CHAPTER III. HOW KING INA'S FEAST WAS MARRED, AND OF A VOW TAKEN BY OSWALD.
At this time, when I take up my story again, I was two and twenty,
not very tall indeed, but square in the shoulder, and well able to
hold my own, at the least, with the athelings who were my comrades,
at the weapon play or any of our sports. It would have been my own
fault if I were not so, for there was no better warrior in all
Ina's following than Owen, and he taught me all I knew. And that
knowledge I had tested on the field more than once, for Ina had no
less trouble with his neighbours than any other king in England,
whether in matters of raiding to be stopped or tribute to be
enforced. Since I was too old to serve the queen as page any longer
I had been of his bodyguard, and where he went was not always the
safest place on a field for us who shielded him.
A court is always changing, as men come and go again to their own
places after some little service there, but Owen and I were of
those to whom the court was home altogether. Owen was the king's
marshal now, and I was in command of the house-carles, and had been
so for a year or more. It was no very heavy post, nor responsible
after all, for Ina's guard was the love of his people, and beyond
these warriors from the freemen who served as palace guard and
watch, were the athelings of the household, from whose number I had
been chosen for this post by right of longest service more than for
any other reason, as I think.
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