The Chosen Queen Read Free Page A

if it were the depths of night but then a low
growl caught her ears and with horror she recognised the rumble of her father’s ever-ready temper nearby. Tearing herself away, Edyth stepped firmly sideways.
    ‘I have taken too much of your time, my lord,’ she said, curtseying. ‘Your wife will, I am sure, be missing you and my father looks for me.’
    For a moment Lord Torr looked angry and the heat in Edyth’s belly turned to ice, but then he chuckled.
    ‘You are a dutiful daughter, Lady Edyth, that is good. You will need to support your father tomorrow.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. Alfgar was pushing between the dancers and was nearly upon them. ‘What do you mean, my lord?’
    But, with a low bow and wicked wink, Torr was gone, leaving Edyth alone as her father descended with the force of a Viking fury, seizing her arm and yanking her sideways.
    ‘What on earth are you doing, young lady?’
    ‘Dancing, Father,’ she stuttered out, trying to extricate herself.
    ‘Dancing? Parading yourself like a hoyden, more like – and with
him
.’
    Alfgar’s face was wine-red and his hand raked through his hair in a gesture she knew all too well; it meant the rise of his fiery temper.
    ‘Lord Torr was very courteous,’ she said nervously.
    Alfgar spat into the rushes.
    ‘I’ll wager he was and I know why too.’
    Edyth opened her mouth to protest but for once she caught herself.
    ‘Why, Father?’ she asked instead, widening her eyes.
    ‘Why?’ Alfgar looked startled, then flushed an all-new shade of red. His voice softened. ‘Never you mind, just stay clear of him. Now, what did he say to you of
Northumbria?’
    ‘Northumbria?’ she stammered. ‘Not much.’
    ‘Not much? What does that mean? He did say something. Tell me!’
    Edyth felt tears prickle. Her beautiful amber-studded brooches were heavy on her shoulders and her eyes stung with the smoke from the fire and the tang of mead on her father’s heavy
breath. She scrabbled for answers but could find only snake scales – whispers of inheritance and exile.
    ‘He just said I was to, to support you tomorrow.’
    ‘Support me? What does that mean? What’s he insinuating?’
    ‘I don’t know, Father, truly.’
    And now the tears came. She brushed one furiously away but it was enough. Her father loosened his grip on her arm.
    ‘Ah there now, Edie, do not cry. I’m sorry. You are young, a girl yet – which is all the more reason why that oaf Torr should not . . .’
    ‘No, I – I’m not, Father.’ He was looking around for her mother. He was going to send her to bed like a baby and she couldn’t allow that. Forcing the tears down,
she pushed her shoulders back and straightened her neck. ‘I think we need to watch him, Father. I can help you with that.’
    He shook his head indulgently but his eyes returned to her face; she had his attention.
    ‘You do not know what you would get yourself into, child.’
    It was true but no use saying so now.
    ‘I could cope with it, Father. For you I could cope with anything.’
    She smiled up at him and, with a soft chuckle, he swept her into his arms, suffocating her with the mingled scents of wool and mead and sweat.
    ‘I could dance with
you
, Father?’ she suggested sweetly.
    ‘Oh no!’ Alfgar backed away as she had known he would. ‘No, your old man is too stiff for dancing these days, Edyth. Find yourself someone younger, but not –
not
, do you hear me – a Godwinson.’
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    She dropped a swift curtsey and escaped. The rest of the evening was hers; let the morrow worry about itself.

CHAPTER TWO

    E dyth reached up for the next branch, cursing her clumsy skirts for slowing her down. She’d be late for the council at this rate.
She scrambled higher up the tree then paused to glance guiltily back through the branches to King Edward’s Westminster compound, little more than a hundred paces away on Thorney Island.
People were backed up at the wooden bridge over the