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high, narrow windows. A rooster perched on a windowsill, and a cat prowled along a lower ledge. Wooden steps led to a second-story entrance. The yard was muddy and cluttered with smaller thatched-roof structures.
    They entered the gates, passing servants who moved about carrying baskets or hurrying from one location to another, pausing to stare at them. Three guards came forward wearing leather hauberks, looking strong and alert to trouble. Dogs and goats wandered about, chickens pecked in random circles, and a shaggy black cow crossed in front of the entering party before a guard shooed it away. Margaret saw a small boy gaping up at the riders until a woman snatched him into her arms and stepped aside.
    “The king’s tower is a busy place.” Margaret forced cheerfulness. “I am sure it has a fine and comfortable interior.”
    “Aye, where they keep their livestock,” Cristina muttered. “We
will
return to England, once Edgar drives William out. We cannot stay here long. We must press Edgar to see to it.”
    But Margaret knew they might stay indefinitely, as Edgar had said. If England was ever to be reclaimed, Edgar and the rest of the Saxon leaders needed solid support in the form of troops, coinage—and a canny, powerful ally in the king of Scotland.
    Yet her first glimpse of the seat of Scottish royalty was hardly reassuring.

Chapter Three

    Good they are at man-slaying,
Melodious in the ale-house,
Masterly at making songs,
Skilled at playing chess
.
    —I RISH, TWELFTH CENTURY
    ( TRANSLATED BY K UNO M EYER)
    I am Dame Agnes, the chatelaine here at the king’s palace,” a plump woman told them as she greeted the newly arrived Saxons. The tower’s interior was as rustic as the exterior, Margaret saw, with timbered rafters and whitewashed plaster walls, and the guests were served ale and soup at trestle tables, where tallow candles glowed in iron holders. Although the evening skies were still pale, the musty interior, smelling of dogs and dampness, was gloomy.
    Dame Agnes was plain, too, with thick features and a good smile, and she wore a simple linen headdress along with a brown tunic, bleached linen shift, and sturdy leather boots. “I keep the king’s household here with the help of my husband, who is the castle steward. I am the king’s cousin,” she added proudly. “You will have rooms here and acouple of maidservants, with a groom and a page for the men. I am sure you are used to better in England.”
    “We are fugitives lately come from convents, and my brother and his men were hostages of the Normans,” Margaret said as the chatelaine guided them up wooden steps to small rooms on an upper floor. “And so we are grateful for your good hospitality here.”
    Margaret was to share a small room with Cristina and Kata, along with a little red-haired maid whose Gaelic name no one could pronounce. “Fionnghuala,” the girl repeated more than once, patiently introducing herself. “Fi-NOO-ala is my name.”
    “Finola,” Margaret ventured. “So you speak English?”
    “Sassenach, aye,” the girl replied—meaning Saxon, Margaret realized, or English—and then indicated the narrow beds crammed into the room. “Sleeping now?”
    “Prayers first,” Margaret said firmly, pressing her palms together. Finola dropped to her knees beside her, and Margaret led them in a Latin prayer. Finola did not recite hers in Latin but in the airy, incomprehensible language of the northern Scots. Yet the girl prayed earnestly.
    “Say the prayers in Latin, if you please.” Margaret repeated a few lines in proper fashion.
    Finola only whispered in her strange tongue. Margaret sighed. Prayerful devotions marked the hours night and day, and whatever the Church demanded was what heaven itself wanted, Margaret had been taught, finding such wisdom reliable and comforting.
    “Prayers must be said in Latin,” Cristina pointed out. “She risks her very soul by praying in her heathen tongue.”
    Margaret leaned