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Book Information:

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Author: Sarah Douglass

Name: God’s Concubine

Series: Troy Game, Volume  II

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                                    God’s Concubine

                                    The TROY GAME II

                                    By Sarah Douglass

 

Part One

England and Normandy,

The Gathering

    Standing on the banks of the Thames on his arrival into Britain, Brutus said:

    "I will here, our kind to enjoy,

    A city for the love of Troy,

    For Troy was so noble a city,

    Troia Nova the name shall be…"

    Then came a king, hud was his name,

    And made a gate in [the wall of] the same,

    Caer hud the name became…

    When Saxons came that name was strange,

    Their own speech they did prefer,

    They called the city huden or hondon

    And the name soon became

    hondon in the Saxon tongue.

    Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Chronicle, 1303, Translated by Sara Douglass

 

Wessex, England, 1050 Winter of

 

THE TIMBER HALL WAS HUGE, FULLY EIGHTY FEET end to end and twenty broad. Doors leading to the outside pierced both of the long walls midway down their length, allowing people exit to the latrines, or to the kitchens for more food, while trapdoors in the sixty-foot high-beamed roof allowed the smoke egress when weather permitted: otherwise the fumes from the four heating pits in the floor drifted about the hall until they escaped whenever someone opened an outer door. Many of the hall's upright timbers were painted red and gold in interweaving Celtic designs; the heights were hung with almost one hundred shields.

    Tonight, both painted designs and shields were barely visible. The hall was full of smoke, heat, and raucous, good-humored noise. Men and women, warriors and monks, earls, thegns, wives, and maidens sat at the trestle tables, which ran the length of the hall, while thralls, children, and dogs scampered about, either serving wine, cider, or ale, or nosing out the scraps of meat that had fallen to the rush-covered floor. The wedding feast had been in progress some three hours. Now most of the boiled and roasted meats had been consumed, the cheeses were all gone, the sweet-spiced omelettes were little more than congealed yolky fragments on platters, and the scores of loaves of crusty bread had been reduced to the odd crumb that further marred the food and alcohol-stained table linens, and fed the mice, in the rushes, darting among the booted feet of the revelers.

    At the head of the hall stood a dais. Before the dais, a juggler sat on a three-legged stool, so drunk, his occasional attempts to tumble his woolen balls and his sharp-edged knives achieved little else save to further bloody his fingers.

    A group of musicians with bagpipes and flutes—still sober, although they

    desperately wished otherwise—stood just to one side of the dais, their music lost within the shouting and singing of the revelers, the thumping of tables by those demanding their wine cups be refilled without delay, and the shrieks and barks of children and dogs writhing hither and thither under the tables and between the legs of the feasters.

    In contrast to the wild enthusiasm of the hundreds of guests within the body of the hall, most of the fifteen or so people who sat at the table on the dais were noticeably restrained.

    At the center of the table sat a man of some forty or forty-one years, although his long, almost white-blond hair, his scraggly graying beard, his thin, ascetic face and the almost perpetually down-turned corners of his tight mouth made him appear much older. He wore a long, richly textured red and blue heavy linen tunic, embroidered about its neck, sleeves and hem with silken threads and semiprecious stones and girdled with gold and silver. His right hand, idly toying with his golden and jeweled wine cup, was broad and strong, the hand of a swordsman, although his begemmed fingers were soft and pale: it had been many years since that hand had held anything but a pen or a wine cup.

    His eyes were of the palest blue, flinty enough to make any miscreant appearing before him blurt out a confession without thought, cold enough to make any woman think twice before attempting to use the arts of Eve upon him. Currently his eyes flitted about the hall, marking every crude remark, every groping hand, every mouth stained red with wine.

    And with every movement of his eyes, every sin noted, his mouth crimped just that little bit more until it appeared that he had eaten something so foul his body would insist on spewing it forth at any moment.

    On his head rested a golden crown, as thickly encrusted with jewels as his fingers.

    He was Edward, king of England, and he was sitting in the hall of the man he regarded as his greatest enemy: Godwine, the earl of Wessex.

    Godwine sat on Edward's left hand, booming with cheer and laughter where Edward sat quiet and still. The earl was a large man, thickly muscled after almost forty-five years spent on the battlefield, his begemmed hands when they lifted his wine cup to his mouth, sinewy and tanned, his eyes as watchful as Edward's, but without the judgment.

    The reason for Godwine's cheer and Edward's bilious silence, as for the entire tumultuous celebration, sat on Edward's right, her eyes downcast to her hands folded demurely in her lap, her food sitting largely untouched on the platter before her.

    She was Eadyth, commonly called Caela, Godwine's cherished thirteen-year-old daughter, and now Edward's wife and queen of England.

    The marriage had been a compromise, hateful to Edward, triumphant for Godwine. If Edward married the earl's daughter, then Godwine would continue to support his throne. If not… well, then Godwine would ensure that Edward would spend the last half of his life in exile as he'd spent the first half (staying as far away from his murderous stepfather, King Cnut, as possible). If Edward wanted to keep the throne, then he needed Godwine's support, and Godwine's support came only at the price of wedding his daughter.

    She was a pretty girl, her attractiveness resting more in her extraordinary stillness than in any extravagant feature. Her glossy brown hair, currently tightly braided and hidden under her silken ivory veil (which itself was held in place by a golden circlet of some weight, which may have partly explained why Caela kept her face downward facing for so much of the feast), was one of her best features, as were also her sooty-lashed, deep blue eyes and her flawlessly smooth white skin. Otherwise her features were regular, her teeth small and evenly spaced, her hands dainty, their every movement considered. Caela was dressed almost as richly as her new husband: a heavily embroidered blue surcoat, or outer tunic, over a long, crisp, snowy linen under tunic embroidered with silver threads about its hem and the cuffs of its slim-fitted sleeves. Unlike her husband and her father, however, Caela wore little in the way of jeweled adornment, save for the gold circlet of rank on her brow and a sparkling emerald ring on the heart finger of her left hand.

    Edward had shoved it there not four hours earlier during the nuptial mass held in her father's chapel. Now that nuptial ring's large square-cut stone hid a painful bruise on Caela's finger.

    Caela's eyes rarely moved from the hands in her lap—someone who did not know her well might have thought she sat admiring that great cold emerald— and she spoke only monosyllabic replies to any who addressed her.

    That was rare enough. Edward had not said a word to her, and the only other person who addressed Caela (apart from the occasional shouted enthusiasm from her gloating father) was the man who sat on her right side.

    This man, unhappy looking where Edward was sullen and Godwine buoyant, was considerably younger than either of the other two men. In his early twenties, Harold Godwineson was the earl's eldest surviving son and thus heir to all that Godwine controlled (lands, estates, offices, and riches, as well as the English throne, which meant that Edward loathed Harold as much as he did Godwine).

    Like his father, Harold was a warrior, blooded and proved in a score of savage, death-ridden battles, but, unlike Godwine, a man who also had the sensitive soul of a bard. That bard's sensibility showed in Harold's face and his dark eyes, in the manner of his movements and his engaging ability to give any who spoke to him his full and undivided attention. His hair was dark

    blond, already stranded with gray, which he kept warrior-short, as he did the faint stubble of his darker beard. He was a serious man who rarely laughed, but who, when he smiled, could lighten the heart of whomever that smile graced.

    Harold was not so richly accoutred as his father and his new brother-in-law, although well-dressed and jewelled enough as befitted his status of one of the most powerful men in England. Like Edward, Harold toyed with his wine cup, rarely bringing it to his lips.

    Unlike Edward, Harold spent a great deal of time watching his sister, occasionally reaching out to touch her with a reassuring hand, or to lean close and whisper something that sometimes, almost, made the girl's mouth twitch upward. Harold had adored Caela from birth, had watched over her, had spent an inordinate amount of time with her, and had argued fiercely with their father when he proposed the match with Edward.

    Some people had rumored that it was not so much the match that Harold raged about, but that the girl was to be wedded and bedded at all. In recent years, as Caela approached her womanhood, Harold's attachment to his sister had attracted much sniggering comment. There was more than one person in the hall this night who, under the influence of unwatered wine or rich cider and who thought themselves far enough distant from the dais to dare the whisper, had proposed that Godwine's flamboyant happiness this eve was due more to his relief that he'd managed to get his daughter as a virgin to Edward's bed than at the marriage itself, as advantageous as that might be.

    If one were to guess, one might think that Harold's wife, sitting on his other side, had been party to (if not the instigator of) many of these whispers. Swanne (also an Eadyth, but known far and wide as Swanne for her beautiful long white neck and elegant head carriage) sat almost as still as Caela, but with her head held high on her lovely neck, her almond-shaped black eyes watching both her husband and his sister with much private amusement.

    Swanne was a stunningly beautiful woman. Of an age with Harold, or perhaps a year or two older, she had black hair that, when unveiled and unbound, snapped and twisted down her back in wild abandon. Her skin was as pale as Caela's, but drawn over a face more finely wrought, and framing lips far plumper and redder than her much younger sister-in-law's.

    And her eyes… a man could sink and drown in those eyes. They were as black as a witch-night, great pools of mystery that entrapped men and savaged their souls.

    When combined with her tall, lithe body… ah, most men in this hall envied Harold even as they whispered about him (the envy, of course, fueling many of the whispers). Even now, sitting leaning back in her great chair so that her swollen five-month belly strained at the fabric of her white surcoat,

    most men lusted after Swanne as they had lusted after little else in their lives. She was a woman bred to trigger every man's wildest sexual fantasy, and she was the reason why over a score of men had already dragged female thralls outside to be pushed against a wall and savagely assaulted in a vain attempt to assuage their lust for the lady Swanne.

    On this occasion Swanne did not watch her husband or his sister, her black eyes trailed languidly over the hall, her mouth lifted in a knowing smile as she saw men staring at her, lowering frantic hands below the table to grab at the lust straining at their trousers. Swanne was a woman who enjoyed every moment of her dominance, yet loathed those who succumbed to her spell.

