The Forest

  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.

  She was a rather pleasant-looking woman: broad-faced, blue-eyed, Celtic, intelligent he guessed – obviously one of the Forest people. Perhaps he’d seen her before? She seemed to be hoping to talk to someone, although her eyes watched him cautiously. Fine eyes.

  ‘Yes, my child?’

  ‘Oh, Brother. They say Brother Matthew has been killed. My husband works for the abbey at harvest. Brother Matthew was always so kind. We wondered …’ She trailed off, looking anxious.

  Brother Adam frowned. Probably the whole Forest would have heard something about yesterday by now. Besides the lay brothers, the abbey gave casual employment to many Forest people. No doubt kindly Brother Matthew was well liked. His frown was caused only by the memory of the incident impinging on his peace. How selfish of him. He smiled instead. ‘Brother Matthew lives
, my child.’ The first reports of the incident, as usual, had been garbled. Brother Matthew had taken a very nasty knock and lost much blood, but thank God he was alive, in the abbey’s infirmary and had already taken a little broth.

  Her relief was so palpable that he was touched. How blessed that this peasant woman should care so deeply about the monk.

  ‘And those who did this?’

  Ah. He understood. The religious houses had a name for protecting their own people from justice and it was resented. Well, he could reassure her on that score.

  The abbot had been furious. There had been an incident like this before, about fifteen years ago: a huge party of poachers; a strong suspicion that the lay brothers in one of the granges had been party to the business. That, together with the prior’s bad report of Luke, had done it. ‘The lay brother who struck him will get no protection from the abbey,’ he assured her. ‘The Forest courts will deal with him.’

  She nodded quietly, then looked thoughtful. ‘Yet might it have been an accident?’ she asked. ‘If the lay brother repents, wouldn’t they show mercy?’

  ‘You are right to be cautious in judging,’ he said. ‘And mercy is God’s grace.’ What a good woman she was. She feared for the monk, yet thought with compassion of his assailant. ‘But we must all accept righteous punishment for our transgressions.’ He looked stern. ‘You know the fellow has run away?’ She seemed to shake her head. ‘He will be caught.’ The steward of the Forest had been informed by the abbot that morning. ‘I believe they are taking out the hounds.’

  With a kindly nod he left her. And poor Mary, her heart pounding, ran all the way back across the heath to the place where, last night, she had hidden her brother Luke.

  Tom Furzey clenched his fists. They’d get what was coming to them now. Already he could hear the hounds in the distance. He was not a bad man. But bad things had been happening to him recently. Sometimes he hardly knew what to think.

  The Prides had always thought he was a bit slow. He knew that. But everything had been so friendly and easy before. They were all part of the Forest: all family, so to speak. That pony, though – that had been a shock. If John Pride could just casually take a pony foaled by his, Tom Furzey’s, own mare, with not so much as a by-your-leave: what sort of brother-in-law was that? He despises me, Tom thought, and now I know it.

  It was strange. The first day he couldn’t quite believe it had happened, even with the foal in Pride’s pen, before his very eyes. Then, when challenged, Pride had just laughed at him.

  And then Tom had called him a thief. In front of the others. Well, he was, wasn’t he? Things had snowballed after that.

  But Mary: that was another matter. That first day, after she knew what had passed between him and her brother, she had gone round to Pride’s house as friendly as you like. ‘Didn’t you tell him to give the pony back?’ he had stormed. But she had just looked blank. Never even thought of it. ‘So whose side are you on, then?’ he had cried. The fact was, after years of marriage, she hadn’t really given him a thought. That was the hurtful truth of it. Poor old Tom, a useful husband for Mary: that’s all I am to the Prides, he reckoned.

  But whatever she thought of him, she owed him respect as head of their family. What sort of example did it set the children if she let all the Forest see how little regard she had for him? He wasn’t going to be made to look a fool. He had put his foot down; forbidden her to go to John Pride’s. Wasn’t that right? His sister said it was. So did a lot of others. Not everyone in the Forest thought so well of the Prides and their high and mighty ways.

  It hadn’t been easy, though, watching his wife, day by day, growing colder towards him.

  Well, the Prides were going to be put in their place today. And after that … He wasn’t sure what. But something, anyhow.

  His mind was full of these thoughts when he caught sight, nearly a mile away, of Puckle riding a Forest pony. He seemed to be dragging something behind him.

  There were ten riders. The hounds were in full cry. The prior had given them a scent of Brother Luke’s bedding and they had been following it all the way from the grange. The steward of the Forest himself was leading them. Two of the other riders were gentlemen foresters, two more were under-foresters, the rest servants.

