Him
Pathetic. He couldn’t manage a single night at court without the wolf ripping itself out of his skin. He’ll be lucky if he wasn’t seen; he’s still not sure how he stumbled back into the stables, wretched and hardly human, to sleep off the exhaustion and the pain of the change. And to be found there by the king—
Bisclavret doesn’t know whether to treasure the memory of the king’s hand in his, supporting him as he stumbled, or whether to bury it beneath the humiliation of having revealed himself as one so base and bestial as to be unable to sleep a night in the hall without fleeing for the stables like some overwhelmed peasant. What manner of man would behave in such a way? Not one a king would be inclined to raise to knighthood and his inheritance, that’s for sure, and who could blame him, when it is so abundantly apparent that Bisclavret is unfit for it?
He’s lucky the king didn’t insist on calling the physicians, who would bleed him until he fainted, if they didn’t summon a churchman to chase the demons from inside his head. If there were a cure, he’d have found it years ago. He purged himself often enough when he was younger, seeking out herbs deadly to wolves in the hope of killing it. Forgetting – not caring – that some of them are deadly to men, too.
At least it was never his mother who found him in thesemoments of despair. It was his cousin, once, when he was fourteen and wretched and wishing for nothing so much as an end to it. His cousin who nursed him back to health. He has yet to repay that debt, and the greater one incurred by his cousin’s faithfulness in keeping his secret; maybe that’s why he’s still here, allowing the castle servants to wash him and dress him in somebody else’s clothes. He cannot reward his cousin’s faith while he has nothing, but once he has secured his inheritance, all will be different.
Ifthe king sees fit to restore it to him, after what he has seen.
It will sting, Bisclavret thinks, to return to his exile now that he knows what he is missing. Now that he has tasted his father’s life. The feast – yes, it was overwhelming, all the noise and people and colours and smells. Maybe there was something of the wolf in him even then, and that’s why he couldn’t bear the cacophony of scents, and why the colours were too bright and every instinct screamed for him torun. His body ached as though the warmth of the fires caused his joints to swell and push against themselves, and he should have known then that it was coming, but he was distracted. Caught out by the soft gold of the king’s hair, his kind smile, the exhausted shadows beneath his eyes.
But it was also so full ofjoy. The food, the fire, the fantasy of belonging. Sitting at the king’s side while he enquired, quite sincerely, about lands and names and wants.
Are you here to beg me?
He’s here to take whatever he can get, whether it’s another minute or a lifetime of pretending he’s human.
It’s odd to be dressed by another, but the clothes the servants have brought him make it necessary, with side laces in places he can’t quite reach and sleeves that need to be sewn tight to his arms. Quite the fine man he’ll look, when they’re finished;he tries not to think how troublesome these fastenings will be should the wolf return again, though he hopes last night’s disaster has earned him a few days of humanity.
He runs his hands over the soft wool, wondering at the feel of the cloth under his fingertips. It is always his hands he misses most, when the wolf comes. They look so fragile, now that he is himself: fingers so easily broken, nails so easily chipped. The tendons standing out below the skin may as well be ribbons, fit for nothing but adorning the braids of a woman’s hair.
A woman. The thought snags a memory. There was a woman, wasn’t there, at the feast last night, on the dais with the king? He saw her watching them. Wondering, perhaps, why the king was speaking with a man so poorly dressed, a man who hasn’t even sworn the fealty he owes. She can’t be the king’s sister – it’s well known that he’s an only child, for his mother died when he was still a babe, and the old king never took another woman to wife. Heartbreak or disinterest, the rumours can’t agree. Some other lady of the household, then, but who?
The servant finishes arranging Bisclavret’s mantle – that, at least, is his, one small fragment of familiarity amidst the muddied and clouded selfhood bestowed by the borrowed clothes. Impulsively, Bisclavret asks, ‘The woman. At the feast. Who is she?’
The servant looks startled by the question, but doesn’t need to ask which woman he means. ‘The king’s ward, my lord,’ he says. ‘Daughter to his father’s favoured knight, may God rest both their souls.’
Ward. Well, that explains her presence in the castle. No doubt she’s under his protection until she marries. ‘Does she hunt? Will she ride out with us today?’
‘On a boar hunt?’ says the servant, incredulous. ‘No, my lord. But she has a taste for falconry.’
Of course. No lady would join a boar hunt; he had briefly forgotten the danger the day offers, the rarer thrill of a riskier chase. It is a shame, though, that there will be no opportunity to pursue her better acquaintance, for in the glimpse he caught of her at the feast, she had the same quick smile as the king, a certain laughter in her eyes. He would have liked to know her better.
Never mind that. ‘I have been promised weapons. Where will I find them?’
The servant gives him directions, and Bisclavret leaves the warmth of the kitchen and embarks on his search. He is gratified to be met with no questioning when he arrives, so the king must have sent word: they readily equip him with a crossed spear and a long dagger. His own sword, in the stables with his saddlebags, is ill-suited to hunting.
From there, there’s no further reason to delay returning to the stables, to collect the fine bay courser the king has had saddled for him. She’s finer than his own horse, though it feels disloyal to think so, but she’s steady, too: he knows it at once from the way she ducks her head to his touch and stands perfectly still, awaiting a rider. He is at no risk of this mount startling on the chase.
It stings, a little, that he will prove himself in borrowed clothes, with borrowed weapons, on a borrowed horse – the king’s fancy, unequal to those who bring their own hounds to the hunt. But at least his equipment will not put him to shame.
The assembly is embarking on breakfast when he arrives, the king deep in conversation with the returned huntsmen about their findings. He glances up, catches sight of Bisclavret, and raises a hand in both greeting and summons.
Hesitantly, Bisclavret gives the horse’s reins into the care of a groom and weaves his way through the crowd to the king.
‘Good morning, sire,’ he offers, as though their earlier meeting did not occur.
The king eyes his new clothes. ‘A marked improvement, I would say, wouldn’t you?’ he comments, with a twist of a smile to ease the sting of insult towards Bisclavret’s older clothes. ‘I’d allow that you would keep them, but alas, they are not mine to dispose of. Still, we’ll have better made up for you in no time.’
He speaks as though he intends for Bisclavret to remain at court. As though it would be no remarkable thing for the king to give new clothes to this countrified noble with only a handful of acres to his name.Yes, whispers his heart, triumphant:yes, let me stay. But Reason, ever cautious, reminds his heart of the unwelcome truth:it’s impossible.
‘You are most generous, sire,’ he says at last, as neutrally as he can. The king himself looks well this morning, though he has traded the silk and embroidery of his coronation gown for plainer wool. The warm coppery orange of his tunic over his red chausses speaks of autumn leaves and the warmth of hearth-fires, fitting colours for an October chase; the white fur trim of his mantle will keep out the chill.
‘Sire,’ begins one of the huntsmen, and the king recalls himself.
‘Ah, yes,’ he says, but before he gives them his full attention, he adds, ‘They’ve found us a fine boar, Bisclavret, quite ready for the hunting. You should eat; you’ll need your strength for the day ahead. Look, here’s your cousin.’
