Valfrid’s keys jingled and Rigmora entered with a pile of warm-looking clothes. Justus, unshaved face buried in a pillow, waved her away, pointing at the chair until she nodded, set down the garments, and left him to his privacy.
The dress was serviceable wool, double-layered with a quilted skirt. There was no unobtrusive way to slit the cloth; he must leave the cutlass behind, or resign himself to clumsily hoisting away yards of fabric to reach it. He chose the latter.
Justus shaved and then, still wearing his underclothes, climbed into the wool dress. There was a warm, fur-lined cloak as well, and Justus threw it over his arm as he descended to the main hall, where Valfrid and the Greve waited.
Justus had expected that even a beast like the Greve would have a retinue, but Valfrid was not dressed for the out-of-doors, and no other servants were present.
Valfrid presented Justus with a satchel. “A lunch, a teenage boy’s bow,” the dour servant said, “and ten arrows.”
“Expect a gift when I return, Valfrid,” Justus said, then added, “and another for Rigmora, and the remaining eight for the lord of the castle.” Monster exchanged an amused, patronizing smile with Valfrid, and Justus pursed his lips. They would see.
Justus opened the satchel, unwrapping the bow and one arrow to get a look at them. The bow was of exquisitely carved yew in the shape of two fish joined at the tail; the arrow was fletched with exotic citrus-hued feathers.
Monster opened the giant front door without touching the pulley system needed by the servants.
Justus watched this feat with a dry mouth and damp palms. Monster must be mocking him with such a display of casual power. As he walked through, he imagined that any moment the beast would leap on him from behind and eat him alive. His back prickled at the thought, but when Justus turned to check, he only saw Monster heaving the door closed, the unexplained twin wounds glistening in the glare of sunlit snow. They hadn’t even grown scabs.
Some of the tower windows glowed green, the bright sky shining through from the windows on the other side, and Justus gestured at the expensive colored glass. “How that must have cost!” he said.
“I wince when I think of the wasted funds,” Monster agreed, catching up to Justus in three easy strides. “It was before my time.”
“What would you have done instead?” Justus asked.
Monster paused, studying Justus with disturbing focus. “No one has ever asked me that. A fountain, in the center of a pond. Perhaps with lily pads, pretty little silver frogs from the south, and dragonflies.”
Monster held out a hand, silently offering to carry the bag containing the bow and arrows, but Justus tightened his grip. He wasn’t about to be separated from his weapons.
The path they took was lined in thick, coniferous woods and carpeted in a crust of snow. “And you, Karin?” Monster asked after a few minutes of silence. “What would you do with such an exorbitant sum?”
Justus was caught off guard, but only for a moment. “I would buy herons to eat your silver frogs, and blackbirds to feast on your dragonflies. And a very long bandage for your disgusting wounds.”
Monster howled, a twisted blend of laughter and a wolf’s call, and slapped at a tree in his mirth. A shower of snow landed on Justus, and he shook it from his hair, trying not to join Monster’s appreciation. He must remain aloof.
The bow was smooth and cool in Justus’s hands, and he carried it under the cloak as they walked so if he saw an opportunity, he might take it. The first time he shot the bow, a hare that had been perched on the bank above them tumbled and lay still. Monster turned, surprised, and admitted he’d not even seen it hiding in a patch of snowless ground. Smugly, Justus accepted the arrow as Monster tied the rabbit by its feet to his gameline.
“Who gets this one?” Monster asked.
“Valfrid and Rigmora can wrestle thumbs for it. I’ll find you something bigger.”
Monster paused, then asked, “Do you enjoy killing, Karin?”
Justus shrugged. Hunting and killing weren’t the same thing. “I enjoy hunting. Some women are bakers and some are gardeners. I’m a hunter.”
Two wild turkeys fell with Justus’s arrows in them, both under Monster’s thoughtful gaze. A stupid third turkey, panicked by the unexplained deaths of its comrades, flapped straight toward them. Justus drew the bow—and then lowered it.
“We probably don’t really need ten,” Justus said.
