This was a forest of the gods.
In the hour before noon Brutus led the goat into an almost perfectly circular sunlit glade close to the summit of the peak. Here grey, weather-worn rock had pushed its way through the ground, creating a smooth, hard surface covered in part by irregular patches of soft, emerald-green moss. The rock sloped gently towards the centre of the clearing where stood an altar pedestal made of the same grey, weather-pitted rock. Before it, a shallow basin had been smoothed out of the rock.
To one side of the glade Brutus could hear the soft murmur of a natural spring.
He drew in a deep breath, then tied the goat to a tree at the edge of the glade, carefully placed the bag of herbs and flask of wine to one side, and walked about the edge of the clearing to reach the spring under the trees at its far side.
He crouched down by the small pool of clear water and carefully washed his face and hands, murmuring a prayer as he did so.
He walked back to where the goat stood waiting, very still, its ears pricked and its dark eyes following Brutus’ every movement. Brutus picked up the bag and flask, untied the goat, then led it towards the depression before the altar.
There, placing the bag and flask away from the basin, Brutus quickly and cleanly slit the goat’s throat, angling its neck so that the blood flowed into the depression.
The goat collapsed, kicking, and Brutus held it tight until its struggles ceased and its eyes glazed in death, then he arranged its corpse so that its blood would continue to dribble into the shallow basin, and walked back into the woods.
There he spent some time collecting fallen pieces of wood and handfuls of pine needles and cones, returning every so often to pile them beside the goat’s carcass. Once he had a good-sized pile of fuel, Brutus set about building a fire close to the basin.
When he had laid the fire to his satisfaction, Brutus said a word, and a flame sprang to life within the depths of the stack.
Soon a fire roared.
As it burned itself down into coals, Brutus skinned the goat, taking great care not to mark or to stain with blood its beautiful white pelt. Once he had freed the skin entirely from the carcass, he spread it pelt-side-up to one side, then went back to butchering the goat.
When the meat lay neatly in joints, Brutus took his bag and, again murmuring prayers, rubbed the meat with herbs, and oil from a small flask kept in with the herbs.
Then, very carefully, he spitted the joints, and laid them across the coals of the fire.
As they cooked, Brutus sat back on his haunches, waiting silently, his gaze never leaving the meat.
Finally, as the sun dropped from its noon position towards the western edge of the glade, Brutus lifted the cooked meat from the fire, and laid it before the depression of blood.
Then he took the flask of wine, unstoppered it, and sprinkled both meat and blood with a small portion of its contents.
“Goddess of the woods!” he cried, standing now, and holding out the flask of wine as offering in one hand while with the other he gestured towards the meat and blood. “Goddess of the Hunt! Thou who art privileged to range over the celestial and infernal mansions, come to me, accept these my poor offerings. Speak to me, I pray, and say to me in what land I will build new Troy. Blessed Artemis, accept my homage. I am your man, and all I have and command is yours.”
He finished, and stood motionless, arms still outstretched, head thrown back slightly, eyes closed, waiting.
The wind rippled about him, lifting the flap of his waistcloth and pulling at his long black hair caught in its thong at the nape of his neck.
He waited, confident both in himself and in her.
“Brutus,” she said, and his mouth twitched in a smile. He did not otherwise move, and did not open his eyes.
“Brutus.” He could feel her now, moving around him, inspecting the offerings he had made, judging the quality not only of the meat and blood and wine he had brought her, but of the man who stood before her.
“This is a fine goat,” she said eventually, “and you have slaughtered it well and with honour.”
He opened his eyes.
Artemis stood slightly to the side of the altar, looking at the blood-filled depression, the meat and the white pelt that lay beyond it. Her hunting garb was gone, and she had gowned herself in an ankle-length ivory linen robe, cinched at her waist with a twisted piece of wild silk the colour of the sky at dawn. Her deep auburn hair, worn coiled atop the crown of her head on her previous visit, was now loose over her shoulders in a mass of shining curls and waves.
