The Wessex Eunuchs

Wessex, it was autumn, the glossy green fields shone in the thin sunlight, the woodland canopy flared orange and yellow. In the nook of a secluded valley, a brilliant silver unicorn grazed on the pastureland. Chalk Newton was bucolic, peaceful, and ever England. 

Lady Stacey Maxswill stood alone on the carriage path, blocking the way of the crimson-clad hunting party. She recognized most of the huntsmen and women, did business with more than a few, and counted several as friendly acquaintances, so she was shocked at their condescending manner; she had obviously misjudged her new neighbors. Major Charles Hawkins, Master of the Fox Hunt, was indifferent to her plea that they stop the hunt. 

“Get out of the way, woman. We are doing what we have always done, which is to hunt game across the Chalk Hills” he said, sitting forward in the saddle of his steeplechaser. He had his right hand in the air, a signal to the huntsman to hold the dog pack in check. “If you don’t approve of us country folk and our country ways, then you should never have purchased the land and moved here!” 

This was not just the assertion of a traditional right; this was a spiteful expression of a deeply held and hitherto concealed grievance. She’d misjudged these people; they were her neighbors, but they were not her friends. All the pleasantries, the idle chit-chat, such lovely helpful people, but it was all a cowardly sham! 

Major Hawkins sucked the cold autumn air through his teeth. “Release the Hounds,” he shouted, then lowered his hand, with which the hunting party surged forward knocking Lady Stacey into a ditch. “Out of the way, woman.”

Ahead there was mayhem, ahead there was a terrifying cry, it was a terrible thing that happened in the secluded valley. The hounds fell upon the unsuspecting unicorn in a frenzy. Lady Stacey arrived to find riders and dogs running riot, and her precious unicorn splattered in crimson blood, dying.

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The “Unicorn Murder” elicited nationwide interest owing to the involvement of the beautiful and youthful wife of Sir Robert Maxswill, the “bimbo and betting” magnate. Lady Stacey, former exotic dancer, the girl from Tottenham, was one half of a colorful power couple, rags-to-riches billionaires, owners of Chalk Newton, the largest private estate in England, and excellent grist for the scandal mill. 

The court case, trespass and cruelty to animals, was initially a pot-boiler, attracting small crowds to the Wessex assize, but it was soon buried in arcane arguments about common law, the witnesses were strangely forgetful, and it ended badly for Lady Stacey. 

“I cannot turn a blind eye to your wanton disregard of the law”, said the judge, “Five hundred years now, eradicated from our green and pleasant land, along with the bear and the wolf, and you alone think you have the divine right to reintroduce Unicorns to Wessex without license! I think it is the height of arrogance!” Lady Stacey was required to pay the defendants’ costs a fine for the improper import of a non-native animals into the UK.

She was not the kind of woman that would let this insult go by unanswered, nor forget how she’d been treated by her neighbors. 

Major Hawkins was hailed as a champion of tradition. The judge happened to be his cousin.  

That was ten years ago. 

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Sir Robert died soon thereafter: he was discovered dead on a massage table in a seedy parlor in Bangkok. Lady Stacey, now widowed, granted proxy powers to her estate manager, Henry Clough, and mysteriously disappeared from sight. Clough, dependable and discreet, an ex-paratrooper, ran the estate in her absence, receiving occasional letters from a P.O.Box in Mayfair. There were rumors that Lady Stacey had gone to Africa, where she was breeding rare and exotic animals.

Over time, Major Hawkins grew in stature and in weight, a veritable John Bull. In the absence of opposition, he and his jolly good hunting friends, witnesses of the Unicorn Massacre, roamed freely across Chalk Newton, convincing themselves that it was not just a traditional right of way but their own private fiefdom. They foraged, poached, fished, and hunted, ignoring Clough’s polite warnings that they should not trespass.  

Clough sent a report of these transgressions to Lady Stacey.

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It was a crisp, vivid autumn morning. Major Hawkins was trotting along the old carriage path not far from where they’d slaughtered that god-damned unicorn, when he pulled his horse up short. A woman on horseback, dressed in black, was galloping along the brow of Chalk Hill, half a league away. She was followed by a pack of slouching dogs. At the crest of the hill, she stopped and appeared to turn and look at him, sending a shiver down his spine. It was Lady Stacey, and she had changed. There was something cold and ruthless in her manner.  

On Chalk Hill, from the saddle atop her destrier, Lady Stacey Maxswill surveyed the fields and woodland, the rivers and farms, and the small village of Newton, which nestled peacefully in a lush valley. Hawkins was spying on her from the woods below, her woods, a trespasser. It was tempting to release the hounds there and then.

“Hush hush!” she said, and her hounds crouched low on the ground, silent, in transcendent repose, awed in their own way by England’s green and pleasant land. 

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When Major Hawkins got back to his farmhouse on the outskirts of Newton village, he summonsed Billy Snodgrass, farmhand and feral poacher. What exactly did the boy know?

“Aye, ‘tis em eunuchs. She’s a scar of em over n’by Cluver Pond,” said Snodgrass, “sexed em up in Afreek”.

