The Beauty's Beast

by E. D. Walker

  ***

  Gabriel ate his midday meal in stony silence with Llewellyn as his only companion. Eating cooked food with utensils again was odd but extremely gratifying nonetheless. He had so missed having thumbs.

  King Thomas had gone off to make preparations for the duel. He returned when Gabriel was finishing the last of his roast boar. The king walked straight to the room’s largest window and stood there, staring out without saying one word to either of them.

  At last, Gabriel could take the silence no more. “Uncle.”

  Llewellyn laid a restraining hand on Gabriel’s arm, but he shrugged the older man off and went to the king.

  “Uncle,” he said again, more gently. “It has to be done. If I don’t defeat him, he will follow me forever. And Kathryn. Fighting him will end it.”

  “What will this bloodbath end? What satisfaction do you hope for?”

  “I want to know the filthy brute won’t be coming after me, won’t be sniffing around Kathryn. That Reynard the Lecher won’t be haunting me all the rest of my life.” Gabriel clenched his fists in frustration. He had to make his uncle understand. “Disgrace Reynard. Banish him. Beat him from the land with stones, and he will still return. Reynard has to die—not just for what he’s done to Kathryn but for what harm he can do in the future if we let him escape. His evil ends now, and I’m the one to end it.”

  A muscle ticked in his uncle’s jaw. “You’re a young fool. I only pray you’ll be a live fool at the end of this.” He stomped from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Gabriel turned to Llewellyn, who had lingered. “And what do you have to say, Master Magician?”

  Llewellyn gazed at the ceiling and let his breath out through his teeth. “My lad, I don’t know whether to strangle you or weep in despair.” He scrubbed his fingers through his white-blond hair and at last met Gabriel’s gaze. “I haven’t yet decided on which one appeals more at the moment. I might do both.”

  “I’m right to do this. You know that.”

  “Perhaps.” Llewellyn swept out of the room too.

  Gabriel was left to prepare himself as best he might for the coming ordeal. Alone. “Merciful Fate.” He let his breath out on a gusty sigh. “Things were easier as a wolf.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The expectant blush of the morning flared to a bright yellow at noon but, by the time of the combat, it had waxed to the fatigued red of someone florid from overexertion.

  The two combatants faced each other across the open fields before the great castle of Dorré. Men-at-arms ringed them round with their shields. Gabriel and Reynard each wore leather jerkins over their light linen tunics and breeches. The jerkins were sturdy enough to deflect a half-hearted stroke or a dagger graze, but certainly not enough to ward off a killing blow. Each fighter carried a sword, serviceable and as light as could be managed. The knights might be at this all afternoon, so any extra weight that could be left off the weapons and their bodies had been. Each man also bore a matching dagger tucked into his belt.

  King Thomas clenched his hands at his sides. There has to be a way to stop this. How could he let his dear nephew, a boy as good as a son to him, square up against the beast Reynard? I’ve only just gotten Gabriel back, and to lose him now? How can I stop this?

  His mind raged, but he was taking too long. King Thomas needed to move, or one of the fighters would strike without his leave. Once started, neither combatant would pause for their ruler’s displeasure either. If the king did not start the contest soon, the looks on both of the fighters’ faces promised they would.

  With an almost physical wrench and a choked-out oath, King Thomas gestured for the duel to begin. He jerked his gaze away. He did not condone this duel, he could not stop it, but he would not watch.

  ***

  As the fight officially began, Gabriel hefted his broadsword and waited with patience to see what his opponent intended.

  Reynard advanced several paces. “You’ve scratched your last flea, Sir Mutt.” The larger knight swiped at Gabriel with his sword.

  Gabriel easily parried the blow and thrust for Reynard’s midsection.

  He turned Gabriel’s sword aside with a deft twist. “I’m surprised you remember how to hold a sword.” He stepped in and seized the wrist of Gabriel’s sword hand. Taking advantage of Gabriel’s position, Reynard held Gabriel’s wrist tightly, trapping their blades together in a crossed arrangement. As they strained, pushing against each other, Reynard laughed in Gabriel’s face. “Hard to get used to having thumbs again, m’boy?”

