FOXES, page 24
He put a friendly hand on Shafeen’s shoulder. ‘The game’s afoot, old chap. Hope you enjoy it.’ The hand slapped the shoulder in approval. ‘Ah – look at you! You’re the image of your father! You feel the hunt in your blood, just like Hardy did.’
It was true that Shafeen’s dark eyes were fixed on that figure running across the fields. But Rollo had misread his expression. It wasn’t the hungry look of a predator. I knew Shafeen well enough to read what he was thinking. Whether or not Ty was a willing participant, the optics were really bad. One black girl on foot, running away from a lot of white folks on horseback. That intense look in his eyes was disgust. Shafeen shrugged the hand away and spoke right into Rollo’s face. ‘I will never, ever be a part of this.’
Rollo recoiled as if he had been hit. He dropped the hand, making no answer, and as he spurred his horse to move to the front of the pack I won’t swear there weren’t tears in his eyes. But I had no time to cry for Rollo. The three of us hung back and steered our horses into a little huddle.
‘Now what do we do?’ asked Nel.
‘We go and get her,’ said Shafeen shortly. ‘They can find someone else to be their prey.’
I looked at the determined figure running easily towards the horizon. I know it sounds weird, but Ty didn’t look scared. She wasn’t glancing back fearfully over her shoulder, only forward. She looked as if she had a purpose. I had a sudden misgiving. I remembered what she had said. I’m coming for them, Greer. I’m gonna let slip the dogs of war. ‘What if this is part of a plan, and we ride in and ruin it? Isn’t this that White Saviour thing we talked about?’
‘I’m not white,’ said Shafeen. And he dug his heels into his horse’s belly and shot away over the fields.
A second later, playing catch-up, the horn sounded, sweet in the blood. The silent hounds started up a frantic baying and streaked after Ty and Shafeen. I felt a thrill of terror as the placid Sweetbriar carried me along with the rest.
We were off.
It was one of the most exciting and terrifying moments of my life. Even though I technically knew how to ride, there was nothing I could have done to stop Sweetbriar at that moment. I was right in the middle of this Charge of the Light Brigade and there was a cacophony of sound – the winter wind rushing past my ears, the jingle of the bits, the thunder of the hooves and the music of the horn shivering my ribs. Above it all, though, I could still hear the members of the hunt braying at each other, their faces puce with shock at what Shafeen had done.
‘Dashed bad form, getting ahead of the Master like that!’
‘Ought to be horsewhipped, arrogant young puppy.’
‘Coloured feller – what d’ye expect?’
I spurred Sweetbriar on, hoping to leave the hate behind.
50
Throughout that winter morning, I had a crash course in hunting.
I learned when to hang back, and when to press forward. When to follow a line, when to check. I even began to interpret the call of the hounds – the keen, bloodthirsty baying of a trail found, and the whining complaint of a scent lost.
I barely got to see Nel and Shafeen, separated as we were by the field, and could communicate only in shaken heads and shrugs. But even from these vague mimes I could tell, with a sinking heart, that neither one of them had seen Ty. And of course it was pretty tricky to identify anyone, as we were all wearing basically the same thing. I thought again of The Thomas Crown Affair when all the decoys wear bowler hats and it’s impossible to pick out the real Thomas Crown. Equally, I saw very little of the Medievals. Esme complimented me, with her trademark insincerity, on how I looked in my riding gear. Cookson once held a gate open for me and touched his hat ironically with his crop when I thanked him. But other than that, there was no real interaction until lunch, and of the one person I really wanted to see, there was no sign.
We all stopped for lunch at this beautiful little medieval pub on the Longcross grounds called the Trip to Jerusalem. It had lots of crazy beams and a sign with a crusader wearing the cross of Saint George – presumably this was the original baddie in this particular screenplay: Conrad de Warlencourt. We all dismounted and gathered in the pub courtyard. A legion of grooms appeared out of nowhere to rub down the horses and give them bran mash and water, while we all trooped inside for sandwiches and beer.
I sat with Shafeen and Nel, well away from the Medievals and the twins. I still liked Cass and Louis, but as they were all sitting together, we swerved that table completely.
