Ailsa was ten years of age, a frail girl with golden curls. She had an energetic mind, sharp and inquisitive, but a weak body that kept her in bed a good deal of the time. She was always ill with something. It had started at her birth when her mother suffered a stroke whilst in labor; Ailsa was born blue and Judith Cartingdon had nearly died. Only by God’s grace did either of them live through it.
“Aye, you little devil, I have heard it,” Toby said. “But you must not say anything to him. Perhaps he does not like the name.”
Ailsa stopped her excited dance. “Why not?”
Toby shrugged, putting the last touch on the mulled wine. “It does not sound very flattering.”
Ailsa resumed her dance, ending up lying on top of the table. “And do you know what else I have heard?”
“I am afraid to know.”
“I have heard that Tate de Lara is the son of King Edward the First. They say that he was saved from his savage Welsh mother by the Marcher lords of de Lara, who then raised him as theirown. He is the half-brother of King Edward the Second and was there when the king was murdered. And some say that Queen Isabella asked him to marry her, but he refused, so she took Roger Mortimer as her lover instead.”
“Where do you hear such nonsense?” Toby lifted her sister off the table.
“From Rachel Comstock’s mother. She knows everything.”
Toby made a face. “Rachel Comstock’s mother thinks that she is God’s blessing to all of Mankind and constantly reminds us of how she was a lady in waiting for King Edward’s mother’s sister’s cousin by marriage. Truth be told, she was probably just the privy attendant.”
Ailsa giggled. “She says that Tate should be king, not young Edward.”
Toby paused long enough to ponder that. It seemed like such an immense prospect although she had heard the same thing from her father, once, a long time ago. The fact that Tate de Lara was Edward Longshanks’ bastard son was generally accepted. He had the height and strength of the Plantagenets but the dark features of the Welsh princes. The more she thought on his royal lineage, the more unsettled she became. The man she would soon be supping with had a royal heritage on both sides that was centuries old.
“Not a word of this at supper, do you hear?” she said to her sister. “You have no idea the seriousness of your words.”
Ailsa pouted. Her sister shoved some rushes into her hand, indicating she spread them, to keep her busy.
“But why must I keep silent? I want to know what it is like to live in London and I want to know of King Edward. Do you suppose he will marry some day?”
“I suppose so. He must, as the king.”
“Could he marry me?”
Toby put her hands on her hips, smiling at her sister in spite of herself. “No, little chicken, he could not. He needs a woman of royal blood, not a farmer’s daughter.”
Ailsa was back to pouting. “But father says we have noble blood in us.”
Toby spread the last of the fresh rushes before the hearth. “The best we can do is claim relation to the barons of Northumberland. The last baron, Ives de Vesci, was our father’s grandsire.”
“And mother is descended from a Viking king named Red Thor.”
“So Grandsire Toby has told us.”
“Do you not believe him?”
Toby just smiled. She had a beautiful smile; it changed her face dramatically. She could get her father to agree to anything when she smiled.
“Help me see to supper, little chicken.”
Ailsa forgot about Northumberland and the Viking king. She skipped after her sister, who was more a mother to her than her real one. Judith Cartingdon had been bedridden since Ailsa’s birth, unable to walk, barely able to speak. The care of the infant girl had fallen upon twelve-year-old Toby. As a result, the girls were inordinately close.
Supper was mutton, boiled and sauced, marrow pie, a pudding of currants and nuts, and bread made from precious white flour. Ailsa kept trying to steal pieces of bread and Toby would shoo her away. The cook was an elderly woman who had been Toby’s wet-nurse years ago. The kitchen of Forestburn was low-ceilinged to keep in the heat and mostly constructed of stone; therefore, on a cold day, it was the very best place to be. But on a day like today, with the added stress of an important visitor, Toby was sweating rivers.
“Suppertime is near,” Ailsa could always judge by the rising of the bread. It happened at the same time, every day, without fail. “Do you suppose Dragonblade will be here soon?”
Toby put the last touch on the finished marrow pie and wiped the beads of perspiration on her forehead. “I told you not to call him that,” she told her sister. “And, aye, he will be here soon. I must go and change my clothes.”
Ailsa followed her to the second floor of the manor. Her father had received license several years ago from the barons of Northumberland to build a fortified house to protect his family and farm. It was a stone structure with battlements, but no protecting walls other than the heavy wooden hedge fence that surrounded the immediate area of the home. There was a great hall, a solar, and the kitchen on the ground floor, while the upper floor held three large rooms and another smaller room used for bathing and dressing. Ailsa and Toby shared a room, their mother had one room, and their father another.
