as
we land. So also will Utred."

"Then we are equal," said the king, while a cloud seemed to pass
from his face, for Streone led all Mercia, and were he in truth on
our side things would go well. It was no very secret talk among
some of us that Edric the earl had made peace sooner than might
have been, but that angered Eadmund and the king sorely if so much
were even hinted.

"Then you will indeed help us?" said Eadmund, for Olaf had accepted
the place he had named for him as it were.

"I have a debt to England that I can never repay," answered the
king gravely. "She gave us our first teachers in the Christian
faith. And Swein has held Norway, my own land, with the help of the
heathen jarls who are yet there. I fight the fight of the Cross,
therefore, and when I go back to my own land, it will be to sweep
away the last worship of Odin and Thor. But the time has not come
yet," and his eyes shone strangely.

"When it comes I will help you," said Eadmund, "if it may be that I
can do so."

"I know it, and I thank you; but it is my thought that I shall need
no help," said the king, while the look on his face was very
wondrous, so that I had never seen the like. It minded me of the
pictures of St. Stephen that I saw in a great church here with
Abbot Elfric and Eadward. Then he spoke of the spread of the Faith
in Norway, and how that he would be the one who should finish what
Olaf Tryggvesson, his cousin, had begun; and one might see that he
longed for power and kingship only for that work.

Long did those two warriors talk before they turned to lighter
matters, and in the end they planned to ride to Rouen to see the
king himself on the next day. But before night fell there came more
news with another ship that came alone into the haven. And she was
English, bearing messengers from the great witan itself.

These thanes told Eadmund their news, and it was this:

That Cnut had been hailed as king by the Danish host at
Gainsborough, but that the English people begged Ethelred to return
to them, promising that a good force should be ready to meet him on
his landing. Already the London folk had planned a rising there and
in the great towns against the Thingmen, as the Danish paid
garrisons were called, and it was likely that this had by this time
come about.

So at once Eadmund went with these thanes to Rouen, and Olaf would
have me bide with him till word came from the king as to the next
doings.

That was a plea