"That is the one thing against this wedding, to my mind.

If she is like her mother, or indeed like her sister Eadburga, who wedded your king, there is an end for peace to Ethelbert, and maybe to East Anglia." Now I had heard little or nothing of how that last match turned out; I only knew that when I was taken from home we were full of rejoicing over it.

So I heard now for the first time that over all the land of Wessex were whispers of ill done by our new queen--of men who crossed her in aught dying suddenly, or going home to linger awhile and come to a painful end.

I heard that she bore rule rather than the king, and that her sway was heavy, and so on in many counts against her.

The tales were the same as those I had heard often of late about her mother, Quendritha, and with all my heart I hoped that the Princess Etheldrida was not as those two.