A Prince of Cornwall Part 24

"It is no light matter that I have to speak of," he said, "but I will get to the point straightway. What do you remember of your old home, Eastdean?"

Now the thoughts of old days there that had sprung afresh in my mind in the parting with Owen, made me ready to answer that at once.

"Little, my King. I was but ten years old when we fled," I answered therefore.

"That is likely. But would you go back there? As the Thane of Eastdean, I mean; for I know that you would wish to see the place where your father lies."

I could not answer him this at once, for it was indeed a matter that needed thought. So I said, and he turned to his writings with a nod and left me to myself.

In all these thoughts of mine, pleasant as they were with some memories, it had never come to me to wish that the lands were mine again. Save for that one thing of which Ina spoke, and for the pleasantness of seeing old scenes again, I had never cared to go back. Owen had not spoken of the lands that should have been mine for years, and even as he talked with me and Gerent he had not seemed to remember that old loss at all. Gerent had done so, saying that I should be back there, but even that did not stir me now. I was of the court, and here I had my place, and all my life was knit with the ways of the atheling guard and the ordering of the house-carles under Owen. If I were to turn from all this to become a forest thane it would be banishment.

And then I thought of Owen, and how this would take me yet farther from him. I would sooner, if I must be sent from Ina, go to him and find what home I might on the lands of Tregoz in wild Dartmoor. And then the thought of leaving Ina, who had cared for me since I was a child, was almost as terrible.

"I would not leave you, my King," I said at last.

Ina looked up at me with a smile, but was silent, stroking his beard as was his way when thinking, looking past me out of the narrow window to the great Tor that towered beyond the new abbey buildings.

"Think!" he said at last--"partings must come, and lands are not to be had lightly. Erpwald's brother, who held Eastdean, is dead."

"I need no lands," I answered. "The ways of a captain of your house-carles are good to me, and I need no more. If I took those lands from your hand, my King, needs must that I gave up all the life with you. Sooner would I let the land go and bide with you.

Yet if I must needs take them, be it as you will."

"It is a great thing that you speak so lightly of giving up," he answered gravely; "Erpwald, the heathen, was willing to risk his life for those lands, and he held them dear. And a captain of the king's house-carles will always look to be rewarded for service with lands. In time you will seek the same."

"That time has not yet come to me, King Ina."

"Eastdean lies in my hand here," he said, taking up a parchment with a great seal on it. "I may give it to whom I will, but you are the lawful heir who should hold it from me. If it goes not to you, it may be that one whom you would not shall have it."

Then I said, not seeing at all what the king would have me do, but thinking that he deemed me foolish for not taking the lands straightway:

"Let me bide with you even yet for a while. When the time comes that I must leave you I must go to Owen, and neither he nor I care for aught but to be here. He must leave you because of duty, and if this is indeed choice with me, let me choose to stay. It is nought to me who holds the lands, save only that it might be one who will tend the grave of my father."

Then said Ina, looking into my face and smiling, as if well pleased:

"The choice is free, my Thane, and I should be wrong if I did not say that I am glad to hear you choose thus. I have missed you in these days, and I have work here for you yet. It was in my mind that thus you would choose, and I am glad. Let it be so. I need one to take the place of Owen, as second in command of the household, as one may say, and that you must do for me henceforward.

"Nay," he said quickly, raising his hand as I tried to find some words of thanks for this honour; "you know the ways of Owen, and men know you, and it will be as if there had been no change, and that will mean that we shall have no grumbling in the palace, and the right men will be sent to do what they are best fitted for--and all that, so that there will be quiet about the court as ever. It is a matter off my mind, let me tell you, and no thanks are needed."

So he laughed and let me kiss his hand, patting me on the shoulder as I rose, and then bade me sit down again. He had yet more to say.

"With Erpwald who is dead, men would hold that you had a blood feud. That is done with; but his son yet lives. I do not think it is your way, or Owen's, to hold that a feud must be carried on in the old heathen way of our forefathers."

"Most truly not," I said. "What ill has a son of Erpwald done to me or mine?"

"None! Nay, rather has he done well, for I know that he has honoured the grave of your father, and even now is ready to do what he can to make amends for the old wrong. He brought me this."

He took up the parchment that he had shewn me before. It was a grant of the manors of Eastdean to Erpwald, gained by those means of utmost craft whereby the king thought that indeed the last of our line had perished by other hands than those of the heathen thane.

"Honest and straightforward and Christian-like is this young Erpwald," the king said. "Well brought up by his Christian mother, if not very ready or brilliant in his ways. Now he has learned how his father came into the lands, and though he might well have held them after his uncle on this grant, he has come hither to set the matter in my hands. 'It is not fair,' quoth he, 'that I should hold them if one is left of the line of Ella. I should not sleep easily in my bed. Nevertheless, I will buy them if so be that one is left to sell them to me.' So he sighed, for the place is his home."

"All these years it has been no trouble to me that Erpwald's brother has held the place, my King. It will be no trouble to think that a better Erpwald holds them yet."

