Gods Concubine (17 page)

“Did you think that you had outwitted me?” he snarled (one had to play out the absurdity, after all).

“No!” Mag cried. “No! Let me be, Asterion. I can help you! I can
—”

Something dark and horrible, a bear’s claw although magnified ten times over, roared through the air, and Mag threw herself to one side.

The claw buried itself in one of the great columns of the stone hall, and blood gushed forth from the stone.

Asterion began to giggle.

“I beg you!” screamed Mag. “I beg
—”

The claw flashed through the air once more, but halfway through its arc the claw became the head of a great cat, and its fangs snapped, barely missing the goddess, who rolled desperately across the floor.

“Bitch!” seethed Asterion, and he leaped high into the air. His form turned into a murderous cloud, its entire bulk shrouding Mag completely; the cloud changed into a bubbling mass of plague, sorrow and death, and it poured itself over Mag, it
flowed
over her, and in that one movement, that one moment, Asterion did what Genvissa had always wanted to do.

He destroyed the goddess. He
annihilated
her.

Just as she wanted.

Blood flowed.

Asterion laughed.

So many things happened at once that all Harold could do was leap from his chair, and then just stand, helpless and appalled.

Caela staggered from her seat, her face so pale all the life appeared to have drained from her, her eyes wide, her mouth in a surprised “O”, her hands clutching to her belly. Blood—
a flood of it!
—stained her clothing around her lower belly and then thickened and soaked her lower skirts until her feet slipped in its wetness and she fell to the timber flooring.

Edward, his own face stunned, stumbled from his throne, staring at his wife as she writhed in agony on the floor.

Caela’s ladies stood in one amorphous mass, hands to mouths, eyes wide in shock.
What queen ever acted this way?

Swanne turned from the three men she’d been seducing with her grace and wit and loveliness and regarded Caela’s sudden, unexplained agony with something akin to speculation.

Judith was the first to make any attempt to aid Caela, bending down to her and gathering the stricken woman in her arms. The next instant Saeweald had joined her, almost falling to the floor as he tossed aside his crutch.

Harold went forward, his eyes glancing back to where the strange, pale figure had stood—it was gone, now—and bent down beside Saeweald and Judith. Appalled at his sister’s distress, Harold lifted his head to say something to Edward, who was standing close by with an expression of revulsion on his face, when he was forestalled by Aldred, the Archbishop of York.

“See,” the archbishop said, his voice roiling with contempt, “your queen miscarries of a child. I had not known, majesty, that you had put one in her. You should have been more forthcoming in boasting of your achievement.”

Edward gasped, his rosy cheeks turning almost as wan as Caela’s now bloodless ones. “The whore!” he said. “I have remained celibate.
I
have put no child within her!”

And he turned, his face now triumphant, and stared at Harold.

“For mercy’s sake!” Harold shouted, murderously furious at Edward and frightened for Caela all in one. “Your wife bleeds to death before you, and all you can think of is to accuse her of
whoredom?
”

He spun his face around to Caela’s ladies who, terrified both by Caela’s sudden, horrifying haemorrhage and by Edward’s accusation, stood incapable of movement. “Aid her,” Harold cried. “
Aid
her, for sweet mercy.”

He rose, as though he meant to force the ladies down to help Judith and Saeweald, but then the physician himself spoke.

“Send for the midwives,” Saeweald said. “
Now!
”

Then, stunningly, he grabbed at Harold’s wrist, pulled him close, and whispered, “Be at peace, Harold. This is not as bad as it might appear.”

Much later, when the court was still abuzz with shock and speculation, the head midwife, a woman called Gerberga, came before Edward.

“Well,” said the king, “what can you tell me of my wife’s shame?”

To one side Harold made as if he would stand forth and speak, but Edward waved him to silence with a curt gesture.

“Well?” said the king. “Speak!”

Gerberga’s eyes flitted to Harold, then settled on the king. She raised her head, and spoke clearly. “Your wife the queen carries no shame, your majesty. She remains a virgin still, as intact as when she was birthed. To this I swear, as will any other of the five midwives who have examined her.”

