If I were to turn from all this to become
a forest thane it would be banishment.
And then I thought of Owen, and how this would take me yet farther
from him. I would sooner, if I must be sent from Ina, go to him and
find what home I might on the lands of Tregoz in wild Dartmoor. And
then the thought of leaving Ina, who had cared for me since I was a
child, was almost as terrible.
"I would not leave you, my King," I said at last.
Ina looked up at me with a smile, but was silent, stroking his
beard as was his way when thinking, looking past me out of the
narrow window to the great Tor that towered beyond the new abbey
buildings.
"Think!" he said at last--"partings must come, and lands are not to
be had lightly. Erpwald's brother, who held Eastdean, is dead."
"I need no lands," I answered. "The ways of a captain of your
house-carles are good to me, and I need no more. If I took those
lands from your hand, my King, needs must that I gave up all the
life with you. Sooner would I let the land go and bide with you.
Yet if I must needs take them, be it as you will."
"It is a great thing that you speak so lightly of giving up," he
answered gravely; "Erpwald, the heathen, was willing to risk his
life for those lands, and he held them dear. And a captain of the
king's house-carles will always look to be rewarded for service
with lands.
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