"Is there danger to her?" I said, and I could not keep my voice
from shaking, for Hertha was all the sister I had, and she in time
would be nearer than that to me.

"None," answered the dame, "save she runs risk of chill. For she
has been fevered for a while."

"Which is most to be feared," said I, "chill, or risk of Danish
cruelty?"

She made no answer, but asked me what were my mother's plans. And
when I said that she would fly to Ethelred the king, the old nurse
laughed strangely to herself.

"Then you go to the very cause of all this trouble," she said.
"Truly the king's name should be 'the Unredy', for rede he has
none. It is his ill counsel that has brought Swein the Dane on us.
We have to pay for the Hock-tide slayings {3}."

"We had no share in that" I said.

"No, because half our folk are Danes, more or less, some of the men
of Ingvar and Guthrum. But Swein will not care for that--they are
all English to him."

"What will you do, then?" I asked, growing half wild that she
should stand there quietly and plan nought.

"These folk will side with Swein presently, when they find that he
is the stronger, and then the old kinship will wake in them, and