Hades' Daughter

by Sara Douglass

  “Erith,” I said, “I cannot stay long…but I need your aid.”

  Something came over her face then—a hesitation, perhaps.

  “I need…I need to know if I am with child.”

  She frowned. “Did you not lie with Brutus that night after your visit to the spring?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then you are with child. Here,” she drew me to her, and laid a hand firmly over my belly.

  She let it lie there a moment, then she raised her eyes, now curiously flat and dead, back to my face. “You have the daughter you wished for, Cornelia. Can you not know this?”

  “I was confused. I—”

  “You didn’t feel Mag within your womb, telling you it was so?”

  I blushed, although I did not know why. “I was confused, Erith.”

  Erith shared a glance with her son, and I felt as though I had been judged at that moment.

  She let me go, stepping back. “You are with child, Cornelia. Is that not what you wished for?”

  I sighed in relief. “Yes. Yes, it is Erith. Thank you.”

  I turned to share my joy with Coel, and found him looking at me with sadness.

  It stunned me, and momentarily drained away all my own happiness—had he wanted me that much?—but then I tossed my head, put the smile back on my face, thanked Erith once more, and left the house.

  I would find Brutus, and tell him, and all would be well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Erith looked at her son, who was still staring at the door where Cornelia had disappeared. “Oh, Coel, be careful. I feel doom in my bones, and cannot help but think you are somehow caught up in it.”

  He pulled his gaze reluctantly from the door, and smiled gently at his mother. “There is doom abroad for all of us, mother. The day of the Game draws near…and what can we do?”

  “Nothing,” she said, her expression defeated. “Genvissa holds our people enthralled. No one will move against her.”

  “Cornelia?” Coel said, but his voice was hopeless.

  “She cannot see past Brutus,” Erith said.

  She gave a low, bitter, hopeless laugh, and sank down to one of the benches before the hearth. “How can it be that Mag has chosen Cornelia as her weapon against Genvissa? If this is truly so, then we are surely lost, as is Mag.”

  Cornelia hastened back to her house, collected a warm cloak against the cold and slipped her feet into a pair of sturdy clogs against the mud, and then hurried out, walking through Llanbank and then the Trojan settlement to the ferry crossing.

  People were everywhere, despite the cold. Many of the Trojans still worked on fortifying their winter settlements—houses within the city walls would not be available for at least a year. Women worked at their household tasks, weaving and baking, minding children, drawing water.

  The road that led north through the settlement was now virtually impassable—so many bullocks and carts had drawn building materials from the southern quarries northwards towards the ferry over the Llan that the gravelled surface had been trodden into ankle-deep mud—so Cornelia stepped carefully on its verges, mindful of the need to avoid slipping.

  As she neared the Llan, she stopped, tightened her cloak about her, and raised her face to the northern bank.

  It was a hive of activity. Where six weeks earlier had been three gentle, grassed mounds, divided by the stream of the Wal and bounded on their southern edge by the clay cliffs above the Llan, were now three humps, their grass mostly trampled into the earth beneath, covered with teams of labourers, groups of engineers, small hills of gravel, wooden piles, rough-cut stone sections that stonemasons were hewing into neatly edged building blocks, and intermittent heaps of soil that had been dug out of the wall’s foundation trenches.

  Cornelia had been to the site two or three times in the past weeks, but had not stayed long. She had felt in the way among all the scurrying and purposeful workers, and when she’d managed to talk to Brutus, he’d been distant, distracted, and had turned aside as soon as he could.

  She held her breath, nervousness fluttering in her stomach. Where was he? What was he doing? Surely he would not be distant with her when he heard she was carrying his child…would he?

  Cornelia’s eyes travelled over the site, but she was too far distant to be able to see many details. With a sigh, and yet a further tightening of the cloak about her body, she set off to the ferry.

  The ferry landed on the northern bank of the Llan at the mid-point of the southern wall. Cornelia accepted the ferryman’s assistance in stepping from ferry to muddied foreshore, thanking him, then turned and studied the immediate area.

