He grinned, mischievously. "I thought the challenge would appeal to you."

    "Oh, aye, challenge does appeal to me. Why else marry you?"

    They both laughed, their eyes locking, and William relaxed even more. He moved close to her, and bent down to kiss her, but she moved away.

    "Not when your mouth still stinks of this Swanne. Later, perhaps, when you have washed away her taste with wine."

    William was not perturbed by Matilda's refusal, for there was no hatred or viciousness in her voice. Indeed, her tone had been matter-of-fact, as if all she had complained about was that his mouth still stank of the leeks he'd eaten for his noon meal.

    "I will secure Normandy," he said. "And then I will go for England. I will be king of England, Matilda. And you my queen."

    "Not this Swanne?"

    He shook his head, his eyes unwavering. "No. You. Swanne is… Swanne is my eyes and ears within Edward's court. My ambition for England is also her ambition."

    "And yet she does not want to be your queen in return for all this disloyalty to her country and husband?"

    "What she might want," William said quietly, "is not what she might necessarily get." Stunningly, he realized that was no lie.

    She regarded him very steadily for some time before finally speaking. "Do you not want to know the reason I came seeking you? What made me dare the stables and all its dirt?"

    He smiled. "What, my love?"

    Now she drew close to him and, taking his hand, put it on her stomach. "The midwives have just confirmed to me what I have suspected now for a week or more. I am with child, William."

    He looked at her, then drew her in close, holding her in silence for a long time. Eventually Matilda drew back, her face softer than it had been at any time before in this conversation.

    "Do you think you could still bear to make love to me when I am swollen with this child, William?"

    He smiled, but for a moment the memory of Swanne's pregnant body pressed against his consumed him. "I will find it no difficulty at all," he said.

    "Then let us quit this tired and dusty stable, and seek our bedchamber and some wine to wash the taste of Swanne from your mouth. I do not think that tightness of breath nor that flush in your cheeks should be wasted."

    HE SLEPT ONCE THEY'D MADE LOVE, BUT MATILDA

    lay awake under the heaviness of his body, thinking over all that had happened this day.

    Matilda had known the instant she'd stepped into that tack room what had been happening, although she'd not been able to understand the how of it,

    for there was no exit from that chamber save the doorway she herself stood in.

    But there William had stood before her, as aroused as ever she'd seen him, and behind her had stood the Master of the Horse, Alain Roussel, who had begged her not to enter.

    So Matilda had done the only thing she could. She had closed the door on Roussel and had done what she had to in order to not only save her marriage from disintegrating into sham, but to fashion it into something even stronger than it had been.

    William had been engaged in making love with another woman (and a witch, no less!) that he'd already admitted (on their wedding night, no less!) was the first love of his life. Matilda could have whined and sulked, or she could have cried and stormed and threatened, but she did none of these things, realizing that would have lost her William's respect. Instead she had remained calm and reasonable, allowing William to judge himself by his own words rather than by hers. She realized also that a marriage could be made on stronger ties than love and that, in the end, these ties would defeat whatever love or lust William felt for this lady Swanne.

    Whatever William had said to her, Matilda was not entirely sure that it was love that bound these two. Something else bound them… their equal ambition for the throne of England, perhaps? Matilda believed William when he said that she, Matilda, would be his queen… but Matilda did not think that Swanne would let go her ambition easily. Whatever William might believe, Swanne fully intended to sit beside William as his lover and as his queen.

    You might be a witch, lady Swanne, Matilda thought, but you have not yet matched your wits against a daughter of Flanders, have you?

    William sighed, then half waking, shifted his body a little, running a hand over Matilda's breast and cupping it gently in his hand before falling back into a deeper sleep.

    And you are not the one lying under his body, and with his child in her belly. Beautiful and powerful you might be, Swanne, but you are deluded if you think that love and lust will mean more to William than loyalty and friendship and the bonds of a strong marriage.

    Matilda resolved to never tax William with Swanne again. If she did so, then it would be Matilda herself who would fracture their marriage.

    No, she would not tax William about Swanne, but she would do her utmost to make sure that she had her ears and eyes at Edward's court. Two agents were better than one when it came to a throne… and a marriage.

    CbAPGGR

    N THE SIX MONTHS FOLLOWING EDWARD'S MAR-

    riage to Caela, the court at Westminster grew apace. Edward had / announced plans to build a great cathedral abbey church on Thor-ney Isle, as well as extend and refurbish his own palace. Builders and laborers thronged the site.

    To cater to the growing workforce, as also the growing complexity of Edward's court, so also the numbers of servants and their families grew. Westminster almost tripled its population, and a small town grew up about the palace and abbey complex.

    Many new arrivals thronged the community of Westminster, but among them there were three who had deeper purposes than merely finding employment.

    Some three months after Edward's marriage, a young widowed and destitute peasant woman had come to the palace, asking for work as a laundress, or perhaps a dairy maid… whatever work there was, she begged. Damson, she called herself, after a variety of exotic plum.

    A damson, thought Edward's chamberlain, studying her silently, was the last thing she looked like. The woman was already tired and worn, despite her relative youth, with stooped shoulders, waxen cheeks marred by broken veins, and pale blue eyes that looked about to fade away to nothing. Nevertheless, she claimed to be a skilled laundress, and with a queen in residence, and all the ladies she attracted about her, and all the linens they wore, or sewed, or commissioned… well, another laundress was always needed.

    "Very well, then," said the chamberlain severely, "but you'll work under my direct orders for the time being, until I can be sure you're trustworthy."

    Damson's eyes brightened at the prospect of a home, and the chamberlain softened. He patted her on her cheek and sent her away to join the women already carrying heavy wicker baskets of laundry down to the river.

    Within a week he had forgotten about her.

    Edward was a particularly pious king, and among the builders and laborers

    and sundry laundresses that flocked to Westminster, also arrived a corresponding number of clerics. Among these came many hoping that Edward would sponsor their religious order, as well as that of the Westminster abbey monks. Many of these he did indeed aid, some he turned away.

    One he almost turned away was a woman of a particularly annoying frankness and air of independence. She presented herself at Edward's court in order to petition him to fund the establishment of a female religious priory.

    "In honor of St. Margaret the Martyr," the woman said to the king as she knelt before his throne.

    Edward watched her silently, not only wondering precisely who St. Margaret the Martyr was (possibly one of those forgettable Roman noblewomen who had somehow managed to achieve martyrdom and subsequent sainthood on the strength of their donations to the emerging church) but how he could rid himself and his court of this unsettling woman as quickly as possible. She was of some forty years, rotund and with a cheerful round face… but the strength and determination underlaying that cheerfulness did truly unsettle Edward. Women should know their place, and he was not sure that this one did at all.

    "I am afraid—" he began, when, to his amazement, his wife broke in, leaning forward in her own throne and speaking to her husband.

    "My husband, may I perhaps take this care from your already over-burdened shoulders?"

    Edward stared at Caela, his mouth open. This was the first time he could ever remember her speaking openly in court, let alone interrupting him.

    "My father has endowed me well," Caela continued, her cheeks flushed as if she realized her transgression, "and I would like this opportunity to repay Christ and His saints for their goodness to me. Perhaps I could use a small portion of my own reserves to endow this holy woman's priory?"

    At this, her courage failed her—by this time over half the court were staring open-mouthed at Caela—but Edward smiled, suddenly pleased with her. If she was this pious, then perhaps she could eventually retire to the order she founded and he could be rid of her.

    His smile broadened. "Of course, my dear. As you will."

    Caela blushed even further, perhaps astounded at her own temerity, but she turned to the woman still kneeling before Edward (but with her round and generous face now turned to Caela) and asked of her, her name.

    "You may call me Mother Ecub," said the woman, and then looked at Caela as if she expected some reaction.

    But Caela only smiled in politeness, and begged Mother Ecub to visit her within her own private chamber on the morrow.

    Mother Ecub bowed, rose to her feet, and left.

    And as she left, so she locked eyes momentarily with Swanne, Harold of

    Wessex's wife, newly risen from childbed. Both understood each other immediately; each sent ill-will coursing the other's way before each turned aside, and pretended indifference.

    Thus was the Priory of St. Margaret the Martyr founded, with Mother Ecub as its prioress. The small priory was built at the foot of Pen Hill just to the north of London, and within a year it had attracted some twelve or thirteen women who secreted themselves within its walls. The nuns contented themselves with good works to travelers, lepers, and the destitute, and soon earned themselves such a good name among the Londoners that they called the priory Mother Mag's as a measure of their affection.

    It pleased Mother Ecub no end.

