look were she within her and Edward‘s private chambers, where she could remove her veil, and
let that blue silk shimmer against the darkness of her hair…
Caela turned slightly on her seat, handing some needlework to a woman behind her, and
as she did so the material of her robe twisted and tightened about her waist and breasts.
Harold stilled, his very breathing stopped.
Caela spoke softly to the woman, and then laughed at some small jest the woman made to
her, and Harold let his breath out, horrified to hear its raggedness.
Damn it! Look elsewhere, lecher.
Desperate, Harold dragged his eyes away from his sister and towards the back of the hall
where thronged the thegns and stewards, and even a few ceorls, who came each day to court in the hope of gaining a moment of the king‘s time for their supplications.
Harold saw several that he knew, and nodded a terse greeting to them. And there was
Tostig, just entered.
Tostig caught Harold‘s gaze, and pointedly looked away.
Harold sighed. Perhaps he should send one of his thegns down to his brother and bid him
sit with Harold. Then they could talk and jest away the tensions that had arisen between them the
previous night.
But, just as he was about to summon a thegn and send him to Tostig, Harold stilled in
puzzlement.
At the very rear of the hall, where opened the doors to the outer chambers, stood a tall,
pale figure.
Harold blinked, for the figure seemed very slightly out of focus…as though it stood
behind a veil of water. Whatever—whoever—it was, the person was very tall, and dressed in
plain, poorly sewn garments.
A beggar, come to elicit pennies?
For an instant, just an instant, the veil lifted, and Harold found himself staring at intense
grey-flecked brown eyes. The eyes transfixed him they were so clear in focus, even from this
distance, that he did not think to expand his view to the larger face.
Then the veil was back again, and the figure muted.
Suddenly his sense of imminent danger exploded. Harold straightened and slid to the
edge of his chair, a hand to the knife at his belt.
Even as Harold was rising, the strange, discomfiting figure gave a discernible moan,
raised a long, thin, almost diaphanous arm, and pointed towards Caela.
Before Harold could say or do anything further, Caela half rose from her seat, her face a
mask of terror and pain, and cried out with a half-strangled moan.
Asterion marched through the stone hall, his booted footsteps ringing most satisfactorily.
It was time, finally, to make the opening move in this most exquisite, if deadly, of dances.
Asterion laughed aloud— and to think only he knew the tune.
Then he sobered and slowed his pace as he walked, his head swinging this way and that
as he tried to spy out where she”d put herself.
She wouldn”t have hidden herself too well, that he knew. After all, Mag was the one who
wanted herself murdered.
Wasn”t that all a part of her Grand Plan?
Asterion almost laughed again, remembering how, in their former life, Mag and Hera
had plotted to outwit Asterion. Hera, the dying Greek goddess, had called to the Llangarlian
goddess Mag, telling her that they could use Cornelia to trick Asterion into an alliance with
Mag.
Then Mag, using Cornelia, could turn against Asterion.
Neither Hera nor Mag realised that Asterion knew of their entire, inept plan.
Gods thought to outwit him, Mistresses of the Labyrinth thought to deceive him, but
Asterion was a step ahead of all of them. They would dance to his tune, not he to theirs.
“Come on, Mag,” Asterion whispered, “show thyself. It is, after all, your execution day,
and you wouldn”t want to be tardy for such an important appointment, would you?”
There was a slight movement within one of the shadowy recesses of the arched side
aisles.
Nothing. A trickery only. Something designed to make him feel as though what he did
now was real. Worthwhile, even.
“Oh, come on, you silly bitch,” Asterion muttered. “I haven”t got all day.”
Ah! There she is. About time…
Asterion”s gait increased in pace and, as it did, so his entire form became huge and
black, a great amorphous mass of murderous intent.
Mag had appeared at the far end of the stone hall. She looked tiny and wizened from her
long period of inactivity, and darted, terrified, from the shadow of one great column t o the next.
She wailed, the sound thin and frightened, and she clasped her hands about her shoulders as if
that single, futile gesture might save her.
