Time to Pay (19 page)

Five hedges, two post and rail fences, and both the gates later, Gideon brought the horse to a halt at the end of the line, in time to see the
huntsman showering the pack with some kind of biscuit or dried meat from his saddlebags.

The hounds scrabbled eagerly for their reward, a seething mass of hard-muscled brown, yellow and white bodies and waving sterns, until every last morsel was gone and their heads came up, grinning broadly, tongues lolling.

Gideon patted Blackbird's hot neck and looked down at his heaving flank. The horse was breathing deeply, but not excessively so. The fifteen-minute break should easily see him ready to tackle the second run.

‘I'm looking for the guy on the black horse who said he was going to ride quietly at the back of the field,' a voice said, and he turned to find Pippa steering Skylark towards him through the other horses.

Gideon grinned.

‘The black horse had other ideas.'

‘So I noticed. Did he cart you?'

‘Actually, no. But he was going so well, it seemed a shame to stop him. I didn't want to risk him starting bucking again. He jumped like a stag!'

‘He looked smashing,' Pippa agreed. ‘I've already had an offer for him. Someone who saw us together at the meet and asked about him.'

‘Did you accept?'

‘Of course not,' she said with a quick frown. ‘He's yours. And, even if he wasn't, you know what a pig he is normally. He's a real one-person horse. Oh, here's Lloyd . . .'

‘How did you enjoy that?' Lloyd asked, coming up to Gideon.

‘It was brilliant – once this fella settled down.'

‘Good.' Lloyd looked genuinely pleased, and Gideon wondered if he'd misjudged the man. ‘There's a couple of biggish fences in this next line, but nothing you can't handle. Just watch for the ditch on the other side of the long hedge, it gets wider the further right you go. But it's flagged, so just keep between them and you'll be fine. Oh, well, I'd better go and do my little speech. I hope Dan's got my second horse waiting at the next stop; Badger will have had it by then, won't you, old boy?' He tugged on one of the horse's plaits, causing him to shake his head in irritation.

Five minutes later, after Lloyd had repeated the information about the ditch to the assembled riders, the huntsman marshalled the hounds and they all hacked the hundred yards or so to the start of the next line.

This time, when the field set off, Gideon was ready for Blackbird, and foiled a half-hearted attempt to buck by hauling his head up and driving him forward. As the first fence flashed a good foot below the black's belly, Gideon really began to enjoy himself. Pippa ranged up alongside at one point, and they flew a substantial hedge side by side.

‘He's going beautifully,' she called across, and Gideon smiled and nodded.

Moments later they were separated, and Gideon took the next bank and ditch in the company of a woman on a breedy chestnut and a man on a tall, heavily built bay. As they crossed the next field, the bay horse accelerated and
Blackbird instinctively lengthened his stride to keep up. The chestnut fell behind, and a grey took its place.

As they thundered along, three abreast, Gideon could see Lloyd up in front, taking the next fence, a solid-looking post and rail with a ditch on take-off.

The horses either side of him were very close now – unnecessarily so, Gideon thought, as they approached the rails – their stirrups clashing with his. Three strides out, they suddenly surged forward, catching him unawares and gaining almost a length on Blackbird. With a shout of ‘Hup!' the bay and the grey rose smoothly into the air and, way too early, Gideon's horse rose with them.

They were in flight for an eternity. It didn't seem to Gideon that Blackbird had a hope of clearing the rails from where he'd taken off, but somehow he did it. He pecked heavily on landing, his muzzle somewhere down by his front hooves, and Gideon fell forward onto his neck, but the next moment they were up and away again.

Gideon regained his seat, gathered up his reins and took a pull.

The man on the grey looked back and called airily, ‘Sorry, mate.'

Gideon didn't trust himself to answer.

Across another field, down a muddy lane through a copse, and through a remote yard between two barns and a tractor shed, Blackbird powered on. Steadying to take the turn through a narrow gateway into a field, Gideon found that there were only
three or four horses between himself and Lloyd, in front.

