Gods' Concubine

by Sara Douglass

  Saeweald dropped his eyes, damping that tiny gloat within him. Well may you think Mag dead, Swanne…

  And then he looked back at Swanne again, meaning to say something trivial, and saw the blaze of understanding in her eyes, and knew that he had not been secretive enough.

  “Mag is not dead, is she?”

  Swanne rose to her feet, pushing Saeweald away. “Mag is not dead. Of course! The secretive, treacherous bitch. I should have known she would do something like this.”

  She waited until Asterion was atop her, within her, driving both her and himself into a panting, moaning lust before she told him, gasping the words as she felt Asterion climax within her.

  “Mag is alive.”

  “What?” He pulled himself back from her, raising himself up on straightened arms, his ebony face glistening with sweat.

  There was a little trickle of perspiration running down the centre of his moist, black nose, and Swanne found herself momentarily fascinated by it. “Mag is not dead.”

  “Of course not. I knew this.”

  “You thought you killed her!”

  He grinned, the expression horrible on his bull’s face. “Oh, but I mean to.”

  She narrowed her eyes, and he thought she looked so beautifully sly he had to bend his head down and kiss her mouth.

  “What do you know that I don’t?” she said, pulling her mouth free.

  A great deal, he thought. “Only that we have the means to finally trap her,” he said. “Would you like that, my love?”

  She breathed in deeply, and Asterion’s eyes clouded over with renewed desire as he felt her breasts move beneath his chest.

  “Oh, aye,” she said.

  THIRTEEN

  CAELA SPEAKS

  Iretired, Edward’s relict, to St Margaret the Martyr’s, that small priory I had endowed so many years ago.

  The sense of independence was astounding. Ecub gave me several small chambers that were at the very end of the priory’s main group of buildings. Here I had access to the herb garden, the refectory, the chapel and the outside as much as I wished. Of all my ladies, Judith was the only one to come with me (the others gratefully transferring themselves to Alditha’s household), and Saeweald took the opportunity to take over the running of the priory’s herb garden and infirmary. I have no idea what gossip ran through London about this arrangement—no doubt that the physician spent most of his time sampling the wares within the sisters’ dormitory rather than tasting the sweetness of his medicinal draughts—but none of that bothered us within the calm of St Margaret’s. Saeweald spent his nights with Judith, and I…

  I spent my nights either blessedly alone (ah! The wonder of not having to share a chamber, let alone a bed!) or even more blessedly in company atop Pen Hill.

  Here I climbed late at night, aye, even in the depths of winter, and here the Sidlesaghes came to me, and sang, and comforted me. Ecub often joined me, and also Judith and many of the sisters of Ecub’s order. The cold did not perturb us, for we were warm with power and shared femininity and a shared oneness with the land.

  It cheered me to think that not all had been lost, and that a few still remembered the old ways.

  One day, I thought, I would be able to dance here with my lover, with Og, the white stag with the blood-red antlers and the bands of power about his limbs.

  One day.

  One evening Saeweald came to visit me, as he so often did.

  I was seated with Judith and Ecub, and Saeweald joined us about the small fire I had burning in the hearth.

  “I have seen Swanne,” he said as he sat.

  A bleakness overcame my heart. I had almost forgotten her existence. And at that realisation I felt dreadful, for I could not afford to forget Swanne, who somehow I had to persuade to pass over her gifts as Mistress of the Labyrinth.

  Saeweald’s eyes dropped to the hands in his lap. “But before I relate what news I gleaned there, I must make a confession.”

  We waited. Saeweald finally raised his eyes.

  “I was incautious,” he said. “She gleaned from my mind that Mag is not as dead as she had thought.”

  I felt a nasty jab of fear, but quickly suppressed it. “And what can she do with this knowledge, Saeweald? It is unfortunate, perhaps, but the main thing is that Asterion does not know.”

  I saw Ecub and Judith exchange a worried glance, but I spoke again quickly, before any of them could voice their thoughts. “But what did you discover, Saeweald?”

