The Wolf Hunt

by Gillian Bradshaw

“When you inherit your manor,” he said to Tiher deliberately, “you’ll manage better than your cousin did, Tiher de Fougères.”

  “I should hope so, or I wouldn’t keep it long!” replied Tiher with a grin. “But I don’t have any prospect of one, more’s the pity.”

  Tiarnán looked at him levelly, then said in a low voice, “Duke Hoel told Lady Marie that you would have land the next time one of his vassals dies without heirs. He said that he would not let a man like you go wanting. He urged the lady to marry you.”

  Tiher was stunned. He put his cup down, staring at Tiarnán in disbelief. Tiarnán stared back, his eyes once again as unreadable as Isengrim’s. “When did the duke say that?” asked Tiher.

  “It was while we were in Paris.”

  Tiher caught his breath. Of course, the wolf had gone to Paris, would have overheard, but … “You were listening then?” he asked. “You could understand?”

  Tiarnán looked away, down at the bottom of his wine cup. “If I concentrated, I could understand. It was not easy, but I was listening then. And I remember it now more clearly than if I hadn’t had to concentrate. If the duke has said nothing about this to you, it is probably because he wishes to surprise you. You’re a favorite of his.”

  “Me?”

  “Ever since you would not ‘permit’ him to risk his life.” Tiarnán’s voice was dry. Tiher had a sudden vivid memory of how he had not permitted the duke to risk his life: the exhausted wolf crouched trembling by the duke’s horse, and himself fastening on the collar and the muzzle.

  “My God!” whispered Tiher. After a moment’s reflection, he demanded harshly, “Why are you telling me this?”

  Tiarnán was gazing into the bottom of his cup as though he were looking for his fortune in the wine sediment. “You have an interest in a certain lady. I thought you should know that you could support her if you married her.”

  “Do you mean you have no interest in the lady?” asked Tiher incredulously. What Marie felt for Tiarnán had been perfectly clear to him the day before, and it had seemed far too much to hope that Tiarnán would be indifferent again.

  Tiarnán’s head jerked up again. “For Christ’s sake!” he exclaimed in a suddenly passionate whisper. “Stop pretending you don’t know what I am! How can I go to a lady like that, when she knows I … You saw what it did to Eline!”

  “But …” began Tiher, then paused, struggling with himself. It was clear from Tiarnán’s face that he was as about as indifferent to Marie as tinder is to fire, but thought he had no hope with her. For an instant Tiher balanced on a raft of considerations. He loved Marie, and if Tiarnán became her suitor, his own chances of winning her were slight. On the other hand, Marie had known, that evening at Treffendel when Tiher had issued his half-serious, half-mocking proposal of marriage, that he had expectations of land — and she’d said nothing, and turned the whole thing into a joke. If she was so reluctant to entertain his suit when she thought Tiarnán was dead, what chance did he have with her now that she knew his rival was alive? Besides, Tiarnán had just magnanimously shown Tiher fresh grounds for hope: How could Tiher respond by cheating his rival with despair? That was the sort of trick Alain would have played.

  “It’s true Marie knows what you are,” Tiher said in an easy, unemotional tone that betrayed none of the pang he felt at heart, “but it doesn’t seem to matter to her much.”

  Tiarnán stared just as Tiher had a few minutes ago. “But I could smell …” he began — and stopped and looked away abruptly. What he’d sensed as a wolf should not be spoken of; it would only make him more monstrous.

  Tiher looked at him curiously. “Be that as it may, I certainly regard you as the most dangerous rival I have.”

  Tiarnán looked back at Tiher with wonder. His eyes began to brighten with an incredulous hope. “You’re a more honorable rival than your cousin,” he said, after a silence, and smiled.

  “Stupid of me, isn’t it?” said Tiher, and grinned back. I don’t know why I like the fellow, he thought to himself. If he decides to press his case with Marie, my chances fly out the window: I could tell that from the way she looked at him yesterday. And he’s a werewolf, of all impossible things! I ought to abominate him. Instead we sit here grinning at each other. Ah, well, Marie loves him, and he’ll adore her like the Mother of God. As for myself, I’ll try my luck with Marie while I can, and then scrape up what happiness I can find. With a manor of my own, that ought to be quite a lot.

