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As for the other money, I left that with the abbess after I had seen Alswythe, for it was less mine than hers. But I asked Dudda if he were able to use a sword. Whereupon he grinned, and said that Brother Guthlac tended the abbot's mule, and had taught him much when he came to the stables daily. He also showed me a bruised arm and broken head in token of hard play with the ash plant between them.
It was my host of Sedgemoor, Dudda the Collier. And never was face more welcome than his grimy countenance, for now I knew that I had found one who, in an hour, would take Alswythe into paths where none might follow, and that, too, on the nearest road to Glastonbury.
Now Dudda, perplexed as I, though in my heart was a thought that after all Elgar had escaped, stepped into the large boat, and there he started back so suddenly as almost to overturn it, smothering a cry. Then was silence for a moment, while I for my part drew my dagger. Then I saw him stoop down, and again he hissed to me. The boats were afloat, and I drew that I was in up to the big boat.
I held his horse at your door in Chippenham the other day, and he spoke to me by name, and put me in mind of little things for which he had laughed at me in those same old days. He is a good king." So said Dudda, the rough housecarl; and it is in my mind that the kindly remembrance would have wiped out many a thought of wrong, had there been any.
Now Dudda and I went down to the boats and there found, not the two we had left only, but a third and larger one beside them. And at first this frightened us, and we stood looking at them, almost expecting armed men to rise from the dark hollows of the boats and fall on us. Then I would see if such were there, and stepped softly into the nearest.
Presently we reached a winding stretch of deep water, and though it was far different when I saw it last, I knew it was the creek in which our boats lay, and up which Dudda and I had fled, full now with the rising tide.
So we three went out presently and saw to our horses, and then I was wondering about arms for Dudda, for I had left the matter too long, and it seemed there were few weapons remaining for sale in the town by reason of men of the levy buying or borrowing what they lacked in equipment.
The girl awoke to surprise as she barely managed to reach her seat by the most agile of springs. "This is not the horse I ride, Dudda! He must belong to one of the nobles." "He is the horse that King Canute said you should take," the man panted, as he struggled to keep his footing. "He said to fetch Praise Odin!"
And when I thought how I had not a copper sceatta left me in the world, I stopped before saying that I would pay him when he returned, and so laughed back at the boy and fell to. When we had finished, the cauldron, which had been full of roe deer venison, was empty, and Turkil and I laughed at one another over it. "Grendel or no Grendel," said the urchin, "Dudda will ask nought of his supper."
With them went the most of the people, some wondering, but the greater part laughing at Dudda Collier's fright. I asked the old priest where the village might be, and he told me that it lay in a clearing full two miles off, and that the father of Turkil was the chief franklin there, though of little account elsewhere.
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