Hades Daughter (48 page)

Indeed, I could feel it. Come to that, I could feel the power that was in him.

“If you allow me entry to your body, if you allow me to slide deep inside you in this pool, then it will not be a betrayal of your husband, but merely a prayer to Mag herself. A confirmation of your own womanhood and the power of your womb.”

I could feel his breath fanning over my face, feel his words—
a prayer to Mag herself
—vibrate through my body and touch something very deep inside me. Without thinking about it, without considering the consequences, I leaned forward, and let him kiss me.

And he kissed me as Brutus had never kissed me.

Oh, gods, his mouth tasted wonderful, his tongue as strong as his hands and as sweet as honey, and as he slid his hands behind my back and pressed my breasts against his chest I moaned, and gave myself up completely to the pressure of his mouth.

His hands, now on my hips, lifted me a little so that I floated up in the water, and then he brought them close to him, and my legs parted as if of their own accord, and wrapped themselves about his body and I felt the tip of his penis just, just
barely,
enter me.

I let my hips relax, and allowed him to thrust deep inside me.

Brutus’ voice sounded, a little closer.

I panicked, hardly believing I had allowed this to progress so far, and, pressing my hands against Coel’s chest, pushed him away with all my might, hating the feel of him leaving me, but knowing there was nothing else I could do.

Coel’s face was stunned, but it was not because of my abrupt rejection of him at a moment which would normally have driven any man into a grim, frustrated anger.

He stared at me, treading water a few paces distant. “By Mag and Og,” he whispered, “who are you, Cornelia? What was it that I felt just then?”

I clambered from the pool, drew on my filthy clothes directly over my dripping body, and ran back to camp and my husband.

When we sat down to our meal, Coel rejoined us and, as calm as if nothing had happened, I drank a little more liberally of the honey and meadowsweet wine than I usually did.

Later that night I found myself opposite the fire from Coel. Brutus was sitting next to me, and, the coldness of the night a suitable excuse, I pressed myself close to
him, and was rewarded with a smile and the pressure of his arm.

But I could not look away from Coel, nor forget the feel of his hands about my breasts or his tongue in my mouth.

I could see him through the flickering flames, see his eyes on me, and I remembered even more intimately how it had felt to have him kiss me in the pool, and how our bodies had felt so good together, how we had fitted together so perfectly…

I still couldn’t believe I’d let him do what he had. Hera, had Brutus discovered us…

He would have discarded me utterly. Then and there. A few choice, harsh words, some flung recriminations, and then he would have turned his back and walked away and I would have lost the chance forever to have him hold me, and love me, and place me by his side as his equal.

I would have lost Achates, for my son had no need for my body; Aethylla fed him, and would no doubt have been pleased to see Brutus discard me as a piece of whorish trash.

I would have lost it all. Brutus, his love and regard. My son.

All for a moment’s pleasure with Coel.

Perhaps I
was
nothing but a piece of whorish trash.

I snuggled closer to Brutus, but still I could not tear my eyes away from Coel. Suddenly the gloom of the night swept over me and that was not Coel sitting across the fire from me at all, but a strange, terrible man with a head so repulsive, so deformed, he could not possibly…he could not possibly…
I
could not possibly…his eyes burned into mine…and, oh, Hera—

Brutus spoke, and broke the spell, and I finally managed to wrench my eyes away from Coel.

That night, when we had all eaten and bedded down for the night, I turned to Brutus, and placed his hand on my breast. Surprised, both that I should want to make love so soon after childbed
and
that I should be the one wanting in the first instance, he nevertheless responded, and I know that our grunts and breathless, muffled cries must have entertained our huddled fireside companions.

It was uncomfortable at first, this lovemaking (even though those brief moments with Coel had held no discomfort at all), but I soon forgot my soreness, and gave myself entirely to the pleasure that Brutus offered.

At the last moment, when reason had all but deserted me, the fingers of my hands tangled themselves in Brutus’ wild hair. But they did not encounter his wiry curls, rather the soft velvet of antlers…

Or the hard rasp of a bull’s horns, perhaps. I was not sure.

