The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [21]
It had been noon when he had taken up his position. This had been carefully chosen – a little vantage point by the edge of some trees with a hidden depression where he could easily lie concealed while watching out to see if anyone was approaching. He had studied the habits of his quarry carefully.
Soon after noon, as he had expected, they had appeared and, thanks to the change in the direction of the breeze, he was downwind of them.
He had made no move. For over an hour he had patiently watched. Then, as he had expected, he had seen one of Cola’s men walk his horse silently across the open ground about half a mile away. He had let another hour pass. No one had come.
He had already selected his target. He needed a small doe – one that he could carry swiftly on his broad back up to his place of concealment. He would return for it that night with a handcart. There would be just enough moon tonight to allow him to see his way through the dark forest tracks. There were several small does in this little herd. One was paler than the rest.
He took aim.
For the first few days Adela could not believe that Walter had done it to her.
If the villages of Fordingbridge and Ringwood, that lay on the River Avon as it flowed down the Forest’s western edge, were scarcely more than hamlets, the settlement at the river’s southern estuary was more substantial. Here the Avon, joined by another river from the west, ran into a large, sheltered harbour – an ancient place where men had fished and traded for more than a thousand years. Twyneham, the Saxons had first called the settlement and the great sweep of meadow, marsh, woodland and heath that extended for miles along the south-western edge of the Forest from there, had long been a royal manor. In the last two centuries, thanks to a series of modest religious foundations endowed there by the Saxon kings, the village was more often referred to as Christchurch. It had grown into a small town and been fortified with a rampart. Five years ago, Christchurch had been given a further boost when the king’s chancellor decided to rebuild the priory church there on a grander scale and work on the riverside site had already begun.
But that was all it was: a quiet little borough by the sea, with a building site for a church.
And he had left her there. Not with a knight – there was no castle nor even a manor house. Not even with a person of the slightest consequence – only four of the most decrepit priory canons had remained in residence while the building went on. He had left her with a common merchant whose son made flour at the priory mill.
‘I had to pay him, you know,’ Walter had explained crossly.
‘But how long am I to stay here?’ she had cried.
‘Until I come for you. A month or two, I should think.’
Then he had ridden away.
Her quarters could have been worse. The merchant’s household consisted of several wooden buildings around a small yard, and she was given a chamber of her own over a store room beside the stable. It was perfectly clean and she had to admit that she would not have been any better housed in a manor.
Her host was not a bad man. Nicholas of Totton – he had come from a village of that name that lay fifteen miles away on the eastern edge of the Forest – was a burgess of the borough, where he owned three houses, some fields, an orchard, and a salmon fishery. Though he must have been over fifty, he retained a slim, almost youthful build. His mild grey eyes only looked disapproving if he thought someone had said something cruel or boastful. He spoke sparingly, yet Adela noticed that, with his younger children, he seemed to have a quiet, even playful sense of humour. There were seven or eight of these. Adela supposed that it must be dull to be married