How
Holy Church settled the matter is not said. But that Hereward married
Alftruda, under these very circumstances, may be considered a "historic
fact," being vouched for by Gaimar, and by the Peterborough Chronicler.
And doubtless Holy Church contrived that it should happen without sin, if
it conduced to her own interest.
And little Torfrida--then, it seems, some sixteen years of age--was
married to Hugh of Evermue. She wept and struggled as she was dragged into
the church.
"But I do not want to be married. I want to go back to my mother."
"The diabolic instinct may have descended to her," said the priests, "and
attracts her to the sorceress. We had best sprinkle her with holy water."
So they sprinkled her with holy water, and used exorcisms. Indeed, the
case being an important one, the personages of rank, they brought out from
their treasures the apron of a certain virgin saint, and put it round her
neck, in hopes of driving out the hereditary fiend.
"If I am led with a halter, I must needs go," said she, with one of her
mother's own flashes of wit, and went. "But Lady Alftruda," whispered she,
half-way up the church, "I never loved him."
"Behave yourself before the King, or I will whip you till the blood runs."
And so she would, and no one would have wondered in those days.
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