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Updated: June 6, 2025
It was good to be among friends again after the long watching and many dangers. Then came the steward followed by his men with a mighty breakfast, and as he set the tables on the high place, Godwine's men trooped in. They had had to wait for the morning tide into the haven, and the ship was just berthed. "Food first," Relf advised. "Then shall Redwald tell us all he knows."
You are right." Thus we parted, and I watched his sails fade and sink into the rim of the southern sea, and then rode back to Relf feeling as if the time to come had little brightness for me. I went slowly, and by the longer way, for I had much to think of, and I cared not just yet for the light talk of the happy people in the Penhurst hall.
And as we went Relf talked of Eldred, the Thane of Dallington, and the wedding that was to come. And all the while I believe that he was troubling about two things that were mixed in his mind fear that I was set aside by Sexberga, and a wish that I had been the bridegroom.
Yet it was not till November had half gone that I was able to ride hunting again at last, and to go out with Relf in the crisp frosts of early winter through the great woods of the Andred's-weald in search of wolf and boar, or when the mists hung round the gray copses, and the turf in the glades was soft, and scent was high, to follow the deer that harboured in the deep shaws.
"Maybe that was enough to put her familiar into a good temper," said Relf, and was satisfied that the common saying was true. Then I minded a small black cat that belonged to our leech at Bures in the old days. It would let none come near it but its master. Yet I have many times seen it perched on the shoulder of the town witch, and she hated the leech sorely.
I shook my head, but it came over me for a moment that I wished I might recall the wandering fancies of the winter days in Penhurst but that passed, and I was lonely in heart. "Nay, thane, that is not so. My sword here is all that I love next to my king and Olaf my cousin and Relf the thane. I have no love for any maiden, nor could Sexberga think twice of me." "If you had bided a little longer.
Her father would never have acted as she had done; he would not have kept Socknersh a single month; he would not have engaged him at all both Relf of Honeychild and Day of Slinches were more experienced men, with better recommendations; and yet she had chosen Socknersh because his brown eyes had held and drowned her judgment, as surely as they had held her image, so dwindled and wan, when she looked into them that evening, between the setting sun and the rising moon.
"How much more about Sexberga did you tell her?" he asked. "Nothing, there was no need." Then Relf began to chuckle to himself, and I could not tell why. But presently he said: "Did you give the sisters names likewise?" "Yes, I did. I do not think I should have cared to say what they were," I answered, laughing also.
Then all was quiet. "What does that mean?" Relf said. "That we have to wait," said I "that is all. It is the way in which they treat folk at these places. They would do the same if the queen came. She has gone to her Superior." "What would Emma say?" chuckled Relf, looking slyly at me. "One cannot say much to an iron-barred oak door."
Thus, by the time we came over the great spur of the Downs that ends in Beachy Head, and looked over all Pevensea level to the Penhurst woods and hills beyond, I and Uldra were very good friends, and Relf was pleased that it should be so, and rode between us in high content.
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