At last, being puzzled to get that which he wanted, he touched on the
matter of her marriage with Hereward.
She wished it, he said, dissolved. She wished herself to enter religion.
Archbishop Lanfranc would be most happy to sanction so holy a desire, but
there were objections. She was a married woman; and her husband had not
given his consent.
"Let him give it, then."
There were still objections. He had nothing to bring against her, which
could justify the dissolution of the holy bond: unless--"
"Unless I bring some myself?"
"There have been rumors--I say not how true--of magic and sorcery!--"
Torfrida leaped up from her seat, and laughed such a laugh, that the
priest said in after years, it rung through his head as if it had arisen
out of the pit of the lost.
"So that is what you want, Churchman! Then you shall have it. Bring me pen
and ink. I need not to confess to you. You shall read my confession when
it is done. I am a better scribe, mind you, than any clerk between here
and Paris."
She seized the pen and ink, and wrote; not fiercely, as the priest
expected, but slowly and carefully. Then she gave it the priest to read.
"Will that do, Churchman? Will that free my soul, and that of your French
Archbishop?"
And the priest read to himself.
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