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Updated: June 21, 2025
But I must see the citizens through this siege, and then I will come to you at Rouen, and we will take counsel together again." He would bide no longer in England after this, for the doubt of him that Eadmund would not listen to was strong in the minds of others, and his presence was of little use. Only the London folk and Ulfkytel loved him, knowing him well, and holding that they owed him much.
Then he took the bridle of my horse and began to lead me on one side, and the guards hindered him until Ulfkytel shouted to them to draw aside in such wise as to prevent my riding off, though, bound as I was, it had been of little use to try to do so. Then they let the priest take me out of earshot, and maybe posted themselves in some way round us, though I heeded them not.
Then the earl asked me: "Why thought you that Beorn slew the man?" "Because there was no other man near, and because I know that he bore ill will towards him for the favour shown him by the king." "So," said Ulfkytel; "now let Beorn speak." Then that evil man, being very crafty, did not deny my words, but said that he had found the body lying with my arrow in its side.
He looked at the Danes, and his face was bright and confident. "How shall we fight, lord earl?" he said to Ulfkytel. "Redwald and I have spoken thereof," the earl answered. "And it seems to us that Olaf's viking plan is best. Let us fight in a wedge, and drive the point through that circle and break it in twain. We of East Anglia will willingly make the point, as we are on our own ground."
Utred is in Northumbria to guard the Humber, and Ulfkytel guards the Wash, and Olaf is in the Thames. They will drive away the Danes before they set foot on the beach." "They are still fighting the thingmen in the towns," I said. "Northumbria and Anglia are Danish at heart yet." Aye, and I might have added "Mercia also," but I knew not that yet. Eadmund should have known it, though.
"What do men say?" I asked then. "That the matter is like to puzzle the earl himself, so that it is hard for a plain man to unriddle. But I think that half Reedham are here to see justice done you; even if it is naught but Earl Ulfkytel's justice!" And he grinned. I knew why. For Ulfkytel was ever a just man, though severe, and his justice was a word with us, though in a strange way enough.
"Olaf the king, and Ulfkytel of East Anglia, and Edric Streone, my foster father." Then Olaf looked in the face of Eadmund, as it seemed to me in surprise, and made no answer. "Are we not equal then?" asked the atheling. "I have heard that Edric Streone is on the Danish side," said Olaf. "Cannot Utred of Northumbria be trusted?" "Edric has but sought rest, from need," answered Eadmund.
Surely never moved host so swiftly as Ingvar's, for even as I went, heavily enough, from Eadmund's presence, a man spurred into the town saying that Earl Ulfkytel faced the Danes with a fair levy gathered in haste, between us and Wisbech. They had crossed the fens where no man dreamed that they might come, and were upon us as if from the skies.
Now while we had thus spoken together, Ulfkytel had dismounted and was holding some converse with a man whose figure I could not well make out, even had I cared to try, in the dark shadow of horses and riders which stayed the moonlight from them. But at this time the stranger came towards us, and I saw that it was the priest who served the Church of St. Peter, hard by where we stood.
Yet Eadmund our king, and even Ulfkytel, deemed that we were safe as ever behind our fenland barrier, fearing naught so long as no landing was made from across the Wash. "No matter," said men to one another. "It will be a hard thing for Danes to cross the great fens to come hither. They will turn aside into Mercia's very heart, and then the Wessex folk will rise."
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