WHY IT WAS NOT GOOD FOR OWEN TO SLEEP IN THE MOONLIGHT.

It needs not that I should tell of the farewell of the next day. I went from Pembroke with many messages for Owen, and a promise that if I might ever come over with him I would do so. The princess was busy with the lady who was to cross with Thorgils, and I did not find one chance of telling her that I thanked her for her warning, but I found the page who gave me the letter, and bade him tell his mistress when we had gone that she had taught me to look in the face of a fellow passenger, which would be token enough that I understood.

Dunwal and his daughter had some few men and pack horses with them, and one Cornish maiden who attended Mara, so that we were quite a little train as we rode from Pembroke toward Tenby in the late afternoon, with a score of Howel’s guards to care for us in all honour. Part of the way, too, Howel rode, and when we came to the hill above the Caerau woods, and looked down on the winding waters again, he said to me:

“I have forgotten to tell you that my men took Evan. By this time he has met his deserts. I have done full justice on him.”

“Thanks, Prince,” I said with a shudder, as I minded what I had saved the man from. “Did your men question him?”

Howel smote his thigh.

“Overhaste again!” he cried in vexation. “That should have been done; but I bade them do justice on him straightway if they laid hands on him. They did it.”

I said no more, nor did the prince. It was in my mind that he was blaming himself for somewhat more than carelessness. So presently he must turn and leave us, and we bade him farewell with all thanks for hospitality, and he bade me not forget Pembroke, and went his way.

Then I found Dunwal pleasant enough as a companion, and so also was Mara, and the few miles passed quickly, until we rode through the gates of the strong stockade which bars the way to the Danes’ town across the narrow neck of the long sea-beaten tongue of cliff they have chosen to set their place on. The sea is on either side, and at the end is an island that they hold as their last refuge if need is, while their ships are safe under one lee or the other from any wind that blows.

Far down below us at the cliff’s foot, as we rode through the town, where the houses had been set anywise, like those at Watchet, and were like them timber built, we could see to our left a little wharf, and beside it the ship that waited us. And the wind was fair, and the winter weather soft as one might wish it for the crossing.

Now, so soon as Thorgils had seen the baggage of the Cornish folk safely bestowed I had time for a word with him, taking him apart and walking up the steep hill path from the haven for a little way, as if to go to the town. And so I told him who this man was, and what possible danger might be.

He heard with a long whistle of dismay:

“’Tis nigh as bad as crossing with Evan,” he said “but one is warned. Let them have the after cabin, and do you take the forward one; it will be safer. Leave me to see to him when we get to Watchet, for it is in my mind that Gerent will want him. Moreover, so long as he thinks that you fear him not he will be careless, and I will watch him. He will want to learn more before he meddles with you. As for the priest, I will tend him.”

So we were content to leave the matter. Presently, when we were at sea, I do not think that Dunwal or Morfed had spirit left to care for aught. I know that I had not. I need not speak of that voyage, save to say that it was speedy, and fair to the mind of Thorgils, at least.

At last I slept, nor did I wake till we had been alongside the wharf at Watchet for two hours, being worn out. Then I found that Dunwal and his party had gone already, and I wondered, with a mind to be angry, whereat Thorgils laughed.

“I have even sent them on to Norton with a few of our men to help him, and they will see that he goes there and nowhere else. You will find him waiting. I did not want him to fall on you on the road.”

“What is the news?” I asked. “Have you heard aught?”

“The best, I think. Gerent is hunting Tregoz, and Owen has swept up every outlaw from the Quantocks. Our folk helped him. Some of them told all they knew when they were taken.”

“Then,” I said gladly, “Owen knows that I am safe.”

“Not so certainly,” Thorgils said. “None of our folk can say that you crossed with me, and as this is the only ship afloat at this time of the year there is doubt as to where you are. It will be good for Owen to see you again. What a tale you have for him! On my word, I envy you the telling.”

“Well, then, ride with me to Norton straightway, and you shall tell all and save me words. Owen shall thank you also for your care for me.”

