The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [47]
‘Give him time,’ Rufus laughed to his court. ‘He’ll spend the whole dowry. You’ll see.’ Meanwhile he himself not only held Normandy, but never ceased his plans to steal any other bits of neighbouring France that he could.
At the start of the summer, however, came an even more agreeable development. Inspired by the sight of so many other Christian rulers winning glory on crusade, the Duke of Aquitaine, the huge, sunlit, wine-growing region southwest of Normandy, decided that he must be a holy crusader too. And what should he do but ask Rufus for a massive loan, just as Robert of Normandy had done, to finance the campaign?
‘He’s offering to mortgage the whole of Aquitaine,’ his emissaries announced. Rufus, who probably held no religious beliefs at all, only laughed: ‘It’s enough to restore one’s faith in God!’ he commented.
And soon the rumour was running round Europe: ‘Rufus means to have not only Normandy but Aquitaine as well.’ To those who disliked or feared him, it was not welcome news.
Edgar loved to show her the Forest. It was, after all, the thing he knew best. And with his brother still in London, he had her all to himself.
He showed her how to read the spoor of the fallow deer. ‘You see, the deer has a cleft foot. When the deer walk, the two cleaves of the foot are together and so the track looks like a little hoof print on the ground. When they trot, the foot opens out and you see a cleft. When they gallop, the foot opens right out and you see a V in the ground.’ He smiled happily. ‘Here’s something else. See these tracks, with the feet turned outwards? That’s the male deer. The footprints of a female deer point straight ahead.’
On another occasion, after they had ridden right across from Burley to Lyndhurst in some of the deepest woods, he asked her: ‘Do you know how you can tell what direction you are headed in the Forest?’
‘By the sun?’
‘What if it’s cloudy?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Find an exposed, upright tree,’ he told her. ‘The lichen, you see, always grows on the damp side of the tree. That’s where the prevailing wind carries the moisture to them from the sea. In this part of England it is from the southwest. Look for the lichen and that’s south-west.’ He grinned. ‘So if you get lost, the trees will be telling you where I live.’
She knew he was falling in love with her and by June her conscience was beginning to trouble her. She was aware that she should hold herself a little distant from him, but this was difficult when she found him such pleasant company. They rode, they laughed, they walked together.
Some days she would refuse to go out. She had begun a large and handsome piece of needlework as a present for his father. It seemed the least that she could do. It was like the hunting scene she had seen in the king’s hall at Winchester, but she hoped it would be even better. It depicted the forest trees, the deer, hounds, birds and hunters. One of the hunters was clearly Cola himself. She had wanted to place the handsome, golden-haired form of Edgar in one corner also, but had thought better of it. This great work was a good excuse for avoiding Edgar’s company some days, without giving offence. And quite often, on these occasions, Cola himself would come in and watch her at work with apparent approval. As the weeks went by, although his quiet manner never changed, it seemed to her that despite himself the old man was getting to like her too.
It was on just such a day, in the second week of June, as she was busy at her needlework in the slanting light under the open window of the hall, that Cola came in to her, smiling. ‘I have news that will please you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Hugh de Martell has a son. A healthy boy. He was born yesterday.’
She felt her heart beat wildly. ‘And the Lady Maud?’ She held her needle, watching it gleam in the falling sunlight.
‘She survived. Remarkably, it seems she is rather well.’
There was another birth in the Forest that day.
For some time now the pale doe, heavy with her fawn, had been searching