LordoftheHunt

by Anonymous Author

  Adam felt sure Oswald had used the legend as a ruse to lure Joan into the hills. Joan had only her bow. She had no dogs to guard her.

  “Dogs.” Adam walked quickly from the cottage, dodging a party of jugglers who performed for any who had leisure to watch.

  “Nat,” Adam called. “May I take Basil for a short hunt? I’m craving another meat pie.”

  Nat came toward him with a frown on his face. “I’d lend you Joan as well, but she’s not to be found. It’s not like the girl to disappear like this.”

  “I’ll find her while I’m out then.”

  “Take Basil, and bless you.” Nat plucked down a leash and collar for the lymer. “I don’t like Joan out alone with all these suitors about.”

  Adam accepted Basil’s leash and headed to his tent.

  “Nay, ye’re not hunting again, are ye?” Douglas protested.

  “I am. Now help me.” Adam threw open his coffer. He drew out his hauberk.

  “Ye’ll no need that for hunting.”

  Adam shrugged into the heavy coat of mail. “I will for what I’m chasing.”

  * * * * *

  Joan rubbed her sore arm. She crouched against a tree, halfway along the defile, in the exact place Hugh de Coleville had been shot. The forest looked dark and sinister, though the sky overhead was blue, outlining the tops of trees and the birds of prey who coursed the heavens.

  She listened and recognized a few sounds, soft, distant sounds.

  Oswald had a dog with him now. She knew it was Oswald who tracked her. He’d shouted and sworn at her as she’d run away. Then he and Francis had stalked her.

  Three times they’d shot arrows at her. At her back. Dangerously close. So close, she thought, a sob in her throat, so close they must have meant to kill.

  Luckily, Francis cared nothing for the noise he made, swearing, crashing through underbrush. She had managed to evade them, and for a while, she thought they’d given up the hunt.

  But Oswald, at least, was back. Silently, this time, save for the telltale sounds only a hunter would recognize.

  She worked her way along a barely perceptible deer path, trying to avoid him. But one could not hide from a scenting hound.

  Her leg ached from the fall. She knelt behind a deadfall and readied her bow, but when she lifted it, the bow trembled. She stifled a cry of pain. She must have reinjured her arm in the fall.

  The dog would find her. She stared at the weapon in her hand and knew she could not shoot a dog, even one of Oswald’s undisciplined hounds.

  She examined the surrounding trees. If she climbed one, she could avoid the attack of a dog. But she’d be ripe for picking off by Oswald. How had he gone from wanting to wed her to wanting her dead?

  Was she mistaken about the arrows? Was it Francis who shot to kill, not Oswald? The horse had not been mortally wounded, and to do his job, Oswald needed to be very skilled. She felt sure it was Francis with the black heart.

  And where was Nat? Was he home in the kennels?

  The hound came closer, the subtle sounds he made so familiar, she wanted to weep. Even Oswald’s horse moved slowly, cautiously.

  “I’m such a fool,” she whispered. “Why don’t I just reveal myself and be done with it?”

  Another part of her revolted. She braced herself to rise. To run though her leg throbbed.

  But where could she go? Back to the castle where the bishop and Mathilda would simply support the man’s claim on her?

  To Adam? He despised her.

  The thought of his anger, his hard face when he’d seen the open package raised a turmoil of emotion within her. She could not tell where her anger at his precipitous accusation ended and her pain at his distrust began.

  The hound was very close. And hunting silently. The horse came on behind it.

  Evasion was useless. Oswald had surely given the dog something to scent. She hung her head and prayed Oswald did not intend to pursue his foolish plot.

  She stood up and turned to face the faint line of the deer trail, visible to her, invisible to the casual wanderer. She set her shoulders square and lifted the bow. Though it trembled terribly, she kept it half drawn as an archer would in the hunt.

  A dog appeared a furlong away on the trail. A huge gray horse coalesced from the shadows behind him.

  “Basil. Adam.” She lowered her bow, her knees weak.

  Basil lifted his head and bayed. The horse broke into a canter. Moments later, the lymer was in her arms, licking her face, nudging her under her chin.

