The Steel Beneath the Silk

The sons of Aethelred shall walk a bitter road, all but one.

While he admired Athelstan's fierce determination, Edmund sometimes wondered if his real brother had been spirited away and a viking changeling left in his place.

I, too, once sent a child to an uncertain fate across the sea, not knowing if I would ever see her again. I did not stop grieving, Emma, until the day you returned to Rouen.

After so many years of waiting and planning, after so much silver squandered and lives lost, King Swein had rules this kingdom for only two months; Cnut had ruled not at all. Now Aethelred and Thorkell had returned, and Cnut's claim to England seemed to be crumbling like a tower built of sand.

And the whole world knows, my lady, that poison is a woman's weapon.

He is well-liked, far more than his father. I cannot speak to how skilled a warrior he is, but he wields an ancient sword than once belonged to a great Mercian king. Offa's sword, they call it, and it is a symbol of royal authority.

Nothing is secure while there are men in England who will oppose my claim to the throne.

He had promised his viking army twenty-one thousand pounds for their swords, and when he taxed his people to pay for it, they would do more than grumble. They would howl.

It takes only one man to reveal a secret, my lord.

He was a brutal man, it was said, who loved violence for its own sake, and he led men who, like him, found joy in slaughter.