Then Sighard went and began to search the walls for hidden doors--hopelessly, for the timbers were a full foot thick.

And so of a sudden some frenzy seemed to take him, for he set his hand on his sword, and would have waked the palace with the cry of treason, but that Selred stayed him.
"Friend, friend," he said earnestly, "have a care--wait! We are but two score amid hundreds, and that cry may mean death to us all.
"Wilfrid, call the other thanes hither." I went to the door of the council chamber, and there was that in my face which bade the thanes spring up and hurry to me with words of question.

I looked first at the three Mercians; but their faces were blank as those of the Anglians.

They expected naught.
"The king has gone," I said.

"You Mercians may best know whither." One of them laughed, and sat down again.
"You have a strange idea of a jest in Carl's camp, paladin," he said.