Changeling (29 page)

‘You were warned,’ she said flatly.

‘I thought it might shy,’ he said. ‘This stupid donkey. I thought it might resist at first. I wouldn’t have been surprised by a coy little nip by way of rebuke and encouragement, all at once. What I didn’t expect was for it to kick out like a damn mule.’

‘Well, you know now,’ replied Ishraq calmly.

He bowed, the very picture of offended dignity. ‘I know now,’ he agreed.

‘What is this all about?’ Isolde suddenly asked.

‘You would have to ask the lady,’ Freize said, with much emphasis on the noun.

Isolde raised an eyebrow at Ishraq, who simply slid her eyes away, indicating silence, and no more was said between the two girls.

‘Are we to wait all night for dinner?’ Luca demanded, and then suddenly thought he had spoken too loudly and, in any case, sounded like a spoiled brat. ‘I mean: is it ready, Freize?’

‘Bringing it in at once, my lord,’ Freize said with injured dignity, and went to the top of the stairs and ordered that dinner be served, by the simple technique of hollering for the cook.

The two girls did most of the talking at dinner, speaking of the shepherd boy, his mother, and the prettiness of their little farm. Brother Peter said little, silent in his disapproval, and Luca tried to make casual and nonchalant remarks but kept tripping himself up as he thought of the dark gold of Isolde’s wet hair, and the warm gleam of her wet skin.

‘Forgive me,’ he suddenly said. ‘I am quite distracted this evening.’

‘Has something happened?’ Isolde asked. Brother Peter fixed him with a long slow stare.

‘No. I had a dream, that was all, and it left my mind filled with pictures, you know how it does? When you can’t stop thinking about something.’

‘What was the dream?’ Ishraq asked.

At once Luca flushed red. ‘I can hardly remember it. I can only see the pictures.’

‘Of what?’

‘I can’t remember them, either,’ Luca stammered. He glanced at Isolde. ‘You will think me a fool.’

She smiled politely and shook her head.

‘Sugared plums,’ Freize remarked, bringing them suddenly to the table. ‘Great deal of fuss about these in the kitchen. And every child in the village waiting at the back door for any that you leave.’

‘I’m afraid we cause a great deal of trouble,’ Isolde remarked.

‘Normally a party with ladies would go on to a bigger town,’ Brother Peter pointed out. ‘That’s why you should be with a larger group of travellers who have ladies with them already.’

‘As soon as we meet up with such a group we’ll join them,’ Isolde promised. ‘I know we are trespassing on your kindness by travelling with you.’

‘And how would you manage for money?’ Brother Peter asked unkindly.

‘Actually, I have some jewels to sell,’ Isolde said.

‘And they have the horses,’ Freize volunteered from the door. ‘Four good horses to sell whenever they need them.’

‘They hardly own them,’ Brother Peter objected.

‘Well, I’m sure
you
didn’t steal them from the brigands, and the little lord would never steal, and I don’t touch stolen horseflesh, so they must be the property of the ladies and theirs to sell,’ Freize said stoutly.

Both girls laughed. ‘That’s kind of you,’ Isolde said. ‘But perhaps we should share them with you.’

‘Brother Peter can’t take stolen goods,’ Freize said. ‘And he can’t take the fee for showing the werewolf, either, as it’s against his conscience.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Peter exclaimed impatiently and Luca looked up, as if hearing the conversation for the first time.

‘Freize, you can keep the money for showing the werewolf but don’t charge the people any more. It will only cause bad feeling in the village and we have to have their consent and good will for the inquiry. And of course the ladies should have the horses.’

‘Then we are well provided for,’ Isolde said with a smile to Brother Peter and a warm glance to Luca. ‘And I thank you all.’

‘Thank you, Freize,’ Ishraq said quietly. ‘For the horses came to your whistle and followed you.’

Freize rubbed his shoulder as if he was in severe pain, and turned his head away from her, and said nothing.

They all went to bed early. The inn had only a few candles and the girls took one to light themselves to bed. When they had banked in the fire in their bedroom and blown out the light, Ishraq swung open the shutter and looked down into the bear pit below the window.

In the warm glow of the yellow near-f moon she could make out the shape of Freize, sitting on the bear-pit wall, his legs dangling inside the arena, a fistful of chop bones from dinner in his hand.

‘Come on,’ she heard him whisper. ‘You know you like chop bones, you must like them even more than bread and jam. I saved a little of the fat for you, it’s still warm and crispy. Come on now.’

Like a shadow, the beast wormed its way towards him and halted in the centre of the arena, sitting on its back legs like a dog, facing him, its chest pale in the moonlight, its mane falling back from its face. It waited, its eyes on Freize, watching the chops in his hand, but not daring to come any closer.

