Chapter 18 Him
Him
It’s been three weeks now, perhaps longer.
Three weeks in his own skin, and more still to be thankful for.
He whispers his gratitude in the chapel as he kneels for Mass like a man with nothing on his mind but knighthood.
His Confession is still only half a truth but it feels like more than that, and he can neither hide his joy from the chaplain nor explain it.
With the scribe’s help, he traces the words in the psalter and feels the echo of their rejoicing: in pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam, quoniam tu Domine singulariter in spe constituisti me.
In peace in the selfsame I will sleep, and I will rest: for thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope.
For the first time in his life he has friends, true friends: the knight in green and his wife who make him welcome in their home; the flame-haired knight and his sister; all the men who have welcomed him into their brotherhood.
He has the scribe and his patience, and the chaplain and his intercession. Impossibly, wonderfully, he belongs.
And the wolf has not come for three weeks.
He almost wishes it would, just to free him from the anticipation of it: the longer the wait, the harder the fall will be. But he’s being so careful, and it almost feels like having control over it.
And when she helps him with his armour, the lady says, ‘There is something gentle in you, Bisclavret,’ as though she can’t see the wildness and ferocity waiting to tear him apart.
As she spreads salve on the bruises he earns by sparring, she says, ‘You are a good man,’ as though he is no more or less than that.
And one day, as they walk through the frost-glittering gardens together, their breath forming white clouds in front of their faces, she says, ‘Your father’s estate must be a lonely place, without family to fill it. Do you plan always to live there alone?’
He cannot make sense of this question, doesn’t know what she’s asking. ‘My cousin is the only kinsman with whom I have any friendship,’ he says. ‘There are no others whom I might invite there, and I . . . well, I . . .’
She takes pity on him, linking their arms together as she says, ‘I meant a wife, Bisclavret.’
Oh.
‘I have never . . .’ He trails off. ‘The opportunity has never . . .’
She stops walking, bringing them both to a halt. ‘The opportunity is here,’ she says, bringing his gloved hand to her chest, over her heart. ‘I would marry you, Bisclavret, if you would have me.’
Others might see impertinence in this declaration, but Bisclavret is overwhelmingly grateful to know her mind so plainly, when he would never have dared to guess.
‘You would?’ She is an orphaned daughter of a knight, but she is also the king’s ward, beautiful and learned, and he is far from her best prospect. He has so little to offer her, and so much to hide.
‘I would,’ she says. ‘I would be your wife, Bisclavret. There is no man in the court that I love so well as you, and I hate to see you lonely.’
He has long ceased to think of himself as lonely, but it’s true he’s losing his taste for solitude.
Perhaps one companion, one more person in his home, would not greatly alter the peace of it.
She brings with her such calm that he can’t imagine her presence doing anything but keeping the wolf at bay.
And she is lonely too. She hasn’t said as much, but he hears it in her stories, and knows the loss of her father left her as abandoned in the world as the loss of his mother left him.
The king has been kind to her, and her life in the castle is a comfortable one, but it isn’t hers – just borrowed rooms and borrowed riches, waiting for the day when she makes her own home.
What harm could it do for two abandoned souls to find comfort in each other? She feels like safety: in her presence he is human. And she is kind. He has had precious little kindness in his life.
He knows what his cousin would say. What the priest of his childhood would say, or his mother, or his own common sense.
To bring her home as his wife would be to put her in danger.
Beyond that, she’ll want an explanation for the nights that he’s away, and he has none to offer her, nothing to say that won’t leave her feeling spurned and neglected.
And if they were to have children, would they also bear his curse?
To his knowledge, his father was unmarred by any such monstrosity, but he has been given no other explanation for his own nature that might assure him of the impossibility of passing it down to a babe.
Perhaps (he thinks, clutching at desperate hope) it is some unique weakness of his soul that renders it incapable of remaining in a human body; a child, its soul shaped afresh by God, would not share this failing.
Perhaps he doesn’t have a soul at all, he thinks suddenly, and that prompts questions he’d like to pose to a priest if only he could find the words to express them.
In their sermons and prayers they speak of man being made in God’s image, but what does that mean when his own shape is so changeable?
Is it his soul or his body that reflects the Almighty?
For if it is his body, then either the Lord is more strange than has been preached to him, or he spends at least part of his time outside of the glories of creation, some uncreated thing.
And if it is his soul . . . well, he has enough of his mind in wolf-shape to suppose that he keeps his soul, too. He is a human in a wolf’s body, driven by a wolf’s hungers without being slave to its desires, and his shifting does not take everything from him.
‘I am sworn to the king,’ he says finally, ‘and you are his ward. I would need to ask his blessing.’
Her expression has been nervous, earnest, but now it fractures into a small smile. ‘And will you?’
‘Yes,’ he tells her. ‘I will ask him.’
The king has good judgment. The king will know in his heart if this is wise, and if he agrees, then all will be well, and a marriage will be well, and their children will be well.
But in his heart of hearts, Bisclavret fears – wishes? – that the king will see this for the danger it must surely be, and refuse him.
