"Traitor!" shouted Richard. "Thou shalt answer for this to the king!"
"St. Andrew!" gasped the fallen man. "Has the boy escaped? John Beauchamp knew whom to send. But I will pay him bitterly for this."
"My lord duke," exclaimed one who came running to him, "De Bellamont is slain by the messenger!"
"Woe worth the day!" groaned the knight, arising slowly. "Back to the castle! I must get me to Flanders in haste. All is lost! We will but say that Bellamont was murdered by thieves at the inn."
On galloped Richard, glad to find how buoyant and free was the stride of the landlord's favorite; but his perils were not ended. A full half mile he rode, and he was thinking, "I will race no more lest I tire her needlessly, and the road to London town is yet long," when far beyond he dimly discerned the forms of mounted men and men on foot.
"'Tis but a lane here to the right," he said. "I care not whither it may lead me, so I fall not in with yonder troop. They are too many."
Then came to him something of his woodcraft, and he did but go out of the road before he turned to see what they might do. And he did wisely, for with one accord the horsemen and the footmen vanished.
"They were at a crossroad," thought Richard. "They deem I have taken the lane, and they have gone to cut me off at its ending. Now I will ride past them."
'Twas a shrewd planning, for when he reached the crossroads only one man could he discern, a man in the serge gown of a black friar, who stood and waited.
"Halt, thou, my son!" commanded the friar. "Greater men than thou art bid thee stand."