“But she miscarried,” Edward said, his hands tightening about the armrests of his throne.

Gerberga shook her head slowly from side to side. “She did not miscarry, my king. Some women, if left virgin too long, grow congested and cramped within their wombs. What happened today was the sudden release of such congestion. A monthly flux, although far worse than what most women endure.”

“Caela will recover?” Harold said.

“Aye,” said Gerberga, “although she shall need rest and good food and sweet words of comfort.”

“Then she shall have it,” said Harold.

Edward snorted, and relaxed back in the throne. “The
court
shall be the sweeter place without her,” he observed, and, by his side, Archbishop Aldred laughed.

Tostig had observed the entire drama from his place far back in the hall. He had not moved to aid Caela, nor even to make inquiries after her health, contenting himself instead with watching the words and actions of those on the dais with a cynical half smile on his lips.

As he turned to leave, a man standing just behind him made a small bow of respect, stepping back to allow Tostig to pass.

Then, just as the earl made to step forward, the man said, “You must be concerned for your sister, my lord. How fortunate that all seems better than first it appeared.”

Tostig snorted. “That farce? It concerned me not. England is in a sorry state indeed if the actions of its king and his deputies revolve about the weakness of a woman’s womb.”

“Edward…” The man shrugged dismissively. “He is an old man, and weak because of it. But Harold…”

“Harold is just as weak and foolish,” Tostig snapped, “for his wits are so addled he cares not for any within this kingdom save our sister. Now stand aside, man, for I would pass.”

As the earl pushed past, the man looked across the hall to where a companion stood. They exchanged a glance, and then each turned aside with a small smile of satisfaction on their faces.

Tostig would bear watching.

N
INE

H
idden within the body he used for everyday deceptions, Asterion walked through Edward’s Great Hall, mounted the stairs at its far end, and moved through the upper floor towards the chamber where Caela rested.

As he passed, people stood to one side and bowed in respect.

Many of them asked for his blessing, and Asterion was pleased to pause, and make above their heads the sign of the cross, and to murmur a few words of prayer to comfort them.

So amusing. So quaint. The world was full of fools.

When he reached Caela’s chamber, the midwives allowed him entry instantly, standing aside as he approached her bed. Further back, the physician Saeweald sat in a chair, looking tired and wrung out, as if it were he who had suffered the flux rather than the queen.

Saeweald rose awkwardly, made a small bow of respect, then sank down again at Asterion’s good-natured gesture.

“My beloved lady,” Asterion said, his voice an extravagance of sympathy, turning now to the queen in her bed, “the entire court expresses its concern for your malaise. Their good wishes are many and rich.”

Caela lay very still and very white under the coverlets. “I doubt that very much, my lord.”

“We were all shocked,” Asterion said, accepting the stool that one of the midwives brought to him, and pulling it close enough to the bed that he could take Caela’s still, cold hand. “Some of us perhaps uttered hasty words.” He made a small
moue
of regret.

Caela gave a small, humourless smile, and remained silent.

Asterion sent out his power, searching, as the queen’s hand lay in his. As he had expected, there was nothing. Mag was gone from Caela’s womb as surely as if…she had never been there.

Asterion smirked, then turned it quickly into an expression of concern as he patted Caela’s hand. It always paid to be careful, and he had to go through the motions. To do what was expected of him. People were watching, and who knew their powers of perception?

“Poor child,” he said. “You have suffered so terribly.”

And shall suffer even more.

Then he rose, mumbling something conciliatory, winked at Saeweald, and walked away, well pleased with himself.

The trap was set, but he must not rest upon his achievements thus far. The Game was moving, and he must needs move with it.

Once he reached the stairs which led down to the Great Hall, Asterion began whistling, a cheerful little ditty that he’d heard used by the fishermen at the wharves.

T
EN

C
aela lay, deeply asleep. Her husband, the king, had taken himself off to another chamber for the night, claiming he did not wish to disturb his wife in her recovery.

