Part 29 (1/2)

”She came when you were with Owen. Jago sent to ask if Elfrida would take her in, she being worth having as a maid. His wife had no place for her, but would that she was well cared for. So she came with the first chapman who travelled this way.”

Now as I thought of this girl, in a moment it flashed across me where I had seen her before. It was on board the s.h.i.+p at Tenby, and she came with Dunwal and his daughter Mara. I was certain of it, though I had only seen her that once, for there I was in a strange land, and so noticed things and people at which I should hardly have glanced elsewhere. The Danish and British dress over there was strange to me also.

Then, as soon as I had a chance I asked the ealdorman for a few moments of private speech, and we went into his own chamber that opened on the high place of the hall where we had been sitting.

There I told him all the trouble, for surely I needed all help that I could find, and at the last I said:

”Mara, the daughter of Dunwal, was at guest quarters with Jago.”

Then I saw the face of my friend paling slowly under its ruddy tan, and he rose and walked across the room once or twice, biting his lip as though in wrath or sore trouble. I could not tell which it was, but I thought that he was putting some new thought together in his mind.

”It is plain enough,” he said at last, staying his walk at a side table. ”I saw my sick man pick up that horn the girl dropped, and he looked into it and laughed and drank from it, saying that it was a pity to waste good stuff. See, here it is. The curl of it may have kept a fair draught in it for him.”

There were several horns standing in their silver or gilded rests on the table at his elbow, and he held up that one which had been brought to me, and then dropped it.

It fell with its mouth upward, rocking on the bend in its midst, so that it might well have had a gill or two left in it, for it had a twist as well as the curve in its length, which was somewhat longer than usual.

”Poison!” he said in a low voice. ”That a friend should be thus treated at my own door, by my own servant! What shall I say to you?”

”It is hard on you as on any one, Ealdorman,” I answered. ”But the girl did not come from Jago. Mara sent her in some way. I am sure it was she whom I saw at Tenby.”

”Ay,” he said, ”one could not dream that a message seeming to come from honest Jago was not in truth from him. The trick was sure to be found out, and that soon, though.”

”Not until the deed was done, maybe. This is the first chance that the Welsh girl has had to hand me aught.”

The ealdorman held his peace for a moment, and then he broke out suddenly:

”By all the relics in Glas...o...b..ry, that thrall saved your life! He is no fool either, for he knew that the horn must be spilt in one way or the other, and it was worth while for you to run the risk of a fall rather than that you should drink it. How had he knowledge of what was to be done?”

”Whoever wrote the warning told him. It was a chance, however, that we did not come into the house.”

”There is some friend watching these traitors,” said Herewald. ”I did not know the thrall, but so often men from the hill who have followed us come here for the ale that they know will be going, that I thought nothing of a stranger more or less. But why choose my house for this deed?”

I knew well enough, and it was plain when I minded the ealdorman that my vow was well known, and told, moreover, by Thorgils in Mara's hearing. This was a house where I should often be, and when Mara found out that Jago was a friend of Herewald of Glas...o...b..ry the rest was easy.

”Well, I will send to Jago today, and find out what he knows. That Cornish damsel must be better watched. Come, let us go and tell the king.”

So we went, and when Ina heard what we had to say he grew very grave, and asked many questions before he told us what his thoughts were.

”They have struck at Owen through you, my Thane, even as I feared,”

he said. ”I think that the matter of the land of Tregoz has saved you, for I seem to see in this thrall one of his men who hates him and will thwart his plans. There are yet men who will carry out what he planned ere he died. Now I am glad that we soon shall be gone from hence, and that is the first time that I have been ready to leave Glas...o...b..ry.”

Now I will say that when Herewald's messenger came back from Norton it was even as we thought. Jago had no knowledge of the Welsh girl, or her sending. But Mara was gone a fortnight or more since, for Gerent had sent her father for safer keeping to the terrible old castle of Tintagel on the wild sh.o.r.e, and she had followed to be as near him as she might. Doubtless the girl might be found there also in time.

So I had no more warnings, and in a few days the strain on my mind wore off. I sent a message through Jago to Owen to tell him what had happened, so that he should have less anxiety for his own comfort, while he knew that I was shortly to be far hence.

Before that came about, however, Erpwald and Elfrida were betrothed with all solemnity in the new church, for their wedding was to be held here also in the summer, when all was ready for a new mistress at Eastdean. So Erpwald rode with us to Winchester a proud man, and by that time I thought I had forgotten that I ever held myself ent.i.tled to the place he had won.

But I did not forget the plotting, and as the days wore on, and my thoughts of it grew a little clearer, I began to wonder if the thrall who saved me from the poisoned horn might not be the man who slew Tregoz on the ramparts at Norton in the moonlight. I must say that it went against the grain for me to believe that Mara had aught to do with contriving my end through her maid, but unless there was some crafty hand at work in the background, all unsuspected, it seemed that there could be none else.