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Then: "I haven't done any evil deeds, or good ones that I can remember, so I haven't written in this book for maybe a week. Mary and I, we went to a party at the Pinckneys to-day at Bures, the Calhoun children and the Rutledges were there and we had Lady Baltimore cake and a good time.
And there was Sister Sexberga beside me, with Bertric's sword, that had hung over his berth, in her hand; and her eyes were flashing, and it seemed to me that she had used a sword before this, or had learnt its use. It was reddened now. The men gave back, and Egil came before me and he was laughing. "That is enough, Redwald of Bures," he said. "I owe you a life, and you have it.
He seemed in no wise angry, but rather wishful that I should be with him, and so I got off my horse and went. But it crossed my mind that Wulfnoth the earl liked not to be alone, and suddenly I remembered the way in which two of our Bures franklins had spoken to each other when they would see Dame Gunnhild, Hertha's nurse. It was just in this same wise.
Two days after this the Danish host followed in the track of Eadmund and his flying levies: but Egil stayed in command of the ships, and I with him. I had not seen Cnut, but Egil had spoken of me to him. "I have heard of Redwald of Bures before," the king had said. "What know I of him? I think it is somewhat good." "He nearly got Emma the queen out of England," Egil had answered.
Calvin married Idalette de Bures, the widow of an Anabaptist whom he converted. Calvin was not a lover by nature, and explained to the world that his marriage was simply a harmless necessary defi to Rome. Happily the venture proved a better scheme than he wist, and after some years, he wrote, "I would have died without the helpmeet God sent me my wife, who never opposed me in anything."
Then it was plain that there was trouble on hand, for the leader of the party was a thane whom I knew by sight, as he had been called to our feasting when first we came, and he had brought with him two ladies, who came in no sort of state; and, moreover, there were one or two wounded men among the twenty rough housecarles who followed them, and bore such burdens of household stuff as had been taken by us when we fled from Bures.
Now Osgod the Thane had ridden away to the war with my father, and unless he had returned with Grinkel, Hertha was alone in the house with her old nurse and the farm servants. Most surely she would have been at Bures with us but for some spring-time sickness which was among the village children, and from which my mother sought to keep her free.
We rode back to Bures in the evening, therefore, taking a few of our men as a guard lest there should be parties of Danes on the road a likely thing enough, as a beaten and disbanded force in a hostile land must live by plunder, for a time at least. But we met none.
Thorkel, my foster brother, is to be Earl of East Anglia, and you shall be Thane of Bures as ever. And I shall have to mind Colchester and this shore, and we shall see much of each other." So he rejoiced, and I grew more cheerful as the days went on.
"Asta, my good mother, was this Thoralf's cousin, and we Norsemen do not lose count of our kin. So I knew well that Thoralf found an English home and wife when Olaf Tryggvesson was first in England, and that he was Thane of Bures by some right of his lady. So I knew, when I heard your name and place, that I had found a kinsman. And I have so few that I am glad."
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