The Kingdom Series Books 1 and 2: The Lion Wakes, The Lion At Bay. Robert Low
hauling against their leashes as the luckless dog boys panted after, forged stealthily off in the eerie silence bred into them, the scent Roland had spoored for them strong in their snouts.
Malk appeared with Roland, the hound panting and trembling with excitement. He struggled at the leash and sounded a long, rolling cry from his outstretched throat that was choked off as Malk hauled savagely on the leash.
‘Enough!’ growled White Tam and shot Philippe a harsh look, which carried censure and poison in equal measure. He saw the Berner’s mouth grow tight and then he was bellowing invective at the luckless Malk.
‘Hand him up,’ demanded White Tam and Malk, scowling, hauled the squirming Roland off the ground and up on to the front of the old huntsman’s saddle.
‘Swef, swef, my beauty. Good boy.’
White Tam suffered the frantic face licks and fawning of the hound, then tucked it under one arm and turned to Hal with a wry smile.
‘What a pity that when the nose is perfect, the legs have to go, eh?’
Roland was returned to Malk, who took him as if he were gold and carried him gently back to the cage. White Tam, frowning, looked down at the berner.
‘We will have Belle, Crocard, Sanspeur and Malfoisin,’ he declared. ‘Release the rapprocheurs.’
The hounds were drawn out and let slip, flying off like thrown darts, coursing left and right. Dog Boy saw Gib stagger a little under the slight strain of the two deerhounds, but a word from Tod’s Wattie made them turn their heads reproachfully and whine.
Dog Boy saw Falo start to run after the speeding dogs, leashes flapping in his sweating hands and remembered all the times he had been the one with that thankless, exhausting task. Now he had been handed to this new lord and it was no longer part of his life. He realised, with a sudden leap of joy, so hard it was almost rage, that he was done with Gutterbluid and his birds, too.
Behind Falo the peasant beaters struggled to keep up, locals rounded up for the purpose and, in the mid-summer famine between harvests, weak with hunger and finding the going hard on foot; the rapprocheurs’ sudden distant baying was wolfen.
Cursing, Hal saw the whole hunt fragment and stuck to the plan of following the Auld Templar, knowing Sir William would stick close to the Bruce and that Isabel would be tight-locked to the earl as well. If any Buchan treachery was visited, it would fall on that trio and Hal was determined to save the Auld Templar, if no-one else.
He forced through the nag of branches, looking right and left to make sure his men did the same. He urged Griff after the disappearing arse of Bruce’s mare, growling irritatedly as one of the Inchmartins loomed up, his stallion caught in the madness, plunging and fighting for the bit.
White Tam sounded a horn, but others blared, confusing just where the true line of the hunt lay; Hal heard the huntsman berate anyone who could hear about ‘tootling fools’ and suspected the culprit was Bruce.
A sweating horse crashed through some hazel scrub near Dog Boy and almost scattered Gib from the deerhounds, who sprang and growled. Alarmed and barely hanging on, Jamie Douglas had time to wave before the horse drove on through the trees.
A few chaotic, exhausting yards further on, Hal burst through the undergrowth to see Jamie sliding from the back of the sweat-streaked rouncey, which stood with flanks heaving. The boy examined it swiftly, then turned as Hal and the riders came up.
‘Lame,’ he declared mournfully, then stroked the animal’s muzzle and grinned a bright, sweaty grin.
‘Good while it lasted,’ he shouted and started to lead the horse slowly from the wood. Hal drove on; a thin branch whipped blood from his cheek and a series of short horn blasts brought his head round, for he knew that was the signal for the ‘vue’, that the quarry was in sight of the body of the hunt – and that he was heading in the wrong direction. Which, because he had been following the distant sight of red, made him angry.
‘Ach, ye shouffleing, hot-arsed, hollow-ee’ed, belled harlot,’ he bellowed, and men laughed.
‘The quine will not be happy at that,’ Sim Craw noted, but Hal’s scowl was black and withering, so he wisely fastened his lip and followed after. Two or three plunges later, Hal reined in and sent Bangtail Hob and Thom Bell after the Countess, to make sure she found her way safely back to join the hunt.
They forged on, ducking branches – something smacked hard on Hal’s forehead, wrenching his head back; stars whirled and he felt himself reel in the saddle. When he recovered himself, Sim Craw was grinning wildly at him.
‘Are ye done duntin’ trees?’ he demanded and looked critically at Hal. ‘No damage. Yer still as braw as the sun on shiny watter.’
Tod’s Wattie came up, shepherding a panting Gib and the running deerhounds, who were not even out of breath – but they were on long leashes now, held by Tod’s Wattie from the back of his horse, and starting to dance and whine with the smell of the blood, begging to be let loose. Dog Boy trotted up and Hal saw that, because he was not being hauled at breakneck pace by dogs, he was breathing even and clean; they grinned at one another.
Tod’s Wattie threw the leashes to Gib, who wrapped them determinedly in his fists, truculent as a boar pig. Horsemen milled in a sweating group; a few peasants stumbled to the boles of trees and sank down, exhaustion rising from them like haze. Horse slaver frothed on unseen breezes.
‘Bien aller,’ bellowed White Tam and raised the horn to his blue, fleshy lips, the haroo, haroo of it springing the whole crowd into frantic movement again. Berner Philippe, breathing ragged, gasped out a desperate plea for space for his hounds and White Tam rasped out another blast on his horn.
‘Hark to the line,’ he bellowed. ‘Oyez! Ware hounds. Ware hounds.’
The stag burst from the undergrowth and, a moment later, a tangled trail of baying hounds followed, skidding in confusion as the beast changed direction and bounded away.
It stank and steamed, rippling with muscle and sheened like a copper statuette, the great horned crown of it soaring away into the trees as it sprang, scattering hounds and leaping majestically, leaving the dogs floundering in its wake. The powerful alaunts had been released too soon, White Tam saw, and had already been left behind, for they had no stamina, only massive strength.
‘Il est hault,’ he roared, purple-faced. ‘Il est hault, il est hault, il est hault.’
‘Tallyho to you, too,’ muttered Hal and then tipped a nod to Tod’s Wattie, who grinned and nudged Gib.
White Tam cursed and banged the horn furiously on the cantle, for he could see the stag dashing away – then two grey streaks shot swiftly past on either side of him, silent as graveshrouds. They overtook the running stag, barging in on one side and forcing it to turn at bay. The deerhounds … White Tam almost cried out with the delight of it.
Dog Boy gawped. He had never seen such speed, nor such brave savagery. Mykel dashed for the rear; the stag spun. Veldi darted in; the stag spun – the hound seized it by the nose and the stag shook it off, spraying furious blood. But Mykel had a hock in his jaws and the back end of the beast sank as the rest of the pack came up and piled on it.
Even then the stag was not done. It bellowed, fearful and desperate, swung the massive antlered head and a dog yelped and rolled out like a black and tan ball, so that Dog Boy felt a kick in him, sure that it had been Sanspeur.
Tod’s Wattie shouted once, twice, three times but the grey deerhounds clung on and the stag hurled itself off into the forest, staggering, stumbling, dragging the deerhounds and the rest of the pack in a whirling ball. Hal bellowed with annoyance when he saw Mykel ripped free from the hindquarters of the beast, the leash that should have been removed before he’d been released snagged on something in the undergrowth.
Choking, the hound floundered, trying to get back into the fray, gasping for breath and doing itself