“What, for letting you sit on my deck while the wind blew? Nay, but there are no thanks needed between us. You and I have seen a strange voyage together, and it has ended well. Maybe you and I will see more sport yet side by side, for I think that we are good comrades. Let us be going, then, for it was in my mind that I could not rest until I had seen you safe to your journey’s end.”

Then I found that he had his own horses ready for us, and two more men, well armed and mounted also, were waiting with them on the green where I had been set down in the litter. So in a very short time Thorgils had told his men all that he would have done about the ship, and we were riding fast along the road to Norton, while the thawing snow told of the going of the frost at last.

I had been gone but these few days, but each of them seemed like a month to look back upon as I rode under the shadow of the hills that I had last seen as a hopeless captive. It grew warm and soft as the midday sun shone on us, and the road was muddy underfoot with the chill water that had filled all the brooks again, but I hardly noticed the change, so eager was I to be back. Glad enough I was when we saw the village and the mighty earthworks above it, and yet more glad when the guards at the gate told us that Owen was even now in the palace.

I left Thorgils and his men to the care of the guard for the time, while I went straightway to the entrance doors and asked for speech with him.

“It is the word of the king that you shall have free admittance into the palace and to himself at any time, Thane,” the captain of the guards said.

So I passed into the great chamber of the palace that was used as audience hall for all comers, and also as the court of justice.

The place was full of people, and those mostly nobles, so that I had to stand in the doorway for a moment to see what was going on. It was plainly somewhat out of the common, for there were guards along one end of the room. It seemed as if there were a trial.

Gerent sat in the great chair which one might call his throne at the upper end of the room, and beside him was Owen. I thought that my foster father seemed pale and troubled in that first glance, but I had every reason to know why this was so. Before these two stood a man, with his back to me therefore, and for the moment I did not recognise him. On either side of this man were guards, and it was plainly he who was in trouble, if any one. Gerent was speaking to him.

“Well,” he said, “hither you have come as a guest, and as a guest you shall be treated. But you must know that here within the walls of the place you shall abide. If you will give your word to do that I shall not have to keep you so closely.”

“This is not what I had looked for from you, King Gerent,” the man said.

I knew the voice at once, for it was that of Dunwal, my fellow passenger. So the treachery of his brother must be known, and he was to be held here as a hostage, as one might say. Gerent’s next words told me that it was so.

“If there is any fault to be found, it is in the ways of your brother. Blame him that I must needs have surety for his behaviour. It cannot be suffered that he should go on plotting evil against us, unchecked in some way.”

Dunwal shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that all this was no concern of his.

“Shall you hold my daughter as well?” he said. “I trust that your caution will not make you go so far as that.”

Gerent’s eyes flashed at the tone and words, but he answered very coldly:

“She will bide here also, and in all honour.”

Then he beckoned to a noble who stood near him, and spoke to him for a moment. It chanced that this was one of the very few whom I knew here. His name was Jago, and I had often seen him at Glastonbury, for he was a friend of our ealdorman, Elfrida’s father, holding somewhat the same post in Norton as my friend in our town. Owen liked him well also, and he was certainly no friend to Morgan and his party.

“Jago’s wife will give your daughter all hospitality in his house,” Gerent said, turning again to Dunwal. “Have I your word as to keeping within bounds during my pleasure?”

“Ay, you have it,” answered Dunwal curtly.

Then I slipped out of the door quietly, and went to that room where Owen and I waited on our first coming here, and I sent a steward to tell him of my arrival. There is no need for me to tell how he greeted me, or how I met him.

Then when those greetings were over I heard all that had been going on, and my loss had made turmoil enough. My men had brought back the news, having missed me very shortly, but it was long before they found traces of me. The first thing that they saw was my hawk, as I expected, and after that the bodies of the slain. As I was not with them, they judged that I had escaped in some way, but they lost the track of the feet in the woodlands, and so rode back to Owen in all haste.

Then was a great gathering of men for the hunting of the outlaws, for it would take a small army to search the wild hills and woodlands of the Quantocks to any effect. The whole countryside turned out gladly, and the Watchet Norsemen helped also.

