The Forest (7 page)

‘I had to pay him, you know,’ Walter had explained crossly.

‘But how long am I to stay here?’ she had cried.

‘Until I come for you. A month or two, I should think.’

Then he had ridden away.

Her quarters could have been worse. The merchant’s household consisted of several wooden buildings around a small yard, and she was given a chamber of her own over a store room beside the stable. It was perfectly clean and she had to admit that she would not have been any better housed in a manor.

Her host was not a bad man. Nicholas of Totton – he had come from a village of that name that lay fifteen miles away on the eastern edge of the Forest – was a burgess of the borough, where he owned three houses, some fields, an orchard, and a salmon fishery. Though he must have been over fifty, he retained a slim, almost youthful build. His mild grey eyes only looked disapproving if he thought someone had said something cruel or boastful. He spoke sparingly, yet Adela noticed that, with his younger children, he seemed to have a quiet, even playful sense of humour. There were seven or eight of these. Adela supposed that it must be dull to be married to such a man, but his busy wife seemed to be perfectly contented. Either way, the Totton family were hardly relevant to her.

There was no one to talk to and nothing to do. The site where the new priory church was to be built, beautifully set by the river, was a mess. The old church had been pulled down and soon dozens of masons would be hard at work there, she was told. But at present it was deserted. One day she rode around to the headland, which protected the harbour. It was very peaceful. Swans glided on the waters; wild horses grazed in the marshes beyond. On the other side of the headland a huge bay swept round to the west, while to the east the low gravel cliffs of the New Forest shore extended for miles until they receded up the Solent channel from which there interposed the high chalk cliffs of the Isle of Wight. It was a lovely sight but it did not please her. On other days she walked about, or sat by the river. There was nothing to do. Nothing. A week passed.

Then Edgar came. She was surprised he had known she was there.

‘Walter told my father you were staying here,’ he said. He did not tell her that already, all the way up the Avon valley as far as Fordingbridge, people were calling her ‘the deserted lady’.

Things got better after that. He would come to see her at least once a week and they would ride out together. The first time they rode up the Avon valley a couple of miles to where a modest gravel ridge known as St Catherine’s Hill gave a splendid view over the valley and the southern part of the Forest.

‘They nearly built the new priory up here,’ he told her. ‘Next time I come,’ he pointed to one area of the Forest, ‘I’ll take you there. And the time after that, over there.’

He was as good as his word. Sometimes they rode up the Avon valley; or they might wander along the Forest’s coastline with its numerous tiny inlets, as far as the village of Hordle, where there were salt beds. Wherever they went he would tell her things: stopping by some tiny dark stream, hardly more than a trickle: ‘The sea-trout come to spawn up here. You’d never think it, would you, but they do. Right into the Forest.’

On their third trip she had met him near Ringwood and he had conducted her across the heath to a dark little hamlet in a woodland dell called Burley.

‘There’s something strange about this place,’ she had remarked.

‘They say there’s witchcraft in the area,’ he observed. ‘But then people always say that about a forest.’

‘Why, do you know any witches?’ she had asked with a laugh.

‘They say Puckle’s wife is a witch of some kind,’ he replied. She glanced at him to see if he was joking, but he didn’t seem to be. Then he grinned. ‘A very good rule in the Forest is: if in doubt, don’t ask.’ And he had nudged his horse into a trot.

Often on these rides he would question her about herself, whether she meant to stay in England, what sort of man she expected Walter to find for her. She was guarded in her replies. Her position, after all, was a difficult one. But once she did allow herself, with a trace of condescension to confess: ‘My main attraction for a Norman knight, you see, is that I am a Norman too.’ She was sorry if he looked a little crestfallen, but she wanted to maintain her status.

Two months had passed and still no word from Walter.

If she had not felt confident after all these excursions into the Forest, Adela might not have gone so far by herself that midsummer day. Having ridden into the central section of the Forest, she had let her mind wander and for some time her horse had taken his own course along the woodland tracks, at a gentle walk. Then she had dismounted and rested for a little while in a tiny glade while the animal cropped the grass. The sound of a herd of deer suddenly crashing through the undergrowth somewhere ahead had woken her from her reverie. Curious, she had quickly mounted and trotted forward to see what had disturbed them. Coming out abruptly on to open ground, and seeing a figure she thought she recognized ahead, she cantered towards him, hardly thinking what she was doing. He turned. She saw. And it was already too late.

