You turn your back anyway, waiting for the claws to fall on you, but the wolf keeps padding softly at your side.
‘Sire,’ says one of your barons, some nervousness in his tone. ‘You cannot bring the wolf back to the castle with you – there’ll be panic, and—’
‘I cannot?’ you say, soft and dangerous. ‘Is that so?’
He swallows, realising too late his overstep. ‘I beg your pardon, I only meant—’
‘I know what you meant,’ you say, cutting him off before he can stammer an apology. ‘But the beast is intent on following, and I choose not to be the one to drive it away.’
You wait for them to counsel that you should have the creature killed before it’s too late, but although you hear that advice in their silence, they have more sense than to speak the words aloud. Your knight in green crosses himself again – any other day, you would marvel at such piety from a man who has always flirted with heresy and irreverence, but today there are greater wonders.
And you have become one of them, walking out of the forest like this: weapons unbloodied, one hand buried in the wolf’s fur. It walks steadily beside you, no humbled predator but a loyal retainer, and when you come to the court and people recoil in fear, you allow them to see that you’re fearless, that there’s nothing about the wolf that should concern them, that it means you no harm.
You think you believe that. You are, at least, able to pretend enough to convince them. And behind that mask of courage, you walk inside, and the wolf follows.
34
Other
predator turned sentinel: a wolf
curled at the king’s door like a hound
–he has brought me home –
and a king who smells of distraction.
hard to say how much of this
wolf-suspicion, predator-wariness,
is the beast’s heart and how much
is the man’s, but the boy that’s with him
has a smile like a secret, softening
the barbs of the king’s thoughts.
he brings the young man inside with him
he is surprised too I think but if my king wants it
if my king thinks it is safe
then I will let him pass
‘do you plan to stay there all night?’
to a wolf, wordless, the question is parsed
like sunlight through trees, dappled with meaning.
he’s asking if I will guard him
his smile is soft and sad –
his smiles are often sad these days,
