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Updated: May 21, 2025
The business of the men appeared to be to set to work about everything as if they had a fire inside them, and then to stretch out their legs and lie on their backs, exactly as if the fire had gone out. Excepting Osric's practice on the fiddle, and the father's bringing in and leading away of horses, they did little work in my sight but brown themselves in the sun.
That was good, and I felt a free man again in truth, for here was no errand that would end, as Osric's was ended, when I had seen Eanulf. Now Wulfhere had not spoken, and the bishop asked him if he too would not stay. "Ay, lord," answered Wulfhere, "gladly; but you spoke of thanes only." "When the Bishop of Sherborne names one as a thane," said Ealhstan, smiling, "men are apt to hold him as such.
Then said the bishop, "Stranger you are, friend Wislac, and therefore wear this ring of Osric's, that men may pay heed to you as his friend and mine; and do you, Heregar, wear this of mine that men may know you for bishop's man, and so respect your word." So was I put under the bishop's protection, and he would answer for my presence in Wessex to all and any.
And Wulfhere was fain to answer that he feared not, telling of the smoke clouds we had seen, and what he judged therefrom. "Aye," said the bishop, as it were to himself and looking before him as one who sees that which he is told of, "we saw the like after Charnmouth, and let them have their way. Now must we wait, trembling, for Osric's next messenger."
I bent my knee to her, and she looked at me very sadly, saying: "I knew and loved your mother, Heregar, my son, and sorely have I grieved for you not believing all the things brought against you. How come you here now?" Then I held out my hand and showed her Osric's ring, only saying that as the good sheriff trusted me I would ask her to do so.
Only now and then I met a little party of men hurrying to the gathering place, and mostly they spoke to me, asking for news. And from them I learned, too, that nothing had been seen, while daylight served, of the Danes. Once, I had to say I was on Osric's errand, as he bade me, being questioned as to why I was heading away from the town.
And they sum up all the reasons for the headway they made against us till Alfred, our wise king, taught us to meet them in their own way. So once more I felt the grip of Osric's hand on mine, and I left him, with a heavy heart indeed, but with a new hope for myself and for Alswythe, in the end.
"Take these thanes to the refectory," he said, "and care for them with all honour. In two hours I will speak with them again, or sooner, if Osric's messenger comes." "I am no thane," said Wulfhere, not willing to be mistaken. "I am Bishop of Sherborne," said he, smiling in an absent way, and waving his hand for us to go.
One morning Osric's brother came to our camp with their cousin the prizefighter a young man of lighter complexion, upon whom I gazed, remembering John Thresher's reverence for the heroical profession. Kiomi whispered some story concerning her brother having met the tramp.
Hard and wiry men they were, and as I could well see, a very much harder set than Osric's first levy, for these were veterans. Ealhstan's word had gone out that all men who would wipe out the defeat of Charnmouth should gather to him, and these were the men who had fought there, and only longed to try their strength again against their conquerors of that disastrous day.
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