With that, Tostig turned on his heel and stalked off.
Harold sighed, refilled his wine cup, and spent the next hour staring into the fire as he slowly sipped the wine.
Finally he rose, and went to his bedchamber for the night.
Five
AWISE CHECKED TO MAKE SURE THAT HER LADY'S
gown was safely folded and set into the chest, then turned back to her mistress. Swanne sat before a burnished mirror, brushing out her thick mass of curly ebony hair with long, slow strokes, and Hawise hesitated before walking over and taking her leave for the night.
Sweet Mother Mary, but she was beautiful!
In the mirror, Swanne's eyes slid Hawise's way, and the woman dropped her own eyes and fidgeted with her skirt, embarrassed at being caught staring.
"I am done with you for the night," Swanne said.
Hawise nodded, colored a little—she had served Swanne for twenty-five years, but the woman still retained the ability to make her uncomfortable— dropped a small curtsy and walked from the private bedchamber that sat above Harold's hall.
As the heavy drapery that served as a door fell closed behind Hawise, Swanne smiled at herself in the mirror. "Oh, aye, my dear," she murmured, "I am beautiful indeed."
Then her smile faded a little. What use was such beauty when William lingered within Normandy? Fifteen years ago they had believed that only a year or two separated them from each other and from their dream of completing the Game. But William's problems in Normandy had continued, he could not turn for England, and Swanne had been forced to wait far longer than she'd anticipated. She might have tried to see William again, to touch him, but both he and she had felt Asterion's malevolent, cruel, and close presence, and they had not dared. Together, they would have presented the Minotaur with too tempting a target.
Fifteen years since she had seen him. Fifteen years of frustration and of being tied to Harold. Swanne had never loved Harold, but now she resented him as she never had previously. Fifteen years of Harold when she could have had William.
And it had been that bitch whom he had visited in dream! It still rankled her that William had graced Caela's dreams, and not hers. William was so
©
concerned about Asterion that he kept his mind and powers closely shuttered; Swanne had tried to touch him through dream previously and had not been able to get past the barriers he'd put in place.
But he'd visited Caela in dream. It mattered not that William had apparently done nothing but speak of Swanne.
He had visited Caela in dream and not Swannel
"You foolish virgin bitch," Swanne muttered, "even now you can't resist trying your petty, childish charms on him, can you?"
There was a movement at the door.
Harold.
Swanne smiled easily at him—at least those fifteen years had made her the mistress of deception—and turned back to her reflection in the mirror as Harold undressed and slid beneath the bedcovers.
Finally, tiring of her pose, Swanne shook her head so that her ebony hair rippled luxuriously down her back, and put down the brush. She stood, slowly and elegantly, aware of every movement that she made, and smoothed down over her body (still slim and fine after the six children she'd borne to remain in Harold's graces, thank the gods!) the thin lawn nightrobe whose delicate weave scarcely hid any detail of the body over which it was draped.
She placed a hand over her stomach, flattening the lawn against her body, and again admired herself in the mirror. "Do you think yourself with child again?"
For an instant, Swanne's eyes hardened to a flat bleakness, but then she turned to the man who had spoken, and in that movement she masked her hatred with a well-practiced coquetry.
"Are six children not enough for you, my love? Do you want me to swell again so that your manhood can be proven before all at court yet one more
time?"
He was laying on his back on the bed, the covers pulled down to his stomach, exposing his well-muscled chest, hands behind his head, studying her with unreadable eyes. "Are you with child?"
"No." Swanne sauntered over to the bed, allowing herself to admire the man's physique and handsome face even if she loathed who and what he was. Swanne parted her lips, allowing him to see the wetness of her tongue between her white teeth. Slowly she tugged the robe over her shoulders so that it fell to the floor, then climbed onto the bed, pulling the bed covers further down over his body, then lifting one leg over him so that she straddled his body as she settled her weight atop his warmth.
His eyes darkened almost to blackness, and she could see the muscles tense in his upper arms. You are a very lucky man, Harold, she thought, to have me in your bed at night.
Her lips parted even more, and she moved her hips very slowly atop his. He moved his hands, and grasped her hips, pulling her the tighter against
him.
She drew in a deep breath, and watched his eyes drift to her breasts. I should have taken you as a lover when you were Coel. You were wasted on Cornelia.
"Harold," she said, and leaned down so that he could take one of her nipples between his teeth. Hate him she might, but for the moment Swanne saw no reason to deny herself his body and the skills he employed as a lover.
LATER, WHEN SHE COULD HEAR HIM BREATHING IN
the deep steadiness of sleep, she moved away from the warmth of his body, rose from the bed, and used the washbowl that Hawise had left to wipe away the traces of his semen from her thighs. Tomorrow she would take the bag of herbs she had secreted at the bottom of her clothes chest, and brew a cupful of the tea that would ensure she'd not conceive. Six children were enough, indeed, and the last thing Swanne wanted was to be big-bellied with child when… When he would soon be here, please to the gods!
Swanne dried herself, then wrapped about her nakedness the robe she had discarded earlier, shivering a little in the cold night air. She sat on a stool by the brazier, warming herself, and looked back to check that Harold was indeed fast asleep.
He was breathing deep, and Swanne relaxed. She turned back to the brazier, placed her hands on her knees, closed her eyes, and sent her senses scrying out into the night. There was only one benefit that Harold brought her, and that was to give her the excuse to live so close to the Game.
Ah, there… there it was…
Swanne relaxed even further, wrapping her senses about the Game, feeling its strength. Gods, it was powerful! She and Brutus had built it so well. Whenever Swanne was despondent, or frustrated, or felt that she could cope no longer with Harold, or with the pointlessness of her life in this damnable Christian court, Swanne found a quiet place so that she could communicate with the Game. Touch its power, feel its promise, believe in the future that she and William would build together once they'd completed the Game and trapped Asterion within its dark heart.
So powerful, and yet… different. Swanne recalled again, as she so often did, that conversation she'd had with William in that single brief encounter fifteen years earlier.
Could the Game have changed in the two thousand years it was left alone? she'd asked.
Perhaps, he'd answered too slowly, his own concern obvious. 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'd stopped then, but even now the unspoken words rang in Swanne's mind. Who knows what it could have grown into.
Swanne reached out with her power and touched the Game. Always
before, it had responded to her.
Tonight, although she could feel its presence and vitality, it did not. A coldness swept through Swanne, and for one panicky moment she almost succumbed to her terror and projected herself into William's presence. But she didn't; it was too dangerous. As well as the Game, Swanne could feel Asterion more strongly than ever before. He was stalking the grounds and spaces of the Westminster, waiting and watching.
And so Swanne drew in a deep breath, steadied herself. Then she rose and, ensuring Harold still lay asleep, she went to her needlework basket and withdrew from its depths a small scrap of parchment upon which she scribbled a few lines of writing with a piece of sharpened charcoal.
IN THE HOUR AFTER SHE AND HAROLD HAD BROKEN
their fast, and Harold had departed to meet with some of his thegns, Swanne took the parchment, now folded and sealed, and handed it to her woman
Hawise.
"Take this," she said, "and hand it to the good archbishop of York." Hawise, who knew far better than to ask what the message contained,
merely nodded and slipped the parchment into the pocket of her robe.
DEEP UNDER LONDON AND THE HILLS AND RIVERS
that surrounded it, the Troy Game dreamed as it had dreamed for aeons.
It dreamed of a time when its Mistress and Kingman would return and complete it, when it would be whole, and strong, and clean. It dreamed of a time when the kingship bands would be restored to the limbs of the Kingman, and when he and his Mistress would dance out the Game into
immortality.
