Glad was I then that from old Locrin I had gained some knowledge of the Briton tongue and could make some little shift at speaking it, albeit most stutteringly, for now it might stand me in some saving stead. What should I answer?
A little I paused and debated in my mind and then, looking into the clear and questioning eyes of that proud woman in the chariot, I did not hesitate nor falter. Stammeringly and haltingly, I told my tale as best I could in the strange tongue, with bold and simple truthfulness, concealing nothing. I told of my own name and standing and of the foray and the sea fight and of all that might concern my captors. The men stood listening with mouths agape, though with stern and threatening faces, but the fair countenance of the woman did not alter. I knew that she was passing judgment. At last she spoke again, slowly and thoughtfully:
“Viking and wolves are much the same to Britons, but it may be that your tale is true, and it is not without merit in you that you have fought the Roman. Other than I must pass upon your fate.”
Then, turning to her people, she commanded that I and the body of dead Regner be brought to shore, which the spearmen did, supporting me, who found myself still weak, and laying the body of my comrade upon the sand. Then, without further parley, and under direction of the woman, the band returned the way whence it had come, I walking with a supporting spearman on either side. We reached the point from which the company had first appeared and there came upon a roadway leading into the forest. Upon this roadway we travelled it may be half a league when we reached a crossroad, and there we came to a halt.
“Take him to where the king is sitting,” said the woman then, to those about me, “and say to King Cadwallon that I will follow swiftly, that I may make all clear to him relating to the prisoner.”
Then she looked upon me fixedly, but saying nothing, as I also looked upon her most steadfastly and as I had never before looked upon the face or into the eyes of woman. There came to me a marvellous understanding.
There were, among the race of Vikings, poets who made the Sagas and had gifts in the divination of what was most fair and noble and beyond all common things or hopes or fears, and from one of these had come the curious and lofty affirmation that it might happen, though most rarely in the world, that a man and woman should for the first time look upon each other and that there should come to each the vast knowledge that they two were but as one in a loving which could not be in any way withstood or denied, calling for any sacrifice. And so it was! Well I know it to be unbelievable, but, as we stood there thus, she a haughty princess of the haughty Iceni, as I came to know, and I, a Viking haughty as she, but rude and rough of port and now blood-stained and grimy, the truth of the thing so strange came out like light between us. Each knew it well and each accepted it unfalteringly, for we were made of such a mould. No loftier or more courageous was I in my degree than my fair and stately Goneril. We spoke no word, but, as we parted at the crossroad and her chariot swept away, I knew that beyond all doubting I should find her with King Cadwallon and that she would have already spoken.
Two days we travelled through the land of Kent, and each day brought me greater wisdom. Let none say that the country of the Britons is but a vast waste of forest, moor and fen, peopled only by wild beasts and tribes of men almost as wild as they. So had I thought it and so had those on the mainland, deeming only that along the island’s coast there might exist among the natives a variance from the barbaric and outlandish customs of the interior. On this same winding journey—for we sought the easier ways and made no haste—I saw herds of feeding cattle and droves of horses, and meadows and reaped fields, and many a rude but goodly homestead. Never had my eyes met fairer prospect than that on which they rested in this region lately ravished by the Roman, and I wondered not that its people had defended it as fiercely as they had vainly. My bent was all with them. My guard of ten sturdy spearmen, somewhat glum in the beginning, became amenable upon the way, and from their leader, himself a Kentish spearman and having some little wisdom, I learned that which gave me cause for wonder and hard reflection. We were marching through a bruised and smarting region, one where the souls of men were seething in unavailing rage and bitter protest. Cæsar had come and gone. He had not advanced far into the country but he had slain many of the islanders and ravaged the fields and, having driven the Britons into their forest fastnesses, had forced from their chieftains a promise of submission, and had taken hostages away with him. No harm had the Britons done the Romans before this harsh invasion. Little they knew of Roman intrigues and ambitions, nor of this Cæsar’s wars and conquests. They were content to live alone in their own way upon their own green island. Yet to them, unheeding and unsuspecting, had come this scourge, without a pretext. There seemed no recourse and no vengeance for them. They had been smitten, and their hostages were with the Roman army. What wonder that there smouldered in the breasts of these hurt islanders such hatred and such fear as may not be described! All this I gained from what the Kentish spearman told, and it was not in me to feel unlike the islanders. Truly they had sufficient cause for hatred of the Romans!
I asked the spearman concerning Cadwallon, the king, and learned still more. He, it seemed, was not the king in straight descent, but because King Lud, who had reigned before him, had left only children as heirs, he had come into power as regent, seemingly, but really as king in fact. Cadwallon, as the Britons called him, and as I also shall, though he was called Cassivelaunus by the Romans, was not altogether a bad king, but was held somewhat weak at times and he had, besides, certain enemies among the more envious and ambitious of the chiefs beneath him. Fortunately, the invasion of Cæsar had not reached his capital on the river called the Thames, and he was still secure in power. This capital was a place called London by its people and by all other Britons, though the Romans had named it Trinovantum, and was the town of chief importance in the land, having existed long and, being a port, reached from the sea and drawing the trade of the Veneti as well as, sometimes, of the far-trading Phœnicians who came to the southwest, the Cassiterides, for tin, and who sometimes extended their bartering voyages up the coast. Much pride had the Britons in their town of London, of which the legend ran among their Druid priests—some of whom were learned—that it was founded in the dim past by a Trojan chieftain who, fleeing after the fall of ancient Troy, had sailed with his people even to distant Britain and, after overcoming a race of giants living there, had builded this town beside the Thames and named it Troy Novant. This tale, however, I hold to be a fable. The Druids were ever liars.
From this man, too, I learned much concerning the stately lady of whom I was the captive, and who had given order as to my disposal. She was the great Lady Goneril, he said, a princess of the Iceni and kinswoman of King Cadwallon. There had been trouble among the Iceni as to the succession, and at this time the family opposed to that of Goneril was somewhat in the ascendancy and it were better in many ways that the princess should seek refuge, for the time at least, at the court of her kinsman. An aunt she had also, wife of a chieftain of Kent with whom she was but now a guest. Only brave words had the man of Kent for the fair princess, and, even now, my heart went out to him because of it. Most imperious of mood she sometimes was, he said, and of great influence with both the king and her uncle in Kent, but ever generous and just, and much beloved of all, from chieftain down to churl, Iceni though she might be. All of this much delighted me and gave pride. Most curious, yet just and due it is, that a man should cherish, even as his own, the honour and fame of the one woman to him.