“Then you defy me.  For that I have told you that I will not have.  Now shall we see who is master.  You mind yon kitchen knave of last night?  There can be none in all England mightier or more goodly than he is to look on, and him shall you wed.  So will my oath be well kept.  Then if your precious Witan will have him, well and good, for his master shall I be.”

Thereat the princess said that it were better that she should die; but now Alsi had set out all his plan to her, and he did not mean to flinch from carrying it out.  There was no doubt that the Norfolk people would hold that she had disgraced herself by the marriage, and so would refuse to have her as queen.  And that was all he needed.

But Goldberga had no more to say, for she was past speaking, and the king was fain to call her ladies.  And when they came he went away quickly, and gave orders for the safe keeping of the princess, lest she should try to fly, or to get any message to Ragnar or other of the Norfolk thanes.

Now he must go through with this marriage, for he had shown himself too plainly, and never would the princess trust him again.  I have heard that he sent for Griffin at this time; but, as I found, he was gone; and if the king thought that perhaps the princess would wed him now to escape from the kitchen knave, he had no chance to bring him forward.  I suppose he could have made out that Griffin, or for that matter any one else he chose, was such a one as his oath to Ethelwald demanded.

Sore wept Goldberga when she was back in her own place, and at first it was hard for her to believe that Alsi could mean what he had threatened.  But then she could not forget her dream, and in that she had most certainly seen the very form of him who stood before her at the high place last night; and that perhaps troubled her more than aught, for it seemed to say that him she must wed.  But no king’s son could he be, so that there must be yet such another mighty man to be found.

And then in her heart she knew that there could not be two such men, both alike in all points to him of the vision.  And she knew also, though maybe she would not own it, that if this Curan had been but a thane of little estate, she could have had naught to say against the matter.

And so at last she found that in her trouble and doubt and wish for peace she was thinking, “Would that he were not the kitchen knave!”

Now, it chanced that the old nurse had gone out into the town, and was away all this while, so that she knew nothing of this new trouble; and presently she was coming back with her arms full of what she had bought, and there met her Havelok and Withelm, who had been to the widow’s, and were on their way to find me at the gate.

“Mother,” said Havelok, “let me help you up with these things.”

That frightened the old lady, for she had been looking at him, and had made up her mind that he was some mighty noble, as did most strangers.