‘Good day, Godwin Pride,’ she said.

Pride stared. Just for once, he lost his usual composure. His mouth sagged open. He couldn’t believe it: how could he have failed to hear her coming? It had only taken him a few moments to run across the open ground and a few more to hoist the fallen doe on to his shoulders. Obviously it had been long enough. The bad luck of the thing was past belief.

And, of all people, this girl. A Norman. Worse still, all the Forest knew she had been riding out with Edgar.

Worst of all, he was caught, as the forest law termed it, ‘red-handed’: the deer and its blood on his hands. There was no escape. He was for it. Mutilation: they’d cut off one of his limbs. They might even hang him. You couldn’t be sure.

He glanced about. They were alone. Just for a moment he wondered if he should kill her. But he put the thought out of his mind. The doe slipped from his back as he stood up straight, brave as a lion before her. If he was frightened at facing death he wasn’t going to show it.

And then he thought of his family. What were they going to do if he swung? Suddenly they came before his mind’s eye: the four children, his daughter only three, his wife, and the bitter words she would say. She’d be right. How could he explain it to his children? He could hear his own voice. ‘I did a foolish thing.’ Without even realizing he was doing it, he gave a short gasp.

But what could he do? Plead with this Norman girl? Why should she help him? She’d be bound to tell Edgar.

‘A fine day, isn’t it?’

He blinked. What was she saying?

‘I rode out early this morning,’ she went on calmly. ‘I hadn’t meant to come so far, but the weather was so good. I suppose if I go that way’ – she pointed – ‘I should get to Brockenhurst.’

He nodded, slightly bemused. She was talking on, as though there were nothing the matter in the world. What the devil was she at?

And then he got the message.
She had not looked at the deer
.

She was looking straight at his face. Dear God, she was asking after his children. He tried to mumble some reply.
She had not seen the deer
. Now he comprehended: she was chattering quietly on so that he would understand clearly. There was to be no complicity, no shared guilt, no embarrassment, no favours owed – she was too clever for that. She was better than that.
The deer did not exist
.

She went on a little more, asked him the best route by which she should return and, still without a single glance at the deer on the ground in front of her, she announced: ‘Well, Godwin Pride, I must be on my way.’ Then she turned the horse’s head and with a wave of her hand she was gone.

Pride took a deep breath.

Now that, he considered, was style.

Moments later, the deer was safely hidden and he was ready to go home. As he started off one further thought occurred to him and he smiled a little grimly.

Just as well, he mused, it wasn’t the pale doe he had shot.

Adela was surprised, returning in the evening to Christchurch, to find Walter Tyrrell crossly awaiting her.

‘If you hadn’t come back so late, we could have left today,’ he rebuked her. The fact that she had no idea he was arriving did not seem to matter. ‘Tomorrow morning, first thing. Be ready,’ he ordered.

‘But where are we going?’ she asked.

‘To Winchester,’ he informed her, as though it were obvious.

Winchester. At last – a place of real importance. There would be royal officials there, knights, people of consequence.

‘Except’, he added as an afterthought, ‘we’re to stay a few days, first, at a manor west of here. Down in Dorset.’

‘Whose manor?’

‘Hugh de Martell’s.’

There was a change in the weather the next morning. As they rode westwards into the sweeping ridges of Dorset, a great, grey cloud had risen up from the horizon, blocking the sun, its shining edges imparting a dull, luminous glow to objects in the landscape below.

Walter had maintained his usual grumpy silence for most of the way, but as they came over the last, long ridge he remarked to her gloomily: ‘I didn’t want to bring you here, but I thought I might as well before you go to Winchester. Give you a day or two to smarten up your manners. In particular,’ he went on, ‘you should observe Martell’s wife, the Lady Maud. She knows how to behave. Try to copy her.’

