You’ve seen them like this before, testing each other’s limits, but never with such delight. They’re laughing as Bisclavret knocks the knight in green to the ground and punches the air in triumph, only for his fallen opponent to hook a leg behind his knees and bring him crashing to the mud. As he collapses in a heap, the knight bounds upright and lets loose a roar of victory – prematurely, it appears, for Bisclavret has already rolled onto his knees and is moving to topple him again.
‘Interesting man, your Sir Bisclavret,’ says a familiar voice.
You don’t take your eyes off the fighters and their smiles. ‘A funny turn the scrivener’s trade has taken, that you now regard not books but a brawl.’
‘Ah, not a brawl, surely. It’s not as vicious as all that.’ You look at him then; predictably, he’s grinning. ‘They’ve been at it all morning. I’ve yet to see one of them beat your Bisclavret. He fights like no knight I’ve ever met – there’s such grace to it.’
Bisclavret moves with a fluidity that’s hard to match, but that’s not what has caught your attention – your gaze has snagged on the small scars that glimmer white against his sun-dappled skin. A dozen small wounds, by the looks of things, and some of them deep. They’re marks you’d expect to see on a man who has been fighting all his life, not one only lately recalled from exile.
More pieces of him that you don’t understand.
‘They seem to be enjoying themselves,’ you say, and resent the staid, disapproving tone that creeps into your voice against your will and gives you the air of a humourless cleric.
‘They love him,’ your companion informs you. ‘The castle rings with praise of him. He vanished that first night – they say he was badly taken by the wine, and stumbled off to be sick. Since then I’d say a half-dozen of them have called on him in his home, and found a courteous welcome there, thoughit’s taken until today to lure him back here. He may be rustic and unpolished, but he has the knack of making himself liked. Look,’ he adds, gesturing to the fight, which Bisclavret has won. ‘They’re cheering him for beating one of their best fighters.’
They love him.
How easy it is for Bisclavret. How readily he has come into this world, into this life, and made a place for himself in it. But you, for all you grew up here and thought you called it home once, still feel the castle’s welcome as conditional, and you wait always for the moment when it will be taken away again. When you will be sent away, again.
Your sharp-tongued knight has spotted you. Pulling his green tunic over his head, he hails you from across the courtyard, and immediately the others look up, calling out greetings, jumping to their feet in respect. Bisclavret is panting; he pushes his hair back from his eyes and grins at you, a feral grin, before he tames it into something more appropriate.
‘Good morning, my lord,’ says one of the knights. ‘Have you come to wrestle with us?’
A burst of raucous laughter at that – though not, you think, in mockery of you, but of those who might try themselves against you. You feel a surge of warmth at the idea of trying yourself against Bisclavret, and squash it. ‘I came to see what manner of trouble you were making for yourselves,’ you say, and then add, in a lighter tone, ‘and to escape the seneschal’s lecture on the cost of candles. He claims we are being too profligate, so I thought I’d best ask you how well you fare at seeing in the dark.’
‘I can read as well by moonlight as I can by day,’ offers one knight, with a lopsided grin. ‘Which is to say not at all.’
His fellows jeer, offering good-natured teasing; some were tonsured in their youth, and are as literate and Latinate as anycleric, and the large part of the rest will have their alphabet or more, but there’s always one who takes to the sword more readily than to letters, and abandons his schooling at the first chance. ‘Careful what you say, for we’re watched by a man of words,’ you tell them, and gesture for your scribe to join you. ‘You’ve met few enough of these men before, have you not? Make better your acquaintances, for I would have you all as friends and brothers.’
There’s a pause. Then your knight in green steps forward to embrace him. ‘I hear you’re late of a Cistercian monastery,’ he says. ‘What was it that lured you away?’
While they talk, you turn to Bisclavret, who is hastily emerging from the undertunic he has just pulled over his head. You try not to let your eyes linger on the way it clings to his sweat-soaked skin, too warm from fighting to shiver yet in the frigid air. ‘I’m told you have been entertaining visitors,’ you say, in such an even tone that you’re proud of your own restraint. ‘Is your father’s manor to your liking?’
‘Yes, sire,’ he says, ‘though a little worse for its abandonment, and we will be hard-pushed to patch every leak in the roof before the winter storms set in. But it is no discomfort I have not weathered before, and in a far finer setting. My cousin has found excellent servants, though I am still growing used to such a large household.’
Behind his words linger a dozen stories. ‘I am glad. And I am glad, too, that your wine-sickness seems to have done no lasting damage.’
He flushes red. ‘Forgive me. I had not intended to leave so early, and without bidding you goodnight. I am only lucky that my cousin took care of me.’
He would not have found you there to speak to, even if he had stayed, for you let melancholy drive you to bed unfashionablyearly. But shame keeps you from saying so. ‘There isn’t a man among these knights who hasn’t found himself in the same position,’ you assure him instead, clapping a hand to his shoulder. ‘And the lady spoke most highly of you.’
His blush deepens, and he cannot meet your eyes. ‘She . . . she said that you gave permission. For her to help me before the ceremony.’
‘I gave the permission I was asked to give,’ you say. ‘The interest in you, however, was all hers. I believe she enjoyed your company.’
For the most part it is possible to forget that he is an untried exile with little experience of the court. But to see him stammer over the question of a lady – then he seems more rustic than ever, and more charming. You note the way his blush spreads to the skin of his neck, the tips of his ears, and wonder how it would feel to press your lips against it. Whether you would be able to discern the heat of it.
One thing is clear: if you remain here much longer, your thoughts will run entirely wild. ‘I am needed indoors today,’ you say, with all the dignity you are still able to muster, ‘but I have a mind to train tomorrow. Will you be here?’
He hesitates a moment, and then nods. ‘Yes, my lord,’ he says. ‘I will be here.’
You would hear him say that over and over again, if you could find an excuse to ask it. But all you say in response is, ‘Good.’ You turn to the rest: ‘Come, scrivener. I need your pen. You will have to save any further fraternising for another hour.’
‘My pen and ink are at your service,’ says your scribe lightly, and extricates himself from the crowd, falling into step beside you as you return to the castle and pass through the hall to your own chamber.
Inside, you sit down on the edge of your bed and wonderwhat it is you might do with this futile, wordless desire that weighs down your heart and threatens to consume you.
You cannot give it to Bisclavret. Even if he wanted it, it strikes you that he would not allow himself to take it – and he does not want it. He is already half-smitten, his heart captured by your ward and her smile. An outcome easily foreseen, if you had thought to look for it, but you dared not, with this ever-growing need inside you. You have not felt a longing so powerful since the throbbing pangs of adolescence. Normally, desire is brief, fleeting, easily dissipated, but this – this threatens to choke and swallow you, the intensity of it, and you need . . . you need a moment’s rest from the sensation that something is expanding inside your ribcage and threatening to burst out, or you will not be able to bear it.