    The third arrival into Edward's court, in this first year of his marriage, caused great comment where the other two had caused scarcely a ripple. King Edward had recently suffered pain caused by increased swelling and heat in the joints of his hands, elbows and knees. Many physicians attended him, but there was only one who consistently relieved Edward's discomfort, and he was the youngest of all those who presented the king with their herbals and unguents.

    His name was Saeweald, and was but some eighteen or nineteen years of age. Born to the north of London, he had only recently completed his apprenticeship. Despite his youth, Saeweald combined an assurance, knowledge, and skill that most of his older fellows envied, and the youth quickly became a fixture at Edward's side.

    Saeweald attracted much attention, but not only because of his youth and his talent. He was very dark, bespeaking more of the ancient British blood than the Saxon in his veins, but this was not what made him stand out physically at court. Saeweald's right hip and leg had been brutally mangled during his birth, and the newly appointed royal physician walked only with the greatest difficulty, dragging his deformed leg behind him, and, on his worst days, requiring crutches to stand upright. In a strange manner this endeared him to many. Saeweald's rasping breath of discomfort, the drag of his leg, the tap of his crutches and the constant jingling of the small copper boxes of herbs, which hung at his belt, announced his imminent arrival more efficiently than any clarion of horn; no one could ever accuse the physician of spying, for there was no means by which he could creep unheard upon any conversation.

    Yet Saeweald himself did keep secrets, and it was Tostig, younger brother to Harold of Wessex, who discovered one of these a few months after Saeweald's appointment as royal physician. Tostig and Saeweald had become friends soon after the physician's arrival at court. To many onlookers this outwardly seemed a strange friendship, for Tostig was a youth dedicated to the military arts, to heroic action, and to the bravado of the warrior, while

    Saeweald was far more introspective and given to the pursuit of thought and mystery rather than a warrior's heroisms.

    This was, after all, all that his leg would allow him.

    Tostig and Saeweald did find some common ground, however, perhaps their mutual youth, as well as their mutual indulgence in some of the fleshly delights the court and community of Westminster offered them (such fleshly delights kept well away from Edward's attention). Thus it was one afternoon, when Tostig was trying to find Saeweald so they might plan which of the accommodating ladies they might prevail upon this night, that he found him soaking away the aches of his leg in a great tub of heated water redolent with herbs.

    Edward had given Saeweald three chambers (an unheard of private space for this crowded community) in one of the palace outbuildings. Saeweald used the space to live and sleep, as well as store and dispense his herbs. The first chamber was given over to the herbs and a dispensary, the second, Saeweald used as his sleeping and living quarters, and the third… well, the third Tostig had never entered. But this day, as he walked silently through the first and then second chamber seeking his friend, Tostig heard the sound of splashing coming from this third chamber, and so, without any announcement (assuming his friend was merely enjoying a soak) Tostig walked straight in.

    Saeweald jumped in surprise—which was unfortunate, because it was that action that instantly gave Tostig full view of something he'd not ever suspected of his friend. True, previously he'd never seen Saeweald utterly naked, but Tostig had always assumed that was because Saeweald was sensitive about his deformed hip and leg.

    Now he saw there was another reason—a far darker one.

    "What is this?" he said quietly, coming to stand at the side of the tub.

    Saeweald had sunk under the water, but now, seeing the expression on Tostig's face, he allowed himself to sit upright, allowing Tostig full view of his chest.

    Tostig looked at Saeweald's chest, then at his face, then back to the man's chest. He stepped closer and, very slowly, lowered his hand onto Saeweald's wet skin.

    Saeweald's skin jumped a little as Tostig's hand touched him, and the man tensed, but then he relaxed as he saw the expression on Tostig's face.

    Awe. Reverence.

    Tostig breathed in very deeply and, as Saeweald remained still, moved his fingers over Saeweald's chest and shoulders, their-tips tracing the dark blue tattooed outline of a full magnificent spread of stag antlers.

    "I should have known," Tostig whispered.

    Saeweald said nothing, his still, dark eyes unmoving from Tostig's face.

    "You follow the ancient ways," said Tostig, still very quiet. "By the gods, Saeweald, no wonder you are so skilled with the healing herbs!"

    He lifted his hand from Saeweald's chest and looked the man full in the face. "This mark is enough, my friend, to have you executed at the order of our most Christian of kings."

    Still Saeweald said nothing, still he watched Tostig carefully.

    Tostig breathed in deeply again, deeply affected by what he had discovered. "Moreover, this tattoo marks you as just not a follower of the ancient ways, but as… as…"

    "Are you too afraid to say it, Tostig? Then I will, for already you know enough to have me killed. I am Saeweald, but I am also of that direct bloodline that traces back to the ancient priests of this land. I am the heir to that bloodline, and to the power of the ancient Stag God of the forests."

    Tostig paled, and took a step back, his round eyes fixed on Saeweald's face, but Saeweald continued on remorselessly.

    "One day that god will rise from his grave, Tostig, and on that day / will speak with his voice."

    "You are his Druid," Tostig whispered.

    "Aye. I am his Druid," Saeweald said, using a word and concept Tostig would understand.

    Tostig blinked, and with heartfelt relief Saeweald saw tears slide down the youth's cheeks.

    "Then I am your man, and you have more friends here at court than you can possibly realize."

    Saeweald grimaced. "There is more at this court than you can possibly realize, my friend."

    Tostig held out his hand, and Saeweald took it, using his friend's strength to pull himself out of the tub. Tostig stood watching Saeweald as the man dried himself. "Have you met my brother Harold, yet?"

    Saeweald shook his head. "He has been south in his estates for some weeks. No doubt I will make his acquaintance soon enough."

    "He needs to see this, too, Saeweald." Tostig reached out once more and touched gently the mark on Saeweald's chest. "I think he is going to be as a good a friend to you as I am."

    A MONTH AFTER THIS INCIDENT, A MONTH DURING which Edward became increasingly reliant on his young, brilliant physician, the king asked Saeweald to attend his wife.

    Saeweald stood before Edward who had retired from his Great Hall to hold his evening court within his private chambers situated above the Hall.

    Here gathered relatively few people: some of the king's closest attendants, three or four of the queen's attending ladies, a few servants, invariably the abbot of Westminster, and perhaps one or two other guests. The atmosphere was much more informal than that of the court held within the Great Hall, but Saeweald nonetheless kept his head partly bowed and his face cleansed of anything but deferential respect.

    Despite his demeanor, Saeweald was intensely aware of everyone in the chamber. On his way through the door, he had caught the eye of the lady Swanne, here this evening without her husband.

    They had known each other instantly, and Saeweald was somewhat surprised that the silent bolt of hatred that shot between them had not sent the entire court into chaos.

    But now Saeweald had all but forgotten Swanne. He was intently aware of Caela, who sat in a carved wooden throne a pace or two to Edward's right, and who was almost as rigid as the frame of her chair.

    "My wife," Edward began, flickering to Caela, "is unwell. Consistently unwell. She suffers from a great disquiet of her womb, which causes me some anxiety."

    Saeweald understood very well by this that Edward was not anxious for Caela's sake, but anxious and irritated that she displayed such womanly weakness. No doubt, Saeweald thought, Edward would believe in the physical manifestation of Eve's sinful presence within all women and, as such, undeserving of any sympathy. He looked at Caela from under the lowered lids of his eyes.

    She was, if possible, even more rigid, and pink with humiliation.

    "Sire," said Saeweald in the strong, quiet voice he always used with the king, "I have many medications that will ease the problem. Be assured that I can ease your anxiety." For an instant Saeweald's mind was consumed with that terrible night so long ago when Caela had been Cornelia, and he Loth, and Cornelia had lain on the floor of her house, her womb and the child it had carried lying torn and bloody between her legs.

    "Good. Perhaps you can attend her now?"

    Saeweald bowed his head, more to hide his jubilation than in any real respect for Edward. Finally, he was going to have a chance to speak with Caela!

    Caela rose stiffly from her chair, her eyes staring ahead so that she did not have to see either her husband or Saeweald, and she walked from the chamber, two of her ladies in close attendance.

    With a final bow to the king, Saeweald followed.

    WITHIN THE REGAL BEDCHAMBER, SAEWEALD'S

    "examination" consisted of merely holding Caela's hand in his, feeling the

    fluttering of her nervous pulse, and asking her a few quiet questions. The queen's two ladies stood a respectful distance away, and, although they kept their eyes on the proceedings, Saeweald was able to converse with Caela in relative privacy.

    "Madam," Saeweald began, "I am sorry to hear of your affliction."

