Hereward, the Last of the English Part 29

"And his will be a short one. William of Normandy has sworn to drive him out."

"Then he will do it. And so the poor little Swan-neck is packed into a convent, that the houses of G.o.dwin and Leofric may rush into each other's arms, and perish together! Fools, fools, fools! I will hear no more of such a mad world. My queen, tell me about your sweet self. What is all this to me? Am I not a wolf's head, and a landless man?"

"O my king, have not the stars told me that you will be an earl and a ruler of men, when all your foes are wolves' heads as you are now? And the weird is coming true already. Tosti G.o.dwinsson is in the town at this moment, an outlaw and a wolf's head himself."

Hereward laughed a great laugh.

"Aha! Every man to his right place at last. Tell me about that, for it will amuse me. I have heard naught of him since he sent the king his Hereford thralls' arms and legs in the pickle-barrels; to show him, he said, that there was plenty of cold meat on his royal demesnes."

"You have not heard, then, how he murdered in his own chamber at York, Gamel Ormsson and Ulf Dolfinsson?"

"That poor little lad? Well, a gracious youth was Tosti, ever since he went to kill his brother Harold with teeth and claws, like a wolf; and as he grows in years, he grows in grace. But what said Ulf's father and the Gospatricks?"

"Dolfin and young Gospatrick were I know not where. But old Gospatrick came down to Westminster, to demand law for his grandnephew's blood."

"A silly thing of the old Thane, to walk into the wolf's den."

"And so he found. He was stabbed there, three days after Christmas-tide, and men say that Queen Edith did it, for love of Tosti, her brother. Then Dolfin and young Gospatrick took to the sea, and away to Scotland: and so Tosti rid himself of all the good blood in the North, except young Waltheof Siwardsson, whose turn, I fear, will come next."

"How comes he here, then?"

"The Northern men rose at that, killed his servant at York, took all his treasures, and marched down to Northampton, plundering and burning. They would have marched on London town, if Harold had not met them there from the king. There they cried out against Tosti, and all his taxes, and his murders, and his changing Canute's laws, and would have young Morcar for their earl. A tyrant they would not endure. Free they were born and bred, they said, and free they would live and die. Harold must needs do justice, even on his own brother."

"Especially when he knows that that brother is his worst foe."

"Harold is a better man than you take him for, my Hereward. But be that as it may, Morcar is earl, and Tosti outlawed, and here in St. Omer, with wife and child."

"My nephew Earl of Northumbria! As I might have been, if I had been a wiser man."

"If you had, you would never have found me."

"True, my queen! They say Heaven tempers the wind to the shorn lamb; but it tempers it too, sometimes, to the hobbled a.s.s; and so it has done by me. And so the rogues have fallen out, and honest men may come by their own. For, as the Northern men have done by one brother, so will the Eastern men do by the other. Let Harold see how many of those fat Lincolns.h.i.+re manors, which he has seized into his own hands, he holds by this day twelve months. But what is all this to me, my queen, while you and I can kiss, and laugh the world to scorn?"

"This to you, beloved, that, great as you are, Torfrida must have you greater still; and out of all this coil and confusion you may win something, if you be wise."

"Sweet lips, be still, and let us love instead of plotting."

"And this, too--you shall not stop my mouth--that Harold G.o.dwinsson has sent a letter to you."

"Harold G.o.dwinsson is my very good lord," sneered Hereward.

"And this it said, with such praises and courtesies concerning you, as made thy wife's heart beat high with pride: 'If Hereward Leofricsson will come home to England, he shall have his rights in law again, and his manors in Lincolns.h.i.+re, and a thanes-s.h.i.+p in East Anglia, and manors for his men-at-arms; and if that be not enough, he shall have an earldom, as soon as there is one to give.'"

"And what says to that, Torfrida, Hereward's queen?"

"You will not be angry if I answered the letter for you?"

"If you answered it one way,--no. If another,--yes."

Torfrida trembled. Then she looked Hereward full in the face with her keen clear eyes.

"Now shall I see whether I have given myself to Hereward in vain, body and soul, or whether I have trained him to be my true and perfect knight."

"You answered, then," said Hereward, "thus--"

"Say on," said she, turning her face away again.

"Hereward Leofricsson tells Harold G.o.dwinsson that he is his equal, and not his man; and that he will never put his hands between the hands of a son of G.o.dwin. An Etheling born, a king of the house of Cerdic, outlawed him from his right, and none but an Etheling born shall give him his right again."

"I said it, I said it. Those were my very words!" and Torfrida burst into tears, while Hereward kissed her, almost fawned upon her, calling her his queen, his saga-wife, his guardian angel.

"I was sorely tempted," sobbed she. "Sorely. To see you, rich and proud, upon your own lands, an earl may be,--may be, I thought at whiles, a king.

But it could not be. It did not stand with honor, my hero,--not with honor."

"Not with honor. Get me gay garments out of the chest, and let us go in royally, and royally feast my jolly riders."

"Stay awhile," said she, kissing his head as she combed and curled his long golden locks; and her own raven ones, hardly more beautiful, fell over them and mingled with them. "Stay awhile, my pride. There is another spell in the wind, stirred up by devil or witch-wife, and it comes from Tosti G.o.dwinsson."

"Tosti, the cold-meat butcher? What has he to say to me?"

"This,--'If Hereward will come with me to William of Normandy, and help us against Harold, the perjured, then will William do for him all that Harold would have done, and more beside.'"

"And what answered Torfrida?"

"It was not so said to me that I could answer. I had it by a side-wind, through the Countess Judith." [Footnote: Tosti's wife, Earl Baldwin's daughter, sister of Matilda, William the Conqueror's wife.]

"And she had it from her sister, Matilda."

"And she, of course, from Duke William himself."

"And what would you have answered, if you had answered, pretty one?"

"Nay, I know not. 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. I have shorn many a crown, but I have kept my own hair as yet, you see."

"I do see," said she, playing with his locks. "But,--but he wants you. He has sent for Angevins, Poitevins, Bretons, Flemings,--promising lands, rank, money, what not. Tosti is recruiting for him here in Flanders now.

He will soon be off to the Orkneys, I suspect, or to Sweyn in Denmark, after Vikings."

"Here? Has Baldwin promised him men?"

"What could the good old man do? He could not refuse his own son-in-law.

This, at least, I know, that a messenger has gone off to Scotland, to Gilbert of Ghent, to bring or send any bold Flemings who may prefer fat England to lean Scotland."