The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [58]
‘There’s a farm down there,’ he called back, ‘known as Througham.’ Then he trotted away.
For nearly another hour she wandered all along the line of the eastern woods but found no sign of them. Time and again she glanced back across the heath and saw nothing. She finally concluded that, if they were still in this part of the Forest at all, they must be somewhere in the woods where Pride was riding and had started back across the heath in that direction, when suddenly in the distance she caught sight of the strangest vision.
An animal was moving, with extraordinary speed, across the heath towards the woods at Througham. The sun in the west was shining, fiery gold, in her eyes and she raised her hand to shield them. But even in that reddening glare it seemed to her she could make out the creature well enough; and she realized with a start that she recognized it.
The pale doe. The pale doe was racing like a darting speck of light across the purple glow of the heather. There were two horsemen, hunters, behind her. Two hounds as well, she was almost sure. The deer was quite alone. Were there other deer nearby, a fawn perhaps, trembling by a thicket, watching its mother being chased by the hunters? The pale doe was going faster than they, running, almost flying for her life towards the shelter of the woods and marshes.
Hardly thinking what she was doing, almost forgetting Walter, she found herself urging her pony forward, following the deer. She waved at the hunters, but they did not seem to see her. The pale deer was already near the trees. The two hunters were at a gallop now. Try as she might, she could not cut them off and she was still half a mile behind them when they followed the pale doe into the woods.
Nor did she even see them again. When she reached the trees herself she encountered nothing but silence. The pale doe, the riders, the hounds might have been so many phantoms. All she found as she rode down one track after another, was a succession of oak woods, open glades and marshy meadows.
She had just tried a track through the woods that led south when, to her left, she heard hoof-beats rapidly approaching her. She stopped. Was it Pride? One of the hunting party? A moment later the horseman came into sight. She gave a little cry of relief. But it died in her.
For it was Walter as she had never seen him before. He was gasping, his eyes were wild and he was pale, almost green as though he were about to vomit. Seeing her, he scarcely even had the emotion left, it appeared, to register surprise. But as he came up, he cried out hoarsely: ‘Flee. Flee for your life.’
‘You got my message, then?’ she cried back. ‘About the king?’
‘Message? I had no message. The king is dead.’
*
Hugh de Martell awoke. Foolishly, perhaps, after enjoying the view over the Forest, he had returned to Castle Hill and stayed up there. He must have fallen asleep in the sun. He blinked. It was late afternoon. And perhaps he might even have stayed there a little longer if he had not noticed, just then, coming over the ridge from the northerly Ringwood direction, a single horseman whom he recognized to be Edgar.
He muttered a curse. On the one hand the young fellow could probably tell him what had happened to Adela, but he was not sure he wanted to ask him. There was also the possibility, he supposed, that Cola and his family might have discovered about the assignation, might even have stopped Adela meeting him. Edgar could be coming to Castle Hill to look for him. Either way, he had no wish to encounter him.
There was a track from the bottom of the hill that led due west across open heath before entering a wood at a small promontory known as Crow Hill, from where it descended steeply into the Avon valley. It was less than a mile to the cover of Crow Hill. On his powerful horse he could be across it in no time.