Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

‘What about Gerard? He too was sick.’

‘Maybe someone wanted him out of the way as well.’

Behind us Walo uttered a low, clucking sound. I turned to see him gesturing that I should pay attention to the hunt. I walked back to my place, carrying my bow and took up a post facing into the line of beech trees.

For a long while nothing happened. The forest was silent. The only activity was from a flock of small dun-coloured birds. They were feeding in the willows to my left. They twittered and chirruped, hopped restlessly from branch to branch, then abruptly flew away, wings whirring. I thought I heard the distant sound of a twig snapping. A foraging jay chattered, and I caught a glimpse as it winged its way through the tops of the beeches.

To pass the time, I attempted to reconstruct what had happened during the banquet when I had been poisoned. I tried to picture the bowl of pottage as it was set in front of me, whether I had seen any slivers of mushroom mixed in my food, and who had served me. But inevitably my memory kept sliding away to the happier image of Bertha seated at the high table, and how beautiful she had been with her braids looped up and held in place with a headband. I recalled in vivid detail how she had looked at me when I completed my tale of Troilus and Polyxena.

A deep, rasping cough jerked me out of my day dream.

Directly in front of me, not thirty paces away, stood a colossal stag. The giant creature was staring at me belligerent and challenging. I had never seen such a towering animal. At the shoulder it was as tall as I was, and the rack of antlers rose another four feet above that. I was so close that I could see the nostrils opening and closing as the creature tasted my scent. The animal’s head and thickly muscled neck was in proportion to its immense size. A broad, shaggy pelt of matted grey-brown hair covered the chest. I had no idea how it had emerged from the forest and appeared right in front of me.

I froze.

For a long moment the creature gazed directly at me. I felt small and puny. Then, slowly, the majestic spread of antlers, six or seven feet across, swung away as the hart turned its head and began to walk slowly past me. I had been judged as harmless.

I felt a nudge on my elbow. Osric had crept up behind me the moment the hart had turned away, and was prodding me with an arrow he had taken from the quiver. I looked down. It was a war arrow, the heavy iron head three inches broad and designed to pierce scale armour.

The hart was moving to my left, away from the line of waiting hunters. There was no hope of turning it back toward them. I took the arrow, nocked it to my bowstring, and glanced across at Walo. The lad was half-crouched, mesmerized, his mouth slack and his gaze fixed on the great deer. He turned to face me and saw the question in my face. He nodded.

I drew back the bowstring, felt the heavy shaft slide smoothly across my left hand, and in the same movement, released the arrow.

I had practised my archery so often that there was no need to take deliberate aim. Some instinct told me exactly where to place the shaft, and the heavy arrow slammed into the ribs, just behind the shoulder.

Until that moment I had never appreciated the force of the curved bow. My arrow struck at the perfect angle. It plunged deep into the body cavity and ripped through the vital organs. The huge beast ran less than fifty paces, and then with a hoarse grunt, buckled at the knees and sank to the ground.

Walo was on the stag in a flash. He darted behind the stricken animal, dodged the kicking hooves, and crawled under the sweep of the antlers. At risk to his life he drew his hunting knife across the throat. It took three deep cuts before twin bright red spouts showed he had succeeded in despatching the animal.

The great head dropped to the ground and lay there, twisted at an ugly angle by the massive antlers.

Walo got to his feet unsteadily, his face and jerkin splashed with blood. He gazed down at the great corpse, and a tremendous smile spread across his face. Then he broke into a gawky dance, capering up and down with delight.

‘What do we do now?’ I asked him. I could scarcely believe that it had all ended so quickly.

He stopped his jig and fumbled for the hunting horn dangling from the cord around his neck. Putting it to his lips, he blew three or four unsteady notes. The effort was beyond him, and he tried a second time. On the fourth attempt he succeeded in completing what I supposed was the death call.

There was no response from the silent forest.

We began to gut the huge animal. It was a mammoth task. By mid-morning we were not halfway through butchering the carcass, though we had succeeded in retrieving my lucky arrow, undamaged. It had slid between two ribs and pierced the heart. We sliced and cut, pausing to pass a whetstone between us and sharpen our knives and to listen for other hunters. We might as well have been alone in a wilderness. We worked until we were hungry, and Walo went to fetch bread and hard cheese from a saddlebag on the pony and a leather bottle of ale. I wandered off in search of water to clean my hands made sticky with blood. I took along the arrow to wash and smooth the blood-stiffened feathers.

Among the willows was a shallow puddle left by the summer rain. I knelt down and was washing the fletching when I heard the sound of a hunting horn. It was very far in the distance, several short calls followed by a longer note. I stood up to listen. The forest had fallen silent. Next came the alarm call of the jay, and then the sound of animals on the move, coming in my direction. As I watched, a group of half a dozen hinds moved across a gap in the thickets some fifty paces ahead of me. They were walking quietly, unhurried and unafraid. Cautiously I backed away, not wishing to frighten them. Varnulf had instructed that all lesser quarry must be allowed to pass freely. I reached the spot where I had left my bow when I happened to look toward the line of beech trees.

For a moment I thought I saw a ghost. A great stag was stepping out from the treeline. I shut my eyes tight and opened them again, thinking it was the fetch of the animal I had just slain. But this animal was slightly smaller, a lighter brown, and the rack of antlers was not as broad. Nevertheless I counted fourteen tines.

Instinctively I reached for my bow. My movement alerted the stag which turned its head to look in my direction. I stood stock still until the stag took a few more paces. Then slowly, very slowly, I set my lucky arrow to the string, and drew the bow. But the quarry was suspicious. Step by step it advanced, anxious to follow its group of hinds, yet wary of danger.

The stag was within killing range, yet I waited. My arms and shoulders aching with the strain, hoping for another mortal shot. Then Osric called to me to hurry to join him before all the food was gone. His shout caused the stag to wheel round and take a great leap towards the safety of the treeline. I loosed.

My arrow caught the beast in mid-air, striking well back along his body. I saw the hindquarters twist and droop as the injured beast landed. Then it gathered its strength and sped away among the beech trees, the crashing sounds of flight growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

‘What was that?’ demanded Osric, emerging from the brushwood behind me, a cheese rind in his hand.

‘Another hart, almost as big. I wounded it.’

‘Badly?’

‘I think so. It was running crookedly.’

‘Quick, before you lose it. Walo and I can bring on the horses.’ He ran back and fetched the lance that Walo had stuck in the ground and handed it to me. ‘You’ll need this to finish him off. In the woods it’ll be more use than the bow. But take care.’

Alone, I set out in pursuit of the wounded quarry. I ran at first, a slow jog because the trail was easy to follow and I did not believe I had far to go. The hart had left a line of marks on the forest floor where its hooves had scuffed up the leaves. Here and there were sizable splashes of blood. In a few places I saw fresh scrapes on tree trunks where the wounded creature had blundered into the trees, and the antlers had knocked away the bark.