Gods Concubine by Sara Douglass

Brutus‘ in its gentleness that I felt like weeping.

I was suddenly very sorry that I was here in Damson‘s body and not my true one.

His smile widened a little. ―I could tell you what is so amiss, but you might not want to

know.‖

―What is it?‖

Now he was grinning enough that I could see his teeth, and the wetness of his tongue

behind them. I smiled, responding to the mischievousness in his face, and to the warmth and life

dancing in his remaining eye.

―Let me see,‖ he said. ―How can I put this without having you shriek down the

cathedral?‖

―Tell me!‖ I said. Then I laughed, for suddenly it seemed as if Silvius had taken all my

cares into his capable hands, rolled them up into an insignificant ball, and tossed them carelessly

aside.

―Well now.‖ He struck a pose, as if considering deeply, and without thinking I reached

out and touched him.

“Tell me.”

He took my hand, curling it within his own.

His flesh was very warm. Very dry. Very sensuous.

My heart began to thud strangely within my breast, and I knew he could feel the pulse

leap within my wrist.

―Let me see,‖ he said again, but now all the laughter had gone from his voice, and his

gaze as it held mine was direct and strong. Confrontational, but still reassuring.

―You are Mag-reborn within Caela. Yes?‖

My hesitation was only slight. ―Yes.‖

―And you are Queen of England, wife to the oh-so-pious Edward. Yes?‖

―Yes.‖

―As Mag you are the land, fertility personified, you are Mother Mag. You are the bounty

of the land.‖

I had a glimmer of where he was going. ―Oh.‖

―Oh, indeed. But as Caela, Queen of England, wife of Edward the Confessor, you are,‖

his lips twitched, ―God‘s Concubine. A virgin. Imagine,‖ he said, ―how this undermines

everything you are as Mag-reborn.‖

―Oh.‖ I let out a long breath—I had not realised I‘d been holding it.

―No wonder you feel a lack,‖ he said, and he laughed, breathily, and his hand tightened

about mine.

―But what can I—‖

He roared with laughter, and I looked about, sure the entire cathedral would be staring at

us.

But in the hustle and bustle no one was paying us any attention and so I looked back to

Silvius.

―You are a poor wretch indeed,‖ he said, ―if you do not know how to fix the situation.‖

I could see nothing but his black eye, feel nothing but the pressure of his hand, the

warmth of his body, the skittering of his pulse. I could read the solution in his eye, feel it in his touch.

―I am not my son,‖ he said, very soft. ―Never mistake me for Brutus.‖

I knew what he saying. Do not take me only because I remind you of Brutus.

I swallowed, and pulled my hand away.

He let it go easily. ―It would be best,‖ he said, ―that if you do decide to relinquish your

state as God‘s Concubine, that you do not do it in Damson‘s body.‖

―Yes,‖ I said, adding, without thinking, ―she is no virgin, in any case.‖

―Is that so?‖ He laughed again, and I coloured.

I forced my mind back to what he had said. As Caela I was a virgin, and that

contradicted everything I should be as Mag, as Mother of this land, as its fertility.

―The winter solstice approaches,‖ Silvius said. ―It would be the best night.‖

The best night in which to lose my virginity.

―In which to wed yourself entirely to the land.‖ His gaze had not once wandered from my

face. ―To fill that lack.‖

He was right. Everything he said was right. Virginity was anathema to Mag and to all she

represented, and the night of the winter solstice, the night when the land needed every particle of

fertility it could summon to aid it through the long, frigid winter, was the perfect occasion to…

―To wed myself entirely to the land,‖ I whispered.

―And to the Game,‖ he said, as low as I, ―should you choose aright.‖

Ah, I knew what he suggested, and I knew then what I would do.

