“Will you two pay the weregild {xi} between you?”

“No, Lord Earl,” I said; “that were to confess guilt, which would be a lie.”

Then Beorn cried: 

“I pray you, Wulfric, let us pay and have done!”

But I turned from him in loathing.

“Ho, Master Falconer,” said Ulfkytel, “the man is an outlander!  To whom will you pay it?  To Wulfric who saved his life?”

Now at that Beorn was dumb, seeing that the earl had trapped him very nearly, and he grew ashy pale, and the great earl scowled at him.

“Let me have trial by battle,” I said quietly, thinking that it would be surely granted.

There was as good reason to suspect me as Beorn, as I saw.

“Silence, Wulfric!” said the earl.  “That is for me to say.”

“Let the king judge, I pray you, Lord Earl,” I went on, for he spoke in no angry tone, nor looked at me.

However, that angered him, for, indeed, it was hard to say whether king or earl was more powerful in East Anglia.  Maybe Eadmund’s power came by love, and that of the earl by the strong hand.  But the earl was most loyal.

“What!” he said in a great voice, “am I not earl?  And shall the king be troubled with common manslayers while I sit in his seat of justice?  Go to!  I am judge, and will answer to the king for what I do.”

So I was silent, waiting for what should come next.

But he forgot me in a minute, and seemed to be thinking.

At last he said: 

“One of these men is guilty, but I know not which.”

And so he summed up all that he had heard, and as he did so it seemed, even to me, that proofs of guilt were evenly balanced, so that once again I half thought that Beorn might be wronged in the accusation, as I was.

“So,” he ended, “friend has slain friend, and friends have fought, and there is no question of a third man in the matter.”

He looked round on the honest faces with him, and saw that they were puzzled and had naught to say, and went on: 

“Wherefore, seeing that these men have had trial by battle already, which was stopped, and that the slain man was a foreigner from over seas and has no friends to speak concerning him, I have a mind to put the judgment into the hands of the greatest Judge of all.  As Lodbrok the Dane came by sea, these men shall be judged upon the sea by Him who is over all.  And surely the innocent shall escape, and the guilty shall be punished in such sort that he shall wish that I had been wise enough to see his guilt plainly and to hang him for treachery to his friend and the king’s, or else to put him into ward until some good bishop asks for pardon for ill doing.”

And with that half promise he looked sharply at us to see if any sign would come from the murderer.

But I had naught to say, nor did I seem to care just now what befell me, while Beorn was doubtless fearful lest the wrath of Eadmund the King should prevail in the end were he to be imprisoned only.  So he answered not, and the earl frowned heavily.