land, the stag god Og and the mother goddess Mag, even in this corrupted form, then that was all
well and good.
All was not lost.
Mother Ecub had come to the top of Pen Hill not only to worship the land which she
could see spread about her (and where better to do so?), but to gather her thoughts for this
evening‘s audience with Queen Caela.
She shuddered at the thought, distracting herself with the view. To the south, some three
or four miles distant, lay London behind its ancient Roman walls, which stood on the even more
ancient foundations of the walls which Brutus had built. The city enclosed many acres of ground,
only about a third of it built upon. Most of it, in fact, was given over to the cultivation of
orchards, vegetables and corpses—London had an inordinate number of Christian churches, all
of which closely guarded their right to bury the dead members of their flocks within spitting
distance of the church walls. The fluids from the rotting corpses invariably found their way into
the wells and streams which watered the city, prompting outbreaks of disease in the summer and
autumn of most years, but nothing could make the Church give up its right to bury its dead
within London‘s walls.
For that matter, nothing could make the Christian faithful give up their right to be buried
as close to their church as possible. After all, come Judgement Day, when all the dead would rise once more, one didn‘t want to have to totter too far to the church altar and, hopefully, eternal
salvation on barely held together bits of crumbled bone and rotted flesh.
Ecub‘s mouth twisted in derision at the thought, and she made a convoluted gesture with
her left hand which, to the initiated, would have instantly recalled the movements of Mag‘s
Nuptial Dance, which Ecub had once watched Blangan and Cornelia perform within Mag‘s
Dance itself.
She squinted a little in the winter sun, focusing on the stone cathedral which sat atop Lud
Hill, once Og‘s Hill. Here, where Brutus had constructed his Labyrinth, now stood a great
Christian cathedral: St Paul‘s. Ecub wondered if the monks and priests and sundry clerics who
shuffled about the cathedral‘s nave in absorbed self-importance had any idea what lay so far
beneath their feet.
How alive it was.
Ecub‘s face, wrinkled as it was with lines of laughter and care, went completely
expressionless as a momentary hopelessness overcame her.
It had been fifteen years now since she‘d first come to London to establish her priory.
Fifteen years of waiting for Caela to remember her duty to Mag or for Mag herself to make some
sign that she was ready to begin that campaign which would witness the final destruction of the
Troy Game and the devastation of Swanne and William‘s hopes. Fifteen years of waiting for that
time when the ancient gods Mag and Og could once again take their place within the land and
restore harmony and goodness.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years she and Saeweald had waited, the last three shared with a noblewoman
called Judith, who was Erith-reborn. The widow Judith had come to Westminster and taken a
place as one of Caela‘s attending women. Unsurprisingly, over those three years Caela had come
to like and trust Judith greatly, and now, of Ecub, Saeweald and Judith, it was Judith who
enjoyed the closest and most trusting relationship with the queen.
Ecub and Saeweald had hoped that Judith‘s appearance had been what Caela or Mag had
been waiting for…but nothing. Caela persisted in her unremembering; Mag still lingered useless
and ineffectual within the queen‘s womb.
Why this delay, Ecub did not know. Was it the Game itself? Asterion? Mere fate? Mag?
No one was sure, but what Ecub knew for certain was that if Caela or Mag did not do something
soon, then all hope would be lost.
Edward was now an old man. He would not last many more years. When he died, Ecub
knew that Duke William would swarm across the seas and reclaim both the Darkwitch—his
former lover—and the city and the Game…taking the throne of England almost as an
afterthought.
Even worse was the possibility that Edward‘s death would sting Asterion into some
terrible action. Ecub knew of Asterion from Loth, as well as from the knowledge she had gained
during the long death between her last life and this one. Asterion might want the same end as she
and Saeweald, the destruction of the Game, but what he would replace it with—the frightful
reign of the unrestrained malevolence of the Minotaur—was an even more horrific future than a
Troy Game triumphant.
―I trust in Mag,‖ Ecub muttered, ―I trust in Mag,‖ repeating the mantra over and over
until she restored some peace in her heart.
Caela‘s continuing forgetfulness no doubt kept the Darkwitch Swanne giggling in delight,
but it left Ecub, Saeweald and Judith in despair. They could do little but stay close to Caela and wait for her to come to her senses, and to do whatever it was that Mag required of her. Still, there
was hope, as Saeweald constantly reminded Ecub and Judith. Caela had endowed Ecub‘s priory,
and continued to support it, when Edward had refused (and Caela had done this for no other
religious order). Caela had also taken Erith-reborn, Judith, under her wing as the most senior of
her attending ladies without any prompting from either Saeweald or Ecub. She kept Saeweald
and Ecub close to her, although she did not have to. She was obviously drawn to her allies from her former life…but she just could not recall that life.
―Mag directs her thoughts and actions,‖ Saeweald often told Ecub, and with this Ecub
had to be content, although in her darkest moments she wondered if Mag had forgotten as well.
Ecub sighed, and thought about rising. She was almost sixty years old, far too old to be
spending an entire morning sitting cross-legged in this damp grass, even if such close proximity
to one of the sacred sites of Llangarlia brought her peace of mind and spirit. Damp grass aside,
Ecub needed to return to the priory to brush out her robes and set out on the slow ride south to
Westminster. This evening she was required at court, to present to the queen an account of the
priory‘s activities this past quarter. Ecub grinned broadly as she contemplated what she could tell
Caela, as opposed to what Caela herself probably wanted to hear.
What Caela would want to hear was an account of how many hours a day the sisters of St
Margaret the Martyr spent on their knees in prayer to the Virgin, or how many days a week they
spent attending the needs of the sick and ill, or how they distributed the alms Caela provided
among the small community of lepers that lived five miles further to the north.
What Ecub could tell her, if she had the nerve, was how many nights the sisters spent
dancing naked among the ancient stones of Pen Hill, or how they whispered to the stones of Gog
and Magog on their numerous visits to London, and of their efforts toward keeping alive the
ancient ways and beliefs among the people in and about London.
Or perhaps Ecub could tell the queen of how she and the sisters of St Margaret the Martyr
spent their nights praying to Mag to give them a sign, to show them she still lived and cared and
that there was hope for this land amid all the horror which had visited it.
―And perhaps not,‖ muttered Ecub, wincing at the ache in her joints as, finally, she rose
slowly to her feet. She spent a moment testing her legs to make sure they would bear her weight,
then straightened her somewhat grass-stained and damp robe before taking the first step towards
the slope which led back to St Margaret the Martyr‘s.
One step only, and then Ecub froze, her heart thudding in her chest.
Something was…wrong.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and the breath in her throat caught and held.
Something was…different.
Very carefully, trying to keep her fright under control, Ecub slowly turned, looking
around the top of the hill.
Nothing. A blue sky interspersed with heavy dark clouds that foretold rain for the
afternoon.
Thick, wet, green grass that moved sluggishly in the slight breeze.
Stones, twenty-five or -six of them, encircling the entire hill-top…
Ecub‘s heart felt as though it had stopped entirely.
The stones.
There was something about the stones.
―Oh, sweet Mother Mag,‖ Ecub whispered and, unaware of the discomfort, dropped to
her knees and clasped her hands before her.
The stones were humming.
Ecub‘s mind could hardly comprehend it.
The stones were humming! Moreover, their harsh outlines were softening, as though the
stones were dissolving into warmth and movement.
As though they were living.
In her previous life, Ecub had heard tales, ancient even in that time; tales of how the