It was too loud for much conversation, but when I did manage to say, ‘I haven’t seen Ty all morning, have you?’ they both shook their heads. We ate our sandwiches, grim-faced. Plenty of people, either covertly or overtly, had something to say about Shafeen’s ‘ill-mannered’ riding, so that didn’t exactly improve his temper, but the mood among the rest of the Longcross hunt seemed pretty buoyant. Spirits were high, spirits were drunk. As far as I could tell, we’d just had what passed for a great morning’s sport. They were all talking over each other and laughing, and getting louder and louder, to the point where it was actually a relief to get back outside into the cold afternoon.
But as the afternoon wore on the mood changed.
It was getting dark. Heads and tails down, hounds truffled in the undergrowth. A mean, mizzling rain began to fall and riders pushed cold hands into their riding coats, turned up collars against the wind and took out their silver flasks for a restorative chug of brandy. Nel, Shafeen and I took shelter in a little spinney of trees, enjoying the spectacle of the hunt disintegrating. Now our moods swapped over from what they’d been at lunch. We grew more cheerful, the rest of the hunt more despondent. ‘D’you think Ty just screwed them over with a crazy trail? You know, just went round and round like Mr Messy until they didn’t know which way was up?’
‘I dunno,’ said Nel. ‘Good for her if she did though.’
‘Well, whatever she did, I hope she’s OK,’ said Shafeen.
And then, as if summoned, a figure emerged from the undergrowth like Will Smith in Aladdin, and suddenly Ty was in front of us. Even the placid Sweetbriar flinched at the red figure and skittered on the mossy ground, and I had to really hang on to her reins.
‘Jesus, Ty. Are you OK?’ I wanted to lean down and hug her, but I probably would’ve fallen out of my saddle.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
To be fair, she looked fine. She was on foot in her red onesie and we were on horseback in posh hunting gear, but somehow she was the more powerful. ‘Has it been all right? No one’s hurt you?’ asked Shafeen.
She flashed a grin. ‘Not yet.’
‘Why didn’t you call?’ asked Nel. ‘You just … stopped communicating.’
‘They took my phone,’ Ty replied briefly.
‘What?’ we chorused.
‘That is … I don’t know for sure,’ she backtracked. ‘Cass saw me using it, and she seemed cool at the time. But the next day it was gone from my knicker drawer, and I haven’t seen it since. My mum will skin me.’ Suddenly she was like the old Ty.
‘My dad will sort you out with a new phone,’ said Nel comfortingly. ‘But we did what you asked. We found out about Foxes.’
‘Me too,’ said Ty, serious again. ‘I found out all about them. But listen – you guys have to let this play out.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Nel.
‘Hang back,’ she said. ‘Stay out of the way. Everything’s chill.’
‘What’s chill?’ I asked.
‘No time now.’
‘Can’t we help?’ Shafeen offered.
Ty seemed to think about this. ‘If you want to help, tell them the hounds picked up a scent in Acre Wood. You got that?’
‘Acre Wood,’ I repeated.
‘Gotta go,’ she said, and began to recede into the trees.
‘Ty,’ I blurted.
She turned back for a moment. There were so many things I wanted to say. Be careful. Stay alive. We’re with you. But instead I said, ‘Your mum says hi.’
For a moment her face crumpled. Then that familiar look of stubborn resolve replaced the sadness, and she was gone.
51
As we looked out of the spinney at the rain, a lone horseman rode into view.
The height, the banded boots of the Master of Foxhounds and the golden gleam of the horn at the saddle told us it was Rollo.
I had a niggling doubt. If we passed on that information for Ty, what exactly were we complicit in? What lurked in Acre Wood? I’d seen enough crime movies to know about being an accessory before the fact.
But Shafeen had no such qualms. He rode straight up to the earl. ‘I’m sorry about before.’
Rollo turned in his saddle.
‘You were right. You were right about everything. I see it now.’
Rollo looked genuinely touched and raised a friendly hand again, but this time, instead of patting Shafeen’s shoulder, he cupped the younger man’s cheek. It was a weirdly intimate gesture. ‘Attaboy,’ he said, a word I didn’t understand at all, but it was clearly a compliment.
