Edward Marston - The Foxes of Warwick

‘A stag in a churchyard?’ he said incredulously. ‘This is some jest.’

‘No jest, I do assure you.’

‘Come, Henry. We are no fools. Do not vex our intelligence.’

‘I was there, I tell you. I saw it with my own eyes.’

‘A runaway stag taking Communion in church?’

‘It sought sanctuary, that is all. It knew where to go. We hunted it for a mile or two through the forest until it gave us the slip.

When the hounds eventually found it again, there it was.’

‘On its knees in front of the altar!’ mocked the other.

‘In the churchyard, Arnaud. Resting in the shade.’

‘And eating a bunch of grapes, I’ll wager!’

Arnaud Bolbec gave a sceptical laugh but the rest of the hunting party were reserving their judgement until they heard more details. They were the guests of Henry Beaumont, constable of Warwick Castle, and they had enjoyed excellent sport with their host. Deer were plentiful and their arrows had brought down a dozen or more. The carcasses were now tied across the backs of the packhorses, waiting to be taken back to the castle kitchens.

Prime venison would be served to them in due course and they would eat it with the supreme satisfaction of men who had helped to provide the game.

The vigorous exercise warmed them up on a cold morning. As they now rested in a clearing, they were glad of the chill breeze which plucked at them. Steam rose from the horses. Blood dripped from the deer. The riders were in the mood for an anecdote from their host before they rode back to Warwick with their kill. Henry Beaumont could be cunning and devious, as his enemies had discovered, and, as they had also learned, quite ruthless, but he was not given to idle boasting. Most of the hunting party wanted to believe his story. Arnaud Bolbec, a fat, fractious, noisy man with freckled cheeks, was the only apostate.

‘I refuse to accept a word of it!’ he said with a derisive chuckle.

‘It is true,’ affirmed Henry. ‘Let Richard here bear witness.’

Bolbec was scornful. ‘The fellow would not dare to disagree with his lord and master,’ he said. ‘If you told us you had seen a herd of unicorns celebrating Mass, he’d vouch for you without hesitation. Besides, what value can we place on the word of a mere huntsman?’

Richard the Hunter bristled and fought to control his anger.

‘My word has never been questioned before, my lord,’ he said firmly. ‘I would take my Bible oath that what you have heard about that stag is true. Yes, and the priest himself will say the same. He saw the miracle.’

‘Drunk on his Communion wine, no doubt!’ said Bolbec.

‘Sober as the rest of us,’ insisted the huntsman.

Richard was a stocky man of middle years, with greying curls tumbling out from beneath his cap. His broken nose, collected during a childhood fall from his pony, gave him a slightly menacing appearance. A solid man in every sense, he took a pride in his work, served his master faithfully and was known for his simple integrity. To have his word doubted by a quarrelsome lord was very irksome. His hounds closed instinctively around him, barking in protest and offering their testimony to his honesty. They were a mixed pack, some bred for speed, others for strength and ferocity so that they could start game from their lairs, but most for their skill in following a scent. Richard silenced them with a command then moved his horse to the edge of the clearing.

Henry Beaumont gave him an appeasing wave before turning to face his guests. A tall, elegant figure, he had a military straightness of back and firmness of chin. He was a fine huntsman and they had all marvelled at the way he had brought down the largest stag with his arrow, then dispatched it with one decisive thrust of his lance. Henry did not need to invent wild stories in order to gain admiration. It was his by right. There was a consummate ease about all of his accomplishments.

‘Thus it was, friends,’ he said with a patient smile. ‘Judge for yourselves whether it be fact or fancy. Last summer, when the forest was in full leaf, I had a day’s hunting with my guests and we slew enough deer to feed a small army. But one stag eluded me, a big, bold creature with antlers the size of a small tree. Was that not so, Richard?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ corroborated the huntsman.

‘With a target so large, I thought I could not fail to hit him but I could never get close enough to loose a shaft. The stag knew the forest far better than we. It led us here and there, dodging and weaving until we lost sight of it, then outrunning the hounds.

We suddenly found ourselves at the very edge of the forest with no sign of our quarry. Below us was a long slope leading down to a village on the margin of the river. We were about to turn back when one of the hounds picked up a scent and went bounding off down the slope. Is that how you remember it, Richard?’

‘Yes, my lord. One went and the whole pack followed.’

‘And so did we,’ continued Henry. ‘Down the slope in a cavalry charge until we reached the church and reined in our mounts.

There we saw it, as large as life, resting calmly on the grass among the gravestones and seeming to say to us, “Noli me tangere .”

Richard called off the hounds and we lowered our weapons. The stag was on consecrated ground. It was out of our reach. Some said it had run itself to exhaustion and stumbled in there by mistake but I saw intelligence at work in its choice of refuge. All that we could do was to leave it there and ride off.’

‘Then what happened?’ asked Bolbec with a sneer. ‘Did it ascend to heaven on a white cloud amid a choir of angels?’

‘No, Arnaud,’ said the other. ‘It violated its right of sanctuary.

When we moved off, some rogue from the village seized his chance to turn poacher and eat well for a change. Grabbing a stake, he rushed into the churchyard to attack the stag with it but only served to provoke the animal’s rage. It turned on the man and gored him to death before quitting its resting place and heading back to the forest. We gave chase at once, friends, but the nature of the hunt had changed. We were no longer after more venison for the table. Our quarry was a homicide, a murderer who had both killed a man and committed sacrilege at the same time. We cut it down without mercy then left it where it lay, unfit to be eaten, unworthy to be buried. A sad end for a noble beast but it could not be avoided. When Richard returned to that spot a month later, there was little beyond the antlers to mark the place of execution.’

He spoke with such measured solemnity that even Bolbec was held. A stillness fell on the party, broken only by the twitter of birds and the jingle of harnesses as the horses shifted their feet in the grass. One of the hounds then shattered the silence with a loud yelp. Its ears went up, its nose twitched and it came to life in the most dramatic way, darting off between the legs of Richard’s mount and vanishing into the undergrowth. Still full of life and sensing a new quarry, the rest of the pack were close behind, ignoring the huntsman’s call in the excitement of the chase and setting up their baying requiem. Henry turned to Richard the Hunter.