Of course it wasproper, it wasright, it was theway things should have been, and yet none of that was on your mind when you took his oaths from him. ‘I suppose, over time,’ you begin vaguely, ‘it will all be . . . easier.’
‘No doubt,’ he agrees. ‘My wife is of the mind that all change is disruptive until it is old, even when it is for the better.’
And there has been such a lot of change, these past months, not least your presence here and this crown on your head. ‘A wise woman,’ you acknowledge.
‘The wisest, save that she married me.’ His smile is fond. ‘You’re not alone in being caught out by a beautiful man once in a while.’
So he knows, then. Well, of course he knows. You were youths together, fighting with sticks in the shadow of the forest, and you have never been skilled at hiding your feelings. ‘I wager she benefitted more from the entanglement than I will,’ you say, only a little wistfully.
He cocks his head. ‘Perhaps,’ he allows. ‘But you’ve his fealty, and he his knighthood, and few things bind a man more tightly than those.’ He clicks his tongue, nudging his horse into movement. ‘Shall I race you, sire? To the river?’
You hesitate, but the destrier is itching to run and part of you feels the same way, battle-roused without a fight into which to channel your passion. ‘Sword drills before Prime for the loser,’ you suggest.
‘Before Lauds, surely, my lord,’ he counters, ‘for it to be a fitting wager,’ and before you have time to agree or object, he has spurred his mount into action, his laughter ringing in the air as you begin your pursuit.
18
Him
It’s been three weeks now, perhaps longer. Three weeks in his own skin, and more still to be thankful for. He whispers his gratitude in the chapel as he kneels for Mass like a man with nothing on his mind but knighthood. His Confession is still only half a truth but it feels like more than that, and he can neither hide his joy from the chaplain nor explain it. With the scribe’s help, he traces the words in the psalter and feels the echo of their rejoicing:in pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam, quoniam tu Domine singulariter in spe constituisti me. In peace in the selfsame I will sleep, and I will rest: for thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope.
For the first time in his life he has friends, true friends: the knight in green and his wife who make him welcome in their home; the flame-haired knight and his sister; all the men who have welcomed him into their brotherhood. He has the scribe and his patience, and the chaplain and his intercession. Impossibly, wonderfully, he belongs.
And the wolf has not come for three weeks.
He almost wishes it would, just to free him from the anticipation of it: the longer the wait, the harder the fall will be. But he’s being so careful, and it almost feels like having control over it.
And when she helps him with his armour, the lady says, ‘There is something gentle in you, Bisclavret,’ as though she can’t see the wildness and ferocity waiting to tear him apart.
As she spreads salve on the bruises he earns by sparring, she says, ‘You are a good man,’ as though he is no more or less than that.
And one day, as they walk through the frost-glittering gardens together, their breath forming white clouds in front of their faces, she says, ‘Your father’s estate must be a lonely place, without family to fill it. Do you plan always to live there alone?’
He cannot make sense of this question, doesn’t know what she’s asking. ‘My cousin is the only kinsman with whom I have any friendship,’ he says. ‘There are no others whom I might invite there, and I . . . well, I . . .’
She takes pity on him, linking their arms together as she says, ‘I meant a wife, Bisclavret.’
Oh.
‘I have never . . .’ He trails off. ‘The opportunity has never . . .’
She stops walking, bringing them both to a halt. ‘The opportunity is here,’ she says, bringing his gloved hand to her chest, over her heart. ‘I would marry you, Bisclavret, if you would have me.’
Others might see impertinence in this declaration, but Bisclavret is overwhelmingly grateful to know her mind so plainly, when he would never have dared to guess.
‘You would?’ She is an orphaned daughter of a knight, but she is also the king’s ward, beautiful and learned, and he is far from her best prospect. He has so little to offer her, and so much to hide.
‘I would,’ she says. ‘I would be your wife, Bisclavret. There is no man in the court that I love so well as you, and I hate to see you lonely.’
He has long ceased to think of himself as lonely, but it’s true he’s losing his taste for solitude. Perhaps one companion, one more person in his home, would not greatly alter the peace of it. She brings with her such calm that he can’t imagine her presence doing anything but keeping the wolf at bay.
And she is lonely too. She hasn’t said as much, but he hears it in her stories, and knows the loss of her father left her as abandoned in the world as the loss of his mother left him. The king has been kind to her, and her life in the castle is a comfortable one, but it isn’t hers – just borrowed rooms and borrowed riches, waiting for the day when she makes her own home.
What harm could it do for two abandoned souls to find comfort in each other? She feels like safety: in her presence he is human. And she is kind. He has had precious little kindness in his life.
He knows what his cousin would say. What the priest of his childhood would say, or his mother, or his own common sense. To bring her home as his wife would be to put her in danger. Beyond that, she’ll want an explanation for the nights that he’s away, and he has none to offer her, nothing to say that won’t leave her feeling spurned and neglected. And if they were to have children, would they also bear his curse? To his knowledge, his father was unmarred by any such monstrosity, but he has been given no other explanation for his own nature that might assure him of the impossibility of passing it down to a babe.
Perhaps (he thinks, clutching at desperate hope) it is some unique weakness of his soul that renders it incapable of remaining in a human body; a child, its soul shaped afresh by God, would not share this failing. Perhaps he doesn’t have a soul at all, he thinks suddenly, and that prompts questions he’d like to pose to a priest if only he could find the words to express them.
