my mother," the
king said after a little while. "Can it mean harm to Etheldrida?
Was it for her that the knell passed, and shall I find her gone
from me? It is many days since I heard from her or of her."

Now when it came to that, I knew that nothing would stay the king,
and so also did his mother. Whereon she was eager as himself to say
that the dream was but wrought of her sorrow.

"Why, then," said Ethelbert, "you and Wilfrid may laugh at me if
you will; for I have dreamed a dream to set against yours, because
I think it has a good meaning. I thought that I was in a city, and
that from its marketplace rose heavenward a great beam of light,
like a pathway. And so I would climb it, but I could not. Then I
had wings, and up it at last I sailed as a ship sails on the path
of sunlight on an evening sea. Surely that promises a happy journey
for me. Fear no more, therefore, my mother."

Then we went from him, for state business called him, and I would
take the queen across the garden to the bower door. There was
little ceremony in this quiet court, and no waiting ladies were
biding her return outside. And when we were alone there she turned
to me, and her eyes were dim and pitiful.

"Friend," she said, "yon beam of light led to heaven. I do not know
what it all means, but I fear--I fear terribly."

"Lady," I said, "many a time I have known men who thought they had
ill dreams on the night before a battle, and naught came of them. I
have forgotten to trouble myself much therewith."

"Nay, but they are sent at times for our warning."

"It may be so. I should be foolish if I did not believe what wiser
men than I tell me of their messages. But if there is ill before
the king, can it be anywise turned aside? What if he were persuaded
not to go?"

"Oh," she said, with a little sob, "then his troth would be broken,
and that in itself would bring ill. It seems dark all round me."

Then I said, for she was in sore distress:

"Lady, I am a stranger and hardly known to you, but I am to ride
with your son. Will it be aught if I tell you that I will watch him
as if he were my own atheling, and if need be die for him, with his
own thanes?"

"It is much," she said eagerly, "much; for in that court where I
fear for him you will be a stranger, and may hear and note more
than our folk, for if ill is plotted they may be careless of you. I
shall have less fear now that I may feel that one at least shares
in my dread. I do not kn