“Lording, there is an army on the march down yonder. I was carrying faggots from a wood, when I saw them riding out of the dusk. Their vanguard halted under the wood, and I hid myself, and listened, and then crept away and ran like a rabbit.”
He panted, pressing his ribs with his two hands, as though his heart was gorged with blood. Aymery bent down, and looked into the hind’s mud-stained face.
“Quick, good lad——”
“It was the van of the King’s host, lording, they are riding on Southwark out of the night.”
“How near are they?”
“The wood is a mile beyond the cross where the roads branch. They were resting their horses, the beasts had been hard ridden, and their bellies were all mud.”
Aymery straightened in the saddle, and sat motionless. The night gave no sound for the moment save the soughing of the wind through some poplars that grew near. Half a furlong away the darkness thickened into a black curtain, hiding the world, tantalising those who watched with the wraiths of a thousand chances.
Yet, as they waited there on the wet road, a confused sense of movement came to them from somewhere out of the darkness, like the sound of the sea galloping in the distance over a mile of midnight sand. Aymery swept round, pulled off his glove with his teeth, and threw it at the man’s feet.
“Look to yourself, my friend,” he said. “They are coming through the night yonder. Bring that glove to the Earl, and you shall have your due.”
Aymery clapped in the spurs, and went away at a gallop. He did not doubt that it was the King’s arms behind him, pouring upon Southwark to surprise De Montfort’s weak force there, and take him or slay him before the Londoners could gather to his aid.