She got to her feet. Mirre rose as well, then turned back and once more lay down beside the wolf. Marie left her there and walked back to the lodge, feeling unreasonably happy.
Isengrim, watching her go, felt much the same. The dog had recognized him, and the woman had not recoiled. It might be possible to go on living, after all.
Alain de Fougères arrived at the hunting lodge shortly after noon and found Duke Hoel settling accounts with the forester. He bounced up when he saw Alain, however, and shook his hand. “There you are!” he exclaimed happily. “I’m pleased you came; I wanted to thank you for your invitation. That was a chase, eh? Craftiest beast I ever hunted.”
“Indeed, my lord,” said Alain contentedly. “I was sorry I missed the death. My horse went lame.”
“Ah, that was a pity! You missed a very fine sight, a very fine sight indeed.” Hoel chuckled. “But you didn’t actually miss the death.”
Alain stared in incomprehension. “My lord?”
“Your wolf was tame,” said Hoel. “When he was brought to bay, he ran through the hounds and jumped up to lick my foot. I couldn’t kill him after that. We have him chained up in the boiling shed. He’s a very fine beast.”
The disaster was so overwhelming that Alain could not immediately comprehend it. He gaped at the duke stupidly. He thought he would be sick. The wolf was still alive. It was alive, and it was under Hoel’s protection. Eline had been so delighted when he’d told her the good news. She’d sent him off that morning with kisses and smiles. Now — God! God in Heaven! Oh God, what was he to do now?
“Are you all right?” asked Hoel, suddenly concerned. “You look ill.” He helped Alain to a chair.
“I … wasn’t well this morning,” muttered Alain vaguely. “Drank some bad water yesterday, I think.”
“You shouldn’t have ridden over today, then,” said Hoel.
“I thought it would pass. And … and I was shocked at what you said. The creature ran through the hounds and leapt up at you? My lord, you can’t really mean to keep a wolf as a pet? An evil animal like that would —”
“I can do what I like with a beast I’ve taken in my own forest,” said Hoel complacently. “He’s a fine animal and very well behaved. My lymer bitch seems to have adopted him, and he’s settling down nicely. I’m calling him Isengrim.”
Desperately, Alain tried again. “My lord, you can’t —”
“Enough of that! I meant to thank you for your invitation to hunt the creature. I’m very pleased to have him.”
Alain didn’t hear him. His heart was pounding, and his mind reeled in distraction. Hoel said something more, and Alain came to himself and asked, “My lord?”
“You look very ill,” repeated Hoel. “Shall I send for some hippocras for you, or some barley broth?”
“No, my lord,” said Alain, struggling to master himself. “No, it’s passing. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
Hoel left him sitting by the fire and went to have another look at his wolf. Isengrim got to his feet when the duke appeared and wagged his tail politely. Hoel was delighted. Like most serious hunters, he had a great affection and admiration for the beasts he pursued, and wolves, crafty and elusive, had always been particular favorites of his. It was for that reason that he’d once tried to tame his ill-fated cub. He had Isengrim muzzled, and then sat beside him and talked to him for a little while, patting him occasionally, letting him become accustomed to his master. Isengrim watched him attentively, flinched less and less at being touched, and seemed already far less afraid than he had been the day before. Hoel wondered if the muzzle was even necessary. When the duke went back to the lodge, he felt grateful to Alain for providing him with such a magnificent animal.
Alain was still sitting by the fire, but he’d regained his color, and when Hoel came in he jumped up and answered the necessary inquiry with the news that he was quite better now.
“Good,” said Hoel heartily, then hesitated. He had something more he meant to say to this knight of Fougères, and it was hard to phrase it so as not to give offense. His bailiff Grallon had been concerned about the state of affairs at Talensac. He had given Hoel a complete account of the manor, and Hoel had been concerned in turn.
“My man Grallon,” Hoel began, “told me that you wanted to raise the rents on your estate. He thought there was some question of repaying a debt to a Jew in Nantes.”
