“Yet I will keep you awhile, for Egfrid, the Thane’s son of Hoxne, who is here at court, goes home for Yuletide, and so you can ride with him.  And I think it will be well that we should send word to your father of how things have been faring with you, for so will you have naught of misfortune to tell when you come home.”

I thought this wise counsel and kindly, for my people would best tell those wives and children of their loss, and so things would be easier for me.  And Ingild sent writing to my father by the hand of some chapman travelling to the great fair at Norwich; and with his letter went one from me also, with messages to Lodbrok—­for Eadmund had made me learn to write.

So after that I abode with Ingild, going to the court of Ethelred the King with him, and seeing the great feasts which the merchant guilds made for the king while he was in London; with many other wondrous sights, so that the time went quickly, and the more so that this Egfrid was ever with me.  I had known him when we were little lads together at our own king’s court, but he had left to go to that of our great overlord, Ethelred, so that I had not seen him for long years.  And one may sail up our Waveney river to Hoxne, where his father’s house is, from ours at Reedham, though it is a long way.

Now in the week before Yuletide we would start homewards, so with many gifts and words of good speed, Ingild set us forth; and we rode well armed and attended as the sons of great thanes should.  So the way was light to us in the clear December weather, and if it were long the journey was very pleasant, for Egfrid and I grew to be great friends, and there is nothing more joyous than to be riding ever homeward through wood and over wild, with one whose ways fit with one’s own, in the days of youth, when cares are none and shadows fall not yet across the path.

When we came to Colchester town we heard that Eadmund was yet at Thetford, and when we asked more we learnt that Lodbrok was there also with my father.  So, because Hoxne was but twenty miles or thereby from Thetford, both Egfrid and I were glad that our way was yet together, and we would go there first of all.

One other thing we heard in Colchester, for we waited there for two days, resting our horses.  There was a wandering gleeman who came into the marketplace on the hill top, and we stood and listened to him.

And first he sang of how Danes had come and burnt Harwich town.  But the people told him to sing less stale news than that, for Harwich was close at hand.  Now it was Halfden’s ship which had done that, and the fires we saw before the fog came had been the beacons lit because of his landing.

Then he made a great outcry until he had many folk to listen, and they paid him well before he would sing.  Whereon, forsooth, my ears tingled, for he sang of the burning of Bosham.  And when he came to the stealing of the bell, his tale was, that it, being hallowed, would by no means bear that heathen hands should touch it, so that when it came to the deepest pool in the haven it turned red hot, and so, burning a great hole through the Danish ship, sank to the bottom, and the Danes were all drowned.  Whereat the people marvelled, and the gleeman fared well.