Indeed, if it were known the body were in the hands of the Christians to be given a Christian burial, it would be a mighty rallying point for all the dissidents in the country, and they were many.
He looked at Etheldreda, but her face showed nothing. ‘She will pay for this,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I should have killed her when she first walked through my door!’ He was certain that somehow she was responsible for the abduction. She had been a clever child, and as a woman she was accepted as equal by scholars and by kings. She had always made him feel uneasy, looking at him with those clear eyes, as though she could see into his very soul. But he was clever too, and this time he believed he would outsmart her. He mastered the outward signs of his discomfiture, took those aside who had bro
