Forging the Runes by Josepha Sherman Page A

since I am a foreigner, you have another advantage: If something happens to me on my mission, why, I'm none of yours, so you need do nothing but say, 'What a pity' and go on with life as before."
    Aedh smiled but did not deny it. Ardagh mirrored that smile, thinking that he could hardly take offense at something so beautifully, cold-bloodedly, practical; it was almost as properly devious as a Sidhe plot! "And of course you know that since I never lie, when I say I won't just . . . run off and not return, there's no danger of my abandoning your cause, either." Or rather, of abandoning Sorcha. "So, now. Where is your most informal and smooth-tongued minister to go?"
    Was his easy acquiescence surprising Aedh? The well-schooled royal face showed no sign of it. You think I've turned into your obedient tool, Ardagh told him silently. You have no idea I'm using you as well.
    "Now that," the king mused, "is an entirely new problem. We can eliminate one ruler under the 'too powerful for safety' category: the Frankish soon-to-be-Emperor Charlemagne. Trading with the Franks is one thing; we don't want that ambitious fellow sniffing at Eriu's borders! No, let him play his political games on the mainland. At any rate, the Franks haven't been threatened very much by the Lochlannach."
    "Yet," Fothad muttered, bent over a scroll.
    Ardagh straightened. "Is that a map you're studying?" As Fothad nodded, unrolling it fully, the prince got to his feet to lean over the poet's shoulder, pretending a casual interest but actually trying to make sense of the inked-in lines without revealing his ignorance of the human Realm beyond Eriu. "There, now," the prince said, guessing wildly. "Is that not Cadwal ap Dyfri's homeland, Cymru?"
    Fothad glanced up at him. "Of course."
    "It seems to lie relatively near Eriu, without too much water between. Mm, yes, and it has quite an extensive, if convoluted, coastline. Why not—"
    "Because there's no such thing as Cymru," Aedh cut in. "No one such thing, rather. The land is sliced into several small, often warring kingdoms—Cadwal would know the lot of them," he added offhandedly. "None are strong enough to do us much good, and there's no one High King to unify them." Contempt tinged his voice. "Besides, that convoluted coastline is far too rocky to suffer many Lochlannach landings."
    And you, oh king, like everyone else in Fremainn, are too prejudiced against those Cymric cousins of yours to even consider making peace with them. "Who else, then?"
    "It will need be one of the rulers of the Sacsanach— Saxons, in their tongue."
    "Offa of Mercia was certainly the strongest king in Britain," Fothad murmured, "possibly too strong for any safe alliance, but at any rate he died four years back."
    Aedh snorted. "Too strong, indeed. He signed some manner of pact with none other than our ambitious Frankish Charlemagne. Yes, and if rumor's right, Offa died just as he was making his own plans against the Lochlannach. Well, with Ceolwulf on the Mercian throne, those plans are certainly lost! He's not half the ruler Offa was."
    "Just as well, I would think," Ardagh murmured, and received a wry glance from the king.
    "Beortric," Fothad said suddenly, looking up from his map.
    "Beortric!" Aedh echoed in delight. "King Beortric of the West Saxons—yes, of course: powerful but not too powerful, ambitious but not obnoxiously so. He's said to be a singularly affable fellow; he's reigned rather peacefully for . . ."
    "Sixteen years or so," Fothad supplied.
    "Yes, and if I'm correct, he's married to one of Offa's daughters . . . Edburga, I think her name is."
    "Yes."
    Aedh nodded, clearly pleased. "That means an alliance with Wessex is indirectly an alliance with Mercia as well, with no awkward complications attached of who's stronger than whom. Perfect. And Wessex—Beortric's land," he added to Ardagh, who had already puzzled it out— "Wessex has even suffered a Lochlannach raid or two some few years ago."
    "How