  “She has taken a lover,” he said.

  Ecub, Judith and I shrugged simultaneously. Whether as Genvissa or as Swanne, the woman was always taking lovers.

  “A lover who has supplanted William in her heart and in her estimation.”

  “I cannot believe that!” I said. Then…“Has she—”

  “Decided to abandon the cause of the Game?” Saeweald said. “Forsworn her duties as Mistress of the Labyrinth? Nay, I am afraid not, Caela. She made it very clear to me that she is the Mistress of the Labyrinth, she will be the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and the Game is hers to control as she pleases.”

  I felt a twinge of worry. I kept waiting for some enlightenment as to how it was I might persuade Swanne to hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth but that knowledge continued to elude me. Still, I must trust, and surely it would become plain to me.

  But…Swanne had found a lover to supplant William?

  “She has taken a lover who has supplanted William?” I said. “How can that possibly be?”

  “Aldred,” Judith said. “Who else?”

  Saeweald shot her a disbelieving look. “Aldred the great lover who has made Swanne forget William? I can hardly credit it.”

  I could no longer bear inactivity, so I stood and paced back and forth in the narrow space of the semicircle we made before the fire. “This must be the shift the Sidlesaghes felt in the Game and the land,” I said. “Swanne’s lover.”

  I halted, and fixed Saeweald with a penetrating glare. “Perhaps Swanne is misleading you about this man, this lover, for her own purposes.”

  “No,” Saeweald said, “I would stake my life on her genuine affection and regard for this man.”

  “But how can that be?” I made an impatient gesture and resumed my pacing. “William can be the only man for her. She needs a Kingman. She can’t just dismiss William.”

  “Aye,” Saeweald said. “I do not like this. My foreboding merely grows the stronger for this news.”

  “We need to know who this man is,” said Ecub. “We need to know more about Swanne. What is happening with her? How can she have decided to abandon William?”

  I exchanged a glance with Saeweald. “I could visit her and—”

  “No!” Ecub and Judith said as one.

  “Too dangerous, surely,” Judith added, “especially as she knows that Mag still lives.”

  “Swanne examined me after Asterion killed the false Mag,” I said. “She knows there is no Mag in me. She will think merely that Mag has hopped elsewhere.” I smiled with what I hoped was persuasion. “Swanne might talk to me, if only to brag. She always did enjoy bragging to me about her lovers.”

  “Still—” said Ecub.

  “Damson,” Saeweald put in, his voice slow. “Damson is with Swanne.”

  “What?” I said. “With Swanne? What is Damson doing with Swanne?”

  Saeweald shrugged. “Swanne said that Damson had asked if she might join Swanne’s household at Aldred’s palace. I have no idea why, for Damson could just as surely have had a place in Harold and Alditha’s household as she had in Edward’s.”

  Damson was my responsibility, I thought. I should have seen her settled somewhere safe—and obviously she felt unsettled enough to go into service with Swanne, of all people. She was my responsibility.

  “Caela…” Saeweald said. “Damson is your means to watch Swanne with far more safety than if you attended the witch in person. Swanne will be unguarded about Damson where she will be cunning and sly about y
ou. Damson is your entry into Swanne’s world.”

  I sat silent, not liking it. I had come to hate “using” sweet, trusting Damson in the manner that I did, and to use her in this way was to place her in terrible danger.

  I could see that Ecub and Judith were not happy with Saeweald’s suggestion, either, but it was too good an opportunity to lose.

  “I can fetch her to you,” Saeweald said softly.

  I looked down at my hands curled tight in my lap, and lowered my head in agreement.

  Saeweald arranged my meeting with Damson some six days later. By virtue of her service to Aldred, whose palace lay within the boundaries of London, Damson could not stray from London itself, so, accompanied by Mother Ecub and Judith, I travelled, heavily draped and veiled, to London to meet Damson there. I occupied a room in a sister house to St Margaret’s—Mother Ecub said I was a noble lady who needed solitude and privacy in order to pray for her dead husband’s soul—and there I waited.