The Game also dreamed of things that its creators, Brutus and Genvissa, could never have realized. It dreamed of the stone circles that still dotted the land, and it dreamed of those ancient days when the stones danced under the
stars.
In its dreaming, the Game began to whisper, the stones responded, and
the dream turned into reality.
CbAPGGR SIX
AEWEALD?"
Saeweald jerked from sleep, the dark-haired woman beside ^^. -*S him murmuring sleepily.
"It is I, Tostig."
Saeweald relaxed a little, but not a great deal. He and Tostig had once been great friends, but as Tostig had grown first into manhood, and then into his distant earldom, their friendship had ebbed away.
Saeweald slowly swung his legs out of bed, wincing as his right hip caught within the blankets and twisted uncomfortably.
The woman beside him also started to rise, but he laid a hand on her shoulder. "No, keep my space warm for me, Judith. I will not be long."
Tostig had disappeared into one of the outer chambers, and now he returned with a small oil lamp. He grinned at the sight of the woman. "I know you," he said. "You are one of the queen's ladies."
Judith inclined her head. "Indeed," she said, "and a better mistress I could not hope to serve."
"Does she know you spend your nights here?"
"I cannot imagine that the queen would object," Saeweald said tersely, pulling on his robe and belting it about his waist. "Tostig, what do you here?'
Tostig shifted his eyes from Judith to the physician. "I need your advice," he said. "And your… Sight."
Again his eyes slid back to Judith.
"She knows who and what I am," Saeweald said. "You need have no concern for her."
He led Tostig back into the next chamber. "What can be so urgent that you need to wake me from my bed?"
"Edward," Tostig said, then grinned charmingly, which instantly put Saeweald on guard. "I need to know how long he shall live."
"You and most of England," said Saeweald. "Why? Why so urgent?"
"I… I am concerned for my brother. I need to know what I can do that shall most aid him to the throne."
ZJ -
Saeweald studied the earl of Northumbria through narrowed eyes. "That is
not what you want to know."
Tostig abandoned his charm. He grabbed at Saeweald's arm. "I want to know my future," he said. "I want to know where I stand."
"Why?"
"Does not every man want to know what lies before him?" Saeweald gave a hollow laugh. "Some say that a wise man would give all his worldly goods not to know, Tostig."
"I want to know. Why won't you tell me… do you want gold? Is that it? Does the physician Druid need gold to share his Sight?"
"If you think yourself brave enough, Tostig, then I can share my Sight with you. Give your gold to the beggars who haunt the wastelands beyond the gates of London. They need it more than I."
Saeweald reached for the oil lamp that Tostig still held. The lamp consisted of a small, shallow pottery dish in which swilled oil rendered from animal fats. A wick extended partway out, resting on the rim of the dish, spluttering and
flickering.
Saeweald rested the shallow dish in the palm of his left hand, passing his
right palm over it several times. "Well?" Tostig demanded.
Saeweald's eyes lifted from the lamp, and in the thin glimmer of light, they appeared very dark, as if they had turned to obsidian rather than their usual
green.
Wait, he mouthed before bending his face back down to the lamp.
Tostig stared at Saeweald, then lowered his own eyes.
And gasped, taking an involuntarily step backward.
That tiny lamp seemed to have grown until it appeared half an arm's length in diameter, although it still balanced easily in Saeweald's hand. The oil was now black and odorless, lapping at the rim of the dish as if caught in some
great magical tide.
The wick sputtered, and the smoke that rose from it thickened and then sank, twisting into the oil itself until the dish of the lamp contained a writhing mass of smoke and black liquid.
What do you wish to know?
"How long does Edward have to live?" said Tostig, unaware that Saeweald
had not spoken with his own voice.
The oil and smoke boiled, then cleared and in its depths Tostig saw Edward lying wan and skeletal on his bed, a dark, loathsome miasma clouding above
his nostrils and mouth.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
The clouds gather. He does not have long. What else do you want to know?
"Harold," Tostig said in a tight voice. "Tell me of Harold."
Again the oil and smoke boiled then cleared, and Tostig bent close.
He saw Harold climbing a hill. He was dressed in battle gear, although he did not carry a sword, and he appeared weary and disheartened. He reached the top of the hill, and suddenly a shaft of light slid down from the heavens, wrapping Harold in gold, and Tostig saw that Harold wore a crown on his head and that the weariness had lifted from his face.
Then Harold turned about, and Tostig drew in a sharp breath, for Harold's face was both beautiful and wrathful and consumed with power all at once. As Tostig stared, Harold very slowly raised his hands, palms upward, and light shone forth from them, as if they carried living, breathing gold within them.
"By the gods!" Saeweald muttered, and he suddenly dropped the dish, spattering oil over both men's robes and legs.
"I need to see more!" cried Tostig, but Saeweald shook his head. "You have seen enough," he said. "Edward has not long, and Harold will be a king such as England has never seen. What more can you want to know? What more can you desire for your blood-kin?"
Tostig stared through the gloom toward Saeweald, but he could not make out the man's face. Then, wordlessly, he turned on his heel and left.
Saeweald stood very still for a long time; the remnants of the oil dripping down his robe.
Eventually he turned, went back to the bedchamber, disrobed, and crawled back in beside Judith.
"I think I know why Coel is back," he said.
sevejM
wind ruttling tnc snun v.
ing him narrow his almost-black eyes. Behind him a group of his men-at-arms chattered quietly where they stood by the horses, and his close friend Walter Fitz Osbern sat in the grass, watching him carefully.
To his side stood Matilda. She was heavily pregnant, only weeks away from giving birth, and she and William were engaged in what had become one of the rituals of their marriage. In each of her pregnancies, a few weeks before she gave birth, Matilda asked William to bring her to the coast where she could stand and feel the sea wind in her hair and ruffling through her clothes. It was this, and its memory, which enabled her to endure the weeks of confinement just before and after the birth of a child. Matilda hated the sense of detainment, almost of capture, that surrounded the rituals of childbirth; this single day of freedom, of feeling the wind in her hair and her husband standing beside her, gave Matilda enough strength to endure it. Despite her diminutive stature, Matilda gave birth easily, although she found it desperately painful: this child would be their seventh.
Matilda also liked to stand here, her belly swelling toward the sea, because it gave her a sense of superiority over this witch that William still dreamed of. Well might Swanne be the first love of William's life, but it was not she who bore his children, and it was not she who stood here now, William's companion and mate.
She looked at William, and saw that he had his eyes fixed on the wild tossing gray seas, and that faint smudge in the far distance, that line of white
cliffs.
England.
"How you lust for that land," she murmured, and William flickered his
eyes her way.
"Aye. And it will be mine soon enough."
She nodded. In the past two years, William had finally managed to bring Normandy under his control. Rival claimants had been quashed, dissent had
evaporated, and William enjoyed power such as he'd never had previously. Normandy was his, and would stand behind him, whatever he ventured. Matilda only hoped that when William did venture, she wouldn't be so heavy with child again that she could not accompany him.
Their marriage was strong, stronger than Matilda had ever envisaged in their early months together. They had both agreed that truth was the only possible foundation on which they could build their partnership, and the truth had served them well.
Of course, there were always a few small secrets and, on William's part, the occasional infidelity, but neither small secrets nor infidelities rocked the essential core of their marriage: Matilda and William were good for each other. Together, they managed far more than either of them could have managed individually.
"When?" said Matilda, although she well knew the answer.
"When Edward dies," he said. William was strong enough to venture an invasion now, but he also wanted to coat his claim with legitimacy, and he could not do that if he tried to wrest a throne from the incumbent king.
