hog to the turf long enough for Dobro to whirl in and tie the hog’s four legs together. The boar struggled against his bindings, squealing and harrumphing, thrashing his head back and forth, wanting to slash something-anything-wide open. But Dobro’s knots were sure.
The feechie disappeared into a stand of hardwood near the edge of the greenbog and came back with an oak sapling he had hurriedly cut down with a stone saw he kept in his side pouch. “Tote-pole,” he explained, and he began to stick the pole between the boar’s knees just below the bindings, first the front knees, then through to the back. As he worked, he smiled at the civilizers. “Aidan, you got to tell Sturn about the time you come into the feechie camp on a tote-pole, just like this boar hog.” Aidan laughed as he remembered the day he was captured by Rabbo Flatbottom and Jonko Backwater in the magnolia jumble near the Bayberry Swamp.
“Well, boys,” said Dobro when the hog was secured to the tote-pole, “you look stout enough to get this big boy home without no help from a scrawny feechie like me. I’m ready to see my mama. Sturn, it was a pleasure. Aidan, don’t be a stranger.”
With that, the feechie boy disappeared into the forest. And the civilizers contemplated the long trip back to the horses with their massive, bristling, struggling prize.
Chapter Three
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
