The Forest (5 page)

The spring of the fallow deer is an extraordinary sight. It is known as a pronk. All four feet leave the ground while the legs appear to be hanging down straight. They seem to bounce, hover and fly forward through the air as if by magic. Normally they make several of these gravity-defying springs before running only at intervals, to spring again. With a beautiful, magical motion the whole group fled towards the covert. In seconds they had melted from the glade and were strung out in a line behind the senior doe who was leading them north towards the deepest part of the wood.

They had gone a quarter-mile when she abruptly halted.
They did the same. She listened, ears flicking nervously. There was no mistaking it. There were horsemen in front of them. The leader turned, headed south-eastwards, away from both dangers.

The pale deer was frightened. There was something deliberate, sinister about this double approach. The leader obviously thought so too. They were at full gallop now, leaping over fallen trees, bushes, anything in their path. The dappled light through the leaves above seemed to flicker and flash with menace. Half a mile they went, came to a larger light, broke cover into a long grassy glade. And stopped dead.

There were about twenty riders, waiting only yards away. The pale deer had just time to notice them before the leading doe turned and made back towards the trees.

But she only made two springs before realizing that there were more hunters in the trees too. Checked, she turned again and started to run down the glade, darting this way and that, looking for a chance of safety. The rest of the deer, sensing that the leader had no idea what to do, followed her in an increasing state of panic. The hunters were racing behind them now, with whoops and cries. The doe veered right into a belt of trees.

The pale deer had gone about a hundred yards into the trees when she caught sight of yet more hunters – on their right flank this time, a little way ahead. She uttered a warning cry, which the others, in their panic, did not notice. She paused in her run. And then she saw the strangest thing.

From ahead of them a small party of bucks, half a dozen of them, suddenly ran into view from a thicket. Presumably there was a danger behind them. Seeing the does in panic, however, and the hunters on their flank, the bucks did not join the does but, after only a flicker of hesitation, dashed, leaping splendidly, straight towards the horsemen, flashing clean through their line and away through the trees before
the startled hunters could even raise their bows. It was as quick and magical as it was unexpected.

And most astonishing of all, to her, was that her buck was one of them. There was no mistaking him. She spotted his antlers and his markings at once, as he passed like a leaping shadow in the trees. For a moment, just before their daring dash, he turned his face fully in her direction and she saw his large brown eyes staring straight towards her.

The leading doe had seen the bucks and their brave dash through the hunters, but she did not attempt to follow them. Instead, blindly, no longer knowing what to do, she led them in headlong flight; so that the pale deer found herself streaming eastwards; the only way left open, the way the hunters wanted.

Adela had watched the gathering at Lyndhurst with excitement. Parties from several estates had arrived, although they were all under the general direction of Cola. The royal manor was a small collection of wooden buildings with a fenced paddock sitting on a small rise in the oak forest. But a short distance away, on its south-eastern side, the trees were broken by a series of glades, before giving on to a large, long expanse of lawn, beyond which lay open moor. It was to this lawn that Cola had led them to inspect the great trap.

Adela had never seen anything like it. The thing was huge. At the entrance, surrounded by green lawn, was a small round knoll, like a mound for a miniature castle or lookout post. Two hundred yards south-east of the knoll a natural ridge rose and ran for half a mile in a straight line, with the green lawn on one side and the brown heath on the other. All this was impressive enough. But as the ridge slowly dipped at its south-eastern end, man had taken over and built a lower extension to the ridge. First, on the inner lawn side, was a deep ditch; then a large earthwork bank and, surmounting the bank, a stout fence. For a short distance this barrier stretched in a straight line. Then it
began, very gently to curve inwards, crossing the lawn where a rise in the ground made a natural line, then continuing on its way round towards the west, through wooded ground and glade, until it curved right round and ran back up towards the manor. This was the park pale of Lyndhurst.

‘It’s like a fortress in the Forest,’ she exclaimed. Once in this inclosure, the deer had no hope of leaping the pale as they were turned and driven, infallibly, towards the hunters’ nets.

‘We shall take about a hundred deer today.’ Cola’s younger son, Edgar, had placed himself at her side during this inspection. The business within the park pale was always carefully managed, he explained. Of the huge number of game driven into the great trap, the pregnant does would not be killed, but the bucks and other does would be culled. When Cola had his hundred the rest would be released.

She was glad to have the handsome Saxon for company. Walter, as usual, had left her alone and as she saw him now, walking his horse beside Hugh de Martell and talking to him, she wondered if he would introduce the Norman to her and decided he probably would not. ‘Do you know the man my cousin is talking to?’ she asked Edgar.

‘Yes. Not well. He’s from Dorset. Not the Forest.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘My father has a high opinion of him.’

‘And you?’ Her eyes were still on Martell.

‘Oh.’ His voice sounded uncomfortable. ‘He’s a big Norman lord.’

She glanced across at him. What did that mean? That Edgar was a Saxon with no love for Normans? That he thought Martell arrogant? That he was even a little jealous of the knight, perhaps?

There was quite a crowd assembled on the lawn by the knoll. Besides the riders there were men with spare horses,
others with carts for removing the carcasses and others who had simply come to watch. One figure particularly caught her attention. He was making his way across to a cart piled with sections of wattle fencing: a thickset man who, with his bushy eyebrows and forward stoop, seemed to Adela more like some stunted but sturdy old forest tree than a human being. She noticed, however, that Edgar saluted him as he passed and that the peasant returned the greeting by a slight nod. She wondered who he was.

There had been no time to think about this, however, for just then Cola had sounded his hunting horn and the great deer drive had begun.

