Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [242]
Before he had gone a hundred yards, he froze.
He had seen an agister.
Fortunately, the agister had not yet seen him. He was walking slowly through the wood and was not at that moment concerned with poachers. His mind was taken up with a discrepancy he had discovered in the accounts which were to be presented to the warden of the forest. Edward Le Portier was a precise man: most people thought him fussy. But he was a figure of some authority. At the Norman invasion his grandfather, who bore the family name of Port, had (to the disgust of the other thanes) decided that, since the Norman William was fighting under the pope’s banner of approval, he should support him. It was a decision that the people in the area had never forgiven, but it had won the family the grant of prosperous estates, some of which lay within the bounds of the forest. The name of Port, whose Roman origin they had now long since forgotten, but to which they still tenaciously clung, had become altered to the French Le Portier, and both Edward and his father had been elected as agisters.
He was thin and dark, with a clean-shaven moonlike face; his eyes had a strange, intense stare that was completely without humour. His voice was rasping and high-pitched. And he was now only twenty yards from the youth and his unlawed dog.
By good luck, there was an oak tree a few feet away which shielded them from view. Godric went down on one knee, placed his hand gently over Harold’s muzzle and held his breath. He heard Le Portier pause for a moment. But the agister had only stopped to think, and a second later he moved on.
For several minutes more, however, Godric did not move. Harold waited patiently at his side. It was only when he was sure the coast was clear that the boy stood up and left his cover. It was time to go home.
Then he saw the pig.
The pig was black. It was not large, but it was plump and moving at a leisurely pace in a straight line across the ground with its snout down. No doubt it was searching for any remaining acorns that might be embedded in the forest floor. There was nothing remarkable in this sight, except for one thing: a small brand mark on the pig’s hindquarter which told Godric that it belonged to William atte Brigge.
He knew that the tanner had half a dozen swine and that he paid a fee for pasturing them loose in the forest; as he watched the animal go past, his face broke into a smile. The risks were great, but now he saw how to take his revenge. Resting his hand on Harold’s back he pointed at the pig and whispered:
“Follow.”
It was dusk, three days later when Godric Body called at the smith’s and asked Mary to walk out with him. After some hesitation, and giving him as usual the suspicious, sideways look that should have discouraged him, she consented. But Godric was in high spirits and, without being asked, took her hand as they walked along the lower end of the huge furrowed fields. Harold bounded beside them. The first shoots of the summer crops were already showing; there was a faint chill still in the damp air so that, after a few minutes he put his arm around her. At first she shook her shoulders crossly; but when he persisted she made no further protest. At the end of the field he turned round and asked her casually:
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Depends,” she replied flatly.
For a few minutes he said nothing. They started back.
“What?” she enquired at last.
He paused once again, before answering.
“I’ll show you.”
Slowly he led her back towards the village where his mean hut was the last of the straggling line of dwellings. She noticed that there was a thin column of blue smoke rising from it. As they reached the entrance she hesitated and he felt her shoulders