  He picked his cup up, emptied it, and set it back on the floor. “Well, thank you for the wine,” he said. “Now I must collect my horse and get back to Treffendel.”

  “Of course,” said Tiarnán. “I’ll walk you to the stables.” When Tiher was mounting his horse, Tiarnán asked suddenly, “Was Eline badly hurt?”

  Tiher settled himself in the saddle and looked down at the other. “The right side of her nose was ripped off and there are lacerations on both cheeks,” he replied evenly. “They say that the wounds are clean and should heal. But she’ll be scarred for life.”

  “Oh,” said Tiarnán, dropping his eyes. He remembered again the taste of her blood; remembered her face smiling up at him. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

  Three days later, when the duke left Treffendel, Marie again asked for an escort to St. Mailon’s. Tiher offered to come with her, but she declined: she wanted space to think and to consider her position, and he was no longer making any pretense of having given up the chase. She found instead one of the duke’s servants who was going to conduct some business on an estate in the region, and who agreed to ride with her to the hermitage and collect her a couple of hours later on his way back. She pretended to pay attention to his discussion of his business all the way to the chapel, and took polite leave of him with relief. It was with a sense of arriving at a peaceful harbor that she rang the small, sweet bell above the church door and went in.

  The chapel was shadowy and empty. A handful of wildflowers lay upon the altar, and the sunlight came crisscross through the window screens and patterned the blossoms with light. All at once, Marie was happy. From the moment she’d understood Tiarnán’s secret, she’d felt a restless anxiety that had only grown when none of the disasters she’d feared came about, but here at last there was peace. She knelt down before the altar and began to pray.

  When Judicaël came in a few minutes later, the pattern of light had spilled from the altar onto the floor before her and lay like a heap of jewels upon the rushes. Marie knelt in her tawny gown, as straight and simple as a young tree, her bowed head veiled in dark gold. He stood for a time in the doorway watching her. Tiarnán had sent him a letter from Talensac, and he knew what Marie had done. His joy and his gratitude were immense, but he was in no hurry to unload them in words. Time might yet deform many things, but in this moment was distilled a fullness of God’s grace.

  “God be with you, daughter,” he said at last, and she turned, lifted her luminous eyes to his, and smiled.

  “God be with you, Father. You asked me to come back when I’d completed my judgment.”

  He walked slowly up the nave, bowed to the altar, and knelt facing her behind the rail. “I had a letter from my foster son two days ago,” he told her quietly. “He said he owed you much. I am grateful, more than I can say.”

  She looked down, blushing. “I made some guesses.”

  “Which you could not have made if you were content to see the world with the world’s eyes. So, your judgment is complete?”

  She shrugged. “Complete? I don’t know. How can anyone but God make a final judgment? And you know Tiarnán far better than I do. But, in all I can see or know or feel, I believe, with you, that he is not a monster. The world God created is not monstrous. And for what we are by nature, however we came to it, we cannot be blamed — our guilt lies only in the thoughts of our hearts and the actions that spring from them. So I think Tiarnán’s wife was afraid of shadows, and you were right in the eyes of God to set no penance on Tiarnán for being what he is. Tho
ugh from the world’s view he would have been safer if you had, still, someone has to see the world with God’s eyes, with love and not fear.”

  Judicaël let out a long sigh and bowed his head. “You’ve given me more than I expected,” he said after a long silence.

  “It’s only my opinion,” said Marie with a smile. “I am not to be relied upon.”

  They were talking quietly a few minutes later when the chapel bell sounded again, and they both looked round to see Tiarnán himself walk in. He stopped abruptly, looking shocked. Marie, equally shocked, went red.

  Judicaël leapt to his feet, sprang over the altar rail, ran to Tiarnán, and embraced him fervently. “Thank God we have you in your right shape again!” he said fiercely, holding him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Thank God!” Then he stood back and glared. “What are you in those clothes for?” he demanded. Tiarnán was wearing green hunting things again.

