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Updated: June 29, 2025
Another thing, a painful thing he had learned from it, too, that the attitude of Joan de Tany, daughter of an old and noble house, was but the attitude which the Outlaw of Torn must expect from any good woman of her class; what he must expect from Bertrade de Montfort when she learned that Roger de Conde was Norman of Torn.
"If thou wilst, thou wilst," cried Mary petulantly. "Indeed it were plain that thou be a De Montfort; that race whose historic bravery be second only to their historic stubbornness." Bertrade de Montfort laughed, and kissed her friend upon the cheek. "Mayhap I shall find the brave Roger de Conde again upon the highroad to protect me.
Yes it must have been a very terrible wound that the little old man of Torn had given him; but why could he not dream that Bertrade de Montfort held him? And then his eyes wandered about among the throng of ladies, nobles and soldiers standing uncovered and with bowed heads about him. Presently he found her. "Bertrade!" he whispered. The girl came and knelt beside him, opposite the Queen.
The outlaw noticed the surprised hesitation of his faithful subaltern and signing him to listen, said: "Red Shandy, Norman of Torn has fought and sacked and pillaged for the love of it, and for a principle which was at best but a vague generality. Tonight we ride to redress a wrong done to My Lady Bertrade de Montfort, and that, Shandy, is a different matter.
Instead, he halted immediately without the little door, which he left a trifle ajar, and there he waited, listening to all that passed between Bertrade de Montfort and Norman of Torn. As he heard the proud daughter of Simon de Montfort declare her love for the Devil of Torn, a cruel smile curled his lip. "It will be better than I had hoped," he muttered, "and easier. 'S blood!
If ever you need him, My Lady Bertrade, remember that his services are yours for the asking." And turning, he mounted and rode in silence from the courtyard of the castle of Leicester. Without a backward glance, and with his five hundred men at his back, Norman of Torn disappeared beyond a turning in the roadway.
Nor did Foulques gain much by his bargain; for Bertrade had no perfection but her beauty, and, in the fourth year of her marriage, abandoned him and her infant son, and went to the court of Philippe I. of France, who had lately grown weary of his queen Bertha, the mother of his four children, and had shut her up in the castle of Montreuil.
Together they rode toward Battel, and as they talked, Norman of Torn grew to like this brave and handsome gentleman. In his heart was no rancor because of the coming marriage of the man to the woman he loved. If Bertrade de Montfort loved this handsome French prince, then Norman of Torn was his friend; for his love was a great love, above jealousy.
All that long night she sat thus, and when morning dawned, it found her position unchanged, her tired eyes still fixed upon the hag. Early in the morning, Peter of Colfax resumed his endeavors to persuade her to come out; he even admitted defeat and promised her safe conduct to her father's castle, but Bertrade de Montfort was not one to be fooled by his lying tongue.
"Who are you," said the gentleman, in French, "that stops a prince of France upon the highroad as though he were an escaped criminal? Are you of the King's forces, or De Montfort's?" "Be this Prince Philip of France?" asked Norman of Torn. "Yes, but who be you?" "And be you riding to meet my Lady Bertrade de Montfort?" continued the outlaw, ignoring the Prince's question.
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