In that instant before the snake-creature struck, Matilda also understood one other thing. That this terrible demonic creature was a woman’s revenge incarnate, and Matilda knew the woman who had created this revenge must surely be the greatest Darkwitch who had ever walked the face of the Earth.
The stag was screaming now, his struggles maddened as he sought to escape the snake-creature writhing ever closer.
Matilda shrieked, backing away several paces, her hands to her face.
The snake-creature struck, lunging down with its vast mouth, and before Matilda could manage to wrench herself from her dream she saw the demon’s fangs sink so deeply into the stag’s body that it tore asunder, and blood spattered all about.
She woke, drenched in sweat, still caught in the terrible imagery of the stag’s murder.
“William,” she whispered.
TEN
On the following morning, when the Normans faced the English on the battlefield of Hastings, there were not two forces ranged against each other, but many. Harold and William were, and always would be, the face and tragedy of Hastings, but behind them and at their side ranged other forces which influenced both the battle of that day and the one which would come over the following centuries: Asterion, the Minotaur; the Troy Game itself, determined to ensure the future it wanted; the land, and Eaving, who spoke on its behalf, as on behalf of Og, her all-but-dead future; finally, Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. All of them, in their own way, participated in the battle at Hastings.
Harold had massed his army on the ridge that lay nine miles from Hastings. Fate could not have picked for him a better site. The ridge was a natural fortress. Before it the land sloped gently away before rising again towards another hill. To either side of the ridge were steep escarpments which were in turn flanked by marshy streams. If William wanted to attack Harold—and there was no way he could ignore the English king and allow him time to build up his forces—then he would need to attack from a position directly in front of Harold. There was no real hope of trying to outflank the English, because that would mean lengthy delays and the splitting of the already small Norman force into two or even three tiny and weak secondary forces.
Harold was as ready as he could ever be by the time the sun rose. He’d deployed his men so that William would face a mighty shield wall.
William had armoured cavalry, but even they would be of little use against a phalanx of armoured and shielded men who could range pikes, lances, axes, swords, stones and arrows—as well as the supporting landscape—against the attacking force.
Weary his men might be, but Harold knew that in theory they had a very good chance.
Save that he knew they would not win. Not in terms of a battle victory.
Where would the treachery come from? he wondered.
William attacked soon after daybreak. He’d marched his army from Hastings, massed on the hill opposite Harold’s ridge, then sent in both cavalry and infantry in three divisions.
If William thought to break Harold’s shield wall, then he was grossly disappointed. Harold’s men held, and wave after wave of Norman attackers were driven back.
By mid-morning it appeared that the battle was turning into a rout. The Normans were milling, often ignoring the shouted commands of William, who fought within their midst, and falling one after another to the axes and swords of the English.
William changed tactics. He screamed at his archers to direct their missiles into three or four specific areas of the English line, and then to his horsemen and knights to follow up the arrow barrage with a concentrated attack on those areas. While the English were still in disarray from the arrows, the knights stood a better chance of breaking through the shield wall.
Crude, but effective. Very gradually the English were worn down. Where they had held in the earlier part of the day, their weariness caused them to stumble during the latter.
The Normans began to break through the shield wall and engage the English in terrible hand-to-hand combat.
“I want Harold alive!” William screamed to his men as he saw them break through in half a dozen different places. “I want him alive!”
“And I do not!” muttered Swanne, still standing within the embrace of her dark grove. She could not see the battle with her eyes, but she could with her power. “Ah, what a fool you have become, William. The Game has no use for such as you.”
Then she relaxed. She must not think this way. She must practise the pretty, smiling face she needed to present to William. In the meantime, she needed to ensure that he actually won this battle. The bands could be irretrievably lost (for this life at least) if the damn fool was killed by some stray English sword.
“Harold!” she whispered, and she spoke with the voice of passion.
Harold!
It stunned him, for it automatically drew him back through the years to that time when he and Swanne had been young lovers, and he had entertained no doubt that she loved him nor that she was anything else but what she appeared to be.
Harold!
He was fighting desperately in the very thick of the battle where the Normans had broken through. Covered in sweat and grime and blood, hearing the shouts and grunts and cries of those crowded about him, feeling their thrusts and hopelessness and dying, still he heard Swanne’s voice as clear as a clarion call.
Harold!
He looked up, and never saw the arrow which plunged directly into his eye, killing him instantly.
Caela moaned, almost doubling over in the intensity of her sorrow. How pitiful a death, to be so duped by Swanne.
Then she managed to collect herself, and wipe the grief from her eyes, and straighten, and compose her features and smile.
She stood in the stone hall—save that only the western end of the hall was stone. The eastern half, that which stood at Caela’s back, was built entirely of flowing, emerald water.
Caela stood at the border of this life and the next.
A figure appeared at the far western end of the hall. He was not dressed in battle garb, nor did he bear the stains of sweat and grime and death.