  “My other ones have all been sold,” Tiarnán replied with a lopsided smile. “You need not worry: I’m not even alone today. I have two men outside, and I was lucky to escape with so few. All Talensac has been hovering over me like a nursemaid over a new baby.”

  “Good!” said Judicaël sternly. “Perhaps they’ll keep you in order.”

  “I came here to see you, Father,” Tiarnán said hesitantly. “I did not expect to find Lady Marie. God shield you, Lady, you didn’t ride here on your own?”

  “I have an escort who will come back for me in a couple of hours,” said Marie, then bit her lip at the prim stiffness of her own voice. The sting had gone back into her heart at Treffendel when he had touched her face and said, “Your eyes are gray.” She had not expected that particular disquiet. On the night of his wedding she had surrendered all hope of marrying him, and the possibility that his marriage could be annulled had not occurred to her. Now she was afraid of that ache, and afraid of his gratitude. She had not intended to see him until he came to Nantes to see all the court.

  “Could I take his place?” Tiarnán offered quickly.

  “All the way to Nantes, Lord Tiarnán? I’d heard that your estate needs a great deal of attention, and I’m sure you’d prefer not to leave it for the court yet.”

  “My clerk Kenmarcoc came back last night; I’m freer than I was. I could go to the court briefly. I’m bound to go to Nantes in a couple of days anyway, to see if I can get my horse and armor back. Lady Marie, if I can do any service for you at all, I would be more than glad of it. I know how much I owe you.”

  Marie felt short of breath again. “Lord Tiarnán, I owe you a great deal, too, for a service you once did for me. Let’s say that we’re even now.”

  Judicaël had been looking quickly from Marie to Tiarnán and back again, and now his intense face altered with its sweet smile. “Perhaps, my son,” he said pleasantly, “if you’re in no great hurry to confess your sins, we could all go to my hut and share a meal together? It’s about lunchtime.”

  When they came out of the chapel, Tiarnán’s two men hurried over exactly like anxious nursemaids. Tiarnán looked at them with immense displeasure, and Marie bit her finger to stop a giggle.

  The two came along to Judicaël’s hut as well, taking some food they’d brought with them, and the five of them sat in the garden among the sweet scent of the herbs and ate bread and cheese and cherries, washed down with goat’s milk and ale. Then Tiarnán glared at his two servants and told them to go see to the horses. “Lady Marie’s as well,” he told them. “That’s the roan mare tethered in the shade. Take them all down to the brook and let them drink, and give them a good grooming.”

  “You’ll stay with Father Judicaël and the foreign lady?” asked one of the servants suspiciously.

  “‘The foreign lady’ is called Lady Marie Penthièvre: she’s kin to the duchess, the duke himself honors her for her wisdom, and you, Donoal, should not speak of her so disrespectfully. What on earth do you think I’m going to do? Go see to the horses. I didn’t ask you to come, so you can’t complain if you find it dull.”

  The two went off, with several anxious backward glances, and Marie bit her finger again.

  Tiarnán flicked a cherry stone irritably in the direction of their departing backs. “I don’t know what they think will happen if they let me out their sight,” he said in disgust.

  “You disappeared from this place suddenly once before,” said Judicaël sharply. “And they were left at the mercy of people who treated them with contempt. Naturally they’re afraid to leave you here alone again. What happens to you does affect them: you should remember that, Tiarnán.”

  Tiarnán looked at once more sober. “I can hardly forget that now. Justin Braz, Conwal’s son, was flogged, did you know that? They told me he wept and begged for mercy. Justin, who was never afraid of any man living! Shackled to a pillar and whipped by one of de Fougères’s men for carting his grain to Montfort. And he was only the first.”

  “I know what’s been happening at Talensac,” replied Judicaël quietly. “I’ve had a stream of people from there all summer, asking help and advice. What I want to know is, will you abandon them again?”

  There was a silence. “I do not know,” Tiarnán replied at last, in a strained voice. “I don’t want to.”

