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courtliness were valued. But Edward had thought Macbeth too canny, and therefore a threat; so he had given Malcolm troops, funds, and ships against Macbeth. Margaret remembered the keen excitement in the court at the news that Malcolm had first killed Macbeth and then that man’s stepson and successor, a young man with the curious name Lulach, so that Malcolm had fully won Scotland.
    Malcolm had proved canny indeed, soon requesting from Edward a Saxon bride: Margaret herself, the king’s ward. Lady Agatha had refused, arguing that her daughter was only twelve, too refined for Scotland, and meant for a better royal match someday. Malcolm was nearly thirty, a brute of unimpressive lineage compared to the Saxons’, and he could find himself another wife. So Malcolm had married Lulach’s Norse widow, and King Edward had been pleased; Scotland’s peace with the Vikings would benefit England, too.
    Now the Saxons needed Malcolm’s help and the Norse queen was dead—and Margaret realized that her brother might try to bargain her away to Malcolm, especially since he had applied for her hand before.
    She could not imagine living in a barbaric land, wife to a raiding warrior who could not be trusted to keep any bargain. The Scottish king regularly attacked northern England, and she had heard that his country was a backward place, peopled with superstitious heathens who spoke a strange language no good Saxon would deign to learn.
    At Romsey, she had found peace and respite from danger, protected from warmongers and sly self-servers. There, she would have taken vows to expiate sins she otherwise dared not confess. Instead, she rode in a cart rattling northward toward a fate she dreaded.

Chapter Two

    Upheaved by the breath of the gale … and tossed in the countless dangers of the deep, [Edgar the Aetheling and his sisters] were forced to bring up in Scotland
.
    —J OHN OF F ORDUN ,
Chronicles of Scotland
,
     FIFTEENTH CENTURY
    North Sea
November 1069
    C radled in a leather hammock, Margaret grabbed a support rope as another lurching wave brought the ship high, then low again. Beside her, Cristina clung to their mother, both women moaning, while Margaret endured in silence. In a second hammock, Kata sat terrified and wide-eyed beside Hildy, their mother’s sturdy Saxon maid. Even the terrors of the North Sea could not frighten Hildy, Margaret thought with admiration.
    “
Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris
,” Lady Agatha muttered, taking out a silver medal from the purse at her belt, “
illa nempe die morte mala non morieris.
” She displayed the silver face of Saint Christopher to theother women. “Whosoever regards the face of Christopher shall not die that day an evil death. Remember that in your prayers today.”
    Margaret understood that her mother was doing her best in the absence of the Benedictine priest, Otto, who rode aboard a second ship carrying additional men, horses, armor, and cargo. The other longboat pitched in the heavy seas, upright as yet. For two days, fierce winds and rain had lashed the ship, tearing the great sail, but somehow they had stayed their course, thanks not only to skilled sailors but to the intercession of saints such as Christopher, Nicholas, the Irishman Brendan, and the Princess Ursula, who had sailed stormy seas with eleven thousand virgin friends to safety—and eventual martyrdom. The sainted ones would watch over those who traveled on water, keeping them safe—or at least Margaret fervently hoped so as she sent up another prayer to that end.
    As for her mother, Margaret had nearly forgotten over the past three years how fretful Lady Agatha could be. Descended on one side from Magyars who had swarmed the Carpathian basin and on the other from Russian royalty, her mother had the strong-boned beauty of her combined heritage, yet by nature Lady Agatha was fearful and bitter more than tough. Just now her frantic prayers added such tension that Margaret furtively wished her