NOAH SPEAKS

Ah, gods, to wake up and feel him staring through the window at me! Not even Asterion suddenly appearing all leering and lecherous beneath the sheets could have killed the joy of that single, fleeting moment.

I felt Mother Ecub there, too, and Coel. All three of them, close, bonded with a deep friendship and loyalty and something else…a sexual intimacy, I think. Their shared closeness reached out and touched me, comforted me. Their care enveloped me, nurtured me. All in that instant.

But of all that love and care and intimacy that had reached me, what I remembered long into the night as I sat there in my third-floor bedroom, arms about my knees, was how Brutus had felt as his presence had merged so fleetingly with mine. He felt…oh, I don’t know. Distant perhaps, but then Brutus was always distant. Uncertain, and that was something new. Unsure, and that heartened me.

I sat there through the long night, my arms wrapped about my legs, my chin resting on my knees, and wept for sheer joy. I had been three years at Woburn Abbey, and it had been a good three years for me. Lady Anne, the Countess of Bedford, was a kind woman, if a trifle reserved to the point where she sometimes gave the entirely wrong impression of distance. But she loved me in her own way, and had accepted this poor, distant cousin into her family as one of her own.

She put me to school with her children where I tried not to befuddle the tutor, the Reverend John Thornton, with my knowledge of history, as well as several ancient languages. She dressed me in clothes that her own children wore: sober clothes during my early years with her, but now, in my seventeenth year, she allowed me more brightly coloured and daringly cut textiles. I loved the clothes! Oh, this was Cornelia emerging all over again, and I did not begrudge her this delight: the stiff-boned bodices, the full skirts, the embroideries, the silks and satins, the cascading lace of chemises and underskirts, and the delightful brocaded slippers with their daring scarlet heels. Cornelia revelled in it all, and so did I, for which I felt no guilt. The earl and his wife were Protestants, and toed the public line when it came to parliamentary-imposed puritan prudery, but at home, among friends, they still delighted in rich fabrics and the occasional daring neckline. The ivory swell of breast by candlelight was still an indulgence much appreciated by the earl, and I (as well as Lady Anne) was not one to deny him this.

As I grew older, beyond the reach of childhood, I would sit with the earl and countess at night, often with John Thornton joining us, and enjoy the conversation. I remember one night arguing the point that a saint may have been canonised for his good works and service to the Church, but none of that mattered when he remained a tyrant at home.

That night we had been discussing Edward the Confessor, and I suppose that both the Bedfords and Thornton were a little put out by my vehemence on this subject.

As I grew older I became Lady Anne’s companion. Not quite one of the intimate family, but much closer than a servant. I ate with the family, was educated with the family, and travelled with the family on their various excursions about their estates and to the estates and house parties of their neighbours.

But not to London. When the earl and countess made the occasional (and it was occasional, now that the king was dead, and his heir exiled) journey to their London townhouse, I always made the excuse to remain behind. To watch over one of the babies, perhaps, or to attend to one of the more difficult Latin translations that John Thornton had set me. I know this irritated Lady Anne and her husband, but there was little I could do about that.

I could not go to London. Not with Asterion undoubtedly haunting its streets and byways.

I might avoid London, but over the years, and particularly since Long Tom came to me on my journey to Woburn, I had come to terms with what my fate would be.

Asterion’s whore. So be it. I could accept that, I could use it, and I would not allow it to defeat me. I had seen how Genvissa-reborn, Swanne, had allowed it to consume her in our previous life, and I had learned from her error.

The Minotaur (and his dreadful imp) might choose to dictate the boundaries of my life, but they did not own me, and they could not touch who I essentially was: Eaving.

That Asterion’s imp lived inside my womb in this life was undoubted. It was quiescent, but I could feel its life inside me, like some dark child. Caela had not realised its presence, but I did. My monthly cycles were bloody and painful: Asterion’s curse, I had no doubt. But I did not allow those to defeat me; I did not allow them to depress me. Instead, I embraced them. I was Eaving, and I would survive.

I knew what I had to do. Long Tom had been very clear on that point. I had to make amends with both Brutus and Genvissa-reborn, and I had to learn the duties and steps of the Mistress of the Labyrinth.

Those amends would be difficult, and I dreaded them, but that other thing that Long Tom had told me—that the Lord of the Faerie would walk once more—delighted me beyond measure. The Lord of the Faerie was an ancient memory bequeathed to me by Mag. From her memories I knew that Mag had never met him during her long lifetime, but she certainly had known about him, and because I now carried her knowledge, I also knew about him. Both myself and my lover, reborn as the Stag God, were citizens of two worlds: this mortal one, and the faerie world. When the Sidlesaghes had taken myself and Harold to the water cathedral, there to meet and talk with Mag, they had taken us through the Realm of the Faerie to the very borderlands of this life and the next. The Sidlesaghes themselves were inhabitants of both worlds, but more creature of Faerie than mortal.

I and the soon-to-rise Stag God draw most of our power and knowledge and comfort from the Realm of the Faerie. It is our nourishment, and our ultimate home.

The Realm of the Faerie is ruled by that strange creature known as the Lord of the Faerie. The Lord of the Faerie was not exactly my lord and master, but he was most certainly my senior, and I would owe him both deference and respect.

As I grew in Woburn Abbey, and basked in the peace and stillness, I tried to recall all I could of the Lord of the Faerie from Mag’s memories. He had not walked during her lifetime, nor during that of three or four of her predecessors. The Lord of the Faerie was ancient beyond measure, a part of the primeval earth; he had literally grown with the island of Great Britain, and was one with it as neither myself nor the Stag God could be. The Lord of the Faerie was of its soil. He was not creature or beast, so much as a glorious living evergreen. Indeed, if I rightly recall my many conversations with Woburn’s head gardener, Samuel Tenfler—who referred to the Lord of the Faerie as the Green Man—the ancient deity was the supreme perennial.

The Lord of the Faerie was magic beyond knowing, if you can describe that strange power of the faerie as ‘magic’—such a cumbersome and overused word. Even thinking about the Lord of the Faerie and his eventual rise made my spine tingle. Every time thoughts of Asterion depressed me, I only had to turn my mind to the Lord of the Faerie, to that wonderful day when I might finally meet with him face to face, and I would rise from my misery and smile.

Apart from what Long Tom had told me, I came to realise there was one other duty for me to accomplish. Something I needed to do in order to achieve my full power and understanding as Eaving.

A duty which pleased me very, very much.

I sat through that night when Brutus, Coel and Ecub had reached out to me, and while I thought on Brutus most of the time, and on what lay ahead of us through this lifetime, I also thought on the intimacy that I had felt between the three of them. I envied them that intimacy, both sexual and emotional, and it made me apprehend that, as Eaving, there was something I needed to do so I could truly fulfil my potential and which would give me the strength to survive whatever Asterion had awaiting me.

An easy task, and not one I would mismanage as I had when I was Caela.

Thus it was, that harvest season of 1649, I took myself a lover.