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Updated: May 15, 2025
Why should a stranger be asked if he might be led to undertake one, when there are scores of faithful Mercians who would be only too glad to do aught to pleasure her? As it seems to me, they needed one who could be put away without being missed afterward, when his errand was finished." "No reason why Gymbert should have tried to end me now in that case." "The king's wine was potent last night.
Gymbert was nowhere to be found, and the other thane, who took his place and gave the orders when he was busy, had gone out with his horses, and had fled with the Anglians, it was said. None seemed surprised that they should have gone hastily, but the going of the king's horse thane was a wonder. However, all that was good hearing to us, and I went to see what horses had returned.
Maybe that was the resting and that the honour the viking would have chosen for himself. And he was set there with all the still rites of the ancient Church of the Briton, in the way which he had learned to love. Alone, unmarked Gymbert lies, out of sight of the warriors against whom he came. The Mercians dared not touch him, and the Welsh would not.
In the dawning the grooms lead the horses to water yonder at the river, and they are the first men afoot. Gymbert is gone, and on this thane here falls the task of ordering the stables. He shall bid your grooms keep together, and after watering lead your horses, as for airing, eastward to the forest paths.
He was a splendid beast, the like of whom my forefathers had slain in fair hunt among the Mendips long ago, until none were left for us today. The wild Welsh hills held them for Offa, as did his midland forests everywhere, as men told me. Now at this last gathering I did not see Gymbert.
"Ay," answered I plainly: "I am taking her out of the way of Quendritha and of Gymbert. I have the word of Jefan the prince for our safety." "Get to him," she said at once, "get to him straightway; he is honest. And on my word, if Gymbert is the man you saved her from last night, there is no time to be lost." "He does not know where she has gone." "Did not," she said.
"So he looked; but if that was not Gymbert, I am sorely blind today. Moreover, I looked back as we passed the gate, as if one of the guard spoke to me. The man was hastening toward our lodging. And he walked like Gymbert. Many a man can disguise his face; but, after all, his back and gait betray him."
We would ride northward and seek what we might till the time for meeting Selred came, working down the river toward the palace from far up stream. Sooner or later thus we should meet with the wheel tracks, and perhaps be able to follow them whither they went into the woodlands from the old stream-side way which Gymbert had at first taken.
And at the same time our men began to shoot, somewhat too soon; for the Welsh bow will not carry so far as the English, though the arrows are more deadly, being heavier. Seeing that, Jefan bade his men hold their hands until he gave the word; on which Gymbert called to his men, and they came the faster. The arrows met them then at short range, and in a deadly hail, and they faltered.
"Then she must be there still," answered the second comer. "Get back and look again." "We have beaten the wood as if for a hare," said the third. "Unless she has climbed a tree she is not there." "Well, then, look in the trees," said the mailed man, and with that he came down to the water, and turned his face toward us. It was Gymbert himself.
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