Alain straightened his shoulders uncomfortably. He had asked Grallon’s advice on the rents before the bailiff returned to the court. He had asked about reducing the relief, too, despite what Eline had said at Fougères: it had seemed worth at least trying. The longer he stayed at Talensac, the more he wanted money. He was sick of sleeping in Tiarnán’s bed between Tiarnán’s sheets, sitting in Tiarnán’s chair, eating off Tiarnán’s plates, and looking at Tiarnán’s hunting tapestries on the walls. Eline was having nightmares in that house she’d shared with the werewolf. Alain wanted to clear out all the old haunted things and buy new. He saw nothing shameful in that. But it was humiliating to be in debt with a manor where the previous lord had always had a surplus, and Alain knew that Hoel did not think well of him to begin with.
“Well …” he said unhappily — and then, as there was no help for it, “that’s true, my lord.”
“You mean you are in debt to this Jew?”
“Yes,” Alain admitted. “But it’s not … that is, Talensac is mine, isn’t it?”
“No,” returned Hoel, more coldly. “It’s mine. Tiarnán held it from me, in fee of service, and I permitted his widow to do homage for it: she married you. That makes you lord of it, but the land still belongs to me.” He paused, then gestured for Alain to be seated on one of the benches and took his own chair. “Never fear,” he went on in a gentler tone. “I recognize your rights in the place. So, you are in debt. Well, God knows, your father’s a hard man and a strict one. You weren’t brought up to manage an estate: I can understand if it went to your head. But, listen, this business of increasing the rents must be dropped.”
That was what Grallon had said, but Alain had not been completely convinced. “My bailiff says they’re low. He says my father charges twice as much.”
“The rents have always been higher in the March than in the rest of Brittany,” replied the duke. “Your father’s peasants are accustomed to it; yours aren’t. Listen and I’ll give you some good advice. You’ve moved into the manor of a man who was more than ordinarily well liked by the people he governed. To make things worse, you’re a foreigner to them, speaking a foreign tongue. I know, I know, you’re a Marcher lord and you don’t like hearing this from a Breton speaker from the wilds of Cornouaille, but the fact is, everyone born east of Rennes is a foreigner to Talensac. Your predecessor was the son of the family that had held the place for generations. If Saint Paul the Apostle became lord of Talensac, the villagers would still condemn him in comparison to a Talensac man. If you want to do well in the place, you will have to tread very gently.”
“Do you think I care about having the good opinion of peasants?” demanded Alain angrily.
“You’re a fool if you don’t,” said the duke. “Everything depends on them, and they can make an estate profitable or ruin it. Do you hope to earn any extra money by selling wood from your forest, or apples and beer from your orchards and fields? Do you expect to make money on charcoal or surplus pork? If the peasants hate you, you won’t make a penny over the rents, believe me. ‘Lord,’ they’ll say, ‘the timber was all broken in a gale this year; the pigs didn’t breed as we’d hoped; the apples spoiled, the barley wouldn’t brew properly, and we have nothing left over our entitlement.’ They’ll spoil the things themselves sooner than let you profit from them. And even the rents can go. If a farmer comes to you and says, ‘I can’t pay the whole sum this year’ — what are you going to do? Beat him and put him in the stocks? It won’t produce the money, his friends will look after him, and you’ll have to let him out to work. Turn him out of his cottage? Who’s going to take
his place? Nobody’s going to move to a village where the lord has a bad name. You won’t find anyone to till his fields, and next year you’ll get nothing from that land at all. And beyond all that, a manor where you’re hated is not a pleasant place to settle in with a young wife and raise a family. I’ve seen men who made it work, but they were very much stronger and crueler than you are, and even they weren’t happy. That’s no insult, Lord Alain. Think of it as a piece of advice from one who’s seen many estates made and ruined, and wants yours to do well. If your creditor is pressing you, sell some of your horses and hounds. I’ll even help myself, if you really can’t find the money. But don’t push the people into misery, or they’ll drag you after them. If you tread gently for a few years, the peasants will get used to you and slowly forget their previous lord. It would help if you could get rid of that Marcher bailiff of yours. Grallon told me he’s already made himself very unpopular. I could provide you with a reliable Breton speaker, if you like.”
