Nevertheless, when we rode away next morning, with forty well-armed and mounted men-at-arms and a little train of pack-horses after us, Alan had the blue scarf round his sword arm, and his eyes were over his shoulder so long as we could see Sybilla standing on the drawbridge watching us go. May-be he had had another word or two with her, but I thought it foolish to pay so much heed to the gibes of a damsel, however fair.
Now I am going to say nothing about our long, pleasant journey northward, with the camping in forest or among hospitable farm folk, or, later, on wild moorland, for if I began I should not know how to leave out all the things that were new and strange to me.
But presently, when we were in Lancashire, we came to the tracts of desolation left by the Scots two years since, and a sort of dread grew up in my heart of men who could thus mar our fair land. Yet they were to help to set our Queen on her throne again, and those who had sent for them were wiser than I.
We went into no great towns, for Sir Richard did not wish men to inquire too closely into his journey and its object. But as we drew near Lancaster we learned that the gathering of the Scots to invade England was well[!-- [Pg 329] --] known, and already word had gone round to the sheriff from Archbishop Thurstan of York to bid them gather their men to him.
Then Sir Richard thought it time to give Alan his freedom, as he had half promised, for he himself must needs cross the Border to speak with the King of Scots. And it so happened that near the old town he fell in with a knight, whom Sir Richard knew to be a Queen's man, riding towards Lancaster with twenty men at his heels.
"Ho! De Courci, what brings you so far north?"
"The same errand that brings you out, most likely," our knight answered. "We will go further north yet in company, as I hope."
The knight stared for a moment, and then a grim look crossed his face, which was scarred here and there.
"If you mean to march with Thurstan, well and good—but if you are going to join the Scots, as is likely, you and I shall be on opposite sides for once," he said bluntly.
"How is this?—where is your loyalty?"