So I came near, and knelt on one knee before her.

“You are Redwald, Olaf’s kinsman and messenger?” she asked.

“Yes, lady,” I answered.

“I have heard of your coming.  Have you spoken with the earl—­Streone?” she said, while a wrinkle crossed her fair forehead as she named him.

“I have but just left him, lady.”

She sunk her voice very low, and bent a little towards me.

“Were his words pleasant and fair spoken?” she said.

“They could not have been more so—­at the last,” I replied, the memory of my anger coming back to me of a sudden.

“You crossed him once, then?”

“But a little; he crossed me rather,” I said plainly.

“Wear your mail, Redwald,” she said whisperingly.  “Farewell.”

Then she was once more herself again, the lady whose hand I might kiss reverently and look at afar.  But in those few moments she had been as a friend who warned me of a danger unforeseen.  Even thus had Edric Streone spoken with Sigeferth, fairly and pleasantly.

I left the house, feeling uneasy therefore; but I could not think that Edric would deem me worth crushing, and it seemed that the lady would let her hatred of Edric go far.

They had given me lodging in the town across the river, where there was a large guest house that had been made in the days of OEthelfloed {11}, the brave lady of the Mercians who won back the Five Boroughs from the Danes.  One could see the great fort she made rising from the river banks over the whole town.  No other thane was in guest quarters there with me, and I and my men had the place to ourselves.  Nor was there anyone in Stamford at the time whom I knew, apart from the people of Eadmund’s household.

So I went along the street slowly enough, and presently I passed a house where through the open window I saw a goldsmith working, and I thought that he could do somewhat for me.  I would have the penny of St. Eadmund set in a gold band on the scabbard of sword Foe’s Bane, where I should see it continually.  There was much gilt silver work over all the scabbard from end to end—­wrought by what skilful artists in the Norseland, or how long ago, I cannot tell—­and there was a place among the other work where such a fitting would go well.

But I had placed the coin in safety in the house, and I must go and fetch it, and I passed on for the time.  Then I loitered on the bridge, for the old town and its grim earthworks looks very fair thence, and so a thane sent from Eadmund caught me up and took me back to the great house, for he had some word for me.  It was near sunset by this time.

“Redwald, my friend,” the Atheling said, when I stood before him, “I would have you go back to Olaf.  You have done your errand well, and your kinsman will want to have you with him.  You will fight for us no less well with him than here.”

Now I could speak plainly with the Atheling ever, and I said, being anxious to know more of Streone’s meanings: