The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [54]
As the red-headed king sat down on a bench and started to pull on his boots, an armourer appeared with half a dozen newly forged arrows to present to the king.
Rufus took them, inspected them and smiled. ‘Beautifully made. Perfect weight. Supple shaft. Well done,’ he congratulated the armourer. Then, looking over to Tyrrell, he remarked: ‘You take two of them, Walter. You’re the best marksman.’ And as Tyrrell accepted them, beaming, he added with his harsh laugh: ‘You’d better not miss!’
There followed some of the usual courtly banter, to keep the king amused. Then a monk appeared. This did not particularly please Rufus, who barely tolerated churchmen, at best. But since the lugubrious fellow insisted on delivering an urgent letter from his abbot, the king shrugged and took it.
After he had read it he laughed. ‘Now, Walter, don’t you forget what I told you. You’d better not miss with my arrows,’ he remarked to Tyrrell; then, turning to the general company: ‘Can you believe what this Gloucestershire abbot writes. One of his monks has had a dream. He saw an apparition. Of me, if you please. Suffering hellfire, no doubt.’ He grinned. ‘I should think half the monks in England dream of me in torment.’ He waved the letter. ‘So he sits down and writes a letter to let me know and sends it halfway across England to warn me to be careful. And this man, God help us, is an abbot! You’d have thought he’d have more sense.’
‘Let’s go hunting, Sire,’ somebody said.
It was well into the morning before Hugh de Martell set off from his manor. For some reason his wife had chosen that morning, of all mornings, to delay him with one small matter after another so that finally he had been forced to leave her quite abruptly. It had made him feel guilty and bad-tempered. He pushed his horse along at a canter down the long lane that led over the chalk ridge.
He was not unduly worried, though. He felt sure Adela would wait.
Edgar was quite astonished when one of the servants said that Adela’s horse was missing. It was mid-morning and he had kept himself busy; he had not noticed Adela but had assumed that she was somewhere about the place. It seemed odd that he had not seen her go out for a ride. When someone else assured him that her horse had gone before dawn, he went straight to her chamber. There he found Martell’s message.
He did not need to read Norman French to understand it. He could make out the letters: ‘Burley Castle’ and ‘Hugh’. Minutes later he was riding out.
She had disobeyed his father and he was supposed to look after her. That was the first thing. But then there was the matter of Martell. For that was what the letter and her absence must mean. She had gone out to meet him.
He had been suspicious when Martell had called to see her, but to say anything would have been insulting. That Martell had an eye for women, that he had indulged in love affairs on the Forest borders from time to time, was something Cola had told him long ago. It had not shocked him. The lords of the feudal world were as used to getting their way as the powerful are in any generation. He had supposed that with the dangerous condition of his wife, Martell would desist for a bit. Seeing Adela at a loose end, he supposed the rich landlord was unable to let such a chance slip. The fact that he, Edgar, wanted to marry her, if he knew it, would certainly not deter him. Probably spur him on, Edgar thought, to prove his superiority.
But what did he mean to do? He hardly knew. Observe them first, he thought. Try to discover what was going on. Confront them? Fight? He was not sure.
It was not long before he had left the valley. He only had to make a small detour of about a mile to pass unseen to the north of their meeting place and then approach it quietly from behind, through the trees. Feeling