The pace picked up once more and the next jump loomed: a long, clipped hedge with a flag at either end. Outside the flags the brush was a good eighteen inches higher, and to the right the ground dropped away, looking damp and reedy. This, then, was the hedge Lloyd had warned him about. Gideon started to ease Blackbird towards the left, with the intention of taking the centre line, as the horses in front were doing, but suddenly the big bay was there again, blocking his intended move and bearing him steadily to the right.

Gideon looked ahead. The fence was no more than sixty yards away and he was being pushed inexorably towards the right-hand flag. At this rate, it wasn't so much a case of having to jump it at the widest end – he seemed more likely to miss the flagged area altogether.

‘Hey, move over, mate,' he shouted, wondering if the bay was losing its nerve and trying to run out.

Its rider totally ignored him. The distance to the hedge was halved now and rapidly closing.

‘Oi! Move over, damn you!' Gideon yelled furiously, glancing across.

This time he recognised the bay's rider as the one who'd bawled him out at the meet, and he was grinning.

AT THE SPEED
they were travelling, and with the right-hand boundary of the field now only a few yards away, Gideon had no hope of turning or stopping in the available space, even if he could have prevailed upon Blackbird to do so. The horse, however, was galloping full pelt, clearly a little annoyed at the encroaching behaviour of the bay, and completely unaware of the potential hazard ahead.

Three strides . . . two . . . one . . . They were outside the flag, where the tops of the untrimmed blackthorn shoots reached six or seven feet high and the ground was poached and boggy. Undeterred, Blackbird lowered his head, bunched his quarters and launched skyward. Gideon, throwing his weight forward to give the horse all the help he could, felt the whippy stems rattle against his boots as they brushed harmlessly through the top foot or so and, from this elevated position, the full extent of the danger became all too apparent.

The ditch that ran along the far side of the hedge was more in the nature of a small stream and, at the point that Blackbird had been forced to jump it, widened considerably, with a hoof-pitted muddy slope forming the far bank. The black horse reached forward with outstretched hooves, but gravity won out, and his forefeet landed on the treacherous incline and slid backward into the stream. His head ducked sideways, he hit the bank with his shoulder and the momentum carried his hindquarters over, propelling Gideon onward to land clear, several feet away, with a thud that rattled his teeth and expelled every last ounce of breath from his body.

He rolled twice and sat up, his chest a mass of pain as he fought to get air back into his deflated lungs. Through watering eyes he could see the black horse, half in the muddy stream, struggling unsuccessfully to regain his feet, and a split second later four or five more horses came flying over the clipped hedge, to land with varying degrees of finesse and gallop on. Another group followed and suddenly it seemed that Gideon's plight had been noticed, as two or three riders peeled off and came cantering back.

Pulling up on a snorting, foam-spewing chestnut, just yards from Gideon, one woman called, ‘Are you OK?'

Gideon nodded. Breathing was now a distinct possibility in the not too distant future, but speech was still some way off. He waved an arm towards the stream and the stricken Blackbird.

‘It's all right. They're looking after your horse,' she said, speaking over her shoulder as the chestnut
strove to follow the latest wave of horses that passed. ‘Do you need a doctor?'

Gideon shook his head, inhaled a painful quarter-lungful and wheezed, ‘Just winded.'

‘Well, if you're sure . . .?'The woman was quite obviously losing her battle with the chestnut and, when Gideon nodded again, the pair of them took off, thoughtfully showering him with mud and turf.

His first attempt to climb to his feet led to him sitting back down with a bump, and the realisation that one side of his body was completely soaked in mud and water. On his second attempt he made it to a crouch, where he paused, trying for more breath, frustrated at not being able to go to his horse.

From that position he could see that three riders had stopped to help Blackbird, one holding the horses, while the other two were endeavouring to push and pull the black horse to a position where he could get his legs under him, and stand.

‘Gideon! Are you OK? I saw what happened.'

Pippa, this time. She jumped off Skylark and squelched towards him.

‘Will be,' he said. ‘What about Blackbird? Can you see?'

‘I think they're trying to get him down into the bottom of the stream where it's more gravelly. Here, do you want some help?' she offered, holding out a gloved hand.

‘Thanks.'

