Hereward, the Last of the English Part 27

"He must be left behind, commanding the army," thought she. "But he might have sent one word!"

There was a great feast that day, of course; and Torfrida sat thereat: but she could not eat. Nevertheless she was too proud to let the knights know what was in her heart; so she chatted and laughed as gayly as the rest, watching always for any word of Hereward. But none mentioned his name.

The feast was long; the ladies did not rise till nigh bedtime; and then the men drank on.

They went up to the Queen-Countess's chamber; where a solemn undressing of that royal lady usually took place.

The etiquette was this. The Queen-Countess sat in her chair of state in the midst, till her shoes were taken off, and her hair dressed for the night. Right and left of her, according to their degrees, sat the other great ladies; and behind each of them, where they could find places, the maidens.

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. "There are, in Provence and the South, what I wish there were here in Flanders,--Courts of Love, at which all offenders against the sacred laws of Venus and Cupid are tried by an a.s.sembly of their peers, and punished according to their deserts."

Torfrida turned scarlet.

"I know not why we, countesses and ladies, should have less knowledge of the laws of love than those gayer dames of the South, whose blood runs--to judge by her dark hair--in the veins of yon fair maid."

There was a silence. Torfrida was the most beautiful woman in the room; more beautiful than even Richilda the terrible: and therefore there were few but were glad to see her--as it seemed--in trouble.

Torfrida's mother began whimpering, and praying to six or seven saints at once. But n.o.body marked her,--possibly not even the saints; being preoccupied with Torfrida.

"I hear, fair maid,--for that you are that I will do you the justice to confess,--that you are old enough to be married this four years since."

Torfrida stood like a stone, frightened out of her wits, plentiful as they were.

"Why are you not married?"

There was, of course, no answer.

"I hear that knights have fought for you; lost their lives for you."

"I did not bid them," gasped Torfrida, longing that the floor would open, and swallow up the Queen-Countess and all her kin and followers, as it did for the enemies of the blessed Saint Dunstan, while he was arguing with them in an upper room at Calne.

"And that the knight of St. Valeri, to whom you gave your favor, now lies languis.h.i.+ng of wounds got in your cause."

"I--I did not bid him fight," gasped Torfrida, now wis.h.i.+ng that the floor would open and swallow up herself.

"And that he who overthrew the knight of St. Valeri,--to whom you gave that favor, and more--"

"I gave him nothing a maiden might not give," cried Torfrida, so fiercely that the Queen-Countess recoiled somewhat.

"I never said that you did, girl. Your love you gave him. Can you deny that?"

Torfrida laughed bitterly: her Southern blood was rising.

"I put my love out to nurse, instead of weaning it, as many a maiden has done before me. When my love cried for hunger and cold, I took it back again to my own bosom: and whether it has lived or died there, is no one's matter but my own."

"Hunger and cold? I hear that him to whom you gave your love you drove out to the cold, bidding him go fight in his bare s.h.i.+rt, if he wished to win your love."

"I did not. He angered me--he--" and Torfrida found herself in the act of accusing Hereward.

She stopped instantly.

"What more, Majesty? If this be true, what more may not be true of such a one as I? I submit myself to your royal grace."

"She has confessed. What punishment, ladies, does she deserve? Or, rather, what punishment would her cousins of Provence inflict, did we send her southward, to be judged by their Courts of Love?"

One lady said one thing, one another. Some spoke cruelly, some worse than cruelly; for they were coa.r.s.e ages, the ages of faith; and ladies said things then in open company which gentlemen would be ashamed to say in private now.

"Marry her to a fool," said Richilda, at last, bitterly.

"That is too common a misfortune," answered the lady of France. "If we did no more to her, she might grow as proud as her betters."

Adela knew that her daughter-in-law considered her husband a fool; and was somewhat of the same opinion, though she hated Richilda.

"No," said she; "we will do more. We will marry her to the first man who enters the castle."

Torfrida looked at her mistress to see if she were mad. But the Countess-Queen was serene and sane. Then Torfrida's southern heat and northern courage burst forth.

"You--marry--me--to--" said she, slowly, with eyes so fierce, and lips so vivid, that Richilda herself quailed.

There was a noise of shouting and laughing in the court below, which made all turn and listen.

The next moment a serving-man came in, puzzled and inclined to laugh.

"May it please your Majesty, here is the strangest adventure. There is ridden into the castle-yard a beggar-man, with scarce a s.h.i.+rt to his back, on a great ugly mare, with a foal running by her, and a fool behind him, carrying lance and s.h.i.+eld. And he says that he is come to fight any knight of the Court, ragged as he stands, for the fairest lady in the Court, be she who she may, if she have not a wedded husband already."

"And what says my Lord Marquis?"

"That it is a fair challenge, and a good adventure; and that fight he shall, if any man will answer his defiance."

"And I say, tell my Lord the Marquis, that fight he shall not: for he shall have the fairest maiden in this Court for the trouble of carrying her away; and that I, Adela of France, will give her to him. So let that beggar dismount, and be brought up hither to me."

There was silence again. Torfrida looked round her once more, to see whether or not she was dreaming, and whether there was one human being to whom she could appeal. Her mother sat praying and weeping in a corner.

Torfrida looked at her with one glance of scorn, which she confessed and repented, with bitter tears, many a year after, in a foreign land; and then turned to bay with the spirit of her old Paladin ancestor, who choked the Emir at Mont Majeur.

Married to a beggar! It was a strange accident; and an ugly one; and a great cruelty and wrong. But it was not impossible, hardly improbable, in days when the caprice of the strong created accidents, and when cruelty and wrong went for nothing, even with very kindly honest folk. So Torfrida faced the danger, as she would have faced that of a kicking horse, or a flooded ford; and like the nut-brown bride,

"She pulled out a little penknife, That was both keen and sharp."

and considered that the beggar-man could wear no armor, and that she wore none either. For if she succeeded in slaying that beggar-man, she might need to slay herself after, to avoid being--according to the fas.h.i.+on of those days--burnt alive.

So when the arras was drawn back, and that beggar-man came into the room, instead of shrieking, fainting, hiding, or turning, she made three steps straight toward him, looking him in the face like a wild-cat at bay. Then she threw up her arms; and fell upon his neck.