Part 10 (2/2)

But are you not biding for the feast?”

”First of all,” he said, laughing, ”none ever knew a Norseman too proud to accept good arms from a king. Thank Ina for me in all form. And as to my going, seeing that tide waits for no man, if I do not get home shortly I shall lose the tide I want for a bit of a winter voyage I have on hand; wherefore I must go. Farewell, and good luck to you. This business has turned out well, after all, and a great man you will be in this land before long. Don't forget us Nors.e.m.e.n when that comes about, and if ever you need a man at your back, send for me. You might have a worse fence than my axe, and I have a liking for you; farewell again.”

I laughed and shook hands with him, and he swung himself into the saddle and rode away.

There was high feasting that night in the guest hall of Norton, as may be supposed. I sat on the left of the king, and Owen on his right, while all the great men who could be summoned in the time were present, and it was plain enough that the homecoming of their lost prince was welcome to every one in all the hall. Not one dark look was there as I scanned the bright company, and presently not one refused to join in the great shout of welcome that rose when Owen pledged them all.

It was a good welcome, and the face of the old king grew bright as he heard it.

Then the harpers sang; I did not think their ways here so pleasant as our own, where the harp goes round the hall, and every man takes his turn to sing, or if he has no turn for song, tells tale or asks riddle that shall please the guests. Certainly, these Welsh folk were readier to talk than we, and maybe the meats were more dainty and the wines finer than ours, and in truth the Welsh mead was good and the Welsh ale mighty, but men seemed to care little for the sport that should come after the meal was over. Yet these harpers sang well, and from them I learnt more about my foster father than he had ever cared to tell me, for they sang of old deeds of his.

Doubtless they made the most of them, for it would seem from their songs that he had fought with Cornish giants as an everyday thing, and that he had been the bane of more than one dragon. But one knows how to sift the words of the gleeman's song, and they told me at least that Owen had been a great champion ere he left his home.

Still, I missed the bright fire on the hearth, and the ways of the court were too stately for me here. Men seemed not to like the cheerful noise of my honest house-carles, who jested and laughed as they would have done in the hall of Ina, who loved to see and hear that his men were merry. We should have thought that there was something wrong if there had not been plenty of noise at the end of the long tables below the salt.

Now, I will not say that there was not something very pleasant in sitting here at the side of the king as the most honoured guest next to my foster father, but there was a sadness at the back of it all in the knowledge that it was likely that from henceforth our ways must needs go apart more or less, and that I might see him only from time to time. For I was Ina's man, and a Saxon, and it could not be supposed that I should be welcome here. I knew that I must go back to my place, and he must bide in his that he had found again, and so there was the sorrow of parting to spoil what might else have made me a trifle over proud.

Gerent did not stay long at the feast, nor did the ladies who were present, and Owen and I stayed for but a little while after they had gone. Then we were taken in all state to the room where we should sleep, and so for the first time I was housed within stone walls. There were a sort of wide benches along the walls covered with skins and bright rugs for us to sleep on, but after I had helped Owen to his night gear I took the coverings that were meant for me and set them across the door on the floor and so slept. For I had a fear of treachery and the friends of Morgan.

It was in my mind to talk for a while before rest came, but Owen would not suffer me to do so, saying that it was best to sleep on all the many things that happened before we thought much of what was to be done next. So I wrapt myself in my rugs on the strangely warm floor and went to sleep at once, being, as may be supposed, fairly tired out with the long day and its doings. More than that little s.p.a.ce of time it seemed since we left Glas...o...b..ry, and even my meeting with Elfrida was like a matter of long ago to me.

There was a bronze lamp burning with some scented oil, hanging from the ceiling, which seemed so low after our open roofs, and we had left it alight, as I thought it better to have even its glimmer than darkness, here in this strange house. And presently I woke with a feeling that this lamp had flared up in some way, s.h.i.+ning across my eyes, so that I sat up with a great start, grasping my sword hastily. But the lamp burned quietly, and all that woke me was the light of a square patch of bright moonlight from a high window that was creeping across the broad chest of Owen as he slept, and had come within range of my eyelids, for my face was turned to him. The room was bright with it, and for a little I watched the quiet sleeper, and then I too slept, and woke not again until Owen roused me with the daylight from the same window falling on his face.

”That is where I should have slept,” I said, ”for it is my place to wake you, father.”

He laughed, and said that it was his place in the old days, and there was a sigh at the back of the laugh as he thought of those times, and then we forgot the whole thing. Yet though it seems a little matter in the telling, in no long time I was to mind that waking in a strange way enough, and then I remembered.

We must part presently, as I found, at least for a little while.

There was no question but that Owen would stay at the court here, and so Gerent had ready for me a letter which I should carry back to Ina at once. He spoke very kindly to me at that time, giving me a great golden bracelet from his own arm, that I might remember to come back to bide for a time with him ere long. And then we broke our fast, and my men were ready, and I parted from my foster father in the bright morning light that made the white walls of the old palace seem more wonderful to me than ever.

”Farewell, then, for a while,” he said to me; ”come back as soon as Ina will spare you. There will be peace between him and Gerent now, as I think.”

Then came a man in haste from out of the gateway where we stood yet, and he bore a last gift from Gerent to me. It was a beautiful wide-winged falcon from the cliffs of Tintagel in the far west, hooded and with the golden jesses that a king's bird may wear on her talons.

”It is the word of the king,” said the falconer, ”that a thane should ride with hawk on wrist if he bears a peaceful message.

Moreover, there will be full time on the homeward way for a flight or two. Well trained she is, Master, and there is no better pa.s.sage hawk between here and Land's End.”

That was a gift such as any man might be proud of, and I asked Owen to thank the king for me. And so we parted with little sorrow after all, for it was quite likely that I should be back here in a day or two for yet a little while longer with him.

So I and my men were blithe as we rode in the still frosty air across the Quantocks by the way we had come, and by and by, when we gained the wilder crests, I began to look about me for some chance of proving the good hawk that sat waiting my will on my wrist.

Soon I saw that the rattle and noise of men and horses spoiled a good chance or two for me, for the black game fled to cover, and once a roe sprang from its resting in the bushes by the side of the track and was gone before I could unhood the bird.

”Ho, Wulf!” I cried to one of the men who was wont to act as forester when Ina hunted, ”let us ride aside for a s.p.a.ce, and then we will see what sort of training a Welshman can give a hawk.”

So we put spurs to our horses and went on until they were a mile behind us, and then we were on a ridge of hill whence a long wooded combe sank northward to the dense forest land at the foot of the hills, and there we rode slowly, questing for what might give us a fair flight. Bustard there were on these hills, and herons also, for below me I could see the bare branches of the tree tops on which the broad-winged birds light at nesting time, twigless and skeleton-like. For a while we saw nothing, however, and so rode wide of the track, across the heather, until we found the woodland before us, and had to make our way back to the road, which pa.s.sed through it. But before we came in sight of the road, from almost under my feet, a hare bolted from a clump of long gra.s.s, and made for the coverts. I cast off the hawk and shouted, but we were too near the underwood, and it seemed that the hare would win to cover in time to save herself.

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