Now I was ready to weep, but that would be of no use.
"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 the Wessex king will be nought to their minds. Then will be peace here, for the Danes will sweep on to Mercia and London. Do you go to Ethelred the Unredy--and I abiding here shall be the safer in the end, and Hertha with me."