The Forest (45 page)

By early December the oak tree was sealed off for the winter. Its branches were bare and grey; the tight little buds on their twigs were protected from the frosts by waxy brown scales. Deep underground the sugar in the sap would ensure that the moisture in the tree did not freeze.

On St Lucy’s Day, the thirteenth, the traditional day of the winter solstice, sleet fell at dawn, then froze by noon so that when a pale sun shone during the brief hours before the grey day’s ending, the oak tree’s crown was all hung with icicles as though some ancient silver-haired dweller of the forests had stopped there and become rooted to the spot. And even as the faint sun lent a shining to the greyness, the wind hissed through the icicles to freeze them further still.

Some way up, in a fork in the tree, where once a pigeon had made her nest, a large owl perched silently. A visitor from the deep-frozen forests of Scandinavia, it had come for the winter months to the more temperate island. Its eyes gazed blankly at the snow, but when dusk fell its astonishing asymetric ears would guide it, on soundless wings, infallibly down upon any little creature that ventured out into the darkness. Had anyone looked carefully at the ground by the oak tree’s base the remains of a thrush would have told them of the owl’s last meal. Slowly the silent bird turned its head. It could do so, if it chose, through more than three hundred and sixty degrees.

Above the owl’s perch, in a blackened fissure, a little colony of bats hung, like webbed pellets, in their winter hibernation. All over the tree, on branch and twig, tiny larvae, like that of the winter moth, were tight-wrapped in their cocoons. Down the tree’s great trunk spiders crouched in crevices behind windows of ice. Around its foot the brown bracken, bent and broken, lay flattened in the fallen leaves, ice-frosted.

Below the ground worms and slugs, and all manner of earth creatures, were insulated by the frozen leaves above from the bitter cold. But in the bushes, although the robin, like a puffball in its downy winter feathers, would probably survive, the song thrushes and blackbirds were ragged and gaunt. Two weeks of deep frost or snow, and many would reach a point of weight-loss and weakness from which there would be no return.

But if these little creatures dwelt always perilously at the brink of life and death during their few brief seasons of consciousness the tree, with its massively larger system, was also massively stronger. It was still less than three hundred years old. Yet nature imposed limitations upon the mighty oak as well. For of its vast fall of acorns that autumn thousands had been eaten by the pigs and other grazers; others trampled; others stored by squirrels or birds, others yet destined, as saplings, to be eaten by the deer. Of all that inundation of acorns, not a single new oak tree would result; nor would one for another five or ten or even twenty years.

She was feeling very weak now. She had sensed that something was wrong back at summer’s end, been sure of it before she had gone with Puckle, that autumn day, to deliver the charcoal to Hurst. She had been thinking of the future by then.

She had used all the remedies she knew. She had tried to shield herself. Each month, as the moon waxed from maiden to mother and waned back to crone, she secretly prayed. Three times she drew down the moon. But as winter came she knew: nothing can change the wheel of life; there would be no healing and she must pass from this life to another.

Nature is cruel, yet also merciful. The canker that was eating away the life of Puckle’s wife caused other changes in her body. She became pale, her blood changed its composition; she began to be drowsy, thus ensuring that, before the canker grew into its final monstrous life and racked her body with pain, she would instead slip sleepily towards an earlier closing.

She and Puckle had three children. She loved the woodsman. She knew very well that, after her passing, life must go on. And so it was, in secret, that she made her prayers and did what she thought best.

And now it was the year’s midnight, when scarcely seven hours of sunlight is seen and all the world seems to withdraw into the deep blackness under the ground.

Two weeks later, just after Christmas, Clement Albion rode by.

The hard frost had broken just before the sacred festival. Although the ground was still crisp underfoot, he saw a clique of birds fighting over a worm in the ground leaves. A squirrel, a blur of red, dashed across into a cover of hawthorn bushes.

But it was the oak he had come to see.

In the wood beside it the soaring grey and silver branches were bare, save for encrustations, here and there, of dark ivy or lichen, white as death. The oaks that dotted the glade were all bare too.

But the oak that stood apart was a stranger sight entirely. It had shed its icicles. Its tiny, tight-wrapped buds had broken out into sprigs of leaves. The midwinter tree was green. Albion stared in silence. Nothing stirred.