    She said nothing, merely turning her face very slightly aside.

    "It might not be so unexpected, however?"

    She turned back to study him. "What do you mean, physician?"

    Saeweald did not know what to expect at the distance within her voice. Surely she knew who he was?

    "Your previous troubles…" Saeweald murmured, hoping that Caela would realize he spoke of her life as Cornelia, and Genvissa's terrible attack on her.

    She did not reply, and Saeweald could sense an immense withdrawal within her.

    "Cornelia," he whispered. "Do you not know me? I am Loth, reborn."

    She snatched her hand from his. "Are your wits addled, physician?"

    Her words were angry, but Saeweald could hear a desperate fear beneath them.

    Gods, he thought, what is going on?

    "Madam," he said, "I am sorry." His thoughts raced, wondering what he should do or say next. Why wouldn't she recognize him? "I took a concoction for the ache in my leg earlier this evening, and I fear that somehow it has muddled my thoughts."

    He felt her relax and, very gently, he took her hand back in his. She was so frail. . . For a few minutes Saeweald asked her questions about her monthly fluxes, how they had changed in recent times, and how they discomforted her.

    Despite the intimacy of their discussion, Caela relaxed further at the detached tone of his voice.

    "You are not with child?" Saeweald asked eventually.

    "No."

    "There is no possibility…?"

    "No."

    Saeweald licked his lips, phrasing his next questions as delicately as he could. "Madam, has the king ever—"

    To his relief, she answered before he had time to form all the words. "No. He will not lie with me."

    Saeweald could not help the sudden twitch of his lips. "And does that bother madam over much?"

    He more than half expected Caela to snatch her hand from his, but to his astonishment her lips curled in a very slight smile as well. "You are the first person not to offer me sympathy over the issue, physician."

    ©

    He grinned, delighted, for in that single instant he saw some of Cornelia's old spirit light Caela's face. She was there, but buried deep. Caela had also responded to him as an intimate friend—something they were not yet in this life—for that question should have seen any person, favored royal physician or not, immediately ejected from the queen's presence.

    "There are many men more deserving of you, madam," he said, and then, not wanting to push Caela any further, began to speak of some of the medications he would mix for her.

    When Saeweald eventually sat back, setting Caela's hand loose, he risked one more incursion into their shared past. "Do not think your womb is useless," he said. "It harbors a greater power than I think you can currently know."

    Or remember.

    She frowned at him.

    "Mag," he said, hoping that this single word, the name of the goddess who had inhabited Caela in her previous life, would summon some response from the queen.

    Mag, are you there?

    But Caela's frown only deepened, and, with a brief, respectful few words, Saeweald rose and left her.

    THREE DAYS LATER, SAEWEALD WAS IN THE FRONT

    room of his chambers, which served as a dispensary, when the outer door opened and a woman came in.

    Saeweald stared at her, then stepped forward, taking the woman's hands in his and kissing both her cheeks in welcome before enveloping her in a huge embrace.

    "Mother Ecub!"

    "Aye," she said, hugging him as tightly as he did her. "Mother Ecub indeed—and still Mother Ecub."

    "I know," Saeweald said, standing back and grinning at her. "I have heard of you. I have never heard of a more undevout Christian prioress!"

    "The priory serves me well enough," said Ecub, "and I have gathered to my side many sisters who, while mouthing their Christian prayers, instead turn for inspiration and hope to the circle of stones standing atop Pen Hill. Whatever Edward and his flock of clerics want to believe, the ancient ways still throb deep within the hearts and souls of the people. But, oh, Saeweald, look at you! How can Fate treat you so badly?"

    He touched his hip and grimaced. "I have learned to live with this, Mother Ecub. You need spare no pity for me." Then he smiled. "Just the sight of you, and the knowledge you are back, has eased so much of my pain."

    Ecub knew he was not referring only to his physical aches.

    "Who else?" she said, softly.

    "Genvissa, but then you must know that."

    Now it was Ecub who made the face. "Yes. The gracious and beautiful lady Swanne. She and I have exchanged bitter looks, and a few even more bitter words, but my duties within the priory—and to the stones atop Pen Hill— allows me to avoid much of her poison. You?"

    "We have spoken only once when she crowed with delight at this." Again Saeweald tapped his hip. "As with you, I avoid her."

    "Harold?" Ecub said very softly, watching Saeweald's face.

    "Oh, Ecub! How did that witch trap him?"

    "He does not remember, does he?"

    Saeweald shook his head. "In the past few weeks I have come to know him well. We have re-formed our old friendship and bonds, although Harold is not consciously aware of it." He sighed. "Ecub… it is a mercy for him, I believe, that he does not remember. I think it best that way. But that Cornelia and Coel were reborn as brother and sister! To yearn for each other, and yet to believe that to touch would be the ultimate vice! What evil mischief is this? Fate, or Asterion?"

    "Who can tell, Saeweald. But you are sure that Harold is Coel-reborn?"

    "Yes. Yes. Like so many people, he adheres to the old ways while he mouths Christian pieties. He is my old and beloved friend, Ecub. Ah! How I hate to see him tied to that witch!"

    Ecub grinned. "But he is her husband, and thus she his chattel by the Christian law of this land. Is that not deliciously amusing? Have you not thought how Swanne must chafe under that? And she must bear him sons… oh, I laughed when I heard she had birthed a male child. How that must have riled the oh-so-powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth."

    "Where is Brutus, do you think?"

    "You know where and who he is, as well as I. You have seen that 'gift' he sent to Edward, and have seen Edward crawling through that evil labyrinth on his hands and knees, thinking he is crawling toward Jerusalem and salvation instead of toward monstrous terror."

    "Aye. I know who he is, and knowing that, I can foresee the sorrow that is to come. It will be Coel against Brutus, Harold against William, the moment that Edward dies. Edward means to get no heir on Caela. Thus, when he dies, England will disintegrate under those who will claim the throne."

    "Coel against Brutus," Ecub repeated softly, "Harold against William. And Swanne, rising in all her malevolent witchcraft to ensure that it shall be William to succeed. Gods, Saeweald, how long do we have?

    "How long do we have for what, Ecub?"

    She was silent, dropping her face to study her work-worn hands.

    "Caela," Saeweald said for both of them, finally bringing up the name they had both been avoiding. "I can understand why Harold does not remember his previous life as Coel—that is nothing short of a kindness to him. But Caela? Gods, Ecub! She carries Mag within her womb. She is our only hope against Swanne and William and the ever-cursed Troy Game! And she does not remember!"

    "You have spoken to her, then."

    Saeweald nodded tersely.

    "As have I," Ecub said. "We have engaged in several conversations over the past months. Sometimes I push a little—mention a name, a deed—but she does not respond, save to stiffen, as if the name I mention causes her great fear. And yet Cornelia is there. Caela founded my priory when she had no need to, and I hear her womb bleeds, as if Mag weeps within her."

    Again Saeweald nodded.

    "Then there is nothing we can do," said Ecub, "but to wait and trust in both Mag and Caela."

    "And wait for Edward to die," said Saeweald.

    "And wait for the storm to gather," said Ecub. "Saeweald, sometimes I sit on Pen Hill and cast my eyes down to London, to the cathedral of St. Paul's that now sits atop Genvissa and Brutus' foul piece of Aegean magic, and I shudder in horror. It still lives there, Saeweald. I can feel it, festering under the city and the feet of the people who inhabit it, poisoning this land."

    "Ecub," Saeweald said. "We can do nothing until Caela—"

    At that moment they both jumped as the outer door opened, jerking their heads about as if this were the storm approaching now, or perhaps even the Game itself stepping out to consume them.

    But it was only the laundress, Damson, come to collect Saeweald's linens, and both Saeweald and Ecub relaxed into silence as the unassuming peasant woman did her task, then left.

    Part Two

    Westminster & London, England,

    Autumn

    As in days of old, the labyrinth in lofty Crete is said to have possessed a way, emmeshed 'mid baffling walls and the tangled mystery of a thousand paths, that there, a trickery that none could grasp, and whence was no return… just so the sons of Troy entangle their paths at a gallop, and interweave flight and combat in sport… this mode of exercise and these contests first did Ascanius* revive, when he girdled Alba Longa with walls, and taught our Latin forefathers to celebrate after the fashion in which he himself when a boy, and with him the Trojan youth, had celebrated them… even now the game is called Troy, and the boys are called the Trojan Band.

    Virgil, The Aeneid, Book V

    * Father of Silvius and grandfather of Brutus.

