St Paul’s,” said Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Spearhafoc, the Bishop of London, as one. Stigand had always been a stickler for tradition, and Spearhafoc could suddenly see the coronation sliding out of his control into the eager hands of Eadwine, the Abbot of Westminster.

  “Then I shall start a new tradition,” snapped Harold. “Think, damn you! Edward stipulated that he be buried in Westminster Abbey, and I dare not go against that lest I be seen to disrespect his wishes and his holy corpse. So the funeral service for Edward, with every court member present, will be held in Westminster Abbey in the morning. I am not then going to insist that everyone up and move themselves through the heart of a frozen winter’s day to London’s St Paul’s for my coronation! Westminster it is.”

  Harold leaned forward on the throne and looked Stigand in the eye. “Is your matter still before Alexander?”

  Stigand looked down. “Yes.” For several years now Stigand’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury had been in dispute. The matter had gone to the pope for a final decision, but Alexander II, not known for his speed in dealing with business matters not directly connected with either food or young girls, had not yet proclaimed on the problem.

  “Then Aldred shall crown me,” Harold said.

  “No,” Stigand cried, taking a half-step forward. Harold raised his hand.

  “I cannot afford to be crowned by an archbishop whose appointment is in doubt,” Harold said. “Damn it, Stigand, if Alexander does not rule in your favour, and you have crowned me, then my coronation is null and void. Aldred is the second most senior churchman in England, and there is no dispute as to his right to the title. He shall crown me.”

  Stigand shot Aldred a foul look, but the obese archbishop was staring down at his hands laced across his belly, a small smile on his face.

  Harold stood up, beckoning to the brothers Edwin and Morcar. “I need to speak to you regarding your sister, Alditha. If I am to wed her in the morning then you and I need to finalise her dower arrangements tonight.”

  And with that the rest of the crowd was dismissed.

  EIGHT

  Aldred had secured for himself a small but private chamber within the Westminster complex. B
etween the death of the one king and the coronation of the next there was little time to scurry to and from his palace in London.

  Besides he was enjoying himself far too much to waste time in travelling along the frozen Westminster to London road.

  “And so then Harold said, ‘Aldred shall crown me’,” Aldred said, and grinned. “I could hardly believe it. I…I, to crown the King of England! Shall I crown William, too, my dear? Do you think?”

  Swanne sat at the very edge of the bed, as far away from Aldred as possible. She felt as though she were locked into a black, cold night from which she could never escape. Her belly ached from the incubus’ horrid nibbling, her heart ached for all that had happened and for what Asterion promised would happen, and her entire body throbbed painfully from Aldred’s just-completed bout of lovemaking…if such a brutal assault could be in any way described as “lovemaking”.

  “Shall I, my dear?” Aldred said, now much softer, and Swanne’s head jerked in terrified assent, knowing that the incubus could strike at any moment.

  He was going to say more, but just then came a knock at the door, and a mumbled request from one of the abbey monks that the archbishop join the Abbot of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury within the abbot’s private chambers as shortly as possible.

  Aldred sighed, patted Swanne on the cheek and departed.

  A few minutes later, surprising Swanne, who had relaxed just enough to close her eyes, the door reopened and Asterion, now in his ancient form of the Minotaur, walked in.

  He sat on the bed, close to Swanne, who had shrunk back.

  She tensed, her black eyes growing huge and terrified, and Asterion reached out a hand and took one of hers gently.

  “I will not harm you,” he said, sliding close enough that their bodies touched at hip and shoulder.

  If anything, her eyes grew even wider.

  “I will not harm you,” he repeated, and ran his free hand softly over her shoulder, breast and belly where the hand lingered a moment before continuing down to rest on her thigh.