Hereward was terrified. If defections once began, they would be endless. The camp would fall to pieces, and every man among them would be hanged, mutilated, or imprisoned, one by one, helplessly. They must stand or fall together.
He went raging to Morcar. Morcar knew naught of it. On the faith and honor of a knight, he knew naught. Only his brother had said to him a day or two before, that he must see his betrothed before he died.
“He is gone to William, then? Does he think to win her now,—an outcast and a beggar,—when he was refused her with broad lands and a thousand men at his back? Fool! See that thou play not the fool likewise, nephew, or—”
“Or what?” said Morcar, defiantly.
“Or thou wilt go, whither Edwin is gone,—to betrayal and ruin.”
“Why so? He has been kind enough to Waltheof and Gospatrick, why not to Edwin?”
“Because,” laughed Hereward, “he wanted Waltheof, and he does not want you and Edwin. He can keep Mercia quiet without your help. Northumbria and the Fens he cannot without Waltheof’s. They are a rougher set as you go east and north, as you should know already, and must have one of themselves over them to keep them in good humor for a while. When he has used Waltheof as his stalking-horse long enough to build a castle every ten miles, he will throw him away like a worn bowstring, Earl Morcar, nephew mine.”
Morcar shook his head.
In a week more he was gone likewise. He came to William at Brandon.
“You are come in at last, young earl?” said William, sternly. “You are come too late.”