The Beauty of the Wolf

by Wray Delaney

  Our appearance was strange enough to at least warrant an enquiry from the majordomo as to who we were and what our business there might be. The fact that the front door had been opened unquestioningly as if we were expected was enough for Master Shakeshaft to have reached the reassuring conclusion that this was the house of Sir Percival Hayes.

  ‘What did I tell you, Crumb?’ said Master Shakeshaft as we were shown into a great hall.

  Crumb said nothing.

  ‘You know what you are? You are a panic of a man. Burn the scenery, my arse, when we were so close to our destination. Ridiculous . . .’

  His word faded to speechless awe when he saw the interior of the house. To me it was no revelation – it was exactly how I remembered it from my dreams: built for a different scale of being.

  ‘Have the other members of my company arrived?’ Master Shakeshaft’s voice had less assurance to it.

  The majordomo did not reply but waved away the words, as irritating to him as horse flies.

  There was nothing to do other than follow him. He stopped as we approached two vast doors that reached the ceiling and without the inconvenience of touching them they opened onto what I knew would be a banqueting chamber. A long table was laid with the finest linen and three places had been set. A fire blazed and the burning candles – not tallow but beeswax – gave off a sweet perfume of summer heat, of meadow flowers.

  Crumb looked at me. I shrugged. The majordomo made it clear that we were to be seated. Before us was set three large silver domes and from them came a smell so appetising that it made my mouth water.

  ‘Worry heads, the both of you,’ said Master Shakeshaft with a sigh of satisfaction. He gestured at the dishes. ‘Look, we are expected.’

  ‘But expected by whom? That is the question,’ I said.

  ‘By our host,’ said Master Shakeshaft, lifting the dome off a platter. ‘Never has a rounded breast of silver brought forth such deliciousness.’

  It was a meal of many courses, all served by the majordomo, and it finished with the finest cheeses, figs, dried plums and fresh strawberries that tasted as if they had just been picked. So much food and wine on such empty stomachs made bloated fools of us all.

  ‘This knife is gold,’ said Master Shakeshaft, ‘as, I suspect, is the plate.’

  ‘And this glass,’ said Crumb, lifting one of the lightest purple to his lips, ‘I would say is Venetian – fit for a queen.’

  ‘Sir Percival Hayes is a very wealthy man.’ Master Shakeshaft drained his glass. It was immediately refilled and by the time we were shown to our separate bedchambers neither Crumb nor Master Shakeshaft were in a fit state to enquire of anything except sleep.

  I lay in a carved wooden bed with clean sheets that smelled of lavender and dared not close my eyes. I listened and listened harder and wondered if I could hear the sorceress. All was quiet. And against my will I must have fallen into a heavy sleep.

  I become aware that here is the same lady that I met before in this house of dreams. She is floating above me at the end of the bed, naked apart from a small ruff of intricate black lace. Her auburn hair is pinned up, tendrils fall tantalisingly to her nipples. I am aroused by the sight of her. She hovers and as I gaze up at her dark bush, she opens her legs and puts her fingers deep inside the softest part of her. From the folds of her cunny she takes a red rose. She holds it out to me. It is dripping blood.

  Blood from the depths of my womb makes the rose red. I am not ashamed. I am the beast, the truth, the beauty within.

  I enter the centre of the rose, each petal kissing and sucking me deeper into its vortex until I am lost in its fragrant sweetness. I come as if all of me has exploded and know not which parts belong where.

  LXV

  ‘I think,’ said Master Shakeshaft, ‘there has been a terrible mistake.’

  We had eaten a feast of a breakfast and Ben Shakeshaft had enquired again after his players. Again there had been no answer but as the majordomo had not said a word in all the time we had been there we should not have been surprised. But this morning Master Shakeshaft was prepared to admit that we were at the wrong house.

