The Beauty of the Wolf

by Wray Delaney

  John has misjudged the situation. This is another of Lord Rodermere’s spies, come to seek out Master Goodwin and his family, to find where Lord Beaumount has vanished to. She is not the first – though perhaps the first woman.

  ‘Wh-who is your sister?’ John Butter asks. His voice has the echo of a distant stutter to it.

  With the perfect timing that all actors need if they wish to command the stage, she replies: ‘Lady Clare Thursby.’

  The sorceress can feel John’s relief. Lady Clare has no living sisters. These words are almost on his lips when he studies the young lady afresh and recalls where he has seen her before.

  ‘You are an actor – I saw you at the Mitre last week performing The Cuckold’s Wife.’

  ‘Then if Lady Clare is my sister, who am I?’

  John says the words as if he does not trust them to hold weight: Lord Beaumont Thursby.

  ‘The disguise reveals the man,’ says Lord Beaumont and hands something to John, demands he read it, asks what is missing from it. The beginning and the end, he says, only Master Butter knows.

  In all dramas there comes a moment of revelation.

  ‘Twice before I have called here. And twice I was told by a serving maid that if I was another of Lord Rodermere’s men, then I should go to the Devil. I stayed away, now I can no longer. I ask you again – what happened between you and my sister?’

  John starts to speak. His words fall over themselves, turn somersaults. Beau stops him and John becomes aware that the fox has his eyes fixed to the floorboards.

  ‘Not here,’ says Beau, his voice now his own. ‘We are overheard. The Three Feathers Inn at Bankside, in one hour.’

  Does Beau know she is listening? Then she hears it, a creak on the stairs as Mary runs back to Thomas Finglas’s chamber.

  LXII

  John Butter. Oh, John Butter.

  Love seemed so easy, so pure when first you fell in love with Lady Clare and she with you. In its purity of lust a rose might blush for she was born with equal passion and felt she would never find a heart to house it. In you she discovered a palace where she might reign and her scars be celebrated as if they were a thousand stars upon her face. And though she told you she believed, as a child, that you were an elfin prince, she did not say – maidenly modesty forbade her saying – that in your sweet prick, honeyed with her juices, lies her kingdom.

  All should have been well, a celebration of love in all its manifestations. Why is it not? This is an age when a vagabond can become a lord, an apprentice can become an alchemist. What frightened Gilbert Goodwin, the sorceress fancies, was the unwanted attention such a match would bring.

  Can you hear me, Beau? I am beginning to suspect that you can. Then listen: your family is in danger and Gilbert Goodwin is right to worry. Your father has sworn to have them murdered.

  If he has heard her, he shows no sign though she no longer believes that he is the empty vessel his looks suggest. In truth, she has stubbed a toe on her envy of his youth. His beauty is fresh, unpreserved, undeniable, whereas hers now craves the comfort of candlelight. These days she holds the shadows closer to her and the glass further away. Her sap rises slowly, her blood treacle black. He is her creation – why then should she be jealous? The cure for such distemper is simple: the sooner the deed is done and the grave marked out, the happier she will be.

  She follows Beau and the fox down twisted lanes of bent, beamed houses to his lodging, a ramshackle place that smells of mice and is in such disarray even the fleas have fled.

  How far you have tumbled, sweet lord. This life of squalor should not be yours. You should have stayed at the House of the Three Turrets rather than dwell in this midden. Where is your rage at the injustice of what your father has inflicted on your family? Where is your sword that should be itching to pierce his heart? Come fight, Beau – or be you a coward? You are either a very good actor, Beau, or you do not know I am here.

  It takes him time to transform himself into the sex he was born with. So much is artificial in making women’s shapes unnatural, as if they are divorced by design from their bodies. The white paint sticks glue-like to his face and without it he is more beautiful still. He does not love the mirror. If he was a woman, he would relish his image, fill his chambers with mirrors to reflect his perfection. Is it what others see that he cannot abide?

  Leave this place behind. Fly away home, Beau. Do the deed for which you were born and free us both.

  Nothing. She leaves Beau to change, content that he cannot hear her and is unaware of her presence.

