Chapter XVII
XVII
Margeride Mountains, France
The Beast went to ground in the days after the push, and Antoine took us ever farther from the main hunt and the chateau. Lord Bauterne had all but commanded us to patrol the river lands, but my young companion took us instead east toward the mountains.
I was directing him, of course. While I was technically in his service, Antoine was among the worst woodsmen I had ever met, unable to follow a trail and seemingly devoid of instincts. He was, fortunately, very suggestible and easily influenced by flattery.
So it was that we found ourselves alone a week after the push, in the foothills where I suspected the Beast had its bolt-hole. We set camp late; the light was almost gone by the time we secured the horses. I found us a sheltered campsite, between a stony overhang and an ivy-choked stand of alders.
I use the word “we” very loosely. As usual, Antoine was reasonably drunk by the time the sun had set, and I handled the lion’s share of the work while he sang to the horses, gathered firewood and urinated on a cluster of puffballs.
His attempts to light the fire were as misguided as they were unsuccessful.
“This wood—it’s wet,” he announced finally, striking his flint for the umpteenth time over a pile of green alder twigs.
“Allow me, sir,” I said. He sat back against a tree and watched as I built a cheery campfire. Light snoring alerted me to the fact that I would also be taking first watch.
Antoine slept like the dead, so I took the opportunity to make some preparations.
I took a few lumps of coke I had acquired and marked them with a series of alchemical symbols in pyric chalk before arranging them in the fire.
1 Next, I took out my jeweler’s tool kit, positioning my little ceramic crucible atop the coke “forge.” Inside it I placed a handful of beautifully engraved silverware.
While the metal was melting, I busied myself cleaning out my shot mold and sharpening my tools.
The mold was necessarily small, yielding only a half dozen pellets per cast. Sarmodel brightened my vision and offered a few instructions, directing my positioning of Arcane engravings inside the mold.
It was fine, repetitive work which he found tedious, but I took an artisan’s pleasure in the details.
“Did you steal those?”
I started, jabbing my thumb painfully with the point of my burin. So consumed was I in my work that I hadn’t noticed that the young lord had awoken. I glanced at the crucible, where a couple of filigreed spoon handles were slowly sinking into the melt.
“I did, sir,” I answered lightly; there was no point in denying it. I sucked the blood from my thumb and added a careful scoop of mercury salts to the mix. “Are you hungry?”
Antoine took a small ham and a loaf of bread into his lap, carving thick wedges off each and chewing as he watched me work. He said nothing, but I could feel his curious gaze following my movements.
“I am casting my shot, sir, if that is what you are wondering,” I ventured, without looking up.
“Yes, I deduced as much.” He drained the lees of his wine flask. “Though I must ask why you require such precious ammunition.”2
“An old technique I learned hunting lions with the Shah of Persia. Silver ammunition holds its form better and flies truer than lead,” I lied. “The great hunters of Araby use nothing else.”
“I see,” he said.
I aligned the hinge and closed the dies.
There was barely a line to mark the join.
“You may wish to look away, sir,” I said.
Then I gripped the neck of the crucible with sturdy tongs and carefully poured a stream of liquid silver into the funnel.
There was no concealing the jet of cerulean flames that erupted from the hole, like the tail of a meteorite, as the cooling silver took on the Arcane compulsion of my sigils.
“By the Christ!” Antoine started and almost fell backward where he sat. “What was that?”
“A secret of the smith’s craft,” I improvised with an enigmatic smile. I quenched the mold in a small tub of water. Antoine whooped as the steam mushroomed out. “A reminder that the forge is a wonder as much as a tool.”
I opened the mold and gently tapped the spheres free of the core, like silver berries shaken from the branch. Each was nearly three-quarters of an inch in diameter; even one would humble this Beast, whatever it turned out to be.
“A wonder indeed! May I try?” Far from fearing the crucible and its volatile contents, Antoine was putting on his leather riding gloves, ready to try his hand.
Absolutely not, said Sarmodel.
But Antoine’s eyes were shining with enthusiasm and he was already reaching for the tongs. After a moment’s consideration, I passed them to him. “Of course. Let me show you first. . . .”
There was a disdainful rippling in my mind, which I have come to interpret as my Guest rolling his eyes.