In the end, on the next day they penned the outlaws into some combe, and took most of them, and then all was told by them, so far as they knew it. Gerent laid hands on four of the men who had sworn the oath Evan told me of, that evening after some leading outlaw had given their names, but Tregoz had escaped.

He had been one of the most active in the matter of the hunt, to all seeming, and had ridden out with Owen and Jago and the rest. Then he took advantage of some turn in the hills, when men began to scatter, and was no more seen. Presently it was plain enough why this was, when those who were taken were made to speak. Yet it seemed that he was not so far off, for already an attack had been made on Owen as he rode beyond the village, though it was no very dangerous one. Now it was to be hoped that the danger from him was past, for his brother had been taken the moment he rode into the gate, and he would suffer if more harm was done.

Then I asked if our king had been told of all this, and I learnt that he had heard at once, and had written back to Owen to say that he would pay any ransom that might be asked for me if I yet lived, as was hoped. The outlaws had told of Evan’s plan, but it was not known if I had been taken out of the country yet.

“All is well that ends well,” Owen said; “but I asked Ina not to say aught of the matter yet for a while. There is one at least in Glastonbury who might be sorely terrified for you.”

He laughed at my red face, for I knew that he meant Elfrida. It was in my mind, however, that I wished she had heard, for then, perhaps, she would have been sorry that she had not been kinder to me unless, indeed, she was glad that I was out of the way, in all truth.

Then there was my own long tale to be told, and of course I told Owen all. It was good to hear him say that he himself could have done nought but free Evan.

Thereafter we sought Thorgils, who was happy in the guardroom, and had seemingly been telling my tale there, for the men stared at me somewhat. I do not suppose that it lost in the telling.

Owen thanked him for his help, and took him to see Gerent; which saved me words, for the Norseman must needs tell how Evan had brought me on board his ship, and so we even let him say all that there was to be said.

After that Gerent loaded him with presents, and so let him go well pleased.

I went out to his horse with him, and saw him start. His last word as he parted from me was that if I needed a good axeman at my back at any time I was to send for him, and so he went seaward, singing to himself, with the men who had brought Dunwal hither behind him.

After that there was more to say of Howel and his court. It seemed that Gerent and Owen liked him well, and I wondered that Owen had not sought him when the trouble fell on him. I think he would not go to Dyfed as a disgraced man, for I know he could not clear himself at the time.

Now at supper, presently, there was Dunwal, looking anxious, as I thought, but trying not to shew it. His daughter Mara was there also, and as it happened she sat next to me. I suppose the seneschal set her there as we had crossed from Dyfed together, unless she had asked it, or gone to that seat without asking. She was very pleasant, talking of the troubles of the voyage, and so went on to speak sadly enough of the greater trouble that had waited her.

“I am glad the king has kept us, however,” she said. “I can be content with the court rather than with our wild Dartmoor, as you may guess. But all these things are too hard for me, and how any man can plot against so wonderful looking a prince as Owen passes me. I cannot but think that there is some mistake, and that my uncle has no hand in the affair. That will be proved ere long, I do believe.”

I answered that indeed I hoped that it would prove so, and then asked for Morfed, the priest who had crossed with us, as I did not see him among the other clergy at the table. She told me that he had left them, on foot, at the gate of Watchet, making his way westward, as she believed. He had only joined their party for easier travelling in Dyfed.

Then she must needs ask me questions about Thorgils’ song, and specially of Elfrida. I had no mind to tell her much, but it is hard to refuse to answer a lady who speaks in all friendly wise and pleasantly, so that I had to tell her much the same that I told Nona the princess, and began to wonder if every lady who had the chance would be as curious to know all about what story there was. And that was a true foreboding of mine, for so it was, until I grew used to it. But all this minded me of Nona and her warning, and I was half sorry that the priest had not come here, to be taken care of with Dunwal.