  The foundations of this southern wall seemed all but done. The trenches had been dug, and were now filled with a mixture of gravel, flint and clay. Already stonemasons were laying the founding course of stones for the wall. Cornelia stopped by the first group of men she came to, and asked where Brutus was.

  The foreman stopped, straightened, stretched his back and then wiped his sweating face.

  “You’re like as not to find yourself knee deep in mud, my lady,” he said, eying her cloak and footwear. “This is no pleasure garden.”

  “I need to see my husband,” Cornelia said, as firmly as she could manage.

  “He’s up on the White Mount,” the foreman said, nodding in the direction of the easternmost mound, “surveying the site of his palace.”

  Cornelia smiled, her eyes alight. “He is beginning on the palace?”

  “Aye,” the man said. Several other of the men in his work squad had now paused in their work and were studying Cornelia silently.

  Cornelia’s smile had now widened until it lit her entire face. “For me?”

  The man smiled, but it was brittle, false. “A palace fit for a king and his queen, my lady.”

  “He hadn’t told me.”

  And with that she was gone, moving as quickly as she could through the gangs of workers and piles of building materials.

  The men watched her go.

  “Fool,” said one.

  The foreman watched Cornelia pick her way towards the White Mount. “Not for much longer,” he said. “Not when she finds there’s no chamber in that palace for her.”

  The White Mount rose at the apex of the southern and eastern walls. It was smaller than either Og’s or Mag’s Hill, but still commanded a good view of the river and the surrounding countryside. As Cornelia drew near, she could see that the wall’s eastern foundations were as advanced as those of the southern wall. Brutus will be pleased, she thought, and then shivered with pleasure at how much more pleased he would be when she told him their news.

  When Cornelia reached the foot of the White Mount she looked up, pausing to catch her breath for the climb, and could clearly see that there was, indeed, building work going on atop the mound. She began to climb the slope with strong, confident strides, avoiding as much mud as she could, and finding several remaining grassy tussocks to speed her on her way.

  When she was but ten or twelve paces from the top, and had the still low walls of the building in sight, she heard Brutus’ voice floating down to her.

  It was light, and laughing, and made Cornelia laugh herself in anticipation.

  She scrambled the final few paces, breathing heavily, and paused to catch her bearings. The top of the mount had been covered with the foundations of a large building—the palace. It was much smaller than the Mesopotaman palace Cornelia had been raised in, but the very fact of its existence, and that Brutus thought enough of her to build her a fine palace atop an airy hill, made Cornelia forget all her fears.

  If he had not made love to her in weeks then it was only because he had been weary.

  If he had appeared callous and uncaring, then that was because he was weighed down with the cares of construction.

  All the time, this had been rising.

  Cornelia halted, then jumped slightly.

  Brutus, a faint shadow, had moved through a half-completed doorway into a chamber
that was surely meant to be the megaron. The walls of this chamber were almost complete, and already wooden beams stretched across its roof space.

  It would be finished within weeks.

  Smiling, Cornelia ran through the building, disregarding the mud and the curses of the builders she jostled. The chamber Brutus had vanished into lay just ahead of her and, when the doorway loomed before her, Cornelia ran straight through it, looking only at Brutus standing at the far end.

  “Brutus!” She stopped halfway down the chamber, and raised her hand.

  He jumped, then turned to stare at Cornelia, a frown marring his features.

  Cornelia’s smile faltered a little, and she dropped her hand, but then, recomposed, she picked her way across the stone floor towards him. “Brutus,” she said, coming to a halt before him.

  “What do you here?” he said.

  “I…I came to bring you good tidings.” Cornelia took the final step that closed the distance between them, took his hand, and placed it on her belly. “I am with child again. A daughter.”

  “A child?”

  “Yes. Are you not happy?”

  “It is well enough, I suppose.”

  “Well enough? Do you not care?” Her smile had gone now, and her shoulders had tensed.

