So there was full victory for
Wessex, but we had to pay a heavy price therefor. Nunna had fallen
in the hour of triumph, and Sigebald, the ealdorman, was lost to
Dorset also.
Presently we laid Nunna in his mound on the Blackdown hills where
he had fallen. There he bides as the foremost of Saxon leaders in
the new land we had won, and I do not think that it is an unfitting
place for such a one as he. It is certain that so long as a Wessex
man who minds the deeds of his fathers is left the name of Nunna
will be held in honour with that of the king; his kinsman.
CHAPTER XVI. OF MATTERS OF RANSOM, AND OF FORGIVENESS ASKED AND GRANTED.
Now I must needs tell somewhat of the way in which Ina won Norton,
for that had so much to do with my fortunes as it turned out,
seeing that all went well by reason of our holding the hill fort,
in which matter, indeed, Thorgils must have his full share of
praise.
Gerent halted in his march when the flying men from the camp came
in to him, telling him that we were in strong force on the hill,
and so our men crossed the Parrett unhindered, and won to the long
crest of the southward spurs of Quantocks, where the Welsh gathered
against Kenwalch in the old days and stayed his farther conquest.
There was some sort of an advance post by this time in the Roman
camp at Roborough, and Ina sent a few men to take it, and that was
easily done.
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