Whoever called me stabber to you, lies. If I have killed men, or had them killed, I have done it in fair fight.
But she went on unheeding,Is it not enough, that, after having squandered on your fellows all the money that you could wring from my bounty, or win at your brutal sports, you should have robbed your own father, collected his rents behind his back, taken money and goods from his tenants by threats and blows; but that, after outraging them, you must add to all this a worse sin likewise,outraging God, and driving meme who have borne with you, me who have concealed all for your saketo tell your father that of which the very telling will turn my hair to gray?
So you will tell my father? said Hereward, coolly.
And if I should not, this monk himself is bound to do so, or his superior, your Uncle Brand.
My Uncle Brand will not, and your monk dare not.
Then I must. I have loved you long and well; but there is one thing which I must love better than you: and that is, my conscience and my Maker.
Those are two things, my lady mother, and not one; so you had better not confound them. As for the latter, do you not think that He who made the world is well able to defend his own property,if the lands and houses and cattle and money which these men wheedle and threaten and forge out of you and my father are really His property, and not merely their plunder? As for your conscience, my lady mother, really you have done so many good deeds in your life, that it might be beneficial to you to do a bad one once in a way, so as to keep your soul in a wholesome state of humility.
The monk groaned aloud. Lady Godiva groaned; but it was inwardly. There was silence for a moment. Both were abashed by the lads utter shamelessness.
And you will tell my father? said he again. He is at the old miracle-workers court at Westminster. He will tell the miracle-worker, and I shall be outlawed.
And if you be, wretched boy, whom have you to blame but yourself? Can you expect that the king, sainted even as he is before his death, dare pass over such an atrocity towards Holy Church?
Blame? I shall blame no one. Pass over? I hope he will not pass over it, I only want an excuse like that for turning kempery-manknight-errant, as those Norman puppies call it,like Regnar Lodbrog, or Frithiof, or Harold Hardraade; and try what man can do for himself in the world with nothing to help him in heaven and earth, with neither saint nor angel, friend or counsellor, to see to him, save his wits and his good sword. So send off the messenger, good mother mine: and I will promise you I will not have him ham-strung on the way, as some of my housecarles would do for me if I but held up my hand; and let the miracle-monger fill up the measure of his folly, by making an enemy of one more bold fellow in the world.
And he swaggered out of the room.
And when he was gone, the Lady Godiva bowed her head into her lap and wept long and bitterly. Neither her maidens nor the priest dare speak to her for nigh an hour; but at the end of that time she lifted up her head, and settled her face again, till it was like that of a marble saint over a minster door; and called for ink and paper, and wrote her letter; and then asked for a trusty messenger who should carry it up to Westminster.
None so swift or sure, said the house steward, as Martin Lightfoot.
Lady Godiva shook her head. I mistrust that man, she said. He is too fond of my poorof the Lord Hereward.
He is a strange one, my lady, and no one knows whence he came, and, I sometimes fancy, whither he may go either; but ever since my lord threatened to hang him for talking with my young master, he has never spoken to him, nor scarcely, indeed, to living soul. And one thing there is makes him or any man sure, as long as he is well paid; and that is, that he cares for nothing in heaven or earth save himself and what he can get.
So Martin Lightfoot was sent for. He came in straight into the ladys bedchamber, after the simple fashion of those days. He was a tall, lean, bony man, as was to be expected from his nickname, with a long hooked nose, a scanty brown beard, and a high conical head. His only garment was a shabby gray woollen tunic, which served him both as coat and kilt, and laced brogues of untanned hide. He might have been any age from twenty to forty; but his face was disfigured with deep scars and long exposure to the weather. He dropped on one knee, holding his greasy cap in his hand, and looked, not at his ladys face, but at her feet, with a stupid and frightened expression. She knew very little of him, save that her husband had picked him up upon the road as a wanderer some five years since; and that he had been employed as a doer of odd jobs and runner of messages, and that he was supposed, from his taciturnity and strangeness, to have something uncanny about him.
Martin, said the lady, they tell me that you are a silent and a prudent man.
That am I. Tongue speaketh bane,
Though she herself hath nane.
I shall try you: do you know your way to London?
Yes.
To your lords lodgings in Westminster?
Yes.
How long shall you be going there with this letter?
A day and a half.
When shall you be back hither?
On the fourth day.
And you will go to my lord and deliver this letter safely?
Yes, your Majesty.
Why do you call me Majesty? The King is Majesty.
You are my Queen.
What do you mean, man?
You can hang me.
I hang thee, poor soul! Who did I ever hang, or hurt for a moment, if I could help it?
But the Earl may.
He will neither hang nor hurt thee if thou wilt take this letter safely, and bring me back the answer safely.
They will kill me.
Who?
They, said Martin, pointing to the bower maidens,young ladies of good family who stood round, chosen for their good looks, after the fashion of those times, to attend on great ladies. There was a cry of angry and contemptuous denial, not unmixed with something like laughter, which showed that Martin had but spoken the truth. Hereward, in spite of all his sins, was the darling of his mothers bower; and there was not one of the damsels but would have done anything short of murder to have prevented Martin carrying the letter.
Silence, man! said Lady Godiva, so sternly that Martin saw that he had gone too far. How knowst such as thou what is in this letter?
Those others will know, said Martin, sullenly, without answering the last question.
Who?
His housecarles outside there.
He has promised that they shall not touch thee. But how knowest thou what is in this letter?
I will take it, said Martin: he held out his hand, took it and looked at it, but upside down, and without any attempt to read it.
His own mother, said he, after a while.
What is that to thee? said Lady Godiva, blushing and kindling.
Nothing: I had no mother. But God has one!
What meanest thou, knave? Wilt thou take the letter or no?
I will take it. And he again looked at it without rising off his knee. His own father, too.
What is that to thee, I say again?
Nothing: I have no father. But Gods Son has one!
What wilt thou, thou strange man? asked she, puzzled and half-frightened; and how camest thou to know what is in this letter?
Who does not know? A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. On the fourth day from this I will be back.