Free Godiva by Nicole Galland

his interest. He was an overeager pup, with more energy than the rest of the travelers combined. Had his horse gone lame, she thought, he could easily have carried the creature home and arrived undiminished in his vigor.
    He invited her to stay on an extra day in Hereford to make pilgrimage to St. Ethelbert’s tomb at the cathedral. She said she would consider it gladly, as she had desired anyhow to visit with the brothers of St. Guthlac’s.
    â€œYou will be amazed how holy our Hereford is,” Sweyn promised, wide-eyed with desire to impress. “We have an enormous number of relics.”
    â€œI know your roster,” said Edgiva with a maternal smile. “I hope it will not crush your pride to learn that little Leominster boasts far more. We have Earl Leofric chiefly to thank for that.”
    They spoke of the arranged and so far fruitless marriage that had made them legal kin: Sweyn’s sister Edith to Edgiva’s uncle Edward.
    â€œI was never fond of Edith,” Sweyn confessed. “And she was never fond of me. I am the most expansive sibling, and she the most implosive. I am Jupiter to her Saturn.” He grinned at her. “Do you prefer I not make pagan references, Mother?”
    â€œOf course not. The stars and planets were here, and worshiped and studied, long before Our Lord was born. A newer wisdom need not defame an older one.”
    â€œSounds like the sort of thing Bishop Lyfing would say,” Sweyn said, approvingly.
    Edgiva smiled. “I take that as a compliment.”
    Sweyn then began to boast to her of his excellent treatment of Hereford’s serfs and slaves. This had been her fervent cause at the Great Council some eighteen months earlier; she was surprised he remembered, as he had not seemed so very interested himself back then. He was only telling her now because he wanted her approval, surely.
    He had it. Merely by existing, by having that smile, that voice, those eyes. She was appalled at herself for this. With the exception of her dearest childhood friend—whose behavior she forgave in her heart over and over and over again—Edgiva was exacting in her appraisal of people. Especially of men. Let a man prove his character through actions, not words, and he earned her regard. It should not be the case that he win it with a grin. Grins did not deserve regard. Grins were just grins.
    She adored his grin.
    She abruptly turned the talk to the heregeld, and whether Godiva was likely to convince enough lords to actually sign their mark to a petition.
    â€œGodiva, I believe, can convince near anyone of near anything,” said Sweyn. “I speak as one of her perennial victims.”
    â€œYou have a weakness for a pretty face,” said Edgiva, not daring to look at him. She supposed her face was not unattractive, but she had never, until this week, cared much about that. Nor about her undelicate hands or unmusical voice.
    â€œIt is not just her pretty face,” Sweyn said. “She is the most disarming person I have ever met. Even when she approaches me with that look of purpose in her eye, and I steel myself for it, determined to ignore her charm, somehow within two birdsongs she has wrested something from me I was not prepared to give—and I do not begrudge her for it. In fact, I feel pleased with myself for having pleased her. I do not understand how she does that, but she does it very well. She is Leofric’s most potent weapon.”
    Edgiva felt a strange tightness in her gut, an alien sensation she supposed must be jealousy, although she would much sooner have attributed it to riding in this chill. To be jealous of anyone was a sin; of one’s dearest friend, a worse one. She clutched the support bar of the pillion harder and wished as she bobbed along that she could will the feeling in her gut away.
    â€œI enjoy Godiva’s cheerful subverting of men’s scheming,” she said. “I do not admit that to her, but I