traces of his semen from her thighs. Tomorrow she would take the bag of herbs she had secreted
at the bottom of her clothes chest, and brew a cupful of the tea which would ensure she did not
conceive. Six children were enough and the last thing Swanne wanted was to be big-bellied with
child when…
When he would soon be here, please to the gods.
Swanne dried herself, then wrapped about her nakedness the robe she had discarded
earlier, shivering a little in the cold night air. She sat on a stool by the brazier, warming herself,
and looked back to check that Harold was indeed fast asleep.
He was breathing deeply, and Swanne relaxed. She turned back to the brazier, placed her
hands on her knees, closed her eyes, and sent her senses scrying out into the night. There was
only one benefit that Harold brought her, and that was to give her the excuse to live so close to
the Game.
Ah, there…there it was…
Swanne relaxed even further, wrapping her senses about the Game, feeling its strength.
Gods, it was powerful. She and Brutus had built so well. Whenever Swanne was despondent or
frustrated, or felt that she could cope no longer with Harold or with the pointlessness of her life
in this damnable Christian court, Swanne found a quiet place so that she could communicate with
the Game. Touch its power, feel its promise, believe in the future that she and William would
build together once they‘d completed the Game and trapped Asterion within its dark heart.
So powerful, and yet…different. Swanne recalled again, as she so often did, the
conversation she‘d had with William in that single brief encounter fifteen years earlier.
Could the Game have changed in the two thousand years it was left alone? she had
asked.
Perhaps, he had answered too slowly, his own concern obvious. We had not closed it. It
was still alive, and still in that phase of its existence where it was actively growing. Who knows
what…
He‘d stopped then, but even now the unspoken words rang in Swanne‘s mind. Who
knows what it could have grown into.
Swanne reached out with her power and touched the Game. Always before it had
responded to her.
Tonight, although she could feel its presence and vitality, it did not.
A coldness swept through Swanne, and for one panicky moment she almost succumbed
to her terror and projected herself into William‘s presence. But she didn‘t; it was too dangerous.
As well as the Game, Swanne could feel Asterion‘s presence more strongly than ever before. He
was stalking the grounds and spaces of Westminster, waiting and watching.
And so Swanne drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. She went to her needlework
basket and withdrew from its depths a small scrap of parchment upon which she scribbled a few
lines of writing with a piece of sharpened charcoal.
In the hour after she and Harold had broken their fast, and Harold had departed to meet
with some of his thegns, Swanne took the parchment, now folded and sealed, and handed it to
her woman, Hawise.
―Take this,‖ she said, ―and hand it to the good Archbishop of York.‖
Hawise, who knew far better than to ask what the message contained, merely nodded and
slipped the parchment into the pocket of her robe.
Deep under London and the hills and rivers which surrounded it the Troy Game dreamed
as it had dreamed for aeons.
It dreamed of a time when its Mistress and Kingman would return and complete it, when
it would be whole, and strong, and clean. It dreamed of a time when the kingship bands were
restored to the limbs of the kingman, and when he and his Mistress would dance out the Game
into immortality.
The Game dreamed of things that its creators, Brutus and Genvissa, could never have
realised. It dreamed of the stone circles that still dotted the land, and it dreamed of those ancient
days when the stones danced under the stars.
In its dreaming the Game began to whisper, and the stones responded.
SIX
“Saeweald?‖ Saeweald jerked from sleep, the dark-haired woman beside him murmuring
sleepily.
―It is I, Tostig.‖
Saeweald relaxed a little, but not a great deal. He and Tostig had once been great friends,
but as Tostig had grown first into manhood and then into his distant earldom, their friendship had
ebbed.
Saeweald slowly swung his legs out of bed, wincing as his right hip caught within the
blankets and twisted uncomfortably.
