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This is your own affair, or Quendritha's, for Offa has seen no man to give any such order to. Nor dare you go near him on your own account, or short would be your shrift. Get hence, and take your lies back to her who sent you. Mayhap you have told that queen that you have slain Sighard the thane. If so, another lie or two will make no odds." Thereat Gymbert grew purple with passion.
I knew from that how Sighard had met his daughter. Kynan gave some orders to his men, and they took our horses, leading them to a far corner of the camp. After that we were set down to a great supper, and the tale of the flight and the raid was told and retold.
I said, turning to Sighard. "Housecarls outside;" he said. "It was from the place whence we heard the footsteps awhile ago. Listen! there they are again." I heard the same sort of dull trampling as before, and there was also a voice. "It seems to be almost beneath us," I said. But the footsteps were plainly going away from us, and growing fainter in the distance.
Then Selred went into the inner chamber and gathered to him the little crown of the king, and one or two more things which were of value because of him who had worn them, and said that he would bestow them in the church until they might be taken back to his mother in Norfolk. I took his arms, and the sword we had found in the pit, for Sighard had brought that up from thence.
Werbode and Erling went off with the horses to the stables, and some of the housecarls took charge of the wounded man. I heard him groan heavily as they took him from the horse. Then the thane gave his name to the steward, and that was the first time I had learned it. "Sighard, thane of Mundesley, and his daughter, the Lady Hilda."
One of the Mercians asked sharply where he was going; but Sighard paid no heed to him, for he was trying to get his blade into the saw cut, and so raise the square of flooring. "Thane," I said to the Mercian, staying him from following Erling, "he will shut the door to the hall, and let this thing be seen through in silence.
But I minded the voice and pleading look of that mother who spoke with me in the garden at Thetford, and I had a mind to stay and see this thing to an end, for it was all that I might do. Maybe I could find the body of her son and see it brought back to her. "I bide here," I said; and Selred stepped to my side without a word. "I also," said Sighard; "I have words to say yet before I die."
But as soon as he caught my eye when I first turned, he set his hand carelessly across his lips, and I knew what he meant. I had better say no more of where Sighard was or how I hoped to see him.
But there was no sign of the king none but a stain of red on the cushions and on the floor, and on the blade of a sword which lay beside that terrible pool. And the sword was the king's own. Then said Sighard, and his voice came hoarse and broken: "Our king is slain! Hounds of Mercians, tell us who has wrought this!" One answered him from dry lips: "We cannot tell.
I thought Offa seemed heavy and moody, but in every wise friendly. Tired he was, methought, for it had been a long day. Ethelbert signed to me, Father Selred, and Sighard to follow him, and we went into his apartment, closing the door after us. Out in the council chamber we left three of the Anglian thanes and three Mercian, who would act as guards for the night.
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