The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd Read Free Book Online

they must be pleased with themselves. This would surely be the biggest single group of deer brought in that day. How hard they looked, how suddenly fierce.
    And she, too, shared in their glory. It might be harsh, this killing of deer, but it had to be. It was nature. Men must be fed. God had granted them animals for the purpose. It could be no other way.
    Through the trees on the right now, she got a glimpse of the royal hunting lodge. She could hardly believe that they were at Lyndhurst already. The riders had been unable to prevent the herd from splitting and a group of does, including her pale one, had peeled left into a glade. Martell and some of the others galloped off to outflank them.
    Just then, glancing to her left, she noticed Walter.
    She must have got ahead of him without realising it. He was galloping hard, to be in front of her when they emerged into view by the trap. As he drew level she was granted a perfect view of his profile and, despite all her excitement, she suddenly experienced an inward shudder.
    He was flushed and concentrated. Somehow – even now – his pug face still managed to look pompous and self-satisfied.But it was something else that really struck her. His cruelty. It was not the hardness that Edgar’s face had suddenly acquired; it was more like lust – lust for death. He looked gorged. For a strange moment it almost seemed to her as if his face in its keen desire, little moustache and all, had floated forward and was hanging, gloating, over the deer.
    Oh, it was cruel – necessity or not. You couldn’t get away from the truth of what was to come; Cola’s perfectly organised drive, the huge trap ahead, the bleak wooden machinery of the walls in the woods, the nets, the culling – not one, not even ten, but deer after deer until they had a hundred. It was cruel to kill so many.
    It was too late to think of that now. The trees opened out. She saw the high mound where Cola waited ahead. Just before it, a line of men were shouting and waving their arms, to make sure the deer turned right towards the entrance of the trap. The foremost deer were already up to them, with galloping riders only yards behind. From her left, now, came the does that had split off, driven by Martell. They streamed by her. She saw the pale doe. It was the last of them. Already they were all wheeling, coming past Cola’s mound. Just after the mound, she noticed, on the grassy lawn between it and the start of the ridge there were only a few people standing. The deer, already turned, with the riders along their left flank, were streaming past them, oblivious. The pale doe had fallen a little behind. Having made the turn, she seemed, for just an instant, to hesitate before being drawn in to her death.
    Then Adela did a strange thing.
    She did not know why; she hardly even realised she was doing it. Putting spurs to her horse, she suddenly raced ahead of Walter, pulled her horse’s head, cut clean across him and made straight towards the pale doe. She heard Walter shout a curse but she took no notice. Half a dozen strides and she was almost up with the deer; another second and she was between the pale doe and the herd. Voices were crying out behind her. She did not look. The doe, startled, tried to veer away from her. She urged her horse forward, pushing, willing the doe away from the great trap ahead. The park pale was only a hundred yards away. She must keep the deer to the left of it.
    And then, with a single, frantic leap, the pale deer did whatshe wanted. A second later, to the astonishment of all the bystanders, they were racing together across the lawn between the mound and the ridge, and out on to the open heath.
    “Go,” she muttered, “go,” as the pale doe fled out into the heather. “Go!” she cried, as she raced after her. “Get away!” For all she knew one of the hunters was already following with a bow. Too frightened and embarrassed to look back, she urged the little deer forward until at last