Her face was pale, and very still, and when she raised her dark blue eyes to Brutus his breath caught in his throat.
He had never seen a woman so beautiful, so desirable, and so untouchable.
“Will you drink of the wine I have brought you?” Brutus said. “It is of grapes grown in virgin soil, and trod with the unstained feet of virgin boys.”
“I thank you,” she said, and took from him the flask. She raised it to her lips, and drank of it deeply, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand when she was done.
“It is good,” she said, and handed the flask back to Brutus.
He too drank, his eyes never leaving hers, and when he’d done, and had wiped away the red stain from his own mouth, she smiled, her teeth startlingly white against her crimson lips.
“We shall eat of the meat you have prepared,” she said, and gestured to Brutus that he should sit beside her on the white pelt that, despite Brutus’ careful cleaning, still stank of recent death.
She picked up a haunch of meat, took from it a small bite, her eyes steady on Brutus, then offered it to him.
He bit into it, his eyes likewise on hers, and when he handed it back to her, he laughed.
“And this meat is good also,” he said. “As it should be, since I dragged that beast protesting all the way from the beach to this mountain glade.”
She smiled, and laid the meat aside. She drank deeply of the flask once more, handing it to Brutus so he could also wash the meat from his mouth, then took it from his hands and laid it aside also.
“You have done well,” she said. “You have pleased me. You took what you needed from Mesopotama.”
“My people,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “your people are important, but the real importance of Mesopotama was the test.”
“Of course,” he said, his mouth curving at the manner in which she toyed with words. “The Game.”
“You played the Game with skill in Mesopotama. That was important to me. You needed to have passed.”
“And if I did not?”
Artemis showed her teeth, but it was not a smile. “Then you would have enjoyed this fine meal alone, Brutus, for I have no use for a man who cannot play the Game.”
He took a moment to control his breathing and calm himself, damping down an arousal which was composed of equal parts ambition and desire. He was to play the Game. And with this woman? “For Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and the moon, and eternal virgin, you know a great deal about the Game. Yet how can this be? The Game has no place for virgins.”
“What say you? That I am not Artemis?”
“I care not who you are,” he said softly, his eyes holding hers, “only that you can give me what you promised me. Only that you are all I need for the Game.”
She smiled appreciatively. “You are a demanding man, Brutus. Let me say only that I doubt you shall be disappointed. And now that you have convinced me that you are the man I need, let me show you where you shall resurrect your”—our—“Troy. It is a great land, a magical land. Look,” she said, and cast her hand in a sweeping arc over the depression filled with the goat’s sacrificial blood.
The blood bubbled, slowly, as if coming to a gentle boil. Artemis cast her hand over it again, and the blood’s surface smoothed, then became opaque, and then, suddenly, became as startlingly clear as an open window on a summer’s day.
It showed a grey sea, rolling in great waves towards a
land of towering white cliffs.
“It lies far to the west,” Artemis said, very softly. “Sail south to the Altars of the Philistines, then west, west, west until you pass through the Pillars of Hercules. Then tack north following the coastline, gradually easing more north-north-west, and eventually you will find this land.”
She saw the lines of concern on his brow. “Your fleet will be god-favoured, Brutus. The winds will follow you, and your oarsmen will scarcely need to place hand to wood. The pirates and the sirens and the monsters of the deep will avert their faces, for they shall see on your sails my face, and know that you sail under my care. You will be safe and well.”
“You bless me,” Brutus said.
“I favour you,” she said brusquely. “If I blessed you then you would be immortal.”
“Then I await with much anticipation your eventual blessing,” he murmured, and saw that she had to struggle to repress her laughter.
His mouth curved. Gods, they were going to be good for each other!
Once again her hand swung in an arc over the depression, and the view of the white cliffs disappeared, replaced by that of a misty landscape. The mist shifted and moved, like a cold grey ocean itself, and as it did so Brutus could see glimpses of rounded hills, and a great expanse of marshland and river.
