I saw Ecub and Judith exchange a worried glance, but I spoke again quickly, before any of them could voice their thoughts. "But what did you discover, Saeweald?"

    "She has taken a lover," he said.

    Ecub, Judith, and I shrugged simultaneously. Whether as Genvissa or as Swanne, the woman was always taking lovers.

    "A lover who has supplanted William in her heart and in her estimation."

    "I cannot believe that!" I said. Then… "Has she…"

    "Decided to abandon the cause of the Game?" Saeweald said. "Forsworn her duties as Mistress of the Labyrinth? Nay, I am afraid not, Caela. She made it very clear to me that she is the Mistress of the Labyrinth, she will be the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and the Game is hers to control as she pleases."

    I felt a twinge of worry. I kept waiting for some enlightenment as to how it was I might persuade Swanne to hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth but that knowledge continued to elude me. Still, I must trust, and surely it would become plain to me.

    But… Swanne had found a lover to supplant William?

    "She has taken a lover who has supplanted William?" I said. "How can that possibly be?"

    "Aldred," Judith said. "Who else."

    Saeweald shot her a disbelieving look. "Aldred the great lover who has made Swanne forget William? I can hardly credit it."

    I could no longer bear inactivity, so I stood and paced back and forth in the narrow space of the semicircle we made before the fire. "This must be the shift the Sidlesaghes felt in the Game and the land," I said. "Swanne's lover."

    I halted, and fixed Saeweald with a penetrating glare. "Perhaps Swanne is misleading you about this man, this lover, for her own purposes."

    "No." Saeweald said. "I would stake my life on her genuine affection and regard for this man."

    "But how can that be!" I made an impatient gesture and resumed my pacing. "William can be the only man for her. She needs a Kingman. She can't just dismiss William!"

    "Aye," Saeweald said. "I do not like this. My foreboding merely grows the stronger for this news."

    "We need to know who this man is," said Ecub. "We need to know more about Swanne. What is happening with her? How can she have decided to abandon William?"

    I exchanged a glance with Saeweald. "I could visit her and—"

    "No!" Ecub and Judith said as one.

    "Too dangerous, surely," Judith added. "Especially as she knows that Mag still lives."

    "Swanne examined me after Asterion killed the false Mag," I said. "She knows there is no Mag in me. She will think merely that Mag has hopped elsewhere." I smiled with what I hoped was persuasion. "Swanne might talk to me, if only to brag. She always did enjoy bragging to me about her lovers."

    "Still…" said Ecub.

    "Damson," Saeweald put in, his voice slow. "Damson is with Swanne."

    "What?" I said. "With Swanne? What is Damson doing with Swanne?"

    Saeweald shrugged. "Swanne said that Damson had asked if she might join Swanne's household at Aldred's palace. I have no idea why, for Damson would just as surely have had a place in Harold and Alditha's household as she had in Edward's."

    Damson was my responsibility, I thought. I should have seen her settled somewhere safer—and obviously she felt unsettled enough to go into service with Swanne, of all people. She was my responsibility.

    "Caela…" Saeweald said. "Damson is your means to watch Swanne with

    far more safety than if you attended the witch in person. Swanne will be unguarded about Damson where she will be cunning and sly about you. Damson is your entry into Swanne's world."

    I sat silent, not liking it. I had come to hate "using" sweet, trusting Damson in the manner that I did, and to use her in this way was to place her in terrible danger.

    I could see that Ecub and Judith were not happy with Saeweald's suggestion, either, but it was too good an opportunity to lose.

    "I can fetch her to you," Saeweald said softly.

    I looked down at my hands curled tight in my lap, and lowered my head in agreement.

    SAEWEALD ARRANGED MY MEETING WITH DAMSON

    some six days later. By virtue of her service to Aldred, whose palace lay within the boundaries of London, Damson could not stray from London itself, so, accompanied by Mother Ecub and Judith, I traveled heavily draped and veiled to London to meet Damson there. I occupied a room in a sister house to St. Margaret's—Mother Ecub said I was a noble lady who needed solitude and privacy in order to pray for her dead husband's soul—and there I waited.

    In the late afternoon Saeweald bought Damson to me.

    He'd not told her whom he brought her to meet, only that he needed some assistance with draining fluid from the lungs of a woman who had the creeping blackness in her chest. When Ecub opened the door to Saeweald's soft tap, and Damson saw who awaited her within, her simple, clear face burst into a radiant smile, and she sank into a deep curtsy before me.

    "Madam!" she said. "I have prayed for your happiness every night."

    My guilt increased. How could I use this woman as I did? I determined that, whatever happened, Damson should not suffer for it.

    "Damson," I said, keeping my voice light. I took her hands in mine and raised her to her feet and, leaning forward, kissed her on the mouth.

    Instantly our souls transposed.

    As I entered Damson, I felt a brief, lingering trace of her unfeigned joy at seeing me and my guilt again stabbed deep.

    / would see this woman safe. I would.

    ALDRED HAD HIMSELF A FINE PALACE WITHIN London. It was richer and larger than most others—even the bishop of London himself did not command such magnificence, let alone any of the nobles

    who maintained residences within the city walls. Aldred had made himself rich indeed on Edward's munificence, I thought, as I made my way through the halls and chambers to where Saeweald had told me Swanne had her private apartments. I took care to maintain Damson's habitual modesty of demeanor, and, keeping my shoulders slumped and my face averted, I entered Swanne's outer chamber without any challenge from the guards.

    It was late afternoon and Swanne was enjoying a light repast. Hawise, Swanne's senior attending woman, made a sharp remark to me about my tardiness in returning from my errand, but that was the only comment made.

    "Here," Hawise said, handing me some linens. "His lordship has spent the afternoon with my lady. Her bed shall need to be changed."

    I took the linens silently and, equally as silently, I slipped into Swanne's chamber.

    Swanne was sitting by a brazier to one end of the chamber, picking without much apparent interest at a plate of food set before her. She paid me no attention as I made my way to the bed, and I glanced surreptitiously at her.

    She seemed very pale, and had lost weight, but even so, she was still fabulously beautiful. Her hair was bound under a veil, although several strands of it straggled over her neck that was, I was concerned to see, slightly reddened in patches, as if someone had grabbed at it with thick fingers.

    Swanne must have felt my eyes on her, for she turned to me and snapped, "Just change the linens and remove yourself, Damson. I have no interest in holding a conversation."

    I averted my head, terrified she should have seen more than Damson in my eyes, but Swanne said no more, and when I glanced once more at her, as I began to strip the coverlets from the bed, I saw that her attention was back on the plate of food.

    I looked to the bed, and barely managed to restrain a gasp of horror.

    That Aldred had lain with her recently was apparent—there were stains smeared across half the bed—but what was appalling was that there were also great streaks of blood marring the creamy linens. Her flux? I thought, then dismissed it, for this blood was not that of a woman's monthly courses, but the rich red of arterial flow.

    By all the gods in existence, what was Aldred doing to her? This was the lover she had crowed about to Saeweald?

    I could feel Swanne's eyes on me once more, so I hurriedly stripped the bed and remade it with the fresh linens.

    "Burn those soiled linens," said Swanne. "They are unredeemable."

    "Yes, madam," I muttered, and scurried out, the offending linens stuffed under my arm.

    I WAS NOT INVITED BACK INTO SWANNE'S CHAMBER

    that day. No one entered save Hawise, and I heard Swanne snarling at her on those brief occasions when the door opened or closed.

    Late at night, long after the bells for compline had rung, Aldred himself returned. He rumbled into the outer chamber, wrapped in furs against the night cold, and exuded charm and bonhomie.

    Hawise shot him a black look, and did not meet his eyes. Frankly, I was not surprised. If Swanne had been my lady, and even being Swanne, I think I would have sunk a knife into the fat archbishop's belly for what he did to her.

    Aldred called for wine and meat, then vanished into Swanne's chamber.

    In the instant before the door swung shut, I saw Swanne's white face.

    It radiated sheer dread.

    A kitchen hand appeared in due course with both wine and with meat, and Hawise took them in.

    As she came out I heard the door lock behind her.

    An hour or so later, as Hawise, myself, and several of Swanne's other women had settled on our pallets for the night, I heard the first shriek.

    The good archbishop had patently finished his meal and had now commenced on the evening's entertainment.

    There came another shriek and, despite myself, I raised myself up on an elbow and looked about the chamber. Surely Hawise or the other women would do something?

    But all I received for my concern was a sharp reprimand from Hawise to go back to sleep.

    The sounds of agony issuing from Swanne's chamber were not, most apparently, my concern.

    IT CONTINUED FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE HOURS—THAT

    sobbing anguish from behind the locked door. Eventually I could stand no more and, despite the danger I knew it would bring to both myself and to Damson, I decided to do something about it.

    The other women, while pretending to be asleep, were actually still very much awake, so I cast over them a gentle enchantment of peace and rest and they slipped quietly into slumber. Then I rose from my own pallet and approached the door.

    I put my ear to it, and heard nothing.

    Perhaps they were asleep.

    I risked all. I placed my eye against a slight crack between two of the

    planks of the door and, again using just a fraction of power, widened that gap so I could see into the chamber.

    For a moment all I could make out were shifting shadows, but then they resolved themselves into shapes. A single lamp had been left glowing by the chair where Swanne had been seated earlier and by its shifting light I could make out the bed.

    They were not asleep at all. Aldred's massive form was humping over Swanne's gaunt white body, back and forth, back and forth.

    Her hands were to her sides, hanging over the sides of the bed, her hands clenched into fists.

    Aldred's tempo increased, and something made me look from his body to the shadow his bulk cast on the wall behind the bed.

    It showed not his form at all, but that of a monstrous bull-headed man.

    I DO NOT KNOW HOW I MANAGED TO TEAR MYSELF

    from that door, nor how I managed to lay back on my pallet as if nothing had happened. I knew I could not risk Damson by fleeing in sudden panic into the night. I would have to wait until morning, then make some excuse so that I could slip back to where Ecub, Judith, and Saeweald guarded my own sleeping form.

    I lay there all night, sleepless, terrified that Asterion would thunder from that chamber and assault me.

    No wonder that Swanne appeared ill. No wonder she appeared changed. No wonder Silvius had felt something so wrong.

    Aldred was Asterion.

    Aldred had Swanne. Asterion had her captive.

    I remembered that day so many weeks ago when Swanne had come to my chamber and questioned me about the movement of the bands. How she had said to me, I've taken Aldred to my bed.

    That had surely been a plea for help, but I had not understood it.

    How she had looked terrified when I had said, "Do you think that I am still Asterion's pawn? Still dancing to his tune?"

    No, I was not the one now dancing to Asterion's tune.

    Swanne was now his pawn, by some hold I could not yet understand.

    I should have seen it. I should have seen it.

    I lay there, sleepless, my eyes closed, and wept.

    FOURGeejsl

    V- WANNE WOKE CLOSE TO DAWN, ACHING AND

    ■Hk bleeding, and found Asterion pacing the chamber. 'ts_-^ She rose, glad beyond knowing, and held out her arms.

    He came to her, gathering her close, and soothed away the hurts and bruises that Aldred had given her.

    "How I loathe that man," she whispered as Asterion carried her back to the blood-sodden bed and began to make love to her.

    "I know," he whispered, moving sweetly over her. "I hate what he does to you as well."

    "I wish you would come to me more often," Swanne said, weeping now. She was entirely lost. Where once Swanne had known Asterion used Aldred's body to hurt her, now she had become so dependent on Asterion she had forgotten it entirely. She was totally incapable of realizing that Asterion continued to use Aldred to hurt her so that Swanne would become ever more reliant on Asterion, ever more willing to do whatever he asked of her, ever more vulnerable to his subtle sorcery.

    "I come to you as often as I can," he said, bending down his face to kiss her.

    "I adore you," she said, cradling his monstrous head in her hands, loving the bestial musk of his breath.

    "I know."

    "I will do anything for you," she said, moaning now as he thrust into her, feeling his darkcraft fill her.

    "Indeed you will," he said, and then they fell speechless as their moans and groans consumed them.

    Later, as dawn broke and they heard Swanne's women rise and move about in the outer chamber, Asterion nuzzled Swanne's ear and said, very low, "Mag was here last night."

    "What!" Swanne almost fell out of bed as she struggled upright.

    "She was watching you with Aldred, using her power to scry through the door. You did not feel it?"

    Swanne frowned, trying to remember, but all she could recall was the agony of Aldred. "Who is she?" she said.

    "One of the women within Aldred's household," Asterion said.

    "I'll kill the bitch! I'll kill them all, just to make sure!"

    Asterion laughed, and stroked Swanne's naked back, feeling his palm bump over successive ridges of her spine. She was getting too thin. Way too thin, when Asterion needed her to seduce William into her bed. Perhaps he should pull the imp back a little, suppress his appetite a fraction. Even given Brutus and Genvissa's history, Asterion doubted William would succumb to a walking corpse.

    "Shall I lay the trap for you, my dear?" he said.

    She turned her face to him, and smiled.

    THAT NIGHT, IN THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN, AS MONKS

    and priests across Europe were filing their cold, huddled groups into chapels and cathedrals to sing Matins, a great fire appeared in the sky.

    'tX AMSON HAD GONE BACK TO ALDRED'S PALACE,

    and now Caela sat white-faced and trembling before Ecub, Saeweald, and Judith. Silvius was there also, having knocked quietly on the door a few moments after Caela returned. He was standing by a chair, his face dark with worry as he regarded Caela.

    The words tumbled out of her mouth. "Aldred is Asterion! Aldred is Asterion. He has Swanne. He has forced her to his will—I have no idea how. Oh, gods, gods… Silvius… my friends… what are we going to do? He has Swanne!"

    Silvius sat down on a stool with a thump. He exchanged one shocked look with Saeweald, then clenched his fists where they rested on his thighs. "Asterion has Swanne?" he said. "Asterion has the Mistress of the Labyrinth? No wonder the Game has felt so wrong!"

    "The entire world feels wrong," Saeweald said. "The great fire in the sky is sure evidence of it."

    There was silence, several among the group shuddering. Everyone had risen this morning to the news—Look! Look! Look to the sky! All London—all Christendom, surely—was jittery with nerves. It was a comet, the more learned said, but no one had ever seen anything like this before. The blazing fire covered almost a third of the sky. Who rode it? Some devil rider? A fiend from hell itself? And what if it crashed earthward?

    Who had it been sent to destroy?

    "Caela," Saeweald said. "Do you know anything of this?

