Gods Concubine (62 page)

Even if she was never Hawise’s friend, Hawise was as close to a friend as Swanne was ever likely to achieve. Thus, it was as a friend that Hawise asked Edward’s physician Saeweald to attend her mistress. (After all, it was not as if Edward needed the constant attendance of the man now, was it?)

Swanne had shocked Hawise (as she had all the other ladies, and all those they gossiped to) when she had not only moved herself to Aldred’s palace in London, but accepted the corpulent cleric into her bed. If Hawise had been shocked by that action, then she had been stunned by the manner in which Aldred appeared to treat Swanne. Bruises. Bite marks. Bleeding.

Her mistress’s face gaunt and haunted, her eyes brimming with agony every morning.

Matters had improved vastly in the time since Edward’s death. On those nights Aldred spent with Swanne (and that was most of them) there still came the sounds of muffled sobbing from behind the locked door of the bedchamber, and often in the morning there would be rusty streaks of dried blood staining the bed linens, but Swanne seemed to be improved within herself, and her bruises and wounds were far less, even non-existent for days on end.

And yet…

Swanne was changed somehow, and most definitely not for the better. Her loveliness had become brittle. Her eyes, if possible, were darker, more unknowable, and often Hawise found Swanne watching her with a calculation and bleakness she found deeply disturbing. And despite her almost incessant bleeding, Swanne also appeared to be with child again (Hawise spent much time on her knees before whatever altar she could find praying that this child was Harold’s final gift, and not Aldred’s loathsome welcome) although Swanne denied it with vicious, hard words the one time Hawise dared to venture the question.

And Swanne was growing thinner, as if the child (or whatever it was, if Swanne had been telling truth) was eating her from within. In Swanne’s previous pregnancies she had never grown thin, but had blossomed and bloomed.

In essence, Swanne was growing thinner, harder and darker—and more sharp-tongued as each day passed.

Hawise feared her mistress had a fatal, malignant growth within her and, though she knew Swanne would not thank her for it, took it upon herself to send for Saeweald. It was all she could do, and that Hawise did that much for a woman who had never given her much beyond harsh words said a great deal about Hawise’s generosity of spirit.

“I did not send for you,” Swanne said as Saeweald stood before her, one hand gently fingering the copper box of herbs at his waist. In his other he grasped firmly a large leather satchel that Swanne presumed contained all the tricks of his trade.

Swanne’s mouth curled. All Loth’s “tricks of his trade” vanished that night he’d murdered Og along with Blangan in Mag’s Dance two thousand years before.

“A friend sent for me,” Saeweald said, and Swanne’s eyes slid towards Hawise, standing calmly a few paces away.

“No friend to
me
,” Swanne said, and Saeweald had to refrain from hitting the woman. Gods, as Genvissa she’d at least managed to maintain a semblance of respect towards the women and mothers in her circle. Even as Swanne she had managed a fragile veneer of sisterly communion with the women about her.

But this naked contempt? Swanne must be sure of herself indeed, and that worried Saeweald.

He’d been glad when Hawise had approached him, handing to him on a platter the perfect excuse to visit—and examine, by all the luck of the gods!—Swanne. He’d heard from Caela how Swanne had accused her, and then how the Sidlesaghes were concerned there was something wrong with the Game
and
the land, some dark shift, and that it was possibly connected to Swanne.

Well, and that was no surprise. Every “dark shift” somehow connected to Swanne-Genvissa. If there was one lesson he’d learned in his lives, then that was it.

“Do not discard friendship when it is offered to you,” Saeweald said as he set his leather satchel down by his feet. He expected Swanne to sneer again, but she smiled, almost as if genuinely cheered by some thought which had come into her head, and then laughed, and gestured for one of her women to bring a chair forward for Saeweald.

To Saeweald’s surprise, he saw that it was Damson, and he asked after her as he took the chair.

“Damson is well enough,” said Swanne before the woman had a chance to answer for herself, and waved her a dismissal.

“I’m surprised to see Damson in the archbishop’s household,” Saeweald said as he sat down.

