The Beauty of the Wolf

by Wray Delaney

  ‘Come,’ says Herkain, and we walk out of the great hall into the bright sunlight. The courtiers herd behind their lord and master but he turns, raises his staff and they retreat. The doors close on them.

  The king takes my arm. We walk, awkwardly on my part, down a gravel path into a formal garden. Herkain says nothing until we come to a lake and there on a stone seat we sit.

  ‘Only once did I love,’ he says. ‘By that I mean truly love. Only once did I hear the song of passion playing deep inside me – until it struck the wrong chord and turned into a scream of despair, all harmony lost. Most of us play at love, profess love. Feel love, never. To truly love is to fall, and with age we grow brittle, become fearful of heights. Those of us who have loved, we silently carry the scars, smile kindly at those who tell us that their hearts might break and know they lie unto themselves. You, Randa, and I – we know what it is to feel beyond where wings can take us. Beyond words. We know we held the weight of it, we knew its tune. If it was all but a brief moment then that must be enough.’

  ‘It will never be enough,’ I say.

  ‘I had a daughter who I loved beyond the weight of a crown. She was a human child, no mark of a beast on her.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘Her mother, my lover, was a creature of many parts that she could change at will. She wanted to bear me beasts of such nobility that my two sons would be of no consequence. They never were. I could not carry the weight of her love, it was a feather too heavy and I put it down. I knew it would be the undoing of me.’

  ‘What happened to the child?’

  ‘At five summers she could stay no longer and my heart broke with grief when she was sent to be adopted in the world of mortals. The family that took her knew not the truth of her.’

  ‘Did you see her again?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Herkain. ‘I did see her. I see her now, Randa. I see her echo in your eyes.’

  THE BEAUTY

  LXXXVI

  I closed the chambers of my heart, I locked the door on my love and yet at night my thoughts of Randa escaped the prison.

  What had I done in agreeing to marry Mistress Marian Cassell? I felt not one ounce of affection for her and I doubted if she had any for me. We were two ill-suited, wooden actors playing out our roles, directed in all our scenes by her wealthy father. It was his money that was going to support my estate by way of his daughter’s generous dowry. In compensation the forest, the adjoining lands and the house would be saved and remain the property of the new Earl of Rodermere and his descendants. For what had I to offer? Very little. A title, a forest. A heart that would never love again.

  I played my part. Was I not an actor? I did what was expected of me. I praised Mistress Marian with words of flattery, with words of love. I wooed her with poems meant for Randa that would make the sun blush and the stars jealous of the moon. She at least had the wit to know that they were not written for her. I gave hollow speeches at which she would yawn – for that I almost liked her.

  Our courtship proceeded along familiar patterns with visits and the exchange of rings and gloves. This, then, was the stage dressed for a tragedy of two ill-fitted lovers.

  The nuptial contract was witnessed by Sir Percival Hayes, Master and Mistress Cassell, the mayor and several aldermen of the city. I was congratulated on my choice of bride. Wine flowed and I needed no encouragement to take solace there.

  I had intended to leave after the guests departed but Master Cassell had other designs. He took me into what he called his inner sanctum, a chamber given over to the study of alchemy. Everything was new and looked unused.

  He had started, he said, in the hope of proving magic to be irrational and therefore impossible but later became converted due to making the acquaintance of an alchemist of impressive powers.

  ‘It has, over the years, become an obsession of mine. Does the subject interest you, my lord?’

  He poured me another goblet of wine. I should have left it and did not. I nodded sagely and wondered how long I would have to be there before I could make my excuses and be gone.

  He asked about my father, the late earl. I had noticed that he often used the title as if making sure it was good enough and fit for his daughter.

  ‘Your father, the late earl,’ he repeated, ‘disappeared for eighteen years.’

  I wondered what was in the wine we were drinking for the chamber began to disappear under water. Master Cassell’s eyes were on the side of his face, his mouth opened and shut, his words rolled towards me on a drunken tide.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ he added. ‘Extraordinary.’

  On that I wholeheartedly agreed with him.

  ‘Sir Percival tells that an old witch cursed you when you were born and predicted that you would murder your father. But if I’m not mistaken, the late earl was brutally killed in a hunting accident by an enormous wolf.’

  There in the shadows I see the wolf. For a moment I catch the glint in its eye then realise it is my reflection in the glass.

  ‘The wolf grows larger every time in the telling,’ I say.

  I feel the power in my limbs, a spasm beneath my flesh.

  ‘I did not kill my father,’ I say out loud and regret it.

  ‘Forgive me, my dear Lord Rodermere. I was merely taking a scholarly interest.’

  I rise. I must leave. I have a longing for the cool night air, the lapping waters of the Thames as my barge takes me home.

  Trying to keep my words from slurring, I bow, thank him profusely for his hospitality. But what is he doing? He stands before me. He says there is no need to leave.

  ‘You are as good as wed to my daughter. Stay, my lord, make the contract binding.’

