go might know him, so I asked him.

"Mordred, prince of Morganwg {iii}, from across the channel,"
he answered, looking from the tent door. "He is a prize for whoever
took him. Gerent sent word to several of those princes, and his men
are somewhere in the country yet, I suppose. They came at Gerent's
invitation."

I went back to Ina, who had set the chief aside for the moment, and
when some other man's captives had passed, bound to a long cord, my
men brought him forward again.

"Ask him what brought him here," said Ina, when he heard who he
was.

"I have a mind not to answer you," Mordred growled, when I put the
question, "but seeing that there is no use in keeping silence, I
will tell you. I hate Saxons, and so when Gerent asked me I came to
help him."

"With your men?"

"A shipload of them. They are up in the hills yonder, where you
left them, I suppose; and they will be a trouble to you until they
get home, if they can. I am well quit of the cowards."

Now I began to understand how it was that this force went aside to
fall on Watchet, and had little heart in the defence of the camp.
They were strangers, who hated the name of the Northmen from their
own knowledge of them, and could not miss a chance of a fight with
them here. After that the men of Gerent who were with them at the
camp cared nought for their strange leader.

"Take him, and hold him to ransom, Oswald," Ina said, when I told
him all this. "From all I ever heard of Morganwg, he should be some
sort of reward for what you have done. I should set his price high
also, for he deserves it for coming here."

So I took Mordred to my tent, telling him that I must speak of him
of ransom.

"Ransom? Of course, that will be paid. What price do you set on
me?"

Now that was a question on which I had no thought ready, seeing
that I had never held any man of much rank to ransom before, and I
hesitated. At last I remembered what some great Mercian thane had
to pay to Owen some years ago, and I named that sum, which was good
enough for me and Erpwald and Thorgils to share between us.

Thereon his face flushed red, and he scowled fiercely at me.

"What!--Is that the value of a prince of Morganwg? It is ill to
insult a captive."

"Nay, Prince, there is no insult--"

"By St. Petroc, but there is, though! What will the men of
Morganwg--what will the Dyfed men say when they hear that the Saxon
holds one of the line of Arthur at the value of a hundred cows?