Swanne raised her brows. “
I’m
surprised you even know her.”

“I attended her once for a fever.”

“Well, she is of no matter, her health of even less. Damson asked if she might join my household here, and I saw no harm in it. I suppose she thought it preferable to serving that mealy-mouthed jade Harold took to wife.”

They were sitting in the chamber Aldred had put at Swanne’s disposal. Saeweald had never been to the archbishop’s London palace previously, and he had to admire the comforts with which the good archbishop surrounded himself.

Swanne being one of them, of course.

Like everyone else, Saeweald had wondered about this liaison, particularly as he knew Swanne better than most. Swanne could have had the pick of any noble male within the court—but
Aldred
? It was not like Swanne to select a physically unattractive man when, as Saeweald well knew from her previous existence, she preferred something more delectable.

“You look amused,” Swanne said, disdainfully raising one carefully plucked black eyebrow.

“I was imagining you with Aldred,” Saeweald said, not inclined to play polite word games with her. “I was wondering
why.
”

“It is none of your concern,” Swanne snapped.

“Everything you do is my concern,” Saeweald said. “You have a terrible penchant for destroying my entire world.”

She smiled again, but this time it was so icy and so calculating it made Saeweald’s blood run cold.

He reached out a hand and took Swanne’s wrist.

She drew back slightly, then relaxed and allowed Saeweald to feel her pulse.

Unable to bear her black-eyed, shrewd scrutiny, Saeweald looked down at her wrist. Her skin was so pale he could see the blue-veined blood vessels beneath, and he could feel the delicate bones shifting beneath his fingers. Her pulse beat strong and full, however.

Whatever had affected Swanne, whatever had caused this pallor and thinness and strange light in her eyes, it had not lessened her strength or, Saeweald suspected, her ambition and purpose.

“You must have heard from William recently,” he murmured, making much fuss over feeling her pulse at several points on her wrist and lower forearm.

Swanne gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders.

“And you must be excited that—perhaps—he will shortly be here. I have no doubt that you cannot wait to see him again.”

Swanne gave a small sigh, as if the matter was of supreme disinterest to her.

Saeweald’s eyes flew to her face. That disinterested sigh had sounded
genuine.
Swanne? Didn’t care if she saw William? It could not be!

“You do not spend every moment lusting for him?” Saeweald said.

Again that secretive smile. “I have a better lover,” Swanne said.

Saeweald gave up any pretence of feeling Swanne’s heartbeat. “
Aldred?
”

Something flashed over Swanne’s face, and for an instant Saeweald thought it terror, but then an expression of the most supreme contentment took its place. “No,” she said. “
Not
Aldred.”

“I had thought the Mistress of the Labyrinth would spend her time lusting only for her Kingman.”

Yet again Swanne said nothing, but held Saeweald’s eyes with a disdain that told him she was hiding something momentous.

What?

And who?
Swanne would not just discard William for an athletic lover, however skilled he might be in her bed. She would not just discard her
Kingman.

Saeweald felt the germ of hope within him. Perhaps Swanne
had
changed. Perhaps she was prepared to abandon her ambitions as Mistress of the—

“
Never
think that,” Swanne said, her voice a low hiss, and Saeweald screened his mind in sudden fright. “I will be the most powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth that ever was. The Game will be mine.”

“But for that you will need William,” Saeweald said, pushing the point.

Again that shrug, the slight, disdainful lifting of an eyebrow.

Saeweald sighed, hiding his confusion and concern with rummaging in his satchel.

“I need none of your potions,” Swanne said, irritated by Saeweald’s fidgeting. “I am not ill.”

Now it was Saeweald’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You do not look particularly well,” he said. “You have lost much weight. There is a fever burning in your eyes. Hawise says that you may be pregnant—”

“Hawise is a fool!”

“Perhaps this lover of yours is potent.”

Swanne smiled. “Oh, aye, that he is. But he fills me with…ah, this is not your concern, Saeweald. It is far and away not
your
concern.”

He fills me with power.
Saeweald could almost hear the words she had stopped.

