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Updated: June 29, 2025
The great beasts of her pursuers, bred in Normandy and Flanders, might have been tethered in their stalls for all the chance they had of overtaking the flying white steed that fairly split the gray rain as lightning flies through the clouds. But for the fiendish cunning of the little grim, gray man's foresight, Bertrade de Montfort would have made good her escape that day.
Half an hour later, a servant in the castle of Battel handed the missive to the daughter of Leicester as she sat alone in her apartment. Opening it, she read: To Lady Bertrade de Montfort, from her friend, Norman of Torn. Two years have passed since you took the hand of the Outlaw of Torn in friendship, and now he comes to sue for another favor.
"Who takes the man Bertrade de Montfort loves must take Philip of France as well." Norman of Torn laid his left hand upon the other's shoulder. "No, thou must not do this thing, my friend," he said. "It be my fight and I will fight it alone. Go, I beg of thee, and take her with thee, out of harm's way."
You know nothing of me, you do not know even who I be; but when next I come, I promise that ye shall know as much of me as I myself know, and then, Bertrade, my Bertrade, if you can then say, 'I love you' no power on earth, or in heaven above, or hell below shall keep you from being mine!" "I will wait, Roger, for I believe in you and trust you.
But the unhappy affair had taught him one thing for certain: to know without question what love was, and that the memory of Bertrade de Montfort's lips would always be more to him than all the allurements possessed by the balance of the women of the world, no matter how charming, or how beautiful.
Norman of Torn turned to a flickering torch and, breaking the seals, read the message from the woman he loved. It was short and simple. To Norman of Torn, from his friend always, Bertrade de Montfort. Come with Giles. He has my instructions to lead thee secretly to where I be. Bertrade de Montfort.
"Why refused you the offer of my father?" said Bertrade to him as he was come to bid her farewell. "Simon de Montfort is as great a man in England as the King himself, and your future were assured did you attach your self to his person. But what am I saying!
In those few brief moments of bewilderment and indecision, it seemed to Bertrade de Montfort that ten years passed above her head, and when she reached her final resolution she was no longer a young girl but a grown woman who, with the weight of a mature deliberation, had chosen the path which she would travel to the end to the final goal, however sweet or however bitter.
He did not address Bertrade de Montfort until the door had closed behind the little grim, gray man who wore the armor of the dead Flory and then Norman of Torn advanced to the table and stood with his left hand ungauntleted, resting upon the table's edge. "My Lady Bertrade," he said at last, "I have come to fulfill a promise." He spoke in French, and she started slightly at his voice.
Was he dreaming this thing, only to awaken to the cold and awful truth! But these warm arms about his neck, the sweet perfume of the breath that fanned his cheek; these were no dream! "Think thee what thou art saying, Bertrade?" he cried. "Dost forget that I be a low-born knave, knowing not my own mother and questioning even the identity of my father?
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