The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [159]
The aristocrat had been listening and watching him carefully and now knew him better than he knew himself, but young Nick Pride was entirely unaware of it. ‘I see, Nicholas Pride, that I may trust you,’ he said at last. ‘And if the queen herself asks me – and she may – who keeps the watch at our inland beacon, I shall remember your name and tell her you are her loyal man.’
‘Indeed, Sir, you can,’ cried Pride, more delighted with himself than ever.
Jane was sitting on a sandy bank, gazing across the Solent when the strange couple came along.
It was warm; there was a hint of haze across the waters so that the Isle of Wight was a sleepy blue. Sandpipers and waders skimmed over the mudflats in front of her and around the fort the fork-tailed swallows darted and sped, although soon they would be leaving for warmer climes.
The man and woman were driving a large wagon with high-boarded sides. It was carrying charcoal.
Jane had already noticed that just below the fort on the Solent side there was a small lime kiln. It had been there, in fact, for some time, a solid business – not on the scale of the nearby salt pans, of course, but profitable – the lime being shipped mostly across the English Channel to the island of Guernsey near the French coast. The charcoal would be needed as fuel for the kiln’s furnace.
The wagon turned off the track just before reaching the fort and went down to the kiln. Moments later she saw the man, aided by two others from the kiln, start to unload the sacks from the back of the wagon. She watched him with interest.
He was somewhat shorter than the other men, but he looked very muscular. His hair was thick and black, but his beard was short and neatly trimmed. His eyes were set wide apart and watchful – hunter’s eyes, she thought. She felt sure he had already taken her in as he unloaded the sacks of charcoal. So why did he seem strange? She wasn’t sure. She had lived with the Forest folk all her life; but this man looked different from the Prides and Furzeys, as if he belonged to some other, more ancient race, inhabitants of a deeper woodland than they knew. Was it her imagination or had his face been burnished by the charcoal fires to a darker hue? Was there something oaken, almost tree-like about him?
It was not hard to guess his family. She had seen several men like him before, at local fairs or at the court at Lyndhurst.
‘That’s Perkin Puckle,’ her father would point out. Or: ‘I think that’s Dan Puckle, but it may be John.’ And always the litany continued: ‘The Puckles live over Burley way.’ No one had anything to say against them. ‘They’re good friends, long as you keep on the right side of them,’ her father had told her. But, even if nobody said so, Jane had understood that there was something vaguely mysterious about the family. ‘They’re old,’ her mother had once remarked, ‘like the trees.’ Jane watched the man curiously.
She did not at first realize that she was being watched herself. She had not noticed the woman leave the wagon; but there she was, sitting not far off by a tuft of marsh grass, gazing at Jane thoughtfully. Not wishing to seem unfriendly, Jane nodded to her. Unexpectedly, the woman moved across and sat down only a few feet away from her. For several moments they both watched the men at their work.
‘That’s my husband.’ The woman turned to look at her.
She was small and dark-haired – cat-like, Jane thought. She