Nin presents a knot of very compelling logic, but Occam's razor cuts it thusly:

[i]The questing beast is a big, scary monster, and Pellinor was nice to me. I am myself a hunter, and I am obviously not a villain for it.[/i]

Her point about the badger - wasn't that his thinking? Did the badger scare him so much to change his mind on it? When did that happen? When he sighted it with his arrow? He shifts his weight as he rides. 

"Maybe," Tristan says, unconvinced. "I could see it being true. But even if it is true, the best we can do is join her hunt in good faith. While we do, the badger is our true target, and we are acting within our own rights to hunt it. I don't want the sword we choose to fall on to end up in anyone else's back..."