was long dark when Olaf rode back, and he had learnt but little.
But he had sent messengers to Ulfkytel at Thetford to warn him to
watch his coasts, for he must go back to London with the ships to
guard the Thames.

"And you, Redwald, my cousin, must go to Ethelred or Eadmund and
warn them, and make them rouse, and raise and have ready the
mightiest levy that they have ever led, for I think that all
Denmark and Norway have sent their best to follow Cnut. We will
ride together to Maldon, for the men shall follow me and find the
ships with their cables up-and-down waiting for them, and you must
hasten, for no time must be lost."

So it came to pass that my dream of finding Hertha passed from me,
and the thought of war filled my mind again, for next morning we
rode away southward along the Roman road, and the cheers of the
villagers died away behind me and were forgotten.

Then I left Olaf where the road turns off to Maldon, to meet him
again in London before many days, and I and my fifty men rode on.
For Olaf would have me go as befitted his kinsman, and a word to
the Colchester elders had found me the well-armed and mounted
Anglian warriors who joined us after we reached the great road.

But when I came to London my journey was not at an end. Ethelred
the king was at Corsham, in Wiltshire, and sorely sick as was said,
and Eadmund was at Stamford. Now when I heard that I wondered, and
asked the Sheriff, at whose house I was made most welcome, how this
was.

Eadmund had been with his father, and had gone to Malmsbury, and
there had seen the Lady Algitha, the widow of Earl Sigeferth whom
Edric Streone slew, and had married her, and now had gone to take
over the Five Boroughs for himself. That was good hearing, maybe,
for Olaf had feared that Streone would have taken them.

But next I found that this marriage was sorely against the king's
will, and that he and Eadmund had parted in anger therefore. I
seemed then to see the hand of Streone in this quarrel, for all men
knew that he slew the earls to gain the Five Boroughs for his own.

Then I thought that to go so far into Wessex to seek the sick king
would be but lost time. I had better go to Stamford and seek the
Atheling, and maybe it would be as well that he was free to act by
himself, seeing that need was urgent. So I lay but one night in
London, and then rode away to Stamford along the great Ermin
Street, and there I found Eadmund and told him all that Olaf had