Freize dropped one just below his feet, then tossed one a little further away, and then one further than that, and sat rock-still as the beast squirmed to the farthest bone. Ishraq could hear it lick, and then the crunching of the bone as it ate. It paused, licked its lips and then looked longingly at the next bone on the earthen floor of the bear pit.

Unable to resist the scent, it came a little closer, and took up the second bone. ‘There you go,’ Freize said reassuringly. ‘No harm done and you get your dinner. Now, what about this last one?’

The last one was almost under his dangling bare feet. ‘Come on,’ Freize said, urging the beast to trust him. ‘Come on now, what d’you say? What d’you say?’

The beast crept the last few feet to the last bone, gobbled it down and retreated, but only a little way. It looked at Freize, and the man, unafraid, looked back at the beast. ‘What d’you say?’ Freize asked again. ‘D’you like a lamb chop? What d’you say, little beast?’

‘Good,’ the beast said, in the light piping voice of a child. ‘Good.’

Ishraq expected Freize to fling himself off the arena wall and come running into the inn with the amazing news that the beast had spoken a word, but to her surprise he did not move at all. She herself clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp. Freize was frozen on the bear-pit wall. He neither moved nor spoke, and for a moment she wondered if he had not heard, or if she had misheard or deceived herself in some way. Still Freize sat there like a statue of a man, and the beast sat there like a statue of a beast, watching him; and there was a long silence in the moonlight.

‘Good, eh?’ Freize said, his voice as quiet and level as before. ‘Well, you’re a good beast. More tomorrow. Maybe some bread and cheese for breakfast. We’ll see what I can get you. Goodnight, beast – or what shall I call you? What name do you go by, little beast?’

He waited, but the beast did not reply. ‘You can call me Freize,’ the man said gently to the animal. ‘And perhaps I can be your friend.’

Freize swung his legs over to the safe side of the wall and jumped down, and the beast stood four-legged, listening for a moment, then went to the shelter of the furthest wall, turned around three times like a dog, and curled up for sleep.

Ishraq looked up at the moon. Tomorrow it would be full and the villagers thought that the beast would wax to its power. What might the creature do then?

A delegation from the village arrived the next morning saying respectfully but firmly that they did not want the inquiry to delay justice against the werewolf. They did not see the point of the inquirer speaking to people, and writing things down. Instead, all the village wanted to come to the inn at moonrise, moonrise tonight, to see the changes in the werewolf, and to kill it.

Luca met them in the yard, Isolde and Ishraq with him, while Freize, unseen in the stable, was brushing down the horses listening intently. Brother Peter was upstairs completing the report.

Three men came from the village: the shepherd boy’s father, Ralph Fairley; the village headman, William Miller; and his brother. They were very sure they wanted to see the wolf in its wolf form, kill it, and make an end to the inquiry. The blacksmith was hammering away in the village forge making the silver arrow even as they spoke, they said.

‘Also, we are preparing its grave,’ William Miller told them. He was a round red-faced man of about forty, as pompous and self-important as any man of great consequence in a small village. ‘I am reliably informed that a werewolf has to be buried with certain precautions so that it does not rise again. So to make certain sure that the beast will lie down when it is dead and not stir from its grave, I have given orders to the men to dig a pit at the crossroads outside the village. We’ll bury it with a stake through its heart. We’ll pack the grave with wolfsbane. One of the women of the village, a good woman, has been growing wolfsbane for years.’ He nodded at Luca as if to reassure him. ‘The silver arrow and the stake through its heart. The grave of wolfsbane. That’s the way to do it.’

‘I thought that was the undead?’ Luca said irritably. ‘I thought it was the undead who were buried at crossroads?’

‘No point not taking care,’ Mr Miller said, glowingly confident in his own judgement. ‘No point not doing it right, now that we have finally caught it and we can kill it at our leisure. I thought we would kill it at midnight, with our silver arrow. I thought we would make a bit of an event of it. I myself will be here. I thought I might hand over the silver arrow to the archer, and perhaps I might make a short speech.’

‘This isn’t a bear baiting,’ Luca said. ‘It’s a proper inquiry, and I am commissioned by His Holiness as an inquirer. I can’t have the whole village here, the death sentence agreed before I have prepared my report, and rogues selling seats for a penny.’

‘There was only one rogue doing that,’ Mr Miller pointed out with dignity. The noise of Freize grooming the horse and whistling through his teeth suddenly loudly increased. ‘But the whole village has to see the beast and see its death. Perhaps you don’t understand, coming from Rome as you do. But we’ve lived in fear of it for too long. We’re a small community, we want to know that we are safe now. We need to see that the werewolf is dead and that we can sleep in peace again.’