Star of Mercia
"Hic regina detestatur
Amplexus illicitos;
Spreta mortem machinatur
Ob amores vetitos."
"Nay, Ethelfrith, bide thou here in quiet!" said Cynerith. "Tush, girl! art no child now, at sixteen years old! Why, thou hast witnessed the death of many a fledgling rook. The sun must not stain thy cheeks this day, and that thou knowest! The young man cannot now be afar off, God help! Nay, good lack! I will not have such pouting! It is my behest that thou stay at home."
In reality, the Lady Ethelfrith could scarcely be said to pout; and she knew her mother too well to venture a protest. The party set forth—Offa the King, the imperious Cynerith his Queen, their son the Atheling, and Eadburh their handsome elder daughter, wife of Beorhtric, King of Wessex, and now on a visit to her parents' court—and the young Ethelfrith, debarred from the sport, climbed to the upper room which was her own sleeping-chamber, and looked out over the shire of Hereford.
If she leant out and turned sideways, her window commanded a view of the highway that ran by the gates of King Offa's palace of Sutton. She peered idly in that direction, without emotion of any sort—even anger, or curiosity. Below her lay the orchard-close, bright green under foot, and rosy overhead with the vernal glory of the apple-trees. It was the fairest day of the fair month of May; but its beauty awoke in Ethelfrith a dull, continuous pain. She was seldom happy, poor little princess: she thought much, but there was no one to whom she could tell her ideas, or who would give her sympathy. The King was always occupied; her brother was as spare of speech as herself; her mother was the Queen and unapproachable, except when she jested coarsely; and she feared her sister, the Queen of Wessex. There were many puzzling things in her everyday world which had only just begun to claim her attention.
She was a very fairy-like being, so small and slim and fragile; her complexion was as delicate as the apple-blossom; she had soft eyes, grey as the plumage of a dove and a soft mouth with an obstinate curve; her hair was of the purest, palest gold, just saved from being flaxen and colourless. A strange child, surely, for those two robust persons, Offa and Cynerith. Just now she was wondering why they had not told her before yesterday of Ethelbert of East Anglia, his coming and its purpose. Every one about the palace had known of it but herself. She had overheard what had been whispered to a servant of her sister's from Wessex, in the orchard, upon the foregoing afternoon, by one of her father's henchmen, whose eyes had shed a marvellously tender light while he gazed upon her, King Offa's daughter.