much. And ever from beyond the Wash and from Mercia
came news of Ingvar's host. The Northumbrian king was slain, and a
Dane set in his place; and Burhred of Mercia bowed to the Danes,
and owned them for lords; and at last Ethelred of Wessex came to
himself and sent levies to meet the host, but too late, for Mercia
was lost to him. Yet Eadmund our king, and even Ulfkytel, deemed
that we were safe as ever behind our fenland barrier, fearing
naught so long as no landing was made from across the Wash.

Yet when November came in, and at Egfrid's house all was bustle and
preparation, we heard that Bardney was burnt, and Swineshead, and
then Medehamstede {xx}. And the peril was close on us, and but
just across our border.

"No matter," said men to one another. "It will be a hard thing for
Danes to cross the great fens to come hither. They will turn aside
into Mercia's very heart, and then the Wessex folk will rise."

But I feared, and two days before the wedding went to Harleston,
where the king was, and urged him to have forces along the great
wall we call Woden's Dyke even yet.

"Let us see your wedding first, Wulfric," he said. "Eadgyth would
be sorely grieved if I were not there."

For he lay at Harleston to be near at hand, as the wedding was to
be from the house of Egfrid's father, because Reedham seemed as yet
a house of sorrow. And I was glad when the Thane asked that it
should take place at Hoxne, and it was safer also.

Surely never moved host so swiftly as Ingvar's, for even as I went,
heavily enough, from Eadmund's presence, a man spurred into the
town saying that Earl Ulfkytel faced the Danes with a fair levy
gathered in haste, between us and Wisbech. They had crossed the
fens where no man dreamed that they might come, and were upon us as
if from the skies.

Now Eadmund made no more delay, but all that night went forth the
summons of the war arrow, and the men mustered in force at last in
Thetford town, and I spurred back to Hoxne and found the thane, and
spoke to him.

"Let the wedding go on," I said, "for the Danes are yet far, and
must pass the earl and us also before they come hither. Now must I
be with the king, but if I may, and Ulfkytel holds them back, I
shall be at the wedding. And if it must be, I will warn you to fly,
and so let Egfrid take his bride and my mother and his own folk
southward to Colchester or London."

That, he thought, was well, and no word of fear or haste hindered
the wedd