The Edge on the Sword Read Online Free PDF Page B

kitchens, to the woods or to the chapel, moving wherever you like, but always with this warder. He will sleep by your door. He will watch and keep you safe, always. You are dear to me, and to the West Saxon kingdom. We must not lose you, Æthelflæd.”
    He stood, and drew her up from the stool, leading her toward the door. “These are heavy things—I am sorry. But tomorrow morning when your guardian arrives, you will understand. I think it was right to tell you now.”
    Flæd went out, barefoot again in the crumbling dust of the road. The moon made a dwarf girl-image on the ground next to her, and numbly shewatched it trudging along with each of her steps. Beside her own doorway Flæd paused: No guardian sat there yet. After a moment she walked on, faster, until she had passed the last of the silent buildings and stood again at the edge of the meadow. The dark water moved a little with the night wind, glinting here and there. Between Flæd and the water lay a narrow strip of unflooded pasture where a group of horses stood with their heads lowered to the grass.
    It seemed to Flæd as if a door, heavy and ironbound like the ones at the entrance of her father’s great hall, had crashed shut in her face. Edward, her parents, the little ones—she was calling them, pounding against the door, fighting against a man’s hands that captured hers and held her, helpless. She had been given in marriage.
“At the end of the summer you will marry Ethelred of Mercia….”
She had been given away. “
You are dear to me.
…” She had been given to a man she had never seen.
    Run, Flæd spoke in her mind to the black forms in the meadow. “Run,” she said to the horses in a whisper. Waking, one horse moved its lips over the short blades of grass in front of its feet, and then was still again. Run! she cried inside herself, but then, slowly, she turned to go back along the road to her father’s burgh.
    The figure which had followed Flæd to the pasture did not return to the burgh with her. It had been a stroke of luck to see the girl leave her own room in the dead of night. She had come very close to the pile of discarded stones—only the presence of the guard had preserved her then—but even this proved fortunate. Behind the mound of rubble the watcher had pressed an ear to the council chamber wall, the better to hear the conversation between the king and his daughter.
    Afterward, even though it had been maddening to leave the girl untouched as she wandered out alone beyond the walls of the burgh, the figure had simply trailed her, knowing that King Alfred’s words to his daughter had changed things. Others would need to hear of this new development before any action could be taken. The dark shape crept between the horses, which began to mill about. One, unable to escape, rolled its eyes at the strange rider swinging up onto its back. Practiced hands subdued the horse, and the gallop north began.

4
Red
    “T HAT’S MY SHOE !”
    “It’s too big for you, Ælf. Give it back!”
    Jerked out of a shallow sleep, Flæd squeezed her eyes shut as the memory of her father’s announcement settled over her again. “
Ethelred of Mercia…at the end of the summer
…” If she pretended to be asleep, the women who had come to dress her quarreling sisters might take them to prayers and leave her alone. Flæd listened as the argument moved toward the entrance of their chamber. Abruptly, the little girls’ voices broke off, and Flæd heard only the pat of leather-shod feet across the wooden floor, and then the soft swish of the cloth hanging as it fell back across the doorway.
    They were gone. Flæd opened her eyes and pushed back the blanket, shivering in her linen shift. Rain tapped against the wooden shutters above her bed. It was a dismal day. Had the rain ended her sisters’ argument, she wondered listlessly as she sat up.
    In the entrance to her room, just inside the heavy fabric which hung across the door’s opening, a man was