  She is glad that Randa left this place for if the creature had stayed she would have been seen as nothing more than a beast than the bear who is tied to a post in the amphitheatre while the dogs tear him to pieces. Entertainment fit for a queen or a king.

  The sorceress thinks of Herkain, the King of the Beasts, and the memory makes her feel almost mortal and such feelings repulse her, sticky with longing, sour with bitter regret. Such an ancient story, she thinks, the bones of it well gnawed by many.

  But that is all I have left – the cadaver of our love.

  She was his queen in all but name. His wife, wounded by his infidelities, had long retired with her sickly offspring and it pleased the sorceress greatly that he had no affection for his heirs.

  She told him when she found her gait had slowed with the weight of his fruits, and he would have nothing of her until the harvest came. But when it did, and she was once more herself, she found he had taken another mistress and it was for her that he held a banquet. The sorceress would not lightly suffer the humiliation of seeing him fawn over his new love. She went to the great hall and had the fruit of her womb served to Herkain on a golden platter, surrounded by apples, and there it lay howling at him. No Prince of the Beasts was it, but a mewling, puking creature in mortal form. There was an excited silence for the smell of such a dainty morsel drove the company to salivate. A rare feast indeed.

  ‘Eat and enjoy,’ she said. ‘Months I spent preparing it, I laboured hard to bring it to you. This is all that is left of us. Its flesh.’

  He picked up the thing and it ceased its crying. He lifted it to his mouth and she waited to hear his sharp fangs crunch on its soft bones. But he kissed its head.

  ‘She will be called Aurelia,’ he said.

  She stared at him.

  ‘That dish,’ she said, ‘is not worth a name.’

  Heartless, he called her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You took it from me.’

  Herkain banished the sorceress from his home, from his kingdom and sent her back to her realm.

  Only cat and man torment their prey. At least in the Land of the Beast there is honesty in the kill, an understanding between the hunter and the hunted. Herkain was glorious, fast and clean, his talons as sharp as knives. Death was not negotiable as it is with sword and arrow. He left me with time without end to remember. My longing for him will not be darkened by the years.

  The Three Feathers Inn is crowded with customers who have left the bear pit with a hearty thirst on them. Musicians play and the din of ill-advised chords scratch at the sorceress’s ears. The losers are sinking their woes in ale while the winners with tankards of frothy beer drink to the health of the bear.

  John Butter has secured a quiet corner. He is wondering what he will say to Lord Beaumont Thursby. He is wondering if he might have to fight a duel.

  A scuffle breaks out, a sword is drawn.

  ‘Outside with you,’ shouts the landlord. He does not want blood on his straw.

  Beau enters and the losers and the winners, even the old drunks, look up.

  He is every part a gentleman. No one would take him for an actor. He knows how to walk across the room, knows he is the object of everyone’s gaze and at the same time he ignores this attention completely.

  John Butter is disturbed by the young gentleman standing before him for there appears not a trace of the lady he had seen but an hour ago. He asks after Lord Beaumont’s fox.
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  ‘He goes his own way when I wear these clothes,’ says Beau.

  John notices the poverty, the threadbare doublet. These mundane details do not seem to concern Beau. It is the letter he is interested in and the events that led to it.

  Master John Butter is a private man, not given to revealing his emotions. But the sorceress can see he is fearful that Beau will accuse him, just as she suspects Gilbert Goodwin did, of taking advantage of a young girl’s heart. But Beau puts him at his ease.

  It was Lady Clare’s mother, Mistress Goodwin, John tells him, who wrote to Thomas Finglas asking if he had a remedy for blemished skin. Thomas had replied that he was too ill to be of service but was sure that Master Butter would be able to concoct a remedy to treat Lady Clare’s condition.

  John talks around the point. The point is simple and the man is a fool to be ashamed. He and Lady Clare became lovers and someone wrote anonymously to inform Master Goodwin.

  ‘After that I never saw her again. I made enquiries and learned the family had gone abroad – possibly to Amsterdam.’

  The two men sit for a while and by degrees the conversation moves to other matters.

  ‘I heard the play was cancelled,’ says John.

