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Updated: June 1, 2025
"We shall pick up another hundred or two as we march along to-morrow," Harold was saying when the two young thanes joined the group, "and shall have a good nine hundred men by the time we reach Gloucester, where I expect to find four or five hundred more awaiting us.
His look was grave and full of care, but not more than it had shown before he left us. "I have seen none of the ladies," he said. "The palace is in a turmoil, and Offa has shut himself up, seeing but one or two of his thanes, in grief for what has been done, as men say, and as may be hoped. Nor will Quendritha see any one, or let her attendants pass from her bower and its precincts."
Does no man remember the going back to his place when these strangers had bided in it for a while, after they beat us in Dorset?" There were two thanes who had lands in that part, and they flushed, so that one might easily know they remembered; but they said naught.
A gesture, a muttered order, and they were drawing back among the trees in silent retreat. A few steps more, and the bushes had blotted out the Ironside and his thanes. One's own house is best, Small though it be; At home is every one his own master. Bleeding at heart is he Who has to ask For food at every mealtide. Ha'vama'l.
Money will be needed to set all the smithies to work at the manufacture of pikes and swords. Hides must be bought for the manufacture of shields. It will be best to send orders to the ealdormen and thanes to send hither privately the smiths, armourers, and shield-makers in the villages and towns. They cannot work with the Danes ever about, but must set up smithies here.
Now I was so sure that Hubba would come, that this seemed to me to be the weakest part of the king's plan. But Alfred thought little of it. "My stronghold seems to be on Quantock side; it is rather beyond Selwood, in the hearts of my brave thanes and freemen. Fear not, cousin. Hubba will come, and you and Heregar will meet him; and whether you win or not, my plan holds."
"I know that," he answered testily; "pull that mail off your face, man; they are not here yet, and your voice is muffled behind it." I suppose that the coming and going of messengers was constant, and indeed there came another even then, so the other thanes paid little attention after they heard my stale news, except Matelgar; who went on watching me closely.
I would place you on my horse, but it were best that I myself should be seen." He removed his helmet, and bareheaded moved off with the young thanes walking beside him.
At supper, the queen, whose manners were in the highest degree affable and royal, played the hostess with a gracefulness and attention which conciliated every one present, and Macbeth discoursed freely with his thanes and nobles, saying, that all that was honourable in the country was under his roof, if he had but his good friend Banquo present, whom yet he hoped he should rather have to chide for neglect, than to lament for any mischance.
Then was a new crowning of those two, and messages to the overlord of Lindsey, sent by the thanes, to say that all was settled on the old lines of peaceful tribute to be paid; and then, when word and presents came back from him, Goldberga rose up on the high place where she had been so strangely wedded, and looked down at the joyous faces of her nobles at the long tables.
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