Once Edward was dead, however, then the path would be open for him.
William shifted slightly, as if uncomfortable, and he frowned as he gazed across the gray waters of the channel that separated Normandy and England.
"What is it?" said Matilda.
"There is something about to happen… matters are moving," he said. He lifted his closed fist and beat it softly against his chest, underscoring his words. "I feel it in here."
Matilda felt a thrill of superstitious awe run up and down her spine. Fifteen years had been far long enough for her to realize that there were depths to her husband that she had not yet plumbed.
If the witch Swanne loved him, then why was that so? Was it because some power in William called to Swanne?
"It is not Edward," she said, and William looked at her.
"How so? What do you know?"
Matilda managed to suppress the small smile that threatened to break through. One of the "small" secrets she had kept from William was that Matilda had her own agent in place within Edward's court.
"I think you will find," Matilda said, "that Edward's queen shall be at the heart of it."
"Caela? Why?"
Now Matilda allowed that secretive smile to break through. "A woman's intuition, my dear. Nothing else."
Caela intrigued Matilda. Initially, Matilda had set her agent to watching Swanne, but that watchfulness had, over the years, grown to include the
queen as well. At first this had been because Swanne so clearly and evidently hated Caela, and that made Matilda wonder if Swanne feared the queen as well, and further wondered why this might be so. But then, as the years passed, Matilda came to understand, via her agent, that there was a small but dedicated coterie that surrounded the queen, and that Caela herself sometimes exuded an air of strangeness that Matilda's agent found difficult to
express.
"Caela is nothing," William said, and the harsh tone of his voice made
Matilda look sharply at him. I wonder, she thought.
AS WILLIAM LIFTED MATILDA BACK TO HER HORSE,
his mind drifted to the dream he'd had some nights previously. Cornelia, or Caela, as she was now called, in her stone hall. That dream had been so real. The stone had felt hard beneath his feet, Caela's flesh so warm beneath his
fingers.
The plea in her eyes as vivid as if he'd stood there in reality. William had dreamed of her previously—would this woman never cease to torment him?—but never had the dream seemed so real.
Nor Caela so close. She was older than she had been as Cornelia, and lovelier. Her hair was darker, her skin paler, but her eyes still had that strange depth of blue that they had two thousand years previously.
She had still held her face up to his, and yearned for him to kiss her. And he had wanted to kiss her, whatever he might have said to her. He'd wanted to kiss her more than he'd ever wanted anything else in his life. More than the Game? Aye, at that moment, when Caela's face had been so close, William thought he might have squandered even the Game itself in order to feel her mouth yield under his, to taste her sweetness… Yet he'd stopped himself, just in time. Was she the trap Asterion had laid?
Again?
William turned from Matilda—watching him curiously—and stared back
across the wild tossing seas.
Soon. It was starting today—he could feel it surging through his blood—
and within a year all would be won or lost.
eigbc
The Great Hall, Westminster
AROLD GODWINESON, EARL OF WESSEX,
slouched in his great chair in its habitual place to the right of King / Edward's dais. His dark eyes were hooded, his right hand rubbed through the short dark hairs of his moustache and beard, his left arm lay draped, apparently relaxed, over the carved armrest of the great chair, his legs stretched out before him, one foot idly tapping out a rhythm only Harold could hear.
He looked almost half asleep, but in reality Harold was coiled, tense and waiting. Harold had spent his life either at court or on the battlefield, and over the years he'd developed a sense of danger so acute he could almost smell its approach.
His nose had been full of the stink of danger ever since last night.
Ever since Swanne had dropped her robe and straddled him with her naked, tight body.
Ever since he'd lain awake all night, observing her sitting before the brazier through his heavy-lidded eyes.
Ever since he'd seen her scratch out that secret communication and hide it within the folds of her clothes.
Now he watched and waited, more certain of this than anything else he'd known in this life. There was danger afoot, and Swanne was somehow connected with it. Harold knew he should worry about Tostig as well, but for the moment the sense of danger that seemed to surround Swanne was so acute that he pushed all thought of his brother to the side.
His eyes moved slowly over the crowd gathered for King Edward's harvest court in the vast Great Hall of Westminster palace, seeking Swanne out. Ah, there she was, chatting with several members of the witan.
Harold's expression remained studiously neutral as he watched his wife. This morning she looked lovelier than ever, her ivory gown clinging to the
IOO
swell of her breasts and hips, pinching in about the narrowness of her waist, both swell and slenderness emphasized every time she moved.
He no longer loved her, nor even respected her. Oh, once he had adored her, patterned his life about her every movement and want. But that lovelorn man had been left behind years ago, murdered through years of cohabitation with the lady he'd taken as his common-law wife. Now that the delusion of love had been stripped from his eyes, Harold could see that there was a coldness about Swanne that even she, most expert of deceivers, could not entirely hide. There was a sense of waiting about her that made him think of the dead-liness of a coiled snake about to strike.
Harold had absolutely no doubt that, were it to suit her purposes, Swanne
would not hesitate to murder him.
A great wave of blackness washed over him, and Harold had to close his eyes momentarily, trying to recover his equilibrium. All his life he'd been plagued with terrible dreams, of a love and a land lost; of Swanne standing over his murdered body, laughing; of a man with raging, snapping black hair reaching out over his corpse to a woman whose face was that of… that of… Harold opened his eyes, staring at Swanne, forcing his mind away from his dreams. In his youth, they'd been the province of the night only, nightmares he could laugh away in the sanity of wakefulness. But over the past few months, they'd been taking over his waking hours as well.
And whenever he looked at his sister, his mind was filled with such carnal thoughts that Harold was sure the devil himself must have ensnared him.
Last night, when Swanne had lowered herself to him, he'd closed his eyes and imagined that it was not Swanne atop him, but…
No! He must stop this. God, what was happening to him? Was this some sickness of the mind? Some devilish possession? Desperate for distraction, Harold looked slowly about the Great Hall, seeking whatever it was (apart from his thoughts of his sister) that was causing chills to run up and down his spine, and nerves to flutter in his belly.
The Hall was filled with Normans… who would imagine that this was a Saxon kingdom, and at its head a Saxon king? No wonder his nerves were afire when his king preferred the Normans to his own countrymen.
This Hall was far vaster than the one his father had built in Wessex. Above the ceiling of the Hall, and reached by a great curving staircase behind the dais, was a warren of timber-walled chambers that Edward used for his private apartments, as well as those of his closest retainers.
Currently, Edward sat on his carved wooden throne on his dais, his snowy hair and beard flowing over his shoulders and chest, robed in the Norman manner as if he were a woman rather than a warrior, a crucifix in his hand, an expression of wisdom and dignity affixed on his aged face. Harold's eyes
IOI
narrowed. Edward cultivated the demeanor of the scholarly yet shrewd king, but Harold doubted that any honest appraisal of the man would value him at anything more than the mediocre. Edward had begun his reign twenty-five years previously in a burst of bright hope, and it looked as if he'd end it in an agony of indecision.
Edward's advisers—sycophants all—were gathered about him, nodding and smiling and agreeing and sympathizing as the occasion demanded. A Norman nobleman, no doubt from Duke William's court, was smiling and laughing and presenting the duke's compliments. Several churchmen, never slow to flatter such a powerful benefactor, bowed their heads in assumed wisdom and piety. Within the cluster, Harold recognized Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester and the much traveled Norman sympathizer Aldred, archbishop of York (now much fatter than he'd been when he'd officiated at Edward's wedding so many years previously). There also was Eadwine, the abbot of Westminster Abbey, nodding and smiling whenever Edward so much as looked his way.
