CHAPTER V. THE TRACKS IN THE FOREST.


It was a long time before any news of the warriors reached home; for
in those days the agony of suspense had always to be endured in the
absence of posts and telegrams; but after a few weeks a special
messenger came from the army. He was one of the Aescendune people, and
his was the great privilege of embracing wife and family once more ere
returning to the perils of the field.

His news was brief. The forces of Mercia had been placed under the
command of Edric, formerly the sheriff of the county in which
Aescendune lay, but long since returned to court, where his smooth
tongue gained him great wealth and high rank. Gifted with a subtle
genius and persuasive eloquence, he had obtained a complete ascendency
over the mind of the weak Ethelred, while he surpassed even that
treacherous monarch in perfidy and cruelty.

Under his direction that unhappy king had again and again embrued his
hands in innocent blood. This very year they had both given a proof of
these tendencies worth recording.

Edric had conceived a hatred against the Ealdorman Elfhelm, which he
carefully concealed. He invited that unfortunate lord to a banquet at
Shrewsbury, where he welcomed him as his intimate friend. On the third
or fourth day of the feast he took him to hunt in a wood where he had
prepared an ambuscade, and while all the rest were engaged in the
chase, the common hangman of Shrewsbury, one Godwin "port hund," or
the town's hound, bribed by Edric to commit the crime, sprang from