King Olafs Kinsman | Page 4

touched by question and offer alike. "There is many a mile between here and Ipswich, and I think that to go to Wormingford is my work, surely."
So I rode away fast, seeing in the valley below me the lights of the house that I sought. As I had said, the errand was indeed mine.
For at the great house just across the river below the hills lived the one who should be my wife in the days to come--Hertha, daughter of Osgod, the Thane of Wormingford. It was now three years since we had been betrothed with all solemnity in our church, and that had seemed but fit and right, for we were two children who had played together since we could run hand in hand. And my mother had been as a mother also to little Hertha since she was left with only her father to tend her.
Our house and Osgod's were akin, though not near, for we both traced our line from Redwald the first Christian king of East Anglia, whose name I bore. Hertha was two years younger than I.
Now Osgod the Thane had ridden away to the war with my father, and unless he had returned with Grinkel, Hertha was alone in the house with her old nurse and the farm servants. Most surely she would have been at Bures with us but for some spring-time sickness which was among the village children, and from which my mother sought to keep her free. It might be that the thane had returned, but it was in my mind that the manner of Grinkel's coming boded ill to all of us.
So I rode on quickly down the hill towards the river. I knew not how near the Danes might be, but I thought little of them, until suddenly through the dusk I saw a red point of fire flicker and broaden out into flame on a hilltop eastward, where I knew a beacon fire was piled against need. And then from every point along the Stour valley beacon after beacon flashed out in answer, until all the countryside was full of them; and I hurried on more swiftly than before.
Our hall stood on the hill crest above church and village, beyond the reach of creeping river mist and sudden floods, and I rode down the track that crosses the lower road and so comes to the ford below Osgod's place on the Essex side of the river. And when I came to the crossing my horse pricked his ears and snorted, so that I knew there were horsemen about, and I reined up and waited in the lane.
I could hear the quick hoofbeats of two steeds, and all the air was full of the sound of alarm bells, for the evening was very still.
Then up the road from eastward rode two men at an easy gallop, and my horse's manner told me that a stable mate of his was coming, so I feared no longer but went into the main road to meet them.
"What news?" I cried, and they halted.
"It is the young master," said one, and I knew the voice of Edred, our housecarle. And when he was close to me I could see that he was in almost as evil plight as had been Grinkel his comrade. The other man I knew not, but he bore a headless spear shaft in his hand, and Edred's shield had a great gash across it.
"Master, has Grinkel come?" Edred asked me.
"Aye, and is dead. He bade us fly, and could say no more. What of my father?"
The men looked at one another for a moment, and then Edred said very sadly:
"Woe is me that I must be the bearer of heavy tidings to you and the lady your mother. But what is true is true and must be told. Never has such a battle been fought in East Anglia, and the fortune of war has gone against us."
The fear that I had read in my mother's eyes fell cold on me at those words-and I asked again, longing and fearing to know the worst:
"What of the thane, my father?"
"Master, he fell with the first," Edred answered with a breaking of his voice. "Nor might we bring him from the place where he fell. For the Danes swept us from the field at the last like dead leaves in the wind, and there was nought left us but to fly. Two long hours we fought first, and then came flight. They say one man began it. I know not; but it was no man of ours. Now the Danes are marching hitherwards to Colchester."
"What of Osgod of Wormingford?" I asked.
"He lies beside our lord. There is a ring of slain round them. I would I were there also," the warrior answered.
"Then