Fools, all.
Saeweald stood slightly behind and to one side of the adoring cluster, his copper vials of herbs and potions dangling from his belt and catching the light. He leaned on a crutch that Harold knew he only used on days of supreme discomfort. The physician's face was masked in blandness, but Harold knew him well enough to recognize the irony that lay behind his expression. Saeweald hated the Normans as much as Harold did.
Saeweald caught Harold's appraisal and, very slowly, lowered one eyelid in a wink.
Despite his continuing sense of imminent danger, Harold's mouth twitched beneath his hand. It was Tostig who had first introduced him to the physician many years ago, but despite the current tension between Harold and his brother, his friendship with Saeweald remained strong. It was not simple liking that bound the two men (although sometimes Harold wondered at the rapidity with which they had established such a deep friendship, almost as if they'd been renewing it, not forming it) but also their common preference to the ancient pagan ways of the country. They shared a mutual loving and reverence for the land itself, for the turf and the stones and the meanderings of the streams and rivulets. A love and reverence that meant far more to them than the petty mouthings of Christian priests. Sometimes, in the depths of winter, Saeweald would take Harold to the top of one of the hills that surrounded London, and there he would shuck off his robe and, naked save for the tattoo that marked him as a priest of the ancient paths, would take Harold on journeys of such mystery and power that left the earl shaking for hours afterward.
Always, after these mysteries, Saeweald would half smile at Harold and say, One day… one day…
IO
IO
Harold never knew what he meant, and never dared ask. Saeweald also took Harold to some far less private, although still very exclusive, celebrations. On the winter solstices, the equinoxes, the festivals of Beltane, of Maytide and of the Green Man, Saeweald took Harold to the very top of Pen Hill to meet with (Harold had laughed in disbelief the first night he'd attended such a celebration) Mother Ecub and her very unvirginal nuns, as well as a host of men and women he'd recognized from the councils and markets of London. There he'd partaken in the dances and meanderings, the fires and the spirit-soarings, the choruses and (Harold shivered with remembered longing) the strange matings within the circles of stone about the hills
of London.
Harold's mouth curled behind his hand: if only Edward knew what went
on in his realm while he knelt before his altar…
A snippet of conversation from around the king reached Harold's ears. Abbot Eadwine had begun a long and loud boast about the beauty of the
almost-completed abbey.
Edward was hanging on every word, almost drooling in his excitement, and Harold's lips thinned in disgust. Eadwine was Edward's special creature. Many years previously, the king had selected Eadwine, from among the gaggle of black-robed monks who lived within the abbey precincts, to be the new abbot and had then glorified both abbey and abbot by financing one of the most spectacular building programs ever seen in England—or Europe—come to that. Westminster Abbey had gone from being a damp, dark, sullen stone church, with too many draughts for any but the most desperately pious to enjoy, to an imposing church and abbey that now rose atop Tothill. The new abbey, due to be completed within the next few months, was one of the most beautiful and impressive churches within all of Christendom.
Edward meant it as a fitting burial chamber and memorial to his reign. Harold thought the entire matter beyond contempt. Other men, other kings, would have preferred that their deeds and victories remain as their memorials. Not Edward. Childless, victory-less, and increasingly meaningless in his essential impotence and powerlessness, even within his own kingdom, Edward had chosen to erect a monument of stone to his glory.
Harold had no doubt that the Church would eventually canonize the king for it. Spectacular donations were ever the easy road to sainthood.
Saeweald was still watching Harold, and seemed to understand some of the earl's thoughts, for his own mouth curled in amusement.
Harold finally looked away from Saeweald. Soon the damned physician would have him smiling openly, and in this court that would never do.
His gaze drifted, as it so often did, to Caela. She looked particularly beautiful—and particularly sad within that beauty—on this morning. She was
robed in soft blue silk over a crisp white under tunic, a mantle of snowy linen about her shoulders and draped demurely over her dark hair. The colors suited her, and Harold found himself thinking on how beautiful she would look, were she within her and Edward's private chambers, where she could remove her veil, and let that blue silk shimmer against the darkness of her hair…
Caela turned slightly on her seat, handing some needlework to a woman behind her, and as she did so the material of her robe twisted and tightened about her waist and breasts.
Harold stilled, his very breathing stopped.
Caela spoke softly to the woman, and then laughed at some small jest the woman made to her, and Harold let his breath out, horrified to hear its raggedness.
Damn it! Look elsewhere, lecher!
Desperate, Harold dragged his gaze away from his sister and toward the back of the Great Hall where thronged the thegns and stewards, and even several ceorls, who came each day to court in the hope of gaining a moment of the king's time for their supplications.
Harold saw several that he knew, and nodded a terse greeting to them. And there was Tostig, just entered.
Tostig saw Harold looking, even across this distance, and pointedly looked away.
Harold sighed. Perhaps he should send one of his thegns down to his brother and bid him sit with Harold. Then they could talk, perhaps, and jest away the tensions that had arisen between them the previous night.
But, just as he was about to summon a thegn and send him to Tostig, Harold stilled in puzzlement.
To the very rear of the Hall, where opened the doors to the outer chambers, stood a tall, pale figure.
Harold blinked, for the figure seemed very slightly out of focus… as if it stood behind a veil of water. Whatever—whoever—it was, the figure was very tall, and dressed in plain, poorly sewn garments.
A beggar, come to elicit pennies?
For an instant, just an instant, the veil lifted, and Harold found himself staring at intense gray-flecked brown eyes. The eyes transfixed him, they were so clear, even from this distance, that he did not think to expand his view to the larger face.
Then the veil was back again, and the figure muted.
Suddenly his sense of imminent danger exploded, and Harold straightened and slid to the edge of his chair, a hand to the knife at his belt.
Even as Harold was rising, the strange, discomforting figure gave a
IO*
discernible moan, raised a long, thin, almost diaphanous arm, and pointed
toward Caela.
Before Harold could say or do anything further, Caela half rose from her t
seat, her face a mask of terror and pain, and cried out with a half-strangled j
moan. J
Asterion marched through the stone hall that represented Caela's womb, his booted footsteps ringing most satisfactorily.
It was time, finally, to make the opening move in this most exquisite, if deadly,
of dances.
Asterion laughed aloud—and to think only he knew the tune! Then he sobered, and slowed his pace as he walked through the hall, his head swinging this way and that as he tried to spy out where she'd put herself.
She wouldn't have hidden herself too well, that he knew. After all, Mag was the one who wanted herself murdered.
Wasn't that all a part of her Grand Plan?
Asterion almost laughed again, remembering how, in their previous life, Mag and Hera had plotted to outwit Asterion. Hera, the dying Greek goddess, had called to the Llangarlian goddess Mag, telling her that they could use Cornelia to trick Asterion into an alliance with Mag.
Then Mag, using Cornelia, could turn against Asterion. Neither Hera nor Mag realized that Asterion knew of their entire, inept plan. Gods thought to outwit him, Mistresses of the Labyrinth thought to deceive him, and Asterion was a step ahead of all of them. They would dance to his tune,
not he to theirs.
"Come on, Mag," Asterion whispered. "Show thyself. It is, after all, your execution day, and you wouldn't want to be tardy for such an important appointment,
would you?"
There was a slight movement to one side, within one of the shadowy recesses of
the arched side aisles.
