that Cnut and all his host had taken ship
and fled from England without waiting to strike a blow at Ethelred,
and our folk thought that this was victory for us. But Olaf rode
down to the ships in haste, and took them down to Erith, while his
land levies followed on the Kentish shore. For he thought it likely
that Cnut did but leave Ethelred and his armies in Lindsey while he
would land here unopposed.

Then came a fisher's boat with word that Cnut's great fleet was
putting into Sandwich, but before we had planned to throw our force
between him and London came the strange news that again he had left
Kent and had sailed northwards.

We sailed then to Sandwich to learn what we might, sending two
swift ships to watch if Cnut put into the Essex creeks. But at
Sandwich we found the thanes whom Swein had held as hostages left,
cruelly maimed in hand and face, with the message from Cnut that he
would return.

"He may return," said Olaf, "but if all goes well he will find
England ready for him. There is some trouble in Denmark or he would
not leave us thus."

So now all that seemed to be on hand was to bring back the towns
that were yet held by the Danish garrisons, the thingmen, to their
rightful king, and to gather a fleet that would watch the coast
against the return of Cnut. These things seemed not so hard, and
our land would surely soon be secure.

Then began to creep into my mind a longing to be back in my own
place again at Bures, to see the river and woods that I loved, and
to take up the old quiet life that was half forgotten, but none the
less sweet to remember after all this war and wearing trouble. But
of all England, after Lindsey, East Anglia was the greatest Danish
stronghold for those old reasons that I have spoken of, and it was
likely that there would be more fighting there before Ethelred was
owned than anywhere else. So I could not go back yet, but must wait
for Earl Ulfkytel and his levies, who would surely make short work
of the Danes there when their turn came. After that my lands would
be my own again, and then--What wonder, after three years and more
of warfare and the hard life of a warrior who had no home but in a
court which was a camp--after exile in a strange land--with my
new-found kinship with Olaf the viking--that what should be then
had gone from my mind? Will any blame the warrior who did but
remember his playfellow as part of a long-ago dream of lost peace,
if he had forgotten what ti