“The Veiled Hills,” Artemis said. “This is where you will rebuild Troy.”
“What is this land? Its name? Its people? Its magic? And why is this place, these Veiled Hills, so good a site to rebuild Troy?”
“The island is called Albion, and it is rich and bounteous and fair. Your people shall prosper there. The Veiled Hills lie in a river valley in a land called Llangarlia which occupies the south of the island of Albion. Nestled atop the Veiled Hills, Troia Nova will be a city like none other the world shall ever know. It shall be most exalted, Brutus, and its tentacles of power and influence will spread over all the lands and seas of this world.”
Brutus could not drag his eyes from the vision set before him. Artemis’ words and prophecy whispered through him, became a part of him, but in this moment all that mattered was this vision of the misty, veiled hills.
Unnoticed by Brutus, Artemis’ hand moved again, but only slightly this time.
Brutus drew in a sharp breath.
A woman walked out of the mist towards him.
She was tall, and more beautiful than he could possibly imagine. Her hair was blue-black, a heavy weight of tight-curled locks that cascaded down her back and lifted in the slight breeze that twisted the mist about her. Partway through her black tresses, twisting over her left shoulder, was a lock of russet hair that glinted in the light. Her skin was pale, her eyes the same deep blue as those of Artemis herself, her red lips slightly apart as if in anticipation. Beneath the loose woollen robe her figure was that of a mature woman who has birthed and fed several children; her gait was smooth and graceful, that of a priestess moving to light the fires of an altar.
Her arms were bare, white and well rounded, and Brutus drew in a deep breath at the thought of those arms wrapped about him, that body beneath him.
“She pleases me well,” he said finally, very low.
“I had hoped she would,” Artemis said, “for she is your destiny.” Not Cornelia, she thought. Not that irritating girl-child you took to your bed.
He dragged his gaze from the vision and looked at Artemis. “She has your eyes,” he said.
Artemis inclined her head, her expression saying nothing.
His eyes crinkled slightly. “She has your power.”
Again Artemis merely inclined her head, as if uninterested.
“It is a long voyage to this Llangarlia,” he said. “What if I should forget what awaits me?”
“Ensure that you don’t,” she said.
Asterion laughed, and the knife twirled madly in his hands. “One day,” he said, “you are going to wish you could do nothing but forget that witch! Once I have done with her she is going to murder both you and your dreams, Brutus, one way or the other.”
But that was years ahead. In the meantime, Asterion needed some fool he could use as his knife hand, as it were.
He also needed to watch carefully for the opportunity to position himself a little closer to the action, the better to take advantage of circumstances as they arose…as they were created.
Asterion ran a hand over his thin ribs, feeling the pitiful fluttering of his body’s weak heart. It would soon be time for him to rid himself of this fragile carcass and arrange something far more suitable.
He knew that his use of the power needed to do this would alert Genvissa, but she was lost in such delusion she would think it of no account.
CHAPTER THREE
Brutus and Membricus sat facing each other on two of the benches for the oarsmen. They leaned their shoulders against the gently moving side of the ship, and passed between them a flask of wine.
For a very long while they did not talk.
It was late at night, the stars dazzling above them, and about them the huddled, sleeping bodies of the ship’s passengers and crew. Brutus had returned to the ship at dusk, half drunk from the wine he’d consumed with the goddess and with the vision she’d granted him. He’d nodded at the people who had pressed about him, and said to their queries that they needed to sail south. When they reached the Altars of the Philistines the Trojans could disembark from ship to sandy shore for several days of rest and then he would speak to the assembled whole, rather than shout pieces of information from ship to ship.
For this night they would rest at anchor within the bay of the island.
Tomorrow there would be a good northerly wind, Brutus had said, and they would set sail south.
Thus he had dismissed his people’s curiosity. When Cornelia had approached him, doubt in her eyes, her hands splayed across her belly as if to remind her husband of her value, Brutus had merely told her to rest in her cabin with Aethylla. He would sleep on the benches this night, and not disturb her with his tossings and turnings.