Nothing. A trickery only. Something designed to make him feel as though what
he did now was real. Worthwhile, even. <
"Oh come on, you silly bitch," Asterion muttered. "I haven't got all day." Ah! There she was! About time…
Asterion's gait increased in pace and, as it did so, so his entire form became huge and black, a great amorphous mass of murderous intent.
Mag had appeared at the far end of the stone hall. She looked tiny and wizened from her long period of inactivity, and darted terrified from the shadow of one great column to the next. She wailed, the sound thin and frightened, and she clasped her hands about her shoulders as if that single, futile gesture might save her.
O
Oh, for goodness sake, thought Asterion, that act wouldn't fool a toddling child.
"Did you think that you had outwitted me?" he snarled (one had to play out the absurdity, after all).
"No!" Mag cried. "No! Let me be, Asterion. I can help you! I can—"
Something dark and horrible, a bear's claw although magnified ten times over, roared through the air, and Mag threw herself to one side.
The claw buried itself in one of the great columns of the stone hall, and blood gushed forth from the stone.
Asterion began to giggle.
"I beg you!" screamed Mag. "I beg—"
The claw flashed through the air once more, save that this time it became as the head of a great cat halfway through its swing, and its fangs snapped, barely missing the goddess, who rolled desperately across the floor.
"Bitch!" seethed Asterion, and he leaped high into the air. His form turned into a murderous cloud, its entire bulk shrouding Mag completely. From a cloud it changed into a bubbling mass of plague, sorrow, and death, and it poured itself over Mag, it flowed over her, and in that one movement, that one moment, Asterion did what Genvissa had always wanted to do.
He destroyed the goddess. He annihilated her.
Just as she wanted.
Blood flowed.
Asterion laughed.
So many things happened all at once within the Great Hall that all Harold could do was leap from his chair, and then just stand, helpless and appalled.
Caela staggered from her chair, her face suddenly so pale that all the life appeared to have drained from her, her eyes wide, her mouth in a surprised "O," her hands clutching to her belly. Blood—a flood of it!—stained first about her lower belly and then thickened down her lower skirts until her feet slipped in it and she fell to the timber flooring.
Edward, his own face stunned, stumbled from his throne to stand, staring at his wife as she writhed in agony on the floor.
Caela's ladies, standing together in one amorphous mass, hands to mouths, eyes wide in shock. What queen ever acted this way?
Swanne turned from the three men she'd been seducing with her grace and wit and loveliness and regarded Caela's sudden, unexplained agony with something akin to speculation.
Judith was the first to make any attempt to aid Caela, bending down to her and gathering the stricken woman in her arms. The next instant, Saeweald had joined her, almost falling to the floor as he tossed aside his crutch.
IG
IO
Harold also went forward, his eyes glancing back to where the strange, pale figure had stood—it was gone, now—and bent down beside Saeweald and Judith. Appalled at his sister's distress, Harold lifted his head to say something to Edward, who was standing close by with an expression of revulsion on his face, when he was forestalled by Aldred, the archbishop of York.
"See," the archbishop said, his voice roiling with contempt, "your queen miscarries of a child. I had not known, majesty, that you had put one in her. You should have been more forthcoming in boasting of your achievement."
Edward gasped, his rosy cheeks turning almost as wan as Caela's now bloodless ones. "The whore!" he said. "I have remained celibate of her body! I have put no child within her!"
And he turned, his face now triumphant, and stared at Harold. "For mercy's sake!" Harold shouted, murderously furious at Edward and frightened for Caela all in one. "Your wife bleeds to death before you, and all you can think of is to accuse her of whoredom?"
He spun his face about in Caela's ladies who, too terrified both by Caela's sudden, horrifying hemorrhage and by Edward's accusation, stood incapable of movement. "Aid her!" Harold cried. "Aid her, for sweet mercy!"
He rose, as if he meant to force the ladies down to help Judith and Saeweald, but then the physician himself spoke. "Send for the midwives," Saeweald said. "Now!"
Then, stunningly, he grabbed at Harold's wrist, pulled him close, and whispered, "Be at peace, Harold. This is not as bad as it might appear."
MUCH LATER, WHEN THE COURT WAS STILL ABUZZ
with shock and speculation, the head midwife, a woman called Gerberga,
came before Edward.
"Well?" said the king. "What can you tell me of my wife's shame?" To one side, Harold made as if he would stand forth and speak, but Edward waved him to silence with a curt gesture. "Well?" said the king. "Speak!"
Gerberga's eyes flitted to Harold, then settled on the king. She raised her head, and spoke clearly. "Your wife the queen carries no shame, Your Majesty. She remains a virgin still, as intact as when she was birthed. To this I swear, as will any other of the five midwives who have examined her."
"But she miscarried!" Edward said, his hands tightened about the armrests of his throne.
Gerberga shook her head slowly from side to side. "She did not miscarry, my king. Some women, if left virgin too long, grow congested and cramped
within their wombs. What happened today was the sudden release of such congestion. A monthly flux, although far worse than what most women endure."
"Caela will recover?" Harold said.
"Aye," said Gerberga, "although she shall need rest and good food and sweet words of comfort."
"Then she shall have it," said Harold.
Edward snorted, and relaxed back in the throne. "The court shall be the sweeter place without her," he observed, and, by his side, Archbishop Aldred laughed.
TOSTIG HAD OBSERVED THE ENTIRE DRAMA FROM HIS
place far back in the Hall. He had not moved to aid Caela, nor even to make inquiries after her health, contenting himself instead with watching the words and actions of those on the dais with a cynical half smile on his lips.
As he turned to leave, a man standing just behind him made a small bow of respect, stepping back to allow Tostig to pass.
But, just as the earl made to step forward, the man said, "You must be concerned for your sister, my lord. How fortunate that all seems better than first it appeared."
Tostig snorted. "That farce? It concerned me not. England is in a sorry state indeed if the actions of its king and his deputies revolve about the weakness of a woman's womb."
"Edward…" the man half shrugged dismissively. "He is an old man, and weak because of it. But Harold…"
"Harold is as weak and foolish," Tostig snapped, "for his wits are so addled he cares not for any within this kingdom save our sister. Now stand aside, man, for I would pass."
As the earl pushed by, the man looked across the Hall to where a companion stood. They exchanged a glance, and then each turned aside with a small smile of satisfaction on their faces.
Tostig would bear watching.
ry ISGUISED IN THE BODY HE INHABITED FROM
time to time, Asterion walked through Edward's Great Hall, mounted the stairs at its far end, and moved through the upper floor toward the chamber where lay Caela.
As he passed, people stood to one side and bowed in respect. Many of them asked for his blessing, and Asterion was pleased to pause, and make above their heads the sign of the cross, and to murmur a few words
of prayer to comfort them.
So amusing. So quaint. The world was full of fools.
When he reached Caela's chamber, the midwives allowed him entry instantly, standing aside as he approached her bed. Further back, the physician Saeweald sat in a chair, looking tired and wrung out, as if it were he who had suffered the flux rather than the queen.
Saeweald rose awkwardly, made a small bow of respect, then sank down again at Asterion's good-natured gesture.
"My beloved lady," Asterion said, his voice an extravagance of sympathy, turning now to the queen in her bed, "the entire court expresses its concern for your malaise. The well-wishes are many and rich."
Caela lay very still and very white under the coverlets. "I doubt that very
much, my lord."
"We were all shocked," Asterion said, accepting the stool that one of the midwives brought to him, and pulling it close enough to the bed that he could take Caela's still, cold hand. "Some of us perhaps uttered hasty words." He made a small moue of regret.
Caela gave a small, humorless smile, and remained silent. Asterion sent out his power, searching, as the queen's hand lay in his. He knew what he would find, but it always paid to be careful, and he had to go through the motions. To do what was expected of him. People were watching, and who knew their powers of perception?
