Queen Clothra was not happy. She did not believe Lugaid was old enough to attend the King on a hunt. If old enough, he was certainly not tall enough. He was still only a small boy, and his legs were not long enough to control the pony the head huntsman selected for him. It was easy for the queen to picture Lugaid losing his balance in the excitement of the chase and crashing to the ground, breaking his young neck on a loose rock or a gnarled tree root.
Her nephew Furbaide was also on his first hunt, so she could only imagine what rivalry would blossom. The boys were forever in competition, and she did not think the hunt would quell that.
She had tried to warn Lugaid’s father, but the King would not listen.
“It is time he started to learn how to be a man,” Mac Nessa had said that morning when they were breaking their fast, insisting that Lugaid go, deaf to Clothra’s pleading. “Enough woman. When I was his age, I was already training with Dornoll.”
She knew that to be a lie. The closest the King had ever been to Dornoll was standing next to Conall’s mare.
Standing on the threshold of the royal roundhouse, with her arms crossed, watching her son fretting in the saddle, Clothra worried, convinced only harm could come of Mac Nessa’s pigheadedness. Lugaid was not strong, unable to cope with all the fuss and bother of a hunt. He showed more interest in the harp and the lute than the boar spear and the camán. She could see Furbaide, Lugaid’s half-brother, adjusting the fold of his cloak, comfortable on his horse. He was older by two years and taller, able to sit his horse without too much difficulty. Looking at Furbaide’s preening, she became more convinced their boyhood rivalry would cause Lugaid to do something stupid.
“Are the beaters out?” she heard the King shout over his shoulder.
Of course, the beaters are out; she fumed within, uncrossing and recrossing her arms under her chest. They would be on the other side of the forest, walking in a line with staves beating the brush as they marched towards the settlement, driving the forest animals towards the hunting party and a sorry end. Who was to say what the animals might be? There could be forest wolves or boars. His pony would throw him at the first sign of a wolf howl.
“They are out, sire,” she heard Fergus reply.
The queen watched as Mac Nessa put Setanta, his new favorite, in a necklock and rubbed the top of his head with a clenched fist. She realized with a pang of jealousy that he wished that boy was his son.
Releasing the boy with a laugh and a shove, the King shouted, “Are we not ready yet? I feel the need for a little pig sticking before dinner. Pork chops or venison tonight, lads. Enough of the mutton and oats already.”
The warriors laughed dutifully. They knew it to be a joke. If they were to take any game, it would not be ready to eat for at least a week. The King was like a young boy himself in his excitement.
Clothra frowned at her husband. His impatience to be gone was affecting warriors and horses alike. There was a skittishness between the royal roundhouse and the settlement gates, which the queen felt emanating from Mac Nessa like flotsam rising on a flow tide, waves of pent-up tension. The sort of tension that often precedes death.
She looked at her husband, determined to appeal one more time to his judgment, but he turned away and pretended not to see her, trying to get his attention. Determined, Clothra began to walk towards the King. However, as she took the first step from the roundhouse, Mac Nessa spurred his horse towards the gate, signaling the start of the hunt, and the Goddess Danu take any who were not ready. Clothra held her hand to her mouth as Lugaid’s pony jolted forward, and he nearly lost his seat even before the hunt had begun.
Her worry abated somewhat as she saw Setanta lean from his saddle and grab Lugaid’s tunic to prevent him from falling. The queen sighed in relief. She might believe her son was too young for a hunt, but she did not want him to make such a disgraceful entry into the King’s retinue by landing in the dirt on his backside. Maybe the older boy had been instructed by the King to protect Lugaid. If it were the case, she would worry less. He seemed a very able boy, even if he was only a youngster.
Balance restored, Setanta led Lugaid’s pony out through the gates at a steady walk. She watched them ride under the forest trees at the back of the line of hunters.
“Be safe, my son,” she said before returning to the duty of managing the settlement.
***
He looked at the boy and wondered at the differences the luck of birth could bring to life. At such a young age, Setanta had been helping his father till the soil better described as granite. Trying to make a living from the Chualann Mountains was backbreaking work. The singular joy he had had was swinging his camán for a little while before sunset. He was not even allowed to join the other boys until he was ten. What he would have given back then to be riding through the forests of Ulster with a King’s retinue hunting boar.
Each of the warriors and the King were carrying boar spears, long, broad-bladed weapons deemed too heavy for Setanta and Lugaid. Setanta scoffed when the hunt master told him he could not have one. It was an insult to place him in the same category as the King’s son. He knew he could carry the spear, even if the warriors did not believe it. The hunting party laughed when he demanded a spear from the king’s huntsman.
“You are not coming to hunt boar, boy. You are coming to wipe the King’s arse if he has to open his bowels,” the hunt master had laughed, slapping Setanta on the back.
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He had made a mental note to repay the master for his insult. Perhaps not during the hunt or the day after, but sometime soon, the man would pay for treating him like a child. In defiance, Setanta had his camán strapped to his back and his sliotar in a pouch at his belt.
He watched the King’s son trying desperately to appear regal while balancing on a mount that was too big for him. He looked comical on his pony, several hands shorter than the shortest horse. The King’s insistence that the boy attend the hunt confused Setanta.