    London, March

    ACK SKELTON WOKE JUST BEFORE DAWN. HE LAY IN

    the cold gray light, staring at the just-discemible shape of his uniform hanging on the back of the door. Violet Bentley had put him in the tiny spare bedroom on the first floor of her and Frank's cramped terrace house in Highbury. It was a child's bedroom, really, kitted out with what was probably either Frank's or Violet's own childhood single bed that was far too short for Skel-ton's tall frame, and with a garishly bright hooked rug on the floor, plywood closet, a ladder-backed wooden chair, and floral cotton curtains that were, if the roll of heavy black twill behind the chair was any indication, soon to be replaced with blackout curtains.

    Skelton thought he'd never been in a more depressing room, not in any of his lives. Its melancholy lay not in the cheap hand-me-down furniture, nor in its austerity, but in the sad attempt to make it homely. If Violet had just managed to resist the rug then the room may have managed some dignity.

    If only.

    But then, was not life full of "if onlys"?

    If only he'd recognized earlier Genvissa's true nature.

    If only he'd realized earlier the treasure he'd had in Cornelia.

    If only he'd reached St. Paul's sooner… before the rafters had collapsed… before the fire had consumed his entire world.

    Jack lay still, barely breathing, dragging his mind away from that terrible moment when the rafters had given way. He thought about his walk through London last night, remembered Genvissa—Stella Wentworth now—and her stunning beauty, and the way she had turned away from him when he had asked after Cornelia. Had she not known where Cornelia was, or did she not want to tell him? He remembered Loth, Walter Herne now, who had tormented him with questions and who had promised him nothing.

    And Asterion, haunting his footsteps as he had haunted them for three thousand years. Always one step ahead.

    "Cornelia?" Skelton whispered into the sorry gray dawn light.

    Then, after a long moment: "Earing?"

    There was no reply, and Skelton had not truly expected one.

    CbAPGGR 0JM

    England,

    Autumn

    OTHER ECUB, PRIORESS OF THE SMALL BUT

    well-endowed Priory of St. Margaret the Martyr, which lay just off the northern road from London, sat worshipping in rie weak mid-morning sun.

    She did not sit in the chapel of her priory, which had been well constructed of the best local stone and decorated with beautiful carvings and statues, as well as rare and costly stained glass windows.

    Neither did Mother Ecub sit before the altar in her solitary cell, nor in the refectory where hung a cross on the wall, nor even in the herb and vegetable gardens of the priory, which were close enough to the wall of the chapel to access in a crisis.

    Mother Ecub did not worship within the walls of the priory, nor even within shouting distance of them.

    Rather, Mother Ecub sat worshiping atop the small hill, which rose two hundred paces west of the priory.

    Pen Hill, as it was known both in ancient times and in present.

    The ring of stones that had graced the hill two thousand years ago still stood, although they were now far more weather-beaten than once they had been, and there were gaps where the Romans had hauled away the better stones to use as milestones on their roads. Two of these milestones now stood guarding the London-side approach to the bridge over the Thames. Londoners called them Gog and Magog, and carved crude faces into them, claiming the stones housed the spirits of the ancient ones who had built the city.

    Their faith made Mother Ecub, and the seventeen personally picked female members of her order, smile and manage to keep the faith. If people

    remembered the ancient gods of this land, the stag-god Og and the mother-goddess Mag, even in this corrupted form, then that was all well and good.

    Then all was not lost.

    Mother Ecub had come to the top of Pen Hill not only to worship the land, which she could see spread about her (and where better for her to do that?), but to gather her thoughts for this evening's audience with Queen

    Caela.

    She shuddered at the thought, distracting herself with the view. To the south, some three or four miles distant, lay London behind its ancient Roman walls (which stood on the even more ancient foundations of the walls that Brutus had built). The city enclosed many acres of grounds, only about a third of it built upon. Most of it, in fact, was given over to the cultivation of orchards, vegetables, and corpses—London had an inordinate number of Christian churches, all of which closely guarded their right to bury the dead members of their flocks within spitting distance of the church walls. The fluids from the rotting corpses invariably found their way into the wells and streams that watered the city, prompting outbreaks of disease in the summer and autumn of most years, but nothing could make the Church give up its right to bury its dead within London's walls.

    For that matter, nothing could make the Christian faithful give up their right to be buried as close to their church as possible. After all, come Judgment Day, when all the dead would rise once more, one didn't want to totter too far to get to the church altar and, hopefully, eternal salvation, on barely held-together bits of crumbled bone and rotted flesh.

    Ecub's mouth twisted in derision at the thought, and she made a convoluted gesture with her left hand, which, to the initiated, would have instantly recalled the movements of Mag's Nuptial Dance, which Ecub had once watched Blangan and Cornelia perform within Mag's Dance itself.

    She squinted a little in the winter sun, focusing on the stone cathedral that sat atop Lud Hill—once Og's Hill. Here, where Brutus had constructed his labyrinth, now stood a great Christian cathedral: St. Paul's. Ecub wondered if the monks and priests and sundry clerics who shuffled about the cathedral's nave in absorbed self-importance had any idea what lay so far beneath their feet.

    How alive it was.

    Ecub's face, as wrinkled as it was with lines of laughter and care, went completely expressionless as a momentary hopelessness overcame her.

    It had been fifteen years now since she'd first come to London to establish her priory. Fifteen years of waiting for Caela to remember her duty to Mag, or for Mag herself to make some sign that she was ready to begin the campaign that would witness the final destruction of the Troy Game and the devastation of Swanne and William's hopes. Fifteen years of waiting for that time when

    the ancient gods Mag and Og could once again take their place within the land and restore its harmony and goodness.

    Fifteen years.

    Fifteen years she and Saeweald had waited, the last three shared with a noblewoman called Judith, who was Erith-reborn. The widow Judith had come to Westminster and had taken a place as one of Caela's attending women. Unsurprisingly, over those three years, Caela had come to like and trust Judith greatly, and now, of Ecub and Saeweald, but it was Judith who enjoyed the closest and most trusting relationship with the queen.

    Ecub and Saeweald had hoped that Judith's appearance had been what Caela or Mag had been waiting for… but nothing. Caela persisted in her unremembering; Mag still lingered useless and ineffectual within the queen's womb.

    Why this delay? Ecub did not know. Was it the Game itself? Asterion? Mere fate? Mag? No one was sure, but what Ecub knew for certain was that if Caela or Mag did not do something soon then all hope would be lost.

    Edward was now an old man. He would not last many more years. When he died, Ecub knew that Duke William would swarm across the seas and reclaim the Darkwitch (his former lover) and the city and the Game… taking the throne of England almost as an afterthought.

    Even worse was the possibility that Edward's death would sting Asterion into some terrible action. Ecub knew of Asterion from Loth, as well as from the knowledge she had gained during the long death between her last life and this one. Asterion might want the same end as she and Saeweald, the destruction of the Game, but what he would replace it with—the frightful reign of the unrestrained malevolence of the Minotaur—was even a more frightful future than a Troy Game triumphant.

    "I trust in Mag," Ecub muttered, "I trust in Mag," repeating the mantra over and over until she restored some peace in her heart.

    Caela's continuing forgetfulness no doubt kept the Darkwitch Swanne giggling in delight, but it left Ecub, Saeweald, and Judith in despair. They could do little but stay close to Caela and support her, and wait for her to come to her senses and do whatever it was that Mag required of her. Still, there was hope, as Saeweald constantly reminded Ecub and Judith. Caela had endowed Ecub's priory, and continued to support it, when Edward had refused (and Caela had done this for no other religious order). Caela had also taken Erith-reborn, Judith, under her wing as the most senior of her attending ladies without any prompting from either Saeweald or Ecub. She kept Saeweald and Ecub close to her, although she did not have to. She was patently drawn to her allies from her former life… but she just would not recall them from this former life.

    O

    "Mag directs her thoughts and action," Saeweald often told Ecub, and with this Ecub had to be content. Although in her darkest moment, she wondered if Mag had forgotten as well.

    Ecub sighed and thought about rising. She was almost sixty years old, far too old to be spending an entire morning sitting cross-legged in this damp grass, even if such close proximity to one of the sacred sites of Llangarlia brought her peace of mind and spirit. Damp grass aside, Ecub needed to return to the priory to brush out her robes, and set out on the slow ride south to Westminster. This evening she was required at court, to present to the queen an account of the priory's activities this past quarter. Ecub grinned broadly as she contemplated what she could tell Caela, and what Caela herself probably wanted to hear.

    What Caela would want to hear were accounts of how many hours a day the sisters of St. Margaret the Martyr spent on their knees in prayer to the Virgin herself, or how many days a week they spent attending the needs of the sick and ill, or how best they had distributed the alms Caela provided among the small community of lepers that lived five miles further to the north.

    What Ecub could tell her, if she had had the nerve, was how many nights the sisters spent dancing naked among the ancient stones of Pen Hill, or how they whispered to the milestones of Gog and Magog on their numerous visits to London, and of their efforts in keeping alive the ancient ways and beliefs among the people in and about London.

    Or perhaps Ecub could tell the queen of how she and the sisters of St. Margaret the Martyr spent their nights praying to Mag within Caela's womb to give them a sign, and to show them she still lived and cared, and that there was hope for this land amid all the horror that had visited it.

    "And perhaps not," muttered Ecub, wincing at the ache in her joints as, finally, she rose slowly to her feet. She spent a moment testing her legs to make sure they could bear her weight, and straightened her somewhat grass-stained and dampened robe, before taking the first step toward the slope that led back to St. Margaret the Martyr's priory.

    One step only, and then Ecub froze, her heart thudding in her chest.

    Something was… wrong.

    The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and the breath in her throat caught

    and held.

    Something was … different.

    Very carefully, trying to keep her fright under control, Ecub slowly turned about, looking around the top of the hill.

    Nothing. A blue sky, interspersed with heavy dark clouds that foretold

    rain for the afternoon.

    Thick, wet green grass that moved sluggishly in the slight breeze.

    Stones, twenty-five or -six of them, encircling the entire hilltop…

    Ecub's heart felt as though it had stopped entirely.

    The stones.

    There was something about the stones.

    "Oh, sweet Mother Mag," Ecub whispered and, unaware of the discomfort, dropped to her knees and clasped her hands before her.

    The stones were humming.

    Ecub's mind could hardly comprehend it.

    The stones were hummingl Moreover, their harsh outlines were softening, as though the stones were dissolving into warmth and movement.

    As though they were living.

    In her previous life, Ecub had heard of tales that were ancient, even in that time. Tales of how the stone circles had come to be, and why they were so important to the worship of Mag herself.

    Could it possibly be that they were true?

    "You are singing!" Ecub exclaimed, her mind still struggling to comprehend what was happening about her.

    Indeed, the stones were now singing—a sad, haunting, lilting melody.

    Moreover, the stones were now swaying back and forth in a liquid, delicious movement, as if they wanted to dance.

    Then, before Ecub's astounded eyes, they let go the shape of stones and took on their true forms.

    Although each had individual aspects, all shared similar characteristics. They were tall with rather long, sinewy arms, their hands broad and long-fingered. Above their thin mobile mouths and hooked noses, each had dark brown hair, shot through with flecks of iron gray; their eyes were of the same color, also flecked with gray, and despite their bleakness, managed to convey a surprising sense of humor, perhaps even mischievousness.

    They were very watchful, these eyes, and Ecub realized that all the creatures' eyes moved at the same time; if one looked slightly to the left, all eyes looked slightly to the left. It was very unsettling, and gave Ecub the impression that they shared a silent communication.

    All wore the same clothes: undistinguished and well-worn leather jerkins and trousers.

    All had bare feet, their toes curling into the grass.

    All sang, the sound humming through their thin-lipped mouths, and the song was very sad, and very bleak, and very beautiful. It reminded Ecub of the whispering, sorrowing sound that the wind made when it hummed through the stones of Mag's Dance.

    She felt conflicting emotions surge through her. Joy, that she should have been privileged to see this. Fear, that the stones' metamorphosis portended doom. Reverence, before the oldest and most sacred creatures this land had

    ever known.

    Terror, that she should not prove worthy of…

    The Sidlesaghes. The most ancient inhabitants of this land, so ancient, they were the land, who rested within the stones.

    By Mag herself, Ecub thought, I had thought them only legend! She momentarily closed her eyes, blinking away her tears. Very slowly, inch-by-inch, hand-in-hand, the Sidlesaghes closed their circle about Ecub.

    When, finally, not a handspan separated Ecub from the circle of Sidlesaghes, the tallest and most watchful of them leaned forward, touched Ecub on top of her head, and began to speak.

    SOME SIX MILES TO THE SOUTHWEST STOOD ANOTHER

    of the sacred hills of the ancient and forgotten realm of Llangarlia. While Pen Hill still retained a similar aspect to that of two thousand years previously, Tot Hill, now Tothill, had changed enormously. In Brutus and Genvissa's time it had housed only a simple rectangular building, the Meeting House, and a platform of stone at its peak. Now Tothill boasted a thriving community consisting of Westminster itself as well as King Edward's vast palace complex—not merely the Great Hall, but the kitchens, dormitories, barracks, chapels, storerooms, infirmaries, scriptoriums, as well as offices for a score of officials, a dairy, meat-houses, bake-houses, and all the other buildings, orchards, her-beries, vegetable gardens, and necessities required for a lively and growing community. Westminster had now become the site of government within the kingdom of England, a rival city a mile or so to the southwest of London.

    Fifteen years ago, Edward had begun the reconstruction of the abbey. Now the almost-finished abbey reared into the sky, one of the greatest constructions in western Europe, and a monument not so much to God, but to

    Edward's piety.

    Here in Westminster, just to the north of the palace in an open space on Tothill that overlooked the gray-green sweep of the Thames to the east and the smudge of London on the great northeast bend of the river, stood the man who would control not only Westminster, but London, and all of England, and

    all of everything else besides.

    Asterion. He stood, staring northeast toward London, very still, very

    watchful.

    He could feel the Troy Game moving. A shudder, part apprehension and part excitement, swept through Asterion's body.

    The Troy Game was moving, and it was time for Asterion to put into motion the plan that he had spent this entire lifetime constructing.

    He turned slightly so that Edward's palace came into view. There she waited. The one who would deliver to him everything. The bands. The Game. William. Power.

    "It is time," Asterion muttered. "Time to begin my game."

    A death, a seduction, followed by another death. A plan of beauteous simplicity. That's all it would take, and the kingship bands and the Troy Game would be his.

    CbAPGGROUDO

    Caela Speaks

    WONDER HOW MANY WOMEN KNOW WHAT IT IS

    /"*"% m like to endure the hatred of one's husband for fifteen long years? Many, I suppose, for while marriage might be a consecrated thing in the sight of God, His saints and the Holy Church, it was often a burden to us lesser mortals, the daughters of Eve who had to bear the torturous punishment for her Great Sin in our marriage and childbeds.

    Not that I had to bear anything but the sharpness of Edward's tongue in our marriage bed and, for total lack of the warmth of his body, I never had to endure the agonies of childbed.

    Fifteen years a wife, and still a virgin. It was a shameful thing, and not one I had to bear alone, for Edward made sure that the entire court knew that he'd never laid a finger on me. I remembered our marriage night so long ago when, a nervous and excited thirteen-year-old, I had allowed my sister-in-law to settle me into my marital bed with my new husband.

    I had been so fearful, and yet still excited. Not only had I become a wife, soon to learn the secrets of my marital bed (or so I had naively thought then) and chatelaine over the realm of my own household; I was also queen of England. My father, the great Earl Godwine of Wessex, had successfully negotiated for me marriage with Edward. I hadn't know then that Edward hated and feared my father, and took me as wife only because he knew that if he refused, my father would see him tipped off the throne.

    Without my father's support, Edward would have lost his crown years ago. Edward hated me, for I was the constant visible reminder of his humiliating dependence on Godwine and, later, his equally humiliating dependence on my eldest brother Harold who assumed the earldom of Wessex when our father died. Yet on that night, as I lay trembling and naked beneath the uncomfortably stiff linens of my new husband's bed, I had no idea that my husband already hated me as much as ever he would. I thought only of my

    induction into womanhood, and of the joy and pride I would feel as I bore Edward an heir.

    When Edward, sullen and joyless, joined me in bed that first night, he turned to me, gazed at me with the greatest contempt, and said: "I find you most displeasing."

    Then he humped over, and went to sleep, and I was left trembling and silently weeping, wondering what I had done wrong.

    I eventually slept that night, and when I did I dreamed. I dreamed of another man, his face lost in shadows, who regarded me with contempt, and who spat at me words of hatred.

    He also had called me "wife."

    I had gone to sleep weeping, and I woke weeping, and it seemed that the first five or six years of my marriage were spent weeping.

    Everyone at court knew that Edward would not lay with me. Edward put it about variously that I was a whore (on one occasion he even sent me into exile for a year over that particular lie); then, when I protested my virginity and had it proven by a midwifely examination, he said that I refused his attempts to make a true wife of me. Latterly, Edward liked to claim that I was Satan's temptation put into his path to tease him away from salvation.

