Free The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

from her sister, there had been no reply from the Countess of Blois.
    The younger sister’s royal marriage had been too great a blow for the elder sister to forgive. There would be no forgiveness now.
    She began to walk, her eyes misted with grief. She halted, though, when she realized that she was not alone, that in front of her a man stood beside the parapet, looking out through an opening toward the dark plain that led to the river.
    “You should go within doors, lady,” he said. “The night is cold, and you would not wish to catch a chill.”
    It was Athelstan’s voice that came to her through the darkness, offering advice that she would heed if she were wise. But tonight she was not wise, and the mere sound of his voice drew her to him.
    Athelstan, too, she guessed, was weighted with grief.
    She had not spoken to him yet of Ecbert’s death, for there had been no opportunity to share a private word. Now, burdened with her own sorrow, she longed just to be near him.
    Going to his side, she gazed out toward the rushing, moonlit river, and she drew in a long breath, for her heart ached for both of them.
    “I have wanted to tell you before this,” she said, “how much I grieve for the loss of your brother.” That grief was bound up now with her sorrow at the death of her sister, but she would not burden him with that news tonight.
    “There is no need for you to speak of it,” he said. “I know what is in your heart.”
    She studied his face, the half that she could see just visible in the moonglow. Did he truly know what she felt? His brother Edmund had not believed that she could grieve for Ecbert, and for some time now she had been afraid that Edmund’s distrust of her, like some foul contagion, had spread to Athelstan as well. But in the next moment, when he turned to face her, the look he cast upon her dispelled all doubt.
    “I am not Edmund,” he said gently, answering the question she had not spoken.
    She looked into eyes filled with such sorrow and longing that she was suddenly frightened. How she wanted to reach for him, to draw him into her arms and console him as a sister might.
    Yet she dared not offer him that comfort, for it was not a sister’s love that she carried locked within her heart.
    “No,” she said softly. “You are not Edmund. Forgive me for doubting you.”
    She very nearly touched him then, nearly placed her hand upon his arm where it lay so close to hers there on the palisade. But she resisted the temptation, turning instead to look out toward the river, knowing that she should go inside as he had urged her, yet unable to bring herself to leave him.
    In the darkness she was reminded of another time that they had been alone together—when they had both succumbed to temptation. When desire and passion had overwhelmed wisdom and duty and solemn vows.
    She had been shriven of that sin long ago, had promised God that she would sin no more. But the human heart, she had learned, was a thing not easily governed. And although she had thought that tiny bit of her was nothing more than a withered relic locked inside a casket of gold, now she felt it yearning for this man at her side.
    After a time it was Athelstan who broke the uneasy silence between them.
    “Your son appears to be thriving,” he said, “and my father does not yet mistrust the boy. I envy him that.”
    She heard the pain in his voice, sharp as a knife, and she did what little she could to blunt it.
    “Edward is too young yet to disturb his father’s peace of mind,” she said. “The king reserves most of his displeasure, I fear, for the son who stands closest to the throne.” She knew what had occurred in the king’s chamber on Easter Eve, for her young spy had dutifully reported the angry words that Æthelred had flung at Athelstan that night.
    He gave her a sour smile. “Nothing I do, it seems, will earn for me my father’s good opinion. Since he cannot bear the sight of me, I shall return to London tomorrow.