A King's Comrade: A Story of Old Hereford

Two fair daughters had Offa, the mighty King of Mercia, and Quendritha his queen. The elder of those two, Eadburga, was wedded to our Wessex king, Bertric, in the year when my s...

Selred smiled and shook his head at Erling when we went back to him, but I could see that he thought no less of the Dane for standing by me. Nor did I, as may be supposed, but I...

For a moment I looked and then turned away, with but one thought in my mind, and that was the knowledge that it was a good thing that the punishment of this man had been taken f...

Seeing that Carl the Great was at this time, and I suppose always will be, the model of what a king should be, Ethelbert had many things to ask me of him, and out of the hours w...

Slowly the footfalls of our comrades died away down the low passage, and then the last flicker of their torch passed from the stone walls of that terrible pit, leaving Selred an...

For ten minutes after the last voice was to be heard we waited, and then, leaving two pools of water where we had lain, we crept back to the open and sought Hilda. I feared to f...

It had been made ready beforehand--men driving the game from the farther hills and woodlands into the valley of the Lugg, and then drawing a line of nets and fires across a narr...

Now we were just about to ride off the ancient road into the woods when we heard the muffled sounds of a party coming along the way. For a moment I thought that we were pursued,...

Looking back on them, it seems that those five years with Carl the Great were long, but in truth they went fast enough. With Ecgbert I went everywhere that war was to be waged,...

Great was the welcome which Ethelbert of East Anglia had from Offa of Mercia when we reached the great stronghold of Sutton Walls on the next morning, riding there in all state...

Now I went straightway to Hilda with the news of her father, telling her that it seemed almost the best for us to trust to the word of the Welsh prince, and go to him, rather th...

By Ely and Huntingdon and Northampton, and so through the very heart of England, across the sweet Avon at Stratford, our way took us, under trees that had their first leaves fre...

In the stir which comes with the waking of a camp, I and Erling went out of the eastward gate and watched the sun coming up over the Mercian hills across the river. The white mo...

Now that I had Hilda safe with the archbishop, it mattered nothing to me if all the world knew that I was yet here. So when Ealdwulf, the archbishop himself, asked me to ride wi...

It was indeed Thorleif whom I saw as the deadly faintness of utter weariness and want of food came over me, and I sank. The Danes had hardly lost sight of me from the ships, for...

All the rest of that afternoon we two had to bide on the narrow fore deck of the long ship, watching the pillage of the little town. Once I waxed impatient, and asked my cousin...

It must not be supposed that the gifts of Carl the Great were given, and his greetings spoken, offhand, as it were, by us. There must needs be a gathering of the Witan of the Ea...

Across the upper end of the great hall there was a long building set, and this was divided into three uneven parts. From the hall one entered it by the door behind the king's hi...

Early on the next morning Ethelbert the king sent for me, to ask me concerning this affair with the flintknappers. Very pleasant he was, too, and the first thing he did was to l...

Hereford Cathedral bears the name of Ethelbert of East Anglia, king and martyr, round whose death, at the hands of the men of Offa of Mercia, this story of his comrade centres,...