Gods Concubine by Sara Douglass

number of disappointed suitors) the pope muttered darkly about the evils of allowing such

―close‖ blood-kin to wed. Their union, the pope declared, would offend God to such an extent

that doubtless He would smite Christendom with numerous plagues, floods and boils in the

nastiest of places. Matilda stormed and William argued. Gradually the protests waned, the bribes

dried up, the pope lost interest, the ban was rescinded (by a lowly clerk within Rome who was

sick of the quantity of the determined duke‘s protests he‘d had to field over the years), and

Matilda and William finally wed.

William smiled softly as he lay watching his bride sleep. He lifted a hand and pushed a

strand of her dark hair back from her forehead. It was tangled, and damp with sweat, and

William‘s smile grew broader as he remembered the enthusiasm with which both had ( finally! )

consummated their union. Whatever whispers may have rumoured, the physical contrast in their

heights and builds had made not a single difference to the ease and joy with which they

dispensed with Matilda‘s virginity.

He stroked Matilda‘s forehead again, his touch less gentle this time, and she sighed,

shifted a little in their bed, and opened her eyes.

―I adore you,‖ she whispered.

He leaned down and kissed her, but did not speak.

―And you?‖ she said very softly, once his mouth lifted from hers.

William hesitated, remembering that other time ( so long ago) when he had made ( forced)

another marriage. This time, he determined, he would not start with deception and lies.

―You are my wife, my duchess, and I will honour you before any other woman, but…‖

His nerve betrayed him at that moment, and so Matilda did what she had to, in order to

found their marriage in such strength it would never fail.

―But I will not be the great love of your life?‖ she said, propping herself up on one elbow.

―That does not worry you?‖ he said.

―You and I,‖ she said, tracing one of her tiny hands through the black curls which

scattered across his chest, ―will make one of the greatest marriages Christendom has ever known.

What more could I ask?‖

―That is not what I expected to hear,‖ he said, laughing softly in wonderment. ―That is

not what I had learned to expect from wives.‖ He reached up a hand and cradled her face within

its great expanse.

―You have honoured and respected me by telling me,‖ Matilda said. ―I can accept this.‖

She paused. ―You will not dishonour me with her?‖

―Never!‖ William said.

―Romantic love can so often destroy a marriage,‖ said Matilda, ―when what is needed is

unity of purpose, and combined strength. I will be the best of wives to you, and you shall be the

best of husbands to me, and we will marry our ambitions and strengths, and we will never, never

regret the choice that we have made.‖

―I wish I had found you earlier,‖ William said, and Matilda could not have known that by

that statement William referred to a time two thousand years past when a former marriage had

resulted in such a ruination of dreams and ambitions that a nation had crumbled into chaos and

disaster. As Brutus, he had failed with Cornelia; William was determined to make a better

marriage with this woman.

They made love once again, and then Matilda slipped back to sleep. Once he was sure

that she was lost deep in her dreams, William rose from their bed and walked to stand naked

before the dying embers of the fire in the hearth of their bedchamber.

The conversation with Matilda had unsettled him. Firstly, the maturity of Matilda‘s

response had astounded William, though he well knew that she was a princess such as Cornelia

had never been, and made him appreciate even more the woman he‘d taken to wife. Secondly,

the nature of the conversation had recalled to him Cornelia and Genvissa, and so much of his

previous life.

When he had lived as Brutus, two thousand years previously in a world racked by war

and catastrophe, he had been a supremely ambitious man. Brutus had allowed nothing to stand in

his way. At fifteen Brutus had murdered his father, Silvius, and had taken from his dead father‘s limbs the six golden kingship bands of Troy. In his early thirties, Brutus snatched at the chance

to lead the lost Trojan people to a new land and rebuild Troy itself, using the ancient power of

the Troy Game which he, as a Kingman, controlled. In this new land, Llangarlia, now known as

England, Brutus had met Genvissa, the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and his partner in the intricate

dances of the Troy Game. He and Genvissa had almost succeeded in their ambition to build the

Game on the banks of the Llan, or Thames, when disaster struck in the form of Brutus‘ unwilling

and unloved wife, Cornelia. Overcome with jealousy, Cornelia had become the pawn of

Asterion, the ancient Minotaur and arch-enemy of the Game, and had murdered Genvissa just as

she and Brutus were about to complete the Game.

Even more uncomfortable now that he was thinking of Cornelia, William glanced over

his shoulder at Matilda. Gods, there was nothing to compare them! Cornelia wept and sulked and

plotted murder. Matilda used reason and wit, and she accepted where Cornelia would have

argued. Cornelia had fought with everything she had against Brutus‘ love for Genvissa. Matilda

had shrugged and accepted it as of little consequence to their marriage.

William closed his eyes, feeling the heat of the embers on his face, and finally allowed

thoughts of Genvissa to fill his mind. Ah, she had been so beautiful, so powerful! She‘d been his

Mistress of the Labyrinth, his partner in the Troy Game.

And then, she had been cruelly murdered by Cornelia.

Had he truly loved Genvissa? William contemplated the issue. After this night with

Matilda, and most particularly after their conversation, William wondered if what he‘d felt for

Genvissa had been an astounding excitement generated by their mutual meeting of ambition and

power rather than love. Oh, there had been lust aplenty, but there had been no tenderness, and

little sweetness. Instead, William believed, he and Genvissa had been swept away by the

realisation that united they could achieve immortality through the construction, and their

manipulation, of the Troy Game. They could make both themselves and the Game they

controlled immortal.

William smiled wryly. That realisation and that ambition had been far, far headier than

love.

But their ambitions ended in disaster as Asterion had manoeuvred Cornelia into

murdering Genvissa, thus halting the Game that would have once again trapped the Minotaur in

its dark heart.

Disaster, and death. A death that had lasted two thousand years. Why such a delay?

William would have thought that his and Genvissa‘s ambition, as well as the Troy Game‘s need

to be completed, would have brought them back centuries before this. Instead, they‘d languished

in death, frustrated at every attempt for rebirth, kept back from life by a power that they‘d both

taken a long time to accept: Asterion.

Over two thousand years ago the Minotaur Asterion had spent his life trapped in the

Great Founding Labyrinth on the island of Crete, but he had been released when Ariadne, the

then Mistress of the Labyrinth and foremother of Genvissa, had destroyed the Game within the

Aegean world. Now Asterion was the Game‘s arch-enemy. He would do anything to ensure its

complete destruction, for the Troy Game was the only thing in this world that could control him.

Knowing this, after Genvissa‘s death Brutus had secreted the ancient kingship bands of Troy

about London; Asterion could not destroy the Game if he did not have the bands which had

helped create it.

William believed that it had been Asterion who had kept Brutus and Genvissa locked

within death for so long, and Asterion who had finally removed the barriers to their rebirth. Both Brutus and Genvissa had constantly fought for rebirth, and had as constantly been rebuffed by

Asterion‘s bleak power. He‘d been stronger than either had ever expected, and William thanked

whatever ancient gods still existed in this strange world into which he‘d been reborn that, as

Brutus, he had hidden the kingship bands of Troy within such powerful magic.

Why had Asterion kept William and Genvissa-reborn at bay for so long? Had Asterion

wanted to find the bands and destroy the Game without risking their rebirth? Well, Asterion had

not found the bands—William could still sense them, safe in their hiding places, buried under the city now called London—and so he‘d allowed Brutus and Genvissa to be reborn, hoping,

perhaps, that he could use one or the other to locate the bands.

William had no doubt Asterion would have preferred Brutus to be reborn in Cathay rather

than in Normandy. But if William had not managed to influence the timing of his rebirth, he had