  Since its inception, the New Forest had always been divided into administrative areas, known as bailiwicks, each in the charge of a forester, usually from a gentry family. Down the western side ran the bailiwicks of Godshill, Linwood and Burley. A big tract just west of the centre was known as Battramsley bailiwick. Recently, however, the largest bailiwick of all, the central royal bailiwick of Lyndhurst, which ran right across the heath to Beaulieu, had been subdivided, the hamlet of Oakley where Pride and Furzey lived falling within the southern section. Over all these presided the warden of the forest, a friend of the king, whose steward supervized the Forest for him day-to-day.

  They were surprised, as they came to the hamlet, to see Tom Furzey in front of them, waving his arms and crying out: ‘I know where he is.’

  The party pulled up. The steward looked stern. ‘You’ve seen him?’

  ‘Don’t need to. I know where he is.’

  The steward frowned, then glanced at the fair, handsome young man riding beside him. ‘Alban?’

  Philip le Alban was a lucky young gentleman. Two centuries before, his ancestor Alban, born to Norman Adela and her Saxon husband Edgar, had not quite maintained his position in the increasingly French society of Plantagenet England; but his descendants, who had taken his name for several generations, had continued as under-foresters for various bailiwicks and, as a reward for this long service and because he had married well, young Philip le Alban had been promoted to forester of the new Southern bailiwick. No one knew the Forest or its inhabitants better. ‘Where is he, then, Tom?’ he asked pleasantly enough.

  ‘At John Pride’s house, of course,’ Tom cried and, without another word, turned and started leading them in that direction.

  ‘The runaway and John Pride are brothers,’ Alban explained. And since the hounds, it was true, were going in that general direction, the steward nodded brusquely as they followed Tom.

  Pride was out, but his family were there. They stood silently while two of the men searched their cottage without result. The rest of the little farmstead yielded nothing.

  But it was the cowshed at which Furzey was gesticulating wildly. ‘In there,’ he cried. ‘Look in there.’

  He was so excited that this time the entire party, even the steward, crowded into the shed. But it took only moments to see that nobody was lurking there.

  Tom looked crestfallen. But he wasn’t prepared to let it go at that. ‘He was here,’ he insisted; then, seeing their disbelieving faces, he burst out: ‘Where do you think John Pride is now? Making fools of you! Hiding his brother somewhere.’ They were starting to move out. This wouldn’t do. ‘And look at this pony,’ he cried. ‘What are you going to do about that?’ The foal was tethered in one corner, blinking its frightened eyes at him. ‘This pony’s stolen. From me!’

  They were already outside again. His plan was dissolving. He had quite persuaded himself that they were going to find Luke, lead John Pride away in chains and restore his pony to him. He rushed after them. ‘You don’t understand,’ he shouted. ‘They’re all the same, these Prides. They’re all criminals.’

  Two of the men started to chuckle.

  ‘That include your wife, then, Tom?’ one of them asked. Even Alban had to repress a smile. To the steward, who had looked up sharply, he explained that Tom’s wife also had the runaway for a brother.

  ‘God save us!’ the steward exclaimed irritably. ‘Isn’t that just like the Forest?’ Turning to Tom, he exploded: ‘How the devil do I know you aren’t hiding him? You’re probably the biggest criminal of the lot. Where does this man live?’ They told him. ‘Search his cottage at once.’

  ‘But …’ Tom could hardly believe this turn of events. ‘What about my pony?’ he wailed.
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  ‘Damn your pony,’ cursed the steward, as he started to ride towards Tom’s cottage.

  They found nothing there either. Mary had seen to that. But a short while later the hounds picked up Luke’s scent in the trees nearby and followed it for many a mile.

  Indeed, as time went by, the route they took became quite curious, winding about until at last it went in a huge circle round Lyndhurst where, so to speak, it continued for ever.

  There had been no one to see, a couple of hours before, the lone figure of Puckle on his pony, dragging the bundle of Luke’s clothing Mary had provided.

  ‘Damn waste of time,’ the steward remarked to Alban. ‘I suppose that idiot was right this morning. The Prides are hiding him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Alban smiled. ‘But no one can hide in the Forest for ever.’

  When the summons to the abbot came, one November morning, Brother Adam was well prepared. He had done what the abbot had asked a month before and reached his conclusions. Strangely enough, given the worldly and political nature of the business, he had found that his continuing period of meditation and private study had given him strength and certainty. His mind was at peace.

  So, he was glad to say, was the abbey. October had passed quietly. The migratory birds had wheeled and headed southwards across the sea. Then November’s greying clouds, like the sails of an ageing ship, had drawn eastwards across the sky; the yellowed oak leaves had fallen by the river bank and nothing had disturbed the abbey’s silence. At Martinmass in November, at the Forest’s minor court, the Court of Attachments, the verderers had sent the incident at the grange forward to the senior court, which would be held at the good pleasure of the king’s justices, when they visited the Forest the following spring. Young Martell and his friends had wisely turned themselves in to the sheriffs of their counties, who would produce them at the spring court. Luke, the lay brother, had not yet been found. Kindly Brother Matthew had wanted to forgive him, but the abbot had been firm.