He should know, after his time in the monastery, though you have the thought that some would disagree with his theology, and still others with his politics. A king should not have desires of his own. A king’s heart belongs to his people, to his land; his own hungers are immaterial, and his follies a burden his people must not be asked to bear.
Your scribe picks up his pen again, and you watch him write for a few moments. There are as many words in your head as there are on his page, but they resist your efforts to marshal them into sentences. Finally, you say, ‘I fear being replaced.’
‘That’s because,’ he says, without looking up, ‘you believe you are replaceable.’
The words settle oddly in the air, ringing with a truth you cannot deny. You are their king: if you die, the kingdom will mourn for you, and without a named heir, they will be left adrift. The crown will be fought over, and amidst the chaosand struggles for power, lives will be lost and others altered. Nobody could argue that your death would pass unmarked.
But would they miss you?
Would your knights miss you – your knights whom you are only now beginning to know again, after so long away, unwanted even by your kin? Is there anything you can offer Bisclavret that he cannot find elsewhere? His lands should have been his in any case. If you were gone, and another king crowned, he would swear his fealty again and all would continue as before. Nobody would think your loss too great to bear, once the tumult had passed.
He finds companionship amongst the knights. Happiness with his lady. Pride and honour in his armour and the strength of his arm. He does not need you.
But you need him. It’s absurd, the intensity with which you need him. Your morning training sessions together have aroused in you a passion for swordplay that you thought lost, your childhood delight in the blade long since worn away by the weighty demands of your father’s expectations. He has blown away the cobwebs of familiarity and reminded you of all that is surprising and delightful about the physicality of knighthood.
And he has woken the rest of your court in the same way. Your knights are bright-eyed. They fight harder, dare more, live more boldly because he is among them.
It is no wonder his lady loves him.
‘I am replaceable,’ you say. It is a relief to admit it, like giving your fear a name has tamed it. ‘There is nothing about me that another could not imitate. I have nothing to offer him, or anyone else.’
Your scribe puts down his quill and penknife and comes over to you. He takes your hands in his; you hadn’t realised they were shaking until he holds them still. ‘One day you will learnthat that isn’t true,’ he says. ‘One day you will see yourself as the man I know, the one I chose to follow here, when I might have gone to any court in Christendom or crossed the seas in search of a more distant exile. In the meantime, you will watch your knight marry your ward, because you want him to be happy. And it will hurt, but you will bear that pain with courage, because you are a good man. I respect that. Anybody would, if they knew.’
You don’t deserve his respect. You don’t deserve the gentleness in his voice, the warmth of his hands holding yours, the care with which he assures you of your worth. Your father was right to send you away – he must have seen in you this unmanly envy, this bitterness unbecoming of a king. A better man would not feel this way. Bisclavret was neveryours, you have lost nothing, you have no reason to feel bereft.
He wasn’t yours, he wasn’t yours, he wasn’t yours.
‘I wish I had forbidden it,’ you say. ‘I wish I had – I wish I had longer. I wish I could let go of these desires, because they are doing me no good, and I wish he was mine so that I didn’t have to.’
‘I know,’ he says.
‘I wish she didn’t make him happy.’
‘I know.’
‘I wish I could be what he needs.’
He kisses your fingertips gently, less like an oath, more like a lover. ‘I know,’ he says again, and you believe him.
20
Him
They’re married three weeks later.
It feels impossibly fast, but they have the king’s assent and no other kin to trouble them, and as such they find themselves in front of the priest before Bisclavret has a moment to catch his breath. His lady is resplendent in silk and gold outshone by her smile, and he wants this, he wants her, and he’ll swear as much in front of witnesses and the king – but still a part of him wanted longer to reflect on it before this moment of union, with the prayers and blessings echoing in his ears and her hands clasped in his.
If she notices then that he is shaking, she doesn’t comment on it. She is laughter and smiles as they feast, and he is a pale moon reflecting the sun’s light. He toasts her. Toasts the knights. Toasts the king. Accepts their congratulations and well-wishes and finally bids them all a cheerful farewell as they return to his home.
And to his bed.
If asked an hour ago, he would not have said he was nervous, but now his hands tremble so much that he cannot manage even the fastenings of his mantle, the brooch impossible and the laces unyielding beneath unsteady fingers.
She helps him, quiet and competent as always, and he stammers excuses: ‘I’m cold,’ he says, ‘just cold, it’s only cold.’
And it’s true there’s a chill in the room, though the holes in the roof are patched now, and there’s a strong fire in the hearth to take the bite from the air that caresses their naked skin. But he knows that’s not the only reason he’s shaking. He’s terrified. He feels foolish and clumsy and incompetent in the face of her soft worldliness, and it’s mortifying, anyway, all of this. His bare skin seems horrifying, even without the knowledge of what lurks beneath it.
What if the wolf comes, here, before he has a chance to get away? Will he forget himself, lose his form, warp and twist and destroy her? His skin is not enough. It has never been enough. It took many painful years for him to realise that clothes make the difference between shifts where he comes back and shifts where he almost doesn’t; now to be naked feels like being flayed and helpless, at the mercy of the wolf.