  He felt at that moment that he never wanted to leave his humanity again. What he’d done in the forest before now seemed to him to have been nothing but playing at being a wild animal: after a few days as a wolf, he had gone home to his comfortable manor and rested and eaten his fill. The reality had been cold and hunger without hope of escape, desperate loneliness and constant danger. He could never forget it, and had no desire to taste it again. But he had several times before tried to give up his transformations, at Judicaël’s urging, and always the desire had become so powerful that it overcame all his scruples.

  “I would be glad if I could escape from it,” he told Judicaël in a low voice.

  “Other men have strong urges and master them,” said Judicaël sternly. “For your people’s sake, and your own, so should you. It was dangerous before — but now you’ve vanished for nearly a year and returned after being presumed dead: you won’t be able simply to slip away anymore. Your comings and goings will be followed much more closely, and the risk you take will be much greater. If you do it again, I warn you now, I’ll give you a penance for it — not for the thing itself, but for taking a stupid and unnecessary risk with your life and with the safety of those around you.”

  Tiarnán bowed his head. “I would deserve it.”

  Marie imagined Isengrim fasting on bread and water and humbly saying Paternosters, and bit her finger again. I’m being silly, she warned herself. It’s not funny at all.

  Tiarnán had caught the gesture, and he looked over and met her eyes; his own brightened, and the laughter went out of her. She wanted suddenly and desperately to touch his face, stroke the white line on his chin, kiss him. She made herself look away.

  Tiarnán looked at her demurely bent head, and thought of her body as he’d seen it, white against the grass at Nimuë’s Well. He’d thought of her frequently since Tiher’s visit, uncertain whether to trust what Tiher had said or not. He had been watching her surreptitiously since his arrival, anxiously searching for signs of revulsion — and there had been none, only an ease that when he thought of it seemed nothing short of miraculous. He had caught the laughter in her eyes when Judicaël threatened him with penances; to see it fade at his own perplexed him. He did not know how to proceed, or whether to proceed at all. He wanted to proceed, to coax the laughter back into those dark-lashed eyes, and see her smile for him. He did not want to part quickly, leaving nothing settled, nothing said. “My lady,” he said, “when is your escort coming?”

  “He said he’d be back no later than Nones,” she replied promptly, looking up again. “We were to catch up with the duke at Redon, and if he’s later than that we won’t arrive until after dark.”

  Tiarnán nodded. The court usually stayed at the great monastery of Redo
n on its way from one castle to another. “Will you be staying with the court in Nantes?” he asked tentatively. “Or do you mean to follow your lands to the convent?”

  “I haven’t decided on that yet, Lord Tiarnán.”

  Her eyes were lowered again, turned away from him. He watched her profile, the high forehead and the strong bones of the face, and the line of her throat pale and soft within the gold wings of her veil. “I know that Lord Tiher still hopes that you will marry him, and that Duke Hoel intends to give him land of his own,” he told her, waiting for some reaction.

  Barely a blink. She had withdrawn into some soft, secretive place of her own where she regarded in slow deliberation the choices available to her. “I suppose you did hear that, didn’t you?” she replied quietly. “I haven’t decided on that, either, Lord Tiarnán.”

  “Lady Marie,” he began, not sure how much he meant to say, but knowing he must say something, or she might think that she had nothing else to decide about, “when Lord Tiher came to Talensac, the day after I returned there, we agreed that we were rivals. Forgive me if what I say now is unwelcome — but Tiher himself implied that my cause was not entirely without hope. I know that he is an honorable and estimable man, and I know that I am a …” He hesitated, fumbling again with those sharp and slippery things, words, that had never expressed for him anything of importance. Her face had turned to him, and her eyes, clear and wide in surprise, but still with no trace of revulsion, gave him the will to struggle on. “I know I am a … a man who has proved himself a very poor husband to one wife, and a …” He paused again, faced with the brutal frankness of an ugly word which he still found false to himself.

  “I know what you are,” said Marie quietly, and without a trace of either horror or pity.

  He let out a breath raggedly and ploughed on. “it may be that you despise me for that. You said that you understood what Eline felt. If you despise me and do not wish me to trouble you again, tell me now, and I’ll do my best to observe that faithfully. But if you can, let my love sit beside Tiher’s and Saint Michael’s, as something about which you must decide.”