She had everything of mine: my husband, my son, my place as queen.
Everything.
“Cornelia? Ah, Cornelia, I am sorry. I had thought to be here before you.”
I rose, but slipped over in the doing, sprawling inelegantly to the floor.
It was Coel, reaching down to me, murmuring soothing words, wrapping me in his arms, rocking me to and fro.
“You knew?” I managed.
“I saw Hicetaon come for Aethylla and the babies,” he said. “I knew then. I wanted to be here for you when you returned. I am so sorry. I came as quickly as I could.”
I clung to him, my weeping increasing, and Coel rocked me back and forth.
“Cornelia,” he whispered, “don’t cry, please don’t cry.”
I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. My nose was running, my eyes were so swollen with tears I could hardly see out of them, and my chest kept racking out sobs from so deep within me I thought I might actually bring up my stomach with the strength of them.
“Cornelia,” Coel said, running one hand through my hair and using the other to wipe my nose with a corner of his cloak, “don’t cry, please. You are so beautiful, so lovely, I can’t bear to see you so unhappy.”
My only answer was yet another sob.
He gathered me to him, holding me close, then swore softly under his breath, tipped back my face, and stifled my sobs with his mouth.
It was as though we were back in that rock pool, yet this time he was not offering me sheer physical pleasure, but a depth of comfort and loving I had always yearned for, but never found.
His mouth was so sweet, his arms so soothing, and he was the beautiful one, not merely in body, but in nature as well.
“Cornelia…” he said, and I heard the longing in his voice, and this time I was not predisposed to refuse him. After all, there was nothing left for me to lose, was there?
And some small, petty part of me whispered that it would be a sweet revenge for Brutus’ infidelity. It would salvage a part of my pride if, like Brutus, I took for myself a lover.
Perhaps this way Genvissa would not win.
Not completely.
“Yes,” I said.
Somewhere an unknown voice within me screamed not to do this, to think, to not let passion and hate and revenge rule my head, but I refused to listen to it. No doubt Brutus and Genvissa lay in their furs, laughing at the thought of me weeping alone.
Well, I was not alone. Damn them! Damn them!
“Yes,” I whispered again.
Coel smiled, so happy my tears almost flowed anew, and aided me to my feet, and slipped away my clothes, and then his. We stood there for a while, barely touching save for his fingers that wiped away the last of my tears.
And then we went to my bed.
Oh, Hera, he was so slow, so gentle, and his smile…he made me laugh with his silly, comforting words, and but a short while ago I would have thought laughter impossible. We kissed, and touched, and lay beside each other. I ran my hands over his body, marvelling, for he was so lovely—clean-skinned and lean and so unlike Brutus in every respect.
I was almost happy, for I was taking my life in my own hands with this action. I did not love Coel, although one part of me thought that I was foolish not to, but I was immensely grateful to him…and immensely attracted to him.
The light touch of his fingertips, the warm caress of his breath as he ran his mouth down my body…eventually I could wait no longer, and pulled him into me, and sighed with bliss as he began to move so gently, so slowly, within me.
If only Brutus could treat me with this much gentleness, this much respect.
I closed my eyes, lifted my body against his, and imagined that this was Brutus, this voice in my ear was his, saying he loved me, this mouth that laid itself so sweetly on mine was Brutus’ mouth.
This the act that had made my daughter within me, not that animalistic grabbing and coupling.
“Cornelia,” he said, his movements now more urgent.
I moaned, curving my hands about his buttocks, pushing him deeper inside me. “Brutus,” I whispered.
He cried out, a noise both of passion and of frustration.
“Damn you,” he whispered as he collapsed across my body. “Damn you, Cornelia.”
“No.” I opened my eyes, aghast at what I had done, and clasped his face between my hands. “Coel, I—”
And then his face was torn from my hands by a black shadow that loomed over us, and I saw a glint of metal that swept in a vicious arc across Coel’s throat, then his body, still deep within mine, convulsed, and I screamed, and blood spurted over me in a hot, sticky flood.
