The Forest (48 page)

She was going to wear it at her wedding.

The cart bumped down the lane and came on to a gravel strand.

‘Look,’ she cried in delight. ‘We’re at the sea.’

Albion looked irritably at the fortress ahead. Why the devil had his good friend Gorges insisted that he bring these men out here, anyway? It was a waste of his time, in his opinion. But behind this bravado lay a deeper apprehensiveness. After his talk with his mother yesterday – he couldn’t help it – he secretly viewed the fortress with a kind of panic.

‘Halloa,’ he cried to the sentry, ‘Albion’s muster.’

‘Pass, sir,’ came the reply.

They had crossed Pennington Marshes, passed the inlet of Keyhaven and now they had started along the track that led out to the end of the mile-long gravel spit opposite the Isle of Wight. On their right was the open sea. Above the sky was blue and seagulls were crying. And just visible at the end of the spit, glinting palely in the sun, lay their destination.

Hurst Castle. It would probably never have been built if it hadn’t been for Henry VIII’s marital troubles. England’s coasts had been threatened with raids, on and off, for over a thousand years. But when the Pope, at one point in his quarrel with Henry, had urged both Spain and her rival France to join forces and attack the heretic island, the king had decided he had better prepare himself and sent commissioners to inspect the coastal defences; and few places were more important than the port of Southampton and the Solent. When they got there, however, and saw the defences, their conclusion was simple: useless.

The most intelligent course was obviously to defend the two entrances to the Solent system so that enemy ships could not enter its huge shelter at all. At the western end this meant a pair of batteries, one on the Isle of Wight near the Needles, the other on the mainland. On the island there
was already a ramshackle tower which could be put into service.

And on the mainland coast: ‘God has provided for us.’

The long, curving gravel spit that ran out from below Keyhaven was indeed a perfect God-given site. It ended with a broad platform; it commanded the narrowest part of the channel leading in and out of the Solent. Immediately they ordered an earthwork with gun emplacements – a bulwark. But King Henry wanted something more and soon an ambitious building was going up.

Hurst Castle was a small, squat, stone-built fort. It was an unusual structure, though. For it was neither round nor square but built in the shape of a triangle. At each of its three corners was a stout, semicircular bastion. In the western wall there was an entrance with a portcullis and a drawbridge over a small moat. Over the middle of the triangular fort stood a two-storey tower. Bastions, walls and tower all bristled with cannon. The Spanish, who knew all about it, considered Hurst a formidable obstacle.

And this was the place Albion’s mother expected him to betray. To her, of course, it was not only an obstacle to the true religion; its very stones were an offence.

When King Harry had sold off all the Church’s monastic lands to his friends, Beaulieu had passed into the hands of the noble family of Wriothesley. But many others in the area were keen to benefit from the opportunities of the age and none more so than a prominent Southampton merchant named Mill. An able man, he had already acted as steward of the old Beaulieu estate and was eager to please the king and acquire monastic lands of his own. As it was usual practice for the crown to subcontract important projects like building ships or forts to local entrepreneurs, it was not surprising that, when it came to the new Solent defences, the business should have been put in the capable hands of Mill. He had done an excellent job. The king was delighted. And when asked where he had got so much stone – there
being little in the region – he affably replied: ‘From Beaulieu Abbey, of course.’

‘That impious Mill!’ the Lady Albion had exploded. To use the sacred abbey stones to defend the shoreline against the Pope! The fact that plenty of others had been busy dismantling the abbey and even its church, was not something that her son had cared to point out to her.

As they reached the end of the promontory, Albion saw that the drawbridge was lowered and the gate open; and he had no sooner ordered the three men down from the cart than a familiar figure, a man of about his own age with a broad intelligent face, fine grey eyes and thinning hair, which did not detract from his handsomeness, came striding towards him.

‘Clement.’

‘Thomas.’

‘Welcome.’

