Chapter Three

The Hunt Feast

King Darrow’s trophy room echoed with the chatter of a dozen separate conversations as the hunting party relived the previous day’s adventure in Tamside Forest. Servants were still loading the tables with side dishes and making last-minute preparations before the arrival of the king and chief huntsmen and the presentation of the game.

A hunt feast was the least formal of the regular feasts held at Tambluff Castle. The feasters—noblemen and servants alike—didn’t wear their usual festal robes, but rather their hunting tunics and muddy hunting boots. Hunting dogs milled about the room, eagerly awaiting their own portion of roast boar, for they had been participants in the hunt, too, and were entitled to a place at the feast.

Lord Cuthbert was the only feaster who had not been a member of the hunting party. The oldest of Corenwald’s Four and Twenty Noblemen, Cuthbert had grown too blind to gallop through the forest. But he was still a regular at the hunt feasts. On this night he sat between Lord Cleland and Lord Radnor, who filled him in on the details of the hunt.

“Oh, I wish you could have been there, Bertie!” Cleland enthused. His eyes were alight with the excitement of the hunt. “There has never been such a boar hunt in Corenwald!”

“We were loping through the bottomlands,” began Radnor, “the king and Wendell out in front, the boar dogs out in front of them.” Old Cuthbert leaned forward in his chair and gazed into the middle distance as he pictured the scene he had witnessed so many times with his own eyes.

Radnor continued. “We hadn’t been in the forest an hour before the dogs began to sing.” Lord Cuthbert smiled wistfully at the memory of the dogs’ throaty howl echoing in the cypress.

“We spurred our horses to catch up to the dogs,” said Cleland, leaning forward in his chair as if he were still in the saddle.

“We found them in a little clearing,” Radnor interrupted, unable to contain his enthusiasm, “and we saw that it wasn’t one hog the dogs had jumped but a whole herd of them.”

“A tribe of them,” agreed Cleland. “A dozen or more yearling pigs, seven or eight sows, and the biggest, blackest boar you ever saw.”

“He looked more like a black bull than a boar, he was so big,” added Radnor. “Except for those tusks. No bull ever had slashers like that.”

Cleland picked up the story again. “So we were pressing this herd of hogs—hard after them—and it was one big tangle, I tell you. There were more hogs than dogs, and the hounds couldn’t agree which one they should bay up.”

Cuthbert listened intently. He imagined himself astride a hunting horse, crashing through the forests and swamps again.

“Meanwhile,” said Radnor, “the big boar decided it was time to save his own bristly hide and let the women and children fend for themselves.”

“Not very gentlemanly of him,” remarked Cuthbert.

“Maybe not,” answered Cleland, “but I’ve never been run down by a pack of boar dogs, so I won’t say one way or another.”

“He broke off from the herd and came barreling back through the dogs and horses and men,” said Radnor, nearly out of his seat now. “Two of the dogs lunged at him, but he sent them flying. All the dogs stayed with the herd and let the daddy boar run back downriver.”

Cuthbert’s face fell with disappointment. The boar dogs’ cowardice broke his heart.

“Meanwhile, Aidan and Prince Steren wheeled their horses around and lit out after the boar hog,” continued Radnor.

Cuthbert snorted at the very idea. “Without dogs?” he huffed. “What did they think they were going to do with him if they caught him?”

“We’re coming to that,” answered Radnor. “We pressed the chase, and in the end King Darrow managed to kill a couple of the yearling pigs.”

“Well, they’ll be better eating than a tough old boar hog anyway,” Cuthbert remarked by way of consolation.

“But that’s not all,” said Cleland. “When we got back to the castle, Aidan and Steren were waiting for us.”

“And they had the big boar hog,” added Radnor.

“Alive.” Cleland paused for effect. “Somehow they had managed to catch the boar, tie him up, and carry him out of the woods on a sapling pole.”

Cuthbert stared open-mouthed in Cleland’s direction. “Impossible!” he said at last. “I don’t believe you. Two boys can’t catch a wild boar alive. Not without dogs.”

“Hard to believe, Cuthbert, I know,” said Radnor. “I wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t seen the hog with my own eyes.”

“They won’t say how they did it,” added Cleland. “They say it’s a secret.”

Cuthbert slumped back in his chair, amazed by what he had been told.

