Gods Concubine (71 page)

Was Harold 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 coming to stand 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, Harold be taken alive. I do not want him killed.”

“My lord duke,” said Hugh of Montfot-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 had not looked at Montfot-sur-Risle as the man spoke, keeping his eyes on the landscape. “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.

N
INE

H
arold sat upon his horse on a long 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 organised. 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 towards Harold as Harold now stared towards 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 of 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 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 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 its 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 lie 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 body relaxing back against his. “Aye, I will do that for you.”

“But,” Asterion whispered, his hands now running all over her body, “the pleasure will be as nothing compared to what we will feel together, as one, when we finally take the Game.”

She moaned again, and turned 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, not yet knowing that this simple decision would prove her salvation in the darkness ahead.

In Rouen Matilda lay abed. She slept restlessly, the bed covers twisting around 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 masonry, flames flickering from fires which still burned within them; dismembered bodies sprawled in sickening heaps; a pall of thick, noxious smoke hung over the entire terrible landscape.

She did not recognise 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 on the ground were clothed in armour 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 centre 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 blood-red 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 area was completely 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—and to the Labyrinth
be had told her was carved into the golden bands he thought might he in the possession of either Caela or Swanne.

—and the stag lay within its heart. In front of 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, not fearful, curious to see what the word was.

RESURGAM

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

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

Then the stag paused in his struggles, his ears flickering as if he heard something, and his glorious head twisted so it looked over his shoulder. He trembled, and his struggling doubled, and a sense of great dread came over Matilda.

“What…?” she said, and the stag turned his head to her, and looked at her with black eyes that Matilda instantly recognised, and it said:
Begone from here, Matilda. Begone!

“William,” she whispered, and stretched out her hands…

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 it could eat entire cities (and had indeed eaten this one, which is why it lay in ruins about her).

In that 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 who had ever walked the face of the Earth.

The stag was screaming now, his struggles maddened as he 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.

T
EN

O
n the following morning, when the Normans 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 which influenced both the battle of that day and the one 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 behalf of Og, her all-but-dead future; 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 towards another hill. To either side of the ridge were steep escarpments which 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 a position directly in front of Harold. 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 armoured cavalry, but even they would be of little use against a phalanx of armoured 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.