The Hunter’s Tale Read online

  Master Wyck ceased to read, looked up from his paper, and said, “There is a clause then detailing which of his children inherits from whom in the event of one or another’s death. Master Hugh is to inherit should Master Thomas die before him, but should Master Hugh die first and without heirs of his body, his inherited properties are to revert to Master Thomas. One daughter’s dowry is to be increased by the other daughter’s should one or the other of them die before marriage and all to be shared equally between their brothers should both daughters die unmarried.”

  He finished. Around him the silence stretched out, becoming too long before Miles said very quietly, “What it comes to, then, is that Lady Anneys has full and final decision over not only Lucy and Ursula’s marriages but Tom’s and Hugh’s.”

  ‘Yes.“ Master Wyck’s face was blank and his voice level.

  ‘She chooses or agrees to whom Tom and Hugh and Lucy and Ursula marry,“ Miles went on, ”or they lose every part of their inheritance. Even Tom.“

  ‘Yes,“ Master Wyck agreed again.

  ‘Unless she marries or lives unchaste or… what was the other word?“

  ‘Unvirtuously,“ Master Wyck supplied.

  ‘Unvirtuously,“ Miles said. ”If she does, then Sir William is to become chief executor in her place.“

  ‘Yes.“

  ‘Meaning,“ said Miles, ”that Sir Ralph has bound at least her and Tom almost as completely as when he lived. Neither of them has any freedom outside the narrow limits he’s made for them.“

  ‘I would hardly say the limits are so narrow as all that,“ Master Wyck said stiffly.

  ‘Only because you don’t have to live inside them!“ Miles snapped.

  ‘Miles,“ Lady Anneys said quietly. But Tom, having sorted everything into place, burst out, ”He’s right, though! The thing is written to keep a stranglehold on both of us. Even dead, he won’t let go!“

  ‘That is commonly the way with wills,“ Master Wyck pointed out. ”The testator determines what his heirs—“

  ‘Most testators don’t try to keep their dead hands clenched around their heirs’ throats,“ Miles snarled. ”Do they?“

  ‘No. No, not usually to the extent herein. No. But that does not render it less legal…“

  ‘What it comes down to,“ said Tom, ”is that either Mother lives exactly the way Father has willed her to or else she gets nothing and has no say in anything.“

  ‘One can hardly say she gets nothing. Her dower land is hardly nothing,“ Master Wyck protested.

  ‘It’s nothing compared to ten marks yearly. Come to that, how the hell am I going to find that much money out of what’s left to me without beggaring myself anyway? And who’s he to say whether she marries again or not now she’s finally quit of him? How—“

  ‘Tom,“ Lady Anneys said gently. ”I have no need of those ten marks.“

  ‘My lady,“ Master Wyck said, ”you can hardly refuse—“

  ‘I can ’loan‘ them back to my son before he’s given them to me,“ Lady Annneys said, unexpectedly firm. ”There’s nothing in the will against that. As for marrying or not marrying, my living chastely or unchastely, I have no intention toward either marriage or unchastity so there is no problem there either.“ She looked, smiling, at Hugh and reached to touch Tom’s hand gripping the arm of his chair; he turned his hand over to hold hers, and she went on, ”Nor do I think either of my sons is such a fool that I’m likely to refuse who they choose to marry.“ She moved her smile to Miles. The angers that had been writhing up around them all were suddenly, simply gone. Even Miles’ and even before she said, ”The most I might ask is that they help their nephew, whose inheritance has been so badly handled by their father. Is there anything else from my husband’s will that we should know?“

  Master Wyck fumbled, “No. There’s nothing else, I think. The minor bequests. The provision for Masses. Those are, of course, the executors’ concern…”

  Lady Anneys rose to her feet. “We’ll see to them, surely.” She looked toward the window, where the sunlight had begun to fade, the sun gone behind the forest. “You and Sir William have a ways to ride. You’ll wish to be going?”

  It was a gracious dismissal and Master Wyck took it graciously, though as everyone stood up, Miles muttered in Hugh’s ear, “Probably glad to escape so easily,” before offering aloud to fetch Elyn and Philippa.

  ‘If you would,“ Lady Anneys said.

  While Miles went parlorward, she moved with Sir William and Master Wyck toward the hall’s outer door, making light talk and no haste, with Tom and Hugh following behind them. In the yard, while they waited for Elyn and Philippa and for their horses to be brought, Sir William took Lady Anneys by the hand and promised, “I’ll come back in a few days, my lady. We can go over matters then, to see where we stand and all when you’ve had time to rest.”

  She thanked him gravely, thanked Master Wyck, prompted Tom to do the same, kissed both Elyn and Philippa when they came out, and stood waving to them all as they rode away, with Tom on her right and Hugh and Miles on her left, each with a hand raised in vague farewell. But when the riders were well gone, Lady Anneys’ hand dropped to her side, her shoulders slumped, and her weariness was suddenly, nakedly plain. Tom put an arm around her, saying, “It’s over with, Mother. It’s done. We can all have rest now.”

  She leaned against him, her eyes shut, her head sideways against his shoulder. “Rest,” she agreed on a long sigh. “Yes. Let’s all do with that.”

