Hades Daughter (71 page)

“I? The monster? Aye, I suppose I was.”

There was a silence, Herne studying Skelton, Skelton staring at the floor.

“Is the way open?” Skelton finally said, raising his head.

Herne nodded. “It will be difficult, but there is a way down.”

Skelton sighed, and looked about the cathedral. “Does no one know what lies beneath, Herne? Do they come in here every day, and worship, and not know?”

“They are not part of the Game, Skelton.”

Skelton’s mouth twisted. “No, they are merely its victims.” He paused. “Asterion is going to take us out this time, my friend, and I do not think there is anything any of us can do to stop him.”

“
T
hus is born Troia Nova,” screamed a voice, “and the greatest Kingman among the living.”

Stunned even beyond what had shocked me during the Dance, I cried out, and jumped to one side.

It was Hicetaon, only half a pace from me, his voice thunderous.

He strode forward, his arms held high above his head, his fists punching into the night sky.

“Thus is born Troia Nova!” he screamed again, circling atop the hill, dancers scattering about him, laughing and jumping, their torches thrust as high as his fists. “Thus is born Troia Nova and the greatest Kingman among the living!”

I was still shocked, too shocked to move, even as the celebrations erupted about me. The people who had been watching from the ground below now swarmed up the hill; fires roared into life from hitherto cold pyres; voices lifted in song and triumph; people danced, bodies pressing each against the other; flasks of frenzy wine—by the strange glazed eyes and the slack wet mouths of those who drank of it—were handed about; clothes were stripped off and flesh left to glint naked in the flickering light of fire and torch.

I stood there, unmoving, hardly seeing.

All I could remember was the stunning sight of Brutus and Genvissa dancing at the head of the lines
of dancers, the power of their movement, the way they had danced together, wove enchantment together.

Wedded together in such power that I had become nothing more than an irritating insignificance.

And where were they now?

I spun about, half moving of my own volition, half being pushed by a group of dancers who had staggered against me.

Where were they now?

What were they doing?

Ah, but I knew what they were doing, didn’t I? They were consummating their marriage of power, this Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth. And with each thrust, with each moan, with each grasping clutch, I was becoming an ever greater triviality in Brutus’ life.

A nothing.

An insignificance.

Not even a body with legs to be parted. Not now.

I sobbed, consumed with panic.

Where were they? Where were they?

If I could stop them somehow, if I could take this one, final chance to tear Brutus away from Genvissa…if…if…if…

I turned about again, knowing where they would be, seeking a way down from this damned hill. But just as I took a step forwards, Loth grabbed at my arm and spun me about.

His face was twisted, furious, his green eyes dark and glassy, reflecting the writhing light of the fires and the dancing bodies about us.

“What have they done?” he hissed.

“They have destroyed my life,” I cried, trying to twist my arm free. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“Damn your precious life and your little-girl dreams. They are as
nothing
in the enormity of what they have visited on this land. They have crippled Og, and
devastated Mag. Doomed us with that creeping evil they have invited into our midst.”

His free hand waved at the labyrinth, now lost under the sea of undulating bodies and wild, drunken laughter.

“They have saved you,” said Hicetaon, emerging out of the chaos about us. “Trapped evil forever so that this city will grow in peace and prosperity. Could
you
do that for your land and your people, useless lumphead?”

My mouth dropped open, then my eyes flew back to Loth. Useless
lumphead
?

He was staring at Hicetaon himself, shaken not so much by what Hicetaon had said, but by the utter contempt in which it had been mouthed.

His hand loosened about my arm, and I tore it free, and without even waiting to see what transpired between the two men, I turned and fled.

I ran as quickly as I dared down the hill, pushing my way through the throngs of celebrating people. There were Trojans and Llangarlians both, intermixed with happiness and relief—

Genvissa and Brutus had saved them, and woven for them safety and prosperity with the power of their combined magic.

—   dancing and singing, sharing from mouth to straining mouth the flasks of frenzy wine—

Gods, what would happen this night? What darkness would transpire?

—  bodies pressed undulating with dance and want against their neighbours.

Everywhere happiness. Everywhere lust. Everywhere the release that came with the sudden realisation that darkness had been vanquished and only days of light and good harvest lay ahead.

Sudden nausea gripped me, and I bent over and retched.

Someone grabbed me, and for a heartbeat I thought it was to help, but then hands snatched at my breasts, and wine-thick breath washed over my face.

Another hand burrowed under my cloak, and dug in between my legs.

I threw my arms out, catching one man with my elbow in a sickening crunch, another in the corner of an eye with the nail of my thumb.

They let me go, and I fled, now not even trying to measure my progress, desperate to get out of the crowds and to find…

Them.

I reached the bottom of the hill, and moved eastwards, the crowds thankfully thinning the further I moved away from the revelry atop Og’s Hill.

By the time I’d splashed across the Wal and passed Mag’s Hill, barren save for five people dancing in a ring at its base, there were few people about, and I could lift my skirts and run as fast as my breath would allow me.

The White Mount. Brutus’ palace (
not
my
palace
).

They would be there. Genvissa would
ensure
they were there, because that would make my humiliation complete.

I reached the mount, paused, then stared upwards to the black bulk of the unlit palace, felt my stomach turn over in my belly, then, very slowly, infinitely slowly, began to climb.

The mount was still a building site—only the central portion of the palace had been completed—and once near the top I had to pick my way carefully about stacks of timber, empty mortar pails, and jumbled, careless stone blocks awaiting the attention of masons.

Every step was a nightmare.

Every step was a step too late.

Every step was another thrust against me.

And with every step I reviewed in my mind, in that peculiar clarity that comes with either death or the death of hope, every step in the path I’d taken to losing Brutus. Every whine, every moan, every treachery, whether small or immense, every death that littered my obsessive self-absorption.

