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Updated: July 21, 2025
"Go on," I said. "How came Matelgar to have power to hold my lands?" "There came one from the king, after you were taken, giving him papers with a great seal thereon, and these he read aloud in your hall, showing the king's own hand at the end. So men bowed thereto, and all your men he drove out if they would not serve him, and few remained.
Then was I left alone in the woodlands that had been mine to hunt through, for, holding our land from the king himself, I had many rights that stretched far and wide, which doubtless that Matelgar coveted for himself, and would now enjoy.
"Because Matelgar had taken charge, as he said, of your lands while you were away, and knowing well that in your taking he had had some hand, men say it is to get possession thereof; and the women say that, while you were near, the Lady Alswythe would marry no other, so that he had had you removed." The first I had guessed by the token of the sword that I had regained. That last was sweet to hear.
Yet, when Matelgar spoke me fair at the rere-feast of my father's funeral, and thereafter would often ride over and sup with me, I was proud to think, in my foolishness, that I had won the friendship that my father could not win, and so set myself even above him from whom I had learnt all I knew of wisdom. And that conceit of mine was my downfall.
This assembly, and most of all that my enemy should be present, was against me in making my plea; but as the old crone had said, I should be no loser by witness. I waited till a thrall had told Osric that one of his messengers was here, and then they beckoned me to go to him. He shifted round in his chair to speak to me, but I was watching Matelgar, and saw his glance light on my sword hilt.
And with that he turned to the bishop before I could make reply; and they spoke together for a while in Latin, which I knew not. So I looked to my friend Matelgar for comfort, but he seemed to see me not, looking away elsewhere.
Into this land of peace these men from over seas have come wantonly, slaying our friends, burning our houses, driving our cattle, making such as escape them take to the woods like hunted wild beasts. Where is Edred the Thane? Where is Matelgar? Where twenty others you called friends? Dead by Combwich, and none to bury them. The Danes have their arms, the wolves their bodies.
For Matelgar, as I was soon to find out, encouraged my foolishness, and, moreover, brought in friends and bought men of his, who, by flattering me, soon made themselves my boon companions, treasuring up every word that might tell against me when things were ripe.
The message I had brought should have been to me as a king's thane, and I myself should have sent one to Matelgar to bid him come to the levy, even as he would now send to the other lesser thanes and the franklins round about, in my place.
And I told him freely and fully all that had passed from the time I left the hill of Brent till when I had seen the signals of the vikings from above Watchet, and bore the war arrow to Matelgar. The rest he knew in a way; but I opened all my heart to him, he drawing all from me most gently, till at last I came to my dream of Matelgar, and my wish that for me he might rest in peace.
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