Thomas Gorges was of ancient lineage and, Albion thought, it showed. He had friends at court. But above all, Cecil and the council trusted him. For that reason he had been chosen to escort Mary Queen of Scots to her final imprisonment. He had also been knighted. And for some years he had been captain at Hurst Castle where, with the threat of invasion imminent, he had been spending a good deal of time. ‘These are your men?’ he enquired. Albion nodded. ‘Good. My master gunner will show them round.’ Apart from Gorges himself and his deputy, there was a considerable garrison at Hurst, headed by the master gunner. ‘I always think’, Gorges went on quietly, ‘that the more you show the men how things are done, the better you fire their loyalty. Come, Clement,’ he continued pleasantly, ‘let us talk.’

As he glanced around him, Albion considered, it would be hard not to be impressed. Two tiers of cannon protruded from embrasures in the bastions and the walls on the seaward sides. There were cannon in the central tower as
well. No ship entering the Solent could escape this battery and, as for its defences, not only were the walls thick, but they had been built slightly convex to deflect cannonballs. Even under heavy bombardment, Hurst Castle would be a tough nut to crack.

Gorges grinned. ‘I hope you find everything in good order, Clement.’ There was no question that Gorges had been an excellent custodian. He had added more cannon, had the central tower rebuilt and greatly strengthened, trained the garrison admirably. He was so highly regarded by the council now that, although the lord-lieutenant of the country was nominally in charge of the county’s musters, if Gorges wanted anything – arms, materials or men, he got them at once. ‘So tell me, Woodward,’ he enquired genially, ‘when am I getting my elms?’

It was a curious thing, Albion reflected, that although you built ships of oak, if you used it in a place like Hurst, open to the salty sea breeze, oak timber soon rotted. When Gorges needed new mountings for the cannon, therefore, he had advised him to use elm, which lasted better. ‘I marked the trees last week. They’ll be cut and timber delivered in ten days.’

‘Thank you. Now tell me about these men you’ve brought.’

‘I’m putting Pride in charge. He’s young but trustworthy. Intelligent. Pleased with the responsibility and anxious to prove himself. He’ll be on his mettle. The other two are good fellows. They’ll be all right.’

‘How wise you are. I shall speak with them at once. By the way,’ he added casually, ‘did I tell you that Helena is here?’ Helena: his wife. Albion felt a glow of pleasure. He was fond of Helena. ‘She’s been waiting for you. Why don’t you talk to her while I see the men?’

Albion paused. The suggestion was so charmingly made that he might not have given it a second thought. Instead, he frowned. He had never been quite sure why it was
necessary to bring these men down here at all when he could perfectly well have told them their duties up at Minstead. ‘Surely, Thomas, if you are seeing my men, you wish me to be present?’

A slight blush. A look of embarrassment, quickly covered, but not quite quickly enough. What did it mean? ‘Look, here she comes. Do walk with her a little, Clement. She has been so anxious to see you.’ And before Albion could argue, his friend had gone, leaving him alone.

Nick Pride felt pretty pleased with himself. They were standing in the master gunner’s chamber, which had a fine view over the Solent, when Thomas Gorges came in. The aristocrat had spoken to them very civilly for a few minutes, explaining the importance of their duties and Nick had observed him with interest.

He was impressed. If Albion was a gentleman, he sensed that this man was something more. He came from another world, even if Nick did not quite know what that world might be. Putting the two men side by side in his mind, he decided that Albion needed Gorges, but Gorges didn’t need Albion. I reckon that’s what it is, he thought.

‘So, Nicholas Pride,’ Gorges now said. ‘I hear you are the guardian of the beacon.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ he cried, swelling out his chest. ‘I am.’

The idea of planting beacons of fire on hilltops to alert the countryside of an enemy approaching went back to classical times; but it was the Tudors who had developed them into a regular system in England. A beacon lit at the south-western tip of England could start a chain reaction of coastal fires that would warn London within a couple of hours. At the same time as the message was passed along the coast, however, a network of secondary beacons, radiating inland, picked up the message and alerted the musters in the local settlements to assemble and go to their muster places to defend the coast.

