Chapter 35 - Page 2

chamber and called to her a page of her company and bade him
make haste and prepare to ride to Nottinghamshire to find Robin Hood
in Sherwood Forest; for the queen had made a match with the king,
her archers against his archers, and the queen proposed to have
Robin Hood and his band to shoot on her side against the king's
archers.
Now as for the page, he started for Nottingham and posted all the
way, and inquired on the road for Robin Hood, where he might be, but
he could not find any one who could let him know exactly. So he took
up his quarters at an inn at Nottingham. And in the room of the inn he
sat him down and called for a bottle of Rhenish wine, and he drank the
queen's health out of it. Now at his side was sitting a yeoman of
the country, clad in Lincoln green, with a long bow in his hand. And
he turned to the page and asked him, "What is thy business, my sweet
boy, so far in the north country, for methinks you must come from
London?" So then the page told him that it was his business to find
Robin Hood the outlaw, and for that he asked every yeoman that he met.
And he asked his friend if he knew anything which might help him.
"Truly," said the yeoman, "that I do. And if you will get to horse
early to-morrow morning I will show you Robin Hood and all his gay
yeomen."
So the next morning they got them to horse and rode out into the
forest, and the yeoman brought the page to where were Robin Hood and
his yeomen. And the page fell down on his knee and said to Robin Hood,
"Queen Katherine greets you well by me, and hath sent you this ring as
a token. She bids you post up to London town, for that there shall
be some sport there in which she has a mind you shall have a hand."
And at this Robin took off his mantle of Lincoln green from his back
and sent it by the page to Queen Katherine with a promise that he
and his band would follow him as soon as they might.
So Robin Hood clothed all his men in Lincoln green and himself in
scarlet, and each man wore a black hat with a white feather stuck
therein. And thus Robin Hood and his band came up to London. And Robin
fell down on his knees before the queen, and she bade him welcome with
all his band. For the match between the queen's archers and the king's
was to come off the next day in Finsbury fields.
Here first came the king's archers marching with bold bearing, and
then came Robin Hood and his archers for the queen. And they laid
out the marks there. And the king laid a wager with the queen on the
shooting. Now the wager was three hundred tun of Rhenish, and three
hundred tun of good English beer, and three hundred fat harts. So then
the queen asked if there were any knights with the king who would take
her side. But they were unwilling, for said they,