"Such of us as might go have done so. Your own door was not left unguarded, King Offa. But the slayers had gone far hence swiftly."
"An they were wise they would bide there," he said grimly.
Now he was more himself, and his eyes sought the pit and the room for all he might learn. I saw that he knew the spear of Gymbert, but he said nothing of it. It came to my mind that to his dying day King Offa would not forget aught that his eyes lit on in that place.
"There shall be a reckoning for this," he said at last, turning to me with a stern look on his face. "Tell me, is it said that in this I have any part?"
"None have said it, King Offa," I answered.
"They have but thought it," he said; "that is what you mean. Well, what is that to me? Yet hereafter you shall tell Carl that in it I had no part."
I bowed, and let that bide. It seemed that to be thought still the messenger for whose return Carl would look might be some sort of a safeguard to me if things went ill. Then Offa remembered somewhat.
"What of the Anglian thanes? What will they say when this is known by them?"
His brow knitted, for he thought of the likelihood of wild turmoil in the palace, and what would come of the cry of treason.
"They know, and have gone," I said simply. "It seemed best to them and to your thanes that, seeing that this deed was done and none could amend it, they should fly hence by this passage. It could not be foreseen how matters would go with them."