“I would have you remember,” he said, “that in all this choosing it remains for me to give consent or withhold it.”

“I shall only ask your consent to my wedding such a man as I have told you of, uncle—­a king or a king’s son.”

“So,” said Alsi, “you would choose first, and ask me afterwards, forsooth!  That is not the way that things are to be between us.  It is for me to choose, and that according to the oath which I took when your father made me guardian of you and his realm.”

“Yet,” said Goldberga very gently, “I think that my father would not have meant that I should be the only one not to be asked.”

“I can only go by what I swore, and that I will carry out.  I promised to see you married to the most goodly and mightiest man in the land.”

“That can be none but a king, as I think.”

Now Alsi grew impatient, for he meant to settle one matter before he went much farther.

“I will say at once that I can have no king over the East Anglian kingdom.  It is not to be thought of that after all these years I should have to take second place there.  You will hold the kingdom from me, and I shall be overlord there.  I will send you some atheling who can keep the land in order for you, but there shall be no king to bring that land under the power of his own kingdom.”

That was plain speaking, and it roused Goldberga.

“Never have you been overlord of my kingdom,” she said.  “Well have you ruled it for me while I could not rule it myself, and for that I thank you heartily.  But it is not right that I should seem to hold it from you.”

“That is to be seen,” sneered Alsi, “for it lies with me to say what marriage you make, and on that depends whether the Witan, in its wisdom, sees fit to hail you as queen.  Not until you are married will you take the kingdom at all.”

“Then,” said the princess, growing pale, “I will speak to the Witan myself, and learn their will.”

“The Witan has broken up,” answered Alsi, “and the good thanes are miles on their way homewards by this time.  You are too late.”

“I will call them up again.”

“Certainly—­that is, if I let my men run hither and thither to fetch them.  But after all, in this matter I am master.  Whom you wed lies with me.”

Goldberga saw that she was in the hands of the king, and maybe as much a prisoner as at Dover.  So her spirits fled, and she asked what the king willed.

Alsi knew now that nothing but his utmost plan would be of any avail to save that kingdom for himself, and so he broke out into wrath, working up his fury that he might not go back.

“My will is that you obey me in this carrying out of the oath I took on the holy ring, [10] and on the Gospels also to please your mother.  You shall marry the man whom I choose, so that he be according to the words of that oath.”

“So that he be king or son of a king, I will obey you,” answered Goldberga.