A Thane of Wessex | Page 2

to where I knew not. Only, wherever it was, I was kept
in darkness and chains, maddened by the injustice of the thing and my
own helplessness, till I lost count of days, and at last hope itself. And
all that time the real reason for my arrest, and for the accusation that
caused it, never entered my mind, and least of all did I suspect that
Matelgar, my friend, was at the bottom of it. Indeed, I hoped at first
that, hearing of my trouble, he would interfere and procure my release,

till, as I say, hope was gone.
It was March when I was taken to prison. It was into broad May
sunshine and greenness that I was brought out by my surly jailers at last,
set, half blind with the darkness of the prison, on a good horse, and so,
with my hands bound behind me, led off in the midst of a strong guard
to the place of my trial.
Then, as mind and feeling came back to me with the fresh air and
springtime warmth, I knew the place we were leaving: It was the castle
of a friend of Matelgar--and that seemed strange to me, for I had been
hardly treated, seeing none save the men who fed me and saw that my
chains were kept secure. Then I looked in the faces of my guards, but
all were unknown to me. As I had not before been to that castle as a
guest, I was not surprised, and I said nothing to them, for I had found
the uselessness of question and entreaty when I spoke at the first to the
jailers.
So, silently, we rode on, and the world looked very fair to me after the
long grayness of the prison walls.
One who knows the west country, hunting through it as I have hunted,
grows to love and recognize the changing shapes of every hill and
coombe and spur of climbing forest on their sides, and so, before long,
I knew we were making for the great hill of Brent, but why I could not
tell. Then we crossed Parret river, and I watched a salmon leap as we
did so; and then on over the level marshes till I could see that the wide
circle on Brent top was black with swarming people. Often enough, as
the cloud shadows passed from them, arms and bright armour sparkled
in the sunlight among the crowd; and then I could have wept, having no
arms or harness left me, for often when aforetime I rode free I would
take a childish pleasure in seeing the churls blink and shade their eyes
as I flashed on them, and would wonder, too, if my weapons shone as
my father's shone as we rode side by side on some sunny upland.
Then, when we came under the hill of Brent, the hum of voices came
down to us, for the day was still, and my guards straightened
themselves in the saddle and set their ranks more orderly. But I, clad as

I was in the rags of the finery I had worn at the feast whence I was
taken, shrank within myself, ashamed to meet the gazes that must be
turned on me presently, for I saw that we were going on up the steep
ascent to mix with the crowd on the summit of the great knoll.
Now, by this time the long ride had brought back my senses to me, and
I began to take more thought for myself and what might be meant by
this journey. At first I had been so stunned and dazed by the release--as
my removal from the dungeon seemed to me--that I had been content to
feel the light and air play about me once more; but that strangeness had
worn off now, and the consciousness of being yet a prisoner took hold
of me.
My guards had ridden silent, either in obedience to command, or
because a Saxon is not often given to talk when under some
responsibility, so that I had learnt nothing from them thus far. But as
we turned our horses' heads up the steep, a longing at last came over
me to speak, and I turned to a gray-bearded man who had ridden
silently at my right hand all the morning and asked him plainly whither
he was taking me, and for answer he pointed up the hill, saying
nothing.
Then I asked him why I must be taken there, and, grimly enough, he
replied in two words, "For trial", and so I knew that the Great Moot [i]
was summoned, and that presently I should know the whole meaning of
this thing that had befallen me. Then my spirits began to rise, for, being