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Updated: May 25, 2025
Presently Ealdwulf himself came to the door and called me softly, and I followed him back to the presence of the king. I cannot tell what had passed between those two, nor do I suppose that any man will ever know; but Offa was more himself, save that on his face was a deep sadness, and no trace of hardness or pride therewith. "Friend," he said, "is it your duty to go back to Carl the Great?"
After that promise Offa bade me farewell sadly enough, and I was glad to leave the chamber. Nor had we long to wait before Ealdwulf came out, and we were once more turning our backs on the palace of Sutton. On its walls I never set eyes again, nor did I wish to do so.
"Yourself and no other, lord," he said. "I take these two," answered Ealdwulf the archbishop. "I will answer to the king for their presence." So we two, Erling and I, followed him into the chamber of the king; and with my first glance at Offa there fell on me a great pity for him.
Both he and I think that had the evil queen left the doing of her deed until morning it had never been wrought, for Offa would have come to himself. Yet one cannot tell. What Quendritha had set her heart on was apt to be carried through, even to the bitterest of endings for those who were in her way thereto. How she would fare now Ealdwulf could not tell me.
Know you where the body of Ethelbert was hidden?" "No," said the king in a dull voice. "My men search even now. It is all that I can do." Then Ealdwulf bade me tell the story of the finding, and I did so. Yet the look of Offa never brightened as he heard, nor did he ask me one question. "It is well," he said, when I had no more to say, and his fingers moved restlessly on the table.
This was Ealdwulf, the Mercian Archbishop of Lichfield, and he had come for the wedding from his own place. He was a close friend of the king, who indeed had wished that Mercia should not be second to any realm, and had so wrought that an archbishop's see had been made for him, subject to neither Canterbury nor York.
Ealdwulf would have it from us, as we were of the train of the young king. And when we had told all in few words, he said: "I bide in this house no longer. Not until the day when King Offa will send for me will I stand here again, save for sterner reproof than I may give to any while one doubt remains as to who wrought this deed.
So when Ealdwulf, the archbishop himself, asked me to ride with him to Sutton Palace and tell Offa of the finding, I said that I was most willing. I should see Selred, and maybe bring him away with me, and at least could tell him that all was well with Hilda.
But he did not look in my face, nor had he done so since I came before him. I stood back, and Ealdwulf was alone near him. "My son," said the old man, "my son, this has not been your doing. I will not believe that." Offa set his hand on the great book with its picture. "As much my doing as the slaying of the Hittite by David the king. It was planned, and I hindered it not."
Only he looked at Ealdwulf, as it were blindly, waiting what he should hear from his lips. And into his look there crept somewhat like fear. But there was naught terrible or hard in the face which he looked on; it had but deepest sorrow and pity. "My king," said Ealdwulf, seeing that he must needs speak first, "here is one who has a word for you. I think that you will be glad to hear it.
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