Chapter 9 Him
Him
The day has an unreal air to it. Bisclavret allows the servants to chivvy him away to another bath, and dresses once again in his own clothes, shabby as they are; with a journey ahead, there is no need for anything better.
He makes arrangements to travel, trying not to think too hard about where he is going and why for fear that, when looked in the eyes, these impossibilities will splinter and disappear.
But that his cousin witnessed it, he would think the conversation with the king had been a dream.
The impossibilities: that the king should want him for a knight at all; that his father’s lands should be intact and waiting for him; that they are so close to the court as to allow him both freedom and concealment; that his cousin will give up a small piece of his own dreams to help him; that when he hesitated to accept what he was offered for fear of the wolf inside his skin, the king worked to persuade him otherwise.
The king wants him. Will bend rules to make space for him. It is like breathing fresh air after two and a half decades of drowning.
He’d thought if he gained anything from this, it would be the king’s pity, inheritance restored because it was his right and nothing more – perhaps some small portion of land that represented only the least lucrative corner of his father’s estate, a softer and easier exile but an exile nonetheless.
It was all he dared hope for. He certainly did not imagine this.
You will swear to me as knight and baron.
Can he? Does he dare? The wolf is at bay for now, but he can still feel it, haunting his bones.
The hunt made it restless, the unfamiliarity of the court made it worse, and the fight with the king ignited every trace of savagery within him and stirred it into motion.
What if it returns just as he is raised to knighthood?
Better not to rise at all. He knew that almost before he’d lowered his sword to accept the king’s surrender, and he’d tried—
He did not expect, somehow, for his cousin to intervene.
He is more used to his kin trying to limit him and to hide him.
His mother would have kept him shackled to the loom like a girl, if she’d had her way of it; she would not have armed him with anything larger than a needle, and he would have lived a quiet life, a safe life, until the wolf tore him from it.
But his cousin and the king, they demand more of him.
His cousin he understands – the man will benefit as much as he, though life as a steward will offer less glory for a young man than a knight’s life, and one day perhaps he’ll want to return to the latter.
The king, he understands less. Oh, he noticed the man’s lingering gaze, his interest; he can’t imagine what it is about him that draws the king’s eye, but drawn it is.
Unbidden, the words of the knight in green come back to him: he was tumbling one of the grooms. Is that what the king seeks?
Is all of this a seduction, from a man with the power to command him with a word?
The idea settles oddly in his stomach. He is not used to being desired, and he can’t give the king what he wants. Not with the wolf lurking inside his
skin.
‘Bisclavret,’ says his cousin sharply, and he has the sense that this is not the first time his name has been called.
He pulls himself with difficulty out of his thoughts. ‘Yes, cousin?’
‘So you can hear me. I thought perhaps you’d left your wits in that stable you slept in.
’ Beneath the sharp words, there is relief: he is not entirely joking.
He’s ever feared the wolf will take Bisclavret’s mind along with his form.
‘Are you well for the journey? Tell me now if you are not, that I might make arrangements.’
Arrangements. By which he means an alteration of their route to pass by some woods somewhere that he might let the wolf off the leash like an over-spirited hound in need of exercise. Bisclavret appreciates the consideration, but feels nevertheless the humiliation of need.
‘I am well,’ he says, which feels truthful, this time. How he will feel when he bids farewell to the estate that has been his gaol, however, he cannot say. Perhaps that will be what shakes him loose from his humanity.
His cousin makes a noncommittal noise and continues saddling the borrowed horses. Their own will remain here, so as to allow speed without injuring the beasts further.
‘Is there something on your mind?’ Bisclavret asks him, after watching for a moment or two. ‘If you have something to say . . .’
‘I will have several days to say it, while we travel,’ says his cousin. ‘And a lower chance of being overheard.’
That bodes ill for the kind of conversation it might be. ‘Before you say anything, then, let me remind you that you pushed for this. If you have any regrets or concerns, recall that I was on the verge of accepting exile as my lot and knighthood as nothing more than a childhood game.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ says his cousin. ‘I am well aware of that.’
He will say nothing more on the subject until they are on the road – just the two of them, without company, for the sake of speed and cost. It may be the last time Bisclavret travels like this, for there will be expectations of a baron to travel with servants.
The prospect of a life of company brings both joy and dread: that he will not be alone, as he has so often been alone, is everything he has wished for, and yet it brings with it the impossibility of secrets.
How will he conceal the wolf from them? Will he be known, exposed, shown to the world? He could not bear that.
Some miles from the castle, his cousin says, ‘Tell me truthfully. How much of your fear is habit?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your mother carved shame deep into you. I am aware of that. To my eye, you manage the wolf well enough; I have never known you hurt anyone or anything larger than a sheep. I see no danger in this new life – less, perhaps, than staying on your mother’s estate, which is too small for you, and drives you to hunt too far afield.
Your father’s lands will grant you hunting rights, and are far larger, with some good acreage left without the interruption of tenants, such that you may remain concealed. ’
It is delivered in a crisp manner, as though he has been evaluating this question all night. ‘But . . .’ prompts Bisclavret, for he knows there is more than this.
