CHAPTER 21
The Flight of the Eagle KingBladud insisted on taking the body of Alcestis back to Trinovantum for burial.
Their progress was slow, for whenever they passed an inhabited area, the local people wanted to pay tribute to their dead queen. Wherever they halted, Bladud sat silently on his horse, his face pale and set, as his people filed weeping past the coffin of oak and lead.
On the third day a flight of white swans joined them, travelling south, just as they travelled south — sometimes vanishing, sometimes reappearing. Bladud began to watch and wait for them each day, taking comfort in their presence, remembering the swans of Greece that had played a part in his betrothal to Alcestis, and the swan on the gold chain that had been on the foundling girl King Lysander had accepted
