“I did not bid them,” gasped Torfrida, longing that the floor would open, and swallow up the Queen-Countess and all her kin and followers, as it did for the enemies of the blessed Saint Dunstan, while he was arguing with them in an upper room at Calne.
“And that the knight of St. Valeri, to whom you gave your favor, now lies languishing of wounds got in your cause.”
“I—I did not bid him fight,” gasped Torfrida, now wishing that the floor would open and swallow up herself.
“And that he who overthrew the knight of St. Valeri,—to whom you gave that favor, and more—”
“I gave him nothing a maiden might not give,” cried Torfrida, so fiercely that the Queen-Countess recoiled somewhat.
“I never said that you did, girl. Your love you gave him. Can you deny that?”
Torfrida laughed bitterly: her Southern blood was rising.
“I put my love out to nurse, instead of weaning it, as many a maiden has done before me. When my love cried for hunger and cold, I took it back again to my own bosom: and whether it has lived or died there, is no one’s matter but my own.”
“Hunger and cold? I hear that him to whom you gave your love you drove out to the cold, bidding him go fight in his bare shirt, if he wished to win your love.”
“I did not. He angered me—he—” and Torfrida found herself in the act of accusing Hereward.