As Gideon made it to his feet with Pippa's aid, he saw Blackbird give a huge lurch and scramble up the slippery bank to safety. Once there he shook himself vigorously, showering his rescuers
with dirty water, and then gave vent to a shrill neigh, his body shaking with the effort.

Slipping and sliding on the uneven ground, Gideon went over to the horse. One man was holding him while the other tried to look him over, but Blackbird, typically robust and headstrong, had other ideas, and began to fidget and circle, eager to rejoin the chase.

‘As far as I can see, he's OK,' the man said. ‘He certainly doesn't seem any the worse for wear.'

‘Thanks. You did a brilliant job,' Gideon said. ‘I'd never have managed on my own.'

‘No problem,' the man replied. ‘But – next time – I should stick to the course, if I were you. The flags are there for a reason, you know.'

‘Yeah. Tell the other guy! He swerved into me.'

‘Oh, bad luck! These things happen.'

‘Yeah, well, thanks again. I'll be fine now, if you want to catch up with the others.'

They quite patently did, and after enquiring once more if he was quite sure it was OK, they mounted and rode off in the direction the rest of the field had taken.

Quieting Blackbird, who had responded to the disappearance of the other horses by whirling round him in tight circles, Gideon tried to wipe his saddle clean with the sleeve of his jacket. Miraculously, both stirrups were still intact, and even more miraculously, so were his reins. Blackbird himself seemed remarkably untroubled, both physically and mentally, by his crashing fall. Gideon didn't see why he shouldn't remount, and said so.

‘Are you sure?' Pippa looked doubtful. ‘I don't mind walking back with you, if you'd rather.'

‘No, I'll be fine, and I expect it'd be better for Blackbird to keep moving, too. If he's as wet as I am, he'll be getting cold.'

In spite of his reassuring words, getting back into the saddle wasn't the most comfortable experience, but once there, things began to settle down. The saddle was wet and slippery, but felt unbroken, and the laced leather reins provided good grip for his fingers. Blackbird's sodden ears looked unusually long and narrow, and there was a tuft of muddy grass caught in the headpiece of his bridle, but he felt strong and sound beneath Gideon, and strode out eagerly beside Skylark.

‘Some guy swerved into you . . .?'

‘Yeah, in a manner of speaking,' Gideon said sourly, leaning forward to remove the grass.

‘And he didn't stop?'

‘No, and if he's got any sense, he won't stop until he's in the next county. You remember the rude man at the meet?'

‘It wasn't him?' Pippa swivelled in her saddle to look at Gideon. ‘Are you saying he rode you off course intentionally?'

‘I'm damn sure of it!'

‘Oh, for heavensakes! I mean it's one thing to be arsey about a bit of jostling but this was downright dangerous! Are you really sure? Couldn't he have just lost control?'

‘Well, if he had, he was looking pretty happy about it!' Gideon told Pippa exactly what had happened.

When he'd finished she said decisively, ‘You must tell Lloyd.'

‘Later, maybe. But to be honest, what can he do? It's only my word against the other guy's.'

It was the best part of another mile to the end of the second line, and when Gideon and Pippa arrived huntsmen, hounds and field had already moved on. Three riders remained, one of whom was Penny, the lady with the white armband, whose job it was to show the less fit participants the short cut to the start of the last line.

She waved a hand as the two of them rode up.

‘Hello Pippa. Everything OK? I heard there was a nasty fall. Oh . . .' Her eyes twinkled as she took in Gideon's muddied state. ‘Looks like you found a soft place to land, anyway!'

‘Could have been worse,' he agreed. ‘Thanks for waiting.'

‘No problem. Right, if you'd like to follow me, I'll take you on to the next halt. And then I can head you in the right direction to get back to the farmhouse, unless of course you want to hunt on.'

‘I might do,' Gideon said. ‘He seems OK.'

‘And it would be good to finish on a high note, wouldn't it? See how you go then.'

After hacking quietly along the edge of some plough and down a muddy lane, they emerged into a high, open field with views over the surrounding countryside. Here they sat and waited until the pricking of the horses' ears alerted them to the approach of the hunt.