It was a very professional one. Run by several foresters - some of them Saxons like Cola, left in place because of their intimate knowledge of the area - the Forest kept a stock of about seven thousand deer. When one of the royal huntsmen led a party out to kill deer for the king, as Cola was doing today, they would not rely on bows, but on a far more efficient method. Today would be a great drive, or drift, with this and other parties fanning out over a wide area and expertly driving the game before them towards a huge trap. The trap, which was being set up at the royal manor of Lyndhurst in the centre of the Forest, consisted of a long curving fence, which would funnel the deer down towards an inclosure where they could be shot with bows or caught in nets in large numbers. 'It's like a spiral seashell in the middle of the Forest,' Walter had told her. 'There's no escape.'

Though cruelly efficient, it conjured up an image in her mind that was magical and strangely mysterious.

They began to descend a slope towards a wood. On her right, she heard a skylark singing and looked up at the pale-blue sky to find it. As she did so, she realized Walter was speaking to her. 'The trouble with you,' she heard him start, before she closed her mind to the sound of his voice.

There was always so much the matter with her, according to Walter. 'You should try to walk more elegantly,' he would say. Or smile more. Or wear another gown. 'You're not bad looking,' he had been good enough to tell her the week before. 'Even if some people would say you should be slimmer.'

This was a new fault. 'Do they say that?' she had gently asked.

'No,' he had replied after consideration. 'But I should think that they might.'

Underlying all these criticisms, though, and the faint embarrassment her presence clearly caused him, was the one great shortcoming she was powerless to correct. I'm sure, she thought wryly, that if I had a huge dowry, he would think me beautiful.

She could see the lark now: a tiny speck high over the ridge, its voice descending, full-throated, clear as a bell. She smiled, then turned, as something else caught her eye.