Southampton, and bound anywhere out of the
way of Quendritha the queen. We had a mind to go to Carl the king,
but any port in a storm!"

"Well," said Thorleif, laughing, "I am coming on board. That must
be a terrible dame of whom you speak, if she has set the fear of
death on a warrior such as you seem to be."

Then he bade the men haul on the cable, and the ships drew together
slowly. I had to leave the deck, being in the way of the men, and
Ecgbert did not see me, as far as I could tell.

Thorleif and his men boarded the prize over her bows and went aft,
Ecgbert going with them. The two ships drifted apart again, and I
found my place by Thrond once more, while the men sat on the
gunwale, waiting for the time when their chief should return.

"Who is the queen yon Saxon speaks of?" asked Thrond.

I told him; and as we had heard much of her of late, I also told
him how men said that she had been found on the shore by the king
himself. Whereon Thrond's grave face grew yet more grave, and he
said:

"Lad, is that a true tale?"

"My father had it from the thane who was with the king when they
found her alone in her boat."

"So her name was not Quendritha when she began that voyage?"

"I have heard that she was a heathen. Mayhap the king gave her the
name when she was christened. It means 'the might of the king.'"

So I suppose that he did, for the hope of what his wife should be.
Nor was the name ill chosen, as it turned out, for all men knew by
this time that the queen was the wisest adviser in all the council
of Mercia in aught to do with the greatness of the kingdom.

"I have ever had it in my mind that she would get through that
voyage in safety," Thrond said. "Ran would not have her."

"What do you mean?"

"Lad, I saw her start thereon, or so I think. Tell me when she was
found."

That I could do, within a very short time. My father and Offa had
been wedded in the same year, as I had heard him say but a few days
ago, at Winchester, as men talked of the bride whom we had
welcomed, Quendritha's daughter. And as he heard, Thrond's face
grew very dark.

"That is she. Now I will tell you the beginning of that voyage. I
was a courtman then to the father of Thorleif, our jarl here, and I
myself made the boat ready and launched her in it."

And then he told me that which I have set down at the beginning of
this tale--neither more nor less. What was the fullness of the evil
the woman had wrought he did not