"Why?"
"Maybe it is not my business, but I think that I owe you a good turn for letting me off at Leavenheath. If I take you to Cnut, Streone will have somewhat to say about you--and he is a great man with our king just now."
"Well, what if he has. He knows me well enough, and cares nought about me," I answered.
"Cares enough about you to have told Cnut to hang you as soon as he gets you," Egil said. "I suppose you have offended him in some way."
Then Elfric said:
"That is so. Redwald escaped from his hands at Stamford. We heard many tales about it at Peterborough. They say that Eadmund the Martyr came bodily and saved him out of a house beset by the earl's men."
"If there is one dead man that we Danes have to fear, it is that king," Egil said. "Is this tale true?"
And he stared at me as at one who had dealings with the other world.
I knew that my story must have come into this shape through some tales that the goldsmith had set about.
"Hardly," said I; "but it is a long story. Maybe Eadmund the Saint had more to do with it than I know; but I saw him not."