The Forest

by Edward Rutherfurd

  A cart was coming up the track, pulled by a great affer, as the Beaulieu men called a carthorse. In it were loaves of bread from the abbey bakery, made from the coarser ‘family’ flour for the workers, and barrels of beer.

  ‘They’re to have only Wilkin le Naket,’ Adam had firmly instructed. This was the weakest of the several abbey beers. It would quench their thirst, but no one would get drunk or sleepy. He glanced up at the sun. When the cart arrived, he would declare a rest period. He looked across the other way in the direction of the heath. The wheat in the next field had been harvested the day before.

  And there he saw the woman, Mary, dressed in a simple kirtle, tied at the waist, coming towards him across the stubble.

  Mary took her time. Tom was not expecting her. That was the point. She was carrying a little basket of wild strawberries she had picked for him.

  What does a woman do when she is forced to live with a man? When there is no escape; when there are children to share? What does she do when she lives in a farmstead where a marriage is over and yet is not?

  They had been cold to each other for so long and, even though she did not love him, she couldn’t bear it any more. What did it take, then, to save a marriage? A little gift, a show of love. Perhaps, if she were determined, if love were returned, she might even somehow manage to feel love again herself. Or near enough to get by. This was her hope.

  The pony was never mentioned now. Tom didn’t want to think about it, probably didn’t even want it back, she guessed. Once or twice, on some pretext like, ‘I just need to drop this at John’s’ she had been to her brother’s, and Tom had made no comment. She had been careful always to come straight back. Perhaps, in time, she could stay a little longer. Luke she had not seen or heard from. A few times Tom had mentioned him. He might have suspected he was in the Forest somewhere. It was hard to tell.

  To outward appearances they seemed tranquil enough. But never once, since the incident in May, had there been any intimacy between them. Tom had been quiet, but cold – or evasive, which was the same thing. When the harvest had come, at which time the hired men often slept out at the granges or in the fields, he had seemed glad of the chance to go, and made no attempt to return home at nights.

  She entered the field just as Brother Adam gave the order for the men to rest.

  Tom was surprised to see her. He even looked a shade embarrassed as she came towards him and gave him the basket, explaining: ‘I picked them for you.’

  ‘Oh.’ He didn’t, it seemed, want to show feelings in front of the other men, so he turned up his scythe and started to sharpen it with a small whetstone.

  The men were moving over towards the cart where a lay brother was dispensing beer. Tom had his own wooden mug tied with a thong to his belt. She untied it and went to fetch some beer, then stood quietly by while he drank.

  ‘You came a long way,’ he said at last.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she answered and smiled. ‘The children are all well,’ she added. ‘They’ll be glad when you’re back.’

  ‘Oh yes. I dare say.’

  ‘So will I.’

  He took another gulp of the thin beer, muttered, ‘Oh, yes’, and non-committally went back to sharpening the scythe again.

  Some of the other men were coming over now. There were nods to Mary, an inspection of the basket, some appreciative murmurs: ‘That’s nice.’ ‘Nice strawberries your missus brought you there, Tom.’ ‘Be sharing them will you, then?’ The mood of the little group was rather jolly. Tom, still a little cautious, went so far as to say: ‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.’ Mary, relieved by the light-hearted mood, was anxious to laugh.

  So the conversation went on, as it often does when people really have nothing to say, each person feeling obliged to keep the little stream of laughter going at the centre while, at the edges, those of a different humour form eddies, their muttered jokes and darker comments sometimes curling away and sometimes re-entering the stream.

  ‘Them Prides look after you,’ came now from the centre. ‘Here’s Tom with strawberries and the rest of us got nothing.’

  Mary laughed gladly at this friendly comment and smiled at Tom.

  ‘I ’spect Tom gets everything he wants, eh, Tom?’ from the edges. Though a bit cheeky and sadly inaccurate, Mary laughed at this, too, and Tom, a little flummoxed, looked down at the ground.

  But then some evil spirit caused one of the younger men at the edge of the group to cry out in a raucous voice: ‘If you’d married her brother, Tom, you could have got a pony!’