Brutus took a firmer grip on Coel’s hair, then he tore him from me, tearing him painfully out from me, and all I could do was cry, “No. No. Oh, gods, Brutus, no! Not Coel.”
Not Coel, who had always comforted me, and whose only crime had been to love me too much.
Not Coel, for if Coel died, then it would be my fault, as so many other deaths had been my fault…but this one, Coel’s death, would be the worst of all, it would be a catastrophe, and if Coel died because of me then I thought I would lose my mind.
I scrambled to the edge of the bed, one tiny part of my mind knowing it was far too late, but the larger part desperately believing that I could still make a difference…I scrambled to the edge of the bed just in time to see Brutus dash Coel to the floor and bury his blade in his belly.
It was a fruitless gesture, for by that time Coel was already dead.
“No, Brutus,” I kept saying. “Please, no…no…not Coel…not Coel.”
He turned to me, raging. “Whore! I have always known this!”
I could not take my eyes from Coel, and I tried to scramble down to the floor to close that gaping wound in his throat, to hold together his belly, to close his sweet, loving eyes, but Brutus hit me, and I fell backwards so violently my head cracked against the stone wall.
“I have had enough of you and your treacherous, whorish ways,” he screamed at me—gods, I could feel his spittle fleck my face. “Enough. I renounce you. You are no wife to me, no fit mother for my son, no fit mother for that bastard child in your belly.”
“No, she is your daughter! She—”
“You have never been a wife to me,” he continued, not acknowledging what I’d said. “You were a whore in your father’s court, and—”
“I was a virgin when you took me, you know that.”
He hit me again. “Whore’s tricks, for all I know. Who else have you taken behind my back? Hicetaon? Corineus? Is Achates mine, or a hybrid of all the men you’ve had crawl between your legs?”
I was screaming now as well; incoherent, shrill shrieks designed to shut out his loathsome words.
Oh Hera, what had I done? Killed Coel and ruined in a single moment any chance I ever had to make Brutus love me?
At that moment I wanted to die, and I think I would have provoked Brutus into a greater rage so that he would mercifully batter me to death had not at that moment the entire house exploded into a worse disaster than that which already gripped it.
Loth burst into the house, absorbed in a single, appalled glance all that had happened and that was still happening, then roared.
Or screamed. I am not sure. Perhaps he did both, but all I can remember of that instant is a shrieking, thundering sound that reverberated about the room, shocking me into silence and making Brutus sink momentarily to his haunches before he recovered enough to swing about to face the attack.
But it never came. Not in the manner that Brutus—nor I, for that matter—expected.
Instead, Loth took a step further into the house, stared for several long heartbeats at Coel’s body on the floor, raised his head, sent me a look of utter contempt, then looked steadily at Brutus.
“This is enough,” he said, his voice very carefully controlled. “I have had enough. I have had enough of you, Brutus, of your Trojans, and of your damn whore-mistress, Genvissa. I have had enough of that mon
strosity you are building atop Og’s and Mag’s sacred hills. I have had enough of your Trojan magic and your cursed Troy Game.”
His voice suddenly rose, and he took a step forward. “What evil have you invited into our world? What evil is that atop Og’s Hill?”
“I have trapped evil,” Brutus said in a very even voice. He held Loth’s furious gaze easily, but I saw his grip alter fractionally about the hilt of his sword. “I have made your land safe for you. I, and Genvissa.”
“She is the blackest witch alive,” Loth said. “Be wary in your association with her.”
“She has acted where you have failed.”
Loth turned his head and spat. “She has enslaved our gods to her own purpose. I have had enough,” he said again. “Far and well enough.”
“There is nothing you can do,” said Brutus. “Take your friend’s body and get out of here.”
“There is everything I can do,” Loth said very quietly. “I stand here to represent my gods, Brutus. Og and Mag.” For an instant his eyes slipped my way, as if he expected (wanted?) me to object to his representation of Mag. “I challenge your right to settle here, Brutus. I challenge your right to assume the place of Kingman. I challenge your right to live.”
