Tod’s Wattie tied on a new leash, scowling at Gib. Hal leaned down towards Dog Boy and Sim Craw saw the concern.
‘Yer a bit bloody, boy,’ Hal said awkwardly and Dog Boy looked at him while the huge beast of a deerhound panted and fawned on him. He smiled beatifically. There was something huge and ecstatic in his chest and the raw power of it locked with this new lord and made them, it seemed, one.
‘So is yourself, maister.’
Sim Craw’s laugh was a horn bellow of its own and Hal, ruefully touching his cheek and forehead, looked at the blood on his gloved fingers, acknowledged the boy with a wave and went on after the hunt.
The pack was milling and snarling and dashing backwards and forwards, save for the powerful alaunts, who had caught up at last and charged in. One was locked to the stag’s throat, another to one thin, proud leg and a third to the animal’s groin, jerking it this way and that. The stag’s dulling eyes were anguished and hopeless and, too weary now to fight, it suffered the agony in a silence broken only by the bellow rasp of its breathing, blowing a thin mist of blood from flaring nostrils.
White Tam, reeling precariously in his saddle, barked out orders and the hound and huntsmen moved in with whips and blades to leash the dogs and give the beast the grace of death.
‘A fine stag,’ he said to Hal, beaming. ‘Though it is early in the year and there will be finer come July. What will you take for yon dugs?’
Hal merely looked at him, raised an eyebrow and smiled. White Tam slapped one hand on his knee and belched out a laugh.
‘Just so, just so – I would not part with them neither.’
Dog Boy heard this as if from a distance, for his world had folded to the anguish on Berner Philippe’s face and the mournful dark eye of Sanspeur. The rache whined and tried to lick Dog Boy’s hand and, for a moment, they knelt shoulder to shoulder, the Berner and Dog Boy.
‘Swef, swef, ma belle, Philippe said and saw that the leg was smashed beyond repair. There was a moment when he became aware of the boy and looked at him, the thought of what he had to do next a harsh misery in his eyes, and Dog Boy saw it. The Berner felt something sharp and sweet, a pang which drove the breath from him when he looked into the eyes of the dog he would have to kill. He loved this dog. The knife flashed like a dragonfly in sunlight.
‘Fetch a mattock,’ he grunted and, when nothing happened, jerked his head to the boy. Then he saw the look on Dog Boy’s face as he stared at the filming eyes of the dying dog and the harsh words clogged in his throat. He found, suddenly, that he was ashamed of how hard he grown in the years between now and when he had been Dog Boy’s age.
‘If you please,’ he added, yet still could not keep the slightest of sneers from it. Dog Boy blinked, nodded and fetched a mattock and a spade, while the dogs were hauled away and the stag butchered. Between them, they dug a hole under a tree, where the ground was mossy and still springy and put the dog in it, then covered it with mould, black leaves and earth.
Sanspeur, Philippe thought. Without fear. She had been without fear, too and that had been her undoing. It was better to be afraid, he thought to himself, and stay alive. The boy, Dog Boy, knew this – Philippe turned and found himself alone, saw the boy moving from him, back to the big deerhounds and the hard, armed men he now belonged to. He did not look afraid at all.
There was a flurry off to one side, a flash of berry red, and Isabel appeared, cheeks flushed, hood back and her fox-pelt hair wisping from under the elaborate green and gold padded headpiece, her face wrinkling distaste at the blood and guts and flies. Behind her came Bruce, riding easily, and after them Bangtail Hob and Thom Bell, all black scowls and slick with a sweat that was mead for midges.
‘There’s your wummin,’ Sim said close to Hal’s elbow. ‘Safe enow. What was it ye called her – a hot-arsed . . . what?’
Then he chuckled and urged ahead before Hal could spit out for him to mind his business.
‘Martens,’ Isabel called out gaily and Bruce, laughing, came up with it almost at once – a richesse. Hal saw Buchan scowl and, fleetingly, wondered where Kirkpatrick was.
A tan, white-scutted shape burst out of the undergrowth, almost under the hooves of Bradacus, which made the great warhorse rear. Buchan, roaring and redfaced, sawed at the reins as he and the horse spun in a dancing half-circle, then lashed out with both rear hooves, catching Bruce’s horse a glancing blow.
Bruce’s rouncey, panicked beyond measure, squealed and bolted, the rider reeling with the surprise of it, while the dogs went mad and even the big deerhounds lurched forward, to be brought short by Dog Boy and Tod’s Wattie’s tongue.