Judicaël’s heart jumped senselessly at Tiarnán’s name. The wolf had not come to his hut for some weeks now, and he was fully aware of how bitterly Alain had pursued him. He had been praying for his foster son with steadily increasing fear.
“He told me of it himself,” Judicaël said, keeping his voice even with an effort. “I was his confessor.”
“I’d heard that. What I wanted … I don’t know how to say this.”
“You do not need to fear indiscretions, daughter,” Judicaël told her. “I’ve heard many of them, in my time, and never repeat them, whether they’re under the seal of the confessional or not.”
“Thank you,” said Marie, smiling at him nervously. “Very well. I … felt something for Tiarnan.” She could feel the blush spreading across her skin at the admission, and she looked down hurriedly. The rushes before the altar were old and thinly scattered: between them she could see a patch of the gray packed clay of the floor. She stared at it as she went on. It was as difficult to open her heart to this man, knowing that he might condemn her, as it would have been to strip herself naked in front of him. But there was no other choice, if she was to have any chance of learning what she wanted to know. “Nothing dishonorable passed between us, and I don’t think he was even aware of what I felt. But he mattered a great deal to me.”
Judicaël looked at her in surprise. She knelt very still now, her voluminous gray cloak falling in folds from her straight shoulders, her head in its plain white wimple bowed. Her cheeks were stained with embarrassment. Clearly her admission had not been easy for her. Even on first acquaintance, she did not seem to be the sort of woman who fell in love casually. Had Tiarnán ever realized that she was in love with him? He had never mentioned it, and had barely mentioned her. Judicaël remembered more about her now: she had been abducted from a convent and was trying to escape back to it when Tiarnán had rescued her; she had since adamantly refused to marry at the duke’s orders, out of loyalty to her father’s Norman allegiance. Plainly she was a woman of some character. “Go on,” he urged, his interest quickening.
“When Tiarnán disappeared,” said Marie, her eyes still fixed on the patch of floor, “his widow came to Ploërmel, where I was attending Duchess Havoise. We shared a bed, and when I tried to condole with her on her loss, she told me — alone and in that privacy — that I shouldn’t be sorry, that her husband had had a terrible secret, and she was glad that she was free of him. She said,” Marie dragged the painful words out with angry force, “that he was a worse monster than the robber he’d saved me from. I would not repeat her words now, except that they have tormented me ever since. I know, Father, that I never had any claim on Tiarnán. I do not pretend otherwise. But … what I felt for him I have felt for no other man, and that I could feel it set me free from terrors that had long haunted me. If he was a monster and all that I felt was based on ignorant daydreams, then I am still in prison. What Tiarnán may have confessed to you under the seal of the sacrament is sacred. I do not ask to know it. But it would comfort me greatly if you could tell me simply this: Did his wife have real cause to hate him, or not? I swear now, by God and my immortal soul, that if you tell me I will repeat it to no one. I want to know it merely for my own comfort.”
To Judicaël the question cut like a sword. He could not trust his own answer to it. He remembered the hysterical girl at Talensac. Could he really state that her distress was causeless? The church he served would champion her. All he had to set against it was the plea that Tiarnán had not become what he was intentionally, and that he had never deliberately injured anyone by it: that he knew the man to be innocent. It would never carry in an ecclesiastical court, so why should it carry his own judgment so completely?
“Child, what do you want me to say?” he asked harshly. “I was Tiarnán’s confessor, but I was more than that. I was parish priest at Talensac when he was a boy, and the nearest thing he had to a father. Half of what he was is what I made him. So how can I judge between him and his wife? If he is condemned, so am I. Perhaps he was a monster. She certainly thinks so. I cannot believe it; no, never, not of a man I loved so dearly. But I am not to be relied upon. I failed Tiarnán, and I may fail you as well.”
Marie raised her eyes at last and looked at him in amazement. She had expected reassurance or condemnation, but not this. “Why do you say you failed him?”
