"The same," I answered--"and I was warned of him," and I looked toward the princess, and she smiled a little and flushed.
"I mind how he glared at Oswald across my table," Howel said. "But one need fear little from him, as I think. Who will heed a crazy priest?"
"Many," answered Gerent. "The more because they deem him inspired. I will have him taken and brought to me."
There fell a little uneasy silence after that outburst of the king's, but I felt that I had not yet heard all that they would tell me. So we waited for the old king to speak, and at last he turned suddenly to the princess, setting his thin white hand on her shoulder, and said:
"Now tell Oswald what foolishness brought you here, Nona, daughter of Howel, that he may say what he thinks thereof."
"Maybe he also will think it foolishness, King Gerent," she said in her low clear voice. "But however that may be, I will tell him, for in what I have to say may be help. I cannot tell, but because it might be so I begged my father to bring me hither. It was all that I could do for my godfather."
There was just a little quiver in her lip as she said this, and the fierce old king's face softened somewhat.
"Nay," he said, "I meant no unkindness. I forgot that it is not right to speak to a child as to grown warriors. It is long since there was a lady about the place who is one of us."
Then Nona smiled wanly, and set her hand on that of the old king, and kept it there while she spoke.
"Indeed, Thane, it may be foolishness, and now perhaps as time goes on it begins to seem so to me. Once, as I know now, on the night when Owen first slept in his new house on the moor, I dreamed that he was in sore danger, for I seemed to see shadows of men creeping everywhere round the house that I have never set eyes on; and again, on the next night, and that was the night of the burning, I saw the house in flames, and men fought and fell around it among the flickering shadows, but I did not seem to see Owen. And then on the next night, soon after I first slept, I woke trembling with the most strange dream of all. I think that the light had hardly gone from the west, but the moon had not yet risen. I dreamed that I stood at the end of a narrow valley, whose sides were of tall cliffs of rough grey stone, and in the depth of the valley I saw a great menhir standing on the farther side of a black pool. And all the surface of the pool was rippling as if somewhat had disturbed it, and set upright in the ground on this side was a sword, like to that which King Ina gave you, Thane--ay, that which you wear now, not like my father's swords. And I thought that I heard one call on your name."