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Updated: June 23, 2025
"Well managed, master," he said, still smiling, "but I knew not that you had so strong a rope to draw you hither." Then I told him the trouble I was like to bring on Alswythe if he told her all that passed at Brent; letting him have his own thoughts about my reason for coming to Matelgar's hall, which were wrong enough, though natural at first sight, maybe.
I heard Matelgar's voice, harsh and loud, promising reward to him who should bring in the outlaw, dead or alive, and presently saw him stand clear of the palisading, about a bowshot from me. He was red enough now, but his hand played nervously with his sword hilt, and once when men shouted in the wood, he clutched it.
Now Matelgar's hall, smaller than mine, though as well built, or better, lay in that glen which runs down towards the level meadows of Stert point between Severn and Parret, north of the little hills of Combwich and Stockland, and almost under that last.
So I tried to stay myself with the thought of the hermit's prophecy, and plunging deep into the woods, crossed far back of my own place, until I could circle round towards Matelgar's hall.
So I grinned back, without a word, lest Matelgar should hear my voice and know it, and began to pretend to knot the thong round the scabbard. All the same, I was not going to fasten it so that I could not draw if need were, and only kept on plaiting and twisting. Then I heard Matelgar's voice and footstep, and I desisted, and, taking the arrow from my belt, stood up and ready.
The gray dawn began to break as we saw the nunnery before us, and it was very cold. But Alswythe pointed to a crimson glow behind us, as we topped the last rise, saying that the sun would be up soon. Wulfhere and I looked at each other. That glow was not in the east, but shone from Matelgar's hall in flames.
And, even as I turned, into that patch of light came two of Matelgar's men, walking swiftly, as if here at last they would overtake me. And, moreover, that sunlight lit on drawn swords in their hands; so that in a moment I knew that his hate followed me yet, and that for him the Moot had been too merciful in not slaying me then and there, so that these were on that errand for him.
And with that those three leapt away into the darkness up the hill, leaving me to follow if I listed. That was not my way, however, and I ran on to Matelgar's hall. One stood at the gate. It was Wulfhere. Inside I heard the trampling of horses, and knew that they would be ready in time.
Now as safe a way as any into the Westland would be over the Quantocks, and so into the wilds of Dartmoor and beyond, where no man would know or care for my outlawry if, indeed, I found not more proscribed men there than anywhere, who had fled, as I must fly, but with a price on them. And if I fled that way, it was but a step aside to pass close to Matelgar's hall.
They followed close on his heels, and I, who had seen nothing of courts, wondered that so many armed men should be needed in a peaceful hall, and yet watched them as one watches a gay show, till some fifty men of the king's household lined my hall and fifty more blocked the doorway. My people watched too, and I saw a smile cross from one of Matelgar's men to another, but thought no guile.
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