Bound to the Beast

by Kay Berrisford

  "He does fancy thee," she murmured to Tam, tangling her fingers through his soft curls. "Did he take you already? Did he hurt you, pretty one? Ah, yes, that beast knows no tenderness. He has not loved for many a century—he will never love again. But one as young as you could never understand what drives him. A passion that has echoed through the centuries, that even now gnaws all that's left of his rotted heart. You can know nothing of such horrors, child."

  "Then do not teach him of them!" shouted Herne. He wished she would turn her cruel gaze to him, drive that cunning knife into his stomach, and feast, rather than speak such hideous truths to Tam.

  Godda looked up, sharpening the rancour in her single eye. "How can you let this pretty pet blind you, huntsman? You vowed a thousand times, you never wanted another man. Let me drain his blood and be rid of him. Or maybe you should wield the knife. Think of the power you'd reap from Niogaerst, Herne, the glory."

  She leaned to whisper something in Tam's ear, then rose and approached Herne, knife still in hand. For a fleeting moment, Herne's struggle waned. Tam's beauty had twisted his mind and stirred his body. But Godda's word must have lessened her spell, for Tam's breathing came a little easier, the wrench of pain unwinding from his features. Herne felt relief and gratitude so alien to him that they, too, brought a pang to his guts. He nearly cried out, his frustration was so great. In many long centuries, he had not allowed his heart to beat for anything but sorrow. He must not falter now.

  "This boy is nothing to me," he shouted, almost choking on his words. "But I will have no more death on my conscience."

  Determination exploded in his core. Godda had brought these stone beings to life. No magic should have been capable of penetrating the abbey's walls, although the Hunt had grown so strong. Perhaps he should've anticipated as much. But she, too, should have known the ancient magic of the forest had written his fate for him; the Goddess's power coursed in his veins, through every stone and strand of ivy, and could not be easily ignored. The magic Godda used was unnatural, likely strained to its limits already. Herne could break through it. He just had to concentrate.

  Looking up, he glared at the stone Green Man that held him. Even bewitched, surely you are my ally, fellow spirit of the oak?

  Herne plied all his strength, his muscles swelling, his eyes brimming with tears born of effort. Godda's scream rattled through his ears to his core. She lifted her knife once more, her hand shaking. From its tip, red sparks flew, hitting the Green Man and the eagle and burning like tiny brands into his skin, but he would not let her win. When the stone statues refused to yield, he dug his heels into the ground and channelled all his might into reaching out with his mind.

  Have we not stood together, Green Man, companions of over a thousand years? You unite now with Niogaerst?

  The Green Man's gaze remained blank; Herne exerted a final, shattering force against his bonds. The leaves that held him unfolded, stone cracked on either side, and he hurled himself toward Godda. Grasping her flaking hands, he wrested the knife from her. He tossed her over his shoulder, suffering the sting of a thousand wasps as she lashed into him with magic and pain. Sweat streaking his brow, he endured it, although each step toward the gatehouse felt like wading through scalding oil.

  "The oak stands taller and more ancient than the hazel, witch, and shall forevermore," he said. "By that power I compel thee, leave us!"

  When he tossed her across the threshold and into the heather, Godda screeched in fury. She clambered up from where he cast her and then scuttled toward the forest, clearly more affrighted than she cared to show him. In his turn, he stood watching her, his back straight and his arms folded.

  When she vanished from sight, he crumpled to his knees. Head and shoulders bowing forward, he grasped his antlers, their weight bearing down as heavy as lead. She'd tested his fortitude to its limits. There was no doubt now that the Hunt's power grew greater than he'd known for many centuries. He needed all his resolve, all the indifference born of solitude to resist them.

  Tam weakened him.

  He stalked back over to Tam, who had pushed himself up onto his elbows, although not yet dragged himself to his feet. He had turned white as a lily, his breath snatched in gasps as he fought off the residue of the pain spell. Hands shaking, the lad unwound the twiggy stems of the hazel collar and cast it away.