“What?”
“I challenge you on behalf of Og and Mag, who are so crippled they cannot speak for themselves. They want you gone, Brutus, as do I. Will you meet me?”
“Are you challenging me to a combat?”
Loth’s mouth trembled very slightly, as if he were shaken by Brutus’ incredulity. “Yes. Tomorrow at dawn. On Og’s Hill.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Whoever wins will have indisputable right to this land.”
“Ye gods,” Brutus muttered, “it might be worth it just to get your glowering face out of my life.”
“No,” I cried, belatedly realising I still lay naked atop the tumbled bed. I pulled a wrap about me, and slid out of the bed to my feet. “Loth, no! He will kill you.”
Brutus whipped about to me. “You speak on Loth’s behalf?”
I knew what he was thinking—I’d had Loth as well. At that moment I wished that I actually had, because then I could have thrown it back in Brutus’ face.
“Have you ever spoken on my behalf?” I said quietly.
And then, as I suppose it must have been fated, Genvissa walked calmly and serenely into the house.
Her serenity lasted as long as it took her to spot Coel’s body.
“Brutus,” she whispered, raising her eyes to him. “You killed Coel?”
My stomach turned over as I realised the extent of her manipulations. All this had been planned. Every last bit of it, but for my death, not Coel’s.
Brutus, the fool, missed the implications of his lover’s words. “And look what I have received for it,” he said, waving his bloodied sword towards Loth. “He wishes to fight me in combat for my right to sit as Kingman by your side. Very well then. Tomorrow.” He paused, his chilling gaze riveted to Loth’s face. “In the labyrinth atop Og’s Hill.”
Genvissa stared at him, then turned to look at Loth, still glowering at Brutus.
Then, very, very softly, she began to laugh.
CHAPTER TWO
Loth sat in his forest, chilled and numbed and angry and heartsore, mourning his friend and pledging revenge.
But how? Loth was not trained as a warrior; Brutus would slaughter him in a moment.
Loth had no power, or very little of it. There was no Og magic to throw at Brutus, and slow his sword arm.
And Brutus had Genvissa. Genvissa would give him everything she had, and Loth had to admit that was a great deal.
He’d thrown out the challenge to Brutus in that first, terrible moment of anger and grief and frustration, without thinking about it, without thinking through the implications.
Now Coel was dead (and, oh, by Og, Loth had not even gone to Erith to comfort her!) and Loth soon would be, and then there would be no one left to counter Genvissa and her damned, evil-lodestone of a Game.
Not Cornelia. Never Cornelia.
“What can I do?” he whispered. “What can I do?”
He had not expected an answer, but he was shocked to receive one.
There was a step in the forest, a slight sound, but nevertheless a step, and Loth sprang to his feet.
For the first time in his life, he felt afraid of the forest.
“Who goes there?” he cried.
“It is only I,” said a soft, sad voice, and a man stepped out from behind a tree.
Yet not a man at all, but a shade, for both shadows and a stray moth passed straight through him.
Loth did not recognise him. The stranger was a tall man, strong and muscular, and dressed in the clothes and armour of a Trojan. He was of middle age, handsome enough if you liked the Trojan bluntness of feature, and with long, curly black hair tied with a thong at the base of his neck.
At his hip hung a sword, and in his hand he held a bloodied arrow.
His left eye was a mass of congealed blood.
“Who are you?” said Loth.
“My name is Silvius,” said the shade, “and I am the fool that fathered Brutus.” He started to moan, as if in agony, saying, “Oh, I was seer-warned when I had barely planted Brutus in his mother’s body, but I did not listen. I should have pummelled my son from his mother’s womb before she gave him birth. Then she would be alive, and I also.”
The shade of Silvius wept—horrible, thick blood tears from his ruined eye—and handed the arrow to Loth. “Take this into the labyrinth tomorrow, Loth, and it will be your guide. Draw Brutus in, and I will take up the fight for you.”
A vision appeared before Loth, passing quickly in flickering images before his eyes.
