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But she was an old acquaintance of Alftruda's; she was the king's niece; she was immensely rich, not only in manors of her own, but in manors, as Domesday-book testifies, about Lincolnshire and the counties round, which had belonged to her murdered husband, which she had too probably received as the price of her treason.
And when he opened the letter, and looked first, like a wary man, at the signature, a sudden thrill went through him. It was Alftruda's. If he was interested in her, considering what had passed between them from her childhood, it was nothing to be ashamed of. And yet somehow he felt ashamed of that same sudden thrill. And Hereward had reason to be ashamed.
And there was a something in the tone of Alftruda's last letter which seemed to tell her that the weasel was still upon the scent of its game. But she was too proud to mistrust Hereward, or rather, to seem to mistrust him. And yet how dangerous Alftruda might be as a rival, if rival she choose to be.
But she had long since gauged Alftruda's character, and seen in it a persistence like her own, yet as she proudly hoped of a lower temper; the persistence of the base weasel, not of the noble hound: yet the creeping weasel might endure, and win, when the hound was tired out by his own gallant pace.
A buzz of expectation rose from all the knights, and Alftruda's name was whispered round. She came in, and Hereward saw at the first glance that Gilbert had for once in his life spoken truth. So beautiful a girl he had never beheld; and as she swept down toward him he for one moment forgot Torfrida, and stood spell-bound like the rest. Her eye caught his.
The court-yard was utterly empty: but from the ladies' bower came shrieks and shouts, not only of women, but of men; and knocking at the bower door, adding her screams to those inside, was a little white figure, which Hereward recognized as Alftruda's.
Wherefore, when it befell that once on a day there came riding to Hereward in the Bruneswald a horseman who handed to him a letter, the sight of Alftruda's signature at the end sent a strange thrill through him. There was naught in it that he should not have read it was but to tell him that the French were upon him, the posse comitatus of seven counties were rising, and so forth.
He set to work, joyfully, cheerfully, scenting battle afar off, like Job's war-horse, and pawing for the battle. He sent back Alftruda's messenger, with this answer: "Tell your lady that I kiss her hands and feet. That I cannot write, for outlaws carry no pen and ink. But that what she has commanded, that will I perform." Then he sent out spies to the four airts of heaven.
She shall have her own choice for once, poor child." And Hereward found himself worked up to a great height of paternal solicitude for Alftruda, and righteous indignation against Ascelin. He did not confess to himself that he disliked much, in his selfish vanity, the notion of Alftruda's marrying any one at all. He did not want to marry her himself, of course not.
Alftruda's warning was both timely and true, for anon came Ivo Taillebois, who had taken to wife Hereward's niece Lucia, and Abbot Thorold, of Peterborough, who had an old score to wipe off in connection with Hereward's last visit to his abbey, and Sir Ascelin, his nephew, and many another.
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