  Gabriel shifted his stance and drove his knee into Reynard’s midsection. Reynard doubled over. Slicing savagely with his blade, Gabriel broke the cross of their swords and left a sizeable gash across Reynard’s back.

  A few of the men-at-arms cried out in jubilation as Gabriel drew first blood. From the corner of his eye, Gabriel caught sight of Llewellyn pumping his fist in the air, calling out to Reynard, “I hope that will serve to remind you, Troumper, not to waste your breath so idly on foul words.”

  “I’ll see you skewered on a pike, you pasty bastard,” Reynard snarled at the magician.

  Gabriel kept his gaze focused on his opponent, waiting, unwilling to rise to Reynard’s petty taunts. Gabriel had no breath to spare either.

  Reynard straightened, working his back muscles with a grimace. In a sudden burst, he raised his sword and ran at Gabriel. Gabriel met him, and they traded blows. Overheated and hampered by his light jerkin and flimsy shirt, Gabriel struggled for control. His boots made him unsteady. He would have felt so much better with the skin of his feet connecting with the ground. I have to get used to wearing clothes again.

  Reynard’s earlier taunts had not been far off the mark. Gabriel’s swordsmanship was rusty, unequal to Reynard’s in this most pressing of moments. Gabriel felt ungainly, awkward, a great lumbering hulk. His old speed in swordplay, his greatest advantage against a larger opponent, had withered like a sickly limb left unused. Even managing the disposal of his human limbs gave Gabriel difficulty.

  He wanted to throw his sword away and go after Reynard with tooth and claw. As a wolf, Gabriel had still always been a man, but if he let himself hurt Reynard in the way he wanted to, then he risked losing all he had recently fought so hard to regain. He risked losing all he yet hoped to have.

  Yet he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out against Reynard’s swordsmanship. He didn’t know how much longer he could fight these animal urges—or how much longer he wanted to. Gabriel knew enough about blood magic, and his own curse, to know that if he killed a human being with his teeth, if he swallowed human blood he’d spilled, no matter what his shape, man or wolf, he would be a monster forever.

  He had to control himself. He was a knight. He had to prove he could be a man. Winning wasn’t winning if he killed Reynard as a wolf would kill.

  Blinking sweat from his eyes, Gabriel swiped wildly at Reynard’s head. The big knight retreated, and Gabriel staggered as he lunged again in pursuit. He thrust for Reynard’s gut, and the other man knocked Gabriel’s blade away.

  Reynard stepped swiftly in, seizing his throat. Gabriel choked, chest burning, and clawed at the fingers cutting off his air. Reynard’s skin opened beneath his nails in long, deep gashes. The other man growled and shoved him away.

  Gabriel gulped in great breaths of air, filling his lungs. With a grunt, Reynard slashed, cutting at Gabriel’s stomach while his guard was down. Gabriel howled, pressing a limb to the burning pain.

  “No.” King Thomas leapt to his feet.

  Reynard brandished his bloodstained sword.

  Gabriel dropped heavily to the ground, a hand held to his gut. Waves of anguish stung his body, and sticky blood coated his trembling fingers. Stepping forward, Reynard kicked Gabriel in the belly.

  Gabriel’s vision blacked around the edges, his head swimming. He rolled away, shaking.

  Reynard advanced, big boots stomping the grass down. The large knight seized Gabriel’s sweat-
dampened hair, nearly tugging a chunk out by the roots.

  Gabriel had barely wobbled to a shaky standing position before Reynard thrust him away. Dizzy and off balance, Gabriel plummeted headlong into the other knight. Too close to use his sword effectively, he laid into Reynard freely with his knee and the hilt of his sword.

  With a huff of pain, Reynard’s seized Gabriel’s wrist. Twisting ruthlessly, the other knight brought Gabriel crashing to the ground. Grunting, Reynard pinned Gabriel’s sword hand roughly with his foot and kicked Gabriel’s weapon away.

  “Now what’s to do, Sir Mutt?” Reynard laughed, mean and low. “You might have bested me with your teeth and claws, you know. Better as a wolf than a man, eh?”

  Vision blurring, head swimming, Gabriel whipped his dagger out and stabbed Reynard in the calf.

