The Edge on the Sword Read Online Free Page B

you have duties, too.”
    “Edward will be important to all the West Saxon people,” Flæd said deliberately, holding her empty bowl on her knees.
    “You
will be important to many people. Flæd,” she said, turning her daughter to face her in the lamplight, “I was a Mercian aldorman’s child who played in the hills among our sheep. Now I am a queen. A queen who knows how to weave.”
    What will I be, Flæd wondered, making a face. Probably a weaver who knows how to be a queen.
Could
her mother be warning her to think of her own marriage and the changes such a thing would bring? With hands less sure than they had been a few moments before, she moved to organize the first weft threads.
    “No, no, Flæd.” The queen gently pushed away her daughter’s hands. She gazed at Flæd for a long moment, then seemed to surrender to the girl’s reluctance to talk of the future. “Off to sleep with you now.” Ealhswith stood with Flæd, embraced her, and went with her to the door. “Take this dusty thing”—she handed Flæd her cloak—”and get to bed.”
    Ealhswith’s shadow stretched out into the street as she watched Flæd go. The girl took only a few steps further along the narrow street to reach the doorway of her own chamber, whose roof nearly touched the thatch of the queen’s dwelling. On the threshold of her quarters Flæd glanced again at the queen, who stood still, waiting to see her child step safely inside. She still doesn’t like to think of me being alone at night, Flæd thought, her feeling of warmth and comfort creeping back. Pushing aside the cloth which hung across the doorway, Flæd went in.
    Another pair of eyes watched the girl step through the doorway, watched the queen retreat to her room. From this vantage point in the shadows between a pile of discarded building stones and the king’s council chamber, the watcher reviewed the evening. Several things had become clear. The royal quarters across the little passageway were well attended by serving people, and the narrow street itself was frequented by armed retainers, whose habits would require careful observation. Also, the girl had speed and woodcraft—certain moments tonight had not gone as planned….
    But there would be other opportunities, other careless moments. In the darkness by the wall, the figure settled back against the stones to wait.

3
Midnight
    Q UIETLY F LÆD ENTERED THE ROOMS SHE SHARED WITH HER two younger sisters. Æthelgifu, ten, and Ælfthryth, who had lived eight winters, had been sent to their beds before her. A serving woman waited there, sitting beside a single rush-lamp. Flæd moved silently about the room, which was warm with the slow breath of the sleeping girls. She washed the dirt from her feet and legs and changed her tunic and undergown for a linen shift, pinching dead the lamp before she curled beneath her own blankets.
    When she awoke later in the dark, Flæd could hear a faint creaking of boards, as if another wakeful person were pacing back and forth across a wooden floor. Coming from across the way, she decided as she lay there, listening. From Father’s council chamber, she thought. Flæd sat up and wound herself in the brown woolen blanket from her bed. Slipping past the serving woman asleep near her door, she padded outside and crossed the narrow street to her father’s threshold. The single guard posted there gave her a little bow, and Flæd stopped to listen again. Yes, there were the sounds of footsteps she had heard. Her father must be awake and walking the length of his room. Putting her palm against the door frame, the girl tapped softly.
    “It’s Flæd, Father.”
    “Come in.”
    At one end of the room candles shone down on a table covered with sheets of parchment, quills, and books in their leather-strung wooden bindings. Her father was just seating himself at the table as she entered. Thin brown hair curled around his long face, softening its bony starkness and mingling with his short