‘A few weeks?” Cornelia’s voice cracked slightly, and Genvissa had to suppress a smile.
‘Surely Brutus has told you about the Game, and his and my role in it?”
Cornelia flushed, the color moving up her neck to mottle her cheeks. “What do you mean, ‘a few weeks’?”
Genvissa sighed. “The Game requires myself as Mistress of the Labyrinth, and Brutus, as Kingman of the Labyrinth, to unite as one in order to ensure the success of the Game. You do know what I mean, don’t you, my dear?”
Cornelia stared at her, white now, her eyes unblinking.
‘I’m sure you’ve been worried that Brutus and I have become lovers,” Genvissa said. “But we haven’t.
Not yet.”
She glanced slyly at Cornelia again before continuing. “We’re waiting only for the first Dance in the Game, little girl, then Brutus and I will be far more ‘married’ than you and he ever were. Wedded together in such power you will become nothing more than an irritating insignificance. If I were you, Cornelia, I’d allow Brutus as much use of your body as he can tolerate between now and the winter solstice.”
She paused. “I doubt he’ll make much use of you after it.”
Then she reached out a hand and put her palm against Cornelia’s cold cheek. “Poor girl. You’ve always been too much the simpleton to keep Brutus occupied in any meaningful way. You’ve had a pair of legs that can be parted,
you’ve a body that can be penetrated, but you’re not much else, are you?” Cornelia drew in one deep, shocked breath, then with all the strength she could muster, she hit Genvissa across the cheek.
Genvissa’s eyes flared, but she made no move to retaliate… at least, not physically.
‘You’ve nothing to make Brutus love you,” she said, her voice now as cold as the frosty air about them. “Nothing.”
ERITH LOOKED UP, STARTLED BY CORNELIA’S SUDDEN entrance into her house. She had been expecting the girl, but not this early… and not in this state.
‘Cornelia?” she said, rising from her bench by the hearth. “What is wrong?”
‘Forgive me my entrance,” Cornelia said, paused, then began to cry.
Erith shot a significant look at Loth, who sat deep in the shadows of the far side of the house, then put her arm about Cornelia and drew her close to the fire.
‘Genvissa,” Loth said, his voice deep with anger.
‘Undoubtedly,” Erith agreed, “for she has been as cocksure as the sun these past weeks. Cornelia?”
Cornelia sniffed, wiped her hand across her eyes, and made an effort to compose herself. “I apologize, Erith. And yes, Loth”—she nodded at him in greeting—”is right. I have just been bested by Genvissa… again. She told me that the Game will begin on the night of the winter solstice—”
Loth rose very quietly and came to sit at Cornelia’s other side.
‘—and that… that it will cement she and Brutus in a partnership closer than he and I could ever share.
Wedded together in such power, she said, that I would become an insignificance in his life.”
‘And still you do not wish to aid us, aid Mag against Genvissa?” Several times in the past weeks Loth had approached Cornelia, and asked her if she would aid him and Erith and their allies against Genvissa, but every time she had refused.
To do so would only be to alienate Brutus, and that she would not risk. Cornelia had even taken to avoiding Coel, as if that would keep her determination intact.
Cornelia turned aside her face, as she had every time Loth approached her to aid him, and there was a long silence.
Finally, Erith sighed, and took Cornelia’s hand. “Girl, we wish you to help us, for we think you are the only one who can help us, but we will not force you.”
‘Would it help,” Cornelia said very softly, “if Brutus were to renounce Genvissa?”
Erith and Loth exchanged glances.
‘What do you mean?” Erith said.
‘If Brutus renounces Genvissa for me, completely, then he will not begin this Game with her, would he?”
‘Perhaps,” said Loth, wondering what manner of plan Cornelia had dreamed up to make Brutus turn completely from Genvissa. It would have to involve the counter-turning of both the sun and moon, for he did not think anything less would manage it.
‘If I were pregnant again,” Cornelia said, “surely he would renounce Genvissa?”
Loth fought the impulse to roll his eyes, contenting himself with yet another glance at Erith.
“Cornelia…”
‘Erith,” Cornelia turned to the House Mother, turning her back to Loth and speaking rapidly before he had a chance to interrupt her. “You once told me about the spring at the foot of the Llandin where a woman can go to beg Mag’s mercy in conceiving, and to win for her child a soul most worthy. Is it true?
Will you show me?”
‘But we don’t think Mag’s power is there anymore,” Erith started to say, but Cornelia hurried on, her hope so desperate it would brook no counterargument.
‘It is my only hope, Erith. If I caught with child again… I just know Brutus would stay with me! When I was carrying Achates he kept me with him even though he hated me!”
‘I don’t think this would be the same—”
‘If Mag aided me to conceive, if she helped me to choose a bright soul for my daughter, then…
then…”
‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t aid you,” Loth said smoothly, ignoring Erith’s startled glance. “It just might work.”
LATER, WHEN CORNELIA HAD GONE, ERITH TURNED TO Loth with wide, questioning eyes.
‘She is naive, yes,” Loth said. “A bellyful of six squirming children is going to do nothing to break Genvissa’s hold over Brutus. But taking her to Mag’s spring… maybe we can learn more about how she can aid Mag. Whether Mag is there or not, Erith, those are magical waters. They might show us the’truth’
of Cornelia.”
Erith shrugged. “It won’t do any harm, I suppose,” she said.
Cb&PGGR coRnelia speaks *~ijWAS DESPERATE FOR BRUTUS, AND DESPERATE
FOR Ca child, a daughter . This desire was not only because I was sure that should I have a belly on me again then Brutus would be sure to abandon his questing after Genvissa, but because of my continuing dreams of the stone hall. Always, it seemed, my daughter was there, playing just beyond the field of my vision, her laughter like music. Always I was happy there.
I knew that this daughter was fated. When Coel had told me that Llangarlia had no great stone hall I’d been bewildered. Perhaps it had been but a dream, after all. But then, on that day I’d climbed Og’s Hill, and Brutus had put his arm about my waist and explained his plans, I’d known it to be no dream, but a truth.
The view from the top of Og’s Hill was exactly the view from the stone hall in my vision. It might not be built yet, but it would be soon, and then Brutus and I would reign from there, and watch our daughter play among the great hall’s shadowy aisles. Brutus had dreamed of this stone hall, too. He must have seen what I had. Once he knew I was with child again, and with a daughter, then he would forget Genvissa and whatever hold she had over him.
Then he would love me.
I also would have a baby to mother. Aethylla was increasingly becoming Achates’ mother. He cried whenever I lifted him from Aethylla’s arms, he yearned for Aethylla’s breast, he played in her lap, he slept
in her bed.
This time, I was going to have a child that loved me , not Aethylla and her damned milk-engorged breasts. This time, my breasts would feed my child.
No one would take this child from me.
I think that, in a tiny part of me somewhere, I thought that if I did lose Brutus, if he did leave me for that witch, then I would always have his daughter, I would always have a bond with him.
But, oh… Genvissa.
You’ve had a pair of legs that can be parted, you’ve a body that can be penetrated, but you’re not much else, are you?
Had she fed that particular bit of nastiness to Brutus as well? Had they laughed about it, laughed at me?
That evening, while Brutus was still occupied at the building site (and no doubt laughing with Genvissa over yet another of my failings), and Achates suckled contentedly at Aethylla’s breast, Erith took me to the Llandin spring.
IT WAS SO COLD MY NOSE FELT AS THOUGH IT HAD frozen and would drop away from my face at any moment, and I partly wished that I had not asked Erith to bring me.
But I was determined to conceive of a child that would bind Brutus to me; if this did not win him back to my side then nothing would.