  Beau laughs. ‘Master Shakeshaft is in prison again and we have no work until Christmastide when we are to perform for Sir Percival Hayes.’

  John fears for Beau’s safety. ‘Is that wise?’ he says.

  And the sorceress thinks, very wise, for Beau will be near to his father’s house.

  ‘I am apprenticed, I have no say in the matter,’ he says. ‘I am caught between the Devil and . . . the Devil.’

  John takes out a purse of coins. ‘Here,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ says Beau.

  ‘Please, for Clare’s sake.’

  ‘You are a good man,’ says Beau. ‘Do you know who wrote the letter?’

  John shakes his head.

  It should be obvious to him who the culprit is and the sorceress says the name to herself. She is pulled up short.

  ‘Mary,’ says Beau.

  And before they say another word, the sorceress is gone.

  THE BEAUTY

  LXIII

  So few of us are born to be ourselves; we are but the dreams of lovers, of mothers and fathers who long for us to step where their feet never dared. I was born to fulfil a curse, my fate decided, and my will is all that I have.

  As a child I thought I belonged to you, sorceress, and took a keepsake from your petticoat, a piece of your hem. I knew you were there in the house of Thomas Finglas. I heard you nuzzling your way into Master Butter’s private thoughts. I knew why you had searched me out. But my will is strong and I am prepared to do battle with you, you who have the infinity of time on your side, I who have but a human heart on mine.

  That day in the Three Feathers Inn with John Butter I understood my impotence, that there was no remedy to be taken, no rational argument to be had with you. Your curse went deeper than the roots of the oak tree you wrote it on.

  Ignorant steps had led me to being apprenticed to Ben Shakeshaft; naivety had convinced me that I could be an actor; stupidity had kept me waiting for my master’s release from prison. In short, I was but a green rabbit who had been prettily snared and hung, ready to be stewed. I threw myself into what little acting work there was to be had, told myself I was my own man, my own master and believed not one word of it. And still I heard the echo of your words: Do the deed for which you were born and free us both.

  That Christmas Eve found Master Shakeshaft, Master Cuthbert and I half frozen and fully lost on the queen’s highway. Our wagon containing clothes, scenery and props was pulled by a horse that was more suited for glue than the road.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Master Cuthbert.

  It was a good question with a bad answer.

  We had been expected at Sir Percival Hayes’s house that afternoon. By four o’clock darkness had already snuffed out all the light the day had to offer and forgotten to hang even a star or a moon for us to see by.

  Sir Percival Hayes had commissioned Master Shakeshaft to write three new plays to be performed in his banqueting hall in front of his distinguished guests. He had told Ben Shakeshaft, after he had been released from debtors’ prison for the second time, that if he let him down again he would disband the company and make a pig’s purse from Master Shakeshaft’s arse.

  I earnestly wished it had been any other knight or lady than Sir Percival, a gentleman who knew me well and was bound, I thought, to recognise me. The only person in the company who knew my identity was Gally and she assured me that if I kept my head down and appeared only for the performance all would be well.

  As the weeks of rehearsal passed I had convinced myself that she was right. With white paint, wig and the trappings that made up a woman, I had nothing to fear except a rumbling stomach. Never had I been so hungry as I was in those lean days leading to our departure. The notion of a warm bed and food a-plenty began to sway all other worries. Hunger does not a rational man make. If I was honest with myself, it was not Sir Percival I most feared but that I would be confronted by my father.

  For once Master Shakeshaft had dug deep into his pockets. Money had been spent liberally on new costumes, on the building and painting of scenery, the making of masks and props. All were designed to fit into a caravan that they might be transported to and assembled in Sir Percival’s banqueting hall.

  But nothing Ben Shakeshaft did was with a generous heart. If a penny could be saved, if something could be bought cheap, got for less, found for nothing, then he would wheel and deal until he had a bargain. Having paid out handsomely on everything else he had scrimped on the horse and the caravan and before we had reached the city walls it was obvious that there was something wrong with the rear wheel of the wagon.

  ‘’Tis nothing,’ said Master Shakeshaft. ‘The road, that is all.’

