looking out toward the Welsh hills beyond the Wye, which showed
above the rampart and stockading.

So with much ceremony, which was wearisome to Ethelbert--and need
not be set down, for it would weary any one, and was of no use--we
reached those chambers, and there, being ready for the feast
myself, I helped to array the king, and so passed with the royal
party to the high place when the time came.

"Come back presently with me when the meal is over," the king said;
"I have somewhat to ask you."

Then I found my way to the place which had been given me last
night, and so had Hilda for neighbour again, to my much content;
for the order of sitting had been little changed, save down the
hall below the salt, where some fifty more men from the forest had
been made room for. It was a great feast and merry, and it seemed
the more so to me after the rough camp life across the sea, or the
rare state banquets which I had seen in Carl's court. There was
none of our hearty fellowship there, and there was more feeling of
difference between men of high and low rank, which made a feast go
stiffly to an English mind.

Presently I saw Gymbert across the hall, and I thought he looked
uneasy. As he had fairly spoiled his name as a good huntsman, I was
not surprised, nor did it trouble me. I missed him toward the end
of the feast; but no doubt he had his duties about the place as
when I spoke to him last night, and that was nothing to wonder at.
I did not see him go.

It was a long feast. We began by daylight, and ended in the red
blaze of torches set in sconces all down the hall, and in the
whiter shine of great wax tapers which armed housecarls held behind
us on the high place. I had never seen such waste of wax before;
but Offa was magnificent in all he did, in a rougher way than that
of Carl.

When the time of eating was ended and the toasts were to go round,
the queen came with a wonderful golden cup which even the Frankish
treasury could not match, and standing beside Ethelbert filled it
with the red wine and pledged him. Very beautiful did she look as
she held the cup to the young king, and her words were soft and
full of kindness. She seemed well-nigh as young as the stately and
pale Etheldrida, her daughter.

After that she and the other ladies left the hall after the custom,
and we sat on telling tales and listening to the gleemen and
harpers, and taking each our turn in singing. The East Anglian
thanes had a way of