‘You have done well,” she said. “You have pleased me. You took what you needed from Mesopotama.”
‘My people,” he said.
‘Yes,” she said, “your people are important, but the real importance of Mesopotama was the test.”
‘Of course,” he said, his mouth curving at the manner in which she toyed with words. “The Game.”
‘You played the Game with skill in Mesopotama. That was important to me. You needed to have passed.”
‘And if I did not?”
Artemis showed her teeth, but it was not a smile. “Then you would have O enjoyed this fine meal alone, Brutus, for I have no use for a man who cannot play the Game.”
He took a moment to control his breathing and calm himself, dampening an arousal that was composed of equal parts ambition and desire. He was to play the Game . And with this woman? “For Artemis, goddess of the hunt and the moon, and eternal virgin, you know a great deal about the Game.
Yet how can this be? The Game has no place for virgins.”
‘What say you? That I am not Artemis?”
‘I care not who you are,” he said softly, his eyes holding hers, “only that you can give me what you promised me. Only that you are all I need for the Game.”
She smiled appreciatively. “You are a demanding man, Brutus. Let me say only that I doubt you shall be disappointed. And now that you have convinced me that you are the man I need, let me show you where you shall resurrect your”— our—”Troy. It is a great land, a magical land. Look,” she said, and cast her hand in a sweeping arc over the depression filled with the goat’s sacrificial blood.
The blood bubbled, slowly, as if coming to a gentle boil. Artemis cast her hand over it once again, and the blood’s surface smoothed, then became opaque, and then, suddenly, became as startlingly clear as an open window on a summer’s day.
It showed a gray sea, rolling in great waves toward a land of towering white cliffs.
‘It lies far to the west,” Artemis said very softly. “Sail south to the Altars of the Philistines, then west, west, west until you pass through the Pillars of Hercules. Then tack northwest, following the coastline, gradually easing more north-northwest, and eventually you will find this land.”
She saw the lines of concern on his brow. “Your fleet will be god-favored, Brutus. The winds will follow you, and your oarsmen shall scarcely need to place hand to wood. The pirates and the sirens and the monsters of the deep will avert their faces, for they shall see on your sails my face, and know that you sail under my care. You will be safe and well.”
‘You bless me,” Brutus said.
‘I favor you,” she said brusquely. “If I blessed you then you would be immortal.”
‘Then I await with much anticipation your eventual blessing,” he murmured, and saw that she had to struggle to repress her laughter.
His mouth curved. Gods, they were going to be good for each other !
Once again her hand swung in an arc over the depression, and the view of the white cliffs disappeared, replaced by that of a misty landscape. The mist shifted and moved, like a cold gray ocean itself, and as it did so Brutus could G see glimpses of small rounded hills, and a great expanse of marshland and river.
‘The Veiled Hills,” Artemis said. “This is where you will rebuild Troy.”
‘What is this land? Its name? Its people? Its magic? And why is this place, these Veiled Hills, so good a site to rebuild Troy?”
‘The island is called Albion, and it is rich and bounteous and fair. Your people shall prosper there. The Veiled Hills lie in a river valley in a land called Llangarlia which occupies the south of the island of Albion.
Nestled atop the Veiled Hills, Troia Nova will be a city like none other the world shall ever know. It shall be most exalted, Brutus, and its tentacles of power and influence will spread over all the lands and seas of this world.”
Brutus could not drag his eyes from the vision set before him. Artemis’ words and prophecy whispered through him, became a part of him, but in this moment, all that mattered was this vision of the misty, veiled hills.
Unnoticed by Brutus, Artemis’ hand moved again, but only slightly this time.
Brutus drew in a sharp breath.
A woman walked out of the mist toward him.
She was tall, and more beautiful than he could possibly imagine. Her hair was blue-black, a heavy weight of tight-curled locks that cascaded down her back and lifted in the slight breeze that twisted the mist about her. Partway through her back tresses, twisting over her left shoulder, was a lock of russet hair that glinted in the light. Her skin was pale, her eyes the same deep blue as those of Artemis herself, her red lips slightly apart as if in anticipation. Beneath the loose woolen robe her figure was that of a mature woman who has birthed and fed several children; her gait was smooth and graceful, that of a priestess, moving to light the fires of an altar.
Her arms were bare, white, and well rounded, and Brutus drew in a deep breath at the thought of those arms wrapped about him, that body beneath him.
‘She pleases me well,” he said finally, very low.
‘I had hoped she would,” Artemis said, “for she is your destiny.” Not Cornelia, she thought. Not tfoat irritating girl-cfcild you took to your bed .
He dragged his gaze from the vision and looked at Artemis. “She has your eyes,” he said.
Artemis inclined her head, her expression saying nothing.
His eyes crinkled slightly. “She has your power.”
Again Artemis merely inclined her head, as if disinterested.
‘It is a long voyage to this Llangarlia,” he said. “What if I should forget what awaits me?”
‘Ensure that you don’t,” she said.
* * *
O ASTERION LAUGHED, AND THE KNIFE TWIRLED MADLY IN his hands. “One day,” he said, “you are going to wish you could do nothing but forget tfcat witcb.’ Once I have done with her she is going to murder both you and your dreams, Brutus, one way or the other .”
But that was years ahead. In the meantime, Asterion needed some fool he could use as his knife hand, as it were .
He also needed to watch carefully for the opportunity to position himself a little closer to the action, the better to take advantage of circumstances as they arose… as they were created.
Asterion ran a hand over his thin ribs, feeling the pitiful fluttering of his body’s weak heart. It would soon be time for him to rid himself of this fragile carcass and arrange something far more suitable.
He knew that his use of the power needed to do this would alert Genvissa, but she was lost in such delusion she would think it of no account.
GbRRUTUS AND MEMBRICUS SAT FACING EACH [ ‘””JH^ other on two of the benches for the oarsmen. They leaned their shoulders against the gently moving side of the ship, and passed between them a flask of wine.
For a very long while they did not talk.
It was late at night, the stars dazzling above them, and about them the huddled, sleeping bodies of the ship’s passengers and crew. Brutus had returned to the ship at dusk, half drunk from the wine he’d consumed with the goddess and with the vision she’d granted him. He’d nodded at the people who had pressed about him, and said to their queries that they needed to sail south. When they reached the Altars of the Philistines, and the Trojans could disembark from ship to sandy shore for several days of rest, then he would speak to the assembled whole, rather than shout pieces of information from ship to ship.
For this night they would rest at anchor within the bay of the island.
Tomorrow there would be a good northerly wind, Brutus had said, and they would set sail south.
Thus he had dismissed his people’s curiosity. When Cornelia had approached him, doubt in her eyes, her hands splayed across her belly as if to remind her husband of her value, Brutus had merely told her to rest in her cabin with Aethylla. He would sleep on the benches this night, and not disturb her with his tossings and turnings.
She had obviously not been pleased, nor reassured, but she had done as he asked with no protest, turning back to her cabin on the aft deck, taking Ae-thylla’s arm for balance.
Now, as the ship slept about them, and they finished one flask of wine and broached another, Brutus
finally spoke, his voice soft and intimate.
IG
Between swallows of the full-flavored and only slightly watered wine, he told Membricus all of what had passed in the glade, all of what Artemis had told and showed him.