Hades Daughter (28 page)

He hiccupped, now far more than half drunk, and grinned at the memory of his day. Then he leaned forward, partly to pass the flask to Membricus, partly to lay a hand on Membricus’ warm thigh. “She showed me a beautiful woman in this land, my friend. Very, very beautiful. Breasts like globes, legs begging to be parted, a belly just waiting to be filled.”

Membricus grunted, unimpressed, and brushed away Brutus’ hand. “You sound like nothing more than a bragging youth, Brutus. A fit mate for Cornelia, I must say.”

Angry, Brutus grabbed the flask back from Membricus—who still hadn’t drunk of it—then leaned back, taking a massive swallow of the wine. “You’re jealous, Membricus. You’d rather I stuck my thing in you than in a woman.”

Membricus flushed. “No!”

One of the men rolled in a blanket nearby half rose, and mumbled a curse at him, and Membricus continued in a softer voice.

“No, Brutus, although you know how greatly I treasure my memories of those days when you desired me.”

Brutus snorted. “
I
desired
you?
You were the one to come creeping into my bed when I was but thirteen, if I remember aright. All sweet whispers and warm hands.”

“And you as receptive as any virgin grateful to lose his untouched state.”

Brutus put down the flask of wine, his drunkenness sloughing off him like an unwanted cloak. “What is it, Membricus?” he said softly. “What troubles you, truly?”

Membricus took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and calmed himself. “Artemis,” he said, opening his eyes to Brutus’ regard. “She has troubled me since she first graced you with her presence.”

Brutus made an impatient gesture, as if he still thought this part of Membricus’ jealousy.

“No, Brutus, hear me out. I say again, as I have said previously, that I cannot understand how Artemis has suddenly so much power, so much vitality, when for generations our gods have faded in power and influence. I cannot think her who she truly says she—”

“If she gives me all that she has promised me, then she is enough for me, Membricus.” Brutus picked up the wine and swallowed another long draught.

Membricus watched him in silence for a long moment. “Who is she, Brutus?”

“All that I need.”

Membricus repressed a sigh, deeply unhappy that Brutus did not seem to care that Artemis might not truly be the goddess at all.
I pray to whatever gods are left,
he thought, keeping his facial expression neutral,
that Brutus knows what he is doing and that he is not allowing his ambition and his pride and his damned lust to do all the thinking for him.

“There is more,” he said softly.

“And why am I not surprised to hear that?” Brutus said.

“Brutus, you recognise my ability as a seer, if nothing else.” He paused. “Yes?”

Brutus nodded, the movement ungracious.

“Then listen to me now. I keep seeing a knife, a dark, dangerous thing with a haft of twisted horn, as if two horns were entwined. I see blood. I see the death of dreams. I see Cornelia.”

Brutus gave an exaggerated groan, and rubbed at his eyes wearily with one hand. “She does not have a twisted-horn handled knife secreted anywhere about her person, Membricus.”

“She will be your death. She will be everyone’s death.”

“She has failed most miserably at being ‘everyone’s death’. She’s effectively harmless, Membricus.”

“No woman is ever harmless!”

Brutus shot Membricus a black look. “Is any of this true seer prophecy, or just your usual malice regarding women? You hate them all for the ability to draw men to their beds like bees to a honey pot. Membricus, I am tired of your prating about the treacheries of women. And a knife, for the gods’ sakes, even one with a twisted-horn handle! Can you not come up with something more dramatic? More compelling? Ah! This has nothing to do with Artemis or prophecy or vague threats of darkness and death. This is just about you and me, Membricus, and I am most
heartily
sick of it.”

“This has nothing to do with women, Brutus. It has everything to do with my abilities as a seer, with my position at your side as an adviser, and as your
friend,
Brutus. Not your once-and-forever-jealous lover, but as your friend, who cares for you.”

Brutus sighed, then leaned an arm across the railing of the ship, gazing across the water to where the rest of the fleet lay at anchor. He sat there a long while, then, finally, he rose and handed the flask of wine to Membricus.

