Alinor (27 page)

"My thanks," Ian grunted, turned his head to see whom he was thanking, and controlled a gasp with some effort. "My lord Oxford, thank you again. And I have also to thank you for doing Alinor and myself the honor of coming to our wedding."

"There is no need for that," Aubery de Vere remarked with a self-conscious smile. "Rather should I thank you and your good lady for receiving an uninvited guest so graciously. The thing was that I was delayed in a necessary visit to Salisbury, and when I finally arrived, he was all but mounting up to come here. Naturally he returned within, but when he heard my business, he suggested I come here with him. I demurred, not being invited, but Salisbury said he thought he had enough credit with you to buy my pardon."

Ian laughed. "Neither you nor he need any pardon. Had I known you willing, you would have been asked. Truly we limited our asking for our guests' sakes. Simon, as you know, was no favorite of the king's. John had wished Alinor to be married to a henchman of his own. He was not best pleased when Simon took her. I do not know why the king should have any objection to our marriage, but if he should feel we have played some trick on him―"

"Why make trouble for your friends? Yes, I see."

While they spoke, Oxford had helped Ian to a chair by the hearth. A maidservant stopped gathering the scraps from the table into a basket, which would be given to the poor at the castle gates, and fetched a footstool. She was obviously afraid, however, to touch Ian's bad leg, and Oxford bent forward and lifted it gently.

"There is no need, my lord," Ian protested.

"Will you be tied by the leg for long?" Oxford asked, ignoring Ian's polite disclaimer. From his tone it was plain that the enquiry was purposeful, not a courtesy.

"I hope not," Ian replied sincerely. "It is already less swollen and painful. Alinor says I did not break the bone. A week or two should mend it."

"I am happy to hear it, although even a month or two more or less would not affect my interest."

"You have some work for me, my lord?" Ian asked cautiously.

"Let us say rather some enterprise in which you may wish to have a part."

If William of Salisbury knew of this, it could not be treason. Auberey de Vere, as much as Ian knew of him, was said to be an honest man. However, the need to discuss any enterprise so hastily and so privately that one would come uninvited to a wedding woke a strong feeling of reserve in Ian.

"If you propose it, I might, indeed," he said courteously, "but do you not wish to hunt? We will be here some two weeks more. I would not wish to spoil your sport when there will be time enough for talk."

"I may be discourteous enough to come to your wedding without invitation," Oxford said with a smile, "but I am not so rude as to propose an enterprise of war in my unsuspecting host's home without his knowledge and permission. This hunt I will miss while I lay the matter before you. I am not so young anymore that a hunt is of prime importance. If you are willing, I will propose what I plan to those others we decide would be interested and benefit thereby. If you are not willing, that will end the matter. I will be only your guest."

Alinor cast a bright glance around the outer bailey and then up at the sky. Everything seemed to be perfect. The dogs were yelping with pleasure, straining at their leashes; the huntsmen seemed no less happy and eager. The weather was ideal. It had not rained at all in the past few days, and it had been cold enough so that the ground was hard. William of Pembroke was overseeing the distribution of boar spears and bellowing Alinor's guests into some form of order. Fortunately, he seemed willing enough to take charge. It was that aspect of the hunt which had troubled Alinor the most. She knew well what should be done, but she did not think the noble huntsmen would take pleasure in being ordered about by a woman.

As the party rode out over the drawbridge and quickened pace a little in the open, the tension of the responsible hostess oozed out of Alinor and a new tension began to build. This was far pleasanter, an exhilarating sense of anticipation of excitement and danger. The dogs were still leashed but were straining madly, pulling their handlers along so quickly that some horses broke from a trot to a canter to keep pace. It would have been easier to loose them, but the men had been promised boar, and the air was so clear that all kinds of scents were running. The dogs might just as easily have rushed off after a fox or a hare or a stag. Game was exceptionally plentiful, because, owing to Simon's illness and Alinor's preoccupation, no one had hunted Alinor's forests for almost two years. Once in a while Alinor had ordered her huntsman to bring in a doe or a fawn or a wild piglet to tempt Simon's appetite, but aside from that, the beasts had developed unchecked.

