Part 11 (2/2)

They took my belongings to the leaders, and they asked for some one who could read the letter, and there was none, even as I had expected, so that I was glad.

”It does not matter much,” the leader said; ”doubtless it has a deal of talk in it which would mean nought to us. We will have it read the next time one of us goes to the church,” and with that he grinned, and the others laughed as at a good jest. ”Let me look at the sword he wore.”

He looked and his eyes grew wide, and then he whistled a little to himself. The others asked him what was amiss.

”If we have got Owen's son, we have taken Ina's own sword as well,”

he said. ”Many a time have I seen the king wear it before the law got the best of me. It is not to be mistaken. Now, if we are not careful we have a hornets' nest on us in good truth. Ina does not give swords like this to men he cares nought for, and there will be hue and cry enough after him, and that from Saxon and Welsh alike.”

”Kill him and have done. That is what we meant to do when we laid up for him.”

So said many growling voices, and I certainly thought that the end was very near.

”Ay, and have ourselves hung in a row that will reach from here to the bridge,” the leader said coolly. ”Mind you this, that with the Welsh up against us we cannot get to Exmoor, and with the Saxons out also we cannot win to the Mendips, as we have done before now.”

”There is the fen.”

”And all the fenmen Owen's own men. Little safety is there in that.”

”But he slew Morgan, as they say.”

”Worse luck for Morgan therefore. What is that to you and me, when one comes to think of it?”

Now I began to understand the matter more or less. It seemed to me that these were Morgan's outlaws, and that somehow they had heard all the story. No doubt that was easy enough, for it would be all over Norton before the night was very old after our coming. And these outlaws have friends everywhere. So they had laid up for me, and now the leader was frightened, as it would seem, or else he had some other plan in his head. It did not seem that he had wished me to be slain, from the first, if it could be helped. Maybe the others had forced him to waylay me. A leader of outlaws has little hold on his men.

”Let him swear to say nought of us, and let him go then,” one of the other leaders said in a surly way.

Then the chief got up and laughed at them all.

”There are six of us slain and a dozen with wounds, and we will make him pay for that and for Morgan as well before we have done with him. Now we must not bide here, or we shall have his men back on us, seeking him. Let us get away, and I will think of somewhat as we go. There is profit to be made out of this business, if I am not mistaken.”

Then they brought my man's horse, which they had caught, and set me on it, making my feet fast under the girth. The men who had fallen they hid in the bushes, and it troubled me more than aught to think that Wulf should lie among them. My horse they dragged into a hollow, and piled snow over him. Then they went swiftly down the hillside into the deep combe, leaving only the trampled and reddened snow to tell that there had been a fight.

I had a hope for a little while that the track they left would be enough for my men to follow if they hit on it, but there was little snow lying in the sheltered woodlands, and there the track was lost. And these men scattered presently in all directions, so that trace of them was none. Only the leader and some dozen men stayed with me.

So they took me for many a long mile, always going seaward, until we were in a deep valley that bent round among the hills until its head was lost in their folds, and there was some sort of a camp of these outlaws sheltered from any wind that ever blew, and with a clear brook close at hand. All round on the hillsides was the forest, but there was one landmark that I knew.

High over the valley's head rose a great hill, and on that was an ancient camp. It was what they call the ”Dinas,” the refuge camp of the Quantock side, which one can see from Glas...o...b..ry and all the Mendips.

Here they took me from the horse and bound my feet afresh, and took the gag from my mouth and set me against a tree, and so waited until the band had gathered once more, lighting a great fire meanwhile. Glad enough was I of its warmth, for it is cold work riding bound through the frost.

When that was done the leader bade some of those with him fetch the goods to this place, and catch some ponies ready against the journey. I could not tell what this might mean, but I thought that they had no intention of biding here, and I was sorry in a dull way. It had yet been a hope that they might be tracked by my men from the place of the fight.

After these men had gone hillward into the forest, others kept coming in from one way or another until almost all seemed to have returned.

One by one as these gathered, they came and looked at me, and laughed, making rough jests at me, which I heeded not at all, if they made my blood boil now and then. Once, indeed, their leader shouted roughly to them to forbear, when some evil words came with a hoa.r.s.e gust of laughter to his ears, and they said under their breath, chuckling as at a new jest:

”Evan has a mind to tell Tregoz that he treated the Saxon well,”

and so left me. It seemed to me that I had heard that name at Norton.

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