She had obviously not been pleased, nor reassured, but she had done as he asked with no protest, turning back to her cabin on the aft deck, taking Aethylla’s arm for balance.
Now, as the ship slept about them, and they finished one flask of wine and broached another, Brutus finally spoke, his voice soft and intimate.
Between swallows of the full-flavoured and only slightly watered wine, he told Membricus all that had passed in the glade, all that Artemis had told and shown him.
He hiccupped, now far more than half drunk, and grinned at the memory of his day. Then he leaned forward, partly to pass the flask to Membricus, partly to lay a hand on Membricus’ warm thigh. “She showed me a beautiful woman in this land, my friend. Very, very beautiful. Breasts like globes, legs begging to be parted, a belly just waiting to be filled.”
Membricus grunted, unimpressed, and brushed away Brutus’ hand. “You sound like nothing more than a bragging youth, Brutus. A fit mate for Cornelia, I must say.”
Angry, Brutus grabbed the flask back from Membricus—who still hadn’t drunk of it—then leaned back, taking a massive swallow of the wine. “You’re jealous, Membricus. You’d rather I stuck my thing in you than in a woman.”
Membricus flushed. “No!”
One of the men rolled in a blanket nearby half rose, and mumbled a curse at him, and Membricus continued in a softer voice.
“No, Brutus, although you know how greatly I treasure my memories of those days when you desired me.”
Brutus snorted. “I desired you? You were the one to come creeping into my bed when I was but thirteen, if I remember aright. All sweet whispers and warm hands.”
“And you as receptive as any virgin grateful to lose his untouched state.”
Brutus put down the flask of wine, his drunkenness sloughing off him like an unwanted cloak. “What is it, Membricus?” he said softly. “What troubles you, truly?”
Membricus took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and calmed hi
mself. “Artemis,” he said, opening his eyes to Brutus’ regard. “She has troubled me since she first graced you with her presence.”
Brutus made an impatient gesture, as if he still thought this part of Membricus’ jealousy.
“No, Brutus, hear me out. I say again, as I have said previously, that I cannot understand how Artemis has suddenly so much power, so much vitality, when for generations our gods have faded in power and influence. I cannot think her who she truly says she—”
“If she gives me all that she has promised me, then she is enough for me, Membricus.” Brutus picked up the wine and swallowed another long draught.
Membricus watched him in silence for a long moment. “Who is she, Brutus?”
“All that I need.”
Membricus repressed a sigh, deeply unhappy that Brutus did not seem to care that Artemis might not truly be the goddess at all. I pray to whatever gods are left, he thought, keeping his facial expression neutral, that Brutus knows what he is doing and that he is not allowing his ambition and his pride and his damned lust to do all the thinking for him.
“There is more,” he said softly.
“And why am I not surprised to hear that?” Brutus said.
“Brutus, you recognise my ability as a seer, if nothing else.” He paused. “Yes?”
Brutus nodded, the movement ungracious.
“Then listen to me now. I keep seeing a knife, a dark, dangerous thing with a haft of twisted horn, as if two horns were entwined. I see blood. I see the death of dreams. I see Cornelia.”
Brutus gave an exaggerated groan, and rubbed at his eyes wearily with one hand. “She does not have a twisted-horn handled knife secreted anywhere about her person, Membricus.”
“She will be your death. She will be everyone’s death.”
“She has failed most miserably at being ‘everyone’s death’. She’s effectively harmless, Membricus.”
“No woman is ever harmless!”
Brutus shot Membricus a black look. “Is any of this true seer prophecy, or just your usual malice regarding women? You hate them all for the ability to draw men to their beds like bees to a honey pot. Membricus, I am tired of your prating about the treacheries of women. And a knife, for the gods’ sakes, even one with a twisted-horn handle! Can you not come up with something more dramatic? More compelling? Ah! This has nothing to do with Artemis or prophecy or vague threats of darkness and death. This is just about you and me, Membricus, and I am most heartily sick of it.”