“Because I could never tell him whether the secret for which his wife condemned him was sin or not. If I had condemned it and burdened him with penances, he might be lord of Talensac still.”
Marie gazed at him in silence for a long moment. “You’re saying, then,” she said with an effort, “that you cannot tell me the answer, because you do not know it.”
“Yes,” said Judicaël with relief. “Child, you said that your love for my foster son set you free of old terrors. If the door to your prison is open, does it matter whether the key that unlocked it was real or counterfeit?”
Marie bit her finger. A door had indeed been opened, and she had stepped through it. But if the key was counterfeit then what was outside the door might really be as terrible as she had always feared. Fleshly love had killed her mother, and at Nimuë’s Well it had nearly killed her. She might never know fleshly love — her probable end was the convent — but if she never knew it, it was all the more important to understand the value of what she was missing, for she’d have no chance to experience it for herself.
“I was at Treffendel this week, on a hunting party with the duke,” she said, after a long silence. The events there seemed somehow to have some bearing on her question. “He caught a wolf —”
“A wolf?” asked Judicaël sharply.
She looked at him, surprised by the fear in his voice. “Yes,” she said.
Judicaël bowed his head. His hands clutched the altar rail before him until his knuckles were white, but he said nothing. There were many wolves in the forest. He had no reason for his heart’s instant certainty that this wolf was the one that mattered to him. There could be no funeral, no burial — only private prayers for the dead, and private mourning.
Staring in puzzlement, Marie went on, “Duke Hoel caught this beast alive.”
Judicaël’s head snapped up again, and his eyes widened in astonishment.
“It ran up to him when it turned at bay,” explained Marie, increasingly perplexed, “and it licked his foot, so he spared it and had it brought back to the hunting lodge. He thinks it must have been tamed as a cub … . What is the matter?”
The priest’s dark eyes were blazing with excitement. “Nothing. Go on.”
Marie shook her head in bewilderment. “I was afraid of wolves. I had a nightmare about this beast. When I woke I went to look at it, to convince myself that what I’d dreamed wasn’t true.”
She stopped for a minute. She saw now why she’d thought of the wolf. The nightmare of the wolf and its reality fitted into her torment like the tossed ball into the cup of a child’s game. The thing she’d feared, the thing that lived in the cave where her mother died, was also a nightmare that lost all terror when it was confronted face-to-face. And she’d confronted it twice: once at Nimuë’s Well, and once on the day Tiarnán was married. It didn’t matter what Tiarnán had been: nothing could make her afraid of earthly love again.
“The wolf I’d been afraid of was nothing but a frightened animal,” she said slowly, “a beautiful one. And it’s the same with what I learned from Tiarnán. You are right, Father. I don’t need to know what his secret was. Even if he was as guilty as his wife believes, what I learned from him is still true.”
But Judicaël was not paying attention. “What is the duke going to do with this wolf?” he asked eagerly instead.
She was disconcerted and hurt to find the revelation that was so important to her brushed aside. She looked at the hermit closely; then understanding dawned and she exclaimed, “It’s your wolf!”
But he shook his head. “No. No. But … but I know whose it is.”
Ma
rie began to be amused, despite her slighted revelation. “Does he want it back? The duke is very pleased with it. He wants to own the only tame wolf living.”
“He has more right to it than anyone else,” Judicaël said deliberately. He glanced over his shoulder toward the small crucifix set against the wall. “It seems … providential that it should have come to him, and that he should show it mercy.” And his face broke suddenly into its peculiar sweet smile. For the first time since his failure at Talensac, he had hope. Tiarnán was safe, and had been accepted by his old liege lord. Accepted as an animal, perhaps, but at least he was among men again and secure from the merciless pursuit of his enemies. The thing was so miraculous that it was almost possible for Judicaël to believe he would one day hear his foster son’s voice again. His whole being made one passionate bound of gratitude toward heaven.
“It’s a good wolf, is it?” asked Marie, beginning to smile as well. “How did it get loose from its owner?”
