Once I’d decided I was going huntin’ shootin’ fishin’, it seemed like blood sports were all anyone at STAGS could talk about.
We only had half a day of lessons on the Friday we broke up for Justitium, and every single one of them seemed to be about hunting.
In Latin we were doing a translation of Ovid about Diana, the goddess of … wait for it … hunting. Apparently she was bathing one day and was seen naked by a guy called Actaeon. She was pretty angry, and to stop him boasting about what he’d seen she told him if he ever spoke again she would turn him into a stag. The hunt happened to be riding past and, since Actaeon was clearly as stupid as most people are in myths, he called out for help. Sure enough, he was instantly transformed into a stag.
‘What happened next, Miss Ashford?’ Friar Mowbray asked Chanel. Friar Mowbray had a gift for knowing when people weren’t listening, and Chanel, like myself, was clearly having trouble concentrating that morning. She’d spent the last twenty minutes staring out the window at the dripping playing fields. She gave a little start and looked down at her copy of Ovid. She placed one of her perfect white crescents of nail under the words. ‘The hunter became the hunted,’ she translated haltingly. ‘The hounds were struck with a wolf’s frenzy and tore him to pieces as they would a stag.’
‘That’s right,’ said Friar Mowbray. She had arched black eyebrows, despite her greying bun, and they wiggled when she was excited. They were wiggling now. ‘Fifty hounds tore Actaeon to pieces as they would a stag.’ She practically licked her lips. ‘There is some dispute among classical writers about the names of the hounds,’ she droned on. ‘But these, of course, are details. Ovid has it that they were called Arcas, Ladon, Tigris …’ But I’d switched off by this point. If Friar Mowbray was going to name all fifty hounds, I was going to go back to daydreaming about Longcross.
In history, Friar Styles too seemed to have got the blood-sports memo. She told us about Gian Maria Visconti, a useless Renaissance prince, whose sole mission in life seemed to be to ruin the ducal empire his forefathers had built up. Even this lesson came back to hunting.
‘Of course, Gian Maria was most famous for his singular hobby,’ said the Friar. ‘He was a great huntsman; but he did not select his prey from the animal kingdom.’ She looked down her long nose at the textbook in her hand. ‘For sport he set his hunting hounds to course and dismember men,’ she quoted. ‘Mr Jadeja, assist us with the meaning of the verb “to course”.’
Shafeen cleared his throat. ‘To course means to chase, or to hunt.’
‘Precisely,’ said Friar Styles. ‘It means to hunt.’ Her eyes shone with a weird light. ‘Gian Maria’s servants became his prey; he would set his hounds upon them for his own enjoyment – and if they were slow enough to get their throats torn out he would simply hire more. Little wonder, you might think, that Gian Maria earned himself the name “Gian the Cruel”.’ But there was no judgement in the Friar’s voice; more … admiration. It was creepy.
Then it was off to Justitium Mass, the service that marked the end of the half-term. We sang, as we always did, Psalm 42; As the running deer seeks the flowing brook, even so my soul longs for you, O God. Then the Abbot got to his feet. As well as the usual bullshit about how great we’d all been so far this term, and who had got what marks, and which teams had won which sports, the Abbot also chose – yes, you’ve guessed it – hunting as the theme for his sermon. Once again we were treated to the story of our founder, Aidan, and the stag.
Mind wandering, I turned to look at the stained-glass window of the saint, but somehow my gaze never reached it. It was caught instead by the back of six perfect heads. The Medievals were sitting together a few rows in front of me. They all sat in the same way – with one leg crossed over the other so you could see their coloured stockings, emphasising their elevated status. Piers, Cookson, Esme, Charlotte, Lara. And, next to Lara, Henry de Warlencourt. I found myself staring at the back of his head: the scroll of his ear, the way the close-cropped blond hair glittered at the nape of his neck and disappeared into the black collar of his Tudor gown, the lighter, longer wavy hair growing in a swirl at the crown of his head. I shivered, but I wasn’t cold. It was hard to believe I’d be spending the weekend at his house.
I registered a sudden silence. The Abbot was staring down from the pulpit right at me, an amused look on his pleasant face.
‘Have we lost your attention, Miss MacDonald?’
My cheeks burned as the whole school turned to look at me, even the Medievals. They all looked pretty haughty, except Henry, who looked at me with a quizzical smile that set my heart thumping. ‘As I was saying …’ intoned the Abbot exaggeratedly, gently poking fun at me. He pushed his glasses higher up his nose and read from The Life of St Aidan, where it balanced on the eagle lectern. I gave him my full attention, although I could have recited the lesson by heart: ‘The blessed saint, when the hounds were running close, held up his hand to the stag and rendered him invisible. In such wise the hounds did pass him by, and their tooth did not touch him; whereupon Aidan restored the stag to the sight of men, and his pelt and antler could again be seen, and the stag did go upon his way in peace.’
As we filed out of chapel I was left with the strong impression that even the Abbot knew what I’d be doing that weekend, and particularly wanted me to hear his lesson.
When I clattered back up to my room after Mass, my stomach was doing weird somersaults. From the landing window I could see shiny, expensive cars already coming and going in the STAGS drive; parents collecting their little darlings, watched jealously from the windows by those poor saps who had to stay at school for the weekend. They were the ones whose parents lived overseas (lots), were in the armed forces (some) or were the children of foreign royalty (a few). I was one of the lucky ones; I had a luxury weekend ahead of me and there was nothing to do now but pack for Longcross. I’d packed once, of course, for Aunty Karen’s, but I’d since unpacked again, having a feeling that the stuff I’d packed for Leeds wouldn’t quite cut it at Longcross. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what kind of stuff would cut it at Longcross. Happily, help was at hand.