There were two big coastal beacons for the Solent area, one at each end of the Isle of Wight. The hinterland of the New Forest was mainly served by three inland beacons: one up on Burley Beacon, a second on a hill towards the Forest’s centre and a third, to summon the northern hamlets, upon an old earthwork at the top of the hill above Minstead village.

‘Come and stand by me now, Nicholas Pride,’ the captain commanded and he drew apart from the others. ‘Now then,’ he said softly, so that only he and the young man could hear each other, ‘recite to me the duties of your watch.’

Nick Pride reckoned he did all right. Albion had coached him thoroughly. There was a precise sequence of signals the Isle of Wight beacon would send, culminating in the one that told him to light his own. He recited them all correctly. He gave the details of how it was to be manned, who would keep watch and when, how it was set up and lit. Gorges questioned him, quietly but thoroughly, and seemed to be satisfied. To Nick’s surprise, though, when this was over, the officer did not immediately end their conversation. He seemed to want to know more about him; asked about his family, his brothers and sisters, their smallholding. He even talked about his own family and made Nick laugh. Nick felt surprisingly relaxed. Gorges asked Nick what he thought of the Spaniards and Nick told him they were cursed foreigners. Gorges told him that their King Philip was nonetheless said to be very pious and Nick said that might be so but he was a foreigner anyway and any good Englishman should be glad to cut off his head. ‘Francis Drake singed his beard for him at Cadiz, Sir, didn’t he? With those fire ships. That taught him a lesson I should think.’ Gorges said he hoped it had.

The aristocrat had been listening and watching him carefully and now knew him better than he knew himself, but young Nick Pride was entirely unaware of it. ‘I see, Nicholas Pride, that I may trust you,’ he said at last. ‘And if
the queen herself asks me – and she may – who keeps the watch at our inland beacon, I shall remember your name and tell her you are her loyal man.’

‘Indeed, Sir, you can,’ cried Pride, more delighted with himself than ever.

Jane was sitting on a sandy bank, gazing across the Solent when the strange couple came along.

It was warm; there was a hint of haze across the waters so that the Isle of Wight was a sleepy blue. Sandpipers and waders skimmed over the mudflats in front of her and around the fort the fork-tailed swallows darted and sped, although soon they would be leaving for warmer climes.

The man and woman were driving a large wagon with high-boarded sides. It was carrying charcoal.

Jane had already noticed that just below the fort on the Solent side there was a small lime kiln. It had been there, in fact, for some time, a solid business – not on the scale of the nearby salt pans, of course, but profitable – the lime being shipped mostly across the English Channel to the island of Guernsey near the French coast. The charcoal would be needed as fuel for the kiln’s furnace.

The wagon turned off the track just before reaching the fort and went down to the kiln. Moments later she saw the man, aided by two others from the kiln, start to unload the sacks from the back of the wagon. She watched him with interest.

He was somewhat shorter than the other men, but he looked very muscular. His hair was thick and black, but his beard was short and neatly trimmed. His eyes were set wide apart and watchful – hunter’s eyes, she thought. She felt sure he had already taken her in as he unloaded the sacks of charcoal. So why did he seem strange? She wasn’t sure. She had lived with the Forest folk all her life; but this man looked different from the Prides and Furzeys, as if he belonged to some other, more ancient race, inhabitants of a
deeper woodland than they knew. Was it her imagination or had his face been burnished by the charcoal fires to a darker hue? Was there something oaken, almost tree-like about him?

It was not hard to guess his family. She had seen several men like him before, at local fairs or at the court at Lyndhurst.

‘That’s Perkin Puckle,’ her father would point out. Or: ‘I think that’s Dan Puckle, but it may be John.’ And always the litany continued: ‘The Puckles live over Burley way.’ No one had anything to say against them. ‘They’re good friends, long as you keep on the right side of them,’ her father had told her. But, even if nobody said so, Jane had understood that there was something vaguely mysterious about the family. ‘They’re old,’ her mother had once remarked, ‘like the trees.’ Jane watched the man curiously.