  What surprised Hugh in the days that followed was how easily they learned to live without Sir Ralph. A few times in the first week after the funeral Lucy and Ursula went together to the churchyard to pray at his grave. No one else did and Lucy soon stopped and Ursula, so far as Hugh knew, went only once more after that and then bothered no more either.

  The household remained, as always, Lady Anneys’ concern, with Lucy and Ursula learning beside her as she not only gave orders to the servants but worked at such things as pastry-making in the kitchen, weeding among the cabbages in the greens garden, and sometimes scrubbing clothes in the laundry because, as she often said to Lucy’s protests, “There’s no better way to know a thing than by learning to do it. Even when you have servants to do it for you, you have to know it yourself to understand whether they do it well or ill, and always there are things better done yourself than by anyone else.”

  Tom went on much as he had been, ordering and overseeing things about the manor, but all went more evenly and easily without Sir Ralph there to make trouble where none had to be. Tom could even be heard whistling as he went striding from one task to another, and in the evenings he often told about his day in ways that made them all laugh aloud with him. Laughter, Hugh realized, had been scant here while Sir Ralph lived.

  For Hugh there were still the hounds. If they missed Sir Ralph, they did not show it. Even Bevis had given up his restlessness and unexpectedly attached himself to Miles, following him everywhere—not entirely to Miles’ pleasure— except up the steep stairs to the bedchamber. Besides that, nothing much was changed except the hounds were now all Hugh’s own, any choices about them all his to make and no one else’s. Not that he was making many decisions yet, willing to let things go on as they presently were. One of the smooth-coated coursing hounds, Baude, was in whelp from a breeding with Makarie and that was as much of the future as Hugh was ready to look at. For now it was enough to ride out every day, not to hunt but simply with the hounds loping beside his horse to keep them fit. His lovely hounds. His.

  And then there was Miles. Without his anger at Sir Ralph, he sometimes seemed almost uncertain what to feel, as if thrown off balance by the void; but he joined in the laughter when it came and seemed, like Tom, to go easier about his work. It was maybe awareness that he’d be losing his work soon that made it harder for him than the rest of them to find his balance. The vague plan was that he would stay at Woodrim until the escheat of Sir Ralph’s lands was done— the determining by a royal officer of what the d
eceased had lawfully held, to whom it lawfully went, and what fees could be had for the king from it all. Once that was settled, hopefully by Michaelmas at September’s end, he would be away to his own manor and what they would do for a woodward here was undecided yet. In the meanwhile he went on as usual, often away to the woods—but never by himself these days, always with a servant or at least the wolfhound Bevis because the day after Sir Ralph’s funeral Lady Anneys had asked it of him. “Please,” she had said. “For safety’s sake, don’t go alone.”

  That was the nearest anyone spoke of Sir Ralph’s death. Or of Sir Ralph at all. Except that Lady Anneys continued to dress in widow-black, he might have died long ago and in an ordinary way, instead of less than a month ago and murdered, with his murderer yet unfound. Hugh wished he could leave off thinking about that day as completely as everyone had left off talking about it, but all too often his thoughts circled back to it, trying to see something, anything, that might have told how it was going to end. Something…

  But there was nothing, even now. Philippa and her uncle had sung together. Sir Ralph and Sir William had sat up from their dozes and some chance remark by Sir William about someone they knew lately buying a hawk had set Sir Ralph to one of his favorite rages against hawking—how he would never take it up, not to save himself, no, by God’s teeth he wouldn’t. All that fiddling with hoods and jesses and staying up nights on end and the rot about who can have what kind. “Gerfalcons for a king, peregrines for earls, merlins for ladies, hobys for boys. God’s teeth, give me hounds and a long chase with a death at the end of it and venison on the table or a good hare pie. If I want a damned duck for my supper, I’ll send to the poultry yard for one.”

  The talk had gone off then to the morning’s hare-hunt and somehow come around to Sir Ralph saying suddenly at Tom, “They’re pushing their plough-land out again, those peasants of yours. I swear I’ve lost an acre of pasture.”

  From where he still sat beside Philippa, Tom had answered even-voiced, apparently not in the humour for quarreling, “I’ll see to it.”

  ‘You damnably well will. I don’t keep this manor for the peasants’ pleasure. You’re not to let them graze that pasture again this summer either. Cattle-cropped grass is no good for hare-hunting and you know it.“

  ‘They have to graze somewhere.“

  ‘They want to keep too many cattle. That’s where the trouble lies.“

  ‘They—“

  ‘Don’t quarrel with me, boy! This is my manor. I’ll do as I please about it. If any of your peasants don’t like it, let him pay to go free and get out of here and be damned to him.“

  ‘It’s said Clement is going to do that come Michaelmas quarter day,“ Tom said bitterly.

