The Forest (3 page)

And then there was the other feature of the New Forest that Adela had correctly sensed: the presence of the sea. Often the warm south-westerly breezes carried a faint hint of salt air even to the northern parts of the Forest. But the sea itself was nearly always hidden until one came out of the oak woods on to the coastal marshes. One visible sign there was, however. For opposite the eastern part of the Forest’s shore and divided from it by a three-mile channel known as the Solent water, rose the friendly hump of the chalky Isle of Wight. And from numerous vantage points, even from the high downs below Sarum, one could look right across the whole basin of the Forest to see the island beyond, misty and purple across the sea.

‘Stop daydreaming! You’ll get left behind.’

Walter was facing her, looking embarrassed, and she realized that, to take in the view, she had unconsciously pulled up and let the rest of the party draw ahead.

‘Sorry,’ she said and they went forward, Walter trotting officiously at her side.

She looked at him critically. With his small, curling moustache and slightly stupid pale-blue eyes, how did Walter manage to insinuate himself everywhere? Probably because, even though he had no special talent, it was clear that he was doggedly determined to make himself useful to the powers that be. Even his powerful in-laws might feel pleased that, if he was on their side, he must think they were winning. Not a bad fellow to have in the family in these uncertain times.

There were always political intrigues going on in the Norman world. When King William the Conqueror had died a dozen years before, his inheritance had been divided between his sons: red-haired William, known as Rufus, had got England; Normandy had gone to Robert; a third son, Henry, received only an income. But as even Adela knew, the situation was always uneasy. Many of the great nobles had estates in both England and Normandy; but while Rufus was a competent ruler, Robert was not and it was often said that Rufus would take over Normandy one day. Yet Robert had his admirers. One great Norman family who held some of the lands along the New Forest coast was said to like him. And what of young Henry? He seemed contented with his lot, but was he? The situation was further complicated by the fact that so far, neither Rufus nor Robert had married and produced an heir. But when she had innocently asked Walter when the King of England would marry, he had only shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he had answered. ‘He prefers young men.’

Adela sighed to herself. Whatever turn events might take in the future, she supposed Walter would be sure to know which was the winning side.

The party was making swift progress across the heath. Here and there she noticed small groups of sturdy ponies eating grass or gorse. ‘They’re all over the Forest,’ Walter explained. ‘They look wild but many of them belong to the peasants in the hamlets.’ They were pretty little creatures and, judging by the numbers she could see, there must be thousands of them in the Forest.

Cola and his sons led the way. If the king had reserved the New Forest for his deer, this was not only for his amusement. Of course, the sport was excellent. Not only deer, but wild boar could be hunted. There were a few wolves to be killed, too. When the king went hunting with his friends they normally used bows. But the underlying need for the Forest was much more practical. The king and his court, his men at arms, sometimes even his sailors, had to be fed. They needed meat. Deer breed and grow rapidly. The venison meat they produce is delicious and very lean. It could be salted – there were salt beds by the coast – and sent all over the kingdom. The New Forest was a deer farm.

It was a very professional one. Run by several foresters – some of them Saxons like Cola, left in place because of their intimate knowledge of the area – the Forest kept a stock of about seven thousand deer. When one of the royal huntsmen led a party out to kill deer for the king, as Cola was doing today, they would not rely on bows, but on a far more efficient method. Today would be a great drive, or drift, with this and other parties fanning out over a wide area and expertly driving the game before them towards a huge trap. The trap, which was being set up at the royal manor of Lyndhurst in the centre of the Forest, consisted of a long curving fence, which would funnel the deer down towards an inclosure where they could be shot with bows or caught in nets in large numbers. ‘It’s like a spiral seashell in the middle of the Forest,’ Walter had told her. ‘There’s no escape.’

Though cruelly efficient, it conjured up an image in her mind that was magical and strangely mysterious.

They began to descend a slope towards a wood. On her right, she heard a skylark singing and looked up at the pale-blue sky to find it. As she did so, she realized Walter was speaking to her. ‘The trouble with you,’ she heard him start, before she closed her mind to the sound of his voice.