  He pulled his hand away from her. “Cornelia. I am tired. If I am not as enthusiastic as you wish, well, then I am sorry for that. But this,” he glanced at her belly, “this is a bad time for you to conceive, and—”

  “This is not something I did alone.”

  His expression hardened. “Did I have much say in that night?”

  “I carry our daughter, Brutus.”

  Brutus had no idea why she kept stressing the sex of the child. Did she expect him to do a dance of pleasure at the idea of a daughter? “What use have I for daughters, Cornelia? I need sons.” His voice hardened into overt annoyance. “And what do you here? This is no place for a woman. Go back to the house, where you will not be in the way.”

  Tears glistened in Cornelia’s eyes. “Do you not want to show me my palace while I am here?”

  “Your palace? Cornelia…it is possible…that you won’t…that this won’t be…”

  “You’re going to share this with Genvissa?”

  “Cornelia, listen to me. I am a Kingman and my future rests with the Mistress of the Labyrinth, not with you. I’m sorry. I shall build you a house close—”

  “I am your wife. What is all this talk of Kingmen and Mistresses? I am your wife!”

  He took her shoulders between his hands, and his face finally gentled. “Cornelia, I should have spoken of this to you long before, and for that I apologise. You and I are patently not a good match. We—”

  “You said that we should make what we could of our marriage. You said that we would try—”

  “Then I did not know of Genvissa. Cornelia,” Brutus paused, wondering how he could put this gently, and then deciding there was no possible means of doing that, “what Genvissa and I are is fated. Together we are much more than you and I could ever be. Ours will be a union of power and sexuality and majesty. You and I were never…could ever…oh, Cornelia, I should never have taken you as wife in your father’s megaron. Never.”

  Brutus meant to say more, that he would look after Cornelia, that she would enjoy status and privilege in the new city, that their children would have everything they could possibly need or desire, but the look in her eyes stopped him. He lifted his hands from her shoulders and took a step back, hating the guilt that coursed through him.

  She put a hand to her mouth, the tears finally breaking free to run down her cheeks. They locked eyes, each unable to speak, then she turned on her heel, stumbled, caught herself, and ran from the building site.

  As she went, Genvissa stepped out from beyond the wall just behind Brutus.

  “She says she is with child,” he said.

  Genvissa’s eyes were on the distant figure of Cornelia making her way down the mound. “It does not matter,” she said, then turned her stunning face to Brutus. “Besides,” she said, her expression sorrowful, “perhaps the child is not yours.”

  “What?”

  She gave a small, indifferent shrug. “Take no meaning from my words, Brutus.” She smiled, leaned close, and laid her mouth to his, knowing she spoke Cornelia’s death. “I am but a jealous woman. I am sure I speak but a silly rumour. Forget I said the words.”

  He kissed her, hard, but when she snuggled into him, kissing his neck and ear, he turned his face, and watched as Cornelia disappeared from sight.

  Later that night, sitting on the as-yet-unfinished steps leading into the palace, Brutus sat and regretted again the brutality of his words to Cornelia. But what else could he have done? The news of the child had truly shocked him. Although he couldn’t quite pinpoint the “why” of that shock, Brutus assumed it was merely surprise. He just hadn’t expected another child from a woman he had, if he was honest with himself, been distancing himself from ever since he’d arrived at Llanbank and met, finally, Genvissa.

  He sighed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Thank the gods that Genvissa had been so understanding. He hadn’t expected it, and the fact of it had made him truly grateful.

  At least Genvissa didn’t stamp her foot and sob whenever life didn’t turn out quite the way she hoped.

  Brutus looked over the building site, watching several guards pick their way carefully through the rubble and chaos.

  What had Genvissa meant, that the child might not be his?

  He drew in a deep breath, remembering the dream, thinking that he’d barely seen Cornelia for days on end, weeks on end sometimes, during the past months.

  There had been too much to do.

