"There is many a mile between here and Ipswich, and I think that to go to Wormingford is my work, surely." So I rode away fast, seeing in the valley below me the lights of the house that I sought.

As I had said, the errand was indeed mine.
For at the great house just across the river below the hills lived the one who should be my wife in the days to come--Hertha, daughter of Osgod, the Thane of Wormingford.

It was now three years since we had been betrothed with all solemnity in our church, and that had seemed but fit and right, for we were two children who had played together since we could run hand in hand.

And my mother had been as a mother also to little Hertha since she was left with only her father to tend her.
Our house and Osgod's were akin, though not near, for we both traced our line from Redwald the first Christian king of East Anglia, whose name I bore.

Hertha was two years younger than I.
Now Osgod the Thane had ridden away to the war with my father, and unless he had returned with Grinkel, Hertha was alone in the house with her old nurse and the farm servants.