Monster said nothing.
When they stopped for lunch, it was by mutual agreement, on the crest of a hill. The valley below them flowed to the horizons in a rich patchwork of colors and textures, as varied as Monster’s pelt. The deep autumn air smelled like rotting apples and cold maple leaves.
“I don’t hunt my own lands often,” Monster said. “But every time I come through, I wonder why.”
“You get enough maiden steak to satisfy you,” Justus said.
Monster turned sharply to look at him. Justus regretted opening his big mouth, but Monster was quiet again. Justus sat on a stone and ate the lunch Valfrid had given him: some jam tarts and dried fruits, a rind of cheese and a skin of weak, once-warm wine. Monster devoured one of the turkeys.
“What, no salt or pepper for the cultured monster who reads?” Justus asked, when Monster finished with the organs and moved on to crunching the bones.
Monster snorted, his steaming breath raising a cloud of feather fluff from his bloodstained snout. “This turkey thoughtfully ate some herbs, so it was already stuffed.”
Justus stifled a laugh and looked out into the woods. He wasn’t supposed to be enjoying himself. He should have shot Monster through the eye, while the Greve was eating. Now it was too late.
“What are you?” Justus asked suddenly.
Monster met Justus’s eyes. “I am this.”
“But how did you become this? Were you a baby monster, once?” Justus persisted.
Justus’s arrows were lying within Monster’s reach. The Greve plucked one from the quiver and turned it over in his enormous fingers as he spoke.
“I will tell you a story,” Monster said. “Long ago, there was a rich man, a magnificent hunter, who tried to impress a woman with his prowess. He told her he would bring her a thousand beasts, and so he set about killing everything he could get his hands on—never two of the same kind. Squirrel, hare, grouse, deer, wolf, even fish and snake. On the last day of his hunt, he killed an owl.
“The owl was a witch’s familiar. The witch found her pet in the rich man’s personal tannery, tacked up to dry on the wall. Devastated and bent on revenge, the witch set about stealing a piece from each of the thousand beasts, and sewed them into a cursed cloak.”
There was a snap, and Monster looked down at the arrow, which had broken into four pieces in his mighty grip.
“She presented this cloak to the rich man and told him that only the greatest hunter should wear it. When the arrogant Greve put on his gift, it transformed him into a bulk of muscle with a thunderous voice and immense strength, indistinguishable from the human he once was. The witch thought herself clever, because now the hunter had become a great prize. Surely another hunter would make short work of him to gain such a rare and strange pelt—but she underestimated the fears of men. No one wanted to risk their life, even when it became clear it would save the lives of others.”
Monster belched and got to his feet. “Forgive me, I didn’t think it would be so brittle,” he said, handing Justus the splinters of broken arrow. “Perhaps the head can be saved.”
Justus wondered what he thought he was doing. He expected to shoot down Monster with these feathered sewing pins? To stab him with his butter knife of a cutlass? Maybe the witch should have made a tinier, weaker monster with her curse.
When Monster took to the trail, Justus followed at a short distance. Snow began to fall. It caked the hem of his dress, attracting more snow with annoying regularity, and Justus paused periodically to shake it loose so it wouldn’t trip him.
He studied Mon
ster’s broad form, shaped so much like a man’s in the shoulders and back, undeniably animal in the tail and bent hind legs. The unhealed wounds showed angry and red in his otherwise impenetrable pelt. If Justus could get close enough to stab into the wounds Monster already had, perhaps he could ruin Monster’s guts. But if he’d already been punctured there, and he was walking around with no apparent pain, Justus did not imagine it was much of a gap in the Greve’s armor.
Perhaps he could be poisoned, but then again, perhaps Monster would smell the impurity. Justus didn’t want to risk it. Perhaps while Monster was asleep . . . but Justus knew better. Any hunter avoided taking a predator in its lair. It was best to catch it during a routine, when it was focused on drinking water or eating its kill—not when it had nothing better to do than wake up and savage you.
