Gods Concubine by Sara Douglass

watch for you,‖ he said, his voice somehow immensely soothing. ―As we have always watched

for you.‖

TWO

This time the Sidlesaghe led Caela through a complex labyrinthine enchantment that

eventually brought them to the low-arched opening in London‘s wall that allowed the Walbrook

entry into the city. They stood once more just beyond the ring of columns encircling Brutus who, once again, was taking a band from his arm—his left forearm this time—and placing it in the

centre of the columned circle. He made the complex enchantment with his left hand, the band

vanished, and then so did Brutus.

As Brutus disappeared, the Sidlesaghe felt Caela relax under his touch.

―One day,‖ he whispered to her, ―you can allow him to meet your eyes.‖

She made a dismissive motion with her head, clearly not wanting to talk about Brutus.

―Sweet one,‖ said the Sidlesaghe, ―if Asterion meets you within the ruins of Troy while

you are moving the band, he will kill you. Caela,‖ the creature‘s voice roughened, and he had to pause and clear his throat, ―don‘t walk through those ruins. Run. Run, for your life depends on it.‖

She drew in a deep breath. ―To Holy Oak,‖ she said. It had been the Holy Oak when she

had been Cornelia, and still it graced the tiny bubbling spring at the foot of the Llandin.

Mag‘s pool, still there after all these years, and Caela‘s natural escape route, should she

need one.

―I will be there to meet you,‖ the Sidlesaghe said, and his voice had dropped so low that

Caela had to strain closer to hear him. ―Be safe, sweet lady. Be safe on the journey.‖

She touched his cheek, then stepped forth into the circle of glowing light, and picked up

the band.

Asterion was roaming. He‘d known even before the sun sank that tonight would be

special, that tonight she would attempt to move another of the bands.

Asterion grinned. And if she did move a band, then it was of no matter. He didn‘t care if

she moved it to the cold heart of the moon, for he would still be able to find it.

Now that he controlled her.

But he had to play his part. There was no point in causing suspicion—and thus

unexpected actions—through inactivity. So he needed to make it appear as if he wanted to snatch

the band as it was being moved. He needed to appear angry.

―Frustrated,‖ he whispered. ―Inept!‖

And he laughed.

He did not want to attempt the ruins of Troy again. The memory of that land was still too

vivid.

Besides, the ruins bored him. Best to make an appearance where she would

emerge…which was…Asterion lifted his bull nose to the wind and sniffed.

North.

It would be north… north-west.

Asterion‘s smile stretched even further. He knew where she was going.

Caela once again traversed the terrible path which wound through the ruins of Troy, the

band clutched tightly in her hands.

But this time, mindful of the Sidlesaghe‘s concerns, she ran as fast as she could while still

able to avoid tripping over loose rocks or the rigid hand or foot of a corpse that lay partway

across the path.

Troy lay bloody about her, the dead lay mouldering in their stinking heaps as they had

previously, but Caela did not find them so disturbing this time. Instead she concentrated on holding the band, and keeping her every sense strained for indication of pursuit. Every twenty or

thirty steps she paused and half-turned, her breath still, her body motionless, her face white,

listening.

Nothing, save the dying of Troy.

Then she would hurry forward, her face even more strained, so that, perversely, she did

not hear the sound of someone behind her.

Was he ahead? Crouching behind rocks to her side?

The further Caela moved through the destruction of Troy, the quicker became her steps,

the tighter her face.

Eventually, safely, she reached the end of her journey.

Asterion could feel the passage of the band, feel its movement closer and closer towards him. It almost felt as if the band were rushing to meet him, and, as he stood before the rock pond

under Holy Oak, Asterion literally held out his hands as he intuited her imminent arrival.

There was a sound, a great sound of rushing water and wind and song, and suddenly a

figure burst from the air before him, directly into his arms.

He laughed in sheer enjoyment, but turned it into a roar, as if of fury, and grappled

clumsily with the figure, allowing it to slip partly from his grasp. He grabbed at it again, meaning

to pinch a little, but just as he tightened his fingers it seemed as if the air itself erupted about him.

Asterion‘s composure evaporated as tall, bleak figures surrounded him. He panicked, not

so much because he was afraid, but because these strangenesses were so entirely unexpected.

The figure, she, slipped from his grip, but he was not worried about that, only the who and the what of that which attacked him.

Gods, they were singing, and such a mournful sound.

Asterion began to flail about with his arms, trying to see what it was that surrounded him,

what gripped him, what was trying to smother him, but all he could make out was enveloping

greyness, as if he were enclosed within a thick, viscous fog.

There was the sound of water splashing, and he knew that she had escaped. Furious (not

with her escape, but with the unknowns which attacked him), Asterion lashed out with virtually

the full extent of his darkcraft.

The air exploded, and there came the sound of moaning as the strange creatures fell back.

There came the sound of a single sob, and then Asterion was standing alone by Mag‘s

Pond, the ancient oak tree stretching out its bare limbs cold and dark above him.

Caela heaved in great gulping breaths, hardly daring to believe she had escaped the

Minotaur. Oh gods, the feel of his hands upon her, the heat of his body, the stench of his breath!

She looked around. She still stood close by Holy Oak, save that now the countryside had

vanished, replaced with a terrible aspect that, for one frightening moment, made Caela believe

she had fallen back into the ruins of Troy.

She stood in a landscape covered over with bricks and mortar, pale smooth stone, and a

wide roadway of hard blackness along which dreadful beasts roared. People moved shadowlike

about her, and Caela realised she was seeing with that awareness she‘d tested inside Ludgate on

the night she had moved the first band.

Women, mostly, bustling along busily with baskets over their arms, and clothed in tight

gowns that came only to their knees. Most of them wore hats; silly, small round bonnets that

clung to stiffened curls. Some of the women had children with them, or pushed babies before

them in wheeled conveyances that looked to Caela for all the world like backward-running carts.

There were some men hurrying along the crowded street. They were black, like ravens,

and one or two of them swung sticks covered in material in their hands.

What to do with the band? Where to leave it?

She looked across the road, and saw there a small red-brick building. Access was via a

large arch which Caela could see led to an open paved area beyond the building. People stood

about on this paved area, looking anxiously to and fro as if expecting something.

She turned her attention back to the building. Just inside the building was a small window

in one of the walls, barred with metal, and she could see behind this window the tall form of a

Sidlesaghe.

He was looking at her, and once he saw that he had her attention, he lifted a hand and

motioned to her, slowly, yet managing to convey the utmost sense of urgency.

Again Caela looked around, her hands now gripping the band even tighter in her anxiety.

To reach the building and the Sidlesaghe, she had to cross this strange roadway.

And there were great beasts that periodically roared along the road, black and blue

creatures, twice the size of oxen, and red creatures the length of five oxen, and three times as

high.

―Oh, gods,‖ she whispered. ―What possibility is this the Game has created for me?‖

She looked at the Sidlesaghe again—he was still motioning to her to hurry, hurry—and

then back to the road.

It appeared to be clear.

Taking a huge breath, Caela stepped on to the road, moving as fast as she could without

risking tripping over the sodden robes that clung about her legs.

Something roared past her.

She shrieked, almost dropping the band, and stopped motionless in the middle of the

road.

She didn‘t know what to do. Her very will seemed frozen. She could step neither

forwards nor backwards, and Caela was certain that her life would be snatched by one of those