"
"What! Did you want her yourself? On my honor I knew not of it. But have
patience. You shall have her yet, and all her lands, if you will hear my
counsel, and keep it."
"But you would give her to Hereward!"
"And to you too. It is a poor bait, say these frogs of fenmen, that will
not take two pike running. Listen to me. I must kill this Hereward. I hate
him. I cannot eat my meat for thinking of him. Kill him I must."
"And so must I."
"Then we are both agreed. Let us work together, and never mind if one's
blood be old and the other's new. I am neither fool nor weakly, as thou
knowest."
Ascelin could not but assent.
"Then here. We must send the King's message. But we must add to it."
"That is dangerous."
"So is war; so is eating, drinking; so is everything. But we must not let
Hereward come in. We must drive him to despair. Make the messenger add but
one word,--that the king exempts from the amnesty Torfrida, on account
of----You can put it into more scholarly shape than I can."
"On account of her abominable and notorious sorceries; and demands that
she shall be given up forthwith to the ecclesiastical power, to be judged
as she deserves."
"Just so. And then for a load of reeds out of Haddenham fen."
"Heaven forbid!" said Ascelin, who had loved her once.
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