carry back in an hour's time, now that I know you to be a true messenger."

"There should be no reason for waiting so long as that, nor do I think
that the matter of the throne of East Anglia is a question for Lindsey
thanes," answered Arngeir at once. "All this is between you and the
princess."

Thereat one of the thanes rose up and said, "If a kingdom has been
handed over to our king, it is not to be taken again without our having
a good deal to say about it. I do not know, moreover, if we can have a
foreigner over any part of our land."

"Goldberga never gave up her right to the kingdom," Arngeir answered,
"as anyone who was here at the wedding would tell you. And as for
Havelok, her husband, being a foreigner, it seems to me that a Jute who
has been brought up here in Lindsey since he was seven winters old is
less a foreigner than a Briton is to us."

None made any answer to that, and I could see that the king was growing
angry at being met thus at every turn. But he began to smile in that way
of his that I had learned to mistrust.

"That is not altogether courteous to either Goldberga or myself," he
said, as if he would think the words a jest, seeing that he was half
Welsh. "Give me time, I pray you, to think of this, as I have asked, and
you shall go back with your answer."

There was no help for it, and we had to leave the hall in order that
Alsi might say what he had to say to his thanes. And I said to Arngeir
that it seemed that we should have to fight the matter out.