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Updated: June 12, 2025
Hereward could hardly eat, drink, sleep, or speak. He answered Torfrida's consolations curtly and angrily, till she betook herself to silent caresses, as to a sick animal. But she loved him all the better for his sullenness; for it showed that his English heart was wakening again, sound and strong. At last news came. He was down, as usual, at the port. A ship had just come in from the northward.
Richilda was Torfrida's friend; so was, still more, the boy Arnoul; which party should he take? Neither, if he could help it. And he longed to be safe out of the land. And at last his time came. Martin Lightfoot ran in, breathless, to tell how the sails of a mighty fleet were visible from the Dunes. "Here?" cried Hereward.
Whereby there had grown up in the hearts of both the man and the maid a curiosity, which easily became the parent of love. But when Baldwin the great Marquis came to St. Omer, to receive the homage of Eustace of Guisnes, young Arnulf had run into Torfrida's chamber in great anxiety. "Would his grandfather approve of what he had done? Would he allow his new friendship with the unknown?"
They left the reliquary with the ladies, and went. "See to this good man, Martin." "That will I, as the apple of my eye." And Hereward went into Torfrida's room. "I have news, news!" "So have I." "Harold Hardraade is slain, and Tosti too!" "Where? how?" "Harold Godwinsson slew them by York." "Brother has slain brother?
It might have been two months afterwards that Martin Lightfoot put a letter into Torfrida's hand. The letter was addressed to Hereward; but there was nothing strange in Martin's bringing it to his mistress. Ever since their marriage, she had opened and generally answered the very few epistles with which her husband was troubled.
But Torfrida's eyes were as dry as her own sackcloth. The priest took the letter back to Winchester, and showed it it may be to Archbishop Lanfranc. But what he said, this chronicler would not dare to say. For he was a very wise man, and a very stanch and strong pillar of the Holy Roman Church.
For Adela of France, the Queen Countess, had heard so much of Torfrida's beauty, that she must needs have her as one of her bower-maidens; and her mother, who was an old friend of Adela's, of course was highly honored by such a promotion for her daughter. So they went to Bruges, and Hereward and his men went of course; and they feasted and harped and sang; and the saying was fulfilled,
But Hereward it was; and regardless of all beholders, she lay upon his neck, and never stirred nor spoke. "I call you to witness, ladies," cried the Queen-Countess, "that I am guiltless. She has given herself to this beggar-man of her own free will. What say you?" And she turned to Torfrida's mother. Torfrida's mother only prayed and whimpered.
It was Torfrida's turn to take off the royal shoes; and she advanced into the middle of the semicircle, slippers in hand. "Stop there!" said the Countess-Queen. Whereat Torfrida stopped, very much frightened. "Countesses and ladies," said the mistress.
It is best, therefore, to interrupt the thread of the story, by some small sketch of the state of England after the battle of Hastings; that so we may, at least, guess at the tenor of Hereward and Torfrida's counsels.
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