Hades Daughter (66 page)

Cornelia stared at her, her face 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 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 around 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 apologise,
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 her 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, will 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 any more—” Erith started to say, but Cornelia hurried on, her hope so desperate it would brook no argument.

“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.

I
was desperate for Brutus, and desperate for a child, a
daughter.
This desire was not only because I was sure that should I have a belly on me again then Brutus would 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 told me that Llangarlia had no great stone hall I had 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, 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 a child that would bind Brutus to me; if this did not win him back to my side then nothing would.

I’d been here several weeks previously when Coel (careful never to touch me, not to push me) had taken me on a tour of the Veiled Hills. The hills made me feel much as I had at the first sight of Llangarlia: breathless, excited, overwhelmed and, strangely, loved. This land, and these sacred hills particularly, made me feel as I imagined it would feel to be held safe and warm in a mother’s arms.

The spring with its delightful charm had made me laugh—and Coel had then laughed to see my joy—and now I was happy to be coming back. To beg of its waters, and of this Mag, a daughter that I would love and who would love me and who would bind Brutus to me for ever and ever and ever.

When we arrived at the huge gnarled oak that guarded the approaches to the Llandin, I was annoyed to find Loth waiting for us. I shot him a dark look. No matter what he pleaded, I would not aid him, nor Erith either, if it meant antagonising Brutus.

“Cornelia,” said Erith’s gentle voice as we stopped at the edge of the steaming pool of water under the rocks from where the spring bubbled, “you will need to disrobe.”

I dropped my cloak and slid the robe over my shoulders. “What now?” I said, shivering in the cold air.

“When you enter the pool,” Loth said, “you will experience a vision. This will be your vision alone. Neither Erith nor I will see what you do. Whatever happens, Cornelia, you must endure by yourself. Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes. Please, what do I do?”

“I have told you of the Mag that Llangarlian women feel in their wombs,” Erith said to me.

“Yes, and Blangan spoke of it.”

“If you want Mag’s aid,” Erith said, “then you will need to feel the Mag within your womb.
Do
you feel Mag within your womb, Cornelia of Mesopotama?”

My eyes had strayed to Loth, and now I jerked them back to her, and I flushed a little. “Yes,” I said, spreading my hands over my belly. “Yes, I feel her.”

And indeed, I think that I did. There was a tingling deep within me, a warmth. It was nothing like the growing heat of sexual passion, but as if my womb contained a roughened ball slowly turning within its confines, rubbing against its walls.

A hand, perhaps, slowly turning deep within me.

I shuddered. “Yes, I feel her.”

As I was speaking Erith had crooked an eyebrow at Loth, but all she said to me was to walk to the pool and step in until the waters reached my waist.

I did as she said, sliding my feet one by one carefully into the water in case the footing was slippery, my arms now at my sides, outstretched for balance.

I shivered in delight at the warmth of the water and, as the footing proved soft but not uncertain, I moved easily into the centre of the pool, then turned and looked back at Erith and Loth, now both standing at the edge of the waters.

“Close your eyes,” said Loth, his voice very soft.

I did as he asked.

“Can you feel your womb?” said Erith.

I nodded.

“Can you imagine it squirming with child?” said Loth.

I smiled, and nodded. My belly felt suddenly full, distended, my womb stretched with the child it carried.

A girl, I could almost
see
her curled up within me, dreaming of the day when she would be born and free. Plump and healthy, with tight black curls plastered to her scalp by the waters that cushioned her and strong healthy limbs that she moved languidly about within my womb, pushing against its confines.

“Yes,” I whispered. “She is lovely…my daughter.”

“What would you like her to be?” said Erith. “What kind of woman do you want your daughter to grow to?”

I felt as if I would melt with happiness. “She will be strong and beautiful, and lucky in every way. She will choose her own path in life, spending all her days in love and laughter.” My hands were again wrapped about my belly, but where it had been only gently rounded when I had stepped into the waters, now it was huge, distended, roiling with the life it contained.

Loth said something, I could not catch the words, and then Erith repeated his words.

“Open your eyes, Cornelia,” Loth said, “but say and do nothing, whatever strangeness your eyes encounter.”

I did as he asked, then only barely managed to restrain my gasp, and to hold myself still in the waters.

A small woman stood in the water before me. Dark and fey, with very bright eyes, she was the woman I’d seen with Hera in the stone hall.

“Mag?” I whispered.

She lifted a hand from the water and placed it over one of mine on my belly.

“I can give you all you want in your daughter,” she said, “although it will do you no good now. It will be many years, Cornelia, before you hold your daughter in your arms. Many years and many tears…”

Her voice drifted off, and then the pressure of her hand on mine increased, and suddenly I saw a vision of such horror that I gasped.

Fire, so consuming that everything before it crumbled to ash.

Invaders, clay-daubed like those who attacked Brutus and his men on that night Achates was born, only infinitely more frightening, more murderous.

Fire and invaders, together, dropping from the sky, and a presence so evil behind them that I cried out, and tried to twist away from the woman’s hand.

“Cornelia, Cornelia,” she said, and I saw that she was crying, as if this vision terrified her as much as it did me. “Only you, Cornelia. Only
you,
Cornelia.”

“No!”

“Tread down the steps, Cornelia, through fire and death, into the darkness, into the heart, around and about, mouth to mouth, soul to soul, ‘mid deafening bells, through sirens’ call, ‘twixt thunderous roar and shattering wall. Face the evil, turn it about, dance with your lover,
and seal the gate
.”

There was a silence, reverberating with her frightful words.

“And then, Cornelia,” she whispered, and her other hand was at my cheek, wiping away the tears, “then you will have your daughter.”

“No,” I cried. “I want my daughter now. Now!”

“And surely you shall have her now, but never in your arms, never in your arms…”