“Then I heard from within the sound of wonderful music and the singing of many people; and I went near to listen, for the like of that was never yet heard in our land.  And when I was even at the door, from out the church came in many voices my own name, as if it were being mingled with praises—­and so you woke me.”

“It is a good dream,” said Sighard bluntly.  “It came from the wondering why Offa let so mean a church stand, and from the horns, and from my speaking your name.  Strange how things like that will weave themselves into the mind of a sleeping man to make a wonder.”

“It is a good dream,” said Selred the priest, after a moment’s thought.  I doubt not that it was in your mind to give some gift to the church.  Mayhap you shall ask Offa to restore it presently, for memory of your wedding; and thereafter men will pray there for you as the founder of its greatness.”

“Yet the angel, and that he bore and sprinkled?”

“It seems to me,” I said, “that it was a vision of the Holy Grail; and happy would King Arthur or our Wessex Ina have held you that you saw it, King Ethelbert.”

“Ay,” he said, “if I might think that it was so!”

Again the horns rang, and he leaped up.

“We must not keep them waiting,” he cried.  “Come!”

“More dreams,” grumbled Sighard the old thane to me as the king went on before us with the chaplain.  “On my word, we have been dream-ridden like a parcel of old women on this journey, till we shall fear our own shadows next.  There is Hilda as silent as a mouse today, and I suppose she has been seeing more portents.  I mind that a black cat did look at us out of a doorway this morning.”

So he growled, scoffing, and I must say that I was more than half minded to agree with him.  Only the earthquake did seem more than an everyday token.

“I suppose that the earthquake which we felt was sent for somewhat?” I said.

“Why, of course; such like always are.  But seeing that it was felt everywhere we have ridden, even so far as Northampton, and likely enough further on yet, I don’t see why we should take it as meant for the king.”

Then he began to laugh to himself.

“When one comes to think thereof,” he chuckled, “there must have been scores of men who felt it just as they were starting somewhere; and I warrant every one of them took it to himself, and put off his business!  Well, well, I can tell what it did portend, however, for Ethelbert, and that is a mighty change in his household so soon as he gets his new wife home.  Earthquake, forsooth!  Mayhap he will wish he had hearkened to its message when she turns his house upside down.”

“Nay,” I said, smiling; “one has not heard that of the princess.”

“She is Quendritha’s daughter,” he said grimly, and growing grave of a sudden.  “That is the one thing against this wedding, to my mind.  If she is like her mother, or indeed like her sister Eadburga, who wedded your king, there is an end for peace to Ethelbert, and maybe to East Anglia.”