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however, fatigue overtook her. Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was: I wonder what kind of a ransom Cynric will ask.
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Chapter 4
    “Here, Bayla!” Sigurd called to the hound who had started to wander back toward the stable. The hound continued to sniff along the ground, ignoring the command. “Ceawlin …” Sigurd said, and turned to his friend.
    The prince finished pulling up his girth and looked for the dog. “Bayla,” he said softly, and snapped his fingers. The hound raised his head, then came obediently to his master’s side. Ceawlin slung a bow over his shoulder and picked up his reins. Sigurd did the same and the two boys led their horses out of the stableyard. Three hounds followed, trotting at the horses’ heels.
    The dawn was just beginning to come up. Sigurd looked toward the queen’s hall and said, “I keep hoping we will surprise Edric creeping out of there one morning.”
    Ceawlin showed his white teeth in a sardonic smile. “They are not stupid enough for that. Unfortunately.”
    The sky was still gray, with only a few pink streaks in the east to signal that the day would be fine. Ceawlin and Sigurd had been rising this early to go out hunting ever since they were first allowed to venture forth by themselves. The two had been virtually inseparable for almost all their boyhood.
    “Who is that?” Sigurd said suddenly in a startled voice. Both boys stopped and stared at the small figure sitting on the step of the women’s bower.
    “It is the little British princess,” Ceawlin said slowly.
    “We’d better see what she is doing,” Sigurd said, and they both changed direction and began to walk across the courtyard toward the bower.
    She did not move as they approached. Sigurd saw that she was huddled into her cloak as if she were cold. Her unbound hair streamed all around her. Sigurd had noticed her hair before and he thought it beautiful. The coppery color made a nice change from all the blond he was so accustomed to seeing in Winchester.
    “Why are you sitting here like this so early in the morning?” Ceawlin asked. His British was perfectly unaccented.
    The girl’s eyes widened with surprise. “But you speak British!”
    Ceawlin raised his silver-blond eyebrows. “Most of my generation speak your tongue. But you have not answered me. What are you doing here?”
    The girl’s widely spaced eyes moved from Ceawlin’s face to Sigurd. She was really very pretty, Sigurd thought. So small and delicate-looking. Like a little deer. He smiled at her engagingly. Ceawlin had been too abrupt. “The prince had a British nurse when he was small— that is why he speaks your tongue so well.” His own British was perfectly adequate, but he knew he had an accent. “It is too cold out here for you, Princess,” he went on kindly. “You should go back indoors.”
    Her eyes were a dark blue-gray and very steady and grave. “I wanted some air,” she said. “I am not accustomed to sleeping in a room without a window.”
    “Afraid of the dark?” Sigurd asked with sympathy. “You could leave your candle on.”
    “Not if she’s going to sleep in a wooden building,” Ceawlin said. His eyes, such an arresting shade of blue-green, were not sympathetic at all.
    A little color flushed into the girl’s pale cheeks. Ceawlin had sounded distinctly nasty. Sigurd knew what was wrong with him. Cynric was intending to give this girl to Edwin. “I am not disturbing anyone by sitting here,” she said a little defiantly. Ceawlin’s horse stamped its near front foot with impatience at being kept standing. “You had better go,” the girl added, “before you wake everyone up.”
    Sigurd grinned. “She’s right,” he said to Ceawlin. Then, in Saxon, “She’s not likely to go anywhere.”
    Ceawlin looked from the girl to Sigurd, then to the girl again. “I suppose that’s true.” He turned without further comment and began to walk toward the main gate. Sigurd smiled once more at the girl