The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [122]
Not many folk were about in the fields. A few hundred yards south of the manor hall lay a small thatched farmhouse with a slip of ash trees by the brook nearby. Coming down the cattle drove beside it they met a cowherd who, when they asked him politely where the dragon had been slain, smiled and pointed to a field behind the farm. ‘That’s Dragon’s Field,’ he told them. ‘By Bunny Brook.’
They wandered about for an hour or more along the paths and down to the river. They could see by the sun that it must be noon when Willie announced that he was hungry.
Just down river, at the old cattle crossing of Tyrrell’s Ford, there were some cottages and an old forge. Saying they had come from nearby Ringwood, so as not to draw any suspicion on to themselves, Jonathan begged some bread and cheese, which a woman in one of the cottages gave them readily enough. He asked her also about the dragon.
‘Twenty years or more since he was killed,’ she said.
‘Yes. But what about the new one?’
‘I haven’t seen that myself,’ she said, with a smile.
‘Perhaps it isn’t there,’ said Willie to Jonathan, as they ate their bread and cheese by the river.
‘She only said she hadn’t seen it,’ Jonathan replied.
After they had eaten they slept for a while in the warm sun.
It was past mid-afternoon when they went back up the drove by the farmhouse. If they felt daunted by the long walk home, they tried not to show it. They knew they needed to step out now to be safely back at dusk.
They were halfway up the drove when they encountered the cows, about half a dozen of them, being driven to the farmhouse by a boy. He was older than they were, perhaps twelve, and eyed them curiously. ‘Where d’you come from?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Want a fight?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I got to drive these cows anyway. What’re you doing here?’
‘Came to see the dragon.’
‘Dragon’s Field’s over there.’
‘We know. They told us there was another dragon now, but there isn’t.’
The boy looked at them thoughtfully. His eyes narrowed. ‘Yes there is. That’s why I have to get these cows in.’ He paused and nodded. ‘Comes over every evening, just like the last one did. From Burley Beacon.’
‘Really?’ Jonathan searched his face. ‘You’re making it up. Nobody’d stay here.’
‘No, it’s true. Honest. Sometimes he don’t do much. But he’s killed dogs and calves. You can see him flying at sunset. Breathes fire, too. Horrible-looking thing, really.’
‘Where does he go?’
‘Always the same place. Down into Dragon’s Field. So we stay away from there, that’s all.’
He turned away then, tapping the nearest cow with his stick, while the two boys went on. They didn’t speak for a moment or two.
‘I think he was lying,’ said Willie.
‘Maybe.’
Now they were returning, it did not seem to take long to get back up to the crest of Shirley Common. Although the sun was not yet sinking in the afternoon sky, there was just a hint of chill in the April breeze and a tinge of orange in the golden haze to the west. Once again the whole valley from the Avon river up to the ridge of Burley Beacon was stretched out before them in a panorama.
‘We’d get a good view from here,’ said Jonathan.
‘We’ll get back late,’ said Willie.
‘Depends when it comes. It might come now.’
Willie didn’t reply.
Jonathan knew his companion hadn’t been as keen to go as he was. Willie had done it for friendship’s sake. Not that he was afraid – or no more afraid than he was, anyway. In most of their games, especially playing by the river or anything to do with water, it was Willie with his funny chinless face who was the dare-devil and Jonathan who was cautious. And he knew that he wouldn’t have dared to come there alone. But as the long day wore on Jonathan had also discovered something else in himself that he hadn’t known about before: a quiet, driving determination rather different from his friend’s free nature.
‘If we get back after curfew’, Willie said, ‘we’ll get whipped.’
Even in the villages, the curfew – the