"
The which William did, within three years.
"May it be so! But when he came into the king's grace, he must needs
demand me back in his son's name."
"What does Dolfin want with you?"
"His father wants my money, and stipulated for it with the king. And
beside, I suppose I am a pretty plaything enough still."
"You? You are divine, perfect. Dolfin is right. How could a man who had
once enjoyed you live without you?"
Alftruda laughed,--a laugh full of meaning; but what that meaning was,
Hereward could not divine.
"So now," she said, "what Hereward has to do, as a true and courteous
knight, is to give Alftruda safe conduct, and, if he can, a guard; and to
deliver her up loyally and knightly to his old friend and fellow-warrior,
Dolfin Gospatricksson, earl of whatever he can lay hold of for the current
month."
"Are you in earnest?"
Alftruda laughed one of her strange laughs, looking straight before her.
Indeed, she had never looked Hereward in the face during the whole ride.
"What are those open holes? Graves?"
"They are Barnack stone-quarries, which Alfgar my brother gave to
Crowland."
"So? That is pity. I thought they had been graves; and then you might have
covered me up in one of them, and left me to sleep in peace."
"What can I do for you, Alftruda, my old play-fellow: Alftruda, whom I
saved from the bear?"
"If she had foreseen the second monster into whose jaws she was to fall,
she would have prayed you to hold that terrible hand of yours, which never
since, men say, has struck without victory and renown.
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