Gods' Concubine

by Sara Douglass

  One of the huntsmen came forward, taking William’s other arm, but then William straightened, wiped his mouth, and managed a smile.

  “I am well enough,” he said, seemingly himself again, and the two men relaxed—as did all the others standing and watching with worried countenances.

  “Likely the meat you took for breakfast was rotten,” Walter said, and William accepted the excuse.

  “Aye, likely it was. My apologies if I have concerned you, but I am well enough now. Where is my horse? Ah, thank you, Ranuld.”

  He took the stallion’s reins from the huntsman who had brought him forward, and swung into the saddle.

  But just as he settled on the horse’s back, gathering up the reins, there came a distant shout, then the sound of approaching hooves.

  “What is wrong?” said William, swinging his stallion about so he could see.

  There was a rider hurtling across the meadowlands towards the patch of forest where William had downed the stag. He wore the duke’s livery, and William recognised him as one of the squires from his garrison within the castle of Rouen.

  “It’s Oderic,” mumbled Walter.

  “And with dire news,” said Ranuld, the huntsman who had also come to William’s aid. “See the lather on his horse.”

  “My lord duke!” Oderic called as he pulled his exhausted horse to a stumbling halt. “My lord duke!”

  “What?” snarled William, kicking his stallion forth and grabbing Oderic by the shoulder of his tunic before almost hauling Oderic from his mount. “What news, man?”

  “Earl Harold of England,” Oderic managed to gasp. “Earl Harold…”

  “Yes? Yes!” William gave Oderic an impatient shake.

  “Earl Harold…” Oderic could barely speak, caught between the extremity of his news, his desperate battle for breath, and his duke’s furious grasp on his shoulder.

  “Yes?” William thought he would strangle the news from the man if he did not spit out the words within an instant.

  “Earl Harold awaits in your castle, my lord duke.”

  “What?” William was so surprised he let Oderic go, and the squire almost fell off his horse as a surprised, concerned buzz of comment rose among William’s retainers and huntsmen.

  Earl Harold awaited in Duke William’s castle?

  “My castle?” said William stupidly, unable to comprehend what Oderic said. “Here? In Rouen?”

  “Aye, my lord. A patrol discovered him last night, having disembarked from a fishing vessel on the coast two nights previous.”

  “What does he do here?” William mumbled to himself, then waved away the question. “Never mind. Walter. We ride. Now!”

  Part Four

  1065

  “Pay me my fare, …

  “Pay me my fare, or by Gog and Magog, you shall feel the smart of my whipcord!”

  Coachman to passengers at Bartholomew Fair,

  London, late 1700s, cited in

  William Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described, 1823

  London, March 1939

  Matilda Flanders turned to Frank Bentley, who was still looking at her open-mouthed. “Frank,” she said, “I wasn’t a staid widow all my life. I was a young girl once,” she glanced at Jack Skelton, then looked back to Frank and winked, “and kicked up my heels a bit, if you know what I mean.”

  Bentley blushed.

  “With Major Skelton?” Violet Bentley said.

  “I wasn’t always so old and haggard,” Skelton said dryly. “Matilda, Ecub, I need to speak with you. Please.”

  “Major—” said Frank.

  “Just for fifteen minutes,” said Skelton, turning to Frank. “I won’t hold you up. Go inside now, and have that breakfast Violet has cooked.”

  Frank stifled his curiosity, nodded, then put his arm around Violet’s shoulder and led her back into their house.

  The instant the door closed behind them, Skelton turned to the two women.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  Matilda and Ecub glanced at each other.

  “Probably with Stella,” said Matilda. Then, hastily, as Skelton’s face registered his dismay, added, “Stella will—”

  “My daughter is with Asterion’s whore?”

  Ecub stepped forward, took his arm, and led him toward Matilda’s front door. “Asterion’s whore’ can take care of her as well as anyone. She’s done it before well enough.”

