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his breath and had just discovered he could breathe again. “That was beautiful,” Niniane said. “I wish I could understand him.”
    “He is Alric, the most famous scop in England,” Fara returned. “He was telling of the fall of Venta.” And she translated some of the words.
    Niniane stared at her in astonishment. Never had she expected to hear such elegiac poetry on the lips of a Saxon. “Hush now,” Fara said. “He will play again.”
    After the scop had finished, the drinking cups began to pass more swiftly around the hall. Men’s voices and men’s laughter grew louder and louder. Finally the queen rose.
    Guthfrid made her departure in the same way she had made her entrance, on the arm of her son. Then Cutha’s wife and the wives of the other eorls rose, and Fara turned to her own women and said, “Come.”
    In the anteroom of the hall they met Edwin returning to the feast. He halted directly before Niniane and stared down at her. He was not above average height, but Niniane was not tall and had to look up to see beyond his nose.
    “Welcome to Winchester, Princess,” he said in decent British. The eyes in his fair-skinned face were an unexpected brown. His eyelashes never once flickered as he stared unwaveringly into her face.
    “Thank you, my lord,” Niniane murmured in reply.
    “Your father is prince of the Atrebates.” It was a statement that he managed to make sound like an insult.
    Niniane raised her chin. She stared back into those strange brown eyes and answered, “Yes, my lord.”
    He was smiling. Evidently she amused him. “At least they tried to fight, those Atrebates. But it was careless of them, wasn’t it, to leave you behind?”
    Niniane had learned from years of living with Coinmail how not to answer back. Her spine stiffened but she made no reply.
    “We must be going, Niniane,” Fara said. For the first time the boy looked at Cynric’s secondary wife, and the expression on his face made Niniane recoil. Then the prince turned away.
    As they crossed the now-darkened enclave toward the women’s bower, Niniane asked Nola, “Who was the boy who came into the hall with the king?”
    “Ceawlin. Fara’s son,” came the reply. Then, in a worried voice, “It was not wise of him to do that. There is little point in provoking Guthfrid’s jealousy.”
    “How many sons does Cynric have?”
    “Just two, Ceawlin and Edwin. Ceawlin is the elder by a year, but Edwin is Guthfrid’s son and the heir to the kingship.”
    “If that is so, then why should the queen be jealous?”
    “She is jealous of anyone who breathes the same air as Edwin,” Nola said bitterly. “For fifteen years she has been like a bear with one cub. Let the king show Ceawlin the slightest notice, and she is livid with fury.”
    They had reached the women’s bower and Niniane parted from Nola and went down the corridor to her own room. Someone had replaced the candle on the table with an oil lamp in her absence, and she lit the lamp with the flame from the candle she had picked up at the door. Then she looked at it with frowning concentration. It was a lamp from Bryn Atha. She sat on the side of the bed and stared at its warm glow.
    Bryn Atha seemed very far away tonight. In just two days she had left one world and entered another. Winchester! And not one of her people had even known it existed.
    Pictures from the banquet flashed through her mind. Edwin’s mocking face. The silver-blond boy who was Fara’s son. The beautiful, cold, arrogant-looking queen. The king, who had a reverence for harpers.
    What a story she would have to tell to Coinmail and her father!
    She undressed, blew out the lamp, and got into bed. She was tired but she did not fall immediately to sleep. This room was as large as her bedchamber at home, but the lack of a window made her feel closed in, suffocated almost. Without the lamp she was in blackness so absolute that she could not even see the outline of the table next to the bed.
    Finally,