  In the late afternoon Saeweald brought Damson to me.

  He’d not told her who he brought her to meet, only that he needed some assistance with draining fluid from the lungs of a woman who had the creeping blackness in her chest. When Ecub opened the door to Saeweald’s soft tap, and Damson saw who awaited her within, her simple, clear face burst into a radiant smile, and she sank into a deep curtsey before me.

  “Madam!” she said. “I have prayed for your happiness every night.”

  My guilt increased. How could I use this woman as I did? I determined that, whatever happened, Damson should not suffer for it.

  “Damson,” I said, keeping my voice light. I took her hands in mine and raised her to her feet and, leaning forward, kissed her on the mouth.

  Instantly our souls transposed.

  As I entered Damson I felt a brief, lingering trace of her unfeigned joy at seeing me and my guilt again stabbed deep.

  I would see this woman safe. I would.

  Aldred had himself a fine palace within London. It was richer and larger than most others—even the Bishop of London himself did not command such magnificence, let alone any of the nobles who maintained residences within the city walls. Aldred had made himself rich indeed on Edward’s munificence, I thought, as I made my way through the halls and chambers to where Saeweald had told me Swanne had her private apartments. I took care to maintain Damson’s habitual modesty of demeanour, keeping my shoulders slumped and my face averted and I entered Swanne’s outer chamber without any challenge from the guards.

  It was late afternoon and Swanne was enjoying a light repast. Hawise, Swanne’s senior attending woman, made a sharp remark to me about my tardiness in returning from my errand, but that was the only comment made.

  “Here,” Hawise said, handing me some linens. “His lordship has spent the afternoon with my lady. Her bed will need to be changed.”

  I took the linens silently and, equally as silently, I slipped into Swanne’s chamber.

  Swanne was sitting by a brazier to one end of the chamber, picking without much apparent interest at a plate of food set before her. She paid me no attention as I made my way to the bed, and I glanced surreptitiously at her.

  She seemed very pale, and had lost weight, but even so she was still fabulously beautiful. Her hair was bound under a veil, although several strands of it straggled over her neck which was, I was concerned to see, slightly reddened in patches, as if someone had grabbed at it with thick fingers.

  Swanne must have felt my eyes on her, for she turned to me and snapped, “Just change the linens and remove yourself, Damson. I have no interest in holding a conversation.”

  I averted my head, terrified she should have seen more than Damson in my eyes, but Swanne said no more, and when I glanced at her as I began to strip the coverlets from the bed I saw that her attention was back on the plate of food.

  I looked to the bed, and barely managed to restrain a gasp of horror.

  That Aldred had lain with her recently was apparent—there were stains smeared across half the bed—but what was appalling was that there were also great streaks of blood marring the creamy linens. Her flux? I thought, then dismissed it, for this blood was not that of a woman’s monthly courses, but the rich red of arterial flow.

  By all the gods in existence, what was Aldred doing to her? This was the lover she had crowed about to Saeweald?

  I could feel Swanne’s eyes on me once more, so I hurriedly stripped the bed and remade it with the fresh linens.

  “Burn those soiled linens,” said Swanne. “They are unredeemable.”

  “Yes, madam,” I muttered, and scurried out, the offending linens stuffed under my arm.

  I was not invited back into Swanne’s chamber that day. No one entered save Hawise, and I heard Swanne snarling at her on those brief occasions when the door opened or closed.

  Late at night, long after the bells for compline had rung, Aldred himself returned. He rumbled into the outer chamber, wrapped in furs against the night cold, and exuded charm and bonhomie.

  Hawise shot him a black look, and did not meet his eyes. Frankly, I was not surprised. If Swanne had been my lady, and even the lady being Swanne, I think I would have sunk a knife into the fat archbishop’s belly for what he did to her.