  “But—”

  “For the gods’ sakes, Jack!” Ecub hissed. “Cornelia asked her to look after the child should…”

  Her voice trailed away.

  “Should Asterion take Cornelia,” Skelton said woodenly. “So Asterion does have Cornelia.”

  “Come inside,” said Matilda, taking his hand. “And have a cup of tea.”

  ONE

  CAELA SPEAKS

  I sat with my ladies—how I hated this sitting about, spending my days in nothing but courtly gossips and embroideries—and understood that Harold had arrived in Rouen. I shivered, unable to keep at bay that memory of William tearing Coel’s lifeless body from mine. Coel’s blood had been so very warm, as he had himself been so very warm, and so very loving.

  I could feel—faintly, but the knowledge was there—William’s confusion, anger and uncertainty as he heard of Harold’s arrival. Everything, in fact, he had felt that night Genvissa had sent him to murder me.

  Keep him safe, I prayed silently. Keep him safe.

  I closed my eyes, and in the strength of my prayer I think my body wavered somewhat, for instantly concerned voices were raised about me, and tentative hands touched my arm.

  “Madam? Madam? Are you well?”

  I opened my eyes, and caught Judith’s gaze. She nodded, understanding.

  “No,” I murmured, allowing my voice to waver, so very slightly, “I am not well. I should rest a while before our noonday meal. Judith…?”

  She took my arm, and I nodded a dismissal to the other women who clustered about me.

  Slowly we retreated from the private solar, where I spent most of the day when I was not in court, to the bedchamber, where I spent all my cold, loveless nights.

  Once the door closed behind us I straightened and Judith dropped my arm.

  “Madam?” she said.

  I smiled wryly. I wished she would call me Caela in private, but now that I was doubly “royal” in Judith’s eyes, there would be little chance of that.

  “I am glad that we have this time alone,” she said. “There is something I need to speak of to you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Saeweald…over the past days I have spoken to Saeweald on many occasions on this matter…”

  Her voice had drifted off, her cheeks mottling and her eyes avoiding mine.

  “Judith?” I said. “What is wrong?”

  “It is something of which you spoke to us—that you and Og-reborn will complete the Game as Mistress and Kingman of the Labyrinth.”

  “You find this difficult to accept.”

  “It is difficult enough,” she said, “but this is not what eats at me.”

  “And that is?”

  She hesitated, mouth hanging partly open, eyes averted. “It is that Saeweald believes he shall be Og-reborn. ”

  There, it was out, and Judith finally allowed herself to look at me from under her lashes.

  “Oh,” I said on a long breath, and now it was I who averted my eyes.

  “Ah,” said Judith.

  By the gods, we were playing some silly childish prattling game! “Oh” here and “Ah” there!

  “Is Saeweald…? Will he…?” Judith said.

  Then, gods help me, I lied, for if I told her who Og-reborn was fated to be, then I would have lost her, as well as Saeweald and Ecub, in one foul-tasting word.

  “I cannot know,” I said, holding her gaze. “It shall be who the Troy Game and the land demands. Maybe Saeweald, maybe not…but I dislike it that he has already voiced his ambitions to the office.” I put some distaste into that final phrase, s
ome goddess-like offence, and it diverted Judith magnificently.

  “I should not have presumed—”

  “He should not have presumed!”

  Judith dropped her gaze again, her cheeks mottling an even deeper shade of humiliation. I placed a hand on her arm. “I am sorry to snap, Judith. I had not thought that Saeweald would have jumped so easily to that possibility. But it is nothing to do with you, and I am glad you have told me. Here.” I kissed her face. “I am not cross with you.”

  “I will tell him—”

  “No. Do not mention it. I shall speak to him when appropriate.” And yet when was appropriate? “I am sorry, Saeweald, but you have no place in what is to come”? Oh, I could not lose him so quickly. I had need of him yet. As did…as did he who would become Og.

  “And now,” I continued, all business, “I asked you here because I have need of your aid.”

  “Anything,” Judith said, trying to atone.