    She shook her head. "The fire in the sky is unfamiliar to me. It has nothing of the land or the waters about it. It is cold, angry, alien. Worse even than Asterion." She gave a tight, humorless smile.

    No one returned it.

    "There is disaster coming," muttered Ecub. "None can doubt it."

    "We can only hope it prophesies disaster for Swanne and Asterion rather than for us," said Silvius.

    "What if it means Asterion is going to destroy the Game and all our hopes

    with it?" Judith said. "Is it coincidence that on the night Caela discovers the truth about Swanne and her new lover that this great fire appears hanging above our heads?"

    "Asterion will use Swanne to destroy the Game," Ecub said. "None can doubt it."

    Silvius grunted. "And you should become a prophetess of doom, Mother Ecub. None should doubt that."

    She shot him a black look.

    Saeweald looked at Caela, now with Judith's arm about her shoulders for comfort, then to Silvius.

    "If he has the Mistress of the Labyrinth," he said, "and if he wanted to destroy the Game, then all Asterion would need to do is kill her. Swanne is the only woman alive who can command the powers of the Mistress. If Asterion has her alive, then there is a reason for that, surely."

    There was a silence, disturbed only by Caela's deep, tremulous breathing as she brought her emotions under control.

    "What do you mean?" Silvius said eventually.

    Saeweald shrugged. "For the gods' sakes, Silvius, do you not sit in the heart of the Game? Were you not once a Kingman? What I am saying is that if Asterion wanted to destroy the Game, and if he controls Swanne, then all he needs to do is to kill her." He paused. "And if he hasn't, then there is a reason for that, and we should determine what that might be."

    "What does Asterion need in order to destroy the Game?" Caela said to Silvius. "Could he accomplish it by Swanne's murder?"

    "No," Silvius said. "He would need both Swanne and control over the kingship bands. That means he needs control over both Swanne and William."

    "Then that is why he hasn't killed Swanne!" Caela said. "He needs to take William as well; whatever else, Asterion can't leave William free." She looked at Silvius, then as quickly looked away again.

    "But you are moving the bands," Saeweald said.

    "William can still find them easily enough," Caela said. "He is their Kingman. They call to him constantly."

    "So Asterion needs William to find the bands," Saeweald said. "And for this he has—somehow—taken Swanne. She is both bait and trap. Ah! We may as well assume William's loss now, for he will fall into Swanne's arms as easily as if he were a babe seeking his mother's milk!" He looked at Caela. "And what do we need to control the Game, to wed it to this land forever and trap Asterion in his turn?"

    "We need Swanne to pass on her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth to me, and we need—"

    "William to pass over his powers as Kingman to… to whoever shall rise

    as Og," said Saeweald. One of his hands raised momentarily to his chest, as if to touch the tattoo beneath, then dropped back to his lap.

    "Yes," said Caela, her voice flat.

    "Let us concentrate on Swanne for the moment," said Ecub. "We cannot let her remain within Asterion's grasp."

    "Do you suggest we somehow rescue her?" said Saeweald.

    "A rescued Swanne would undoubtedly be a very grateful Swanne," Judith said. "Prepared, perhaps, to hand over her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth?"

    Silvius nodded. "My thoughts exactly." He turned to Caela. "Saeweald and Judith are right, Caela. You told us earlier that you should have recognized Swanne's scream for help when you heard it. Well, now you have heard it. We know that Swanne wants to be rescued from Aldred-Asterion's grasp. One of your's, and this land's, greatest problems has always been in the persuasion of Swanne to hand over to you her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth. Now, perhaps, Asterion has handed us our bargaining power. If Swanne has the choice of handing the power to Asterion, or handing it to you…"

    "I don't know," said Caela. "For many months I have sought out the means by which Swanne might be persuaded to hand me her powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth. I was—am—sure that when I saw or heard of this means, I would recognize it. This does not feel right."

    "Why?" said Saeweald.

    Caela made a helpless gesture.

    "You can't ignore it," said Silvius. "Swanne must be desperate for release from Asterion. This very well could be the chance you've been waiting for, Caela.

    "Silvius is right," said Saeweald. "We offer Swanne freedom in exchange for her freely handing to Caela the powers of Mistress of the Labyrinth. Then, once William realizes Swanne has handed on her powers, he will do so as well."

    Ecub's mouth twisted. This all sounded very naive to her. "I'm sorry to disagree," she said. "But surely Swanne would prefer to see the world destroyed before she 'handed over' any of her powers? And why do you assume that she wants to escape Asterion? Did she not boast to Saeweald of her new lover? Of how she apparently preferred him to William? Does none of this sound a note of danger to any of you?"

    "There is no way that Swanne could ever want to ally herself with Asterion," Silvius said forcefully. "None whatsoever. Why? He wants to destroy the Game, Swanne wants to use it to achieve immortal power. She wants Asterion destroyed. She cannot possibly want to ally with him."

    J

    There was a silence, finally broken by Caela. "Yes," she said. "I agree with Silvius. Swanne cannot be allied with him. If she has boasted of her new lover, then they were words Asterion forced her to speak. What I saw in that chamber was not an act of love and consent, but of violence and domination. Asterion is murdering Swanne by slow degrees."

    "Aye," said Saeweald. "She is ill. This cannot be 'want' on her part."

    Ecub sighed and nodded. "Very well."

    Caela gave her a smile, then addressed the group. "If we manage to free Swanne, can we hide her from Asterion?"

    "Yes," said Silvius. "I think so. We can secret her within the Game itself. There she can teach Caela."

    "Possibly," said Caela. "I, for one, still doubt that any rescue, even one of this magnitude, will make Swanne so pathetically grateful she'll just pass over her powers. Ah, no need to look so concerned, Silvius. I agree we should at least try. Who knows? Miracles can happen."

    There were nods from Silvius, Judith, and Saeweald, and a mild shrug of agreement from Ecub.

    "How do we free her from Asterion?" Caela asked. "Surely, if it was a simple matter of just walking away…"

    "We need to know just what power he holds over her," said Silvius. "Caela, you will need to speak to her. Let her know that she is not alone. That she will be rescued."

    Caela nodded.

    "As Damson."

    "Oh, no! Silvius… I do not want to do that! It was enough that I risked her as much as I did when—"

    "You cannot go as yourself!" Saeweald said. "It is too dangerous—especially since Swanne now knows Mag is not dead. What if she has told Asterion? Caela, if you use Damson, then you will have the chance of escape should…"

    "Should Asterion discover what I do," said Caela, her tone bitter. "In which case Damson will be killed."

    "Better her than you," Silvius said. "You know that."

    "I owe Damson more than this!"

    "You owe this land more than Damson," Silvius retorted. "Never lose sight of that."

    There was a long silence, then Caela gave one single, reluctant nod.

    IN ANY EVENT, IT WAS ALMOST SEVEN WEEKS BEFORE Caela could do anything about approaching Swanne. On the morning that she told Silvius, Saeweald, and Judith of what she'd discovered in Swanne's

    bedchamber, Harold ordered Aldred north to his see of York. Rebel sentiments were stirring, and Harold needed Aldred to return to York to work on Harold's behalf.

    Swanne went with him. A few days after Swanne and Aldred had left, the great fire in the sky faded and then vanished, and everyone breathed a little easier.

    Doom had been averted, it appeared.

    In itself, Swanne's journey north need not have delayed Silvius' plan to use Damson to approach Swanne, but Damson herself had unexpectedly traveled to her home village in Cornwall where her mother lay dying. Until Damson and Swanne were within the same town, it would be impossible for Caela to use Damson to approach Swanne.

    Meanwhile, and now knowing who Asterion was, and, most important, where he was, the Sidlesaghes and Caela moved a fourth band. This time Caela took a band from its hiding place close to the London Bridge and shifted it five miles to the southwest of London to a small village called Clope-ham where Caela handed the band to a Sidlesaghe sitting mournfully on a stool at the junction of two roads.

    There was no interference, no trouble, no disturbance. The move was effected quickly and smoothly.

    Asterion made no attempt to halt them, and Caela supposed that this time it was because he was so far distant.

    sixceejsi

    WANNE ARCHED HER BACK, STRETCHING OUT

    her stiff muscles, then bent her elegant neck slowly from side to X*__-> side. The journey back from York had taken three days of hard riding, and three nights of…

    Swanne forced her mind away from Aldred. She would not think about those nights.

    She wouldn't.

    Swanne sat down in a chair, as close to the fire as she could manage without setting her rose-colored gown ablaze, thinking on Asterion. She hadn't seen him for over a week. He'd appeared now and again while she and Aldred had been in the north, but far more infrequently than he'd come to her here in London. Swanne missed him—and resented his absences—horribly.

    It was not only that Asterion's gentle touch soothed Aldred's agonies, nor even that when he lay with her he increased her darkcraft a fraction more. It was that Swanne simply missed him.

    How could she ever have lain with Harold… and borne him six children?

    How could she have ever thought she loved William, and believed him her true mate in power?

    How could she have ignored Asterion for all these years? How could she never have realized?

    Swanne's mind was now so consumed with Asterion, with the need for his presence and touch, that her conscious mind was no longer aware that Aldred and Asterion were one and the same. That Aldred tormented her merely so that Asterion could soothe her.

    Aldred she feared and loathed beyond measure. Asterion she craved as much as life and power itself.

    Another band had moved during her absence from London (by Silvius, Swanne supposed). The night it had moved, Asterion made one of his rare visits to Swanne while she was in York. Aldred for once had left her alone—he'd gone to spend a day or so at a monastery just to the west of York where he suspected the abbot was falsifying his estate accounts.

    Asterion had come to Swanne, and soothed her and held her and loved her and said that the band's movement did not matter.

    "William will be able to find it soon enough," he'd said. "As he will all of them. And when William has the bands…"

    "We pounce," Swanne had whispered into the beast's mouth as he bent to kiss her.

    "William will do anything for you," Asterion said.

    "Anything," Swanne murmured.

    "And when we have him… then he will do everything for us. Tell me, my love, do you think the bands will look elegant encircling my limbs?"

    Swanne had run her hands over the creature's thickly muscled biceps. "They were meant for you," she'd said, and Asterion had smiled, and had given her more of the darkcraft that night than he had hitherto.

    Now, Swanne sat by the fire, shivering despite its heat, and waited.

    Mag would come to her today. She could feel it—not merely that Mag would come, but that the trap she and Asterion had set was about to spring.

    Swanne closed her eyes, blessing Asterion for the renewed sense of dark-craft within her, then composed her face and put upon it the expression of the battered victim—that of equal parts; fear, hope, and submission.

    The door opened.

    Swanne took a deep breath and opened her eyes… then could not help widening them as she saw who it was.

    Damson?

    Ah! Mag had ever had a penchant for obscure, worthless fools.

    "Damson?" Swanne said in her most chilling voice—she could not let the tiresome witch know she'd been expected. "What do you here? The linens have already been changed and I have no further use for you. You may leave."

    But Damson did not leave, as Swanne knew she would not.

    "Madam," Damson said, carefully closing the door behind her and looking about the chamber to ensure they were alone.

    "Damson," Swanne said again, stiffening in her chair as if deeply affronted. 'You may leave!"

    "I cannot, Swanne," the Damson-who-was-not-quite-Damson said, and she came directly to Swanne, hesitated, then pulled up a stool close to Swanne's chair and sat herself down.

    "How dare you sit in my presence!" Swanne said, allowing a note of anger to creep into her voice.

    "I am not Damson," said the woman. "Not entirely."

    And she looked directly into Swanne's eyes.

    Swanne did not have to fake the surprise that flared across her face.

    "Gods!" she whispered. "Mag?" This was not the Mag that Swanne had

    known in her earlier life, but one infinitely more dangerous, far more powerful. This was, somehow, a youthful Mag, a Mag at the beginning of her promise, a Mag who could grow into a true threat.

    How had she managed this? Swanne barely managed to keep herself still in her chair. She had a wild urge to dash to the window and fling aside the shutters, and scream for Asterion.

    No, no. She must be calm. He would be here soon enough.

    And yet it wouldn't be soon enough, would it? No time would be soon enough to rid themselves of this unexpectedly powerful enemy.

    "Mag," Swanne said again, her voice more controlled now.

    Damson-Mag gave a slight nod. "I am she who walks as the mother goddess of this land," she said. "Not dead, after all, Swanne."

    "You always did know how to slip away from danger, didn't you?"

    "I draw on a long association with the Darkwitches, Swanne. I have learned well."

    Swanne bared her teeth in equal amounts smile and snarl.

    "And now you have come to gloat?" she said.

    Damson shook her head. "Swanne, I have come to make you an offer."

    Oh! The smugness of it! "An offerl And what might that be?"

    Damson took a deep breath. "In return for your freedom from Asterion's malicious grip, in return for your life, because Asterion is surely murdering you by degrees, I need you to teach me the ways and powers of the Mistress of the Labyrinth."

    Swanne stared unblinking at Damson, her lips slightly parted, shocked into total silence. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Damson could have said to stun her more. "You… what?" she finally managed.

    "The Game has changed," Damson said. "Altered."

    Swanne said nothing, still staring at Damson as if she had turned into a frog before her eyes.

    Damson took a deep breath, as if coming to a decision within herself. "The Game has grown in the two thousand years that Asterion kept everyone within death. It has merged with the land itself, allied with it. Now the Game and the land have a single purpose."

    Swanne still said nothing. Her mind was racing, trying to take in all Damson was saying, and what this was leading to. Mag? Wanted to be the Mistress of the Labyrinth? Why?

    In her lap, Swanne's hands twisted over and over.

    Again Damson took a deep breath. "The Game wants myself and Og to complete it as the Mistress and Kingman."

    Swanne's mouth dropped open even farther, and her eyes widened impossibly. It was not so much that the Game and the land had apparently decided

    between themselves that Mag and Og should complete the Game as Mistress and Kingman, although that was unbelievable enough, but that Og still lived! Og? Alive?

    "Og…" Swanne managed to get out, more a groan than a true word. "Og is… alive?"

    Damson gave a single nod.

    Swanne slumped back into her chair, unable for the moment to accept it. "But Loth slew him when he slew his mother, Blangan."

    "He almost did, yes. But Mag was in that stone dance as well that night, secreted within Cornelia's womb, and she cast an enchantment upon him that has kept him alive, just, all these years. He rests, waiting."

    Swanne noted that Damson-Mag still did not say "I," but "Mag." Why that distance? "Where?" she said.

