The Forest (21 page)

No one had followed him. Luke rested by a gorse brake, wondering what to do next. A mile away one of the abbey shepherds was tending his flock of sheep on the open heath, but the shepherd had not seen him.

Why had he done it? God knows he hadn’t meant to. It would never have happened if Brother Matthew hadn’t come. But that was no excuse. Especially when it was Brother Matthew – he winced to think of it, poor Brother Matthew lying in a pool of blood – who had put him, a humble lay brother, in charge of the grange in his absence.

The Cistercians were different from other monks. Nearly all monastic orders were based on the ancient Rule of St Benedict. And St Benedict’s model was clear: monks were to lead a communal life of constant prayer balanced by physical labour; and they must take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Obedience and even chastity, more or less, had usually been achieved. But poverty was always a problem. No matter how simply they began, monasteries always finished up rich. Their churches became grand, their life easy. Time and again there had been reformers. The most notable was the huge French order centred upon Cluny; but even the Cluniacs, eventually, had gone the same way and their place had been taken by a new order, spreading out from their parent house of Citeaux in Burgundy: the Cistercians.

There was no mistaking them. Known as the white monks, because they wore habits of simple, undyed wool, the Cistercians avoided the sinful world by choosing wild and lonely places for their monasteries. Operating through farmsteads, called granges, often miles out from the monastery, they were especially known for raising sheep. The Beaulieu monks raised thousands, grazing them not only over the Great Close but the open Forest too, where they were given grazing rights. And to ensure that they could devote the majority of their time to prayer they had a subsidiary category of lesser monks – the lay brothers – who took monastic vows and attended some of the services, but whose main occupation was to tend the sheep and work in the fields. Usually these were quite rustic, local fellows who, for one reason or another, were drawn to the religious
atmosphere of the monastery or its security. Men such as Luke.

They had come the night before. Eight of them. With bows and hounds. There had been Roger Martell, a wild young aristocrat, and four of his friends; but the other three had been local men, ordinary fellows like himself. One of these had been his kinsman, Will atte Wood. He sighed. The trouble was, everyone was your cousin in the Forest.

If only he hadn’t been put in charge. Brother Matthew had been doing him a favour, of course. Sowley grange was an important place. As well as the usual livestock and arable farming, the monks there had charge of a huge pond stocked with fish. There was a deer park belonging to the abbey, too, at nearby Througham.

Brother Matthew had known the prior didn’t like Luke. By putting him in charge of the grange he had been giving Luke a chance to prove to the prior that he was reliable. But when young Martell and his friends arrived, demanding shelter for the night, it hadn’t been so easy for a simple man like Luke to refuse.

He knew they’d been poaching, of course. They even had a deer with them. It was a serious offence. The king no longer demanded your life or limb for killing his precious deer, but the fines could be heavy. By giving them shelter he was guilty of a crime too. So why had he done it? Had they threatened him? Martell had certainly cursed him and given him a look that frightened him. But the real reason, he knew in his heart, was when Will had nudged him and whispered: ‘Come on, Luke. I told them you were my cousin. Are you going to embarrass me?’

They’d eaten all the bread and a whole cheese. They didn’t think much of the beer. The best beer and the wine for guests was all at the abbey, not out there at a humble grange. In the morning they had gone.

There were only half a dozen lay brothers at the grange besides himself and as many hired labourers. But there was
no need to say anything. They had all understood. The illegal visit would never be mentioned to anyone.

‘What shall we do about the missing cheese and beer?’ one of the lay brothers had ventured.

‘We’ll open the tap a fraction, spill some beer on the floor under it and say nothing. When someone notices they’ll think it leaked away. As for the cheese, I’ll say it must have been stolen.’

Perhaps it might have worked if Brother Matthew had not been so sharp-eyed and if he hadn’t decided to call at the grange only two days after his last visit. Bustling in shortly after midday, he quickly inspected the premises, noticed the leaking barrel of beer at once and summoned Luke.