  And again Mary laughed. She laughed because they were laughing. She laughed because she was anxious to please. She laughed because she was caught, for a moment, by surprise. She laughed only for an instant before, realizing what had been said, and seeing Tom’s stunned face, she checked herself. Too late.

  Tom saw something different. Tom saw her laughing at him. Tom saw her gift for what he’d suspected it was, a ploy like giving an apple to a pony to keep him happy. These Prides were all the same. They thought they could just hoodwink you and you’d be so stupid you wouldn’t notice. They’d even do it in front of other people to make a bigger fool out of you. Tom saw her openly laughing at him and then check herself as if she’d suddenly thought: oh dear, he’s noticed. He saw even greater mockery and contempt in that. And all the pent-up resentment and rage of that spring and summer rose up inside him again.

  His round face flushed. With his boot he kicked the little basket, scattering the tiny strawberries in a red spray across the stubble. ‘You can get out of here,’ he told Mary. Then he swung his arm so that the back of his hand caught her across the face. ‘That’s right. Go on,’ he called.

  So, choking, Mary turned and walked away. She heard their murmurs, some voices raised in remonstrance with Tom, but she didn’t look back and she didn’t want to. It wasn’t the blow that stunned her. She could understand it. But it was the tone of his voice which, it seemed to her, said plainly, in front of them all, that he did not care about her any more.

  Brother Adam had been some way off when this happened, but he had seen it all and he could hardly let it pass. Walking across to the group, he told Furzey sharply: ‘You are on abbey lands. This sort of behaviour is not tolerated here. And you should not treat your wife in such a way.’

  ‘Oh?’ Tom looked at him defiantly. ‘You never had a wife, so what do you know, monk?’ There were looks all round at this. What would the monk do?

  ‘Control yourself,’ Adam said and turned away.

  But Tom had worked himself up too far. ‘I can say what I like to you! And you just keep your nose out of business that don’t concern you,’ he shouted.

  Brother Adam stopped. He knew he couldn’t let it go at that; and he was about to turn and order Furzey off the field when he thought of the woman. Fortunately, the lay brother in charge was standing close by. He turned to him instead. ‘Take no notice and leave him be,’ he ordered calmly. ‘There’s no point in his going after his wife when he’s in this state.’ He said it just loudly enough for a couple of the other hired men to hear. Retribution would have to follow, of course, but not now.

  Then he went across to his horse and rode away. It was time to inspect the fields across the heath.

  He had paused to talk to the shepherds near Bergerie, so it was not until he reached the open heath that he caught sight of her. He did not know whether he had supposed he might see her or not.

  He hesitated, watching her for a little while as she walked through the heather. He saw her almost stumble. Then he urged his horse towards her.

  As he drew close, she must have heard him, for she turned. There was a red mark across her face and it was clear that she had been crying. She still had almost three miles to go, across rough terrain.

  ‘Come.’ He leaned down, stretching out his arm to her. ‘Your village is on my way.’ She didn’t argue and a moment later, surprised at the monk’s strength, she found herself lifted up and placed easily astride th
e big horse’s withers in front of him.

  They went at a slow pace over the heath, taking care to skirt the marshy ground. Far away on the right they saw a flock of the abbey sheep moving across the landscape.

  The sun beat down heavily; the heather was a purple haze, its sweet scent heady as honeysuckle. The full moon added its strange silver presence to the azure sky.

  They rode in silence, Brother Adam’s arms holding the reins around her body, and neither spoke until they were ascending the slope from a little stream in the middle of the heath, when she asked: ‘You are going up to the fields above the ford?’

  ‘Yes, but I can take you to the village.’ It only meant a detour of a mile of so.

  ‘I’d sooner walk down from where you’re going. There’s a back way through the woods. I don’t want them all to see me with my face like this.’

  ‘What about your children, though?’

  ‘At my brother’s. I’ll collect them this evening.’

  Brother Adam said nothing. There was a stretch of flat open heath in front of them, beyond that, about a half a mile away, a screen of trees, which hid the vaccary of Pilley beyond. There was not a soul to be seen, only a few cattle and ponies.

