A Prince of Cornwall / A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex

by Charles W. Whistler

And so there were wonderful greetings for me, from Owen first, and afterward from Howel and from Nona, and I will not say much of them. If one knows what it is to see a father whom one had left weak and ill, strong and well and fully himself again; if one has met a good friend after absence; if one knows what it may be to see again the one who is dearest in thought, there is no need for me to try and tell the greeting, and if not, I could not make it understood. Let it be therefore. It was all that I looked for, and I was more than content.

And yet, for all that, it was a long week before I dared to tell Nona that which I would, and how I did so is another thing that I cannot set down. Maybe all that I need say is that I need not have feared, and that the new hall at Taunton waited for its mistress from that hour forward.

And so at length I knew that I must be away, and I rode to Tenby to see Thorgils, and found him in the haven, begrimed and happy, with men and boys round him at work on the ship everywhere, painting and scraping in such wise that I hardly knew her. From stem to stern she was bright green instead of her sea-stained rusty black, and a broad gilt band ran along her side below the oar ports. A great red and gold dragon from one of the warships of the Danes reared its crest on the stem head, while its tail curved in red and gold over the stern post, and even the mast was painted in red and white bands, and had a new gilt dog vane at its head.

"Here is finery, comrade," I said. "What is the meaning thereof?"

"Well, if you know not, no man knows. I have a new coat for tomorrow's wedding, and it is only fit that the ship that takes home the bride should have one also. Wherefore the old craft will be somewhat to sing about by the time I have done with her."

Then he showed me a new red-striped sail that Eric had given him, and an awning for the after deck which the women of the town had wrought for the shelter of the princess whom they loved. It seemed like a good speeding to Nona and to me.

And so it was at the end of a fortnight thereafter. It would be long to tell of the morrow's wedding, and then of days at Pembroke before we sailed, passed all too quickly for me. But at last we stood with Owen on the deck of the good ship while all the shore buzzed with folk, Welsh and Danish alike, who watched us pass from Dyfed to the Devon coast, cheering and waving with mighty goodwill, and only Howel seemed lonely as he sat on his white horse, still and yet smiling, with his men round him, where the cliff looks over the inner harbour, to see the last for many days of the daughter he had trusted to my keeping.

We cleared the harbour, and then where she had been lying under the island flew toward us under thirty oars the best longship that Eric owned, for it was his word that as the Danes had seen me into Pembroke by land, so they would see Nona from the shore with a king's following by sea, and that was well done indeed. The old chief himself was steering in full arms, and all the rowers were in their mail and helms, flashing and sparkling wondrously in the sun as they swung in time to the rowing song as they came. And all down the gangway amidships between the rowers stood the armed men who should take their places when their turn came, full sixty warriors, well armed and mail clad as if they had need to guard us across the sea.

I suppose that there is no more wonderful sight than such a ship as this, fresh from her winter quarters, and with her full crew of three men to an oar in all array for war, and Owen and I gazed at her in all delight. As for my princess, she had more thought for the kindliness of the chief in thus troubling himself and his men, I think, for she could not know the pleasure it gave each man of the Danes to feel his arms on him and the good ship swinging under him again after long months ashore.

"There is another ship in the offing," I said to Thorgils presently, when we, with the Dane just astern of us, were some five miles from land and had ceased to look back to Tenby. Nona had gone into the cabin away from the wind, which came a little chill from the east on the open sea, and maybe also that she felt the chill of parting from her father more than she would have us know.