There was always so much the matter with her, according to Walter. ‘You should try to walk more elegantly,’ he would say. Or smile more. Or wear another gown. ‘You’re not bad looking,’ he had been good enough to tell her the week before. ‘Even if some people would say you should be slimmer.’

This was a new fault. ‘Do they say that?’ she had gently asked.

‘No,’ he had replied after consideration. ‘But I should think that they might.’

Underlying all these criticisms, though, and the faint embarrassment her presence clearly caused him, was the one great shortcoming she was powerless to correct. I’m sure, she thought wryly, that if I had a huge dowry, he would think me beautiful.

She could see the lark now: a tiny speck high over the ridge, its voice descending, full-throated, clear as a bell. She smiled, then turned, as something else caught her eye.

The figure riding over the heath was catching up with them rapidly. He rode alone. He was wearing a hunting cap and was dressed in dark-green; but even before she could see more of him, it was clear from the magnificent bay he rode that this was no ordinary squire. With what an easy, powerful stride the big horse cantered towards them. It made her heart thrill to watch. And the rider, in a quiet way, seemed as impressive as his mount. As he drew closer she saw a tall, dark-haired man. His face was aquiline, Norman and somewhat stern. She guessed he might be thirty and he was obviously born to authority. As he passed them he lightly touched his cap in polite acknowledgement, but since he did not turn his head it was impossible to tell whether he had actually seen her. She saw him canter straight to the head of the party and salute Cola, who returned the greeting with evident respect. She wondered who this latecomer might be and rather unwillingly turned to Walter, who she found was watching her already.

‘That’s Hugh de Martell,’ he said. ‘Holds large estates west of the Forest.’ And then, just as she had started to remark that he looked a rather cold, disagreeable character, Walter gave an irritating laugh. ‘You can’t have him, little cousin.’ He grinned. ‘He’s already taken. Martell’s married.’

The morning sun was well up in the sky and, although everything was quiet, it still seemed to his wife that Godwin Pride was taking a bit of a chance. Normally he finished soon after dawn. ‘You know the law,’ she reminded him.

But Pride said nothing and went on. ‘They won’t come down this way,’ he finally said. ‘Not today.’

There was a scent of sweet grass in the air. A fly nearly settled on Pride’s neck, but then thought better of it. After another minute or two, a small boy came and stood beside her to watch his father.

‘I can hear something,’ she suggested.

Pride paused, listened, gave her a quiet look. ‘No, you can’t,’ he said.

The hamlet of Oakley consisted of a small scattering of thatched huts and homesteads by a green of close-cropped moorland grass. Across the green was a shallow pond whose surface at present was covered by a straggling carpet of little white flowers. Two small oaks, an ash and several bushes of bramble and yellow gorse overhung the water at various points. Although the grass was short and coarse, three cows and a couple of ponies were grazing on the green. Just behind the hamlet, a gravel track led into woodland where it soon descended, between high banks, to a small river. At the eastern end of the hamlet, set a little apart, was the homestead of Godwin Pride.

Godwin Pride: the two names could hardly have been more Saxon; yet a glance at their owner suggested a different ancestry. He was stooping over his work again now, but when he had straightened up to answer his wife, what a fine figure he had presented. Built long, with a straight back, hair falling in rich chestnut curls to his shoulders, a full matching beard and moustache, a beak of a nose, lustrous brown eyes – all these indicated that, like many of the people living in the Forest, he was, at least in part, a Celt.

Romans had come; Saxons had come. In particular that branch of the Saxon peoples known as Jutes had settled in the Isle of Wight and the eastern part of the Forest, which was known as Ytene – the land of the Jutes. But in that isolated region, whose deep woods, poor heaths and marshland did not invite much attention, a remnant of the old Celtic population had quietly lived on. Indeed, their life on their homesteads, modest but well adapted to their forest environment, had probably changed very little since the ancient and pleasant peace of the Bronze Age.

