"Go and have speech with them? That will I!" exclaimed Richard promptly. "Nor is there time to lose. I will bid them bring my horse——"
"Not as thou now art," responded Guy. "Don thou thy mail. Be thou well armed. But men of thine from the castle may not ride with us. I have that to show thee which they may not see. Wilt thou trust me?"
"That will I," said Richard.
"And thine own sword is a good one," added the archer, with soldierly admiration in his face. "I have seen thy father in tourney. Thou wilt have good stature and strong thews, as had he in his day. They say 'twas a great battle when he fell among the press, and that many good spears went down."
"Aye. Go!" said Richard thoughtfully. "I will explain this thing to my mother. She needeth but to know that I go to meet a muster of the men."
"Nay," said Guy. "Fear thou not to tell my lady all. In her girlhood she was kept, a day and a night, where none could do her harm, for the Welsh were over the border, under Lewellyn the Cruel, and the castle of her father was not safe. She was not a Neville then, and the Beauchamps fled for their lives."
"What was the quarrel?" asked Richard.
"Little know I," replied the archer. "What have plain woodsmen to do with the feuds of the great? Some trouble, mayhap, between King Edward the Second and his earls. We aye heard of fights and ravages in those days, but there came none to harry us in Arden."
So they talked but little more, and Richard passed on into the castle followed by Guy the Bow.
Their first errand was to the hall of arms in the lower story, and the eyes of the forester glittered with delight as they entered.