Yet I cared little for that, having heavier things to fill my mind than thought for a maiden whose very looks I knew not now. At least these two had taken Hertha into their charge, denying me any part therein, and I could not blame them rightly. I had done my best and could no more. Then at the last moment Elfric came. "Glad am I that you have not gone, my son," he said, as I greeted him. "I have wandered many a long mile over crossroads to escape the Danes. Very nearly did they have me once, but I escaped them. That will be a pleasant tale beside Duke Richard's fire, however. When must we go?" "With nightfall, father," I said. "The horses are standing almost ready even now. How many shall you need?" "Myself, and my chaplain, and three sisters--five," he said, "if you can take so many. These would fly with me and the queen." I thought for a moment. The queen had Eadward and his brother Alfred and five maidens with her, and there were the pack horses and the servants. But two of the maidens were unwilling to go, being daughters of London thanes. Our court was very small in these days. So, as every woman added to our company was a source of weakness, in that our pace must be that of the least able to bear fatigue, I doubted until I thought that the queen might let the sisters take the places of the maidens who cared not to fly with her. I went and asked her this, and she flushed with wounded pride, though I gave her my reasons and urged her peril. "How shall it be told that Emma of Normandy was beholden to a nunnery for her handmaidens?" she said. "It shall not be told, my queen," I said stoutly. "Men shall say that you gave protection to the holy women." Truly my wits were sharpened by sore need, for at once the queen agreed to this. She loved power, and even this little use thereof pleased her. "When can we go?" she asked. "I long to see my own land again." "At nightfall, in two hours' time," I told her. "It is well. Be ready then," she said. She had persuaded herself, as I believe, that she arranged all things, and I was glad to have it so, for I had feared that I should have had trouble more than enough with her unreasoning pride. So I told Elfric that his nuns could go, and he thanked me, laughing a little, with some thought of their journey here as I thought, and he added: "Aye, their dress protects them a little. It is not as in the old days of heathen against Christian. There is this to be said for Cnut, that he will have no monastery or nunnery harried if his orders are carried out." Then a thought came to me, and I wished that I could persuade our queen to take on herself and her maidens the convent dress. She would not be the first royal lady of England who had worn it. And I asked Elfric to persuade her to do so, for Emma's great failing was love of queenship. "If I know aught of our queen," he said, "she wants to ride in state."