Justus was wondering if Monster would stop at a stream to drink, as his muzzle was unfit to suck at the nozzle of a water flask, when the clump of snow weighed too low and dragged the hem of his dress under his boot. Justus stumbled to the side, stepped on the hem again, and fell down the steep ravine.
He skidded over an expanse of decaying leaves and pine needles. Snow-laden branches whipped Justus’s face and tangled in his hair, but every time his fingers closed on a clump of roots and leaves, his momentum ripped them free. Even after a stump knocked the wind out of him, Justus was most worried about being sliced by the hidden cutlass. He couldn’t untie it any more than he could slow his descent.
The ground disappeared from beneath him. He caught a sickening flash of a rocky embankment and a foaming stream. Everything stopped.
Justus’s head spun, but the grip on his ankle drew him back to safety. Monster clung to a gnarled pine with one hand, his hoof hooked behind a boulder.
Monster turned Justus rightside up before tucking him close. Monster’s arm was as big around as Justus’s torso, comforting and solid. Justus finally drew a shuddering breath and inhaled the musky scent of his rescuer. Monster smelled cleaner than Justus had imagined, clean and warm.
As Monster inched his way up the incline, Justus shivered, his fingers desperately clinging to clumps of mismatched fur. Tears streaked down his face, hot terror evaporating into the careless winter cold. I almost died.
“Why didn’t you cry out?”
Justus just shook his head. Even if the rock hadn’t knocked the wind out of him, he’d still been more worried that Monster would realize he was male, which would be a much slower death than a simple fall. He was already afraid Monster would finally discover him now—after all, Justus must feel different than a woman, compact and spare where a real maiden would have been light curves. Monster said nothing, though, and when they reached the top, he didn’t put Justus down. Instead, he wrapped his other arm around Justus’s back.
“It’s all right. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Monster whispered.
Justus might have laughed at the irony if he did not believe the Greve meant it. Monster wanted to choose when and how his sacrifices died. Besides, he was full—he’d just eaten a turkey.
After a time, Monster fidgeted, shifting Justus to his other shoulder—and then laughed. “My, Karin, what’s this?”
The cutlass. Justus tensed, waiting for Monster to squeeze him until his spine cracked and discard his broken body in the snow.
“A girl must protect her honor,” Justus croaked.
Monster laughed again, and Justus relaxed against Monster’s warmth. It pained him to know that he owed his life to this creature, and yet this same creature had taken Gudrun’s.
“Best you don’t sleep yet,” Monster said, and shook Justus, who realized he had been dozing.
“Sorry.”
“You’ve not told me what you enjoy besides hunting and being read to,” Monster prompted.
Justus’s skull felt like it was full of hot bees, but he understood that people with head injuries who went to sleep too soon didn’t always wake up.
He forced his mouth to work through an answer. “Carving. I carve wood.”
“With a sword?”
Justus’s smile hurt his cold cheeks. “I’m not very good with the real tools, so perhaps I should try.”
“I’m sure you just need practice,” Monster decided. “You’ll be given an array of carver’s instruments, and any wood we have available. Could you sculpt me?”
“Perhaps,” Justus said, and a thought pushed his drowsiness away, bright sunlight burning away a fog. He maintained his sleepy mumble, however, when he went on, “for a trade.”
“Oh? Name a price that’s not your freedom,” Monster said. Each word vibrated through the Greve’s chest to Justus’s cheek.
“I just want a bow and arrows that won’t crumble in your clumsy fingers,” Justus said.
“Agreed.” Monster chuckled. “When can I expect my magnificent sculpture?”
“A week,” Justus said. “Maybe two, if the wood is as poor as your table manners.”
“The wood will be as fine as your aim.”
Justus smiled, but his heart now hurt as badly as his head.
Justus spent the next two days in bed, sipping broth through swollen, bruised lips. The injuries made his necessary shaving a painful experience, but he admired the dark ring around one eye as he looked in the mirror. In all his life, Justus had never looked tough, but now, wearing a frilly nightgown while he lay on a bank of pillows in a lady’s lace-canopied bed, he looked as if he’d been in a real brawl.
