Pulling the horse round I rode back the way I had come, looking for a different road. I felt panicked, for I had counted on arriving before dawn, that I might work in the graveyard undisturbed. I did not want to arrive late, I could not! Half a mile back I found a narrow lane to my left. It was chewed up and rutted but solid underfoot, still frozen by the freezing night airs. Hesitating for just one moment, I kicked at the horse’s flanks with my heels, forcing it into a trot, but before we had got a mile the lane had got narrower, the trees were shorter and the overhanging branches reached lower. Soon I had to bend double over the neck of the horse to avoid being dislodged from the saddle. Then I cursed, screamed out loud in frustration as the lane petered out altogether. Forced to dismount I pulled the damned horse through clinging brambles and prickled bushes. Walking, I followed what I thought was a straight line for half an hour. My guts were churning and my temper was brittle, almost broken. As I watched, the pale sun rose sickly through the web of dead branches that spread their long, spindly fingers above my head. Veering left I prayed that the road lay in that direction, beyond the turnpike. But I was still walking another half-hour later, my soul dead, pushing on forwards, oblivious to the thorns and spikes that tore at my clothes and skin. Then the trees began to thin out, and the brambles gave way to low ferns. Remounting, I rode at a steady pace, but still all I could see was a wall of trees, the silent forest floor laid out before me like an endless twisting carpet of twigs winding a crazy path through the banks of still ferns. I was hopelessly lost.
I smelt the smoke before I saw it. It wafted gently through the woods, hanging in the windless air. Climbing down cautiously I looked for movements, listened for unnatural sounds. All I could hear was the sound of the horse’s hooves and my own feet. I walked to what looked like the source of the smoke and soon emerged into a small clearing. There was a hut. The smoke came from a makeshift chimney. Should I skirt round it? But what then? I had to rediscover the trail to Epsom. The soldiers would not have come this way, surely? I tied the horse and walked forward as quietly as I could, anxious not to scare whoever it was that lived in the ramshackle wooden hut with its pitched roof and crooked walls. The door was crudely hewn of thick wood.
‘Hello there!’ I called, with more confidence than I felt.
‘Hello.’ A pair of curious pebbly eyes emerged from inside and stared out at me from beneath a furrowed brow, above pursed, questioning lips. The man had wild, unkempt, straggly white hair and pouched cheeks. Nose wrinkled and twitching. ‘What do you want?’
‘Can you tell me how to get back onto the road? I’m headed for Epsom.’
‘Oh aye? What you doing here?’
‘I got lost back there in the forest.’ Beyond the small clearing there were woods in all directions. ‘Is this where you live?’
‘Aye. Where I live and where I work. What were you doing riding your horse in the forest? What do you want here? You ain’t from around here.’
No one was from ‘around here’ — there was no one around here. ‘I got lost.’ In the hut I saw four rabbits and a pheasant strung up hanging from the ceiling. A poacher. Scum.
His upper lip curled up, revealing thin yellow pegs growing out of shrivelled grey gums. Contemptuous eyes skinned me. ‘No you din’t get lost. You din’t get lost. You came ridin’ down the road, saw the turnpike, thought you’d try and ride round it. I saw yer. I was there, weren’t I? You was trying to avoid the soldiers. There’s a reward on you, I reckon.’
‘There’s a reward on you too, I reckon,’ I snorted.
Eyeing me up and down, he blinked slowly. Then he grunted and withdrew into his cabin for a moment, returning with a large skinning knife, very sharp and with a wicked serrated edge. His legs were very short — really stumpy. Carrying the knife in the palm of his hand he looked me in the eye. There was neither malice nor anger in his expression, just the same matter-of-fact puzzled sneer. He was going to kill me with that knife.
‘I wasn’t threatening you,’ I said quietly.
Staring at me for what seemed like an age, the little man stood his ground. He was in control, this poacher, not me. ‘Don’t matter if you was,’ he said at last, plunging the knife into his belt then beckoning me to follow him into his hut. I didn’t want to go with him, but wanted to ride around the woods in circles all day even less. There was a small stove in the centre with a pot on it. The little man spooned out two bowls and handed one to me. The broth was thick and grey with bundles of herbs sticking out of it. I took a sip. It tasted of unlawful rabbit.
‘Now then. Who are yer? Dressed nice. Why are the soldiers after yer?’ The poacher sipped at his bowl gracelessly, spilling the thick soup down his shirt.
‘I’m trying to get to Epsom. I have to get there quickly and don’t want to be bothered by soldiers at turnpikes.’ I ate. I was ravenous.
Drinking noisily then smacking his lips, the poacher stared at a point about halfway up the wall in front of him. ‘Well that’s very interr-restin’. Also it’s a load of old cobblers. Wandering off into these woods rather than have a chat with a load of sleepy soldiers. What sort of story is that? Unless you be the one they’s lookin’, for of course. You don’t want to be tellin’ me your business, then that’s fine by me, mister, and I won’t be tellin’ you mine. Part of my business is knowin’ how to get from here to Epsom without using the main road.’
‘They are looking for me because I took a man prisoner, a man who killed a woman. He has friends in high places it seems, determined to set him free.’
‘What’s he ever done to you, this prisoner of yours?’
‘He sent two men to try and kill me.’
‘Why’d he send two men to try and kill yer?’
‘Because he saw me following him, I reckon, watching him at his place of work.’
‘Why’d he be bothered by the likes of you watching him at his place of work? You don’t look much of a danger to me.’
‘Because I was hired by the Mayor himself to find out who killed this woman. I was watching him to see what he might be doing.’
‘Why’d the Mayor hire you? You got soft hands and the wit of an old chicken, if you ask me. A fellow what goes riding into the woods to avoid three soldiers what all be fast asleep anyway, then gets himself lost, is not a sharp fellow. I took three shillings and a pair of new boots off those fine soldiers without them knowing it, while you go running off into a forest you don’t know and get lost. Reckon the Mayor should hire me, I’d find out who killed this woman quick enough.’
I was not in the mood for hearing how stupid I was. That I knew already. ‘You asked me my story, now you have it.’
‘Some of it. One thing I’ll let you knows for nothin’ is I ain’t no poacher, though I sees it in your eyes you be thinkin’ I am. I live off these woods legitimate. Rabbits are powerful breeders. What I take off the land gets put back just as quick. I work when there’s work, I eat when there isn’t. Why you going to Epsom?’
I looked into his cunning eyes. He held my gaze without discomfort. I felt like he was listening to me think, counting the seconds, waiting for the lie.
‘I have to dig up a corpse.’
He coughed. Just once. Then resumed his chewing. The lines on his forehead were thicker and deeper. I smiled to myself, though he was onto it like a snare.
‘What you got to smile about?’ he demanded. ‘Best not laugh at me, mister.’
Staring at the bottom of the bowl, I didn’t care whether he believed me or not. Nor did I much fear him bringing soldiers to capture me in return for a reward. I could lose myself in these woods in a second — that much I had proved already. ‘I’m not laughing at you. I have been told a tale that a girl that died ten years ago died with child. I am not inclined to believe it, but I know not which way to turn if I cannot be sure of it.’