“You will do but right. I will send a knight off to the king this day, telling him all, and begging him to send us up a trusty Norman as abbot of Crowland, that we may have one more gentleman in the land fit for our company.”
“You must kill Hereward first. For, as I was going to say, he sent word to me ‘that the monks of Crowland were as the apple of his eye, and Abbot Ulfketyl to him as more than a father; and that if I dared to lay a finger on them or their property, he would cut my head off.’”
“He has promised to cut my head off likewise,” said Ascelin. “Earl, knights, and gentlemen, do you not think it wiser that we should lay our wits together once and for all, and cut off his.”
“But who will catch the Wake sleeping?” said Ivo, laughing.
“That will I. I have my plans, and my intelligencers.”
And so those wicked men took counsel together to slay Hereward.
CHAPTER XLII. — HOW HEREWARD GOT THE BEST OF HIS SOUL’S PRICE.
In those days a messenger came riding post to Bourne. The Countess Judith wished to visit the tomb of her late husband, Earl Waltheof; and asked hospitality on her road of Hereward and Alftruda.