    Among the other members of the wedding party on the dais sat Harold's younger brother, Tostig, a bright-eyed, lively faced youth, and sundry other noblemen, earls or thegns closely allied with Godwine. But King Edward had a few supporters, two Norman noblemen who had remained at Edward's side since he had returned from his twenty-year exile in Normandy at the young duke's court, and the rising young Norman cleric, Aldred. Aldred had also come to England with the returning Edward's retinue, and now he enjoyed a powerful position within the king's court. Indeed, he had performed the nuptial mass, although most had not failed to note than Aldred spent more time watching Swanne than either his benefactor or the tender bride. Aldred was a thickset man who, having cleaned his own platter, was now leaning over the table to lift uneaten portions of food from the platters of other diners. A trail of spiced wine had thickened his unshaven chin, and stained the front of his clerical robe.

    Aldred was not known for the austerity of his tastes.

    He snatched a congealing piece of roast goose from the platter of a Saxon thegn, stuffing the morsel inside his mouth.

    All the time his eyes—strange, cool gray eyes—never left Swanne's form.

    EVENTUALLY CAME THAT MOMENT WHEN GODWINE

    decided that the wedding was not enough, and that the bedding must now be accomplished.

    At his signal (shout, rather), Swanne rose from her husband Harold's side and, together with several other ladies, took Caela and led her toward the stairs at the rear of the hall, which led to the bedchambers above.

    The largest and best of the bedchambers had been prepared for the king and his new bride, and once Swanne had Caela inside, she and the other ladies began to strip the girl of her finery.

    There were no words spoken, and Swanne's eyes, when they occasionally met Caela's, were harsh and cold.

    When Caela at last stood naked, Swanne stood back a pace and regarded the girl's pubescent flesh. Caela's hips were still narrow, her buttocks scrawny, and her pubic hair thin and sparse. Her waist remained that of a girl's: straight and without any of that sweet narrowing that might lead a man's hands toward those delights both above and below it. Her breasts had barely plumped out from their childish flatness.

    Swanne ran her eyes down Caela's body, then looked the girl in the eye.

    Caela had lifted her hands to her breasts, and was now trembling slightly.

    "You have not much to tempt a husband's embraces," Swanne said. She moved slightly, sensuously, her breasts and hips and belly straining against her robes, and then smiled coldly. "I cannot imagine how any husband could want to part your legs, my dear."

    At that Caela blinked, flushing in humiliation.

    Swanne sighed extravagantly, and the other ladies present smiled, preferring to ally with Swanne rather than this girl who, even now, wedded to the king, promised less prospect of benefaction than did the powerful lady Swanne.

    "But we must do what we can," said Swanne and clapped her hands, making Caela start. "The wool, I think, and the posset I prepared earlier."

    One of the ladies handed to Swanne a small pouch of linen and a length of red wool, and Swanne stepped close to Caela once more.

    "Now," Swanne said, both eyes and voice cold with contempt, "do not flinch. This will get you an heir better than anything… save that wild thrusting of a man's thickened member."

    She put a hand on her own belly as she spoke, rolling her eyes prettily, and the ladies burst into shrieks of laughter, their hands to their cheeks.

    Caela flushed an even darker red.

    Swanne bent gracefully to her knees before Caela and first tied the length of wool about the small linen pouch, then tied the pouch to Caela's inner thigh. "This contains the seeds of henbane and coriander, my dear. So long as it doesn't confuse Edward's member too greatly, it will surely drive him to those exertions needed to put a child in that…" she paused, her eyes running over Caela's flat abdomen, "child's belly of yours."

    Again the ladies standing about giggled, but then came the sound of footsteps approaching up the stairs, and the rumble of men's voices and laughter.

    "In the bed, I suppose," said Swanne. "He's bound to remember why she's there once he climbs in."

    With that, the women bustled Caela to the bed, drew back the coverlets over the rich, snowy whiteness of the bridal linens, and bade Caela to slide in.

    "We hope to see the red and cream flowers of love spread all over that linen in the morning, my love," said Swanne, pulling the coverlets back to

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    cover ^aeia's naKeuness jusi as me gj. entered the chamber.

    As Swanne and her ladies had done, so now these men, numbering among them Godwine and his sons Harold and Tostig, attended to Edward, divesting him of his jewels and apparel, and stripping him as naked as Caela.

    Then Godwine drew back the coverlets on Edward's side of the bed, and the king, his genitals pitifully white and shriveled in the coldness of the room, clambered into the bed and sat stiffly alongside Caela.

    Once he was in bed, one of the men handed him a goblet filled with spiced wine and the raw, sliced genitals of a hare.

    "Drink," said Godwine, "and my daughter will soon breed you a fine son."

    Edward looked at the goblet, very slowly and reluctantly raised it to his mouth, made a show of sipping it, then placed the goblet on a chest at the side of the bed.

    Harold looked at Caela, caught her eyes, and tried to smile for her.

    Across the room Swanne laughed, rich and throaty. She pulled her shoulders back, aware that the eyes of most were on her, and splayed her hands over the rich roundness of her belly. "I wish you well, my lord," she said to Edward. "I hope your screams of pleasure, as those of your bride, keep us awake throughout the long hours of this wedding night."

    Tostig giggled, and Swanne shot her young brother-in-law an amused glance even as Harold hissed at him to be silent.

    As Tostig subsided, Aldred stepped forward, staggering a little djunkenly on his feet, and raised his hand for a mumbled blessing. Then Godwine said something coarse, everyone laughed (save Harold, who watched Caela with eyes filled with sorrow), and then Swanne began to direct people out of the room.

    "Our king's member can never rise with this many witnesses," she murmured, to more good-humored laughter.

    Swanne was the final person to leave. She stood in the doorway to the chamber, her hand on the latch, and regarded the two stiff people in the bed with a gleam in her wondrous dark eyes.

    "Queen at last, Caela," she said. "You must be so pleased."

    And then she was gone.

    THEY SAT, STIFF, SILENT, COLD, STARING AT THE closed door.

    Finally Caela, summoning every piece of courage she could, took her husband's chilled hand and placed it on her breast.

    He snatched it away.

    "I find you most displeasing," he said, then slid down the bed, rolled over so that his back faced Caela, and stayed like that the entire night.

    IN THE MORNING, WHEN SWANNE AND THE REST OF

    the (largely still drunken) attendants pulled back the covers from the naked pair, there was a moment's silence as the eyes took in the unsullied bleached linens.

    Swanne's eyes slowly traveled to Caela's white face, and then she smiled in slow, malicious triumph before she turned her back and left the chamber.

    CbAPGGR GUDO

    Rouen, Normandy

    N THE SAME NIGHT THAT CAELA, QUEEN OF EN-

    gland, lay sleepless beside her new husband, Edward so also the duke of Normandy, William, lay sleepless beside his new wife.

    But where Edward and Caela's wedding night remained coldly chaste, William and Matilda's night had been filled with much loving and laughter. Theirs had been a marriage that they had made, and for which they'd had to combat the combined disapproval of most of the princes of Europe as well the Holy Father in Rome to be able to achieve.

    William lay on his side, his head resting on a hand, his black eyes gentle as he regarded the sleeping Matilda. Gods, he'd had to fight so hard for her! They'd first met just over three years ago at the court of Matilda's father, Baldwin, the count of Flanders. Matilda had been fourteen, small and dark and vivacious, and half the princes and dukes of Europe had sought her hand (and the considerable dowry and alliances that would come with it). William had gone to Baldwin's court, not to woo Matilda, but to woo her father, from whom William hoped to gain much needed financial and military aid in his constant struggle to repel rival claimants to his dukedom. William had been struggling to retain Normandy ever since he'd assumed the dukedom at the age of seven. Not only was his age against him, but also the fact that William was the bastard-get of the duke, his father, on a tannery wench. In the thirteen years since his ascension and his first sight of Matilda of Flanders, William had spent the greater part of each year on the battlefield. No one had expected a bastard son, let alone one of such tender years, to hold out thirteen years, but during his first vulnerable years, William had enjoyed the support of a number of powerful allies, notable among them the king of France. By the time William was fifteen he both led his armies and devised his strategies himself—almost as if he had been a great leader of men and armies before.

    /vs it, some rumored, he somehow managed to draw on the experience of a past life as a victorious king instead of a few meager years as the son of a tannery wench.

    Thirteen years he'd struggled, and then William had met Matilda. On that fateful day, William's only thought, as he strode toward the count's dais, had been of Baldwin and what the count could do for him, but then his eyes had fallen on the tiny form of Baldwin's daughter standing by her father's throne. William had muttered a cursory greeting to Baldwin, and had then turned to Matilda, took her hand, smiled down into her eyes, and said, "You were made for me."

    At that remark there were several audible gasps and one hastily swallowed giggle from among the members of Baldwin's court. Their shocked humor was not simply at William's audacity. At fourteen, Matilda was a mere four feet tall and would grow only another inch throughout the rest of her life.

    William was six and a half feet—an amazing height in an age when most men were grateful to achieve five and a half—and with broad shoulders and heavy, tight muscles. Combined with his dark, exotic looks (some questioned the tannery wench maternity, and opined that the previous duke had got his son on some lost Greek princess) and bold demeanor and bearing, William cut an imposing figure.

    He certainly looked too large to wed the dainty Matilda without causing her serious bodily damage.

    But Matilda had not cared about William's bastardy, nor worried about his large-than-life physicality. She wanted him the instant his mouth grazed her hand and he spoke those words: You were made for me.

    Europe objected. Frustrated and disappointed princely suitors petitioned the pope, who refused to permit the couple to wed on the grounds such a marriage would violate the Church's laws on consanguinity. William and Matilda shared a distant ancestor, Rollo the Viking, who had founded Normandy, and (as he sat a-counting out the enormous bribes he'd accepted from a number of frustrated suitors) the pope muttered darkly about the evils of allowing such "close" blood-kin to wed. Their union, the pope declared, would offend God to such an extent that doubtless He would smite Christendom with numerous plagues, floods, and boils in the nastiest of places. Matilda stormed, William argued, and, gratefully, eventually the protests waned, the bribes dried up, the pope lost interest, the ban was rescinded (by a lowly clerk within Rome who was sick of the quantity of the duke's protests he'd had to field over the years), and Matilda and William finally wed.

    William smiled softly as he lay watching his bride sleep. He lifted a hand and pushed a strand of her dark hair back from her forehead. It was tangled, and damp with sweat, and William's smile grew broader as he remembered

    the enthusiasm with which both had (finally!) consummated their union. Whatever whispers may have rumored, the physical contrast in their heights and builds had made not a single difference to the ease and joy with which they dispensed with Matilda's virginity.

    He stroked Matilda's forehead again, his touch less gentle this time, and she sighed, shifted a little in their bed, and opened her eyes.

    "I adore you," she whispered.

    He leaned down and kissed her, but did not speak.

    "And you?" she said very softly, once his mouth lifted from hers.

    William hesitated, remembering that other time (so long ago) when he had made (forced) another marriage. This time, he determined, he would not start with deception and lies.

    "You are my wife, my duchess, and I will honor you before any other woman, but___"

    His nerve failed him at that moment, and so Matilda did what she had to do in order to found their marriage in such strength that it would never fail.

    "But I will not be the great love of your life." she said, propping herself up on one elbow.

    "That does not worry you?" he said.

    "You and I," she said, tracing one of her tiny hands through the black curls that scattered across his chest, "will make one of the greatest marriages Christendom has ever known. What more could I ask?"

    "That is not what I expected to hear," he said, laughing softly in wonderment. "That is not what I had learned to expect from wives." He reached up a hand and cradled her face within its great expanse.

    "You have honored and respected me by telling me," Matilda said. "I can accept this." She paused. "You will not dishonor me with her?"

    "Never!" William said.

    "Romantic love can so often destroy a marriage," said Matilda, "when what is needed is unity of purpose, and unified strength. I will be the best of wives to you, and you shall be the best of husbands to me, and we will marry our ambitions and strengths, and we will never, never regret the choice that we have made."

    "I wish I had found you earlier," William said, and Matilda could not have known that with that statement he referred to a time two thousand years past when a former marriage had resulted in such a ruination of dreams and ambitions that a nation had foundered into chaos and disaster. As Brutus, he had failed with Cornelia; William was determined to make a better marriage with this woman.

    They made love once again, and then Matilda slipped back to sleep. Once he was sure that she was lost deep in her dreams, William rose from their bed

    and walked to stand naked before the dying embers of the fire in the hearth of their bedchamber.

    The conversation with Matilda had unsettled him. First, the maturity of Matilda's response had astounded William, even though he well knew that she was a princess such as Cornelia had never been, and made him appreciate even more the woman he'd taken to wife. Second, the nature of the conversation had recalled to him Cornelia, and Genvissa, and so much of his previous life.

    When he had lived as Brutus, two thousand years previously, in a world wracked by war and catastrophe, he had been a supremely ambitious man. Brutus had allowed nothing to stand in his way. At fifteen, Brutus murdered his father Silvius and took from his dead father's limbs the six golden kingship bands of Troy. In his early thirties, Brutus snatched at the chance to lead the lost Trojan people to a new land and rebuild Troy itself, using the ancient power of the Troy Game which he, as a Kingman, controlled.

    In this new land, Llangarlia, now known as England, Brutus had met Genvissa, the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and his partner in the intricate dances of the Troy Game. He and Genvissa had almost succeeded, in their ambition, to build the Game on the banks of the Llan, or Thames, when disaster struck in the form of Brutus' unwilling and unloved wife, Cornelia. Wracked by jealousy, Cornelia had become the pawn of Asterion, the ancient Minotaur and archenemy of the Game, and had murdered Genvissa just as she and Brutus were about to complete the Game.

    Even more uncomfortable now that he was thinking of Cornelia, William glanced over his shoulder at Matilda. Gods, there was nothing to compare them! Cornelia wept and sulked and plotted murder. Matilda used reason and wit, and she accepted where Cornelia would have argued. Cornelia had fought with everything she had against Brutus' love for Genvissa. Matilda had shrugged and accepted it as of little consequence to their marriage.

    William closed his eyes, feeling the heat of the embers on his face, and finally allowed thoughts of Genvissa to fill his mind. Ah, she had been so beautiful, so powerful! She'd been his Mistress of the Labyrinth, his partner in the Troy Game.

    And then she had been cruelly struck down by Cornelia before Brutus or Genvissa could complete the Game.

    Had he truly loved Genvissa? William stood, contemplating the issue. After this night with Matilda, and most particularly after their conversation, William wondered if what he'd felt for Genvissa had been an astounding excitement generated by their mutual meeting of ambition and power rather than love. Oh, there had been lust aplenty, but there had been no tenderness, and little sweetness. Instead, William believed, he and Genvissa had been

    swept away by the realization that united they could achieve immortality through their construction and then manipulation of the Troy Game. They could make both themselves and the Game they controlled immortal.

    William smiled wryly. That realization and that ambition had been far, far headier than love.

    But both their ambitions foundered into disaster, as Asterion manipulated Cornelia into murdering Genvissa and putting a halt to the Game that would have trapped the Minotaur back into its dark heart.

    Disaster, and death. A death that had lasted two thousand years. Why such a delay? William would have thought that his and Genvissa's ambition, as well as the Troy Game's need to be completed, would have brought them back centuries before this. Instead they'd languished in death, frustrated at every attempt at rebirth, kept back from life by a power that they'd both taken a long time to accept: Asterion.

    Over two thousand years ago, the Minotaur Asterion had spent his life trapped in the Great Founding Labyrinth on the island of Crete, but he had been released when Ariadne, the then-Mistress of the Labyrinth, and fore-mother of Genvissa, had destroyed the Game within the Aegean world. Now Asterion was the Game's archenemy. He would do anything to ensure its complete destruction, for the Troy Game was the only thing in this world that could control him. Knowing this, after Genvissa's death, Brutus had secreted the ancient kingship bands of Troy about London: Asterion could not destroy the Game if he did not have the bands which had helped create it.

    William believed that it had been Asterion who had kept Brutus and Genvissa locked within death for so long, and Asterion who had finally removed the barriers to their rebirth. Both Brutus and Genvissa had constantly fought for rebirth, and had as constantly been rebuffed by Asterion's bleak power. He'd been stronger than either had ever expected, and William had thanked whatever ancient gods who still existed, in this strange world into which he'd been reborn, that as Brutus he had secreted the kingship bands of Troy within such powerful magic.

    Why had Asterion kept William-reborn and Genvissa-reborn at bay for so long? Had Asterion wanted to find the bands and destroy the Game without risking their rebirth? Well, Asterion had not found the bands— William could still sense them, safe in their secret hiding places buried under the city now called London—and so he'd caused Brutus and Genvissa to be reborn, hoping, perhaps, that he could use one or the other to locate the bands.

    Asterion had also caused Brutus to be reborn far from London, and (William had no doubt) caused him to exist within such uncertainty, as rival claimant after rival claimant attacked William's right to hold Normandy, that

    William had had no chance to think of England at all. Asterion was keeping William at bay for reasons of his own choosing.

    William crouched down before the hearth, stretching out his hands to what little warmth the embers emitted. Oh, but England would be his, it would. England, and London, and the bands and the Troy Game. All of it.

    And Genvissa.

    Genvissa had been reborn. William knew it, but he didn't know who, or where, she was. Genvissa-reborn undoubtedly faced the same obstacle. That was their great dilemma. They needed each other desperately so they could reunite and complete the Game, but they did not know who the other was. But wherever or whoever, William knew one thing: Genvissa-reborn would not rest until she had achieved a place within London where the Troy Game was physically located. It was the lodestone for both of them, and unless Asterion had also somehow managed to keep Genvissa-reborn away from the city, William knew she would be there, somewhere.

    But who was she? Who?

    William pondered the fact that as this night was his own wedding night, so also it was Edward of England's wedding night. He knew Edward well, the Saxon king having spent a number of his youthful years at William's court while he was exiled from England by the murderous intentions of his stepfather Cnut, and he wondered at this new bride of the man's. Caela, daughter of Godwine, earl of Wessex. William knew the marriage had been forced on Edward by Godwine, but Caela had caught his attention. He was aware that Genvissa, if not actually reborn within the region of London (the Veiled Hills, they'd once called it), would do everything in her power to return to Londonand to a position of power. What better position as queen?

    Genvissa would loathe the necessity of becoming a wife, as she would loathe the inherent subjection to a man that marriage meant in this Christian world. It went against her very nature as Mistress of the Labyrinth, an office of such feminine power and mystery that its incumbents refused to subject themselves to any man. Well might a Mistress form a partnership of power and lust and ambition with a Kingman, but never would she subject herself to him.

    But William also knew that Genvissa-reborn would do whatever she had to do in order to achieve her ambitions. In this world women had little power. No longer did Mothers rule over households and over their people; the idea of an Assembly of women setting the course of a society was unthinkable now, when men ruled and subjected women to their every whim. Unpalatable as it might be to her, Genvissa would subject herself to marriage, if it meant gain. Marriage to Edward would give her the most gain of all. Queen of England. The highest power a woman could hope for if she held the kind of ambitions that William knew Genvissa secreted.

    The moment William heard of Edward's betrothal to Godwine's daughter Caela, William had been almost certain she was Genvissa-reborn. True, Caela was by all reports very young, and as timid as a mouse, but maybe that was merely Genvissa's way of disguising her true nature.