    Damson hesitated, then apparently decided that truth would persuade Swanne more quickly than falsehood. "In the heart of the Game."

    "Gods," Swanne whispered. Her mind was still whirling. Asterion should know this! Soon!

    Damson mistook Swanne's shock for indecision, and she leaned forward and took Swanne's hands in her own.

    Swanne did not resist.

    "Swanne, please, let me help you. You and I share neither friendship, or even a semblance of respect each for the other."

    True enough, thought Swanne.

    "But I can help you. I can free you from Asterion. I know he masquerades as Aldred."

    Swanne wanted to scream at the stupid bitch that Asterion was not Aldred, but managed to hold her tongue.

    "If I aid you to freedom, Swanne, I would that you teach me the ways of the Labyrinth in return."

    "Foolish" could not possibly encompass the inanity of this suggestion, Swanne thought, allowing a frown of indecision to crease her forehead, as if she truly considered what Damson offered. Hand to her my powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth? How could she ever have thought that I would do such a thing?

    "A deal, Swanne," Damson said, now grasping Swanne's hands very tightly and leaning in to her very close. "In return for your freedom from Asterion, you hand to me your powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth."

    "I…" Swanne said, and then her eyes altered slightly, as if she saw something behind Damson.

    In an instant Swanne's hands twisted in Damson's, grasping them in a cruel grip.

    Damson pulled back, but could not break free from Swanne's grasp, and in the next moment her own face went as slack in shock as Swanne's had been for most of their conversation.

    Two heavy hands had fallen on her shoulders, pinning her to the stool.

    "Well, well, Mag," said a chilling male voice. "What a posy of surprises you have turned out to be."

    Damson struggled on the stool, but she was caught in the twin grips of Swanne and Asterion.

    Swanne looked to her lover, an expression of unfeigned love and rapture on her face. "Asterion," she breathed. "Oh, how I have missed you."

    Both her expression and words were enough for Damson to let out a shocked cry. "No! Swanne! No! What are you doing?"

    Swanne turned her face back to Damson, her expression now twisted with hate and loathing. "Think you that I would ever hand you my powers? Think you that I have any intention of completing the Game with William? Nay, this is my lover, my partner, my mate, and this time, my dear darling Mag, you are to be given no chance of flight at all."

    She let go Damson's hands and, although Caela-within-Damson tried to wrench herself tree of Asterion's hands, and tried to use every piece of power she had against him, he held both her form and her power in check with infinite ease.

    Swanne rose and, with deliberate slowness, reached with one hand into the pocket of her robe.

    Very gradually, very deliberately, keeping her own eyes steady on Damson's frantic face, she drew her hand forth.

    In it she clasped the twisted horn-handled knife of Asterion.

    "Do you recognize it, you witless bitch?" Swanne whispered. "Do you remember how you made Cornelia plunge this into me? Well, now you feel what it is like, Mag, to have cold metal end your ambitions and hopes."

    And with that she hefted the knife, then plunged it into the soft, tender skin at the juncture of Damson's neck and shoulder.

    sevejMGeejsi

    AEWEALD, ECUB, AND JUDITH WERE SITTING

    company with Caela's body as it lay still on the bed. V*___-^-'' Within, Damson's soul slept unknowing.

    Then, suddenly, all three gasped as a bright red spot appeared at the base of Caela's neck, and then flowered into a crimson pool of blood. "No!" cried Saeweald, and lunged forward.

    "OH GODS," SWANNE MOANED, AS IF IN THE ECSTASY of love-making, "how I have longed to sink this knife into Mag! At last! At last!"

    Behind Damson, Asterion was almost doubled over with laughter, although he kept his hands firmly on Damson's shoulders.

    Swanne viciously twisted the knife until the blade sank completely into Damson's body. "I only wish you were Caela, bitch, then my happiness would be complete."

    Damson's hands were grasping at Swanne's, but they were slippery with the blood that now pumped out of her neck, and she could not dislodge Swanne's grip on the knife.

    "No," she said in a horrible bubbling whisper. "No, Swanne, please…"

    But Swanne was not listening. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her mouth open, and her hands twisted again and again as she leaned so hard on the knife that she forced even the twisted-horn handle into Damson's body.

    SAEWEALD GRABBED AT CAELA'S SHOULDERS, SHAKING her as violently as he could. "Come back now!" he shouted. "Now! For Og's sake, Caela! Now't"

    Behind him Judith was screaming something, and Ecub was shouting, but Saeweald took no notice of them. "Return home now!" he shouted. "Now! Now!"

    Caela's soul obeyed, even though it did not want to, even though it was almost fatally mated with that twisting, murderous knife in Damson's body.

    It left Damson, and fled shrieking back to its own body, passing Damson's soul halfway.

    That soul seemed curiously resigned, even peaceful, even though, as it neared its own body, it knew what awaited it.

    Death.

    CAELA'S BODY CAME TO LIFE UNDER SAEWEALD'S

    hands, and she grasped instinctively at her neck where blood was pumping forth, even though, strangely, her skin was apparently unbroken.

    "No!" she cried out, then fell insensible as the blood flowed from her.

    "Stop the bleeding!" Ecub said, rushing to Caela's side as Saeweald tried to staunch the flow of blood.

    "It won't stop until Damson's heart stops beating," Saeweald said in a curiously flat tone. "Pray that happens soon."

    There was a single, appalling silence.

    "Or Caela will die with her."

    SWANNE WAS PANTING AS SHE LEANED WITH ALL HER

    strength into the knife.

    Damson had stopped struggling, and was regarding Swanne with flat, hopeless eyes; beyond her Asterion was hopping from foot to foot, his eyes almost popping out of his head as he watched Swanne. This was so much better than he'd planned!

    Damson's hands were fluttering at her sides, scattering bright drops of blood over both Swanne and Asterion. Her mouth had fallen silent, even though it still moved.

    The blood continued to pump from her neck.

    "CURSE HER STURDY HEART!" CRIED SAEWEALD, AS HE

    tried uselessly to stem the flow of blood from Caela's neck. "Why can't the damned peasant woman dieV

    Judith took one futile step toward the door, as if she meant to run to Aldred's palace and wrench Damson's head from her body.

    If Caela died now then all was lost, for the Mag force within her would finally vanish.

    DAMSON GAVE ONE GREAT SHUDDER, AND SWANNE

    let go the knife and took a step back, staring wide-eyed at Damson.

    Damson gave a soft moan, shuddered again, then fell forward, snapping her head back as her chin caught the edge of the stool, which she'd pushed before her during her struggles.

    Her neck snapped, and with it snapped Damson's life, and the connection that bound her to Caela.

    "IT HAS STOPPED!" SAEWEALD SAID. "SHE HAS DIED AT

    last. Thank all gods in existence!"

    Judith came back to the bed. "Is she still alive?"

    There was a long, terrible pause.

    "Just," Saeweald eventually said. "And only just."

    SWANNE LOOKED OVER DAMSON'S BODY TO ASTERION.

    Both of them were covered in blood.

    "My lover," she breathed, and he stepped forward over the corpse and took her in his arms.

    LATER, WHILE SAEWEALD, JUDITH, AND ECUB WERE

    still grouped about Caela, willing her every breath, Silvius rushed through the door, not even bothering to knock.

    "Gods!" he cried. "What has happened?"

    THE NEXT MORNING, AS THE WATERMAN WAS POLING his craft from the fish wharves just below the bridge toward Lambeth on the southern bank of the river, he saw a bloated white body half submerged in the water.

    It did not immediately perturb him—the Thames was the final resting place for hundreds of unfortunates every year—but as he passed it, the current surged, turning the corpse over.

    It was Damson, her head almost severed from her body.

    eigbceejsi

    T TOOK SAEWEALD FIVE DAYS AND NIGHTS—DAYS

    and nights when he hardly slept—before he could be sure that Caela would live. He dribbled broths down her throat, he placed medicated lozenges in her mouth to slowly dissolve, he coated her tongue with honey.

    And finally, finally, she began to respond to his treatment.

    Ecub and Judith also kept vigil within Caela's chamber, as did Silvius. More than anything else, all four wanted to move Caela back to the relative safety of St. Margaret's. This small religious house within London's walls was too close to Swanne and whatever had happened in that chamber (and how they wanted Caela to wake, and to talk, so that they would know what had happened!), but Caela lay so close to death that there could be no thought of moving her.

    Not yet.

    On the sixth day, so wan, she looked like a three-day dead corpse, Caela opened her eyes.

    Saeweald, waving Silvius, Judith, and Ecub back, gently fed her some broth with a spoon, then wiped her face with a clean towel.

    "Caela," he said, gently. "You're back with us."

    She started to weep. "Damson is dead."

    "We know," Saeweald said. "But—"

    "I killed her. I killed Damson."

    "Enough," said Silvius, who had finally managed to find a place beside Saeweald. "It was not you who killed—"

    "I put her in harm's way," said Caela, and then wept so violently that Saeweald again motioned Silvius back with a frown, then held Caela's hand while she cried away her grief and guilt.

    When, eventually, her tears had abated somewhat, Silvius said, "What happened?"

    "Swanne…" Caela said, her voice hoarse. Saeweald fed her some more spoonfuls of broth, and she smiled at him gratefully.

    The smile died almost the instant it had appeared.

    "Swanne had Asterion's black knife," she said, "and with it she murdered Damson. Swanne has allied with Asterion. He is her new lover."

    There was a chorus of voices, shocked, stunned, angry, disbelieving.

    "Wait," Caela whispered. "There is worse. Swanne and Asterion mean to control the Game between them."

    "Asterion does not want to destroy it?" Silvius said.

    Caela gave a weak shake of her head, prompting Saeweald to murmur in concern and to glare at Silvius, as if his question had seriously weakened Caela.

    "He means to control it," Caela said. She began to cry again. "Become its Kingman in place of William. Silvius… I am sorry… Silvius… I told Swanne—before I knew of her bond with Asterion—what the Game has planned. Oh, Silvius, I am so sorry. I should have—"

    "Be still," Silvius said gently. "It could not be helped. They trapped you." He took Caela's hand in his, stroking it gently.

    Then, suddenly he stilled, and his face went pale.

    "What?" said Saeweald, staring at Silvius.

    "The Mag force within Caela has gone," he said, his voice hoarse with disbelief and horror. "The Mag within her has gone!"

    A terrible, bewildered silence.

    "Swanne has succeeded," Silvius went on, his voice now barely audible. "She has killed Mag. She has finally killed Mag."

    Part Seven

    Among the school-boys in my memory there was a pastime called Hop-Scotch, which was played in this manner; a parallelogram about 4 or 5 feet wide, and 10 or 12 feet in length, was made upon the ground and divided laterally into 18 or 20 different compartments called beds… the players were each provided with a piece of tile… which they cast by hand into the different beds in regular succession, and every time the tile was cast, the player's business was to hop on one leg after it, and drive it out of the boundaries at the end… if it passed out at the sides, or rested upon any of the marks, it was necessary to repeat the whole of this operation. The boy who performed the whole of this operation by the fewest casts was known as The Conqueror. Joseph Strutt, Sports & Pastimes of the People of England,

    Late 18^th century

    London, March

    ORNELIA IS MINE, YOU KNOW," SAID ASTERION,

    lounging against the closed door to Skelton's bedroom as the Major slid home the knot on his tie.

    Jack Skelton ignored the Minotaur as he turned slightly, checking his reflection in the wardrobe mirror to make sure his uniform sat straight.

    "I've had her ever since that moment she begged me to sleep with her," Asterion continued. "Genvissa was right. Cornelia was always a tramp."

    Skelton turned about so he could look the Minotaur in the face. His eyes were weary, ringed with dark circles, the expression in them resigned, almost hopeless.

    "Then why hasn't she given you the final two bands?" Skelton said.

    The Minotaur laughed. "Oh, she will, soon enough."

    Skelton smiled. "Yes? Then why traipse about over London after me? Why torment me, if there is no need?"

    Asterion straightened, snarling. "Because I enjoy it!"

    Then he was gone, and Skelton was left staring at the back of the bedroom door.

    "Major?" Violet called from the other side. "Frank's waiting for you. He has the motor outside." She paused. "Waiting."

    "Aye," whispered Skelton. "Waiting, as are we all." He raised his voice. "I'll be but a moment, Mrs Bentley!"

    But Skelton did not immediately move. Instead he continued to stand, staring at the closed door, one hand raised to his shirt where he scratched softly at that spot where Matilda had touched him earlier.

    He could hear a rumble outside, and Skelton knew that it was not, as might be expected, the sound of Bentley starting up his motor.

    Instead he recognized it for what it was: the sound of the white stag with the blood-red antlers running wild through the forest.

    "I'm ready," he said, and the only one who heard was the running stag.

    JM6 Mid-September

    HE NORTHERLY WIND BLEW STRONG, WHIPPING

    the waves in Somme Estuary into man-high, cream-foamed crests that slapped against the hulls of the scores of galleys at anchor.

    On shore, standing atop a tower, which overlooked the harbor and the small town of Saint-Valery, William glanced yet once more at the weather vane on top of the church spire.

    The northerly wind showed no sign of abating.

    Matilda, standing with her husband, saw the direction of his glance. "Hardrada is moving."

    "With this wind? Aye. His ships will be close to northern England by now."

    The spring and summer had been a curious mix of frantic activity and a soul-deadening wait for intelligence. As William had built his military expedition and garnered support from the European heads-of-state and Church (all of which had, thank Christ, been forthcoming), so Harold had consolidated his hold on England, and built his own forces up to meet the expected challenge from Normandy.

    But Harold Hardrada of Norway was also moving. He'd built up a huge flotilla of three hundred ships with which to invade the north of England and, like William, now awaited propitious weather conditions in which to launch his ambition.

    This northerly wind provided Hardrada his chance. William had received intelligence a week ago that Hardrada had embarked. If he wasn't within sight of England now, then he would be within the day. And while the norther-lies sped Hardrada toward England it kept William pent up in the mouth of the Somme… waiting.

    "And Harold?" Matilda asked softly.

    O

    "Preparing to meet him." William let out a pent-up breath. "At last. At last we are moving."

    "But we are not moving," Matilda observed, and William turned to her and grinned.

    He leaned down and planted a kiss on her forehead, and rested a hand briefly on her belly. Matilda was five months gone with child, and William was grateful for no other reason than the child would keep Matilda at home when otherwise she might have insisted on embarking with him.

    "We shall be soon," he said. "This northerly will not last a lifetime, and the instant it changes, we sail."

