"Ay, at Marden," he said eagerly, as if he did but long to do all that he might, "there also shall be a church, that it may be held holy for all time. It shall be seen to at once."
After that promise Offa bade me farewell sadly enough, and I was glad to leave the chamber. Nor had we long to wait before Ealdwulf came out, and we were once more turning our backs on the palace of Sutton. On its walls I never set eyes again, nor did I wish to do so.
As we went in leisurely wise back to Fernlea, the archbishop told me those few things which I have set down concerning the way in which Quendritha had beguiled the king into suffering the thought of this deed of shame. No more than was needful for me to understand how little part, indeed, Offa had had in the matter did he tell me, for all else that had passed between those two was not to be told. Both he and I think that had the evil queen left the doing of her deed until morning it had never been wrought, for Offa would have come to himself.
Yet one cannot tell. What Quendritha had set her heart on was apt to be carried through, even to the bitterest of endings for those who were in her way thereto. How she would fare now Ealdwulf could not tell me. It was true that she was almost imprisoned, as I have said, but none could tell whether that would last. Yet he thought, indeed, that Offa would have no more to do with her.
So we came back to Fernlea, and when I saw the little church I minded once more that strange dream of the poor young king's. I had heard the words which told that it would come to pass. Nor was there any doubt now in my mind that all those things which we had deemed omens were indeed so. The fears we had tried to laugh at were more than justified.
[CHAPTER XVII]. HOW WILFRID AND HIS CHARGE MET JEFAN THE PRINCE.
Now I went straightway to Hilda with the news of her father, telling her that it seemed almost the best for us to trust to the word of the Welsh prince, and go to him, rather than to risk a journey hither for the thane if he was wounded.
"I trust you altogether, Wilfrid," she said. "Take me to him. I know that you have bided here in sore risk for me, and maybe you also will be safer if once we are across the Wye. The Welsh are not the foes of East Anglia."
I did not tell her that they were very much so of Wessex, on our western border; for at all events ours were Cornish, who had not so much to do with their brothers beyond the Channel here. So, having bidden her keep up heart, I sought the wife of the reeve, and would have given her gold to buy such things as she might think Hilda needed for travel.
"Dear heart!" she said, bridling, "set your gold back in your pouch. May not the reeve's wife of Fernlea give of her plenty to one so fair and hapless? I will see to that in all good time."