Meanwhile Judith's messenger was speeding on his way to the Primate, while the unfortunate knight who had striven so hard to stop him was thus foully entreated, lest he should himself be the bearer of some such message. CHAPTER IX. NORWICH. After the bride-ale the splendid company parted, mainly in three great divisions: Earl Waltheof and his following to the north; Earl Roger to the west; Earl Ralph with his bride, his Norman knights, and Breton vassals and mercenaries, his Anglo-Saxon vassals and sympathisers, to the east; a few minor parties of independent barons, knights, and thegns going their several ways. The Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk and his train rode forth along the old Roman Ikenield Street, which ran then an uninterrupted course from within a few miles of Exning to Norwich. De Guader rode beside his young countess on a gentle _hacquenée_, which paced quietly beside her palfrey, and did not break in upon their converse by any pranks of his own, his squire leading the fiery Oliver, and an attendant following with a mule carrying his armour, lance, and spear. It may well be supposed that the noble bridegroom spared no pains to make the time pass pleasantly for his young countess, which, under the circumstances, was no difficult task, for the mid-May weather was delightful, and whether they rode over heaths or through the forests, which then spread over the greater part of the country, they were surrounded with flowers and the song of birds. The yellow gorse was gorgeous in the open, filling the air with its almond scent, and the whin-chats fluttered from bush to bush, trying to lure them away from the spot that hid their nests. Overhead the larks carolled and the sparrow-hawks poised motionless, while round and about them darted the busy swallows. Where they passed a homestead, fruit-trees were gay with blossom, apple and cherry and pear, and the sweet-breathed kine were standing in the meadows, knee-deep in the flower-jewelled grasses, for was it not _Tri-milki_, the month when cows are milked thrice in the day, according to the quaint old Anglo-Saxon calendar? Now and again they met a shepherd with a flock of ewes and lambs, or, more often, the inevitable Saxon swineherd with his grunting pigs. But alas! they passed more often the blackened ruins where a homestead had once been, for the curse of war had desolated the land. Over the thatchless rafters hung the white branches of the flowering May, the more like snow, because no girlish fingers had stripped them to deck Maypoles. They journeyed also through many a mile of forest land, where the great trees interlaced their boughs into the beautiful arches which the Gothic architect imitated so well in stone, and the wild birds thronged in undisturbed security, countless in kind and number, and the antlered stags trotted nimbly down the glades.