  Did he know how close he'd just come to an eternity of torment? The ministrations of the witch were nothing compared to the horrors of the realm of Niogaerst she'd wished to cast him into. While Herne had endured much worse than Godda's malice, he doubted Tam had. Herne yearned to comfort him, to soothe the pain away, to tell him he'd never suffer again. Before, when he'd torn him from the Hunt, it had felt natural to take Tam in his arms. But now? No. They'd grown too close, and he had to fight the temptation.

  As Tam raised his gaze, raw fear still glittering in his eyes, Herne's fists remained tight at his sides.

  "You little fool," he muttered. "You invited a witch into the abbey? An invitation can override all but the most powerful of boundaries. Do you know nothing?"

  "You should have warned me."

  Tam had a point. Truly Herne had been fuddled by this lad, but with every muscle in him aching from his struggle, he was in no mood to apologize.

  "Be warned, then, boy. Don't invite anybody else in, if you value your blood."

  Tam glared at him, but when Herne stretched out his hand, the lad took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Feeling Tam falter, Herne slipped his arm about Tam's slender waist and guided him back into the cloister.

  It was an effort not to sweep Tam up into his arms, sup again on those pretty lips, and kiss away every memory of pain. And to claim him there and then. Tam's proximity set desire ripping through his insides and nearly destroyed his every dour resolution. If Godda had taught him one thing, it was that Tam would only be safe, and he able to find peace, when this betrothal was broken.

  "For heaven's sake, take me to read this lore, man," grumbled Tam. "We must break this cursed bond, for I dearly desire to go home."

  Chapter Nine

  At the bottom of the spiral staircase, Tam sank onto a low stone bench, cradling his chin in his hand. Herne, his antlers diminished, unlatched the metal-studded door before shoving it open with his shoulder. Torchlight ebbed into the gloom beyond.

  "This room was not intended to be a library but a store," he explained. The words spilled out more easily than they had before, which he attributed to his fondness of his Greenwood home and not any attachment to Tam. "The books were originally chained on the other side of the chapter house, nearer the church. After the abbey was profaned, most valuable possessions were taken to adorn the houses of your lords and ladies. Brother Herbert rescued what he could and hid the books here when all was safe. He added to them over the years with new writings, and…"

  Herne started as Tam pushed past him into the room. Scant light spilled from high windows, the floor as thick with grime and rat dung as the air hung heavy with dust. Yet Tam gazed in awe at the papers, scrolls, and books, some piled in stone niches and towering so high they scraped the vaulted ceiling. Many of the books still dangled the silver chains that had once affixed them to their cases in the abbey library.

  "I've never seen so many books," said Tam. "This place, it's a treasure trove."

  Following Tam's objections to the refectory, Herne raised an eyebrow at Tam's fickle standards of cleanliness. Books, it seemed, overcame squalor, as well as the remnants of the pain spell. Tam appeared transformed.

  "More light," demanded Tam, gesturing toward Herne without a glance. Herne moved closer.

  Tam took a heavy, leather-covered book from the top of one of the piles, dropped to his knees, and opened it on the floor. Herne caught a glimpse of curving Latin script illuminated with gilt and borders alive with drawings of beasts and men, exquisitely devised and coloured. The book could not command Herne's attention for long. Tam's delight manifested in a smile more radiant than
any etching. He ran his fingers over the vellum. Only a hint of trembling betrayed the shock of his recent ordeal.

  "I've never seen anything like it," said Tam. "The queen's crown cannot be finer than this single book, even if it were rich with rubies and emeralds, sapphires too."

  "My people did well enough without such luxuries as these," muttered Herne.

  Tam seemed not to hear him. "We own one book of prayer, and it is plain compared to these. I would love to own such books one day." He turned over a leaf with meticulous care. "I can only imagine what it must have been like for the monks, spending long hours alone in their cells with nothing but a quill, a horn of ink, a knife, and a blank sheet to bring life to such riches."

  "All is vanity," grumbled Herne.

  At last Tam peeped up, the fear of the past hour replaced with laughter in his eyes. "How can you say that? Books are wonderful things. Knowledge is a wonderful thing. In Winchester, they print with woodcuts, and they can create many pages much faster than a monk with a quill. Think of all the stories the world will one day be able to read, all the knowledge we will gain."

