So they sent a monk in with the message, and commanded him to tell the article about the Lady Torfrida, not only to Hereward, but to the abbot and all the monks.
A curt and fierce answer came back, not from Hereward, but from Torfrida herself,—that William of Normandy was no knight himself, or he would not offer a knight his life, on condition of burning his lady.
William swore horribly. “What is all this about?” They told him—as much as they chose to tell him. He was very wroth. “Who was Ivo Taillebois, to add to his message? He had said that Torfrida should not burn.” Taillebois was stout; for he had won the secretary over to his side meanwhile. He had said nothing about burning. He had merely supplied an oversight of the king’s. The woman, as the secretary knew, could not, with all deference to his Majesty, be included in an amnesty. She was liable to ecclesiastical censure, and the ecclesiastical courts. William might exercise his influence on them in all lawful ways, and more, remit her sentence, even so far as to pardon her entirely, if his merciful temper should so incline him. But meanwhile, what better could he, Ivo, have done, than to remind the monks of Ely that she was a sorceress; that she had committed grave crimes, and was liable to punishment herself, and they to punishment also, as her shelterers and accomplices? What he wanted was to bring over the monks; and he believed that message had been a good stroke toward that. As for Hereward, the king need not think of him. He never would come in alive. He had sworn an oath, and he would keep it.
And so the matter ended.
CHAPTER XXXIII. — HOW THE MONKS OF ELY DID AFTER THEIR KIND.
William’s bolt, or rather inextinguishable Greek fire, could not have fallen into Ely at a more propitious moment.
Hereward was away, with a large body of men, and many ships, foraging in the northeastern fens. He might not be back for a week.
Abbot Thurstan—for what cause is not said—had lost heart a little while before, and fled to “Angerhale, taking with him the ornaments and treasure of the church.”