'Courage, m'amie!' he said, mistaking the cause of her hesitation.
'My courage fails not, Ralph,' she answered. 'I had held thy castle while a man would obey my orders and stand to the walls, even hadst thou been dead, as they tried to make me believe. How then should I quail to hold it for thee living? I do but mourn that we must part again.'
And again Ralph took her face between his palms and kissed it.
Meanwhile Lanfranc, the Primate, sat writing in his closet; a satisfied smile hovered round the corners of his mobile lips and lighted up the depths of his gleaming Southern eyes. A monk stood waiting to receive the letter.
It ran thus:—
'To his lord, William, King of the English, his faithful Lanfranc sends his faithful service and faithful prayers. Gladly would we see you, as an angel of God, but we are unwilling that you should take the trouble of crossing the sea at this particular juncture. For if you were to come to put down these traitors and robbers, you would do us dishonour. Rodulph the Count, or rather the traitor, and his whole army have been routed, and ours, with a great body of Normans and Saxons, are in pursuit. Our leaders inform me that in a few days they will drive these perjured wretches into the sea, or capture them dead or alive. The details I send you by this monk, who may be trusted, as he has done fealty to me. May God Almighty bless you.'[ [6]
The details which Lanfranc's messenger had to give of the defeat of the Earl of East Anglia, or, as the prelate styled him, Rodulph the Count, we already know.
Turning to the monk, the archbishop said, 'Regarding the base uprising favoured and headed by our lord-king's cousin, Roger, Earl of Hereford, the tidings are of like good savour. Inform our liege that the English prelates, Bishop Wulfstan and Abbot Æthelwig, in union with Urse, Sheriff of Worcestershire, have hindered the traitor from passing the Severn, and have taken the earl himself prisoner, whereon we pray our liege heartily to make known his wishes how we may best dispose of this haught prisoner.
'Forget not to repeat likewise the stratagem by which the Count Rodulph's men deceived us, so that we made not his body secure, and know not certainly if he be dead or alive.'