Just in front of the travellers a horseman was urging his steed up the slope, driving it on with whip and spur as one who rides for a set purpose.

As he clattered up, Alleyne could see that the roan horse was gray with dust and flecked with foam, as though it had left many a mile behind it.

The rider was a stern-faced man, hard of mouth and dry of eye, with a heavy sword clanking at his side, and a stiff white bundle swathed in linen balanced across the pommel of his saddle.
"The king's messenger," he bawled as he came up to them.

"The messenger of the king.

Clear the causeway for the king's own man." "Not so loudly, friend," quoth the little knight, reining his horse half round to bar the path.