“Theft,” said Judicaël. “A sorry tale of theft and treachery. I’m very glad to hear that the creature is safe. I was concerned for its owner.”
“But he doesn’t want his pet back?”
“The duke has a right to keep it. Thank you, daughter.” Judicaël gave her another smile of intense joy. “You’ve brought me news of an answered prayer.”
“And you will repeat no indiscretions,” said Marie, smiling back. “I see.”
He noticed the luminous warmth of her eyes as they met his own, and felt a sweep of affection for her. He had seen her struggling to reach her revelation, and he had not meant to slight it; he was glad to see that she had forgiven him for doing so. He wondered suddenly what Marie would have done if she had learned the secret whose shadow had broken Eline. Recoiled in horror, like Eline? Condemned coldly? Or — was it possible that this woman who could out-face nightmares would have understood?
Judicaël reached over the rail and caught Marie’s hand. He wanted very much to give some answer, however inadequate, to the question she had brought to him. He was not so simple as to believe that her acceptance of ignorance meant she didn’t still long to know the truth. She was in love with Tiarnán — deeply in love, for Eline’s words to disturb her so much. And for his part, he felt suddenly that her judgment was one he could trust. “Daughter,” he said, “I wish you to judge the secret I told you of.”
She frowned at him. “I cannot judge a secret I don’t share.”
“Judge your own terrors, then, and Lady Eline’s, as far as you know them. It will be close enough. Let me know when your judgment is complete, for I would accept your decision where I cannot trust my own. And in the meantime, I will pray for our Lord Jesus Christ to guide you.”
“What was the holy hermit like, then?” asked Tiher, when they were riding back along the road toward Rennes. Marie was quiet for a minute, then shook her head. “Very odd.”
“Well, they have to be, don’t they? Holy men, I mean. If they were sturdy, respectable types, no one would take them seriously.”
She laughed. “You should become a holy man.”
“Perhaps I should. I’ll grow out my hair and let my beard trail to my knees, dress in rags, and live in a hut in the forest, abusing everyone who comes near me as sinners, but particularly women, because they’re so charming.”
“Unfair! Father Judicaël was clean-shaven and very polite. He said, too, that he would trust my judgment on a particular matter above his own.”
“Did he really? Sensible man. By Saint Anne, he’s shot up in my estimation. I’ll bring alms to St. Mailon’s this Lent.”
“Father Judicaël said he knew who’d tamed the duke’s wolf, too,” Marie told him.
“Really? So there’s an anxious owner awaiting dear little Isengrim’s return?”
“There was some story behind it which he wouldn’t tell me. Isengrim was stolen from his owner by treachery. But the hermit thought that the duke should keep him now.”
“So the court is stuck with the brute?”
“I think it’s quite a nice wolf.”
“I think it would be even nicer dead. When it jumped up on the duke at the hunt, I was so frightened I … excuse the thought. The first serious hunt I organize for my lord, I thought, and he goes and spoils it by getting killed!”
“But he didn’t.”
“No. But he’s offended with me over this ‘permit’ business. He keeps telling people about it. I wish I’d never used the word.”
Marie smiled.
“What’s that smirk for?”
She burst out laughing. “Tiher, don’t you realize that he’s delighted with you over that?”
“Is he?” asked Tiher in surprise. He gave it a moment’s thought, then broke into a grin. “By God, I believe you’re right.”
It was late when they reached Rennes, and it had started to rain again. They left their horses in the stables and hurried up the steps of the keep, through the guardroom, and into the hall. The great room was dark, lit only by the central fire, and it was littered with the bodies of sleeping knights. The duke’s party had been back for hours. Marie was saying good night to Tiher when a servant appeared from the inner door of the hall and told her that the duke wanted to speak to her and was waiting in his chamber.
Puzzled, she climbed the stairs past the solar to the private apartments of the duke and duchess, and knocked upon the door.
