k that the dame had
any but friendly feelings towards myself, though her bright eyes
and tall figure, and most of all what was said of her, feared me,
as I say. Now she came towards me swiftly, and did not wait for me
to speak first.

"What will you at this hour, Redwald?" she said.

"Nought but pressing need bade me come thus," I answered. "The levy
is broken, and the Danes are on the way to Colchester. My mother
flies to London, and you and Hertha must do likewise."

"So your father and hers are slain," she said, looking fixedly at
me, and standing very still.

"How know you that?" I asked sharply, for I had told the steward
nothing.

"By your face, Redwald," she said; "you were but a boy two days
agone, now you have a man's work on your hands, and you will do it.
Who bade you ride here?"

"No one," I said, wondering, "needs must that I should come."

"That is as I thought," she said; "but we cannot fly."

"Why not?"

"Because the sickness that your mother feared is on Hertha, and she
cannot go."

Now I was ready to weep, but that would be of no use.

"Is there danger to her?" I said, and I could not keep my voice
from shaking, for Hertha was all the sister I had, and she in time
would be nearer than that to me.

"None," answered the dame, "save she runs risk of chill. For she
has been fevered for a while."

"Which is most to be feared," said I, "chill, or risk of Danish
cruelty?"

She made no answer, but asked me what were my mother's plans. And
when I said that she would fly to Ethelred the king, the old nurse
laughed strangely to herself.

"Then you go to the very cause of all this trouble," she said.
"Truly the king's name should be 'the Unredy', for rede he has
none. It is his ill counsel that has brought Swein the Dane on us.
We have to pay for the Hock-tide slayings {3}."

"We had no share in that" I said.

"No, because half our folk are Danes, more or less, some of the men
of Ingvar and Guthrum. But Swein will not care for that--they are
all English to him."

"What will you do, then?" I asked, growing half wild that she
should stand there quietly and plan nought.

"These folk will side with Swein presently, when they find that he
is the stronger, and then the old kinship will wake in them, and
the Wessex king will be nought to their minds. Then will be peace
here, for the Danes will sweep on to Mercia and London. Do you go
to Ethelred the Unredy--and I abiding here shall be the safe