“And his will be a short one. William of Normandy has sworn to drive him out.” “Then he will do it. And so the poor little Swan-neck is packed into a convent, that the houses of Godwin and Leofric may rush into each other’s arms, and perish together! Fools, fools, fools! I will hear no more of such a mad world. My queen, tell me about your sweet self. What is all this to me? Am I not a wolf’s head, and a landless man?” “O my king, have not the stars told me that you will be an earl and a ruler of men, when all your foes are wolves’ heads as you are now? And the weird is coming true already. Tosti Godwinsson is in the town at this moment, an outlaw and a wolf’s head himself.” Hereward laughed a great laugh. “Aha! Every man to his right place at last. Tell me about that, for it will amuse me. I have heard naught of him since he sent the king his Hereford thralls’ arms and legs in the pickle-barrels; to show him, he said, that there was plenty of cold meat on his royal demesnes.” “You have not heard, then, how he murdered in his own chamber at York, Gamel Ormsson and Ulf Dolfinsson?” “That poor little lad? Well, a gracious youth was Tosti, ever since he went to kill his brother Harold with teeth and claws, like a wolf; and as he grows in years, he grows in grace. But what said Ulf’s father and the Gospatricks?” “Dolfin and young Gospatrick were I know not where. But old Gospatrick came down to Westminster, to demand law for his grandnephew’s blood.” “A silly thing of the old Thane, to walk into the wolf’s den.” “And so he found. He was stabbed there, three days after Christmas-tide, and men say that Queen Edith did it, for love of Tosti, her brother. Then Dolfin and young Gospatrick took to the sea, and away to Scotland: and so Tosti rid himself of all the good blood in the North, except young Waltheof Siwardsson, whose turn, I fear, will come next.” “How comes he here, then?” “The Northern men rose at that, killed his servant at York, took all his treasures, and marched down to Northampton, plundering and burning. They would have marched on London town, if Harold had not met them there from the king. There they cried out against Tosti, and all his taxes, and his murders, and his changing Canute’s laws, and would have young Morcar for their earl. A tyrant they would not endure. Free they were born and bred, they said, and free they would live and die. Harold must needs do justice, even on his own brother.” “Especially when he knows that that brother is his worst foe.” “Harold is a better man than you take him for, my Hereward. But be that as it may, Morcar is earl, and Tosti outlawed, and here in St. Omer, with wife and child.” “My nephew Earl of Northumbria! As I might have been, if I had been a wiser man.” “If you had, you would never have found me.”