Chapter 16
XVI
The Eastern Alps
“My father spoke those words?” Jacques interrupted. “My father questioned the wisdom of Bishop Fontaine?”
It was the dead of night; we both kept very strange hours of late. Three days had passed since Jacques’s transformation and my fears about sleeping in the mud had become a depressing reality. Jacques was a lit powder keg and I was keeping him as far away from people as possible.
I was changing the dressing on his shoulder; the wound was healing very slowly, but it was thankfully clean and no longer oozing pus.
“Certainly, sir. It was clear to your father, as it was clear to me, that the Beast was not a rabid boar, or a rogue pack of wolves, or any of the other fantasies concocted by the bishop. Why does that surprise you?”
“It is surprising to me that he was ever such a skeptic. Now, you would think the Bishop of Mende speaks with God’s own tongue, the way my father follows his every word.”
“Well, I suppose,” I said, talking quickly to blunt the prick of betrayal, “I suppose all men learn to find truth where it best suits them.” I finished the dressing, tugging the bandage perhaps harder than I needed to.
Jacques nodded. “But you believed the Beast was one of us? One of the Gévaudanais?” Jacques asked.
“I did. Among other things, I am a hunter of monsters. The most dangerous—and the most successful—are not monstrous at all.1 They dissemble. They watch. They hide their true natures until they are ready to strike.” I gave Jacques a pointed look. “Do they not, sir?”
He exhaled through clenched teeth. “Must they all then endure your wit?”
“Only the ones who owe me money,” I replied. I was rewarded with a momentary, self-conscious smile from Jacques across the flames.
I took it as something of a duty to jostle these moments of levity from the boy when I could. He had been through something unimaginable, and I have found that a little black humor can help to minimize the scars of the psyche.
“Speaking of money,” he said. “I don’t suppose you found my father’s allowance with . . . with Gerard and Henri?”
My hands slowed briefly in their work. “Do you believe I would keep it from you if I had?”
“No, I suppose not,” he said. And then his dark frown returned. “Am I damned, Professor? Is this a punishment for my own wickedness?”
“Ha!” I did not catch the laugh in time. “I apologize, sir, but what do you imagine God has to gain from punishing a nineteen-year-old boy—”
“I am a man already married,” he grated.
“Very well—what do you imagine God has to gain from punishing a nineteen-year-old man already married with a curse that causes him to become a man-eating monster?”
“Again, you must mock me,” he answered wearily. “Professor, who are you really? I feel that I cannot believe a word you have told me. Are you really a Cypriot scholar? A witch? A monster?”
I paused in my ministrations. “Have a care, young sir. If you are concerned about damnation, this is a dangerous line of inquiry.” I held out a jar of willow tincture I had made for his pain. “Please, drink this.”
“Not until you answer me.”
“Very well. A Cypriot scholar? Yes. A witch? Perhaps. A monster? On occasion. Now—drink, if you please.”
“What kind of monster?”
I guffawed. “What kind? The kind that must eat to survive. Much like yourself.”
“And yet you are also a killer of monsters?”
“When required.”
“But you will not kill me?”
My humor began to fade. “No, sir. Not even if you ask me to.”
“Because of my father?”
“Sir—”
“Because of my father? Tell me.”
Because I am afraid this is my fault.
“My God, you stubborn, insufferable—yes! Because of your father. Now drink, before I force it on you.”
Jacques took the tincture from my hand. “Does he know? Does my father know what you are? Is that why you parted on bad terms?”
I turned and fussed over my medical instruments, so that he would not see my face. “So many questions! You have had quite the change in temperament, young sir. Three days ago, you would sooner have spat in my face than wished me good morning,” I said. “And now I cannot get you to stop talking.”
“Oh, very well!” He took a sip of the tincture.
The concoction was utterly primitive compared to my paregoric (which my companion had already guzzled), and it would have tasted absolutely dreadful.
Jacques nearly inverted his face with his expression of distaste.
“By the Lord, Professor—this is the worst one yet! Could we not sweeten the draft with honey, or perhaps some wine?”
“Is that how the young lord receives his medicine in Ocerne?” I smiled at him sidelong. “From a favored nurse—called Lorette, perhaps?”
This time I had chosen my jest poorly. Jacques blanched and his mouth tightened unbecomingly. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet. “Are even my thoughts not my own? How do you know that name?”
“Forgive me, please. I did not mean it as an insult. It was something you said during your fever, that is all,” I answered.
“Truly I have not been the master of my own actions,” said Jacques. He looked utterly mortified. “Please, speak no more of this. Lorette is a childhood friend and I would not bring her into this abominable mess.”
“Of course not, sir. You have been confused and unwell, and I should not make fun—again, I apologize.”
I think we may confirm that the young lord has a mistress, I said to Sarmodel.
Indeed—another “childhood friend,” he replied. Did he eat this one?
Perhaps we will find out.
Jacques was placated, though his pallor had been replaced with a glowing blush. “It does not matter, and I take no offense. Please—are you sure you can rid me of this sickness? I cannot bear the thought of it happening again.”
“I am, sir. As I said, I have an acquaintance in Gévaudan who I am confident can help you. Then, if that fails,” I said, brandishing my surgeon’s knife, “and only then, I will kill you, as you have requested.”
“Then I suppose I must trust you. Please, go on. You were telling me of the hunt. Your suspicions bore fruit, did they not?”
I secured the fresh bandages with a pin and helped Jacques to dress. “They did. But not in the way I expected.”
“Oh? Did the Beast outsmart even you, Professor Grave?” Jacques smiled sardonically and suddenly I could not look at him anymore. His similarity to Antoine in that moment was more than I could bear.
“Yes, he did,” I answered finally. “At every turn.”
1. Livia: QED.