The woman beside him also started to rise, but he laid a hand on her shoulder. ―No, keep
my space warm for me, Judith. I will not be long.‖
Tostig had disappeared into one of the outer chambers, and now he returned with a small
oil lamp. He grinned at the sight of the woman. ―I know you,‖ he said. ―You are one of the
queen‘s ladies.‖
Judith inclined her head. ―Indeed,‖ she said, ―and a better mistress I could not hope to
serve.‖
―Does she know you spend your nights here?‖
―I cannot imagine that the queen would object,‖ Saeweald said tersely, pulling on his
robe and belting it about his waist. ―Tostig, what do you here?‖
Tostig shifted his eyes from Judith to the physician. ―I need your advice,‖ he said. ―And
your…Sight.‖
Again his eyes slid back to Judith.
―She knows who and what I am,‖ Saeweald said. ―You need have no concern for her.‖
He led Tostig into an adjoining chamber. ―What can be so urgent that you need to wake
me from my sleep?‖
―Edward,‖ Tostig said, then grinned charmingly, which instantly put Saeweald on guard.
―I need to know how long he shall live.‖
―You and most of England,‖ said Saeweald. ―Why? Why so urgent?‖
―I…I am concerned for my brother. I need to know what I can do that shall most aid him
to the throne.‖
Saeweald studied the Earl of Northumbria through narrowed eyes. ―That is not what you
want to know.‖
Tostig abandoned his charm. He grabbed at Saeweald‘s arm. ―I want to know my future,‖
he said. ―I want to know where I stand.‖
―Why?‖
―Does not every man want to know what lies before him?‖
Saeweald gave a hollow laugh. ―Some say that a wise man would give all his worldly
goods not to know, Tostig.‖
― I want to know. Why won‘t you tell me…Do you want gold? Is that it? Does the
physician Druid need gold to share his Sight?‖
―If you think yourself brave enough, Tostig, then I can share my Sight with you. Give
your gold to the beggars who haunt the wastelands beyond the gates of London. They need it
more than I.‖
Saeweald reached for the oil lamp that Tostig still held. The lamp consisted of a small
shallow pottery dish in which swilled an oil rendered from animal fats. A wick extended partway
out, resting on the rim of the dish, spluttering and flickering.
Saeweald rested the shallow dish in the palm of his left hand, passing his right palm over
it several times.
―Well?‖ Tostig demanded.
Saeweald‘s eyes shifted to the earl, and in the thin glimmer of light thrown off by the
lamp they appeared very dark, as though they had turned to obsidian from their usual green.
Wait, he mouthed before bending his face back to the lamp.
Tostig stared at Saeweald, then lowered his own eyes. And gasped, taking an involuntary
step backwards.
That tiny lamp seemed to have grown until it appeared half an arm‘s length in diameter,
although it still balanced easily in Saeweald‘s hand. The oil was now black and odourless, lapping at the rim of the dish as if caught in some great magical tide.
The wick sputtered, and the smoke which rose from it thickened and then sank, twisting
into the oil itself until the lamp contained a writhing mass of smoke and black liquid.
What do you wish to know?
―How long does Edward have to live?‖ said Tostig, unaware that Saeweald had not
spoken with his voice.
The oil and smoke boiled, then cleared, and in its depths Tostig saw Edward lying wan
and skeletal on his bed, a dark, loathsome miasma clouding above his nostrils and mouth.
―What does it mean?‖ he asked.
The clouds gather. He does not have long. What else do you want to know?
―Harold,‖ Tostig said in a tight voice. ―Tell me of Harold.‖
Again the oil and smoke boiled then cleared, and Tostig bent close.
He saw Harold climbing a hill. He was dressed in battle gear although he did not carry a
sword, and he appeared weary and disheartened. He reached the top of the hill, and suddenly a
shaft of light slid down from the heavens, wrapping Harold in gold, and Tostig saw that Harold
wore a crown on his head and that the weariness had lifted from his face.
Then Harold turned around, and Tostig drew in a sharp breath, for Harold‘s face was