He should not be here, he thought, as he guided his horse a little closer to Lugaid. I should slap his pony’s rump and get him thrown. Then they will know he should not be here.
He edged his horse closer, intent on his course when a call from the front of the party caused a surge in excitement, and the warriors goaded their horses to a canter. He could hear the beaters, a distant noise, and knew what that sound presaged. Lugaid’s pony, although not encouraged to do so by the boy on its back, picked up its pace to stay with the party.
Setanta cursed and goaded his horse to follow. The pony of the King’s son was skittish, and each time he came close to catching them and slapping the pony’s rump, the animal would weave or bolt forward and cause him to miss. This state seemed to continue for some time before the pony came to rest at the edge of the path, its chest heaving and its head shaking.
Setanta stared up the path for some sign of the others, but they were gone, already past the bend ahead. Good, I can put the boy on his arse without witnesses, he thought, momentarily forgetting humiliation does not work when there is no audience.
Setanta edged his mount slowly forward, determined to catch the pony before it bolted again. He was telling the smaller animal to stay still under his breath when a crash from the forest caused him to look to his right. The underbrush waved frantically as a beast approached at speed, startled by the beaters. He had just swung down from his horse, some sixth sense warning him to get down when a wild boar burst from the underbrush and stood snorting and tossing its head.
The animal was huge. Its eyes seemed Fomorian in the depths of their monstrousness. The snorts of its breathing seemed to echo throughout the forest, a warning of the strength the animal possessed. When it started pawing the turf of the path, the horse and the pony reared and bolted, and he knew they would be unstoppable until they tired and stopped of their own accord.
Where Lugaid’s pony had stood quivering moments before, he saw the boy kneeling on the grass, brushing dust from the seat of his triús with a nonchalance born of ignorance.
“Keep still, boy,” Setanta hissed in an exaggerated whisper.
“I am the King’s son, and you will not talk to me like I am a child,” Lugaid said as he climbed to his feet.
“Danu take your spirit, boy. Will you stay still?”
“Who are you calling boy? You are only a boy yourself,” Lugaid said as he bent to brush dust and grass from his knees.
The boar was snuffling and pawing the path, and Setanta knew it was only a matter of moments before the animal charged. It would charge at what it considered a threat—the one moving.
Setanta realized he did not have much time before the beast attacked, and when it came, Lugaid would die, mauled into a bloody mess. With no weapon to hand, he did the only thing he could do. He took the sliotar from his pouch and threw it at the head of the animal with all his might. He heard a satisfying crack as the ball struck the boar between the eyes.
Transfixed, he stood staring at the animal as if believing the sliotar would have knocked it senseless. It was a vain hope, and he knew it when the beast turned and looked at him. He had thrown the sliotar to distract the animal and had not considered what he would do once achieved. As it turned its eyes on him and snorted, shaking its head, Setanta turned on his heel and cried, “Oh, Danu, not a great plan,” and started to run.
Despite his athleticism and long loping stride, he knew he had no hope of outrunning the boar. He could hear it charging behind him, gaining with each snorted breath. He had no real sense of how he would survive his first hunt until he saw a low-hanging branch and made a dive for it, swinging up into the low branches just as the beast ran under him. The boar swung round and began pawing the ground, its attention once again focused on Lugaid.
From his vantage point, Setanta called, “Quick, up a tree.”
For once, the boy did as he was told. He ran to the nearest tree, but its lowest branch was too high for him to reach. Setanta saw the boar standing maybe fifty paces away from Lugaid, pawing the ground and readying itself for another charge. Lugaid was starting to panic, turning this way and that, searching for an escape, but seeing nothing, his abject fear making him blind to all possibilities.
“Find another tree,” Setanta called, but fear had frozen the boy. The boar charged, and with no other option, Setanta dropped from his branch, picked up a stone, and threw it at the animal. More by luck than judgment, the stone struck the animal on the head, diverting its attention. Setanta could have climbed back into the tree, but he knew the animal would kill Lugaid if given enough time, so he turned and ran, keeping the boar away from the King’s son.
This time it will kill me, he realized as he heard the charging animal closer with each loping stride, and then his breath began to labor. Running fast over a short distance was not the same as running distance with nothing chasing him, set on stomping and goring until there was nothing left for a mother to mourn.
Setanta stopped and turned to face the animal.
He began to laugh.
With his beating heart, heavy breathing, and the boar’s cacophonous noise, he had not heard the hunt arrive. They had surrounded the beast and were guiding it away from him with the points of their spears.
Setanta flopped onto his backside, exhausted from the chase. After a few heartbeats, his laughter turned to sobbing. The sobbing was not that of a weakling but of a man who has run for his life, knowing he was going to die and then, somehow, surviving. It was the sobbing of relief.
“Best get your breath back on an even footing, Hound.”
He looked up to see Fergus sitting on his horse with his arms crossed. “That was nimbly done, boy,” the warrior said with a smirk.
“I am not a boy,” Setanta pouted. “I am the Hound of Chulainn.”
“Whatever else you might be, Hound, you are definitely Lugaid’s savior.”