Alain gave him a look of loathing. He remembered all his father’s acid comments on how they did things in Breton Brittany: the lack of discipline and refinement, the poverty of the nobles, and the insolence of the peasantry. “I’d rather keep Gilbert,” he muttered resentfully.
Nobody, not even a man’s overlord, could take away his authority over his own servants. “As you please,” said Hoel. “He’s your bailiff, and it’s your estate. But I hope you’ll give him a good talking to.” He leaned toward Alain, gripping the arm of the chair. “You can ruin yourself, you know,” he said seriously. “It’s not just something that happens to other people. And I don’t want to see it happen, for your sake, for your wife’s, and for the sake of the estate itself.” He looked at Alain evenly for another minute, then slapped the arm of the chair and stood up. “Enough of scoldings, then! I meant most of all to thank you for a fine hunt. Do you want to see your wolf?”
Alain wanted and did not want to see the wolf. Its presence had formed an ulcer of horrified fascination on his mind since Hoel first told him it was in the hunting lodge. He allowed the duke to show him out to the boiling shed.
The wolf shook himself and stood up politely as they approached, but when they had stopped in front of him, his black ears went flat against his skull and he began to growl — a terrible sound, low but tense, like noise of a distant war. Alain took a step back just as Isengrim leapt at him — not snarling and barking like a dog, but silently, with all the speed and ferocity of an animal that kills to live. The chain snapped taut against his collar in midleap, and he stood suspended on his hind legs a moment, man-high, leaning against the chain, his fangs gleaming white and his eyes glaring. Alain made a noise of inarticulate terror and drew his sword.
Instantly the wolf was crouching on all fours again, his hackles raised and lips curled in a snarl. He edged rapidly to his right, away from Alain’s sword hand, eyes fixed in lethal desire on Alain’s throat. Alain turned to follow him, and Hoel caught his arm.
“Put that back!” he snapped. “He’s chained up; he can’t hurt you. Isengrim! Bad wolf! No!”
Isengrim rose from his crouch. He looked at the duke, and his ears shifted forward. Then he looked back at Alain, and they lay flat again. His eyes met Alain’s directly.
For a chilling moment Alain was aware of who he was facing, not just with a secret knowledge, but with a sense as clear as sight. The animal eyes were full of human rage. Tiarnán was alive, and would kill him at the first chance he got. The sense of the wolf’s identity was so strong that Alain looked at Hoel with dread, certain that it must have touched him, too, that the duke must suspect. But Hoel simply looked puzzled. “My lord,” said Alain thickly, “it’s an evil, savage creature. I beg you, have it killed.”
The wolf snarled again.
“He was tame enough this morning,” said the duke in bewilderment. “Well, I suppose it’s too much to expect for a wild animal to become used to men all in one day. I hope he’ll settle again. And it seems to me it’s you he doesn’t like. You hunted him before: perhaps he recognizes you. Come away from him now. You’re disturbing him.”
On the way home Alain burst into tears. The duke’s lecture stung, his terrifying enemy was still alive, and he did not know what he was going to say to Eline.
XII
The duke’s party left Treffendel the following morning. Isengrim, muzzled again, trotted on his leash behind the duke, and Mirre trotted happily at his side. The courtiers laughed at them: the lean, dark, dangerous wolf and the flopeared lymer with her mournful face and wagging tail, following the duke’s horse together. The duchess laughed harder than anyone.
“Lord!” she exclaimed. “He doesn’t like being laughed at, does he? He’s gone stiff as a bishop at a bastard’s christening. Never mind, Isengrim; it’s the dog we’re laughing at, not you!” Isengrim glanced up at her with an even more dignified look, and she laughed again.
