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– on their right flank this time, a little way ahead. She uttered a warning cry, which the others, in their panic, did not notice. She paused in her run. And then she saw the strangest thing.
    From ahead of them a small party of bucks, half a dozen of them, suddenly ran into view from a thicket. Presumably there was a danger behind them. Seeing the does in panic, however, and the hunters on their flank, the bucks did not join the does but, after only a flicker of hesitation, dashed, leaping splendidly, straight towards the horsemen, flashing clean through their line and away through the trees before the startled hunters could even raise their bows. It was as quick and magical as it was unexpected.
    And most astonishing of all, to her, was that her buck was one of them. There was no mistaking him. She spotted his antlers and his markings at once, as he passed like a leaping shadow in the trees. For a moment, just before their daring dash, he turned his face fully in her direction and she saw his large brown eyes staring straight towards her.
    The leading doe had seen the bucks and their brave dash through the hunters, but she did not attempt to follow them. Instead, blindly, no longer knowing what to do, she led them in headlong flight; so that the pale deer found herself streaming eastwards; the only way left open, the way the hunters wanted.
    Adela had watched the gathering at Lyndhurst with excitement. Parties from several estates had arrived, although they were all under the general direction of Cola. The royal manor was a small collection of wooden buildings with a fenced paddock sitting on a small rise in the oak forest. But a short distance away, on its south-eastern side, the trees were broken bya series of glades, before giving on to a large, long expanse of lawn, beyond which lay open moor. It was to this lawn that Cola had led them to inspect the great trap.
    Adela had never seen anything like it. The thing was huge. At the entrance, surrounded by green lawn, was a small round knoll, like a mound for a miniature castle or lookout post. Two hundred yards south-east of the knoll a natural ridge rose and ran for half a mile in a straight line, with the green lawn on one side and the brown heath on the other. All this was impressive enough. But as the ridge slowly dipped at its south-eastern end, man had taken over and built a lower extension to the ridge. First, on the inner lawn side, was a deep ditch; then a large earthwork bank and, surmounting the bank, a stout fence. For a short distance this barrier stretched in a straight line. Then it began, very gently, to curve inwards, crossing the lawn where a rise in the ground made a natural line, then continuing on its way round towards the west; through wooded ground and glade, until it curved right round and ran back up towards the manor. This was the park pale of Lyndhurst.
    “It’s like a fortress in the Forest,” she exclaimed. Once in this inclosure, the deer had no hope of leaping the pale as they were turned and driven, infallibly, towards the hunters’ nets.
    “We shall take about a hundred deer today.” Cola’s younger son, Edgar, had placed himself at her side during this inspection. The business within the park pale was always carefully managed, he explained. Of the huge number of game driven into the great trap, the pregnant does would not be killed, but the bucks and other does would be culled. When Cola had his hundred the rest would be released.
    She was glad to have the handsome Saxon for company. Walter, as usual, had left her alone and as she saw him now, walking his horse beside Hugh de Martell and talking to him, she wondered if he would introduce the Norman to her and decided he probably would not. “Do you know the man my cousin is talking to?” she asked Edgar.
    “Yes. Not well. He’s from Dorset. Not the Forest.” He hesitated for a moment. “My father has a high opinion of him.”
    “And you?” Her eyes were still on