  The majordomo politely showed us to the front door. Outside in the fragile light of a winter’s morn stood the horse and caravan. Both were in better state than they had been the night before – the horse shod and the caravan’s wheel mended.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Ben Shakeshaft. ‘A most gratifying and welcome sight.’ It did not occur to him to express gratitude for the hospitality. ‘How far is it to Sir Percival Hayes’s house?’

  The majordomo pointed to where the road beckoned beyond the iron gates which stood open awaiting our departure.

  I whistled for my fox. He did not appear though I had no doubt that he would rejoin me once we had left the house of dreams and were back in the mortal realm.

  Everything appeared set and for one glorious moment it seemed we would escape this house and no one would be the wiser as to the danger we had been in. Anxious to be gone I mounted the caravan and took the horse’s reins, calling for Crumb. He heaved himself up and Master Shakeshaft was about to climb up beside us when he turned to take a last look at the house. And that was when I saw it. Amid the snow-bedecked foliage that covered the entrance to the house was one blood-red rose, so bright in colour that it looked to be a beating heart. The sight of it brought back my dream and with the dream a sense of unease.

  ‘Come,’ I said, ‘let us be away from here.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Master Shakeshaft.

  I heard myself say, ‘Leave it.’ I felt the words vibrate on my lips.

  Too late. The deed was done. That idiot man had reached up and picked the rose. He stood smiling as would a clown with little awareness of the consequences of such a foolish act.

  ‘I could not resist it,’ he said.

  The gates banged shut, the road lost. The horse and the caravan disappeared and both I and Crumb were thrown onto the snowy ground. The sun turned its back on the day and its light went out.

  All that followed happened with great speed. From one majordomo three more were conjured. In a tangle of images each whirled past with such rapidity that it was hard to make sense of anything and all of it went against the grain of our understanding.

  We were locked in a windowless chamber with one lantern that hung from the ceiling by a hook. Ben Shakeshaft, still holding the rose, was bone-white, his words coming out in stutters as if he had almost lost the power to speak.

  It was Crumb who said, ‘You knotty-pated fool, Ben, what have you done? Why could you not leave it be? Why can you never leave anything be?’

  ‘It is a rose. I did not think to offend anyone . . .’

  ‘Do you ever think? A rose in winter? Did it not strike you as strange, that the rose might be valued?’

  ‘No, no, never a rose . . .’

  I knew that we would pay a high price for its theft, but I thought better than to say so.

  ‘After all the generosity,’ said Master Shakeshaft. ‘Why would anyone miss a rose?’

  His words ran out and time ticked and dripped and minutes leaked away.

  ‘We will never reach Sir Percival’s house,’ said Master Shakeshaft.

  It was not so much the woe of us but woe of himself that he lamented, his loss and all the wasted money he had spent. His days as a theatre manager were over.

  Still more time passed and by degrees his anxiety turned to fury.

  ‘I will tell it to the teeth of that servant when he comes back. He cannot hold us here against our will. It is kidnapping . . .’

  ‘Curb your lip, Ben,’ said Crumb, ‘or I will curb it for you.’

  I do not know how long we waited but at last the door opened and there was the same majordomo who had so unceremoniously thrown us in here.

  For all Master Shakeshaft’s brave words he became a shaking puddle as the majordomo took hold of him and dragged him bleating from the chamber.

  There being no furniture, I sat on the floor
and Crumb leaned against the wall, his eyes closed. All sense of possible freedom was lost when at last Master Shakeshaft was returned to us looking much altered, more ghost than human.

  ‘Speak, Ben, or did they take your tongue? Speak,’ said Crumb.

  ‘It is not good … not good … at all.’ He bit his lip.

  ‘What is it? Come on, spit it out. Before it chokes you and kills us with the suspense.’

  ‘This is the house of the beast, a creature too terrifying to speak of.’

  ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘My eyes blurred at the vision, my sight near failed me. I was aware of the smell of earth and iron, feathers and fur.’

  ‘What is our punishment to be?’ asked Crumb.

  ‘We are to be meat for the beast’s banquet.’