Marie smiled but didn’t laugh. She had learned that St. Mailon’s chapel lay not too far from Treffendel, and she was nerving herself to visit it. For some weeks she’d been considering whether to approach Tiarnán’s confessor. Eline’s bitter declaration that her husband had been worse than a robber was a continued torment, and Marie ached to learn that it was false from the one person who would know. Several times she had dismissed the idea: it was inexcusable for a woman who had been no relation to a man to question his confessor about him. But the idea kept coming back. It would not hurt, surely, to go to St. Mailon’s and ask? The worst outcome would be that the hermit sent her off indignantly; the best, that her doubts were laid to rest. “My lady,” she now said hesitantly, “do you want me at Rennes immediately?”
“Why do you ask?” Havoise said in surprise.
“I’d like to meet this holy hermit of St. Mailon’s that everyone from the region was praising. It’s near Lent, and I thought perhaps he could suggest some spiritual disciplines for me.”
The duchess gave her a shrewd look. “By ‘everyone from the region’ you mean Tiarnán.”
“Others praised him, too,” Marie answered with a smile, “but, yes, I suppose that’s the opinion I most respected.”
“Well, certainly you may go and see him!” said Havoise. “Hoel, my dear! Marie wants to go see the hermit of St. Mailon’s. Give her an escort, my love!”
“Tiher!” said the duke. “Escort Lady Marie to St. Mailon’s, and bring her back to Rennes this evening.”
“With pleasure!” said Tiher, grinning. He set his heels to his horse and made it prance to Marie’s side. He bowed low in the saddle.
“And remember, you’ve given up the chase,” Marie told him hastily.
“Sweet lady,” he protested, kissing her hand, “what a Lenten and spoilsport thing to say?”
Judicaël was kneeling before the altar in his chapel when he heard the sound of horses outside. He rose to his feet and turned just as two people came in. The man wore the sword and spurs of a knight, and was well dressed in a red tunic and furlined cloak; the woman wore plain blue-gray, but of good quality cloth, and her cloak too was richly made and lined with fur. Both noble, reckoned Judicaël; the woman wants to consult me before Lent, and the man’s escorting her. He sighed inwardly: he felt singularly unfit to counsel anyone, and pious young gentlewomen were a trial at the best of times. “God be with you,” he said reluctantly. “I am the priest in this place: may I serve you?”
“Christ be with you, Father,” said the woman, crossing herself. “I’m sorry to interrupt your prayers. I’ve heard of your holy way of life here, and I wanted to seek your advice before the season of penitence. Do you have time to see me?”
“My time is not valuable,” he said. “But my advice will be of no more use to you than that of your parish priest.”
“I’d welcome it, though, if you would give it,” said the woman.
Judicaël sighed again, out loud this time, and gestured toward the rushes in front of the altar rail. The man gave a nod of satisfaction and brushed the woman�
��s shoulder with his fingertips. “I’ll see to the horses and wait outside,” he told her. “Shout if you want me.” He nodded politely to the priest and went out.
The woman came up to the altar and knelt down, sitting back on her heels. She looked at Judicaël a moment in silence, and his irritation with her faded. She had a pretty, intelligent face, with a high forehead and level gray eyes, and her air was one of self-possession and quiet resolution. There would be no hysterical pieties from her. He knelt on the other side of the rail, facing her. “Christ be with you, daughter,” he said again. “How can I be of help?”
Marie had wanted to speak to Judicaël because he had known Tiarnán. Now that she found herself face-to-face with the hermit, she realized that what she was trying to do was to pry into the secrets of the confessional. What Tiarnán might have told Judicaël was between him and God alone. She had no tie to Tiarnán that could excuse her interest: she was neither sister nor lover. Judicaël’s severe, ascetic face and intense dark gaze invited no confidences. Wouldn’t he merely rebuke her for meddling curiosity and send her off? Yet she still longed to hear that Eline was wrong. It was love for Tiarnán that had laid her mother’s ghost to rest and set her free: if Tiarnán deserved no love, where was her own freedom?
She knelt silently for a long minute, trying to find a way to explain why she needed to know, and to ask for an answer that breached no confidences. “I heard of you from Lord Tiarnán of Talensac,” she said at last, “a man to whom I was much indebted. My name is Marie, Marie Penthièvre of Chalandrey. Tiarnán saved me from a robber — I expect you heard the story.”
The Wolf Hunt Page 27