Far Traveler by Rebecca Tingle

laws the Danes have laid down. The Danes respect the church, and allow English people a voice in government. The Northumbrian king ... was born of an English mother and a Danish jarl. Lady Æthelflæd understood the balance we try to keep in Northumbria. She respected it. But King Edward of Wessex”—the thane shook his head—“with his armies and his hunger for new land, cares nothing for any of this. He will swallow up Eoforwic and seize as much of Northumbria for himself as he can if we invite him across our border to fight Rægnald. Maybe the English in Northumbria will benefit from this, but the Danes, who are our neighbors and sometimes our kinsmen? He will take everything they have. Everything theirs will suddenly be his.”
    A chill went through me. Everything they had. This man could not guess how well I understood such a threat.
    I took a deep breath and let it out. “What exactly do you want me to ...”
    â€œÃ†lfwyn?”
    I twisted in astonishment at the shout. From the shadow of the gate behind us rode my cousin Æthelstan. “Æthelstan will visit Mercia to bring us news of your welfare. ...” Nearly three moons had waxed and waned since King Edward had said those words. My cousin was trotting up to me now.
    â€œÃ†thelstan,” I said weakly. “You’ve come to Lunden.”
    â€œJust arrived,” my cousin said with a white smile of greeting. “I rode to the hall to find the meal finished and all of you gone. I looked for you first in your rooms, then your mother’s rooms—finally a slave at the stable told me you’d ridden out with Dunstan, and the guard at the gate showed me where you’d gone. Winter shines like a harvest moon, Wyn. You weren’t hard to see.”
    How long had he been watching us? I wondered with sudden dread. I glanced toward Dunstan and the other men—but the strangers were gone. I turned quickly back to my cousin. What had he seen?
    â€œWelcome to Lunden,” I said in a small voice.
    Â 
    That night in the hall Æthelstan stretched out his legs toward the fire that burned in the great hearth.
    â€œIt’s good not to wear boots,” he said, flexing his feet in the soft leather shoes we had given him. “There’s been no easy living for anyone in my father’s army these last months.”
    â€œWe haven’t had news of a battle,” Dunstan grunted without turning his head, his eyes reflecting the flames in front of him.
    â€œNo, we wouldn’t have,” Edith said, amused. “Æthelstan has been telling me how all day Edward’s men move stone and wood, to finish Lady Æthelflæd’s fortresses at Thelwæl and Mameceaster, just as the lady herself planned. Imagine,” she snorted, “West Saxon fighting men turned laborers to complete the lady’s work!”
    Ã†thelstan looked at me when Edith mentioned Mother, and I lowered my eyes.
    â€œWyn,” my cousin said gently, “you remember how Lady Æthelflæd used to read with us, how she loved English poems?”
    â€œI remember the way she would do all our work for us if we took care not to stop her,” Gytha put in from the bench where she sat, rose-hued in the firelight.
    Despite my worries, for the first time since Mother had died, I found myself smiling at a memory of her. Æthelstan sighed.
    â€œTomorrow I ride to the king’s winter court at Wintanceaster,” he told me. “But Wyn, something is bothering me. I wonder if you can help.” Suddenly I felt cold. Æthelstan’s eyes glittered, and looking at his face, I realized what a stranger he had become, despite everything we had shared.
    â€œI learned a riddle on my journey,” he said, “told by a scop who entertained us one evening. Do you think you could solve that traveling singer’s puzzle?” He was smiling at me, but without any warmth.
    I forced myself not to look