Bisclavret Read online

  The bow. With the silver royal engraving. The King’s bow.

  The forest went very still.

  Afraid to move, afraid of what I might have done, I crouched in place: ears flat and belly low to the ground.

  No one came. No one had noticed yet; the King had become separated from his hunting party. He was alone.

  Easy prey for a wolf, of the four-legged or two-legged variety.

  He moved. Slowly. Pushing himself up. He held his right wrist awkwardly; I thought it might be broken, or least sprained. He was older than I had recalled, though still young for a sovereign and still all golden fairness beneath forest-dirt and shock-white skin. He’d been younger at his coronation; I can see him now, in the memory, a young man fighting to remain stoic in the wake of his unexpected inheritance. I’d been impressed, then.

  I still am, of course. Every day.

  If the King was older than I’d thought, I remember thinking, how much time had passed? Or was it simply that I’d not been to Court for years, and he’d grown in height and lean muscle along with that scholar’s inquisitiveness?

  He looked at me with wide hazel eyes, and I could see him wondering how much time he had before I would strike. Whether he could defeat me with a belt-knife and one useful arm, or whether he would die here, alone, like any other wounded animal separated from its pack.

  I had, I thought, one chance. One chance to make this man believe me.

  I lay down, cautious and submissive. I rolled over, exposing my stomach.

  He watched me. He did not move.

  I whimpered and whined, like a frightened palace dog. I stayed still as he finally got up.

  He went to the horse first, though keeping an eye on me: checking it over, ensuring that it had taken no lasting harm from its fright. That was the first time he surprised me, though not the last: even wounded, Andreas puts others first, and we won’t dwell on the summer fever and the hospital work among the ill and the risk to his own health, because we’d had a real fight over that, one of our few.

  He looked at me when he finished with the horse—well-trained, it stood patiently in place—and then took a few hesitant steps forward, and lowered himself clumsily to my level, holding out the uninjured hand. I did my best to look harmless, not an easy task in that particular form, all weight and teeth and power.

  “You don’t want to hurt me,” he said, “do you?”

  I shook my head. Cursed the canine shape of my jaws and tongue.

  “Can you understand me?”

  I nodded. For good measure, thumped my tail.

  “Are you enchanted?”

  I nodded again. As a short version of the story, it would suffice.

  The gorgeous hazel eyes hardened, just a bit. “Why did you kill my bannerman? The Lord Bisclavret?”

  I what? Obviously I hadn’t murdered myself—

  But of course my wife and Edgar would have seized upon the excuse for my death. It’d be easy: wave bloodied clothing, found in the forest. Cry and wail and mourn. Find comfort in each other. No doubt they would even consider this a perfect means of bringing my death about in truth: after the hunt, I would not be alive to dispute their story.

  I sat frozen, chilled to the bone despite layers of shaggy wolf’s fur.

  Everyone believed I was a killer of men. A vicious wolf, stalking the forest. No wonder the King’s hunt had come after me. And who was to say I was not? Surely not me.

  I could put none of this into words. I could have cried with frustration, exasperation, fear, and despair.

  Andreas, being who he is, said, “Or did you kill him? There’s no real proof, you know, only the Lady Elaine’s story, not that anyone doubts a lady’s word, of course. But for all we know he was set upon by bandits or ogres or angry living trees—”

  The bushes beside us crashed apart, disgorging horses, men, dogs: the rest of the hunt.

  “You’ve found it!” A grey-haired man-at-arms—Leith, his name is, and he’s an excellent sparring partner these days—swung down from his horse, coming up beside his King. “Andreas—stay back, it’s a dangerous beast—”

  “Look at the size—”

  “And those eyes—”

  “It’s wounded you!” Ah. Someone’d noticed the arm.

  “It’s a man-killer—”

  “Andreas—I mean Your Majesty—should we kill it now, or—”

  “No,” he said, standing up, and silenced them all. Despite the pain of his injury, the dust and grit that layered his beauty, he held the world in the spell of his presence.