  Aldred called for wine and meat, then vanished into Swanne’s chamber.

  In the instant before the door swung shut I saw Swanne’s white face.

  It radiated sheer dread.

  A kitchen hand appeared in due course with both wine and meat, and Hawise took them in.

  As she came out I heard the door lock behind her.

  An hour or so later, as Hawise, myself and several of Swanne’s other women had settled on our pallets for the night, I heard the first shriek.

  The good archbishop had patently finished his meal and was now commenced on the evening’s entertainment.

  There came another shriek and, despite myself, I raised myself up on an elbow and looked about the chamber. Surely Hawise or one of the other women would do something?

  But all I received for my concern was a sharp reprimand from Hawise to go back to sleep.

  The sounds of agony issuing from Swanne’s chamber were not, most apparently, my concern.

  It continued for what seemed like hours—that sobbing anguish from behind the locked door. Eventually I could stand no more and, despite the danger I knew it would bring to both myself and to Damson, I decided to do something about it.

  The other women, while pretending to be asleep, were actually still very much awake, so I cast over them a gentle enchantment of peace and rest and they slipped quietly into slumber. Then I rose from my own pallet and approached the door.

  I put my ear to it, and heard nothing.

  Perhaps they were asleep.

  I risked all. I placed my eye against a slight crack between two of the planks of the door and, again using just a fraction of power, widened that gap so I could see into the chamber.

  For a moment all I could make out were shifting shadows, but then they resolved themselves into shapes. A single lamp had been left glowing by the chair where Swanne had been seated earlier and by its shifting light I could make out the bed.

  They were not asleep at all. Aldred’s massive form was humping over Swanne’s gaunt white body, back and forth, back and forth.

  Her hands were to her sides, hanging over the sides of the bed, her hands clenched into fists.

  Aldred’s tempo increased, and something made me look from his body to the shadow his bulk cast on the wall behind the bed.

  It showed not his form at all, but that of a monstrous, bull-headed man.

  I do not know how I managed to tear myself from that door, nor how I managed to lie back on my pallet as if nothing had happened. I knew I could not risk Damson by fleeing in sudden panic into the night. I would have to wait until morning, then make some excuse so that I could slip back to where Ecub, Judith and Saeweald guarded my own sleeping form.

  I lay there all night, slee
pless, terrified that Asterion would thunder from that chamber and assault me.

  No wonder Swanne appeared ill. No wonder she appeared changed. No wonder Silvius had felt something so wrong.

  Aldred was Asterion.

  Aldred had Swanne. Asterion had her captive.

  I remembered that day so many weeks ago when Swanne had come to my chamber and questioned me about the movement of the bands. How she had said to me, I’ve taken Aldred to my bed.

  That had surely been a plea for help, but I had not understood it.

  How she had looked terrified when I had said, “Do you think that I am still Asterion’s pawn? Still dancing to his tune?”

  No, I was not the one now dancing to Asterion’s tune.

  Swanne was his pawn, by some means I could not yet understand.

  I should have seen it. I should have seen it.

  I lay there, sleepless, my eyes closed, and wept.

  FOURTEEN

  Swanne woke close to dawn, aching and bleeding, and found Asterion pacing the chamber.

  She rose, glad beyond knowing, and held out her arms.

  He came to her, gathering her close, and soothed away the hurts and bruises that Aldred had given her.

  “How I loathe that man,” she whispered as Asterion carried her back to the blood-sodden bed and began to make love to her.

  “I know,” he whispered, moving sweetly over her. “I hate what he does to you as well.”

  “I wish you would come to me more often,” Swanne said, weeping now. She was entirely lost. Where once Swanne had known Asterion used Aldred’s body to hurt her, she had now become so dependent on Asterion she had forgotten it entirely. She was totally incapable of realising that Asterion continued to use Aldred to hurt her so that Swanne would become ever more reliant on Asterion, ever more willing to do whatever he asked of her, ever more vulnerable to his subtle sorcery.