"What will you do?" he asked, for I spoke not of coming with him.
"This," I answered. "I will pledge Ingild's word, as I know I may, for any ransom, going after the Danes and finding Guthrum, who will listen to me."
He thought that well, and then I asked where Humbert the Bishop was. He had gone back to South Elmham at once, and would be far on his road by this time, the thane said.
Then I went out and took a fresh horse from the stables and rode away into the great road. And when I came there, I saw with others the man who told me how the king's hiding place was found.
"How long have the Danes been gone?" I asked.
"Master," he answered, "they have gone back over the bridge, some of them riding forward towards Hoxne."
At that I knew that some plan of Ingvar's was that his men after victory should cross the river at Thetford, and so perhaps strike at Framlingham where the king's household was. But all along the march of the Danish host had been unresting, so that men had no time to prepare for their coming, or even to know what point they would reach next.
Then I sent by this man urgent messages to the thane that they should fly coastwards, crossing the river Waveney, perhaps, so as not to fall into the hands of the host at the first starting, for Ingvar's horsemen would be everywhere south of this and Thetford.
I rode fast over the bridge, for I feared for Humbert our good bishop, and when I came near the church the bells jangled, all unlike the wedding peals that I had heard so lately.
They had found a few late flowers, violets and marigolds and daisies and the like, and had strewn them before the bride as she left the church; and they lay there yet with bright hedgerow leaves to eke them out--but across the path, too, lay the dead body of a poor churl, dressed in his holiday gear, slain by a spear thrust, and the church was burning. Now the men who jangled the bells for help came down in haste, terrified as the fire took hold of the roof, for the church was all of wood and very old.