He loved to sound his horn and ride along behind his dogs as they ran down hillsides, leapt across streams and darted back up into the woods. And when the hunted stag began to moan as the dogs tore at its flesh, he would quickly dispatch it and then watch with delight as they frantically devoured the dismembered carcass, spread out for them on the back of its steaming hide.
When there was a mist, he would hide himself deep in a marsh and watch for geese, otters and wild duck.
Every morning, three horsemen would be waiting for him at the foot of the castle steps as soon as it was daylight. The old monk, looking down from his attic window, would wave his arms and call him back. But to no avail; Julian never so much as turned his head. He went off in scorching heat and pouring rain and even when a storm was blowing. He drank with his hands from running streams, ate crab apples as he rode along and rested beneath an oak if he felt weary. He would return home in the middle of the night, covered in blood and mud, with thorns caught in his hair and his clothes heavy with the smell of wild animals. He became like a wild animal himself. Whenever his mother tried to kiss him, he responded coldly to her embrace and appeared to be thinking of more important things.
He slew bears with a knife, bulls with a hatchet and wild boar with a spear. Once, having nothing more than a stick to protect himself with, he fought off a pack of scavenging wolves that were gnawing the corpses at the foot of a gibbet.
One winter morning he set out before dawn, well armed, with a crossbow on his shoulder and a quiver of arrows slung over his saddle bow.
He was riding a Danish jennet, with two basset hounds following behind; the ground echoed to the sound of its hoofs as he rode steadily along. Little beads of hoar frost clung to his cape; the wind blew strong and chill. The horizon began to brighten to one side of him and in the pale morning light he caught sight of a group of rabbits hopping around outside their burrows. The two basset hounds were upon them in a flash, frantically snatching at them as they scattered and breaking their backs.
Shortly afterwards, he came to a forest. A wood grouse, numbed by the cold, had fallen asleep on the branch of a tree, its head tucked under its wing. With a single backward stroke of his sword, Julian cut off its two feet and then continued on his way without even stopping to retrieve it.
Three hours later, he found himself on a mountain peak, so high that the sky appeared almost black. In front of him a rock face rather like a long wall sloped downwards towards the edge of a deep ravine. At the far end of this wall, two mountain goats stood peering down into the abyss below. Julian did not have his arrows with him, having left his horse behind, and he decided he would climb down the wall in order to get near to them. He approached barefoot and bent almost double and managed to come right up to the first of the two goats. He plunged a dagger between its ribs. The other goat, seized with panic, leapt into the void. Julian lunged forward in order to stab it, but his right foot slipped and he fell on to the dead body of the first goat, with his face looking down into the abyss and his two arms spreadeagled in front of him.
He came back down towards the plain and made his way beside a line of willow trees that grew along the bank of a river. Now and then a crane would swoop down very low above his head. Julian lashed at them with his whip and not one of them escaped his aim.
By now the warmer air had melted the frost, swathes of mist drifted upwards and the sun appeared. In the far distance he saw the glint of a frozen lake, its surface like a sheet of lead. In the middle of the lake stood an animal that Julian did not recognize, a beaver with a black snout. Despite the distance, his arrow found its mark and Julian was disappointed that he could not carry off its skin.
He now entered an avenue of great trees, whose tops formed as it were a triumphal arch leading into a forest. A young roe deer sprang out of a thicket, a buck appeared within a clearing, a badger shuffled out of a hole and a peacock stood on the grass spreading its tail. No sooner had he slain them than more deer appeared, more bucks, more badgers, more peacocks, along with blackbirds, jays, polecats, foxes, hedgehogs and lynx. At every step forward Julian was confronted by an endless variety of beasts in ever greater numbers. They circled round him, trembling with fear and looking up at him with gentle pleading eyes. But Julian's thirst for slaughter was insatiable. Without pause or respite he fired his crossbow, drew his sword and stabbed with his knife, all extraneous thoughts, all memory of the past ousted from his mind. He lived only for the instant, a hunter in some unreal landscape, where time had lost all meaning and where everything occurred with that effortless ease which we experience in dreams. Suddenly his attention was caught by the most extraordinary sight. In front of him lay a small valley shaped like a circus arena and filled with wild deer. They stood huddled together in a group, warming each other with their breath, which hung like a cloud on the surrounding mist.