    Edward the Confessor, his people had taken to calling my husband, in tribute to his piety.

    Gods' Concubine, they called me, for it appeared that in Edward's pious disinterest he had passed over the sexual proprietorship of his wife to God Himself (not that God seemed interested, either). Some smirked at this appellation, and pitied me, but most seemed to feel that Edward's saintliness had somehow rubbed off on me (how, I have no idea, for most certainly our flesh had never rubbed enough for the transfer).

    Gods' Concubine. I hated that label. Ho doubt some wit would soon make the connection and start calling me the Virgin Mary's apprentice.

    Latterly, Edward's attempts to humiliate me had taken a more disturbing turn. My father Godwine had died some years previously, and now my eldest brother Harold held sway, not only as earl of Wessex, but as the power behind my husband's throne. Edward could not command enough men and arms to keep his throne safe from the ambitions of the Danes and Norwegians. For that he needed the immense power of the Wessex lands and the men within its army, and the king's dependence on the assets of Wessex gave whoever held the earldom a powerful hold over Edward. Edward resented this dependence, and he hated Harold as much as he had hated our father, and almost as much as he hated me.

    Harold and I were close, and Edward saw that closeness, and made of it a terrible thing. He hinted to me in our cold bed in the dark hours of night—he

    would not dare say it aloud where Harold might hear the words—that he knew Harold and I were unnatural lovers. He watched the way that Harold's laughing eyes followed me about a chamber and said that Harold lusted

    for me.

    This tactic terrified me. I feared for Harold far more than for myself. I wished great things for Harold—the throne, for one, once my frightful husband had departed for his place at God's right hand, but above all, joy and contentment and achievement.

    Edward could destroy this with a single, hateful remark. I could imagine it now. Edward finally deciding that he no longer needed Harold's support for this throne and remarking at court, as if in passing, "Ah, yes, the earl of Wessex. His sister's lover, don't you know?"

    Maybe that would not be enough to destroy Harold. Maybe my brother was powerful enough to overcome even that slur.

    Maybe.

    And maybe Edward's threat had so much power over me because, in my heart of hearts, I wished that it were true. Because, in my dreams at night, I often imagined myself in Harold's bed.

    I closed my eyes tight, hating myself. I could hear Edward's voice murmuring as he spoke to some of his pet priests, and I felt more loathsome than

    the darkest worm.

    Mother Mary, I was repulsive! To lust after my own brother! When I was a child, I adored Harold. As I grew, that adoration grew into something… else. Something that should not grow between a brother and a sister. Harold knew it, for sometimes I caught him watching me strangely, darkly, as if I represented a threat to him.

    It was rare now that Harold allowed himself to be in a chamber alone with me. We should have been close, Harold and I, but instead we found ourselves avoiding each other, sliding our eyes away from the other, our words stumbling to an awkward close whenever we found ourselves addressing each other.

    Edward had noticed it, and I am sure most others did also. I know that Harold's achingly desirable wife, Swanne, saw it and recognized the awkwardness for what it was.

    I know it for a fact, for one day soon after my loveless marriage had begun, Swanne leaned her elegant, beautiful head close to me, and with her soft, red lips whispered in my ear, "Shall I tell you, my dear, of how fine a lover your brother is? How he makes me squeal and twist under him? Would you like to hear that, my poor virgin girl? Would you? Would you like it, my dear? I'm sure Harold has enough for you as well."

    And then she'd leaned back, and laughed, and made a comment so crude that even now I could not bear to form the words in my head.

    "Wife?"

    I jumped, then blushed, for I was sure that somehow Edward could read my thoughts. He sat in a chair some distance from me, although not, unfortunately, so far distant that it prohibited conversation. About us in the Lesser Hall (that smaller hall we used when not holding great court), our small evening court had fallen silent, watching, and wondering what humiliation Edward had in store for his wife tonight.

    A tongue-lashing, perhaps?

    An order to spend the night on her knees confessing her sins to Eadwine, the abbot of Westminster?

    A tirade on the sins of the flesh, at the least…

    "My dear…"

    Only Edward could make an insult of those two words.

    "Are you not going to greet the Lady Prioress? She has been standing before you for the past few minutes while you have wandered in your thoughts. You have duties as queen, Caela. I would that you occasionally remembered them."

    Humiliated, and not the least because I knew I deserved the reprimand, I looked before me.

    There, sure enough, her own cheeks stained pink in embarrassment, stood Mother Ecub as she had probably been standing waiting for my regard for the past half an hour.

    "Mother," I said, stammering in my discomfiture, "I beg you forgive me." I held out my hand, and Mother Ecub shuffled forward—Lord Christ, when had she grown so old and arthritic?—and took it briefly, laying her mouth against the great emerald ring I wore on my heart finger.

    Edward had given me that as a wedding ring. Christ alone knew he had never kissed it.

    "My apologies to you, good prioress," I said, as Ecub stepped back and slowly straightened. "I have kept you standing far longer than I should. Judith…" I turned my head slightly, and beckoned to the favorite and most senior of my ladies. "Fetch a chair for Mother Ecub, I beg you."

    As Judith hurried to do my will, the court slowly relaxed, and muted conversation started to again fill the background. Our evenings were usually spent in this smaller hall rather than the great audience hall, and only the closest and most valued among the court attended us after supper. About Edward clustered several members of the witan, all looking grave, perhaps with the latest news from France, or Normandy, or with tidings of another crop failure. They were true men, and hardy, but they never seemed cheerful.

    Just behind that group stood Saeweald, physician to both Edward and myself. He saw me looking at him, and lowered one eyelid in a slow, reassuring wink.

    I looked away, both grateful for the gesture and annoyed at his presumption. I liked Saeweald, I truly did (how could a man stay so cheerful when his right leg and hip were so twisted as to make every one of his steps a painful, tottering journey?), but that liking had taken years to mature. Saeweald had been attending court since the first year of my marriage, but my liking for him had taken some time to establish itself. During the first six months at court, he had greatly unsettled me.

    When first we met, Saeweald had called me by another name—what was it again? Corvessa? Contaleia? Analia?—and had seemed irritated with me when I would not respond to it. I had tried to be patient—after all, the pain in his leg must surely addle his mind somewhat from time to time—but all the same his insistence had greatly unsettled me. Over a period of some weeks and months, Saeweald tried to talk to me of a time long ago, and I had bade him to be silent, for I had no mind to hear of the witchery that must have made him scry out such memories of so long ago. He begged me to remember a woman, Mag, he called her, to whom I apparently owed a debt… or some

    such…

    I would have none of his wanderings, and commanded him to silence with the greatest sharpness. I had said to him that even though he be the greatest physician within Christendom, I would have none of him at court if he carried

    on so.

    I wept.

    Eventually Saeweald, weeping himself, had lowered himself to his knees before me (and what agony that must have been for him!) and had said that he would talk of these matters no more. I had nodded, once, stiffly, and motioned him to rise, and Saeweald had done so, and had kissed my hand, and had kept his word and held his tongue.

    That had been many years ago now, and even if Saeweald had held his tongue, I still often came upon him watching me as though he expected me to… to do what, I do not know, but that very expectation in his gaze unsettled me.

    I had grown close to him, nonetheless. He was witty, and comforting, and largely nonjudgmental, and, through several murmured remarks over the years, I knew that Saeweald honored me far above my husband. That was largely a novel sentiment (only Judith and Mother Ecub seemed to feel thus), and one that predisposed me toward much good feeling for the man.

    And, last, I liked Saeweald because as my physician he was the only person who had the requisite skill with herbs and potions to ease my monthly fluxes, which had become an increasing trouble over the past few years. One might have thought that my womb, finding itself not needed, would have settled into a quietude of resignation, but, no, apparently it resented its empty

    state so greatly that it wept increasingly copiously and painfully each month. Ecub had settled herself before me by this stage, and I smiled at her, and paid her my full attention.

    "My good prioress," I said. "What have you to report?" Ecub began a monotony of her priory's good works, and even though I kept my eyes on her and a half-smile on my face, my mind drifted off again. I could hear Aldred, the archbishop of York and a frequent visitor to both London and Westminster, arguing with Abbot Eadwine over some trifling matter of theology, and behind their male, arrogant voices I could hear the soft whisperings and giggles of the five or six of my ladies who sat at their needlework just behind me. Judith, my sweet, dear friend, was standing directly behind my chair, her hand resting on its back just behind my right shoulder, and from its warmth I gathered all the love and support I could. It was not that Ecub bored me, never that, for I took the greatest interest in her priory and the well-being of its inhabitants, but in the past few hours my mind had seemed to drift off to strange, unknown regions of its own accord, as if it had business elsewhere, and resented bitterly my every effort to concentrate it on the task at hand. "Madam?"

