Cruelty Read online

  But poaching was a hazardous occupation in the Kingdom. All the land, all the forests and the streams, were owned either by the King himself or by one of the great Dukes, and although the footpaths on their estates were open to the public for strolling quietly, poaching on these lands was strictly forbidden. Anyone who strayed off the designated footpaths did so at his peril. The undergrowth was strewn with cunningly concealed man-traps whose iron jaws could bite a man’s leg to the bone if he stepped on the plate that released the spring. And there the poor captive would remain, pinned to the ground, until a patrolling keeper found him the next day.

  In the eyes of the King and the Dukes, poaching was a greater crime than murder. The sentence for murder was simply death by hanging, but the sentence for poaching was far more unpleasant. A convicted poacher would first be weighed on a special balance. Then two leaden anklets would be constructed whose weight had been most carefully calculated by the Royal Mathematician. These anklets would be fastened around the victim’s ankles and his hands tied behind his back before he was lowered into the great Drowning Tub that was built of stone and stood permanently in the Market Square of the capital. The man’s height had also been measured beforehand by the Mathematician, and a quantity of water had either been added to or taken out of the Tub so that when the man stood on tiptoe on the bottom, the top of his head was just below the surface of the water. The result of all this was that the victim spent many hours, sometimes days, being pulled down by the weight of the anklets, then jumping up again for a quick breath of air when his feet touched the bottom. Finally he sank altogether from exhaustion. The uncomfortable nature of this punishment did much to discourage the population from breaking the law of the land. The hunting of game was the prerogative only of the Royal Family and the Dukes.

  But Hengist was not to be intimidated. He had such faith in his powers of stealth that he harboured no fears of the dreaded Drowning Tub. His parents were, of course, frightened out of their skins. Every evening when he went out, and every dawn when he returned with a juicy partridge or a leveret under his coat, they trembled for their son, and indeed for themselves. But hunger is a powerful persuader and the spoils were always accepted and roasted and devoured with relish.

  ‘You are being careful, son, are you not?’ the mother would say, as she munched upon the tender breast of a woodcock.

  ‘I is always careful, ma,’ Hengist would answer. ‘That little ole King and them fancy Dooks they ain’t never goin’ to lay a finger on me.’

  Hengist soon became so confident in his powers of poaching that he scorned the cover of darkness and took to going out in full daylight, which was something that only the bravest or the most foolhardy would do. And then one day, on a fine morning in springtime, he decided to have a go at the most protected area in the entire Kingdom, that part of the Royal Forest which lies immediately beneath the walls of the Castle itself, where the King lived. Here the game was more plentiful than anywhere else, but the dangers were tremendous. Hengist, as he crept soft and silent into the Royal Forest, was relishing this danger.

  And now he was standing immobile in the shadow of a mighty beech, watching a young roebuck grazing not five paces away and waiting for the moment to pounce. Out of the edge of one eye he could see the south wall of the Royal Castle itself and somewhere in the distance he could hear bugles blowing. They were probably changing the guard at the gates, he told himself. Then suddenly, out of that same eye, he caught sight of a figure among the trees, not forty paces distant. Slowly, he turned his head to examine this person more carefully and, lo and behold, he saw immediately that it was none other than the young Princess, the only child of the King and the jewel in his crown. She was a young damsel of breathtaking beauty, with skin as pure and smooth as a silken glove, and she was but seventeen years old. Here she was then, apparently idling away the morning picking bluebells in the wood. Hengist’s heart gave a jump when he saw her and all the old passions came flooding back once again. For a mad moment or two, he considered surprising the damsel by kneeling before her with whispered words of love and adoration, but he knew only too well what would happen then. She would take one look at his terrible ugliness and run away screaming, and he would be caught and put to death. It also occurred to him that he might creep upon her stealthily, coming up behind her unseen then clapping a hand over her mouth and having his way with her by force. But he quickly pushed this foul notion out of his mind, for he abhorred violence of any kind.

  What happened next came very suddenly. There was a fanfare of hunting horns nearby and Hengist turned and saw a massive wild boar, the largest he had ever seen, come charging through the trees, and behind it, some fifty paces back, was riding the King himself and a group of noblemen, all galloping full-tilt after the boar with lances drawn. The Princess was right in the path of the running boar and the boar was in no mood to swerve around her. Just the opposite. An angry hunted boar will attack any human who stands in its line of flight. Worse still, it will often swing aside and attack an innocent bystander who might happen to be near. And now the boar had spotted the Princess, and it was making straight for her. Hengist saw the maiden drop her bunch of bluebells and run. Then she seemed to realize the futility of this, and she stopped and pressed herself against the trunk of a giant oak, and there she stood, helpless, with arms outspread as though for crucifixion, waiting for the madly rushing beast to reach her. Hengist saw the boar, the size of a small bull, charging forwards with head down, the two sharp, glistening tusks pointing straight at the victim.

  He took off like an arrow. He flew over the ground with his feet hardly touching the earth, and when he realized that the boar was going to reach the Princess before him, he made a last, despairing dive through the air and reached far out with his hands and just managed to grab hold of the boar’s tusks when they were within a fraction of the maiden’s midriff. Both Hengist and the boar went tumbling over in a heap, but the youth held on to the tusks, and when he leaped to his feet again, the boar came with him, lifted on high by the strongest pair of arms in the Kingdom. Hengist gave a sudden twist with his hands and even the King, some thirty paces distant, heard the boar’s cervical spine snap in two. Hengist then swung the massive beast back and forth a couple of times before sending it sailing over his head as easily as if it had been a stick of firewood.

  The King reached them first, galloping like mad and reining in his frothing horse right beside his daughter. He was followed by half a dozen noblemen, who all pulled up behind the King. The King leaped from his charger crying out, ‘My darling! My little child! Are you all right?’ He had witnessed the whole of the four-second drama, and in truth, when he had seen the boar charging straight for his daughter, he thought she was finished. And then he had seen this extraordinary human arrow leaping and flying between the trees and flinging himself upon the terrible boar just in the nick of time. The King was white in the face as he took the sobbing Princess in his arms to console her. Hengist stood awkwardly by, not quite knowing what to do with his hands or his feet or anything else.

  At last the King turned to look at Hengist. For a moment or two, the shock of seeing such a spectacularly ugly youth rendered him speechless. But he kept on looking, and as he looked, he found himself liking more and more what he saw. A man is seldom repelled by the malformed features of another man. Quite the reverse. Men, as a whole, take less kindly to other men who are exceptionally good-looking. Women are often the same with other women. Yet, as we all know, good looks do have a profound influence upon the opposite sex. This is a fact of life, but as the wise King knew, it caused much disillusionment later on. Yes, the King was telling himself, as he continued to stare at this curious fellow who stood before him, how different he is from the sloppy, effeminate, lecherous young courtiers who surround me at the Castle! This is a real man! He is brave and swift and fearless, and to hell with his looks! It was at this point that a sly plot began to hatch in the King’s devious mind.

  In his rich royal v