"I do not think that he will be happy unless he deems that he has paid some price--some weregild {ii}, as one may say; for slow minds as his hang closely to their thoughts when they are formed.

See, Oswald, I have thought of all this, and the young man has been here for a fortnight. I brought him here from Winchester, where he joined me. Let me tell you what I think."

"The matter is in your hands altogether, my King."

"As you have set it there," he said, smiling gently. "Now all seems plain to me, and I will say that this is even what I thought you would wish to do. How shall it be if we bid Erpwald, for the deed of his father, to build a church in Eastdean and there to keep a priest, that all men shall know how that the martyr is honoured, and the land be the better for his death?"

Nought better than this could be, as I thought, and I told the king so.

"Why, then," he said, "that is well. I shall have pleased both parties, as I hope. I know you will meet him in all friendliness."

Then he let me go, and it was with a light heart that I parted from him. Now I knew that my father's grave and memory would be held in more than common honour, and I was content.

Men would miss Owen sorely here, but, save for that, I had so often acted for him in these last two years that my being altogether in his place made little difference to any one, or even to myself in a few days. That last was as well for myself, as it seems to me, for I was not over proud, as I might have been had the post been new to me. As it was, I do not think that there was any jealousy over it, or at least I never found it out. My friends rejoiced openly, and if any one wondered that the king should so trust a man of my age, the answer that I had saved Ina's life was enough to satisfy all.

My men drank my health in their quarters that night, and after I got over the little strangeness of sitting on the high place next to Nunna, things went on, save for the want of Owen about the court, even as when he was the marshal and I but his squire, as it were.

I saw young Erpwald for the first time soon after the king had spoken of him to me, and I liked the look of him well enough. He was some few years older than I, square and strong, with a round red face and light hair, pleasant in smile, if not over wise looking. One would say that he might be a good friend, but one could hardly think of him as willingly the enemy of any man. Some one made me known to him as the son of Owen, as was usual, and as such would I be known to him for a while; but for some time I saw little of him, not caring to seek his company, as indeed there was no reason for me to do so.

The next thing that I heard of him was that he had made a great friend of the ealdorman since he came here, being often at his house. It was not so long before I met him there, though my pride, which would not let me risk another rebuff, kept me away for some days. I had an uneasy feeling that I should fare no better, and I could find good reason enough to justify the thought in some ways, as any one may see from what had happened before.

Maybe that was a token that my first feelings were cooling off, and I do not think that there is much wonder if they were. It would have been strange, and not altogether complimentary to the fair damsel if, after the deed at the feast and the vow that I had to make, I had not thought myself desperately in love with her at last, after a good many years of friendship. But now there had befallen the long days of peril and anxiety which had set her in the background altogether, and I had had time to come to more sober thoughts, as it were. Men have said that I aged more in that short time than in the next ten years of my life, and it is likely.

Nevertheless, it needed but a word or two of kindness to bring me to Elfrida's feet once for all, and but a little more coldness to send me from her altogether.

So at last I went to her home to find out how I should fare, thinking less of the matter than last time, and there she sat in the hall, chatting merrily with Erpwald. That pleasantness stopped when I came in, and after the first needful greetings Elfrida froze again, and Erpwald fell silent, as if I was by no means welcome. I could see that I was the third who spoils company. However, the ealdorman came in directly, and I talked to him, and as we paid no heed to those two they took up their talk once more, and presently their words waxed low. Whereon the ealdorman glanced at them with a sly grin and wink to me, and I understood.

So I went away, for that was enough. Of course, I was very angry, by reason of the scratch to my pride; for it does hurt to think that one is not wanted, and for a while I brooded over it just as I had done the other day. Then it came to me that at least I had no reason to be angry with Erpwald, who could know little or anything about me, being a newcomer, and it was not his fault if the girl made a tool of him to scare me away, and after that I found my senses again, rather sooner than before, perhaps. It was plain that the ealdorman took it for granted that I had no feeling now in that direction, and so others would do the same, which was comforting.

So I supposed that there was no more to be said on the subject by any one, unless Elfrida chose to have the matter out, and set things on the old footing of frank friendliness again.

There I found that I was mistaken at once. Some one was coming down the lane after me quickly, and then calling my name. I turned, and there was Erpwald, with a very red face, trying to overtake me, and I waited for him.

"A word with you, Thane," he said, out of breath.

"As many as you will. What is it?"

"Wait until I get my breath," he said. "One would think that you were in a desperate hurry, by the pace you go. Plague on all such fast walkers!"

That made me laugh, and he smiled across his broad face in return.

"It is all very well to grin," he said, straightening his face suddenly to a blankness; "but what I have to say concerns a mighty serious matter."

"Well, then, get it done with," I answered, trying not to smile yet more.

"I don't rightly know how to begin," he said in a hesitating kind of way. "Words are as hard to manage as a drove of forest swine, and I am a bad hand at talking. Can you not tell what I have to say?"

"Not in the least," I answered.