“That I suppose.  I know that you laid wait for Owen the prince.”

“Ay, for you know the Welsh and heard all that we said.  But listen, Thane, this is it.  Eight of the friends of Morgan had sworn the death of Owen that morning, and it was the leader of them who set us on.  He was not there, for he waited on another road.”

“Were you one of the eight?”

“That I am not,” he said.  “I and my men were but hired, as Morgan was wont to hire us now and then.  When we took you methought that it was well for me, for through you I might be inlawed again, even as I told you.”

“Who was this leader?” I asked, heeding this last speech not at all.

“Tregoz of the Dart, men call him, for he holds lands thereon.  Also there are these of the great men of Cornwall and Dyvnaint.”

He called over the names of the other seven, and I repeated them that I should not forget.  The only one that I had heard before was that of Tregoz.  The outlaws had spoken of him, and now I remembered him as one of those who had seemed loudest in welcome to Owen when he came to Norton.  So I told Evan, and he nodded.

“I heard him boast of the same,” he said, and I believed him for the way in which he said it.

“How do they think to slay Owen, and wherefore?” I asked, and my blood ran cold at the thought of the treachery that was round him.

Doubtless this Tregoz was back at court.

“In any way that they may compass, and if in such a way as to stir up war with Ina of Wessex so much the better, as they say.  It is revenge for the death of Morgan, and hatred of the Saxon, mixed.”

“Is there any more that I should know?”

“None, Thane.  But I have broken no oath in telling you this, as you might think.  We outlaws were not bound, for there seemed no need.”

It was strange that he should care to tell me this, being what he was.  Once more I minded words of Thorgils—­that the knave would beguile Loki himself with fair words.  Yet there was somewhat very strange in all the looks and words of the man at this time.  But I would not talk longer with him, and I cut his bonds and freed him.

He tried to rise and stretch his cramped limbs, groaning with the pain of them as he did so.  And that grew on him so that of a sudden he swooned and fell all his length at my feet, and then I found myself kneeling and chafing the hands of this one who had bound me, so that he should come round the sooner.  At last he opened his eyes, and I fetched the horn of strong mead that Howel had bidden his folk hang on my saddle bow when we rode out, and that brought him to himself again.  He sat up on the snow and thanked me humbly.

“Now, what will you do?” I said.  “Let me tell you that Thorgils is after you, and that Howel has set a price on your head, or was going to do so.  And it is better that you cross the sea no more, for if ever any one of the men of Gerent or Ina catch you your life will be forfeit.”