The Wolf Hunt

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “Hoel, not the woman!” protested Havoise. “She’s injured and pregnant.”

  “She will have to answer anyway,” Hoel said firmly. “If this is true — and, by God, I believe it is! — then she betrayed her husband and handed over his lands and servants to her tyrannical lover while setting a price on her lord’s head. But we’ll show some consideration for the unborn child: she can be carried up here in a chair.”

  Alain and Eline were not alarmed when the duke’s servants came to fetch them. They expected apologies from the duke and a promise that the wolf would at last be destroyed. They entered the room confidently, Alain with his sword hand in a sling, and Eline carried in a chair by four serving men, her face bandaged from eyes to lips. The doctor had given her a drug to dull the pain, and it seemed to her that she was floating in the chair as though on gray waves. But she saw the wolf lying tied up in the corner, and she looked away from him quickly, shuddering. Alain caught her hand and kissed her forehead, and she huddled against him, hiding her bandaged face. He glared at the wolf, then looked challengingly at Hoel. Hoel nodded to the servants to leave, and they went, closing the door behind them. Alain’s challenging look faltered at the duke’s bleakness.

  “Why did my wolf attack you?” demanded Hoel as soon as the servants were gone.

  “Because it’s an evil animal,” replied Alain fiercely. “All wolves are.”

  “No,” said Hoel. “Not this one. He has some reason to hate you: What is it?”

  “My lord,” Alain said, taken aback but still confident, “there is no such thing as a tame wolf.” He began to feel angry. “The creature attacked me and injured my wife: Why should you question me about what I’ve done? A savage brute attacked a beautiful lady, and you seem to think she is at fault for it! It’s grotesque!”

  “Isn’t she at fault for it?” asked Hoel levelly. “Lady Eline, what happened to my servant Tiarnán, your first husband?”

  Eline’s head jerked away from her husband’s side, and her beautiful eyes locked on the duke, so enormous and impenetrably blue that it seemed that his question had struck her blind. Alain was cooler. “Nobody knows that, my lord,” he said impatiently. “Why do you ask me?”

  “Because at the time he disappeared, you had gone off in armor, saying you were going to look at a ship carrying hawks that had docked in St. Malo, and no such ship existed. And the lady there, whom you had loved for some time, had quarreled with her husband and fled him. Where did you really go, Lord Alain, when you said you were at St. Malo? And what did you do when you were there?”

  Alain went white with shock. He looked at Tiher in bewildered appeal.

  “Alain,” said Tiher, “we know that you were lying. Tell us the truth, please. It can’t be any worse than what you’re suspected of.”

  Alain opened his mouth and closed it again. He shook his head. “Tiher!” he said pleadingly, and licked his lips.

  “My God, Alain, you think I don’t want to help?” Tiher shouted, his voice suddenly raw with pain. “But I think this time you’ve dug such a pit for yourself that nobody can pull you out again. What did you do? Just tell us!”

  “Alain is a hero!” Eline cried suddenly, her drugged mind numb to everything but the danger that her husband would be charged with murder. Tiarnán’s clothes, hidden under the false bottom of her husband’s chest, blazed into her mind: evidence enough to kill Alain, if they were found. The truth, however disgraceful, was not something Alain could die for. “He was brave, and kind, and came to help me!” she protested. “You have no right to talk to him like that! You don’t know what he faced for my sake!” She rose from the chair and tottered to her feet, swaying in the gray waves. She gazed with fixed revulsion at the shadowy wolf in the corner and screamed, “There he is! There’s your Tiarnán! Look at him! A foul, stinking, savage animal! I was tricked into marrying it, a monster, a werewolf, a devil creature! Was I supposed to take it into my bed and cherish it, knowing what it was? God forbid! Alain rescued me from it, and you ought to love him and prize him for his courage, not accuse him!” She collapsed into the chair again, convulsed with sobs.

