Royal Blood. Rona Sharon
fulfill his pledge of honor. He sighed. There were Annes and Cáits aplenty to alleviate any future discomforts the bluebird might rekindle. Enthrall but do not love; be loved but do not be thralled. Sound advice. Resist at the beginning, Ovid lectured. If one did not stamp out the disease of love at the start, one was lost. Oh, he was a fount of saws: We always strive after what is forbidden and desire what is denied us. Also Ovid.
Stanley’s groan alerted Michael to the rider coming to join them. “Hastings, how now?”
That was all the invitation Sir George Hastings required to recount his hottest feats on the Welsh border in the service of his brother-in-law, Buckingham: hanging horse thieves, drubbing local dissenters, quelling sedition. What a dull, painful-to-be-around braggart, Michael grimaced. Anne’s husband. No wonder she dallied. The man was a moldwarp, hairy and unnecessary.
It was King Henry who saved them from the affliction. “There!” The king pointed northeast to a lush hillock. The hart raised its shiny neck from a tussock of grass and stared at the looming riders. In the early light Michael saw its ingenuous brown eyes round in apprehension, could almost feel its heart accelerating its rhythm. Suddenly it took off. The king kneed his bay to a gallop. The hunting party flew after the king, fur-lined surcoats swelling in the wind, boisterous shouts letting whomever was watching know they were a hardy, savage gang of huntsmen, full of vim and vigor. The earth shook with the force of the hoofs tearing downhill, jumping over hedgerows of bracken, directed by the bloody-hunting dogs and the bray of bugles.
The hart fled at an astonishing speed, confounding the huntsmen scattered round the park, whereupon they communicated their confusion with horns. Doggedly in pursuit, the king’s party chased the hart with bows in hand all the way to the stream, where the hart hounds lost the scent. The frustrated dogs leaped back and forth along the mossy bank, barking up a storm.
A flock of birds exploded into flight from the treetops as Michael reined in between Stanley and another fellow. King Henry addressed his head huntsman. “Why has my buck escaped?”
“I have never seen the like, sire,” the huntsman mumbled apologetically. “Grew wings and vanished into thin air, it did. Something must have spooked it viciously, Your Majesty.”
“See? I told you to wash,” Stanley snickered.
The taunt glanced off Michael. His keen senses were picking up strange sounds: squirrels fleeing the nearby trees, rabbits diving into burrows, grasshoppers hopping off; a wholesale mad flight of animals. Before long, eerie silence surrounded the hunting party.
“You should have bloody well used toils to fence the buck in,” said the fellow to Michael’s right. Then he tossed Michael a man-to-man grin. “Incompetent addlepate.”
Stanley leaned in, grinning. “I see your sportsmanship has grown rustic while you have been rusticating, Your Grace. We are here to shoot the buck, not let the dogs upon it.”
The fellow snorted amusedly. “My Grace thanks you for sharing that morsel from your vast pantry of wisdom and perspicuity, but as you have shrewdly pointed out, Stanley, we are here to catch the buck in our cross-bolts, not fritter the day away sniffing after it like dogs.”
“Little wonder the hapless creature decided its life should not be made sport of. Michael, I present my longtime brother in arms, disports, and taverns, Charles Brandon, His Grace the Duke of Suffolk. Charles, Michael Devereaux is the Earl of Tyrone’s liege man and heir.”
Suffolk turned aside in the creaky leather saddle to offer Michael his gloved hand. “Tyrone, eh? Never had the pleasure. Still fighting the blue-faced devils in Ireland?”
“More like keeping the peace, Your Grace.” Michael gave the hand a strong squeeze.
“Like a big mouser, Tyrone keeps the mice down, eh?” Stanley put in.
Michael shrugged. He liked the Irish. They were valiant, good-natured people. “They are not exactly mice….”
“Bloody savages,” muttered Suffolk. “I trust my Lord Tyrone is grooming you to take over the governing of that island. I would not care to replace him. Say, is that a flask of Irish firewater tinkling in your pouch perchance?”
“Uisce?” Michael grinned. “No.”
“Pity. Stanley, know you of any Irish taverns that serve the golden poison?”
“None that would serve Your Grace. You have been successfully banned from them all.”
Suffolk smiled at Michael. “Heartening, is it not, to know one is successful at something?”
Michael smiled back. Charles Brandon, he recalled, was the son of a standard bearer, whose close friendship with King Henry yielded a dukedom and the hand in marriage of a princess.
The king was getting restless. He had already sent the huntsmen on foot to reconnoiter the woods beyond the stream, see if they could locate the fleeing hart.
“Why the delay?” Michael asked Stanley. “We could scout the grounds on horseback.”
“Once the game escapes beyond the boundaries of Greenwich Park, we proceed with caution lest we kill the wrong buck. A blunder will result in embarrassment for Harry, as he’ll be forced to pay compensation to the owner of the other buck, not to mention invalidate his prowess as a distinguished huntsman. Best be certain afore we proceed.”
“I can tell you one thing for a certainty. The hart has crossed the stream. Did you not notice the animals of the forest fleeing? Look around. There is not a bird in sight. Some great predator is on the prowl. Nature is still, as if holding its breath, but only this side of the stream. Odd.”
Wide yet shallow, the stream’s cool waters rushed through amorphous boulders that caused rivulets and frothing. What sort of marauder would hesitate to cross water? On the opposite bank life thrived: rodents, crawlers, insects, and amphibians went about their business unperturbedly. As he regarded the lush vegetation beyond the stream, Michael glimpsed the regal hart, red-gold coat glistening with water, brown eyes wide and alert, hiding among the trees and spying on the hunting party. “There it is,” he said softly, smiling. “In the leafy copse.”
Stanley and Suffolk stared at Michael, then squinted at the area he pointed at. “You see it?”
“There. In front of us. See how vigilantly he observes our party?”
Stanley glanced at the king and lowered Michael’s hand, murmuring, “Best be certain.”
“I am. There is the buck. I see it.” Were Stanley’s eyes blind with the pin and web?
“If he says he sees it, we ought to let him lead us to it,” Suffolk argued, and stepped his horse toward the king. “It appears we have a scout amongst us with a bloodhound’s snout.”
Stanley gave Michael a gimlet eye. “How can you tell it is the same buck?”
The question startled Michael into silence. The scent. Jupiter’s thunder, he could not admit to picking out the scent of a specific hart. He was hard put to believe it himself. He just knew. “Irish methods,” he hedged jokingly. “A trick I learned from the blue-deviled savages.”
“So-ho! You have spotted my buck, have you?” King Henry drew close with Suffolk. “Well, where is it?” He surveyed the trees beyond the stream. “Point it to me.”
“You had best be right,” Stanley whispered to Michael’s ears alone. He was not smiling.
“The buck hides in the thicket a hundred yards in front of Your Majesty,” Michael said.
“Well, what do we wait for? Lead us to!” King Henry started crossing the stream.
Michael was waylaid by Stanley. His friend wanted to say something but changed his mind, shook his head, and followed the king into the stream. As soon as they emerged on the opposite bank, the same phenomenon occurred: a frantic migration of wildlife and no sign of the deer. Some of the king’s gentlemen voiced their doubts. The king hung his eyes on Michael.