  I felt abashed, and took her hand and led her to a covered chest which stood beneath the chamber’s only window. We sat down, and I kept hold of her hand, although I think I was trying to reassure myself more than her.

  “Judith, there are tasks I will need to do, places I shall need to go. I will need to spend much time away from the palace. Both at night, and during the day.”

  She nodded, the eagerness to please in her eyes intensifying.

  “This will be difficult for me. I am the queen, I cannot just wander about the streets as I need—”

  “But at night…”

  I shrugged slightly. “Nights contain more freedom for me, surely, but even they are dangerous. What if Edward or his bowerthegn should wake, and I not be there? More importantly, there are days when I will have the need to leave the palace. I need more freedom, far more than my existence as ‘queen’ allows.”

  I also needed more security if I was to move the bands, or even to communicate with the Sidlesaghes as I needed. I constantly worried that some action or ill-considered word might draw either Swanne’s or Asterion’s suspicion; had I already said or done something that may have alerted them? This concern ate at me. I needed to move about both more freely and unobserved. How to do this as the constantly watched queen, whose every movement was noted?

  I had struggled with this problem over the past few days, and could see only one solution. I hated to do it, for it would put another in the danger that I sought to escape, but if I was careful, then maybe she would not suffer.

  Maybe.

  “Judith, I need a glamour.”

  Her eyes grew huge, and she drew in a deep breath and held it for a long moment as she watched me unblinkingly. “A glamour?” she said finally. “Do you want to use me to—”

  I shook my head. “Not you, for I will need you awake and aware of what goes on about me.” I grinned briefly. “If I can drag you away from Saeweald’s bed long enough…”

  She blushed, and I thought that if she kept this up I would need to ask Saeweald for some whitening alloy to dab on Judith’s cheeks.

  “No, I will need someone else with which to create the glamour.”

  “Ah. You would like me to find her for you?”

  “Aye. Judith, I hate to do this—to use an unwitting woman as my dupe. I fear for her, and what might happen to her if she…is discovered. But without her I shall be too constrained for my purposes. Judith, do you know of anyone who lives in Westminster, who has no children or husband who…who…” Who would be left bereft if my mistake killed her.

  Judith dropped her gaze to where our hands lay entwined, thinking. Eventually she raised her face, then nodded.

  “There is a woman who I think would serve you well. Her name is Damson, and she is the widow of a stonecutter and now partly earns her way as a laundress. She is, oh, some forty-five or fifty years of age, and has the freedom of both Westminster and London as she wanders looking for small pieces of work. Everyone knows her. Damson is a simple woman, but true and good-hearted. If you ask her I am certain that—”

  “I cannot ‘ask’, Judith. She must not have any understanding of what I do or else the glamour shall not work sufficiently—it will not be deep enough. Can you bring her to me, and say only that I have need of her services? Would she accept that?”

  “Aye.”

  “When could you bring her to me?”

  “I saw Damson about the palace courtyard this morning, probably looking for work in the laundries, or even the dairy. If I find her quickly, then I could have her before you within the hour.”

  “Go, then, and find me this Damson.”

  TWO

  A bright day it might be, but inside Rouen’s castle the sunshine had yet to penetrate. The air was chill, and the breath frosted from the mouths of those not fortunate enough to have secured a close position by the fire that burned within the duke’s Great Hall.

  Matilda and Earl Harold were two of the fortunate few. They sat in intricately carved oak chairs only two paces distant from where the fire cracked and leapt in the stone hearth, cups of the duke’s best wine in their hands, making conversation until the duke himself could be summoned from the hunt. Rather than Norman French or Anglo-Saxon, they spoke in the more general French dialect that most European nobles (as merchants and craftsmen) learned as children.

  Their ability to converse in a mutually comfortable language was not the only reason both found the conversation relatively effortless. Matilda was fascinated with the earl and he, quite obviously, with her. This might be their first meeting, but each had heard so much of the other over the years that they felt already well acquainted.

