Part 10 (1/2)

”Can it be Owen?--Owen, the son of my sister? They said that one like him served the Saxon, but I did not believe it. That is no service for one of our line.”

”What shall an exile do but serve whom he may, if the service be an honoured one? Yet I will say that I wandered long, seeing and learning, before there came to me a reason that I should serve Ina.

To you I might not return.”

But the king was silent, and I thought that he was wroth, while Owen bided yet there on his knee before him, waiting his word. And when that came at last, it was not as I feared.

Slowly the king set forth his hand, and it shook as he did so. He laid it on Owen's head, while the letter that was on his knees fluttered unheeded to the floor as he bent forward and spoke softly:

”Owen, Owen,” he said, ”I have forgotten nought. Forgive the old blindness, and come and take your place again beside me.”

And as Owen took the hand that would have raised him and kissed it, the old king added in the voice of one from whom tears are not so far:

”I have wearied for you, Owen, my nephew. Sorely did I wrong you in my haste in the old days, and bitterly have I been punished. I pray you forgive.”

Then Owen rose, and it seemed to me that on the king the weight of years had fallen suddenly, so that he had grown weak and needful of the strong arm of the steadfast prince who stood before him, and I took the arm of the steward and pulled him unresisting through the doorway, so that what greeting those two might have for one another should be their own.

Then said the steward to me as we looked at one another:

”This is the best day for us all that has been since the prince who has come back left us. There will be joy through all Cornwall.”

But I knew that what I dreaded had come to pa.s.s, and that from henceforth the way of the prince of Cornwall and of the house-carle captain of Ina's court must lie apart, and I had no answer for him.

CHAPTER V. HOW OSWALD FELL INTO BAD HANDS, AND FARED EVILLY, ON THE QUANTOCKS.

It would be long for me to tell how presently Owen called me in to speak with the king, and how he owned me as his foster son in such wise that Gerent smiled on him, and spoke most kindly to me as though I had indeed been a kinsman of his own. And then, after we had spoken long together, Thorgils was sent for, and he told the tale of the end of Morgan plainly and in few words, yet in such skilful wise that as he spoke I could seem to see once more our hall and myself and Elfrida at the dais, even as though I were an onlooker.

”You are a skilful tale teller,” the king said when he ended. ”You are one of the Nors.e.m.e.n from Watchet, as I am told.”

”I am Thorgils the s.h.i.+pmaster, who came to speak with you two years ago, when we first came here. Men say that I am no bad sagaman.”

”This is a good day for me,” Gerent said, ”and I will reward you for your tale. Free shall the s.h.i.+p of Thorgils be from toil or harbourage in all ports of our land from henceforward. I will see that it is known.”

”That is a good gift, Lord King,” said the Norseman, and he thanked Gerent well and heartily, and so went his way back to the guest chambers with a glad heart.

Then Gerent said gravely:

”I suppose that there are men who would call all these things the work of chance or fate. But it is fitting that vengeance on him who wronged you should come from the hand of one whom you have cared for. That has not come by chance; but I think it will be well that it is not known here just at first whose was the hand that slew Morgan.”

”For fear of his friends?” asked Owen thoughtfully.

”Ay, for that reason. Overbearing and proud was he, but for all that there are some who thought him the more princely because he was so. And there are few who know that he did indeed try to end my life, for I would not spread abroad the full shame of a prince of our line. Men have thought that I would surely take him into favour again, but that was not possible. Only, I would that he had met a better ending.”

The old king sighed, and was silent. Presently Owen said that I must see to the men and horses, and I rose up to leave the chamber, and then the king said:

”We shall see you again at the feast I am making for you all. Then tomorrow you must take back as kingly a letter to Ina as he wrote to me, and so return to Owen for as long as your king will suffer you to bide with us.”

So I went to the stables first of all, and there was Thorgils bidding a Welsh groom to get out his horse while he took off the arms that had been lent him from our armoury, for he was but half armed when he came.

”There is no need to do that,” I said; ”for if Ina arms a man, it is as a gift for service done, if he is not too proud to take it.