Chapter 34
Other
predator turned sentinel: a wolf
curled at the king’s door like a hound
– he has brought me home –
and a king who smells of distraction.
hard to say how much of this
wolf-suspicion, predator-wariness,
is the beast’s heart and how much
is the man’s, but the boy that’s with him
has a smile like a secret, softening
the barbs of the king’s thoughts.
he brings the young man inside with him
he is surprised too I think but if my king wants it
if my king thinks it is safe
then I will let him pass
‘do you plan to stay there all night?’
to a wolf, wordless, the question is parsed
like sunlight through trees, dappled with meaning.
he’s asking if I will guard him
his smile is soft and sad –
his smiles are often sad these days,
painted with misunderstood grief.
but the wolf waits at the door,
keeps out the draught and the blade and the bad dreams
and in the morning when the young man sleeps
the king slips from his bed to the stairwell,
quiet as a wraith, and the wolf follows.
PACK
some loyalties run blood-deep
FOLLOW
a stone courtyard is unlike the woods
but the path is clear enough,
bed to chapel, sleep to prayer.
here no ivy tangles around the altar-stone,
no leaves crunch in the nave.
in his pale nightshirt the king is a ghost,
cold as the stones, but his candle
holds the force of a star. he kneels
– he must be cold –
and begins to whisper prayers.
they are unknowable,
layered in human-sense, no wolf-sense to them,
a soft chant of syllables.
I will stay by him anyway
I am at least warm in this cold place
I will keep him from freezing at his vigil
the candle burns low, guttering
with every exhalation. it flickers,
and as the flame goes out the priest emerges,
well-timed and hesitant.
I recognise him
I remember this man he was kind to me
stories of the wolf have spread.
rumours are as swift as prayers.
he stops to speak to the king and—
‘bisclavret’
– my name
he says my name this priest he says my name
I hear it as clear as if I were human –
these men of god and remembrance
can summon phantoms with their words.
why does he say my name
perhaps he speaks of loss. the king’s answer
is a whisper, faint and non-committal,
like the beast to his skin.
he shakes his head. says
‘the mind of a man’
quoting, it seems, his knight.
the words hang uneasily in the air.
this priest he must know I’m no thing of nature
only a monstrous aberration
and he
he must see the devil’s work in me
and yet he steps away
a burning star – another candle, sheltered
from the draughts of the chapel – a clasped shoulder,
a murmured prayer, and then the priest
is gone and the king resumes his vigil,
and the wolf resumes his waiting.
I cannot go home
I can never go home
I will never have my own skin
my body has forgotten how to be human
even despite the dreams of it
this place is not home but half a tomb,
cold stone and candle wax,
but still the dust is a breath of life,
still the pale dawn of candlelight is homecoming,
away from the forest and starvation and desperate bloody survival.
not home but a resting place,
a moment’s grace
– for as long as he will have me here –
‘bisclavret’
he remembers my name
he speaks it when he’s praying
perhaps I am not lost after all