    "Yet in the meantime Hardrada threatens to seize England from us."

    William shook his head, his eyes now scanning the fleet as it bobbed at anchor. "Harold is good. Very good. Hardrada may test him, but I doubt very much that he will best him. He will tire him. With luck, my love, Harold's force will be exhausted by the time it meets mine."

    "I wish my agent was still in place," Matilda said, her voice sad. She'd heard some time ago of her agent's death, and Matilda worried that it was her orders that had placed Damson in danger.

    "We will manage without her," William said, kissing the top of Matilda's head.

    "I wish I knew who killed her," she said.

    "When I have England, then we shall hunt down her murderer. I promise you that."

    Matilda relaxed, trusting in her husband. She, too, looked over the fleet, reviewing in her mind all that had happened in the past months. The Norman magnates' enthusiastic acceptance of William's plan; the pope's blessing; the aid—both monetary and in the form of troops—sent by the nobles of Flanders, Maine, Brittany, Poitou, Burgundy, five of the Italian states, and a score of others.

    All lusting for the spoils William promised would be theirs at his victory.

    "I will keep Normandy safe for you," she said, and William again smiled and kissed her. He was leaving Matilda as coregent of Normandy with their eldest son, Robert. At fourteen, Robert was coming into the age where he needed to shoulder the responsibilities of the duchy, which would eventually be his. William had needed to fight for decades to establish his right to rule Normandy; he intended to make the process of succession much easier for his son. He loved his son, as he loved Matilda, but not with the deep-hearted passion he was capable of. That he reserved for…

    His eyes slipped over the estuary and out to sea. Wondering what was really happening in England… in London.

    Swanne had been quiet. Too quiet for his liking, and for the events that

    were gathering. He'd heard that she'd kept her place in Aldred's bed, and he found that increasingly disturbing.

    Why?

    Harold, he had understood (if not yet Swanne's neglect in telling him that Harold was Coel-reborn). William's chance to take his rightful place on England's throne (as England's Kingman) had been delayed by so many years because of the (Asterion-driven) revolts within Normandy itself. In the meantime, Swanne had needed to establish a place within the English court, and Harold had been the perfect vehicle with which to do that.

    William could forgive her Harold. Could understand Harold.

    But not Aldred. The man was not unknown to William, for the corpulent archbishop of York had acted as one of Edward's emissaries to Rome on numerous occasions, and when traveling through Europe, Aldred had often stayed with William. Aldred's sympathies were clearly with William—he'd acted as the go-between for the letters between Swanne and William for years.

    William repressed a sigh. Perhaps that's why Swanne was with him. Payment owed?

    No, that wasn't Swanne at all.

    "Your thoughts?" Matilda said beside him, and William jumped a little guiltily.

    "I was thinking of Swanne," he said. "I was wondering why, out of all the intelligence I've received from England, so little of it has been from her. I had expected more."

    Far more, dammit. There is not just a throne riding on this!

    "You're worried," Matilda said.

    "Yes." What was Asterion doing? Where was his hand in all of this?

    "You can do nothing save what you have already done," Matilda said, leaning in against him and placing her arm about his waist.

    "Aye. You are right. As usual." William lightened his face and tone. "Tell me, how do you think I can possibly crown you queen of England when in all probability you shall be too round and cumbersome to fit onto the throne?"

    She laughed. "You shall be a great king."

    William's face sobered. "I hope so."

    GIDO

    T WAS ALL FALLING APART—HAD BEEN FOR

    months—and Saeweald had no idea how to stop it.

    It had all seemed so simple: pass control of the Game into the hands of Mag and a resurrected Og and all would be well, for ever and aye.

    The land would flourish, and no one and nothing, ever, would be able to stain its brightness again. Asterion and all malevolence would be contained, Swanne and William and all their ambitions would be broken, Mag and Og would again reign supreme, and the waters and the forests would rejoice.

    Yet nothing had quite happened that way, had it?

    Saeweald had known that Caela had always felt that she lacked something, an emptiness within her where there should have been fullness, and that she somehow had failed to truly connect to the land. Since the failure of her "marriage" to the land, that night she'd lain with Silvius, that sense had become even greater, undermining Caela's confidence within herself. Now, since that terrible day when Swanne and Asterion had slaughtered Damson, Caela had rejected the Mag within her completely.

    It wasn't so much that Mag, or her potential, was dead (as Silvius had so melodramatically cried), it was that Caela had been so ill—physically and emotionally—for so many months after Damson's death that she had completely suppressed the Mag within her. She refused to acknowledge its existence, she would hear nothing of the Game, would not speak to Silvius and barely to Saeweald and Judith… she wallowed in her guilt at Damson's death.

    Even the Sidlesaghes, undoubtedly knowing she would not want to see them, had stayed away.

    Ah, Caela had allowed her guilt to overwhelm her. In the months since Swanne and Asterion had killed Damson, Caela had seemed to go into a fugue. She didn't know what to do, or where to go, and to all suggestions that there must be some means of redressing the emptiness within her, or fulfilling her potential as Mag, she had refused to act. She had merely smiled sadly, and shaken her head, and then turned aside. Caela continued to live quietly

    within St. Margaret the Martyr's, and Ecub and Judith stayed close. Silvius came occasionally, but Caela did not respond to him any better than she did others, and so his visits became less frequent. Caela spent her days sewing, talking quietly with one or the other of the sisters of St. Margaret's, or, more and more, she took solace in wandering the hills and meadows beyond the priory's walls.

    She did not enter London.

    So far as Saeweald was concerned, the Mag within Caela might not be dead, but it might as well be, for Caela refused to acknowledge it.

    And without Caela, without the Mag within her, everything was doomed.

    Saeweald tried to talk with Caela, tried to reason with her, tried, on one disastrous day, to seduce her (if Silvius had not aided her, then Saeweald could have, surely!). But to all efforts, words, hands or mouth, she had only smiled, shaken her head, and laid a gentle hand to his cheek. For months, Saeweald had felt sure that he was to be Og-reborn, but in his failure to touch Caela, to be able to communicate with her, he now began to doubt even that. He wasn't strong enough.

    And Caela wasn't strong enough.

    Meantime, Swanne and Asterion went from strength to strength.

    Or so Saeweald supposed. He'd had very little to do with Swanne in recent months—he had no reason to see her and would only arouse her suspicions if he insisted. Besides, knowing of her alliance with Asterion, Saeweald frankly didn't feel like going within a hundred paces of the woman. Instead, Saeweald heard of Swanne only through gossip and the occasional glimpse of her moving through the streets of London. He assumed that she and Asterion were biding their time, waiting for William to arrive so they could…

    Saeweald shuddered. So they could seize him. William would arrive, fall straight into Swanne's arms… and find himself trapped by Asterion.

    Saeweald didn't know what to do. These months of inactivity, of nothingness, had drained him. Caela turned aside her head, Silvius had slunk off somewhere unknowable, Swanne and Asterion planned and shared nights of passion, and Saeweald paced and fretted and wondered what in creation's name he could do!

    Warn William?

    That would be the sensible course of action, but how? Saeweald had no avenues of communication open to him by which he could reliably reach William. Anything he sent, whether spoken word or written, might well be intercepted by one of Asterion's minions—and thus expose both Saeweald and, through him, Caela. If by chance a communication did reach William, then Saeweald doubted seriously that William would believe it. If he understood that it came from Loth-reborn then he most certainly would not believe it.

    Frankly, Saeweald wasn't sure if anyone could convince William that Swanne had allied with Asterion. He'd never believe it. Never.

    Just as Saeweald and Silvius and Caela had not thought it possible… had never considered it a possibility.

    Meanwhile the land slid toward chaos and despair.

    Almost two weeks ago, Hardrada and Tostig had invaded the north, sailing up the Humber and defeating the earls Edwin and Morcar in a desperate battle before seizing the northern city of York. Harold had been caught surprised, even though he'd known of Hardrada's intentions, and had marched north to meet the Norwegian king and his own brother.

    That had been ten days ago. The only word that had reached the south was that a great battle had been fought, but as yet no word of the victors and of the defeated.

    In one hateful part of his being, Saeweald almost hoped that Hardrada had been successful, that Harold had been killed, and that England would suffer under a Norwegian king rather than, briefly, a Norman one, before that king succumbed to a great darkness.

    But why pretend that darkness belonged to the future? Wasn't it here already?

    CbR

    Caela Speaks

    KNOW THAT THOSE ABOUT ME REGARDED ME WITH

    disappointment, perhaps even with shame. I know they wanted me to rage, and do, and act.

    But I could do none of these things.

    They thought I had suppressed the Mag within me, had suppressed all that Mag had given me.

    But I had not. Not truly.

    I was simply waiting.

    Damson's death shocked and appalled me. I had been responsible for it, not so much for deciding to approach Swanne, for I truly believe I had little other choice, but because I had not been able to protect Damson. If I'd been at full power, at full strength, in command of all of me and without that damned lack within that tormented me, I should have been able to protect her.

    That I was not in full command of my potential, that I had not reached the full height of that potential, was my responsibility. Not fault so much, I did not think of it in terms of fault (although I know Saeweald thought I spent much of my time wallowing in guilt), but in terms of responsibility.

    It was my responsibility to reach that potential, to protect others, where before I could not protect Damson.

    I knew how to do it—I needed to mate with the land, marry the land, meld with it completely. Silvius had told me that. The Sidlesaghes had told me that.

    But how? I had thought that laying with Silvius would have accomplished it perfectly. After all, he was the warm, breathing representative of the Game, and as the Game and the land had merged…

    Yet that had been a failure, even if a reasonably enjoyable one.

    The consequence of that failure had been Damson's death, and I could not afford to fail again. The next time, far more people would die.

    I did not wallow in guilt or grief, although I had to deal with both of those damaging emotions. Instead, I waited.

    I waited, and I approached the problem from a different direction. In order to aid the land, I needed to ritually mate with it, to meld completely with it. That was not only my problem and responsibility, but that of the land as well.

    It had to act. It had to do, as much as me.

    I waited, and what I waited for was the land to show me what to do and where to go.

    CbAPGGR FOUR

    AROLD HUNCHED ATOP HIS WEARY, PLODDING

    horse; he was exhausted, bruised, despondent. His cloak clung to him in great sodden patches, his hands—his gloves lost days ago— were gripped cold and tense about the horse's reins as if they would never let go. About him rode the men of his immediate command: the rest of the army was following as and when it could.

    Harold's command sat as hunched and bruised over their reins as did their king, their eyes fixed on some point between their horses' ears, unblinking, unseeing.

    The horses, under little instruction from their riders, simply moved forward in the direction their riders had set when they'd still retained some purpose. South, south, ever south away from the battle that had been fought and toward the one that still needed to be fought.

    Stamford Bridge had been a nightmare of rain and mud and blood. Harold had arrived in the north the day after Alditha's brothers, the earls Edwin and Morcar, had met Hardrada and Tostig in battle at Gate Fulford, two miles north of York.

    The earls had been routed. Indeed, so many Englishmen had died that it was rumored that Hardrada reached the earls to take their surrender by walking across a fen of dead bodies.

    Harold then did what few men could have done: he turned a disaster into a means of eventual victory. While Hardrada and Tostig were celebrating, and conducting lengthy negotiations with Edwin and Morcar over the fate of hostages, Harold and his army had arrived unannounced from the south and attacked without even halting for sustenance to fuel their effort.

    The battle at Stamford Bridge was long and desperate, and, apart from the surprise of his attack, the only thing that tipped the balance in Harold's favor was that Hardrada's men were either bone-weary, or drunk with their previous victory, or both.

    Hardrada had died on the field. So had Tostig. Harold had faced him, in the end, battling his way through the fighting bodies of the living and the

    slumped bodies of the dead, and had taken the head from his brother's body with such an immense swing of his great sword that Harold had all but stumbled to the ground with the weight he'd put behind it.

    He'd not needed his balance, for by then the invaders were themselves routed, their leaders dead, the greater of their numbers dead or crippled enough to wish they had been killed.

    Olaf, Hardrada's son, had survived the carnage. Morcar, who had acquitted himself better in this battle than in the one of the previous day, brought the young man before Harold.

    England's king was standing before a sputtering fire, still in his chain mail and stained tunic, his bloodied sword hanging at his side.

    Olaf stood before him, his head high, his eyes glittering proudly, expecting nothing less than death.

    "Take what remains to you," Harold said, his voice harsh and exhausted, "and take whatever ships you need, and go back whence you have come. I want you no more in my land."

    Olaf had stared, then nodded tersely, bowed his head, and turned on his heel and left. In the end, he'd needed less than twenty ships of the original fleet of three hundred to take what remained home. The rest of the ships remained at anchor in the Ouse River where they'd arrived a week or so earlier: their timbers kept Yorkshiremen warm through the five following winters.

    When Olaf had gone, his pitiful twenty ships vanishing into the northern sea mists, Harold had sighed, cleaned his sword, and turned south once more.

    He'd won against Hardrada, but at a frightful cost. Edwin and Morcar's original defeat had cost him almost half of the men he could have summoned to battle William. Moreover, many of the elite among Harold's personal troops had been killed or wounded at Stamford Bridge.

    Fate—and Hardrada's ambition—had dealt William a kind hand.

    HAROLD HAD EXISTED IN A STATE OF HALF-WAKING for hours. He'd been riding for days, barely taking the time to stop and rest, or take sustenance, or allow his horse to do likewise. Now, when he was, at last in conscious thought, and about a half day's ride from London, Harold was so exhausted he could barely think, let alone take note of what was taking place about him.

    The weather had closed in. Misty rain had surrounded the horses and riders for hours; now it had thickened into a dense fog that obscured most of the surrounding countryside. Harold occasionally blinked and wiped the fog from

    his eyes; whenever he did so, he saw that his companions drifted in and out of the mist, almost as if they were ghosts. Even the hoof-falls of the horses were curiously muffled, and the constant jingling of bit and spur and bridle faded until it was little more than a distant memory.

    Harold had ceased even to think. He sat, huddled within his soaked cloak, swaying to and fro with the motion of his horse, and descended into a trance that was not quite a sleep.

    Thus he was not truly surprised when he finally blinked himself into a state of semi-awareness and saw that one of his men had dismounted and was now walking at the head of his horse, a hand to its bridle, ensuring that his king's mount did not stray off the road.

    And then he saw that the figure walking by his horse's head was not one of his men at all, and that it had led his horse so far off the road that now it plodded silently through sodden meadowlands.

