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Page 416
At midafternoon Echtor sent a messenger to say that the vanguard of the army had reached Hereford, crossed the Wye, and turned south again. Simon found this very interesting and went north himself with the man Echtor had sent. By the time he arrived, it was certain that the group turning south was no mere work party or scavenging expedition. Simon clicked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. If the king and his mercenary leaders had learned anything from their experiences in August, it was not much. There were a few outriders at the front of the column to give warning in case a large body of enemy should appear, but that was all. They would be as easy to rout as ants.
The baggage train was not yet in sight, but in his mind Simon was already counting its worth. He told Echtor to wait for it and send him word of how it was guarded and whatever he could determine of its contents. As they were speaking, the king and his nobles and mercenary captains rode down through the marching men and on toward the south. Simon sent two men after them, but without much hope. If they remained on the road, they would soon outdistance their followers, and there would be no way to tell which side road they turned off on, if they turned off at all. However, Simon was not much worried. Presumably the army would end up wherever the royal party was going.
He did not have to wait that long to find out, however. By evening one of the men was back with the news that the king and his party had entered Grosmount. He had struck it lucky on a shortcut he had taken, coming up on a rise of land quite a distance behind but not so far he could not recognize the colors of the men entering the keep.
This was news of real moment. The area around Grosmount had not been attacked by Pembroke. There was a concentration of castles from Monmouth in the

 
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