CHAPTER 8The Earl of Mercia was old — so old that the son at his side was already middle-aged. Yet Aelfgar seemed to be one of the eternally youthful — all restless eyes and charming smiles. And only half the man his father was. Of course, even his mother, the lady Godiva, was the stuff of legends, her beauty being famed as far afield as Flanders. But she was not here.
She was the only one, I thought, amazed, as I slipped into the hall with Lucy behind some eminent lord and his wife. Half of Mercia seemed to be present at Folkingham, to discuss Prince Gruffydd and Earl Harold and the militia of all England. For Gruffydd of Wales had soundly defeated — and killed — the over-confident Bishop of Hereford, resulting in the calling out of the militia of all England against him — with Mercia’s