The village lay in a long valley. It was very different country from the Forest. On each side huge fields of wheat and barley, neatly divided into strips, swept up the slopes until they rolled over the valley’s crests. At the near end a small stone Saxon church rested on a green by a pond. The cottages were neatly fenced, more ordered than most such places. Even the village street looked tidy, as though swept by some unseen controlling hand. And finally the long lane led to the gatehouse to the manor itself. The house was set some distance back. Perhaps it was a trick of the light but as they rode through the entrance the close-cropped grass lawns, which lay on each side of them, seemed to Adela to be a darker green than the grass they had passed before. Ahead to the left was a large, square range of farm buildings, timber frame over stone, and to the right, set apart behind a large, well-swept open courtyard, stood the handsome hall with its accompanying buildings, all in knapped flintstone and topped with high, thatched roofs with not a straw out of place. This was no ordinary squire’s house. It was the base of a large territorial holding. Its calm, rather dark order said quietly, but just as clearly as any castle: ‘This land is the feudal lord’s. Bow down.’

A groom and his boy came out to take their horses. The door of the hall opened, and Hugh de Martell stepped out alone and came swiftly towards them.

She had not seen him smile before. It was warmer than she had expected. It made him more handsome than ever. He extended his long arm and held out his hand to help her down. She took it, noticing for a moment the dark hairs on his wrist, and stepped down beside him.

He quietly moved back and, before Walter could say anything remarked: ‘Just as well you came today, Walter. I was called away to Tarrant all day yesterday.’ Then he led the way, with an easy stride, towards the hall, holding the door for her as she went in.

The hall was large, as high as a barn with great oak-beamed rafters and woven rush matting on the floor. Two large oak tables, both gleaming, flanked the big open hearth in the centre. The wooden shutters were pulled back; the high windows let in a pleasant, airy light. She looked around for her hostess and almost at once, from a smaller doorway at the far end, that lady came in and went straight to Tyrrell.

‘You are welcome, Walter,’ she said softly, as he took her hand. ‘We are glad you could come.’ After only a short pause, she turned to Adela also. ‘You too, of course.’ She smiled, although with just a trace of doubt, as if faintly uncertain as to the younger woman’s social status.

‘My kinswoman, Adela de la Roche,’ said Walter without enthusiasm.

But it was not the cool reception that claimed Adela’s attention. What really struck her was the other woman’s appearance.

What had she expected Hugh de Martell’s wife to look like? More like him, she supposed – tall, handsome, nearer his age, perhaps. Yet this woman was only a little older than herself. She was short. And she wasn’t handsome at all. Her face, it seemed to Adela, was not exactly bad-looking but it was irregular; certainly her lips, which were small, weren’t straight – as if they had been slightly pulled up on one side. Her gown, although good, was too pale a shade of green and made her look even more pasty-faced than she was. A poor choice. She looked meagre, insignificant. That, Adela decided, was what she thought.

She had no chance to observe more just then. The manor house boasted two chambers where guests might sleep, one for men, another for women, and after her hostess had shown her the women’s chamber she left Adela to her own devices. But a little later, returning to the hall and finding Walter alone there, she quietly asked him: ‘When did Martell marry?’

‘Just three years ago.’ He glanced round and went on in a low voice: ‘He lost his first wife, you know.’ She had no idea. ‘Lost her and their only child. Heartbroken. Didn’t marry again for a long time, then thought he’d better try once more, I suppose. Needs an heir.’

‘But why the Lady Maud?’

‘She’s an heiress, you know.’ He gave her a quick, hard look. ‘He had two manors, this one and Tarrant. She brought him three more, same county. One of them marches with his land at Tarrant. Consolidates the holdings. Martell knows what he’s doing.’

She understood the bleak reminder of her own lack of manors. ‘And has he got an heir now?’

‘No children yet.’

Shortly after this the Lady Maud appeared and conducted her to the solar, a pleasant room up a flight of steps at one end of the hall. Here she found an old nurse, who greeted her courteously, and she sat and made polite conversation while the two women worked on their needlepoint.