  Alain encircled her protectively with his arm and looked at the duke. His wide-eyed good looks were suddenly quite gone: his face was brutal and self-satisfied. “What she said is true,” he said in a voice so cool and unperturbed that it was far more disturbing than a scream would have been. “Your favorite Tiarnán, my lord, is a werewolf. I didn’t murder him, but if I had, it would have been an easier death than the one the law would give him. Spare him, and you’re guilty of heresy.”

  Tiher looked away from that suddenly unfamiliar face. For a long minute he stared instead at the wolf, and wished in anguish that Alain had been guilty of simple murder. It was much, much worse to have reduced a brave man to that cowering animal, and then urged the liege lord who’d grieved for the man’s supposed death to cause that death in fact. My dear cousin, do you think our lord the duke would care to hunt the wolf? There is a mont marvelously crafty animal near here, and it would give our lord good sport if he came to chase it. Alain clearly felt no remorse, no awareness even that he had acted amiss. He had written that inhuman letter and felt merely pleasure at his own cleverness. Tiher looked back at his cousin’s face, and knew that he had lost everything that there had been between them, and that the trust of his childhood had just been destroyed forever. He pulled himself farther back onto the clothes chest, dropped his hands between his knees, and was still. He had no more part in this, except to wish that it were over.

  Alain did not even glance at his cousin and made no more appeals. Tiher could not help him anymore.

  “What did you do to Tiarnán?” demanded Hoel furiously. “How did you trap him in that shape?”

  “Who cares!” Alain replied triumphantly. “You can’t defend him: he can be either killed as a wolf or burned as a witch!”

  “And you can be either beheaded as a traitor or flogged as an adulterer!” roared Hoel. “You foul, arrogant man! Tiarnán was the best of my knights, and had done no harm to any of his neighbors; he’d treated you, in particular, with more generosity than you ever deserved. In recompense, you got the better of him by some treachery, stole his wife, stole his lands, tyrannized his servants, got his manor into debt, and hunted him, hunted him without mercy, with his own dogs! Worse, you tricked me into hunting him, too! You know perfectly well you don’t dare whisper a word of what you’ve done: you would be condemned on all sides — both of you! You treacherous little bitch, he adored you!”

  “He’s a monster!” shrieked Eline, her tears soaking the bandages. “Look at him!”

  The wolf had slid farther back against the wall, where he cowered with his tail down. Hoel merely glanced at him, then turned a furious glare back on the couple facing him. “You’re the monsters!” he shouted. “He’s a wolf, no more — and a good wolf that’s served me faithfully and fought for me bravely, just as he did as a man. Everyone at court can testify to that. What did you do to him?”

  “He’s a thing from hell!”

  “He isn’t,” said Marie quietly. “Lady Eline, he isn’t. Whatever made him what he is, it was nothing to do with the devil. Tiarnán was not an evil man, and the wolf is not an evil animal. The monster you’re afraid of is a shadow in your own mind. Take your own advice: look at him. Can’t you see? Had you even seen him in this shape before?”

  “I saw him this morning, and he attacked me!” sobbed Eline. “He’s evil.” She did not look at the wolf as she said it.

  “And weren’t you screaming for us to kill him, kill him, kill him?” asked Hoel harshly. “No — not even that! Kill it, you said, knowing that it was a man who’d loved you, and whose house and lands you’d stolen. You cold-blooded, unnatural whore!”

  “I hate his house!” Eline declared passionately. “Judicaël was right; it’s all bitterness! I wish now I’d taken what I was offered, got the marriage to the monster annulled, and married Alain honestly instead.”

&
nbsp; “He offered you that?” asked Havoise, speaking for the first time.

  Eline shot her a look of panic and began to sob more loudly.

  “What did you do to him?” Hoel asked for the third time. “Why can’t he turn back into a man?”

  “We won’t tell you!” declared Alain feverishly now. “You can’t force us to. You don’t dare tell anyone about this!”

  “I would dare as much as you do!” replied Hoel vehemently. “If this comes to trial, you have almost as much to lose as Tiarnán. You two would lose every penny you stole from him, declare yourselves guilty of bigamy and adultery, and make your unborn child a bastard. And I think that even the Church would insist that the werewolf be allowed to speak for himself: they always demand a full confession before an execution. You will tell me what you did, or by God I will take it to trial, and have both of you questioned under torture!”

