The Edge on the Sword Read Online Free Page A

absorbed the warmth of her mother’s room, and felt the calm order of the task in front of them. Now she preserved that silence as together they bunched neat handfuls of thread and tied them to the remaining rings.
    “There, that’s finished,” said Ealhswith, securing the last weight. She stood, smoothing the folds of her plain gown, and surveyed her daughter again. “You came straight from the trees, didn’t you?” she asked, removing a twig from Flæd’s thick brown hair. “And missed your supper?” Flæd nodded again. “Have a bowl of milk then, and let me untangle that horsetail hanging down your back.”
    From her mother’s hands, Flæd took a carved wooden bowl. The girl sat down beside the little hearth. She inhaled the rich tang of goat’s milk as she raised the bowl to her mouth.
    “You are very quiet,” came Ealhswith’s voice behind her. Her fingers loosened the strip of leather binding her daughter’s hair. “Tell me where you were tonight.”
    “I was with Edward at one of our places in the wood,” Flæd admitted. “I was telling him a story. We didn’t notice how late it was.”
    “A wild thing, that’s what you are sometimes,” her mother said, spreading Flæd’s hair over her shoulders, “and Edward is wilder.” Flæd felt the comb’s teeth picking at the tangles low on her back. As a small girl she had loved to hold it and look at the sea animals carved along its handle. Fish played with watery monsters who plunged their strange long bodies in and out of the ivory water. A walrus raised his tusked bulk at each end of the comb, which had once been a walrus’s long tooth.
    “We only made a fire and sat for a little while,” Flæd said.
    “You missed evening prayers.” Ealhswith lifted a handful of her daughter’s hair to her face and sniffed. “The smell of wood smoke will not go.” The queen paused, and for a moment she seemed to struggle with some thought. What is it? Flæd thought. Is Mother so unhappy that I was late? But Ealhswith went on, choosing her words carefully.
    “Flæd, you are getting older. Look how tall you are.” She straightened Flæd’s stooped shoulders gently. “Your father may speak to you about something….”
    “About missing prayers tonight?” Flæd blurted. Suddenly her concerns about her brother came rushing to her tongue. “Then shouldn’t he speak to Edward, too?” Flæd twisted around to look at her mother. “Edward will be king, and he doesn’t know—he doesn’t like…learning a king’s duties.”
    “Your father should call Edward back to his lessons,” her mother agreed, understanding what Flæd was trying to say. “He has thought that Edward should have a little freedom. But now his oldest son must study. And the king will ask his oldest daughter,” Ealhswith added, “to take up new responsibilities also.” The queen divided Flæd’s hair into three sections and began smoothing and plaiting the strands.
    A thought passed into Flæd’s mind, and she went very still.
“You are getting older
…” Was it possible that her parents had begun to discuss a betrothal for her? But her lessons had only begun—she had just started to see how little she knew, how much more she needed to study. They would not make promises which would take me away from my lessons and away from home, she insisted to herself. Not yet.
    “What does my father need me to do?” Flæd asked out loud, slumping down a little and feeling the pull of the plait at the back of her head. She forced her thoughts away from the alarming possibility of betrothal, turning her mind doggedly to her brother again.
I may be the king’s first child, but Edward, not I, must prepare to rule after him.
“I might be able to help Edward,” she said aloud. “We talk about his reading sometimes. He has a good memory.”
    “Edward has a quick mind, like yours,” her mother agreed as she bound the leather thong around the end of the finished braid. “But Æthelflæd,