I‘ve received from England, so little of it has been from her. I had expected more.‖
Far more, damn it. There is not just a throne riding on this!
―You‘re worried,‖ Matilda said.
―Yes.‖ What was Asterion doing? Where was his hand in all of this?
―You can do nothing save what you have already done,‖ Matilda said, leaning in against
him and placing her arm about his waist.
―Aye. You are right. As usual.‖ William lightened his face and tone. ―Tell me, how do
you think I can possibly crown you Queen of England when in all probability you shall be too
round and cumbersome to fit on to the throne?‖
She laughed. ―You shall be a great king.‖
William‘s face sobered. ―I hope so.‖
TWO
It was all falling apart—had been for months—and Saeweald had no idea how to stop it.
It had all seemed so simple: pass control of the Game into the hands of Mag and a
resurrected Og and all would be well, forever and aye.
The land would flourish, and no one and nothing, ever, would be able to stain its
brightness. Asterion and all his malevolence would be contained, Swanne and William and all
their ambitions would be broken, Mag and Og would again reign supreme and the waters and the
forests would rejoice.
Yet nothing had quite happened that way, had it?
Saeweald had known that Caela always felt that she lacked something, that there was an
emptiness within her where there should have been fullness, and that she had somehow failed to
truly connect to the land. Since the failure of her ―marriage‖ to the land that night she‘d lain with
Silvius, that sense of emptiness had become even greater, undermining Caela‘s confidence
within herself. After that terrible day when Swanne and Asterion had slaughtered Damson, Caela
had rejected the Mag within her completely.
It wasn‘t so much that Mag, or her potential, was dead (as Silvius had so
melodramatically pronounced), it was that Caela had been ill—physically and emotionally—for
so many months after Damson‘s death that she had completely suppressed the Mag within her.
She refused to acknowledge its existence; she would hear nothing of the Game, would not speak
to Silvius, and even barely spoke to Saeweald and Judith…she wallowed in her guilt at
Damson‘s death.
Even the Sidlesaghes, undoubtedly knowing she would not want to see them, had stayed
away.
Ah, Caela had allowed her guilt to overwhelm her. In the months since Swanne and
Asterion had killed Damson, Caela had seemed to go into a fugue. She didn‘t know what to do,
or where to go, and she refused to act on any suggestion that there must be some means of
redressing that emptiness within her, or fulfilling her potential as Mag. Caela merely smiled
sadly, and shook her head, and turned aside. She continued to live quietly within St Margaret the
Martyr‘s, and Ecub and Judith stayed close. Silvius came occasionally, but Caela did not respond
to him any better than she did to others, and so his visits became less frequent. Caela spent her
days sewing, talking quietly with one or other of the sisters of St Margaret‘s, or, more and more,
she took solace in wandering the hills and meadows beyond the priory‘s walls.
She did not enter London.
As far as Saeweald was concerned, the Mag within Caela might not be dead, but it might
as well be while Caela refused to acknowledge it.
And without Caela, without the Mag within her, everything was doomed.
Saeweald tried to talk with Caela, tried to reason with her, tried, on one disastrous day, to
seduce her (if Silvius had not changed her, then surely he, Saeweald, could!). To all efforts and words, hands or mouth, she had only smiled, and laid a gentle hand to his cheek. For months
Saeweald had felt sure that he was to be Og-reborn, but in his failure to touch Caela, to be able to
communicate with her, he now began to doubt even that. He wasn‘t strong enough.
And Caela wasn‘t strong enough.
Meantime Swanne and Asterion went from strength to strength.
Or so Saeweald supposed. He‘d had very little to do with Swanne in recent months—he
had no reason to see her and would only arouse her suspicions if he insisted. Besides, knowing of
her alliance with Asterion, Saeweald didn‘t feel like going within a hundred paces of the woman.
Instead, Saeweald heard of Swanne through gossip and the occasional glimpse of her moving
through the streets of London. He assumed that she and Asterion were biding their time, waiting for William to arrive so they could…
Saeweald shuddered. So they could seize him. William would arrive, fall straight into
Swanne‘s arms…and find himself trapped by Asterion.
Saeweald didn‘t know what to do. These months of inactivity, of nothingness, had
drained him. Caela turned aside her head, Silvius had slunk off somewhere unknowable, Swanne
and Asterion planned and shared nights of passion, and Saeweald paced and fretted and
wondered what in creation‘s name he could do.
Warn William?
That would be the sensible course of action, but how? Saeweald had no avenue of
communication by which he could reliably reach William. Anything he sent, whether spoken
word or written, might well be intercepted by one of Asterion‘s minions—thus exposing both
Saeweald and, through him, Caela. If by chance a communication did reach William, then
Saeweald seriously doubted that William would believe it. If he understood that it came from
Loth-reborn then he most certainly would not believe it.
Frankly, Saeweald wasn‘t sure if anyone could convince William that Swanne had allied
with Asterion. He would never believe it. Never.
Just as Saeweald and Silvius and Caela had not thought it possible…and thus had not
given it consideration.
Meanwhile, the land slid towards chaos and despair.
Almost two weeks ago Hardrada and Tostig had invaded the north, sailing up the Humber
and defeating the earls Edwin and Morcar in a desperate battle, before seizing the northern city
of York. Harold had been caught by surprise, even though he‘d known of Hardrada‘s intentions,
and had marched north to meet the Norwegian king and his own brother.
That had been ten days ago. The only word that had reached the south was that a great
battle had been fought, but as yet, no word of the victors or of the defeated.
In one hateful part of his being Saeweald almost hoped that Hardrada had been
successful, that Harold had been killed, and that England would suffer under a Norwegian king
rather than brief Norman rule before that king succumbed to the great darkness.
But why pretend that darkness belonged to the future? Wasn‘t it here already?
THREE
CAELA SPEAKS
Iknow that those about me regarded me with disappointment, perhaps even with shame. I
know they wanted me to rage, and do, and act.
But I could do none of these things.
They thought I had suppressed the Mag within me, had suppressed all Mag had given me:
the more that I had carried about like a mantle.
But I had not. Not truly.
I was simply waiting.
Damson‘s death shocked and appalled me. I had been responsible for it, not so much for
deciding to approach Swanne, for I truly believe I had little other choice, but because I had not been able to protect Damson. If I had been at full power, at full strength, in command of all of
me and without that damned lack within that tormented me, I should have been able to protect
her.
That I was not in command of my potential, that I had not reached the fullness of that
potential, was my responsibility. Not fault so much—I did not think of it in terms of fault
(although I know Saeweald thought I spent much of my time wallowing in guilt)—but in terms
of responsibility.
It was my responsibility to reach that potential, to protect others where I could not protect
Damson.
I knew how to do it. I needed to mate with the land, marry the land, meld with it
completely. Silvius had told me that. The Sidlesaghes had told me that.
But how? I had thought that lying with Silvius would have accomplished it perfectly.
After all, he was the warm, breathing representative of the Game, and as Game and land had
merged…
Yet that had been a failure, emotionally, physically, magically.
The consequence of that failure had been Damson‘s death, and I could not afford to fail
again. The next time, far more people would die.
I did not wallow in guilt or grief, although I had to deal with both of those damaging
emotions.
Instead, I waited.
I waited and I approached the problem from a different direction. In order to aid the land
I needed to ritually mate with it, to meld completely with it. This was not only my problem, and
responsibility, but that of the land as well.