Chapter XLIII
XLIII
Eastern Ocerne, France
There were human finger bones in the fewmets. I also found a few cracked metacarpals.
I poked at the droppings for a minute or so; they were fresh, not more than half a day old.
“These were left by a wolf. It’s eaten a hand—quite a large one,” I called up to Antoine, who was sipping his wine in the saddle as usual.
We were in the eastern steppes now, close to the place where we had been surprised by Bauterne and the Normans nearly a year ago.
We had heard gunfire and awful screaming the previous night, and (with some help from Sarmodel) I had spent the morning trying to locate their source.
The search had brought us to an old birch copse.
“Perhaps it belongs to him,” Antoine answered, motioning with his flask.
It took me a moment to distinguish the body in the snowy underbrush. There were in fact two corpses there—the man lay against the carcass of his horse, their shattered rib cages gaping side by side.
“Did you know he was there this whole time?” I asked, using the slushy snow to clean the wolf shit off my gloves. It had been unseasonably warm the previous few days and the forest floor was turning muddy underfoot.
Antoine grinned down at me. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
He dismounted and followed me to the grisly scene. The man was not long dead; it was certainly his screaming we had heard the night before. He was also easy to identify. His imposing stature and blond grenadier’s mustache were unmistakable, the latter somehow still immaculately waxed and styled.
“Jean-Francois d’Enneval. I regret to say that I was never properly introduced to you or your father,” I said, inclining my head politely to the corpse. “You found the Beast in the end, at least. Though I am surprised Lord Bauterne did not kill you first.”
Enneval the Younger lay under a light covering of frost which was quickly disappearing in the morning sun.
His mouth was fixed wide in a silent cry of surprise, gabled by the icy curls of his mustache.
Below the waist, he was naked, and one of his legs was nigh twisted off; it did not bear thinking about how he had ended up so.
Along with a great deal of blood, a search of his surroundings revealed a discharged musket and a congealed puddle of plasma.
“Where is his father?” Antoine wondered aloud. “They are never far apart.”
“An excellent question.” I pointed to a trail of hoofprints leading away from the copse, back toward the eastern road. Judging from their depth and spacing, the rider was moving at a furious pace. The tracks were also interspersed with heavy splashes of blood.
The younger Enneval’s death was undoubtedly the Beast’s handiwork. I suspected that his father had fled, suffering an injury of his own.
Confirming my analysis of the fewmets, one of Jean-Francois’s hands had indeed been eaten, along with a reasonable portion of his exposed extremities. It was not surprising. During this, the leanest of winters, anything edible would be plundered by scavengers as soon as it hit the ground.
“Are you looting the corpse of the king’s huntsman?” Antoine asked.
“I am investigating,” I corrected, pocketing Enneval’s money pouch. I contemplated taking his handsome hunting knives as well, but concluded they would be too easily recognized.
“Well, when you are finished investigating, what do you want to do with him?”
“I do not think our latrine spade will suffice to dig him a grave, if that’s what you mean. But I suppose it’s not good to leave him here. We could burn the body, I suppose, but it may be too wet for that.”
In fact, the steady sound of dripping filled the forest around us. It was warm enough that the trees were shedding their icicles. Antoine loosened the collar of his woolen greatcoat, raising his face to the sun with a smile.
“Antoine, where are we exactly?” I asked.
“Hmm. North of Chateau d’Ocerne, and quite a way east, I would say. If we go much farther, we will end up in Velay.”
“Are there any villages nearby?”
“Not for miles.”
“I thought as much. We need to find shelter, and soon.”
He looked up at the clear sky, frowning. “I would never question your blasphemous powers of precognition, but are you certain? I have never seen a more perfect winter’s morning. I would think the thaw had come early.”
“Precisely.”
He seemed dubious, but nonetheless we mounted our horses again in a hurry.
My misgivings were borne out within the hour.
Clouds the color of gunpowder amassed over the mountains, growing thicker and darker with every passing minute.
By the time we reached the eastern road, it was shiny with ice and we were riding into a stinging sleet.
We reached a fork in the road as the day darkened further still.
“That way!” Antoine called over the wind.
I followed the line of his pointing hand. The sleet spattered against an elegant wooden shingle that swung madly in the gale. It directed us to a narrow but well-maintained road up the mountainside.
I recognized it, of course. I had been here once before, when I had first arrived in Gévaudan. I read the sign aloud, filled not with relief but with inexplicable dread.
The Bow and Brace.