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Updated: June 13, 2025
The archbishop had ridden on with the rest, for I went slowly, to talk to the Welshman. Still the man did not go, and he had more to say. "Also I was to tell you that he had a chief of your folk in his hands. But that he deems that he belongs to East Anglia, he would have set him in chains. He is hurt, and is in our camp, free, save for his promise not to escape. His name is Sighard." "Sighard?"
He laughed uneasily, as if he thought himself foolish; but we knew that unless he had full reason for that belief he would not have told us. That must have been a strange talk between this honest young king and Quendritha, if he deemed it best to speak to us of it. Sighard frowned, and said: "If it is true that Offa is thus well, we are forewarned.
That death seemed to take the last doubt of our peace from us; but now Sighard would no more go back to his lands. "I was Ethelbert's thane and his father's; I will not hold from Offa. Let me come back with you now until I know what I can do." So when our wedding was over he crossed with us to Wessex, and there for a time he bided.
Sighard lifted its hangings and peered under and behind them in a sort of frantic hope; for though there was no sound, and no answer to his whispering of the well-loved name of his master, it seemed unbelievable that from this little chamber a man should have gone utterly and without a sound during these few minutes. Yet so it was.
The kine heard them, and thought them the homing call, and so lifted their lazy heads and waded homeward through the grass. "Ethelbert, my king," said Sighard gently. The eyes of the king opened, and he roused. "Was that your voice, my thane," he asked, "or was it the voice of my dream?" "I called you, lord, for the horns are sounding." "Thanks; but I would I had dreamed more!
"A good man and steadfast," Sighard said. "I think that you and I owe life to him and Wilfrid alike. It will be long before we forget him, or before you find such another comrade and follower, Wilfrid." More there was said of him at that time, but not too much. I had known him but a little while, but in that we had gone through peril together with but one mind.
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.
Their faces were white and hard set in the light, and Sighard seemed as a man broken and aged in a moment with trouble beyond his bearing. Then I knew that I had to hear the worst, and made ready for it. Witred the Mercian told it quietly. "This passage runs under the ramparts, and ends in a thicket on the steep by the river.
"Hurry no man's cattle," quoth Kynan, "except when they are by way of becoming yours by right of haste homeward to the hills." In this homestead, whose name I cannot write, we rested for a fortnight or so, while Sighard gathered his strength again and Jefan's ankle knit itself together.
On the rampart an armed sentry was pacing, black against the low moon, and beyond him the fires of the Welsh who watched us burnt as brightly as last night. Now there was a gentle knock on the outer door, and I opened it. One of the thanes said that the man who served me would see me, and I went out into the great hall, bidding Sighard and the chaplain goodnight as I did so.
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