    William idly wondered what was happening in Edward's bed this night. Had he enjoyed his bedding with the Mistress of the Labyrinth as much as William had enjoyed his with Matilda?

    William's face sobered, and he flexed his fingers back and forth before the fading heat, slowly stretching out some of the tension in his body. He needed desperately to contact Genvissa-reborn. He wondered if Caela had any idea who he was. Did she suspect William was more than just a struggling duke of Normandy, or did she merely think of him as some bastard upstart who brazened his way about the courts of counts and princes, and of little consequence to her own life and ambitions.

    William stared into the fire, then grinned as a means of contacting Genvissa-reborn occurred to him. He would announce himself in no uncertain manner. She would know him by his actions, and by his message, and then she would make herself known to him.

    "Soon, my love, soon," he whispered.

    "William?"

    His mind still caught in thoughts of Genvissa-reborn, William jerked to his feet, turning about.

    Matilda was sitting up in bed, the coverlets sliding down to her waist and exposing her small breasts. "What are you doing?"

    After a moment's hesitation, William walked to the bed, studying Matilda before he slid beneath the coverlets. "Wondering if I dared wake you again," he said. "But, look, now I find you have answered my dreams."

    And with that he seized her shoulders, and pushed her back on the bed.

    "Matilda," he said, "Matilda, Matilda, Matilda," using the sound of her name in his mouth to suffocate his thoughts of Genvissa.

    cbRee

    Westminster, two months later

    %. WANNE MOVED THROUGH KING EDWARDS crowded Great Hall at Westminster, smiling at those she favored, ignoring those she did not. Rather than hold his court in the city of London, Edward, like many of England's previous kings, preferred to keep his court in the community of Westminster on Thorney Isle, which lay at the junction of the Tyburn and the Thames, a mile or so to the southwest of London. Westminster was independent of London, and of its noisy and troublesome crowds, and its equally troublesome civil authority. Better, Westminster was the site of a long-established community of monks (the name Westminster literally meant the minster, or church, west of London), and the pious Edward found them a happier company than the secular profanity of the Londoners. Indeed, Edward was so well disposed toward Westminster's monks that he had summoned court this very day to announce that he would sponsor the rebuilding of the Westminster Abbey Cathedral into the grandest in all of Europe.

    The monks were ecstatic, sundry other clerics present were grudging (why Westminster when Edward could have rebuilt their church or abbey?). Edward's earls and thegns were resigned and, frankly, Swanne cared not a whit one way or the other whether Edward rebuilt the damned cathedral or not. She was happy to be back on Thorney Isle, happy to be back within the heart of the sacred Veiled Hills of England, happy to be here, now, sliding sinuously through the press of bodies, watching men's eyes light up with desire at the sight of her and women's eyes slide away in disapproval.

    Happy to be alive and breathing after so long locked in death.

    She saw Tostig's eyes on her, saw the darkness in them, and she widened her smile and closed the short distance to his side. "Brother," she said, "you do look well this morn."

    His eyes darkened even further. "I am your husband's brother, lady. Not

    yours."

    "As my husband's, so also mine." She leaned close, allowing her breast and rounded belly to brush against him, and kissed him softly on the mouth in a courtly greeting.

    As she drew back, Swanne heard his swift intake of breath and decided to deepen the tease. "How else should I think of you but as my brother?"

    Now Tostig flushed, and Swanne laughed and laid the palm of her hand gently against his cheek, pleased at his patent desire. At fifteen, Tostig still had not learned to conceal his thoughts and needs, nor to discern, or even to realize, that the carefully chosen expressions of others so often concealed contradictory thoughts.

    Tostig began to speak, struggling over some meaningless words, and Swanne studied him indulgently. He was not, nor would ever be, as handsome as Harold, but he had a certain charm about him, a darkness of both visage and spirit that Swanne found immensely appealing.

    He could be so useful.

    "Tostig," she said, and slipped one arm through his. "I am finding this crush quite discomforting. Will you escort me through the hall to my husband's side?" She leaned against him. "I feel quite faint amid this airlessness."

    "Of course, my lady!" Tostig said, relieved to have been given something to do, yet flustered all the more by Swanne's attention and the press of her flesh against his. He suddenly found himself wishing that he'd laid eyes on her before Harold, and that he had been the one to demand her hand and her virginity.

    Flushing all the deeper with the direction of his thoughts, Tostig began to roughly shove his way through the crowd, Swanne keeping close to his side.

    "Aside! Aside for the lady Swanne!" he cried, paying no attention to the irritated glances of thegns and their wives. No one said anything, not to a son of the powerful earl of Wessex, but there were then a few muttered words spoken as soon as Tostig and Swanne had passed on their way.

    Within moments, Tostig had led Swanne into the clearer space before Edward's dais. The Great Hall, only recently completed, formed the focus of Edward's entire palace complex at Westminster. It was massive, far vaster than the one Tostig's father had built in Wessex. It was twice as large again, its walls great stone blocks for the first twenty feet, then rising another eighty in thick timber planks. Above the ceiling of the hall, and reached by a great curving staircase behind the dais, were a warren of timber-walled chambers that Edward used for his private apartments, as well as those of his closest retainers.

    The focus of the hall was the dais at the southern end. Here Edward currently sat, conversing with Harold who stood just to one side and slightly

    Denina me kings throne, and with Eadwine, the newly appointed abbot of Westminster. Caela, the king's wife, sat ignored on her smaller throne set to her husband's right. Her head was down, her attention on the needlework in her lap, an isolated and lonely figure amid the hubbub of the Great Hall.

    Tostig halted as soon as they'd moved into clearer space, and now he stared toward the queen. "Will there be a child soon?" he asked quietly of Swanne.

    She laughed, the sound musical and deep, and for an instant Tostig felt her body press the harder against his. "Nay," she said. "There will never be a child oithat union."

    "How can you be so sure?"

    Swanne put her lips against Tostig's ear, and felt him shudder. "He will not lay with her," she said. "He believes fornication to be such a great evil that he will not participate in it." She paused. "Especially with a daughter of Godwine. He will have no Godwine heir to the throne. My dear," she said, allowing a little breathlessness to creep into her voice, "can you imagine such restraint?"

    "With you in his bed, no man, not even Edward, would be capable of it."

    "You flatter me with smooth words," she said, but let Tostig see by the warmth in her eyes how well she had received his words.

    "But…" Tostig struggled to keep his voice even, "but if he has no child of his body, then surely then there will be a Godwine heir."

    "My husband," she said, laughing. "For surely, for who else? To think, Tostig, you stand here now with the future queen of England pressing herself against you like a foolish young girl. How do you feel?"

    Emboldened by her words and touch, Tostig said, "That you will be queen of England there can be no doubt, but who the lucky Godwine brother is that sits beside you as your lord can still be open to question."

    That I will be queen of England is undoubted, Swanne thought, laughing with Tostig, encouraging his foolish words, but that you will ever sit beside me, or Harold, can never be. I have a greater lord awaiting me in the shadows, a mightier lover, a Kingman, and the day he appears, so shall all the Godwine boys be crushed into the dust.

    At that moment Harold looked up from his discussion with Edward, and saw his wife standing too familiarly close to Tostig. He frowned, and spoke swiftly to one of his thegns who stood behind him.

    The next moment the thegn had stepped from the dais and was approaching Tostig and Swanne.

    "My lady and lord," he said, bowing slightly, "the lord Harold begs leave to interrupt your mirth and requests that his wife join him on the dais. We have

    received word that a deputation trom the auKe 01 iNormanuy nas amvcu, <mu the king wishes to receive him."

    "I am not invited?" said Tostig.

    "You are not my lord's wife," said the thegn.

    "I am a Godwineson!" Tostig said, seething.

    The thegn was a man of enough years and experience not to be intimidated by the brashness of youth. "All the more reason why our king would not want you standing beside him," he said. "Harold stands there as representative of his father, who cannot attend. Edward tolerates him, but only him. My lady, if you will accompany me."

    And with that, the thegn led Swanne away, leaving Tostig standing red-faced and humiliated.

    HAROLD TOOK SWANNE'S HAND AS SHE MOUNTED the dais, and helped her to a chair. "Was Tostig annoying you?" he asked, smiling gently at his wife. By God, even now he could hardly believe he'd won

    such a treasure!

    "He is a youth," Swanne said, her expression now demure as she sat. "All

    youths are abrasive, and annoying."

    "I will speak to him," Harold said.

    "Oh, no!" Swanne said. "It would embarrass him, and only create bad blood. Let it rest, I pray you."

    Harold began to say something else, but just then Edward leaned over and hushed them both, waving Harold to his own chair to the king's left.

    "I dislike people whispering behind my back!" Edward said, and Harold bowed his head in apology as he sat. Once Edward had returned his attention to the Hall, Harold leaned back, looking behind Edward's throne to where Caela's own throne sat aligned with Harold's chair. He tried to catch her eye, but she was so determinedly focused on her embroidery that she did not, or chose not to, notice his gaze.

    Sighing, Harold turned his eyes back to the front. He'd had so little chance to speak with Caela in the past two months, and no chance at all to ask of her in privacy why she wore such a face of misery to the world.

    Damn their father for giving such a wondrous girl to such a monstrous

    husband!

    In truth, Harold would vastly have preferred to have spent the morning out hunting, but he'd had to stand in for his father who was not well. Despite the strained and often hostile relations between the earl of Wessex and Edward, Godwine was the leading member of Edward's witan, or council of

    I

    noblemen advisers, and thus sat, by right, on the dais beside Edward. If God-wine could not attend, then it was best his eldest son and heir do so in his place. Not only would Harold represent Godwine during court proceedings, but his presence would also further cement the Wessex claim to the throne, should Edward's piety prevent him from getting an heir on Caela.

    Godwine was determined that one day either he, or his son Harold, or the far less likely prospect of his grandson by Caela, would take the throne of England.

