can take them. There will be no loss to him in the end."

Then he smiled and looked Owen in the face.

"I know you well, Owen, though it is plain that you would not have
it so. Mind you the day when I met Gerent at the Parrett bridge? I
do not often forget a face, and I saw you then, and asked who you
were. Now there is good and, as I hope, lasting peace between our
lands, thanks to the wisdom of our good Aldhelm here, and I will
ask you somewhat, for I know that you also wrought for that peace
while you might. Come to me, and be of the nobles who guard me and
mine, and so wait in honour until the time comes when you may
return to your place. Then you will be with the boy also."

So it came to pass that we took leave of that good friend the
abbot, and went from Malmesbury in the train of Ina of Wessex.
Thereafter for six years I served Ethelburga the queen, being
trained in all wise as her own child, and after that I was one of
the athelings of the court in one post or another, but always with
the king when there was war on the long frontier of the Wessex
land.



CHAPTER III. HOW KING INA'S FEAST WAS MARRED, AND OF A VOW TAKEN BY OSWALD.


At this time, when I take up my story again, I was two and twenty,
not very tall indeed, but square in the shoulder, and well able to
hold my own, at the least, with the athelings who were my comrades,