Once I was in the saddle, the worst of the mare’s temper subsided, and she responded to my directions without much hesitation. We followed the road back to the tree, where the
I had hoped to use the opportunity to question the prince, but quickly realised that this was not going to be possible, not until we had dispatched the wounded pig. The maharaja was completely focussed on the task at hand, and once we had caught the beaters up, his undergraduate style dropped away completely. He studied the splintered spear-shaft one of them had retrieved and listened intently to their information, his eyes searching the landscape as if he might see the pig through the thick brush. North of us stretched scrubland, but to the south, a thick stand of trees rose up, following some kind of a stream-bed. At last he grunted, and turned to me.
“They’ve tracked him as far as that split tree, you see? There’s a
“I hope the man’s all right?”
The maharaja looked at me as if I’d spoken in a half-understood language that he had to translate internally, then replied, “Yes, he’s sure to be. But you do understand that once we get in there, your mare won’t have any clear ground where she can escape? You have to have your stick ready at every moment.”
“But if I can’t see the boar, how do I know where to point the spear?” I asked, reasonably, I thought.
“Your horse will know. And you’ll feel him.”
We rode into the two-acre thicket from two angles, me at four o’clock and the maharaja at seven, pressing towards the top, where at least twenty beaters stood, banging on rocks and trees, staring nervously at the ground between us and them. I suddenly noticed that the men were armed only with long sticks, not spears, and of course none of them were mounted. I hoped for their sakes they were fleet-footed, and could climb trees like monkeys.
A partridge exploded from the tree in front of me, nearly stopping my heart and making me laugh nervously. I was perspiring heavily, as was the mare. Contrary to the maharaja’s claim, she didn’t seem to think there was anything in here at all, and the only thing I felt was growing nerves.
Then, between one step and another, her ears swung forward. I made a faint whistle between my teeth to catch my companion’s attention, and nodded at the direction the mare was watching, more or less straight ahead. Jimmy studied the land, then gestured for me to circle more to the right, that we might trap the animal between us. I urged the mare to the side and began to circle in on the offending scrap of shrubbery.
Fifty feet, forty, and at thirty-five I began to understand what he had said about feeling the animal. It was as if the boar gave off waves of heat, or just fury; it wouldn’t have surprised me if the bush burst into flames. My mount began to twitch, picking her way delicately, and the beaters a hundred yards away kept up their drumming on the ground.
This time I saw the blood first, a splash of shocking red against the dusty vegetation as a black shape the size of a small water buffalo shot out of his hiding-place like a launched shell, the broken-off spear protruding from his left haunch, bouncing with every move as he aimed his rage at the gelding’s white gut. The maharaja was ready for him, but the horse was not, and it shifted a fraction, taking the readied spear a degree or two off aim. The pig hit the spear hard, but instead of sinking into his vitals, the sharp head sliced across the shoulder blade and then stuck.
I had an unclear idea of pig physiology, but by the looks of it, a spear in that position was not going to prove immediately fatal. Nor did it seem all that securely planted, I noticed in alarm. As if to illustrate the matter, the pig began to push, grunting in fury, while the man on the horse tried to change the angle to one that might bite in more deeply. The pig pushed hard and the horse gave way, until they were circling around and around in the bush, held apart by a slim length of wood.
I put my heels into the mare’s side, trying to get close enough to use my spear without getting in the way of the partners, but I couldn’t, not while mounted. Without thinking, I kicked my feet from the stirrups and dropped to the ground.
The prince caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye and shouted something, and there was a sudden increase of noise from the beaters, but I could see that there would be an opening after the white hindquarters next passed, and I readied myself to dash forward.
But I didn’t know pigs. I didn’t realise that the animal would see me as well, didn’t foresee that the distraction of two enemies would make him back away, yanking the spear from its resting place. Didn’t realise that once the beast was free, it would come for me. But that is precisely what it did: a quick reverse scurry and the maharaja’s spear was swinging free while the blood-drenched creature got its legs under it and ran again—this time at me. Instinct alone lowered the point of my spear—anything to keep that furious bristling face away from my soft skin, to keep those wicked tusks at a distance, to postpone the inevitable for a moment.
The spear took him straight in the chest, and it was like slamming into a train. I flew backwards, clinging to the spear with every ounce of self-protection in my being, scarcely aware of sitting down hard onto the rocky ground. The universe narrowed down to this tiny space, my entire being focussed on the fact of my straining muscles pushing one way and the huge, stinking, primeval Fury shoving the other, two opposing forces separated only by a thin and sharply arching bamboo stalk, its fibres audibly creaking with strain. The boar was so close I could count its long, feminine eyelashes, so near I memorised the smear of dried blood on its lower right tusk and the scars on its snout, knew the shape of the pebbles crunching beneath its hooves. The creature’s breath was hot and intimate on my face, and we stared into each other’s eyes while its legs thrust towards me, its tusks yearning for my vitals with an urge so all-consuming that it overpowered any awareness of the steel blade driving ever more deeply into its chest. It grunted and strained, then suddenly my vision went pink as the breath blowing across my face went bloody, and through the red mist on my spectacles I saw the boar give a last convulsive push. The spear snapped, his legs buckled, and he came to rest with his upper tusk pressing against the leather of my outstretched boots, his back legs still twitching with effort. And then he died.
At some time in the past minute—hour?—the maharaja had come down from his horse, and was standing at my shoulder with his spear at the ready. But he had held off using it, and now he allowed its point to rest on the ground.
“Again, congratulations, Miss Russell,” he said.
I stared up at my host, trying to make sense of his words. I lay sprawled at the prince’s feet, filthy, scraped, and sore, my hair in my face and my topee nowhere to be seen. After a moment I shifted my gaze to the impaled animal against my boots, and the world abruptly rushed back in, tumbling about me in all its size and complexity. I felt like whooping with exhilaration.
By God, pig sticking was indeed a game of games.
The maharaja helped me to my feet and said in a mild voice, “It’s not generally recommended that an amateur attempt spearing a pig on foot.”
“Yes, I can see why,” I told him. “But your horse wouldn’t stand still.”
“The pig would have bled to death soon enough. But I have to say, I’m glad to have been witness to that manoeuvre.”
The beaters came up then, exclaiming and, it seemed to me, abjectly apologetic, even terrified, although I was not sure if it was over the danger to me, or to their master. I was not even certain why they were apologising. Did we imagine they ought to have battered the vicious creature to death with their blunt sticks? One of them gave me a pristine linen cloth with which to clean my bloody face and spectacles; another brought the mare, holding her firmly; a third knelt that I might use his knee to step up. I needed the help, despite the mare’s lack of stature, and on the way back to the road I was glad, too, that I was not riding the hard-mouthed gelding. I felt weak as an infant.
Pig sticking, it seemed, was over for the day, although the cheetahs were being readied for coursing, and three large enclosed bullock-drawn carts rattled and jerked with the motion of whatever the cats’ prey was to be. I apologised, and told my host I preferred to return to The Forts, thank you. Taking my leave, and with a pair of mounted servants at my back, I rode—slowly, slowly—back to the castle and crept upstairs to submit my bruises
