Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [122]
It must have taken a while for that to sink in. The lantern of the TARDIS was flashing, and those assembled soon realised that the ape Scarlette had slain wasn’t the only one to be called. The lodestone was still attracting the creatures. There was some unease then, as the assorted ritualists began to notice that there were other shapes moving in the deeper regions of the forest. But once again it was the spider-faced Scotsman, a Mason of the warrior tradition even though from his bulk it’s unlikely he’d ever seen actual warfare, who took the initiative. With what the archive calls ‘a grand cry of the Craft’, he leapt forward into the trees and let fly his spear from his hand.
The story has it that the spear sailed through the branches of a nearby tree, then pierced the skull of another ape which had been waiting in ambush in the branches. As the author of the story was also a Mason, however, this is almost certainly just a way of boasting about the hunting prowess of his own tradition. The important thing was, Scarlette had made her point. The apes had suddenly become prey.
Scarlette’s strength always lay in the power of ceremony, and there was no better example than the great November hunt. She’d devised this particular ‘spell’ quite carefully, and it didn’t take the guests long to get into the spirit of the thing. Unsurprisingly, those who came from aristocratic traditions set about the hunt immediately. Within hours of the first kill they’d begun to devise rules of conduct for the sport, and within days they were telling their servants to have their hunting pinks brought over from Europe. Other lodges were more reluctant, and spent the first day or two debating the matter in the Church before realising that if the aristocrats were the only ones to slay the apes, then they might gain a kind of advantage. After all, if they bloodied themselves in the entrails of elemental monsters, who knew what strengths they could gain?
Every day, at noon, Scarlette would stand before the TARDIS and speak the same (sadly never-recorded) word. Every day, more apes would come to fill the forest. By November 12, every lodge represented on the island was taking part in the wedding-revels, either actively hunting the apes or simply observing events. In the first four days, there weren’t even any casualties on the human side. The apes would generally be confused and off-balance on their arrival in the world, and faced with armed opposition – the first guns were introduced on November 13 – few managed to even get close to the hunters before being slaughtered. (As an incidental detail, it became an immediate custom of the hunt to tie a red ribbon around one’s weapon, whether that weapon was a spear or a firearm.) While the hunt was in session the islanders would retreat inside their homes, although no ape was ever seen venturing into the town. By sunset the hunt would have mopped up every surviving animal, leaving the forest clear for the next day’s ‘celebrations’.
It was a brilliant piece of psychology, but then, Scarlette was an exceptional ritualist. She’d given the guests exactly what they wanted: not just a kind of sport, but a sport which every faction could turn to its own ends. The blood and spoor of the apes was religiously collected by the hunters, for use in their own ritualistic activities. Lodges competed to see who could capture the most grey-furred heads, thus satisfying their constant need to outdo each other. Even guests like Mrs Gallacher could become involved in the festival atmosphere which soon developed. The natives too found the hunt to be to their advantage, as a small but lucrative trade began in suitably exotic hunting apparel and livery. Even when there was finally a fatality – one of the Maroons, cornered by an ape before his associates could come to his aid – the survivors simply became