Torfrida

“ He answered not, and Torfrida knew that she had shamed him.
“Have I not sent word that I would see thee when I am cured of this sickness? Better treatment would I receive at the hands of a common man. If thou lovest me let me be till I am whole.”
“If I might but kiss thy lips I will rest me content, sweet lady, till thou art healed.”
“Thou wilt act as a prince only an thou mayest kiss me. Thou wouldst kiss when thou hast not wooed me; surely thou hast a way of wooing of thine own.” ”

“ Yet before long the fire in Torfrida’s great dark eyes seemed to scorch her adversary, she shrank before it, and shrank and shrank till at last she turned and crept back to her book and went in of her own accord, and Torfrida shut the door.
“But,” said Mavis, who had followed her, “don’t you live in the same book?”
Torfrida smiled.
“Not quite,” she said. “That would be impossible. I live in a different edition, where only the Nice People are alive. In hers it is the nasty ones.”
“And where is Hereward?” Cathay asked, before Mavis could stop her. “I do love him, don’t you?” ”

“ And when they had passed down the street, tramping and jingling and caracoling, young Arnulf ran into the house with eyes full of tears, because he was not allowed to go likewise; and with a message for Torfrida, from no other than Hereward.
“I was to tell you this and no more: that if he meets your favor in the field, he that wears it will have hard work to keep it.”
Torfrida turned pale as ashes; first with wild delight, and then with wild fear.
“Ha?—does he know who—Sir Ascelin?”
“He knows well enough. Why not? Every one knows. ”

“ Hereward’s beauty, Hereward’s prowess, Hereward’s songs, Hereward’s strange adventures and wanderings, were forever in the young boy’s mouth; and he spent hours in helping Torfrida to guess who the great unknown might be; and then went back to Hereward, and artlessly told him of his beautiful friend, and how they had talked of him, and of nothing else; and in a week or two Hereward knew all about Torfrida; and Torfrida knew—what filled her heart with joy—that Hereward was bound to no lady-love, and owned (so he had told Arnulf) no mistress save the sword on his thigh. ”

“ But there were relapses, as was natural. The wine at Robert the Frison’s table was often too good; and then Hereward’s tongue was loosed, and Torfrida justly indignant. And one evening there came a very serious relapse, and out of which arose a strange adventure.
For one day the Great Marquis sent for his son to Bruges, ere he set out for another campaign in Holland; and made him a great feast, to which he invited Torfrida and her mother. For Adela of France, the Queen Countess, had heard so much of Torfrida’s beauty, that she must needs have her as one of her bower-maidens ”

“ Had not she, too, spent her life upon a man, and that man a wolf’s-head and a landless outlaw, more utterly than Godiva could ever have spent hers on one who lived lapped in luxury and wealth and power? Torfrida had done her best, and she had failed, or at least fancied in her haste that she had failed. ”

“ So all the women of Ely walked out barefoot to St. Etheldreda’s well, with Torfrida at their head clothed in sackcloth, and with fetters on her wrists and waist and ankles; which she vowed, after the strange, sudden, earnest fashion of those times, never to take off again till she saw the French host flee from Aldreth before the face of St. Etheldreda. So they prayed, while Hereward and his men worked at the forts below. And when they came back, and Torfrida was washing her feet, sore and bleeding from her pilgrimage, Hereward came in. ”

“ And Torfrida threw herself on the ground and clasped and kissed the woman’s feet.
“Nay, rise, sweet girl, for I lack courage for [190] this thing thou askest. I would serve thee if I could for never have I seen any woman so modest and so comely as thou art. Greet no more and have no fear, for the prince is mad for love of thee and will let no harm befall thee, but will wed thee and make thee lady of his house and the queen of all his lands.” ”

“ Hereward saw within rich dresses hung on perches round the wall, and chests barred and padlocked.
“These are treasures,” said she, “which many a knight and nobleman has coveted. By cunning, by flattery, by threats of force even, have they tried to win what lies here,—and Torfrida herself, too, for the sake of her wealth. But thanks to the Abbot my uncle, Torfrida is still her own mistress, and mistress of the wealth which her forefathers won by sea and land far away in the East. ”