  ‘He’s one of the ones who’s been nothing but trouble at almost every manor court, isn’t he? Good riddance to him.“

  ‘He’s one of the best men in the village,“ Tom had said hotly. ”It’s shame to lose him.“

  ‘It’s not shame to be quit of his whining over ’his rights’ any longer. It’s bad enough I have to listen to you whine for him.“

  ‘Then don’t!“ Tom had sprung to his feet. ”But don’t you whine at me when the place goes to ruin, because when it does, it will be your doing, not mine!“

  ‘Like hell it will!“

  But Tom, red-faced and hands in fists, was striding out of the clearing toward the greenway and neither looked back nor answered. Sir Ralph spat into the grass after him and then, as if satisfied by a good day’s work, lay back onto the cushions, smiling. The wary silence that always followed one of his angers ended with Lady Anneys gently pointing out a flaw in Lucy’s embroidery. Elyn said something about how well her own was coming on and Miles moved from the spring’s edge to sit where Tom had been, beside Philippa, asking her and Master Selenger, “Sing something else?”

  Master Selenger obligingly started the lilting, “The Lady Fortune is friend and foe…” As he reached the second line, “The poor she makes rich, the rich poor also…” Philippa began it over again with, “The Lady Fortune is friend and foe…” and as Master Selenger reached, “Turning woe to good and good to woe,” Miles joined in with, “The Lady Fortune is friend and foe…” so that the song turned and turned around on itself as, following behind him, Master Selenger started over again.

  Not about to spoil their singing by adding his own, Hugh rose and went to where Degory and the hounds were sprawled asleep in the shade beyond the spring. He stirred Degory awake with a friendly foot in the ribs and they settled together to check the hounds’ paws for cuts or thorns. That Miles could sing—and sing well—for some reason always surprised Hugh, probably because Miles so rarely sang at all, but he and Philippa and Master Selenger were happily winding and warring their way through the Lady Fortune song, repeating its one verse faster and faster to see who would lose their way first, while Sir William and Elyn clapped to the beat and Lady Anneys propped up Lucy, who had fallen over with laughter.

  Never given to singing or to noticeable pleasure in listening to it, Sir Ralph stood up and came over to join Hugh presently crouched beside young Skyre, seeing to a slight scrape on her ear. Despite she was nearly full-grown, she was still as scatter-brained as a puppy, with more eagerness than good sense when it came to the chase and at least twice this morning had been knocked over by Somer for being too bold among her elders and betters. But to Sir Ralph’s “How is she?,” Hugh answered, “Taken no hurt that I can find besides this scratch and it’s not much.”

  ‘Let me see.“

  Hugh had shifted a little aside without getting up, and Sir Ralph had squatted down on his heels to take hold of the young hound’s head in his usual rough way, holding her hard by the muzzle while pulling her ear up for a better look.

  Sir William strolled toward them, asking, “Trouble?”

  ‘Nothing much,“ Sir Ralph had said, had let her go and stood up, turning away from her.

  It was just then that something among the trees must have caught Skyre’s eye—a squirrel maybe, or the bright flit of a bird among the bushes. No one ever knew what. All that Hugh—crouched beside her and rummaging in a leather bag for an ointment for the scratch—saw was her head snap up, suddenly alert. Knowing what a fool she could be, he had dropped the bag and grabbed for her collar but too late; she was away in a single long bound and gone among the trees and he was left sprawled stomach-down on the grass while above him, Sir Ralph roared out, “Skyre!” Snarling, “Get up, you fool,” he kicked at Hugh’s hip, grabbed up a leash lying there, and whipped it across Degory’s bare legs with, “Idiot! Get after her!” Swore, “Damned idiot!” at Hugh just scrambling up, hit him across the back with the leash for good measure, and went furiously away into the woods himself, slashing the leash at the underbrush as he went.

  Within the hour he was dead.

  When the body was found, they had made the hue and cry for his murderer. Law required that and fear made certain of it. The search had spread through and beyond the woods. They had tried to find a track to set the dogs on but maybe they had trammeled too much in the first horror of finding the body or there was too much blood; even Somer, best of the lymers, failed to take up a scent. Nor did Hugh with his huntsman’s skills find any track to follow nor had anyone at all been seen. They had been left with nothing more to do but carry the body home and send a man to bring the crowner.

  It sometimes took days for a crowner to come but Master Hampden had ridden in with his men late the next day, while Hugh was gone to fetch Ursula. He had viewed the body and where it had been found, asked questions, but received few answers because no one had many to give. By the time Hugh had returned from St. Frideswide’s, he was holding his inquest, where it was officially found that Sir Ralph’s death was indeed murder by person or persons unknown. “And that,” Master Hampden had apologized afterward to Lady Anneys, “is the best I can presently give you.”

  He had ridden away before the funeral, with promise that a search would be made and que
stions asked about likely strangers seen anywhere around there, adding a warning to keep watch themselves for anyone and anything—and as easily as that it had all been settled, tidied away into the crowner’s records as tidily as Sir Ralph into his grave. Hugh wished his thoughts could be as tidily done with and put away; but aside from them—and time was dulling their edge, he found—things on the whole were very good. The summer was coming on to Lammastide with promise of a fine harvest if the weather held, and Tom had asked him what the chances were of having venison for a start-of-harvest feast he was minded to give the villagers.

  Hugh had warned, “You do this, you risk making a new custom they’ll want every year,” and Tom had answered, “Father made enough bad customs here over the years that a good new one will likely get us more than it loses.”