I was very quiet in the morning, subdued, and I would not meet Coel’s eyes.

T
he group was quiet as they prepared to break camp and move out, and Brutus wondered whether it was because he and Cornelia had made love so conspicuously the night before, or if the dampness of the mist had laid its heavy pall over everyone’s spirits.

Brutus himself felt edgy, and irritated with that edginess. Cornelia’s responses last night had surprised him, yet they had also made him wonder. There had been something about their lovemaking…something he could not recognise.

Something unknowable, and somehow dark.

And Brutus had hardly failed to notice the intense looks passed between Coel and Cornelia as they’d sat about their hearth fire. They’d been
so
intense he’d spent part of the evening wondering if Coel had been the face on the man in his vision of the stone hall…

Well, if he was edgy, then Corineus was in a completely black mood. Brutus heard him snapping at Coel regarding the way the three Llangarlian men were ignoring Blangan. Coel just shrugged and walked away which made Corineus curse foully—something Brutus had never heard him do previously.

And why was Corineus in such a mood? Just for Blangan’s sake—or because Corineus was jealous of Brutus’ lovemaking with Cornelia last night…or even of Cornelia’s heated glances to Coel?

Ah! Brutus shook off his unease. No one could wake into this thick, clinging fog, knowing they would have to spend the day trudging their way through it, and remain cheerful.

“How long now?” Brutus asked Coel as he slung a cloak across his shoulders, drawing it tight about his neck against the water droplets in the air. Behind him his horse snorted, then shivered, and Brutus felt it shift closer to him.

“Until we reach the Veiled Hills?” Coel asked, and Brutus nodded.

“Another seven days’ ride,” Coel said, then glanced at Jago and Bladud, standing silently by their horses’ heads, and then to Blangan who already sat her horse a little distance away.

Coel looked back to Brutus, then suddenly bent and scooped a small amount of loamy earth in his hand. “But in a sense, Brutus, we are here already.”

Brutus frowned.

“We are now within the circle of the hills’ influence,” Coel said, a strange half smile playing about his lips. “This land, this soil, is a part of the Veiled Hills. Feel the throb of the hills, albeit soft at this distance.”

Cornelia had now come to stand at Brutus’ shoulder, leaning against him as did his horse, seeking either warmth or reassurance. He hesitated slightly, seeing another glance pass between Cornelia and Coel, then slid a possessive arm under her cloak and about her waist, pulling her very close.

“This land is like a body,” Coel said, his eyes now resting on Cornelia, and Brutus felt her shiver under his arm, “and the Veiled Hills its sacred heart. At a vast distance you cannot even feel the beat of that heart, but here, closer, we can feel its throb. All of us.” Now Coel’s eyes slid to Blangan, who looked quickly away.

“This is all very well,” said Aethylla, who was sitting her own horse on the other side of Blangan, and so thickly wrapped with blankets about her and the two babies she had slung across her back that she looked like a grey tree stump tied to her horse’s back, “but I am cold, whatever heartbeat
you
feel. I would prefer moving to this standing about talking of throbbing dirt. Perhaps we can stay the night in a village for a change. My cold bones fancy a hospitable house with a broad and well-lit hearth.”

Brutus laughed, gave Cornelia’s waist one last squeeze, and the group mounted and set off.

The fog lifted as they progressed, and by mid-morning Coel had led them on to a well-travelled trackway that wound north-easterly. Their way was easier going here, the road packed gravel, and the horses picked up both their ears and their stride as if they, too, sensed that heartbeat Coel had talked about. The land continued green and verdant, wildflowers spread in great blossoming drifts up the sides of the low hills. Here and there Brutus could see thin trails of smoke in the air, and knew that within the hills lay villages or scattered farming communities.

Just before midday, as the weak sun had finally managed to warm both riders and horses, they rode about the curve of a small hill. Before them the land flattened out a little, although it once again rose towards a mound some hundred paces distant.

A family group of aurochs—a bull, five or six cows and their young—grazed on the mound’s slopes, but even the sight of these huge black and tan, horned creatures could not distract the group’s eyes from what sat on the summit of the mound.

