ts of Carl the Great were
given, and his greetings spoken, offhand, as it were, by us. There
must needs be a gathering of the Witan of the East Anglians, that
all might be done with full honour both to Carl and his embassy. I
must say that it somewhat irked me to be treated with much
ceremony, as a Frank and paladin of the great king, instead of
being hailed in all good fellowship as a thane of England, who was
glad to get home again. However, there was no help for it till our
errand was done; for it was out of his goodness that Carl had given
me a place among his messengers, saying that they must have some
one of their number who could act as interpreter, and I would not
be ungrateful even in seeming.

So I had no chance yet of private speech with Ethelbert, when I
might give the message from Ecgbert; which was indeed the main
reason of my coming here instead of going straight home. That
chance would best be sought when the state business was done; for
since no man in all England rightly knew where Ecgbert was at this
time, and he had no mind that many should, my business would wait
well enough. So I bent myself to enjoy the feasting and the hunting
parties the court made for us all; and pleasant it was, in all
truth. And every day fresh companies of the great folk of the land
came in, till the town was full of thanes and ladies and their
trains, gathered to see and hear what had come from beyond the
seas.

So one day I rode with Werbode, who was all eagerness to see the
land (to which his forbears would not come when Hengist asked them,
by the way, as he told me) across the great heaths that lie north
and east of Thetford, with Erling after us, leading two greyhounds
which had been lent us from the royal kennels. There were bustards
in droves on these heaths, and roe deer to be found easily enough
by those who had skill to seek them in the right places. The
bustards were nesting; but that is the time when one can best
course the great birds, and many a good gallop we had after them.

Whereby we lost ourselves presently, and made light of it until we
had wandered for some hours, and then remembered that we had never
seen a man of whom to ask the way back to the town. Of course we
tried to make our way back by the sun, but ever there would seem to
grow up a thicket or wood before us, which we must skirt, or some
marshy lake shone across our path in a hollow of the heath; and it
was slow work, and the horses grew we