    There, my mind had betrayed me once again!

    "Ah, Ecub," I said, blushing yet once again (one would think me still thirteen years old, and not the twenty-eight-year-old woman I was). "You must forgive me this evening. I cannot think what has come over me. I… I…"

    Oddly, for she never usually was so bold, Ecub leaned forward to close the space between us and held my hand briefly.

    "You will feel better soon, madam," she said. "I have it on good authority."

    "Ecub?"

    But the prioress was already rising. "I will stay the night within the women's dormitory, if it pleases you. The way back to St. Margaret the Martyr is long and cold for an old woman like myself, and I would rather attempt it on the morrow than tonight."

    "Of course," I said, rising also (a movement that made Edward half-start up, as if he suspected I was going to dash for the palace portal as if I were a hind escaping the huntsmen; my bevy of twittering ladies started likewise, their needlework shuffling to the floor with the suddenness of their movement).

    "Perhaps, if it please you madam," Ecub continued, looking at me with those intense brown eyes of hers, "I might stay a day or two beyond this night? I have need to consult with Master Saeweald, and perhaps also to gossip with the lady Judith about mutual memories."

    "Of course," I said again, feeling stupider by the moment. What "mutual

    O

    memories"? I wondered momentarily if Saeweald had a potion against stupidity secreted somewhere, then managing to summon the few wits that remained to me, smiled graciously at Ecub, murmured my apologies to my husband, stating that my head ached and I must needs to bed, then made my exit accompanied by Judith and the other of my ladies. Perhaps sleep would untwist my wits.

    SLEEP BROUGHT ME NO PEACE. INSTEAD, I SWEAR

    that as soon as I had closed my eyes I slipped into a dream.

    I dreamed I walked through the center of a stone hall so vast there appeared to be no end to it. It stretched east to west—I felt, if not saw, the presence of the rising sun toward the very top of the hall—and above me a golden dome soared into the heavens. Beneath my feet lay a beautifully patterned marbled floor; to my sides soared stone arches protecting shadowy, mysterious spaces. Even though great thick walls rose beyond those arches, I could still somehow see through them to the countryside beyond where a majestic silver river wound its way through gentle verdant hills and fertile pastures. It was an ancient and deeply mysterious land, and it was my land, England, although an England such as I could not remember ever seeing.

    I turned my eyes back to the hall. Although this was a strange, vast place, I felt no fear, only a sense of homecoming. I also had the sense that I had spent many nights dreaming of this hall, although I never remembered the

    dream in the mornings.

    Suddenly I realized I was not alone. A small, fey, dark woman walked

    toward me.

    My eyes filled with tears, although I did not know why.

    "Peace, lovely lady," the woman said as she reached me. She half started forward as if she meant to embrace me, but then thought better of it and merely reached up a hand to touch briefly a cheek.

    "Are you ready?" she said.

    "Ready for what?"

    "The battle begins," she replied. "You must be ready, Cornelia, my dear."

    I frowned, for this was the name Saeweald had called me so many years ago. Was this woman as deluded as he?

    "Remember," the woman said, "to meet us in the water cathedral beyond

    death."

    "What are you talking about?" I said, taking a step back. The woman was

    mad! A witch, no doubt!

    She laughed, as if I had made a jest, "Then follow Long Tom, my darling

    girl. Listen to him. He will show you—"

    "You! Will I never be rid of you?"

    A man's voice thundered about us, and the small, dark woman gave a sad half smile, then vanished with only a word or two reverberating in my mind. Remember, Cornelia, my dear… remember… remember… "What do you here?"

    I forgot the woman, and looked at the man striding toward me. I gasped, for although I swear I did not recognize him, nonetheless I felt I knew him intimately. Tall and well-built, the man had cropped, almost blue-black hair, a strong, handsome, and clean-shaven face and compelling dark eyes that seemed to have noted my every flaw, for, as he neared, an expression of distaste seemed to come over his face. He was dressed in the finery of a Norman nobleman: a vivid blue and stunningly embroidered knee-length tunic over breeches and boots, and a sword at his hip.

    For some reason my eyes kept blurring, and I saw him with short black curls one moment, then with long curls that streamed and snapped in the breeze.

    "Cornelia? Is this you?" He looked at me puzzled, as if I was some half remembered companion to him.

    "I am not Cornelia!" I cried. "I am Caela. Caela!"

    He had stopped before me now, his black eyes unreadable. "You will always be Cornelia," he said. "Always ready to betray me to Asterion—"

    I do not know why, but at the mention of that name a feeling of such fear came over me that I thought I would collapse.

    He took another step toward me, very close now, and he grasped my chin in his hand. "You are much more beautiful now than you were as Cornelia." He paused, his black eyes running over my face as if he wanted to consume it. "Far more beautiful… but still as desirable."

    His mouth twisted, cold, and malicious. "But if the reports I hear are true, then Edward has more sense than I would have credited him, and has not touched you. I should have known better than to lay with you, bitch daughter of Hades."

    At the contempt in his voice I cried out, and tried to wrench my chin from his hand. But he was too strong, and I remained caught in his hateful

    grip-

    "You want me to kiss you? Well, I will not kiss you, Cornelia, or Caela, as now you are, my queen of England. I have a wife; I do not need your womb. I have a lover who awaits me; I do not need your kisses." He paused, and something changed in his face, and his fingers became gentle and caressing, as did his voice. "But oh… oh, how lovely you are."

    His face bent closer, and his breath fanned over my cheek. I shuddered, and he felt it. Then his mouth grazed the skin beneath my ear, then grabbed and

    held it, and I cried out, and would have sagged had he not let go my chin and caught my shoulders.

    Something occurred to me, almost a memory, save I know I had never met this man before, and I said: "Do you hate me still?"

    He had raised his head away from me, and I saw his lips form the word "Yes," but then his own face became puzzled. "I never hated you," he said.

    "Not really."

    "But you just called me," God help me, I wanted him to hold me close again, and do again with his mouth what he had just done, "bitch daughter of

    Hades."

    He laughed, low and soft, and pulled me close enough that he did lay his mouth against my cheek again. "I am sorry for that. That was habit. Who knows if you deserve that epithet now?"

    "They call me God's Concubine," I said, relaxing even more with this

    strange Norman. "That I hate."

    "You should have children," he said, standing back from me. "You were a

    good mother."

    Now it was I who laughed. "I? A good mother? And when, pray, did I have

    a chance for that?"

    "Tell me," he said. "How is Swanne?"

    "Swanne?"

    "It is so long since I have seen her. Fifteen years. I miss her. I want her. Will you tell her that? Will you tell her how much I want her?"

    He was walking away now, his booted strides ringing out through the

    stone hall.

    "Tell Swanne I want her," he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder, "and that I cannot wait for that happy day when we can be together."

    Then he was gone, and I stood there in that cold stone hall, and wept, for that I felt so alone, and so empty.

    Far away, in Normandy, William wofee with a hoarse cry, sitting bolt upright in

    his bed.

    At his side, Matilda roused, muttered sleepily, then sat herself, laying a loving

    hand on his arm.

    "William, what ails you?"

    He smiled, although it was an effort. "A bad dream only, my love. Let it not

    concern you."

    Then he took her chin in gentle fingers, and lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed away the memory of that cursed stone hall and the woman who haunted it.

    THE NEXT AFTERNOON SWANNE JOINED MY CIRCLE of women as we sat and gossiped over our needlework. I sighed, for I had good enough reason to dislike my brother's wife, but her presence reminded me abruptly of the strange dream that had gripped me the previous

    night.

    "My lady Swanne," I said, putting my needle down, "I dreamed most

    unusually last night."

    She tipped her head slightly, the movement one of supreme indifference. "I dreamed of a most handsome man, a Norman, with close-cropped black

    curls."

    Several of the younger women tittered, and I managed to fight down the urge to blush. No doubt they thought I sought my pleasure in dream where I could not find it in my marriage bed. Suddenly I wished I had not brought up the topic, and would have dismissed it with a laugh had not Swanne leaned forward, her pale face now almost bloodless, her own dark eyes intense.

    "Yes?" she said.

    I made a deprecatory gesture. "Oh, I am sure it was nothing, save that this dream-man asked to be remembered to you."

    "Yes?" The word sounded as if Swanne had forced it through lips of stone.