  "My people needed none of it, but we knew enough. The stories I could tell from those lost times would make your blood freeze, boy."

  A ripple of understanding crossed Tam's face, unsettling Herne more than he wished. Today Tam had received a taste of the foul horrors of magic, of nature's aberrations, and Herne had failed to shield him from them.

  But Tam rallied, raising his voice in jest. "Ah, no doubt they would. And you all slept on hard rock and were not considered men until your arses were black and blue from all the wriggling. Even your fucking must have been joyless."

  Joyless? No. It hadn't seemed that way at the time. Memories trickled back of a secret nest, deep in the forest, soft with fur and down. Of Crea's hard embrace, of his cold fingers raking through his hair, of Crea's clever lips working against his. And of Crea bent over his knee, howling with pleasure as Herne clouted him hard, demanding ever more pleasure and pain, ever more stimulation. He quashed the image from his mind without a flinch, and only then did his heart pitch. Never had a recollection of Crea brought him so little pain. He strove to calm his shaking before he dropped the torch and set the whole chamber on fire.

  Tam looked back over his shoulder. "What is it?"

  "Nothing," he muttered. The smoky vault grew more stifling than any dungeon, the thick air suffocating, however deep he drew it into his lungs.

  "Is this about what the witch said? You did once take a lover?"

  Yes. A lover he could at last forget? Herne drilled his glare into the handsome young man kneeling on the floor and realized how dangerously he had fallen.

  "Godda spoke only lies," he growled. "We have much work ahead, and you will find no answers in that book."

  Tam regarded him warily, chewing his lip, questions visible in his eyes that Herne already dreaded. But the venom in Herne's glare hit its target. Tam looked back down to the book and sighed. "You're right. This is a book of hours and no good to us. Do you know which texts are about Greenwood lore?"

  Herne drew breath slowly and then plunged the torch deeper into the room so the light reached a corner where, so far, smoke alone had penetrated. Here stood Brother Herbert's writing desk, complete with a sloping surface for the manuscript and a walnut bench for the scribe.

  He nodded toward a pile of yellowing scrolls and a stack of unbound vellum. "This is where I brought Brother Herbert's work after he died. Near the end, he told me he was communing with the Goddess herself, seeking that union between the old and new religions, although I fear those words were the ravings of a dying man. Let's pray he wrote down the lore of betrothal before his reason fled." Assuming Herbert had learned of such lore at all. "I dearly hope he did."

  Tam swept away the worst of the cobwebs and assumed his place behind the desk. Herne lifted the first pile of vellum from the floor and placed it on the stand in front of him.

  "These pages are every bit as beautiful as the books of the church," murmured Tam, turning over the sheets with the same care. "And the blood is as plentiful as the Christian martyrs'." He paused over a richly coloured illustration of men skinned alive, their muscles and veins exposed and their flayed hides cast over the branches behind them. Other men were hanged by their necks, their eyes pecked out by crows. The painted blood shone a garnet red, as if it were not just real but fresh.

  "'Tis brutal. Your Brother Herbert was an artist as well as a great scholar." A pensive smile curved Tam's lips. "I love to draw and to carve with wood. When I was younger, I wished to be apprenticed to a master builder so I could put my skills to good use. Richard said he would consider it, if I performed well at school, which I did, but…apprenticeships come dear. I suppose he never had that kind of money to spare, although he's been very good to me of late."

  "I am not interested in your ambitions, boy," snapped Herne, his words concealing a surge of anger with the wealthier brother who had taken so long to provide and then on such unlikely terms. "Concentrate on the writings."

  "I am." Tam's temper proved brittle too. "Bring that light nearer. My eyes feel strained already."

  Herne obeyed, holding the torch at Tam's shoulder, as close as he dared without singeing either man or vellum. The lad pored over page after page, reading out the titles of different sections as he encountered them: "'The Lore of the Elfaene and Fair Folk'…'The Lore of the Greenwood Realm and Its Boundaries'…'The Lords of the Oak and the Hazel, of the Grace of Holgaerst and the Foul Realm of Niogaerst.'"

