Antinous and I, with our plucky ponies at the ready, had lurched forward first, followed by the entire Hunt with much noisy cheering, guffaws, and obscene shouts. Caesar was the third to crash forward on his golden-sheened Nisaean, but no one deferred to his status except the plait-haired barbarian with the tattooed face, Geta.
Each of the young men moved sweepingly across the course, around obstacles, into undergrowth, to seek it out. We each searched carefully for a glimpse of its hairy haunches and upright tail, speeding or stationary.
Now and then one of the boys would excitedly shout a sighting, but then decline the claim as it proved false. This ad hoc approach to tracing the beast didn't appeal to Antinous and I. It lacked method. Half an hour elapsed as the teams eased carefully through the undergrowth searching for any signs of the quarry or its recent path.
Hadrian, the boys perceived, seemed to be in no urgent hurry to prosecute the chase, but ambled watchfully close behind the lads on his Nisaean giant.
Antinous and I followed a strategy we used in our hunts outside Polis. We cross-referenced our scanning of the scrub so, as a duo, we applied a methodical stepped sweep to our search. Mind you, using mastiffs makes such hunting far easier. In lieu of dogs, signs of tracks, fresh droppings, broken scrub, hidden shadowy shapes, even smells were to be factored into the possible location or direction of the beast. This process was time consuming but offered a better chance of spotting the creature than mere guesswork. The boar wouldn't appear in our sight simply because we wished it to appear.
Now and then I would silently signal to Antinous with a gesture towards a shape lurking behind a rock, so both of us would arc cautiously towards the site. Again and again, nothing.
On one occasion Antinous quietly point-marked a puddle of still-steaming pig's piss which even Tiny and Blaze found noxious to the nostrils. Yet the boar had moved on. The direction seemed northwards, so we both guided our mounts in parallel in the same direction. Our ponies were as tense as we ourselves.
The other four lads seemed to be captivated by a separate search a hundred yards westwards, each a solitary searcher. The senior members of the hunt ambled lazily in the background, amused by our youthful intensity.
Suddenly with a rustle of foliage, a rasping grunt and cough, a fat furry bewhiskered blob snarling curled tusks leapt forward from a hidden nook and raced helter-skelter northwards. The beast grunted and rasped with each bound, bounce, or sideways dash. Tiny and Blaze lurched forward promptly at speed with a matched swing, sway, and swerve.
Antinous gripped his pony's four-horn saddle firmly with his knees by sheer force of balance. His legs, thighs, and ankles pressed close to Tiny's sides to steady his body weight to support a hold on the reins while his left hand balanced a javelin dart in readiness. Antinous was left-handed, you know. Tiny responded well to his knee pressures and hip sways as it danced through the scrub in speedy dives left then right, following the swerves of the boar with precision.
The wiry pony, all gristle and bone flecked with foamy sweat, knew the name of the game. He took it upon himself to keep close to the prey. The horse was as excited by the hunt as its rider.
Antinous's body swayed smoothly with each shift in direction in a natural flow. Every muscle-fiber danced in a finely-tuned flexed response to the situation's urgency. Yet he retained a firm balance, steady seat, and high stature in readiness for casting the dart.
His speeding reflexes had well absorbed his many years straddling ponies on the forested ranges beyond our hometown's ramparts. Boars and game were regular targets of the hunt at Polis. Hunting and trapping was the local recreation which afforded special delicacies for feast days to honor solemn Artemis of the Hunt and her brother, beautiful Apollo, Healer of Heaven.
Yet only the boar knew the next instant's hurtling direction, racing this way and then that, sensing the full danger of the situation and the grim intent of its pursuers.
Hadrian followed close behind, crashing through the scrub on his Nisaean. The eighteen year-olds arced in close proximity. Arrian was followed by Julianus and then Geta the Dacian. Two Praetorians cantered unevenly behind with two dark Scythian archers in close formation. The Praetorians were sullen bodyguards who protected the emperor's person, while the archers were insurance against an unexpected danger.
The wily beast had been bolting hell-bent towards a landfall up ahead camouflaged behind a tangle of surrounding scrub. Antinous raced and scrapped and darted after it, keeping one eye on the grotesque bulk of the creature while marshalling all his reflexive senses into his javelin arm's nerves to respond with precision. With extra dart-javelins in the quiver strapped to his pony's neck if the initial cast failed to bring down the creature, his first attack would nevertheless need to be decisive.
However, in the speed of the hunt Antinous had not noticed the low cave entrance looming ahead, a refuge the pig may have calculated into its rapidly declining options.
I kept my eyes on Antinous as well as the emperor close behind as my own pony Blaze stumbled through the undergrowth somewhat less felicitously than my friend's. I remained a distance behind by necessity of my mount's less focused skill. I was close enough to the emperor to perceive the manner in which Hadrian cast his eye strategically over the victim's narrowing chances.
I perceived the emperor's elegant signal with his left arm to his thudding followers to arc around for a better encirclement of the beast. As his golden Nisaean bounded through the undergrowth with meticulous footwork and a fiery zest typical of the quality breeds, I detected Hadrian smiling to himself at the audacity of the young man racing ahead of him.
Antinous ignored Caesar's droit de seigneur of first chance at the kill. Antinous's daring was accompanied by the audacity to lurch into the hunt with heroic, if reckless, even ill-considered, abandon.
I had always appreciated this 'strike first' quality in Antinous. I found it to be a challenging facet of his character and one which gained him many victors' points on the palaestra's wrestling sands. But a sense of diplomacy and the unspoken protocol of the occasion restrained my urges — not that Blaze gave me much opportunity for anything better. I remember asking myself, was I simply less feisty than my young friend? Antinous becomes fiercely tenacious under pressure.
From the short distance behind Tiny, I could see how Hadrian was closely observing Antinous's every action. My blond friend's excited tensions of musculature in neck, arms, shoulders, and thighs displayed their much-exercised tone as his entire physique poured forward from his saddle towards the urgent resolution of the hunt.
I discerned how Hadrian eyed the flecked fair hair streaming from beneath the rusty helmet, the occasional splash of sweat spraying behind, and the straining arm balancing the raised javelin for a powerful discharge.
As a friend who had known Antinous since earliest childhood I could appreciate the flowing line of his distended neck and its delineated nape of strands of coiled blond locks. His upper-body triangle of broad shoulders encased in an heirloom cuirass tapering to a slender waist projected those sinuous contours which only an agile young man's slender hips, lean thighs, and tight butt proclaim to the world. These were coupled with a roseate flush of excitement on high cheekbones as he focused on the issue at hand.
I readily recalled observing these engaging qualities in Antinous many times during the hurly-burly of wrestling bouts or sprint races at the palaestra, where men practice naked and women are not permitted. I was certainly not the only member of the gymnasium crowd, old or young, to appreciate my friend's rapidly developing features. In those days I overheard many flattering tributes among the shared whispers of spectators whose eyes lingered on my friend's natural symmetries.