  ‘You mean we are to be slaughtered?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ shouted the theatre manager. ‘Unless . . .’

  ‘Unless what?’ I asked.

  ‘Unless.’ Master Shakeshaft looked at me. ‘Unless you, Master Sorrel, are prepared to stay. But it must be of your own free will, if not we will all be butchered – no better than cattle.’ The old fool broke down and wept. ‘Just for taking a rose – blood and bollocks – a red rose.’

  ‘Then we are dead,’ said Crumb. ‘The compensation, I suppose, being that I will not have to pay my rent, or my tailor or the landlord of the Three Feathers. And I will no longer have to work for you.’

  ‘But what will become of me?’

  ‘In the physical sense? Or do you mean the spiritual?’

  While they picked the skin off each other to no great effect, I thought of all I had overheard the sorceress say. If this was her house I doubted she would kill me. She had made it abundantly clear that my duty was to murder my father. Perhaps I could negotiate my freedom.

  ‘What will happen if I agree to stay?’ I asked.

  Master Shakeshaft fell to his knees, clutching my breeches.

  ‘Then we – that is, Crumb and I – will arrive at the house of Sir Percival Hayes, the play will be performed – without you, of course, but do not concern yourself, Gally will play your part – and it will be as if nothing untoward ever befell us. But I cannot bribe or corrupt you into staying.’

  The door opened and a look of terror came over Ben Shakeshaft. The majordomo stood waiting.

  THE BEAST

  LXVI

  He stayed. Beau stayed. I feel nothing, care nothing. He stayed. I will sacrifice his frozen body, let it be butchered for the feast. An offering to Herkain, the King of the Beasts, for his plate alone. The flesh of man be the sweetest meat of all.

  Herkain, he who knew me as one of his own. I, a malformed creature, who belonged to no man, to no family, to no land, was brought before him. But he called me daughter. He, a king, unfolded my wings and showed me how to stand upright, how to be proud of my form. In his eyes, in the king’s eyes, there was beauty in me. He held up for me a different glass and I saw my reflection, saw my strangeness, my magnificence.

  This house is his gift to me.

  Here I have lived and thought of Beau, of his beauty. And such sadness I feel, for he will never see me as does Herkain. Never see me as the king sees me.

  The king comes often. He asks what is this sadness, what sadness is it that keeps me from his court? He looks into my eyes and he sees a splinter, a young man, a mortal. Who is he? he asks.

  It can never be, I say, for he is the beauty and I the beast.

  Herkain puts his hands to my face and takes away a tear. He drinks it in.

  ‘I know the knot by which mortals tie themselves to time. Long ago I too was tied by its merciless strands.’ He says that he knows the truth of love, that it is a stain upon the cloth that memory deepens with a blush.

  I tell him the love I have for Beau no vessel can contain. I say the wine spills over. He is mine and not mine. I know him and he knows me not. I do not tell the king about the night Beau spent with the girl-boy, and Beau all hard to prove me weak.

  When he is dead I will give his body to the King of the Beasts. I tell myself I care not. I turn away, give my orders and sleep.

  THE BEAUTY

  LXVII

  The horse and caravan slowly made its way out of the gates onto the road beyond. The last I saw of Master Shakeshaft and Crumb was one gloved hand of each as they waved farewell to me, to be instantly forgotten by both and sit no heavier on their conscience than last night’s ale.

  I whistled again to my faithful fox but still there was no sign of him. A bad omen. The front door closed and freedom vanished. All that was left was the gravestone quiet of a deserted house and I was stilled with foreboding.

  The wordless majordomo took me up the stairs and unlocked a door to a large chamber. There was little to recommend it apart from three tall, bare windows and an empty fireplace; not a stick of furniture to grace its size. But what held my eye hung from a meat hook in the centre of the chamber: a long, lush gown embroidered with crimson and gold threads and lined with black fur. It floated there without any reason for it was too high to reach without the help of a ladder.