    "Who are you?" said Harold, shaking himself and sitting more upright. "What is—"

    He stopped, for the figure had halted the horse and then turned about, and Harold saw that it was not a man at all. Oh, it wore the shape of a man, but there was something in its long, bleak face, and in the knowledge in its gray-flecked eyes that told Harold this was a creature of great enchantment, and no man at all.

    Strangely, Harold did not feel the least sense of fear. "Who are you?" he said, leaning forward a little in the saddle. "Where do you take me? Are we in the realm of faeries?"

    That would not have surprised Harold in the least. His sense of unreality had been growing stronger and stronger over the past few days. Now he wondered if that had been the precursor for this other-worldly journey.

    The creature smiled, but sadly, and Harold saw that his teeth were rimmed with light.

    "I am Long Tom," he said, "and I am taking you to your bride."

    "Alditha?"

    "No," Long Tom said, drawing the word out until it was almost a moan. "To the woman you will never leave."

    Harold frowned, but then the creature gestured to him to dismount.

    "We need to take a journey, you and I," he said.

    "Where?" said Harold, swinging his right leg over his horse's back and jumping lightly to the ground. His weariness was falling away from him as if it had never been; even the horse snorted and pranced a little as it felt the weight of its rider vanish.

    "Do you remember?" said Long Tom.

    O

    "Remember what?" said Harold. He was standing directly in front of the creature, and, for all his own height, he had to crick his neck slightly in order to look the creature in the eye.

    "This," the Sidlesaghe said, and nodded to his right.

    Harold looked, and the mist parted.

    HE SAT NAKED IN A STEAMING ROCK POOL, AND IN HIS

    arms, very close, he held a young woman, as naked as he. He was kissing her deeply, his hands tight against her back so that he pushed her breasts against his chest.

    "Coel," she said, pulling her face away. "No."

    "You want to," he said.

    "I…" she said.

    'Your mind has barely strayed from the pleasures of the bed since we set out," he said.

    "I was thinking of Brutus." she said.

    "Really? And now?"

    HAROLD GROANED, AND THE SIDLESAGHE RESTED A

    hand on his forearm, as if in support.

    "Who was she?" Long Tom asked.

    "A woman I loved," said Harold. His eyes brimmed with tears, and he held forth his hand and cried out incoherently as the vision faded.

    "What was her name?" Long Tom said.

    "I don't… I don't know… how could I have forgotten her?"

    "Watch," said Long Tom.

    HE BURST IN THROUGH THE DOOR, AND SAW HER

    kneeling, keening, in the center of the house.

    "Cornelia?" he cried, and he could feel his heart breaking. "Ah, Cornelia, I am sorry. I had thought to be here before you."

    The woman rose, but slipped over in the doing, sprawling inelegantly on the floor. He ran to her, and wrapped her in his arms, and whispered to her soothing words.

    'You knew that Brutus had gone to Genvissa, and taken Achates, and everything I hold dear?" she said.

    "I saw Hicetaon come for Aethylla and the babies," he said. "I knew then. I wanted to be here for you when you returned. I am so sorry. I came as quickly as I could."

    She clung to him, her weeping increasing, and the man rocked her back and forth.

    "Cornelia," he whispered, "don't cry, please don't cry."

    "ENOUGH," SAID THE SIDLESAGHE. "YOU NEED SEE NO

    more."

    "I remember," Harold said, his voice thick with tears. "Oh gods, I remember!" "Good," said the Sidlesaghe, "for there is much more I need to tell you." He leaned close to Harold, and he began to whisper at the speed of wind

    in Harold's ear.

    Five

    Caela Speaks

    HAD TAKEN TO WALKING THE HILLS NORTH AND

    west of St. Margaret the Martyr's during these late summer days. _/ Here I could escape the bewilderment in Saeweald's eyes and the vain hope in Judith's. Here I could wipe my mind free (or as free as possible) of my responsibilities.

    Here I could just walk, and here, if ever it was going to, the land could speak to me, and tell me what it wanted.

    On this day I had walked until I had exhausted my barely recovered body, and had sat down in the center of the weathered circle of stones atop Pen Hill.

    The view from here was beautiful. Before me spread fields and meadows that ran down to the silvered banks of the Thames, their purity marred only by the huddle of buildings and roadways that consisted of London.

    I tried not to look at the city. I tried not to think on what it contained: not only Swanne and Asterion, somewhere within its huddled walls, but the Game… waiting, as I waited.

    Well, they could wait.

    I tried also not to look too closely at the stones that encircled me atop Pen Hill. Today I did not want to see the Sidlesaghes. I did not want to see their long, mournful faces. So today they were just stones.

    To my relief, after I had been atop Pen Hill for an hour or more, a low-lying thick mist closed in, shutting out the view, but leaving the summit of the hill and myself in sunlight. I was happy, for this meant I might sit amid the waving grasses and flowers of Pen Hill, my arms wrapped about my raised knees, in solitude, and not have to fear any disturbance.

    Thus it was some shock, eventually, to hear the faint thud of footfalls approaching up the mist-shrouded lower reaches of the hill.

    I was irritated, more than anything. It would be Saeweald, come to ask me questions. Or Ecub or Judith, come to sit with me and think to offer me some comfort. Or it would be some peasant woman who, finding the space atop Pen Hill occupied by a former queen (and one with her hair all loose and blowing in the wind at that) would blush and mutter in confusion, and depart, taking my peace with her.

    So I turned my face very slightly in the direction of the footfalls (thud, thud, thud up the hill; whoever this was, they sounded as if they had the gods at their heels), my chin still on my arms folded across my knees, and I arranged my features in a scowl.

    Not very welcoming, I know, but I truly did not want company. As if in response to my irritation, even the sky had clouded over.

    Then, in the space of a breath, Harold appeared out of the mist as if he were a spirit, striding resolutely up the final few yards of the grassed slope to reach the summit of Pen Hill.

    He walked forward, pausing between two of the upright stones, a hand resting on one of them. He was clad as if for war, a tunic of chain mail, a light linen tunic of war-stained scarlet embroidered with the dragon over the mail, a sword at his hip.

    He looked terrible. He'd lost much weight and, while he'd always seemed lean, now appeared gaunt under his mail.

    His chest was heaving, as if he'd found the climb tiresome.

    His face…

    But I did not see his face, not immediately, for as my eyes traveled up his body, a ray of sunlight burst through the thin clouds that had formed across the sky and caught Harold in its grip.

    I cried out, falling a little sideways in my surprise, for that shaft of sunlight had crowned Harold in gold as surely as Aldred (Asterion!) had crowned him in Westminster Abbey; only here he had been crowned, not by a monster in the guise of a man, but by the sun itself.

    By the land.

    And I understood. Harold was the landl

    I scrambled to my feet, painfully aware that my robe was loose and grass-stained, and my hair all-tumbled about my shoulders and blowing about my face.

    He didn't say a word, not at first. He stood, his hand still on the stone, staring at me.

    Then he just walked forward, strode forward, grabbed me to him, and kissed me, deep and passionate.

    "Harold," I said finally, when I managed to snatch some breath.

    "Don't," he replied, his voice harsh with desire, and something else… I

    am not sure what. "Don't say anything to me. Not yet." He buried his hands in my hair, and groaned, and I think I did, too, and we kissed again, our bodies almost writhing, each against the other.

    He had remembered. Someone had told him, or he'd simply just remembered.

    "I cannot!" I cried, suddenly, frightfully fearful. "To lie with you will be to kill you!"

    "I am your king," he said, his mouth trailing over my jaw, my neck. "Do as I ask."

    "Coel…"I whispered.

    He grabbed at my shoulders, and shook me, only a little, just enough to tumble the hair over my face.

    "I am this land incarnate," he said. "Are you really going to refuse me?"

    I was crying, I think. Gently, but crying with all the strength of the emotions that were surging through me, and with relief and fear and desire all combined.

    Then he gentled. "We are safe here, in this circle." He smiled, and my heart could have broken at that moment for love of him. "Will you accept me, my lady?"

    And it was not just Harold asking, but Coel, and the land besides. Harold would die, and he would die through William's actions, as Coel had died, but this time, in this place, we could bless each other… and the land.

    Give me yourself, Caela, and you grant me joy and life.

    I do not know if he spoke those words verbally, or in my mind, but I did not care. I smiled at him, overcome with emotion, and I did not have to answer. Not verbally.

    Take what you want of me, for it is all yours.

    And he gathered me back into his arms.

    When, finally, we lay naked and entwined on the grass, and he entered me, I cried out with joy, my arms extended into the skies, and wept at the feel of the land embracing me completely, utterly, filling all my empty, desolate spaces.

    WE MADE LOVE ALL THROUGH THAT AFTERNOON, THE

    gentle warmth of the sun bathing our naked bodies, the mist still shrouding the lower portions of the hill and the flatlands beyond. This was loving such as I had never experienced, not even with Brutus, for this passion encompassed both earth and sky and water as well, and they were blessed as well as I. This is what both I and the land had wanted.

    This is what I had needed to open up those strange, dark spaces inside me, and fill them.

    I wept, and he kissed away my tears.

    "HOW DID YOU KNOW?" I ASKED EVENTUALLY.

    "I was riding the northern road, when a strange mist enclosed me. A creature came, tall, and pale, and with—"

    "The most mournful face!" I said, and laughed, cupping Harold's own face in mine.

    He smiled, too. Slow, loving. "You know of what I speak?" I told him of the Sidlesaghes and of Long Tom, and Harold nodded. "He is of the ancient folk."

    "Yes."

    Harold grinned. "He showed me that day, in the rock pool." I colored. Even now, after all these years, and all that had happened (and even now, lying naked, with this man), I still colored as easily as a girl at that memory.

    "Now that is a memory to treasure," Harold said, kissing my neck, my shoulder, his voice light and teasing. "Inside you, Brutus not twenty paces away."

    I did not smile, for my mind had jumped then to that moment later, when Coel was inside me, and Brutus, a great deal closer than twenty paces, and with a sword, gleaming sharp and deadly in the lamplight.

    Harold was looking at me, his smile gone, but his face still relaxed. "He is not here now."

    "But he will—"

    "Shush," he said. "That does not matter. Not here, not now."

    "Oh, Harold," I said, my voice cracking, and he gathered me tight, and held me, and I knew then that whatever else happened, whoever else I loved, this man would always be… would, quite simply, always be.

    Later, after we had made love again, I looked over Harold's shoulder, and laughed.

    "What?" he said, rolling off me.

    Then he jumped, using his hands to cover his nakedness, and I laughed the harder, not bothering to hide mine.

    We were encircled by Sidlesaghes, all standing with great smiles on their faces, all clapping, slowly, soundlessly with their strong, brown hands.

    "They are happy," I said. Then I added, and where these words came from I have no idea, "They are our children."

    "Then they should be in bed," said Harold tartly, and I rolled over, my sides aching now with my laughter, and the Sidlesaghes clapped the harder.

    AND THEN, YET MORE TIME LATER.

    Harold had decided to ignore the Sidlesaghes, and began a long, slow, sensual stroking of my body. I loved it. I sighed, and arched my back, and begged him never to stop.

    "Will you do something for me?" he said.

    "Anything," I groaned, "so long as you complete here what you have begun."

    He lowered his head, and ran his tongue about one of my nipples, and I clutched at his hair, and thought I would die with the strength of my wanting.

    "When I am gone," he whispered, lifting his mouth momentarily, agonizingly, "will you be my future for me? Will you watch over this land for me, and all those I should have been able to protect?"

    "Harold…"

    "Promise this to me."

    "Yes. You did not have to ask."

    He grinned, moving his head just enough that his tongue could now draw the other nipple deep into his mouth. For a long moment there was no talk, only the soft sound of my moan, and his heavy breathing.

    "Then my future is assured," he whispered. Then he moved, pivoting across my body, burying his hands tight in my hair, his face only inches from mine.

    "The Sidlesaghe showed me many things." His body was moving over mine now, and my legs, of their own accord, parted under his weight.

    "Yes?" I whispered.

    "Of how the Game and the land are married."

    "As you and I."

    He smiled, but only briefly, his body moving very slowly, very teasingly atop mine. I wriggled, trying to tempt him inside, but for the moment he stayed a breath away from entering me.

    "The Sidlesaghe showed me how you are Mag-reborn."

    "Yes." That was more moan than word.

    "And how Og one day, too, will be reborn."

    "Yes." Then I had a sudden, horrible thought that I could hardly bear, and my body fell still beneath his. "Harold—"

    He kissed the tip of my nose. "I know," he said. "I know that will not be me. And I know who it will be, and I am content enough with that. This is a long path you travel, my love. A long way to go."

    "I know. There is so far…"

    "All every path needs is but one step at a time."

    I was silent.

    He smiled, and the warmth in it was stunning. "And all every path needs is a companion with which to share it."

    I was shocked at what he suggested, particularly because of the understanding he'd shown just before it. "But you know that at the end…"

    "All I want is to share the path with you. I know I cannot be your destination. I've always known that."

    I began to weep. What had I ever done to deserve this man's love… to deserve what he now offered me?

    "Oh, sweet gods, now I've made you cry again!"

    I started to laugh through my tears, and, determining that I'd had enough of his teasing, I pulled him down and into me. "At least you will never hear me say 'No!' again!"

    "Oh, my lady… how I love you."

    MUCH LATER, AS EVENING DREW NEAR, ONE OF THE

    Sidlesaghes wandered over, waited until we both became aware of his presence, and gestured us to follow him.

    six

    HEY ROSE, REACHED FOR THEIR CLOTHES, THEN

    dropped them as another of the Sidlesaghes—some forty or fifty were still gathered about—shook its head.

    A Sidlesaghe led them down the northwest face of Pen Hill, the side farthest from London and closest to the Llandin, toward a small grove of trees at the base of the hill.

    Harold looked about as they neared the trees. It was now almost twilight, the fading of the light intensified by the close gathering of the Sidlesaghes. Gods, there must be several hundred of them waiting just before the trees!

    He looked to Caela. She was close enough to him that he could feel the warmth of her skin, smell the womanly scent of her rising in the coolness of the evening. He slipped an arm about her waist, half-expecting her to pull away, then smiled as she relaxed against him.

    Harold kissed the top of her head, then nodded at the Sidlesaghes. "What is happening?"

    She gave a slight shake of her head. "Something… momentous. Something good."

    She shivered, and he knew it was in anticipation. "Should I be here?"

