"
"It is good," quoth Redhead, "let her ride with us:
for why should she suffer the pain of fear in the lonely waste?
But let her do on a hauberk over her coats, and steel coif
over her head, for shaft and bolt will ofttimes go astray."
Even so they did, and rode forward, and presently they saw the spearmen
that they were somewhat more than their company, and that they
were well mounted on black horses and clad in black armour.
Then they drew rein for awhile and Redhead scanned them again and said:
"Yea, these are the men of the brother of thy hot wooer,
Lady Ursula, whom I cooled in the Ram's Bane, but a man well nigh
as old as his uncle, though he hath not made men tremble so sore,
albeit he be far the better man, a good warrior, a wise leader,
a reiver and lifter well wrought at all points. Well, 'tis not unlike
that we shall have to speak to his men again, either out-going
or home-coming: so we had best kill as many of these as we may now.
Do on thy sallet, my lord; and thou, Michael-a-green shake out the Bull;
and thou, our Noise, blow a point of war that they may be warned.
God to aid! but they be ready and speedy!"
In sooth even as the pennon of the Bull ran down the wind and the
Utterbol horn was winded, the Black men-at-arms came on at a trot,
and presently with a great screeching yell cast their spears
into the rest, and spurred on all they might, while a half score
of bowmen who had come out of the thicket bent their bows and fell
a-shooting.
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