After that night we saw little of these two. Mara went to the house of Jago, and Dunwal kept to himself about the palace boundaries within the old ramparts, and seemed to shun notice. As for me, word went to Ina that all was well, and he sent a letter back to say that it would please him to know that I was with Owen for a time yet. So I bided with him, and for a time all went well, for we heard nought of Tregoz in any way, while another of his friends was taken and imprisoned in some western fortress of Gerent’s. Nor were there any more attacks made on Owen, so that after a little while we went about, hunting and hawking, in all freedom, for danger seemed to have passed with the taking of Dunwal as hostage.

Then one day a guard from the gate brought me a folded paper, on which my name was written in a fair hand, saying that it had been left for me by a swineherd from the hill, who said that it was from some mass priest whom I knew. The guard had let the man go away, deeming that, of course, there was no need to keep him. Nor had they asked who the priest might be, as it was said that I knew him.

I took the letter idly and went to my stables with it in my hand, and opened and read it as I walked.

“To Oswald, son of Owen. It is not good to sleep in the moonlight.”

That was all it said, and there was no name at the end of it. I thought it foolish enough, for every one knows that the cold white light of the moon is held to be harmful for sleepers in the open air. But I was not in the way of sleeping out in this early season with its cold, though, of course, it was always possible that one might be belated on the hills and have to make a night in the heather of it when hunting on Exmoor or the Brendons. There was not much moon left now, either.

So I showed the note to Owen presently, and he puzzled over it, seeing that it could not have been sent for nothing. At last we both thought that whoever wrote it, or had it written, knew that some attack would be made on us with the next moon, when it would be likely that we might be riding homeward by its light with no care against foes. That might well be called “sleeping in the moonlight” as things were; and at all events we were warned in time. The trouble to me was that it seemed to say that danger was not all past.

However, when there was no moon at all I forgot the letter for the time, no more trouble cropping up, and but for a chance word I think that it had not come into my mind again until we were out in the moonlight at some time. As we sat at table one evening when the moon was almost at the full again, some one spoke of moonstruck men, and that minded me, and set me thinking. He said that once he himself had had a sore pain in the face by reason of the moonlight falling on it when he was asleep, and another told somewhat the same, until the talk drifted away to other things and they forgot it. But now I remembered how that at our first coming here I had waked in the early hours and seen a patch of moonlight from a high southern window on the outer wall of the palace passing across Owen’s breast as he slept. Then I was on the floor across the door, but now I slept in the same place that Owen had that night, while he was on the couch across the room and under the window. It was possible, therefore, that the light did fall on my face, but I was pretty sure that if so it would have waked me.

At all events, if the letter had aught to do with that, it was a cumbrous way of letting me know that my bed was in a bad place for quiet sleep. The only thing that seemed likely thus was that the good priest who wrote had left the palace before he had remembered to tell me how he had fared in that room once, and so sent back word. There were many priests backward and forward here, as at Glastonbury with Ina. Then it seemed plain that this was the meaning of the whole thing, and so I would hang a cloak over the window by and by.

And, of course, having settled the question in my own mind, I forgot to do that, and was like to have paid dearly for forgetting.

Two nights afterward, when the moon was at the full, I woke from sleep suddenly with the surety that I heard my name called softly. I was wide awake in a moment, and found the room bright with moonlight that did indeed lie in a broad square right across my chest on the furs that covered me. I glanced across to Owen, but he was asleep, as there was full light enough to see, and then I wondered why I seemed to have heard that call. In a few moments I knew that, and also that the voice I heard was the one that had come to me in sore danger before.

Idly and almost sleeping again I watched the light, to see if indeed it was going to cross my face, and then a sudden shadow flitted across it, and with a hiss and flick of feathers a long arrow fled through the window and stuck in the plaster of the wall not an inch above my chest, furrowing the fur of the white bearskin over me, so close was it.

In a moment I was on the floor, with a call to Owen, and it was well that I had the sense to swing myself clear from the light and leap from the head of the bed, for even as my feet touched the floor a second arrow came and struck fairly in the very place where I had been, and stood quivering in the bedding.