  Adam sat in silence on his huge war horse, sword sheathed at his side, a long fighting dagger in his belt. He wore no mantle, his head was bare, his hair blown back from his brow by the wind.

  Her throat went dry. No words would come. He was beautiful. And she feared him.

  “What brought you out here?” he asked.

  “Oswald told me Nat was after a stag—one only found in legends.”

  “Nat’s in the kennels.”

  “Thank God.” She thrust her arrow into the quiver and slung the bow across her back. “Either Oswald or de Coucy shot my horse. And also shot at me.”

  “They must be mad.”

  “I think de Coucy is simply bad. Oswald? I don’t understand what drives him. One moment, he is courting me, one moment aiming an arrow at my back.

  “He intended to keep me at the hunting lodge all night, then claim carnal knowledge of me in the morning. The two of them seem to think that would force me to wed Oswald.”

  Adam’s face looked carved in stone. He settled his hand on his sword hilt. “I’m going to have to kill them both.”

  She walked away, Basil at her side.

  “Where are you going?” he called.

  “Home.” She did not turn. “I’m perfectly safe with Basil.”

  “Jesu. From an arrow? In the back? Mon Dieu.”

  He swore a few other oaths, but they sounded strangely like the Welsh tongue to her. She stumbled. Welsh.

  “You can’t even walk straight. How will you get home? Must I rescue you every day of the week?”

  His horse drew level with her. She looked up at him. “I believe it is I who have rescued you. Don’t you have secrets to take to Winchester, Adrian?”

  He jerked on his reins. The great warhorse stamped and blew air down its nostrils.

  She backed away. “Don’t answer that. Forget my hasty words. Of course you have secrets if you are Adrian de Marle. And I know you cannot trust me. I understand…I would not trust me either.” Her throat felt thick, the forest around her grew blurry. Basil whimpered and nudged her hand with his nose.

  Adam swung his leg over the front of his saddle and dismounted. “If you discerned my name, then you must, at least, appreciate that everything at Ravenswood is not as it seems. My silence concerns the oath I took and for that reason alone, I cannot answer. If I could, I would.”

  “You would?”

  He bent his head and kissed her. She wrapped her hand around his nape and kissed him back. Hard. His tongue was fever hot in her mouth.

  “Will I ever see you again?” she asked.

  “Am I going somewhere?”

  “Winchester.”

  “I intended to ask your forgiveness in hopes you’d go for me.”

  She went down on one knee and hugged the lymer. “This is about who you are, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “One of your ancestors built Ravenswood, didn’t he?”

  “Aye,” he said softly. “It is my grandfather’s sword hanging in the hall. How did you guess?”

  “Little things. Nat swore he saw Adrian de Marle, though I thought it just another of his confusions. The Welsh curse just now. Is that not where your father settled? And you know a secret way into the castle. You lied about how you found it, didn’t you?”

  “It happened as I said, save that I was a child at the time.”

  “I suppose I can now understood how you can separate Ravenswood from Mathilda.”

  She put
out her hand. He placed his, heavy in its gauntlet, on hers. “If you can but trust me, one more time, Adam, I will go to Winchester for you.”

  He swept her up into his embrace. He wanted to devour her, to shed his mail that he might know the feel of her soft breasts and thighs against his again. Her lips parted to his tongue and he savored the moaning sounds she made.

  Her body went taut in his arms. “Dogs,” she whispered, pulling away.

  Adam lifted his head. He heard the sound, the distant bay of hunting hounds.

  “Joan.” He touched her shoulder. He drew her toward the shelter of a fallen pine, crouching low. “I believe we have become the quarry.”

  Her eyes widened. For a brief moment he thought she might object, but instead, she lowered her eyes and nodded. Her lips formed one word.

  Oswald. He must have returned with his pack.

  Adam thought of the man hunting Joan. “Go back to the castle. I’ll let him hunt me.”

  She shook her head so violently, her plait whipped across her shoulder. “You cannot run from the hounds. They’ll bring down a horse as easily as they would a stag.”