“But enough of me,” Swanne said, her tone almost girlish now. “I admit myself surprised, Saeweald, that you have not sunk into a blackness of spirit now that Mag has finally been disposed of. Caela, poor lost soul, must have been your final hope for some kind of…oh, some kind of purpose, I suppose.”

Saeweald dropped his eyes, damping that tiny gloat within him.
Well may you think Mag dead, Swanne
…

And then he looked back at Swanne again, meaning to say something trivial, and saw the blaze of understanding in her eyes, and knew that he had not been secretive enough.

“Mag is not dead, is she?”

Swanne rose to her feet, pushing Saeweald away. “Mag is not dead. Of course! The secretive, treacherous bitch. I should have known she would do something like this.”

She waited until Asterion was atop her, within her, driving both her and himself into a panting, moaning lust before she told him, gasping the words as she felt Asterion climax within her.

“Mag is alive.”

“What?” He pulled himself back from her, raising himself up on straightened arms, his ebony face glistening with sweat.

There was a little trickle of perspiration running down the centre of his moist, black nose, and Swanne found herself momentarily fascinated by it. “Mag is not dead.”

“Of course not. I knew this.”

“You thought you killed her!”

He grinned, the expression horrible on his bull’s face. “Oh, but I mean to.”

She narrowed her eyes, and he thought she looked so beautifully sly he had to bend his head down and kiss her mouth.

“What do you know that I don’t?” she said, pulling her mouth free.

A great deal
, he thought. “Only that we have the means to finally trap her,” he said. “Would you like that, my love?”

She breathed in deeply, and Asterion’s eyes clouded over with renewed desire as he felt her breasts move beneath his chest.

“Oh, aye,” she said.

T
HIRTEEN

CAELA SPEAKS

I
retired, Edward’s relict, to St Margaret the Martyr’s, that small priory I had endowed so many years ago.

The sense of independence was astounding. Ecub gave me several small chambers that were at the very end of the priory’s main group of buildings. Here I had access to the herb garden, the refectory, the chapel and the outside as much as I wished. Of all my ladies, Judith was the only one to come with me (the others gratefully transferring themselves to Alditha’s household), and Saeweald took the opportunity to take over the running of the priory’s herb garden and infirmary. I have no idea what gossip ran through London about this arrangement—no doubt that the physician spent most of his time sampling the wares within the sisters’ dormitory rather than tasting the sweetness of his medicinal draughts—but none of that bothered us within the calm of St Margaret’s. Saeweald spent his nights with Judith, and I…

I spent my nights either blessedly alone (ah! The wonder of not having to share a chamber, let alone a bed!) or even more blessedly in company atop Pen Hill.

Here I climbed late at night, aye, even in the depths of winter, and here the Sidlesaghes came to me, and sang, and comforted me. Ecub often joined me, and also Judith and many of the sisters of Ecub’s order. The cold did not perturb us, for we were warm with power and shared femininity and a shared
oneness
with the land.

It cheered me to think that not all had been lost, and that a few still remembered the old ways.

One day, I thought, I would be able to dance here with my lover, with Og, the white stag with the blood-red antlers and the bands of power about his limbs.

One day.

One evening Saeweald came to visit me, as he so often did.

I was seated with Judith and Ecub, and Saeweald joined us about the small fire I had burning in the hearth.

“I have seen Swanne,” he said as he sat.

A bleakness overcame my heart. I had almost forgotten her existence. And at that realisation I felt dreadful, for I could not afford to forget Swanne, who somehow I had to persuade to pass over her gifts as Mistress of the Labyrinth.

Saeweald’s eyes dropped to the hands in his lap. “But before I relate what news I gleaned there, I must make a confession.”

We waited. Saeweald finally raised his eyes.

“I was incautious,” he said. “She gleaned from my mind that Mag is not as dead as she had thought.”

I felt a nasty jab of fear, but quickly suppressed it. “And what can she do with this knowledge, Saeweald? It is unfortunate, perhaps, but the main thing is that Asterion does not know.”

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?”