Then was a yell from outside, and before Owen could stay me I looked through the window, recklessly enough maybe, but with a feeling that no more arrows would come now that the archer was disturbed. It needed more than a careless aim to shoot so well into that narrow slit. Across the window I could see the black line of the earthworks against the light some fifty paces from the wall of the palace, with no building between them on this side at all; and on the rampart struggled two figures, wrestling fiercely in silence. One was a man whose armour sparkled and gleamed under the moon, and the other seemed to be unarmed, unless, indeed, that was a broad knife he had in his hand. Then Owen pulled me aside.

“The sentry has him,” he said, after a hurried glance. “Let us out into the light, for there may be more on hand yet.”

Now I hurried on my arms, but another look showed me nothing but the bare top of the rampart. No sign of the men remained. I could hear voices and the sounds of men running in the quiet, and I thought these came from the guard, who were hurrying up from the gate.

“The men have rolled into the ditch,” I said. “I can see nothing now.”

Then we ran out, bidding the captain of the guard to stand to arms as we passed through the great door of the palace, and so we went round to the place whence the arrows had come. A score of men from the gate were already clustered there on the earthworks, talking fast as Welshmen will, but heedful to challenge us as we came. I saw that they had somewhat on the ground in the midst of them.

“Here is a strange affair, my Prince,” one of them said, as he held out his hand to help Owen up the earthworks.

The group stood aside for us to look on what they had found, and that was a man, fully armed in the Welsh way of Gerent’s guards, but slain by the well-aimed blow of a strong seax that was yet left where it had been driven home above the corselet. There was a war bow and two more arrows lying at the foot of the rampart, as if they had been wrested from the hand of the archer and flung there. The men had not seen these, but I looked for them at once when I saw that there was no bow on the slain man.

“Who is this?” Owen said gravely, and without looking closely as yet.

“It is Tregoz of the Dart, whom the king seeks,” one or two of the men said at once.

I had known that it must be he in my own mind before the name was spoken. There fell a silence on the rest as the name was told, and all looked at my foster father. There was plainly some fault in the watching of the rampart that had let the traitor find his way here at all.

“Which of you was it who slew him?” asked Owen.

“None of us, Lord. We cannot tell who it may have been. Even the sentry who keeps this beat is gone.”

“Doubtless it was he who slew him, and is himself wounded in the fosse. Look for him straightway.”

There they hunted, but the man was not to be found. Nor was it his weapon that had ended Tregoz.

Then Owen said in a voice that had grown very stern: “Who was the sentry who should have been here?”

The men looked at one another, and the chief of them answered at last that the man was from Dartmoor, one of such a name. And then one looked more closely at the arms Tregoz wore, and cried out that they were the very arms of the missing sentry, or so like them that one must wait for daylight to say for certain that they were not they.

It was plain enough then. In such arms Tregoz could well walk through the village itself unnoticed, as one of the palace guards would be, and so when the time came he would climb from some hiding in the fosse and take the place of his countryman on the rampart, and the watchful captain would see but a sentry there and deem that all was well.

Yet this did not tell us who was the one who had wrestled with and slain him, and Owen told what had been done, while I went and brought the bow and arrows from the foot of the rampart, in hopes that they might tell us by mark or make if more than Tregoz and the sentry were in this business. Then I looked at my window, and, though narrow, it was as fair a mark in the moonlight as one would need. Without letting my shadow fall on the sleeper, it was possible to see my couch and the white furs on it, though it would be needful to raise the arm across the moonlight in the act of shooting. It was all well planned, but it needed a first-rate bowman.

“It was surely Tregoz who shot,” one of the men said. “The sentry who was here was a bungler with a bow. None whom we know but Tregoz could have made sure of that mark, bright as the night is. Well it was, Lord, that you were not sleeping in your wonted place.”

Owen glanced at me to warn me to say nothing, and bade the men take the body to the guardroom. They were already cursing the sentry who had brought shame on their ranks by leaguing himself with a traitor, and it was plain that there was no need to bid them lay hands on him if they could. That was a matter that concerned their own honour.

So we left the guarding of the place in their hands, and they doubled the watches from that time forward. Then we went and spoke with the captain of the guard, who yet kept his post at the doors, as none had called him.