  He bent his head at the image she painted. Her hand on his knee reminded him of how powerless she was alone. He cared for nothing save that she remain unharmed. He placed his lips near her ear and said, “If we’re the quarry, we must behave as such, and evade the hunter. I’m sending Sinner back to the stables. If he returns riderless, perhaps my men will come after me.”

  “Adam, Basil cannot withstand a battle with a pack of dogs.”

  “Will he follow my horse, do you think?” He rose and drew the leash from his saddle.

  “Aye, if he is leashed, he will go where the destrier goes.”

  He stroked the destrier’s neck, speaking in the great horse’s ear. He secured the leashed Basil and the reins to the saddle, then slapped the horse’s rump. It pawed the ground, then cantered away. Basil at his heels.

  When Adam turned toward the hunter, she made no demur. He did as the stag might, doubling back on their path. If the hounds were scenting hounds, they would have been given something of Joan’s or his to aid their search. Adam crossed their path twice before turning and moving in the direction they needed to take, out of the defile.

  If they did not leave it, the terrain would herd them. It would lead them to a trap as surely as if they were a simple deer.

  Adam listened. Wind riffled leaves. A small animal scurried away in the undergrowth. No hounds gave voice.

  He signaled to Joan they should go left, crossing their path again, but she shook her head.

  She touched her bow she wore slung on her back and pointed, then tapped her arm with two fingers. He realized they were within two furlongs of the place where the archers in a hunt would be placed. This time, they would not be facing the quarry, their backs to the trees. This time, if there were archers, they would be concealed.

  Concealment meant a narrow shooting angle. If they came at Oswald from his right, they would further lessen his chances of hitting them. Adam silently demonstrated to Joan that he wanted her bow. It was the same hunting bow most archers used. It was light and flexible to allow the hunter to stand for long periods of time waiting for the deer with the bow drawn.

  Joan only had the five usual arrows a hunter carried. But she also had a dart. It was naught but a small spear, but Adam grinned, it was a weapon he knew well how to use.

  They had his sword. He drew his dagger and pressed it into Joan’s hand. She stared at it and shook her head, refusing to curl her fingers about the hilt. They warred for a few precious moments pressing, the dagger back and forth between them. In the end, Joan took the long blade in her hand.

  He stroked a few strands away from her forehead and kissed her.

  They moved up the hill, exposed for a few feet as the trees thinned. He heard the rush of water along a narrow cut where dirt and rocks had eroded in the last storm. It was Joan who stepped into the water, moving carefully on the slippery rocks, just as a deer might to evade the hunter.

  He followed, bow ready. As they headed higher, Adam realized he would follow Joan Swan anywhere. A spill of emotions, so often tangled in confusion within his head and breast, unknotted in a long skein of understanding. If Joan dwelt in a cottage in a village, a daub and wattle hut, or a castle, he would want her, want to lay his head beside hers at night.

  Follow whatever path she forged.

  All seemed clear as nothing had been clear before. The woman moving up the narrow ravine mattered beyond all else. Returning to Ravenswood without her became a thought that lodged like a dart within his breast.

  The bay of a hound sounded below and east of them. Another took up its call. Joan signaled how far away she thought the dogs were, and he was startled to know they were so close. She quickened their pace.

  Sweat broke out on his skin. At the top of the ravine, they hunkered down behind a straggly stand of pine. He wiped his hands dry on his tunic.

  “Look.” Her whisper was no louder than the sound of a breeze on his cheek.

  There was an uncanny stillness to her. She knew the forest and knew how to wait, whereas he ached for movement. He forced himself to be still.

  She skimmed a finger across the back of his gauntlet and pointed up. Atop the hill, no more than a bowshot away, stood a great stag. The many tines of its antlers were silhouetted against the sky—at least twenty.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Adam blinked. He shook his head. Joan nodded and smiled. It seemed the stag of legend was no legend after all.

