Far Traveler by Rebecca Tingle Page B

is watching us?”
    â€œYes,” said Dunstan heavily. “So tomorrow I will go to Lincylene and stop up Cuthwine’s and Kenelm’s gossiping mouths with salt cod. Back to your books, girl.”
    Dunstan was only half joking about the fish, I fretted as I ducked out of the council chamber clutching the Latin translation I’d interrupted for Kenelm. I understood these matters little, and liked them even less. But I could not forget the urgent voice of the visitor whom I had not known was Wilfrid, King of Northumbria. Please hear me, Lady!
    Still, I thought wearily, King Wilfrid had asked for help from the poorest of allies. Even Dunstan wasn’t sure what we should do. I shook my head in frustration. What was it that Pope Gregory had longed for in his Dialogues ? “A scholar’s leisure,” I muttered to myself as I headed for the library. Time for reading and reflection, away from the cares of this world. That’s what I wanted, too.
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    What happened next came with the sickening swiftness of a hawk stooping to kill a mouse or a sparrow. Perhaps you’ve seen it happen: with a rustle and a snatch some small living thing disappears, carried off. It’s as if it never existed at all.
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    â€œWyn.” Gytha appeared at the door of my little room the next morning. I looked up from my worktable and attempted to smile at her. The winter weather was coming on in earnest now, and I was well wrapped against the cold. This would be my first Christmastide without Mother, but I was trying to push away such thoughts, and to bury in constant study my recent worries about Wilfrid of Eoforwic and Uncle Edward.
    â€œI’ve found a hymn of Cædmon,” I told my friend. “Remember? Mother used to say his poems were miracles, gifts of God. Listen, Gytha.” I started to read out loud: “ ‘Now we must praise the heavenly kingdom’s Keeper, God’s might and His mind’s intelligence, the work of ...’”
    â€œYou need to come see this.” Gytha seized my arm and pulled me up out of my chair.
    â€œGytha!” Crossly, I grabbed up the copy of the poem I had been making. “Stop and listen to this, won’t you?”
    â€œÃ†lfwyn, look!” Gytha pushed wide the shutters and drew me to the window. The street was filling with armed men on horseback. Farther off I could hear shouts of surprise that seemed to be coming from the center of the town. “There are foot soldiers filling the marketplace,” Gytha said in a stricken voice. “Edward’s troops have come in from every city gate. The Lunden guard never thought to stop them.”
    I looked down at the mounted retainers crowding below my window. Think, I told myself, crumpling the parchment in my hand.
    â€œFind—find your mother. Find Edith!” I stammered at Gytha.
    â€œI’ll come back as fast as I can!” Gytha ran from the room.
    My head was spinning. King Edward’s men were all over Lunden. The king and his thanes were at my door. Come for me —I was certain of that. Dunstan had ridden out at dawn with Kenelm. Gytha and Edith would try to help me, but what could they do? My heart was beating so hard, I could feel it in my throat. How could I have been so stupid? I hadn’t really believed this would happen!
    â€œÃ†lfwyn!” A serving man came scurrying down the passage, calling me as he came. “Lady! King Edward commands you to come!”

    They took me to the council chamber where King Edward had seated himself in my mother’s chair with Æthelstan standing beside him. A contingent of West Saxon thanes ranged around the walls of the room. There was a thick smell of leather and horse, and of men’s bodies.
    â€œÃ†lfwyn,” the king said, fixing me with his bleak grey stare.
    Should I say something? No words would come. I dropped my eyes and saw my plain brown woolen dress, a pair of old scuffed shoes, the