It was unusual in the reign of Rufus for a man, especially a peasant, to have a family name. But there were several cousins bearing the name of Pride in the Forest –
Pryde
in Old English signifying not so much arrogance, although there was some of that, as a sense of personal worth, an independence of spirit, a knowledge that the ancient Forest was theirs to live in as they pleased. As Cola the Saxon noble would still advise visiting Normans: ‘It’s easier to coax these people than try to give them orders.
They won’t be told
.’

Perhaps it was for this reason that even the mighty Conqueror, when he had created the New Forest, allowed some compromises. As far as the land was concerned, many of the Forest estates were already royal manors, so there was no need to kick anybody out. Some others he did take over; but many estates around the Forest edge lost only their woodland and heathland to the king’s hunting. As for the people, several Saxon aristocrats like Cola found themselves left in place, so long as they made themselves useful: and whatever it may have cost his soul, Cola had played safe. Other lords did lose their land, as Saxon nobles had all over England; so did some of the peasants, either moving to new hamlets or, like Puckle, living off the Forest. Yet for all those remaining in the area there were compensations.

True, the Norman forest laws were harsh. There were two overall categories of offence: those called
vert
and those termed
venison
. The
vert
concerned vegetation – forbidding the chopping down of trees, the making of inclosures, anything that could damage the habitat of the king’s deer. These were the lesser offences. The
venison
crimes concerned the poaching of game and, most especially, deer. The Conqueror’s penalty for killing a deer had been blinding. Rufus had gone even further: a peasant who killed a stag must suffer death. The forest laws were hated.

But there were still the ancient common rights of the Forest folk; and these the Conqueror left largely intact and even, in places, extended. In Pride’s hamlet, for instance, though a piece of land beside his homestead had been taken under forest law – which Pride regarded as an imposition – except during certain prohibited periods of the year, he could turn out as many ponies and cattle as he pleased to graze all over the king’s Forest; in the autumn his pigs could forage on the rich crop of fresh acorns; he also had the right to cut turves for his peat fire, gather fallen wood, of which there was always plenty, and to carry home bracken as bedding for his animals.

Technically, Godwin Pride was termed a copyholder. The local noble who now held Oakley hamlet was his feudal lord. Did this mean that he had to go out and plough the lord’s land three days a week and bow his head if his lord passed? Not at all. There were no great manorial fields; this was the Forest. True, he put marl on the lord’s small field, paid some modest feudal dues, such as a few pence for the pigs he kept, and helped if there was wood to be carted. But these were more like rents for his smallholding. He lived, in practice, just as his ancestors had done, minding his holding, and earning useful extra money in occasional labour connected with the king’s hunting and the maintenance of his forest. He was practically a free man.

The forest smallholders did not live so badly. Were they grateful? Of course not. Godwin Pride, faced with this foreign interference, had done what people in such circumstances have done through the ages. First he had raged; then grumbled; finally he had come to a resentful compromise laced with contempt. And then he had settled down, quietly and methodically, to beat the system. This, watched nervously by his wife, was what he was doing this morning.

He had been a child when the land by his family’s homestead had been taken into the king’s New Forest. Just beside their little barn, however, a small strip of about a quarter-acre had been left for them. This was used as a pen where the family’s livestock could be kept and fed in the months when they were not allowed on the Forest. Around it was a fence. But the pen was really not big enough.

Every year, therefore, in the spring when the animals were back on the Forest, Godwin Pride enlarged it.

Not by much. He was very careful. Just a few feet at a time. First, during the night, he would move the fence. That was the easy part. Then, as the light came up, he would go over the ground minutely, filling in and masking the place where the fence had been before, and using turves he had secretly cut in advance, where necessary, returfing the area he had taken over. By early morning it was very hard to see what he had done. But, to be safe, he would immediately put the pigs on that section. A few weeks of the pigs using it and the ground would be too messy to see anything. The next year the same thing again: imperceptibly the pen was growing.