  He felt hot, and observed that little beads of sweat had formed at the nape of Mary’s neck and the back of her shoulders, which had become exposed under her kirtle. He could smell her salty skin – it seemed to him like wheat with a faint tang of warm leather from her soft shoes. He noticed the way her dark hair grew from the paler skin of her neck. Her breasts, not large but full, were only just above his wrists, almost touching. Her legs, strong peasant’s legs, but nicely shaped, had become exposed from the knees down as they rode.

  And suddenly it came to him, with a rush, a vivid urgency that he had never experienced before: that foolish peasant Furzey could hold this woman, become intimate with this body, any time that he wished. In his head he had always known it, of course. It was obvious. But now, suddenly, for the first time in his life, the simple physical reality hit him like a wave. Dear God, he almost cried out, this is the daily life, the world of such simple fellows. And I have never known it. Had he missed life – had he missed it all? Was there another voice in the universe, warm, blinding like the sun, echoing, racing in his veins, that he had never heard in those star-filled silences in his cloister? And, taking him utterly by surprise, he felt a sudden sense of jealousy against Furzey and the whole world. All the world has known it, he thought, but not I.

  They still did not speak as they entered the screen of trees that reached out like a curving arm on to the heath. The woods were empty, the dappled light falling softly through the summer leaves. It was quiet as a church.

  Once or twice he caught a glimpse, across the fields, of one of the thatched roofs of the hamlet cottages, golden in the sun. Then, as the wood curved southwards, the track went deeper into the trees, along the crest of the little gulf that led down to the river. They had gone some way, making an arc round the hamlet, when she pointed to the left and he turned the big horse off the path and rode through the trees.

  After a short while she nodded. ‘Here.’

  He saw now that they were only twenty paces from where the trees gave way to some gorse bushes and a small paddock. Dismounting, he reached up and lifted her gently to the ground.

  She turned. ‘You must be hot,’ she said simply. ‘I will give you water.’

  He hesitated, took a moment to reply. ‘Thank you.’ He tethered his horse to a tree and rejoined her. He was curious, he supposed, to see more closely the farmstead where she passed her days.

  They could not be seen from the next cottage as they crossed the paddock. The gate in the paddock fence gave on to the small yard. The cottage was on the left, the barn on the right. By the barn was a rick of cut bracken, like a miniature haystack. She disappeared into the cottage for a moment, then came out with a wooden cup and a pitcher of water. She poured the water into the cup, placed the pitcher on the ground and then, without a word, went back into the cottage.

  He drank. Then refilled the cup. The water was delightfully cool. The hamlet’s water, like that from many of the forest streams, had a fresh, sharp taste, like fern. She did not reappear at once, but he decided it would be impolite to leave without thanking her; so he waited.

  When she returned he saw that she had bathed her face. The cold water had already lessened the redness of the mark on her cheek. Her hair had been brushed; her kirtle somewhat pulled down so that the tops of her breasts were slightly exposed – from the act of washing he imagined.

  ‘I hope you feel better.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her dark-blue eyes surveyed him thoughtfully, it seemed to Adam. Then she gave a faint smile. ‘You must see my animals,’ she said. ‘I’m very proud of them.’

  So he followed her, attentive as a knight upon a lady, as she led him round her domain.

  She took her time. She fed the chickens and told him their names. They inspected the pigs. The cat had just had kittens; they duly admired them.

  But most of all he admired the woman who was leading him. It was remarkable to him how well she had recovered her equanimity. Her face was calm; she looked refreshed. When she told him the chickens’ names she had a faintly ironic smile. They seemed so apposite – one or two were rather witty – that he asked her if she had thought of them all.

  ‘Yes.’ She gave him a wry look. ‘My husband goes to the fields. I name the chickens.’ She gave a little shrug and he thought of the scene in the field that he had witnessed. ‘That’s my life,’ she said.

