A King's Comrade Part 39

"It seems to me that you have been somewhat bold tonight," I said.

"Yes, indeed; which made us fear the more. But we have had a fair lifting, as you may see, dark as it is. Save that Offa has gone to sleep, as men say, we might not have come. We have lifted every head of stock well-nigh up to Sutton walls since dusk," and he chuckled. "There was no man to hinder us."

Then he told us that we were all bound for Dynedor hill fort together, and that there we should find Jefan. And so we went slowly, with the herd of raided cattle before us, with a silence which made me wonder. Presently I said as much, and the chief chuckled again.

"'Tis practice," quoth he. "An you had had as much raiding as we borderers, you would have learned the trick of quiet cattle droving. I doubt if ever you had need to lift a herd."

I heard Erling laugh, and he answered for me.

"The paladin has most likely stolen as many head in a day as you may find in a year. And I ken somewhat of the trade myself: I was driving his countryside when I first met him. But we have both done it with the high hand, and I think that yours is like to be the best sport. You are first-rate drovers!"

That pleased the raiders, and there was pleasant talk enough of old days as we went on. Presently the moon came out, and we went quicker. It shone on the white faces of the great Hereford oxen and kine, and showed us the keen dogs herding them skilfully as men.

So at last the black hill of Dynedor, crested with its works, rose before us, and from it shone a score of watch fires.

"See, Hilda," I said, "yonder is your father, and all will be well."

She answered me cheerfully, with a little shake of the reins, as if she longed to hurry on; and I told her that now I must keep her back, as she had kept me just now.

"Each to their own way," she said, sighing somewhat: "the man to his weapon, and the woman to the sickbed that comes thereafter. See what one evil deed has let loose on this land. It is terrible to me. And how long it seems since we came to Fernlea in the bright sunshine, deeming that all was to go well!"

"Yet all is not so much amiss," said I, seeing that the fears of the day had hold of her.

And so I told her of Erling's christening, and of what we saw in the church; for of this I had had no time to tell her before, save when Erling himself had been with us.

Then in very gladness, for she liked my comrade, she lost her gloomy thoughts, and would tell him softly of her pleasure. And so we climbed the steep of the hill, and were met at the gate by Jefan himself, with a frank welcome.

There were rough huts across the camp, set more or less at random, and among them burned the fires which we had seen. There would be about fifty men at most in the place, now that all had returned; but the prince told me presently that he had had more when first the alarm had been raised that Offa was summoning his thanes to him for some unknown reason; whereby I gathered that here he had waited for us.

"Lady," he said, as he helped Hilda from her horse, "your father is but weak. I think that he began to mend when I told him that doubtless you would be here tonight. I hope your ride has been easy and without alarm."

"Hardly," said the chief who had rescued us. "It was a hard ride for a matter of ten minutes, and we were frightened sorely. The lady is the bravest I have ever met, for she screamed not once; and the thanes are no bad judges of cattle raiding."

"Why, you have met with men after your own heart, Kynan," laughed Jefan. "More of that tale by-and-by.

"Well, lady, you are safe, and that is the best. Now you shall see your father.

"See to our guests, brother."

Jefan took Hilda's hand and led her to the best of the huts, and, with a word to one within, entered. In a moment he was out again, with a smile on his face in the firelight. I knew from that how Sighard had met his daughter.

Kynan gave some orders to his men, and they took our horses, leading them to a far corner of the camp. After that we were set down to a great supper, and the tale of the flight and the raid was told and retold. Then at last one fetched a little gilded harp, and Kynan ap Huwal, the raider of cattle, set the whole story into song, and did it well and sweetly.

After that was done came a white-haired priest, and we knelt for the vespers; and then the watch was set under the moonlight, and Erling and I stood in the gateway of the fort, and looked out on the quiet land below us. It was no very great hill, but the place was strong. How old it may be I cannot say, perhaps no man knows; but since Offa drove the Welsh to the Wye it had been set in order, with a stockade halfway down the steep earthwork round the hill crest, so that men on its top could use their weapons on those who were trying to scale it. The dry ditch was deep and steep sided, and, so far as I could see in the moonlight, on this side at least it would need a strong force to take it by storm, were it fairly manned by say two hundred men. The gate had been made afresh of heavy timber, narrow, and flanked on either side by overhanging mounds, whence men could rain javelins on those who tried to force it; and outside the gate were slight fences, which bent in wide half circles, inside which the cattle we had driven in were penned.

