k, ahoy!"

At last one who seemed a great chief came and cried a truce, for night
was falling; and he said that if Havelok would claim no advantage
therefrom, the men of Lindsey would get back from the field, and leave
it free for us to take our fallen.

"But I must have your word that with the end of that task you go back to
the place you now hold, that we may begin afresh, if it seems good to
us, in the morning."

Then said Havelok, "That is well spoken, and I cannot but agree. Who are
you, however, for I must know that this is said with authority?"

"I am the Earl of Chester," he answered. "Alsi has set the leading of
the host in my hands, for he is hurt somewhat."

"I did not think that Mercians would have troubled to fight to uphold
Alsi of Lindsey in his ways with his niece," Havelok said.

"What is that?" said the earl. "Hither came I for love of fighting,
maybe, in the first place; and next to drive out certain Vikings. I know
naught of the business of which you speak."

"Then," said I, "go and ask Eglaf, the captain of the housecarls, for he
knows all about it. We are no raiding Danes, but those who fight for
Goldberga of East Anglia."

At that a hum of voices went down the English line, and this earl bit
his lip in doubt.

"Well," he said, "that is Alsi's affair, and I will speak to him. We
have had a good fight, and I will not say that either of us has the best
of it. Shall it be as I have said?"

"Ay," answered Havelok; and the earl drew off his men for half a mile,
and in the gathering dusk we crossed the brook, and went on our errand
across the field. It was not hard to find our men, for they lay in a
great wedge as we had fought. There had been no straggling from that
array, and no break had been made in its lines. Alsi had lost more than
we, for his men had beaten against that steel wall in vain, and the arms
of the Northman are better than those of any other nation.

We took the wounded back to the camp, and there Goldberga and the wives
of our English thanes tended them; and as we gathered up the slain the
Lindsey men were among us at the same work, and we spoke to them as if
naught was amiss between us, nor any fight to begin again in the
morning. And then we learned how few knew what we had come for. It was
with them as with the Earl of Chester. They had no knowledge of
Goldberga's homecoming, and least of all thought that at the back of the
trouble were the wiles of Alsi. It was two yea