The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [40]
‘Thank you.’ He smiled, bowed his head respectfully and turned away, striding purposefully towards the horsemen.
She did not see him again in the days that followed. The Jewish doctor departed with him and returned a week later due to stay at Winchester, she learned, until Easter when the king was expected there. She made enquiries and learned that though the Lady Maud was still alive and, miraculously, had not lost the child so far, the Jew could not answer for whether she would survive or not.
More days passed. It grew a little warmer. Adela reflected. She pondered.
Then, early one morning, leaving only a message for her hostess, she rode out of Winchester alone. In the message, which was deliberately vague, she begged her friend to say nothing and promised to return by nightfall the following day. She did not say where she was going.
Godwin Pride, it was plain to see, felt rather pleased with himself. He was standing outside his cottage holding a rope. At the other end of the rope was a brown cow. His wife and three of his children were looking at it. A robin on the fence was also watching with interest.
Godwin Pride had come through the winter well enough. At the end of the autumn he had killed most of the pigs he had turned out on the acorn mast and salted them. He had eggs from his chickens, milk from his few cows; there were preserves from his apple trees and dried vegetables. As a commoner of the Forest he also had his right of Turbary, which gave him turf fuel. He had stayed snug in his cottage, kept his small stock alive and emerged into the Forest’s spring in good humour.
He had also bought a new cow. ‘It was a bargain,’ he declared. He had walked with it from Brockenhurst.
‘Oh? What did you pay?’ asked his wife.
‘Never you mind. It was a bargain.’
‘We don’t need another cow.’
‘She’s a good milker.’
‘And I’m the one who’ll have to look after her. Where did you get the money, anyway?’
‘Never you mind about that.’
She looked suspicious. The children watched silently. The robin on the fence looked a bit quizzical too.
‘And where are we going to put her?’ By which she meant, in winter. Was he going to build another cow stall? There really wasn’t space for one more beast in the little cattle pen. Surely he wasn’t intending to try to enlarge that again after being caught out last year. ‘You can’t enlarge the pen,’ she said.
‘Don’t you worry. I’ve got something else in mind. It’s all planned, that is. All planned.’ And, although he refused to be drawn, he looked more pleased with himself than ever. Even the robin seemed impressed.
And the fact that he had bought the cow on impulse, that there was no plan, that he hadn’t the faintest idea how he was going to accommodate it next winter, did not unduly trouble him. There was the whole long Forest spring and summer to think about that. Sometimes, as his wife knew so well, he could be like a little boy. But if she was thinking of arguing any more she never got the chance.
For it was at this moment that Adela appeared, walking her horse towards them.
‘Now what the devil can she want?’ Godwin Pride exclaimed.
It was late afternoon when the two figures came down from the plateau of Wilverley Plain – a huge level heath almost two miles in extent where the Forest ponies grazed with nothing around them but the open sky. Adela was walking her horse; just ahead of her, on a sturdy pony, Godwin Pride led the way. He did so very unwillingly.
The clouds were clearing from the sky to reveal, against the blue, the silver crescent of a waxing moon. There was a hint of spring warmth in the air. Adela was glad to be back in the Forest, even if she was a little afraid of what she was doing.
They had taken the track westwards from the central section of the Forest, up across the heathland of Wilverley, and were now about four miles west of Brockenhurst.