STAGS 5, page 13
‘Unlike you.’ My guilt over Shafeen made me lash out.
He grimaced. ‘I suppose I deserve that.’
He carried Regina on his glove, I took the basket, and we began to walk back towards the castle.
Henry shot a sideways glance at me. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’
There was no hiding it. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you remember that day on Longmere, when we caught the brown trout?’
‘I’m hardly likely to forget that. That was the day I thought you were trying to kill me.’
He didn’t deny it. ‘I still thought I would spare you, even on that day. D’you know why?’
‘Because you liked me?’
He smiled. ‘That, of course. But it was because I thought you liked the kill. I saw something in you that I recognised in myself. And I saw it again today. Was I wrong?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I did enjoy catching the fish. And I did enjoy it today when Regina stooped at the gull.’ I struggled to articulate what I wanted to say and thought suddenly of the movie of Lord of the Flies. ‘I think we all have that killer instinct under all our layers of civilisation. It’s just about how deep it’s buried. We are all Savages. Or rather, Medievals.’ I shot a glance at him. ‘Did your father teach you to kill?’
‘Yes.’
I thought about that. ‘Such an odd thing to do with your son.’
‘It was one of the only times we bonded,’ he said sadly. ‘It’s no excuse, but he was never happy when I knew him. The only thing that pleased him was hunting – outdoors and indoors too.’
‘What do you mean?’
He sighed. ‘You might as well know. No housemaid was safe from him.’
‘You mean …’
‘Yes.’
‘But he was gay!’
‘It was like he had something to prove. I guess he was trying so hard to be straight.’
‘Tough on the girls,’ I said, thinking of poor Ina, the kitchen maid.
‘Oh, undoubtedly. My grandfather had to keep sacking them – because then, of course, they were girls with a “bad reputation”, through no fault of their own.’
‘Droit de seigneur,’ I said.
‘Indeed.’
‘Gideon set him off down that path,’ I said. ‘In Aadhish’s diary, it was the Abbot, when he was young, who was harassing Ina, the kitchen maid. I guess your father followed his example.’
‘Still, that’s no excuse. He took out his own unhappiness on others. He just wanted to hunt and destroy.’
I thought about that as we strode along in silence for a while. ‘I wish …’
Both he and the hawk looked at me, their gaze oddly similar. ‘What do you wish?’
‘This is going to sound like an odd thing to say, but I wish you knew him as I did. I wish you’d known … Horatio.’
‘Who the hell is Horatio?’
‘Rollo used to call Aadhish Hardy, and Aadhish used to call Rollo Horatio. And Horatio was quite a different person to the Rollo you knew. Horatio was young and in love. Oh, he was the arrogant young lord of the manor, but he could be funny, tender, charming.’ Just like you, I thought, but I didn’t say anything out loud. Distance, I reminded myself. Distance. ‘I could ask Shafeen if he would let you read the diary. If,’ I said ruefully, ‘he ever speaks to me again. I think … I think if Rollo and Aadhish had been allowed to be together, your father could have been really happy.’
‘But I wouldn’t have been born, and nor would Shafeen,’ Henry pointed out. ‘I suppose then you wouldn’t have a problem,’ he joked darkly.
‘My point is,’ I said sternly, ‘that Rollo used to be a different person. And I wish you’d known that person.’
‘So what you’re really saying is that not getting to be with the person you love can blight not just your entire life, but your character too.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am, really.’ I thought about that. ‘But what if Shafeen is the one I’m supposed to be with?’
‘Well, obviously I would dispute that. But if you are meant to be together, he’d be a fool to let you go for a kiss. He should only let you go if …’ He tailed off.
‘If what?’
‘If you had true feelings for another.’
Once again I wouldn’t, couldn’t look at him. He sighed, ruffling Regina’s feathers, and the hawk chirruped and shifted on his glove. ‘If you want, I can tell him that it was all me. The kiss, I mean. I’ll take the blame and make it right with him. If that’s really what you want.’
‘It is.’ I tried to sound as definite as possible.
‘You’re sure?’ He sounded completely desolate.
