Your scribe purses his lips and says, ‘Have you asked him?’
Not in as many words. In truth, you’ve spent more time sparring than in conversation. But neither has the man volunteered information, or shown himself to be open to such a discussion. ‘Do you think he would answer?’ you say. ‘After all, I must have asked you a dozen times for your story and I have yet to hear
it.’
He gives you that half-smile he always does when you needle him about his past. ‘You don’t want my story, my lord, though you may think you do. You’d lose all respect for me.’
Which only feeds your curiosity, but you have learned that pursuing that line of questioning will get you nowhere. ‘And does Bisclavret feel the same way, do you think?’
He considers this. ‘I think if he wishes to speak of his family, he will. No, he hasn’t told me what manner of feud or falling-out has caused this estrangement. I also haven’t asked. I suspect hewould prefer to construct for himself a new story, free of the shadow of his exiled youth – a story of a knight in the court of the king. You could give him that. You havealreadygiven him that.’
You want more. But you don’t know how to ask for it.
‘You should go,’ you say finally. ‘You must have work to be doing, and it will not please the seneschal to think you have my ear.’
He grimaces. ‘One day, perhaps, the man could start trusting me,’ he says, but he gets to his feet and makes for the door without complaint. Then he stops and says, ‘I can’t make this easier on you, nor can I tell you honestly whether it will pass as an infatuation does, or grow the way passions do when left untended. All I can tell you is not to torture yourself, lest your hair turn white before you know it.’
With that, and the return of his usual grin, he leaves you be.
Infatuation. Is that what it is? Probably. You’re behaving like a youth ten years your junior, and you’re at risk of embarrassing yourself. As the day wears on, you try to force yourself to sober pursuits, but the business of kingship is tedious when your heart is elsewhere, and you cannot keep your thoughts from intruding. No wonder your father was so often in an ill temper, cooped up all day listening to reports of lands you’ve never seen, or the twittering of advisers over rumours of a war that will likely never reach you, even if it does eventually erupt.
In the end, your restlessness becomes so powerful that you abandon all efforts to tame it, and decide to go for a ride before your prowling aggravates your servants entirely. You have the grooms saddle your father’s most vicious-minded destrier: the warhorse is trained to courage but has never welcomed any touch but your father’s, and the effort of imposing your will on the intractable creature will occupy your wits and keep you from slipping into further rumination.
You mean to go alone – or as alone as you are ever allowed to be, now, with guards following at a discreet distance – but you’re not far past the main gate when you hear the clatter of hooves on the stony ground behind you, and you turn to see your knight in green. He’s dressed for a ride, his hair streaming in the wind.
‘If I’d wanted company, I would have asked for it,’ you say, trying not to sound unwelcoming.
‘I thought I’d spare the guards the effort of keeping up with you,’ he replies, with an easy smile. ‘Besides which, not wanting company is not the same as not needing it.’
You scowl and spur your horse forward without answering. He follows, holding his tongue, and soon you’re past the village and out of earshot of anyone who might care to listen. As you anticipated, the destrier is stubborn and high-spirited, and the presence of another horse has him minded to show off; your hands and thoughts alike are consumed by the strain of keeping him to a steady canter.
Eventually you slow so that the both of you can catch your breath, and your knight does likewise. ‘Would it help to talk?’ he says.
‘Of what?’ you snap.
He shrugs. ‘Of whatever it is that has you so nettled, my lord.’
There’s a fond, faintly sarcastic note to the honorific – a reminder that while you may feel you returned from exile a different man to the one who left, you are still enough the same to be unable to hide your mood from a man who has known you since you were only a boy. He was never quite your peer, always a few years ahead, but you had a friendship, and you’ve done him a disservice not to acknowledge it more since your return.
You glance sideways at him, trying to gauge the extent ofhis knowledge. There’s nothing of the scribe’s knowing humour in his expression, but it’s clear he, too, has an inkling of your mind. He has known you too long to be easily fooled.
‘Bisclavret,’ you say finally, and the destrier shifts beneath you as though the sound of his name sets him as restless as it does you.
‘Ah,’ he responds, and waits for you to elaborate.
‘He is . . . he is the sort of man any king would wish for a knight, and any man for a friend.’
He raises his eyebrow. ‘That sounds like something to be glad about. What troubles you about plucking such an excellent knight from obscurity?’
You shrug and look away. ‘Perhaps the very fact that I brought him out of his obscurity. Have I not thrown in the faces of all my knights their service and training?’
‘Have no fear on that account,’ he says immediately. ‘The men love him; nobody resents his knighting. We are only saddened for his sake that it took so long, for he should have been dubbed ten years gone.’
You believe him – your knights have ever been better men than you, not prone to jealousy, and this man knows their hearts the way few others do, and would not tell you falsely.
‘You don’t think me a fool, then?’ you ask, in a voice smaller than befits a king.
‘For returning a man’s inheritance and bringing him back to his proper position? I can’t think what could be less foolish.’