They rode into the tongue of woods where Alinor's abductors had hidden and, almost at once, one of the dogs put down her head and began to bell. Alinor found her breath quickening. It had been so long, so long since she had ridden behind the hounds. The rache bitch was loosed, and then a few more. The huntsmen, having determined that the raches had picked up the correct scent, signaled that all the leashes be slipped. At once bedlam broke loose. Even the hounds began to bay, so strong was the scent. The horses sprang forward on the heels of the hounds, Alinor's spirited black mare along with the others.

"Have a care, Alinor," William shouted as he thundered by.

But Alinor was not in the mood for care, and she laid her whip to Velvet out of pure excitement, for the mare was eager enough without that stimulus. Now that the initial hysteria was over, the dogs were quieter; the raches belled their signal to the hunters, but the fighting hounds ran silent. It was dangerous riding. The horses shouldered and jostled one another into trees, and low branches whipped and tore at flesh and clothes. Alinor laughed with the thrill of danger as her headdress was torn from her head. Had the branch caught more firmly, she could have had her neck broken or been strangled by her wimple. Fortunately, the whole headdress was merely unseated. Impatiently, Alinor seized it, pulled it back up and then forward, off her head completely. Somehow the ribbons that bound her braids had become entangled in the cloth of the wimple. Ruthlessly, she tore those free also. Her long black hair streamed behind her as she rode, as wild as any maenad.

Suddenly there was a burst of barking from the alantes, mastiffs, and hounds. The boar had been sighted. The noble huntsmen called encouragement to the dogs and spurred their horses to greater speed. Alinor saw a man struck by a heavy branch fall from his mount Caught in the passion of the chase, she did not even turn her head or wonder who it was. For some reason the boar had not remained in his earth. The beast had chosen to run. Behind she heard a crash. A horse had gone down. Caring nothing, shouting and hallooing, the hunting party careened on in pursuit of its prey.

Then the belling of the raches changed to excited yelps which told a new story. The boar had found a place to make a stand. As the riders came closer, they could distinguish the snarling of the larger hounds. The men called encouragement and leapt from their horses, automatically testing the soundness of the crossbars on their boar spears as they ran. If the crosspieces affixed about 18 inches up from the head of the spear were to give way, the boar would run right up the weapon to get at the man at the other end. Pain seemed no deterrent to the great fierce beasts; it seemed rather to stimulate them to wilder attempts to savage their attackers. Next hands went to loosen hunting knives in their sheaths. With about 20 stone of struggling, slashing wild boar on the end of one's spear, a knife that would not come free spelled injury or even possible death.

With some difficulty Alinor checked the pace of her mare, but she did not stop completely. Her eyes gleaming, she allowed Velvet to fret herself forward. None of the other women had yet arrived, but she could hear their horses in the brush. The sound held no interest for her; she strained forward, watching the raches making little rushes forward and then retreating, yelping all the while. The larger dogs made more determined rushes, leaping and slashing. One, grown too bold, fastened his teeth in a bristly shoulder for one instant. The boar's head swung; three-inch tusks flashed; the dog screamed and fell away.

The beast had chosen well, either by knowledge or accident. No man was willing to denigrate the intelligence of the great, wild boars. Where a large old oak had fallen, there was a tiny clearing. In the angle between the huge trunk and the upraised roots, the monster stood at bay. Blood now stained the slaver from his jaws, and he uttered a coughing sound that was more roar than squeal. There was no terror in the little red pig eyes, only rage. Mouth open to tear, he shook his enormous head, flinging spume across the clearing and onto the bellowing hounds.

Among them there was also no fear. "Hold him, children, hold him," Alinor shrieked, wild with excitement. She did not think the dogs needed encouragement; she only needed to cry aloud.

The men had now ringed the clearing, dropping to one knee with the butt of the boar spears resting on the ground and the points angled up to about 20 inches. The earth would take most of the shock of the animal's charge. This time the men were fairly close together because the open area was small, but even if they had been more widely spaced, it would not have mattered. It was very rare for a boar to run between the hunters to try to escape. The instinct of this animal was to attack. Nor was it usually necessary for the huntsmen to prod the beast. The irritation created by the yelping, charging dogs and the shouting men was enough to enrage a boar into charging.

