over
me. I had not moved from sunset to sunrise, and I was refreshed and
broad awake at once, wondering at first where I was, and who had
laughed and woke me.

There was a youth sitting on a table's edge by the wall over
against where I lay, and a big broad-shouldered man leant on it
with folded arms beside him, and at first I stared at them till my
thoughts came back, and they laughed at me again, and then I knew
Godwine and Relf the thane, who had but just come up from their
ship to find me.

"On my word," said Godwine, "here is a man who could teach one how
to sleep! We have sat here and talked about you for ten minutes or
more."

"Redwald sleeps as though he had lost time to make up," said Relf.
"Welcome back to us, anyway."

"Aye--welcome you are," said Godwine warmly, "but how did you come
here?"

I got up and took their hands, rejoicing to see them. It was good
to be among friends again after the long watching and many dangers.
Then came the steward followed by his men with a mighty breakfast,
and as he set the tables on the high place, Godwine's men trooped
in. They had had to wait for the morning tide into the haven, and
the ship was just berthed.

"Food first," Relf advised. "Then shall Redwald tell us all he
knows."

So by and by we sat in the morning sunlight in the courtyard, and I
told them all that had happened from beginning to end. They knew no
more than that Ethelred was dead, and that Cnut was besieging
London.

"We tried to chase those Danes because they had got our man's
ship," said Godwine. "When we got near enough, for they came down
wind and passed us before long, we found that Bertric was contented
enough, running up his own flag, and the Danes did not stay to
fight. So we came home, only losing our tide by the delay."

"What would you have done had you known that the queen was on
board, and a prisoner?" I asked.

"Why, nothing more than we have done," Godwine said. "My father
hates Emma the cat as bitterly as he does Streone the fox, which is
saying a good deal. The cat's claws are clipped now, maybe."

Well, I knew this, and said nothing. One could expect no more from
Earl Wulfnoth's son. Nor do I think that any loved Emma the queen
much. One may know how a person is thought of by the way in which
folk name them often enough, and though our king would have had his
young wife called by her English name, Elfgiva, none ever did so.
Her Norman, foreign name was all we used. If s