Peaceful enough it all was, and the stillness of this hilltop after the long unrest seemed as of a very haven after storm.

Presently Jefan and his brother came back after posting their men, and then for half an hour I sat with Sighard and Hilda in the hut.

The thane had indeed had a narrow escape from the burning hall, and had been left for dead by his pursuers. However, he had been but stunned by the blow which felled him from his horse, and presently recovering, had managed to get across the river and to some Welshman's hut, whence Jefan took him.

As for those who had burnt the hall, he was sure that they were led by Gymbert, and that they were no housecarls of Offa's. They had slain Witred and another of the Mercian thanes who had fled with him.

Then I asked him of himself and of his hurt.

"I am old to have the senses knocked out of me, and a blow that you might think little of is enough to keep me quiet for a time.

However, that is all. Now that Hilda and you are safe, and the king is found and honoured, I have naught to do but to get well. Trouble not for me."

It seemed to me that there was no need for me to trouble about aught either, and out in the open air, by one of the fires, I slept till the dawn woke me, without so much as stirring.

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW JEFAN THE PRINCE GUARDED HIS GUESTS.

In the stir which comes with the waking of a camp, I and Erling went out of the eastward gate and watched the sun coming up over the Mercian hills across the river. The white morning mists lay deep and heavy below us, and the little breeze from the southwest drifted curls of it up the hill and across it, mixed with the smell of the newly-lighted fires; and as the sun touched the drifts they vanished. In the cattle enclosures the beasts moved restless and ghostlike, lowing for their home meadows after the night on the open hillside. Jefan had ridden out to go round his posts, and I was waiting to bid Hilda good morrow before breakfast.

"What shall you do next?" asked Erling, with his eyes on the misty treetops below us.

He was silent beyond his wont this morning, and I did not wonder at it.

"I can hardly say. I have thought that by-and-by, when Sighard is fit to move hence, we might get to one of the Welsh ports, and so cross into my own land, Wess.e.x, unknown to any in all Mercia."

Erling nodded.

"That is good," he said. "I only wish we were a trifle farther from the Wye now, or that we had a few more men."

"You think that Gymbert is still to be feared?"

"T know it. Unless we get hence shortly we shall be fallen on. The reeve told me that he could gather five-score men of the worst sort in a day by the raising of his finger."

"It would need men of the best to take this place."

"Outlaws and suchlike I meant--men who will have Gymbert's promise of inlawing again if they will do his bidding. See, here comes Jefan!"

Up the hill from out of the mists rode the prince, and with him ran a few of his men, swiftly as mountain men will, so that the horse was no swifter up the steep. After them, through the mist, from men I could not see, sped an arrow, badly aimed, which fell short, and told of danger.

One of the two men who were at the gate on guard turned and whistled, and the rest, busy over their cooking, dropped what they held and ran to their weapons. Kynan came hastily to us, and watched his brother as he rode up.

"Jefan is in a hurry," he said. "Get your arms, thane, for there must be reason. Mayhap it is naught, however, for one is easily scared in a fog."

Still he was anxious; for if he had looked at me he would have seen that I was already armed, and that so also was Erling. We needed but our spears to complete the gear for battle--if that was to come--and they stood, each with the round shield at its foot, by the fire where we slept, twenty paces off.

Now Jefan pulled up, and tried to look back through the mists. They were thinning fast as the sun climbed higher, but were yet thick.

His men came on and entered the gate, while Kynan asked what was amiss.

"There are men everywhere," one said--"Mercians. They must have slain the outpost toward the ford, and so have crept on us under cover of the thickness."

"Trying to see where their cattle are," said Kynan. "They will not come up here."