The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [119]
It was perhaps to hide a trace of nervousness that Geoffrey Burrard, catching sight of young Jonathan, greeted him with unusual bluster. ‘Ho! Sirrah!’ he cried, ‘What adventures have you been having?’
‘None, Sir.’ Jonathan was not quite sure how to respond, but he knew that Burrard was a man to treat with respect.
‘Why, I supposed you’d been out slaying dragons.’ Burrard smiled at Jonathan and, seeing the boy look doubtful, added: ‘When I was your age, you know, there was a dragon in the Forest.’
‘Indeed,’ Totton nodded. ‘The Bisterne dragon, no less.’
Jonathan looked at them both. He knew the story of the Bisterne dragon. All the Forest children did. But because it concerned a knight and such an antique beast, he had just assumed it was an ancient tale like that of King Arthur. ‘I thought that was in olden times,’ he said.
‘Actually not.’ Totton shook his head. ‘It’s quite true,’ he explained seriously. ‘There really was a dragon – or so it was called – when I was young. And the knight at Bisterne killed it.’
Looking at his face, Jonathan could see that his father was telling the truth. He never teased him anyway. ‘Oh,’ Jonathan said, ‘I didn’t know.’
‘What’s more,’ Burrard continued in a serious tone and with a wink to the company that the boy did not see, ‘there was another dragon seen over at Bisterne the other day. Probably descended from the first one, I should think. They’re going to hunt it, I believe, so you’d better be quick if you want so see it.’
‘Really?’ Jonathan stared at him. ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’
‘Yes. But they killed the last one, didn’t they? Quite a sight, I should think, when it’s flying.’
Henry Totton smiled and shook his head. ‘You’d better get home,’ he said kindly and kissed his son. So Jonathan obediently left.
By the time Henry Totton came home himself, he’d forgotten about the dragon.
They set out soon after dawn. Willie would have been ready to go the day before, as soon as he heard about it, but as Jonathan pointed out, they needed a full day, starting at dawn. For it was a twelve-mile walk each way to Bisterne, where the dragon was.
‘I’ll be with Willie until dusk,’ he had said to the cook as he slipped out quickly, before anyone could ask him where he was going.
The journey, although quite long, was a very easy one. The manor of Bisterne lay in the southern portion of the Avon valley below Ringwood near the place called Tyrrell’s Ford. So they only had to cross the western half of the Forest, move along its southern edge and then descend into the valley beyond. Leaving early, even at a walk, they could be there by mid-morning, with no need to return until late afternoon.
Willie was waiting for him at the top of the street. Anxious to get well away before anyone stopped them, they went quickly along the lane that led through the fields and meadows of Old Lymington, crossed a stream by a small mill and within half an hour were passing the manor of Arnewood, that lay between the villages of Hordle and Sway.
It was a clear, bright morning, promising a warm day. The countryside west of Lymington was one of intimate little fields with hedgerows and small oaks in rolling dips and dells. The pale-green leaves were starting to break out on the bare branches; white blossom from the hedges was being scattered on the lane by the light breeze. They passed a ploughed field whose furrows were receiving a visit from a flapping mass of seagulls.
To anyone familiar with the inhabitants of Lymington, the two boys passing Arnewood manor would have been easy to identify, since each was a perfect miniature of his father: the serious face of the merchant on the one boy, the cheerful chinlessness of the mariner on the other, were almost comical. Within an hour, however, they were leaving the world of Lymington well behind. They came to a wood through which there was a narrow track. And then, passing through a belt of stunted ash and birch, they emerged on to the wide open world of the Forest heath.
‘Do you think’, Willie asked nervously,