Read Online The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
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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 whichshe 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 westward 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 andbarley, 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
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 whichshe 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 westward 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 andbarley, 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
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