It was cold and foggy, but Rupert, whom I met in the courtyard on my way to the hall, assured me that this was the best sort of weather in which to hunt boar.
"The beasts ha' such a thick coat, the cold's no hindrance to them," he explained, sharpening a spearpoint with enthusiasm against a foot-driven grindstone, "and they feel safe wi' the mist so heavy all round them—canna see the men coming toward them, ye ken."
I forbore to point out that this meant the hunting men would not be able to see the boar they were approaching, either, until they were upon it.
As the sun began to streak the mist with blood and gold, the hunting party assembled in the forecourt, spangled with damp and bright-eyed with anticipation. I was glad to see that the women were not expected to participate, but contented themselves with offering bannocks and drafts of ale to the departing heroes. Seeing the large number of men who set out for the east wood, armed to the teeth with boar spears, axes, bows, quivers, and daggers, I felt a bit sorry for the boar.
This attitude was revised to one of awed respect an hour later, when I was hastily summoned to the forest's edge to dress the wounds of a man who had, as I surmised, stumbled over the beast unawares in the fog.
"Bloody Christ!" I said, examining a gaping, jagged wound that ran from knee to ankle. "An animal did this? What's it got, stainless steel teeth?"
"Eh?" The victim was white with shock, and too shaken to answer me, but one of the fellows who had assisted him from the wood gave me a curious look.
"Never mind," I said, and yanked tight the compression bandage I had wound about the injured calf. "Take him up to the castle and we'll have Mrs. Fitz give him hot broth and blankets. That'll have to be stitched, and I've no tools for it here."
The rhythmic shouts of the same beaters still echoed in the mists of the hillside. Suddenly there was a piercing scream that rose high above fog and tree, and a startled pheasant broke from its hiding place nearby with a frightening rattle of wings.
"Dear God in heaven, what now?" Seizing an armful of bandages, I abandoned my patient to his caretakers and headed into the forest at a dead run.
The fog was thicker under the branches, and I could see no more than a few feet ahead, but the sound of excited shouting and thrashing underbrush guided me in the right direction.
It brushed past me from behind. Intent on the shouting, I didn't hear it, and I didn't see it until it had passed, a dark mass moving at incredible speed, the absurdly tiny cloven hooves almost silent on the sodden leaves.
I was so stunned by the suddenness of the apparition that it didn't occur to me at first to be frightened. I simply stared into the mist where the bristling black thing had vanished. Then, raising my hand to brush back the ringlets that were curling damply around my face, I saw the blotched red streak across it. Looking down, I found a matching streak on my skirt. The beast was wounded. Had the scream come from the boar, perhaps?
I thought not; I knew the sound of mortal wounding. And the pig was moving well under its own power when it had passed me. I took a deep breath and went on into the wall of mist, in search of a wounded man.
I found him at the bottom of a small slope, surrounded by kilted men. They had spread their plaids over him to keep him warm, but the cloth covering his legs was ominously dark with wetness. A wide scrape of black mud showed where he had tumbled down the length of the slope, and a scrabble of muddied leaves and churned earth, where he had met the boar. I sank to my knees beside the man, pulled back the cloth and set to work.
I had scarcely begun when the shouts of the men around us made me turn, to see the nightmare shape appear, once more soundless, out of the trees.
This time I had time to see the dagger hilt protruding from the beast's side, perhaps the work of the man on the ground before me. And the wicked yellow ivory, stained red as the mad little eyes.
The men around me, as stunned as I was, began to stir and reach for weapons. Faster than the rest, a tall man seized a boar-spear from the hands of a companion who stood frozen, and stepped out into the clearing.
It was Dougal MacKenzie. He walked almost casually, carrying the spear low, braced in both hands, as though about to lift a spadeful of dirt. He was intent on the beast, speaking to it in an undertone, murmuring in Gaelic as though to coax the beast from the shelter of the tree it stood beside.
The first charge was sudden as an explosion. The beast shot past, so closely that the brown hunting tartan flapped in the breeze of its passing. It spun at once and came back, a blur of muscular rage. Dougal leapt aside like a bull-fighter, jabbing at it with his spear. Back, forth, and again. It was less a rampage than a dance, both adversaries rooted in strength, but so nimble they seemed to float above the ground.