  What had she been doing during that time? Perhaps he should ask Aethylla…

  If the child was not his, then whose?

  Brutus sat there, the stars spinning slowly above him, not noticing the cold, remembering.

  Not Corineus. Corineus had either been travelling down to Totnes, or constantly with Brutus. Besides, Corineus had ceased to be Cornelia’s champion that terrible moment he realised she had known of the manner of Blangan’s death and not told him.

  Who, then?

  Coel. It could be no one but Coel.

  Images and memories tumbled over in Brutus’ mind.

  The way Cornelia had looked over the fire at Coel that night travelling north.

  That long space of time they’d both been missing when Cornelia was bathing in the rock pool.

  And the numerous times that Cornelia and Coel had had opportunity to be together, alone, since their arrival in Llanbank.

  No…surely not. She wouldn’t do that to him…would she? Not after everything else she’d done to him, kept from him, said to him.

  Would she dare?

  The answer his mind fed him gave Brutus no relief. He wrapped himself in his cloak, and sat all through the night, staring unseeing into the distance, thinking of Cornelia and Coel, yet not ever considering that one solution which would have occurred to anyone else: Cornelia would be better with Coel than with himself.

  That was a concept Brutus’ mind refused to encompass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It was evening, and very cold, but, thankfully, clear. Genvissa stood atop Og’s Hill watching the preparations about her and communing, very gently, very softly, with the shadowy spirits of the five foremothers who had helped her to this point. Now it was her turn, and her time. Her mother had split Og’s power, rendering him useless, as well as casting Asterion into a crippled and weakened life far, far away. Genvissa had managed to contain Mag (well, she would once Cornelia was dead, and that death was now a foregone conclusion) and had brought to this land the magic she needed to resurrect the Game in all its power: Brutus, heir of Troy, Kingman of the Labyrinth, soon-to-be mate of the Mistress of the Labyrinth.

  Genvissa stood at the southern edge of the plateau of Og’s Hill. The slopes of the hill were clear, both of people and of the m
ud that had thickened and dirtied the hill during the construction of the city wall’s foundation. Now the foundations were done, the first course of stonework laid, and the gate opening to the west of Og’s Hill defined.

  It was time for the first Dance of the Game.

  Everyone intimately concerned with the Dance—Genvissa, Brutus and the two hundred young Trojan men and women of the dancing corps, as well as all the people needed for the physical preparations—had spent these past ten days in feverish activity. The two hundred dancers had been carefully rehearsed, and their dancing garments sewn. Og’s Hill and its immediate surrounds had been cleared of building debris, and its slopes re-grassed with turf.

  Its summit had undergone a transformation.

  Genvissa smiled, and turned.

  Where once had been a grassy knoll now stretched a carefully levelled plateau. In its centre lay an enormous floor of cream and brown stones, intricately laid so that the brown stones delineated a unicursal labyrinth: the seven-circuit Cretan labyrinth.

  The Dancing Floor.

  Genvissa took a great breath, closing her eyes, feeling her foremothers swirling around her. They were with her, strong, and Ariadne was the strongest of all. Tonight they would restart the Game, take the biggest, most dangerous step…and once this night was done they need wait only for the completion of the walls when they could conclude and seal the Game for all time with the Dance of the Flowers.

  Tonight.

  Genvissa opened her eyes. She would have to leave soon. Prepare herself. Spend time in seclusion and prayer, muttering over and over the spells and incantations that she’d need to make this night a success.

  She looked over to the palace. The central megaron and living quarters were complete now, their walls rising smooth and creamy in the evening air, their roofs covered with slate. Brutus would be in there, also alone, beginning his preparation.

  Concentrating on his task…even more dangerous than Genvissa’s.

  “Please, all gods in creation who can hear me,” she prayed softly, “let there be no disruption to the Game. Let it all flow smoothly. Let nothing stand in our way, nor darken the time between this night and the Day of the Flowers. Let Cornelia and Asterion both be confounded and contained.”