Chapter XX
XX
I noticed it first as a kind of persistent distraction.
Antoine would tie a brace of rabbits and I’d spend the morning—the entire morning—playing the scene over in my mind, watching his hands move through the knots, the long, slender muscles in his forearms bunching and kneading as he worked.
Neither of us bothered to shave while we were living in the wild, and I studied the way his hair changed from pale, burnished gold on top of his head to the honey-colored curls of his beard and nape.
I wondered why he snored for about ten minutes at the same time every night.
I pondered the fact that he put on his breeches starting with the right leg, but then when it came to his boots, always started with the left.
The story of the trout became a game, a tale we would tell with greater and greater embellishment at inns and firesides.
We played pranks on each other (often trout-inspired) and I would devote my long nights to devising new ways to surprise him with a salted water flask or bedroll full of stones.
He in turn would rouge my cheeks with crushed berries while I was deep in meditation and introduce me as Madame de Pompadour to anyone we met, to my great puzzlement.
Antoine’s impulsiveness was infectious and his carnal appetites unpredictable, to the point that we became known as les belettes—“the weasels”—for our many late-night raids on the local “henhouses.”
It sounds strange, given how many people were dying, but that summer was a dream. There was danger and hardship but there was also a sense of possibility I hadn’t felt for centuries. Antoine was young and full to bursting with every pleasure he could find, and once again, somehow, so was I.
It wasn’t until one frosty morning in autumn—right before what would become known as the Red Winter—that Sarmodel drew my attention to the obvious.
I can’t wait for the fornicating to start, he said, interrupting my daydreaming.
Antoine and I were riding through thick bracken and drifts of fallen leaves, on our way down to Saint-Julien-bythe-Stream.
I had been remembering my young companion, naked and knee-deep in the stream, whooping in surprise as the silver trout leaped from his grasp.
You’re quite the jackrabbit when you’re in love.
The what—and the what? With whom?
Come, Sebastian. This one is a good match for you, he said. What’s wrong?
Nothing is wrong and you are mistaken.
His sigh carried the threat of a waking furnace.
Very well. I am scared it’s a disaster waiting to happen, I confessed, chewing my lip. This is absolutely ridiculous. I’m here—we are here—on serious business.
Would it be the first time you paused to sample the local fare?
This is different! Antoine is technically my employer, and he has no interest in me, or any other man. No. I shook my head. Leave it be, Sarmodel. This is not a distraction I can afford in the middle of a hunt, not right under the nose of the Holy See.
Sarmodel only laughed. Isn’t it delicious? And I wouldn’t be so sure about the young Lord Ocerne. He’s a long way from the chateau and he certainly doesn’t object to your company.
I narrowed my eyes. You want him.
He laughed again. Of course I want him. Because you want him.
Though I think we both know it goes a little deeper than that.
He settled in my mind, coils upon coils.
Don’t misunderstand; he’ll die one day, like they all do, and I hope we’re there when it happens.
1 But not right now. Now he’s young, and mortal flesh is so exquisitely designed for pleasure—why not enjoy each other?
2 I can think of a dozen ways he might be compromised out here in the wildwood. Let me show you—
I do not need your help with this, Sarmodel.
If you ignore the quat, it will only grow larger—much better to give it a squeeze and enjoy the mess. I don’t understand why you won’t follow your instincts. Just take him! Get it over with so we can focus on the task at—
Leave me be!
Very well! But if you won’t take my advice, could you at least take your eyes off his rump long enough to get me something decent to eat? It has been weeks and I am starving.
It has not been weeks—
“Are you well, Sebastian?” Antoine’s voice startled me. “What are you scowling at?”
“I am just thinking,” I replied, “that we need to move faster if we are to reach the market before everything is gone. My heart is set on pork and mushrooms tonight, and I will be satisfied with nothing less.”
“Then you shall have it. You are riding with the baron’s son,” he said with his easy smile. He hefted a bag of black walnuts from a tree we’d had the luck to find that morning. “I think the market will provide most generously.”
Nonetheless, we hastened our horses through the foothills toward Saint-Julien.
The charming hamlet was situated in the shadow of Chateau d’Ocerne, at the foot of the long road up the mountain. It had become a hub for the visiting hunters, and its monthly market was usually stripped to the boards by midday.
Antoine was correct, naturally. Everyone of any consequence recognized Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne.
Sold-out provisioners suddenly found stock for him to buy.
Antoine knew their names and which villages they came from, and he inquired after their families.
He hulled the walnuts one by one and handed them out in place of payment, assuring each shopkeeper that his account would be settled by the chateau.
In return, we received wedges of cheese, coveted petit salé salted pork, round loaves of bread and small, sweet pumpkins.
And Antoine, of course, refilled his wine flask.
I was very uncomfortable with the entire exchange.
The food was most welcome and I would certainly not have been able to afford it otherwise.
But it felt like an abuse to take it on little more than good faith.
There was something na?ve and presumptuous about Antoine’s behavior that bothered me.
While it was impossible to dislike the baron’s handsome, laughing son, I detected a tone of resentment beneath many of the greetings we received.
Some did not bother even to conceal their disdain.
Antoine was all but ignored when he approached the Normans.
They offered little beyond the barest requirements of courtesy.
The genteel, black-clad Bauterne was there too, showing off a trio of fresh wolf carcasses to his legion of admirers.
He simply inclined his head to us, shadowed by the hulking Soeur.
The Lieutenant of the Hunt reserved an especially patronizing smile for me.
We were also being watched.
Sebastian, mark that one. She sees me.
A young woman with white-blond hair stared at us from the open window of a small cottage.
She was unkempt and ragged, even in comparison to the other villagers, with homespun clothing and no evidence of face powders or rouge.
