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Updated: June 11, 2025
"Alfgar, my son!" said Elfwyn, finding the poor prisoner did not speak, "do you not know us?" "Indeed I do; but do you believe me guilty, nay, even capable of " He could add no more, but they saw that if they doubted they would hear no more from him that he scorned self-defence. "Guilty! no, God forbid! we alone in the council asserted your complete innocence."
Supper being ended, Elfwyn rose to go out, and his example was followed by Alfgar and Bertric, and several of the serfs, who from the lower end of the ample board had heard with much alarm the previous conversation. Ascending the hill, they directed their steps towards the highest point, where an old watchtower had once been reared, composed of timber, and overlooking the forest.
Then the words of the churl Beorn, who had been taken prisoner, as the messenger had told us, came fresh to my mind. "Elfwyn," said I, "do you remember Beorn?" He looked earnestly at me. "Did he not say that his captors asked particularly about Aescendune, and that the name of Anlaf was mentioned, and inquiries made concerning Alfgar?" "He did." "It is the curse of St. Brice's night."
It must be a large one." "I did; and it made me uneasy." "Why so, my Elfwyn?"
I had already poured a rich cordial down his throat, and he was coming to himself, my brother aiding me, when the sheriff, grand in his robe and chain of office, came up. "Good day, or rather night, to you, Thane of Aescendune," said he to Elfwyn; "we have had a fair night's work, and destroyed a big wasp's nest; have you come for your share in the spoil?"
"Bertric, the son of Elfwyn of Aescendune; oh! you will see that no wrong is done to him, will you not? his people saved my life." "That they might make you a Christian, knowing that your father would sooner you had expired in the flames which consumed his house. "No," he added sternly; "he is doomed, he and his alike."
Elfwyn will not even yet consent to the marriage, saying, "Wait a little while; we have not yet done with the Danes." I fear he is right. June 1015. Herstan is here, and has brought us sad news. A great council has just been held at Oxford, whereat Edric Streorn, to the indignation of all men, sat at the king's right hand. Would this had been all!
I cannot describe the touching scene when Elfwyn told the fate of dear Bertric. Well, they will learn by and by to thank God for him and his example, for we doubt not he died a martyr, although we know not the details, and, unless Alfgar yet lives, shall perhaps never know them. We held a long consultation upon our future movements.
"You are not a Dane, Alfgar; you are a Christian; no one thinks of you as one." Shortly Elfwyn returned from the priory, and received the messenger.
He called a council of the whole kingdom previously, to which both my brother and I were summoned, but I cared not to attend. Elfwyn, however, went, and wanted Alfgar to go, but he begged hard to be excused, I imagine for two reasons. First of all, he laments Edmund too deeply to welcome his former enemy as his successor; and secondly, he does not care to leave Ethelgiva again.
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