William Stoddard - With the Black Prince

"That will I take," said Richard, as he tested a sword blade by springing it on the stone pavement of the hall. "I will hang a mace at my pommel."

"Thou art a bowman," said Guy. "Thy bow and quiver also can hang at thy saddle. Nay, not that heavy bit of yew. Thy arms are too young to bend it well. Choose thee a lighter bow."

"I will string it, then, and show thee," replied Richard, a little haughtily. "Yon is a target at the head of the hall. Wait, now."

The bow was strung with an ease and celerity which seemed to surprise the brawny forester. He took it and tried its toughness and handed it back, for Richard had taken an arrow from a sheaf beneath a window.

"Good arm, thine!" shouted Guy, for the shaft was drawn to the head and landed in the very center of the bull's eye of the wooden tablet at the hall end. "Thou art a Saxon in thy elbows. Canst thou swing an axe like this?"

He held out a double-headed battle-axe that seemed not large. It was not too long in the handle, but its blades were thick as well as sharp edged. It was no weapon for one at all weak-handed.

Clogs of wood lay near, with many cuts already upon them, as if there had been chopping done. Richard took the axe and went toward a clog of hard oak.

Click, click, click, in swift succession, rang his blows, and the chips flew merrily.

"Done!" shouted Guy. "Take that, then, instead of thy foolish mace. It will but bruise, while thine axe will cleave through mail or buff coat. Ofttimes a cut is better than a bruise, if it be well given. I would I had a good axe."

"Take what thou wilt," said Richard. "Put thee on a better headpiece, and change thy sword. If thou seest spears to thy liking, they are thine; or daggers, or aught else. We owe thee good arming."

"Speak I also for Ben o' Coventry," responded Guy. "He needeth a headpiece, for his own is but cracked across the crown, and his sword is not of the best."

"Choose as thou wilt for Ben," said Richard, "or for any other as good as he. Needeth he mail?"

"His buff coat is more to his liking," said Guy, "and men say that the king will not have his bowmen overweighted for fast walking. The weary man draweth never a good bow, nor sendeth his arrow home."

"Right is the king," replied Richard. "I am but a youth, but I can see that a foe might get away from heavy armor."

Guy was busy among the weapons and he made no answer. At that moment, however, there was a footfall behind him, and he sprang to his feet to make a low obeisance.

"Mother!" exclaimed Richard, "I was coming to tell thee."

But not to him was her speech, nor in Norman French, nor in the English dialect of the Warwickshire farmers. She questioned Guy in old Saxon, such as was not often heard since the edicts of the Norman kings had discouraged its use. Richard could speak it well, however, and he knew that Guy was explaining somewhat the errand before him.

"It is well," she said. "I will trust him with thee. The castle is safe. But hold him not too long, for I make myself ready to pass on to Warwick, to abide with the earl for a season."

"Right soon will he return," said Guy the Bow, "and good bows with him. The king shall be pleased with the company from Arden and Wartmont."

Small wonder was it, after all, that while all Welshmen retained their ancient tongue, and many Cornishmen, and the Manxmen all, and the Gaels of Scotland and the wild Erse of Ireland, so also many thousands – no one knew how many – in the rural districts of England, still preserved but little changed the language with which their fathers had answered to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. Hundreds of years later the traces of it lingered in Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and elsewhere, in a manner to confuse the ears of modernized men from the towns and from the coasts, as well as all outland men who might believe that they understood English.

Well did Guy obey the commands of both Richard and his mother; for when, after a hearty breaking of his fast, he stood by the side of his galloway, that good beast had cause to whinny as he did, as if to inquire of his master what need there might be that he should so be packed with weapons and with steel caps for the heads of men. The gallant animal that was to carry Richard, on the other hand, was fitted out and laden as if at any moment his rider might be changed from a lance-bearing man-at-arms to a bowman on foot. Other baggage there was none, and Lady Maud, from her crenelated peephole in the Wartmont keep, saw her son and his companion ride slowly away through the village.

"Heaven guard him!" she murmured. "But he can not gain too well the hearts of the old race. They be hard-headed men and slow to choose a leader, but they are strong in a fray. I would the tallest of the forest deerslayers should go shoulder to shoulder with my son into the king's battles."

So she gazed until the pair of horsemen disappeared along the road; then she descended a flight of stairs and walked to the end of a corridor. Here was a door that opened into a high vaulted chamber, at the far end of which were candles burning before an altar and a crucifix. This was the chapel of the castle, and Lady Maud's feet bore her on, more and more slowly, until she sank upon her knees at the altar rail and sobbed aloud.

Well away now, up the valley, northward, rode Richard Neville and Guy the Bow, but they were no longer in any road marked by wheels of wains. They had left the highway for a narrow bridle path that was leading them into the forest.

"My Lord of Wartmont," said the archer, "I pray thee mark well the way as thou goest. Chance might be that thou shouldst one day travel it alone. Put thou thine axe to the bark of a tree, now and then, and let it be a mark of thine own, not like that of another. I think no man of knightly race now liveth who could guide thee, going or coming."

In an instant Richard's battle-axe was in his hand, and a great oak had received a mark of a double cross.

"There hangeth a shield in the gallery of the armory," he said, "that is blazoned in this wise. It is said that a good knight brought it home from Spain, in the old wars. Well is it dinted, too, in proof that it fended the blows of strong fighters. It is thrust through and it is cloven."

"Mayhap in frays with the heathen," said Guy. "A sailor, once, at Portsmouth, one of our own kin, told me rare tales of the Moors that he had seen in the Spanish seas. He told me of men that were black as a sloe; but it is hard to believe, for what should blacken any man? He had seen a whale, too, and a shark three fathoms long. There be wonders beyond seas."

"And beyond them all is the end of the world," said Richard, "but the ships do not venture that far to their ruin."

So more and more companionlike and brotherly grew the young lord and the forester, as they rode on together, and it seemed to please Guy well both to loosen his own tongue and to ask many questions concerning matters of which little telling had ever yet come in among the forests of Arden.

The day waned and the path wound much, and there was increasing gloom among the trees and thickets, when Guy turned suddenly to Richard.

"Put down thy visor," he said sharply, "and draw thy sword. We are beset! Sling thy lance behind thee, and get thee down upon thy feet. This is no place to sit upon a horse and be made a mark of."

The actions of both were suited to the word on the instant, but hardly was Richard's helmet closed before an arrow struck him on the crest. But that he had been forewarned, it had smitten him through the face.

"Outlaws!" said Guy. "Robbers – not our own men. How they came here I know not. Down, quickly!"

Even as he spoke, however, his bow twanged loudly, and a cry went up from a dense copse beyond them.

"One!" he shouted, and he and Richard sprang lightly to the earth.