It’s a gentle rebuke, but it feels like a blow with the flat of his sword. ‘That isn’t what I meant.’
‘It’s what you said, meant or not.’ He leans forward, clasps Bisclavret’s hand. ‘You may not be able to see your own qualities, but please, spare us the discourtesy of assuming we are similarly afflicted. The king may be young and untested, but he is not a king to place his own desires above the common good. He sees what I do – that you have the makings of a knight, and are fair worthy of your inheritance. And,’ he adds, ‘that you have a face the poets would write ballads about.’ This is said with a teasing smile.
Bisclavret feels heat rise in his face, but this time no shame or discomfort feeds his embarrassment. ‘The poets,’ he says wryly, ‘clearly have nothing better to do.’
At that the knight cackles, and pushes Bisclavret’s cup closer towards him. ‘Such is the life of a poet,’ he says. ‘Now drink. If there’s one way in which you fail to live up to the men, it’s your capacity for drunkenness, and I’ve taken it on myself to change that. The next feast will see you carousing with the best of them. And when we’re done here, I’m under orders from my wife to bring you home with me, that she might get a look at the man who has all the court talking. So best to down it, or we’ll keep her waiting.’
Bisclavret drinks, and feels the sparks of belonging ignite inside him.
17
You
Everywhere you look, Bisclavret is there.
If you thought his absence unbearable, then his presence is worse, for you can think of little else but him. When you spar with the knights, you are perpetually distracted by the way he fights, fluid and dangerous as a river after a storm. Your gaze snags on the coloured belt he wears, declaring his affections for all to see; catches on his smile when your ward comes to watch him fight. Perhaps you should feel kinship with her, a shared admiration; perhaps you should be glad of the excuse to bring Bisclavret ever closer into your household – but all you feel is a strange, cruel jealousy, one that ill becomes you.
Still, you have learned courtesy the way prey animals learn survival, and you like to think no hint of your lovesickness is apparent to those around you. But the mask comes closest to cracking – to shattering entirely – the day you go in search of your scribe with some fabricated request for a letter you wish him to compose, and find Bisclavret in his chambers.
You’re about to turn on your heel and go, but your knight spots you, rising from his seat with an apology already springing to his lips. The movement draws the scrivener’s attention, and he looks up.
‘How can I help?’ he asks immediately, as though you have no relationship beyond the needs of a king for a fair hand to copy his scrawled epistles.
‘I—’ You look from him to Bisclavret. You cannot imagine what business they might have together. ‘It’s unimportant. I’ll come back later.’
‘No, by all means,’ says Bisclavret, already gathering himself to leave. ‘I wouldn’t wish my presence to delay you. I can go.’
‘I’ll return later,’ you repeat, and make good your escape. In your chamber, the door firmly closed, you sink to the floor. It shouldn’t feel so strange to see the two of them together: you introduced them, and you have made it clear you wish your knights to welcome the scribe as a part of your household. There is no reason Bisclavret should not avail himself of the man’s services.
And yet.
As you half-expected, your custodian of books comes in search of you a little later, letting himself in to your chamber without hesitation. ‘I should have warned you,’ he says. ‘He asked me to teach him to read.’
Whatever you were expecting, it wasn’t that. ‘He did?’
‘His exile, it seems, afforded few opportunities for a formal education; his mother’s teachings were more practical than literary, and he can scarcely read his own name, let alone write it. He sought me out with the vague idea that I might be a tactful tutor, unlikely to pass judgment on his failings.’ He sits down next to you. ‘Of course I agreed immediately. He’ll be vulnerable if he’s not literate, and his steward handling it all.’
It ought to have occurred to you that a man who had so rarely left his mother’s estate might not be lettered, but the thought never crossed your mind. ‘Of course you should teach him,’ you say. ‘I might have suggested it, had I known.’
Your scribe’s mouth twists in a knowing smile. ‘But I ought to have told you when it started. You were taken by surprise today. I’m sorry.’
He doesn’t owe you apologies, and you are being absurd even to find this situation startling. Bisclavret has half the castle in his thrall, his grace on the field matched only by his kindness, and that’s as it should be. But you underestimated the effect it would have on you.
The effecthewould have on you.
‘I hear you hired a new sword master,’ says your keeper of books.
Your father trained his own knights; there has been no man hired for the role since the master who taught you to fight as a youth passed away. Until now, you’d thought you might continue in the same way, for you are well able to train your own men. But after seeing Bisclavret fight, you know you will never be enough to nurture that talent – and you have begun to wonder what the rest of your knights might be capable of if pushed to their limits.
‘The seneschal assured me the funds would not have gone to parchment or ink whatever happened,’ you say, with a brief smile. ‘But yes.’
The scribe nods. You have the odd notion that he would like to try himself against the man, though it would be unfitting of his position. Against Bisclavret too, no doubt. You have never seen him fight, but you know he’s capable of it: you have seen the scars that mar his skin, the remnants of a dozen bloody battles. He’s evasive whenever you ask about them, as he is about any aspect of his past, but there must be a story; however harsh the discipline of his monastery might have been, no monkish scourge or mortification left those marks. Perhapsonce he wore both sword and cross, though you’d have thought him too young to have waged holy war.
For a few moments you sit in silence together. Finally, you say, ‘Has he told you much about his upbringing?’
‘Little enough. I do know his mother taught him to weave and to sew and manage the housekeeping; it seems they had very few servants. His new estate must be quite an adjustment, though I don’t doubt his cousin is well able for managing it for him. He’s Bisclavret’s heir, you know,’ he adds. ‘He had me draw up a charter that would ensure it. The cousin’s the sixth of six and has no inheritance coming to him from anywhere else, and Bisclavret’s had no contact with the rest of the family since he was quite young, but I suppose he still fears they might lay claim to his estate should he die unexpectedly.’
‘Has he told you why?’ you ask, then add, more petulantly than you intended, ‘He has not spoken to me of his family.’