After the second batch, Antoine no longer needed my help. He took inordinate glee in provoking the explosive reaction and only laughed when he managed to singe his hair.
I took the time to buff and examine each pellet, trimming away excess from the mold.
It was too dark for Antoine to see exactly what I was doing, so I also took the opportunity to ensure the Arcane sigils were clear and properly joined.
We developed an easy rhythm and I was for a precious hour or so utterly absorbed in the pleasure of just making something together with him—good work in excellent company.
Our work was interrupted by the sound of swiftly approaching horses and the excited baying of dogs.
“Who is there?” I called, standing up. I had not anticipated company this far from the main hunt.
The dogs arrived first, surrounding our secluded campsite in a snapping, barking circle. Leading them was an enormous brindled mastiff of unwelcome and familiar aspect: Soeur, the Lieutenant of the Hunt’s most favored. She stood facing me at the edge of the firelight, growling in menace.
“Monsieur Bauterne!” called Antoine with easy, accustomed authority. “Call off your hounds, sir!”
Out in the darkness beyond the dogs, the hoofbeats slowed and grew much closer.
“Young Lord Ocerne.” Bauterne came into the light, mounted on his black gelding.
He looked very small indeed sitting astride the powerful animal.
“Have no fear, sir; they will do nothing without my word.” Behind him followed the Ennevals, also mounted, their faces creased in identical scowls of disapproval beneath their thick grenadier mustaches.
“The baron’s pup?” snarled Jean-Francois. It seemed the younger Enneval had not improved his rapport with the Lieutenant of the Hunt since their very public disagreement at the banquet. “I told you it was a false trail. Your ‘instinct’ has led us to a cookfire, Lieutenant.”
Bauterne said nothing. He did not even look at the glowering huntsman; the Norman might not have spoken at all.
I wondered again who might win in a fight between the two—the huge, embittered Enneval or the cunning, prideful Bauterne?
It was difficult to say who I would rather see humbled in such an exchange; rarely has my dislike for two men been so evenly mixed.
Antoine filled the silence. “Messieurs Enneval—senior and junior both. A pleasure to see you again, good sirs.” His tone was light and genial. “There is room by the fire. Would you care to join us?”
Be ready, I sent to Sarmodel. If Bauterne was trying to intimidate us, he was succeeding.
While I doubted he would openly attack us, I did not trust his control over his hounds, many of which seemed almost crazed in their excitement.
I noted with unease that several were also shivering strangely, like the poor pointer at the banquet.
Of course. My Guest’s presence alighted delicately on my centers of consciousness, like the fingertips of a harpist poised to play.
“Regretfully, we must decline, sir,” said Bauterne.
“We are returning to our lodgings at the Bow and Brace and we have ground to cover tonight. As do you, if you are to attend Mass tomorrow and take part in the push.” Bauterne still had not recalled his dogs, and his manner was icy.
“I believe you are supposed to be in Langogne with the other hunters, are you not?”
“We will unfortunately not be able to join the push this week, sir. The professor and I are following a promising trail and I do not wish it to go cold,” replied Antoine, raising his voice over the chorus of excited hounds. “Your dogs, sir. Please—call them off!”
“A trail—here?” Bauterne scoffed. “Within reach of the hunting lodge, where we have slept every night this week, with no sign of the Beast? I believe the professor may have misled you, young sir.” He motioned in my direction but barely glanced at me.
“I do not believe we have met, sir,” I interjected with a smile. “I am Professor Sebastian—”
“I do not require an introduction,” he interrupted.
Just like the bailiff at the assignment ceremony, he issued a grave insult by referring to me with the informal “tu.” His inflection rose toward mockery.
“The Cypriot. I remember you from the chateau. The publican at the Bow and Brace has mentioned you also.”
“Oh?”
The Bow and Brace was a beautifully appointed—and very expensive—hunting lodge along the mountainous eastern road.
I had stayed there on my first night in Gévaudan, enjoying my last taste of civilization before what I expected to be weeks of camping in the wilds.
The lieutenant and the Normans had made it their base of operations for the hunt.
It was also where I had “acquired” the silverware that was now bubbling away in my jeweler’s crucible.
“Yes. I must wonder now, as I did then, why an Ottoman man of letters would involve himself in the hunt for the Beast, here in Gévaudan.” He looked at me steadily. It was not really a question, but the Lieutenant of the Hunt waited for my response.