  Roaring, Reynard stumbled off and groped with his free hand, trying to draw the blade out. Gabriel kicked Reynard’s legs out from under him and leapt upon him. Gabriel rolled in the grass, banging into Reynard, taking blows that left him breathless and gasping and trading ruthless hits back that bloodied Reynard’s mouth and set the other knight gasping.

  Reynard got a hard hit in on Gabriel’s wounded stomach. As his vision swam, Gabriel fell sideways off him. The big knight rolled over and, with a sharp bark of pain, pulled Gabriel’s knife from his own calf. Gabriel scrambled to pin Reynard’s arms to the ground with his knees before he could lift the knife.

  Gabriel started punching Reynard about the face, and the crunch of bone against bone was brutally satisfying. Gabriel wanted more. He punched the other man over and over and over, reveling in the feel of flesh turning to pulp under his fists, skin splitting open, blood staining his nails and hands as he rent Reynard to pieces. Gabriel growled with pleasure. This was just how he should kill Reynard. Slowly.

  As Gabriel delivered punch after punch, something glinted just under the edge of his vision, stinging his eyes, distracting him. He paused and rocked back to sit on his heels. Face raw and swelling, Reynard groaned but didn’t move.

  Gently, Gabriel cupped the shining thing around his own neck in his palm, glancing down at the little golden rose. Kathryn’s bauble.

  Kathryn.

  What will she think if you beat Reynard to death? I wanted this, but she wouldn’t.

  You knew that when you challenged him. Don’t fool yourself you’re doing this for her sake. It’s the wolf in you. Reynard’s just another rival who needs to be taken down, another hunting dog whose throat needs to be ripped out.

  You didn’t have a choice who you were as a wolf. Now you do, and look what you’ve chosen. You’re a worse beast than Reynard.

  No. Gabriel recoiled from the ruin of Reynard’s face. He gaped at his cut and bloodied hands, flipping them over, staring at them in surprise. Rasping for breath, Gabriel looked into Reynard’s hard, dark irises as the flesh around them bled and swelled.

  “Kill me, then,” Reynard choked out through his broken face.

  Gabriel narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists. Something inside him wound tight, ready to snap. His arm shook with tension as he drew back for another blow. Reynard’s battered lips tipped up in a gruesome grimace of a smile. There was satisfaction in his face.

  Gabriel stared at Reynard and slowly let his arm fall back to his side. With a groan of effort, Gabriel stood, clutching at his bleeding gut. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his dirty sleeve and fetched up Reynard’s discarded dagger where the other man had dropped it. Gabriel stuck the blade into the belt of his torn, bloodied jerkin.

  “What are you doing?” Reynard tried to sit up, then grunted in pain and collapsed backward.

  “I’m done with revenge, Reynard. It’s over. Enjoy your banishment. If I see you again I will kill you.” Gabriel staggered away to receive the congratulations of his king and the spectators.

  Reynard threw himself on Gabriel’s legs. Gabriel crashed to the ground. The air pushed from his lungs, and his gut was on fire from his wound. Reynard, his battered face a grisly pulp, his dark eyes flaming now with hatred, clawed for the dagger in Gabriel’s belt.

  Gabriel grabbed Reynard’s wrists and strained against this last frantic attack. Gabriel’s stomach broiled with pain, warm blood soaking the shirt to his skin. Gritting his teeth, Gabriel brought up his legs to kick Reynard away and drew the dagger from his own belt.

  Reynard crawled back, foam flecking his mouth, his teeth bared in a wordless snarl. Gabriel wrestled against the knight’s bulky arms. Breathing hard, heart hammering, Gabriel arced the dagger up and brought it down, burying the blade deeply in Reynard’s neck. The big knight gurgled and gagged, pawing futilely at his throat.

  Nauseated, hot blood dripping onto his face from Reynard’s neck, Gabriel released the dagger’s handle with a little push, which sent the dying Reynard falling back. His body landed with a thump on the torn-up, bloodstained grass.

  For a long moment, Gabriel lay on his back in the trampled turf, too weak and wounded to move. His skin crawled and his insides squirmed with disgust at the nastiness of the fight. Stinking of Reynard’s blood and his own, feeling soul-soiled and dirty, Gabriel pinched his eyes closed. Tears leaked out between his eyelids, sliding down his filthy cheeks to drip into his ears.