“Maybe I am to blame,” he said, when he heard all. “I should not have left a Dartmoor man from the country whence Tregoz came to keep watch there. I knew that he was thence, and thought no harm.”

“There is no blame to you,” Owen said. “It is not possible to look for such treachery among our own men.”

Then we went into our room to show the captain what had been done. And thence the two arrows had already been taken. The hole in the plaster where the first struck was yet there, and the slit made by the second in the tough hide of the bear was to be seen when I turned over the fur, but who had taken them we could not tell. Only, it was plain that here in the palace some one was in the plot and had taken away what might be proof of who the archer had been, not knowing, as I suppose, that the attempt had failed so utterly. For an arrow will often prove a good witness, as men will use only some special pattern that they are sure of, and will often mark them that they may claim them and their own game in the woodlands if they are found in some stricken beast that has got away for a time. It was more than likely that Tregoz would have been careful to use only such arrows as he knew well in a matter needing such close shooting as this. Indeed, we afterwards found men who knew the two shafts from the rampart as those of the Cornishman, without doubt.

This I did not like at all, for the going of these arrows brought the danger to our very door, as it were. Nor did the captain, for he himself kept watch over us for the rest of that night, and afterwards there was always a sentry in the passage that led to our room.

We were silent as we lay down again, and sleep was long in coming. I puzzled over all this, for beside the taking of the arrows there was the question of who the slayer of Tregoz might be, and who had written the letter that should have warned us.

In all truth, it was not good to sleep in the moonlight!

Somewhat of the same kind Owen was thinking, for of a sudden he said to me: “Those arrows were meant for me, Oswald. Did you note what the man said about my not sleeping in my wonted place?”

“Ay, but I did not know that you had slept on this side. Since I came back, at least, you have not done so.”

Owen smiled.

“No, I have not,” he said; “but in the old days that was always my place, and you will mind that there I slept on the night we first were here together. That was of old habit, and I only shifted to this side when you came back, because I knew that you would like the first light to wake you. Every sentry who crosses the window on the rampart can see in here if it is light within, but he could not tell that we had changed places, for the face of the sleeper is hidden.”

Then he laughed a little, and added:

“In the old days when I was in charge of the palace this face of the ramparts was always the best watched, because the men knew that if I waked and did not see the shadow of the sentry pass and repass as often as it should, he was certain to hear of it in the morning. Tregoz would know that old jest. I suppose Dunwal may have had some hand in taking the arrows hence.”

“It is likely enough,” I answered. “He will have to pay for his brother’s deed tomorrow, in all likelihood, also. But who wrote the letter, and who slew Tregoz?”

Owen thought for a little while.

“Mara, Dunwal’s daughter, is the most likely person to have written,” he said. “It would be like a woman to do so, and she seems at least no enemy. Maybe the man was the sentry, after all, and fled because he had given up his arms, and so was sharer in the deed that he repented of. Or he may have been some friend of ours, or foe of the Cornishman, who would not wait for the rough handling of the guard when they found him there where he should not be. No doubt we shall hear of him soon or late.”

But we did not. There was no trace of him, or of the writer of the letter. One may imagine the fury of Gerent when he heard all this in the morning, but even his wrath could not make Dunwal speak of aught that he might know. But for the pleading of Owen, the old king would have hung him then and there, and all that my foster father could gain for him was his life. Into the terrible old Roman dungeon, pit-like, with only a round hole in the stone covering of it through which a prisoner was lowered, he was thrown, and there he bided all the time I was at Norton.

By all right the lands of these two fell again into the hands of the king, and he would give them to Owen.

“Take them,” he said, when Owen would not do so at first: “they owe you amends. If you do not want them yourself, wait until you sit in my seat, and then give them to Oswald, that he may have good reason for leaving Ina for you.”

So Owen held them for me, as it were, and was content. Some day they might be mine, if not in the days of Ina, whom we loved.

But Gerent either forgot or cared not to think of Mara, Dunwal’s daughter, and she bided in the best house in the town, with Jago’s wife, none hindering her in anything. There was no more sign of trouble now that Tregoz and his brother were out of the way.