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Updated: May 27, 2025
With that I lifted my voice, and spurred my horse at the same time. "Ho, men of the Cymro!" I cried in Welsh. "Ho! we are beset. Ho, Jefan ap Huwal!" The Welsh stayed in a moment, with a roar and swinging round of weapons.
"Thank your prince from me," I answered, after a moment's thought, in which it came to me that no offer of friendship was to be scorned, "and tell him that if need is I will not forget. Tell him also that, thanks to him, the lady is safe and well, and that I have no fear at present." "That, said Jefan, is what a thane would answer," said the man.
At the end of the fortnight we went from this village to the ancient city of Caerleon, travelling slowly, though Jefan made shift to mount a horse, and so ride with us. Pleasant were the June days that passed among the hilly ways, under the great green mountains, and through the forest lands, with good friends and pleasant halts by the way. And I was going homeward now in all truth.
One thing I was fairly glad of, and that was that so far as I knew none in all the court of Offa had heard who my folk in Wessex were, else there might be trouble for them; for Quendritha's daughter was not unlike her mother, if all I heard was true. "Meet me tonight, then," I said. "I will go to Jefan, and will bring the lady." "You do well," he answered gravely.
One might see by the way in which they were tending the wounded and digging two long trenches without the ramparts, where the slain should rest presently, that such fights were no new thing to them on the marches of Mercia. Jefan the prince lay in a hut, and he smiled ruefully as I came in.
Plainly enough I saw that there was more in the matter than Jefan would let his men know yet; but if I was anxious, I would no more show it than he. So we sat down to the food his men had ready, and before we had half finished a man came and spoke to him quietly and went his way again. "One of the western picket. It seems that here we must stay for a while."
We went on eating, and then a second man came; and Jefan told him to call in the pickets, after he had heard what was said. Then he turned to me at last. "Thane," he said, "we seem to be beset here, but how and with what force we cannot yet tell. I am sorry, for your sakes and the lady's, that so it is.
I think that Offa once sent an embassy to Caerleon, and that they were the first of our race who had ever been within its old walls. But I know that never before had a Saxon party been welcomed there as we were welcomed, nor had there been such a feast since Jefan himself was wedded. It seems to me that I am leaving out a many things now; but who wants to hear of that wedding?
Thence we might find our way when the days wore on and Sighard could travel. That remained to be seen; and, take it all round, I was more easy than I had been. So also seemed the archbishop presently, when I told him the message I had had. And he agreed with us that we might do worse than go to Jefan at once with Hilda; matters being as they were, it was not safe in Mercia.
Plainly that was just what he had told the queen. And now he began to bluster, after his wont, stammering with rage. He had forgotten what we must have told the princes. "You hear the message? Pay heed to it, or it will be the worse for you. Set these folk outside the walls straightway, or else " He shook his spear at the gate. "I will not give them up," said Jefan; "and if "
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