‘It must have leaked since yesterday,’ Luke had begun, but got no further.

‘Nonsense. It was full. The tap was only just dripping. Anyway, it was sealed tight when I left. Someone’s been drinking it.’ He looked about. ‘There’s a whole cheese missing.’

‘It must have been stolen.’ It was no good. Luke needed to prepare himself for a lie and Brother Matthew had caught him off balance. The monk looked at him severely. And who knew what stupid story he might have started next if there had not begun, just then, a furious knocking at the door.

It was Martell. He nodded to the lay brethren. ‘We’re back, Luke. Need your help again.’ Then, glancing at Brother Matthew whom he had not yet deigned to notice, he casually asked: ‘And who the devil are you?’

Luke buried his face in his hands as he remembered the rest: the fury of Brother Matthew; his own humiliation; the terse order to the poachers to leave and their arrogant refusal. And then …

If only Brother Matthew had not lost his temper. First he had cursed him for being in league with the criminals. God knows, it was only natural that he should have thought so.
He had threatened to tell the prior and have him thrown out of the monastery. In front of the other lay brothers. Witnesses. The two of them had been outside by then, confronting the poachers. Then Brother Matthew had told the others to bar the entrance. Martell had insolently put his foot in the door and the monk had lost his temper. Seeing a staff leaning against the wall, he had rushed to it, seized it and turned.

He had not meant to hurt Brother Matthew. Quite the reverse. There had been only one thought in his mind. If the monk struck Martell the young blood might kill him. There had been no time to think of more than that. Beside the staff there was a spade – a heavy wooden implement with a metal rim. Grabbing the spade he had swung it to break the blow just as Brother Matthew’s staff came down.

He had swung too hard. With a crash, the staff snapped back, the blade of the spade smashed through and bit into the monk’s head with an awful jarring thud. Then all hell seemed to break loose. The other lay brothers hurled themselves forward to tackle him, Martell and Will had gone for the lay brothers, and in the mêlée he had dropped the spade and run for his life.

One thing was certain. However the matter was explained, he would be blamed. He had let the poachers in; he had struck Brother Matthew; the prior hated him. If he wanted to keep his life he would have to run, or at least hide. It couldn’t be long before they came after him.

He wondered where to go.

Mary paused from scrubbing the pot for long enough to shake her head.

The problem, in essence, was simple enough. Or so she told herself. The problem was the pony.

John Pride reckoned it was his. And Tom Furzey said it wasn’t. That was it, really. You could say other things about it. By the time a week had passed, a lot of people had said a
lot of things. But that didn’t alter the fact: Pride reckoned it was his and Furzey said it wasn’t.

To an impartial observer there was room for honest doubt. A pony would foal out on the Forest. As long as the foal was with its mother, you knew where you were; but if the mare died or the foal strayed – and such things happened – then you might find a spare foal wandering about and not know its owner. That was what had happened in this case. The foal had been found by Pride. At least, that was what he said. There was room for doubt.

It was a pretty thing, too. That was half the trouble. Though it was a typical New Forest pony – short and sturdy with a thick neck – there was something finely drawn, almost delicate in its face and it moved so daintily on its feet. The pony’s coat was an even chestnut brown all over, with a darker mane and tail.

‘Prettiest little pony I ever saw,’ her brother had told her and she didn’t disagree.

Mary and John Pride were born only a year apart. They had played together all their childhood. Dark, well-made, slim, free and independent spirits, no one could keep up with them when they went racing through the Forest. They would only slow down for their dreamy little brother. John had been a bit contemptuous when she had married Tom Furzey. Chubby Tom, with his round face and curly brown hair, had always seemed a bit dull. But they had known him all their lives; they all lived in Oakley. They didn’t mind him. Her marriage was just an extension of the family, really.

And she had been happy enough. Five pregnancies later, with three healthy young children living, she had grown plumper herself; but her dark-blue eyes were as striking as ever. If her thickset husband was sometimes surly and always unexciting, what did that matter when you were living with all your family in the Forest?