    Once the dais was still, Edward waved to the court chamberlain to admit the duke of Normandy's entourage. As the great double doors at the other end of the Hall slowly swung open, and the press of bodies within the Hall parted to allow the entourage passage, Edward allowed himself to relax a little more in his throne. His friendship with Duke William was not only deep, but of long standing. Many years earlier, Edward had been forced into a lengthy exile by his stepfather, King Cnut. Edward had spent the majority of that exile in the duke of Normandy's court where he had come to deeply respect the young William. Not merely respect, but trust. In his own kingdom Edward had to continually fight to maintain his independence from the cursed Godwine clan. Godwine and his clan had sunk their claws of influence and power deep into most of the noble Anglo-Saxon clans, and one of the very few ways that Edward could maintain his authority was to surround himself with Normans, whether in secular or clerical branches of England's administrations.

    Edward had two great weapons to use against the Godwine clan: the first was his refusal to get an heir on Caela; the second, his deep ties with the Norman court that carried with it the possibility that Edward would name the duke of Normandy as his heir.

    As far as Edward was concerned, William was not only a friend and an ally, he was one of the few weapons Edward had against Godwine and his sons.

    Edward liked William very much.

    The Norman entourage entered the Great Hall with a flourish of horns, drums, the sound of booted and spurred feet ringing out across the flagstones, and the sweep of heavy cloaks flowing back from broad shoulders. Edward grinned as he recognized several among the entourage that he knew personally.

    There were some twenty or twenty-two Normans marching in military formation behind William's envoy, Guy Martel. Directly behind Martel came Walter Fitz Osbern and Roger Montgomery, two of William's closest friends. Their presence was a mark of immense respect by William: See, I hold you in such love, I send my greatest friends to honor you.

    Guy Martel led his entourage to within three paces of the dais, then halted, bending to one knee in a gesture of great gracefulness.

    Behind him, each member ot the entourage likewise dropped to a Knee, bowing his head.

    "My greatest lord," Martel said, his voice ringing through the Hall, "I greet you well on behalf of my lord, William of Normandy, and convey to you his heartiest congratulations on the occasion of your marriage."

    Edward grunted.

    On her chair, Swanne shifted slightly, bored with proceedings. She tried to catch Tostig's eye for some amusement—he was standing to one side of the Hall—but failed. She sighed, and rubbed her belly, wishing she were anywhere but here at this moment. Her mind began to drift, as it so often did, to thoughts of Brutus-reborn, and where he might be, and if he were thinking of

    her.

    "My lord wishes to present you with a token of his love and respect," Martel continued, "and hopes that you are as blessed in your marriage as he

    is in his."

    With that, Martel reached under his cloak, and withdrew a small unadorned wooden box. "My lord, if I may approach…"

    Mildly curious—and yet disappointed that William's gift was not more proudly packaged—Edward gestured Martel forward, taking the box from him.

    "What is this?" he said, opening the lid and staring incredulously at what

    lay within.

    It was nothing but a ball of string. Impressively golden string, but a ball of

    string nonetheless.

    This is what William thought to offer a king as a gift?

    Caught by the offense underlying Edward's words, Swanne looked over, wondering what the duke of Normandy had done to so insult Edward.

    "What is this?" Edward repeated, and withdrew the ball of string from the box, holding it up and staring at it.

    Swanne went cold, and her heart began to pound. She was so shocked that she could not for the moment form a coherent thought.

    "A ball of string?" Edward said, the anger in his voice now perfectly apparent.

    "If I may," said Martel, taking the string from Edward. "This is a treasure of great mystery." He continued, "May I be permitted to show to you its secret?"

    Edward nodded, slowly, reluctantly. A treasure of great mystery?

    Trembling so badly she could hardly move, Swanne edged forward on her seat. Oh, please, gods, let this be what I want it to be! Please, gods, please!

    Martel began to unwind the string, which was indeed made of golden thread. His entourage had now formed a long line behind him, and Martel

    siowiy waiKea aown the line, spinning out the string so a portion of it lay in the hands of each member of the line. Once the string had been entirely played out—there were perhaps fifteen or twenty feet of string between each man—Martel walked back toward Edward's dais, holding the end of the string.

    Again he bowed. "Pray let me show you," he said, "the road to salvation."

    And with that, still keeping a firm hold of the end of the string, he stepped back, and nodded at his men.

    They began to move, and within only a moment or two, it became obvious that they moved in a well-choreographed and practiced dance of great beauty. They moved this way and that, in circles and arcs, until each watcher held his or her breath, sure the string was about to become horribly and irredeemably tangled. But it never did, and the men continued in their dance, their faces somber, their movements careful and supple.

    Of all the watchers, only Swanne knew what she was truly watching, and only she knew what that ball of string represented: Ariadne's Thread. The secret to the labyrinth.

    And gift to Edward be damned. This was a message for her, and her alone!

    "Brutus," she whispered, now at the very edge of her seat, her eyes staring wildly at the Normans as they continued in their graceful dance, unwinding the twisted walls of the labyrinth.

    Brutus… none other than William of Normandy!

    "Thank all the gods in creation," she said, again in a whisper, and her eyes filled with tears and her heart pounded with such great emotion that Swanne was not entirely sure that she would not faint with the strength of it at any moment.

    With a final flourish the dancers halted, paused, and then in a concluding, single movement, each laid his portion of the string on the ground, and then moved away from it, their task completed.

    Soon the flagstone area before Edward's throne was empty, save for the golden thread, now laid out in a perfect representation of the pathways of a unicursal labyrinth.

    Edward had risen to his feet, and his eyes moved slowly between the golden labyrinth laid out on the floor and Guy Martel.

    "The road to salvation?" he said in a puzzled tone.

    "My lord duke well knows of your piety," Martel said, "and of your great disappointment that you have been unable to tread those paths within Jerusalem where once Christ's feet trod. Behold the labyrinth. Its entrance lies before you, and when you enter it, you do so as a man born of woman, and thus weighted down with grievous sin. But as you traverse the paths of the labyrinth, thinking only of Christ and his goodness, you will find when

    you enter the heart of the labyrinth that Christ and his redemption await you. When you exit the labyrinth, retracing your steps through its twisting paths, you do so in a state of grace, and you will truly be stepping on the pathway toward your own redemption. This labyrinth, great lord and king of England, represents the pilgrim's journey to Jerusalem. He goes there weighted down with sin, but having prayed within that land where Christ once lived, he returns to his own land in a state of grace. He retraces his steps into redemption. This, my great lord of England, is Normandy's gift to you."

    No, thought Swanne, the tears running freely down her cheeks, this is Brutus-reborn's gift to me.

    Edward was clapping his hands, his cheeks pink with joy, and he began to converse animatedly with Martel. But Harold was staring at Swanne, and leaned over to her, concerned. "My dear, what ails you?"

    Clearly overcome with emotion, her eyes locked onto the golden labyrinth, Swanne had to struggle to speak. When she did, her voice was only a hoarse whisper.

    "The child," she said, and rested a trembling hand on her belly. "The child has caused me some upset. I will retire to our chamber, I think, and rest."

    Harold leaned closer, worry now clearly etched on his face. "Should I send for the midwives?"

    "No! No, I need only to rest. The heat and the crowd in this Hall have made me feel faint. I will be well enough. Please, Harold, let me be."

    And with that she rose and, a little unsteadily at first, made her way from the Hall.

    Harold might have followed her, but as Swanne passed behind Caela's chair, he saw that his sister was staring at the labyrinth with almost as much emotion as Swanne had been. Harold sent a final glance Swanne's way—she was walking much more steadily now, and his worry for her eased—then he rose himself and went to Caela's side. "Sister, what ails you?"

    She tore her eyes from the labyrinth, and looked at Harold. "How do we know," she said, "that Christ is in the heart of the labyrinth, instead of some dark monster? Promise me, Harold, that you will never enter that pathway." He attempted a smile for her. "Should you not be warning your husband?"

    "I care not who he meets within the heart of the labyrinth, brother. Christ, or a monster."

    And with that she, too, was gone, rising to exit with her ladies.

    LATER, AS MARTEL WAS SHOWING EDWARD THE INTRI-cacies of laying out the string into the form of the labyrinth, a man leaned

    against the wall of the Great Hall and watched with a cynical half smile on his face as the king of England tried to learn the pathways of the labyrinth.

    He was a man of some influence within Edward's court, and that influence was growing stronger day by day. He was a man liked and trusted by many, disliked by some others, overlooked by many more, and used by none. He was a man far greater than his outward appearance and station within society would suggest.

    He was Asterion, the great Minotaur, lover of Ariadne, and victim of Theseus. Many thousands of years ago, Asterion had been trapped within the heart of the Great Founding Labyrinth of Crete. There Theseus had come to him and, aided by Ariadne, Asterion's half sister, had slain him. But then Theseus had abandoned Ariadne and, in revenge, she colluded with Asterion's shade, promising him rebirth into the world of the living if he passed over to her the Darkcraft, the dark power of evil that the Game had been created to imprison. Asterion had agreed, handing over to Ariadne the ancient Dark-craft for her promise that she would destroy the Game completely.

    But Ariadne had lied, and one of her daughter-heirs, Genvissa, had sought to resurrect the Game with her lover Kingman, Brutus. That attempt had ended in disaster and death—two of the things Asterion was best at manipulating— but the attempt had given Asterion cause for thought.

    What if, instead of completely destroying the Game, he sought to control it?

    Asterion stood within the Great Hall of Westminster, clothed in the guise he wore every day to confuse and deflect, watching Edward in his labyrinth, his thoughts all on that great prize: the Troy Game. To control the Game, Asterion needed the six kingship bands of Troy, which were instrumental not only in the Game's creation, but in its controlling.

    The bands were a pitiful prize, considering that Asterion had the power to raise and destroy empires, but these bands continued to elude him as they had from that moment when Asterion, in his rebirth as Amorian the Poiteran, had invaded and razed Brutus' Troia Nova. He had not been able to find the bands then. He had continued to fail in their retrieval for two thousand years. Brutus had hid them well, embuing their secret places with such protective magic that they remained hidden from Asterion.

