Reassured that I attracted no attention, I strode west and soon entered Lord Gilbert’s forest. I counted 200 paces, then turned from the road. The forest here had not been coppiced for many years. Giant old oak and beech trees sought the sky. They would be worth a small fortune for long beams, did anyone want to build. But since the plague, few did. Their leafy branches so completely blocked the sun that few green things grew on the forest floor. No hawthorn or nettles impeded my way as I counted another hundred paces to the south.
I stopped often while I counted my steps. If a poacher set snares this way I might hear a captured animal as it struggled to free itself. And if I was observed and followed, I might hear a stalker as leaves rustled and twigs snapped under his feet. No, I was not being over cautious. There really was a man who intended me harm. The shrinking lump on my head was proof of that.
A goldfinch twittered in the branches above me. A squirrel dug through rotting leaves for his supper. The breeze set leaves to shimmering and branches to rubbing against each other. I saw the sights and heard the sounds of the forest. And so delightful were they, I came near to forgetting my mission. It would be a poorer world were there no goldfinches singing or squirrels playing in it. In my prayers I do not recall ever thanking God for either birds or squirrels. I must amend my ways and my prayers.
When I had counted 100 paces from the Alvescot road I leaned against an oak to listen and observe my place. I might have been the only man in the shire, for no sound made by man came to my ears. And no sight foreign to a forest fell to my eyes.
I crept another ten paces, found another tree to hide me, and again watched and listened. Nothing, but for birds and the occasional squirrel. Did a man wish to set snares for squirrels, which is allowed, he should surely find success. Although I thought it unlikely such a hunter would require a sack across his shoulder to carry home his prize.
The ground I walked sloped gently down from the road. Each step took me closer to a tangle of ivy and marsh grass which grew about a bog where the forest ended. No man would try to push his way through such a place. The verge of such a marsh would be an excellent place to lay a snare. I became more cautious and observant as I approached this boggy place.
I found no snares, but the track of a man’s passing was visible to an alert observer. There had been no rain for several days, so last year’s fallen leaves should be dry atop the forest floor. But where the firm ground of the forest began to give way to the soft muck of the marsh I found a place where wet, rotting leaves had been kicked up above the drying surface leaves.
A few steps to the west I found another such place. These overturned bunches of leaves did not create a regular track, but were intermittent. It appeared that some man had stumbled or otherwise tripped while making his way through the forest. The fellow must have been unsteady on his feet. Or perhaps he traveled at night across the uneven ground.
The broken trail of disturbed leaves crossed my path. I thought I knew, should I turn to my left, where the track would enter the forest. I walked that way to assure myself of my supposition. My guess was correct. Nearly 200 paces east of the bog the trail of disturbed leaves ended at a hedgerow to the west of a pasture. The road to Alvescot formed the north boundary of this meadow. Across it to the northeast I saw the castle.
The stacked stones of the meadow wall were overgrown with nettles and hawthorne. I saw clearly where someone had torn nettles away from the wall so he might climb over without earning a stinging rebuke.
The field before me was fallow this year. A flock of sheep munched the grass midway across the clearing, turning grass into wool and manuring the ground for the wheat and barley strips John Holcutt would see planted there next year.
Across the meadow another hedgerow formed its eastern margin. I saw near this wall the remains of the blind where the reeve, the archers and I had looked on this meadow for the return of a wolf. Beyond this far hedgerow lay the huts of the bishop’s men in the Weald.
While I studied the wall, nettles, meadow and sheep, another studied me. I looked up from examining the torn nettles and saw, 200 paces and more to the east, Emma atte Bridge staring over the far hedgerow in my direction from her toft. The hedgerow before me was waist high. Unless her vision failed she could identify me as clearly as I could her. I did not think this important at the time.
The woman went back to her work and I turned from the hedgerow to retrace my steps and follow the trail I had discovered. The occasional patches of disturbed leaves compassed the swamp around its north edge, then, to the west of the low ground it entered again into the higher ground of the forest.
I followed the trail through the wood, but not easily. I lost it several times and only found the path again by circling the last upturned leaves I had found. My search was made some easier because the nocturnal hiker I trailed had gone unfailingly west in a course which only gradually, after nearly half a mile, began to curve north. An hour later the track led me to the road to Alvescot, less than a mile from the village.
I stopped often while I followed the path through the forest, but heard no struggling animal nor saw any snare. Whoever had used this way through the wood wished only to be through to the other side. He had no other business which brought him here. And he had not been through the wood by this path often, for his route was not well trodden, but on the contrary, seemed used but rarely.
I could see no reason to return to Bampton through the forest. And there was no point in walking on to Alvescot. I was sure that whoso made the track I had followed through the wood was the same man who had traveled Mill Street toward Alvescot five days before. And likely was the same man who had bashed my head at the Alvescot churchyard.
If my quarry was a poacher, he did his work somewhere beyond Alvescot. The man had passed many likely places to set snares. Perhaps he had done so, and laid them so cleverly that I did not find them. But I did not think this could be so. Why set snares about a marsh, then continue through the forest to the road? It seemed to me a poacher would set his traps, then return through the wood the way he had come. No, this fellow had business elsewhere, be it poaching, or, as I was beginning to suspect, some other pursuit in mind.
Lord Gilbert’s forest lay within my bailiwick, but was no responsibility of John Prudhomme’s. I resolved to investigate the woodland path and he who trod upon it on my own. I did not wish any other to know what I was about, for fear that gossip might make my work known and my prey cautious. More cautious than he was already. A man would not forsake a road for a forest track in the dark of night was he not already alert and wary.
A large old beech stood over the road near the place where the path joined the road to Alvescot. I marked it so I might find the place on a dark night, then made my way back to Bampton in time for my supper. Unobserved, so far as I knew, but for Emma atte Bridge.
Wilfred was not known for loquacity but I did not want even the porter to know that I left the castle this night. A man will not tell what he does not know. A length of rope over the castle wall had served well. I resolved to use the method again.
When the castle was dark and quiet I stole to the marshalsea for rope, then silently mounted the steps to the parapet. There would be little moon this night, and that would not rise ’til near dawn. The north wall would be especially dark this night. My grey chauces and brown cotehardie would be invisible even if any who spent the night at the Ladywell chose that moment to awaken and examine the castle.
I knotted the rope every foot or so to aid my return, tied one end to a merlon, and tossed the other end to the ground. Moments later my feet also found the thin grass at the base of the north wall.
As there was yet no moon above the town rooftops, I saw no need to stumble my way across field and meadow to the forest. I could barely see Mill Street myself when I stood upon it at the southwest corner of the castle. No man, even if he knew I walked the road, could see me more than ten paces away. Of course, if another man traveled the road I should not see him, either. I walked silently, stopping every few paces to listen. My ears are good. Perhaps, if another man chose to be about on the road this night, I might hear him before he heard me. I wished I had remembered to bring with me the club, just in case.
The road through the forest was so dark I occasionally lost my way and stumbled against foliage growing at the verge. I was sure no man would attempt the wooded path I had found on such a night. Not until the waning moon rose to add some light to the tenebrous thickets near the bog.
Stars provided my only light. It was barely enough to locate the great beech I marked to fix the place where the forest path found the road. I settled myself into a cleft between two large roots. This location faced the road and its junction with the path. The seat had but one flaw. ’Twas too comfortable. I had no trouble staying awake when seated on a stump. But now I found myself drifting to sleep. Only when my nodding head with its symmetrical lumps met the smooth bark of the tree was I jolted awake.
