He laughed a little.
"I think so, but that is a question for the leech. Ask the dame. Maybe she will answer if you speak her fair."
Howel went to do that, saying that maybe she would listen to a Briton, for most of her wrath was concerning my Saxon arms. So presently I heard her shrill voice growing calmer as Howel coaxed her, and then there was a sound as if she climbed from her perch, and Howel came back to us.
"We may take you, she says. Hither come the men in all haste also, and we may get away from this place at once. These hills are uncanny on Midsummer Eve, and I am glad that we have long daylight before us."
Then said Owen:
"Oswald, I have not withal, but I would fain reward the bard and the old woman for their care of me. I think that even at Glastonbury there are none who would have healed these hurts of mine more easily than she."
I had my own thoughts about the bard, but I said that I would see to this, and went to him. The men were close at hand, and I saw that they led our horses with them.
"Bard," I said, "Owen the prince speaks well of you. Is it true that you would have slain him had you not been stayed on your way?"
"I do not know, Lord," he answered. "When I was with Morfed, needs must I do his bidding, even against my will. Yet, away from him, I think that I should not have harmed the prince. I am a Christian man, for all that you have seen."
"There was somewhat strangely heathenish in what I did see," I said. "But I suppose that is all done with?"