The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [59]
He put his horse into a canter. The firm, peaty track was easy going. Ahead of him, in the west, the sun was starting to sink over the Avon valley, bathing the place in a pinkish, golden light. On each side the heather was like a shimmering purple lake. The moment was so magical that, despite himself, he almost laughed aloud at the sheer beauty of it.
He was a third of the way over when he realized to his irritation that Edgar had taken a path that led diagonally across the little heath. The tiresome young fellow meant to cut him off. He smiled to himself nonetheless. The Saxon might find that harder than he thought. His splendid stallion was bounding along. He measured the distance with his eye, bided his time.
Halfway across he went into a gallop. Glancing right, he saw that Edgar was doing the same. He chuckled to himself. The young Saxon hadn’t a chance. His stallion was thundering along, eating up the ground, making sparks when his shoes struck against the white gravel stones in the peaty turf.
But to his surprise he realized that Edgar was keeping pace. The fellow was going to meet him before he got to the wood. Ahead to his left, however, a little spur of wood came out, just in front of which, like a marker, was a solitary ash tree.
Suddenly, therefore, he veered left. His stallion plunged through the heather. Just ahead he noticed that some Forest fool had made piles of logs. He was almost level with the ash tree, which would screen him from the Saxon’s view, damn him. He urged his horse forward, forgetting that the surface of the Forest is not firm and true, like the sweeping chalk downs around his manor, but soft, shifting and treacherous to those who try to impose upon it. So he had no warning at all when his mighty beast’s leg plunged into a hidden pocket of boggy ground, throwing him head first towards the woodpile.
‘But what happened?’ She had never seen Walter at a loss before.
He gazed at her almost as if she were not there. ‘It was an accident.’
‘But who? How?’
‘An accident.’ He stared straight ahead.
She looked at him carefully. Was he just in a state of shock? Was he describing what he saw, or what someone had told him? They were trotting briskly, now, on to the heath.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘West. I have to go west. Away from Winchester. I have to find a boat. Further along the coast.’
‘A boat?’
‘Don’t you understand? I have to get away. Flee the realm. I wish to God I knew the way through this cursed forest.’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘I’ll guide you.’
It was astonishing how quickly the time seemed to pass. But then she was no longer searching and wandering; she was going straight for a point in the terrain whose position she knew: the little deserted ford north of Pride’s hamlet. The heath was empty. They saw no one. They did not speak. Avoiding the tiny hamlet, they found the long path that led down to the ford, crossed below Brockenhurst and came out on to the rolling heathland of the western Forest.
‘Do you want to try to get a boat at Christchurch?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s too near. I might have to wait a day or two and by then’ – he sighed – ‘they could arrest me. I have to go much further west.’
‘You’ll have to cross the River Avon. I know the Avon valley.’ Thank God for her rides with Edgar. ‘There’s a cattle ford about halfway between Christchurch and Ringwood. After that you cross the meadows and it’s open heathland for miles and miles.’
‘Good. I’ll go that way, then,’ Tyrrell said.
The sun was sinking in the west, a huge deep red; here and there a solitary tree stood out like a strange indigo flower against the red sky, casting a long shadow towards them like a cautionary finger. They had to walk their horses, but apart from the Forest ponies and the occasional cattle they had the place to themselves.
Tyrrell seemed to have recovered a bit now. ‘You said you were looking for me, that you sent a message,’ he said quietly. ‘What was that?’
She told him the whole story, the behaviour of Cola, what she had heard and how she had searched,