Wilton, Wiltshire, 1044 ADThe planked bridge over the gently flowing, mirror-like River Avon resounded to the hoofs of our horses and the iron bands of the wagon wheels. Close to its farther bank stood the wooden enclosure of the Abbey, newly founded by King Alfred, next to the previous building by King Egbert. Inside its hallowed walls, with a score of other nuns, resided my daughter, Eadgyth.
Years had slipped by without my setting eyes upon her. I would find her changed, a woman now, not the nine-winters-old slip of a girl I consigned to the Abbess eleven years ago. To think she had never seen her brother, Leofwine – and Gyrth was a toddler when she left! How would she receive the news I bore? My plan was about to come to fruition more than a decade from its conception.
Once the horse