  By midday we were well behind the rest of the troupe who were in the carriage Sir Percival had sent for them. My fox became impatient and, smelling the wild woods, disappeared.

  The only comfort was that I knew the way, though I was not foolish enough to say so. The House of the Three Turrets was not far from Sir Percival’s house. And somewhere between knowing the route well and not wishing the knowledge to be known, sometime between daylight and darkness, we became lost. The horse refused to go further and we had ended in a solitary thicket. It occurred to me that the sorceress, the Mistress of Misrule, had followed us to make a mockery of our journey and I began to dread that we were in a trap of her making. I listened for her but only heard the dense silence.

  ‘At least,’ said Ben Shakeshaft, ‘it is not snowing.’

  As if on cue the first snowflake fell.

  ‘Mistress Fortune has abandoned us,’ said Crumb.

  I lit the lantern, climbed down and examined the horse. It had lost a shoe. Inside again I found Crumb and Master Shakeshaft putting on costumes for warmth. Master Shakeshaft wore the ass’s head complete with fur ears. I found a cloak and wrapped it about myself.

  ‘There is a way out of this,’ said Ben Shakeshaft, ever the optimist. ‘By my reckoning we are not far from our destination. Let us leave the caravan here and go on foot to seek help before the snow becomes too deep.’

  ‘Not wise,’ Crumb said. ‘We should stay here and make a fire.’

  ‘With what?’ said Master Shakeshaft. ‘Our scenery and props? No, absolutely, no.’

  ‘Mercy on me. We will die here then,’ said Crumb. ‘All because you, Ben, are a mustulent miser who values scenery over life.’

  ‘Is it my fault we are lost? Who was it, Crumb, who said to take this path at the fork in the road?’

  While they argued the snow fell thick around us. Then when everything seemed at its bleakest I heard my fox call. He came through a gap in the thicket beyond which I could dimly make out a shimmering veil. A shiver ran down me. When a child I thought that behind the watery curtain was where I belonged but now I feare
d that the sorceress intended to lure us there for her own ends.

  ‘No – not that way, Master Shakeshaft,’ I said.

  But Ben Shakeshaft was not listening. He had climbed down from the caravan. ‘Look, surely that is a house beyond that mist. By my troth, what did I tell you?’

  ‘Wait, Ben,’ said Crumb. ‘It could be a trick of the light. And these forests are known for witches, for evil spirits . . .’

  ‘You are pissing your breeches for nothing, Crumb.’

  And before I could say that burning the scenery would be an altogether preferable plan, Master Shakeshaft had pushed into the thick, tangled mass of bushes and sharp, tearing thorns.

  ‘Blood and bollocks,’ he said, and continued to curse until he had passed through the veil. ‘There is Sir Percival’s house. We have arrived.’

  Crumb followed. As reluctantly did I. Not far away was indeed a house, a house I knew, but it was not the house of Sir Percival Hayes. I stopped.

  ‘Crumb, we should go no further,’ I said.

  ‘Ben,’ said Crumb holding tight to my cloak. ‘Let us go back.’

  ‘Back?’ said Master Shakeshaft. ‘What are you? A pair of women? No, do not answer.’

  Ben Shakeshaft strode off towards the gates and Crumb and I could only go after him.

  There was a stillness about the place, as if time had stopped and I was convinced this was the sorceress’s realm, this was her illusion, that she had tricked us to come this way.

  Master Shakeshaft was near running towards the great front door when it opened. And it was then that I remembered where I had seen the house before. This was the house I had thought to be my solace, my escape from the voice of my little soul, from murderous thoughts of my father. This was the house in my dreams.

  LXIV

  Which of us looked the more fantastic that night I could not say; we three in our odd assorted costumes or the majordomo, but I would have wagered the majordomo by a whisker. He wore a mask of a human face, underneath his skin was given to moles with long protruding hairs, his eyes dark as a starless sky. He seemed to be having trouble standing upright, his gait was awkward, his arms long and ended in pristine white gloves that were at odds with his doublet and breeches. It appeared that I alone noticed these things for Master Shakeshaft and Master Cuthbert were so relieved to find shelter that neither were in much mind to question if it was the right place or not.