At last he said, “How am I to know that you are here with full power to speak for Goldberga?  For this is a weighty matter.”

Arngeir held out his hand, and on it was the ring of Orwenna the queen, which Alsi had last seen here on the high place.

“There is the token, King Alsi, and it is one which you know well,” he answered.

“Ay, I know it,” answered the king with a grin that was not pleasant.

And then he said, “I will speak with my thanes, and give you word to carry back in an hour’s time, now that I know you to be a true messenger.”

“There should be no reason for waiting so long as that, nor do I think that the matter of the throne of East Anglia is a question for Lindsey thanes,” answered Arngeir at once.  “All this is between you and the princess.”

Thereat one of the thanes rose up and said, “If a kingdom has been handed over to our king, it is not to be taken again without our having a good deal to say about it.  I do not know, moreover, if we can have a foreigner over any part of our land.”

“Goldberga never gave up her right to the kingdom,” Arngeir answered, “as anyone who was here at the wedding would tell you.  And as for Havelok, her husband, being a foreigner, it seems to me that a Jute who has been brought up here in Lindsey since he was seven winters old is less a foreigner than a Briton is to us.”

None made any answer to that, and I could see that the king was growing angry at being met thus at every turn.  But he began to smile in that way of his that I had learned to mistrust.

“That is not altogether courteous to either Goldberga or myself,” he said, as if he would think the words a jest, seeing that he was half Welsh.  “Give me time, I pray you, to think of this, as I have asked, and you shall go back with your answer.”

There was no help for it, and we had to leave the hall in order that Alsi might say what he had to say to his thanes.  And I said to Arngeir that it seemed that we should have to fight the matter out.

“Alsi risks losing both kingdoms if he does that,” he answered, “for we shall take what we choose if we are the victors.  The visions that have been thus right so far say that we shall be so.”

“I shall be glad if we do come out on the right side,” I said; “but I have not so much faith in these dream tellings as some.  Nor do I think that it seems altogether fair to fight on a certainty.”

“When it is a matter of punishing one who does not keep faith, I do not think that it matters much,” he answered, laughing.  “I should like certainty that he would not get the best of the honest side in that case.”

We were outside on the wide green within the square of the Roman walls at this time, and now from within the hall came the sound of shouts and cheering which we heard plainly enough.  But whether it meant that the thanes cheered Alsi because he would fight, rather than that they applauded his justice to his niece, was not to be known as yet.  As for me, I thought that it was hardly likely to be the latter.