“I tell you, that Errolson boy is something special,” said Radnor. “Every time I turn around, he’s done something I never thought anybody could do.”

“Well, don’t forget,” said Cleland, “it wasn’t just Aidan. The prince was with him too.”

Radnor raised his eyebrows. “You tell me, Cleland. Do you really think the prince would have come back with the hog if he hadn’t been with Aidan Errolson?”

The conversation was cut short by the sound of a hunting horn, the sign that King Darrow would be taking his place at the head table along with the chief huntsmen—the hunters who had most distinguished themselves in the previous day’s outing. And to no one’s surprise, the chief huntsmen for this feast were Prince Steren and Aidan Errolson.

As the king and the two boys entered the trophy room, the feasters cheered raucously and stomped their heavy boots. Even the hunting dogs howled and wagged themselves sideways. The courtiers had grown to love Aidan almost as much as they loved their king. In three short years, Aidan had made himself a regular at the head table during hunt feasts. Time after time, his fellow hunters had elected him chief huntsman and seated him at the king’s right hand.

“There’s a surprise!” called one of the noblemen. “Aidan Errolson is at the head table again!”

“It’s the king of the forest!” shouted another. “And King Darrow too!”

The feasters were in a back-slapping good humor, ready to laugh and enjoy themselves, and they laughed heartily at these and similar jokes. King Darrow stretched his mouth into a smile—or something like it—but clearly he was not as amused as the other feasters at this line of jesting. In the past few months, Darrow had grown cold toward the young hero he had brought to his court. He no longer joined in when his noblemen sang Aidan’s praises.

“One of these hunt feasts, we’re going to put King Darrow at Aidan’s right hand!” called another feaster.

Aidan watched Darrow’s eyes narrow even as the lower half of his face continued to smile. He saw the king’s jaw working as he ground his back teeth. Aidan quickly wiped the smile from his own face, hoping to discourage further jokes in this vein.

But immediately after the seating of the king and chief huntsmen came the presentation of the game, and with it came further reason for the king to be annoyed. Two liveried servants brought out the yearling pigs killed by Darrow’s hunting party. Each was arranged in a bed of greenery on a silver platter, and each had an apple in its mouth. The feasters applauded politely as the pigs were placed on the head table in front of the king. They were nothing to be ashamed of, certainly. Two yearling pigs constituted a respectable bag for a morning’s hunt.

But the applause swelled to a crescendo of cheering, whistling, and foot stomping when a trio of kitchen servants staggered into the trophy room under Steren’s and Aidan’s massive boar. It was roasted to a succulent brown, and in its snarling mouth an apple—the largest apple the cook could find—looked like a shriveled plum.

“Now that’s a hog!” somebody shouted.

“Darrow should be ashamed of himself,” joked Lord Grady, “killing those little piglets when a monster like that was prowling his forest!”

The head table, made of thick slabs of black walnut, sagged under the weight of the three hogs, not to mention the pots and platters of vegetables.

From where they sat, the noblemen could hardly see the king for the mountain of roast hog the servants had placed in front of him. “Say, what happened to King Darrow?” called Lord Cleland. “Are you still there, Your Majesty?”

Aidan stole a quick glance at Darrow. The king was looking down at his plate, his mouth set in a tight line. He wasn’t even pretending to be amused now. Aidan stared down at the table, counting the tines on his forks, tracing the pattern on his dinner plate. It had been a hard few months for Aidan. The more he grew in the noblemen’s favor, the harder it was to please his king.

“Look,” laughed Lord Grady, “the great huntsman’s ears are turning red!”

“Stop, Grady,” came the voice of another nobleman. “You’re embarrassing him.” Aidan stared harder at his plate, praying that everyone’s attention would soon shift elsewhere.

Suddenly, Aidan’s plate lurched away from him like a boat that had drifted into a swift current. For a dizzying, disorienting moment, Aidan thought he was falling backward out of his chair. But Aidan wasn’t tipping; the table was, tilting forward into the middle of the trophy room, crashing heavily onto its side. Earthenware dashed to pieces on the sandstone floor, and peas, carrots, and potatoes scattered in all directions. Candle stands clattered to the floor, and broken, extinguished candles lay among the debris. The hunting dogs boiled over the overturned table to get at the roasted hogs that lay broken on the floor.