It was actually a series of drives. The area around Lyndhurst was split into sectors; the hunters, organized into parties, were carefully co-ordinated to draw over a wide area in each sector, drifting as many deer as possible towards the centre. It was skilful work: the deer could prove elusive or, on the outer fringes, escape. When one sector had been drifted, the riders would be sent out on to the next and might go out several times until Cola decided they had enough.

Though deer might be missed out in the woods, as they approached the great trap their chances soon faded to nothing. Looking around, Adela observed that other, smaller earthworks and fences radiated out from the entrance so that as the deer from each sector approached they would find themselves in a kind of funnel that narrowed down towards the trap. It was hard not to admire the cleverness of the thing.

Having sounded the horn, Cola went up to the knoll from which vantage point, like a general, he could watch the whole proceedings. The riders all had their instructions. To her disappointment, Edgar left them before, with only Walter and four others for company, she rode out.

Their station was not an exciting one. The first drift was in the south-eastern sector. Here the heath beyond the park
pale extended in a broad swathe about two miles across to the south-east, with long fingers of woodland pointing into it from the darker forest on the other side. While the riders drove the deer in from these various woods, their job was to fan out in a line from the pale to make sure that none of the animals made a dash down that way at the last minute. In all probability, she realized, there would be nothing to do at all. As the parties of riders disappeared into the distant woods, she prepared for a long wait.

It was more for the sake of having something to say that she asked Walter what he had been talking to Martell about. He made a face. ‘Nothing much.’ A long silence ensued before he added, ‘If you really want to know, he asked me why I’d brought a woman out on the hunt.’

‘He didn’t approve?’

‘Not much.’

Was it true or was Walter making it up to annoy her? She allowed her eyes to rest calmly on his face for a moment or two and concluded that he might be telling the truth. A flash of resentment at the arrogant Norman went through her. He had noticed her then, damn him!

Time passed, but they did not speak any more. Once or twice she heard faint whoops and cries from the woods, then nothing. Until, at last, she saw something appear on the edge of the heath far away on her right.

A little group of deer had broken cover. There were eight of them. Even at that distance one could count them clearly. They advanced on to the heath and began to zigzag. A second later three riders came out behind them, then two more, at full gallop, moving to the right to outflank them; then another pair of riders, dashing down the other flank. Sensing both movements, the deer ran across the heath towards them.

It was astonishing how fast they came: the running deer, despite their pauses and sideways darts, covered the intervening ground, it seemed, in only a minute or two, with
the riders behind them. Across the heath they raced, and swerved and ran in past the knoll so neatly that it was hard not to applaud. Minutes later a further group came, with a herd of two dozen this time; then another, and another. Only once did her own party have to shout and wave their arms to divert some deer that had peeled away. The hunt could not have been more perfectly managed. By the time they were called in there were over seventy deer in the great inclosure.

Soon after this, Cola had announced that they would draw the woods above Lyndhurst next, and Adela was delighted when a few moments later Edgar came up and, with a grin at her, remarked: ‘You and Walter are riding with my party this time.’

She did not know for how long they had walked their horses through the woods until they came to the glade where Edgar had said they would wait. She had heard other parties making sounds somewhere in the trees; she had noticed Edgar tense in his saddle, but even so she had been completely taken aback when suddenly, with a crashing sound, not thirty yards in front of her, the small herd of does burst out from the trees into the glade. For a second she was almost as startled as they were. As they veered away she had just had time to notice that one of the young does was paler than the rest. Then, with whoops and cries, they were off in pursuit, driving the deer before them, and moments later they had passed into a grove of trees.

It was because she had fallen a little behind that she had such a perfect view of what happened next. A group of bucks had abruptly appeared on the right, followed by another party of hunters – in the forefront of whom, she saw, rode Hugh de Martell. The bucks were young. They had hesitated.

But who in the world could have anticipated their next move? How astonished the huntsmen looked as the bucks wheeled round and dashed back straight through their line.
Even Martell was completely taken by surprise and stared, open-mouthed. The proud Norman had been humbled by some young bucks: she reined her horse and laughed aloud.

‘Come on!’ Walter, calling crossly, had brought her back to her duty and she had quickly caught up. The two groups had joined into a single party now; Edgar, Walter and Hugh de Martell all riding together. They certainly managed everything with wonderful precision. Though the deer tried to veer this way and that, there was no hope of escape. Indeed, other groups of deer driven by lines of huntsmen twice joined them as they cantered and galloped towards Lyndhurst, so that in a while she could only identify her own little herd by seeing where the pale deer ran among the dozens of leaping forms. She was a pretty little doe, Adela thought. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but to her this deer seemed somehow different from the rest. And although she knew it made no sense, she couldn’t help feeling sorry that such a lovely creature was about to be killed.

Several times she saw Edgar glance in her direction and once, she was pretty sure, Hugh de Martell looked at her too. Had he done so with disapproval, she wondered? But although she kept an eye on him when she could, he did not seem to be taking any further notice of her. Meanwhile the chase was gathering speed. The riders were breaking into a gallop. ‘You’re doing well,’ Edgar called to her in encouragement.

The next few minutes were some of the most exciting of her life. Everything seemed to flash past. Hunters were crying out: she wasn’t sure if she had joined in or not. She was scarcely conscious of time, or even where they were, as they dashed after the fleet-footed deer. Once or twice she caught sight of Edgar and Hugh de Martell, their faces tense, alert. Despite the loss of the bucks they must be pleased with themselves. This would surely be the biggest single group of deer brought in that day. How hard they looked, how suddenly fierce.

And she, too, shared in their glory. It might be harsh, this killing of deer, but it had to be. It was nature. Men must be fed. God had granted them animals for the purpose. It could be no other way.