Instead he walked straight and tall, as beautiful and as content as ever she had seen him. England’s king, as William would never be.
She drew in a deep breath, and could hardly see for the tears of joy which now filled her eyes.
“Harold!” she said as he drew near.
“Eaving.” He smiled, and it was composed of such pure love and acceptance that the tears spilled from her eyes. He lowered his head and kissed her, then gathered her into a tight embrace, lifting her from the floor and spinning her around. “I had not thought to meet you here.”
“How could I let you pass without—” She stopped.
“Saying goodbye?”
“It will never be goodbye,” she said, very softly. “You should know that.”
“Aye, I know it.”
She pulled back slightly from him, and her face was grave and angry all in one. “Swanne murdered you with her darkcraft.”
“Again.” His voice was virtually inaudible.
“Do you know,” Eaving said, “that for this you are owed vengeance?”
Harold laughed shortly. “When shall I collect it?”
“Whenever you will. Harold, the Sidlesaghes showed you the paths between this world and the next. You can travel them as well as I.
“Whenever you will, Harold,” she said, her eyes locked into his.
“Ah, Eaving,” he said, resting the palm of a hand against her soft cheek, and she knew that he’d put Swanne from his mind for the moment.
“Harold, I need you to grant me a favour.”
“Anything.”
“Take these with you.”
He looked at what she had in her hands, then his eyes flew back to hers, shocked. “I cannot touch those!”
“Please. For me.”
He laughed, the sound bitter. “These will eventually take you from me.”
“You already knew that.”<
br />
“Oh, gods, Eaving—”
“Please, Harold. Please.”
He sighed, and reached out, taking the two golden bands from her. “Where shall I put them?”
She shrugged, and suddenly he grinned and laughed. “You are so beautiful to me,” he said.
Then, kissing her one last time, Harold walked past Eaving, through the water cathedral and into the Otherworld.
As with the previous four bands, the moment that these two were moved the Game shuddered…and grew.
Into the Otherworld.
ELEVEN
William had spent all of his life since the age of seven fighting battle after battle. He’d lost a few, he’d proved victorious in more, and he’d walked the field of death in the aftermath of combat more often than he cared to remember.
But never before had he been as sickened as he was this evening as he picked his way slowly over the ridge where Harold’s army had made its stand.
It wasn’t just the dismembered corpses—Norman as well as English—that lay in their thickened, coagulated blood.
It wasn’t the moans and the screams, or the pleas for mercy or quick death, that came from those maimed men who lay twisted in indescribable agony amid their silent, dead companions.
It wasn’t the shrieks of the crippled horses, or the stench of spilt blood and split bowels.
It was sadness which sickened William. The fact that he could not quite understand the reason for this sadness, nor even comprehend its depths, only made it worse.
He picked his way slowly through the battlefield, stepping over the piled corpses, ignoring the cries of the wounded save for a jerk of his head to those companions who trailed after him to see to the needs of the wounded.
William was looking for Harold. He was not among the captured, and William knew the man well enough to know that neither would he have been among the few score English who’d managed to escape the field. Harold was lying here somewhere amid this stinking, reeking, shrieking carpet of humanity, either dead or wounded, and William feared very much that he was dead. He found himself praying over and over that Harold would still be alive, but William knew that he was dead.
He could no longer scry out his presence, although, oddly, he could still feel Harold’s sense of peace and contentment.
It was, finally, one of the Count of Boulogne’s captains who raised the shout, standing thirty or forty paces away towards the northern end of the ridge, waving his arms slowly to and fro above his head.
William’s stomach lurched, and he froze momentarily, staring at the man’s waving arms as if he signalled the end of the world, before he managed to collect himself and stride over.
He stopped as he reached the man, then looked at the ground that lay between them.
Harold’s body lay bloodied and twisted, his legs half covered by the headless corpse of an Englishman. The dead king’s arms lay outstretched, as if Harold had willingly relinquished his spirit. His body, so far as William could see, was unscathed.
Save for the arrow that protruded from his left eye.
William could not tear his eyes away from it. He stared, unblinking, then his stomach suddenly roiled, and he turned away and retched.
The arrow! There as solidly as if William had thrust it in himself.
As he had thrust the arrow into Silvius’ eye in order to seize his heritage.
Was he cursed to repeat this foulness over and over, through this life and all others? Was everything he set his heart on to be destroyed with the cruel thrust of an arrow deep into a brain?
William straightened and wiped his mouth. He did not look back at Harold.
“Take him from here,” he said to the men who had gathered near, “and treat him with respect. We will bury him tomorrow.”
Then William turned, and walked away.
By midnight William was back within Hastings, conferring with his captains about the likelihood of the remaining English regrouping and attacking, when a soldier entered the chamber and saluted, then stood expectantly as if he had news of vast import to share.
“Yes?” said William.
“My lord,” said the soldier, “Harold’s wife is here and craves an audience.”
William froze, staring at the man.
