The Price of Blood
Patricia Bracewell
Harper
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Patricia Bracewell 2015
Maps © Matt Brown 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs © Dave Wall / Arcangel Images (medieval interior); Gordon Crabb / Alison Eldred (woman)
Lines from William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum, The History of English Kings Vol. 1 edited by Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom (1998) are reproduced by kind permission of Oxford University Press
Patricia Bracewell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
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Source ISBN: 9780008104603
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008104597
Version: 2015-05-07
For Ron and Dot
Who share my earliest memories
In the Year of our Lord 979 Æthelred, son of Edgar … came to the throne … His life is said to have been cruel at the outset, pitiable in mid-course, and disgraceful in its ending …
He was hounded by the shade of his brother, demanding terribly the price of blood. Who could count how often he summoned his army, how often he ordered ships to be built, how often he called his nobles together from every quarter, and nothing ever came of it?
The evil could not be lulled to rest … for enemies were always sprouting out of Denmark like a hydra’s heads, and nowhere was it possible to take precautions …
– The History of the English Kings
William of Malmesbury
Twelfth Century
Contents