“ She is singing, somewhat more like an angel than a fiend, I will say for her.”
And Torfrida’s bold song, coming clear and sweet across the water, rose louder and shriller till it almost drowned the jabbering of the witch.
“She sees more there than we do.”
“I see it!” cried William, smiting his hand upon his thigh. “Par le splendeur Dex! She has been showing them where to fire the reeds; and they have done it!”
A puff of smoke; a wisp of flame; and then another and another; and a canoe shot out from the reeds on the French shore, and glided into the reeds of the island. ”

“ The discovery of Hereward’s rank did not, doubtless, lessen Torfrida’s fancy for him. She was ambitious enough, and proud enough of her own lineage, to be full glad that her heart had strayed away—as it must needs stray somewhere—to the son of the third greatest man in England. As for his being an outlaw, that mattered little. He might be inlawed, and rich and powerful, any day in those uncertain, topsy-turvy times; and, for the present, his being a wolf’s head only made him the more interesting to her. Women like to pity their lovers. ”

“ Right across the road to Ely!”
Hereward grew Berserk. “On! men!” shouted he, “we shall kill a few Frenchmen apiece before we die!”
“Hereward,” cried Torfrida, “you shall not go on! If you go, I shall be taken. And if I am taken, I shall be burned. And I cannot burn,—I cannot! I shall go mad with terror before I come to the stake. I cannot go stript to my smock before those Frenchmen. I cannot be roasted piecemeal! Hereward, take me away! Take me away! or kill me, now and here!”
He paused. He had never seen Torfrida thus overcome.
“Let us flee! The stars are against us. ”

“ They laid the corpse within the barge, and slowly rowed away.
And on by Porsad and by Asendyke, By winding reaches on, and shining meres Between gray reed-ronds and green alder-beds, A dirge of monks and wail of women rose In vain to Heaven for the last Englishman; Then died far off within the boundless mist, And left the Norman master of the land.
So Torfrida took the corpse home to Crowland, and buried it in the choir, near the blessed martyr St. Waltheof; after which she did not die, but lived on many years, [Footnote: If Ingulf can be trusted, Torfrida died about A.D. 1085.] ”

“ Then up started Osbert. “Hear me, king Sigmund. Thou hast promised the lady Torfrida to be my wife, and I will in no wise release thee from thy bond given; but an thou deniest it my men shall enter and slay all within, for they are many while thy men are scattered abroad, and the many will conquer, how strong soever this madman thinketh himself.” ”

“ At length it fell one evening that king Sigmund asked for his daughter, and her maidens could not find her; high and low they looked, but in vain, till at nightfall she returned, and Sigmund asked whither she had been, and Torfrida blushed and at length told the king her father, and he was much angered.
“So thou hast been holding tryst with thy father’s foe, and thou a Christian!”
Then Torfrida wept and asked forgiveness.
“Nay, I cannot forgive thee till thou hast broken this bond with young Feargus. The Christian may not wed with the worshipper of false gods. ”

“ I foresaw it, foretold it, I believe to Alftruda herself,—foretold that he would not keep his bought earldom three years. What a people we are, we English, if Gospatrick is,—as he is,—the shrewdest man among us, with a dash of canny Scots blood too. ‘Among the one-eyed, the blind is king,’ says Torfrida, out of her wise ancients, and blind we are, if he is our best. No. There is one better man left I trust, one that will never be fool enough to put his head into the wolf’s mouth, and trust the Norman, and that is Hereward the outlaw. ”

“ Then Feargus, seeing himself outdone, started before Torfrida and drew his sword.
“Hark, thou traitor,” said he, “an thou or thy warriors lay but a hand on the damsel, neither thou nor they shall leave this hall if but king Sigmund will grant me fair field and ye will meet me man after man. And even if Sigmund hath lost his soldiership, then may I call myself one that can raise a death pile in this hall, such as men will tell of in the days to come, even though the lady Torfrida and I lie sword-stricken atop of it. And not the last to bite the dust shalt thou be, O Osbert! ”

“ Why an he denies me love he may take it, for without Torfrida life were of little worth. Now shall I break that oath though all the world henceforth call me liar and traitor. Alas! I that never broke oath or promise—I who have served my master, and fought against Christ rather than desert my king and so break the oath I swore to him and my father. Alas! that I should have seen the day; it were better to die, and yet will I not die, so long as Torfrida lives, but will even now see her. Come, sword, thou wilt [50] carve a way to men’s hearts, whether thy master be traitor or true. ”