―Do not come to me as Damson,‖ he said, and his voice was thick with desire. ―Not as

Damson.‖

―No,‖ I whispered. ―Not as Damson.‖

SIX

Swanne was feeling edgier by the day. There was something happening, yet she could not

scry out the ―what‖ of that happening. Caela had changed, had become far more confident within herself, and Swanne did not like that. The Game was setting children to hopping over lines in the

flagstones outside St Paul‘s (and their fathers to battling out the Troy Game in labyrinthine horse

games). Harold had vanished, ostensibly to his estates in Wessex, but Swanne had sent him a

message there several days ago and he had yet to reply.

Swanne wished she‘d been more circumspect the night Tostig attacked Harold. She

should have concealed her delight. She should at least have pretended some dismay. What if

Harold decided to set her aside? She still needed her place at court. She couldn‘t lose it now,

when William was so close. Swanne resolved to make at least a pretence at contrition when next

she saw Harold. She‘d manipulated him for almost twenty years, she could do so again.

As Harold worried her, so also did William; or rather, his refusal to answer her pleas for

the location of the kingship bands of Troy irritated her. He must know that Asterion hunted them

down. He could not afford to let them lie vulnerable.

To cap all of this was Edward‘s decision to request Swanne to accompany himself, the

queen and a small group of courtiers and clerics to view the almost-completed abbey of

Westminster. Swanne could not understand why he‘d invited her. Edward and she barely spoke,

and Swanne only attended the king‘s court when Harold was in attendance. On the occasions

when they did speak their mutual dislike was obvious to all. Edward disliked the Danelaw wife

of Harold, not only because of the sensual beauty that Swanne never bothered to drape with

modesty, but because Swanne and Harold‘s union was not recognised by the Holy Church and

was therefore, in Edward‘s eyes, a horribly sinful affair. He had even referred to her and

Harold‘s children as bastards on more than one occasion.

In Swanne‘s view Edward was a contemptuous and cowardly old man, hiding behind his

religion and his sharp, sarcastic tongue.

Edward‘s one great love was the abbey. It had been fifteen years in the building (the fact

that Edward had been married to Caela for fifteen years, and that his Grand Plan for the abbey

was conceived at the same time he wed her was the occasion of much ribald comment: Edward

found in stones and mortar what he could not find in his wife) and had absorbed one-tenth of the

total wealth of the realm. Edward meant the building to be a marvel of its kind, the most

wondrous abbey in Europe and, Swanne supposed, Christians would think he had succeeded.

The abbey was enormous, by far the largest single structure in England. It occupied the

western portion of Thorney Isle, its central tower, crowned with a cupola of wood, rising some

several hundred feet into the air, its cruciform layout (still a novelty in Europe) stretching over

five hundred feet east to west. The abbey was constructed of huge blocks of grey stone, unusual

in a country where most churches—indeed, most buildings—were constructed of wood, or wattle

and daub, had a magnificent lead roof, a graceful rounded apse at its eastern end, and dazzlingly

beautiful stained glass filling its windows. In the two towers at the western end of the abbey

hung five great bells that were to be rung for the first time this day. From the southern wall

extended the foundations and partly-constructed walls of the cloisters, infirmary, rectory and the

infirmary gardens: they would be completed within the next few years.

Edward, accompanied by Eadwine, Abbot of Westminster, and a bevy of other clerics

including Aldred, Wulfstan of Worcester and the Bishop of London, his queen, Caela, two or

three of her ladies, a handful of earls and a score of lesser thegns, guards and hangers-on, and

three ragged children who tacked themselves on to the very end of the party, set out for the short

walk on foot from his palace to the abbey at mid-morning. Swanne, who had decided that

attendance might give her a better opportunity for observing Caela than that provided within the

confines of court, walked a few paces behind the queen and her ladies. It was a fine day, if crisp and cold, and most people had wrapped themselves in fur-lined cloaks and heavy woollen robes,

with sturdy leather boots on their feet. A fresh southerly breeze blew, tugging at the veils of the

women and making everyone‘s eyes water.