    I almost smiled as I remembered his message. "He told me to say, T want her and I cannot wait for that happy day when we can be together.' He said it had been fifteen years since you had been together, and that he missed you. Why, sister, who can this be that is not your husband?"

    Swanne sat upright, rigid with emotion. Her eyes glistened, and she seemed unaware that everyone in our circle now stared at her.

    "Who is this man?" I asked again, softly.

    "A lord such as shall never love you," she said, then rose and made her exit.

    CbAPG6RGbR

    't, AEWEALD SAT WITH ECUB BY THE DYING FIRE IN

    ■"""•l the pit in the center of the Lesser Hall where Edward held his evening court. Edward and Caela had long retired, and the only people left in the chamber, save for them, were two servants, sweeping away the detritus of the night's activities.

    They were silent. Uncomfortably so, on Saeweald's part, for he wanted to grip Ecub by the shoulders and shake out of her whatever it was that she had to say to him, and far more comfortably so on Ecub's part, for she still basked in the glow of what the Sidlesaghes had said to her.

    They awaited Judith, who had to complete her evening attendance on the queen before she could join them.

    They sat, silent, eyes set to the floor, until even the servants had gone for

    the night.

    The moment the door had closed behind the last of them, Saeweald turned

    to Ecub and opened his mouth.

    "Wait," she said, forestalling whatever it was he'd been about to say.

    He mumbled something inaudible, then turned back to resume his silent

    vigil.

    Eventually Judith joined them, looking both weary and worried, a reflection of Saeweald's own expression. She drew a stool up to Ecub and Saeweald, glanced at the physician, then looked at Ecub.

    "What has happened?" she said.

    Ecub took a very long, deep breath, then beamed, her entire face almost splitting in two with the width of her smile. "Today I sat amid the stones atop Pen Hill," she said.

    "Yes?" said Saeweald.

    "They spoke to me."

    There was a long moment of complete silence, during which time Saeweald and Judith stared at Ecub, their minds trying to make sense of what she'd just

    said.

    "They 'spoke' to you?" Saeweald finally said, enunciating very carefully.

    "Aye, they did. Saeweald, what do you know of the ancient tales of the Stone Dances?"

    "Only that they were raised by hands unknown, long ago, before even the Llangarlians came to step on this land."

    "Aye, that is what you would have heard. But I think that Judith may have heard something else. Judith?"

    Judith looked at Saeweald, but he was still staring at Ecub. She looked back to the prioress, who was studying her with a maddening calm, and licked her lips, trying to remember.

    "They were raised in monument to Mag, to the Mother and the land," she said. "They are more Mag-monument than Og, although by association—"

    "Yes, yes," said Ecub. "But tell me what you know of their raising."

    Judith made a disparaging gesture, unsettled by Ecub's questioning. "Oh, Ecub, they were only tales that children told each other."

    "Often the greatest mysteries are hidden within children's tales," Ecub said. "What safer place for them? Where every adult will discount them?"

    Again Judith looked at Saeweald, and this time he met her eyes.

    "Judith," he said. "What tales?"

    Judith shrugged her shoulders, not ready to believe that the tales she'd heard as a child in her previous life were fact rather than sheer childish imagination. "I heard… it was told…"

    "Judith," Ecub said, "just spit the words out!"

    "The Stone Dances, or, rather, the stones themselves, are in actuality the surviving memory of the ancient creatures who walked this land long before mankind set foot here."

    "Very good," said Ecub. "And their names?"

    "Sidlesaghes," said Judith. "The Sad Songsters." Then, surprisingly, her mouth quirked in amusement. "Long Toms, we used to call them, for the height of the stones. Children's tales, though. Surely."

    "Yet all this," Ecub said, soft but clear, "is true, my dears. Come now, Judith, tell me more of your 'children's tales.' Why do the Sidlesaghes stand as stones and not trail their melancholy amid the meadows?"

    Judith's mouth fell open, and she stared wide-eyed and unbelieving at Ecub, as her mind suddenly made the leap to what Ecub was trying to get her to say.

    "They…" Judith's voice hoarsened, and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. "They only wake and sing when it is time to midwife Mag's birth."

    Ecub nodded, smiling. "Aye." She looked apologetically at Saeweald, who was looking goggle-eyed between the two women. "This is a mystery only discussed among girl-children, my dear. You would probably not have heard it as Loth. Midwifery and birth are the realms of women only."

    "Wait," said Saeweald, shaking his head as if he were trying to shake his thoughts into some kind of order. "I don't understand. Are you saying that, when you were atop Pen Hill, these 'Sidlesaghes' appeared to you?"

    "Aye."

    "And you agree with what Judith just said, that they only 'wake and sing'

    when it is time to midwife Mag's birth?"

    "Aye."

    "But Mag already is! How can she be born again?"

    "Because tomorrow, Asterion is going to murder her, my loves. And then Mag is going to need to be reborn."

    Saeweald and Judith just stared at Ecub, aghast, then they both began to

    babble at once.

    Ecub let them speak for a few minutes, then she held up her hand for silence, and repeated to them what the Sidlesaghes had told her.

    Finally, Saeweald said, "But why can't Caela remember?"

    "For her own protection, Saeweald. For her own protection. She will remember soon enough. Be patient."

    But Judith frowned, and looked at Ecub. "But… but where will Mag be

    reborn? In who?"

    Ecub smiled beatifically, then shrugged. "With that knowledge they did

    not grace me."

    CbAPGGR FOUR

    OSTIG SAT WITH HIS BROTHER HAROLD BEFORE

    one of the fire pits in Harold's own great hall that Harold had built two years previously just to the south of Edward's palace complex in Westminster. While not rivaling Edward's construction, Harold's hall did nonetheless represent a significant challenge to Edward's authority, and did nothing to allay the king's resentment of the earl.

    The past fifteen years had treated Harold and Tostig kindly. Both had grown: Harold into a greater maturity—the only physical changes wrought by the passing years were the sprinkling of gray through his dark blond hair and some more creases of care about his eyes—and Tostig into full manhood. Eight years previously Godwine had settled the earldom of Northumbria upon Tostig, and it was this earldom and the responsibilities that went with it that now directed the conversation between the two brothers.

    Tostig was a dark, handsome man. The insecurities of youth, which had once so amused Swanne, had been set aside for a sometimes overbearing assurance of manner that could border on the arrogant. Now, as he and Harold sat before the glowing embers of the fire, alone, save for the soft presence of servants clearing away the tables in the hall behind them, Tostig leaned forward, his face set, his eyes snapping, and stabbed a finger at Harold.

    "Their insolence is unbelievable!" Tostig said.

    Harold, slouched back in his chair as if half asleep, sent Tostig an unreadable look from under lowered lids, but said nothing.

    "They demand that I step down from the earldom!"

    Harold closed his eyes briefly, resisting the urge to lean across to Tostig and shake some sense into the man. Tostig had ruled Northumbria well for years, but over the past eighteen months had begun to meddle in local politics with disastrous consequences. The situation had been exacerbated by Tostig's assassination of two popular noblemen several months previously. Now Northumbria was threatening to rise up in revolt.

    "Tostig," Harold said, "stifling opposition by murdering the voices who speak it has never been the best course of action."

    "I have had to withdraw forces from the border regions closer to home," Tostig went on, ignoring Harold, "with the result that now the Scots threaten to invade. Harold, you must aid me."

    Harold leaned forward and emptied the dregs of his wine cup into the

    fire pit.

    The embers hissed momentarily, then fell quiet.

    "No," he said.

    "No?"

    "That earldom is yours to keep or to lose as you will, Tostig. If you currently find yourself mired in mutinous resentment, then may I suggest you have only yourself to blame."

    "You have an army at your disposal," Tostig hissed. "Give it to me!"

    Harold sat up straight in his chair, his hands resting on the armrests, the only sign of his anger, the gentle thrumming of his fingers against the wood.

    "No."

    Tostig stared at his brother, then abruptly spat into the fire. "You think

    only of yourself."

    "I think only of England."

    Tostig sneered.

    "Edward is old," Harold continued in an even voice. "His days are numbered. He has no heir and, in his own sweet recalcitrant manner, refuses to name one. If he takes this truculence to the grave with him, England will disintegrate into crisis. I will need the army here when that happens, Tostig, not trapped in the north, trying to settle your domestic disputes."

    "You mean you want to grab the throne yourself. I can go to hell for all you

    care."

    Harold took a moment to respond. "My primary responsibility is to the

    realm, Tostig. Not to you."

    Tostig rose, his face twisted with anger. "Desert your family, brother, and you may find yourself without either throne or realm!"