  Havoise stirred, and was about to protest, but the threat had already broken Alain. Torture was routinely used in judicial investigations, and he knew what it involved. “No!” he cried desperately. “I’ll tell you! Don’t touch her: she’s with child; she’s suffered too much already! She mustn’t be hurt anymore!”

  Hoel’s eyes glittered in triumph. “Then tell me now,” he commanded.

  Alain looked lovingly down at Eline’s bowed, bandaged head. “Don’t worry, my dearest,” he told her tenderly. “I won’t let them touch you. It will be all right.”

  Eline sniveled against his chest, and he rested his bandaged hand upon her hair.

  “Tell me,” repeated Hoel, his voice heavy with disgust.

  “Tiarnán left a part of himself with his clothes when he turned into the thing he is now,” Alain said, yielding at last in a tone of sullen spite. “Without that part of himself he can’t turn back. Eline told me where he went to transform himself, and I went there and hid and waited for him. When he’d gone into the forest, I stole the clothes and the thing with them, and took them away.”

  The duke let out his breath in a long sigh. He leaned back in his chair and regarded the two narrowly. “And where is it now?” he asked.

  “In the bottom of my clothes chest at Talensac,” admitted Alain. “Under a false bottom. I sprinkled the things with holy water and wrapped them in an altar cloth, because I was afraid of the creature. That’s the truth.”

  Hoel sat still for another moment, fixing Alain with his eyes. Eline sobbed on, quietly now. “Tiher,” said the duke. “Go to Talensac at once and fetch the things. Don’t spare your horse going or coming: get a fresh mount at the manor, and hurry.”

  Tiher bowed silently and went out. Hoel leaned forward again, the stern gaze now fixed on both Alain and Eline.

  “You’re right,” he said quietly. “I don’t want this business to come out. I loved Tiarnán, I prized Isengrim, and I found no evil in either: man or wolf, I want to keep him in my service. You say, Lady, that you were offered an annulment of your first marriage. Well, we can get that. If you have it, then the second marriage sacrament should be considered valid, you will not be guilty of bigamy, and your child will not be a bastard. I know, Lord Alain, that you’re in debt. I can see to that, too. In fact, I will offer you money to go away. The crusade is, they say, doing well, and may carve out a kingdom in the Holy Land; if that’s true, there will be places for landless knights, perhaps even manors. I’m sorry to wish creatures like you upon the people of the east, but I’ll pay for you both to go there, if you go quietly. What you do there is your own affair, but you’ll have the opportunity to make yourselves a new life. Your alternative is to bring the matter to trial, tell everyone the truth about Tiarnán — and take the consequences for yourselves as well. You’ve both had much to say about what a monster he is, but I think you know how your own conduct would be regarded: the eagerness with which you’ve kept the matter secret shows as much. I hope you’ll think hard about your position. You may go downstairs now, both of you, and rest. I want you to stay in this lodge until I give you leave to go, but you are otherwise free to please yourselves. I’ll speak to you again when I have spoken to Tiarnán.”

  Alain picked Eline up gently in his arms and carried her to the door. Marie ran to open it for him. Alain shot one more self-righteous glare at the duke, then silently carried his wife out and down the stairs.

  “They won’t tell anyone the truth,” said Havoise.

  “No,” said Hoel, leaning back in his seat again. “If they were afraid to before, they certainly won’t now. It’s a filthy, ugly thing they’ve done. They can’t admit even to themselves what they did; they certainly won’t tell the world. They’d only tell the truth out of spite, if they saw no way out for themselves — and I’ve just given them a way that will appeal to them. It’s a kinder fate than they deserve.”

  “You’re too harsh,” said Marie. “They were afraid. Eline, in particular, was sick with terror. I understand her; I understand her very well. Tiarnán was very much to blame for marrying her, and for not understanding how terrible she would find the thing he was. You are far too harsh.”

