Brutus ignored me, and although I expected it, I could hardly bear his pointed dismissal. I rebuked myself yet again for being so stupid in destroying that fragile harmony that had grown between us since Achates’ birth… right at the point where Brutus’ dream woman had become a living, breathing reality.
Hera! I doubted she would be so stupid as to alienate Brutus with ill-considered stupidities!
Later, when we’d retired to our beds, Brutus turned to me as we settled down, and I tensed, hardly believing he could be this kind, after all.
But he just stared at me—I could see the flat, irritated gleam of his eyes in the light of the oil lamp left burning by the door—and then turned away, rolling over to sleep with a disinterested grunt.
Unsurprised, hurt beyond knowing, I eventually managed to slide into sleep myself.
I WOKE VERY LATE IN THE NIGHT, SUDDENLY REALIZING there was someone standing by our bed.
‘Shush,” said a woman’s voice, and I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the dim light cast by the glowing coals in the hearth.
A woman stood by our bed, black-haired and beautiful, and I gasped, suddenly knowing who she must be.
Genvissa, the MagaLlan, she who wanted me gone from Brutus’ side and of whom Brutus dreamed.
But I also recognized her. This was the “goddess” who had come to me and pushed me into
precipitating the Mesopotamian rebellion!
That was no goddess appearing to you, but the greatest ofDarkwitches! Blangan had said.
‘Go back to sleep, girl,” the Darkwitch said, and her voice was an ice field. “I have come only for your husband.”
Brutus was awake now, and he sat up in our bed.
‘Genvissa,” he said, and his voice was a seething, vast hunger.
sevejM talfe| ENVISSADREW BACK FROM THE BED, ALLOWING Brutus space to stand and dress himself. She drew her cloak tighter about her, the cold of the autumn night biting deep, and saw that Brutus’ child-wife stared at her with wide, apprehensive eyes.
Her distress pleased Genvissa. Gods, she could not understand what Brutus saw in her! She was so young, and unbelievably irritating in that youth. She was cringing back in the bed like a baby who didn’t know whether to sulk or weep in fright, and Genvissa could not for an instant imagine how Brutus had roused himself enough to get a child off her.
Well, son or not, Cornelia would never hold Brutus.
Genvissa lowered her lids and sent ill will coursing Cornelia’s way, wishing that Brutus had knocked the life out of her when he’d discovered she’d kept secrets about Siangan’s death.
And what was the girl doing there in the first instance?
Cornelia was still regarding Genvissa with those huge childlike eyes, and Genvissa felt a moment of doubt, almost of trepidation. She shivered. Damn this girl .
‘Why are you here so early?” Brutus said, finally slipping on his shoes and reaching for his cloak.
Genvissa gave Cornelia one final, baleful glare, then searched out Brutus’ eyes in the gloom. “We have a long way to go before dawn,” she said, then brushed past him and left the house.
Brutus saw Hicetaon sitting up in his bed, Aethylla looking over his shoulder with nervous eyes.
He nodded at Hicetaon, then he, too, left the house.
There was a silence, then Hicetaon sighed and snuggled down, pulling Aethylla down with him.
Across the chamber, in the sleeping bay Brutus had left, Cornelia curled into a ball and wept silently.
WHEN BRUTUS EMERGED FROM THE HOUSE HE SAW that Genvissa sat on a horse several paces away.
She reached behind her and patted the horse’s rump. “Come.”
He looked at her face, then smiled and vaulted onto its back behind Gen vissa.
It shifted, not liking the double weight, and Brutus needed no more excuse than that to grab at
Genvissa’s waist to steady himself.
Her flesh was firm underneath the layers of material, and the shifting of her body with the movement of the horse made the breath catch in his throat.
He dropped his hands to his thighs, rebalancing himself, and he thought he saw her smile as her face turned slightly toward him.
‘Steady?” she said.
‘Yes,” he replied, roughly.
She took the halter rope of the horse in her right hand, gripping its shaggy mane in her left, and touched her heels to its flanks, guiding it toward the ford over the Llan at Thorney Isle.
‘We go to the Veiled Hills?” Brutus said.
Again she shifted slightly so that her face was half turned to him. “Indeed. I want to show you where we shall rebuild Troy.”
She turned even more, and Brutus’ body tightened as her body moved against his. “I want to show you,” she said, “where we will play the Game.”
He wanted to kiss her then, very hard, and he thought he would have done save that she turned back to the front, and he was left with nothing but the flowing blackness of her hair, and the scent of her warm flesh rising through her cloak.
He lifted his hands, hesitated, then rested them lightly on her hips.
She did not react, but neither did she object.
Thus they rode, swaying in harmony with the horse’s movements, their bodies lightly touching with every jolt, both thinking of the Game, and of the power and the dance they would make together.
GENVISSA GUIDED THE HORSE ACROSS THE FORD, THEN stopped at the base of Tot Hill on Thorney Isle.
‘Within the circle of a day’s ride,” she said softly, “there are many holy hills and mounds. But there is a gathering of six of them, the most sacred of all, and it is these six which form the Veiled Hills. This”—she nodded at Tot Hill looming dark above them—”is the first of them. It guards this ford, and the roads that converge at this point from all corners of Llangarlia. It forms one point in the circle of light we make during our most important yearly rituals, and is also the Assembly hill, where the Mothers of all Houses meet once every year at the time of the Slaughter Festival to settle disputes and discuss those issues needed to keep our society living in harmony. This year, this Assembly, I will talk to the Mothers of you, and of the Game.”
” Will they agree?” said Brutus softly into her hair. “And when? How long must we wait for this approval?”
He felt rather than saw her smile. “The Slaughter Festival is in a week’s time, Brutus. I will talk with the Mothers then. And yes, I will give them no choice.”
‘How can you be sure, Genvissa?”
‘Aerne is dying, Brutus. You saw this, surely.”
‘Yes.”
‘And his god Og is dead. The Mothers will have no alternative but to accept you. They need you, and me, and the Game, if this land is to survive.”
‘Og is dead?”
‘Aye.” She shrugged. “He had been dying a long time. Now shush,” she said, and he felt her body move under his hands, “and still your worries. They can wait until we reach our destination. It won’t be long. Wait.”
She urged the horse forward, and Brutus leaned in against her back, feeling her warmth, and put his concerns away as he enjoyed the swaying of her body.
They skirted the shoreline of Thorney Isle, moving about its southern aspect, then turned north to cross another, and much shallower ford, through the northern arm of the Ty River.
North of the Ty stretched extensive marshlands, but there was a raised road that wound through them, its perimeters clearly marked with pale stone. Genvissa pushed the horse into a trot.
‘This is one of the roads that lead into the central heartlands of the island,” she said. “Within three days’ ride it leaves Llangarlia, entering the wild tribal areas of the central and western regions of Albion.”
‘It is a well-constructed road,” Brutus said, meaning the compliment. He’d rarely seen a road so well graded, graveled, and clearly marked. “And it leads straight into wild tribal lands?” He chuckled softly.
“No wonder you think Llangarlia needs the protection of the Game.”
‘In our defense,” Genvissa said, “the central and western regions of Albion were not always as wild as they are now. Once they were stable, gentle farming communities, as we are, and the road was needed to trade with them. But over the past two generations dark tribes from the wild island to the west have overrun much of Albion, and now threaten us.”
They rode a farther distance in silence, Genvissa eventually turning the horse northeast off the main road as it left the marshes. The ground very gradually began to rise.
Once they were on the trackway leading northeast, Genvissa dropped the halter rope of the horse, allowing it to continue forward unguided. “She knows her way now,” she said, and pointed ahead.