I’m not going to lie; the start of the day was pretty boring. (Of course it got pretty exciting later, but not in a good way.)
Once the cars had dropped us at the top of this massive hill, we just walked – the three (four) Medieval girls in front, me behind.
Don’t get me wrong; it was really beautiful country. In the weak autumn sunlight the hills looked as if they’d been buttered like my breakfast toast, and the purple, heather-covered valleys gave way in the far distance to the glimpse of a glassy lake. Longcross, far behind us, looked beautiful, like some advert for the British Empire. If I’d been told I was going on a walk, I’d probably have enjoyed it. But for a hunt it was pretty – well – pedestrian. No one really talked to me except to ask from time to time if I was ‘all right’ (the Medievals never said ‘OK’), to which I would reply, over-enthusiastically, ‘Great, thanks!’– and then move on. The truth is, I didn’t want to admit I wasn’t having a great time. It seemed like a weakness. This weekend had had such a build-up that to say I wasn’t enjoying it would have felt like I’d failed in some way. And it was OK really. No one was nasty to me; it was just as if I wasn’t really there. The Medieval girls were chatting up Chanel like mad – I mean really kissing her arse. Maybe last night had been some crazy sort of initiation ceremony, and Chanel had passed the test. Or maybe the girls felt bad about how the boys had behaved and were making it up to her. Either way, I was pretty sure they’d already decided she was going to be a Medieval and I wasn’t. I might as well not have come.
After a bit we all stopped, on this hillside, and sort of hung around for ages. People were just chatting and drinking from hip flasks. The hunt servants caught up with us with the gear and another pack of hounds. Chanel was obviously very nervous of the dogs; either she was scared of them, or she was afraid of them jumping up and putting their muddy paws on her immaculate khaki jodhpurs. I could see her eyeing them apprehensively and skirting around them carefully as if they smelled. Which they sort of did.
I’d have liked to chat to the hunt servants, maybe ask a bit about the guns, and the stag hunt, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t the done thing to talk to them. In the end I caught up with Shafeen, who was standing confidently with his gun sort of dangling over his arm. He’d obviously brought his own, but it didn’t look in a very good state – the stock looked separated from the barrel. ‘Is your gun broken?’
He almost smiled. Almost. ‘No. That’s how you carry them. Empty, open and over the arm. Stops you accidentally shooting someone’s head off if you trip.’
‘Oh.’ As he didn’t sound exactly unfriendly I asked, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Our esteemed host – the harbourer – has ridden ahead with his chosen hounds. They’re the “tufters” and they’re selected because they are steady and won’t “riot”, as it’s called, at the scent of a deer. He’ll have separated his chosen stag from the rest of the herd and driven him to another part of the hillside known as a “couch”. Once the stag is harboured in the couch, he’ll stay all day unless he’s disturbed.’
‘And we’re about to disturb him?’
‘Correct.’ He pointed to a tall man in the inevitable waxed jacket. It was human basilisk and headkeeper Perfect. You couldn’t see his feet for hounds. ‘See that fellow there? He’s the whipper-in. Henry will have arranged with him to bring the hunt party to this spot, hoping that the stag will break cover here.’
I felt pretty sorry for the stag at this point, but at the same time I really wanted to see him. I’d only ever seen heads of stags, once they were dried and desiccated and stuffed and mounted. Jeffrey and all his body-less cousins.
‘Is Henry coming back?’ I asked casually. I remembered his farewell: See you up there.
‘Yes, don’t worry,’ Shafeen said drily. ‘He’ll come back once the stag breaks cover, to change hounds. The whipper-in will take the tufters, and Henry will take the rest of the pack. Essentially he swaps the calm dogs for the crazy ones. The killers.’ I looked at the black-and-tan hounds that were milling around Perfect, wagging their tails. They looked pretty harmless.
‘For most of the day the stag will stay ahead of the hounds, outrunning them easily. But it has to run across moor and woodland – hard terrain – and leap walls and streams and fences. Eventually it gets tired.’
