The Forest (5 page)

It was more for the sake of having something to say that she asked Walter what he had been talking to Martell about. He made a face. ‘Nothing much.’ A long silence ensued before he added, ‘If you really want to know, he asked me why I’d brought a woman out on the hunt.’

‘He didn’t approve?’

‘Not much.’

Was it true or was Walter making it up to annoy her? She allowed her eyes to rest calmly on his face for a moment or two and concluded that he might be telling the truth. A flash of resentment at the arrogant Norman went through her. He had noticed her then, damn him!

Time passed, but they did not speak any more. Once or twice she heard faint whoops and cries from the woods, then nothing. Until, at last, she saw something appear on the edge of the heath far away on her right.

A little group of deer had broken cover. There were eight of them. Even at that distance one could count them clearly. They advanced on to the heath and began to zigzag. A second later three riders came out behind them, then two more, at full gallop, moving to the right to outflank them; then another pair of riders, dashing down the other flank. Sensing both movements, the deer ran across the heath towards them.

It was astonishing how fast they came: the running deer, despite their pauses and sideways darts, covered the intervening ground, it seemed, in only a minute or two, with the riders behind them. Across the heath they raced, and swerved and ran in past the knoll so neatly that it was hard not to applaud. Minutes later a further group came, with a herd of two dozen this time; then another, and another. Only once did her own party have to shout and wave their arms to divert some deer that had peeled away. The hunt could not have been more perfectly managed. By the time they were called in there were over seventy deer in the great inclosure.

Soon after this, Cola had announced that they would draw the woods above Lyndhurst next, and Adela was delighted when a few moments later Edgar came up and, with a grin at her, remarked: ‘You and Walter are riding with my party this time.’

She did not know for how long they had walked their horses through the woods until they came to the glade where Edgar had said they would wait. She had heard other parties making sounds somewhere in the trees; she had noticed Edgar tense in his saddle, but even so she had been completely taken aback when suddenly, with a crashing sound, not thirty yards in front of her, the small herd of does burst out from the trees into the glade. For a second she was almost as startled as they were. As they veered away she had just had time to notice that one of the young does was paler than the rest. Then, with whoops and cries, they were off in pursuit, driving the deer before them, and moments later they had passed into a grove of trees.

It was because she had fallen a little behind that she had such a perfect view of what happened next. A group of bucks had abruptly appeared on the right, followed by another party of hunters – in the forefront of whom, she saw, rode Hugh de Martell. The bucks were young. They had hesitated.

But who in the world could have anticipated their next move? How astonished the huntsmen looked as the bucks wheeled round and dashed back straight through their line. Even Martell was completely taken by surprise and stared, open-mouthed. The proud Norman had been humbled by some young bucks: she reined her horse and laughed aloud.

‘Come on!’ Walter, calling crossly, had brought her back to her duty and she had quickly caught up. The two groups had joined into a single party now; Edgar, Walter and Hugh de Martell all riding together. They certainly managed everything with wonderful precision. Though the deer tried to veer this way and that, there was no hope of escape. Indeed, other groups of deer driven by lines of huntsmen twice joined them as they cantered and galloped towards Lyndhurst, so that in a while she could only identify her own little herd by seeing where the pale deer ran among the dozens of leaping forms. She was a pretty little doe, Adela thought. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but to her this deer seemed somehow different from the rest. And although she knew it made no sense, she couldn’t help feeling sorry that such a lovely creature was about to be killed.

Several times she saw Edgar glance in her direction and once, she was pretty sure, Hugh de Martell looked at her too. Had he done so with disapproval, she wondered? But although she kept an eye on him when she could, he did not seem to be taking any further notice of her. Meanwhile the chase was gathering speed. The riders were breaking into a gallop. ‘You’re doing well,’ Edgar called to her in encouragement.

The next few minutes were some of the most exciting of her life. Everything seemed to flash past. Hunters were crying out: she wasn’t sure if she had joined in or not. She was scarcely conscious of time, or even where they were, as they dashed after the fleet-footed deer. Once or twice she caught sight of Edgar and Hugh de Martell, their faces tense, alert. Despite the loss of the bucks they must be pleased with themselves. This would surely be the biggest single group of deer brought in that day. How hard they looked, how suddenly fierce.