“How can you question what we do,” Brutus said, “and where we go? Do you want to spend another
fifteen years wandering purposeless? Another fifteen years living from hand to mouth with no pride? No, of course not. Now, perhaps I
will
cast Aethylla from her place at Cornelia’s side and rest there myself.”

And with that he was off, stepping between the sleepers towards the aft deck.

Membricus lowered his head into his hands, wondering how he could have allowed his warning to be so misinterpreted. These two women, Cornelia and ‘Artemis’, had both trapped Brutus, each in their own, different ways.

After a while he lifted the flask of wine to his mouth, and drank of it deeply.

He did not sleep all night.

G
envissa was delighted at how well Brutus had received and honoured her, but her mind was increasingly consumed with Mag’s vexatious disappearance. Mag was an irritating loose end when Genvissa wanted no loose ends at all.

Mag should not have been able to escape…let alone conceal herself so well.

Damn Mag!

How could she have vanished so effectively?

Genvissa was very tempted to believe that Mag was dead, that she hadn’t vanished so much as winked out of existence. However seductive and comforting that theory, Genvissa knew it wasn’t correct. She hadn’t sensed Mag’s death, and had it occurred she would have done.

No. Mag was alive somewhere. Hiding. The fact that Genvissa could not scry out the
where
of that hiding was as effective as Mag dealing her a sharp slap in the face.

Then there was the question of what Mag was doing while she had secreted herself away.

“Nothing,” Genvissa whispered to herself as she sat before the central hearth in her house, sipping the broth that her middle daughter had brought her for her morning meal. “There is nothing she
can
do.” There was nothing anyone could do. Asterion was too far
away and hopelessly weak; Mag and Og had been crippled and Og would soon be dead (as would Mag once Genvissa got her hands on the silly witch); all the ancient gods of the Aegean were dead or so close to it that collectively they were less nuisance than a single three-legged and blind house rat.

There was nothing anyone could do to stop her now.

Nevertheless, Genvissa felt on edge. Perhaps it was that girl, Cornelia. She’d hoped that Brutus would slit her throat once he discovered her part in the Mesopotaman revolt. But he hadn’t, and Genvissa supposed that, like all men, he was hopelessly enamoured of the son she was carrying.

Well, the girl couldn’t hide behind her belly for the rest of her life. Once that child was born…then Cornelia could be disposed of.

Genvissa sighed, and rubbed at her eyes. Why was she troubled by such inconsequentials as Mag and Cornelia?

“Mother?”

Genvissa glanced up at her daughter, standing a few paces away looking puzzled. She was a lovely girl, this middle daughter, all creamy skin and gentle spirit, and Genvissa loved her dearly.

“Ah, sweet, I am but muttering away my lack of sleep. Or perhaps I have succumbed to a passing feeble-mindedness.”

The girl laughed, and Genvissa smiled with her. “This broth is better than any I could have made. I thank you for it.”

“My sisters have run to help the Gormagog hunt out the red-lipped mushroom for the frenzy wine, Mother. May I—”

“Of course, love. Go and catch them up. It would be best, in any case, for I will need my solitude this morning.”

The girl grinned, made a hasty bow of respect towards her mother, then was off out the door.

Genvissa smiled as she finished her broth, thinking dreamy thoughts of the daughters she had borne, and the one she was yet to bear, and by the time she was ready to begin her morning’s labour, she was in a more cheerful frame of mind.

Her task required much thought, and some delicate spell-weaving, but once she was done, Genvissa’s good mood had only increased.

Time to set in motion those events which would bring Blangan home.

Locrinia lay still and quiet under the clouded night sky. It was warm, and the city’s citizens had left doors and windows open to catch any passing breeze that might lift off the bay or the vast seas beyond it.

That was fortunate, or else far more of the sleepers would have died.

In the darkest hours of the early morning, when sleep was deepest, a faint tremor ran through the rocky foundations of the city.

Then another, a little stronger.

Then a frightful surge of energy that lifted up houses and buckled the paved streets.

Blangan had been sleeping by her husband’s side. As the room lifted about her, and their bed slid sideways, Blangan grabbed at her husband, Corineus, and cried out in terror.

