Chapter 15Kingsham, Sussex, summer 712 AD
Had Wynflaed paid the slightest attention to her biblical study classes, she might have been better equipped not to set off along the path of spiteful revenge. Impelled by a character formed by unfortunate circumstances, which well pre-dated her acquaintance with either Cynethryth or Leofwen, she embodied the nominated sins she had yawned through. There was a deceitfulness within her heart that wilfully hid her motives and beliefs from her conscious view. Had she not been picking at a thread at the hem of her tunic when the prioress alerted her class to Jeremiah 17:9 – the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? – she might have questioned the resentment that directed and motivated her behaviour.
When she
