ain the horns rang, and he leaped up.

"We must not keep them waiting," he cried. "Come!"

"More dreams," grumbled Sighard the old thane to me as the king
went on before us with the chaplain. "On my word, we have been
dream-ridden like a parcel of old women on this journey, till we
shall fear our own shadows next. There is Hilda as silent as a
mouse today, and I suppose she has been seeing more portents. I
mind that a black cat did look at us out of a doorway this
morning."

So he growled, scoffing, and I must say that I was more than half
minded to agree with him. Only the earthquake did seem more than an
everyday token.

"I suppose that the earthquake which we felt was sent for
somewhat?" I said.

"Why, of course; such like always are. But seeing that it was felt
everywhere we have ridden, even so far as Northampton, and likely
enough further on yet, I don't see why we should take it as meant
for the king."

Then he began to laugh to himself.

"When one comes to think thereof," he chuckled, "there must have
been scores of men who felt it just as they were starting
somewhere; and I warrant every one of them took it to himself, and
put off his business! Well, well, I can tell what it did portend,
however, for Ethelbert, and that is a mighty change in his
household so soon as he gets his new wife home. Earthquake,
forsooth! Mayhap he will wish he had hearkened to its message when
she turns his house upside down."

"Nay," I said, smiling; "one has not heard that of the princess."

"She is Quendritha's daughter," he said grimly, and growing grave
of a sudden. "That is the one thing against this wedding, to my
mind. If she is like her mother, or indeed like her sister
Eadburga, who wedded your king, there is an end for peace to
Ethelbert, and maybe to East Anglia."

Now I had heard little or nothing of how that last match turned
out; I only knew that when I was taken from home we were full of
rejoicing over it. So I heard now for the first time that over all
the land of Wessex were whispers of ill done by our new queen--of
men who crossed her in aught dying suddenly, or going home to
linger awhile and come to a painful end. I heard that she bore rule
rather than the king, and that her sway was heavy, and so on in
many counts against her. The tales were the same as those I had
heard often of late about her mother, Quendritha, and with all my
heart I hoped that the Princess Etheldrida was not as those two. I
h