“Pardon?” the Major said reflexively, but wished he hadn’t, since it only inspired more of the same unintelligible drivel.

“Aye, hornt and pallid, herd they be. Com cross chalk lik wildebeest in the dip”

Wildebeest? The boy was stupid and useless

“What about her dogs? What breed of dogs are they?”, asked the Major impatiently. Something about the slouching dogs worried him.

Snodgrass suddenly paled. “Liddle reddy-eye munchkins, them Satin’s spawn”.

The boy was stupid but useful. Major Hawkins gave Snodgrass precise instructions; it was an intelligence-gathering exercise, surveillance. The Major wanted to know precisely what kind of dogs she had in her kennels, and how many. He made Snodgrass repeat his instructions but wished he hadn’t, the boy spoke in a language largely absent vowels.

“Spy! I want you to go spy on them, idiot!”, he shouted, exasperated.

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Returning from Chalk Hill, the horse breathless, the pack irritable and fighting-hungry, Lady Stacey entered the cobbled yard at the rear of Chalk-Newton Hall, where two kennel men, Africans, whipped and parried the strange yapping and snapping hounds into their shed. 

“I saw Hawkins on horseback, watching me from the edge of the forest” said Lady Stacey, dismounting from the massive destrier. Croft took the reins of the snorting steaming war horse and walked the giant animal toward the stables, past a steaming pile of dead chickens and rabbits that lay on a nearby cart. 

Lady Stacey tipped her silk topper at the two waiting kennel workers, who swung pitch forks at the mound of pink flesh, tossing the tiny carcasses through a chest-high door into the mirky darkness of the shed. A terrible cacophony arose, as of tormented souls from the deep maw of hell.” We must seize the day by the balls, Henry.”

Henry felt his undercarriage shrink into his torso. Lady Stacey had returned from Africa, a changed woman, mirthless, cold-blooded and in single-minded pursuit of vengeance.

+++

“You ‘eard she’s back, right?” said Mr. Spatt the ruddy-faced butcher, staring cross-eyed at the half-glass of dark ale that stood on the bar in front of him. “She’s moving back to Chalk Hall with them foreigners.”

“Lady whatstit. I saws her in the post office” said Mr. Cherry, a bald, pie-faced man, “she looked at me with them black dagger eyes”. Mr. Cherry gulped at his pint of lager. “You’d a thunk she might have forgiven and forgot by now, eh?” 

“Aye, back ‘ere she is, along with her monsters and eunuchs” said the Mr. Spatt, hiccupping.

“Foreigners? Monsters? Eunuchs?” said the landlord, “What are you two talking about, you fools?”. The landlord, new to the area, had discovered the locals were ignorant and superstitious.

“Monsters! Monsters that’s what I saw and heard. Great black hairy things with fangs. Eunuchs too. Horrible they was. Great horns sticking out their heads.” Spatt’s face went from ruddy to puce. 

“You mean unicorns, not eunuchs” said Mr. Cherry, scratching at his bald pate.

“Aye… unic… orns…” hicupped Spatt.

The two stragglers were done with their conversation, too far into the booze to salvage anything intelligible from the rubble of words.

“What a load of bollocks”, said the landlord, “Drink up, it’s closing time”.

The two drunks were soon weaving homeward beneath a gibbous moon, when a shadowy creature emerged from the church graveyard, then another, hairy, fanged, beady red eyes. 

It was assumed that Spatt and Cherry fell into the River Severn and drowned. “Fotter for the otter”, as the old Wessex saying goes.

+++

Henry Clough arrived at Major Hawkin’s farmhouse in his old land rover. It was a courtesy call, the hand-delivery of a formal letter from Lady Stacey informing the Major that the Wessex Hunt might not trespass upon the estate land.

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s a tradition, a birthright, there will be consequences if she insists on this,” said the Major, “the law is in our favor, as you know”.

Clough thought the Major a colossal self-important oaf. “She insists, it is really about safety, your safety and that of your huntsmen” said Clough, in a clipped military way. This was only partially true; Lady Stacey cared not one iota about Hawkins.

“What is that supposed to mean? Is she threatening me” said the Major, outraged.

“It is not meant as a threat Sir, more a statement of fact”.

“What is she up to over there? What about these animals, these dogs I’ve been hearing about”

“I’m not at liberty to speak”, said Clough.

The meeting ended on acrimonious terms.

+++

It was the hunter’s moon, full and bright in the cloudless October night sky. Billy Snodgrass knew Chalk-Hills like the back of his hand, but he normally avoided the Great Hall, the lawn and gardens because he didn’t care to be mistaken for a fox and get buckshot in his rear end. 

He padded noiselessly toward the stables when the surrounding silence was broken by an awful barking noise. Suddenly, there was a commotion, silhouettes of men and dogs against the stable lights, torches sweeping here and there, the shouting and barking accumulated into a dreadful chorus. A dog was bounding across the lawn, toward him. It sprung at him, a terrible fury, giant jaws, a flash of fangs, devilish close-set red eyes, a blue glint on its muzzle, then suddenly two flashes of lightning blinded him . Bang! Bang! The terrifying beast landed on Snodgrass like a sack of potatoes, dead. 

