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Updated: April 30, 2025
However, when I came to turn the matter over in my mind, I thought that after all, whether inside the palace garth or out, he would not be far from the call of Quendritha, so that maybe it did not so much matter. At all events, what I would do would be to bide as near to the place as I might without being known, and be content to hear from Selred that at least naught was wrong.
So she says in the old heathen way, but Offa does not note it. It is in his mazed mind that Ethelbert wrongs him by living to hold back the frontier of Mercia from the eastern sea. "He is my guest, and I may not touch him," he says dully. "All the world would cry out on me if harm came to him here. And yet " "You shall not harm him," Quendritha says quickly. "There are other ways.
I heard the same good words of her only brother, Ecgfrith, and I suppose that those two bore more likeness to their mighty father than to the queen. All this half-stifled talk of untold ill from Quendritha lay heavy on my mind; and it came to me that Sighard was a true man, and that to him I might tell the tale Thrond told me.
I had heard overmuch of Quendritha to have much doubt that if she could see her way to reigning over both realms, she would stay for naught, even for the removing of Offa from her path if he stood in it. And almost did I tell the king of Thrond's knowledge of her, but forbore. Sighard knew it also, and he was the best judge of that.
"No, father," I said quickly, seeing that he had learned too little, and doubtless believed Hilda either drowned or else in the hands of Gymbert and his men whichever tale Quendritha had been told or chose to tell him. "I was in the wood, and thither came the lady we ken of when she was set forth from the place. I was in time to get her away, and she is safe."
There were footsteps in the stillness, and a gruff word or two, and the steps came this way, and nearer, fast. "Hilda," I said, "are you likely to be pursued?" For I could think of nothing but that she had managed to fly from Quendritha, and that perhaps Selred had bidden her seek me here. "I cannot tell," she said, and her voice was full of terror. "Take me hence quickly anywhere.
Now they take Ethelbert to his chamber, and Offa and Quendritha seek their own in the queen's bower. "A gallant son-in-law this of ours, in all truth," says the king gaily. "Ay. And now you hold East Anglia in your hand, King Offa." "Faith, I suppose so," he answers, laughing "that is, if Etheldrida can manage him as you rule me, my queen! She is ever a dutiful daughter."
There was none to oppose him, and he took it, and so reigned from the Wye to the sea, the greatest king who had ever sat on an English throne. And Quendritha was dead. That which her daughter had boded for her as she left the palace had come to pass, and she had gone. She had never set eyes on her husband again, and never heard how that which she planned had come to pass.
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.
Two fair daughters had Offa, the mighty King of Mercia, and Quendritha his queen. The elder of those two, Eadburga, was wedded to our Wessex king, Bertric, in the year when my story begins, and all men in our land south of the Thames thought that the wedding was a matter of full rejoicing.
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