Chapter 6
The hostage‘I will not let him go!’ Eanfleda almost shrieked. Tears were streaming from her eyes and she was clasping her infant son to her breast with such fury and despair that she all but stopped his breathing.
Prince Egfrid added his voice to hers and howled disconsol-ately. He had no idea of the negotiations that had gone on between King Penda and his father King Oswy, the negotiations which had been at last settled and sealed with the agreement that he, Prince Egfrid, second son of Oswy and Eanfleda, would be given as hostage to King Penda as sign of Oswy’s good faith, but he did know that he was extremely uncomfortable crushed so fiercely in his mother’s arms.
Oswy looked at his pale thin wife, her eyes full of outrage, and his own face flushed with anger.
‘Will not, l
