Free King's Blood by Judith Tarr Page B

she could. She still had feet and legs, and they were rather small still; she had to scramble to keep up.
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Mother Abbess might not have moved at all since the first and last time Edith had been summoned to an audience. Her room was as cold and grey as it had been before. If the chapel was a spider’s web, this was the larder, closed off from any glimmer of light or breath of living air.
    Abbess Christina had kept Edith waiting in the anteroom for a long while. Edith was dizzy with lack of breath when at last she was ushered into the presence. She had to struggle to walk steadily, to bow the proper degree and then stand with proper humility: hands folded in front of her, head bowed, eyes lowered.
    She could feel that cold scrutiny on her. The walls were closing in. All that saved her was memory of the brightness she had come from, and Cecilia’s voice telling her that she was free to choose what she would do.
    â€œIt is time,” Abbess Christina said, “that you begin the instruction for which your mother sent you.”
    That startled Edith into speaking without thinking. “But, lady, I already have. I’ve been studying Saxon and Latin and Norman and—”
    The abbess cut her off with chill precision. “Additional instruction befitting your blood and breeding. Sister Gunnhild will take you in hand for an hour each day. She will teach you what a daughter of kings has most need to know.”
    Edith looked up under her lashes. The nun who had fetched her from the far end of the cloister was still in the room. Edith peered through the shadows, picking out white hands tightly folded, and a pale face framed in the black veil. The rest of her was wrapped in darkness.
    Her eyes were lowered as Edith’s should be, her lips pressed together as tightly as her hands. Everything about her was locked shut.
    Edith’s heart felt small and cold. Her stomach had drawn into a knot. She kept thinking of the ruined wood and the strangling web. Here were the hands that would guide her into them—make her part of them.
    She could run. But where? She was too small. The world was too big. The time when she could have escaped, when she was on the long road from Scotland to this place, was gone.
    It did not matter what Cecilia had said. She did not have a choice. No child did.
    She bowed her head. She could feel that the abbess was pleased. Sister Gunnhild glided forward. Edith did reverence as was proper.
    â€œYou will begin now,” Abbess Christina said. “Apply yourself well. Take heed of what you are taught.”
    â€œYes, lady,” Edith said. It was all she could say.

CHAPTER 10
    There was no angel with a flaming sword at the gates of Winchester, barring William from the city or the treasury. He rode in as one who had every right, and found the chancellor waiting, with clerks in attendance.
    They were expecting him. The keys to the treasury were ready for him to take, the guards bowing him in.
    His shoulder blades prickled. This could be a trap. But he had not come this far to tuck his tail between his legs and run. His own picked men were with him. He left half of them with the guards and told the rest to follow him.
    William the elder had had a reputation for acquiring every scrap of wealth he could and keeping it as close as he judged politic. His generosity had been calculated to the last groat and farthing.
    Now William the younger walked where none of the sons had been invited to go. He had seen the treasuries in Rouen and Caen, and the train of sumpter mules and laden chests that traveled with the king. Those had been remarkable enough—and belonged to his brother Robert now, except for what the old king’s will had left to Henry and the sisters.
    This was William’s own. Room upon room of it. Chests of gold, silver, jewels both loose and set in rings and brooches, armlets and collars. Bolts of silk and linen and wool, and cloth of gold and silver. Mantles and