It proves more difficult than Bisclavret anticipated to find the right moment to speak with the king.
He could seek an audience as petitioners do, or catch him after their sparring practice in the morning instead of staying to exchange the usual banter with the other knights, but neither feels like the right environment for this conversation.
He practises the request alone at night, trying to find the words, and still it seems presumptuous to ask for this and expect it to be granted.
Part of him almost believes she was testing him when she asked, and will retract her favour if he proves himself so easily led.
The words of the knight in green come back to him: You may not be able to see your own qualities, but please, spare us the discourtesy of assuming we are similarly afflicted. He must trust her to know her own mind and express it honestly.
Still, he’s close to losing his courage when he stumbles upon the king in the armoury.
It’s a surprise to see him there, diligently repairing some small damage to his hauberk as though he doesn’t have servants to cater to his every whim.
He has the knack of it, twisting rings back into shape and scrubbing away the rust that’s accumulated in the poor weather, and he doesn’t look up as Bisclavret enters, only says, ‘If you’ve a spare hand, would you pass me that cloth? ’
Looking around, Bisclavret sees the cloth lying over a bench and hands it to him. It’s only as the rag changes hands that the king looks up, and smiles to see him there.
Bisclavret gestures to the armour. ‘Is it fitting for you to be doing that yourself, sire?’
The king snorts, and it’s hard to imagine a less regal sound. ‘I have hands, do I not? This crown on my head doesn’t render me entirely helpless.’
‘I’m sorry,’ begins Bisclavret. ‘I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.’
‘No, of course you didn’t,’ says the king.
He has a wistful look. ‘A season ago, I was an exile who could scarcely persuade a groom to feed my horse without an incentive, so little did they care for me or any power I might one day hold. Now I must evade my own seneschal to be permitted to do anything useful for myself.’
‘That must be . . . strange.’
‘Strange is one word for it.’ The king twists his expression into a smile and resumes his work. ‘As it happens, I have a busy mind and idle hands, and this struck me as a useful occupation for them both. Was there something you needed in here? If I’m in your way—’
‘I came to borrow a whetstone,’ Bisclavret admits. ‘I expected to find the place empty at this hour. But now that I have you here . . .’ He pauses. The words are harder to find than ever. ‘There is a matter about which I have been meaning to speak with you.’
The king lowers his work to his lap and sits up a little straighter.
Aside from their training sessions together, they’ve talked little these past weeks.
Bisclavret has become just another thread in the tapestry of castle life, unremarkable in his presence – and it would be a lie to say it hasn’t been a purposeful act, for the king’s keen interest unsettles him as much as it thrills him, an intensity in it that he doesn’t know how to match.
‘Go ahead,’ says the king.
Bisclavret pauses, whets his lips. How to phrase it? How to make the request seem reasonable, conventional, within the bounds of his oaths and plausible for a man like himself?
In the end he puts it simply: ‘I seek your blessing to take your ward as my wife.’
The king looks at him for a long moment, as though he’s speaking a foreign tongue. Meaning seems to reach him only slowly, until finally he says, ‘Your wife? And . . . and she has indicated her willingness, has she?’
‘She has. It was her understanding that you would allow her to act according to her own desires in this matter. I know . . . I know that perhaps, as she is a member of your household, you might have hoped for a more auspicious match, but I can promise that I, at least, have troubled to know her before thinking of this, and would treat her courteously. My lord,’ he adds hastily, trying to remember that he is a knight asking a boon of his king, not merely a cursed wolf-thing begging to be allowed some piece of normality in his life.
The king puts down his cloth and regards his empty hands for a moment. ‘Well,’ he says at last, ‘I can think of no objection, if you are both happy with the match.’
Happy. Is he? Bisclavret is unsure whether he was shaped for happiness, or whether the best he can hope for is to be more content some days than others, but perhaps in the end that’s as close as anyone comes. ‘You truly have no objections, my lord?’
The king gives a strange, jerky nod. ‘If I marry, it will be for the kingdom, not for myself. No reason that she should bear the same burden. I promised her a choice in this matter and I will keep my word. And,’ he adds, with a smile that wavers and fades before it fully takes shape, ‘I can think of no better man than you to ask for her hand.’
Bisclavret swallows the lump in his throat. ‘Thank you, sire.’
‘Speak to the seneschal about her dowry; he manages her inheritance. And you’re best off discussing the practicalities with the chaplain directly.
May I trust that you will give her the good news yourself?
’ In that moment, he reminds Bisclavret of his cousin: efficient, his mind turning at once to the practical details, carefully skirting the issue of his wolf-sickness, except that it is ignorance, not tact, which keeps the king from the subject.
‘I will. Thank you.’
‘Go, then,’ says the king, ‘with my blessing.’ And then he picks up his cloth and resumes his polishing as though the matter is settled and there is nothing more to be said.
No warnings or admonishments, no attempts to persuade him away from a course that will inevitably result in destruction.
Surely a king, in his wisdom and good-judgment, should be able to see the danger lurking?
But whatever it is the king sees when he pierces Bisclavret’s soul with his gaze, it isn’t the wolf.
Bisclavret goes.