Santlache fight not two days old, left alone with my thirty
men-at-arms, in a land I knew not, among a people
whose tongue I could not speak, to hold down the land
which I had taken from them.'

'And that was here at home?' said Una.

'Yes, here. See! From the Upper Ford, Weland's Ford,
to the Lower Ford, by the Belle Allee, west and east it ran
half a league. From the Beacon of Brunanburgh behind us
here, south and north it ran a full league - and all the
woods were full of broken men from Santlache, Saxon
thieves, Norman plunderers, robbers, and deer-stealers.
A hornets' nest indeed!

'When De Aquila had gone, Hugh would have
thanked me for saving their lives; but the Lady Aelueva
said that I had done it only for the sake of receiving the Manor.

"'How could I know that De Aquila would give it me?"
I said. "If I had told him I had spent my night in your
halter he would have burned the place twice over by now."

"'If any man had put my neck in a rope," she said, "I
would have seen his house burned thrice over before I
would have made terms."

"'But it was a woman," I said; and I laughed, and she
wept and said that I mocked her in her captivity.