‘And I think I’m getting the hang of it,’ Shafeen went on. ‘I think the hounds picked up a scent in Acre Wood.’
Rollo looked at Shafeen as fondly as a son. ‘Good enough for me,’ he said, and raised the horn.
The terrible song brought the hounds and riders running, and above the melee Rollo shouted, ‘To Acre Wood!’ We were carried along like cavalry – we could have been those ancient crusaders who charged across the mosaicked walls of the STAGS Club. I lost the others as Sweetbriar found herself shoulder to shoulder with Rollo’s stallion. I remembered what the head groom had said about Sweetbriar and Harkaway being stablemates and resigned myself to being right in the thick of the action. Aware that it was absolutely forbidden to get ahead of the MFH, I reined Sweetbriar back a little, but I was right behind Rollo when we plunged into the twilight darkness of Acre Wood.
I was right behind him when the branches whipped at our faces as we followed the speeding hounds through the murk.
And I was right behind him when it happened.
We reached the centre of a clearing and Rollo reined back his horse and stopped. I hauled on Sweetbriar’s reins and stopped her too, before we could cannon into the back of him. Rollo held up his hand. Everyone stopped. The hounds washed about his horse’s legs like sea foam, seeking the next scent. There were about five different ways we could go from there, five pathways leading into the dark, and no one seemed to have a clue. Except Rollo. He was very still, listening, sniffing the air like Hannibal Lecter, a born hunter.
Then something extraordinary happened. A little figure trotted out of the trees. He was also wearing a red coat, his four paws black like little boots. His face was a pointy mask, his ears sharp as blades.
He was a fox.
I swear he stopped for a second to look at us from amber eyes – he regarded us, we regarded him. He was brazen, cocky and utterly unafraid, just like Fantastic Mr Fox. For that split second we were all as still as Rollo, even the hounds. Then Rollo spoke a single word. Not to us, not to the hounds, but to the fox.
‘Reynard.’
At the sound of his name, the fox turned and ran.
The spell was broken. Rollo plunged after him, crashing through the undergrowth. Sweetbriar followed her stablemate closely. And we were once again in the darkness of the undergrowth. It was hard to see even your hand in front of your face, it’s true. But I’ll swear to my dying day that I saw what I saw.
Despite being in the thickest undergrowth, the path was true and straight and led downhill. Rollo was gathering speed when suddenly a figure rose up out of a hidden stream. It was dark, enormously tall and black-clad. The Grand Stag, said my rabbit’s heart, but this was not he. There were no antlers, and no empty cowl, because this figure had a face underneath a black slouch hat. And even in the dim twilight I could see the face clear as day because it was a mask of glowing white, all except for the quizzical black eyebrows, the grinning red mouth, the curling moustaches and the neat goatee beard.
It was the face of Guy Fawkes.
At the sudden sight of the spectre, Harkaway spooked. He stumbled and checked, then reared in a flash of flying hooves and whiplash reins. Rollo fell hard, and the stallion stood for a moment on his haunches, statuesque.
Sweetbriar wheeled and backed away, and I fought just as I had done at Speaker’s Corner, to calm my mount. Now, as then, Shafeen arrived to lay a firm hand on the reins, closely followed by Nel. By the time we’d slid to the ground to run to Rollo, there were already other huntsmen there. Sweetbriar pulled away and I let her go to nuzzle and comfort Harkaway, who was carrying one of his legs as if he couldn’t put weight on it. His reins were trailing, and he was shaking and shaking his head as if bothered by a fly.
But the Earl of Longcross did not move. Ice cold, I jostled to see the red-clad figure stretched on the winter earth. Two hooves on the ground, killed in battle. Was he dead? He had a little crowd around him, and it was difficult to see through all the riding boots and crouching huntsmen, but after what seemed like a lifetime I did hear the fallen figure give an unmistakable groan. ‘He’s OK,’ I said, with a warm rush of relief.
I ran to the stream and looked to the left and right. Night had fallen, but I thought I might see the flash of the white mask as the phantom made its escape.
Shafeen and Nel followed, questioning as they came.
‘Greer, what the hell?’
‘Who are we looking for?’
‘Him,’ I said, ‘Guy Fawkes. Did you not see?’
