I knew all the ins and outs of every
house where Ina went, and had nothing fresh to learn in the matter.
Still, if the men under me were few, the post had its own
privileges, and was always held to lead to somewhat higher, and I
was more than content therewith, for it kept me near Owen and the
king, whom I loved next to my foster father.
I do not think that by this time any one knew, save the king, that
I was not Owen's own son. I was wont to call him father always, and
I cannot be blamed, for he was foster father and godfather to me,
and well did he take the father's place to the orphan whom he had
saved. And I had forgotten Eastdean, save as one keeps a memory of
the home where one was a child. I never thought of it as a place
that should have been mine, for neither the king nor Owen ever
spoke to me concerning it. Sometimes, in remembrances of my father,
I would wonder into whose hands the manors had passed, but rather
in hopes that some day those who owned them now would suffer me to
see that the grave where he lay was honoured, rather than as a
matter which at all concerned me in any closer way.
For, since I was but a child, the court had been my home, with Owen
as my father, and Ina the king as the loved guardian for whom I
would gladly give my life in need. All my training and thoughts
were centred here, not as what one calls a courtier at all, but as
one of the household who feared the king and queen no more than
Owen himself, and yet reverenced all three as those to whom all
homage was due since he could remember.
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