Alan’s shot was good, but not perfect. It struck the deer low in the neck. She jumped with all four feet – shocked, presumably, by the sudden, agonizing stab. Her head came up out of the bush. For an instant, Ralph thought she was going to fall down dead, but a moment later she bounded away. The arrow was still buried in her neck, but the blood was oozing rather than spurting from the wound, so it must have lodged in her muscles, missing the major blood vessels.
The dogs leaped forward as if they, too, had been shot from bows; and the two horses followed without urging. Ralph was on Griff, his favourite hunter. He felt the rush of excitement that was what he mainly lived for. It was a tingling in the nerves, a constriction in the neck, an irresistible impulse to yell at the top of his voice; a thrill so like sexual excitement that he could hardly have said what the difference was.
Men such as Ralph existed to fight. The king and his barons made them lords and knights, and gave them villages and lands to rule over, for a reason: so that they would be able to provide themselves with horses, squires, weapons and armour whenever the king needed an army. But there was not a war every year. Sometimes two or three years would go by without so much as a minor police action on the borders of rebellious Wales or barbarian Scotland. Knights needed something to do in the interim. They had to keep fit and maintain their horsemanship and – perhaps most important of all – their blood lust. Soldiers had to kill, and they did it better when they longed for it.
Hunting was the answer. All noblemen, from the king down to minor lords such as Ralph, hunted whenever they got the chance, often several times a week. They enjoyed it, and it ensured they were fit for battle whenever called upon. Ralph hunted with Earl Roland on his frequent visits to Earlscastle, and often joined Lord William’s hunt at Casterham. When he was at his own village of Wigleigh, he went out with his squire, Alan, in the forests round about. They usually killed boar – there was not much meat on the wild pigs, but they were exciting to hunt because they put up a good fight. Ralph also went after foxes and the occasional, rare, wolf. But a deer was best: agile, fast, and a hundred pounds of good meat to take home.
Now Ralph thrilled to the feel of Griff beneath him, the horse’s weight and strength, the powerful action of its muscles and the drumbeat of its tread. The deer disappeared into the vegetation, but Barley knew where it had gone, and the horses followed the dogs. Ralph carried a spear ready in his right hand, a long shaft of ash with a fire-hardened point. As Griff swerved and jumped, Ralph ducked under overhanging branches and swayed with the horse, his boots firmly in the stirrups, keeping his seat effortlessly by the pressure of his knees.
In the undergrowth the horses were not as nimble as the deer, and they fell behind; but the dogs had the advantage, and Ralph heard frantic barking as they closed in. Then there was a lull, and in a few moments Ralph found out why: the deer had broken out of the vegetation on to a pathway, and was leaving the dogs behind. Here, however, the horses had the advantage, and they quickly passed the dogs and began to gain on the deer.
Ralph could see that the beast was weakening. He saw blood on its rump, and deduced that one of the dogs had got a bite. Its gait became irregular as it struggled to get away. It was a sprinter, made for the sudden quick dash, and it could not keep up its initial pace for long.
His blood raced as he closed on his prey. He tightened his grip on the lance. It took a great deal of strength to force a wooden point into the tough body of a big animaclass="underline" the skin was leathery, the muscles dense, the bones hard. The neck was the softest target, if you could contrive to miss the vertebrae and hit the jugular vein. You had to choose the exact moment, then thrust quickly with all your might.
Seeing the horses almost upon it, the deer made a desperate turn into the bushes. This gave it a few seconds’ respite. The horses slowed as they crashed through undergrowth over which the deer had bounded without pause. But the dogs caught up again, and Ralph saw that the deer could not go much farther.
The usual pattern was that the dogs would inflict more and more wounds, slowing the deer until the horses could catch it and the hunter could deliver the death blow. But, on this occasion, there was an accident.
When the dogs and the horses were almost upon the deer, she dodged sideways. Blade, the younger dog, went after her with more enthusiasm than sense, and swerved in front of Griff. The horse was going too fast to stop or even avoid the dog, and kicked him with a mighty foreleg. The dog was a mastiff, weighing seventy or eighty pounds, and the impact caused the horse to stumble.
Ralph was thrown. He let go of his spear as he flew through the air. His greatest fear, in that instant, was that his horse would fall on him. But he saw, in the moment before he landed, that Griff had somehow regained his balance.
Ralph fell into a thorn bush. His hands and face were scratched painfully, but the branches broke his fall. All the same, he was enraged.
Alan reined in. Barley went after the deer but returned in a few moments: the beast had obviously got away. Ralph struggled to his feet, cursing. Alan caught Griff then dismounted, holding both horses.
Blade lay motionless on the dead leaves, blood dripping from his mouth. He had been struck on the head by Griff’s iron horseshoe. Barley went up to him, sniffed, nudged him with her nose and licked the blood on his face, then turned away, looking bewildered. Alan prodded the dog with the toe of his boot. There was no response. Blade was not breathing. “Dead,” Alan said.
“Damn fool dog deserved to die,” Ralph said.
They walked the horses through the woods, looking for a place to rest. After a while Ralph heard running water. Following the sound, he came to a fast-flowing stream. He recognized the stretch of water: they were only a little way beyond the fields of Wigleigh. “Let’s have some refreshment,” he said. Alan tied up the horses then took from his saddlebag a stoppered jug, two wooden cups and a canvas sack of food.
Barley went to the stream and lapped the cold water thirstily. Ralph sat on the bank, resting his back against a tree. Alan sat beside him and handed him a cup of ale and a wedge of cheese. Ralph took the drink and refused the food.
Alan knew his boss in a bad mood, and said nothing while Ralph drank, wordlessly refilling Ralph’s cup from the jug. In the silence they both heard female voices. Alan looked at Ralph with a raised eyebrow. Barley growled. Ralph stood up, shushing the dog, and walked softly in the direction of the sound. Alan followed.
A few yards downstream Ralph stopped, looking through the vegetation. A small group of village women were doing laundry on the near bank of the stream, where the water flowed fast over an outcrop of rocks. It was a damp October day, cool but not cold, and they wore their sleeves rolled up and the skirts of their shifts raised to thigh level to keep them dry.
Ralph studied them one by one. There was Gwenda, all muscular forearms and calves, with her baby – now four months old – strapped to her back. He identified Peg, the wife of Perkin, scrubbing her husband’s underdrawers with a stone. His own housemaid, Vira, was there, a hard-faced woman of about thirty who had looked so stonily at him when he patted her arse that he never touched her again. The voice that he had heard belonged to the widow Huberts, a great talker, no doubt because she lived alone. The widow was standing in midstream, calling out to the others, carrying on a gossipy conversation at a distance.
And there was Annet.
She stood on a rock, washing some small garment, bending to dip it in the stream then standing upright to scrub it. She had long, white legs that disappeared enchantingly into her rucked-up dress. Every time she bent over, her neckline fell open to reveal the pale fruit of her small breasts hanging like temptation on a tree. Her fair hair was wet at the ends, and there was a petulant look on her pretty face, as if she felt she had not been born for this kind of work.