“I saw,” answered Ælfric. “Nought remaineth but to take her to the gerefa. Let him pronounce doom upon her.”
There was so much of malignity in his tone that Egwina looked at him, and seeing with what cruel triumph he gazed upon her, knew in her inmost soul that it was Ælfric who had caused this thing.
In silence, she suffered herself to be carried back to the manor of Oswald to await the morning when she would be taken to the gerefa for trial.
[CHAPTER XXI—THE TRIAL OF EGWINA]
Before the ealdorman of the shire, and the gerefa or reeve, was Egwina taken. It was the folk moot of the shire. The bishop should have been present, but he was attending the king at Windshore. Many were in attendance, and the maiden shrank from the curious eyes fixed upon her.
“In the Lord,” said Edwy the gleeman, as he took the oath, “I accuse not the maiden neither for hate, nor art, nor unjust avarice, nor do I know anything more true, but so my mind said to me, and I myself tell for truth, that this maiden, called Egwina the Fair, is the thief of my harp.”
“Thou art sure of this, Edwy?” asked the gerefa, Beornwulf, won by the sweet face of the maiden.
“Marry, am I not on my oath?” blustered the man. “Not only do I ween that the maiden took the harp, but I wot it.”
“Declare then thy charge,” said Beornwulf.
“The maiden did enter the hall but three days since at sunset,” deposed Edwy. “She sang and well did she please my Lord Oswald. That ye may know that naught but love of justice, and the restoration of mine own property doth animate me, I will say that she sang well. Then did my lord call for more, and the maiden asked for my harp, but, being unwilling that the sunbeam of the gleeman should go from my hands, I loaned it not. My Lord Oswald then commanded that the maiden have the harp, and it was given her. She gave it me again. The next night she sang again at the glee. In the morning she went her way. Lo! when I would have accompanied my song with the instrument it was gone. We followed after the maiden, and found it with her. I have said.”