The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [177]
‘Who keeps the watch and ward at Malwood?’ Albion would cry as he came to make his inspection – almost daily by mid-July. He had discovered that the young man loved to be hailed in this manner.
‘Nicholas Pride, Sir,’ the youth would answer. ‘And all is in good order, may it please you.’
It certainly was, but for form’s sake Albion would inspect everything, starting with the beacon.
The beacons that would warn England of the coming of the Spanish Armada are often imagined as bonfires. But it was not so at all. Nick Pride’s up at Malwood was typical of its kind.
It had been placed at the highest point on the old earth wall from which, thanks to Albion’s tree thinning, it was visible for many miles. It consisted of a stout pole, about twenty feet high, which had been securely planted several feet into the ground and was also held firm by four supporting stakes, called spurs, angled up like guy ropes to its apex. On top of the pole was fixed a large metal barrel filled with a mixture of pitch, tar and flax, which would burn with a bright flame for hours.
You reached the tar barrel up a ladder – a single beam fitted with cross bars – and you lit it with a flaming torch. In order to have a flame to ignite the torch, Nick and his companions kept a small charcoal brazier alight, day and night, just below.
Nick always shared the watch with one other man, the one not on duty resting in a tiny wooden hut just inside the earth wall. In recent days Nick had been up on Malwood all the time, the other two men taking it turn and turn about. People would drift up from the village from time to time to keep them company; but for some reason the council had ordained that no dogs were permitted at any of the beacons. Perhaps it was feared they would be a distraction.
There was only one eventuality where the beacons would not be useful: if there was fog or extreme bad weather – and given the repeated storms this last was a distinct possibility. In that case, a chain of staging posts had been organized across the country. Light horsemen would race from one to another, carrying the news. The horse they rode was called a hobby, and so each man, with his single message that he must deliver, would ride his hobby horse from post to post.
The beacons on the Isle of Wight were more complex. At each end of the island there were a set of three. If one was fired it indicated either that a signal had been received from down the coast, or that the watchers on the island had seen the invading fleet on the horizon themselves. This served to alert the next county whose watch would light their beacon in turn. If the enemy was approaching the coast, a second was lit. This signalled the beacons of the coastal defences to be ignited and summoned the musters. If three beacons were lit, however, it meant that the coastal defences needed reinforcements from further inland, and then the inland beacons were lit and the trained bands were to go quickly to their meeting points and march down to the coast. Malwood was counted as an inland beacon. ‘However,’ Albion had instructed Nick Pride, ‘as we’re short of men, you are to light your beacon if you see a two-beacon alert on the island and then we’ll march down to Hurst.’
Most days Jane would come and spend an hour or two with him. She would bring him a pie that she had cooked, or cakes, or a jug of some cool drink made from fruit and flowers that she and her mother had prepared. And they would sit together up on Malwood’s grassy walls and gaze over the green forest towards the blue haze of the sea. In the evenings, sometimes, she would remain with him until long after dark, keeping watch together.
So Nick Pride waited for the Spanish Armada in company with the girl he was to marry; when he saw her coming, his heart would dance; when he looked down at her and put his arm round her waist as they viewed the Forest at twilight, he felt a great surge of warmth and thanked the faint evening stars that he had been blessed with her.
Obsession. She did not know the word, but everything belonging to it