  He felt a tenderness as well as admiration. He felt protective; he hovered beside her, watching all that she did. How gracefully she moved. He had not realized before. Although quite sturdily built, she was light on her feet and she walked with a delightful swinging motion. Once or twice, as she knelt down to tend her animals, he observed the firm line of her thighs and the lovely curves of her body. When she reached up, almost on tiptoe, to pull down an apple from the tree and the sunlight caught her, he saw her breasts in perfect silhouette.

  The afternoon sun was warm upon him. As well as the faint smells of the yard, he detected honeysuckle. It was strange: in her presence, now, everything – the animals, the apple tree, even the blue sky above – suddenly seemed more real, more actual than they usually did.

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I have one more creature to visit. It’s in the barn.’ And she led the way past the rick, which scented the air with bracken.

  He followed her, but at the door of the barn, instead of entering, she paused and glanced up at him. ‘I’m afraid this must be boring for you.’

  ‘No.’ He was taken aback. ‘I’m not bored at all.’

  ‘Well.’ She smiled. ‘A farm can’t be very interesting to you.’

  ‘When I was a child,’ he said simply, ‘I lived on a farm. Some of the time.’ It was quite true. His father had been a merchant, but his uncle had possessed a farm and he had spent part of his childhood there.

  ‘Well, well.’ She seemed amused. ‘A farm boy. Once upon a time.’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘A very long time ago.’

  Then she reached up and gently touched his cheek. ‘Come,’ she said.

  When had the idea taken shape in her mind? Mary was not quite certain herself. Was it out on the heath, when the handsome monk had rescued her, like a knight rescuing a damsel in distress? Was it the soothing motion of the horse, the feel of his strong arms around her?

  Yes. Perhaps then. Or if not then exactly … It was probably when they had taken the track through the woods and she had thought: we are unseen. The village, her sister-in-law, even her brother – all unaware that she was passing close by with this stranger. Oh, yes, her heart had been pounding then.

  And even if she had not been certain what she wanted before she arrived back, then surely she had known it when she washed her face. The tingling cold of the water on her brow and on her cheeks; she had pulled her kirtle down and some drops had fallen on he
r breasts; she had gasped and given a tiny shudder. And there, through the half-open door, she had seen him, waiting for her.

  They entered the barn together. The creature to which Mary had referred was not part of the farmstead’s livestock. Instead, going into one corner and kneeling down, she showed him a small, straw-filled box. ‘I found him two days ago,’ she said.

  It was just a blackbird, which had broken its wing. Mary had rescued it and made a tiny splint for the wing, and she was keeping it in the barn for safety until it was healed. ‘The cat can’t get at it here,’ she explained.

  He knelt down beside her and, as she gently stroked the bird, he did the same, so that their hands lightly touched. Then he leaned back, watching her, while she continued to bend over the bird on its bed of straw.

  She did not look at the monk. She was aware only of his presence.

  It was strange: until today he had been just that for her – a presence, almost a spirit. Someone unobtainable, above her, forbidden, protected by his vows and reserved from the touch of all women. And yet, now she knew, he was also like other men.

  And obtainable. She knew it was so. Her instinct told her. Although her husband might choose to humiliate her it was in her power to attract, to have this man, so infinitely superior to poor Tom Furzey.

  Suddenly she was overcome by desire. She, modest Mary on her farmstead, had the power – here, now – to turn this innocent into a man. It was a thrilling, heady sensation.

  ‘See.’ She lifted the bird’s wing so that he would lean forward to touch it. As he did so, she half turned, so that her breasts brushed lightly against his chest. She slowly rose and stepped past him. Her leg touched his arm. Then she moved to the door of the barn, which was ajar, and stood gazing out at the bright sunlight. Her heart was beating faster.

  For a moment she thought of her husband. But only for a moment. Tom Furzey did not value her. She owed him nothing more. She closed him out of her mind.

  She was conscious of the sunlight upon her, of the tingling in her breasts and of a fluttering sensation that seemed to be spreading like a blush down her whole body. She closed the door of the barn and turned round. ‘I don’t want the cat to get in.’ She smiled.