  “My husband shall doubtless be surprised to find you here,” said Matilda, gracing the earl with a smile over the rim of her wine cup. She was deeply intrigued by his face, for although it wore the hard lines of a warrior and a man used to great command, it also had an aura of sensitivity, even mysticism, generally found only in the faces of poets, or religious recluses.

  Or, indeed, in lovers.

  Apart from that sense of mysticism, Harold was a highly attractive man with his dark eyes framed by his greying blond hair and darker beard. Matilda liked the fact that, unlike so many Saxons, Harold kept that beard very short and neat, and did not hide beneath a shrubby, flea-ridden haystack.

  “There was a time,” said Harold, intrigued in his own way by this tiny, stern-faced woman before him, “when dukes and earls and princes spent their time only in the pursuit of the bloody sport of war, and it was with war that they solved every one of their dilemmas. I like to think that I and your husband are more civilised men, and that words and vows might be used to accomplish more than the agony and futility of war. I come to court an ally, not to incense an enemy.”

  “You are a poet!” Matilda murmured into her wine cup before taking a sip of the heavily spiced wine within.

  Harold gave a small, sad smile. “I am a man, and a father, and a leader of many men and fathers. I value life before needless death. Thus I sit here with you this fair morn, waiting for your lord to return from the hunt.”

  “And for my part,” said Matilda, “I am more than pleased to have this chance to sit and pass words with you. Tell me, how goes Edward?”

  “Heavily, and with bad grace,” said Harold. “He thinks only of the next life, and of his salvation. He is less the king, and more the repentant, mewling constantly for a chance to redeem himself before whichever altar he can find.”

  “And thus you are here,” said Matilda. “I understand. So, if Edward declines, then may I ask after your own family? Your wife and children? Your sister and brother?”

  Harold studied her, wondering what she knew. “My wife…” He shrugged as his voice drifted off into uncertainty as to what to say, and was then surprised at the glint of understanding in Matilda’s eyes.

  “She does not suit you, then.”

  He did not answer, and Matilda smiled into her wine as she sipped it. “Your children are well?”

  This time she was rewarded with a
natural and very warm smile, and her regard for the man grew. He loved his children.

  “Aye,” Harold said. “They are my delight.”

  “The queen?” Matilda said. “I have heard she has been unwell.”

  “She is better now.”

  Harold’s manner had become extremely guarded, and Matilda wondered further if some of the more salacious rumours she’d heard about Harold’s relationship with his sister might, in fact, have a kernel of truth to them.

  “And Tostig…” she said.

  “Madam,” Harold snapped, “your manner is more direct than any of the Holy Father’s inquisitors!”

  Matilda laughed. “I have heard rumours of Tostig’s penchant to treachery. Moreover, I suspect that Hardrada is tempting Tostig away from his loyalty to his family.”

  “Then I could do with access to your intelligence, madam, for I think it better than mine.”

  Matilda began to say something, but then there came a clatter of hooves in the courtyard beyond the narrow windows, and the shouts of men.

  “My husband,” she said, watching Harold carefully, and noting the manner in which his face closed over and he set his wine cup aside with great care. He took a deep breath, and Matilda saw that he was nervous.

  Strangely, this gave her no sense of satisfaction, nor of advantage, but only saddened her somewhat. This man, she thought, has no business seeking out the throne. He is too good, and too valuable, to be wasted on kingship.

  The doors at the end of the Great Hall flung open, and William strode into the hall.

  Harold and Matilda rose.

  “My lord duke,” said Matilda as William strode up to them.

  William ignored her. He was sweaty from his hard ride back to the castle, his hair—even as short as it was—was dishevelled, and his black eyes were as hard as flint.

  They did not waver from Harold’s face.

  “My lord duke,” Matilda said again, unperturbed by William’s disregard. “My Lord Harold, Earl of Wessex and favoured of King Edward, has graced our castle with his presence. He has come with words, not swords, and speaks of peace and alliances where others might speak of hard deeds and war.”