Then I thought that to go so far into Wessex to seek the sick king would be but lost time.  I had better go to Stamford and seek the Atheling, and maybe it would be as well that he was free to act by himself, seeing that need was urgent.  So I lay but one night in London, and then rode away to Stamford along the great Ermin Street, and there I found Eadmund and told him all that Olaf had bidden me.

And when he had heard all, he said: 

“Let me send for Edric Streone, my foster father, and we will take counsel with him.”

“Send round the war arrow first, my prince,” I urged, “then when the earl comes no time will be lost.  He cannot but counsel you to raise men instantly.”

“Why,” he said, “Cnut can but fall on the east coast.  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.  It was but a few weeks before it was plain that Wessex alone and London stood fast for Ethelred.

I chafed, but Eadmund would not be hurried.  I cannot tell what strange blindness, save it was his trust in Streone, had fallen on him at this time.

Then the earl came from Nottingham, and at the very first he sent for me.  Eadmund had told him my news when he sent for him.

I found him alone in a chamber of Eadmund’s house—­that which had been Sigeferth’s, and it seemed that no memory of the murdered earl haunted him.  His great form was as square and strong as ever, and his grizzled brown beard was as bushy and well cared for as when I used to see him and speak with him before the flight into Normandy.  And he still had the same pleasant voice and ways, even to the little chuckle—­as to himself—­when he spoke, and the way he had of gazing on the rafters rather than at the man to whom he was talking.

“So, Redwald, my friend,” he laughed, “you have turned viking as it seems!  How have you fared in East Anglia with Olaf the Thick?”

“Well enough, lord earl,” I said, “but there is work to be done there yet.”

“Aha! those thingmen are no babes,” he said.  “Where is your earl now?”

“At Thetford, as they say.”

“Well, what is this tale that you bring about Cnut?”

I told him, and he laughed in his way.

“Cnut is but a boy.  No such great following would gather to him,” he said.  “It is not possible.”

“Eirik and Ulf and Thorkel the jarls may gather them for Cnut,” I answered.  “And he is Swein’s son.”

“Those men are Cnut as yet, as one may say,” answered Edric chuckling.  “One has to deal with them therefore.  What says Olaf?”

“He says the same, lord earl.”