As he had expected, there was nothing. Mag was gone from Caela's womb as surely as if… she had never been there.
IO
Asterion smirked, then turned it quickly into an expression of concern as he patted Caela's hand.
"Poor child," he said. "You have suffered so terribly."
And shall suffer even more.
Then he rose, mumbling something conciliatory, winked at Saeweald, and walked away, well pleased with himself.
The trap was set, but he must not rest upon his achievements thus far. The Game was moving, and he must needs move with it.
Once he reached the stairs that led down to the Great Hall, Asterion began whistling a cheerful little ditty that he'd heard used by the fishermen at the wharves.
C6JM
AELA LAY, DEEPLY ASLEEP. HER HUSBAND, THE
king, had taken himself off to another chamber for the night, ^i*p»"'* claiming he did not wish to disturb his wife in her recovery.
He fooled no one. Edward had forever been repulsed by the normal workings of a woman's body and had always insisted Caela move to a different bed during the nights of her monthly flux. His decision on this occasion to quit the marital chamber instead of requiring Caela to do so was a singular event, and perhaps a further expression of regret for his thoughtless accusations at court earlier in the day. Edward had visited his wife, along with a dozen other notables who had dropped in one by one, had patted her hand awkwardly, muttered some even more awkward words, and had then left with patent
relief.
Now, as night closed in, Saeweald, Judith, and Ecub sat about the brazier on the far side of the chamber from Caela's heavily curtained bed. The midwives had gone, Caela's bevy of lesser-attending ladies had gone, and now only the physician, the prioress, and the senior of the queen's ladies
remained.
For a long time they sat without speaking, perhaps being careful, perhaps
just bone-weary themselves.
Finally, with a sigh, Saeweald spoke. "It has happened as the Sidlesaghes
said it would."
"Aye," said Ecub.
"Asterion showed his hand," Saeweald said.
"In a manner," said Ecub. "He acted, yes, but who saw his hand, then?
You? Or you, Judith?"
"All of us," said Judith, repressing a shiver. "We were at court this
morning… and we all know he would have been among those to come to
this chamber this afternoon or evening. To make sure Mag was gone."
"Oh, aye, indeed," Ecub said very softly. "But which one was he?" All three knew from their previous lives, from their conversations with
Cornelia in that time between when she'd "died" during the dreadful birth of
III
her daughter, a time when Mag had spoken to her, and the time that Cornelia had murdered Genvissa, that Mag had made an alliance with Asterion. Mag had warned Cornelia then—and Cornelia had subsequently mentioned this to Loth—that in the next life Asterion would renege on the alliance. For him, Mag was nothing but a complication and a nuisance. Something which must needs be removed on his path to destroying the Game.
Until very recently, neither Ecub, Saeweald, nor Judith had any idea what Mag had planned. They'd thought that the presence of Mag within Caela's womb was the real Mag, but from the Sidlesaghes, Ecub had discovered that this Mag was only a sham, an illusion, set within Cornelia's stone hall, her womb, to deceive Asterion. To trick him into thinking he had disposed of Mag.
They'd known from the instant Caela had collapsed in court what was happening. At least the Sidlesaghes' warning had meant they were not as terrified or distraught as they would have been, had they thought Asterion was truly murdering Mag, but even so, Caela's distress had sickened and frightened them.
As had the procession of people into Caela's bedchamber throughout the day. Ostensibly all these visitors were there to assure themselves of the queen's well-being, that she had not bled, nor would not bleed, to death, but the three friends knew that among these visitors almost certainly would have been the disguised Asterion, come to check that Mag had indeed been killed.
"It could have been any one of them—and as much one of the women as one of the men," said Saeweald.
Ecub harrumphed. "And not a single one of them stank of bull."
Again, silence as they sat, watching the curtains pulled about Caela's bed, listening to her quiet breathing.
"Where is Mag?" said Judith. "Where has she been hiding all this time? How will she be reborn?"
Both Saeweald and Ecub shrugged.
"She should know," Saeweald said, nodding at the bed. "Mag would have told her."
"Cornelia never told you?" Ecub said.
Saeweald shook his head.
"Caela should know, but Caela is unchanged!" Judith said, despair making her voice higher than it normally was. "She has not opened her eyes and said, T remember.' She has simply opened her eyes and been as she has always been in this life—unknowing, unwitting, unremembering."
"The Sidlesaghes told me," Ecub said, "that all will come to pass as it should. So we shall wait, my friends. We shall wait and we shall trust."
Saeweald was about to respond, but just then there came a knock at the door, and all three seated about the fire jumped.
It was Haroiu, i~~—o
sleep.
He walked quietly to the bed, held aside one of the drapes momentarily as
he looked down on his sleeping sister, then came over to the fire where Judith
had rejoined Ecub and Saeweald.
Ecub began to rise, her eyes on a stool standing in a corner, but Harold motioned her to remain seated, and fetched the stool himself.
"My sister the queen?" he said softly as he sat down with them. "She will be well enough," Saeweald said. "Her monthly flux was bloodier than normal, but that is all that it was. With rest and good food, Caela shall be
well enough."
Gods, how he hated to lie to this man, but it were better Harold not know of
the love and loss of his previous life. To know would be only to torment.
"To so accuse her!" Harold said, low and angry, and it took the others a moment to realize that he referred to Edward's hateful accusation at court. "My sister should have babies and love and laughter, but all she has is… is this!" He waved a hand about the chamber, but taking in with that gesture the entire palace and her life as Edward's wife.
To that there was nothing to say, so the others merely nodded. Harold's shoulders slumped and his face suddenly looked old and gray. "I wanted to come sooner, but Edward detained me, first with this nonsense and then that, and then sent me to interrogate some fool who had imagined he'd seen a pair of dragons mating in the skies over London during the afternoon. Now," he glanced at the bed, "it is too late, and Caela sleeps. Well, I shall not wake her, and will leave my visit until the morrow. Mother Ecub, Judith, if she wakes during the night, will you tell her that I came, and that I cared?"
Ecub nodded, and Harold gave a small half smile. "Tell me," he said, "has
Tostig been here to ask after Caela?"
Saeweald shook his head, and Harold sighed. "Ah well, I expect he was
detained as was I."
He rose, made his farewells, and was gone.
When he had gone, Ecub sighed. "Such a waste," she said, and even though she did not elucidate on that statement, the other two knew precisely what
she meant.
"And now," Ecub continued, smiling at Saeweald and Judith, "I will sit
with the queen through the night, and you two can have some precious time
together."
"—^a +r, nrotest, but Saeweald took her hand, squeezed it so that
she subsided, and smiled in his turn at Ecub. "I thank you, Mother Ecub," he said. "You will send for us if…?"
"If there is any trouble, which there shall not be," the prioress said. Then she winked. "Enjoy your rest."
SAEWEALD'S APARTMENTS WITHIN THE WESTMINSTER
complex were spacious and well-appointed, a sign of the regard in which Edward held him. Situated in a long, half-timbered, half-stone building situated fifty paces from the palace and (for Saeweald) a comfortable one hundred paces from the abbey complex, his building housed the domestic apartments of various court officials, the occasional visiting nobleman and his family, and a few highly placed servants. Saeweald's quarters, three well-sized and airy chambers, were at the very end of the building, and he had his own entrance-way so that he could make his way to the beds of the sick at all times of the night and day without disturbing the other residents of the building.
Of course, this also meant that Saeweald had far more privacy than others when it came to the comings and goings from his chambers.
