“And why not answer the tanner as he deserves?”
“Because my art, and my heart too, tells me that your fortunes and his are linked together. I have studied my tables, but they would not answer. Then I cast lots in Virgilius--”
“And what found you there?” asked he, anxiously.
‘Pacem me exanimis et Martis sorte peremptis Oratis? Equidem et vivis concedere vellem.’”
“That you may have to pray him to pity the slain; and have for answer, that their lands may be yours if you will but make peace with him. At least, do not break hopelessly with that man. Above all, never use that word concerning him which you used just now; the word which he never forgives. Remember what he did to them of Alençon, when they hung raw hides over the wall, and cried, ‘Plenty of work for the tanner!’”
“Let him pick out the prisoners’ eyes, and chop off their hands, and shoot them into the town from mangonels,--he must go far and thrive well ere I give him a chance of doing that by me.”
“Hereward, Hereward, my own! Boast not, but fear God. Who knows, in such a world as this, to what end we may come? Night after night I am haunted with spectres, eyeless, handless--”
“This is cold comfort for a man just out of hard fighting in the ague-fens!”
She threw her arms round him, and held him as if she would never let him go.
“When you die, I die. And you will not die: you will be great and glorious, and your name will be sung by scald and minstrel through many a land, far and wide. Only be not rash. Be not high-minded. Promise me to answer this man wisely. The more crafty he is, the more crafty must you be likewise.”
“Let us tell this mighty hero, then,” said Hereward,--trying to laugh away her fears, and perhaps his own,--“that while he has the Holy Father on his side, he can need no help from a poor sinful worm like me.”
“Why, is there aught about hides in that?”
“I want,--I want an answer which may not cut off all hope in case of the worst.”
“Then let us say boldly, ‘On the day that William is King of all England, Hereward will come and put his hands between his, and be his man.’”
That message was sent to William at Rouen. He laughed,--
“It is a fair challenge from a valiant man. The day shall come when I will claim it.”