With a moan like that of a wounded bull, the son of Siward cast the grand-daughter of Robert the Devil from him, and, covering his face with his hands, threw himself back on his couch in an agony of thwarted and impotent rage.
'Hadst thou been a man!' he muttered,—'hadst thou been a man, that I could do battle with thee hand to hand!'
'Had I been a man, Waltheof,' said Judith softly kneeling on one knee beside her prostrate warrior,—'had I been a man, Waltheof, I had not been here to save thee, and thy country, and thy people from the consequences of thy drunken folly. Holy Mary be praised that made me a woman! Waltheof, what is thy love for thy people, if thou wouldst plunge them again in blood and fire for the vain hope of satisfying an impossible ambition? Was not the harrying of Northumberland enough, that thou wouldst have the whole country ravaged from north to south?'
No man of many words was the hero of York, and his only reply to this eloquent appeal was to mutter an occasional curse in his beard, nor did he raise his face from the pillows among which he had plunged it.
'I tell thee,' Judith went on, 'William would harry the land from York to Hastings, as he harried it from Durham to York, rather than lose it from his grip. And thinkest thou that he whom Harold Godwinsson could not baulk nor drive from the land ere one Norman castle or stronghold was built in it, though he had the full force of the Saxon chivalry at his back, could be so easily ousted from the saddle into which he has climbed, now the most part of the nation are dead, or ruined and torn by dissensions and rivalry? Thinkest thou I would not gladly be a queen if there were any hope of such an ending to thine exploit? But seeing it not, I have chosen rather to endeavour to save thy life.'
'Save my life? Thou hast rather lost it! Say'st thou not that thou hast betrayed me to Lanfranc?' He raised his head at last, and looked her in the face.
'Nay, Waltheof!' answered Judith, softly laying her slender hand upon his huge shoulder. 'The foreign harridan loves her husband! I would save thee, not destroy thee. The letter was couched in thy name and sealed with thy seal, and so writ as though thou hadst but seemed to join the plot the better to discomfit the king's enemies.'
'Thou fiend infernal!' cried Waltheof, starting up again in an agony. 'Hast thou so dared to sully my good name?—to paint me so black a traitor?'
'Softly, my husband! The vow that is first made counts most binding. I would save thy name from the foul stain of treachery to thy generous liege-lord, William of Normandy, to whom thou didst homage in person on the banks of the Tees, coming of thine own free will to tender it, and accepting his forgiveness, his friendship, and the hand of his kinswoman. Yes—the hand of thy poor wife Judith, who would fain lead thee back to thy nobler self.'
The logic of this speech bore heavily on Waltheof, who threw himself down again upon the couch with a curse and a moan.