The signs were on the beast now. He shook his head and snorted, tore at the ground with his sharp hooves. A short dash caught a large mastiff, a little slow because of his size. The big dog was tossed right over the boar's back, belly ripped open, to hang twitching, caught on an upended root. Blood streamed from the dying animal, staining the boar's black hide red and driving the other hounds into a frenzy. One leapt to the trunk of the fallen tree and down onto the boar's back, tore at it, leapt away. The boar shrieked with rage and charged, slashing right and left so that yelping, bleeding hounds flew in all directions.

There was not much space to charge, so that the boar could not work up any real speed. As it was, Alinor gasped between fear and exultation. Red eyes, red mouth wide, ivory tusks bared, the beast seemed to be rushing straight at her. She knew she should turn her horse and fly, but she could not. All she could do was curse herself for her empty hands.

"A spear," she cried, "give me a spear!"

One was thrust into her hands, but even as her fingers closed on the shaft, the final scene of the drama was playing out at a quite safe distance. To the boar, the kneeling men in their bright robes were a far more attractive target than the thin black legs of the mare. Nor did Alinor's voice draw the animal. All the men were shouting, some calling insults, some endearments, as their natures directed.

"Come, love, come!" Leicester bellowed, waving his right arm wildly.

"Son of a sow, here!" Pembroke shouted.

Lord Llewelyn, to Leicester's left, used no words. He uttered a sound almost identical to the boar's own shrieks and it was at him, head down, tail up, that the furious animal charged. It swerved out of the direct line so that it was headed just too far left of Leicester's spear to be caught and too far right for Llewelyn's to reach. A woman's terrified scream rang across the clearing. Joan, Alinor thought, as she herself uttered a gasp of horror and kicked her mare forward; the huntsmen leapt forward with her. The boar was not seeking freedom; it had twisted again in a split second to slash at Lord Llewelyn's unprotected right side.

There was no expectation that horse or huntsmen could prevent what Alinor feared. They plunged ahead in the hope of driving the boar from his victim before great injury was done. But no injury befell the Welshman, who had run boar down afoot in his own hills with no more than a few dogs to help him. As the animal turned, Llewelyn had come to his feet; as it twisted to slash at him, he jumped clear over its back, bringing down his spear with an angled, overhand thrust that forced the point in behind the shoulder and deep into the chest. The knife was already out in his free hand, but there was no need to seek for a death thrust in the throat. Blood burst from the boar's nose and mouth, and it sank forward on its knees.

A shout that shivered the bare branches of the trees went up from the men's throats. Pembroke raised his hunting horn to blow the mort. There was a concerted rush of men and dogs toward the boar and Lord Llewelyn. Simultaneously, at the other end of the dead tree, there was a loud crashing among the branches. The dogs went insane, snapping at the bloodied hulk one instant and twisting to rush off toward the other side of the clearing barking madly in the next.

"Ware! Ware!"
the huntsmen shouted at once.

The noblemen whirled in their tracks. Out of concealment in the tangled branches of the fallen oak, burst a huge sow and three half-grown piglets. Alinor heard one man cry out in pain as a small devil tore open his leg. William of Salisbury leapt to his aid, thrusting his spear through the middle of the young pig's body in a hasty attempt to prevent the animal from slashing the fallen man a second time. Although it could not have weighed above seven stone, its strength was enormous. The stroke was not immediately fatal, and the pig twisted madly, wrenching the spear from Salisbury's hand. Sir John d'Alberin, rushing to help, was knocked off his feet by the haft of the spear. Two of Simon's castellans, just on Sir John's heels, finally pinned the already dying piglet to the ground.

Pembroke had caught the sow full in the chest with his spear, but the angle was wrong. The spear had touched no vital spot and the haft broke in his hands as he struggled to hold the enormous animal. A huntsman plunged forward, knife bared, only to be bowled over. Alinor wrenched her mare sideways, thrusting down as the sow threw Pembroke off a shoulder. The spear entered the thick neck midway between shoulder and head and passed down without obstruction. Alinor shrieked an oath, thinking she, too, had missed, but blood suddenly gushed like a fountain between the sow's legs. By chance, Alinor had nicked the jugular. The violence of the sow herself had burst the vein.