  “Gabriel.” The voice seemed very far away. “Gabriel.”

  The stricken note in his uncle’s voice at last penetrated Gabriel’s awareness, and he opened his eyes. Gingerly and by very gentle degrees, Gabriel creaked to his feet. Hugging an arm to his slashed stomach, he limped to his uncle and dipped achingly to one knee, trying not to tumble forward in a faint. Gabriel cleared his throat. “I trust, my king, I have proven my claim to the Dorré estates.”

  King Thomas’s eyes shone with wetness. “Your lands are yours again, Gabriel fitz Michael, irrevocably and irrefutably.” The king pulled Gabriel to his feet and raised their joined hands aloft in triumph. “I present your lord, the Duke of Dorré, now and forever.”

  A cheer went up among the men-at-arms. They clanked their swords against their shields in salute. As the jubilations began, Gabriel looked about him in wonder and gratitude. I am the Duke of Dorré. I’m me again.

  Time to retrieve my duchess. He took one step, then blinked, black spotting the edges of his vision. Gabriel wavered gracefully on the spot, like a leaf trembling on the end of its twig. This lasted for a long moment. Then the valiant and victorious, honorable and glorious, brave and noble Gabriel fitz Michael, son of kings, heir to the throne of Lyond, the worthy Duke of Dorré…fainted.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Beatrice really was quite close to tearing her hair out. She had been at the damned convent of Bourlonge far longer than she cared to remember. Sitting and waiting and furiously writing to her idiot brother. The longer Beatrice remained, the less likely she would leave again. She had to get out.

  The damned abbess kept trying to talk to her as well, preach to her about the benefits of a spiritual life. Beatrice had to admit she was tempted. An ambitious, clever woman could certainly climb her way over all the other pious, biddable little nuns to a position of great authority in the temple. With her abilities, Beatrice could even make abbess someday—if she wanted. The idea did appeal, but then, so did being a duchess. She needed to talk to her brother and find out if she really was as irredeemable for marriage as he now believed her to be.

  The other thing that made Beatrice grit her teeth was that all the precious little nuns were hiding something from her.

  After about a week of enduring strange behavior from the sisters, Beatrice discovered one room they kept taking turns in, spending hours there at a time. Another day, one of the local foresters came back leading a horse, and the event caused a great stir of elation among the sisters—as much as nuns could be said to be observably joyous.

  The next day, as Beatrice lay in her chamber, debating whether to rise or not, she caught the sound of a man speaking in low tones with a woman, whose voice she immediately recognized
as belonging to the abbess.

  Beatrice leapt up. Cracking her door open ever so slightly, she could just barely discern what they said.

  “You need not fear for her anymore,” the abbess said quietly to the man. “She is awake and knows herself. She will suffer no lasting hurt from her misadventures in the forest, and now you can trust her into our care to help her mend the rest of the way.”

  “Is she to stay here for good, or—”

  “That choice is yet before her,” the abbess said gently. “When she is well enough to travel, she will certainly let you know what her intentions are.”

  “How will I ever be able to thank you and the sisters for all you’ve done for my daughter?”

  The abbess, of course, piously waved this away. “All was done in service to good. Kind Fate smile on your journey, Lord Stephen.”

  “And Kind Fate go always with you, Your Reverence.” The man bowed to the abbess and went to his horse, which Beatrice, who now leaned all the way out of her door, recognized as the one the forester had brought in days ago.

  The mysterious Lord Stephen rode off in the early-morning light, and Beatrice hurried back into her room, in case the abbess should turn and see her.

  Beatrice would have to discover what this whispered conference was about. The gentleman seemingly had a daughter quartered here, and not one of the sisters, either. Beatrice had believed herself to be the only noble guest in residence at the convent. She was wrong, and now nothing would suit her but to find out the identity of this other woman.

  She snooped about the secret chamber all day, but to no avail. The nuns were vigilant about closing the door behind them when they left the room. If Beatrice questioned them, they would say one of the sisters had fallen ill and they were taking turns in caring for her.