Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
With one accord we said that we certainly had not done so, and that in some surprise. Sighard asked plainly what had put such a thought into his head. "I will tell you," said Ethelbert in a low voice. "Between ourselves, here it is of no use to pretend that one does not know the name for ambition which Quendritha the queen has. Tell me what you make of this.
However, he had foreseen it, and was off and rolling away from it as it reached the ground. I heard the saddletree snap as it did so. "Hold your peace, master," said Erling to me, before I could speak; "leave this to us." I looked at the Dane in wonder, and saw his face white with wrath, while Sighard was plainly in a towering rage.
Across the Welsh border might indeed be the safest place for any man who had brought the wrath of the queen on him. I would go to Sighard, and take Hilda with me.
Sighard heard it also, and rose up quietly and looked into the inner chamber. "What is it?" asked Ethelbert, as he came back and sat down again. "Naught, lord. I thought I heard footsteps in your bedchamber; but there is nothing there. A strange house has strange sounds, and it takes time to get used to them." "Some one passing under the window," said Selred the chaplain, laughing.
But Sighard and the other thane went on growling now and then over the closeness of the mishap, until the horns sounded merrily for the gathering of us all to the barrier, where was even more work for men and hounds than the kings could undertake. They had taken their fill of the sport also, and had no mind to leave their courts apart from it all.
I tried all I knew to fathom that fear of mine, and the most I could do was to make it seem more and more needless and foolish. And presently, when we sat at the table, and I saw the king speaking with the Mercians, and noted their admiring looks at him, and their eagerness to listen to him, I thought that Sighard was right, and that I was frayed with shadows of my own making.
Now by that time I was myself again, and told him to think no more of it, so far as I was concerned. Whereon he blamed himself again more heartily, and so went to see to his horse, which was past use again for that and many a long day. Sighard turned away with a growl, and Erling said nothing, for the matter was ended for the time. As for the boar, it was Sighard's spear which he took with him.
"How was I to know that he was going to run in?" said Gymbert, trying to bluster. "He crossed my horse, and it is his own fault if he was in the way of the spear." "One would think that you had no knowledge of woodcraft," said Sighard, with high disdain. "Heard one ever of a mounted man coming in on a boar while a spear on foot was before him?
"No," said Sighard savagely; "I have a mind to bid them burn this hall over Offa's head, and meet their end in the turmoil." "Thereby giving occasion to men to say that we wrought treason and were punished rightly, both ourselves and the king," said Selred coolly. "That be far from us, Sighard."
But Hilda came to herself again, and tried to laugh, saying that there was never yet a horse of which she was afraid. Nor would she hear of a change, for when her horse grew more quiet it was plain that its terror had passed away. She took herself gently from my arm, and spoke bravely now. "What was it?" she asked me while Sighard soothed the beast.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking