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words. Harold was everything he dreamed of being: confident, wealthy, powerful, charismatic; safe.
    â€œThe shankbone of St. John the Baptist, brought from far Byzantium by a good Christian merchant,” the Queen replied, clapping her hands together with excitement. “It is said it can bring a dead man back to life.”
    â€œAnd you are winning?”
    â€œOf course. Do I not always? My husband’s search for relics stutters and starts. When his abbey is consecrated, it will be Edith of Wessex who will fill it with the glory of God, and it will be the name of Godwin that will be on all lips.” She flashed her brother a sly smile.
    The earl laughed. “What do you say, Redwald? The Queen is a playful sprite. She loves her mischief.”
    â€œAs do we all,” the young man replied. They all laughed.
    Harold clapped a hand on Redwald’s shoulder. “And what do you say now, Edith? I told you this lad was reliable. I see great things ahead for him.”
    â€œHe has served me well, where others failed. Perhaps you should take him into your employ.”
    â€œPerhaps I should.”
    Redwald felt a swell of pride; to escape the miseries, the doubts, the fears, and the insecurity of his life was all he wanted. In Harold’s employ, he would be privy to great things; he would be a part of something that mattered.
    While Edith examined her relic with hungry fingers, the earl led Redwald away, Harold’s mood darkening with each step into the shadows that clustered at the far end of the long hall. “I know you can be trusted,” he said, “and you have proved it to me in times past, but I have to take care. Plots and deceits whirl around the throne like the deep currents around the bridge across the Thames. I have to be sure.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œI know you do, which is why I have invested so much faith in you.” The earl fixed a sharp eye on the young man. “The King nears the end of his days, yet he has no appointed heir. That is a dangerous concoction. If we wish all that we have achieved in England to endure, we must work to ensure that the throne does not fall into the wrong hands.”
    â€œI only wish to serve.”
    â€œVery well. I will think on this matter more.” Harold took Redwald through an annex to the door of another room where men sat drinking from wooden cups along both sides of an oak table. Several slumped drunkenly in pools of ale. Staying out of sight by the door, the earl pointed to two men locked in quiet, intense conversation at the far end of the table. Redwald recognized the blonde-haired Edwin, Earl of Mercia, as handsome and vital as Harold but quieter, and the man’s brother Morcar, almost the opposite of his kin, hollow-cheeked and long-faced like a horse, his hair already thinning.
    â€œI do not trust those Mercians,” Harold whispered. “They are always plotting in dark corners, and I fear they know more than they let on. Watch them for me.”
    Pleased to be given responsibility so soon, Redwald agreed.
    When they returned to the hall, the younger man voiced the question that had been on his mind for some time. “Is there any news of Hereward?”
    Harold shook his head sadly. “I know he is your brother in all but name, but you must put him out of your head. He is both traitor and murderer. He will never be allowed to return to London. With the blood of innocents on his hands, it is only a matter of time before his punishment catches up with him.”
    Redwald nodded, but he couldn’t put the blood out of his mind, and the woman’s body lying within it, her eyes wide and accusing. The picture haunted him, in his sleep, in the quiet moments when he was going about his chores. “I would not see harm come to him.”
    Harold turned his piercing gaze on the lad for a long moment and then nodded. “Understood. You have grown up alongside him, friends beneath the same