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Yet Eadmund our king, and even Ulfkytel, deemed that we were safe as ever behind our fenland barrier, fearing naught so long as no landing was made from across the Wash. "No matter," said men to one another. "It will be a hard thing for Danes to cross the great fens to come hither. They will turn aside into Mercia's very heart, and then the Wessex folk will rise."
Not the least of Alfred's gains was the destruction of Mercia's unity; its royal house had disappeared in the struggle, and the kingdom was now divided; while Alfred lost his nominal suzerainty over north-east England, he gained a real sovereignty over south-west Mercia.
Mercia's nullifier had just been invented, a curious and intricate device, based on four-dimensional geometry, that made it possible to see occurrences in the universe which had hitherto required the hundreds of years needed for light to cross the intervening space before they were visible on Earth.
Herezuelo had, he knew, openly preached the doctrines of the Reformation in his part of the country. At last, Julian thought that he might possibly be at Dona Mercia's. "Why did not that occur to me before?" he said to himself. "Of course, if I knew that there was danger, I should stay by the side of my intended wife." He hurried off to Dona Mercia's abode. He was at once admitted.
Without Mercia's nullifier, the stars were not visible to ordinary eyes, since the light-rays would take years to reach the Earth. But every astronomer who had access to Mercia's nullifier hastened to focus his telescope on the region where extraordinary events were taking place out in the unfathomable gulf of night.
Saturn reported no evidence of the phenomena, because of the interfering rings and the lack of Mercia's nullifier. But Jupiter, with a similar device, witnessed the phenomena and announced furthermore that many stars in the neighborhood of the novæ had begun to deviate in singular and abrupt fashion from their normal positions. There was not as yet much popular interest in the phenomena.
It was too probable that such an idea was correct; but Herezuelo quickly banished it as ungenerous from his mind, and hurried back to Dona Mercia's house with the satisfactory information that Doctor Zafra was free. Julianillo arrived soon after, and expressing his belief that all were safe, stated that he intended to re-commence his perilous expedition to Germany.
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