This occurred several times before the thin light of a crescent moon brought some feeble illumination to the road which stretched across my sight. The soil of the road was lighter in color than the forest around it. A man walking upon it would produce a shadow against the lighter background. A shadow which would move. In the northeast, a predawn glow added to the light to illuminate the road.
If a man chose to walk this night the forest path I had found, I thought it reasonable to expect that he would wait until the moon could light his way. I found no difficulty in remaining alert for the remainder of the night, for I expected a poacher to step from the forest to the road at any moment. But no shadow moved past me on the way. The eastern sky grew light through the entwined branches of the trees when I finally rose from my seat, stretched, brushed off my chauces, and set off for the castle. The night was a failure.
The pale golden glow in the eastern sky lighted my way through the wood and across the meadowland west of town and castle. Where the road left the forest a gentle breeze caused me to shiver on my way. I had become stiff with cold, sitting at the base of the beech, but there had been no wind there in the forest to compound my discomfort.
I was near the castle wall when the gentle morning wind brought to my nose the welcome smell of roasting meat. It was early for the cook to be at his work in the castle kitchen, and he would not yet be roasting meat for the castle dinner. He would first be about baking loaves for the day when he did rise from his bed. But I smelled meat, not bread. And the breeze blew wrong to bring the scent of roasting meat to me from the castle kitchen. The wind came from the southeast; from the huts in the Weald.
It was my goal to climb the rope I had left tied to the merlon in the north-wall parapet before men rose to greet the new day. But this new scent asked too many questions which needed answers. I determined to seek them quickly, before daylight would make visible my climb up the castle wall.
I walked swiftly from Mill Street down the lane toward the Weald huts. In the twilight of early dawn I saw smoke from the eve vents of two huts, those of Thomas atte Bridge and the widow Emma. The inhabitants of these two dwellings were about their business early, and I knew why.
Few others in the Weald or elsewhere would have meat to roast in June. The flesh from autumn’s slaughtered hog or goat was long since consumed in most men’s homes. These two houses wished to roast their meat when no other would take note. I was convinced again I dealt with a poacher, and now knew who the man was. Although why Thomas atte Bridge would share with his sister-in-law I did not know. In truth, the question did not then occur to me.
I hurried back to Mill Street, hastened to the castle and climbed my rope ladder as the morning sun illuminated the cross atop the spire of St Beornwald’s Church. From atop the wall I saw an old man praying at the Ladywell. His back was to me. I drew the rope from around the merlon, tucked it beneath my cotehardie, and stole down the parapet steps and across the inner yard to the great hall and my chamber.
Wisps of smoke from the kitchen chimney told me that the cook was risen from his bed and at his work. But he and his assistant were busy with oven and loaves. No face appeared at the kitchen door to observe my return.
I went to my bed, intending to rest for an hour or two, but found sleep elusive. I thought I now knew the poacher’s identity. But how to catch him at his work? And Emma atte Bridge had seen me across the meadow from her toft. The thought troubled me. The Angelus Bell intruded upon my contemplation before I could fall to sleep.
I awoke a short time later but little refreshed and no nearer a plan to apprehend either Thomas atte Bridge or his brother’s slayer. I awoke confused, weary, and feeling quite incompetent.
I had no wish to sit again all night in the forest awaiting Thomas atte Bridge. If it was fresh meat being roasted which I smelled this morning, then the fellow had eluded me in the night. Or perhaps ’twas meat he took earlier, and he had not been abroad in the night at all while I waited, cold and stiff, between the roots of the old beech.
If I took my place this night at the root of the beech it might be that Thomas would choose not to appear, or perhaps take another way. Could he be warned that I had found his path? And he had meat to roast. He would need no more for several days, perhaps.
I had no desire to spend another cold, uncomfortable night in the forest. I knew a better way.
I called at the kitchen for my morning loaf and ale. Did the cook look askance at me, or was it my imagination? I ate hurriedly in my chamber. I had a plan, and was impatient to set it in motion.
Wilfred tugged a forelock as I passed the gatehouse. I set my feet toward Alvescot and shortly after passed the beech where I had spent an unprofitable night. Did my scheme succeed, I would not need to visit the place again.
The door to Gerard the verderer’s hut lay open to the warm June sun, but the forester was not there. He was, his wife explained, at work in the forest north of town with his sons and brothers.
I was but a few steps from the village on the road north to Shilton when I heard axes ringing through the forest to the west of the road. I picked my way through the wood and found the verderer sitting on a rotting stump from which place he directed the felling of a medium-sized ash. This was the second tree to fall this day. A few paces beyond lay another ash, already down.
Gerard stood when he saw me approach, and greeted me warmly, as a man might to one who had saved his life. He had no sooner spoke words of greeting than the second ash began its plunge to the forest floor. I waited until the crashing and splintering of branches was complete to reply.
“Good day…Are you well?”
“Aye, well as may be.”
“The weakness on your left side — it troubles you as before?”
“Aye. No change there. Won’t ever be, I think.”
“There is a matter regarding Lord Gilbert’s forest I must discuss with you. Pray, return to your seat.”
I motioned to the stump. Gerard’s sons and brothers ignored me and went to trimming branches from the fallen trees. Gerard saw me watching the work. Perhaps he worried that I might accuse him of abusing Lord Gilbert’s forest. He explained what he was about.
“’Tis a wondrous thing, is a tree. These two will provide timber should Lord Gilbert need more, an’ t’branches will warm him in t’castle an’ us in our huts next autumn. From t’stumps coppiced shoots will soon rise. In a few months they’ll be large enough for arrows. T’Frenchies will want war again soon enough. ’Twill be well to have shafts ready. An’ we allow some of t’coppiced poles to grow, they’ll make anything from rafters to plow hafts.”
“Aye,” I agreed. “God designed well a world for men to prosper in. And he did well to provide Lord Gilbert with a verderer who knows his business.”
The old man beamed.
“Can’t work as once,” Gerard admitted, “but know as what’s needful an’ can see others do it. Trainin’ Richard,” he nodded toward his older son, “to take me place when I’m gone.”
“Unless you allow some tree to drop on you again, you should live for many years.”
The forester removed his cap and rubbed his head absently. The scar I made when I repaired his broken skull was visible through his wispy, thinning hair. “Keep me distance, now,” he assured me. “But you’d not come ’ere to discuss me ’ead.”
“Nay. I have other business. There is, I am sure, a poacher at work in Lord Gilbert’s forest.”
Gerard’s eyes grew wide. He lifted his hands to protest, the right hand higher than the left. He thought I was about to accuse him of malfeasance, for it is a verderer’s business to seek out those who violate forest law.
“I do not charge you with incompetence,” I said, before he could protest. “But I will have you and your sons patrol the forest carefully. You have seen no sign of snares, or the taking of a deer?”
“Nay. Don’t get through t’woods so easy meself anymore, but the others,” he nodded toward his sons and brothers, “go ’bout regular, like. They’d tell me straight away did any poacher leave sign in t’woods.”
“Require of them special vigilance, for there is surely a poacher at work. But I must have evidence before I can charge the man at hallmote.”
“You know who the fellow is?”
“Aye, I think so. But I cannot charge him with the little I presently know.”
Gerard took personally the idea of a poacher loose in the forest. It was his responsibility more than mine to apprehend such a miscreant. That I had learned of activity in his forest of which he knew nothing was a blow to his pride. I knew he would be diligent in seeking the evidence I needed.