  Joan touched Adam’s sleeve and he tore his gaze from the huge beast. She gestured for him to follow her. She headed toward the stag. Adam understood. If they could follow the stag’s trail well enough, silently enough not to startle the animal into flight, they might be able to confuse the dogs. And when their paths diverged, stag one way, human quarry another, the dogs might continue after the stag as was their habit.

  A light rain began to fall.

  The cry of the hounds was nearer now. A horn sounded.

  She quickened her pace, moving like a deer across the wooded hill. Light, graceful, sure-footed. He felt clumsy as a boar, knowing he made too much noise. Where she avoided twigs, he bent or broke them. Where her foot avoided loose stones and dead branches, his found them all.

  They followed the trail of the stag. He walked with his majestic head up, never looking left or right as if he were leading them to safety.

  Adam saw a dead fox. Insects crawled on its fur and snout. He held Joan still a moment, going down on one knee. He slit the animal’s belly. He motioned for Joan to find cover; then ran as lightly as possible up to the ridge of the defile. There, he rubbed the carcass judiciously along the trial. He wanted it to confuse the hounds.

  He smeared the guts in muddy spots where it blended in color as well as in consistency. Last, he buried the carcass in a fallen tree trunk, deep in its soft, insect-riddled cavity, along with his tainted gauntlets.

  As he took an angled route up the ridge for a better look over the countryside, he saw old, wooden fencing, hurdles, covered in vines, their staked tops leaning toward the downslope. The fence was deliberately planted to prevent the stag from escaping the hunters. Any stag that tried to leap it would be impaled. Joan had his dagger, so he drew his sword and slashed at the matted vines, separating the hurdles and squeezing through to the clear path to the hill summit.

  Looking around from the cover of pine branches, he took a sharp breath. A man, garbed in green and leading a pair of scenting hounds and two alaunts, was not three furlongs from where Joan was hidden. The scenting hounds would find them. The alaunts would pull them down. The man was Oswald Red-hair

  To Adam’s satisfaction, the dogs followed the stag’s path. The question was, would they continue and then divert to the fox trail, or instead, find the human quarry?

  When Oswald and the dogs were headed away from him, Adam left his tree. To his dismay, he had left distinguishable foo
tprints. A knight’s prints. Swearing, he knelt and unbuckled his spurs, suspending them by their straps on the arrow quiver, far enough apart they did not clink on each other as he angled his way back to Joan.

  She read the news on his face, for she mouthed one word, Oswald, and led off, crossing the stag’s trail, but veering a bit now to take them away from the security of the animal’s scent.

  Adam tugged Joan’s sleeve when they were back into the floor of the defile. She turned, continuing to weave through the tall pines. He raised his bow and gestured forward, then behind him. With a nod, she allowed him to lead.

  He readied the bow. It was not his best weapon, but protecting Joan meant keeping the enemy, whoever it was, distant.

  And he doubted not that there would be archers ahead. Oswald was herding them, driving them between the hurdles, forcing them to take the direction he willed.

  “Alaunts,” Adam whispered when he had the opportunity, though he realized she probably knew their voices.

  Joan gripped his wrist. “Color?”

  “One spotted, one grey with a mark here.” He touched his shoulder.

  A worried look came over her face. He understood. They were not her dogs. She could not hope to use her silent controls on them.

  They continued along the valley, doubling and trebling their crossings of the stag’s trail and their own.

  A slight movement caught his eye. A man, hiding behind a tree, the same man who’d shot Hugh, stepped boldly into their path. Adam thrust Joan aside, too late. The archer was quick. She fell silently. Without thought, Adam loosed his shot.

  The archer dropped to his knees with a strangled cry, the arrow in his throat. A gout of blood erupted from his mouth and he collapsed face down.

  Joan lay in the path, eyes wide, face white. The arrow protruded from her thigh.

  Adam dragged her under the trees, one eye on the archer ahead. Were his fellows also lying in wait? Or was he a solitary assassin, planted to kill in secret?

  The wound on Joan’s thigh stained her gown. He took his dagger, flung away in Joan’s fall, and slit the fabric around the smooth arrow shaft. The barbed head had not penetrated far.