I looked at the bird, not him. ‘You and me,’ I said desperately, ‘how would it really work? We’re from different worlds. I played with Hello Kitty as a kid. You played with hawks. The only working-class kid I know who’s ever owned a hawk is the boy in Kes.’
‘Who?’
‘This film from the sixties. About a northern kid from a council flat who befriends a kestrel and trains it.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Henry. ‘Well, that used to be perfectly commonplace. A kestrel for a knave. You know that book I was reading on the way up to Scotland?’
‘The one about St Albans?’
‘It’s not about St Albans. It was written in St Albans.’
‘What’s it about then?’
‘Huntin’ shootin’ fishin’,’ he said. ‘What else? There’s a big bit on hawking. And one of the things it says is that hawks were for everyone. There were birds for everyone in society.’ He looked at the bird on his fist and quoted, as if to her: ‘“An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King; a Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight, a Merlin for a Lady; a Goshawk for a Yeoman, a Sparrowhawk for a Priest, a Musket for a Holy Water Clerk, a Kestrel for a Knave.” So, you see, your film was quite right.’
‘And when was that written? The Book of St Albans, I mean?’
‘1486.’
‘So back when people were actually Medievals.’ I looked at the hawk on his fist. ‘And what’s Regina?’
‘A peregrine.’
‘Like your uncle.’
He smiled somewhat bitterly. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘And peregrines are for a prince, right?’
‘Right.’
‘See, you’re making my point for me,’ I said. ‘There’s always a hierarchy, isn’t there? Even with hawks. That’s why we could never work. I live in a council flat; you live in a castle.’
He thought about that. ‘You just held up the example of my father and Aadhish. They were from very different worlds. Yet you say they were in love and should have been left alone to be together.’
‘Yes, but they were at least the same class. What divided them was convention – the rules of society at the time. Attitudes have changed towards homosexuality, but if this whole STAGS thing has taught me anything it’s that the dial hasn’t shifted one bit on class. If we were to … be together, how would it work? Would we settle at Longcross, as Lord and Lady de Warlencourt?’
He laughed. ‘I’m nineteen, you’re eighteen. I think we’re a bit young to be settling down. I’m not offering you my hand in marriage.’
‘Then what are you offering me?’
‘My heart,’ he said simply.
These two words, so direct, so heartfelt, threw me, but I had to be strong. ‘You know I’m going to Oxford.’
‘Good. So you should. I’d wait.’
‘Eventually I want to direct films.’
‘Then do that.’
‘And be the lady of the manor? We’d live in your ancestral home, amid the ghosts of all the children who were hunted over the years? I’d be a county wife, like your mum, sitting on all the village committees, opening the house once a year for garden parties, reading the lesson in church at Christmas? That’s not me, Henry. It just wouldn’t work.’
For the first time, he seemed to have no comeback. Then he said, almost hopelessly, ‘Surely love should be enough?’
‘Tell that to Rollo and Aadhish.’
We were almost back at the castle and fell silent as we crossed the courtyard to the mews. These were conversations that mustn’t be overheard, but in the mews Murdo was nowhere to be seen, and there was only the company of raptors to hear us. Henry put Regina back on her block, cleaned off her beak and talons, spread her wings with gentle fingers to make sure no feathers were broken and secured her leash to the block, presumably with the falconers’ knot he’d told me about. I’d never seen him take such care with anything before, except perhaps me. Henry stroked the falcon’s feathery breast in farewell, with that new tenderness I detected in him. He met my eyes over the hawk’s head. ‘What if it’s me?’
‘What if what’s you?’
‘What if it’s me you are meant to be with? And you who I am meant to be with? To deny that would blight both our lives.’
The thought was dreadful, and the most dreadful thing about it was that now he’d put the thought in my head. The notion of that – being forever infected with a kind of what if ? – made me especially curt to him.
‘Forget it, Henry. It’s best if you do. I’ll see you tonight.’
He and the hawk watched me go, their expressions alike once more: noble, remote and desolate.
23
I went straight back to my tower, as I wasn’t hungry for lunch after those doorstep sandwiches.
I also didn’t fancy getting changed and running the gauntlet of a posh lunch in the Great Hall, with all the sticky conversations with my would-be killers. There’s nothing like your own impending murder to suppress your appetite.