Oh, for goodness” sake, thought Asterion, that act wouldn”t fool a toddling child.
“Did you think that you had outwitted me?” he snarled (one had to play out the
absurdity, after all).
“No!” Mag cried. “No! Let me be, Asterion. I can help you! I can—‖
Something dark and horrible, a bear”s claw although magnified ten times over, roared
through the air, and Mag threw herself to one side.
The claw buried itself in one of the great columns of the stone hall, and blood gushed
forth from the stone.
Asterion began to giggle.
“I beg you!” screamed Mag. “I beg—‖
The claw flashed through the air once more, but halfway through its arc the claw became
the head of a great cat, and its fangs snapped, barely missing the goddess, who rolled
desperately across the floor.
“Bitch!” seethed Asterion, and he leaped high into the air. His form turned into a
murderous cloud, its entire bulk shrouding Mag completely; the cloud changed into a bubbling
mass of plague, sorrow and death, and it poured itself over Mag, it flowed over her, and in that one movement, that one moment, Asterion did what Genvissa had always wanted to do.
He destroyed the goddess. He annihilated her.
Just as she wanted.
Blood flowed.
Asterion laughed.
So many things happened at once that all Harold could do was leap from his chair, and
then just stand, helpless and appalled.
Caela staggered from her seat, her face so pale all the life appeared to have drained from
her, her eyes wide, her mouth in a surprised ―O‖, her hands clutching to her belly. Blood— a
flood of it! —stained her clothing around her lower belly and then thickened and soaked her
lower skirts until her feet slipped in its wetness and she fell to the timber flooring.
Edward, his own face stunned, stumbled from his throne, staring at his wife as she
writhed in agony on the floor.
Caela‘s ladies stood in one amorphous mass, hands to mouths, eyes wide in shock. What
queen ever acted this way?
Swanne turned from the three men she‘d been seducing with her grace and wit and
loveliness and regarded Caela‘s sudden, unexplained agony with something akin to speculation.
Judith was the first to make any attempt to aid Caela, bending down to her and gathering
the stricken woman in her arms. The next instant Saeweald had joined her, almost falling to the
floor as he tossed aside his crutch.
Harold went forward, his eyes glancing back to where the strange, pale figure had
stood—it was gone, now—and bent down beside Saeweald and Judith. Appalled at his sister‘s
distress, Harold lifted his head to say something to Edward, who was standing close by with an
expression of revulsion on his face, when he was forestalled by Aldred, the Archbishop of York.
―See,‖ the archbishop said, his voice roiling with contempt, ―your queen miscarries of a
child. I had not known, majesty, that you had put one in her. You should have been more
forthcoming in boasting of your achievement.‖
Edward gasped, his rosy cheeks turning almost as wan as Caela‘s now bloodless ones.
―The whore!‖ he said. ―I have remained celibate. I have put no child within her!‖
And he turned, his face now triumphant, and stared at Harold.
―For mercy‘s sake!‖ Harold shouted, murderously furious at Edward and frightened for
Caela all in one. ―Your wife bleeds to death before you, and all you can think of is to accuse her
of whoredom? ‖
He spun his face around to Caela‘s ladies who, terrified both by Caela‘s sudden,
horrifying haemorrhage and by Edward‘s accusation, stood incapable of movement. ―Aid her,‖
Harold cried. ― Aid her, for sweet mercy.‖
He rose, as though he meant to force the ladies down to help Judith and Saeweald, but
then the physician himself spoke.
―Send for the midwives,‖ Saeweald said. ― Now! ‖
Then, stunningly, he grabbed at Harold‘s wrist, pulled him close, and whispered, ―Be at
peace, Harold. This is not as bad as it might appear.‖
Much later, when the court was still abuzz with shock and speculation, the head midwife,
a woman called Gerberga, came before Edward.
―Well,‖ said the king, ―what can you tell me of my wife‘s shame?‖
To one side Harold made as if he would stand forth and speak, but Edward waved him to