The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [90]
He had not noticed before what a curious figure Puckle really was. Perhaps it was the shadowy setting, or the reddish gleam from the embers of the campfire, but suddenly his gnarled form looked as if he were a gnome, his weathered, oaken face seemed to take on a mysterious glow. Was it devilish? He chided himself for his foolishness. Puckle was just a harmless peasant. And yet there was something about him that was unknowable. There was a heat, deep, hidden, strong – a heat he himself did not seem to possess. At last, with a nod, he gave his pony a light kick and moved off.
‘Dear God,’ Luke laughed, as soon as he was out of sight. ‘I thought he was never going.’
He should not have taken the way he did. After passing the little church at Brockenhurst, Brother Adam had followed a track that led southwards through the woods and brought him to the quiet ford in the river. The place was as deserted as when Adela and Tyrrell had used it. On the other side of the ford however, at the top of the long path that led up from it through the woods, the broad shelf of land had been cleared into several large fields, which the monks supervized.
Ahead, over the lip of this cleared land under the open sky, lay Beaulieu Heath and the track that led eastwards towards the abbey. That was the path he should have taken. But instead he turned south. He told himself it made no difference, but that wasn’t true.
He kept to the edge of the woods. After a time he came to a track on the right. Down there, he knew, set alone on a dark knoll looking over the river valley, was the old parish church of Boldre. He did not go there, though. He continued southwards. Soon he came to a small cow station, a vaccary as they were called, with pasture for thirty cows and a bull, and a few cottages: Pilley. He hardly noticed it.
Why had the woman come into his mind – the peasant woman who had stood in front of him in the barn? There was no reason he could think of. He was bored. It was nothing. He went on, nearly another mile. Then he came to the hamlet. Oakley it was named.
He could go across the heath just as well from there.
The villages of the New Forest were the same as ever. They seldom had a centre. They straggled, sometimes by a stream, or along the edge of open heathland. No manorial lord had coerced them into a tidy shape. The same thatched cottages, homesteads with small wooden barns, smallholdings all, rather than farms, declared that these were the communities of equals that had nestled in the Forest since ancient times.
The track through Oakley ran east–west and had the usual forest surface of peaty mud and gravel. Instead of turning east, Adam turned west and walked his pony along. There were several cottages, but after less than a quarter of a mile these ended and the track then started to descend, between deep banks, into the river valley. He noticed that the last place, which lay on the northern side of the track, was a homestead with several outbuildings including a small barn. Behind it lay a paddock, some open ground dotted with gorse and beyond that woodland.
He wondered if this was where the woman lived. If she appeared, he supposed he would stop and ask politely after her husband. There could be no harm in that. He took his time turning his pony, to see if anyone came out, but nobody did. He paused, surveying the other cottages, then went slowly back. At the point where he had started he saw a peasant and asked him who lived at the homestead he had passed.
‘Tom Furzey, Brother,’ the fellow replied.
He was aware of a little leaping sensation in his stomach. He nodded calmly at the peasant and glanced back. So that was where she lived. He suddenly wanted to turn. But with what excuse? He exchanged