So I had to leave him at that time, for now Olaf would take eight score of our men in haste to Sudbury, which is but five miles away, and call on the townsfolk to rise for Ethelred and drive out any Danes who were left there.

We went away quickly, and took all our mounted men, for we could hear of no Danish force afield yet.  It is likely that word of our force had gone from Maldon, losing nothing on the way.

We rode to Sudbury gates and called on the townspeople to open their gates.  Then was some tumult and fighting inside the town, but they opened to us, and we rode in.  There were some slain men in the street, for what Danes had been there had resisted the surrender to so small a force.

But the Sudbury folk rejoiced to see us, and hailed Ethelred as king very gladly.  Then Olaf bade them raise what men they could and join him at Bures on the morrow with the first light.  Thereat the old sheriff of Sudbury, whom I knew well, promised that we should have all the men whom he could raise.

“Nor will they be your worst fighters, King Olaf,” he said, “for we have many wrongs to avenge.”

It was late evening when we went back.  And in the road where it winds between the river and the hill before one comes into Bures street waited Rani and some men with news.  The Danes had come from Colchester, and already their watch fires were burning along the heath some four miles to eastward of us.  It had fallen out, as Olaf wished, that they would try to bar our way into Suffolk, and we should have work to hand on the morrow.

Now men had gone with some thralls who could take them safely near the host, to spy what they could of the number and the plans of the Danes.

So it came to pass that I went no more into the village that night, but slept by a fire that burnt where our own hearthstone had been, amid the ruins of my home.  And that was a sad homecoming enough.  Moreover, in the first hours of the night a wonderful thing happened which seemed to be of ill omen, and was so strange that maybe few will believe it.

There was a bit of broken wall near the fire, and I laid me down in my cloak under its shelter, setting the sword that Eadmund had given me against it close to my head, so that I could reach it instantly if need were.  After a while I slept, for the day had been very long and I was weary, else would sad thoughts have kept me waking.  And presently there was a rumble and snapping that woke me up in a dream of falling ruin, and the man who lay next to me cried out and dragged me roughly aside.

The broken wall had fallen, crumbling with the heat of the fire, I suppose, and had almost slain me.  But I was not touched, though the sword was broken.  And when Ottar the scald heard of it he was troubled, not knowing what this might betoken.  But Olaf thought little of it.