“So the ‘true love’s kiss’ myth is just that.”
“Aye. Nothing so ordered and easy could ever trump wild magic born of vengeance. Besides, with as often as the boy is sticking his tongue down the fair Cinnia’s throat, every curse within eight leagues would be banished if a simple kiss actually worked.”
Ballard peered past his sorcerer’s shoulder to the open door behind him. “Best keep your voice down. If Louvaen hears you, I’ll be picking forks out of Gavin for days.”
“Oh ho! Louvaen is it?” Ambrose waggled his eyebrows. “Your protector of virgins is fighting a losing war with those two.”
Ballard strapped his crossbow to the saddle and ignored Ambrose’s questioning expression. “That may not be a bad thing. Maybe instead of true love’s kiss, it’s true love’s swiving in the hayloft.”
This time Ambrose glanced behind him. “You might want to follow your own advice and lower your voice. I won’t much enjoy picking forks out of you.” He moved further into the stables. “No curse would be worth its salt if a swiving could break it. There’s a detail or a set process—something we’re missing.”
The courser snorted and stamped a hoof, impatient with his rider’s preparations. Ballard patted the animal’s neck. Magnus was one of only two horses he’d kept. An agile mount with the instincts of a predator more than prey, he’d carried his master into war, defended him better than most vassals and rode to the hunt as enthusiastically as the hunters. He never developed an aversion to Ballard the way the other horses did as the curse changed him. Ballard wondered if the stallion was as weary of the long years as he was.
“You think as a magician of the right hand path, Ambrose. Wild magic is left hand power.”
The other shrugged. “Unpredictable, inconstant, but there’s a thread of reason in all things. I just need to find the thread.”
Ballard led Magnus out of his stall and swung into the saddle. “I’ve said it before; we don’t have much time left.” He snagged the lug spear from where it leaned against a nearby post.
Ambrose blew out a sigh, setting the splinters of straw trapped in his hair to quivering. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Magnus’s hooves clopped a muted rhythm on the straw-covered floor as Ballard guided him toward the door. “Tell Magda to ready her knives and troughs for the morning. I’m after boar tonight.”
Gone were the days when the hunts drew spectacle as festive as any tournament. Then, Ketach Tor overflowed with people—servants and yeomen, huntsmen with the quiet, scent-tracking lymers and the big wolfhounds straining at their leashes. Magda and a small army of women and pages laid out a breakfast at assembly, with the knights hardly able to choke down their food from the excitement of the upcoming chase. Now it was just him and sometimes Gavin who hunted the hart and boar—a deadly endeavor when hunting the latter, but the animal yielded a lot of meat, and Ballard considered it worth the risk to hunt alone.
Snow cascaded in dancing whorls as he guided Magnus into the trees. The black hush didn’t mask every sound, and Ballard listened to the occasional squeak of a dormouse or the skitter of claws as a marten climbed amongst the high branches of a birch. Unlike the great hunts of the past, he hunted in the small hours. The curse’s progression had done much to maim him but also gave an unexpected boon or two. He could see as well in darkness as in daylight. The animal eye shine that startled Louvaen each time she caught his gaze in dim light was a small price to pay for the ability to hunt at any time.
He tracked a path through heavy underbrush, picking his way toward a mud wallow known to attract wild pigs. Trampled tracks of underbrush and bits of rotten tree trunks torn to shreds scattered the ground. Ballard noted teeth marks across the trunk of one tree and mud build-up on several others where a boar had rubbed to scratch off dried mud and parasites. A distinct and foul odor wafted to his nostrils. Magnus snorted at the scent. Ears pricked forward, he came to an abrupt halt. Ballard trusted his courser and waited, spear hefted.
The animal’s instincts held true as a stout black shape burst out of a clot of undergrowth and shot across the path of horse and rider to crash into another patch of bush and bramble. Ballard didn’t need to touch his heels to Magnus’s sides before the horse leapt after the boar, and the chase was on. Magnus galloped through the narrow spaces between trees and cleared gullies without missing a step. Ballard crouched, bent and sometimes rode half off the saddle to avoid decapitation by a low hanging branch. He held the reins loosely and leaned into the horse’s sharp turns as they chased down their quarry. For now, his job was to simply stay in the saddle while Magnus did the work of running the boar to exhaustion.
They cornered the creature in a swale where the snow gathered deep and slowed the chase. It turned to face them, breath steaming from a twitching snout. A big male possessing a lethal pair of curved tusks guaranteed to slice or puncture, the boar lowered its head, swinging it from side to side. A line of bristles spiked down its back from shoulders to tail. Foam cascaded from its mouth, jaws popping as the sharp cutters met the duller whetters. Magnus’s muscles bunched beneath the saddle. Ballard took his cue, bracing the spear under his arm and against his side for the inevitable confrontation. As before, the horse’s instincts were on the mark. The boar charged, barreling toward them in a violent surge of speed.
