‘Will you win us a land today, Brutus?” Hicetaon asked. Beside him lay Aethylla, who had quietly taken to sharing Hicetaon’s blankets on the final leg of the journey north. She had a baby to each of her breasts, and watched Brutus with wide, appreciative eyes.
‘This land is already ours,” Brutus said. “It is only that the Llangarlians have yet to realize it.”
Then, with a nod for Cornelia, Brutus grabbed his cloak and strode through the door.
COEL WAS WAITING OUTSIDE FOR HIM.
‘You think to dazzle the MagaLlan and Gormagog with that finery?” he said.
‘I merely think to show myself as I am,” Brutus said, making Coel bark with laughter.
‘You are a fine king, to be sure,” he said. “All a-glittering and a-gleaming.”
Brutus’ face stilled, then he pushed past Coel and mounted his horse.
COEL LED THE WAY ON HIS HORSE, GUIDING BRUTUS through Llanbank’s wide streets toward the ford on the Llan. The morning was sweet and soft, people only just stirring, and what noise and movement there was came from the waterbirds on the riverside marshes, rising to begin their day’s feasting amid the river’s bounty.
Coel led Brutus along a raised and well-graded trackway that wound through the wide mudflats and marshes abutting the river. There were deep ditches on either side to drain away the marsh water, and Brutus wondered at the effort that must have gone into constructing such a causeway.
After some minutes the causeway led to the river itself, and here Brutus could see that the work had continued into and across the river, for the ford was a wide-graveled path under water that would reach to a man’s knees.
‘We can only cross at low tide,” Coel explained as their horses splashed into the ford. “At high tide the Llan is the province of ships and fishes only.”
‘And when the river floods?” Brutus asked. Most of the surrounding land was so low that he imagined it was at severe risk of flooding.
In answer, Coel grimaced. “We pray to Mag and Og to keep the river peaceful,” he said.
‘And do they listen to your prayers?”
‘Some years,” Coel said, and pushed his horse forward so that further conversation was impossible.
Brutus turned his attention to the far bank of the Llan, still some distance away. He could clearly see Thorney Island, rosy in the dawn light. It sat squarely in the mouth of the River Ty that had to split into two in order to flow around the island and into the Llan.
Thorney Island was not particularly large, rising from its spot at the junction of the two rivers to a central mound some eighty paces high. Much of the island, particularly about its shoreline, was thick with thornbushes and beds of reeds, and Brutus grinned to himself as he imagined the first men who dared to climb the island trying to push their way through that natural barrier—no wonder the name.
The central mound, Tot Hill, was clear of any shrubs and trees, and it boasted a large rectangular stone building on its southern slope that looked over the river and ford. At the very summit stood what appeared to be either an altar or the base of a pyre… or perhaps both.
Brutus had caught up with Coel now, and he nodded at the buildings. “The MagaLlan and Gormagog live there?”
‘No,” said Coel. “They live elsewhere. This is merely where they have chosen to meet with you.”
‘But that building is very well constructed, and very large,” said Brutus. “It must be important.”
Coel sighed. “The island is used as a place of Assembly,” he said. “The building houses a great meeting chamber.”
Brutus nodded; this must be the Assembly House Coel had mentioned on their journey north. He assumed that he would met with the MagaLlan and the Gormagog in this building, but when Coel led the way from the river onto the island—fortunately through a path cut through the thornbushes and reeds—he bypassed the turnoff toward the great stone building, and instead rode for the very summit itself.
Coel pulled his horse to a halt some twenty paces from the top, then slid to the ground, indicating Brutus should do the same.
‘I will hold your horse,” he said to Brutus. “You are to go to the summit. Meet me below once you’re done.”
WHEN BRUTUS REACHED THE SUMMIT THERE WAS NO one nor thing there save the large raised platform of stone. He climbed onto “.he platform—the stones were creamy and pitted with age but still fitted together closely enough to form a completely flat surface—and looked about the surrounding countryside.
Llanbank spread out directly to his east across the river. Thick twists of smoke rose from the dwellings as fires were rekindled, children darted out from
doorways and between the legs of those adults already out and geese cackled and flapped their wings as they rose from their slumber and contemplated what mischief they might make during the day.
To the south, across the great bend in the river as the Llan turned westward, fields spread as far as Brutus could see. Along one droveway close to the Llan’s marshes a shepherd drove a flock of wiry pale brown sheep toward their morning’s grazing, a small black and tan dog barking at their heels.
To the west much of the same, marshes and fields, the riches of Llangarlia spreading on either side of the great silvery expanse of the Llan. Where the ford across the Llan joined the western riverbank of the Llan three roads forked out, each to their separate destinations. One wound to the north, one to the south, and one to the southwest.
Finally, Brutus turned to the north and northeast, the northern banks of the Llan, where stretched the Veiled Hills.
Nothing. Nothing save mist and mystery. Where the Llan was bathed in clear early morning light elsewhere, in its northern and northeastern reaches it was lost in dense, ivory fog.
‘The Veiled Hills,” said a voice behind Brutus, and he sprung about, angry that he’d been surprised.
‘And not for you. Not now,” the man finished. “Yet, even so, I welcome you to my land, Brutus, great-great-grandson of Aphrodite.”
‘You are the Gormagog,” Brutus said, staring unabashedly. “Aerne.”
‘Oh, aye, I am the Gormagog,” Aerne said, his mouth twisting at Brutus’ uncomfortably frank inspection.
Brutus was not in the least intimidated, and certainly not overawed, by the man standing before him.
The Gormagog was an old man who had, perhaps, once had a commanding presence, but who had lost that presence many, many years previously. He was tall, but stooped, his shoulders and back bowed, his limbs now almost too thin to be able to support the weight of his overheavy bones. His body, near naked save for a plain leather loin wrap, was thin and stringy, with the slack skin and the sagging belly of age.
Across his chest, still visible among the wrinkles and the sagging pouches of flesh, were the faint outlines of an ancient tattoo of a full spread of stag antlers.
His huge hands, hanging with a slight tremble at the end of arms, reminding Brutus of the spades that farmers used to clean out piss heaps and pigpens.
Overall, Aerne the Gormagog gave the impression of a man who may once have been powerful and impressive, but who was now a pitiful shadow of his former self.
He also carried about him the gray miasma of a man dying: it was discernible in the milkiness of his once hazel eyes, in the tremble of his gray lips, and in the rapid, shallow thudding of a weary heart pounding at the confines of his rib cage.
Brutus felt disgust rise in his gorge. This was a man who had raped his own daughter. “Where is Genvissa?” he said.
‘I am here to greet you, Brutus. Am I not enough?”
‘No, you are not. Your power is gone, you failed many years ago. Genvissa needs me to save this land. Why am I here talking to you?” He made a gesture of impatience. “By the gods, why is she toying with me like this? I must see her, speak with her. If she is not what ,’ need, and what the Game needs, then all this prattling is useless.”
‘Then we will cease with the useless prattling,” said a soft voice behind Brutus, “and speak of the you and I, Brutus.”
He turned about, taking deliberate ease in doing so, angry that she should have sent Aerne to waste time.
Standing several paces away from him on the platform was Artemis herself, draped in her hunting costume, her hunting bow over her shoulder.
‘Genvissa,” Brutus said, in a curiously flat voice.
Artemis laughed, soft and musical, and then she appeared to waver, as if a waterfall of light had cascaded over her, and then Artemis was gone, and standing in her place was the woman of Brutus’