o them.

That would be a mighty realm indeed, greater than any which had yet
been in our land. If the East Anglian levies were his, he would
march across Wales at their head, with the Mercian hosts to right
and left of him. He might even wrest Northumbria from the hold of
her kings.

Quendritha sees that flash, and knows that the cup has done its
work. The mind of the king is full of imaginings. So she sits by
him, and her voice seems to blend with his thoughts, and he does
not hinder her as she sets before him the might and glory of the
kingdom that would be his if that dream were true. And so she wakes
the longing for it in the mind of Offa, and plays on it until he is
half bent to her will; and her will is that the dream should come
true, and that shortly.

Then at last she says, "And all this is but marred because of a
niddering lad who will leave the hall at a feast for the whining of
the priests yonder! In truth, a meet leader of men, and one who
will be a source of strength to our realm! It makes me rage to
think that but he is in the way. It is ill for his own land, as it
seems to me."

"Ay, wife," says Offa. "But he is in the way, and there is an end
thereof."

"He is in your hand, and there are those who would say that Heaven
itself has set him there. Listen. He hunts with you tomorrow. Have
you never heard of an arrow which went wide of its mark--by
mischance?"

Again the eyes of the king flash, but he does not look on the
queen.

"Who would deem it mischance?" he says. "No man. And I were
dishonoured evermore."

"Not your arrow, not yours, but another's--mayhap yonder Frank's.
He is a stranger, and would care naught if reward was great; then
afterward he should be made to hold his peace."

And at that she smiles evilly. A stray Frank's life was naught to
her if he was in her way.

"Say no more. The thing is not possible for me; it is folly."

"Folly, in truth, if you let Ethelbert keep you from the realm
which waits you. Were he gone, there is not so much as an atheling
who would make trouble there for you."

"Peace, I say. Ethelbert is my guest, and more than that. He shall
go as he came--in honour. What may lie in the days to come, who
shall know?"

"He who acts now shall see. Until the Norns set the day of doom for
a man, he makes his own future. Surely they set his end on
Ethelbert when he came here."

So she says in the old heathen way, but Offa does not note it. It
is in his maze