As Henry had recommended, I forced myself to rest. I lay down in my clothes, but I knew instinctively that I wouldn’t be able to nap. I went on my phone for a bit, and as there was no Wi-Fi I had to content myself with the films I’d already downloaded while in civilisation. But, as always, I found movies a bit too stimulating to get to sleep. I was conscious of that thing teachers always tell you, about the ‘blue light’ of screens keeping you awake. What I needed was something less Savage. Something boring and Medieval.
I needed a book.
In a moment I was up again. I trod quietly down my staircase, the stone cold beneath my bare feet, to the library where I’d eaten with Henry last night.
Luckily there was no one in the vast room, and I quickly scanned the gold-tooled titles for something positive-sounding. I didn’t want any bad dreams. One title jumped out at me:
THE GOLDEN BOUGH
by
SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER
That sounded ideal: cheerful but dull. I grabbed the book and raced back upstairs with it.
Back on my bed I began to read, to find it was some weird old tome about comparative religions and spooky traditions. I idly flicked through, bypassing stories of corn gods and ancient rites. Then fragments of text jumped out at me – ‘Highlands of Scotland’, ‘ancient heathendom surviving in our own country’, ‘sacrifices were offered in the open air, frequently on the tops of hills’.
Now I was wide awake all right. I stopped, heart thudding, then read on.
When the time came the victims were sacrificed by the druids or priests. Some they shot down with arrows, some they impaled, and some they burned alive in the following manner. Colossal images of wicker-work or of wood and grass were constructed; these were filled with live men, cattle and animals of other kinds; fire was then applied to the images, and they were burned with their living contents.
I continued, with sick fascination. In Paris it was customary to burn a sack of live cats, in Russia a white cockerel. Even squirrels were sometimes burned in Easter fires. In the Pyrenees a wicker column was filled with live serpents, which would desperately slither to the top of it in a vain attempt to escape the flames and, to the delight of the crowd, would be seen lashing out like so many whips before being obliged to drop into the inferno.
I lowered the book abruptly. There were some pretty sick puppies in this world, and since quite a few of those deviants were now staying in this very castle, the book was no comfort, and certainly not the way to read myself to sleep, unless I wanted some fairly intense daymares.
I put the book on the bedside table, but somehow, even with my eyes closed, I still knew it was there, emanating weird malign vibes like an angry beehive. So I put it under the bed, which, as everybody knows, is where all horrors belong, and determinedly thought of marshmallows and rainbows and unicorns and bunny rabbits until sleep eventually came to me.
I woke at about five in the afternoon, with that groggy, rumpled feeling you get when you’ve slept in your clothes. I smoothed my hair down in front of the mirror but didn’t see the point in getting washed or changed. That would kind of be like putting lipstick on to meet the hangman. I wondered what the others were doing. Were they getting ready too? Henry, I knew, was to be my wingman, but surely the others would be on the hill too, ready to intervene if things got sticky?
My nervousness about when, and how, and even if they’d be able to intervene made me wear out the carpet with my nervous pacing. I looked out of the window to see all the preparations – the gathering of guests and Land Rovers. I was reminded of the very first time I was at a hunt like this, at Longcross, Justitium weekend. Then, on the huntin’ day of deer stalking in the hills, Nel was the intended victim, although I didn’t know it at the time. Today it was my turn, and I knew it very well. My hand shook as I opened the window catch to watch the hunt servants load the guns into the back of the Land Rovers, with their pewter barrels and caramel stocks. I remembered that day at Longcross as the beginning of all this madness. Today would be the end.
I went down the stairs and met Henry in our accustomed place, under the duelling pistols. He was as grim-faced as I, and neither of us spoke as we climbed into the back of one of the Land Rovers. Even on this day that might be my last I was not immune to the beauty of Skye. The evening sun was dipping, and by some trick of the lowering light the heather of the rolling hills turned a deep and beautiful purple. But before long we pulled up on the foreshore of Loch Eynort, a glassy dropped-mirror of a lake, starting point for the Red Hunt. As my feet hit the shingle I imagined my long-dead ancestors landing here, tartan-clad and sharp of axe, ready to make mincemeat of the MacLeods. I raised my chin an inch. This MacDonald wouldn’t go down without a fight.
