"Poor lady indeed!" Wulf repeated; "and yet there are thousands in England
and Normandy who were widowed yesterday, and maybe she is better off than
many. She lost Harold the day she resigned him to another, and it was
harder perhaps to be parted from him in that fashion than to know that he
is dead now. She can think of him as his true widow, for assuredly the
queen who never cared aught for him is a widow but in name. Before, Edith
was tortured by the desire to see him and to comfort him, and yet his
marriage stood as a gulf between them, a gulf that she would never have
passed. Now she can think of him as her very own, as the man who had loved
her even as she had loved him. It is a grief, a terrible grief, but one
without bitterness. But see, Lord de Burg is coming this way, and as there
is a litter behind him I suppose all is ready for our departure."
"I am ready, young thanes," De Burg said as he came up. "We ride at once
for Pevensey, whither an order was sent some hours ago for a ship to be in
readiness to sail for Normandy."
Three horses were led up and mounted. They rode away, followed by an armed
party and the litter on which Osgod was laid.
"You have done your last duty to your king," the Norman said. "It is a fit
grave for a hero, and assuredly Harold was one. Maybe that it is not his
last resting-place. The duke at present doubtless felt constrained at first
to refuse him Christian burial, for had he granted Gytha's request, it
would have been an acknowledgment that the charges brought against him were
unfounded, and the excommunication of no avail; but I doubt not that in
time he will allow his body to be taken to his abbey at Waltham.
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