    And, by all the gods and imps in creation, how Asterion had tried to uncover their location! He had thrown everything he had at the city in order to discover their locations. He knew they were somewhere within London's walls, just as he knew that the Game Genvissa and Brutus had begun was alive and well.

    Asterion knew it, because every time he destroyed the city, whether in sheer fury or in order to try again to unearth the bands, the city regrew. Under Asterion's direction, the Celts, the Romans, the Scotti, the Picts, the

    various tribes of the Anglo-Saxons, and finally the Vikings had invaded the land and razed or otherwise destroyed London in its entirety or by sections. In those lifetimes, when invasion had not threatened, Asterion sent mysterious fires that swept through buildings, reducing swathes of the city to smoking cinders, or agonizing plagues, which left the city's streets full of rotting

    corpses.

    Every time the city was struck down, it somehow recovered. Perhaps not overnight, but it did recover. Other cities would have succumbed and vanished beneath the waving grasses of wild meadows. But not London. It refused to

    stay dead.

    This told Asterion several things. One, that the bands were still here, for otherwise the Troy Game would not be able to function. Two, that the Game begun so long ago remained alive and well and grew more vital with each disaster, as it absorbed the evil that attacked it. Finally, the city's continued regeneration told Asterion where the Game was—where lay its heart.

    When Asterion, as Amorian, had razed Brutus' Troia Nova, he had not been able to determine the location of the actual Troy Game itself, where lay the labyrinth. For decades the area surrounding the LlanRiver and the Veiled Hills had remained desolate. Then, very gradually, a modest village grew in the small valley between Og's and Mag's hills. The villagers traded with communities further upriver, and the village grew and became a small, prosperous town.

    Flushed with their success, which they attributed to the benefice of the gods, the town's citizens built a temple of standing stones atop Og's Hill. The town grew space—and was then torn apart by Asterion's fury in the guise of the invading Celts. The area surrounding the ancient Veiled Hills remained desolate for almost a century.

    Then the Celtic Britons built there a larger town this time, in the same spot that Brutus had erected Troia Nova, their streets following the contours of his streets. The town prospered, and the Celtic Druids erected a circle atop Og's Hill, which they now called Lud Hill after one of their gods. This community Asterion murdered with disease—a horrific plague that wiped out much of the population of southern Britain in the third century before Christ. Then came the Romans, who built a magnificent city reflecting their own pride and achievements. It, like the Celtic township, also followed the contours of Brutus' Troia Nova, and atop Og's Hill—now Lud Hill—the Romans built a great temple to Diana.

    Diana, the Roman Goddess of the Hunt, who had been known during the time of the Greeks as Artemis.

    Asterion, who walked through Roman London as one of Rome's overabundant generals, looked at that temple, and knew.

    The labyrinth was there. It had to be. It attracted to it the veneration and temples of every people who lived within the city.

    And yet the Game and the labyrinth it hid would not allow Asterion to uncover it. No matter how many times he caused the temples and churches atop Lud Hill to be razed, Asterion could never discover the labyrinth.

    No matter how deep he caused his minions to dig.

    Now a Christian cathedral graced the top of the hill. St. Paul's was the third construction on this hill to bear that name after Asterion had caused the first to be consumed with fire and the second to be razed by the Danes.

    To his eyes, still yearning for the grace and color and beauty of the temples and halls of the ancient Aegean world, St. Paul's was a homely, stooped thing. To the English Saxons, Asterion supposed, it was a wondrous construction, given that most of the other buildings in London were wattle and daub, wood, or ungracious and poorly laid stone. Shaped as a long hall, a rounded apse to one end and a squat, ugly tower straddling the nave's mid-section, the cathedral sat in a cleared space running east-west along the top of Lud Hill. The Londoners certainly adored it enough, and not merely for reasons of worship—most days the nave was almost as filled with market stalls as was Cheapside.

    Suddenly Asterion's eyes refocused on Edward in the Great Hall. The fool had worked his way through the labyrinth to its heart, and then back out again. Now he was calling for cups of wine to be handed about so he could raise a toast to William of Normandy.

    A servant handed Asterion a cup, and Asterion put a smile on his face, nodding cheerfully to Edward when the king looked at him, and toasted William of Normandy with wine while in his heart he cursed him.

    Asterion was wary of William. Very wary. As Brutus, William's magic had been powerful enough to outwit Asterion in his hunt for the kingship bands. Brutus' power was the principal reason Asterion had for two thousand years kept those blocks in place that prevented William and Genvissa's rebirth (and thus preventing everyone else's rebirth who had been caught up in this battle).

    But Asterion had not been able to discover the bands, and thus, a few decades ago, frustrated beyond measure, he had removed the blocks. One by one, women across western Europe had fallen pregnant and given birth to babies who, as they grew, drew on the remembered experiences and ambitions of a past life to shape their decision in this life.

    Asterion had taken the added caution of ensuring that, first, William was reborn far from London (a nice touch, Asterion thought, remembering how Genvissa's mother, Herron, had caused Asterion to be reborn far from Llangarlia so many lifetimes ago), and, secondly, William was kept busy and

    distracted with problems within his own duchy. Asterion did not want to meet William until he, Asterion, was well and ready.

    And Asterion did not want to meet William, or to have to cope with the problem of William, until he had the bands and… her.

    His eyes slid from Edward to the door through which Swanne had

    vanished.

    "Enjoy what happiness you can find, Swanne," Asterion said. "It won't last

    long."

    CbAPGGR FOUR

    ARRIAGE TO HAROLD HAD BROUGHT SWANNE

    many benefits—her current proximity to London and the Troy Game being prominent among them—but at this very moment vanne was grateful only for the fact that their seniority within Edward's court meant they had a private bedchamber.

    She had brushed aside Harold's concerns, she had brushed aside the concerns of her attending woman Hawise, and now Swanne stood wonderfully alone, her back against the closed door of the bedchamber.

    "Brutus," she whispered, the tears now flowing again down her cheeks. Then, more loudly, more emphatically, "William!"

    William of Normandy! Oh, what a fine jest that was, to place Brutus-reborn within the land where the savage Poiterans had lived so long ago. Yet how right it seemed: Brutus once again born as the military adventurer, the strug-gler, the achiever… the foreigner. With her new knowledge, the future became instantly clear to Swanne: once again Brutus would invade, once again he would seize control of the land.

    Once again he would reign as king over England and London and over her heart. And this time, they would succeed immortality.

    "William," she whispered yet one more time, rolling the word about her mouth, loving the feel of it, joyous in her new discovery.

    He had sent that ball of string as a message to her! He yearned for her as much as she for him!

    It seemed such a simple thing, discovering what name Brutus went by in this life, but its lack had meant that Swanne had not, to this point, been able to discover or contact Brutus-reborn. She needed to know who he was to be able to contact him, and likewise he had to know her name. Much of her life to this point had been spent in that search: Where are you Brutus? Where?

    Always that search had been frustrated over and over again by circumstance.

    Swanne had been born in a county a long, long way from London to a nobleman of little consequence. For years, ever since she had been some ten

    or eleven years old and had come to a full awareness—and remembrance— Swanne had been desperate to leave her father's home and get to London. Somehow. Anyhow.

    To get back home.

    To find Brutus and to finish what had been so terribly interrupted.

    But Swanne had been reborn into a life and a world in which women had very little power, and even less say over the destiny of their lives. Her father had laughed at her pleadings to be allowed to live in London, and he said that she needed a husband to tame her waywardness.

    The thought of a husband made Swanne even more desperate—no Mistress of the Labyrinth submitted to a husband—but as she grew older, and rejected the hand of every suitor her father tossed her way, she grew ever more desperate. She'd hoped Brutus-reborn would one day ride into her father's estate and claim her, but he didn't, and Swanne realized he probably wouldn't.

    As she did not know him, so he did not know her.

    The only way out of her father's house, and the only way to London (where, pray to all gods, Brutus might be waiting for her!), was via that hateful institution of marriage. Maybe she would need to submit to a husband, if only to use him for her own ends.

    Then one day Harold Godwineson had ridden, laughing and strong, into her father's courtyard, and the instant Swanne had seen his face, felt his eyes upon her, she had known.

    She had known who Harold was reborn, and she knew she could use him. He would be her bridge to Brutus-reborn and to London and the Game. Coel. Swanne wasn't sure why he had been reborn, what had pulled him back, but the thought of using Coel-reborn to get to London, and eventually to Brutus, was of some amusement to Swanne.

    The blessing in all of this was that Harold himself had no memory of his past life. If he'd had, Swanne would have had no chance at him at all. She had no idea as to why this was so—perhaps it was merely an indication of Harold's complete meaningless in what was to come—but she was very, very grateful.

    And so Swanne had smiled, and shaken out her jet-black hair, and tilted her lovely head on her graceful neck, and had won Harold before he'd even dismounted from his horse. She went to his bed that night, and in return he had taken her from her father's house the next morning.

    They were wed, but under Danelaw rather than Christian. That had been Swanne's demand, and Harold, desperately in love with her, had agreed without complaint. A Danelaw marriage gave Swanne more independence, and far more control over her extensive lands, which had been her dowry, than a Christian

    ©

    marriage would have done. Under the hated Christian law, everything—her estates, her chattels, even her very soul—would have become Harold's. Under Danelaw it remained Swanne's

    And thus to London. To be certain, they spent some time each year in Wessex, dreaded cold, rainy place that it was, but most of the year, Godwine made sure his eldest son and heir kept him company within Edward's court. Swanne had been certain that Brutus-reborn would linger somewhere within Westminster… but it was not so, and in the eighteen months or so of her marriage, Swanne had had to fight away despair.

