Hades Daughter (42 page)

“Poor Cornelia,” Mag whispered to herself. “I am sorry to be the one to set you down such a path.”

There was a step from the far distance within the hall.

Mag raised her head. Her expression was calm.

Another step and then, in the shadows at the eastern end of the hall, a man stepped forward.

He was of a haunting dark beauty.

Asterion walked slowly. He had expected this invitation, but he kept an expression of mild surprise on his face, as if both circumstance and stone hall were curious to him.

The hall stank of the girl he had seen giving birth beneath the Poiteran’s sword. Cornelia. Asterion almost nodded to himself. Yes, Cornelia
was
going to be as useful as he had hoped.

He caught sight of the small, dark and undoubtedly fey woman standing by the labyrinth carved into the floor of the hall. He smiled, and stepped confidently towards her. He was not even going to have to work for Cornelia.

The poor innocent was about to be handed to him on a plate.

Mag watched him approach, watched him smile malevolently when he saw the word that was carved into the heart of the labyrinth.

“This is a place of great power,” he said, now standing at the edge of the labyrinth, opposite Mag. Very slowly he began to walk about the outer rim of the labyrinth, playing ignorance to perfection. “Who are you?”

“I am Mother Mag, the mother goddess of a realm called Llangarlia where Genvissa, fifth daughter-heir from Ariadne, now seeks to build this.” She nodded at the labyrinth.

“Why am I here?” Asterion said. He was three parts of the way about the labyrinth now, every step deliberate, his unblinking dark eyes never once leaving Mag.

“You are here so that I may offer an alliance,” Mag said.

“You know who I am?” He had almost reached Mag now.

“Yes.”

Suddenly he was upon her, and he allowed his heavy hand to fall on her shoulder.

She jumped under his touch.

“You are terrified,” he said, leaning down so he could whisper the words in her ear.

“I am filled with terror, yes, but I am not afraid of you.”

He drew in a sharp, affected breath, as if it were he who was afraid. “Have I met my match?”

She twisted away from his touch. “Do not make fun of me, Asterion. We both want the same thing, yet we are weak singly.”

Her face was averted from him, and she did not see the gleam of amusement in his eyes at her words.

“If we ally,” she continued, “then we will be powerful enough to stop Genvissa.”

“But why is it,” Asterion walked a few paces away, wagging a finger as if he deliberated a mighty problem in his mind, “that I feel that once
you
were allied with Ariadne?”

“I welcomed her into my land. I thought her magnificent. I thought she was what I had been seeking. But she betrayed me, and she betrays my land with her Game. If she constructs this Game you will be trapped forever and my land will be turned into a dustbowl. We were both once allied with Ariadne, Asterion. Once we both loved her. Now we suffer for it.”

He had turned back to her now, all affectation dropped. “And your proposal is…?”

She nodded about her at the stone hall. “That we use Cornelia to work our will for us.”

“The girl who just gave birth.”

“You know of her already?”

“Her screams drew my vision to the place where she gave birth. The land of the Poiterans. They shall prove useful, I think.”

“You will be reborn among the Poiterans?”

“They seem a kindly enough race for my liking.”

“It will take you years to act on your own.”

Of course, you stupid bitch,
Asterion thought, keeping his face neutral.
This will not ever be over with
a single sweep of the knife. What I plan is going to take far longer than just “years”.
“I know this.”

Again Asterion walked away, as if considering the matter. In truth, there wasn’t much to be considered at all. He needed a tool, a knife hand, and Cornelia would do as well as—
better than
—any other. It also did no harm to allow Mag to think that he was indeed weak, and that he needed this alliance as much as she did.

Asterion stopped, his back to Mag, allowing his triumph a momentary release across his face. He knew very well what Hera had told Mag, and what Mag now planned.

Fool! She had no idea of what power she was toying with.

“Very well!” he said, turning about on his heel. He offered Mag his hand, and she took it. “The bargain is made.” He grinned. “Shall we cement the bargain with the sweat of our bodies?”

“Don’t patronise me. Besides, you have no time. See? Goffar of the Poiterans is already arranging your rebirth.”

King Goffar of Poiteran, furious that his men had been driven back, stormed into his long house. He threw to one side his sword, and tore the cloak from his shoulders.

