If you please, he added, yet still could not keep the slightest of sneers from it. Dog Boy blinked, nodded and fetched a mattock and a spade, while the dogs were hauled away and the stag butchered. Between them, they dug a hole under a tree, where the ground was mossy and still springy and put the dog in it, then covered it with mould, black leaves and earth.
Sanspeur, Philippe thought. Without fear. She had been without fear, too and that had been her undoing. It was better to be afraid, he thought to himself, and stay alive. The boy, Dog Boy, knew this Philippe turned and found himself alone, saw the boy moving from him, back to the big deerhounds and the hard, armed men he now belonged to. He did not look afraid at all.
There was a flurry off to one side, a flash of berry red, and Isabel appeared, cheeks flushed, hood back and her fox-pelt hair wisping from under the elaborate green and gold padded headpiece, her face wrinkling distaste at the blood and guts and flies. Behind her came Bruce, riding easily, and after them Bangtail Hob and Thom Bell, all black scowls and slick with a sweat that was mead for midges.
Theres your wummin, Sim said close to Hals elbow. Safe enow. What was it ye called her a hot-arsed what?
Then he chuckled and urged ahead before Hal could spit out for him to mind his business.
Martens, Isabel called out gaily and Bruce, laughing, came up with it almost at once a richesse. Hal saw Buchan scowl and, fleetingly, wondered where Kirkpatrick was.
A tan, white-scutted shape burst out of the undergrowth, almost under the hooves of Bradacus, which made the great warhorse rear. Buchan, roaring and red-faced, sawed at the reins as he and the horse spun in a dancing half-circle, then lashed out with both rear hooves, catching Bruces horse a glancing blow.
Bruces rouncey, panicked beyond measure, squealed and bolted, the rider reeling with the surprise of it, while the dogs went mad and even the big deerhounds lurched forward, to be brought short by Dog Boy and Tods Watties tongue.
Isabel threw back her head and laughed until she was almost helpless.
Hares, she called out to Bruces wild, tilting back and Hal, despite himself, felt the flicker of his groin and shifted in the saddle. Then he realised the Berner was bellowing and half-turned to see the biggest brute of the alaunts, unused in the hunt and fighting fresh, rip its chains out of its handlers fists and speed off after Bruce, snarling.
There was a frozen moment when Hal looked at Sim and both glanced to where Malise, off his horse, stared after the fleeing hound with a look halfway between feral snarl and triumph. In a glance so fast Hal nearly missed it, he then turned and looked at the alaunt handler, who looked back at him.
The chill of it soured deep into Hals belly. The hound had been deliberately released and a trained warhorse frightened by a leaping hare?
Sim he said, even as he kicked Griff, but the man had seen it for himself and spurred after Hal, bellowing for Tods Wattie and Bangtail Hob. Buchan, bringing Bradacus miraculously back under control, watched them crash through the undergrowth in pursuit of Bruce and tried not to smile.
Sim he said, even as he kicked Griff, but the man had seen it for himself and spurred after Hal, bellowing for Tods Wattie and Bangtail Hob. Buchan, bringing Bradacus miraculously back under control, watched them crash through the undergrowth in pursuit of Bruce and tried not to smile.
White Tam, hunched on the mare, ploughed on relentlessly while the hunt swirled and whirled around him, knowing the truth of matters that he was too old and slow these days, so that he reached the hunt when it was all over bar the cutting up. White Tam knew the ritual of cutting up well now, talked more and more in a language gravy-rich with os and suet, argos and croteys, grease and fiants.
He was aware only of the vanishing of Bruce and the others as an annoyance by well-bred oafs who chased hares.
Go after the Earl of Carrick, he ordered those nearest. Mak siccar he does not tumble on his high-born arse.
Bruce, half-clinging on for dear life, finally got control of the rouncey and became aware, suddenly and with a catch of fear in his throat, that he was alone. He turned this way and that, hearing shouts but confused as to direction then, for fear his anxiety would cause the trembling horse to bolt again, he got off the animal and stroked it quiet, neck and muzzle.
The leveret was long gone and he shook his head at the shame of having let his mount bolt, even if it had been sorely provoked by a kicking destrier. Hares, he thought with a savage wryness. A husk of hares he would take delight in telling her.
He looked round at the oak and hornbeam, the sun glaring cross-grained through branches, thinly prowling over his face like delicate, warm cat paws. The bracken was crushed here, there was a smell of broken grass and turned earth and the iron tang of blood, which made Bruce uneasy. The mystery of how a hare, which was not a forest animal at all, had been there at all nagged him a little and the worry of plots surfaced like sick.