Until the pony. It was three weeks, now, since John
Pride and Tom Furzey had stopped speaking. And it wasn’t only them. A thing like that couldn’t just be left. Things had been said and repeated. None of the Prides – and there were many – was speaking to any of the Furzeys – and there were no less – anywhere in the Forest. God knows how long it might go on. The pony was kept in John Pride’s cowshed. He couldn’t put it out on the Forest, of course, because one of the Furzeys would have captured it. So the little creature was kept there, like a knight awaiting ransom, and all the Forest watched to see what would happen next.

But for Mary the real trouble lay at home.

She wasn’t allowed to see her brother. John only lived a quarter of a mile away in the same hamlet, but it was now forbidden territory. A few days after the dispute began she had gone over, hardly thinking about it. By the time her surly husband came home, though, he had already been told. And he hadn’t liked it. Oh, he had made that very clear. From that day on, she wasn’t to speak to John: not as long as he had that pony.

What could she do? Tom Furzey was her husband. Even if she ignored his wishes and sneaked round to see John, Tom’s sister lived between them and she’d be sure to spot her and tell. Then there’d be another violent row and the children would see. It wasn’t worth the trouble. She had stayed away and John, of course, could not come to their house.

She went outside. The autumn afternoon was still warm. She glanced up, bleakly, at the blue sky. It looked metallic, threatening. She had never lived alone with her husband before.

She was still staring up at the woods nearby when she heard a whistle from the trees. She frowned. It was repeated. She went towards the sound and was greatly surprised, a few moments later, to see a familiar figure emerge from behind a tree.

It was her little brother Luke, from Beaulieu Abbey. And he looked frightened.

In the early morning mist Brother Adam did not notice the woman at first. Besides, his mind was elsewhere.

The events of the previous day had shaken the whole community. By the evening office of vespers everyone knew what had happened. It was not often that the monks wanted to talk. The Cistercians, although not a silent order, restrict the hours when conversation is permitted, but time expands in the long silences of a monastery and there is seldom any sense of urgency: one day is as good as another to exchange a piece of news. By the evening, however, everyone was dying to talk.

Brother Adam knew it must be discouraged. Excitement of this kind was not just a distraction: it was like a screen between oneself and God, filtering out the Holy Spirit. God was best heard in silence, seen in darkness. So he was glad when, after the night office of compline, the
summum silencium
, the rule of total silence, interposed itself until breakfast.

The night was a special time for Brother Adam. It always brought him solace. Occasionally he regretted what he had missed by entering the religious life, or yearned for the more bracing intellects he had known at Oxford. And, of course, there were times when he cursed the bell that tolled in the middle of the night, when one pulled on felt slippers and went down the cold stone steps into the shadowy abbey church. Yet even then, singing the psalms in the candlelight, knowing that outside the huge starry universe hung watchfully over the monastery, it seemed to Adam that he could feel the palpable presence of God. And the life of continuous prayer, he would reflect, built up a protective wall as solid as that of any cloister, making a quiet, empty space within oneself in which to receive the silent voice of the universe. So, for many years, Brother Adam had lived
within his prayer walls and felt the presence of God in the night.

The mornings had been especially pleasant for him recently. A few months ago, feeling the need for a period of contemplation, he had asked the abbot to assign him light duties for a while and his request had been granted. After the dawn service of prime, and breakfast, which the choir monks ate in their
frater
and the lay brothers in their separate
domus
, he usually went for a solitary walk.

This morning had been delightful. An autumn mist shrouded the river. On the opposite bank the oak leaves in the trees looked golden. The swans seemed to liquify out of the mist, as though miraculously engendered by the surface of the water. And he had still, on his return, been so entranced by this image of God’s creation that he scarcely noticed the woman until he had almost reached the collection of poor folk waiting to receive their daily alms at the abbey gate.