But despite my sudden adrenaline rush, the hunt began surprisingly gently. I remembered this from my only other experience of deer stalking, that fateful Justitium weekend at Longcross. The hurry-up and wait. The holding of fingers up to the wind to guess at the direction of the stag. Luckily Henry and I were able to stay in a pair, and we followed the others at a distance. He carried a gun, cocked expertly over his arm. I didn’t.
As we climbed the hill a nasty thought occurred to me. I hadn’t seen the HAWK since I woke. We’d driven a long way – what if the drone didn’t catch us up? But then I comforted myself. We’d discussed, in the Peel Tower briefing, the MacLeod’s batshit plan to recreate the battle route of the MacDonalds. Henry had told Ratio exactly the route the hunt would take. Then another thought occurred. What if, after that kiss, and the romantic hawking trip with Henry, Shafeen had decided to wash his hands of me, to leave his unfaithful girlfriend to her fate? But in another moment I knew that couldn’t be true. Shafeen was, above all, an honourable young man, and whatever his feelings about me, he wouldn’t abandon me in my hour of need. Nor would he abandon the opportunity to take revenge for the wrongs done to his father, and all those other poor kids over the years. Ty also had a personal score to settle – the death of her great-uncle, Leon, child of the Windrush who’d sailed right into the jaws of the de Warlencourts. And Nel, that gorgeous soul, was my best friend and wouldn’t let me down, even if she thought I’d been shitty to Shafeen. Ratio, with his strange obsession with the de Warlencourt family, would not miss a chance to bring about the family’s destruction.
Another issue though: Ratio might be tracking my every move, but how would he and the other rebels intervene in time to save me? I’d seen the headings for ‘intervention’ and ‘extraction’ plans on his whiteboard, but no details on how he was planning to save me when things got nasty. How could any of those plans be faster than the fate that was meant for me? I supposed I just had to trust him, but it was hard to trust someone you’d only just met with your life. I looked around at the other hunters walking the hillside in their little groups of two and three. Were the Peel Tower Rebels among them? I thought not. Ratio was the only one who would not be recognised by the Medievals or the twins, and he was the one who was meant to be operating the drone. No, Henry was clearly the only inside man on the Red Hunt and I was very glad he was here – he was all that was standing between me and the Order.
Henry was being polite but distant. Of course, that was the way it had to be. I wondered what would happen to him now – how not getting the person he wanted would affect his life. But I couldn’t worry about him this evening. I was too busy worrying about myself.
The stag, wherever he was, seemed to be more successfully keeping himself out of danger. Young and sprightly hinds took fright and bounced away from us through the heather, their white tails bobbing as they fled, but even I knew, to paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, that these weren’t the deers we were looking for. We walked down the breathtaking natural gorge known as Glen Sligachan, craggy mountains rising either side of us, crests in the clouds. We were following in the footsteps of the MacDonald ghost army, but the wily stag was nowhere to be seen, running from us like a MacLeod. ‘He’ll be near water,’ said Henry. This, too, I remembered from that weekend at Longcross – the stag at bay, standing hock-deep in Longmere until the hounds tore him apart. There were no dogs today, but apparently the rules were the same. ‘Stags seek out water to hide their scent. If he wasn’t at the lake, he might be at the burn at Harta Corrie.’
We began to climb a sharp incline, where silver birch trees flanked an impossibly high cataract, white water blowing in the wind like a net curtain. Ahead of us I could see Lady Fiona trudging doughtily up the hill, two steps ahead of Lord Peregrine, as always. Louis and Cass climbed together, indistinguishable in tweed caps and Barbours. Even their guns were identical. And, behind us, princes and politicians, in twos and threes, all armed to the teeth. I felt, just as I had at The Gathering, that I was inside the pages of some society magazine. It was so weird being surrounded by people I normally saw online or on TV, in celebrity magazines or in photos of parliaments or palaces, and yet being somehow the most important person on the hillside. I felt like I had a target painted on me – and my back, under my own Barbour, began to itch.
