our fast, and my men were ready, and I parted from my foster father
in the bright morning light that made the white walls of the old
palace seem more wonderful to me than ever.

"Farewell, then, for a while," he said to me; "come back as soon as
Ina will spare you. There will be peace between him and Gerent now,
as I think."

Then came a man in haste from out of the gateway where we stood
yet, and he bore a last gift from Gerent to me. It was a beautiful
wide-winged falcon from the cliffs of Tintagel in the far west,
hooded and with the golden jesses that a king's bird may wear on
her talons.

"It is the word of the king," said the falconer, "that a thane
should ride with hawk on wrist if he bears a peaceful message.
Moreover, there will be full time on the homeward way for a flight
or two. Well trained she is, Master, and there is no better passage
hawk between here and Land's End."

That was a gift such as any man might be proud of, and I asked Owen
to thank the king for me. And so we parted with little sorrow after
all, for it was quite likely that I should be back here in a day or
two for yet a little while longer with him.

So I and my men were blithe as we rode in the still frosty air
across the Quantocks by the way we had come, and by and by, when we
gained the wilder crests, I began to look about me for some chance
of proving the good hawk that sat waiting my will on my wrist.