“I have always heard,” said he, bowing, “that if the Lady Gyda had been born a man, England would have had another all-seeing and all-daring statesman, and Earl Godwin a rival, instead of a helpmate. Now I believe what I have heard.”
But Torfrida looked sadly at the Countess. There was something pitiable in the sight of a woman ruined, bereaved, seemingly hopeless, portioning out the very land from which she was a fugitive; unable to restrain the passion for intrigue, which had been the toil and the bane of her sad and splendid life.
“And now,” she went on, “surely some kind saint brought me, even on my first landing, to you of all living men.”
“Doubtless the blessed St. Bertin, beneath whose shadow we repose here in peace,” said Hereward, somewhat dryly.
“I will go barefoot to his altar to-morrow, and offer my last jewel,” said Gunhilda.
“You,” said Gyda, without noticing her daughter, “are, above all men, the man who is needed.” And she began praising Hereward’s valor, his fame, his eloquence, his skill as a general and engineer; and when he suggested, smiling, that he was an exile and an outlaw, she insisted that he was all the fitter from that very fact. He had no enemies among the nobles. He had been mixed up in none of the civil wars and blood feuds of the last fifteen years. He was known only as that which he was, the ablest captain of his day,--the only man who could cope with William, the only man whom all parties in England would alike obey.
And so, with flattery as well as with truth, she persuaded, if not Hereward, at least Torfrida, that he was the man destined to free England once more; and that an earldom--anything which he chose to ask--would be the sure reward of his assistance.
“Torfrida,” said Hereward that night, “kiss me well; for you will not kiss me again for a while.”
“Alone. I and Martin to spy out the land; and a dozen or so of housecarles to take care of the ship in harbor.”
“But you have promised to fight the Viscount of Pinkney.”
“I will be back again in time for him. Not a word,--I must go to England, or go mad.”
“But Countess Gyda? Who will squire her to Bruges?”
“You, and the rest of my men. You must tell her all. She has a woman’s heart, and will understand. And tell Baldwin I shall be back within the month, if I am alive on land or water.”