Why did this New Forest tree, which is well recorded, behave in this way? Possibly some accident had occurred during its growth – a lightning strike, for instance – which had somehow reset the internal clock, whose operation is not fully understood, by which a tree regulates its flowering. Perhaps more likely was some genetic peculiarity. One such trait, in which there is a failure in the autumnal sealing-off process, causes certain oaks to retain their leaves right through winter into spring. The Christmas leafing might have been another such genetic condition and the recorded existence of three such oaks in the same area further suggests that it could be so. But nobody knows.

Albion sighed. Was it a miracle, as his mother insisted? Was the tree speaking to him, reminding him of his duty and his religion? Was this marvellous tree a living emblem, like one of those haunting signs on the road to the Holy Grail in the tales of knightly romance?

He hoped not. Since the autumn there had been no whisper from the council to suggest he was further suspected. He had encountered Gorges twice, and each time his friend had been warm and natural towards him. The truth was that he just wanted a quiet life. Was that so wrong? Didn’t most people? A tree that flowers at midwinter: the promise of life in death. Three flowering trees, three crosses: the crucifixion upon Calvary. Whichever way you looked at it, if the green trees were a sign from God they suggested death and sacrifice.

If only the Spanish invasion did not come. His mother could leave him her fortune believing that he would have joined the invaders; Gorges, the council, the queen herself would have nothing with which to reproach him. He heartily prayed that he would not be put to the test.

He had not heard from his mother for some time. He should have gone to see her at the Christmas season but had found an excuse not to. He wondered for how long he could avoid her.

A second later he saw her.

She was in the green tree, high in the branches. She was all in black, as usual, but the entire lining of her cloak was bright red. She was flapping it and flying from branch to branch like a huge, angry bird. She turned her head to look at him. Dear heaven, she seemed about to take wing towards him.

He shook his head and told himself not to be so foolish. He glanced at the tree again and it was normal. But his hands were trembling. Not a little shaken by this maternal hallucination, he turned his horse’s head and made away for Lyndhurst.

Young Nick Pride bided his time all through winter. Early April saw drenching rains but then a gentle warmth spread through the Forest. The world became green again; blossoms broke out. He knew that the time had now come, that Jane was waiting for him to declare himself; but he, too, had his part to play.

All through April he came courting. Sometimes they might not see each other for a day or two, but if they did not find some other reason, they were sure to meet at Minstead church on Sunday. Nor were there any lovers’ quarrels; they had, it seemed, no need for that. She was sensible Jane Furzey and he was handsome young Nick Pride, and that was all there was to it.

All the same, Nick Pride thought as the time approached, perhaps it was better if she were not quite sure of him – just for a day or two; so she didn’t take him for granted. He planned it very carefully.

Towards the end of April Albion assembled a muster at Minstead. Nick Pride was called, of course; so were Jane’s brother and two other men from Brook. They were going to stage a small parade and John knew that Jane and her family would be coming down to watch. He chose the evening two days in advance of the muster, therefore, to make his opening move.

The village of Minstead lay on the slope of a high rise that ran westwards across the central section of the Forest. The Minstead cottages mostly straggled along the lower half of the lane that climbed up to the crest of the rise, at the top of which the lane passed round a curious feature.

Castle Malwood, they called it, although there was never any castle there. It was just another of the small earthwork rings, like those at Burley and Lymington, which demonstrated that iron-age folk had used the Forest once, before the Romans came. Occupying the ridge’s highest local point, however, it had obviously been chosen because it offered commanding views of the area and, since Albion had ordered a thinning of the trees that had grown up below its modest banks, the site’s ancient pre-eminence had been partly re-established. From the top of its earth wall, now, one could see clean across the southern half of the Forest to the Isle of Wight: which was why it had been chosen as the perfect place to build the inland beacon, of which Nick was the guardian.

He was feeling quite proud of himself, therefore, as he led Jane, with her little dog Jack, up on to the grassy rampart of Malwood that evening and pointed out the view. ‘That’s where the big beacon will be.’ He pointed to the Isle of Wight. ‘And here’ – he indicated – ‘the very spot you’re standing on, Jane, is where we’ll be putting up our beacon next week.’

