rselves."

"Why, you speak as if you thought there would be danger to our
realm from Ethelbert in the days to come?"

"So long as there is a young king there, who can tell?"

Then says Offa, "I am strong enough to take care of that. Moreover,
he will be our son-in-law. I wit well that not so much as a mouse
will stir in his court but you will know it;" and he laughs.

At that she says plainly in a low voice:

"You have East Anglia in your hands. If Ethelbert did not return
thither, it is yours."

Whereon Offa rises, and his face grows red with wrath.

"Hold your peace!" he says. "What is this which you are hinting?
Far from me be the thought of the death of Ethelbert, in whatever
way it may come."

And so, maybe knowing only too well what lies behind the words of
the queen, he goes his way, wrathful for the moment. And presently
he forgets it all, for the spell of his love for Quendritha is
strong, and by this time he knows that her longing for power is apt
to lead her too far, in word at least, sometimes.

But we knew naught of this. It was learned long afterward from one
to whom Offa told it, and I have set it here because it seems
needful.

Nor can I tell, even if I would, how Ethelbert met Etheldrida, his
promised bride. We saw them both at the great feast to which we
were set down in an hour or so, and the great roar of cheering
which went up was enough to scare the watching Welshmen from the
hills beyond the river, where all day long they wondered at the
thronging folk around the palace, and set their arms in order, lest
Offa should come against them across the ford of the host again.
Their camp fires were plain to be seen at night, for they were
gathering in fear of him.

All the rest of that day we feasted; and such a feast as that I had
never seen, nor do I suppose that any one of those present will
ever see the like of it. Three kings sat on the high place, for
Ecgfrith reigned with his father; and there was the queen, and she
who should be a queen before many days had gone by. It was the word
of all that those two, Ethelbert and the princess, were the most
royal of all who were present, whether in word or in look, and in
all the wide hall there was not one who did not hail the marriage
with pleasure. It was plain to be known that there was no plot laid
by these honest Mercian nobles against their guest. One feels aught
of that sort in the air, as it were, and it holds back the tongues
of men a