The Red Saint by Warwick Deeping

So briskly did the Lord of Pevensey sweep the woods that Maytide, hunting his enemies with horn and hound, that he drove such mesne lords as had drawn the sword beyond his borders into other parts. The mere gentleman and the yeoman could make no fight of it as yet against a great lord who held the castles. The peasants were cowed by the lances of the troopers; a few still lurked in the deeps of the woods, chased hither and thither like wild things that fly from the cry of the hound. The finer and fiercer spirits fled with savage thoughts in their hearts, counting on the day when their chance should come again. Waleran de Monceaux took refuge in Winchelsea, and joined himself to the men of that town. Others galloped away to seek Earl Simon, and to ease their wrath under De Montfort's banner. As for Grimbald the priest, he lay near to death, hidden near a swineherd's hovel, stricken with the wounds that he had gotten him at Goldspur manor.

When Waleran de Monceaux, that man of the fierce face and the bristling beard, fled to Winchelsea town, he rode by the Abbey of Battle as the dawn was breaking and halted there and called for food. He and his men had touched neither meat nor bread for a day and a night. Some were wounded, all of them ragged, famished, and caked with the mire of the woodland ways. The hosteler looked sulkily at these savage and beaten men. Love them he could not because of their importunity, and their great hunger. And while they cursed him because of his slowness, he sent word to the Abbot, desiring his commands.