The castle was now a scene of bustle and business; armorers were at work repairing headpieces and breastplates, sharpening swords and battle-axes, while the fletchers prepared sheaves of arrows.  In the courtyard a number of men were engaged oiling the catapults, ballistas, and other machines for hurling stones.  All were discussing the chances of the assault, for it was no easy matter which they had set themselves to do.  Wortham Hold was an extremely strong one, and it needed all and more than all the machines at their disposal to undertake so formidable an operation as a siege.

The garrison, too, were strong and desperate; and the baron, knowing what must follow his outrage of the day before, would have been sure to send off messengers round the country begging his friends to come to his assistance.  Cuthbert had begged permission of his mother to ask the earl to allow him to join as a volunteer, but she would not hear of it.  Neither would she suffer him to mingle with the foresters.  The utmost that he could obtain was that he might go as a spectator, with strict injunctions to keep himself out of the fray, and as far as possible beyond bow-shot of the castle wall.

It was a force of some four hundred strong that issued from the wood early next morning to attack the stronghold at Wortham.  The force consisted of some ten or twelve knights and barons, some one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty Norman men-at-arms, a miscellaneous gathering of other retainers, two hundred strong, and some eighty of the forest men.  These last were not to fight under the earl’s banner, but were to act on their own account.  There were among them outlaws, escaped serfs, and some men guilty of bloodshed.  The earl then could not have suffered these men to fight under his flag until purged in some way of their offenses.

This arrangement suited the foresters well.

Their strong point was shooting; and by taking up their own position, and following their own tactics, under the leadership of Cnut, they would be able to do far more execution, and that with less risk to themselves, than if compelled to fight according to the fashion of the Normans.

As they approached the castle a trumpet was blown, and the herald advancing, demanded its surrender, stigmatized the Baron of Wortham as a false knight and a disgrace to his class and warned all those within the castle to abstain from giving him aid or countenance, but to submit themselves to the earl, Sir Walter of Evesham, the representative of King Richard.

The reply to the summons was a burst of taunting laughter from the walls; and scarcely had the herald withdrawn than a flight of arrows showed that the besieged were perfectly ready for the fray.

Indeed the baron had not been idle.  Already the dispute between himself and the earl had come to such a point that it was certain that sooner or later open hostilities would break out.