Why do they hesitate?
You push yourself up from the mud, and the wolf keeps its uncanny eyes fixed on you. Is there time to reach for your sword? Could you still have a chance of victory, if you—
The wolf moves.
Blindingly fast. Directly towards you.
You think:I’m going to die.You think:this is what Bisclavret saw before it took him. You think:my sword my sword where is my sword why don’t they shoot am I to fall here alone are they to abandon me is this the end—
And it stops, so close you feel the heat of its breath. You’re frozen to the spot as the creature carefully, deliberately, places its heavy paws on your lap and presses its nose against your hands like a courtier swearing fealty.
Your breath catches. The wolf’s teeth are a hair’s breadth from your hands, but it makes no attempt to bite. It looks up at you again with that too-human stare and then repeats the gesture.
Fealty.
Shaking, you push yourself to your knees, and then your feet. The wolf prostrates itself before you and then, standing, makes the same gesture for a third time, before it waits, head bowed, for your response.
If it were human –it’s not human, it’s a wolf, outlaw, murderer, forest-wild –you would have thought this loyalty. Subservience. The wolf has put itself under your protection and bared itself to your retribution. If you pulled free a blade now, you could take your revenge so easily, without breaking a sweat, and yet your hand doesn’t stray to your sword. You’re transfixed by its strange expression, and the impossible gentleness of the way it placed its paws on you.
‘Sire,’ says a shaking voice – one of the huntsmen, an arrow trained on the beast. ‘We cannot shoot without hitting you.’
We cannot save you.But you don’t think, somehow, that you need saving – not from this.
You glance up in time to see your knight in green cross himself, all the wry wit drained from his expression. ‘That wolf,’ he says, ‘has the mind of a man.’
The mind of a man.
Can it be possible? Is this a garwolf?
If so, the stories do them discredit to paint them as witless beasts. This creature is no monster: it pledges itself to you as its king as though it were your knight, defeated in battle, though dressed in furs instead of armour.
‘Put down your weapons,’ you say. Your voice shakes, and they hesitate. You’re not used to needing to repeat yourself. You take your eyes off the wolf for just long enough to fix them in a firm stare: ‘I said put them down.’
They lower their arrows, let the strings of their bows go slack. They know, as you do, that if you’re wrong and the beast means you harm, this is the kind of mistake you won’t survive.
You swallow.
The wolf raises its head and looks up at you. It is so very large, you think, inanely. It would be the work of seconds for it to maul you – a quick death, at least – and your knights’ hands are twitching towards their blades. But they obey their instructions, and keep their swords sheathed; the huntsmen’s arrows remain in their quivers.
You reach out a hand, and wait to feel the wolf’s teeth close around your wrist. Nothing. Only the surprising softness of its fur as you bury your fingers in it, the creature leaning into the touch. It’s been run ragged, burrs and mud matting its pelt, but that can’t disguise the thick pile of it, the warmth of its skin underneath. The beast remains utterly still and allows you to pet it like a hound.
You hear the soft exhalation of a dozen nobles releasing a held breath. The count’s son says, ‘Why, the beast is practically tame.’
‘Not tame,’ you say – there’s something feral in the creature’s eyes. This isn’t a domestic calm, an absence of threat; this is teeth withheld and violence curbed. ‘But safe, I think.’
A defeated enemy, placing himself in your hands. A subject, swearing fealty. A lonely creature, desperate for the momentary relief of touch.
But what now? Can you leave the animal in the woods and go home? Will you try to explain to the court that you’ve found the wolf they’ve feared all these months, and wish for it to be left alone? It’s difficult to believe that this can be the same monster, and yet you know it, have seen it before, have hunted it. Do you now intend to pass a decree that forbids such a thing?
I have no taste for hunting wolves.Bisclavret would not have resented such a ruling, you suspect. Something about the animal reminds you of him: his loping grace in its movements, his quiet intelligence in its eyes, his poise and restraint in its readiness. Maybe he saw that familiarity too; maybe that was why he treated the beasts as kinsmen rather than enemies, coexisting in the same forest.
You take a few steps, as though to walk away, and the wolf follows.
‘Do you intend to follow me all the way home?’ you ask it softly, in the tone one might use for a wayward kitten. ‘The forest is a more fitting home for a wolf than the court.’
The wolf is undeterred. Its expression clearly conveys that it cares nothing for what is fitting, and will follow you wherever you choose to go.Fealty. This was no mere mimicry or imitation. This was an oath, and one the wolf meant wholeheartedly.
Perhaps it does have the mind of a man after all. Perhapssome unknowable part of the creature is loyal to you. Or perhaps you’re a naive dreamer, easily fooled by figments, and will find yourself attacked the first time you turn your back on the wolf.