‘But you are afraid. You know the wolf better than me, of course; you know your needs. Are you afraid because you have grown used to being so, or because there is some real danger I have not considered?’
It is a mercy to be asked in this way, unflinching and honest. If only Bisclavret had an answer.
‘I have been afraid all my life,’ he says.
‘I have not known how to protect those around me except by withdrawing. This change threatens to unbalance me, and what effect that will have on the wolf, I cannot know. Perhaps it is perfectly safe. Perhaps the king invites disaster, and does so unknowing, and I would not put that on him. That he offered me this at all . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘Still I cannot fathom it.’
‘They are your father’s lands,’ says his cousin. ‘Had he waited a few more weeks to die, you would have had them all along.’
‘You know it’s more than that.’ Would he have been a knight, if that had happened? Would he have ridden beside the king, hunted with him, sat beside him at a feast?
‘I know that you have the king’s favour,’ says his cousin, and though his tone is even, there’s something in it that catches Bisclavret’s attention.
‘What does that mean?’ he asks.
‘That he looks at you like a starving man looks at a feast. That is a dangerous position to be in, Bisclavret.’
‘I have no intention of—’
‘What do your intentions matter? This is a king we’re talking about.
A new king, his friendships at court not yet solidified.
The man is alone – any fool can see he’s desperate for friends, to win the love of his father’s retainers, to know which of his knights are loyal beyond their oaths and which are looking ever for fairer weather.
He is a crowned exile, and his attention is on you because you, too, are an exile and an unknown and have no prior loyalties with which he must compete.
You were never sworn to his father. You underestimate how much that means to a man still finding his footing in a kingdom that no longer knows him. ’
Bisclavret is stunned into silence. After several wordless moments, he manages, ‘Why give up your place as a knight to be a steward to me? You could advise kings. You have a canny eye for politics.’
His cousin laughs, some of the tension broken.
‘I am the youngest son of six brothers,’ he says.
‘My life has been an exercise in observing needs and alliances, and positioning myself to best catch the favourable winds. I know how to watch a man for his intentions, and I am telling you that the king is adrift. A baron who could situate himself as a reliable support at a time like this would profit well from it, but if the king proves rash, profligate, quick to make enemies, then that will be a difficult bond from which to extract oneself with honour. And he is young, untested. It is hard to know what manner of king he will be.’
One unlike his father, Bisclavret suspects, though having never met the old king, this is a supposition based on hearsay.
The king does not seem rash, but that he is so intent on knighting a man he hardly knows – and surely no man of his father’s type would have brought a scribe as friend and ally upon returning from exile.
‘And yet you manoeuvred me such that I must accept the honour he has done me,’ he points out.
His cousin shrugs. ‘It is your inheritance. If this life truly suits you so ill, you will return to your mother’s lands and plead infirmity, and the king will remember that we warned him of your fragile health and accept this excuse.’
He has a quick and calculating mind, planning steps ahead.
He has taken Bisclavret’s secret into his care as his own and learned to hide it with clever words and keen observations.
It is a valuable talent, and a still more valuable friendship.
‘I will still owe him men and service. If there is a war . . .’
‘Then let us hope there will be no war.’ His cousin raises an eyebrow.
‘I did not forsake knighthood only to calculate your rents, Bisclavret. I meant it when I promised to help train your men, though I’m not the fighter you are, and I will be your sworn man.
If such a time comes that you find another steward, perhaps I will be your knight, and wear your livery. ’
It is a kindness, and a practical one. But it sits uneasily with Bisclavret. ‘As children we played at knighthood together. As equals. Not one in service to the other.’
‘We were children,’ says his cousin. ‘There was never a world in which that was true. I have ever been the sixth of six and my father poorer in rank than yours. Service or the Church was always my fate and,’ he adds, with a wry smile, ‘I am not suited to holy orders.’
He’s right, of course, but for so long exile seemed the only fate Bisclavret might hope for, and that made a strange parity between them.
‘I will be glad of your service,’ he says at last, ‘and of your friendship, and whatever guidance you might offer me. But when my father’s lands are steadied, when we have unravelled the neglect and made them once again an estate worthy of a baron, and when you have trained another steward to see the currents of power that you see, then, cousin, you will be a knight again. ’
His cousin smiles. ‘And I will be glad of it. But there will be plenty of work to do first.’ They ride a little further in silence, and then he says, ‘Will it be difficult, do you think, to say goodbye to your mother’s lands?’
Impossible, and also a relief. ‘They have been all I have ever known,’ says Bisclavret.
‘I will be leaving behind a life. But . . .’ This journey is wringing more truths from him than Confession.
‘But I am also leaving behind a great loneliness, and that is a blessing. And I will have the lands safeguarded, and should I ever have a daughter, they will be hers, and if I ever wish to return, they will be there. It is no true parting.’
None of this will cut the bonds that have tied him to this life of secrecy and distance; it will only loosen them, slackening the ropes to give the illusion of freedom. He would do well to remember that. It will make it easier to bear, when the wolf robs him of it all again.
As it must. As he has always known it will.
You will be a knight, said the king. It was a promise more than an order, and still it sank into his bones like a command. The king desires it, and it will be so.
But even a king cannot command a wolf.