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sweet Mary Mother's name, do not leave us now!" the Princess Agatha cried. "You must not go. Sire — we need him. You do not."
    "As you will. I but reckoned that he might wish to take a hand in settling his score with Cospatrick."
    "No — he has his duty to me and mine, first. In this grievous coil. If go to Scotland we must, Edgar must accompany us."
    "Aye. I think that I see why he has not won his English throne!" Malcolm said heavily. But he had scarcely looked at either the older woman or her son once during this exchange, his eyes being concentrated on her elder daughter's delectable person, so much more in evidence than was customary. Margaret must have been very well aware of his assessing gaze, but she ignored it, did not even make any special attempt to cover herself more fully or to huddle down in to the bedding like her sister Christina. Maldred admired her spirit the more.
    "My brother did not win his throne because his reputed friends and William's reputed enemies, deserted him, Sire. Or never so much as lifted hand to aid. Although . . . nearby."
    "Ha — you think so, girl?" The King stepped over, to where he could look down directly on her. "You conceive all to have a duty to rescue this prince?"
    "I conceive that all who profess to hate the Norman usurper and his savage ways should have rallied to send him back to Normandy!"
    "So-o-o! You are free with your opinions, for the daughter of a landless man!" he growled.
    "But the grand-daughter of two great kings, Sire — Stephen and Edmund Ironside!" she gave back.
    He frowned — and then raised surprised brows as the girl Magdalen appeared, to insert herself neatly between him and the princess, to stoop and slip a cloak from her own couch around Margaret's bare shoulders. It was deftly done. As she moved modestly away again, she contrived to make an immodest face at the interested Maldred. Margaret herself acted as though nothing had happened.
    Malcolm glared, snorted, began to speak, and then turning, stamped out of the cottage.
    "Thank you, Magda," the princess said calmly, into the hush.
    After a moment, Maldred followed his monarch out, uncertainly.
    2
    Scotland showed at least a scenic welcome for the refugees, as the galley limped up the Scottish Sea between the Lothian and Fife coasts, with all echoes of the storm gone, the late-autumn sunshine golden and the air crisp and clear. Maldred stood, with the three young women and the monk Oswald, on the roughly-repaired bows-platform, pointing out the landmarks on either side, the soaring, mighty Craig of Bass and the lesser islands of its group, with the little red-stone cashel or Celtic Church monastery on Fetheray and the green cone of North Berwick Law behind, all backed by the long heather hills of Lammermuir — this on the south; and to the north the yellow beaches, rocky headlands and fishing-havens of the East Neuk of Fife, with the cave-pitted cliffs of Kincraig, near where the great MacDuff, Earl of Fife, had his ferry. He named for them the great bight of Aberlady Bay on the one side and Largo Bay on the other, the twin breasts of the Lomond Hills, which he took the opportunity of calling the Paps of Fife — and stole a sidelong glance at his hearers to observe any effect — gesturing ahead to where the extraordinary crouching-lion-shaped peak of Arthur's Chair and the fort-crowned rock of Dunedin, or Edinburgh, seemed to challenge a range of taller hills, the Pentlands.
    "Hills everywhere!" the Princess Christina said. "I had heard that there was nothing but mountain and rock and bog in Scotland. How can men live in such a place?"
    "We live very well," Maldred replied tartly. "As you will have need to discover, perhaps."
    "At least it is a beautiful land," Margaret put in soothingly.
    It was nearing noon. They had left Wearmouth the previous afternoon, only some twelve hours after King Malcolm had marched off, not daring to wait longer, despite the state of the vessel, so anxious was Prince