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HOW KING INA'S FEAST WAS MARRED, AND OF A VOW TAKEN BY OSWALD.
At this time, when I take up my story again, I was two and twenty, not very tall indeed, but square in the shoulder, and well able to hold my own, at the least, with the athelings who were my comrades, at the weapon play or any of our sports.

It would have been my own fault if I were not so, for there was no better warrior in all Ina's following than Owen, and he taught me all I knew.

And that knowledge I had tested on the field more than once, for Ina had no less trouble with his neighbours than any other king in England, whether in matters of raiding to be stopped or tribute to be enforced.

Since I was too old to serve the queen as page any longer I had been of his bodyguard, and where he went was not always the safest place on a field for us who shielded him.
A court is always changing, as men come and go again to their own places after some little service there, but Owen and I were of those to whom the court was home altogether.