On the sill in front of her was a collection of half-filled bottles and jars, and the eaves were hung with drying herbs and fresh pelts.
Truly? Then she may be able to help us.
I excused myself and slipped away from Antoine’s side. I approached the herbalist slowly, smiling.
“Good day, Mademoiselle,” I ventured. “Might I see what you have for sale?” She had barely reached womanhood, her face still plump with youth and spotted with pimples.
But this one would be overlooked in Saint-Julien’s matrimonial lottery.
She was the village sage-femme and would spend her life tending her neighbors’ ailments, bringing their babies into the world,3 and enduring their scorn and suspicion.
I knew immediately that Sarmodel was right—the young woman had a strong touch of the Arcane, and she could see him.
I was most surprised to see a potent hagstone4 hanging on a cord around her neck.
It was almost certainly a gift from a powerful patron Spirit; she was being groomed for greater things, it seemed.
She was also clearly frightened, and her gaze roved high over my head.
“Who are you?” she demanded, shrinking away from the sill. She clasped a hand over the hagstone and I felt her power—untrained but not inconsequential—gathering protectively. “To whom are you bound, foul thing? I did not call you!”5
“He is mine, never fear,” I replied, with forced laughter.
“My name is Sebastian Grave, and I have come to join the hunt for the Beast, like the other men here. My Guest will not harm you.” I extended my hand, the Sigil of Amity6 shining in golden fire on my palm.
“Perhaps we could speak somewhere privately?”
She shook her head fiercely. “No! I will not treat with you. You—God help me, you have eaten men, hundreds of them. I see it!”
And if we meant you harm, phlam, you would already be among them, said Sarmodel. The girl flinched as though from a thunderclap.
“Leave me, I said! You were not invited!”
I did not see where the dog came from. Between one moment and the next, it was there inside the hut, with her hand resting on its head.
“Please, be calm,” I said. In my Arcane sight, the animal was a violet serpent as thick as my leg, rearing under her palm. Blind as a worm and fanged like a lamprey, the creature doubtless had a head full of venom.
Sarmodel laughed heartily. A Spirit of the wash!7 Do you have a ratcatcher back there as well, O supreme enchantress?
“He is my boon companion,8 demon. He will protect me with his life.”
He will kill you in your sleep and mount your corpse, hedge-witch. Sarmodel laughed again. By the Rift, where are your Wards? We could turn him against you in a second!
“There is no need for threats,” I said. “I seek only information on the Beast—and I will be happy to share information in kind.”
“The Beast! No! I hate him—we hate him. He brings only discord. I am forbidden to speak of him.”
“Forbidden? By whom?”
Tell us what you know, meat, or this will end badly for you.
“I will tell you no more!” The girl tugged at the hagstone and shook her head again. The serpent tensed, ready to strike. In the Mundane world, her ragged mutt was growling. “Now go!”
“Please, we must know—”
“Mademoiselle Cecile? Is something amiss?” A grim, middle-aged man shouldered past me, placing himself in front of the open window.
He was clearly wealthier than the majority of the townsfolk, with a long sapphire-blue waistcoat and embroidered ivory britches.
His hair and his eyes were both a pale, silvery gray like freshly honed steel.
There was something forceful and muscular about his stance; though he walked with a cane, he looked more than capable of cracking skulls with it.
He seemed vaguely familiar, though I could not place him among the hundreds of Gévaudanais I had met in my time on the hunt.
“No, Monsieur Chastel. Just another of these hunters come to vex me,” replied the herbalist.
Chastel.
I recognized the man now. Jean Chastel was the publican of the Bow and Brace, the sumptuous hunting lodge near the eastern border. Formerly an infantry officer, he retained the bearing of a much younger man. We had met during my brief stay at the lodge, when I had first arrived in Gévaudan.
He looked me over. “Hunter? Hardly. He rides with the Baron d’Ocerne’s son. You should leave, Professor. And take the young lord with you. I believe he has finished licking the cream from Saint-Julien for this month.”
I gave a slight bow and retreated from the herbalist’s window, extinguishing the mark on my palm. “I did not mean to disturb you, Mademoiselle Cecile. I will not trouble you or your companion further.”
They conversed quietly, watching me as I left.
1. Cathexis, or emotional connection, is what allows the exchange of anima from one entity to another, such that even inanimate objects (e.g.
, money) can become repositories of spiritual energy.
This is why Sarmodel derives such exquisite pleasure from consuming those with whom I share a strong personal connection.
He does not understand why this would upset me.
2. I have come to regard with great suspicion anything Sarmodel says beginning with “Why not . . . ?”
3. Or making sure they never came into the world at all.
4. A stone with a natural hole through it, worn by the water of a sacred waterfall, stream or fountain.
Hagstones bestow Arcane sight and can provide a measure of control over minor Spirits, even for the uninitiated.
They are traditionally given as favors by powerful Spirits in exchange for devotion, and they take a very long time to form.
I hadn’t seen a genuine one for centuries by the time the 1700s came around.
5. Do not ever speak to a Spirit of any consequence this way. There are a raft of protocols to be observed, and good etiquette can make the difference between sharing a meal and becoming one.
6. Not a Contract so much as an MOU, the Compact of Amity is a common gesture of good faith between Arcane practitioners, establishing peaceful relations for as long as both parties agree. Breaking the Compact is considered the very worst manners, and word gets around quickly.
7. A common name for the nenekt, a type of primal Spirit found most often near streams and marshes, and familiar to many a local wise woman.
8. The creature under her hand was, like many domestic Spirits, a caster of glamers. I had no doubt about what sort of “companionship” he provided to the lonely young herbalist of Saint-Julien after dark.