CHAPTER 28At first, with relief, I thought the hall was just as I remembered it, large and gracious in the true Saxon style. On the few occasions I had been here as a child, it had been a place of warmth and hospitality, and whatever the tensions caused by Hereward, deliberately or otherwise, this atmosphere of welcome, of comfort, had never been touched. I had thought then that it spoke of past contented family life, and had wished more than ever that Hereward would sort out his quarrels and go home.
Frederic de Warenne waved me courteously to a bench, and shouted imperiously for wine while a nervous serving girl took my cloak. Aediva sat down close beside me. I could feel the tension in her.
I felt a shiver run through me, because it wasn’t really as I remembered it at all. It was a co
