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HOW WILFRID SPOKE WITH ETHELBERT THE KING.
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 laugh at himself for taking me for a Frank.
"I ought to have seen that you were a Saxon," he said; "and if I had had the courtesy to speak with you, I should have learned it at once.

I had a good friend once in that atheling of yours, who is lost to us." His face clouded as he said that, and but that there were a dozen courtiers present, I should have told him that Ecgbert was found again for him, then and there; however, that would wait, and I passed it over.

Then he asked me of myself, and what I would do when the state affair was ended; and I told him that I had no greater wish than to find my way home at once.
"That is a long ride," he said.