    She raised her face to him, and smiled."I would not be here, if not for you. This," she indicated the encircling crowds of Sidlesaghes, "would not be happening if not for you. I think, Harold of England, you are to be very welcomed in whatever is about to happen."

    "You are not afraid." It was a statement, not a question.

    "No. I am content." She touched his bare chest, briefly. "I am whole."

    Harold's eyes swept over the Sidlesaghes. "Where have they all come from, Caela?"

    "From the stones of England," she said. "From the past. From the future. We have to follow them. Look, they are moving into the grove of trees."

    He looked, and saw that she was right.

    Caela took his hand, and they followed.

    The stand of trees numbered only some twenty or thirty. They encircled a

    small rock pool, its waters emerald green and as still as the sky above them.

    "I had not known this was here," Harold muttered.

    "Nor I," said Caela. She had stopped, looking strangely at the pool, then again she turned to Harold. Under the trees it was almost full night, save for a gentle glow that came from the water, and it lit up Caela's eyes and teeth as she smiled. "It is for us," she said. "Just for us. A doorway."

    "Into what?"

    Caela remembered a conversation she'd had with Saeweald a long time ago, when she had been Cornelia and he Loth.

    "Into a light cave," she said. "Pen Hill is a sacred mound, and I think that this evening its sacredness is about to be revealed to us."

    "Are you sure I should—"

    Before Caela had time to even interrupt his protest, one of the Sidlesaghes had stepped to Harold's other side, taken his hand, and led him forward toward the pool.

    "I think that might be a 'Yes,'" Caela said, and followed.

    AT THE POOL'S EDGE CAELA TOOK HAROLD'S OTHER

    hand—he was now visibly tense—and together all three, the king of England, a Sidlesaghe, and a woman who was about to become something that not even she had yet fully realized, stepped into the water.

    It was not wet. Rather, it felt to Harold like the soft caress of a warm breeze. Led by the Sidlesaghe and Caela, he walked forward until the water reached his chest, then at the insistence tugging on both his hands, and with a quick, silent prayer in his heart, he ducked beneath the level of the water.

    It was a different world beneath, and yet strangely similar. It was a reflection of the world above, only smaller, more compact, and far, far more magical.

    They stood in a green meadow, the grasses weaving about their knees. Above them shone a clear sky—a soft gray—and before them rose a low hill.

    On its summit stood something that Harold could not quite make out. It appeared to be a building constructed of something so indistinct—almost so out of focus—that he could not make out its lines.

    He felt a slight squeeze on his right hand—the Sidlesaghe had now let go of his left—and found Caela smiling at him.

    "Is this not beautiful?" she said.

    "Aye," he said slowly, again looking about. Thousands of Sidlesaghes were now wandering about this soft, gentle landscape. They hummed—a sweet, reassuring melody.

    "Aye," Harold said again, then paused. "What is it?"

    O

    "The Otherworld."

    Harold jumped. It was not Caela who had replied, but a Sidlesaghe, standing a pace or so away.

    "Am I dead?" Harold said.

    "No," said Caela. "We are, I think, merely being granted an audience. Look." She pointed to the hill.

    A figure had emerged from the indistinct structure atop the hill.

    A small, dark, fey woman.

    Caela gasped and, her hand still linked with Harold's, pulled him toward the hill.

    By the time they reached its summit Harold was out of breath, but Caela didn't seem affected by the climb at all. She let go Harold's hand and wrapped the shorter woman in a tight embrace. "Mag!"

    Harold felt himself freeze in awe. Mag? But was not Caela Mag-reborn?

    The woman, Mag, returned Caela's embrace, then smiled at Harold. "Caela is my heir, she is not me," she said. She reached out a hand for Harold and, hesitatingly, he took it.

    Immediately a sense of peace flowed through him.

    "Will you come into England's water cathedral?" said Mag, and she drew Caela and Harold forward.

    She led them into wonder, and the moment they stepped inside, Harold realized why it was he found it difficult to put this building in focus.

    It was, unbelievably, constructed entirely of water.

    They had entered a massive hall—columned and vaulted entirely in flowing water. It was the most magical sight that Harold had ever seen, or could ever have imagined seeing. The vast interior of the hall was colonnaded on either side by twin rows of water columns rising to some fifteen or twenty paces above their heads, where they merged into a gigantic circular domed vault that rose at least a further twenty paces above their heads.

    They walked to the center of the hall, directly under the dome, and Harold looked down to the floor.

    It, too, was made of water, although it felt solid under his feet. The water (floor) was of a deep, rich emerald color, but running through it, apparently at random, were lines of blue that trailed haphazardly, crisscrossing each other at random intervals.

    Harold raised his head to find Mag smiling at him.

    "The island's waterways," Mag said. Then she stepped forward and embraced Harold with almost as much emotion as she'd hugged Caela. "Thank you for bringing her to us," she said.

    "It was my pleasure," Harold said, and Mag laughed, and kissed him on the cheek.

    "We wished she could have found you sooner, but that she found you at all is a blessing indeed."

    Harold was going to say something more, but then stopped as he saw that a score of shadowy womanly figures had emerged from behind the columns to walk to within several paces of where Mag, Caela, and Harold stood. Most appeared in their late middle age, but apart from their shared femininity and the gentle smiles on their faces, that was their only similarity. Some were fair, some dark, some tall, some slim, some plump, some beautiful, some homely.

    Harold gave a small start… there was one other thing all these woman shared in common. They all had knowledge and power shining from their bright eyes.

    For once, Caela seemed as puzzled as he.

    Mag took Caela's hand, ignoring for the moment the other women. "Caela, you have had trouble accepting the heritage I bequeathed you."

    "Yes. It has been… difficult. I felt myself empty. Lacking."

    "Aye. For that you have blamed yourself. Ah, my dear, that was my fault, not yours. Here, let me explain."

    Mag gestured to the encircling women with her free hand. "These women are all my predecessors, as I am yours."

    Caela so forgot herself that she gaped. "There were others before you?"

    "Indeed. I will explain, but first, if they may, my sisters will introduce themselves to you."

    "I am Tool," said one of the women. "I came three before Mag."

    "And I am Raia," said another. "I came ten before Mag."

    The women all introduced themselves in turn. There were thirty-one.

    Mag turned to Caela and took both her hands in hers, giving the woman her undivided attention. "I was the thirty-second in line from the dawn of time," she said. "You will be the thirty-third. Each of us has lived long lives, millennia-long, and at our given time we have passed into this world, handing the responsibilities we shouldered to our successor. Part of that succession was, first, ensuring that the woman we picked was mated with the land. That normally happened before we left our successor to her work. In your case," Mag smiled sadly, "well, in your case, events, and Genvissa's darkcraft, intervened. I was not able to ensure that you had mated with the land. No wonder you found it so difficult in this life."

    "But," said Caela, looking between Mag and Harold. "Coel and I…" She stopped, remembering.

    "Brutus murdered Coel before the act was completed, before that moment when both of you sighed in repletion. And besides, that act took place before I had told you of my decision. That was not in any sense of the word a true mating of my chosen successor with the land, although the souls were right.

    You both needed to be reborn into the places you are now to have accomplished the act you have."

    Caela nodded. Mag had told Cornelia, as she had been then, of her plans many months after Coel's death; the night Genvissa had forced her daughter from her womb.

    "Normally," Mag said, "the old Mother goddess of the land and the waters passes over at the moment her successor and her mate have sighed in repletion. I went too early. I could not aid you to the place that both of you found today."

    "With the Sidlesaghes' aid," said Harold.

    "For my lack of being there," Mag said, "I apologize from the bottom of my heart."

    "We all do," said the woman who had called herself Raia, "for we all should have aided you."

    "And welcomed you," said a woman called Golenta.

    "But late is better than never," said Mag, smiling. "You are here now. And Harold," she nodded at him, "is here because he is a beloved man both to you and to us, and because all of us need a witness when…" she stopped, and arched a questioning eyebrow at Caela, to see if she understood.

    "Ah," said Caela, after a moment. "You said that only part of the responsibility in handing on succession was ensuring that your chosen successor was mated and married with the land. There is something else which needs to be accomplished, and that needs a witness."

    Mag nodded, pleased. "None of us share the same name, my dear. And in the past few months, you have felt awkward using the name 'Mag', have you not?"

    "Yes, indeed."

    "You have avoided using it," Mag continued. "It has not felt comfortable to you. That is as it should be. My dear, when each of us came into our own, when we came into that power, that embrace which you know as the essence of this land, the soul of this land, we each chose for ourselves our own name.

    "Now," she said, "you must choose for yourself a name, as I chose Mag when I shouldered the burden, and as all the other women present chose a name when their turn came. Your name, your goddess-name, is not only most sacred, but most powerful. One day you will wear it openly, but for the time being, until this land is free of the burden that currently consumes it, it will be your secret name, and the more powerful because of that."

    "I can choose any name I wish?"

    "Indeed, my sweet. But listen, for this is important. Your name will become your nature. It will dictate who you are. You will never be able to act beyond

    the confines of your name, for be certain that your chosen name will confine you. Do you understand me?"

    "I'm not sure," Caela said.

    "I chose the name Mag when I ascended," Mag said. "In the language of the people who inhabited this land, when I lived only as a mortal woman, it means welcoming… intaking… nurturing. I thought it the essence of motherhood, and for me, that is what I wanted to be for this land."

    "Of course, thus Mother Mag."

    "Yes. And as I had chosen that name, so it confined me—and eventually it damaged the land. Can you know of what I speak?"

    Harold saw Caela's brow furrowing, then it cleared and understanding replaced the puzzlement on her face.

    "Ariadne. When she came begging a home, you welcomed her. You took her in, because that was your nature, that was your name."

    "Yes. Mag was who I was, and it meant that once I took Ariadne in I could not reject her. What mother can reject any of her children? The Darkwitches attacked me, and drew away my power, but that was not the only reason I weakened. My time was coming when I needed to pass into this world and pass on my responsibilities. 'Mag' was no longer what the land needed."

    "You all passed on when the 'who' of you became irrelevant?"

    "Aye. And now you must choose your own name, Caela. Your secret name, your power name, your goddess name. Choose well and choose wisely, for it must be a name that will provide this land with what it needs to repel the malevolence that assails it."

    Caela drew in a deep breath, pulling her hands from those of Mag. Harold thought he saw a fleeting expression of panic cross her face, and he didn't blame her. Choose well and choose wisely…

    For if you don't…

    Caela turned away, her head down, thinking. She paced very slowly about the room, her arms wrapped across her breasts as if in protection, then, after a few minutes of total silence, with all eyes in the hall upon her, Caela came to a stop before Harold.

    She lifted her eyes, staring at him, and Harold felt tears come into his own eyes at the depth of expression and of love in hers.

    "I have chosen," she said softly, looking at no one but Harold.

    There was silence, and Harold felt the breath stop in his throat.

    "Eaving," Caela said. "My name will be Eaving."

    Harold's breath let out a sob, and the tears that had welled now flowed down his cheeks.

    Eaving! It was a rustic word, used generally only by shepherds, herdsmen,

    and sailors. Yet even by these men, eaving was a word used only once or twice in their lives.

    Superficially, "eaving" meant shelter, but its meaning went a great deal deeper than that. Eaving was used by shepherds and sailors, men who were exposed to the worst of the elements, to mean "an unexpected haven from the tempest." They used it when they and their flocks or ships were caught in a storm that had blown down from nowhere, which threatened their very lives, and from which there appeared to be no shelter. Then, suddenly, as if god-given, there appeared as if out of nowhere the unexpected haven—an overhanging cliff that protected the shepherd and his flock from the worst of the weather, or a small bay or estuary in which a ship could ride out a storm.

    Eaving, the unexpected haven in which to ride out the storm and from where one could reemerge into the sunlight.

    "You wish to use the name Eaving?" asked Mag. "Once you accept this name you will be tied to it and by it."

    Eaving turned to Mag, then looked at each of the other women in turn. "It is who I have always been," she said, "and what I want only to be. Eaving. I accept this name."

    "Then welcome, Eaving," said Mag. "Welcome to yourself." She held out her arms, as if she would embrace Caela—Eaving!—but then the hall appeared to disintegrate into its elements, and water crashed about them, and the next thing Harold knew, he was standing atop Pen Hill again, shivering in the cold night air, alone save for Caela who lay at his feet.

    FOR ONE TERRIBLE MOMENT HE THOUGHT SHE WAS

    dead, but then Caela rolled on to her back and smiled at him.

    "I feel whole," she said. Then she held out her arms to him. "Let me make you warm."

    His shelter from the impending storm… and suddenly all of Harold's fears and anger and frustrations at his impending, unavoidable death vanished. He knelt down beside her, then lay down, and felt her take him in her arms.

    "Eaving," he whispered, and then she kissed him.

    sevejM

    i

    /'t/% .^HEN SHE RETURNED TO HER CHAMBER

    Iff within St. Margaret the Martyr's, it was to find Judith,

    * % Saeweald, Ecub, and Silvius waiting for her.

    't»-"What has happened?" said Silvius, taking a step forward as Caela entered.

    She looked at him as if slightly puzzled, then smiled agreeably. "I have spent the afternoon with Harold."

    "Harold?" Judith, Saeweald, and Silvius said together.

    To one side, Ecub looked carefully at Caela, and nodded very slightly to herself.

    "He is tired," said Caela. "Dispirited." She paused, her brow furrowed as if trying to remember something, then said, "Our brother Tostig is dead. Harold killed him at Stamford Bridge."

    Judith and Saeweald looked at each other, not sure what to say.

    "Caela," Saeweald said.

    She came to him, and kissed his cheek gently. "Forgive me for being so dispirited myself these past months, Saeweald. I have come to my senses now. I will do what I must."

    "What has happened?" Silvius said. He walked forward, and took Caela's chin in his hand. "Caela?"

    "I am well and I am at peace, Silvius," she said. "There are no more empty spaces. No more lack. I am this land, I am the soul of its rivers and waters, the wellspring for its fertility. I accept it. I have embraced it."

    "How is this so?" Silvius said. His black eye was narrowed, searching Caela's face. "Why so confident, so…?"

    "Unexpectedly confident, Silvius?" Caela smiled, very gently, and moved her face so that her chin slid from his grip. "I am tired," she said. "I would rest. Do you mind… ?"

    As they filed from her chamber, Caela added, quietly, "Ecub, I beg you to stay a moment."

    "Harold?" said Ecub once the door had closed behind the others.

