Sworn Brother (7 page)

‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘I’ve done a bit of hunting on foot, small animals mostly, in the forest. But not from horseback.’

‘Well, wait and see,’ Kjartan said. ‘This will be part on horse and part on foot. Edgar knows what he is doing, so it should be successful. We only have to do what he says, though luck plays a certain part, as well as skill. The red deer are just getting into their fat time. Good eating.’ He began humming gently to himself.

We rode into the forest to an area where Edgar and I had recently noted the slots of a red-deer stag and his group of four or five hinds. As we approached the place, the dog, which had been running beside the horses, began to cast back and forth, sniffing the ground and searching. ‘Great dog, Cabal, good fellow,’ said Kjartan. ‘Getting old and a bit stiff in the limbs, but if any dog can find deer, he can. And he never gives up. Great heart.’ Another besotted dog lover, I thought to myself, but I had to admire the serious attention that old Cabal was giving to every bush and thicket, running here and there, sniffing. From time to time he halted and put his great muzzle up into the air, trying to catch the faintest whiff of scent.

‘There!’ said Kjartan quietly. He had been watching Cabal and the dog had dropped his muzzle very close to the ground and was moving forward through the forest, clearly tracking a quarry. ‘Silent as he should be,’ grunted Kjartan approvingly. When I failed to appreciate the compliment for the dog, he went on, ‘Most dogs start to bark or whine when they catch the scent of deer, but not old Cabal. Specially trained to stay silent so as not alarm the quarry.’

We had slowed our horses to the gentlest of walks and I noticed that the riders were taking care to make as little noise as possible. Kjartan glanced across at Edgar, and when Edgar signalled with a nod, our little group stopped immediately. The servant dismounted, took Cabal’s leash and led the dog quietly to where he could fasten the leash to a sapling. Cabal, still silent, lay contentedly down on the grass and lowered his head on his paws. It seemed his job was done.

The servant returned and we all closed up in a small circle to listen to Edgar. He spoke in a soft whisper.

‘I think we’ll find the deer just ahead and we’ve come to them upwind, so that’s good. You, Aelfric,’ here he indicated the servant, ‘mount up with Gisli, Thorgils stays with Kjartan and I’ll walk. We’ll leave the extra horse here.’

At his signal, the five of us and the two horses moved forward cautiously. We emerged into an area of the forest where the trees thinned out. To our right, between the trees, I glimpsed a movement, and then another. It was a red-deer hind and her companion. Then I saw the little group — the stag and his four hinds.

‘Now we go across the face of the deer,’ Kjartan whispered to me. He clearly wanted me to appreciate the subtlety of the chase. I heard the brief creak of leather and to my astonishment one-legged Gisli unfastened his special leather belt, slid out of the saddle, and dropped to the ground. I noticed that he landed on the side of the horse away from the deer, shielded from their sight. He stood grasping the stirrup leather in one hand to keep himself upright as he strapped on his wooden leg. He did not carry a crutch, instead he had a heavy bow in his hand. Edgar moved up to stand beside him. He too was behind the horse and hidden from the deer. When Edgar gave his next signal, the two horses moved out in the open, three men riding and two men walking alongside and hidden from the deer. The stag and his hinds immediately raised their heads and watched our distant procession. Now I understood. The deer were not alarmed by men on horseback, provided they rode gently and quietly and kept their distance. They were accepted as another form of forest animal. I noticed how Edgar and Gisli timed their paces on foot so that they moved with the horses’ legs.

‘Not quite another Sleipnir,’ I whispered to Kjartan. He nodded. Sleipnir, Odinn’s horse, has eight legs so that it can travel at tremendous speed. To the deer, our horses must have looked as if they each had six legs.

Fifty paces further on I realised that one-legged Gisli was no longer with us. Glancing back, I saw he was standing in front of a young oak tree, motionless. Dressed in green, he was almost impossible to see. He had let go of the stirrup leather just as the horse passed the tree, used his bow as a crutch, and was now in position. A few paces further on, Edgar did the same. He too was almost invisible. We were setting an ambush.

Kjartan, Aelfric and I rode on, then began to circle to the right. We reached the far side of the clearing and at the edge of the trees Kjartan said quietly, ‘Thorgils, this is where you drop off. Stand in front of that tree there. Stay absolutely still. Only move if you see the deer heading your way and not towards Edgar and Gisli.’ I slipped off the horse and did as I had been ordered, waiting quietly as Kjartan and the servant rode on.

For what seemed a long time I stood, not moving a muscle, and wondering what would happen next. Then I heard it, a single faint sound — chkkk! Very, very slowly I turned my head towards the noise. I heard it repeated, softly, almost languidly from far away. A moment later I heard the gentle crack of a twig, and into my line of vision walked one of the red-deer hinds. She was perhaps twenty paces away, moving gently through the forest, stopping now and again to snatch a mouthful of food, then moving on. Then I saw another hind and caught a glimpse of the stag itself. All the animals were on the move, unhurried yet heading in the same direction. Chkk! Again I heard the strange sound, and behind the deer I saw Kjartan on his horse. He was riding on a loose rein, barely moving, drifting through the forest behind the deer, not hurrying, but turning his horse this way and that as if the animal was feeding. The sound was Kjartan softly clicking his tongue. A moment later I glimpsed the second rider, Aelfric, and heard a gentle, deliberate tap as he struck his saddle lightly with a willow switch. The soft sounds made the deer move forward, unalarmed. Directly ahead Edgar and Gisli waited.

