The Ballad of John Clare by Hugh Lupton

ground level. The other three men squatted on their hunkers and waited. In the silver-shadowed wood the net, as it was drawn tight, seemed to disappear from sight.
    When all was ready, without a word or sign, the men followed King Boswell along the wood’s edge. Suddenly he lifted his fingers to his mouth and whistled. They turned and angled into the wood, running through the trees. They fanned out, with no caution now, crackling leaves and twigs beneath their feet. The soft wind, blowing at their backs, carried their scent forwards. There were perhaps a hundred paces between King Boswell and Ismael, the other men ran between.
    In a clearing in the wood a little herd of deer were grazing. Long before any of the Boswell crew came close they’d lifted their heads and sturted away, leaping over bushes and between trees. The men quickened their pace. King Boswell and Ismael at either end closed the fan inwards so that the animals were driven towards the stretched net. The frighted deer bounded before them.
    Then the moment came. Some of the herd, sensing danger, swerved to the left or right. But two were caught. A stag and a doe. Their forelegs were tangled in the twine, they were kicking and struggling. Wisdom Boswell put his arms around the shoulders of the doe and dragged her back, the net was pulled from her kicking legs. King Boswell studied her, he reached forwards and with his big, scarred hands he tenderly felt her swollen belly and swelling teats.
    “Cambri.” He whispered.
    Wisdom opened his arms and she bounded away into the shadows.
    King Boswell nodded to the stag, whose antlers were now entwined. The terrified beast was tearing the net and tangling himself more and more tightly in his trap, like a bluebottle struggling in a spider’s web:
    “Chin his curlo.”
    Ismael pulled a long knife from his belt. Two men seized the flailing antlers and drew back the head. With a swift, deft movement of his arm he drew the blade across the animal’s throat. With a shudder it gave up its life. The dark blood spurted and the body staggered and folded onto the forest floor, the clean red slit in its throat like a gaping grin.
    Following their old, familiar routines the men unfastened and rolled up the net. Ismael slipped it back into its bag. They tied the fore and hind hooves of the stag together and pushed a pole between the legs. Two men, one at the front, one at the back, lifted the pole onto their shoulders. They hurried through the wood to the high estate wall. They clambered over. They heaved the stag up and rolled it over and down on the other side. They crossed the road. There was a knot of hawthorn bushes on the far side. In the middle of it there was a little leafy clearing. They hung the stag from a branch by its hind-hooves, its antlers resting gently on the ground, and butchered it. They skinned it and cleaned it and cut the joints of meat. King Boswell took one of the steaming kidneys and popped it into his mouth, he chewed and swallowed. He smiled and gave the other to Ismael. They divided the joints between them, dropping the rich flesh into leather bags. One of them rolled up the hide and slung it onto his back. They flung the bones and the steaming, quivering entrails into a bramble thicket. Ismael winked at Wisdom:
    “Mr Reynolds can have the cocalor and vennor.”
    By the time the first light of dawn had broken the sky all the Boswell Crew were safe home to Langdyke Bush and sleeping fast. The women were stoking the fires and cutting the meat for stew, those joints that hadn’t been neatly set aside for selling in the village to those who could be trusted to hold their tongues.

    *******

    If the moon had not been so strong Will Bloodworth would not have seen the blood. He was making his nightly round, following the inside margin of the estate wall, his ears and eyes tuned to anything untoward. Something had alerted him half an hour before, some sound, but it had been faint and far away. He’d paid it