“I ask,” continued Drogo, “who gave her the draught?”
“It was I, but who poisoned it?”
“Satan knows best, but thou hast owned it.
“I call thee to witness, most valiant knight, and thee, O Mayor of Hamelsham, that you both hear him—confitentem mum, as Father Edmund used to say at Kenilworth.
“Ah, I have him on the hip. Away with them to Walderne: the deepest dungeon for the poisoner.”
Chapter [22]: A Medieval Tyrant.
Drogo did not venture to bring in his prisoners by the light of day, for although he had collected together a large flock of black sheep, yet did he not dare openly to consign a preaching friar to those dungeons of his.
The men he had with him on the spot were certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, distinguished even in Walderne Castle for their wickedness; yet even they had their superstitions, and imagined it would bring bad luck to arrest the ecclesiastic, travelling in the garb of his order.
But Drogo’s will was law, and they obeyed. They detained the prisoners in an outlying farmhouse until dark, then thrusting a labourer’s smock over Martin’s robe, led their prisoners to the castle.
Prisoners were no novelty there, many of these free lances were born in camp, and had the inherited habits of generations of robbers, so that it was to them a second nature to mutilate, imprison, and torture, and slay. They looked upon burghers and peasants as butchers do on sheep, or rather they looked upon them as beings made that warriors might wring their hidden hoards from them, by torture and violence, or even in default of the gold hang them for amusement, or the like. They had about as much sympathy for these men of peace as the pike for the roach—they only thought them excellent eating.