Jane wondered if anyone remembered Mag now, or if Christianity had somehow managed to persuade people that no one but God, His Son and all His saints were responsible. How sad if that were true, Jane thought, and she didn’t even pause to think how extraordinary it was that she, once Mag’s implacable enemy, should consider such a thing.
No sooner than the thought had crossed her mind Jane went rigid as a soft voice spoke into the kitchen.
“The people know in their souls. They know when they walk the country lanes and feel wonder at the sight of the flowers and the fragrant hedgerows and the waving grasses and the branches of trees rich with fruit. That is enough for me, that such a sight still cheers them, and lifts cares from their hearts.”
Jane, who was lying facing towards the hearth, fought to control her panic. She knew that voice so well: Cornelia, Caela…and Mag, all in one.
Mag! Mag! Cornelia-reborn was the goddess reborn!
It hadn’t been Damson, pitiful, clumsy Damson, at all.
It had been Cornelia-Caela. All this time.
Summoning all her courage, Jane slowly rolled over.
A woman stood on the other side of the room. She was stunningly lovely, as much in presence as in form and feature.
“I know you well,” said Jane, amazed that her voice was steady. “And I saw you with Brutus. Why have you come?”
The goddess smiled. “You saw me with Brutus?” She put a hand to her belly, and Jane could see now its gentle roundness.
She was pregnant.
“I am Noah in this life,” said the goddess. “Once Cornelia, once Caela.”
“Noah is not your goddess name.” Jane very slowly inched herself into a sitting position.
“No. Do you want to know it?”
“Yes.”
“It will give you great power over me.” Jane’s mouth twisted. “Not enough to destroy you.”
“You will tell Weyland,” said the goddess. “That would be dangerous.”
“I will not tell Weyland.”
“No? Why should I believe that?”
“Because knowing your goddess name, and not telling him, will give me some power over him.”
“And you need that badly, I can see.”
Jane’s cheeks flamed, for she knew that the goddess referred to the frightful disease pocks on her face.
The goddess walked over to Jane, then sat gracefully on the flagstones of the floor by Jane’s pallet.
“What are these marks, Jane?” she whispered, putting a hand to Jane’s face.
Jane flinched away from Eaving’s hand. The pox, you sanctimonious bitch! she wanted to scream, but instead the terrible truth came sliding over her tongue.
“They are the marks of my past.”
The goddess tipped her face on her side, considering. “My name is Eaving,” she said finally.
Jane drew in a slow breath. Eaving—the unexpected shelter, the god-sent haven from the tempest. Then she remembered what Caela had said to her in their previous life, the final time they’d met: Swanne, if ever you need harbour, then I am it. If ever you need a friend, then I am it.
Dear gods! She had been Eaving then, too. Who would have suspected it? Poor, mewling queen…
Jane opened her mouth, and, instead of all the hatred and vileness that she was used to pouring out at this woman, said, “Be careful, Weyland sleeps above.”
“If he wakes then I will go.”
“He will call you in. Gods, woman, you carry more in that womb of yours than Brutus’ child!”
“I know I am to be Asterion’s whore,” Eaving replied.
“If you knew the full horror of it,” Jane said, “you would not speak of it with such equanimity.”
“Well, then, I am sure I shall know it soon enough.”
“Why do you not sound fearful?” said Jane. “This,” her hand indicated the weeping sores on her face, “awaits you.”
“Neither of us knows what truly awaits us,” said Eaving, “and do not worry overmuch about the imp in my womb, nor even yours. They are otherwise occupied this night, and Asterion will not know I was here.” She paused. “Jane, you saw me with Brutus?”
“Aye.”
Eaving smiled a little, tenuously. “And yet you do not berate me for it.”
“I appear to have lost my touch.”
Now Eaving smiled more genuinely. “Jane, there are many wounds which need to be healed. Yours and mine prime among them.”
“You want me to do penance?”
“It is not what I ask.”
“I have no interest in healing, Eaving.”
“I cannot think you truly mean that.” Then Eaving bent forward, laid her lips gently against the worst of the sores on Jane’s face, and the next instant was gone.
Jane sat until dawn, sleepless, wondering that she had just spent a few minutes in a reasonably civil conversation with the woman she had hated bitterly for almost three thousand years.
What she found difficult to accept, what was astounding, was that Jane had to confront the truth that she no longer hated Noah.
Woburn Village, Bedfordshire
On Christmas Day of 1658 John Thornton knocked at the door of the house two up from Woburn church. Noah answered the door, and smiled gently.
John Thornton stood with his hat in his hand, looking uncomfortable.
“A merry Christmas to you, Noah, and to you, ladies,” he said, as he saw Marguerite and Kate appear behind her. “I hope the season brings you joy.”
“And to you also, John,” Noah said. “I thought you would have celebrated Christmas with the Bedfords, in their private chapel. They always do it well.”
“I, uh, I wanted…” I wanted to come here, to see you.
“You should forget me, John,” she said gently.
“I cannot.”
At the agony in his voice, Marguerite stepped forward. “John Thornton. We have a goose simmering in a sweet, fragrant sauce on the hearth. Will you join us for Christmas dinner?”
“Marguerite…” Noah said in a low voice.
“You would send the poor lovelorn man on his way with no warm food in his stomach?” Marguerite said, raising her eyebrows archly. “What harm can it do to feed him?”
“None, I suppose,” said Noah and she stepped back and waved Thornton inside.
They ate in the warmth of the kitchen. John Thornton realised that he had never enjoyed a meal such as this. The Christmas fare was traditional, but somehow tasted as if it had come to fruit in heaven’s fields rather than those of Woburn’s acres, while the company was extraordinary. It was as if the women shared a companionship so deep and so mystical that every glance, every movement, every word held far deeper meaning than John could ever understand. This strange underlying meaning did not perturb him, nor make him feel as if he were an outsider. It was, rather, an added warmth to the dinner, an added depth, an added colour. John Thornton felt as if he had been invited into a slightly different dimension, a deeper and vaster world than any he had ever known. It was almost as if the world he knew and understood was only a faded relic of a far older and far more brightly-hued world, one with which these women were strangely familiar.
Noah looked radiant—even more beautiful now in mid-term pregnancy than she had ever been when she’d been in his bed, and John found it difficult to look away from her.
He envied, desperately, the man she loved.
When the meal was done, and the children had run laughing into the front parlour to play at some game, Noah came to sit next to John. She smiled at him, then reached out, took his hands, and put them on her belly.
“Feel her?” she said. “She twists and turns, awaiting her birth.”
John had never before touched a heavily pregnant woman. At first he felt embarrassed and hesitant, then the wonder of the moving child within Noah’s body overcame him, and he pressed his hands tighter to her belly.
He raised his eyes to Noah’s, then froze, transfixed by her eyes.
Their dark blue had faded, and now they were a soft green, streaked through with rivers of gold.
“My God,” he whispered, “who are you?”
“She is Eaving,” said Marguerite. “She is the fertility of the land, its waters and rivers, its breath, its soul. You have lain with her. Surely you have felt this?”
“Aye,” he whispered, his eyes once again on his hands, still splayed over Noah’s belly. “In her arms I have felt the land rise to meet me.”
“If we have need of you, John Thornton, will you aid us?” said Kate.
“You are witches all,” he said, and sat back, removing his hands from Noah. “You are everything I have been taught to hate.”
“And yet you do not hate us,” said Noah. “How are we bad? How are we harmful?”
He did not answer, only looking between each of the women in turn.
“I cannot live without you,” he finally said to Noah.
“I cannot be yours,” she said. “I am so sorry.”