With excruciating slowness the quarry moved forward. As they drew level with my position, I hardly dared to breath. Slowly I turned my head to look for Edgar. He was so motionless that it took me a moment to detect his position. He was standing with his bow pulled back and an arrow on the string as the leading deer approached him. An elderly hind, she was almost upon Edgar when she realised that she was staring straight into the eyes of her hunter. Her head came up suddenly, she flared her nostrils and tensed her muscles to leap away. At that instant Edgar loosed. From that short range I clearly heard the thunk of the arrow hitting her chest.

Now all chaos broke loose. The stag and other hinds awoke to their danger and began to run. I heard another thump and guessed that Gisli had shot an arrow. A young hind and the stag turned back and broke away towards me. They came bounding through the trees, the stag taking great leaps, his antlers crashing against the branches. I stepped forward so the deer could see me and raised my arms. The hind swerved in panic, slipped on the greasy ground, scrambled to her feet and darted away to safety.

But the great stag, fearing that his flight was blocked, doubled back and headed to where Edgar stood. By then Edgar had a second arrow nocked to his bow string and was waiting. The stag saw Edgar, accelerated and veered past him. Smoothly Edgar swivelled at the hips, his bow pulled so far back that the arrow’s feathers were at his right ear, and he loosed just as the prey sped past. It was a perfect passing shot, which brought a shout of approval from Kjartan. The arrow struck the great stag between the ribs. I saw the beast falter in its stride, recover, and then go bounding away through the bushes with a great thrashing of branches which dwindled in the distance until the only sound was the patter of twigs and leaves falling to the ground.

Gisli’s shot had also hit its mark. Two hinds, his and Edgar’s, lay dead on the forest floor.

‘Good shooting,’ called out Kjartan as he rode up to the ambush.

‘Lucky the stag broke to my left,’ said Edgar. He was trying to sound matter of fact, though I knew he was delighted. ‘Had he gone the other side of me, it would have been a more awkward shot, swinging away from my leading foot.’

Aelfric had already run off to retrieve Cabal and the dog swiftly picked up the scent of the wounded stag. The trail of blood was hard to miss, and after a couple of hundred paces we came across Edgar’s arrow, lying where it had fallen from the wounded animal. ‘Gut shot,’ said Edgar, showing me the metal barbs. ‘You can see traces of his stomach contents. This won’t be a long pursuit. Bright clear blood would mean a superficial wound and a long chase.’

He was right. We tracked the stag for less than a mile, and found it dead in a thicket. Losing no time, the servant began to skin the carcass and butcher the meat, and Edgar rewarded Cabal with a choice titbit.

‘Located the big stag without trouble, Gisli,’ Kjartan called out as we arrived back to where Gisli was standing at the ambush site. The one-legged huscarl had been unable to join the pursuit.

‘Five deer found and three killed. That was a nice shot of yours. Fifty paces at least.’

‘One advantage to losing a leg, my friend,’ Gisli replied. ‘When you use a crutch to help you hobble around, it strengthens the arms and shoulders.’

W
e delivered the
venison to the burh, where the earldorman’s cooks were preparing the great feast which, by Saxon custom, celebrates the binding of the harvest sheaves.

‘The royal huntsman is always invited and gets an honoured place,’ Edgar said to me. ‘And so he should - he provides the best of the festival food. As my assistant, Thorgils, you’re expected to be there as well. Make sure you’re suitably dressed.’

So it was that I found myself at the door of the burh’s great hall five days later, wearing my purple tunic, which had been freshly cleaned by Edgar’s wife, Judith. I was having difficulty in controlling my excitement. Aelfgifu must surely be at the banquet, I thought to myself.

‘Who’s going to be at the high table?’ I asked a fellow guest as we waited for the horn blast to signal that we could enter the hall.

‘Ealdorman Aelfhelm is the official host,’he replied.

‘Is he Aelfgifu’s father?’ ‘No. Her father was executed by that fool Ethelred on suspicion of disloyalty long before Knut came to power. Aelfhelm is her uncle. He has an old-fashioned view of how to conduct a banquet so I expect Aelfgifu will be a cupbearer.’

When the blaedhorn sounded, we filed into the great hall to

find our places. I had been allocated to sit at a long table facing towards the centre of the hall, which had been left clear for the servitors who brought our food and for the entertainment to follow. A similar long table had been placed on the far side, and to my right, raised up on a platform, was the table at which ealdorman Aelfhelm and his important guests would dine. Our humbler board was set with wooden plates, mugs and cowhorn spoons, but the ealdorman’s guests had an embroidered linen tablecloth and their drinking vessels were expensive imports, goblets of green glass. We lesser folk had just taken our places when another horn blast announced the entry of the ealdorman. He came in with his wife and a cluster of nobles. Most were Saxons, but among them I noticed Gisli and Kjartan, wearing their gold-hiked huscarl swords and looking much more dignified than the green-clad hunters I had accompanied five days earlier. Still there was no sign of Aelfgifu.