“What would’st thou do then, Dunwoodie,—leave the Lady of Carleton in the hands of the outlaws?”
Dunwoodie only growled in reply; and soon my father spoke again, this time to the outlaw messengers:
“Go to your chief,” he said, “and say that we consider his offer, but that if the Lady of Carleton or her attendants be harmed one whit, we will hunt him and all his followers to the death e’en if that hunting takes a thousand men and a year’s campaigning. Let him look to it.”
The messengers bowed again and made their way into the deeps of the forest. My father and the nobles that were there gathered about the camp fire in deep discussion of this sore dilemma.
[CHAPTER VIII—“THE FORTRESS OF THE MONKSLAYER”]
Cedric plucked at my sleeve and drew me aside.
“Thou and Sir Geoffrey come with me a little,” he whispered, “I have somewhat to say on this.”
Quickly I sought out Geoffrey, and led him away into the bracken in which Cedric had already disappeared. A bow-shot away from the camp we came up with him.
“Sir Richard,” he said, speaking far more quickly than was his wont. “I have a thought of the whereabouts of this fastness that the robber speaks of in his letter.”
My heart leaped within me. “Hast thou, Cedric?” I cried. “If any one of all our company should know, it would be thou who art native to these woods and knowest them as the very deer that run them.”