A Prince of Cornwall Part 41

Now I began to understand how it was that this force went aside to fall on Watchet, and had little heart in the defence of the camp.

They were strangers, who hated the name of the Northmen from their own knowledge of them, and could not miss a chance of a fight with them here. After that the men of Gerent who were with them at the camp cared nought for their strange leader.

"Take him, and hold him to ransom, Oswald," Ina said, when I told him all this. "From all I ever heard of Morganwg, he should be some sort of reward for what you have done. I should set his price high also, for he deserves it for coming here."

So I took Mordred to my tent, telling him that I must speak of him of ransom.

"Ransom? Of course, that will be paid. What price do you set on me?"

Now that was a question on which I had no thought ready, seeing that I had never held any man of much rank to ransom before, and I hesitated. At last I remembered what some great Mercian thane had to pay to Owen some years ago, and I named that sum, which was good enough for me and Erpwald and Thorgils to share between us.

Thereon his face flushed red, and he scowled fiercely at me.

"What!--Is that the value of a prince of Morganwg? It is ill to insult a captive."

"Nay, Prince, there is no insult--"

"By St. Petroc, but there is, though! What will the men of Morganwg--what will the Dyfed men say when they hear that the Saxon holds one of the line of Arthur at the value of a hundred cows? Ay, that is how I shall be known henceforth!--Mordred of the cows, forsooth."

He was working himself up into a rage now, and even Jago from the corner of the tent where he sat, dejectedly enough, began to smile.

I had spoken of fair coined silver, and I had some trouble myself in keeping a grave face when this Welsh prince counted the cost of cattle therein.

"Will you double the sum, Prince?" I asked in all good faith.

"I will pay the ransom that is fitting for a prince of Morganwg to pay when his foes have the advantage of him. The honour of the Cymro is concerned."

"Ask him his value," said Jago in Saxon, knowing that Mordred did not understand that tongue at all. "Never was so good a chance of selling a man at his own price."

Then I could not help a smile, and Mordred waxed furious. He turned on Jago with his fist clenched.

"Silence, you miserable--"

"Prince, Prince," I cried. "He did but bid me ask you what was fitting."

"Well, then, do it," he cried, stamping impatiently, and glaring at Jago yet.

It was plain that if he did not understand the Saxon he saw that there was some jest.

"It is a hard matter for me to set a price on you, Prince," I said gravely. "I have never held one of your rank to ransom before, so that you will forgive seeming discourtesy if I have unwittingly done what was not fitting in the matter. What would the men of your land think worthy of you?"

"Once," he said slowly, "it was the ill luck of my--of some forebear of mine to have to be ransomed. They paid so much for him."

He named a sum in good Welsh gold that it had never come into my mind to dream of. It was riches for all three of us. And I dared not say that it was too much and somewhat like foolishness, for it was his own valuation. So I held my peace.

"Not enough?" he asked, not angrily, but as if it would be an honour to hear that I set him higher. "What more shall I add?"

"No more, Prince. I see that I have yet things to learn."

Truly, I had always heard that the tale of the golden tribute to Rome from Britain had tempted my forebears here first of all, and now I believed it. I suppose these Welsh princes had h.o.a.rds which had been carried from out of the way of us Saxons and Angles long ago.

"Ay, you have," Mordred said grimly. "One day it shall be what the worth of a British prince is in good cold steel, maybe. Now let me have a messenger who shall take word to my people and bring back what is needed."

He scowled when I mentioned Thorgils, but he knew him by repute at least, and was willing to trust him, as I would do so. In the end, therefore, it was he who took the signet ring and the letter the prince had written and brought back the gold. Some of the coins were of the days of Cun.o.belin, but the most of it was in bars and rings and chains, wrought for traffic by weight.

Now I will say at once that neither of my comrades would share in this ransom, though I thought that it was a matter between the three of us, as leaders of the force that day.

"Not I," quoth Thorgils--"the man was your own private captive, for you sent him down yourself. What do I want with that pile of gold?

I have enough and to spare already, and I should only h.o.a.rd it. Or else I should just give it back to you for a wedding present by and by. What? Shaking your head? Well, what becomes of all my songs if they end not in a wedding? Have a care, Oswald, and see that you make up your mind in time."

So he went away, laughing at me, but afterward I did make him promise that if he needed a new s.h.i.+p at any time he would tell me, so that I might give him one for the sake of the first voyage in the old vessel, and that pleased him well.

Now I told Ina this, being always accustomed to refer anything to him, and he was not surprised to hear that the Norseman would not take the gold.

"And if I may advise," he said, "I would not offer a share to Erpwald; for, in the first place, he does not expect it, seeing that the captive is yours only, by all right of war; and in the next, he deems that you have already given him Eastdean, and he is not so far wrong. So it would hurt him. He will be all the happier now that he will know that you have withal to buy four Eastdeans, if you will."

So against my will, as it were, that day made a rich man of me.

Presently I gave the wealth into the hand of Herewald the ealdorman, and he so managed it, being a great trader in his way, that it seemed to grow somewise, and I have a yearly sum therefrom in ways that are hard to be understood by me, but which seem simple enough to him.

I handed over Mordred to the Nors.e.m.e.n to keep until Thorgils returned with the ransom, for before we could rest with the sword in its scabbard again it was needful that all care should be taken for the holding of the new land we had won, and Ina would see to that himself. Here and there we had fighting, but the Welsh never gathered again in force against us, and at last we held every town and camp from sea to sea along the line of the hills that run from Exmoor southwards, and there was our new border.

Jago went back to Exeter, seeing that his house was burnt at Norton with the rest of the town, and I heard afterwards that there he had found his wife, whom he had sent away when the certainty of war arose. I was in no trouble for him, as he had houses elsewhere.

But we sent Erpwald back to Glas...o...b..ry in all haste, and he was in nowise loth to go, as may be supposed. One may also guess how he was received there. Then, as soon as Ina came back with us all, the ealdorman set to work to prepare afresh the wedding that was so strangely and suddenly broken in upon, and it was likely to be little less joyous that it had been so.

On the evening before the wedding the ealdorman came to me, when the day's duties were over, and said that Elfrida wished to speak to me. So I went, of course, not at all troubling that the ealdorman could not tell me what was to be said, for there were many things concerning tomorrow's arrangements with which I was charged in one way or another.

So I found her waiting me alone, in that chamber off the hall where her father and I spoke of the poisoning.

"I have not sent for you for nothing, Oswald," she said, blus.h.i.+ng a little as if it were a hard matter she had to speak of. "There is somewhat on my mind that I must needs disburden."

"Open confession is good," I said, laughing--"what is it?

"Well--have you forgotten your vow of last Yuletide?"

"Not in the least. Would you have me do so? For that were somewhat hard."

"No--but yes, in a way."

There she stopped for a moment, and I waited for her to go on, not having any very clear notion of what was to come. She turned away from me somewhat, letting her fingers play over one of the tall horns on the table, when she spoke again.

"It has been in my mind that you--that maybe you thought that I have been hard on you--in ways, since we spoke in the orchard."

So that was what troubled her, but I did not see why she should have spoken of it, seeing that a lady has no need at all to justify her ways in such a matter, surely.

"No," I answered, "that I never thought. If my vow displeased you, or maybe rather if I displeased you thereafter, I had no reason to blame any one but myself for the way in which it was needful that I should be shewn that so it was. It was just the best thing for me, for it cured me of divers kinds of foolishnesses."

"That is what I would have heard you say," she said with a light-hearted laugh enough, while her face cleared. "Now I can say what I will. Do you know that you have kept your vow to the full already?"

"Not at all. There are long years before you yet, as one may hope."