    Caela's face broke into a huge grin. "Yes! Oh, Ecub, you cannot know—"

    I i ^ guess," said Ecub, laughing. She stepped forward, taking both of ^^sm hers. "He was your mate, yes? He was your means to mating

    h lif hld

    the ] ^^sm hers. He was your mate, yes? He was your mea g

    lj_av '% all should have seen that sooner. Even in the past life, we should

    the

    g, Caela's grin broadened, and Ecub laughed again, and enfolded »_ w woman into a tight embrace. „ ^e'^eis much I need to tell you," Caela said as finally Ecub pulled back, vhat ^'" ^sa'^d Ecub. Her face was sober now, her eyes searching. "But

    .,- *nt to know, first, is why you tell me, and not the others." 1₀₀ lot sure." Caela turned and walked to the window, gazing out to the than- ^^aP^e °f P^en Hill in the darkness. "There was a caution within me ^ "nly when you were the last left in the room." She turned back to

    fac_e

    ^onty when you were the 's

    _a ^c"b. "And perhaps it is because you were the one with me at Mag's „ ' "oil were the one to watch me dance Mag's Nuptial Dance." p " Siangan."

    ., * smiled, sadly. "But she is not here now." >. ^°^ware-' Ecub breathed deeply, then bowed low at the waist. "Mother

    Ma >.

    "My

    "No; bed

    M Caela said, and Ecub looked up, surprised. "Eaving," Caela said. 't_er ■ ^e is Eaving. Mag has passed, and only I remain." Caela sat down on "pir . ^anc* patted the space before her. "Sit, and I will tell you what tran-

    . ^is afternoon. Oh, Ecub, it was so beautiful!"

    *lo'tv d ^Ur l^ater ^y ^stiusaton Caela's bed, their hands gripped, save that J't_er^C|Jb was weeping, shaken by what she had heard, and by the power of ¹¹ joy. Oh, how fortunate she was that she should have lived to hear this!

    Dually ecub sniffed, quieted her emotions,

    , * to Caela, "You are Eaving, the shelterer, but you also shall need a

    t^r

    ^ ' ^and a protector."

    ^e'^a's mouth curved in a small smile. She had been right to trust this ' ^as the first—apart from Harold, of course—among those who would >>, _n ^ef for who she truly was.

    ^ne ^Said Ecub, "and my sisters, will always be yours. We shall exist for only *'t_er^rPose, and that shall be to provide you with a haven, in whatever man-

    » 'night need it."

    ^he ^^sa powerful promise, and Caela's own eyes now brimmed with tears, forward, kissing Ecub softly on the mouth. "I accept," she said, -j-i you may one day regret—" ^ever!" said Ecub. Then, more softly. "Never. I watched over Mag's

    Dance, and saw you come to your own within it. I will watch over you now, and ever so long as you need me." Caela nodded. "Thank you."

    MUCH LATER, WHEN EVERYONE ELSE HAD GONE, ECUB

    bedded Caela down in her chamber. Judith had gone off with Saeweald, and Ecub was glad of it.

    "What is it that you 'must' do?" asked Ecub, tucking the bed linens about Caela's shoulders as if she were a child. "Warn William? Move against Aster-ion?"

    "I must wait," said Caela. "I can do no more. I shelter. I cannot avenge. I cannot warn."

    "Do you not fear for William?"

    "Oh, aye, I do not think I can sleep for the fear I hold for him. Swanne… oh, dear gods, Swanne is his walking death. But I must be true to myself, Ecub. I cannot go to him. I cannot seek him out. He must come to me. He must need the haven."

    "Swanne and Asterion will…"

    "I know. I know. But I have to trust in myself and in what will be, Ecub. I can do no more."

    Ecub sighed, patted Caela on the shoulder, then retreated to a stool under the window, blowing out the candle as she did so. The stool was uncomfortable, but there was no point in her sleeping; Matins service would begin within an hour or two, and she might as well spend the time between now and then in contemplation… and thanks, for the unexpected joy this life had brought her.

    eigbc

    ILLIAM HAD BEEN IN ENGLAND ALMOST TWO

    weeks, and during this time he'd had barely the time to even think about the underlying "why" of his presence here. Certainly he was here to win himself a kingdom and all the spoils it could provide him, but there was far more at stake that he had not allowed himself to consider.

    There had been no time.

    He'd sailed from the Somme Estuary on the night of the 28th of September, arriving at Pevensey Bay early the next morning. Here William had constructed some initial defenses, but then had decided that the small port town of Hastings, which lay a little farther up the coast, would serve his purposes better. Hastings stood on a small peninsula and could be more easily defended, and William wanted to protect his ships, his men and, he admitted in his darker moments, his escape route.

    He was a more cautious man now than he had been as Brutus. If Brutus had been forced to linger in Normandy, or Poiteran as it had been then, for over thirty years he would have marched on London the instant he'd landed. William was far more circumspect. He knew the English would be hostile, he was not sure where Harold and his army were… and he knew Asterion was here, somewhere, waiting for William to make that one, grossly stupid move which would see him fail.

    So William proceeded with care, determined not to move so precipitously that it left him no escape route. Just outside Hastings, William set his men to work, constructing earthen defenses and a bailey castle. Neither defenses nor castle would withstand a siege, nor even a sustained bombardment, but it would buy William the time he would need during a forced retreat.

    Now William was standing atop the bailey castle, one booted foot tapping impatiently on the floorboards, gazing northwest over the countryside. There were a few pillars of smoke in the distance: his men had been out pillaging. William had not wanted them to do it, but they had to be fed somehow, and William did not want to deplete what few stores he'd brought with him. A few

    paces away stood two or three of his commanders, watching William more than the landscape.

    William had called his commanders for a war council, but that could wait for a few minutes.

    A few moments more of quiet, where he could think on the underlying reason for his invasion. The real reason, the true reason why so many men were about to die.

    To retrieve the bands, and to then complete the Game with Swanne by dancing that final, concluding dance of the Game, the Dance of the Flowers.

    Ah, stated in so few and such bold words, it sounded all so easy, didn't it? Just retrieve the bands, grab Swanne by the hand, and execute the Dance of the Flowers. No need even for the accompanying dancers that they'd had two thousand years ago. All that was really needed was the Mistress and the King-man. Two people, six golden bands, a relatively uncomplicated dance, a dab of magic, and all was done.

    All so simple, so easy, all so terrifyingly unachievable, should even one or two things go awry.

    Like… Swanne. William drew in a deep breath. Where was she? He could feel her, somewhere close (and yet somehow closed to him; she was near, but he could not read her), but he knew there was no way she could approach him openly at this stage.

    Yet that did not explain why he had not heard from her in months. Oh, Aldred wrote occasionally, or sent word via trusted messengers, but Swanne had not contacted William since that moment she'd appeared before him on the cliffs of Normandy, and that was before last Christmastide. Ten months! What was she doing? Why this silence? Was Asterion too close for her to risk contact?

    It was the only reason William could think of for her silence, and it concerned him that Swanne might be so close to danger.

    It terrified him to consider that there might be an even more terrible reason for Swanne's lack of communication.

    He tore his thoughts away from Swanne. Yes, she was close, but he could feel others, too. Somehow, the mere fact of setting foot on this land once more connected him to others. Loth was here, much the same as he had been; William knew he would never like Loth as he had learned to like and respect Harold. Erith was here, too, as another Mother—he could not remember her name, but that woman was the one who had been intimately connected with Mag's Dance.

    And Caela. He could feel her, far stronger than he would have thought possible. William closed his eyes, scrying out the sense of her: contentment, peace, even a little happiness, and something else that he could not identify… a depth that he could not understand. He suddenly realized that he

    G

    could well meet her soon; odd, that he'd never thought of that until now. If matters went well, then he would soon meet Caela face to face.

    His heart began to race, and William opened his eyes, apparently staring ahead although he saw nothing. Caela was lovelier now than she had been as Cornelia. What was she doing? Did she still yearn for him?

    What would he do if she came to him, and offered herself to him?

    What would he do if she did not? William found the idea that she might not yearn for him anymore as unsettling as the thought that Swanne might somehow be in danger. No, more unsettling. What if Cornelia-now-Caela no longer yearned for him?

    He recalled the vision in which he'd seen her as Caela lie beneath his father, and he recalled also his vision of two thousand years earlier when he'd seen her as Cornelia lie down beneath another man, offering him her body.

    Asterion, who had then slaughtered her.

    What did those two visions mean? Were they truth? Or delusion?

    Was Silvius the reason for Caela's contentment now? William tried to scry out his father… and found nothing. He frowned. Strange, for if Silvius was flesh, and ambitious enough to seduce Caela, as well as shift the Trojan kingship bands, then he would be flesh enough for William to feel. But there was nothing, almost as if his father did not exist, or was a phantom of delusion only.

    William realized that his commanders were watching him impatiently, but he allowed his thoughts to roam just a little further.

    Harold. There had been a great battle at Stamford Bridge, and it was long ago enough now that details of it had reached William. Hardrada and Tostig had both been killed in the struggle. Harold had come back to London, rested there some few days, and was now… close. William could sense him. Very close indeed—and as strangely at peace with himself, as content, as Caela seemed.

    Was Harold so at peace because he had come to terms with his own imminent death? At that thought William felt a gut-wrenching sense of loss, the strongest emotion he'd felt since he'd been standing here in the open air staring out into nothingness. He didn't want to kill Harold. He didn't want to be a party to his death.

    Not again.

    Why hadn't he taken the trouble to know Coel better?

    Or Cornelia, as Caela had once been? Why hadn't he taken the trouble to treat her better? To understand her?

    William gave an almost indiscernible shake of his head. He might as well

    wish the sun to rise in the west. Brutus had not taken the trouble to know anyone well, not even himself.

    "I have a command," William said suddenly, making his commanders jump. "I would that in the coming battle, if we prove victorious, that King Harold be taken alive. I do not want him killed."

    "My lord duke," said Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle, one of William's most trusted men, "is that wise? If we prove successful, then to have Harold still alive would be to invite—"

    William, keeping his eyes on the landscape, had not looked at Montfort-sur-Risle as he spoke. "I do not want him killed. Not by my hand, nor by any of my men." William finally turned to looked at his commanders. "Is that understood?"

    As one, they bowed their heads.

    J

    AROLD SAT ON HIS HORSE ON A RIDGE SOME NINE

    miles from Hastings. Behind him came his army, weary, footsore, straggling in disjointed groups rather than in the units into which they'd originally been organized. Harold turned so he could see over his shoulder. He knew the true depth of his command's exhaustion, and he wished he had the ability to bring the full complement of men he'd commanded at Stamford Bridge against William.

    But that could not be. Many men were wounded, many more scattered along the long road between here and the north. William had both Fate and Luck on his side.

    Harold looked back to Hastings. He could feel William. Somehow, in the few days since he'd been with Caela, Harold had grown far more attuned to the land, to its spaces and intimacies, and to those who trod upon it. William was out there staring toward Harold as Harold now stared toward him.

    There was no animosity, only an infinite sadness, and that gave Harold great comfort. William had changed in this life, and that meant there was hope for the land. He may not have changed enough, but he had begun that road.

    Harold closed his eyes and thought on Caela… Eaving. He remembered the feel of her body, he remembered her scent.

    He remembered how she had smiled into his eyes, and blessed him.

    Whatever happened, all would be well.

    Eventually.

    The sound of horses' hooves behind Harold disturbed him, and he looked to see who it was.

    One of the English earls, come to receive orders about deploying what was left of their ragged army.

    "We will make our stand here," Harold said, pointing along the long ridge. "The escarpments to either side mean that William can only attack us from the front. He cannot outflank us. We can make a good defensive stand here, my friend."

    "We will win the day," the earl said, but Harold could hear the bravado in his voice.

    "Of course we will," said Harold.

    SWANNE ALSO STOOD, SECRETED WITHIN THE EDGES of a dark grove, staring across at Hastings. Like Harold she could sense William's presence and feel his vitality, but unlike Harold it was not her connection with the land which enabled her to do this, but her ability with the darkcraft.

    Asterion moved up behind her, running his hands from her shoulders down her arms.

    She nestled back against him. "Bless you," she murmured.

    He smiled. "The darkcraft suits you. Imagine how much better you shall feel once William is dead."

    "Soon."

    "Oh, yes, soon."

    Asterion's fingers kneaded slightly at her arms. She was really quite thin now, the imp within her continuing to sap away at her vitality. But she remained beautiful, and Asterion had no doubt that William, the fool, would not last for more than a few moments against her writhings and pleadings.

    "He will be yours within a day," he murmured, his muzzle buried within Swanne's dark, curling hair. "This time tomorrow you will be in his bed, trapping him with your dark power."

    With my imp, he thought. Finally working its vile talents to their full potential.

    Poor, dead William.

    Swanne shuddered. "I cannot bear the thought of lying with him."

    Asterion's fingers tightened where they rested on her upper arms. "You must. It is the only means by which to kill him and utterly negate his power."

    "Asterion, my love, I don't really know if I can bear to—"

    'You will He with him!"

    She cried out, stunned, and one of her hands fluttered to her belly. Why was the imp nibbling now, when Aldred was not here?

    "Yes," she said, her voice dulled. "I will lie with him. If that is what you wish."

    "Blessed woman," Asterion said, kissing her neck. "You will scream with pleasure. You will."

    She moaned, her entire body relaxing back against his. "Aye, I will do that for you."

    "But," Asterion whispered, his hands now running all over her body, "that

    pleasure will be as nothing compared to that we will feel together, as one, when we finally take the Game."

    She moaned again, and turned about in the circle of his arms, and offered him her mouth. There was nothing left now but her need for Asterion, and the thought of the power she would enjoy with him when they led the Game.

    EAVING.

    The word came as a low moan, a breath on the wind, and it made Caela shiver. She was standing atop Pen Hill, staring south, feeling the swirling emotions that came from the land about Hastings. Harold was there, and William, but so also were Asterion and Swanne.

    "Eaving."

    She turned her head, very slightly. A Sidlesaghe stood a pace or two to one side. No, several of them, gathering about her on the breeze.

    'Eaving!"

    "What may I do for you?" she murmured.

    "We beg your aid," said Long Tom, stepping forth.

    "You have it, you know that."

    "Now that you have achieved your union with the land," Long Tom said, "have you felt it?"

    Caela did not have to ask him what he meant. "The dark stain in its soul," she said. "The tilt in the Game. Yes, I have felt it. Asterion's hold over Swanne, over the Mistress of the Labyrinth. The shadow that hangs over us all.

    "What can I do?"