“I simply seek, with humility, to bring the methods of science and physics to bear upon a thorny problem,” I answered smoothly. I could feel Sarmodel counting dogs in the periphery of my vision. “A problem that has resisted resolution by other means.”
“Then my misgivings are not without basis. I have met men like you before,” he replied.
Behind my smiling lips, my teeth were clenched painfully.
Though entirely typical of men of his station, Bauterne’s arrogance was particularly galling to me; I decided that I disliked him most of all.
“Your ‘science’ will get you and those around you killed. I take it you are responsible for the strange lights we followed here?”
Clumsy, my love, admonished Sarmodel gently. He was right; I had allowed the tranquil spring woodlands and my charming young companion to dull my sense of caution.
“I confess that I am, sir,” I replied. “I have been casting my shot and I fear that my methods are lively.”
Bauterne was silent for a moment. Then he leaned forward in the saddle. “Indeed? Show me. I would see these ‘lively’ methods for myself.”
“It takes some time, sir,” I answered. “I do not wish to delay you on your way.”
“Then perhaps I might see what you are making with such a conspicuous display.”
I opened my mouth to offer another obfuscation, but Antoine was faster.
“Of course, sir,” said the young Lord Ocerne. He rummaged in the dark near my tools and retrieved a handful of musket balls, which he poured into the lieutenant’s gloved palm. “We have plenty more, if you are in need,” offered Antoine.
There was only the dull sheen of lead in the huntsman’s hand; Antoine had given him the shot from his own pouch.
Bauterne examined the small pellets in the firelight, his face blank. “It is unremarkable.”
“For the love of God, man!” interrupted the younger Enneval. His anger was directed not at me, but at Bauterne. “The Beast is not here! Come!” He wheeled his horse around, whistling for his hounds.
Bauterne barked a short command. Suddenly Soeur was there at his side. She made no threat beyond a low growl, but the Norman’s hounds shrank from her, scrabbling back to join their packmates.
Enneval the Younger pulled up short, swearing.
“Father!” he snapped. “Come! Will you sit there like a clubbed lamb?”
“Get back here, you fool,” his father answered. His voice was surprisingly soft. “Before you embarrass us any further.”
But Bauterne appeared to have changed his mind. He waved a black-gloved hand. “No, no, we should indeed be on our way. I apologize for the intrusion, young sir.”
“It was no intrusion, Lieutenant. But I will thank you at our next meeting to remember that Professor Grave is here at my invitation and speak to him with the respect he is owed.”
Bauterne looked down at Antoine for a long moment before returning the musket balls to him, dropping them one by one into his hand.
“You are not baron, sir. Not yet. Do not forget upon whose invitation I am here.” But when he spoke to me, he retained the polite formal register.
“Have a care with your ‘methods,’ Professor Grave. Next time you may attract the attention of less amicable visitors.” He turned his horse around and then stopped, looking back over his shoulder.
“And you would do better to place your faith in the Lord God Almighty than in the false edifice of your science—I know which will claim the Beast in the end.”
I did not trust myself to respond, so I simply returned his nod.
Bauterne gave a warbling, birdlike whistle and the hounds mercifully melted away into the dark woods.
The last to disappear was the formidable Soeur, her gilded collar glinting as she left the circle of firelight.
The Normans did not even acknowledge us as they followed Bauterne into the night.
I am not confident that the hunters were entirely out of earshot when Antoine began to laugh.
“Gévaudan’s greatest hope!” he said, shaking his blond head. “Have you ever seen a bigger bunch of co—”
1. A handy trick I learned from an Arcane artificer, this elemental succession causes carbon to “accumulate” heat energy, allowing the fuel to burn at temperatures normally only found inside a forge.
2. Please forsake all of your fast-food pop-fantasy ideas about silver bullets and werewolves.
Silver is useful because it’s a lightweight and (reasonably) affordable metal with the stability to hold and withstand Arcane compulsion—a lead musket ball marked with Violations would disintegrate into oxides almost immediately.
Silver can instead carry the Arcane charge for an extended period, without succumbing to it.
Platinum is even better than silver; titanium is better still; and today’s tungsten carbide is the absolute pinnacle—it also makes an exceptional sushi knife.