  He’s always done that. A trick of kings, perhaps, or only himself: someone who’d learned at a young age how to command a room, a banquet, an unruly Court. He laughs at me if I point it out—”They have to listen! I’m the King!”—but that’s only because he doesn’t see the effect.

  He went on, pale and compassionate, a leaf stuck to his left boot, “It’s intelligent. It chose not to hurt me. It understands questions. Should I not grant it the same consideration I would give any rational creature? The same chance to explain itself?”

  Some muttering happened, but no one—not even the men-at-arms who seemed to be on a first-name basis with their King—dared to disagree.

  Andreas held out his uninjured hand to me. “Come with us. You’ll be safe at the palace. I give you my word. I want to know what’s happened to you. I want to find out. And, you know, I don’t think you’ve killed anyone.”

  Occasionally I want to shake him for this faith—what if I had been a killer?—but I generally settle for kissing him. He might be ludicrously optimistic in the face of fangs and claws, but he’d looked at me and seen me. Had said the words no one else had: I don’t think you’re a killer.

  He was also beautiful. He is beautiful: the kind of gilded loveliness that causes sculptors to plunge for stone, poets to declaim endless verse. He laughs when I tell him that, too, and says that his father had once said beauty could be a weapon in a ruler’s arsenal, quotation complete with eye-roll.

  His father hadn’t been wrong. Andreas could seduce anyone with a look and a word; he’s never wanted to. He’d only been with two men and one woman before me—and two of those had been on his father’s orders, as part of his son’s education. I only learned that later, though. Not then.

  I heaved my wolf’s body to its feet—the men-at-arms tensed—and padded to my King’s side. I stood with him, gazed up at him, tasted the scent of him: male, crushed ferns, clean soap, sweat from riding, horse and leather and sun.

  I had no proper voice, and I was alone, betrayed and unable to return to my human form. For all I knew I’d been running for—not years, but months, perhaps. The world believed me—the Lord Bisclavret—to be dead. Murdered, likely by a wolf.

  I leaned against the King’s leg, trying to offer furry support for pain, and his fingers brushed my back in thanks. And I felt an unaccustomed spark of hope, a candle flickering against the wind. Someone was on my side. Someone kind.

  Chapter 3

  Someone kind. Oh, he was. Kind and bright and shining. I fell in love, though I did not realize it immediately; I think now that I did fall then, wholly in love in that first moment, in a forest clearing. The moment he saw me. The moment he saved me, and took me home.

  The Court mostly left me alone. Andreas gave orders that no one should harm me, and I tried to deserve this generosity. I sometimes forgot myself and growled or flinched if startled; Court is bewildering enough as a human, all courtesy and protocol, clamor and feasts and fancy robes. As a wolf it is even more…more of everything. Every sense. An onslaught.

  But I am human too. And I remembered that I was.

  And I liked the way I felt when Andreas trusted me.

  Some of the braver lords and ladies followed his lead, treating me as if I were still human, only oddly changed, made mute and furry through some magical accident. I was even allowed to eat at table with them, given chickens on a silver plate this time; Andreas called me up to sit on the bench
beside him that first night, and I stared at him and then came, because the situation was so bizarre that a werewolf might as well eat beside a king.

  He put a hand in my fur, at the nape of my neck, almost absentmindedly. His wrist was bandaged, tightly wrapped; sprained, not broken, but badly. I cuddled against him. The hall was warm—the fire roared—but he wasn’t large and he still looked a bit pale, as if the willow dose hadn’t been strong enough for the pain. I also nudged his plate closer. Food would help; or at least, that was what I could offer.

  He glanced at me, laughed, and nibbled more chicken. His eyes were tired but cheerful, appreciative, sharing the moment.

  He gave me the freedom of the palace but asked that I stay nearby, as we tried to solve the mystery of my enchantment. I knew the answer, but could not think of a way to explain.

  I did not know that I’d ever be a man again, after all.

