he has learned. It
were churlish not to listen, and then we need warning against such
attacks as that of Morgan. Moreover, one likes somewhat to talk
of."

"That is plain enough," said Nunna, laughing.

"Maybe I do talk too much," answered the Norseman. "It is a failing
in my family. But my sister is worse than I."

Then the king laughed again, and so dismissed the shipman, and
presently Owen bade me make all preparation for riding to Norton on
the morrow early. Ina would have us take a strong guard, and I
should bring them back, either with or without Owen, as things
went.

But little sleep had I that night, for I knew too well that from
henceforth my life and that of my foster father must lie apart, and
how far sundered we might be I could not tell. There was no love of
the Saxon in West Wales, nor of the Welshman in Wessex.

CHAPTER IV. HOW THE LADY ELFRIDA SPOKE WITH OSWALD, AND OF THE MEETING WITH
GERENT.

Gerent, the king of the West Welsh, as we called him, ruled over
all the land of Devon and Cornwall, from the fens of the Tone and
Parrett Rivers to the Land's End. Only those wide fens, across
which he could not go, had kept our great King Kenwalch from
pushing Wessex yet westward, and along their line had been our
frontier since his days until, not long before Ina came to the
throne, Kentwine crossed them to the north and cleared the
marauding Welsh of the Quantock hills and forests from the river to
the sea, setting honest Saxon franklins here and there in the
new-won land, to keep it for him. It was out of those deep wooded
hills that Morgan had come on the raid that ended so badly for his
brother and himself, for the wasted country was yet a sort of
no-man's land, where outlaws found easy harbourage, coming mostly
from the Welsh side. It would not need much to set the tide of war
moving westward again, now that our men knew the fenland as well as
ever the British learned the secrets of the paths.

Now that the time seemed to have come for him to leave Ina, Owen
feared most of all that the long peace would end, for that would
mean the rending of old friendships and certain parting from me.
How much longer the peace would last was very doubtful, and men
said that it was only the wisdom of Aldhelm that had kept it so
well, and now he was dead. It was not so long since that a west
Welshman would not so much as eat with a Saxon, so great was the
hatred they had for us, though that had worn off m