he took it for me.

It seemed strange to him that there was no ransacking of the house,
as one might have expected. Had the foe fired it he would not have
been surprised at all, but all was quiet in the hall, and the
voices of the men came mostly from the storehouses, whence he could
hear them rolling the casks into the courtyard; so he told me to
bide quietly here in the chamber for a few minutes, and went out on
the high place swiftly, closing the door after him, that I might
see nothing in the hall.

There he found Erpwald himself close at hand, sitting in my
father's own chair while the wound that Owen himself had given him
was being dressed. At the side of the great room sat the rest of
our men, downcast and wondering, and half a dozen of the foe stood
on guard at the door. It was plain that nought in the house was to
be meddled with.

Erpwald turned as he heard the sliding door open.

"Get you gone as soon as you may," he said sullenly.

"There is one thing that I must ask you, Erpwald," Owen said. "It
is what one may ask of one brave man concerning another. Let
Aldred's people bury him in all honour, as they will."

"There you ask too much, Welshman. But I will bury him myself in
all honour in the way that I think best. He shall have the burial
of a son of Woden for all his foolishness."

At least, there would be no dishonour to his friend in that, and
Owen thought it best to say no more, but he had one more boon, as
it were, to ask.

"Let me take a horse from the stable for the child," he said. "We
may have far to go."

He thought that he would have been met with rage at this, but it
was worth asking. However, Erpwald answered somewhat wearily, and
not looking at him:

"Take them all, if you will. I am no common reiver, and they are
not mine. The farther you go the better. But let me tell you, that
it will be safer for you not to make for Winchester and the king. I
shall have you watched."

"A plain warning not to be disregarded," answered Owen. "We shall
not need it."

Erpwald said no more, and Owen came back to me, closing the door
after him again. There was another door, seldom used, from this
chamber to the back of the house where the servants had their
quarters, and through that he took me, wrapped in such warm furs as
he could find. Then he went to the stables, and in the dark, for he
would not attract the notice of Erpwald's men, who were round the
ale in the courtyard, he saddled my for