Gods Concubine by Sara Douglass

― That I hate.‖

―You should have children,‖ he said, standing back from me. ―You were a good mother.‖

Now it was I who laughed. ―I? A good mother? And when, pray, did I have a chance for

that?‖

―Tell me,‖ he said, ―how is Swanne?‖

―Swanne?‖

―It is so long since I have seen her. Fifteen years. I miss her. I want her. Will you tell her

that? Will you tell her how much I want her?‖

He was walking away now, his booted stride ringing out through the stone hall.

―Tell Swanne I want her,‖ he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder, ―and that I

cannot wait for that happy day when we can be together.‖

Then he was gone, and I stood there in that cold, stone hall, and wept, for I felt so alone,

and so empty.

Far away, in Normandy, William woke with a hoarse cry, sitting bolt upright in his bed.

At his side, Matilda roused, muttered sleepily, then sat herself, laying a loving hand on

his arm.

“William, what ails you?”

He smiled, although it was an effort. “A bad dream only, my love. Let it not concern

you.”

Then he took her chin in gentle fingers, and lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed away

the memory of that cursed stone hall and the woman who haunted it.

The next afternoon Swanne joined my circle of women as we sat and gossiped over our

needlework. I sighed, for I had good enough reason to dislike my brother‘s wife, but her

presence reminded me abruptly of the strange dream that had gripped me the previous night.

―My Lady Swanne,‖ I said, putting my needle down, ―I dreamed most unusually last

night.‖

She tipped her head slightly, the movement one of supreme indifference.

―I dreamed of a most handsome man, a Norman, with close-cropped black curls.‖

Several of the younger women tittered, and I managed to fight down the urge to blush.

No doubt they thought I sought my pleasure in dream where I could not find it in my marriage

bed. Suddenly I wished I had not brought up the topic, and would have dismissed it with a laugh

had not Swanne leaned forward, her pale face now almost bloodless, her own dark eyes intense.

―Yes?‖ she said.

I made a deprecatory gesture. ―Oh, I am sure it was nothing, save that this dream man

asked to be remembered to you.‖

―Yes?‖ The word sounded as though Swanne had forced it through lips of stone.

I almost smiled as I remembered his message. ―He told me to say, ‗I want her and I

cannot wait for that happy day when we can be together.‘ He said it had been fifteen years since

you had been together, and that he missed you. Why, sister, who can this be that is not your

husband?‖

Swanne sat upright, rigid with emotion. Her eyes glistened, and she seemed unaware that

everyone in our circle now stared at her.

―Who is this man?‖ I asked again, softly.

―A lord such as shall never love you,‖ she said, then rose and made her exit.

THREE

Saeweald sat with Ecub by the dying fire in the pit in the centre of the Lesser Hall where

Edward held his evening court. Edward and Caela had long retired, and the only other people

still in the chamber were two servants sweeping away the detritus of the night‘s activities.

They were silent, uncomfortably so on Saeweald‘s part, for he wanted to grip Ecub by the

shoulders and shake out of her whatever it was that she had to say to him; more comfortably so

on Ecub‘s part, for she still basked in the glow of what the Sidlesaghes had said to her.

They awaited Judith, who had to complete her evening attendance on the queen before

she could join them.

They sat, eyes set to the floor, until even the servants had gone for the night.

The moment the door had closed behind the last of them, Saeweald turned to Ecub and

opened his mouth.

―Wait,‖ she said, forestalling whatever it was he‘d been about to say.

He mumbled something inaudible, then turned back to resume his silent vigil.

Eventually, Judith joined them, looking both weary and worried, a reflection of

Saeweald‘s own expression. She drew a stool up to Ecub and Saeweald, glanced at the physician,

then looked at Ecub.

―What has happened?‖ she said.

Ecub took a very long, deep breath, then beamed, her entire face almost splitting in two

with the width of her smile. ―Today I sat amid the stones atop Pen Hill,‖ she said.

―Yes?‖ said Saeweald.

―They spoke to me.‖

There was a long moment of complete silence, during which time Saeweald and Judith

stared at Ecub, their minds trying to make sense of what she‘d just said.

