“And what duties in the work will fall to the lot of Branwen?” asked Beniah, with an amused look.
“The duties of a wife, of course,” returned the prince. “She will lend a sympathetic ear to all plans and proposals; her ingenious imagination will suggest ideas that might escape my grosser mind; her brilliant fancy will produce combinations that my duller brain would never think of; her hopeful spirit will encourage me to perseverance where accident or disaster has a tendency to demoralise, and her loving spirit will comfort me should failure, great or small, be permitted to overtake me. All this, I admit, sounds very selfish, but you asked me what part Branwen should play in regard to my schemes. If you had asked me what part I am to play in her life and work, the picture might be inverted to some extent—for our lives will be mutual—though, of course, I can never be to her what she will be to me.”
With this exalted idea of the married state, Prince Bladud looked forward to his wedding. Whether Dromas was imbued with similar ideas we cannot tell; but of this we are sure, that he was equally devoted to the princess—as far as outward appearance went—and he entered with keenest zest and appreciation into the plans and aspirations of his friend, with regard to the welfare of mankind in general, and the men of Albion in particular.
Not many days after that there was a double wedding at Hudibras town, which created a tremendous sensation throughout all the land. For, although news travelled slowly in those days, the fame of Bladud and his wonderful cure, and his great size and athletic powers, coupled with his Eastern learning, and warlike attainments and peaceful proclivities, not to mention the beauty and romantic adventures of his bride, had made such an impression on what may be styled the whole nation, that noted chiefs came from all parts far and near, to his wedding, bringing as many of their distinguished followers with them as they deemed necessary to safe travelling in an unsettled country. Some even came from the great western island called Erin, and others from the remote isle of the north which lay beyond Gadarn’s country, and was at a later period named Ultima Thule.
“I wonder when they’re going to stop coming,” remarked Gadarn to King Hudibras, as the self-invited guests came pouring in.
“Let them come,” replied the jovial king, with the air of a man of unlimited means. “The more the merrier. There’s room for all, and the forests are big.”
“Some of them, I see,” rejoined Gadarn, “are my mortal foes. We shall now have a chance of becoming mortal friends.”
It might be supposed that the assemblage of such a host from all points of the compass would, as it is sometimes expressed, eat King Hudibras out of house and home; but this was not so, for it was the custom at that time for visitors at royal courts to hunt for their victuals—to go in, as it were, for a grand picnic on a continuous basis, so that the palace of our king, instead of being depleted, became surfeited with food. As his preserves were extensive, and game of all kinds abundant, the expense attendant on this kind of hospitality was nil.
It would have been very much the reverse had it been necessary to supply drink, but the art of producing liquids which fuddle, stupefy, and madden, had not yet been learnt in this country. Consequently there was no fighting or bloodshed at those jovial festivities, though there was a certain amount of quarrelling—as might be expected amongst independent men who held different opinions on many subjects, although politics and theology had not yet been invented.
Great were the rejoicings when it was discovered, by each band as it arrived, that there was to be a double wedding; that the Princess Hafrydda was to be one of the brides, and that the fortunate man who had won her was a famous warrior of the mysterious East, and one of the victors at the great games of that part of the world.