Читать книгу The Dream Weavers онлайн | страница 22

Offa narrowed his eyes. ‘The route has been agreed by both parties.’ His voice was harsh.

‘And as long as both parties keep to the designated plan, all will be well,’ the young man countered. He turned to address the girl. ‘I am sure you and I, Princess, young though we both may be, will be able to oversee this stretch of the work without conflict.’

She was watching him with the same narrow-eyed concentration as her father. Her hair, bound into a single heavy plait beneath her headrail, was the colour of sundried hay, he noted, the same as so many of these Saxons, and just like her sister. His gaze shifted to the second girl. Older, he guessed, by a year or two, but softer. There was a third sister as well, or so he had been told, his informant adding that with their mother they formed a nest of vipers, best avoided. He covered his smile with his hand as he realised that Eadburh was still watching him, and judging from her icy expression could read his every thought. He reached for his mead horn and concentrated on the honeyed richness of the local brew, refusing to look at her again. All trace of humour had vanished. That frigid blue-eyed stare had left him frozen to the marrow.

The emissaries from Powys had been accommodated in one the royal guest houses within the palisade. The huge enclosure, on a bluff above the River Lugg, held the great hall of Sutton Palace plus a dozen or so other halls of varying magnificence, together with kitchens, bakeries, workshops, weaving sheds, stables, plus a multitude of smaller buildings, forming what amounted to a small village. Taking two men with him, Elisedd rode out through the heavily guarded gateway, heading along the narrow winding river with its damp meadows and rich carpets of flowers. As the gates swung shut behind them, he breathed a sigh of relief. He had no reason to suspect anyone of treachery, but King Offa’s bodyguard, armed at all times, seasoned warriors to a man, filled him with unease. The concept of a recognised boundary between their two nations, putting an end at last to the centuries of invasion and counter-invasion, made sense. Whether or not their neighbour would stick to his own rules was not a matter for him. His father and Offa had drawn up the master plan a decade before, and slowly the digging of the ditch and the erection of its earthen rampart had happened, each local district providing the men and money to undertake the huge enterprise, in some places working with earlier earthworks, in others incorporating natural barriers, hills and rivers, into a boundary that would at least stall any potential infringement of the truce. In the distance the reassuring hills of his homeland rose in a misty barrier against the western horizon.