Now, several hours after they had left Caela's chambers, he and Judith lounged naked before the hearth on coverlets they'd pulled from the bed. They had made love, but the greatest intimacy came now, when Judith gently, lovingly, massaged soothing oils into Saeweald's twisted leg and hip. This was an intimacy that he allowed no one else, the touching of his deformity, and that he allowed Judith to was a measure of the love and trust he held for her.
They'd been lovers ever since she'd come to court to serve Caela. The instant they first met in this life, and knew, there had been such a sense of relief and of companionship renewed, that their first bedding had been accomplished with unseemly haste.
In a stable, which had been the first place they'd been able to find that had some relative privacy.
Save for the resident horse, of course, who had been quite agitated and who had snorted his disquiet for the fifteen turgid minutes it had taken the pair to sort themselves out.
Since that day, Saeweald and Judith found every spare hour they could to spend together. The love-making was evidence not so much of lust, but of the deepest friendship and respect and of shared purpose. To serve Caela and Mag, and to serve the land, in whatever means that were possible.
They were extremely discreet. Ecub knew, of course, and Judith thought that Caela, and perhaps even Harold, suspected, but (apart from the horse, still watched them warily whenever he saw one or the other cross the
a ix ax
stable yard and tended to utter panic when he saw both of them together) no one else knew. In King Edward's court, stiff with morality and piety, that was
just as well.
In a world where Asterion strode, unknowable and unrestrainable, their
secret was doubly important, for even this simple knowledge may have given the Minotaur a piece of priceless information he could use at his destructive
leisure.
Judith ran her hands down Saeweald's leg, leaning her weight into his
crippled flesh, massaging away tensions and cramps and aches. Saeweald's hip had been so brutally twisted during his birth (and who had commanded that midwife's hands? Judith had often wondered. Fate? Brutus' deadly hand from two thousand years' previous? Asterion? Genvissa's lingering malicious humor?) that the ball of his hip joint jutted out beneath his right buttock, making even sitting uncomfortable for the man. As a consequence, Saeweald either stood, or balanced precariously on the very edge of stools and seats; when he rode, as he needed to if he was to get about at all, he had to sit twisted on the saddle so that his left buttock bore most of his weight. Even
then, riding was often agony.
At least he could walk. Praise Mag that at least he could walk. "What do you think will happen?" Judith said.
Saeweald, who was lying on his left side, his head propped up on a hand, watched the movement of Judith's body in the firelight appreciatively.
"Hmmm?" he said.
Judith looked at him, then grinned. "You would have me to be your slave forever, would you not, physician? Bending over your body, rubbing away
your aches…"
"Are you offering?"
Her expression sobered. "Would it help?"
In response he only held out his free hand, and she gripped it silently. They locked eyes, and for a moment nothing at all needed to be spoken. "Mag," Judith finally said. "Where is she, do you think?" Saeweald sighed. "Caela would know… but how to make her remember. Ah! She cannot be pushed, yet…"
" 'Be patient,' Ecub said."
Saeweald muttered something that Judith was rather glad she did not catch. She grinned again, and was about to say something when, stunningly, horrifyingly, the door to the chamber swung open and a man stepped through.
"STAY," HE SAID TO THE STARTLED COUPLE, RAISING A
hand, palm up, a gesture that was both conciliatory and reassuring.
Judith looked at Saeweald, who stared unbelievingly at the man, then she unhurriedly reached for her linen under tunic and pulled it over her shoulders. "Your name, good man?" she said.
The stranger's mouth lifted in a small, admiring smile at her composure. He was a strikingly good-looking man of middle age. His long black curly hair was pulled back into a leather thong behind his neck, a few strands escaping to trail over his broad shoulders. His chest was broad and well muscled, his limbs long and strong. He wore nothing but a snowy white waistcloth threaded over a wide leather belt and leather-strapped sandals.
His face was stern and handsome, and not at all marred by the leather patch he wore over his left eye. His right eye was dark, gleaming with humor and power.
It was not the stranger who answered Judith, but Saeweald.
"Silvius," he breathed, leaning forward so that Judith, now standing, could lend him her hand and aid him up.
At the mention of that name, Judith's eyes flew sharply to the man. Silvius? Brutus' father? The man Brutus had murdered at fifteen in order to seize his heritage?
"Aye," the man said, "Silvius, indeed. It has been a long time, Loth, since we met within the dark heart of the labyrinth." His eyes slid down Saeweald's body, marking the deformities. "My God, boy, does Brutus' hand still mark you?"
"As much as it marks you," Saeweald said, his tone still cautious, but nodding toward the patch over Silvius' empty left eye socket. Judith passed Saeweald his robe and he, too, clothed himself. "Silvius, what…"
"What do I here?" Silvius' face suddenly seemed weary, and he raised his eyebrows at a chair that stood to one side of the hearth.
Saeweald nodded, and Silvius sat down with an audible sigh. "I am as trapped as you, Saeweald, and," he looked at Judith, "as I suppose you are, my dear. I take it from your intimacy with Loth here—"
"Saeweald," Judith put in quietly.
"Your intimacy with Saeweald here, that you, too, are reborn from that time previous when we all suffered at the hands of Brutus and that woman," he spat the word out, "he tried to make the Game with?"
"Aye," she said. "My name was Erith then, and now I am Judith."
Silvius nodded, his expression still weary. "Asterion is back."
"We know," said Saeweald. "Silvius. What do you here? And how?"
"Brutus trapped me at the heart of his Game with my murder," Silvius said. "I am as trapped as any of you."
"But you seem flesh, not shade," Saeweald said.
Silvius grunted. "You'd be astounded at what has happened in the past two
v
thousand years, my boy. I sat there within the heart of the labyrinth, and somehow I took power from the Game. I am as much a player in the battle that is to come as either of you two are."
"But you cannot move from the Game," Saeweald said. "You were trapped
within its heart."
Silvius looked up at him, his one good eye seething with knowledge and power. "Who says I have moved from the Game?" he said quietly.
Saeweald and Judith said nothing.
"The Game was left unfinished," Silvius continued. "It continued to attract
evil… and it grew."
"Grew?" said Saeweald. He shared an appalled glance with Judith. "Oh, aye. Grew. Grew in power and knowledge and in magnitude, my boy. You think that the Game, the labyrinth, occupies only the top of Og's Hill— Lud Hill, as now you call it—where my son first built it?" The other two were silent, staring at Silvius.
Silvius' mouth twisted. "Nay," he said, very softly now, and he threw his hand about, as if encompassing not only Saeweald's chamber, but all the Westminster complex. "The Game occupies the entire area of the Veiled Hills now, my boy. It has burrowed deep, indeed."
Then Silvius leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and looked at them intently. "I have had enough of this disaster my son helped construct. I feel partly responsible, and so I am here to help you." He paused. "To help
Caela."
Saeweald narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Caela?"
"Oh, for the gods' sakes, boy! You think me a fool? I know Caela is Cornelia-reborn, and I know how important she is to you, and to your Mag and Og besides. And I know she does not remember, and this she needs to do.
Yes?"
Silence.
"And Caela is the only one who is likely to know where Mag truly is, yes?"
More silence.
"Yes, and yes again," Silvius answered for them. "Caela needs to remember very badly, for if she does not then all of our causes are lost. Saeweald, perhaps all that Cornelia needs is something from her past life to jolt her into
awareness."
"What?" said Saeweald, finally, grudgingly deciding to trust Silvius just a little bit. "What possibly remains from her previous life, save want and need
and hope?"
