oliday gear, with those Mercian thanes who had met us as
escort before and after us. The morning was bright and clear, and I
thought I had never seen so fair a procession as this with which
the king went to meet his bride.

I had heard much of this palace of Offa's from the Mercians and
from Ethelbert himself, but it was a far stronger place than I had
expected. Seeing that here, on the newly-conquered Welsh border
lands, no man could tell when the wild Britons might swarm across
the ford, and bring fire and sword in revenge on the lands they had
lost, if the king would have a palace here, it must be a very
strong hold, and Offa had indeed made one.

The Romans had chosen the place long ago, having the same foe to
watch and the same ford to keep, and on the low hill, which they
saw was best for strength and position alike, they had set a great
square camp with high earthen walls and deep moat below them. Once
they had had their stone houses within it, but they had gone. The
last of them were cleared when Offa drove out the Welsh and set his
own place there after our fashion. Then he had repaired the
earthworks, and crowned them afresh with a heavy timber stockade,
making new gates and bridges across the moat.

Across the bridge which faces toward Wales we rode, between lines
of country folk, who thronged outside the stockading to see our
coming; and so with their cheers to greet us we came into a great
open courtyard, with long buildings for thralls and kitchens and
the like on either side of it, and right opposite the gate, facing
toward it, the timber hall of the king itself. A little chapel,
cross crowned, stood on its left, and the guest house and guard
rooms for the housecarls to the right, stretching across the centre
of the camp where once the Roman huts had been.

The hall was high and long, and had a wide porch and doorway in the
end which faced the gate. Behind it one could see the roofs of
other buildings which joined it, and beyond it again were stables,
and byres, and kennels, and barns, and the countless other offices
which a great house needs, filling up the rest of the space the
stockade enclosed. Nor were they set at random, as one mostly sees
them; but all having been built at once, they stood in little
streets, as it were, most orderly to look on, with a wider street
running from the back of the hall to the gate which led toward
Mercia through the midst.

Presently I learned that the queen's bo