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Diana has been leading a hunting party on a wild chase by
dragging a dead fox behind Roland. The huntsmen have found
her out and a rowdy faction of the group is giving ravenous
pursuit. She is trying desperately to lose them....
"I don't know how well she knows the country," said the
ringleader, "but the road takes a hairpin turn ahead at the
river. If she sticks to the road, we can head her off by
cutting across the field here. Lionel, Arthur - follow her.
Henry, stay here and tell the others where we've gone. The
rest of us will take to the field."
I doubt they know the country well, thought Diana. The
road takes a hairpin turn ahead at the river. I've got enough
of a lead that after I round it I can take to the field and
double back home. "Come on, Roland! Come on! Just a little
farther and you can rest."
On the inside of the hairpin was a long, wooded area. Once
she took the bend she would be out of their sight until they
rounded it themselves. She knew that by then she had to be
off the road.
Her route round the redundant curve took her long enough
to allow the other huntsmen to formulate a plan to cover
all contingencies. Diana saw only two horsemen on her tail
and felt assured that she was outdistancing the bulk of the
party. Ahead of her, she could see the wall of the field
where safety lay. She was almost there when two scarlet
horsemen emerged from some trees a little farther on and
stood ominously on the road.
Diana drew rein and turned about. Her two active pursuers
had just rounded the bend. Her plan ruined, she took Roland
down into the stream. Three more hunters appeared from the
woods on the opposite bank.
Diana regained the road and took the only quarter left
- over the wall into the field. The seven men pursued,
fanning out to her right. Another of the ubiquitous stone
walls hemmed her in on the left.
With a cry of anguish, she drew rein again. The route
ahead of her was blocked by the rest of the party.
Diana was surrounded as a semicircle of horsemen slowly
closed in on her, pinning her against the wall. They leered
at her wickedly, finding this sport ever so much more
satisfying than fox hunting. Diana realized with mounting
dread that she had never seen any of them in her life.
Where's the Duke? she wondered. Who are these people?
"What now?" asked one hunter of the mastermind behind
the pursuit.
"We'll give her a good scare - something worthy of the
chase she's brought us on."
Diana took a run at an opening in their rank. They
promptly closed it and took great pleasure in providing
other openings that she tried with equal futility.
"Enough dawdling," the ringleader called out when she
had given up. "Who's first?"
"It's kind of open here," someone replied. "Let's take
her back in those woods there."
Diana's heart seemed to occupy her whole thorax and
pounded violently against her rib cage. Their location was
remote from any settlement and source of help. Had she any
idea when she began this venture that the Duke kept such
company, she would have been more cautious about undertaking
it.
"Let's draw straws," suggested one.
"We'd better catch her first," said the ringleader, moving
in from the perimeter.
"Stay away!" cried Diana, lashing at him with her reins.
"Ho ho-o-o!" he replied to the accompaniment of sinister
laughter from his colleagues. "You vixen. We've never
caught such a wild fox."
He grabbed her reins. Terrified, Diana kicked at him and
beat him with her fist.
"You little... That hurt!" He seized her arm savagely.
"Please let me go," Diana pleaded, crying pitifully. She
so moved some of the onlookers that they were inclined to
call off their sport, believing the whole thing had been
carried too far. Most of them would have been satisfied to
simply find out who she was and why she had led them so far
afield.
The ringleader discerned a loss of sympathy from his
cohorts and slackened his grip. Diana broke free, moved to
the perimeter of the group, and made a desperate charge at
the wall.
She had never tried to clear such a high barrier.
Success would guarantee her escape as none of the hunters
was horseman enough to duplicate the feat. And none of
their horses could be as motivated; Roland drew energy from
Diana's terror.
They were airborne for a long moment. Several in the
group inwardly wished her well, delighting in her pending
escape. It seemed certain as Roland's hind feet cleared the
stone barrier.
What followed was frightening enough for the men
watching, Diana's own experience is troubling to contemplate.
They heard her shriek as Roland pitched forward into a
complete somersault, flinging her from his back.
Hardly believing what they had brought about, the hunters
advanced to the wall to look over. The territory beyond was
not a field but an expanse of rough ground leading down into
a wooded dell. Roland was getting to his feet, apparently
unharmed by his gymnastics. He took a few steps and nuzzled
inquisitively at the inert form of his mistress.
Diana lay on her back, her right arm above her head, the
other thrown out from her side - looking like a broken doll
discarded. Stupefied, the hunters watched for some movement.
Roland looked up at them and then back at her, seemingly lost
in a world in which Diana's light had gone out.
Suddenly one of the hunters dismounted, and then they all
did. They scrambled over the wall and hurried down the slope
to their late quarry.
She looked perversely peaceful. It crossed the minds of
several of the party that they had done in an especially
comely member of their species.
As they stood around Diana, not knowing what to do, a
cherry red rivulet crept out from her hairline, crossed her
eyebrow, and ran down her nose, where it dripped onto the
ground. Another traversed her cheek to the corner of her
mouth where her parted lips held uncertain communion with
the atmosphere.
One man knelt beside her and carefully felt for a wound.
When he lifted his hand from her hair, the palm was covered
with blood. It had been pooling on her temple.
Another man bent over her, his ear close to her nostrils.
"Is she breathing?"
"I don't know."
"We've got to get her to help."
"What can we do?"
"Can we stop the bleeding?" One of them tried applying a
handkerchief which quickly became completely reddened.
Panic was seizing the group. The blood supply to the scalp
is so plentiful that it can bleed with a profusion out of
proportion to the severity of the wound. To these uninformed
men, the extent of the flow of blood indicated at least a
fractured skull and brain damage.
Stragglers in the hunting party were just arriving on the
scene. The Duke's nephew had followed out of a humanitarian
concern for the unknown woman who had replaced the fox. He
rode up to the wall and quickly discerned her fate.
Free of the guilt burdening the others, Spencer approached
the matter with a cooler head. At her side, he knelt and
studied the bloodied visage.
"I know this girl," he said quietly, as he applied a fresh
handkerchief. "What did you do to her?" he asked, anger
rising in his voice.
"We didn't do anything," someone blubbered. "We weren't
going to hurt her. She got scared over nothing and tried to
jump the wall."
Spencer put his face to her nostrils.
"Is she breathing?"
"I can't tell for sure. I think so."
He placed two fingers on her wrist. "She has a weak
pulse.... We've got to get her home. We'll need a wagon.
Someone go to a farm and see if you can get one."
Three men hurried off, their fight or flight mechanisms
craving an outlet.
"Someone else ride back to the house," said Spencer.
"Have the doctor waiting."
Two more fled the scene.
"Let's get her over the wall. Someone hold the
handkerchief here."
Carefully, carefully - as though here were the only
remaining woman in creation and the sole hope for the
future of the race - Spencer lifted Diana from the ground
and carried her up the fateful slope. Supportive hands
were everywhere, eager to help, and she floated over the
wall to a resting place beneath an ancient oak. Some of
the men shed their jackets and they pillowed her lavishly.
Top
Orchard Gate Books
Diana's home village
Story links:
The next day
A few months earlier
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