He half slid, half fell out of the bed, dragging Blangan with him.

“Outside,” he yelled, terror hoarsening his voice. “Now! Out! Out!”

Blangan needed no further encouragement. She grabbed at a sheet, winding it about her slim form and, Corineus’ arm about her waist, struggled towards the door.

They barely made it on to the wide verandah that ran around their house before the doorway’s lintel fell crashing behind them.

“What is happening?” Blangan cried.

She cried those words because she knew it was expected of her. The gentle, wise wife of the city’s leading citizen was not supposed to know of the origin and meanings of earth surges and dark happenings, but, despite her pretence, Blangan knew very well what was happening.

This was the work of her sister. She
knew
it.

“Blangan,” Corineus said, taking her hand and leading her down the steps into the wide street, “away from the building. Now. It might collapse.”

But it didn’t. There were no more tremors, and the only casualties were in buildings less well constructed than Corineus’ house, and which had collapsed in that single, destructive surge.

Corineus relaxed after it became obvious that the earth was going to confine itself to that single, albeit frightening, tremor. He organised the people of Locrinia into open spaces for the night until their tenement buildings and houses could be examined for damage in the morning light, and walked among them, Blangan at his side, murmuring reassurances.

In the morning, his words were shown for the empty hopes that they were.

Every single building in Locrinia was cracked, so badly that it was apparent that when the heavy autumn rains arrived the mud-brick buildings would collapse.

Come two or three months, and Locrinia would be uninhabitable.

“It is unbelievable,” Corineus muttered, squatting at the foundations of one of the houses.

Behind him, Blangan, staring transfixed at the cracks, could believe it very well.

Genvissa wanted her home, and she wanted her badly.

I
do not know what my husband saw on that island, but when he came back his eyes were strange and power seeped from every pore of his body. If ever I had needed proof of the blood of Aphrodite that I knew flowed through his veins, then those eyes and that power would have been enough.

It was as much as I could do not to step back from him, nor flinch when he put his hand to my cheek.

He told me to rest, and that he would not disturb me, but late that night, when I was deep asleep, I woke to hear his voice ordering Aethylla from my side on the sleeping pallet. He lay down beside me, his breath thick with wine, and told me to sleep, and that he would not make any demands of me. Nevertheless, merely to have him there, to feel his body close to mine, and to sense the remnants of whatever power had infested him on the island, was enough to keep me sleepless until dawn broke the night.

I stirred, meaning to rise, but he held me back with a hand on my belly.

“How long?” he said, and I quailed.

“Two months, perhaps a few weeks more than that,” I said, then rolled a little so I could see his face. “Brutus, I—”

But he had risen, and was gone.

We sailed south some nine days. The wind blew briskly at our backs, and the seas rolled us gently forward. I remembered all the tales I’d heard about the black nature of this sea: how it never stayed calm longer than a day or two before it blew itself into a ship-eating gale, and how pirates patrolled its surface and monstrous marine worms its depths.

But this sea was not that of the tales and rumours. It was unnatural—even I could feel that—as if a god had passed his or her hand over its surface and calmed it for the betterment of our passage.

Brutus must clearly be god-favoured, and I shivered as I wondered whether or not I could ever win enough of his affection to ensure my life.

Brutus left me well enough alone for those nine days of sail. During the day I sat with Aethylla and one or two of the other Trojan women on the aft deck, raising our faces to the sunshine, and passing stories between us of children and childbirth.

I hated it. I
loathed
it. Could these women talk of nothing else but babies? They even put their hands to my belly—ugh! I felt violated—and felt the shape of the baby within, and nodded their heads sagely, and said it was bound to be a fine son for Brutus.

They said nothing to me of how this “fine son” had been got on me, or of how it bloated my body most horribly, or of the pains that shot up and down my legs and through my groin when I walked, or of its odious twisting and turning at night when I wanted to sleep, nor even of the pressure the thing put on my bladder so that I dribbled urine at the most inopportune moments. They spoke only of the fine son it was for Brutus, and how that must please me.