Clough shone a torch at the supine struggling youth. “Why it’s that Billy Snodgrass, Major Hawkin’s boy”, said Clough. Two men pulled the beast off Snodgrass so that he could breathe. Snodgrass lay in a pool of light, a small group of people stood around him, shining flashlights at his face. 

“Dnut kilt me”, he said, holding his hands up against the light, “Twas owner donner wot ol Hawkin axed”. 

The sweet smell of the spent cartridges hung in the air, mingled with blood and forest musk. Lady Stacey snapped the double-barreled boxlock rifle shut. “Throw the body to the pack,” she said.

Snodgrass thought he was a goner, but when his night vision returned, he realized that Clough and Lady Stacey were walking back up the hill to the stables, two men were dragging the dead dog. Snodgrass leapt to his feet and ran headlong into the forest, fighting against thrashing branches and clinging brambles and he didn’t stop running until he got back to the farm. 

Major Hawkins could not get a single sensible sentence out the jibber-jabbing boy, who was spewing nonsense about a red-eyed creature with feet like a man and the mouth of a lion, “Satin’s spawn, satin’s spawn”. Stupid, useless boy.

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Major Hawkins was an impetuous man of action. He called a village meeting. Alarmed at the strange goings on, at the nocturnal howling, inspired by incredible rumors and blood-curdling gossip, the local gentry, the burghers and tradesmen rallied unanimously in support of a hunt. 

“If she’s farming Unicorns, she needs to be stopped”, said the Giles Gilmour, a local pig farmer.

“Aye, the monsters and foreigners too”, said Mrs. Cadogan, chairlady of the local Conservative Party.

“Her dogs went and killed some of my sheep”, said Clyde Foster, angrily.

“She and her ilk are an affront to our way of life”. It was the venerable judge, Major Hawkins' cousin.

Had there been pitchforks at hand, they might have been brandished, had there been fat-dipped jute torches, they would have been set ablaze. The villagers were caught in a collective xenophobic madness. They rushed to their homes, donned hunting pinks, saddled their horses and congregated at Major Hawkins’ farm, from which they proceeded noisily through the village, past the churchyard, along the winding lane onto the old carriage path that led through the forest. Their horses were frisky, spook-lively, hard to handle, the beagles and harriers were riotous, leaping at specters, which required whippers to unload angry blows at their flanks. It was in this state of angry chaos that the hunt party spilled from the carriage path and into the Chalk-Newton Estate.

Major Hawkins sounded the horn, and the hunt charged up Chalk Hill and into Dipshot Valley, and it was in Dipshot Valley that they discovered the silvery unicorns, a score or more, grazing on strewn hay. Timid beasts, the startled unicorns bolted.

“Tally Ho!” shouted Major Hawkins. The thrill of the chase, the pounding of hooves on the earth, the howling of the pack hounds, the rush of the countryside at his face, there was nothing better in the world. The hunt thundered across the valley toward the panicked unicorns. “Tally Ho!”

“Tally Ho!” a different voice called out, then another horn sounded somewhere. It was all suddenly very confusing and disorienting. Major Hawkins and his hunt party were in disarray.

“Release the hounds” came the cry, but not from Major Hawkins this time. 

It was Lady Stacey, approaching from over the brow of the hill, atop her destrier, flanked by men on horseback, including her two African kennel men, and her pack of dogs. “Release the hounds”. 

Her slouched dogs, her strange pack, flew down the hill, tails up, they threw up clods of dirt, they roared, they clashed with the hounds and threw them about like hay bales.  

The hunters became the hunted. Major Hawkins, the Judge, the whole hunt party, the pack of hounds had no idea what hit them.  

The Reaper Baboon, native of the Congo, is the largest and fiercest of the Papio genus, with jaws that can crush rhino bones, incisors that can rip crocodile hide and the arms so strong they can tear the limbs from a fighting lion. There is no animal on earth that is more dangerous than an enraged Reaper, there is no organization more vicious than a blood-up troop of Reapers. In nature, there is nothing higher in the food chain than the leader of a Reaper troop, the apex predator.

Lady Stacey, Queen of the Baboons, raised a regal hand at the Reapers, “Hush hush”, she said, and the baboons crouched low then slunk from the field of battle, gathered in a disorderly troop and waited for instructions.

“Perhaps the law will turn a blind eye?” said Henry Clough, quite certain that the day had been seized in the most unsavory way possible.

“There goes the neighborhood ,” said Lady Stacey. Satisfaction was fleeting; revenge, the dish best served cold, tasted as unpleasant as it sounds.

There is a secluded valley in Chalk-Newton, the largest private estate in Wessex and all of England. In that valley, there are silver unicorns that safely graze under the care and attention of foreigners and monsters, untroubled by the cowed yokels, including Billy Snodgrass, who dare not speak of what he knows, and probably wouldn’t be understood if he did.