For a few moments, the prospect of such carnage as this left him breathless with pleasure. Then he dismounted, rolled up his sleeves and began shooting.
As the first of his arrows came whistling towards them, the stags all immediately turned their heads. Gaps suddenly began to appear in their midst, plaintive cries could be heard and a wave of panic ran through the whole group.
The lip of the valley was too high for the animals to cross; the hillsides enclosed them and they leapt about frantically, trying to find a way of escape. Julian continued to take aim and to fire; his arrows fell like driving rain in a thunderstorm. The stags, driven to a frenzy by this onslaught, ran at each other, rearing up on their hind legs and trying to climb up over each other. Their antlers became entangled and they fell together in a tumbling, writhing mound of bodies.
Eventually they died, stretched out on the sand, foaming at the mouth, their entrails spilling out on to the ground and the heaving of their bodies subsiding by degrees. Then all was still.
Night was drawing on and beyond the forest, through the gaps in the branches, the sky shone red like a lake of blood.
Julian leant against the trunk of a tree, gazing with amazement at the sheer scale of this carnage and unable to understand how he had managed to accomplish it.
Then, on the far side of the valley, at the forest's edge, he saw a stag and a hind with their fawn.
The stag was a huge black beast with massive antlers and a white beard. The hind was lighter in colour, the colour of faded leaves. She cropped the grass as she moved along, giving suck to her dappled fawn as she went.
Once more the sound of the crossbow broke the silence. The fawn was killed instantly. The mother raised her head to the skies and let out a deep, heart-rending, almost human cry of anguish. In sheer exasperation Julian shot an arrow full into her breast. The hind dropped to the ground.
The great stag had seen him and leapt forward. Julian fired his last arrow directly at him. It pierced his forehead and remained planted there.
But the stag did not seem to feel the arrow. It strode forward over the bodies of the hind and the fawn and came towards Julian, apparently bent on attacking him and tearing him to pieces. Julian backed away as it approached, speechless with terror. The huge beast stopped in front of him. A distant bell began to toll as, with eyes ablaze and in accents as solemn as a judge or a patriarch, the stag uttered this thrice-repeated warning:
‘Beware! Beware! Beware! A curse lies upon you! One day, O savage heart, you will kill your father and your mother!’
The animal sank to its knees, closed its eyes and died.
Julian was astounded and then suddenly overcome with fatigue. A feeling of loathing and immense sadness welled up inside him. He placed his head in his hands and wept for a long time.
His horse was nowhere to be found and his dogs had deserted him. The world seemed utterly desolate yet filled with vague and threatening dangers. Julian, seized with panic, set off blindly across country, took the first path he came to and found himself almost at once back outside the castle gate.
That night he did not sleep. In the flickering light
of the lamp that hung above his bed, he kept seeing the great black stag. Its warning preyed on his mind and he tried to convince himself it could not be true. ‘No, no, no!’ he said to himself. ‘I could not possibly kill them!’ But then he began to wonder, ‘Yet what if I should ever want to?’ It terrified him to think that the Devil might plant such a wish in his mind.
For three whole months his mother, in desperation, prayed at his bedside while his father paced ceaselessly about the corridors of the castle, bemoaning their misfortune. He summoned the most famous physicians, who prescribed all manner of drugs. Julian's illness, they said, was caused by some noxious wind or amorous desire. But Julian simply shook his head to all the questions they asked him.
Eventually his strength began to return and he was taken for walks in the courtyard, with the old monk and the noble lord each offering him an arm to lean on.
When he had completely recovered, he resolved that he would never go hunting again.
