Chapter 38 You
You
Doubt and melancholy are prone to linger, but your seneschal has other ideas. He informs you in no uncertain terms that, with the war behind you, the ordinary festivals must be observed once more, and that the harvest feast is fast approaching and will require your attention.
The harvest feast. Always quite the celebration, at least in years when the weather has been kind and the crops fine – and this year there will be relief as well as gratitude in the harvesting of them, for they have been spared the devastation of war and the burning that would likely come with invasion.
It would ill become you not to acknowledge that relief, or celebrate the flourishing of fields under the new systems you introduced, or mark the death of summer with all the joy that is needed to bid farewell to the light while still staving off the darkness a little longer.
You assure the seneschal that you’ll deal with it, and push aside your gloom to focus on the practicalities.
It will need to be quite the gathering, after the hardships of the last few months, and after weeks with feasts and celebrations suspended to fund the arming of men.
Your barons will have to be summoned, of course, even those holed up in castles on the far-flung coasts.
There are men sworn to you that you have not seen since your coronation feast, and not missed them, either, but they will expect to be hosted.
You cannot think of your coronation feast without remembering Bisclavret.
It is unlikely that the harvest festival will bring you such an interesting companion again, and any who appeared would find themselves compared unfavourably to their forerunner – an unfair behaviour, you know, but you cannot help yourself.
Still, perhaps there shall at least be some distraction.
And you will have the wolf’s company, of course, providing both comfort and enough threat to keep strident guests away.
When the feast day comes, you’re melancholy again, your mood greyed; you’d rather spend the time in your chamber with the wolf, half-slumbering in front of the hearth.
But this, too, is duty; this, too, is kingship.
You allow yourself to be dressed in all the silks they can drape about you, and then you process to the front gate with the wolf to greet your barons as they arrive.
They come in all their finery, their horses bedecked with ribbons and cloth almost as bright as their own clothes.
They have nothing but smiles for you, even those who resent your taxes and condemn your failure to join the war, and though you see the falsehood in their masks you have locked your own thoughts firmly behind your own, and have only smiles for them in return.
At the gate they dismount, and you embrace them, and render a private prayer of thanks that the seneschal schooled you in their heraldry and names these last days so that you might greet them with enquiries about their land, their wives, their children.
Some have castles and palaces grander than your own – they might well think their power near equal to yours, though they’re too well-trained ever to speak it aloud.
Perhaps that might change, were the wolf not at your side, ready to challenge any who make a nuisance of themselves, and even with your bestial guard, there are some who have yet to learn the art of keeping their opinions to themselves.
‘It’s a pity, really,’ says a young man, not much older than yourself, with the emblem of a raven on his shield. ‘The war, you know.’
‘War is often a pitiable thing,’ you say, carefully, burying one hand in the wolf’s ruff as though it might lend you patience.
‘I’ve men enough eager for a good fight, and they had so hoped it would be their chance.
Not enough land for them at home, you know, they would have liked the opportunity to win their fee the old way—’ He breaks off, so perhaps your mask is not as well-fixed as you might have liked, your courtesy failing you.
‘But of course,’ he says, catching himself.
‘No doubt you made a wise judgment, and spared us much grief.’
‘No doubt,’ you say, in the most pleasant tone you can manage, and are relieved when the seneschal appears to whisk the man inside and allow the next to approach you.
Many, it seems, have brought their sons – interchangeable young men, most of them aspiring to knighthood of a brighter sort than any they might find in their father’s service, but some, perhaps, seeking something else.
You greet them all the same. You’re introduced to a fair few young ladies, as well; attempts to persuade you into marriage have not yet desisted.
Most are models of courtesy, and were your mood brighter you might have found some pleasure in colloquy with them; one, however, has an interest in the beast so careless and claustrophobic that the creature growls and shifts with an impatience you’ve never seen before.
You ask her to step back, for you fear the consequences if she doesn’t – and this, of course, only incites her interest further.
A dangerous beast is an exciting one, a story to take home.
You encourage her to leave with her story before it becomes a scar, and turn your attention to calming the wolf.
‘Are there many more expected?’ you ask the seneschal at last, for the air has an autumnal chill and you are growing tired of your position here at the gate.
‘Some,’ he admits, but on catching your expression, adds, ‘It would be perfectly courtly to receive them inside, should you wish it.’
Of course it would be courtly: you on your throne, they on their best behaviour.
But greeting them here, before they have had time to arrange themselves after their journey, with all the strains of travel chipping away at their edges, gives you a more honest understanding of them.
Some have been months away from court, for you recall them only when you must, and they have no mind to offer service that is not ordered.
Their kisses taste of duty, and their words teach you much about them.
‘I will stay,’ you say, ‘though if you might have a cup of wine fetched, I—’
The wolf snarls, furious. You turn, startled by the noise, to see his teeth bared and his hackles raised, and when you follow the beast’s gaze you see a lone man approaching.
It takes you a moment to recognise him. His dress is a little more sober than the rest, and he is mounted on a serviceable courser with an ordinary riding saddle, free of ribbons and bells. His heraldry, though . . .
The wolf growls again, and the man stops, slightly further away than is truly polite, as though unwilling to bring the horse closer to the beast.
‘My lord,’ he begins, as soon as he is within earshot, ‘I am honoured—’
You will never learn what has honoured him, for the wolf is a blur of movement, an arrow from a taut bowstring released, and before you have truly registered that he’s left your side, his teeth have closed around the man’s tunic and are dragging him from his horse, stealing his words along with his breath.
