It is a long five miles from Matelgar's place to the town, and we could
only travel at a foot's pace. But still we met no force. Indeed, until
we were just a half mile thence, we saw no one. Then we met a picket,
who, seeing we were fugitives, let us go on unchallenged.
But Wulfhere stopped and questioned the men, and got no pleasant answer
as it seemed, for he caught us up growling, coming alongside of me, and
saying--for Alswythe could not know the ways of war--that they would
attack with morning light. But I felt only too keenly, though I knew so
little, that to fight the Danes when they had their foot firmly ashore,
was a harder matter than to meet them but just landed.
We were so close to the town now that I asked Alswythe where she would
be taken. Already we were passing groups of fugitives from the nearer
country, and the town would be full of them, to say nothing of the men
of the levy.
She thought a little, and then asked me if she might not go to her
father, wherever he was. But I told her that he was but a guest of
Osric, as it seemed. Then she said that she would go to her aunt, who
was the prioress of the White Nuns, and bide in the nunnery walls till
all was safe. And that seemed a good plan, both to me and Wulfhere, for
it would--though this we said not to Alswythe--set us free to fight,
as there we might not come, and she would be safe without us.
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