In order to cheer him up, his father made him a present of a great Saracen sword. The sword hung amongst a collection of other trophies at the top of a stone pillar and they needed a ladder to reach it. Julian climbed up the ladder but the sword was too heavy for him and it slipped from his hand, falling so close to the noble lord that it cut through his coat. Julian thought he had killed his father and he fainted.
From that day on weapons filled him with dread. The mere sight of a naked sword would make him turn pale. This weakness was a cause of great disappointment to his family.
Eventually the old monk insisted in the name of God, family honour and all his ancestors that Julian should once more take up the pursuits that befitted his noble station.
Every day, to help pass the time, the squires would practise throwing the javelin. Julian quickly became very adept at this. He could land a javelin in the neck of a bottle, break the pointers on a weathervane or hit the studs on a door at a hundred paces.
One summer evening, just as the mist was beginning to make things indistinct, Julian was standing in the arbour in the castle garden when he noticed two white wings fluttering along the top of the wall at the far end of the alley. He was convinced it was a stork and he threw his javelin.
There was a piercing scream.
It was Julian's mother. Her bonnet with its two long flaps remained pinned to the wall.
Julian fled the castle and never came back.
2
He enlisted in a band of mercenaries that happened to be passing by.
He came to know hunger and thirst, fevers and vermin. He grew accustomed to the din of battle and the sight of death. The wind tanned his skin. His body became hardened by the wearing of armour and, as he was extremely strong, brave, temperate and intelligent, he was soon given command of a company.
When going into battle he would urge his soldiers forward with a great flourish of his sword. By means of a knotted rope he would scale the walls of citadels at night, buffeted by the gale, with flakes of Greek fire sticking to his cuirass and boiling resin and molten lead streaming down from the battlements. More than once his buckler was shattered by a stone dropped from above. Bridges overladen with men gave way beneath him. He once felled fourteen horsemen with his mace. He defeated all those who challenged him to single combat. On more than twenty occasions he was left for dead.
Through divine favour he always escaped alive, for he protected the clergy, orphans and widows and above all old men. Whenever he saw an old man walking in front of him he would call out to him to show his face, as if he were afraid of killing one of them by mistake.
Runaway slaves, rebellious peasants, disinherited bastards and other such desperadoes flocked to his flag and he formed an army of his own.
His army grew. Julian became famous and was much sought after.
He gave assistance in turn to the Dauphin of France, the King of England, the Knights Templars of Jerusalem, the Surena of the Parthian army, the Negus of Abyssinia and the Emperor of Calicut. He fought against Scandinavians covered with fish-scales, Negroes with round shields made of hippopotamus skin and riding red donkeys, gold-skinned Indians brandishing broad sabres that flashed like mirrors above their diadems. He defeated the Troglodytes and the Anthropophagi. He travelled through lands that were so hot that the men's hair would catch fire like torches under the burning sun and others which were so cold that a soldier's arm might suddenly be severed from his body and fall to the ground. In some countries it was so foggy that they appeared to be marching forward surrounded by ghosts.
His advice was sought by a number of republics in times of difficulty. He negotiated with ambassadors and obtained terms that surpassed all expectation. If he heard that a king was behaving badly, he would suddenly present himself and remonstrate with him. He liberated nations that were oppressed. He rescued queens who were held captive in towers. It was none other than he who slew the Viper of Milan and the Dragon of Oberbirbach.
Now it so happened that the Emperor of Occitania, having defeated the Spanish Moors, had taken the sister of the Caliph of Cordoba as his concubine. As a result of this alliance he had acquired a daughter whom he had brought up as a Christian. The Caliph, however, pretending that he wished to be converted, came to visit him with a very sizeable escort, massacred his entire garrison, flung the Emperor into the deepest dungeon and proceeded to maltreat him in order to extort treasure from him.
Julian rushed to his aid, destroyed the army of infidels and killed the Caliph, cutting off his head and tossing it over the ramparts like a ball. He then released the Emperor from his prison and reinstalled him on his throne in the presence of his assembled court.