A circle of grey stones, twice the height of a man, and capped by lintel stones about the entire circle. On the eastern side of the mound there was an avenue of
small standing and lintel stones that led into the stone circle.

Behind him, Brutus thought he heard Blangan murmur something—a prayer, perhaps.

He was about to turn to her when Coel spoke. “Behold,” he said, and indicated the mound. “That mound and its stones is a deeply sacred place.”

“How so?” said Brutus, forgetting Blangan.

“These circles of stones are called Stone Dances,” said Coel, but, before he could add any more, Cornelia spoke.

“They are places deeply sacred to women.”

Everyone twisted about on their horses to look at her, their expressions ranging from puzzled to stunned.

“How did you know that, Cornelia?” said Coel.

She had her hand resting lightly on her own belly, and she dropped it away under Coel’s intent gaze.

“It is obvious,” she said. “Look, that avenue of stones leading into the circle—it depicts a woman’s birth canal leading into her womb.”

Coel nodded, more intrigued with her than ever. He felt Brutus’ eyes on him, and let his own gaze drift away from Cornelia and back to her husband. “The Stone Dances have been used for hundreds of generations as potent places for fertility rites,” he said.

“It is where the stag comes to mate,” Blangan said, making everyone look at her as they had previously looked at Cornelia. This time the looks ranged from the interested to the coldly antagonistic.

She ignored most of them, and smiled at Cornelia. “It is a shame, perhaps, that you will not witness any of these rituals.”

“The Stone Dances are rarely used?” Brutus said, trying to deflect some of Coel’s and his two companions’ hostility away from Blangan. From what Brutus could see of the circle of stones, the Stone Dance, it was not only well built, but an imposing site
that dominated the entire surrounding landscape. He could imagine people, many thousands of people, perhaps with torches in the deep mystery of the night, moving up the hill towards the Stone Dance, and a shiver ran up his spine at the image.

“There are certain ceremonies that are still held within the Stone Dances,” Coel said, “and people who live close by them continue to use them throughout the year. But the most sacred of our ceremonies, our most sincere rites to Og and Mag, are now conducted within the Veiled Hills.”

Then Cornelia spoke again, and what she said sent a jolt of fear deep into Brutus’ belly.

“Is that where the stone hall is?” she said to Coel.

He frowned. “The stone hall?”

“A hall built of stone, ten times the height of the stones in the Dance beyond, great arches for walls, and a domed golden roof. Is it in these Veiled Hills?”

Brutus’ mouth thinned at the eagerness in her voice.

“We have no such hall,” Coel said, his voice soft and puzzled. “There is an Assembly House made of stone, but it is not so large as you describe, and has no arches, nor a golden domed roof.”

Brutus let out a soft breath, allowing himself to relax. It was just a dream, nothing more, and perhaps merely something he’d caught from Cornelia because of their proximity in bed. It didn’t exist.

“Cornelia,” he said, “do not trouble Coel with your childish fancies. We have better things to do than listen to your dreams.”

“I never tire of listening to dreams,” Coel said softly, looking Brutus in the eye. “I find they add beauty to what is otherwise unbearable.”

It was Brutus who looked away first.

For two more days they travelled, passing several more Stone Dances on their way, and on the third day they
came in the evening to a village that rested some five hundred paces away from the largest and most imposing of the Stone Dances they had yet encountered.

Looking at it, Blangan lost what little colour remained in her face.

She knew why they’d come here.

T
his time the village headwoman—the Mother of this particular clan—agreed to Coel’s request that he and his companions might stay in her village for the night. The Mother’s name was Ecub, a woman in her late middle age, her face worn, her body slightly stooped with the hardness of her life, and with a flintiness in her sharp brown eyes that made it difficult to believe she could ever unbend enough to love.

She greeted the group politely, moving from one to the other, taking each person’s hands in hers and briefly laying her cheek to theirs. She had greeted Coel first, her hands squeezing his slightly harder than they squeezed anyone else’s, then moved to Brutus, whom she studied with marked speculation, then Cornelia, who caused her a puzzled frown.