When someone knocked, Justus swallowed and worked his voice into Karin’s high, husky tone. “Come in.”
It was Monster, carrying a small bag. “Here are your tools. I sent Valfrid to a good market for them. The wood is in the library, which has the best light. How do you feel?”
“Splendid. I told Rigmora you beat me, so she’s sneaked me pastries for every meal.”
“I wondered how you got so fat,” Monster said.
Justus laughed his silent laugh, and Monster made up for it with his own volume.
“Your sculpture will be done in a week, but you mustn’t peek until I’ve finished,” Justus said. “I told you I’m not very good, so there’s no use you thinking I’m even worse.”
Monster promised not to look, and Justus ushered the Greve out so he might dress himself and begin his task.
The block of wood was as tall as Justus, of a fine grain, and it fell away as easily as snow beneath his new carving implements. Valfrid had even thought to buy paper and leads for the designs. Justus decided upon a snarling, crouching Monster, about to spring for a kill. This pose would remind Justus why he had to complete his quest.
On the third day, Monster interrupted Justus while he was carving. Justus hurriedly pulled the sheet down over his work and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes?”
“I wasn’t sure if you would be disturbed or entertained if I faced away from you and read to you as you worked,” Monster said. The creature’s eyes were squeezed shut.
After a pause, Justus said, “Entertained,” and so they agreed upon a collection of poems. The Greve read as Justus scraped away flakes of not-Monster to expose the hulking form beneath.
Every day, Justus carved for an hour alone after breakfast. Then Monster showed up with a book, often held in his jaws as he groped his way across the room, eyes shut until he was safely in his high-backed chair. When Justus glanced up, he only saw Monster’s fox ears and his hairy elbows.
Justus could tell he hadn’t gotten the balance of the sculpture right; Monster leaned to the left a little, and one foot was too small. But Justus kept carving, more slowly every day, until it was the last day and he hadn’t even started the head.
“I need another week,” Justus said over breakfast.
“Is it more difficult than you imagined?” Monster asked.
Justus recognized his own words being thrown at him again, and he snorted. “No, your head is just so big it takes extra time.”
Monster cackled and gave Justus another week, and they took
up their routine once more. The statue began to take on the Greve’s likeness, though it wasn’t as Justus had intended.
The snarl looked more like a grin, and eyes that were supposed to be squinted with hate looked tilted in mirth. Every strong muscle was present, but Justus’s hands hadn’t forgotten a layer of fur and feathers to soften Monster’s bulk. Justus tried to pretend the friendly cast to the carving was due to his own inadequacy as a sculptor.
Monster’s company distracted Justus from fretting too much. Most of the time he let his hands work while he listened to Monster’s deep voice reading poems and fairy tales, biographies and adventures, and even a hunting guide written by a clueless old nobleman a hundred years before, at which the two of them laughed themselves to tears.
“Now one of your ears is too short!” Justus complained, gasping with silent laughter.
“According to Lord Foxbane here, they’ll give me away in the brush, because mounted fops have ‘an eagle’s eye view of their prey.’ You’d best trim the other ear, too. For my safety.”
That night, Justus went to his chambers with a heavy heart.
He was down to sanding away splinters and scratching unnecessary details into the mouth and stitches. It was finished, and he knew it. But if Justus stopped carving, he would be given a real weapon, and it would be time to kill his friend. Now it was no longer just an assassination; it was a betrayal. He would regret it for longer than he’d anticipated it. And yet it must be done. For the sake of Gudrun, and the sake of all who might follow her into an early and terrible grave.
His reverie was broken by the sound of female laughter in the corridor. The door was locked, as usual, but Justus had found that hairpins were a good size for tripping the tumblers.
This would be his last night. He hadn’t seen anyone since the hunting trip but Valfrid, Monster, and silent Rigmora. If he wanted to change that, it must be now.
The corridor was empty. Justus lifted his skirts and hugged them close so they wouldn’t rustle and give him away. Echoes led him to the right. Cold stone chilled his bare feet.
Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Page 20