And she, too, shared in their glory. It might be harsh, this killing of deer, but it had to be. It was nature. Men must be fed. God had granted them animals for the purpose. It could be no other way.

Through the trees on the right now, she got a glimpse of the royal hunting lodge. She could hardly believe that they were at Lyndhurst already. The riders had been unable to prevent the herd from splitting and a group of does, including her pale one, had peeled left into a glade. Martell and some of the others galloped off to outflank them.

Just then, glancing to her left, she noticed Walter.

She must have got ahead of him without realizing it. He was galloping hard, to be in front of her when they emerged into view by the trap. As he drew level she was granted a perfect view of his profile and, despite all her excitement, she suddenly experienced an inward shudder.

He was flushed and concentrated. Somehow – even now – his pug face still managed to look pompous and self-satisfied. But it was something else that really struck her. His cruelty. It was not the hardness that Edgar’s face had suddenly acquired; it was more like lust – lust for death. He looked gorged. For a strange moment it almost seemed to her as if his face in its keen desire, little moustache and all, had floated forward and was hanging, gloating, over the deer.

Oh, it was cruel – necessity or not. You couldn’t get away from the truth of what was to come; Cola’s perfectly organized drive, the huge trap ahead, the bleak wooden machinery of the walls in the woods, the nets, the culling – not one, not even ten, but deer after deer until they had a hundred. It was cruel to kill so many.

It was too late to think of that now. The trees opened out. She saw the high mound where Cola waited ahead. Just before it, a line of men were shouting and waving their arms, to make sure the deer turned right towards the entrance of the trap. The foremost deer were already up to them, with galloping riders only yards behind. From her left, now, came the does that had split off, driven by Martell. They streamed by her. She saw the pale doe. It was the last of them. Already they were all wheeling, coming past Cola’s mound. Just after the mound, she noticed, on the grassy lawn between it and the start of the ridge there were only a few people standing. The deer, already turned, with the riders along their left flank, were streaming past them, oblivious. The pale doe had fallen a little behind. Having made the turn, she seemed, for just an instant, to hesitate before being drawn in to her death.

Then Adela did a strange thing.

She did not know why; she hardly even realized she was doing it. Putting spurs to her horse, she suddenly raced ahead of Walter, pulled her horse’s head, cut clean across him and made straight towards the pale doe. She heard Walter shout a curse but she took no notice. Half a dozen strides and she was almost up with the deer; another second and she was between the pale doe and the herd. Voices were crying out behind her. She did not look. The doe, startled, tried to veer away from her. She urged her horse forward, pushing, willing the doe away from the great trap ahead. The park pale was only a hundred yards away. She must keep the deer to the left of it.

And then, with a single, frantic leap, the pale deer did what she wanted. A second later, to the astonishment of all the bystanders, they were racing together across the lawn between the mound and the ridge, and out on to the open heath.

‘Go,’ she muttered, ‘go,’ as the pale doe fled out into the heather. ‘Go!’ she cried, as she raced after her. ‘Get away!’ For all she knew one of the hunters was already following with a bow. Too frightened and embarrassed to look back, she urged the little deer forward until at last it darted straight across the open ground and made for the nearest piece of woodland opposite. She cantered forward, watching the doe, until she finally saw her make the trees.

But what to do now? She was alone in the middle of the open heath. Looking back at last, she saw that no one had followed her. The line of the ridge and the park pale seemed deserted. All the people were on the other side. She could not even hear the cries of the huntsmen any more, only the faint hiss of the breeze. She turned her horse’s head. Hardly knowing what she wanted, she began to ride down the heath with the park pale away on her right. When it curved westwards she started to do the same, walking her horse into the woods about a quarter of a mile below the wall. She entered a long glade. The ground was soft with grass and moss. She was still alone.