  I’d no reason to think I had any of my clothing left to trigger a transformation, and I’ve never heard of one of my family coming back without it. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps this will be my life—and it was a better life than I’d expected.

  I’d been a wolf in the forests. I’d lost myself. Here, in the palace—

  I had kindness. People who spoke to me.

  If I had to remain a wolf, this existence would not be so bad. I drew a breath, a wolf-sigh, and released it.

  In the present, Andreas just came in from his meeting, paused, looked around—”You took off the crown in your office and left it on your desk again, didn’t you?” I said—and made a face and went out again and is now back, spinning gold around a finger. “I’ve never understood the point. They know I’m the King, I know I’m the King, why am I wearing metal on my head?”

  “It’s about the pageantry. The appearance. They’re meeting with their ruler. You dress up for audiences, don’t you?”

  “Wish I didn’t. I could grant petitions in a lounging robe. No, a scholar’s gown. With pockets. I could keep a book in one. How’s the story?”

  “Good,” I tell him. “Good. I’m writing about you.”

  “Me? It’s your story.”

  “My story’s about you.”

  “Flattery.” He spins the crown again, nearly drops it, catches it. “You know we’re already married. You don’t need to.”

  “I mean it,” I say, “I love you,” and when he kisses me every last hint of self-doubt, every fear of insincerity, flies away.

  These days we walk under tapestries, along parapets, hand in hand. Freedom. Openness. What he’d offered even at the start. A place to feel safe, to be touched, to lean into a caress.

  At first I spent some time roaming the palace, learning scents and tracks and schedules and bodies, acting like a proper great dog—a wolfhound, perhaps, though the real wolfhounds in the royal stables slunk and cowered on my approach. The accusations of complicity in my own—at least, the human version of me—disappearance faded away when I showed no signs of violent or murderous behavior; a few members of the Court occasionally eyed me with suspicion, but they had no proof, and I did my best to give them none. I became part of the scenery, part of Court life, a loyal companion: the tall shaggy wolf at the young king’s side.

  I wanted to stay at his side. I wanted to keep him safe.

  At first I thought it was gratitude. Or guilt. Or admiration. He’d saved me; he’d been injured; he was a good man.

  I wanted to be near him. I wanted to offer a wolf’s shoulder, a bulwark, a support to lean upon when Council meetings stretched into interminable hours or when the harvest in the northern provinces suffered from poor weather and the King had to send aid. I wanted to make him laugh, with a silly run around the palace grounds or dropping a book into his lap as he curled up by the fire in his bedchamber.

  He smiled at me for that. He spoke to me as if I were a man, a companion, the closest: we held conversations through gifts, expressions, the tap of my paw over a word. I flung myself down on the rug and became a fluffy pillow when he needed rest after returning from the north.

  He slept with an arm around me. Slowly, this became the usual.

  We did not speak of it. But I felt better—warmer, peaceful, soothed—knowing he was safe. I could protect him, as much as I could, from the arrows and darts of kingship: I could be his knight, his bannerman, his defender, in whatever shape I found myself. I would do that, for him.

  He wanted to help me. Of course he did. He has that sort of heart.

  We began with the extensive depths of the palace library, which he’d been adding to for years. Some of the older books and collections of tales mentioned werewolves, wolf-men, gar-wolves; one or two mentioned possible cures, though not the one I knew. One involved wearing the skin of the wolf who’d bitten me and caused the change; I had not been bitten, only born this way. Another involved, simply, someone who loved me and knew me calling my name three times; I grew briefly hopeful, but the hope faded.

  Did I know someone who loved me? My parents were gone; my wife certainly was gone. My retainers and household might love me in the way they’d love a kind liege lord—but was that enough? Did they know me enough? In any case, that would involve speaking my name.