Hoel opened it himself and gestured for her to come in. The room, his dressing room and study, was one he shared with the duchess, and Marie had been in it before. Havoise was there now, sitting at the table by the window. A rack of three candles beside her provided light, and there was a fire burning low and red in the fireplace. Marie noticed, with amusement, that Isengrim, muzzled for safety’s sake, had been chained in the far corner next to a large tray of sand. Mirre was curled up beside him. Hoel and Havoise had compromised on how to keep the duke’s new pet.
“Marie, my dear,” said Havoise, getting to her feet with a wheeze of effort. “I’m afraid that when we got back this afternoon we found a letter with some bad news which affects you.”
Marie’s amusement vanished. She stood frozen for a moment, staring at the duchess. Then she crossed herself and bowed her head. She felt sick. “What … what’s happened?” she asked. But she had a horrible feeling that she already knew, that she’d stood before under the lip of this very disaster — only then it had passed over her; it had been her brother.
“Sit down first,” ordered Hoel, pushing her over to the other chair at the table. “There. Now, I’m afraid I have to tell you that your father is dead.”
She turned toward the blank wicker window screen. Dead. No, this time the avalanche had fallen, as she’d feared: he was dead. He would never be proud of her now, never be glad that she lived. They would never love each other. From the moment she was born, there’d been emptiness between them. Now the emptiness remained, with herself upon the edge, and he was gone, gone, gone forever. He would never return from the Holy Land, and his body would lie in a faraway country, which she could not visit to say good-bye; there would not even be a grave that she could deck with flowers. She wished, painfully, that she had loved him. She’d always wanted to. She’d always wanted so much to please him, and he had always looked impatiently over her head toward his son. What a dishonorable thing the heart is, she thought remotely. I was pleased when Robert was dead, because Father would have to pay attention to me at last. And now I’m repaid for it.
She felt the tears begin and covered her face behind her hands. Havoise came up behind her and put an arm around her shoulders, and she turned, jumped to her feet in a blind lunge that knocked the chair clattering against the wall, and buried her face against the duchess’s shoulder.
“Hush, my dear, hush,” said Havoise gently, patting her on the back. “I know; I know. He was your one true lord, the one man you would satisfy if you must disappoint all the others, and now you never can. But, my dear, if you cry for that, be glad for hi
m. It’s a good end to die crusading, and he’s in paradise now.”
They let her cry for a few minutes, and then Havoise sat her down again, and Hoel poured her a cup of wine. Marie swallowed a mouthful of it, gulping it with a painfully tight throat. “How did he die?” she asked.
Not, it seemed, valiantly in battle, as he would have wished. Hoel had received the news from his son Alain Fergant, who’d been writing regularly throughout the crusade. The duke gave it to Marie and let her read it for herself. It said that many brave knights had died of fever on the way from Antioch, the most distinguished of them being Guillaume Penthièvre de Chalandrey, a man universally respected for his courage and skill at arms. Marie guessed suddenly that the same writer must have reported Robert Penthièvre’s death at the siege of Nicaea, nearly a year before, giving Hoel the news before Marie herself had heard it and allowing him to arrange the quiet abduction from St. Michael’s. And that reminded her of her own position.
She usually forgot now that she was a captive, held for the land to which she was heiress. When she remembered, she always pushed the awareness away again with a stab of dread. One day, she knew, everyone would finally believe that she was not going to betray her family’s honor — and then this delicious life at court would be over, and she would have to go back to the convent. Worse: she’d have to stay there. The contradictory loyalties she’d feared had forced themselves upon her, despite all her efforts to avoid them. How could she marry a Norman now, when he might make war upon Brittany and kill gallant young men who’d been her suitors? On the other hand, how could she marry a Breton, betraying her father and swallowing all her proud words? No, she could marry no one. She would have to swear to Hoel that she would marry no one and go back to the convent. And the hour for that oath and that departure was rushing down upon her.
She put the letter down and looked bleakly at duke and duchess. “So,” she said. “The lord of Chalandrey is dead. That changes things, doesn’t it?”
The Wolf Hunt Page 28