  I was resigned to being locked in but I was not resigned to what happened next. The majordomo pointed at my worn doublet and patched breeches, my hose and my boots. For all my protests he made it clear that they were to be removed.

  He stood immovable, determined in his task and did not stop prodding me until I stood naked before him. Only then did he turn to leave, taking my clothes with him.

  ‘Wait,’ I demanded. ‘I will freeze. A blanket, at least.’

  My plea fell on deaf ears. The key turned in the lock and told me that my sentence was death. No man could survive naked in this icy place. If only I could reach the fur-lined mantle. But I could not, it was a tantalising fingertip too high. The exercise at least kept me warm but the sweat dried cold on me.

  I said out loud, ‘Is this what you want, sorceress? My death? Then it will not be long in coming.’

  The gown falls to the floor. I put it on and the sudden warmth spreads across my flesh in such a sensual flood that I remember the dream and the rose. In the dim light I study the fabric: deep red velvet, embroidered with the richness of autumn colours. I do not think I have ever seen such a fabric as this except perhaps once when I was but a child. As I look at it I seem to enter the images, become a part of them. There is a fox, a huntsman, oaks, and a house with three turrets. I wrap the gown round me and curl into its black fur as if I was a dog.

  Without the gown I would have died. Sleep was shallow. I walked back and forth trying to keep my feet and fingers warm. I think I see myself in the embroidered stitches on the gown. Exhaustion makes me believe that the small figures are moving and one says, ‘Half-man, half-elfin – all of you forest born.’

  In the middle of that first night, the longest night I can remember, I heard a wild animal scream, saw a winged creature fly past the windows and knew not whether I was awake or asleep.

  By the evening of the second day my bones were frozen. Defeated I sat in the corner and closed my eyes, expecting only death to hold the key to this chamber.

  I woke with a start and saw a golden light. To my fuddled brain it made little sense. The chamber door was wide open. Pinpricks of candlelight showed me the way. I stood, stiff with cold, my feet painful, numb, and I walked – no, I hobbled from the chamber onto a gallery. At the foot of the stairs my fox sat looking up at me.

  He did not come to greet me as was his usual way but waited for me to come closer to him. He set off, then turned to make sure I was following. With his snout he pushed open a door to reveal the banqueting hall. Not the chamber that Ben Shakeshaft, Crumb and I had dined in; this one opened onto the vista of chambers familiar to me from my dream. The table was set for two.

  I went to the fire. The flames sent shadows across the walls and among them I thought I glimpsed the silhouette of a monstrous, birdlike creature with the spiked wings of a bat. It was the stuff of nightmares – those horses t
hat gallop through the mind and drive it to lunacy. I held my breath, not moving.

  Green eyes – human eyes – look straight at me through the red feathers that hide her face. Her nose is the beak of an owl. There is no doubting her sex – her breasts emerge from feathers and her cunny from the fur of a panther. Her mouth is the mouth of a woman but her talons are powerful enough to strip a man of his skin. What unnatural phenomen is this? From which strange shore did this spirit fly to frighten my life from me? The sight of her dispels the solidness of earth and I am falling through many worlds of disbelief before reason can make sense of my vision and my feet find ground firm enough to hold such alchemy as she.

  I think I hear the creature speak.

  ‘I am Randa,’ she says.

  THE BEAST

  LXVIII

  I punished him. I took away his clothes, saw his thin body, his shrivelled cock. I felt nothing.

  I tell myself I feel nothing.

  I lie.

  I lie, all of me wild with confusion, the strings of my soul strung so tight that they screech with pain. I can no more let him die than kill myself.

  Perhaps the cure for my infatuation will be the look of horror on his face when he sees me, sees Randa, sees this confusion of beast and woman.

  In the banqueting hall I watch his face, whiter than snow, as he crumples onto the wooden floor.

  Now, Randa: look and mark well the effect you have on him. He is fainting. He is terrified.

  LXIX