Idol Lane, London, and Woburn Village, Bedfordshire

Jane had taken to sleeping on a pallet close to the hearth in the kitchen. Weyland had made no objection. No doubt he found that amusing—look to what the great MagaLlan and Mistress of the Labyrinth had been reduced!—but Jane actually quite enjoyed it, as much as she could enjoy anything in this life. The kitchen was the warm heart of the household, and Jane found comfort there alone in the deep of the night that she found nowhere else.

Tonight was much as countless preceding nights had been. The two girls, Elizabeth and Frances, had finished their day’s duties close to midnight, and had gone home to the tavern’s cellar rooms, shoulders hunched against the memories of the day. An hour after they’d departed, Weyland had gone upstairs to his den for the night and Jane was left in peace to go to her own bed.

But she hadn’t slept.

Instead her thoughts had been given over to the Feast of Ingathering, and the memories that invoked. Here, in this life, she was trapped within a city, but even so the feel and smell, and even the sights of the land, were never far away. The celebration of the harvest had always been a huge festival during the age of Llangarlia, and one in which the MagaLlan, as the living representative of the mother goddess, Mag, had always played a large part. Harvest time was Mag’s triumph: fertility come to fruit, life for the coming year.

Jane wondered if anyone remembered Mag now, or if Christianity had somehow managed to persuade people that no one but God, His Son and all His saints were responsible. How sad if that were true, Jane thought, and she didn’t even pause to think how extraordinary it was that she, once Mag’s implacable enemy, should consider such a thing.

No sooner than the thought had crossed her mind Jane went rigid as a soft voice spoke into the kitchen.

“The people know in their souls. They know when they walk the country lanes and feel wonder at the sight of the flowers and the fragrant hedgerows and the waving grasses and the branches of trees rich with fruit. That is enough for me, that such a sight still cheers them, and lifts cares from their hearts.”

Jane, who was lying facing towards the hearth, fought to control her panic. She knew that voice so well: Cornelia, Caela…and Mag, all in one.

Mag! Mag! Cornelia-reborn was the goddess reborn!

It hadn’t been Damson, pitiful, clumsy Damson, at all.

It had been Cornelia-Caela. All this time.

Summoning all her courage, Jane slowly rolled over.

A woman stood on the other side of the room. She was stunningly lovely, as much in presence as in form and feature.

“I know you well,” said Jane, amazed that her voice was steady. “And I saw you with Brutus. Why have you come?”

The goddess smiled. “You saw me with Brutus?” She put a hand to her belly, and Jane could see now its gentle roundness.

She was pregnant.

“I am Noah in this life,” said the goddess. “Once Cornelia, once Caela.”

“Noah is not your goddess name.” Jane very slowly inched herself into a sitting position.

“No. Do you want to know it?”

“Yes.”

“It will give you great power over me.” Jane’s mouth twisted. “Not enough to destroy you.”

“You will tell Weyland,” said the goddess. “That would be dangerous.”

“I will not tell Weyland.”

“No? Why should I believe that?”

“Because knowing your goddess name, and not telling him, will give me some power over him.”

“And you need that badly, I can see.”

Jane’s cheeks flamed, for she knew that the goddess referred to the frightful disease pocks on her face.

The goddess walked over to Jane, then sat gracefully on the flagstones of the floor by Jane’s pallet.

“What are these marks, Jane?” she whispered, putting a hand to Jane’s face.

Jane flinched away from Eaving’s hand. The pox, you sanctimonious bitch! she wanted to scream, but instead the terrible truth came sliding over her tongue.

“They are the marks of my past.”

The goddess tipped her face on her side, considering. “My name is Eaving,” she said finally.

Jane drew in a slow breath. Eaving—the unexpected shelter, the god-sent haven from the tempest. Then she remembered what Caela had said to her in their previous life, the final time they’d met: Swanne, if ever you need harbour, then I am it. If ever you need a friend, then I am it.

Dear gods! She had been Eaving then, too. Who would have suspected it? Poor, mewling queen…

Jane opened her mouth, and, instead of all the hatred and vileness that she was used to pouring out at this woman, said, “Be careful, Weyland sleeps above.”

“If he wakes then I will go.”

“He will call you in. Gods, woman, you carry more in that womb of yours than Brutus’ child!”

“I know I am to be Asterion’s whore,” Eaving replied.

“If you knew the full horror of it,” Jane said, “you would not speak of it with such equanimity.”

“Well, then, I am sure I shall know it soon enough.”

“Why do you not sound fearful?” said Jane. “This,” her hand indicated the weeping sores on her face, “awaits you.”

“Neither of us knows what truly awaits us,” said Eaving, “and do not worry overmuch about the imp in my womb, nor even yours. They are otherwise occupied this night, and Asterion will not know I was here.” She paused. “Jane, you saw me with Brutus?”

“Aye.”

Eaving smiled a little, tenuously. “And yet you do not berate me for it.”

“I appear to have lost my touch.”

Now Eaving smiled more genuinely. “Jane, there are many wounds which need to be healed. Yours and mine prime among them.”

“You want me to do penance?”

“It is not what I ask.”

“I have no interest in healing, Eaving.”

“I cannot think you truly mean that.” Then Eaving bent forward, laid her lips gently against the worst of the sores on Jane’s face, and the next instant was gone.

Jane sat until dawn, sleepless, wondering that she had just spent a few minutes in a reasonably civil conversation with the woman she had hated bitterly for almost three thousand years.

What she found difficult to accept, what was astounding, was that Jane had to confront the truth that she no longer hated Noah.