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Anon she sighed and spake: "My lady Winfrida, on this my wedding night a new life dawns for Mortain and for me, wherein old harms shall be forgiven and forgot, so come kiss me, Winfrida." Then swiftly came the beauteous Winfrida to kneel at her lady's feet, to clasp her lady's slender hand, to kiss it oft and bathe it in her tears. "O sweet my lady, am I indeed forgiven?" "Aye, most truly."
At the close of the Toulouse campaign an incident of some interest occurred in the death of Stephen's son William and the ending of the male line of Stephen's succession. His Norman county of Mortain was at once taken in hand by Henry as an escheated fief, and was not filled again until it was given years afterwards to his youngest son.
But she said, 'I have affronted King Richard through his house. 'Is this all you have to say, Alois? 'No, sire, she told him, with a fierce and biting look at Mortain; 'but it is all I need say now. It was. A cry broke strangling from the Count. 'Ha, Jesus! Sire! Save my brother! The wretch could bear no more. The woman's eyes were like swords. King Philip marvelled.
"Her lover, aye!" quoth he, bitterly, "and she hath a many lovers " "Lovers!" sighed the nun, "that hath she, the sad, sweet soul! Lovers! O forsooth, she is sick of a very surfeit of lovers, so hath she fled from them all!" "Fled from them?" cried Beltane, his wound forgot, "fled from them from Mortain? Nay, how mean you how fled?"
He at once confirmed to his brother John, who had joined him, the grants made or promised him by their father: L4000 worth of land in England, the county of Mortain in Normandy, and the hand and inheritance of the heiress of the Earl of Gloucester.
At last he found himself at the top of the last terrace, right at the top, from which could be seen the immense bay, with its distant towns, sands and pastures. He could no longer escape, and the saint came up behind him and gave him a furious kick, which shot him through space like a cannonball. He shot through the air like a javelin and fell heavily before the town of Mortain.
In crossing the forest of Lande-Pourrie to the south of Tinchebray the army heard mass under a tree from the mouth of Vital, the holy solitary of Neufbourg. Count William was his lord, if one who had renounced the world could be said to have an earthly lord, and he was only in his allegiance if he accompanied the forces of Mortain.
It is common enough in England to find a grand doorway of the twelfth century left in a church where everything else has been rebuilt. Later builders clearly admired them and spared them. Much more would this be the case at Mortain, where the building of the new church must have begun no very long time after the adding of this last finish to the old.
Now Duke Ivo threw out a screen of archers and horsemen to harass the powers of Mortain what time he formed his battle in three great companies, a deep and formidable array of knights and men-at-arms whose tall lances rose, a very forest, with pennons and banderols a-flutter in the gentle wind of morning.
"She hath walked, see you, run ridden is riding away from Mortain, from her lords, her counsellors, her varlets, her lovers and what not in a word, messire, she is gone!" "Gone!" quoth Beltane, breathless and aghast, "gone aye but whither?" "What matter for that so long as her grave counsellors be sufficiently vexed, and her lovers left a-sighing? O me, her counsellors!
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