ich would bring
her more power, so that even she deems that the lust of it is dead
within her. Only for many a year she somewhat fears the coming of
every stranger from beyond the sea lest she may be known, until it
is certain that none would believe a tale against their queen.

Yet when that time comes there are old counsellors of the Witan who
will say among themselves that they deem Quendritha the queen the
leader and planner of all that may go to the making great the
kingdom of the Mercians; and there are one or two who think within
themselves that, were she thwarted in aught she had set her mind
on, she might have few scruples as to how she gained her ends. But
no man dare put that thought into words.

CHAPTER I. HOW THE FIRST DANES CAME TO ENGLAND.

Two fair daughters had Offa, the mighty King of Mercia, and
Quendritha his queen. The elder of those two, Eadburga, was wedded
to our Wessex king, Bertric, in the year when my story begins, and
all men in our land south of the Thames thought that the wedding
was a matter of full rejoicing. There had been but one enemy for
Wessex to fear, besides, of course, the wild Cornish, who were of
no account, and that enemy was Mercia. Now the two kingdoms were
knit together by the marriage, and there would be lasting peace.

Wherefore we all rejoiced, and the fires flamed from the hilltops,
and in the towns men feasted and drank to the alliance, and dreamed
of days of unbroken ease to come, wherein the weapons, save always
for the ways of the border Welsh, should rust on the wall, and the
trodden grass of the old camps of the downs on our north should
grow green in loneliness. And that was a good dream, for our land
had been torn with war for overlong--Saxon against Angle,
Kentishman against Sussexman, Northumbrian against Mercian, and so
on in a terrible round of hate and jealousy and pride, till we
tired thereof, and the rest was needed most sorely.

And in that same year the shadow of a new trouble fell on England,
and none heeded it, though we know it over well now--the shadow of
the coming of the Danes. My own story must needs begin with that,
for I saw its falling, and presently understood its blackness.

I had been to Winchester with my father, Ethelward the thane of
Frome Selwood, to see the bringing home of the bride by our king,
and there met a far cousin of ours, with whom it was good to enjoy
all the gay doings of the court for the week while we were the