Let them come up in peace."
Taillebois growled and cursed: but the monks came up, and into the hall;
and at their head Ingulf himself, to receive whom all men rose, save
Taillebois.
"I come," said Ingulf, in most courtly French, "noble knights, to ask a
boon and in the name of the Most Merciful, on behalf of a noble and
unhappy lady. Let it be enough to have avenged yourself on the living.
Gentlemen and Christians war not against the dead."
"No, no, Master Abbot!" shouted Taillebois; "Waltheof is enough to keep
Crowland in miracles for the present. You shall not make a martyr of
another Saxon churl. He wants the barbarian's body, knights, and you will
be fools if you let him have it."
"Churl? barbarian?" said a haughty voice; and a nun stepped forward who
had stood just behind Ingulf. She was clothed entirely in black. Her bare
feet were bleeding from the stones; her hand, as she lifted it, was as
thin as a skeleton's.
She threw back her veil, and showed to the knights what had been once the
famous beauty of Torfrida.
But the beauty was long past away. Her hair was white as snow; her cheeks
were fallen in. Her hawk-like features were all sharp and hard. Only in
their hollow sockets burned still the great black eyes, so fiercely that
all men turned uneasily from her gaze.
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