  “I can forgive her for being afraid,” said Hoel. “If I’d learned what I did today and hadn’t known the wolf as well as the man, I would have been horrified myself. But I do not forgive her for rejecting the man but keeping the manor.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then, drawn by the same bewildered pity and fascination, they all looked at the wolf, who still crouched motionless in the corner. Marie went over and knelt beside him, and the light brown eyes looked up at her with the same blank, wary expression she remembered on Tiarnán’s face. “We will bring you back,” she told him. “Do you understand me? We will bring you back.”

  The wolf did not respond. She was suddenly afraid that perhaps he could not come back, that the human part of him had withered away in its long isolation, and that only this unnatural animal remained. She did not dare mention her fear, in case putting words to it would somehow make it come about, but her hands by her sides twisted in pain.

  “Where will we tell everyone he’s been?” asked Havoise.

  Hoel shrugged. “He was distressed over the quarrel with his wife, and decided, on the spur of the moment, to make a pilgrimage. If we can bring him back, we can find excuses for him. His own people will probably be so pleased to have him back that they won’t dare question their good fortune.”

  There was another long minute of silence, and then the duke slapped the arm of his chair. “There’s no point sitting here until Tiher gets back. It’s a good eight miles from here to Talensac, and even in a hurry, he won’t be back until after lunch. Havoise, my love, I can’t sit still, I don’t want to be with the court, and I don’t want to be alone, either. Come for a walk with me in the forest.”

  The duchess rose slowly to her feet. “Why not? It should settle my stomach.”

  Duke and duchess left the room together. Marie fetched a basin of water for the wolf and stood for a moment looking down at him. He stared back, his eyes once again alien and unfathomable. That morning she would have knelt and stroked his head, but now that she knew what he was she could not. She remembered him standing under the rushlight with Eline on his wedding night, and her eyes stung with tears. Then she thought of Tiher’s anguished silence when he understood what his cousin had done, and wished that she had not involved him. It had seemed right that a member of his family should be there to defend Alain, but now she saw that it had hurt Tiher badly. She had also complicated a situation already fantastic and unpredictable, and burdened another soul with a dangerous secret. And for what? For Tiarnán, because she had loved him? Or from an abstract hatred of the treachery that had been committed, and a longing to establish a truth that would only be suppressed again?

  Both, both. She crossed herself, and went to the lodge chapel to pray for them all.

  Isengrim lay in the corner, numb with shock and bewildered with shame. He swam dazedly among the words that had been used that morning, unable to hold onto any one argument f
or long. Only two things stood clear in his mind: the taste of Eline’s blood in his mouth that morning, and the memory of her body against his on their wedding night. She had been so near to him then, so happy, so much beloved. He was the one who had turned her into the wounded thing that had sat weeping in the chair that morning. He had not understood how much he terrified her until he scented her horror, raw and reeking even over the smell of blood and drugs. The bite to her face had only been the last injury he’d inflicted on her. He saw that now. The fact that he was what he was had cut her far deeper than his teeth. He had been wrong to attack her: he had already hurt her more than she deserved. When she had looked into his face and struck him with such loathing, though, rage had overcome him. Marie had said he was very much to blame. Marie was right.

  And yet, Marie was trying to help him. He shaped her words silently in his mind: We will bring you back. Did she want him back? Her hands had curled with pain as she looked at him. It hurt her, too, to know what he was. He had not been able to interpret the expression on her face when she stood looking down at him, but she had smelled of grief. What had she, and the others, felt when they looked at him? Disgust? Contempt? The very most he could hope for was pity.

  Monster, Eline had called him, again and again. Foul, stinking, savage animal! Devil creature! Werewolf. He saw himself in her terrified eyes and her white-faced recoil. That was the normal human reaction to what he was. His own sense of himself as still human and natural had been, he saw now, something he had kept only by keeping his secret. He had told it to Eline, and she had nearly destroyed him. Now Marie had guessed it, and told it to the duke, the duchess, and the man who loved her. What would become of him now? The longing to be human again was almost unbearable, but what would he do in a human world to which he was a monster?

  His whole being ached with the effort to think, but the words blurred endlessly around the taste of blood, and it was impossible.