    Where was Brutus? What was his name in this reborn life? But now she knew, and all she wanted to do was go to him, and, in this want and need, Swanne succumbed to a fit of hatred so great that she actually sank to the floor, beating at her belly with her fists.

    All she wanted to do was go to her lover, to go to William, and here she was, almost seven months swollen with another man's child.

    Harold! She spat the name, all her gratefulness for his usefulness vanishing in her anguish. She wanted to go to William. She wanted to so badly, she could taste the need in her mouth, feel it in her body, and here she was, great with another man's child! Coel's child.

    Swanne went cold with apprehension. Oh gods… Coel's child. How could she explain that to William?

    She hit her belly hard with the closed fist of her right hand, beating at it until she bruised her skin beneath its linens and silks. Coel-Harold's child. And a son.

    She conceived the baby only after many months of marriage, when it had become apparent to her that Brutus-reborn was nowhere within Edward's court, and likely nowhere within England. She'd conceived a son, going against her every instinct and need as Mistress of the Labyrinth, because a son would bind Harold the tighter to her, and further ensure her a place within the Westminster court.

    "Curse you, Harold, for getting this child in me!" she said, low and vicious, and she barely avoided using her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to visit him with a death-dealing curse then and there.

    No, no, she must be careful. She must be prudent. She was very well aware that Asterion lurked somewhere, and, after the mistakes of the past life, Swanne was not going to make another ill-considered move until she knew precisely where Asterion was and what power he commanded. As Genvissa, she had thought he was weak and essentially powerless. What a fool she had been. Asterion had played with them all, had toyed with them, and had used Cornelia to stop the Game in its tracks.

    Swanne had tried to scry out Asterion's identity—she had managed it easily enough when she had been Genvissa and had realized the fact of Asterion's rebirth within the Poiteran people—but now, in this life, Asterion appeared to have grown so greatly in power and in cunning that she could not know where, or who, he was.

    Even if she didn't know who he was, Swanne knew precisely what Asterion wanted. To destroy the Game once and for all, and to destroy Swanne and William with it.

    No, you bastard, she thought, her eyes still closed, her lovely face set in uncommonly harsh lines. No. And this time you can be sure we won't allow you to use Caela as your dagger's hand.

    Ah, Caela! Swanne's eyes opened, and they were hard with hatred. Caela! Swanne couldn't believe it when she first met Harold's sister. She would have murdered the bitch then and there, had it not been for the fact that she still needed Harold's goodwill (and body and bed and children) to assure her a place by his side at court.

    Then, as if her very existence were not bad enough, Caela had become queen! Still Swanne did nothing. The murder of Caela would expose her to far too much risk. Not only would it alienate her from Harold (and how she despised being tied by need to the man) but it would overexpose her to Asterion. For all Swanne knew, Asterion was hoping that Swanne would murder Caela.

    So she stilled her hand, and contented herself with whispering viciousness into the poor girl's ear whenever she had the chance.

    The blessing in all of this was the fact that Harold and Caela had been reborn as siblings. Swanne wasn't sure who was responsible for that piece of mischief—whether fate or Asterion—but it had provided her with a never-ending source of amusement. Poor, lost, insipid Caela, for whatever reason, not remembering a thing of her previous life, and horrified at her constant yearning for a man who was her brother. And the equally un-remembering Harold yearning for her.

    All that suppressed lust.

    Swanne could understand why Harold might not remember his previous life (he was hardly important in the scheme of things, was he?), but she was surprised that Caela did not remember (if also gratifying, as it gave Swanne so many opportunities to torment the woman). Caela still carried the ancient mother goddess Mag within her womb (was there nothing that could eject that damn goddess from Cornelia-Caela's womb?), but even Mag seemed faded, lost, forgetful.

    Useless.

    Swanne shrugged to herself. Well, neither of them were of much account now.

    Swanne slowly rose to her feet, drying her tears and straightening her robe, her thoughts now back to William. There was a large mirror of burnished bronze in the corner of the chamber, and Swanne walked over to it, regarding herself within its depths.

    Would he like her? Would he desire her? Pregnancy aside, Swanne was taller and slimmer in this life than she had been as Genvissa. Elegant, where once she had been earthy. Swanne pulled the veil from her head and tossed it contemptuously to the far corner of the chamber: all Anglo-Saxon ladies wore lawn or silk veils over their head in public, and Swanne loathed this single badge of womanly subjection more than any other. Who could imagine it? Veiling a woman's beauty! Pulling the pins from her hair with almost the same amount of vigor as she'd pulled away the veil, Swanne tipped her head to one side, letting her heavy hair fall over her shoulder, admiring the way her long neck glowed like ivory in the candlelight. As a child, Swanne had been named for her long, exquisite neck, combined with her manner of holding her head. Even as a baby, apparently, her beauty had been remarkable. Now, as a mature woman, she could stop men open-mouthed in their tracks.

    "Thank the gods this child has swollen only my belly and not my feet, or even my face," Swanne muttered. She continued to study herself critically, unfastening her heavy outer surcoat and allowing it to fall away from her shoulders and arms to the floor so that she stood only in her under gown of pale linen.

    She remembered how Tostig had lusted after her in the Great Hall earlier.

    She remembered how other men had followed her with their eyes.

    She remembered how Harold still used her body, night after night, in their bed.

    She remembered how she and Brutus used to make love when, as Genvissa, she had been heavily pregnant with their daughter. Her belly hadn't deterred him then… why would it now?

    She smiled. So her belly was all crowded out with child—that made her no less desirable.

    "I won't tell him about Coel," she murmured. "Why? What does it matter?"

    Her hands stilled, and her eyes stared at her reflection. "William," she whispered. Ah, gods, he was so close! "William!"

    Then again, her voice riddled with desire: "William!"

    Finally, her mind so consumed with need and want and desire that all thought of Asterion and of prudence disappeared, Swanne opened her arms, cried out one more time, "William!" and vanished.

    CbAPGGR F1V

    Rouen, Normandy

    ILLIAM STOOD IN THE TACK ROOM OF THE

    stable complex in his castle at Rouen, going over the saddles he used for hunting and for war with his Master of the Horse, Alain Roussel. They did this several times a year, checking war and hunting gear for faults, fractures, or worn spots that needed repair. Better to spend a few hours here and there in the relative warmth of the stables, peering at metal and leather then to have it give way suddenly amid the heat of battle.

    They had just decided that one of William's most prized saddles needed one of its seams restitched when William suddenly raised his head and peered into the middle distance, his eyes unfocused, his face drawn.

    "My lord?" Roussel asked softly, wondering if his duke had heard the sounds of a distant battle that his own aging ears had yet to discern.

    "Leave me," William whispered.

    "My lord—"

    "Leave me!" Then, in a more moderate tone that was nonetheless tense, "Ensure that no one disturbs me."

    "Yes, my lord." Roussel bowed his head, turned on his heel, and left. Whatever he thought at the abrupt and strange command did not show on his face.

    The instant Roussel had departed, William began to pace back and forth within the relatively narrow confines of the tack room.

    Genvissa! She had seen, or heard about, his gift to Edward, and recognized it for what it was.

    She was on her way.

    William felt nerves flutter in his belly. Gods, he wanted to see her, to hold her! Yet, at the same time, William worried, his eyes roving from this dark corner to that, wondering if somehow this would expose Genvissa-reborn or himself. If somehow this demonstration of power on her part would awake Asterion into madness…

    I

    And then she was there, directly before him, breathless, laughing, tears running down her cheeks, her arms held out, and William forgot everything else and snatched her into his arms, holding her tight, laughing and crying with her. He was kissing her, she was pressing her body into his, her hands grabbing at his arms, his shoulders, running through the short black curls on his head.

    "You've lost your great mane," she said, somehow managing to get the words out between kisses.

    "It did not suit a Norman man-of-war," he said. Then, summoning all his control, he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back a little so he could see her face, and study it.

    "You're beautiful," he said, and the wonder and admiration in his voice made her laugh and cry all over again. "More beautiful than ever. Sweet Lord Christ, Genvissa, thank all the gods that we've found each other!"

    "I was desperate. I didn't know who you were, where… and then your damned envoy arrived this morning, and presented Edward with that wonderful ball of string, and I knew, I knew, I could hear you screaming for me… I came…"

    They embraced and kissed again, and then again William pushed her back, gently. "I had thought Edward a pious man," he said, grinning at her, "but I see he has wasted no time getting an heir on you."

    Swanne's expression stilled. "What?"

    William laid a hand on her swollen belly. "You've been married only, what? Two months? And yet this is a six or seven month belly you carry."

    She frowned all the more.

    William opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, "You are Caela, are you not?"

    Her reaction stunned William. She tore out of his arms, stepped back, and looked so angry that William almost thought she might hit him.

    "I am not that fool!" she said. "I am Swanne, lady of Wessex. Caela! Caela? Why her? Why did you think I was her?"

    "Swanne—what a lovely name—Swanne, I am sorry. Like you, I worried for years where you were, and who. Then I heard Edward was taking a wife, and I wondered if this was you. It seemed to fit… I knew you would do everything in your power to consolidate yourself within London and the Veiled Hills, and what better way than as queen?" He smiled, trying to restore her good humor, and ran a thumb down her cheek. "I was the fool, my love. I should have known. Caela is but a girl, is she not? And you…" His voice deepened. "You are a wondrous woman, all grown into what I need."

    Swanne was not appeased. "Caela is Cornelia-reborn."

    William stilled, his hand partway down Swanne's cheek. "Cornelia? By the gods, what is she doing here? What mischief does she plan?"

    Swanne's mouth curled. "She couldn't plan the curdling of a milk pudding, my dear. Fate has this time been kind to us. Cornelia has been reborn as the timid, helpless daughter of Godwine, so sexless and so undesirable, thatsfee at least will never be swelling with child. William, hate her all you might, for that at least she deserves, but do not fear her. She has been reborn into such weakness that she does not even remember her past life!"

