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.
NINE
Hidden 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.
TEN
Caela 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 ha
d 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.
It was Harold, looking almost as wan and exhausted as Caela did in her sleeping.
He walked quietly to the bed, held aside one of the drapes momentarily to look down on his sleeping sister, then came over to the fire where Judith had rejoined Ecub and Saeweald.
Ecub began to rise, her eyes on a stool stowed in a corner, but Harold motioned her to remain seated, and fetched the stool himself.
“My sister the queen?” he said softly as he sat down with them.
“She will be well enough,” Saeweald said. “Her monthly flux was bloodier than normal, but that is all that it was. With rest and good food Caela shall be well.”
Gods, how he hated to deceive this man, but it was better that Harold not know of the love and loss of his previous life. To enlighten would be only to torment.
“To so accuse her!” Harold said, low and angry, and it took the others a moment to realise that he referred to Edward’s hateful accusation at court. “My sister should have babies and love and laughter, but all she has is…is this!” He waved a hand around the chamber, but taking in with that gesture the entire palace and her life as Edward’s wife.
To that there was nothing to say, so the others merely nodded.
Harold’s shoulders slumped and his face suddenly looked old and grey. “I wanted to come sooner, but Edward detained me, first with this nonsense and then that, and then sent me to interrogate some fool who had imagined he’d seen a pair of dragons mating in the skies over London during the afternoon. Now,” he glanced at the bed, “it is too late, and Caela sleeps. Well, I shall not wake her, and will leave my visit until the morrow. Mother Ecub, Judith, if she wakes during the night, will you tell her that I came, and that I cared?”
Ecub nodded, and Harold gave a small half-smile. “Tell me,” he said, “has Tostig been here to ask after Caela?”
Saeweald shook his head, and Harold sighed. “Ah well, I expect he was detained as was I.”
He rose, made his farewells, and was gone.
Ecub sighed. “Such a waste,” she said when he was out of the room, and even though she did not elucidate on that statement, the other two knew precisely what she meant.
“And now,” Ecub continued, smiling at Saeweald and Judith, “I will sit with the queen through the night, and you two can have some precious time together.”
Judith started to protest, but Saeweald took her hand, squeezed it so that she subsided, and smiled at Ecub. “I thank you, Mother Ecub,” he said. “You will send for us if…?”
“If there is any trouble, which there shall not be,” the prioress said. Then she winked. “Enjoy your rest.”
Saeweald’s apartments within the Westminster complex were spacious and well appointed, a sign of the regard in which Edward held him. Situated in a long, half-timbered, half-stone building fifty paces from the palace and (for Saeweald), a comfortable one hundred paces from the abbey complex, the building housed the domestic apartments of various court officials, the occasional visiting nobleman and his family, and a few highly-placed servants. Saeweald’s quarters were at the very end of the building, and he had his own separate entry so that he could make his way to the beds of the sick at all times of the night and day without disturbing the other residents of the building.
Of course, this also meant that Saeweald had far more privacy than others when it came to the comings and goings from his chambers.
Now, several hours after they had left Caela’s chambers, he and Judith lounged naked before the hearth on coverlets they’d pulled from the bed. They had made love, but the greatest familiarity came now, when Judith gently, lovingly, massaged soothing oils into Saeweald’s twisted leg and hip. This was an intimacy that he allowed no one else, the touching of his deformity, and that Judith did so was a measure of the love and trust he held for her.
They’d been lovers ever since she’d come to court to serve Caela. The instant they first met in this life, and knew, there had been such a sense of relief and of companionship renewed, that their first bedding had been accomplished with unseemly haste…in a stable, which had been the first place they had been able to find that gave some privacy.
Except for the resident horse, who had been quite agitated and who had snorted his disquiet for the fifteen turgid minutes it had taken the pair to sort themselves out.
Since that day, Saeweald and Judith found every spare hour they could to spend together. The lovemaking was evidence not so much of lust, but of the deepest friendship and respect and of shared purpose. To serve Caela and Mag, and to serve the land, by whatever means possible.
They were extremely discreet. Ecub knew, and Tostig of course, and Judith thought that Caela, and perhaps even Harold, suspected, but (apart from the horse, who still watched them warily whenever he saw one or the other cross the stableyard, and tended to utter panic when he saw both of them together) no one else knew. They’d even managed to keep their love secret from Swanne. In King Edward’s court, stiff with morality and piety, their discretion was just as well.
In a world where Asterion strode unknowable and unrestrainable, their secret was doubly important, for even this simple knowledge might be a piece of priceless information the Minotaur could use at his destructive leisure.
Judith ran her hands down Saeweald’s leg, leaning her weight into his crippled flesh, massaging away tensions and cramps and aches. Saeweald’s hip
had been so brutally twisted during his birth (and who had commanded that midwife’s hands? Judith had often wondered. Fate? Brutus’ deadly hand reaching through two thousand years? Asterion? Genvissa’s lingering malicious humour?) that the ball of his hip joint jutted out beneath his right buttock, making even sitting uncomfortable for the man. As a consequence Saeweald either stood, or balanced precariously on the edge of stools and seats; when he rode, as he needed to if he was to get about at all, he had to sit twisted on the saddle so that his left buttock bore most of his weight. Even then, riding was often agony.
At least he could walk. Praise Mag that at least he could walk.
“What do you think will happen?” Judith said.
Saeweald, who was lying on his left side, his head propped up on a hand, watched the movement of Judith’s body in the firelight appreciatively. “Hmmm?” he said.
Judith looked at him, then grinned. “You would have me to be your slave forever, would you not, physician? Bending over your body, rubbing away your aches…”
“Are you offering?”
Her expression sobered. “Would it help?”
In response he only held out his free hand, and she gripped it silently. They locked eyes, and for a moment nothing at all needed to be spoken.
“Mag,” Judith finally said. “Where is she, do you think?”
Saeweald sighed. “Caela would know…but how to make her remember? Ah! She cannot be pushed, yet…”
“Be patient, Ecub said.”
Saeweald muttered something that Judith was rather glad she did not catch. She grinned again, and was about to say something when, horrifyingly, the door to the chamber swung open and a man stepped through.
“Stay,” he said to the startled couple, raising a hand, palm outward, a gesture that was both conciliatory and reassuring.