I felt tired already. ‘Do we follow it all day?’
He nodded. ‘The hounds follow its scent, and we follow its “slot” – that’s his track. Hoof-prints in mud, splashed rocks … those kinds of things give it away. The beat keepers –’ he pointed to Perfect’s flat-capped underlings – ‘stop him getting too far off track. And of course there’ll be a lunch somewhere. The upper classes never kill without eating.’ That was the strange thing about Shafeen; he obviously was the upper classes – he clearly knew every single thing about stag hunting, for example – but he spoke of his people quite scornfully, as if he was outside of their world. I couldn’t figure him out.
‘Then what?’
‘Well, when it can’t run any more, it will turn and face the hounds. That’s called the stag at bay.’
‘My dad’s told me about that. They find water, and stand in it, to try to lose the hounds.’
‘Except it doesn’t work. They’ve been known to swim for their lives, with the hounds swimming after them with their teeth in the stag’s hind parts.’
I swallowed. ‘And then?’
‘Then,’ he said, ‘it’s all over; one of the guns, the “dispatcher”, shoots it dead at close range. And the stag is rewarded for having provided a good day’s sport by having its belly cut open and its guts thrown to the hounds.’
I must’ve made a face.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, more gently. ‘Most hunt followers won’t actually get to see the kill.’
‘But it will have happened,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter if I’m there to witness it or not.’
He looked at me in an interested way and opened his mouth to say something, when suddenly, and without warning, a fricking great deer shot past me, leaping through our company, so close to me I could feel the disturbance of the air.
I staggered back, hand on my chest. ‘Jeee-sus.’
Shafeen steadied me. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes.’ I watched as the deer bounded away across the heather. It was a beautiful sight, but sort of unexpected. In my mind’s eye I’d pictured some sort of cartoon Bambi deer, all cute and big-eyed and wobbly-legged. But this was a lithe, gristly beast; all greasy dark fur and hard horn. He was fast; he’d put a fair distance between him and us before I’d even regained my balance. To my surprise, no one moved. The hounds yipped sharply, but their handlers held them back.
‘Why don’t we go after that one?’
‘That’s not the designated deer,’ said Shafeen. ‘Henry will have picked out a “warrantable” stag, one that’s over five years old. That one’s too young. They choose their victims carefully,’ he said sardonically. ‘If they murder that one now, what will they kill next year?’
Again, he’d used the word ‘they’, as if he wasn’t of their number. He was really hard to read, especially as he’d turned away from me and was scanning the hillside.
‘Look.’ He pointed. ‘There he is. He’s a wily old one – he sent the other deer running and then lay down in the heather.’
I looked, but all I could see were the tops of antlers, just peeping above the tussocks like a gorse bush.
Then the hounds started baying and the stag rose up from the gorse. Back legs first, then front legs, in a graceful, rocking motion. He was absolutely enormous, much bigger than the decoy deer. This was a noble-looking beast, his head almost as big as a cow’s, his antlers towering above. He looked directly at us for a split second, then turned his head to the hills and started to run.
Just then there was this big kerfuffle and Henry rode into sight, his hounds at his heels. He tumbled from the horse and exchanged his pack for Perfect’s. The hounds were let go, and the hunt was on. My heart gave a leap as I watched, but it was the stag, not the hounds, that I was urging on. Go on, go on, go on, I said under my breath, using the force, willing him to outpace them. I was Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. This isn’t the deer you’re looking for. And, as if my Jedi mind trick had worked, the stag outran the hounds easily.
‘Look at him go!’ crowed Piers as everyone moved off to follow the bounding deer. ‘He loves it! Let’s get him.’ I hated him at that moment.
‘Show time,’ said Shafeen, shouldering his gun.
He looked as if he knew what he was doing. ‘Have you shot before?’
‘Just tigers,’ he said, and moved off ahead of me.
I couldn’t tell if he was being funny or not.