and run
will I ever stop?
4
You
Ride out with us.
You’ve hardly slept, remembering his hesitation, that fear and desire tangled up in each other. What is it that Bisclavret is afraid of – and what is it that he wants?
You rise early, before the huntsmen have set off. Dawn is uneasy and grey, but there’s a fresh scent in the air: the rain has passed, and if your luck holds, the sun will shine later.
Impatience hums beneath your skin as a servant stitches tight your sleeves, such that eventually, with the uncertainty of one still adjusting to your edict tospeak to me, in the name of God, I cannot abide this silence, he asks, ‘Are you excited for the hunt, my lord?’
That’s a sound enough excuse for your twitching, you suppose. Though excitement doesn’t come close to touching this tangle of feelings: the relief at leaving the castle and breathing fresher air; the thrill and the fear of a boar hunt with all its dangers; the ever-present awareness that this is a test. Your people no longer know you, and they wish to. Today will demonstrate your strength and skill in arms and your father’s canniness in sending you away to learn, or it will mark you the unmanly failure of a son he thought you were when last you saw each other. It’s a heavy burden to place on a spear and a dagger.
‘Yes,’ you say absently, when you realise that the servant is waiting for an answer. ‘Yes, it will be welcome to hunt here again. I have been gone too long.’
When you are dressed – and oh, how welcome these more practical clothes, free of the trailing sleeves of your coronation bliaut; you are already tired of being decorative – you descend to the hall, where your lords are waking, their eagerness for the hunt tempered by the heavy remnants of last night’s festivities weighing down their heads. You scan their ranks for Bisclavret, but there is no sign of him.
But there, by the door, far from the hearth, is his cousin. You cross to him. ‘Is Bisclavret here? I had thought to take him to be equipped for the hunt. I’m aware he did not travel prepared.’
His cousin blinks, and swallows. ‘He is . . . that is to say, he was taken ill after the feast, and left to seek relief. I believe the air in here was too close for him, and the wine too strong.’
‘Ill?’ You choke back your dismay. It will be nothing serious. ‘Wine-sickness, I assume? He would not be alone in that.’
‘Something of the sort,’ admits the cousin, but he looks uneasy, and his fingers twist in the fabric of his surcoat. ‘He intended to sleep in the stables, I think. He cares a great deal for his horse, and after the journey . . .’
A kind man to care so much for his lamed horse that he would give up his place by the fire to spend the night with her. ‘Then I will seek him there. Thank you.’
The knight looks startled by your thanks. ‘Sire,’ he begins. ‘I must ask . . .’
‘Speak freely.’ You are not surprised that those who knew your father are hesitant to offer opinions or indulge their curiosity, but it’s tiresome nonetheless, when you have no intention of punishing them for it. It will be far easier to rule if you are loved and understood than if you are not.
‘How did you convince him?’ He cannot look at you as he speaks. ‘He is reclusive, shy; it took some cajoling to convince him to travel for the coronation itself, and he was determined that he could not stay, but would leave when he was pledged to you. But now he has agreed to ride out with the hunt.’
‘He is not yet pledged to me,’ you say, as if that explains it, and perhaps it does, desire and obligation keeping Bisclavret here, his father’s lands held to ransom. But still he hesitated when you asked him to stay – you saw that. You saw how he almost refused you, and it charmed you, that he considered saying no to a king.
‘Then you have promised him something more?’ asks his cousin. ‘His inheritance?’
Oh, he is clever, this landless knight, engineering this situation to bring his cousin back into the court’s favour and restore a family impoverished by the old baron’s death and the past quarter-century away from the court. Perhaps, if Bisclavret rises, he stands to gain a knight’s fee of his own, and that, for a man with too many brothers, would be heady enough temptation to risk retrieving his cousin from his exile. Especially if he alone has kept faith with him, and knows Bisclavret owes him for that loyalty.
‘I would know his capabilities,’ you say, half an answer and far from a promise. ‘Is there much hunting, on his estate?’
‘Not of boar. Largely hares, foxes. We haven’t the land for deer.’
We. Interesting. ‘Then this will be a test of his mettle, too, I suppose. Will you be riding with us?’ Properly, he should ride with his own lord, but you’re sure the man can spare him, if it will put Bisclavret at ease to have a familiar face beside him.
‘If my lord can spare me a horse,’ says the cousin. ‘My own will not be fit for hunting for some time yet.’
‘Oh, have no fear about that. I will ensure you a mount.’ Your father loved his horses, possibly more than he loved his son; his stables are the finest in the land. ‘I’m going to the stables now, to arrange one for Bisclavret. I will have them saddle one for you, too.’
‘Sire, you are too kind,’ begins the knight.
You flash him an unkingly smile. ‘I am a man alone in his own home. What have I to lose by cultivating friends? Fear not, I’ll speak to your lord and ease the sting of his loss; I’m sure he’ll not begrudge me the use of you. Be at the assembly when the huntsmen return, and I’ll find you there.’
He doesn’t blush as easily as his cousin, but his embarrassment and pleasure is plain nonetheless in the pink tips of his ears and the stammering way he thanks you for your attention. A novelty, still, to have men grateful for these scraps of friendship, when for so long you have been too unimportant and unwanted to be worth befriending by any but the other outcasts and exiles scrabbling for a place in a court they don’t belong to.
