Gods' Concubine

by Sara Douglass

  Caela and Ecub could just make him out: William was unmistakable in his brilliant, jewelled armour.

  “Did you tell him?” Ecub asked.

  Caela shook her head, her eyes not leaving the distant figure. “He is not ready. He did not want to hear.”

  Ecub sighed.

  “His wife, however,” Caela continued, “did.”

  Ecub turned to Caela, an eyebrow raised.

  “Matilda will be coming to visit you,” Caela said. “Eventually.”

  Ecub laughed delightedly. “Asterion has his own Gathering,” she said, “and I shall have mine.”

  William saw Matilda glancing at the crest of the hill, and his mouth tightened.

  “They are watching,” Matilda said. “Caela, and a woman I think must be Mother Ecub.”

  William said nothing, his eyes now back on the road before him. He was still furious that Caela had told Matilda.

  Unbelieving that Caela had told Matilda.

  It was not so much anger that Matilda now knew—in a sense William was relieved that he no longer had to deceive her, or hold anything back from her—but anger because William was terrified Caela had trapped Matilda within the same maelstrom of rebirth and disaster that caught so many others. Matilda did not deserve that; she deserved to live out this life with as much blessing and peace as he could manage to give her, and then to die without lying on her deathbed wondering how and when she’d be drawn back.

  William was also angry because, of all things, Matilda’s sympathies seemed to be leaning more towards Caela in this mess than to him. Women!

  Is it so bad that Caela might be Mistress of the Labyrinth? Matilda had asked him the previous night.

  He had not answered her, and, after a silence, Matilda had said softly: You do not mind that at all, do you? You are truly only angry because you think she has not chosen to dance the final enchantment with you. You are riven with jealousy. You love her, you want her, you cannot bear her choosing another over you.

  At that William had been so infuriated he had not picked up on Matilda’s carefully chosen words. I do not love her, he’d shouted.

  Matilda had only smiled at him.

  “Keep away from them,” William said now, as the hill slid past.

  Matilda only smiled.

  “I command it.”

  She tipped her head in a gesture that might have been acquiescence.

  Not wanting to fight with her any longer, William nodded. “Good.”

  Tonight, he thought, the bands. Tonight I shall retrieve the bands.

  TWENTY

  London. It lay spread out before him, windows and torches glittering in the midnight cold. His!

  Finally.

  Few Londoners had taken to the streets to witness the conqueror take his city. Most had stayed indoors, windows shuttered, anticipating, perhaps, riot and pillage.

  But William had his Normans under tight command. He established control of the city within hours, securing it both within and without, then sent the majority of his army to establish encampments a good distance outside the walls, so that the Londoners might not feel too severely the humiliation of Norman victory.

  William took for himself and Matilda the Bishop of London’s large house, preferring for the moment not to remove himself to Westminster. To his captains he said that he wanted to ensure that the Londoners felt the full power of his domination, but privately William could not have borne to remove himself from that for which he had lusted for so long.

  He had entered London. He was not going to willingly remove himself from it until he had what he wanted.

  The Trojan kingship bands. His limbs burned for their touch.

  At dusk William had come to St Paul’s atop Ludgate Hill. There he had brushed aside the murmured concerns of the deacons and monks and strode down the nave towards the small door that gave access to the eastern tower. Waving away his soldiers, saying only

  that he wanted some solitude in which to gaze upon his new conquest, William climbed the tower’s rickety wooden stairs three at a time, emerging on the flat-topped tower just as full night set in.

  Here he’d stood for hours, feeling, sensing out the bands. Oh, William remembered where he’d buried them two thousand years before, but over two thousand years the landscape had changed remarkably. The city had grown: buildings stood where once had spread only orchards, streams had been enclosed…and yet nothing had changed. The Troy Game was still here.

  William could feel it beneath his feet. By sheer luck (or design, perhaps?), this tower stood over the very heart of the Labyrinth, buried many feet below the crypt of the cathedral. Now the power of the Troy Game throbbed up through soil, wood, stone and the leather soles of his boots, surging through William’s body as strongly as it had done when he stood with naked feet on the Labyrinth itself.

  More strongly.

  Caela had said the Game had changed, and William could feel it. It had grown…independent.

  It was going to be very hard to control.

  It would be impossible to control without his kingship bands.

  William shivered, and gazed over the night-time city. Caela had moved all six of the bands; or, at least, the six had been moved. William could feel four of them very clearly, calling out to him, longing to be touched and slid over his flesh once more. They were now scattered to the west, north and south of the city, miles away, but he could feel them, and could feel how the Game had grown to meet them.

  The remaining two bands…

  They were not where he’d left them two thousand years earlier. Caela had taken them, but he could not sense them at all.

  What had she done with them? Where had she hidden them?

  “My, what a fine man you have grown into. Taller than I imagined. I wonder if those bands will still fit you, could you ever discover them.”

  William whipped about. Silvius stood two paces away, his arms folded, dressed in the manner of Troy with nothing but a white waistcloth and boots.