“ Now we have seen that Torfrida had been much about the hall of Penda, for the old warrior loved the little maiden, and felt his hearth brighter for her presence; but when Sigmund withheld from Penda in his war on king Anna of East Anglia, Torfrida was denied king Penda’s halls and great sorrow fell upon Feargus. For the youth now learned that he loved the damsel, now when he dare no longer make it known to Penda or to herself; for the king had said that he must not enter Sigmund’s land; so Feargus went forth to the fight heavy-hearted. ”

“ On a day it chanced that they were riding by the outskirts of the town of Nottingham, where they were then staying, when Torfrida saw a group of youths gathered round some object which they hardly wotted whether to call man or beast, so huge and hairy was it.
“See,” said she, “what have we here—what manner of beast is this? Mercy, it is a man!”
“What else is there that hath shape like to that of man?”
“Nay, but never saw I man like this one. Of a surety, prince, he must be mad—but see, these lads will kill him.”
“Tut! the killing of him will be little loss; but ha! ha! ha! ”

“ And presently the old tire-woman came in and when she saw her she wept. “Then she hath beaten thee, poor child. No wonder the king cannot live with so great a brute!” And she washed the blood from Torfrida’s nose and mouth and kissed her and put cold bandages round her head. “Ah, thou wert foolish not to give way as I told thee and wed the prince without ado, for he [193] will defend thee from her, and I will wait upon thee and love thee, for I have nothing else to love.” ”

“ And the king swore and all the warriors were witness thereof. Then Torfrida passed out, and Feargus as he followed bent and picked up the sword of the captain of Osbert’s host and handed it to him saying: “Thou wert ever a true man. I little liked to have blows with thee or to put thee to shame, but no worship hast thou lost, for never man but had his better.” ”

“ And at the end of a month they came to her for an answer, and she said: “Never will I break my troth with Feargus, or wed other, Christian or heathen, for that I love him; and where love is, God will not and man may not come between; if he is infidel, will he not surely need a Christian to wife the more?”
And there was anger between Sigmund and Torfrida, for he was wishful that she should strengthen his hands by wedding a Christian king. So Torfrida sent her brother Edwy secretly to meet Feargus at their tryst, to bid him beware, and Feargus turned homewards heavy-hearted. ”

“ Then Torfrida ran round the room to see whether there were any hope of escape, but the windows were small and set high up on the walls, and across them were stout iron bars. Now she saw that the walls were built of huge logs of wood and were of great thickness, and from the windows were hangings of heavy tapestry. In the wide chimney upon a stone slab fixed into the earth floor burnt a fire of wood. Torfrida drew forth a burning faggot and then stepped to the windows and set the hangings alight, then she ran to the tapestry on the walls and did the like. ”

“ Hereward was to come to Winchester. She had the King’s writ for his safety ready to send to him. The King would receive him as his liegeman. Alftruda would receive him as her husband. Archbishop Lanfranc had made difficulties about the dissolution of the marriage with Torfrida: but gold would do all things at Rome; and Lanfranc was her very good friend, and a reasonable man,—and so forth.
Men, and beasts likewise, when stricken with a mortal wound, will run, and run on, blindly, aimless, impelled by the mere instinct of escape from intolerable agony. And so did Torfrida. ”

“ All this the wild man had seen as he lay in a bush hard by, armed with Osbert’s sword of finest steel, but when the robber chief laid hand on Torfrida’s bridle he quickly uprose, and bounding to the side of the robber clove him to the chin. One of the others then lifted his horn to call his companions, but the wild man dashed the horn from his hand and crushed it underfoot, and then suddenly stooping, seized him by the middle and hurled him strongly from him, so that he lighted on his head and broke his neck and lay dead before them. ”

“ I cannot be always queen. You must be king sometimes.”
Torfrida did not say that this latter offer had been a much sorer temptation than the former.
“And has not the base-born Frenchman enough knights of his own, that he needs the help of an outlaw like me?”
“He asks for help from all the ends of the earth. He has sent that Lanfranc to the Pope; and there is talk of a sacred banner, and a crusade against England.”
“The monks are with him, then?” said Hereward. “That is one more count in their score. But I am no monk. ”