This novel tells the story of a Saxon family living in the New Forest shortly after the Norman Conquest, suffering under the rule of their new masters who have appropriated all the resources of the forest to themselves. Fighting back they are killed or captured and the story unfolds over several decades telling of their future lives. The story is divided into sections told from different characters' points of view with different interpretations of some of the same events. While this is interesting, I was occasionally a little confused by the jumping around in time. The final section leaped forward a decade or more to the killing of Rufus. A decent story, though it was marred by a fair number of typos and occasional clumsy passages of writing. ( )