and shall need
those who love fighting."

Then he said to me:

"Siric your father had a wondrous sword that I used to envy him;
you shall learn to use it."

"Lord king," I answered, "I must learn to win it back from the
Danes, who have it now."

I thought the king changed countenance a little at that, and he bit
his lip.

"We have been well beaten in East Anglia," he said as if to
himself. "Here is truth from this boy at least."

Now, if Ethelred did not know that our men had been so scattered by
the Danes that they could not even ask for truce to recover their
slain, it seemed plain even to me that the king was ill-served in
some way. But I could say nought; and after that he bade us
farewell for the time.

So it came to pass that he gave me a place among the thanes' sons
of his own court and there I was well trained in all that would
make me a good warrior. Soon I had many friends, and best of all I
loved the athelings, Eadmund and Eadward, who soon took notice of
me, the one because I was never weary of weapon play, and the
other, Eadward, who was somewhat younger than I, because of the
learning that our good priest of Bures had taken such pains to
teach me against my will. For above all things Eadmund loved the
craft of the warrior, and Eadward all that belonged to peace.

Chapter 2: Olaf The King.

My mother lived but a few months after that flight of ours; but at
least she knew before she died that Bertha was safe. What the old
nurse had foreseen had come to pass. The half-Danish and Danish
folk of the East Angles owned Swein as king, though not willingly,
and a housecarle from Wormingford made his way to us with word from
Gunnhild that set our minds at rest. Truly our hall and Osgod's had
been burnt by parties from the Danish host, and for a time the
danger was great, for Swein's vengeance for his sister's death was
terrible.

Now the land was poorer, but in peace. Yet Hertha would keep in
hiding till we might see how things went, for the Danes might be
forced back, and when a Danish host retreats it hinders pursuit by
leaving a desert in its wake. Many a long year will it be before
those Danish pathways are lost to sight again. They seem to be
across every shire of our land.

So I lived on in Ethelred's court now in one town and now in
another, as the long struggle bade us shift either to follow or fly
the Danes; and presently the memory both of my mother and Hertha
grew dim, for wartime