Beneath the cloak his body was naked, although glistening with sweat and the blue clay carefully daubed into intricate blue designs across his belly and thighs.

His wife came to meet him, concern in her eyes.

He hit her, his rage finding an acceptable outlet in the person of his long-suffering mate.

She fell to the floor, a shocked gasp escaping her lips.

Goffar leaned down, seized her by the hair, and, as she shrieked, dragged her to the bed pile by the fire.

In her bed Genvissa woke, wide-eyed and staring, her heart thudding.

She sat up, staring about her, but could not discern the reason for her fear.

Then, just as she’d convinced herself that it had been a mere nightmare, and she lay down to sleep once more, she realised what it was.

Asterion was no more. He was dead.

Genvissa drew a deep breath and held it. What did this mean? Should she fear?

What if Asterion was about to reincarnate again?

Then Genvissa smiled, and laughed softly.

And what if he did? Brutus would be here soon, and they would build the Game into its full power within six months, a year at the outside.

There was nothing a mewling babe could do about that. Nothing at all.

Genvissa slept.

The Narrow Seas

I
n the event, the crossing of the sea between the land of Poiteran, where Cornelia had given birth, and the island of Albion took two days. A stiff north-north-westerly wind had sprung up as they turned west, and, combined with a strong tide, the fleet was pushed a little further south and west than Brutus had originally wanted. Nevertheless, when one of Hicetaon’s men woke Brutus at dawn, Brutus knew why.

The fore-looker had sighted land.

Leaving Cornelia sleeping, the baby safely wrapped and held tight in her arms, Brutus threw on a tunic against the cool wind and hurried forward.

Hicetaon, a blood-stained bandage wrapped about his head where once his left ear had been, was standing by the stem post of the ship.

Before them, just visible in the dawn’s faint lightening, rose a line of green-swathed cliffs. In several places the face of the cliffs had crumbled, sending the trees and under-vegetation tumbling into the sea, and in these gashes white chalk glowed eerily.

Hicetaon nodded to the line of cliffs. “Is this it, Brutus? Is this what we’ve been sailing and fighting towards all these past months?”

Brutus stared at the coastline before them, a tight knot of excitement in his gut. “Aye. This is the island
of Albion, and here the realm of Llangarlia. I know it. I
feel
it.”

Hicetaon nodded, and Brutus suddenly noticed the shadows under his eyes, and the lines etched into his face. “You have not slept.”

“No. My head aches abominably, and the wound still drains.”

“The physician—”

“Has seen it, and mutters darkly about the blade that sliced into me.” Hicetaon stood straight, and shrugged. “It is a wound, no more, Brutus. I am fit enough to continue.”

“Have you sent a man to rouse Corineus?”

“Aye, and Deimas as well,” Hicetaon replied. He hesitated, his gaze returning to the cliffs. “I pray to all gods that be, Brutus, that this land finally brings the Trojans luck. That here, at last, we can rest in the favour of the gods.” He paused. “Surely…
surely
there can be no more ill luck left in this world that we have not already endured?”

Brutus shifted uneasily, his mind filled with the image of the Minotaur, Asterion, atop Cornelia’s body.

“We have left ill luck well behind us,” he said finally. “Of this I am certain.”

Within half an hour, just as the ships were turning into the wind to tack north along the coast, Corineus, Blangan, Deimas and Cornelia, who had insisted on joining them, stood with Brutus and Hicetaon on the small deck by the stem post. Cornelia walked carefully, her post-birth discomfort still obvious, but she looked healthy and her colour was good (and her eyes unusually bright as she stared at the distant coast); Aethylla had privately remarked to Brutus as she’d taken the infant Achates away for his morning feed that Cornelia was recovering well from the birth.

Blangan had caused a platter of fruits, bowls of maza and some well-watered wine to be brought to the group, and they sat cross-legged on the deck, sharing food, and watching the cliffs to the port bow of the ship. The ships were close enough to the cliffs that they could hear the sound of the surf breaking at their base, and see the shape of the trees and the richness and variety of the undergrowth.

“It is a good land,” Deimas noted, and none present could mistake the relief in his voice.