“The Queen Alditha?” said Hugh of Montfot-sur-Risle, frowning.
“No,” said the soldier, “the other one. The Lady Swanne.”
As one, everyone looked to William.
He was sitting in his chair, his face now expressionless, his eyes still glued to the soldier. “Bid her enter,” he said, finally, his voice very soft. “The rest of you may leave. I think we have done enough this night.”
The Count of Boulogne, Eustace, shared a glance with Hugh of Montfot-sur-Risle. “My lord,” he said, shifting his gaze back to William, “she might be dangerous.”
William gave a soft, harsh laugh. “Oh, I know that all too well. But I will be safe enough, my friends. Pray, leave me alone with the lady for the moment.”
Again his men shared concerned glances, but they did as he bade them, and as they filed slowly out the soldier reappeared with a dark-cloaked woman.
William nodded to the man, and he turned and left, closing the door of the chamber behind him.
William rose slowly from the chair. “Swanne.”
“Aye!” She threw back the hood of her cloak, then undid the laces at her neck and discarded the heavy garment entirely.
Beneath, Swanne wore a simple white linen robe, a low, scooped neckline revealing the first swell of her breasts, her narrow waist spanned by a belt of plain leather, the heavy skirt left to drape in folds to her feet.
The simplicity of the robe, its starkness, set off her beauty as nothing else could have done. William felt the breath catch in his throat. Even though she was a little too thin, as if she had been ill recently, Swanne was still as desirable as she had ever been.
And yet there was something about her, something apart from her thinness. Something…harsh.
“William,” she said, shaking her head so that her heavy, black curls shook free from their bindings. “William!”
She held out her arms, her eyes shining, her red mouth slightly parted, the tip of her tongue glistening between the white tips of her teeth. “William.”
“Swanne,” he said, feeling ridiculous, as if he’d been caught in a child’s play. Gods! Could he do nothing but stand here and mutter her name? Is this not what he had waited for, lusted for, for so many years?
Then, in a moment of almost horrifying revelation, William knew that she was not. Swanne was not what he sought at all. She was merely his unavoidable companion.
Was this what Theseus felt, when he abandoned Ariadne on Naxos? Did he feel as I do now, when I look on a woman I once thought to love and think, “murderess”?
As cold as ice, William stepped forward, took one of Swanne’s outstretched hands, and laid his lips to it in courtly fashion.
His eyes never left her face.
Something shadowy crossed Swanne’s countenance, but vanished within an instant.
“William!” she cried yet one more time as she threw herself against him, pressing her body the length of his, her arms tight about his waist, her face uplifted to his. “Finally…finally…”
He gave a small, tight smile, then lowered his face to hers, and, reluctantly, kissed her.
Her mouth grabbed at his, her hands tangling within his hair, her body writhing against his flesh.
William felt as though he was being devoured.
Worse, her mouth tasted foul, as if it were full of the coppery aftertaste of old blood…
He pulled back, pushing her away with hands on her shoulders.
“William? I have waited for this moment for so long. I have been through so much for this moment. Shared Harold’s bed—”
“Harold is dead.”
“Yes! Praise all gods.” Swanne clasped her hands before her, her face lighting with delight. “And you must ensure his
children die as well. You cannot have any of his blood lurking in the hills, ready to make a play for your throne.”
William’s face froze. “They are your children as well.”
“Ah,” she said, making a deprecatory gesture, “mere necessities to keep Harold happy. They are of no importance to me. A discomfort only. I could not wait to rid my body of their weight.”
Swanne leaned forward, lifting her face to again be kissed, but William turned away. He walked a short distance to a table where lay a scattering of parchments: intelligence and reports.
He did not touch them.
“William?” Swanne stepped up behind him, and laid a hand on his back. “What is wrong?”
“Harold is dead.”
“Yes?”
“Goddamn you, woman!” William swung around to face her. “You shared his bed for over sixteen years. You bore his children. Have you not a care for the fact that this man is dead?”
“Harold discarded me,” she snarled. “No one discards me!” Then she relaxed, and smiled. “Have you seen his body, my love?”
William gave a terse nod.
“Did you like the arrow? I thought it a nice touch. I thought…”
Swanne stopped, appalled at the expression on William’s face. “He was nothing to us, William. Why look at me as if I were the most loathsome witch on earth?”
“He was a good man, Swanne. He did not deserve to die. And not in that manner.” William paused, his face working. “And to now beg me to murder his children. Your children. I cannot credit it. Is there nothing within that breast of yours but hatred and ambition? Nothing?”
“What is wrong with you, William? You and I are the only things that matter. And the Troy Game. Nothing else counts. We are here, we are together, and we can complete the Game. Nothing else matters. Why look at me as if I were a vile thing?”
He turned away. “I also used to think that nothing mattered but the Game,” he said quietly. “I used to think that nothing counted but that you and I lived together, forever, caught in the immortality of the Game.”
Gods' Concubine Page 55