Or nearly. He was standing by the uprooted stump of a fallen tree. There was surely no mistaking him – the forward stoop, the bushy eyebrows. Unless these gnarled men grew identically in the Forest, it was the same strange figure she had seen earlier. But how had he got there? It was a mystery. He was quietly watching her as she went down the glade, although whether with approval or disapproval she could not guess.

Remembering what she had seen before, she raised her hand and saluted him as Edgar had done. But he did not answer with a nod this time and she remembered being told that the Forest people did not always care for strangers.

She had ridden, after that, for almost an hour. She still wouldn’t go back to Lyndhurst. She could imagine her reception: Walter’s furious face; the huntsmen – contemptuous she supposed. Hugh de Martell – who knew what he thought? It was all too much; she wasn’t going back there.

She kept to the woods. She did not know exactly where she was although, judging by the sun, she was heading south. She guessed, after a while, that the hamlet of Brockenhurst must be somewhere on her right, but she did not particularly wish to be seen and kept to the woodland tracks. Later on, she thought, I’ll head back towards Cola’s manor. With luck she could sneak in before the hunters returned, without attracting too much attention.

So she hardly knew whether to be annoyed or relieved when, just as she was wondering which of two tracks to take, she heard a cheerful cry behind her and turned to see the handsome form and friendly face of Edgar, cantering towards her.

‘Didn’t they tell you’, he said laughingly as he came up, ‘that you’re not supposed to deer-hunt on your own?’ And she realized she was glad that he had come.

His French was not very good, but passable. Thanks to a Saxon nurse in her childhood and a natural ear for languages, she had already discovered that she could make herself understood by these English. They could communicate well enough, therefore. Nor was it long before he had put her at her ease. ‘It was Puckle,’ he explained, when she asked how he had found her. ‘He told me you’d ridden south and no one saw you at Brockenhurst so I thought you’d be somewhere this way.’

So Puckle was the name of the gnarled figure.

‘He seems mysterious,’ she remarked.

‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘He is.’

Next, when she confessed her fear of going back he assured her: ‘We pick and choose the deer. You’d only have had to ask my father and he’d gladly have spared your pretty deer.’ He grinned. ‘You are supposed to ask him, though.’ She smiled ruefully as she tried to imagine herself asking for a deer’s life in front of the hunters, but, reading her thoughts, he gently added: ‘The deer have to be killed, of course, but even now, I hate doing it.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘It’s the way they fall, so full of grace. You see their spirits leave them. Everyone who’s ever killed a deer knows that.’ He said it so simply and honestly that she was touched. ‘It’s sacred,’ he concluded, as if there were nothing to argue about.

‘I wonder’, she said, after a pause, ‘if Hugh de Martell feels the same.’

‘Who knows.’ He shrugged. ‘He doesn’t think like that.’

No. His way, she imagined, was more blunt. A proud Norman landholder had no time for such thoughts.

‘He didn’t think I should be hunting. I expect your father agrees.’

‘My mother and my father used to ride out hunting together,’ he said softly, ‘when she was alive.’ And instantly she had a vision of that handsome couple, sweeping beautifully through the forest glades. ‘One day,’ Edgar added gently, ‘I hope to do the same.’ And then with a laugh: ‘Come on. We’ll ride back along the heath.’

So it was, a little time afterwards, that the two riders cantering along the short turf at the heath’s edge approached the hamlet of Oakley and came upon Godwin Pride, moving his fence, illegally, in broad daylight.

‘Damn,’ muttered Edgar under his breath. But it was too late to avoid the fellow now. He had caught him in the act.

Godwin Pride drew himself up to his full height: with his broad chest and splendid beard, he looked like a Celtic chief facing a tax collector. And, like a good Celtic chief, he knew that when the game was up, the only thing to do was bluff. To Edgar’s enquiry – ‘What are you doing, Godwin?’ – he therefore replied imperturbably: ‘Repairing this fence, as you see.’

It was so quietly outrageous that, for a moment, Edgar almost burst out laughing; but unfortunately this was not a laughing matter. ‘You’ve moved the fence.’

Pride considered thoughtfully. ‘It used to be further out,’ he said coolly, ‘but we pulled it back years ago. Didn’t need so much space.’