"Thou knowest, then, thine inevitable fate?"
"I accept it. Ye have robbed me of all which made life worth living."
"Thou must die, then: but we spare thee torture or mutilation. Prepare to meet the headsman within the castle yard, at the third sun-rising after this day--
"and, my lord of Coutances, since you have taken so much interest in this young English rebel, we charge thee with the welfare of his soul."
And the court broke up.
[CHAPTER XXIV]. THE CASTLE OF OXFORD.
"It is the crime and not the scaffold makes
The headsman's death a shame."
Wilfred sat alone in an upper chamber of the donjon tower the Conqueror had erected at Oxford, hard by the mound thrown up by Ethelfleda, lady of the Mercians and daughter of Alfred. For thither the king had caused him to be removed, unwilling to stain the holy precincts of Abingdon with a deed of blood, and confiding fully in Robert d'Oyly, the governor of his new castle.
The passage up the river had occupied two full hours, under the care of trusty and able rowers; for the stream was swift in those days, before locks checked its course, as we have stated elsewhere.
Under the woods of Newenham, past the old Anglo-Saxon churches of Sandford and Iffley, up the right-hand channel of the stream just below the city, and so to the landing place beneath the old tower {[xxv]}.