Undaunted, Magnus met the charge. Ballard gripped the horse’s sides with tense thighs, leaned down and aligned the spear, aiming low. The impact almost jolted him off the saddle’s low cantle and numbed his arm from shoulder to fingertips as he rammed the spear into the boar’s chest, lifting it off its feet. The spearhead sank through muscle and bone down to the lug bar. Magnus’s forward momentum flung the skewered animal backward until it struck the trunk of a birch tree. Ballard let go of the spear as they thundered past, gradually slowing Magnus until they swung a wide arc and trotted back to the kill. They stopped alongside the squealing boar. Cloven hooves churned air as it struggled to rise. Ballard dismounted, patted the snorting Magnus, and unsheathed his sword.
Fatally wounded and unable to rise, the boar was still dangerous, those curving tusks as sharp as flaying knives. Ballard approached cautiously, placed the blade against the beast’s neck and sliced through the jugular. The boar went still as blood spilled across the snow, black in the winter moonlight. The smell would draw wolves from every corner of the woods, and Ballard didn’t relish fighting off a hungry pack lean from winter’s bare larders. He put the sword aside, braced a foot against the animal’s chest and yanked the spear free.
He field-dressed the carcass to the ululation of wolf song growing ever closer, then used a rope to winch the boar high enough to lower onto Magnus’s back. The courser offered only a token grunt as Ballard lowered the boar and strapped it to the saddle. He stroked the horse’s neck. “You’re a fine lad.” He retrieved the lug spear, grabbed the reins and led Magnus through the trees on foot. His courser was strong, but the boar was heavy, even gutted. They returned to the castle, accompanied by howls. The moon rode low amongst the trees though the sky still hung black and sparkled with stars.
He met Gavin in the bailey, a piebald jennet named Sparrow saddled and outfitted for hunting. His son eyed the dead boar. “Well mine was a wasted effort. I’ll put Sparrow up.” He subjected Ballard to a once-over. “How much of that blood is yours?”
“None. Your faith in me heartening.” He returned Gavin’s inspection, noting the hunting garb and the weaponry tied to Sparrow’s saddle. “Thinking to rescue a gaffer in the forest?”
Gavin grinned. “Considering I beat you in sparring yesterday, I thought you could use the help, old man.”
Ballard tossed the spear to Gavin. “Keep warbling, boy. I’ll flatten your sorry arse in this bailey and feed you to the wolves lurking outside.”
He guided Magnus to a cleared area of the bailey where a gambrel and pulley hoist had been set in place alongside a table laid out with a variety of knives and hand axes. Troughs filled with salt and snow and two large barrels waited nearby. He and Gavin winched the carcass off the horse until it hung upside down preparation for skinning. He sent Magnus off with Gavin and Sparrow to the stables for unsaddling and a rubdown.
When Gavin returned, both men stripped to the waist. Butchering a hog was hot, dirty work, even in winter. The frigid air felt good on his bare skin, especially after the long walk from the forest.
“Did you bring back the liver?”
Magda marched toward him garbed in a dress that was nearly rags. She’d bundled her hair in an equally ratty kerchief. A retinue of women in similar dress followed, including Louvaen and Cinnia. The younger sister barely glanced at him before her eyes settled on Gavin. She stopped short, almost pitching into the snow when Louvaen stumbled into her. A wrestling match of flailing arms and elbows ensued until the two managed to right each other.
Louvaen brushed down her threadbare skirt and glared at Cinnia. “What are you doing?” Her scowl rested on Gavin. “Oh for gods’ sake, if you’re going to stare at him like a lovesick cow, at least get out of the way so we don’t trample you.”
She went silent as her eyes met Ballard’s. She didn’t stop, but her long strides slowed as her gaze sharpened, sweeping over him from the top of his head to the tips of his boots, pausing to touch on his shoulders, chest and midriff. Ballard refused to shrug the shirt back over his head. In the weeks since she and her sister had taken up residence in his home, Louvaen had never averted her eyes from him. She didn’t do so now. Still, some small part wished she didn’t have to look upon him half dressed. The vines, runes and etchings marring his face and neck ran wild and numerous across his torso, front to back, and were joined by a map of scars and lacerations that revealed a life of hard fighting. He’d been stabbed, speared, slashed and gored on various occasions, most often by enemy knights; once by a boar and once by his wife. He didn’t count the broken bones that had been set and healed. Ambrose had declared more than once he had the luck of a dozen men to still be alive.