    William frowned. "She doesn't remember?"

    "No." Now Swanne moved back into him again, running her hands over his body, and her mouth, slowly and teasingly, over his neck and jaw.

    He drew in a deep breath, and she smiled, and nipped at him with her teeth. "She is of no account," she whispered. "None."

    Again he breathed deeply, then ran a hand over her belly. "So who gave you this then, if not Edward? You said you were a lady of Wessex… you have married into Godwine's family?"

    "Aye. His eldest son, Harold."

    There was something in her voice, a tightness, and William took her face between his fingers and tilted her face up to his. "Harold? A powerful catch."

    "He has been my path into London, and into the center of power." Her face twisted a little. "To think, that circumstance should force me to stoop to marriage. Me, a Mistress of the Labyrinth."

    "And who is Harold, Swanne?"

    She twisted her face out of his fingers and kissed his neck again. "No one. Only a man."

    "He is no one reborn?"

    She laughed throatily. "Of course not." Her teeth nipped into his skin, and he felt tiny pinpricks of pain as her sharp teeth drew blood, and he forgot Harold in the rising tide of his desire.

    "You should have chosen a better place to come to me, my love. This dusty tack room isn't quite—"

    "It will do," she said, and loosened the laces holding together the neck of her under robe so that he could run his hand over her breasts. "For all the gods' sakes, William…"

    The agony of wanting in her voice undid him. He hauled the skirts of her gown up, running his hands over her thighs and bare buttocks. Then he lifted her up, resting her buttocks on a shelf and, as she wrapped her legs about his hips, fumbled desperately with his own clothing that he might bury himself within her.

    As he did so, as he moaned and dug his fingers into her buttocks, pulling her hard against him, there came the faint memory of Matilda's words two months earlier: You will not dishonor me with her?

    Never! He had cried.

    Never.

    He thrust deeply into Swanne again, and then again, and she cried out and tightened her legs about him. Never.

    And then William became aware of that damned belly of Swanne's digging into his, and he wondered if she had cried out like this under Harold of Wes-sex, and whether or not she had ever promised Harold what William had promised Matilda. Never.

    "I can't," he said, groaning, and pulled out of Swanne abruptly so that she almost tumbled to the floor.

    She flushed, and he knew her well enough to know it was anger. "Not yet," he said, readjusting his own clothing. "What?" she hissed. "You don't want to dishonor your wife?" William's face reddened—she had picked up his thoughts. "She is important to me," he said.

    "And I not?" Swanne said, dangerously quiet.

    "Listen to me, Swanne." William stepped close to her and took her chin between fingers less gently than they had been earlier. "Neither of us can afford to relax our guard. Each of us has a part to play so that, eventually, we can both play our parts together. Yes, Matilda is important to me. She brings at her back military might and alliances that I can ill afford to ignore if I am to seize the throne of England. For the love of Christ and His army of damned Christian saints, Swanne, have you not heard of my dilemma? I spend eleven months of the year, year in, year out, fighting rival claimants to Normandy, men and armies sent by Asterion—I have no doubt—to keep me occupied and away from England. I need Matilda and her dowry of military support and alliances, if ever I am to consolidate my hold on Normandy and then turn to England. Matilda… dammit, Swanne, Matilda is my way to you and to the Troy Game!"

    She had quietened and relaxed a little as he spoke, and now she reluctantly gave a small nod. "You think Asterion sends these armies to annoy you?"

    "Aye. Again and again they come back. That's Asterion's hand, none other." He paused. "Is he in England? Do you know him?"

    She shook her head. "I cannot tell who he is, but the 'where'… well, I am certain he is in England. I can feel his presence sometimes, generally when Edward is holding court, but that sense is only faint, and there are so many people about…"

    "We must be wary, Swanne."

    "Yes. I know."

    He kissed her. "It won't be long. Surely… not now."

    She gave a half smile. "No. It won't be long." Then… "Where are your Kingship bands, William? You feel naked without them."

    He grimaced. "After… after you died—"

    "After my murder at that bitch's hands!"

    "Aye. After Cornelia murdered you, I burned you atop a great pyre on Og's Hill. Then, mindful of your warning—Save the Game! Hide it, for Asterion is surely on his way!—I took the bands from my limbs and secreted them about London. They lie there still, even though I think Asterion hunted through two thousand years for them so he could use them to destroy the Game."

    She shivered, and moved in close against him. "I do not know what amazes me more, William. That for two thousand years Asterion sought those bands— and kept us apart—or that you have such power that you could frustrate him for that long. William, can you still feel the bands? You know they are safe?"

    He nodded. "They are safe. I would know the instant anyone touched them."

    "And the Game?" she said. "Do you feel it, even as far from it as you are?"

    He nodded. "It is strong still. Unweakened by the time it has been left by itself."

    There was a small silence.

    "It is different, William."

    He hesitated before answering. Yes, the Game was different.

    "Could the Game have changed in the two thousand years it was left alone?" Swanne said.

    "Perhaps," William said, but his voice was slow and unreassuring. "We had not closed it, it was still alive, and still in that phase of its existence where it was actively growing. Who knows what…"

    He stopped then, but his unspoken words were clear. Who knows what it could have grown into.

    "Oh, gods, William," Swanne said. "How long before you can come?"

    He gave a small shrug. "With the resources Matilda brings at her back? With her father and her entire clan as allies? A year, maybe two at the most. Swanne, listen to me—we cannot risk this again."

    "Meeting like this? Are you afraid that next time your Matilda might discover us?"

    He tensed, and she knew the truth of her words.

    "I cannot afford to alienate her, Swanne. But, no, I fear more for what Asterion might do. You can be sure that he's somewhere, watching us. Manipulating us." He paused. "Is there anyone at Edward's court that you can trust to carry messages between us?"

    She thought, frowning, then her brow cleared. "Yes. Do you know the cleric Aldred? He is a Norman, so…"

    "Yes, indeed. I know him well." William paused, thought, then gave a decisive nod. "He is an excellent choice. Either he, or some of his subordinates, travel to and from Normandy throughout the year."

    "And he favors you. I have heard him talk well of you to Edward."

    William smiled. "Aldred then. But be careful, for—"

    He stopped suddenly, his head up. "Gods, Matilda is but fifty paces away! She is looking for me! Go, Swanne, Go!"

    "William…"

    "Go!" He kissed her once, hard. "Go! It won't be long. I swear. It won't be

    long… go!"

    And then she was gone, and William staggered, caught his balance, and looked up to see Matilda staring at him from the doorway.

    Cb£PG6R SIX

    HE WAS ONLY SEVENTEEN, THE CROWN OF HER

    head scarcely reached his chest, and she had none of the mystical power of the woman who had just left him, but Matilda's simple, still presence and her clear, questioning gaze made William's heart thud with nerves.

    "There has been someone with you," she said, and walked into the room, her eyes now sliding this way and that about the tack room.

    Suddenly her eyes were back on him, very still. "Someone unsettling enough that your breath rasps in your throat and your cheeks flush. What is this, William? That look I only thought to see in the more intimate moments of our marriage."

    "You surprised me."

    "I think I should have surprised you a moment or two earlier than I did. Yes?"

    William thought of what Matilda might have seen had she been that bit earlier. Swanne, legs about his hips, moaning in abandon? Gods…

    "You vowed," Matilda's voice was harsher now, and William could hear the grate of pain and judgment underlying it, "that you would never dishonor me with her. Not two months since."

    Gods, what had she seen? Or was Matilda more perceptive than he had credited?

    William thought of all the lies he could tell, would have told had this been Cornelia instead of Matilda, and he thought that when he began to speak, one of those glib lies would slip smoothly out. But he found himself remembering their marriage night, and what benefits the truth had brought him then, and so when he spoke, it was truth rather than falsehoods. "She was here, that woman of whom I spoke, and she begged me to take her. Oh God, Matilda, I wanted to. Thus my breath. Thus my flushed cheeks."

    "And you did not?" Matilda had not moved, and her eyes were very steady on his.

    "I began," he said. "I was roused, and for a moment I did not think. Then I remembered you, and I stepped back from her."

    "You remembered what I bring at my back, more like."

    O

    "I remembered you, Matilda. If it had been your dowry at the forefront of my mind then I could have lied to you just now."

    "Who is she, William?"

    "She is the lady Swanne, Harold of Wessex's wife."

    "I have heard of her, and of her legendary beauty. How came she here, William?"

    Oh gods, how to explain this to her?

    "She was raised among the ancient ways," he said, "and when a baby suckled at the breasts of faeries. She… she commands powers that many would condemn."

    Matilda stared at her husband for many long minutes, digesting this piece of information. "A witch?" she said finally, her voice a mere whisper.

    William opened, then closed his mouth. He gave a single nod.

    "By Christ himself, William, what interest has she in you?"

    "Even witches can find me attractive, Matilda."

    Matilda laughed, and William was profoundly relieved to hear genuine amusement in it.

    "As also daughters of Flanders," she said. "Very well. I believe you. I think you spoke truth to me just now. That was well done, William. Not many husbands would have done it. Now tell me more. Was that," she waved a hand at his groin, "the only reason she used her witchcraft to reach you?"

    "No. Matilda… I have spoken long and often to you of my plans for my… for our future. But there is one burning ambition of which I have not yet spoken to you."

    She raised an eyebrow.

    "I long for the throne of England. I yearn for it."

    She gave a disbelieving laugh. "Fighting for Normandy isn't enough for you?"

    "When Normandy is secure, then I am turning my eyes to England, Matilda. You are already duchess of Normandy—"

    "Those bits of it you command," she said sotto voce.

    "How much more would you like to be queen of England?"

    She thought about it. "Very much, I think. I have heard it is a fine land, and rich, and its people pliable. But I have also heard that there are many people who lust for England. The Anglo-Saxon earls for one, notable among them the Godwine family, and what of the Danes and Norwegians? They have ever longed for England."