The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [165]
It was his cue and he knew it. But he said nothing. Long moments passed.
‘I’d best get home,’ she said at last.
He heard her disappointment and let some more time pass. Then he nodded. ‘I’ll walk with you,’ he answered quietly. Then, briskly, ‘There’s much to think of this summer, isn’t there?’ And, secretly chuckling at his cleverness, he walked her back to Brook.
Let her wait. Let her be uncertain, he thought, just for a day.
A fine day it was, when it came.
Minstead was a curious place. Technically it was a feudal liberty: which was to say that, although lying completely surrounded by the royal forest, it had its own private lord with his own manor court. In practice this did not make a huge difference to anybody. The lord rented out some fields and received some modest feudal dues. Neither the manor peasants nor the lord could break the forest law of the territory all around the manor’s few hundred acres. Both the lord and his peasants, however, derived benefit from the manor’s common rights of fuel and pasture on the Forest, and this was quite valuable. Since time out of mind, the manor had belonged to the same feudal family as Bisterne in the Avon valley, which had now passed, by marriage, from the male line of Berkeley the dragon-slayer to the equally mighty family of Compton. But the lord of the manor had no house at Minstead. His steward came and took the rents, held court, gave what management was needed. The feudal liberty of Minstead was just a quiet village in the Forest.
It did, however, have one building of significance. Beside the lane, near the bottom, was the small village green. On one side, in a shallow dell, lay the nearest thing to a manor house the village possessed, which was the vicar’s rectory with its four acres of glebe. On the other, set upon a little knoll only two hundred yards from the green, was the parish church – significant because it was the only one in this part of the Forest. Not that the structure itself was large; although its walls were stone, the thatched roof made it seem more like a big cottage. Inside, the nave was not thirty feet wide and had a homely gallery you could reach up and touch. But it was a parish church. Even the chapel used by kings and queens at Lyndhurst came under its aegis. And it was Minstead church where the men of Minstead and Brook were meeting for their muster.
As Nick Pride looked around he felt delighted. The afternoon sky was a fresh light-blue; white puffs of cloud sailed over the church on its knoll. The muster consisted of the chosen men of the parish together with its outlying hamlets, known as tithings. There were a dozen men, including the three from Brook and a fellow from Lyndhurst, and it seemed to Nick that they were quite an impressive fighting force.
Of the twelve men, eight had bows and, thanks to Albion’s strict command, every one of these now possessed a full dozen arrows. Six of the men had long bills in their hands, sharpened and gleaming. God help the Spaniard, he thought, who came within reach of these terrifying spears. Three of the men had short-brimmed metal helmets. And he, from his father, had a breastplate of armour, a sword and metal splints to protect his forearm. One of the men had complained that since Nick was minding the beacon he had no need of these arms and should give them to someone else. But he had protested: ‘Once the beacon’s lit, I’ll be fighting too.’ And Albion had ruled that he should keep everything. Nobody had an arquebus, but that was not surprising: few English villagers had guns.
The orders for the day were straightforward: they would train for an hour or two up by the church; then they would march down to the green to give a demonstration of their fighting skills to the village; after which they would break up and there would be refreshments. And then, he thought cheerfully, he would carry out his plan. He looked at the weapons glinting in the sun and smiled to himself.
Clement