The column of riders passed through the gate in the hunting lodgeās palisade wall, entering the forest beyond, and to Baron Erling Fayle, the world around him completely changed.
It changed the way it always did when the last walls of civilization fell behind, and the wild places took their place. The grey morning light, already thin enough to feel like a permanent dusk, dimmed further as the canopy of western hemlock and red cedar closed overhead like a templeās vaulted ceiling. Here and there, a few of the huntsmen carried torches to push back the gloom in the earliest hours of the morning as they ventured into the dense forest of the Lothianās hunting preserve.
Suddenly, the sounds of the lodge, the clatter of servants clearing tables, the baying of hounds still waiting their turn to be released, the jingle of harnesses, and the voices of men, all of it grew muffled and distant, swallowed by a forest that had no interest in the affairs of lords and their hunts.
For a moment, Erling closed his eyes, trusting his horse to keep pace with the other riders while he breathed in deeply and felt the tension in his shoulders ease for the first time since arriving in Lothian City.
The air tasted of wet cedar bark and cold earth and the faintest tang of decomposing needles. It didnāt quite match up with the rolling grasslands and sparse forests of home, but it was still pure and wild. Or at least closer to the wild than the stuffy great hall of the Lothian hunting lodge, filled with young noblemen who must have bathed in expensive perfumes before riding out for a āhuntā that was more about appearances and sport than feeding the household.
When Erling hunted, he preferred to do it in the company of two or three trusted huntsmen who werenāt afraid to dip themselves in dung and hide in the tall grasses if that was what it took to secure their quarry.
Baron Fayle didnāt host feasts for visiting noblemen often; almost no one ever visited his lonely corner of Lothian March. More often than not, if he hosted anyone, it was his own knights, the few times a year he convened the Fayle Court.
For Erling, the hunt was never about the spectacle of having a trophy beast for the high table, even though the tradition was common across all of Gaal. Rather, Erling hunted anything that could fill a stew pot with meat for his family and his household staff.
Rabbit, grouse, duck... It didnāt matter to him, though he considered himself fortunate if he found a wild turkey whose feathers could be sold for a silver penny each to the makers of fashionable ladiesā hats in Keating.
Fayle Barony had known too many lean years in the decades since his father died during the War of Inches. Too many people had moved away rather than submit to his motherās regency, and men like Baron Valeri Leufroy had been all too willing to hire the retainers and craftsmen who wanted to move to greener pastures.
Erling didnāt blame his people for leaving. It was only natural for a man to do what was best for himself and his family. Erling himself was much the same. Heād done everything he could to take on responsibilities as soon as he was ready for them, and for the young baron, that had started with making the rolling grasslands and rocky foothills of his domain every bit as much his home as the stone fortress of Fayle Keep.
The forest he found himself in now was very different from the scattered stands of trees that clung to the banks of rivers and streams at home. The forest floor was carpeted in sword ferns, with dark green fronds rising to the height of his horseās belly, glistening with moisture that almost sparkled in the faint morning light.
Above the ferns, the trunks of the hemlocks rose like columns of grey-brown stone, their bark furrowed and rough, while the cedars stood apart from them with their shaggy bark in strips of reddish-brown that peeled away like old parchment.
Combined with the cold morning mist, it made it impossible to see more than a hundred paces away in any direction. Erling imagined that, if the place had been truly wild, it would have been very easy for inexperienced hunters like the young squires from Rundel, Saliou and LeGleau to become lost in the first hour of the hunt.
The column of mounted hunters stretched ahead of him in a loose procession, the riders moving at a walk along a trail that had been maintained by the Lothian hunting lodgeās staff for generations with clear markers to prevent people from losing their way. At its head, Owain rode beside Sir Gilander and Sir Garrik Maeril, the three of them forming a tight cluster that the rest of the column trailed behind like a tail following a serpent.
From where Erling rode, toward the rear of the column with Wes Iriso on his right and Sir Ives and Sir Peredur behind them, he could observe the whole procession without being observed in return. It was a position heād chosen deliberately, and it was the same position he occupied at court, in the great hall of Lothian Manor, and in every other gathering of the Marchās lords where his small stature, youthful face, and impoverished barony conspired to render him all but invisible.
Most men would have resented that invisibility. Erling, however, had learned to use it.
Ahead of him, Reynold Aleese rode alone, his broad shoulders and heavy frame making him look like a bear that had somehow learned to ride a horse. The comparison had occurred to Erling before, though heād never been foolish enough to say it aloud. Reynold was the sort of man who earned respect by just existing in a space where the physical might that he radiated intimidated lesser men.
Further ahead, Tulori Leufroy rode with his back straight and his head turning at every new sound, cataloguing the forest with the wide-eyed attention of a young man experiencing something for the first time. Serge Otker rode beside him, though saying he was ābesideā the other man was generous.
Sergeās horse had drifted to the center of the trail, and the heir to the Marchās wealthiest barony seemed more concerned with staying in his saddle than anything happening in the forest around him. Under his cloak, the young lord still clutched at a wineskin, and from the way he swayed out of sync with the motions of his horse, it was clear that he hadnāt restrained himself while drinking during breakfast.
The three young squires, Riwall, Juhel, and Breok, rode in a tight cluster between the barons and the lower-ranked knights, looking simultaneously excited and terrified by the prospect of their first proper lordās hunt. The eldest of them couldnāt have been more than fifteen, and Erling felt a pang of something that wasnāt quite sympathy and wasnāt quite envy when he looked at them.
At fifteen, heād already been Baron Fayle for nearly two years. By the time heād attended one of Bors Lothianās hunts, heād been expected to conduct himself like a lord who ruled over a domain of half a dozen villages and his own small town.
The pressure heād felt back then had been tremendous, and only Bors Lothianās words of advice had kept him from making a fool of himself.
"Your mother says that there isnāt a better archer to be found in all of Fayle," Bors had praised as he led the column out of the Lothian hunting lodge. "If our quarry breaks and runs, Iāll be counting on you to pin it down."
"Me, my lord?" Erling responded in shock as he looked at the other huntsmen at the head of the column. "But..."
"But nothing," Bors said, clapping the young baron on the shoulder. "A man my age only has so many hours of hunting left in his bones before the saddle grows hard and the light too dim to continue the chase. Besides, Iād rather spend my evening in a warm bed with Isla than struggling through the bush after a wounded boar."
"If I canāt take the boar, then it falls to my barons to ensure it doesnāt escape," Bors explained. "No knight or commoner can kill the quarry of a Marquis. But you can, Baron Fayle," he said. "And with that bow of yours, you can stop it in its tracks before it escapes into the underbrush. So do all of us old men a favor. Keep your eyes sharp and make sure we get home to our wives in time to enjoy their company tonight," he said with a belly-shaking chuckle and a slight wink.
In the end, thereād been no need for Erling to loose an arrow. Marquis Bors aim with his spear was sure and true, and when the boar charged him, the Marquis didnāt falter in the slightest.
But Erling had taken the lesson to heart. Sometimes, there were things that he could do that others couldnāt. As a vassal, he should strive to be the sort of man that Bors could rely on for things the other barons couldnāt do, and Erling had spent the past decade finding ways to do just that.
Now that he rode out of the hunting lodge, following behind Owain Lothian, however, he wondered if the new Marquis would see the same kind of value in Erling that his father once had... Or if he would have to begin his struggle for recognition all over again.