  His flesh was very dark in the low light, but his good eye flashed while of his left there was nothing but a seething pit of darkness.

  “What do you here?” William said, trying to keep his voice level. Gods, how much power had both Silvius and the Game accumulated if his father could appear this solid, this real, this… here?

  “Come to see my son. What else?” Silvius let his arms fall to his side, and he took a half pace forward. “Come to wonder.”

  “At what?”

  “At you, of course.” Silvius paused. “Come to see what my son has made of himself.”

  “Do you like what you see?”

  “Does it matter any more what I think or like?” Silvius paused, his eyes running up and down William’s body. “You have seen Caela. Did she tell you that she and I—”

  “Yes,” William said curtly. “You have become most intimate with Caela, it seems.”

  Silvius’ face took on a lecherous cast. “Very intimate. She has changed, and vastly for the better. It seems you have not. Vile corruption has ever been your creed, has it not? You founded this Game on it, and you seek it out still.”

  There was a strange note to Silvius’ voice, and William did not know what to make of it. “Did it make you happy to lie with her? Did that give you satisfaction? She is not yours, Silvius.”

  Silvius laughed. “Oh, yes, she is. She gave herself to me freely. Gave herself to me, William. Freely!” He paused, and when he resumed his voice was roped with viciousness and contempt. “You lost her two thousand years ago. She can never be yours now.”

  William regarded his father with as much steadiness as he could summon. “Why do you interfere, father? What has any of this to do with you?”

  “ You made me a part of it. You founded the Game on my murder. I warned you not to found the Game on corruption, that patricide was no way to—”

  “This is none of your business, Silvius. Crawl away back to your death. Leave Caela alone. Leave me alone. Leave the Game to play ou
t as it will.”

  “The Game will play out according to my will, William. Mine.”

  William’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment it appeared as if he did not breathe. Then he said softly, “No wonder my mother Claudia died in my birth. It was her only means of escaping you.”

  Silvius’ lip curled. “You killed Claudia. Not me. You tore her apart.”

  William stared at Silvius, his own eyes almost as clouded and dark as his father’s empty eye socket.

  “You shall never succeed,” he said. “The Game is mine.”

  And with that he pushed past Silvius, and disappeared down the stairway.

  William raced down the steps as if his life depended on it, his breathing harsh and ragged as it tore through his throat. Four times he stumbled, almost falling, sliding inelegantly down five or six steps before his scrabbling hands managed to find purchase on the stone walls.

  When he finally reached the bottom he took time to steady his breathing, glancing back up the stairwell as if he expected Silvius to come bearing down upon him at

  any moment, before he stepped out to meet the concerned faces of his men.

  “Robert,” William said to one of his most trusted men-at-arms, “there is a priory about two miles out of the city on the northern road. Ride there, and deliver a message to the dowager queen Caela. Let her pick the place, but demand that she meet with me tonight. Impress upon her the need for urgency. You have that?”

  Robert nodded, then left at a trot.

  William closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Gods, let her agree! Let her agree!

  The situation had been bad before this night. Now it was almost irreparable.

  When he had been Brutus, and Silvius had been his living father, his mother’s name had been Lavinia.

  Not Claudia.

  Never Claudia.

  When William had left her earlier that evening, Matilda waited until she’d heard the clatter of his horse’s hooves leaving the courtyard, and then she’d snapped her fingers at one of his sergeants.

  “Find me a quiet mare to ride,” she said, “and an escort. I need to visit a priory just beyond the walls.”

  The sergeant thought about arguing with his duchess for all of two heartbeats.

  Then he nodded, and within the half hour was riding with the escort surrounding Matilda through Cripplegate.

  A half hour after that, Matilda stood before the gates of the priory, watching as the door slowly swung open.

  “You are Mother Ecub,” she said to the woman who stood there.

  Ecub nodded. “Sister,” she said, and stepped forward and embraced Matilda.

  Swanne sat in her chamber, once again within Aldred’s palace. She didn’t know where the good archbishop had

  got to, and she didn’t care. Asterion was the only one who came to her now, and for that she was heartily glad.

  All Swanne could think about was Matilda’s, and then William’s, murder.

  Aldred’s palace held many comforts. One of those, blessedly, was a bath—Swanne had soaked for what seemed like hours within a tub set before a fire—and the other was access to Hawise. Hawise had not accompanied Swanne south (Swanne had told her to stay within London, thinking then that she’d be able to take William and return to London herself within a day or so of the battle), and Swanne had missed her sorely. Not for her company, for Swanne had grown to detest Hawise’s prattling, but because Hawise was one of the best people she had ever met for procuring things.

  Now Swanne sat in a comfortable chair, holding in her hands a vial of one of the deadliest poisons she had been able to concoct. Hawise, of course, had no idea she was procuring a poison for Swanne, nor did she have any idea what Swanne was going to do with the collection of herbs her mistress had sent her out for.

  But when Hawise had brought those herbs back, Swanne had spent a delightful hour or two mixing and fermenting them, distilling from them the purest, blackest poison she could manage.

  Matilda’s death.