“It is so…green,” Cornelia said, and Brutus found himself agreeing with her. He’d rarely seen a land with such abundant vegetation—and the mere fact of that abundance augured well for their future life here. Game would abound, and the soil was obviously fertile beyond anything he could have imagined.

It would be a fine place in which to raise both flocks and children.

“Blangan,” Brutus said, laying aside his empty bowl and taking a fig from the platter, “is this Llangarlia? Is this your home?”

Blangan had hardly eaten since she’d joined the group at the stem post. Her eyes were weary, the grey shadows underneath suggesting she’d slept even less than Hicetaon, and her thin fingers toyed ceaselessly with the dangling tassel of her waistband.

She’d scarcely taken her eyes off the cliffs rising to their port.

“Blangan?” Brutus said again, after she’d failed to answer.

Corineus, sitting beside his wife, looked at her worriedly, and took one of her hands in his.

Her other hand jerked, suddenly bereft of its companion in fidgeting.

“Yes,” she said, very low, finally looking away from the cliffs and back to Brutus, “this is Llangarlia. But do
not call this my home. My true home I have left far behind me.”

Irritated, Brutus ignored the second part of her answer. “Do you know this coastline? How far does it stretch? How many people live along here? And is there a place where we may safely land, and continue in safety once we
are
on land?”

“So many questions,” Blangan said. Then she sighed. “The coastline of the south-eastern portion of Llangarlia is much like this for its entire length. It has many entrances to bays and rivers where you might land…but where we are exactly I cannot tell you. It has been so very many years since I was last here.”

“There is a great river to which we must travel,” said Brutus. “It is surrounded by marshland and is grouped about by low rounded hills—the Veiled Hills. It is there that we are bound. Are we close?”

“To the Veiled Hills?” Blangan responded. “No. We are far to the south. The wind,”
Genvissa,
she thought, wondering why Genvissa wanted them this far south, “has pushed us well away from the Veiled Hills.”

“How far?” Brutus said.

“The River Llan is much further to the north. Perhaps two or three days’ sail, or more if you must tack against this wind.”

“Thank you.” Brutus leaned back, suddenly realised he still held the fig in his hand, and took a bite out of it as he looked at the others. He thought for a moment, then spoke to Blangan again.

“Where is the main population of Llangarlia grouped? In these hills to our west, or in the lands about the Llan and the Veiled Hills?”

“In the lands about the Veiled Hills to the north,” Blangan said. “The land is far richer there—”

Richer than this?
thought every Trojan, as well as Cornelia.
Richer than this sweet land of rolling wooded hills?

“—and the climate milder. Also most people like to live not too far distant from the Veiled Hills, which is a place of great mystery and sacredness and…power.” She smiled a little, but it was sad. “We are a lazy people, and do not like to walk longer than two or three days to reach the site where most of our festivals are held.”

“Your advice,” Brutus said, now looking to the others. “Should we sail straight north for the Llan and the Veiled Hills, or look for a landing spot along this coastline?”

“We seek a landing spot as soon as possible,” said Hicetaon. “For two reasons. One, we need to replenish our fresh water and meat and, secondly, we are truly unsure of our reception among the Llangarlians. I, for one, do not fancy sailing directly into their lair around these Veiled Hills, even if we do number twelve thousand. But our numbers
will
serve us well this far south where the population is less, and likely to be scattered. An isolated village of thirty or forty people will give this fleet no problems. The larger and stronger communities to the north may.”

At that moment Aethylla returned with Achates and she handed him to Cornelia, who smiled and took her son eagerly.

“I admit myself intrigued by these Veiled Hills,” said Cornelia, cuddling her son close to her breast, “but I should be grateful to sleep on dry and firm land as soon as I might.” Then she added, “I want to see this land, my new home. Can we land now? Today?”

“There are many who would add their plea to that of Cornelia,” Deimas said. “Cornelia is not the only woman among us who has recently given birth, nor the only one who feels tired, dispirited or ill. The ships are crowded, the people are tired, and I think I speak for most when I say my desire is to land as soon as possible, and as safely as possible. If the risk to us is
less in these southern regions of Llangarlia, then I say we land here. Soon.”