He fooled no one. Edward had ever been repulsed by the normal workings of a woman’s body and had always insisted Caela move to a different bed during the nights of her monthly flux. His decision to quit the marital chamber on this occasion, instead of requiring Caela to do so, was a singular event, and perhaps an expression of regret for his thoughtless accusations at court earlier in the day. Edward had visited his wife, along with a dozen other personages who had dropped in one by one, had patted her hand awkwardly, muttered some even more awkward words, and had then left with obvious relief.

Now, as night closed in, Saeweald, Judith and Ecub sat round the brazier on the far side of the chamber from Caela’s heavily curtained bed. The midwives had gone, Caela’s bevy of lesser attending ladies had gone, and now only the physician, the prioress and the senior of the queen’s ladies remained.

For some time they sat without speaking, perhaps being careful, perhaps just bone-weary themselves.

Finally, with a sigh, Saeweald spoke. “It has happened as the Sidlesaghe said it would.”

“Aye,” said Ecub.

“Asterion showed his hand,” Saeweald said.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Ecub. “He acted, yes, but who saw his hand? You? Or you, Judith?”

“All of us,” said Judith, repressing a shiver. “We were at court this morning…and we all know he would have been among those to come to this chamber during the afternoon or evening. To make sure Mag
was
gone.”

“Oh, aye, indeed,” Ecub said very softly. “But which one was he?”

All three knew from conversations with Cornelia, between the time in their previous lives when Cornelia had “died” during the dreadful birth of her daughter—a time when Mag had spoken to her—and when Cornelia had murdered Genvissa, that Mag had made an alliance with Asterion. Mag had warned Cornelia, and Cornelia had subsequently mentioned this to Loth, that in the next life Asterion would renege on the alliance. For him, Mag was nothing but a complication and a nuisance; something which must needs be removed on his path to destroying the Game.

Until very recently, neither Ecub, Saeweald nor Judith had any idea what Mag had planned. They had thought that the presence of Mag within Caela’s womb was the real Mag, but, from the Sidlesaghes, Ecub had discovered that this Mag was a sham, an illusion set within Cornelia’s stone hall, her womb, to deceive Asterion. To trick him into thinking he had disposed of Mag.

They’d known from the instant Caela had collapsed in court what was happening. At least the Sidlesaghes’ warning had meant they were not as terrified or distraught as they would have been had they thought Asterion was truly murdering Mag, but even so, Caela’s distress had sickened and frightened them.

As had the procession of people into Caela’s bedchamber throughout the day. Ostensibly, all these visitors were there to assure themselves of the queen’s wellbeing, that she had not bled, nor would bleed, to death, but the three friends knew that among them would have been the disguised Asterion, come to check that Mag had, indeed, been killed.

“It could have been any one of them—and as much one of the women as one of the men,” said Saeweald.

Ecub harrumphed. “And not a single one of them stank of bull.”

Again, silence, as they sat watching the curtains pulled about Caela’s bed, listening to her quiet breathing.

“Where is Mag?” said Judith. “Where
has
she been hiding all this time? How will she be reborn?”

Both Saeweald and Ecub shrugged.

“
She
should know,” Saeweald said, nodding at the bed. “Mag would have told her.”

“Cornelia never told you?” Ecub said.

Saeweald shook his head.

“Caela
should
know, but Caela is unchanged,” Judith said, despair making her voice higher than it normally was. “She has not opened her eyes and said, ‘I remember’. She has simply opened her eyes and been as she has always been in this life—unknowing, unwitting, unremembering.”

“The Sidlesaghes told me,” Ecub said, “that all will come to pass as it should. So we shall wait, my friends. We shall wait and we shall trust.”

Saeweald was about to respond, but just then there came a knock at the door, and all three seated about the fire jumped.

Glancing warily at Saeweald and Ecub, Judith rose and went to the door. She opened it, peeked through the gap, then visibly relaxed and opened the door to the visitor.