  I had not quite managed to explain that. I might’ve tried pointing out or scratching letters with paws, but that was complicated; if there’d been a proper book or note with my name I might’ve pointed. But Andreas believed Lord Bisclavret to be dead; most everyone did. The explanation would be lengthy, and difficult, and besides…

  …I’d grown to like this life. These intimate firelit book-framed evenings. My place at his side, his hand in my fur. Having a place: belonging, where I could be of use, where I could help my king. Because he was my king: through the right of kings, of course, but also simply because I would follow him wherever he might go.

  Because I loved him. Because I love him.

  The only cure I know—the only cure I’d ever known for my condition—seemed impossible. The odds of my wife returning my human clothing were nonexistent, even if I knew where to find her, even if she’d kept anything of mine. And if I became human once more…

  Who would I be? An aging retainer, a minor forest-march lord with a domain now given to Cousin Matilda? A sympathetic victim? A man with no home, no prospects, no armor—not even a sword to place at his king’s feet?

  What would I lose?

  I told myself that I would never become human again in any case, so there was no harm in keeping secret the impossible cure. I told myself I could do more good here. I told myself I could try to explain eventually, someday, another day or week or month. Any day. I would.

  I did not want to lose him.

  Andreas, on the other hand, threw himself into helping me with boundless enthusiasm. He was even more at home in the library than on horseback, and he was an excellent rider; we spent stolen spare afternoons and quiet tea-scented toasted-cheese nights behind a fortress of books in the royal bedchamber. “I think,” he explained early on, looking up over a glowing illustration between the pages of a translated Cymeri divination manual, “that I could have been perfectly happy as a scholar, you know. I’d trade half the treasury for a complete set of Petruvius’s plays.”

  I gave him a skeptical look, insofar as that was possible with my lupine face. He’d been learning to read my expressions, and he laughed. “Of course I’d have to be a scholar with money; I see your point. But really, do you know half those old men on the Inner Council have barely even read the Great Charter? Sometimes I want to beat them over the head with the complete works of Thomas Chestre. Just because hunting and drinking and wenching were what my father cared to do as king…not that those are bad, mind you. Not for me, but I’m not judging.” A tiny dimple came and went with that quicksilver grin.

  I nudged a first edition of Epicure’s A Decadent and Dissipated Life toward him, pointedly, and was rewarded by a gale of laughter.

  He told me on a different night, after a state banquet and ball—after dancing, an
d princes and princesses being presented to him like gifts for the taking—that he did not plan to wed any of them. He was looking away as he said it, one arm braced upon the heated stone of the fireplace, gazing into leaping flame; his shoulders slumped. I came over and nuzzled his hand, wishing desperately to help, to speak, or not speak, or whatever would heal. Whatever he needed.

  He’s said that his father considered that a weakness: the odd absence of the instant tug of lust, the insistent demands of bodies. Andreas does in fact decidedly enjoy sex—we’ve discovered that, most satisfactorily—but he’s always felt those urges more gradually, needing to know a person, to trust them, before the feelings blossom into desire. The physical comes later, if it does, and if it does it’s lovely but not required. The last time he felt so was years ago, with a beautiful and penniless knight’s son who’d grown up at Court, had known the king-to-be for over a decade, and had eventually gone off to make a wealthy living as a trader and merchant; Andreas says they had not been in love, not the way we are, but close enough that it had felt warm and beckoning and right when they’d finally shared a bed. That had been his one pleasurable experience.

  He does not speak much about the other experiences. The nights his father paid a knight, and on another occasion a lady, and on another occasion both of them at once, to come to his rooms and attempt to cure him. He’s told me, once, quietly. I’ve never wanted to sink teeth into someone quite so badly—perhaps one other occasion, which is part of this story. But hearing that story, his story, I would have done so for him, if he’d asked, if his father had been alive. I still would.

  He says he loves me for it. His defender. His wolf.

  He said then, that night—in the wake of the ballgowns and glittering minstrel-song—that he did not think he’d marry. He couldn’t be what a hopeful prince or princess needed; he couldn’t picture himself with someone he’d barely met, someone he did not know, someone—