The hunt.
The forest.
Brutus aiming his arrow into the bushes.
Silvius, crippled on the ground.
Brutus, seizing the opportunity and taking his father’s hair in one hand and the arrow in the other, and driving it deep into Silvius’ brain.
“I should never have fathered him,” Silvius said. “Brutus is my responsibility. What happens to the Game he has started is my responsibility. Thus, I will deal him death.”
And then, suddenly, horrifically, all hesitation and sadness was gone from Silvius, and he drew out his sword and roared, stabbing the sword towards the sky. “Brutus!” he screamed…
…and then was gone.
Loth stared at the place where he had been, then slowly lifted his hand and looked at the arrow. It was fouled with old, crusted blood, and Loth swallowed, momentarily sickened.
Then Loth jerked in shock with another and vastly more frightening surprise.
Coel’s voice, whispering through the forest. Think not that Brutus will allow Silvius to best him, my friend.
“Coel! Coel!” Loth spun about, but could not see his friend.
Brutus has never allowed Silvius to best him, and I doubt he will on the morrow. Loth, be silent and listen to me: whatever happens, Loth, let no harm come to Cornelia. Let no one harm Cornelia. She is far more than she appears, and she, only she, holds the key. Only she knows the steps to the Dance, only she can close the gate. Let no harm come to Cornelia!
And then Coel too was gone, and Loth was left alone, weeping for all that had been lost to Brutus’ vile sword.
“Tell me,” said Genvissa, stroking Brutus’ hair as they lay side by side on the furs in his palace, “in what form did the evil challenge you in the heart of the labyrinth?”
Brutus hesitated, then told her—all of it—the manner of his father’s death, and his own part in it.
“Then that is what Loth will use against you tomorrow,” said Genvissa. “He will use what is there already.”
“How—?”
“Shush,” she said, kissing him. “We will kill two birds with one sword tomorrow.” She grinned. “This is what you will do.”
Genvissa whispered to him, long and sweetly, and eve
ntually Brutus laughed, and placed his hands on her breasts.
“I am blessed with your care,” he said, kneading at her flesh, but thinking only of Cornelia, and the terrible sight of Coel atop her.
“Aye,” she said. “You are. I will allow nothing to threaten the Game. Not Loth. Not Cornelia. Nothing.”
CHAPTER THREE
The day was cold, heavily overcast, with a distant curtain of rain approaching from the north-east. For the group surrounding the labyrinth on top of Og’s Hill, the weather seemed only an outward manifestation of their own dispiritedness, their sense that somewhere, somehow, unwittingly (or even wittingly, which was even worse), someone had made a hideous decision that now no one could escape.
Loth’s challenge to Brutus was merely an outcome of that decision, not the decision itself. It was almost as if all of Llangarlia had lurched into a darkness at some point in the past, and that darkness was only now revealing itself.
But what to do? Loth’s anger, or the anger he represented, needed an outlet. If not now, then later, when the outcome might be even more tragic.
The Trojan witnesses, Hicetaon, Corineus, Deimas, and a score of others, did not seem so badly affected by the blanket of gloom that overlay the Llangarlian witnesses. The Trojans were used to war, to challenges, to sieges, to tragedy. Brutus, their leader, representative and, increasingly, their demi-god, would not fail them. He stood to one side of the entrance to the labyrinth, wearing only his bands of kingship and a pristine white hip wrap, an unsheathed sword in his hands, an expression of calm determination on his face.
Loth stood on the other side of the entrance, a pace or two away from Brutus. Save for the bands of kingship, he was garbed similarly, but today he had shaved and oiled his head so that the great bony protuberances of his skull gleamed gleefully as if pleased they had finally won their freedom from the surrounding mat of hair.
His face was not so calm as Brutus’. He looked nervous and unsure, and he clasped nothing but a blood-encrusted arrow.
It was at this arrow that Genvissa stared, and which caused her, eventually, to look at Brutus with a small smile of victory.
Hades' Daughter Page 56
