There was a general murmur of indignation, which William repressed.

“Peace, my lords; peace, churchmen.  We are not moved by a boy’s rhetoric.  The facts lie on the surface, and we need not enquire whether one is truly a rebel who was taken red-handed in the so-called ‘Camp of Refuge;’ nor do we deign to discuss those rights, which Christendom acknowledges, with our subjects.  The question is this:  Does the youth simply merit the lighter doom of a rebel, or the far heavier one of a parricide and a sacrilegious incendiary?”

“Parricide!” exclaimed the indignant prisoner.  “My father, more fortunate than I, died fighting against thee at Senlac.”

“Hugo of Aescendune and Malville was nevertheless thy father by adoption; and by the law of civilised nations, carried with that adoption the rights and prerogatives of a sire.  But we waste time.  Herald, summon the accuser.”

“Etienne de Malville et Aescendune, enter!” cried the herald of the court.

And Etienne appeared, dressed in sable mourning, and bowed before the throne.  He was pale, too, if that sallow colour, which olive-like complexions like his assume when wrought upon, can be called pale.  He cast upon Wilfred one glance of intense hatred, and then, looking down respectfully, awaited the words of the Conqueror.

“Etienne de Malville, dost thou appear as the accuser of this prisoner?”

“I do.”

“Take thine oath, then, upon the Holy Gospels, only to speak the truth; my Lord Archbishop will administer it.”

Lanfranc administered the oath, much as it is done in courts of justice nowadays, but with peculiar solemnity of manner.

Etienne repeated the words very solemnly and distinctly.  No one doubted, or could doubt, his sincerity.

“Of what crimes dost thou accuse the prisoner?”

“Parricide, in that he hath compassed the death of his adoptive father; sacrilege, in that he burnt the priory of St. Wilfred with all the monks therein, and later the Priory of St. Denys, from which the inmates had happily escaped, and in support of this accusation I am ready to wager my body in the lists, if the King so allow.”

“We do not risk thy safety against one who is already proved guilty of rebellion, and who is not of knightly rank like thyself.”

(Etienne had duly received knighthood after the taking of the Camp of Refuge.)

“This is a question of evidence.  State thy case.”

Etienne spake clearly and well; and as he told the story of the destruction of the priory of St. Wilfred, of the subsequent appearance of our hero in the woods at the head of the outlaws, and the later conflagrations, there were few who did not think that he had proved his case, so far as it admitted of proof.

“We will now hear thy story of the destruction of the priory, and the manner in which thou didst escape from it,” said the Conqueror to Wilfred.