Silvius grinned, holding Saeweald's eye. "A bracelet," he said. Saeweald frowned, but it was Judith who spoke. "Saeweald, you may have never seen it, but Cornelia had a bracelet, a beautiful thing of gold and rubies
that she brought with her from her life as a princess of Mesopotama. She rarely wore it here in Llangarlia, but I know she looked upon it occasionally, remembering her life as a girl."
"Aye," said Silvius. "That bracelet. What would happen, do you think, if we slipped it on her wrist again?"
Saeweald was still frowning. "And you know where it is?"
Silvius nodded. "But to retrieve it safely I need you and whatever ancient magic of this land you still command. Saeweald, will you aid me?"
"No," Judith said, but it was already too late, for she could see the light in Saeweald's eyes.
eceve>i
I
wark.
ERY LATE THAT NIGHT, WHEN THE MOON HAD
sunk and the streets of London were lost in silent stillness, two men on horseback approached LondonBridge from South-
wark.
"They will not allow us to pass," Saeweald muttered, squirming uncomfortably in the saddle. His mare, Maggie, was well used to her rider's habitual wriggling, and strode on unperturbed.
"Is that so?" said Silvius, his teeth flashing white in the darkness, and Saeweald saw him make a gesture with his left hand. "A sign of the Game," Silvius said. "Look."
Ahead was a guardhouse that protected the entrance to the bridge. Normally four or five men stood night watch here, but as they approached, Saeweald saw through the open doorway into the dimly lit interior that all
slouched dozing about a brazier.
"They shall not wake," said Silvius. "And likewise with the guards who stand watch at the other end of the bridge. The way shall be open for us."
"You can manipulate the power of the Game?" Saeweald said, and Silvius glanced at him, hearing the distrust in his voice.
"I was a Kingman, too, remember? Yes, 1 can use parts of the Game's power. But, believe me, Saeweald, I want what you do—to stop my son at any cost from completing the Game with his Darkwitch. I do not want him finding those bands and completing his horror."
Silvius visibly shuddered, and Saeweald relaxed slightly. "You look so much like him," Saeweald said. "I am sorry if I remain on guard."
"I tried to help you before, didn't I?"
"Yes. Yes, you did," Saeweald said, remembering how Silvius had tried to aid Loth when he'd challenged Brutus to battle within the heart of the
labyrinth. "I am sorry, Silvius."
Silvius nodded, accepting Saeweald's apology, and led the way on to the bridge, which was largely built over with houses and shops, leaving only a nar-£m foot and horse passengers to walk. The horses'
hooves echoed loudly in the enclosed space, and Saeweald glanced back at the guardhouse.
There was no movement. "They remain unaware," said Silvius.
From the bridge they turned right along
Thames street (Saeweald looking curiously at the stones of Gog and Magog sitting inscrutable at the London-side entrance to the bridge), pushing their horses into a trot and then a canter. "We have little time," said Silvius. "It shall be dawn in a few hours.""Where do we go?" Saeweald said, having to raise his voice above the clattering of hooves.
Silvius nodded ahead. There, rising out of the gloom, was the White Mount that occupied the eastern-most corner of London. At its top rose a dilapidated stone and timber structure: a lighthouse, constructed by the Romans almost a thousand years earlier. As they neared it, Silvius pulled his horse back to a walk, waited for Saeweald to do the same, and began to talk. "Aha," said Saeweald, knowing now where it was that Silvius led him. "The Romans built this," Silvius said. "You know that?" Saeweald nodded.
"The Romans were a people from the same world as the Trojans, although from a later time, when the mysteries of the Game had been forgotten. They were drawn to this land and to this place by the siren song of the Game, although they did not recognize it. On this mound, one of your sacred hills, they built a great lighthouse, a beacon tower."
"But the tower is of no importance."
"No. You are right."
"It is what lies beneath it."
"Aye."
"The well," Saeweald said. The Romans had built their lighthouse atop the White Mount, which, in Saeweald's previous lifetime, covered a sacred well. Brutus had caused the opening to the well to be covered over when he built his palace atop the mound, but Saeweald supposed the well was still there, guarding its mysteries.
But what was the bracelet doing down the well?
"Cornelia was buried there," Silvius said softly. "Did you not know? Ah, of course not, for you were dead many years before she. When Brutus died, and then Cornelia took her own life, their sons carried them to the well, and buried them within it."
"And the bracelet was buried with her," said Saeweald. "Indeed."
The horses climbed the grassy slopes of the mount toward the derelict tower, Saeweald clinging to Maggie's saddle and studying the tower as she
I2O
climbed. The Romans had built the tower of white ragstone, well-buttressed and founded. It had once soared over thirty paces into the air, but during the past nine hundred years the top courses of stonework had tumbled down to lie in untidy heaps about the foundations, and the highest rooms were open to the night air. The Romans had used this tower to watch the river approaches to the city, and to set atop its heights a great beacon to warn both London and surrounding areas of any danger that approached. Now it was used for little more than a place for boys to hide from their mothers, and for those who still followed the old ways to light fires during the solstices.
At the tower's base, Silvius and Saeweald dismounted from their horses,
leaving their reins untied so they could nibble the grass about the top of the hill.
Once inside, Silvius led Saeweald to the tower's lowest rooms. The approaches
to the basements were half obscured with tumbled beams and stones, and
Saeweald reluctantly had to allow Silvius to aid him over the obstructions.
Eventually they stood in the very lowest level of the tower where stood an uneven floor of great stone slabs.
Here Silvius dropped his cloak to one side.
"Cornelia's and Brutus' corpses are beneath these slabs?" Saeweald asked.
"Aye."
"And you want me to lift these slabs?"
"No. Your power I shall need later." With one hand Silvius made another gesture over the stone flagging. "That was but a slight alteration to that magic that would have raised the flower gate," he said. "Never forget that once I,
too, was—"
"A Kingman. Yes, Silvius. I remember."
Then Saeweald gasped, for just as he spoke, several of the flagstones wavered and then vanished, revealing a great chasm.
Silvius stepped close, his feet careful about the edge of the chasm, and
peered down.
"Gods," he murmured. "I had not expected this to be so beautiful." Saeweald looked away from Silvius and back to the well, drawing himself carefully closer. The way opened into a rough circular shape that spiraled downward in great twists of rough rock. Far, far beneath rippled an emerald pool of water, and Saeweald knew that the depths of this pool were unknowable, even to such as himself. As he watched, the waters surged, their waves lapping higher and higher up the wild walls of the well, as if trying to reach
him. A dull roar reached his ears.
Shaken by the power of the raging waters, Saeweald studied the rock walls of the well. They did not consist of the well-finished masonry of human hands, but instead twisted and spiraled down in wild, sharp ledges. This was a savage and untamed cleft, and a place of great magic and power.
Saeweald's face sagged in astonishment. "I can't believe the well still retains this much power! Gods, Silvius, did Brutus and Cornelia's sons see this when they buried their parents?"
"No," said Silvius. "They saw only ordinariness, and a convenient place to rest their parents."
"How in all that's good and merciful," Saeweald said, "did Brutus and Cornelia's sons manage their way down?"
"The well made it easy for them," shouted Silvius. "All they and the mourners saw were smooth, even courses of stones for the walls, a dribble of a puddle far below, and a easy flight of steps that wound its way about the side of the well. To them this place was nothing more than a source of water for Brutus' palace, and not a very reliable one at that."
"I have never seen the well so vibrant," Seaweald said.
"You know it as a vital part of this land," said Silvius. "But did you know that there are others about the world?"
Saeweald finally dragged his eyes from the well to Silvius. "No."