    "There are two more bands left."

    "Aye."

    "Eaving," said another Sidlesaghe. "Shelter them."

    "Move them?" said Caela.

    "No," said Long Tom. "Shelter them."

    "Moving the bands may not be enough," said one other Sidlesaghe. "They can still be found. William can always find them. And if William… if William…"

    "If William is trapped by Swanne and Asterion?"

    "Aye," said Long Tom. "Eaving, there are two final bands. Will you shelter them?"

    "From William as much as from Asterion," said Caela.

    "Aye. In case. Just in case."

    She thought a long time, staring sightlessly south, feeling all that the land told her.

    "There is a way," she said, finally.

    * * *

    IN ROUEN, MATILDA LAY ABED. SHE SLEPT RESTLESSLY,

    the bed covers twisting about her body, her dark hair working its way free of its braids and tangling on the pillow, her face covered in light perspiration, one of her hands fluttering over her rounded belly.

    In her dreams, Matilda walked a strange and unknown landscape. About her tumbled the ruins of a once great city. Columns and walls lay in piles of great masonry, flames flickering from fires that still burned within them, dismembered bodies sprawled in sickening heaps, a great pall of thick, noxious smoke hung over the entire terrible landscape.

    She did not recognize the city. The architecture (what she could see of it amid the ruins) was of an unknown and exotic form, and the bodies, which lay about, were clothed in armor and held weapons of a type she had not seen before. This was somewhere she had never visited, and, even within her dream, Matilda wondered at the power of her imagination that it could conjure this vision to disrupt her dreams.

    Matilda walked carefully, avoiding as best she could the tumbled masonry and the bodies. She turned a corner and came upon a cleared space.

    She halted, transfixed by the sight before her.

    A stag lay in the center of a clear space. He was magnificent, larger than any stag she had ever seen before, with a pure white pelt and a full spread of bloodred antlers.

    "You are a king," she said, and the stag blinked at her as if it were suddenly aware of her presence.

    Matilda looked away, studying the rest of the space. Initially she had thought the space was entirely clear. Now she could see that it wasn't. A labyrinth had been carved into the entire circular space—

    Matilda's mind instantly leapt to that strange gift her husband had sent Edward—the ball of golden string that unwound into a labyrinth—the labyrinth he'd said was carved into the golden bands he thought might be in the possession of either Caela or Swanne.

    —and the stag lay within its heart. Before the stag, also within the heart of the labyrinth, were carved letters. They had been dug deep into the stone of the labyrinth floor, and had been filled with red paint, or perhaps blood.

    Matilda stepped forward, unfearful, curious to see what the word was.

    Matilda frowned, for she knew her Latin well enough. / will rise again?

    The stag began to move, struggling to rise, and it distracted Matilda. She raised her eyes to the stag, pitying the creature, for no matter how greatly it struggled, it did not seem to be able to rise to its feet.

    Then the stag paused, its ears flickering as if it heard something, and its stunning head twisting so it could look over its shoulder. It trembled, and its struggling doubled, and a sense of great dread came over Matilda.

    "What… ?" she said, and the stag turned its head back to her, and looked at her with black eyes that Matilda instantly recognized, and it said: Begone from here, Matilda. Begone!

    "William," she whispered, and stretched out her hands to aid it.

    Begone! the stag screamed in her mind, and Matilda wailed, and then she also screamed, for out of the tumbled ruins that bordered the open space behind the stag crawled an abomination such as Matilda had never dreamed before.

    It was a gigantic snake, or a lizard, she could not tell, but it had a sinuous, writhing body covered in black scales, and a head with a mouth so vast and filled with fangs that Matilda understood how it could eat entire cities (and had indeed eaten this one, which is why it lay in ruins about her).

    In the instant before the snake-creature struck, Matilda also understood one other thing. That this terrible demonic creature was a woman's revenge incarnate, and Matilda knew the woman who had created this revenge must surely be the greatest Darkwitch that had even walked the face of this earth.

    The stag was screaming continuously now, its struggles maddened as it sought to escape the snake-creature writhing ever closer.

    Matilda shrieked, backing away several paces, her hands to her face.

    The snake-creature struck, lunging down with its vast mouth, and before Matilda could manage to wrench herself from her dream, she saw the demon's fangs sink so deeply into the stag's body that it tore asunder, and blood spattered all about.

    SHE WOKE, DRENCHED IN SWEAT, STILL CAUGHT IN

    the terrible imagery of the stag's murder. "William," she whispered.

    CbAPGGR G6N

    N THE FOLLOWING MORNING, WHEN THE NOR-mans faced the English on the battlefield of Hastings, there were not two forces ranged against each other, but many. Harold and William were, and always would be, the face and tragedy of Hastings, but behind them and at their side ranged other forces that influenced both the battle of that day and that which would come over the following centuries: Asterion, the Minotaur; the Troy Game itself, determined to ensure the future it wanted; the land, and Eaving, who spoke on its behalf, as on the behalf of Og, her all-but-dead future; and finally, Swanne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. All of them, in their own way, participated in the battle at Hastings.

    Harold had massed his army on the ridge that lay nine miles from Hastings. Fate could not have picked for him a better site. The ridge was a natural fortress. Before it the land sloped gently away before rising again toward another hill. To either side of the ridge were steep escarpments that were in turn flanked by marshy streams. If William wanted to attack Harold—and there was no way he could ignore the English king and allow him time to build up his forces—then he would need to attack from directly forward. There was no real hope of trying to outflank the English, because that would mean lengthy delays and the splitting of the already small Norman force into two or even three tiny and weak secondary forces.

    Harold was as ready as he could ever be by the time the sun rose. He'd deployed his men so that William would face a mighty shield wall. William had armored cavalry—but even they would be of little use against a phalanx of armored and shielded men who could range pikes, lances, axes, swords, stones, and arrows—as well as the supporting landscape—against the attacking force.

    Weary his men might be, but Harold knew that in theory they had a very good chance.

    Save that he knew they would not win. Not in terms of a battle victory.

    Where would the treachery come from? he wondered.

    WILLIAM ATTACKED SOON AFTER DAYBREAK. HE'D

    marched his army from Hastings, massed on the hill opposite Harold's ridge, then sent in both cavalry and infantry in three divisions.

    If William thought to break Harold's shield wall, then he was grossly disappointed. Harold's men held, and wave after wave of Norman attackers were driven back.

    By midmorning it appeared that the battle was turning into a rout. The Normans were milling, often ignoring the shouted commands of William, who fought within their midst, and falling one after another to the axes and swords of the English.

    William changed tactics. He screamed at his archers to direct their missiles into three or four concentrated areas of the English line, and then to his horsemen and knights to follow up the arrow barrage with a concentrated attack on those areas. While the English were still in disarray from the arrows, the knights stood a better chance of breaking through the shield wall.

    Crude, but effective. Very gradually, as the day wore on, the English were worn down. Where they held in the earlier part of the day, their weariness caused them to stumble during the latter.

    Very gradually, the Normans began to break through the shield wall and engage the English in terrible hand-to-hand combat.

    "I want Harold alive!" William screamed to his men as he saw them break through in a half a dozen different places. "I want him alive!"

    "AND / DO NOT!" MUTTERED SWANNE, STILL STANDING within the embrace of her dark grove. She could not see the battle with her eyes, but she could with her power. "Ah, what a fool you have become, William! The Game has no use for such as you."

    Then she relaxed. She must not think this way. She must practice the pretty, smiling face she needed to present to William. In the meantime, she needed to ensure that he actually won this battle. The bands could be irretrievably lost (for this life at least) if the damn fool was killed by some stray English sword.

    "Harold!" she whispered, and she spoke with the voice of passion.

    HAROLD/

    It stunned him, for it automatically drew him back through the years to that time when he and Swanne had been young lovers, and he'd entertained

    no doubt that she loved him, nor that she was anything else but that which she appeared.

    Harold!

    He was fighting desperately in the very thick of the battle where the Normans had broken through. Covered in sweat and grime and blood, hearing the shouts and grunts and cries of those crowded about him, feeling their thrusts and hopelessness and dying, still he heard Swanne's voice as clear as a clarion call.

    Harold!

    He looked up, and never saw the arrow that plunged directly into his eye, killing him instantly.

    CAELA MOANED, ALMOST DOUBLING OVER IN THE

    intensity of her sorrow. How pitiful a death, to be so duped by Swanne.

    Then she managed to collect herself, and wipe the grief from her eyes, and straighten, and compose her features and smile.

    She stood in the stone hall—save that only the western end of the hall was stone. The eastern half, which stood at Caela's back, was built entirely of flowing, emerald water.

    Caela stood at the border of this life, and the next.

    A figure appeared at the far western end of the hall. He was not dressed in battle garb, nor did he bear the stains of sweat and grime and death.

    Instead he walked straight and tall, as beautiful and as content as ever she had seen him. England's king, as William would never be.

    She drew in a deep breath, and could hardly see for the tears of joy that now filled her eyes.

    "Harold!" she said as he drew near.

    "Eaving." He smiled, and it was composed of such pure love and acceptance that the tears spilled from her eyes. He lowered his head and kissed her, then gathered her into a tight embrace, lifting her from the floor and spinning her about. "I had not thought to meet you here!"

    "How could I let you pass without…" she stopped.

    "Saying goodbye?"

    "It will never be goodbye," she said, very softly. "You should know that."

    "Aye, I know it."

    She had pulled back slightly from him now, and her face was grave and angry all in one. "Swanne murdered you with her darkcraft."

    "Again." His voice was virtually inaudible.

    "Do you know," Eaving said, "that for this you are owed vengeance?"

    Harold laughed shortly. "When shall I collect it?"

    O

    Whenever you will. Harold, the Sidlesaghes showed you, as well as me, the paths between this world and the next. You can travel them as well as I.

    "Whenever you will, Harold," she said, her eyes locked into his.

    "Ah, Eaving," he said, resting the palm of his hand against her soft cheek, and she knew that he'd put Swanne from his mind for the moment.

    "Harold, I need you to grant me a favor."

    "Anything."

    "Take these with you."

    He looked at what she had in her hands, then his eyes flew back to hers, shocked. "I cannot touch those!"

    "Please. For me."

    He laughed, the sound bitter. "These will eventually take you from me."

    "You already knew that."

    "Oh, gods, Eaving…"

    "Please, Harold. Please."

    He sighed, and reached out, taking the two golden bands from her. "Where shall I put them?"

    She shrugged, and suddenly he grinned, and then laughed. "You are so beautiful to me," he said.

    Then, kissing her one last time, Harold walked past Eaving, through the water cathedral and into the Otherworld.

    eceveN

    ILLIAM HAD SPENT ALL OF HIS LIFE, SINCE

    / the age of seven, fighting battle after battle. He'd lost a few, he'd proved victorious in more, and he'd walked the field of death in the aftermath of combat more often than he cared to remember.

    But never before had he been as sickened as he was this evening as he picked his way slowly over the ridge where Harold's army had made its stand.

    It wasn't the dismembered corpses—Norman as well as English—that lay about in their thickened, coagulated blood.

    It wasn't the moans and the screams and the pleas for mercy or quick death that came from those maimed men who lay twisted in indescribable agony amid their silent, dead companions.

    It wasn't the shrieks of the crippled horses, or the stench of spilt blood, and split bowels.

    It was sadness that sickened William, and the fact that he could not quite understand the reason for this sadness, nor even comprehend its depths, only made it worse.

    He picked his way slowly through the battlefield, stepping over the piled corpses, ignoring the cries of the wounded, save for a jerk of his head to those companions who trailed after him to see to their needs.

    William was looking for Harold. He'd not been among the captured, and William knew the man well enough to know that neither would he have been among the few score of English who'd managed to escape the field. Harold was lying here somewhere amid this stinking, reeking, shrieking carpet of humanity, either dead or wounded, and William feared very much that he was dead. He found himself praying over and over that Harold would still be alive, but William knew that he was dead.

    He could no longer scry out his presence, although, oddly, he could still feel Harold's sense of peace and contentment.

    It was, finally, one of Count Boulogne's captains who raised the shout, standing thirty or forty paces away toward the northern end of the ridge, waving his arms slowly to and fro above his head.

    William's stomach lurched, and he froze momentarily, staring at the man's waving arms as if he signaled the end of the world, before he managed to collect himself and stride over.

    He stopped as he reached the captain, then looked at the ground that lay between them.

    Harold's body lay bloodied and twisted, his legs half covered by the headless corpse of an Englishman. The dead king's arms lay outstretched, as if Harold had willingly relinquished his spirit; his body, so far as William could see, was unscathed.

    Save for the arrow that protruded from his left eye.

    William could not tear his eyes away from it. He stared, unblinking, then his stomach suddenly roiled, and he turned away and retched.

    The arrow! There as solidly as if William had thrust it in himself.

    As he had thrust the arrow into Silvius' eye in order to seize his heritage.

    Was he cursed to repeat this foulness over and over, through this life and all others? Was everything he set his heart on to be destroyed with the cruel thrust of an arrow deep into a brain?

    William straightened, and wiped his mouth. He did not look back at Harold.

    "Take him from here," he said to the men who had gathered about, "and treat him with all respect. We will bury him tomorrow."

    Then William turned, and walked away.

    BY MIDNIGHT, WILLIAM WAS BACK WITHIN HASTINGS,

    conferring with his captains about the likelihood of the remaining English regrouping and attacking, when a soldier entered the chamber, saluted, then stood expectantly as if he had news of vast import to share.

    "Yes?" said William.

    "My lord," said the soldier. "Harold's wife is here and craves an audience."

    William froze, staring at the man.

    "The Queen Alditha?" said Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle, frowning.

    "No," said the soldier. "The other one. The lady Swanne."

    As one, everyone looked to William.

    He was sitting in his chair, his face now expressionless, his eyes still glued to the soldier. "Bid her enter," he said, finally, his voice very soft. "The rest of you may leave. I think we have done this night."

    Count Eustace of Boulogne shared a glance with Hugh of Montfort-sur-Risle. "My lord," he said, shifting his gaze back to William. "She might be dangerous."

    William gave a soft, harsh laugh. "Oh, I know that all too well. But I

    will be safe enough, my friends. Pray, leave me alone with the lady for the moment."

    Again his men shared concerned glances, but they did as he bid them, and as they filed slowly out, the soldier reappeared with a darkly cloaked woman.

    William nodded to the soldier, and he turned and left, closing the door of the chamber behind him.

    William rose slowly from the chair. "Swanne."