‘I did not know your father,’ he says, ‘but by the state of these books I suspect it would be reasonable to assume you have visited them more in the past month than he did in twenty years. The question that remains is whether you are here to see them, or to see me.’
‘Both, on this occasion,’ you admit.
‘I’m honoured. Are you here to tell me you intend to commission a beautiful illuminated gospel-book? That you have convinced your seneschal to be less grudging with his purse-strings when I beg for parchment that isn’t coarse and full of so many holes you’d think the poor sheep met its death in a thorn bush? That I am to have better ink, so that I might not spend my days rescuing each page from its spots and spattering?’
‘Not today,’ you say, regretfully, though you really mustspeak to your seneschal about the matter. ‘I have a question of inheritance that needs answering.’
He puts down his stylus and rule. ‘Do I sense a story? A fair unknown come questing in search of his father’s place and a sword of his own?’
You narrow your eyes. He has a faint look of dishevelment, as always, his modest sleeves pushed back to save them from the ink that stains his fingers, and his dark hair loose and tangled around his face. ‘Who told you?’
‘You mean thereisa fair unknown?’ he says, a gleam of interest in his eye. ‘How exciting. I had rather thought they were the stuff of stories, but if stories are living at your court, well, then, you will be a fine king.’
He is likely the only person who believes as much. ‘Neither unknown nor fair,’ you admit, ‘but yes, a young man seeking his father’s inheritance. Bisclavret. A posthumous birth. His father died in service of mine some twenty-five years gone.’
‘Bisclavret,’ echoes the scribe, considering the name, and gives you a smile. ‘And he has impressed you, has he, this stranger of yours?’
Your cheeks grow hot. ‘He excelled himself in the hunt.’
‘Ah,’ he says, a little too knowingly. ‘Well, then, I shall endeavour to determine what was done with his lands, and will report to you when I find it, if the worms haven’t eaten the charter in question. Was there anything else you needed, my lord?’
There is a gentle mockery in his deference, a mischievous edge to his smile. You did not only bring him here because you had need of a court scribe. You brought him because you were lonely, and he was there; because he is a storyteller, and you felt your own threads unravelling; because when the nights of your exile were coldest and hardest, he was the one who warmed them.
It would be wise to forget this.
You have not yet succeeded.
‘Only this, for now,’ you tell him. ‘If his lands cannot be returned, find some other estate of equal value. Bring word to me when you have succeeded, or have me fetched.’
He inclines his head in acknowledgement. ‘As you command,’ he says, drily, and takes up his work again.
7
Him
He wants this. He fears this. He asked for this. He is unworthy of this.
He is still wolf-sharp from the hunt, but his skin is his own, such that he almost feels it safe to sleep in the hall near the fires and not pass another cold night in the stables. Almost, but not quite; Bisclavret has not lived this long by being incautious. At least his injured horse provides him with an excuse, though few would expect a man to tend the beast himself when there are grooms equipped to do so.
He sleeps hard and dreamless, which comes as a surprise, for he cannot stop thinking of the hunt: the king ahead of him on his destrier, so steady and assured until the final moment. Was that fear? He didn’t think it wise to wait long enough for the court to be sure either way, and the boar would have savaged him, given the chance. Any man would have taken action to prevent it.Shouldhave taken action. And yet only Bisclavret moved.
Do the others not love their king, or were they, too, afraid? Perhaps they should train some courage into themselves, the way they do with the hounds, since they don’t have the wolf’s savagery in their hearts to carry them through the battle.
The morning dawns cold, his breath misting the air. He takesa quiet moment with his horse – she is healing, slowly; she will carry him home when all this is done – and then he brushes straw from his hair and emerges into the stables proper, where a servant informs him that he is wanted out in the courtyard, where the knights train.
The king wants to test him. Bisclavret is unsure whether he will pass. His adolescent sparring with his cousin cannot compare to the training of a knight, and his own practice – alone, wielding a stick or a broom handle or whatever blunted sword substitute he could find – will not have made up the difference. He has done his best: every fighter who has passed his mother’s estate in recent years has been watched and interrogated and begged for guidance. As time went on, he began to test himself against them, and he has won more of those bouts than he has lost, but that . . . that means nothing. Surely here, at the court, any who see him fight will immediately know the failings of his education.
And the king will send him home, back to his mother’s lands, no more a knight than when he started.
Perhaps that would be for the best, speaks Reason, but he has lived his life within the bounds of such limits and restrictions, and they have so far failed to keep him safe. No matter how careful he is, he isn’t permitted to keep his body. He can avoid the world and keep himself hidden and do everything a wolf-sick man could reasonably be expected to do, but it will make no lick of difference to what he is. The wolf comes whether he is careful or not.
He istiredof listening to Reason.
It’s in this stubborn mood that he emerges into the courtyard, where he is hailed by a man – a knight, he assumes, for he’s wearing mail under his green surcoat, and a fine sword at his waist. A younger man than many of the old king’s retainersBisclavret saw at the feast, not quite a decade older than himself or the king, and one with a friendlier smile than the others.
‘Quite the feat yesterday,’ he says cheerfully. ‘A bold man to claim a kill like that without even swearing his fealty first, but the king seems to have taken a liking to your daring, and few could fault the sureness of your hand. Any would think you were an expert boar hunter, and yet I hear it’s an uncommon pastime for you. Such quick aptitude puts us all to shame.’
Bisclavret’s stomach twists at the thought of these knights judging his skills and his choices, and the resentment that he might spark in them with a misstep. His mother did not teach him this, the proper way to behave among his peers. ‘Thank you,’ he says unevenly, because he needs to say something.