―They ‗spoke‘ to you?‖ Saeweald finally said, enunciating very carefully.

―Aye, they did. Saeweald, what do you know of the ancient tales of the Stone Dances?‖

―Only that they were raised by hands unknown, long ago, before even the Llangarlians

came to step on this land.‖

―Aye, that is what you would have heard. But I think that Judith may have heard

something else. Judith?‖

Judith looked at Saeweald, but he was still staring at Ecub. She looked back to the

prioress, who was studying her with a maddening calm, and licked her lips, trying to remember.

―They were raised in monument to Mag, to the mother and the land,‖ she said. ―They are

more Magmonument than Og, although by association—‖

―Yes, yes,‖ said Ecub, ―but tell me what you know of their raising.‖

Judith made a disparaging gesture, unsettled by Ecub‘s questioning. ―Oh, Ecub, there

were only the tales that children told each other.‖

―Often the greatest mysteries are hidden within children‘s tales,‖ Ecub said. ―What safer

place for them? Where every adult will discount them?‖

Again Judith looked at Saeweald, and this time he met her eyes.

―Judith,‖ he said. ― What tales? ‖

Judith shrugged her shoulders, not ready to believe that the stories she‘d heard as a child

in her previous life were fact, rather than sheer childish imagination. ―I heard…it was told—‖

―Judith,‖ Ecub said, ―just spit the words out!‖

―The Stone Dances, or, rather, the stones themselves, are the surviving memory of the

ancient creatures who walked this land long before mankind set foot here.‖

―Very good,‖ said Ecub. ―And their names?‖

―Sidlesaghes,‖ said Judith. ―The Sad Songsters.‖ Then, surprisingly, her mouth quirked in

amusement. ―Long Toms, we used to call them, for the height of the stones. Children‘s tales

though. Surely.‖

―Yet all this,‖ Ecub said, soft but clear, ―is true, my dears. Come now, Judith, tell me

more of your ‗children‘s tales‘. Why do the Sidlesaghes stand as stones and not trail their

melancholy amid the meadows?‖

Judith‘s mouth fell open, and she stared wide-eyed and unbelieving at Ecub as her mind

suddenly made the leap to what Ecub was trying to draw from her.

―They…‖ Judith‘s voice hoarsened, and she had to clear her throat before she could

continue. ―They only wake and sing when it is time to midwive Mag‘s birth.‖

Ecub nodded, smiling. ―Aye.‖ She looked apologetically at Saeweald who was looking

goggle-eyed between the two women. ―This is a mystery only discussed among girl-children, my

dear. You would probably not have heard it as Loth. Midwifery and birth are the realms of

women only.‖

―Wait,‖ said Saeweald, shaking his head as if he were trying to shake his thoughts into

some kind of order. ―I don‘t understand. Are you saying that, when you were atop Pen Hill, these

‗Sidlesaghes‘ appeared to you?‖

―Aye.‖

―And you agree with what Judith just said, that they only ‗wake and sing‘ when it is time

to midwive Mag‘s birth?‖

―Aye.‖

―But Mag already is! How can she be born again?‖

―Because tomorrow Asterion is going to murder her, my loves. And then Mag is going to

need to be reborn.‖

Saeweald and Judith just stared at Ecub, aghast, then they both began to babble at once.

Ecub let them speak for a few minutes, then she held up her hand for silence, and

repeated to them what the Sidlesaghes had told her.

Finally, Saeweald said, ―But why can‘t Caela remember? ‖

―For her own protection, Saeweald. For her own protection. She will remember soon

enough. Be patient.‖

But Judith frowned, and looked at Ecub. ―But…but where will Mag be reborn? In

whom?‖

Ecub smiled beatifically, then shrugged. ―With that knowledge they did not grace me.‖

FOUR

Tostig sat with his brother Harold before one of the fire pits in Harold‘s Great Hall,

which Harold had built two years previously, just to the south of Edward‘s palace complex in

Westminster. While not rivalling Edward‘s construction, Harold‘s own hall did nonetheless

represent a significant challenge to Edward‘s authority, and did nothing to allay the king‘s

resentment of the earl.

The past fifteen years had treated both Harold and Tostig kindly. Both had grown: Harold