He was pleased to see that she looked suitably impressed.

‘What do you think will happen, Nick, if the Spanish come?’ She was looking at him with a trace of concern.

‘I’ll light my beacon and we’ll all muster, and then we’ll go down and fight them. That’s what’ll happen.’ He watched her and saw the thoughtful look on her face. ‘Afraid something might happen to me, are you?’ he asked, secretly delighted.

‘I? No,’ she lied and shrugged. ‘I was thinking of my brother.’

‘Ah.’ He smiled to himself. ‘You shouldn’t fear,’ he said handsomely. ‘When the Spanish see the whole muster I doubt they’ll dare to land.’

They talked, after this, of smaller matters. The sun slowly sank towards the horizon. The Forest before them was bathed in a golden haze, while the Isle of Wight in the distance began to turn blue-grey. It was very quiet. She gave a small shiver; he put his arm round her and then they gazed together towards the south in silence.

‘I love to look over the Forest,’ she said after a while.

‘So do I.’ He let some more time pass.

‘Well, Nick.’ She smiled up into his face now. ‘If the Spaniards have not killed us, I suppose there will be rejoicings at summer’s end.’ Then she stared out towards the island again.

It was his cue and he knew it. But he said nothing. Long moments passed.

‘I’d best get home,’ she said at last.

He heard her disappointment and let some more time pass. Then he nodded. ‘I’ll walk with you,’ he answered quietly. Then, briskly, ‘There’s much to think of this summer, isn’t there?’ And, secretly chuckling at his cleverness, he walked her back to Brook.

Let her wait. Let her be uncertain, he thought, just for a day.

A fine day it was, when it came.

Minstead was a curious place. Technically it was a feudal liberty: which was to say that, although lying completely surrounded by the royal forest, it had its own private lord with his own manor court. In practice this did not make a huge difference to anybody. The lord rented out some fields and received some modest feudal dues. Neither the manor peasants nor the lord could break the forest law of the territory all around the manor’s few hundred acres. Both the lord and his peasants, however, derived benefit from the manor’s common rights of fuel and pasture on the Forest, and this was quite valuable. Since time out of mind, the manor had belonged to the same feudal family as Bisterne in the Avon valley, which had now passed, by marriage, from the male line of Berkeley the dragon-slayer to the equally mighty family of Compton. But the lord of the manor had no house at Minstead. His steward came and took the rents, held court, gave what management was needed. The feudal liberty of Minstead was just a quiet village in the Forest.

It did, however, have one building of significance. Beside the lane, near the bottom, was the small village green. On one side, in a shallow dell, lay the nearest thing to a manor house the village possessed, which was the vicar’s rectory with its four acres of glebe. On the other, set upon a little knoll only two hundred yards from the green, was the parish church – significant because it was the only one in this part of the Forest. Not that the structure itself was large; although its walls were stone, the thatched roof made it seem more like a big cottage. Inside, the nave was not thirty feet wide and had a homely gallery you could reach up and touch. But it was a parish church. Even the chapel used by kings and queens at Lyndhurst came under its aegis. And it was Minstead church where the men of Minstead and Brook were meeting for their muster.

As Nick Pride looked around he felt delighted. The afternoon sky was a fresh light-blue; white puffs of cloud sailed over the church on its knoll. The muster consisted of the chosen men of the parish together with its outlying hamlets, known as tithings. There were a dozen men, including the three from Brook and a fellow from Lyndhurst, and it seemed to Nick that they were quite an impressive fighting force.

Of the twelve men, eight had bows and, thanks to Albion’s strict command, every one of these now possessed a full dozen arrows. Six of the men had long bills in their hands, sharpened and gleaming. God help the Spaniard, he thought, who came within reach of these terrifying spears. Three of the men had short-brimmed metal helmets. And he, from his father, had a breastplate of armour, a sword and metal splints to protect his forearm. One of the men had complained that since Nick was minding the beacon he had no need of these arms and should give them to someone else. But he had protested: ‘Once the beacon’s lit, I’ll be fighting too.’ And Albion had ruled that he should keep everything. Nobody had an arquebus, but that was not surprising: few English villagers had guns.