Chapter XLII
XLII
Ocerne, France
“What now?” Jacques interrupted my narrative bluntly.
“Sir?”
We rode through the tracks and byways of Ocerne, heading east. We had so far managed to avoid the Bishop of Mende’s men. The fields around us were little more than a rimy bog, a bleak reminder of the winter coming fast for Gévaudan.
I continued my tale more for my own relief than to satisfy my young companion’s inquiries. He appeared to care little anymore, but I found I could not stop. After everything that had happened with Dayane, the story of the Red Winter was infinitely easier to bear than the silence.
“What now?” he repeated, frustration and despair dragging at the corners of his mouth. “There was no cure to be found with your . . . forest demon. What recourse is left to me now? And why do I not remember?”
“I will think of something, never fear. And it is better that you do not remember, believe me. I wish I were so blessed.”
“Professor, I cannot return to Eloise with this illness in my flesh. I have killed another innocent, and I can already hear him again in my head—I am hungry, do you understand?”
“I do.” I briefly inspected his teeth and his eyes; they would be first to show signs of the transformation. “You must eat properly, sir, or the hunger will return. You know this.”
“Is this how it will be, then?” he demanded, his eyes hollow. He seemed half a corpse already. “Is this your only solution, you shameless mountebank? I must eat the hearts of cows and dogs and deer, every day until I die?”
I will admit that my nerves were ragged and my patience quite exhausted at the end of a very trying day. My response was not as compassionate as it might have been.
“Not at all, sir,” I snapped. “Eventually, you will no longer be satisfied with such humble fare. As you have already discovered, you will become a beast that seeks out the hearts of your own kind, and you will come to enjoy it more than anything else in life.” He looked at me in horror, but I found I had more to say.
“The hunger you feel is not a matter of survival, you see, but of supremacy. It is your base nature taking hold, the animal soul of man that grows stronger by consuming his rivals and is never satisfied. It is the very Spirit of War, played out in your flesh. His voice will hound your every moment until you give yourself to him willingly, and you will become the Beast of Gévaudan reborn.”
“I will kill myself,” he said softly. Then he said it again, louder. “I will kill myself before that happens!”
“Not so,” I countered, in full flight now—let the young lord have the whole truth if he wished!
“Or you would have done so already. Have you forgotten your good friends, Gerard and Henri? Did you take your own life, after you killed them? No! You took refuge in delirium and subterfuge. And so it will be, young man. So it is, always. You will kill and forget and dissemble until you go mad, or until someone like me is Contracted to uncover your secret and put you down.”
He stared at me, wounded to the core. The only sound was the hoofbeats of our horses in the dirt.
Bravo! said Sarmodel, with delight. I see your mood has improved immeasurably since this morning.
Oh, be silent!
Jacques’s lip curled in disdain. “God help us all, then. Someone like you?”
“Yes, sir. Just such an unholy degenerate.”
“You are a terrible man, Sebastian Grave,” he said, trembling, “but not because you are a witch. Whatever miracles you work, whatever good you wring from your misdeeds, you remain always the same loveless viper, consumed by your own self-regard. Little wonder my father wished nothing more to do with you.”
“Would you prefer a fistfight, if this is to continue?”
After a tense moment of silence, Jacques laughed. It was a boy’s laughter, bright and a little unsure. It was easy to forget that he was only nineteen. “No, Professor. No fighting. Though I would relish the chance to smother you in your sleep, if that were possible,” he said.
I laughed with him this time.
“We are both men at the end of our endurance, I think,” I said. “If it helps to set your mind at ease, know that this will all be over soon, one way or another.”
I regretted my angry words. In truth, I was still deeply dismayed by our encounter with Dayane.
In my selfishness, I had asked for her help; she had given it in good faith.
And how was she repaid? A broken promise and the slow corruption of a curse she did not understand, and then the Crippling Yoke and death at my hand.
I had seldom been more keenly aware of my own wretchedness.
Part of the trouble was that I felt magnificent in every other way. Dayane’s anima suffused my every movement with a power and lightness that made me feel all but invincible. Sarmodel coiled drunkenly in my mind, basking like a lizard on a hot stone.
It was a dangerous state in which to plan our next steps.
“Where are we going, Professor?” Jacques asked, without petulance this time. “You are never without a plan.”
I gave a long sigh. “I will do what I can to help you, sir. I found a cure for your condition once, and I can do so again. Do you trust me?”
“It is lunacy, but for some reason—yes, I do.”
“Then come with me this one last time. I will tell you what happened at the Bow and Brace, and the truth of the Red Winter.”