Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King

served early due to the failing light, and after stories—Hector enthralled them with good deliveries of old tales, such as the long poem of the Geats and Beowulf—and after music and table games, the court retired to bed.
    Peat blocks in fire baskets gave off a sweet, comforting scent, mingled with pine and fruit woods, and Margaret indulged in more food in cold weather, the fare enticing and satisfying. But her mother urged both daughters to mark the season of devotion and gratitude with fasting. Yet though Lady Agatha kept her royal Saxon offspring apart and aloof, Margaret felt at home in Dunfermline, where she enjoyed freedoms she had never known, such as wandering the glens with a maid and a guard, or strolling the weekly market in the town. She felt safe there, too, knowing that the Normans were not likely to pursue them northward so long as Malcolm was their protector.
    That winter, she sensed Edgar falling away from the hold of his kinswomen. Surrounded by warriors and leaders in Scotland who regarded him as a rightful but banished king, he rode with Malcolm and hunted, trained at arms, tossed bones and dice, raced horses, and debated war strategies with his Scottish and Saxon comrades. He grew taller, roughening into a man, and the changes Margaret saw tugged at her heart; at times she felt more like his mother than his sister.
    Once, when she glimpsed the bright sheen of his golden hair in the dim great hall, she thought of the crown Edgar would likely never wear. That pulled at her heartstrings, too.
    WHEN SNOWDROPS PUSHED through cold earth, followed by purple crocus, the King of Scots rode out with an army at his backand trouble clearly to hand. As Margaret went to pray at dawn in the makeshift chapel the Saxons had set up in the king’s tower, she looked through a narrow window along the turning stair and saw the men departing the yard. Silver-pink light sparked over their mesh armor as they rode out. Later she heard that they had met thousands more men waiting along the roads and fields from there to Lothian. Malcolm had sent word to all households within a day’s ride for any who owed him knight’s service for rent to take up arms or send men on his behalf. Many northern Scots, Margaret heard it said at the supper table, ignored the king’s summons. Malcolm Canmore had not conquered the whole of his own kingdom, they said, but seemed bent on riding south to attack and conquer outside Scotland.
    “But that cannot be so,” Margaret told Wilfrid. “King Malcolm supports the Saxon cause now. Why would he ride into England with an army, except to help the people there?”
    “We can only hope it is so, lady.” Wilfrid did not sound convinced.
    Within the week, Edgar and his own companions rode out, too, giving little explanation beyond saying they would join the Scottish king in England. Robert De Lauder and Ranald remained at Dunfermline to oversee the king’s guard and his estates. Soon enough, news came that Malcolm and his army were moving through northern England toward York, passing through areas decimated by the Normans under William’s command.
    “With all this Scottish help,” Cristina said bitterly one day, “Edgar feels pressured to make a stand as a rebel king. That will come to naught—meanwhile, we are stuck in Scotland, prisoners more than guests. Who knows what will become of any of us.”
    Margaret did not answer; she did not know either. Spending more time on her knees in prayer, she began to wonder if all the daily prayers she and the other ladies spun heavenward on behalf of the Saxons would have any effect at all. Judging by the news, prayers made little difference.
    She learned, along with the others, that Malcolm had led his men as far as York not to save Saxons, but to pound hard on them himself.His lands in Cumbria had been attacked by his cousin Cospatric, and Malcolm had acted in retaliation, pushing farther south in his wrath.
    Margaret felt sick to her stomach, at times,