The baron lets out a strangled yelp of shock and fumbles for his sword, but the wolf bats at his hand, his claws drawing blood, and the panicked horse is rearing, trying to escape, and the man falls, hitting the ground hard.
The man. Bisclavret’s cousin.
When last he came to you at a feast it was to bring you the sweetest of gifts, his kinsman, an offering for which you are still grateful no matter the grief you have borne.
But now he is flat on the muddy ground, the wolf’s teeth inches from his throat, paws on his chest. You have never seen the wolf like this before, his wildest self: predator, hunter, killer.
For the first time, you might believe that he killed Bisclavret.
That thought breaks the spell of immobility that holds you.
You’re on your feet, snatching a spear from one of the guards at the gate, using the wood of it to drive the beast back.
He growls and snarls at you with uncharacteristic fury, but doesn’t bite, and you push him away.
You glance over your shoulder at his target: he’s bleeding, but from the way he scrambles backwards and heaves himself to his feet, you think he’ll live.
The seneschal has called for help before you might think to do it yourself.
Your knights come running, swords drawn.
‘Get rope,’ you spit in their direction, and in the moment of your distraction, the wolf tries to dart past you.
He has the scent of his enemy now, and will not let it drop.
‘Leave him, damn you!’ You block his path, gripping his ruff as hard as you dare.
You have no fear for yourself – you may never have seen the wolf as wild as this, but he would not hurt you.
Would he?
Somebody has brought a coil of rope. You have the wolf muzzled and restrained while a servant catches the baron’s fleeing horse and another brushes the mud from the man’s clothes.
‘I wonder what he did,’ says a voice. Your knight in green, you see, turning your head a little.
Still stunned, and shaking now with the aftermath of violence, you manage, ‘What?’
‘The baron. For the wolf to attack him in that way.’
Perhaps it’s the shock of the attack that deprives his words of sense. ‘He is a wolf,’ you say, numbly. ‘It is . . . it is his nature.’
‘He’s lived here the best part of a year,’ says your knight. ‘I have never seen him snap at anyone – much less try to bite. And yet within moments of this man’s arrival, he’s been torn from the saddle? This looks to me like revenge, my lord. Some unknowable grudge of the creature’s.’
You regard the wolf as though you’ll find the answers just by looking at him, but he seems more animal than ever.
Bisclavret’s cousin lives close to the forest; perhaps the beast has seen him there.
Could the baron have tried before to hunt this wolf, thinking him his cousin’s killer?
Does the wolf seek vengeance now for the insult and the injury?
‘The baron is my guest,’ you say finally, ‘and he has been attacked in my presence. I must – I must compensate him for this insult. Excuse me.’
You take the wolf, for you would not leave any of your servants with the enraged creature.
He is still muzzled, still furious, growling deep in his throat at the injustice of a hunt denied.
As you cross the courtyard, he tugs so hard at the rope in your grip that he almost tears free, straining like a hunting hound on the leash, and you must exert all of your strength to haul him back.
The baron – Bisclavret’s cousin – flinches where he is walking to the keep, and the servant leading him to the physician does too.
‘Be calm!’ you tell the creature, but you have never learned to settle him, because you have never needed to. ‘He is my guest. You will treat him as such.’
The wolf’s hackles remain raised, but the rope in your hand slackens a little, and you gesture for the baron and the servant to make haste. Then you take the wolf to your own chamber, and close the door firmly behind you.
‘What is this?’ you ask him, as though he might answer.
‘Will you provoke my barons into rebellion with your teeth? You will stay here, tonight,’ you add.
‘I cannot bring you to the feast if you intend to bite my guests.’ And you will have to seat the baron at your side and offer him some favour if you hope to win back his friendship.
Perhaps a gift. His clothes and horse suggest his lands are not flourishing; maybe you might relieve his troubles, and receive his forgiveness that way . . .
The wolf whines, pitiful.
‘Beg all you like,’ you tell him. ‘You have made trouble for me. I have no choice.’ You will have to lock your chamber fast, and leave him scratching at the door. You cannot have him taken to the kennels, for in this mood, there’s no telling what menace he might visit upon the hounds.
But it is not easy, when the time comes, to bid him farewell, and descend to the feast alone.
To hear the whispers alone. To know that word has spread already: the king’s wild beast attacked somebody; he is as dangerous as they always said; it is clear proof that you are unfit to rule; you have brought this violence into your castle and allowed him to hurt the very men who serve you.
Bisclavret’s cousin, the scratches on his hand neatly bandaged, is not greatly mollified by his position of honour, and the intended joy of the feast has been replaced by whispers and speculation.
The musicians are cowed and quiet; the storytellers lose the thread of their tales, darting nervous glances at you as though you, like the wolf, might at any moment attack them.
Only the jugglers keep their nerve, but then, they are men of daring, tossing knives from hand to hand as though they fear not the blade’s edge.
When the candles have burned down and the entertainments have ceased, the baron at your side stands. ‘My lord,’ he says, ‘I bear no grudge and seek no restitution, but I will take my leave of you. Good night.’
‘Stay,’ you begin, half-heartedly, but he has already walked away.
Amidst uneasy murmurs, others follow suit, each lord and knight bidding you farewell, until at last there is nothing for it but to stand and take your leave, and let those who dare to remain in the castle make their beds and seek their rest.
Inside your chamber, the muzzled wolf waits, plaintive and unhappy.
You unbind the ropes, each loosened knot a whispered apology. ‘I wish,’ you say softly, ‘that I knew what you were thinking.’