And all is bad for the
Lady Goldberga, who needs all the friends that she has, for in either
case there will be trouble between the two kingdoms that Alsi holds just
now."
"If Griffin is slain," I said, "I think that the lady has one trouble
out of the way."
"Ay; and the king will make out, as you heard him do even now, that I am
looking that way myself. It is not so, for I will say to you at once
that to me there is but one lady in all the world, and she is in Norfolk
at this time. Now I am going to ask you something that is a favour."
I thought that he would give me some message for this lady, in case he
fell; but he had more to ask than that. Nothing more or less than that I
should be his second in the fight, because I was a fellow countryman,
while to ask an East Anglian thane would he to make things harder yet
for Goldberga.
"I am no thane, earl," I said plainly. "This is an honour that is over
high for me."
"It seems that you own a town, for I asked Eglaf just now," he answered;
"and that is enough surely to give you thane's rank in a matter like
this. But that is neither here nor there; it is as Dane to Dane that I
ask you. If I could find another of us I would ask him also, that you
might not have to stand alone. I am asking you to break the law that
bids the keeping of the peace at the time of the meeting of the Witan.
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