Only now does Bisclavret notice the horse, tied to a branch a little way off, blithely cropping the muddy turf and ignoring them both. ‘Where are we?’ he asks. ‘How far did I come?’
‘All the way into your own lands,’ says his cousin, and his expression softens into half a smile. ‘Perhaps the wolf in you has some sense after all.’
His own lands. Bisclavret looks around him in new wonder: the woods, their glorious autumn colours already fading to the muddy grey of winter; the heath before him; what looks like farmland beyond that. There will be the manor, too, the house he should have grown up in, but has never seen.
‘The wolf has as much sense as I do at any other time,’ says Bisclavret, distractedly –his own lands!– and his cousin says,‘Yes, well, no wonder he would put you in such danger, then,’ with enough humour in his voice to ease the sting of insult.
The relief of being in safe territory gives way once more to fear. ‘Do you tell me true, that I was not seen? Why does the king think I left so suddenly?’
‘He had already excused himself. I told his seneschal you were wine-sick, and that I would see you safely home.’ He adds, with faint amusement, ‘He advises that you must learn to hold your drink, lest you find yourself cheated at dice by the knights.’
Bisclavret forces a smile. ‘If that is all I have to fear, then I would be a luckier man than I deserve.’
‘We both would be.’ His cousin takes a breath. ‘Bisclavret, as your steward I am sworn to be honest with you, and as your kinsman I would not choose to lie. I am afraid.’
His cousin has had various reactions to Bisclavret’s condition during their lives. Disbelief. Confusion. Doubt. Disgust. Hope, far more tenacious than Bisclavret’s own. But if he has ever before been afraid, he has not admitted to it.
‘Afraid of what?’ Bisclavret asks, waiting for him to say:you.
‘That somebody will be hurt by this. That you will be hurt by this, or that you will hurt another, and be in turn tormented by the knowledge and the guilt of it. I saw you, last night, with the king’s ward. The way she looked at you, and you at her . . .’ There is a new uncertainty in his voice. ‘Do you intend to court her, Bisclavret?’
‘I had not thought so far ahead.’ He can’t court her. What kind of marriage could a wolf-sick man offer the king’s own ward? ‘What concern is it of yours?’
‘Every concern,’ retorts his cousin. ‘The same way that your land is my concern, that your health is my concern. For the same reason that I came out here looking for you this morning.
But also for her own sake, that she should not be injured by this.’
‘I will not hurt her,’ says Bisclavret. ‘And you have no reason to fear me.’
‘Bisclavret,’ says his cousin gently, ‘I am afraidforyou.’ He reaches out and plucks a leaf from Bisclavret’s tangled hair, letting it fall to the ground with the rest. ‘I wish you all the joys of knighthood, and I will be at your side to guide your lands to their flourishing. I know you do not lack caution, but . . .’ He takes a breath. ‘This hope is new for you, as though the sight of the lady has changed something, and I am afraid of what it will do to you if your hopes prove unfounded.’
He knows, then, the shattering of Bisclavret’s heart every time the wolf comes back after a long absence. He knows how dangerous that fall from grace can be.
‘Cousin, I must be allowed to hope,’ says Bisclavret softly. ‘I cannot live my life never looking ahead to better days nor celebrating them when they come for fear that Fortune’s wheel will once more plunge me into sorrow.’
‘The fall is greater from a height.’
‘So is the view.’
His cousin’s smile is sad, and Bisclavret feels close to weeping. ‘I’m trying to protect you,’ he says, ‘the way I always have. You know that, don’t you?’
Of course he knows that. His cousin is the only kinsman who keeps faith with him: keeps his secrets, made those thankless journeys to his home in exile, brought him food and news and cheer. It is a debt he will never repay, for it has kept him alive.
But his cousin cannot protect him from the wolf, just as the king cannot command it.
‘I am a knight,’ he says. ‘I can protect myself.’
15
You
Bisclavret is absent a good week after the knighting, and you try not to dwell on it. Of course he is absent. He has new lands to survey and attend to, a home to settle into – it may be a month or more before you see him again, and nobody would think him negligent in his duties to you. Still, you had thought he might call by the castle once or twice in that time, seeking advice or company.
By the eighth day, you’ve half convinced yourself you imagined the whole thing. The ceremony. Your newest knight. It’s a distant, feverish dream, becoming less real the more you try to grasp it. You are better letting it fall into the shadows of memory.
Resolved to do so, you step out into the courtyard where your knights have met to spar and practise – and there he is.
He’s sparring, hand-to-hand, stripped to his braies, with your sharp-tongued knight in green, equally unclothed. The two of them grapple, and it seems impossible that the slight Bisclavret might prevail against his more heavily-set opponent, but he’s lithe and fast, slipping under the other man’s arm and throwing his weight off-balance. Perched on the fence or leaning against the wall are other knights – some drinking, a few eating, all jeering and heckling the wrestlers from the comfort of warm clothes and a safe perch.
