Maude smiled. “Send Morcar my love.” She blushed again.
“Please, Ed, change your plans!”
Edwin regarded her sadly. “I cannot, Ceidre.”
“This time you will be killed! The Normans have spies everywhere—he told me himself! Look—they have discovered Hereward’s whereabouts! They could discover yours!”
“I have spies everywhere too, Ceidre.”
“’Tis too soon! Can you not at least delay? You will be defeated, maybe killed! Ed, please, reconsider what you do!”
Morcar was regarding her with folded arms. “What is this, Ceidre? Why are you so overwrought? Has he told you to come and beg us to cease?”
“No!”
“If he has,” Morcar continued, “’tis because he would like nothing more than to have us hand him Aelfgar on a pewter platter!”
“He has not sent me here,” she protested.
“Has he hurt you?” Edwin asked, regarding her steadily.
She flushed. “No, he has not.”
“You have done well, sister,” Edwin said. “He must trust you completely to have been so foolish to tell you his plans and Hereward’s whereabouts.”
“So—he did not lie? Hereward is really near Cavlidockk?”
“Yes.”
Ceidre had, in the back of her mind, feared the Norman had dissembled, discovering her game. But he had not lied, which meant he did trust her, and oh, how she hated herself and this entire damn war!
Edwin took her shoulders. “You care for him?” His tone was quiet.
She shook her head to deny it, even as tears escaped.
“Of course she does not care for that Norman pig!” Morcar roared, blue eyes blazing.
“In war,” Edwin said, ignoring his brother’s outburst, “we all do what we find distasteful. War is not a happy time.”
Ceidre choked back her sobs. “I know, Ed,” she said, hugging him.
“And to love the enemy is perhaps the worst of all,” he said heavily.
She blinked up at him. “I do not love him.”
“Have you seen Isolda?”
She jerked. Isolda was William’s daughter, the one he had promised to Edwin after Hastings, then married to one of his own vassals. “No, I have not.”
“I heard she was at York, with her husband. I heard she is with child—again.” It was a question.
Ceidre had known Edwin was furious when William had reneged on his promise of his daughter as a bride, but never had she suspected he might actually have wanted Isolda for more than a royal alliance. Rumor had it, of course, that she was beautiful, tall and blonde and regal. “I will find out,” she promised him.
“It matters not,” he said, turning away. “Once it mattered, but that has long since passed.” He looked at her. “All that matters is Aelfgar. I can never give up until I have taken back what is mine. I need you, Ceidre.”
Her heart split precisely in two. “Do not fear. I will never deny you.”
“This I know.” He hesitated. “Ceidre—be careful. The Norman is shrewd. Do not let him catch you at these games.”
