"The oath, pshaw! By now he is absolved from it as given under fear.

Did you not hear me whisper to you to put an arrow through his heart, instead of playing boy's pranks with his cap ?" "I did not wish to kill an abbot, Nurse." "Foolish man, what is the difference in such a matter between him and one of his servants?
Moreover, he will only say that you tried to slay him, and missed, and produce the cap and arrow in evidence against you.
Well, my talk serves nothing to mend a bad matter, and soon you will hear it straighter from himself.

Go now and make your house ready for attack, and never dare to set a foot without its doors, for death waits you there." Emlyn was right.

Within three hours an unarmed monk trudged up to Cranwell Towers through the falling snow and cast across the moat a letter that was tied to a stone.

Then he nailed a writing to one of the oak posts of the outer gate, and, without a word, departed as he had come.