In an hour we were at the gates, and I rode straight to the king's house, and sought him on urgent business. Ethered of Mercia came out to me. "What is it, Ranald?" he said. "The Witan is set now." I told him in few words, and his face changed. "It seems impossible in frost and snow," he said. "Ay; but there are proofs," I said, pointing through the great doorway. There was my party, and Kolgrim was binding a wound on Harek's arm of which I knew nought till that moment, and the led horses and spoils were plain enough to say all. Then Ethered made haste and took me to the great hall, where Alfred sat with some thirty thanes of his Witan {xi}, and many clergy. I knew they were to meet on some business that I had nought to do with. Ethered went to the king without any ceremony, and speaking low told him my message. Whereon the king's face grew white and then red, and he flashed out into terrible wrath: "Forsworn and treacherous!" he cried, in a thick voice that shook with passion. "The hostages--chain them and bring them here. Their friends shall find somewhat waiting them here that shall make them wish they had kept their oaths!" Then he said to me: "Speak out, Ranald, and tell these thanes your news." I spoke plainly, and they listened with whitening faces and muttered oaths. And when I ceased, one cried, hardly knowing what he said, as I think: "This outlander rode with Osmund the Dane to bring them on us even now." "Silence!" Alfred said; and then in a cold voice he asked me: "Where is this Osmund? I suppose he has fled to his people." "That he has not, though he could have done so," I answered. "Moreover, the Dane I spoke with said in so many words that this is no host of Guthrum's." At that Alfred frowned fiercely. "Whose then? What good is a king if he cannot make his people keep their oaths?" There was a stir at the door, and the eyes of all turned that way. And when the thanes saw that the hostages were being led in, with Osmund at their head, a great sullen growl of wrath broke from them, and I thought all hope was gone for the lives of those captives. "Hear you this?" the king said, in a terrible voice, when the noise ceased. "By the deed of your own people your lives are forfeit. They have broken the peace, and even now are marching on us. Your leader, Osmund himself, has seen them." "It is true," Osmund said. "We are in the king's hands." Then Alfred turned to the Witan, who were in disorder, and in haste, as one might see, to be gone to their houses and fly. "You heard the Danish oath taken at Exeter; what is your word on this?" They answered in one voice: "Slay them. What else?" "You hear," said the king to the Danes. "Is not the sentence just?" "It is what one might look for," Osmund answered, "but I will say this, that this is some new band of Danes, with whom we have nought to do."