  It would look like a miscarriage gone terribly wrong. She would lose the child, and then bleed to death. What could be simpler? All Swanne would have to do was slip the poison into Matilda’s wine cup herself or, more like, pay someone a handsome sum to do it for her.

  God knows London was full of resentful Saxons who would jump at the chance to hurt the Norman cause in any manner they could.

  And then poor William. Distraught. In need of comfort.

  Swanne smiled, setting the vial to one side. Soon. Within the day.

  She closed her eyes and imagined how it would be when William finally rolled atop her, and entered her, and the imp snatched…

  She was looking forward very much to his scream of terror and agony, a scream that would, within the moment, disintegrate into a whimper of submission. Then she could roll him away, and leap from their bed, fall to her knees before Asterion, and say, I have done it. I have worked your will. Love me!

  Meantime, she would comb out her hair, and pinch some colour into her cheeks, and perhaps Asterion would come to her and would love her again.

  Soon. Swanne closed her eyes, dreaming.

  “Will he love you enough to take your imp, do you think?”

  Swanne’s eyes flew open, her heart pounding, then she stumbled, terrified, to her feet. The far end of the chamber seemed to have opened into a huge hall made entirely of emerald water, and Swanne remembered enough of her previous life to have some idea of what she was seeing.

  “No,” she whispered. “Go back! Go back!”

  Harold was walking towards her out of that emerald watery cathedral. He looked fit and well, better than she could remember having seen him in many, many years.

  He looked as he had before he had touched her, except, more.

  And however much she screamed and shrieked for help, he kept walking towards her, closer and closer, until she could see the terrible gleam in his eyes, and she understood it for what it was.

  Vengeance.

  “I will not let you do to William,” he whispered, “what you did to me.”

  And he reached out his hands, stretched them out

  over the three or four paces that still separated them, and seized her by the neck.

  Asterion found her on the floor some two hours later. Her neck had been twisted until it had snapped.

  Her black eyes, dulled by death, were staring at something that Asterion could not even imagine.

  Who had done this? William? Those strange and as yet undetermined companions who had aided Caela to move the bands?

  “Useless bitch,” he snarled, and dealt Swanne’s corpse such a massive blow with his booted foot that it skidded away some three or four feet.

  Asterion stepped forward and kicked the corpse again. Curse the idiot bitch! Curse her! Not only had she failed to kill William, but she’d managed to get herself killed instead.

  And now Asterion was left without a Mistress of the Labyrinth.

  Damn her to all hells. Now they’d have to come back again.

  Another life, another set of years spent scheming, planning, manoeuvring. Waiting.

  Asterion’s lip curled, and he began to batter Swanne’s body with slow, deliberate, hate-filled fists.

  After a long time, time enough to almost cover himself in Swanne’s blood, Asterion paused and raised his head.

  She was moving. She.

  She was going to meet with William.

  Suddenly, in all his anger and frustration, Asterion forgot his caution.

  “I think it might be time to ruin a life or two,” he muttered.

  And grinned.

  TWENTY-ONE

  CAELA SPEAKS

  Ireceived William’s message after supper when Ecub and Matilda sat with me.

  I had no choice but to go. He had asked for me, and the last thing I’d said to him that night was that should he need me, then he should seek me out. I could not refuse to go. It was my nature not to refuse him should he need shelter.

  B
esides, I wanted to see him again. I hungered for it.

  So I told Ecub and Matilda not to worry (a useless piece of wordage), and I sent William’s man off carrying a message containing place and time.

  The time was unimportant, save that William’s need seemed so urgent that it needed to be as soon as possible, but the place…the place…

  I sent word to William that he should meet me over his dead body.

  I thought, if nothing else, that would make his mouth curl in dry amusement.

  So here now I stood, early, wanting to have time before William arrived to contemplate what we had been, what we were, and what we might one day be, all gods permitting.

  This was the first time I had been here (the first time while still breathing, of course). It was unbearably sad.

  The chamber, rounded out of living rock, was bare save for the two plinths of stone, each of which bore a shrouded corpse. One, that which was Cornelia’s

  corpse, had its wrappings disturbed, and my fingers briefly touched the bracelet that I wore about my left wrist.

  But my eyes were drawn irresistibly to Brutus’ wrapped figure. I stood a long time, staring at it, before I walked over and, hesitatingly, rested a hand on its chest.

  Brutus. Oh, gods, how I had loved him. Why? I wondered. What was there about Brutus to love? He had mistreated me and abused me, humiliated me and abandoned me, and still I could not resist him. I loved him, when there were others who would have suited me better, and who offered me more than Brutus ever had.

  But perhaps even then I had known.

  My hand drifted slowly up the wrappings covering his chest to his throat. Here had swarmed the growth which had, finally, killed him. I remembered the long months of his dying, his fading from strength into weakness, the rough rasp of his voice as he ordered some servant or the other to remove me from his presence.

  How he had hated me.

  My eyes filled with tears and I tore my mind away from the memory. I slid my hand further up, over his cheek, and then his forehead, imagining the features that lay swathed below my touch, to the crown of his head.