  He lingered over a representation of a man with a beard of foliage, a blaze of autumn colours. His branchlike arms were raised toward the heavens, and lightning streaked from his twiggy fingers. "Healdor," read Tam. "This page announces the lore of the protectors who may channel the Power of the Sky God."

  The power of Sucellus. Herne well remembered its blistering touch, even after fifteen hundred years, as he did the powers of Taranis, Sulis, Epomaros, and the ancestor, Senos. His heart hardened at the memory; how often he'd cursed them. This long life had brought him little joy.

  Then again, he'd never used his gifts to seek any.

  "Well, that's no use to us." Tam carried on, unaware of the tumult consuming Herne. "Ah, here we are. Braedgifta. 'The Lore of Betrothal.'"

  Herne drew breath slowly, sharpening his focus as he leaned closer over Tam's shoulder. The page had few illustrations, and Brother Herbert's script grew small and shaking, words and lines cramped together, as if he'd realized he'd not left enough space for such a complicated body of lore.

  "Brother Herbert must have completed this page toward the end of his life," observed Herne. "He became ill and arthritic; you can tell from his hand."

  "It would have to be this section, wouldn't it?" Tam sighed. "So be it. Let's get to work."

  They laboured together as the hours dragged onward, and the torch burned out time after time. Herne watched Tam's shoulders hunching and tightening as they learned of the law of betrothal pertaining to spirits and man, and of the various foul fates of the unclaimed betrothed.

  As much to reassure himself as Tam, Herne squeezed the lad's arm. Tam relaxed a little, turning over the leaf and reading aloud.

  "This section concerns betrothal rituals, the binding strip, the kiss in the ring of fire, the…binding of man and fair folk through the claiming of flesh, and the making of one into the other. I might be in luck."

  "What does it say?"

  He watched the flicker of Tam's lashes as the lad scanned as fast as he could. "Uh, it's difficult. The betrothal is a binding spell of the Mother Goddess and can be worked only by the Goddess herself or by a spirit strong enough to invoke her power…but…Oh! It says here the spell is not always brecendlicae. If that translates as I think it does, it means the spell is not always binding. I'm saved!"

  "Let us hope so." Herne's snort came out more bestial than he intended.

  Tam squinted to read more of the script. "Lord, this is difficult bu
t…Ah, yes! It says here the spell is brecendlicae—unbreakable—if the Mother Goddess summoned at least one of the parties to the betrothal." He twisted to face Herne. "But you don't think she called you for that purpose?"

  "Our binding was the work of some other mischief, boy, and a powerful mischief at that."

  "If you're sure," said Tam, "then that's good, I suppose." They both read on, Herne striving to recall all he ever knew of the Greenwood tongue. The lad was still faster than he. After a few more moments, Tam shouted, "Yes! This is it!"

  He pointed at another diminutive line of text and hissed between his teeth.

  "Is it not good?" asked Herne.

  "It could be worse. If two people are united by the ritual, the betrothal must be consummated before the set of the next full moon, as we know. But there is an alternative. During the same period of time, the betrothal can be transferred onto a second willing couple, as long as the first couple has not lain together to perform the rites of consummation." Tam clenched his fist in triumph, landing it lightly on the page. "Oh Lord, I am saved."

  Herne's heart squeezed with anguish. "No. You are not."

  Tam looked up, eyes red from the smoke and the strain of reading. "What do you mean?"

  "It is not a solution. No man would agree to become a fairy's husband without coercion."

  "There must be somebody willing. I was."

  "Would you have been, had you not been lured?" A muscle twitched along Tam's jaw, enough of an answer for Herne. "No man has come back alive after seeking a fairy betrothal. I don't know if foul spirits slaughter them or if the fair folk tear them apart in the heortland, but that would be exchanging a death for a death."

  "It would not be my death," said Tam quietly. Then he thumped his palm on the vellum. "Agh, faith, I wish I had no honour, but more deception is not an option. Might a fairy wish to join the world of men? Calleagh did. And she is uncommonly beautiful. I am sure I can find another villager who would take her as his wife, if I can assure him there is no danger."