Shafeen grabbed me by my shoulders and looked at both my eyes in turn, as if he was diagnosing concussion or something. ‘Greer. Did you fall?’
‘No!’ I pulled away. ‘I’ve had about enough of people thinking I’m crazy. I saw him.’
‘You saw Guy Fawkes?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. I mean, I saw the mask. A man, all in black, with a big black hat. And he was wearing a mask, one of those V for Vendetta ones that all the Fawkeses were wearing at Speaker’s Corner.’ I pointed. ‘He jumped up out of the ditch to frighten Rollo’s horse. The horse got spooked and reared, and that’s how Rollo fell.’
Nel said, ‘You’re sure it was a man?’ It was an odd question, but at least she seemed to believe in the idea of a figure.
I considered. ‘Well – he seemed pretty tall. Who else would it be?’
‘Well,’ said Nel, ‘think about it. Ty told us to bring him here. To Acre Wood.’
I could not think that of her. And if she’d done that, then the enormity of what we’d done swelled to scary proportions. We’d led Rollo into a trap. ‘No,’ I protested. ‘No. He was tall. Really tall. He was as tall as …’ I turned to Nel, wide-eyed.
‘No,’ said Nel.
‘… as tall as the Abbot,’ I finished.
‘Well, it can’t have been him,’ she said decidedly.
‘No, no, of course not,’ I agreed uneasily. ‘And besides, the figure didn’t lead him here, Reynard did.’
‘Reynard?’
‘The fox. There was one here, in the covert. He led Rollo down the path. I know it sounds like mystical bullshit, but he led Rollo the right way. Or rather, the wrong way.’
While we talked there was a buzz of activity as the hunt gathered round Rollo like red ants. Princes and prime ministers knelt in the dirt to give him aid, all concerned for one of their own. I had a massive sense of déjà vu as the hunt servants took the five-bar gate from beyond the ditch off its hinges and laid Rollo on it, just as we’d done with Shafeen after he’d been shot. Rollo was conscious, but his normal florid colour had drained away and he looked as pale as paper – as pale as the Guy Fawkes mask.
Six red coats carried the gate like pall bearers, and Caro had appeared from somewhere and walked alongside her husband, holding his limp hand. She was very bright and British and keeping her emotions in check, but she looked as pale as her husband, and the hunt was clearly over for the day. None of us had the appetite to ride, so we led our horses out of the covert and down the hillside towards the cruise-ship lights of Longcross Hall, sailing on the black sea of night.
One of the huntsmen led Harkaway home, and the stallion was still limping, carrying one leg.
‘I hope he’ll be all right too,’ I said uneasily.
‘He’ll be shot,’ said Shafeen shortly.
‘No way,’ I gasped.
‘Yes way,’ he countered brutally. ‘He’s no use for hunting now. You think they’re going to send him to a farm in the countryside? There’s no point keeping a horse you can’t ride just to eat its head off and cost you vet bills.’ He pulled the peak of his hat down against the rain, a flourish of finality. ‘He’s dogmeat, Greer. That’s how you reward a hunter for years of loyal service.’
As we walked the horses back in the freezing rain, all I could think of was what a brutal world this was that I’d ridden into, for humans and animals alike.
52
I knew from bitter experience that a minor injury wouldn’t be enough to spoil a dinner at Longcross, especially not one as important as this.
Rollo was pronounced to be fine, with no more than a mild concussion. The countess made a little speech as we sat down to dine, saying that her husband was being treated by the family doctor, and that he’d insisted that we were all to enjoy the Hunt Ball. Everyone seemed to find this perfectly normal, and I could only assume that hunting injuries were commonplace and that nobody thought it was a big deal, just ‘hard luck’.
The Great Hall was just as I remembered it – the tiger skin rug, the stags’ heads above the candle light and the duelling pistols crossed on the wall; but it was also different. It was full of people this time and no longer just ours. Longcross was at its full-on Gatsby finest, with music and champagne, and the tinkling of glasses and laughter. This is what it must have been like in those halcyon days of old, every chair filled, every room occupied, stuffed with guests like us above stairs and servants like Bates below. Even the tiger-skin rug gaped in amazement at such opulence.
