‘You are a good knight,’ she says, though fear is still thrumming through her, her body tense and taut with it. She’s working so hard to stay at his side, though her heart is telling her to run; her love is as pure and painful as a blade through his ribs. ‘One of the king’s best fighters, and one of his best hunters, too.’
Then her expression tightens: ‘The deer, the wolf in the royal forest, was that . . . ?’
‘Yes.’ It is the hardest confession so far. ‘I . . . I don’t remember those nights as well as I usually recall the wolf’s hours. I try hard not to hunt, and to leave no trace of my passing. But sometimes the wolf is . . . hungry.’
‘Hungry,’ she repeats faintly. ‘And you have – killed.’
‘Not people. Never people.’
‘The stories of garwolves say—’
‘The stories are wrong.’ The words burst out of him, harsh and fierce, and she flinches. He didn’t mean to snap at her. He didn’t mean to turn his rage on her. But the words to apologise elude him. ‘The stories are just stories. I am not . . . I am not a killer.’ Yet. He hopes. Only of deer and dumb beasts, like any hunter.
‘Is it because of this that you sent your cousin away?’
‘Largely,’ he admits. ‘He opposed our marriage, and the arguments that followed broke the trust between us.’ He does not tell her that his cousin loves her. Perhaps she already knows – perhaps he proposed his suit before Bisclavret ever came to court, and she turned him down. Perhaps she has no idea, in which case he would not give her more reasons to regret marrying the wrong kinsman.
‘He opposed our marriage?’ she echoes, apparently caught by surprise.
‘After our wedding night, when I . . .’
‘You transformed,’ she finishes, only now drawing the connection between his headlong flight and this confession. ‘That’s why you fled from me. I . . . I wondered.’
Of course she wondered. Of course she must have thought it was her own fault, no matter how many times he assured her that it wasn’t – must have thought something about herbehaviour or form drove him away. He regrets the pain that misapprehension must have caused her.
‘My cousin feared for your safety,’ he says. ‘He would have had me repudiate you then, and perhaps I should have listened to him. But I couldn’t bear the thought, when I have found with you such peace as I have never known before and might never know again. He was right, however, that I should have told you. I’m ashamed that I did not. I’ve wronged you with my lies.’
‘I understand,’ she says, a little unsteadily, ‘why you would not.’ Because of course this wasn’t something she wanted to hear; because of course she is horrified and disgusted by this revelation. How could he expect anything else?
‘I must know,’ he says finally, more begging than commanding, ‘what you are thinking.’
She’s silent for so long he fears she won’t answer him. At last she says, ‘I am thinking that next time you turn, I will know to watch for you coming back.’
It is everything he has ever wanted to hear, and still the words taste of loss, taste of grief. He would not have her know him as a wolf. He would not have her see him in those moments of change.
‘For as long as I am able,’ he promises, ‘I will come back to you. On this you have my word.’
When he kisses her, both their lips are bitter with lies and salt with tears.
26
Him/Other
a day, two days, to bear the human brunt
of confession, to watch for fear and see her flinch
like prey and then contain herself, love
like a shield and a restraint. but after that wolfing
comes easily, lost skin and a fractured mind –
she knows– still the rituals, the chapel, the woods
a sacred space and a holy of unholies –
what does it mean for me that she knows? –
