“This is insufferable!” he cried. It was evident that the crisis had come. While the Etheling faced him with a defiance that in its utter abandon was a little mad, a sensation as of bracing muscles and setting teeth went around the group. Several of the thanes laid their hands upon their swords. And the half-dozen ealdormen present bent toward one another in hasty consultation. At an almost imperceptible sign from the old cniht, the henchmen made a noiseless step nearer their master. There were not more than a dozen of them, but behind them loomed some two-score yeomen-soldiers, with a score more in the brush at their back; and the faces of all told more plainly than words what it would mean to attack them. But the blood of Cerdic, once fired, burned too rapidly for policy. Edmund’s jaw was set in savage menace as he turned and beckoned to his guard. Had he spoken the words on his lips, there is little doubt what his order would have been. Interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Even as his lips were opening, that white taloned hand reached out of the shadow and touched his arm. “Most royal lord! If it may be permitted me?” Earl Edric said swiftly. His voice was very low, and every roughness had been filed away until it flowed like oil. Upon the King’s wounded temper it appeared to fall as softly as drops of healing balm. With his mouth still set, he paused and bent his ear. There was a murmur of whispered words. What they were no one ever knew, and each man had a different theory; but their result was plain to all. Slowly Edmund’s knitted brows unravelled; slowly his mouth relaxed into its wonted curves. At last he had regained all his lofty composure and turned back. “Lord of Ivarsdale, I am not rich of time, and my present need is too great to spare any of it to the chastising of rebellious boys. Go back to your toy kingdom, and lord it over your serfs until I find leisure to teach you who is master.” Making a disdainful gesture of dismissal, he turned with deliberate grace and entered into conversation with the Mercian. At the moment, it is likely that the young noble would have preferred arrest. The utter scorn of word and act lashed the blood to his cheeks and the tears to his eyes. With boyish passion, he snatched the sword from its sheath, and breaking it in pieces across his knee, flung the fragments clinking into the dead embers. But if he had hoped to provoke an answer, it was in vain; the King deigned him no further notice. Resuming his seat, Edmund continued to talk quietly with the Earl, a half-smile playing about his complacent chin. The old cniht bent forward and whispered in his chief’s ear: “Make haste, Lord Sebert; they will be cheering in a moment, the churls; so pleased are they at the thought of going home. Hasten with your retiring.”