As a reward for these services, the Emperor offered Julian several basketloads of treasure, but he would not accept them. Thinking that Julian wanted to be paid more, the Emperor offered him three-quarters of all his wealth. Again Julian refused the offer. He then asked Julian to share his kingdom with him, but Julian politely declined. The Emperor was distraught; there seemed to be no way in which he could show his gratitude. Then suddenly he slapped his forehead and whispered something to one of his courtiers. Two tapestry curtains were drawn aside to reveal a young girl.
Her great dark eyes shone like two soft lights and her lips were parted in the most charming of smiles. The curls of her hair caught on the jewels of her dress, which she wore unbuttoned at the neck. The transparent gauze of her tunic revealed the outline of her young body. She was as pretty as a picture, with little dimples in her cheeks and a fine slender waist.
Julian was overcome with love, all the more so for having until then led a very chaste life.
So it was that Julian took the Emperor's daughter in marriage, along with a castle which she had inherited from her mother. Once the nuptials were completed and after endless protestations of mutual respect, the newly weds set off for their new home.
It was a palace of white marble in the Moorish style, situated on a promontory and surrounded by orange trees. A series of terraces planted out with flowers dropped down to the edge of a bay, where one could walk along the beach making the pink shells crackle underfoot. Behind the castle there was a forest, which spread out in the shape of a fan. The sky was forever blue and the trees swayed gently in the sea breeze or in the wind that blew from the mountains which bounded the distant horizon.
The rooms were carefully shaded from the full light of day and were lit by decorations inlaid into the walls. Tall columns, as slender as reeds, supported the domed ceilings, which were adorned with paintings in relief representing stalactites hanging from the roof of a grotto.
There were fountains in all the main rooms, mosaic tiling in the courtyards, carved panelling on the walls and countless other architectural refinements. The whole palace was so quiet that you could hear the rustle of a scarf or the echo of a sigh.
Julian no longer went to war. He now lived a life of leisure amongst a people at peace and every day a crowd of admirers came to do him homage, bending at the knee and kissing his finge
rs in the oriental fashion.
Dressed in purple, he would stand for hours at one of the bay windows, resting his elbows on the sill and dreaming of his hunting days, wishing he could ride out across the desert in search of ostrich and gazelle, lie in wait for leopards among the bamboo canes, track down rhinoceros in the forests, scale the most inaccessible mountain peaks in order to shoot at eagles or wrestle with polar bears on some ice-bound sea.
Sometimes, in a dream, he saw himself, like our forefather Adam in the Garden of Eden, surrounded by all the animals. By merely stretching out his arm he put them to death. Or else the animals filed past him two by two in order of size, from elephants and lions down to stoats and ducks, as on the day they went into Noah's ark. Julian lay hidden in the shadow of a cave and hurled javelins at them, never once missing his mark. There followed an unending succession of other animals; the slaughter went on and on; Julian would wake from his dream, his eyes rolling wildly.
Julian was often invited to go hunting by one or other of the many princes he had befriended. But he steadfastly refused their invitations, in the belief that this penance might avert his evil destiny, for he was convinced that his parents' fate was linked to the slaying of animals. It was a source of great sadness to him that he could not see his parents and his desire to do so was becoming unbearable.
His wife invited jugglers and dancers to the palace in order to entertain him.
She accompanied him on walks in the country, carried in an open litter. At other times they would lie together in a boat, peering over the edge at the fish as they darted about in water that was as clear as the light of day. Sometimes she would gather a handful of petals and throw them in his face. She would sit at his feet and play tunes on a three-stringed mandolin and then, placing her two hands on his shoulder, she would shyly ask: ‘What ails you, dear husband?’
Sometimes he did not answer and sometimes he burst out sobbing. Then one day, he finally told her of his terrible fears.
She tried to reassure him, arguing, very reasonably, that his mother and father were in all probability already dead and that, should he ever see them again, there was nothing, whether it be by chance or design, that could possibly lead him to commit such a terrible crime. His fears were groundless and he ought to take up hunting again.