I thanked the king quietly, but none the less heartily, and I ran my eyes down the line, but I saw no more known faces.  So I went after Jago, who had passed on.

“Friend, you are free,” I said.  “That is the word of our king, for the sake of old friendship.”

He could not answer, but the light leapt into his eyes, and he held out his hand to me.  Then I took him to the tent which my house-carles had pitched next the king’s, where Nunna’s should have been, and bade him sit down there.  Then I went out and brought up my own prisoners, passing the commoners into the hands of the men who had been with me, but keeping the chief until the last.  Two of the house-carles led him up, and his face had as black a scowl on it as I had ever seen, and he looked sullenly at us.

“Who is he?” asked Ina, turning towards me.

I did not know, and, to tell the truth, had forgotten to ask him in the waiting for news of Nunna.  So I asked him his name with all courtesy, and could win no answer from him but a blacker scowl than ever.  Judging from his arms, which were splendid, and of the half Roman pattern that Howel wore, he might be of some note.  I thought Jago might know him, so I asked him.

“Mordred, prince of Morganwg {iii}, from across the channel,” he answered, looking from the tent door.  “He is a prize for whoever took him.  Gerent sent word to several of those princes, and his men are somewhere in the country yet, I suppose.  They came at Gerent’s invitation.”

I went back to Ina, who had set the chief aside for the moment, and when some other man’s captives had passed, bound to a long cord, my men brought him forward again.

“Ask him what brought him here,” said Ina, when he heard who he was.

“I have a mind not to answer you,” Mordred growled, when I put the question, “but seeing that there is no use in keeping silence, I will tell you.  I hate Saxons, and so when Gerent asked me I came to help him.”

“With your men?”

“A shipload of them.  They are up in the hills yonder, where you left them, I suppose; and they will be a trouble to you until they get home, if they can.  I am well quit of the cowards.”

Now I began to understand how it was that this force went aside to fall on Watchet, and had little heart in the defence of the camp.  They were strangers, who hated the name of the Northmen from their own knowledge of them, and could not miss a chance of a fight with them here.  After that the men of Gerent who were with them at the camp cared nought for their strange leader.

“Take him, and hold him to ransom, Oswald,” Ina said, when I told him all this.  “From all I ever heard of Morganwg, he should be some sort of reward for what you have done.  I should set his price high also, for he deserves it for coming here.”

So I took Mordred to my tent, telling him that I must speak of him of ransom.

“Ransom?  Of course, that will be paid.  What price do you set on me?”