The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [209]
The sale of cities and the mortgage of provinces had paid for the splendour of Sigismond of the Tyrol’s kennels and stables. Other princes kept dogs by the thousand, uniform in size and performance, and trained in sensitive packs. Sigismond’s hounds were bred for their voices.
John had heard of hound music before, but had never experienced it. If a man had enough wealth (or enough credit), he might scour the world for apt dogs of every shape: healthy fleet dogs with one thing in common – the disparity in the sound that they made. From these, he would choose and blend his perfect pack. Then, on the day of the hunt, the lord would dispatch them to their task and, taking his place of advantage, would sit in the saddle and listen, and watch.
The prey fell to music. Notes on the staves, the hounds bayed, each voice proclaiming its name and its place, signalling the course of the chase and ending in the soaring climax, the paean of the kill.
Yesterday, Sigismond had conducted such a hunt.
It had begun late in the day. They had shot in the morning, and had been confined ever since by falling snow. By the time the sky cleared, the sun was low in the west and the mountain-shadows were filling the valleys. Then word came that the kennel-master had traced a young boar close at hand. Sigismond hailed the pack and set off.
There being an order of rank to be observed, the three minor guests of the Duke of the Tyrol had ridden among the last of the party, and were still traversing the slopes when the dogs were released. Distantly, the horns produced their bronchial stutters; the barks and yelps died away; the horns spoke again. Then, remotely, a texture of sound made itself felt.
It was not, at first, at all like the voices of hounds. Muted by space and by the swiftness with which it was travelling, it seemed to lie low and mutter, like a storm building at sea. Then it resembled more the sound a water-wall makes when it meets resistance: the snap of splintering wood, the hollow thud of breached canvas, the clangour of bells, the shrill chime of stressed rigging. Then it swelled. Then it lifted its voice, and its voice was an organ.
Nicholas stopped.
The sun still dwelled on the peaks, but there were stars in the sky. Intent on scaling the hill, le Grant did not at first notice: it was the priest who called him back. The few riders behind them began to pass. John said, ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ said Father Moriz. ‘It’s going to be dark very soon: perhaps we should wait for the torches. See, someone is climbing to bring them.’ The sun had left his shoulders already; his face blazed like a nugget inside his good fur-lined cowl. Beyond the side of the hill, the ground rolled and dipped to the valley where points of light, paraphrased between mounds, showed where clusters of riders had gathered. A horn, flattened by distance, began to create valances of imperious sound. The organ stopped.
‘A kill,’ John le Grant said. The hunt-servant ran up, and he leaned down and took one of the torches. It revealed the priest’s bulbous face, its eyebrows wary. They both looked at Nicholas.
Nicholas said, ‘Well, let’s get on.’ His skin was damp. It reminded le Grant of Trebizond. It reminded him, even, of something he did not want to remember.
Le Grant said, ‘Are you having marsh-fever? In the Alps?’
‘If I want to. Would it be a record?’ said Nicholas.
His voice sounded almost right: like that of a sober man under some slight medication. Father Moriz arrested his reins. Ever since Brixen, the priest’s tongue had been sharp. He said, ‘What were you afraid of? It is only a hog.’
‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. Then he said, ‘Yes, I do. Something that happened in Scotland. It’s over. Let’s go.’ And he pressed his horse forward again.
The others followed. The last of the light had now gone, and ahead the sky was deepening to night. The snow was grey and the riders scattered over it black. As the three of them rode, the curve of the hill began to obliterate the lights