When I reached the doorway of the megaron, standing open, I stopped, closed my eyes briefly in an attempt to gather my courage, then walked through.

The megaron was empty, but there was a flicker of light at its far end, in the archway that led to Brutus’ private apartments.

I walked slowly through the megaron, remembering that other megaron where Brutus had made me his wife, and wondered if I now walked through this one to the death of that marriage.

I paused again at the archway, then walked through.

They were lying in a pool of torchlight in a tangle of furs on the floor.

Genvissa, naked, on her back, her body sprawled beneath Brutus.

He, lifting himself first up on his hands, then away from her body, kneeling upright between her bent legs, his still rigid member glistening with the fluids of their lovemaking, smiling at her.

She, her hands splaying across her belly, saying: We
have made a daughter between us, Brutus. A daughter-heir.

He, leaning down to kiss her, saying:
You have blessed me.

Her daughter was a
blessing,
when all he could summon for the daughter
we
had made together was
irritation?

I wanted to kill them then, the both of them, but I did not know how. I had no weapon to hand, no knife, not even a rock with which to beat them.

Genvissa saw me, and she whispered something to Brutus. He looked at her, then laughed.

He laughed.

I threw myself at him, screaming, terrified, knowing I had lost him, tearing at his face with my nails, trying to kick him with my heels, succeeding only in further humiliating myself as he caught my arms easily and threw me away.

“Cornelia,” he said. “Go away. This does not concern you, and this is not your place.”

“No,” I screamed, stabbing a finger at Genvissa. “
That
is my place! There, beneath you!”

Genvissa laughed, tilting her head back, the sound rich and husky in her throat. She was not in the least perturbed having me find her naked under my husband’s body.

My husband? Or hers now?

“Go away, Cornelia,” Brutus said, more gently now, and there was in his eyes something even more humiliating than his anger.

Pity. He pitied me.

Poor Cornelia, too young, too girlish to understand.

I stepped forward, leaned down, and hit him as hard as I could.

Then, sobbing and wretched, I turned and fled.

Genvissa sighed, as if in pity. She lifted a hand, and touched Brutus’ cheek where Cornelia’s hand had slapped him.

“Poor girl,” she said.

“I should go to her,” he said.

“Yes, but wait a moment, wait a while…wait a while.”

She pulled him back to her body, and kissed him, and roused him to lust once more, and pulled him back into the deep warmth of her body.

She needed to give Cornelia just the right amount
of time to damn herself, then she would send Brutus after her.

To kill her, the silly, irritating, useless, dangerous girl.

Whom Brutus thought of too often…

Brutus thrust inside her, and Genvissa tilted back her lovely head and laughed once more for the joy and success she had already made here this night, and all that was yet to come.

I
knew
what I would find. I
knew
Brutus would take Genvissa as a lover.

I knew that after all I had done, every mistake I had made, Brutus had little respect for me.

And none of it made any difference to how I felt. The
knowing
never takes away the pain.

I stumbled away from that palace, my eyes blinded by grief and pain, and I somehow made my way to the ferry crossing and from there through the Trojan settlement and Llanbank towards my house.

At least I could have Achates to comfort me. I didn’t care if he was asleep, or if Aethylla growled at me, I just needed my son in my arms. I just needed to know that
someone
loved me.

Thus it was that when I entered the house, wiping the tears from my face lest they scare my son, and found it completely empty, my world collapsed entirely.

I stopped by the central hearth: there was a single lamp left burning, enough light for me to see that all Aethylla’s and Hicetaon’s belongings were gone.

Achates, and all his baby paraphernalia, were gone.

All Brutus’ clothes and gear were gone.

Everything of mine remained.

I started to tremble, my mind accepting what my eyes told it, yet
not
accepting the actuality of it.

Everyone had moved out, leaving me behind.

I sank to my haunches, my hands trembling so badly I had difficulty in lifting them to my face.

There could be only one reason for this:
they had moved to the palace.

There could be only one person behind this:
Genvissa.

My shoulders began to shake in sympathy with my hands, but my throat was so tight I could not manage a sound. I hunched by the fire, my hands to my face, my entire body shaking, staring at Aethylla’s empty sleeping niche, unable to accept how splendidly, how bitterly splendidly, Genvissa had outmanoeuvred me.

She had everything of mine: my husband, my son, my place as queen.

Everything.

“Cornelia? Ah, Cornelia, I am sorry. I had thought to be here before you.”

I rose, but slipped over in the doing, sprawling inelegantly to the floor.

It was Coel, reaching down to me, murmuring soothing words, wrapping me in his arms, rocking me to and fro.

“You knew?” I managed.

“I saw Hicetaon come for Aethylla and the babies,” he said. “I knew then. I wanted to be here for you when you returned. I am so sorry. I came as quickly as I could.”

I clung to him, my weeping increasing, and Coel rocked me back and forth.

“Cornelia,” he whispered, “don’t cry, please don’t cry.”

I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. My nose was running, my eyes were so swollen with tears I could hardly see out of them, and my chest kept racking out sobs from so deep within me I thought I might actually bring up my stomach with the strength of them.

“Cornelia,” Coel said, running one hand through my hair and using the other to wipe my nose with a corner
of his cloak, “don’t cry, please. You are so beautiful, so lovely, I can’t bear to see you so unhappy.”

My only answer was yet another sob.

He gathered me to him, holding me close, then swore softly under his breath, tipped back my face, and stifled my sobs with his mouth.

It was as though we were back in that rock pool, yet this time he was not offering me sheer physical pleasure, but a depth of comfort and loving I had always yearned for, but never found.