  Master Cassell’s voice is distorted. My words come not from me and they float into some middle distance. I am wading against the tide.

  He opens the door onto a bedchamber that is lit with so many candles that I think it might be the inside of a church. The perfume in the place is overbearing. Mistress Cassell stands by the closed drapes of a four-poster bed. At a sign from her husband she pulls them back to reveal their daughter, fast asleep. Drugged, I imagine, like me.

  I hear myself say, please, do not . . . but nevertheless she takes the bedclothes from her daughter and there she lies, naked. To my befuddled mind she appears drowned, her flesh white fish scales, her hair golden river weed.

  Master Cassell’s words float as jetsam on murky waters.

  ‘We give our blessing, Lord Rodermere.’

  I am wolf. I am wolf. I am drowning.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Not until we are married . . . married in the sight of our lord.’

  I push Master Cassell aside and moments later I am out of his house and staggering towards the river.

  Mistress Marian and I saw each other seven times in all before the day of our wedding. I travelled to the Cassells’ country estate on the river at Hampton to visit her and after my failure to comply with the merchant’s wishes he was colder towards me and more inclined to talk business. Mistress Cassell grated much on my ear, her voice cat’s claws on glass.

  I bought my betrothed a small pug dog. It took against me which I found most amusing. She called it Bonbon. He yapped at everything and shitted and pissed on nearly every surface.

  Both mother and daughter were obsessed with discovering secrets for the improvement of the complexion, the brightness of the eye, the glossiness of the hair, the smoothness of the arm, the throat. I did not care with what my future countess kept her skin smooth. Whether it be crumbs of bread, goats’ milk and egg or the fat of a swan, all had the same effect which was to make her appear artificial. I found myself listening only when Mistress Cassell mentioned she had taken Marian to see an alchemist’s wife who had a wonderful understanding of improvements to the skin.

  More out of boredom than interest I asked the name of the alchemist’s wife and was surprised by the answer.

  ‘Mistress Finglas.’

  ‘Is her husband the same Thoma
s Finglas who lives near the sign of the Unicorn in Southwark?’

  Mistress Marian picked up her little dog.

  ‘I suppose he must be the same to have a wife that bears his name.’

  Why did I not possess the courage to declare my terrible mistake? Instead I did what buffoons do when they have dug their graves too deep and have not the wisdom to acknowledge it. I applied my mind to something else and so it was we stumbled – or rather I stumbled – ever nearer to the precipice of our nuptials.

  LXXXVII

  Our wedding was being arranged by Master Cassell and his wife. My suggestions for a modest affair had been richly ignored and it had become, by degrees and flights of fancy, grander as the days passed. Master Cassell was determined to ostentatiously display his wealth at every opportunity.

  To my great amusement Sir Percival Hayes’s players were to perform a masquerade at our wedding banquet. Such extravagance did much to brighten the eyes of my betrothed in who I perceived a resemblance to Bonbon when he was given a sweetmeat.

  Spring came and embraced life, decorating the world at no expense in its mantle of greens. Nothing blossomed for Mistress Marian and me. It struck me that every feeling she might have possessed was locked away behind a whalebone façade, any doubt flattened by stomachers. The hollowness of our marriage would be illustrated in the width of her farthingale. She and her mother talked constantly of fashion. The descriptions of the costumes that were being made for the actors made me smile. I could imagine Gally’s delight to learn she was to be attired in a skirt of silver cloth, a mantle of carnation taffeta. I smiled all the more to think of Ben Shakeshaft’s reaction when he saw me, his once apprentice, whom he had abandoned to be eaten by a beast.

  The plans for my sister’s wedding, in contrast, were a relief in their simplicity. It was to take place in Blackfriars, soon after my mother and Lady Clare’s arrival in London. Afterwards, a small supper would be given by the bridegroom at the newlyweds’ home.

  On an afternoon in early May I went to see John Butter to finalise the arrangements. I had agreed to meet him at his new house in Cheapside but was late arriving having been detained in Fleet Street in the many bookshops there. A troubled mind is best occupied. As always I found it near impossible to choose which volume to purchase from the multitudes of wondrously idle matter that seemed to be hatched every day from writers’ quills. Nevertheless, I bought a fair collection; enough, I hoped, to distract me. In fewer than three weeks I, too, would be wed.

  I walked past the house three times, so certain was I that I had made a mistake for the building was by far the most elegant in the street. When I did knock, the door was opened by a maid who curtsied and told me that her master was waiting for me in his study.

  ‘Welcome, Lord Rodermere, welcome,’ said Master Butter, rising to greet me. ‘I am so pleased to see you.’

  I was glad that the light was against my emotion being too well observed. In that instant I understood well why Clare loved him.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said.

  ‘It is a fine house.’

  ‘Come . . .’

  He took me first into the garden before showing me every chamber. At the door to each he asked, ‘Do you think Lady Clare will approve?’

  ‘Everything,’ he said, ‘has been done with your sister’s happiness in mind.’

  In the last chamber was a small horse on wheels that he had obviously just bought. It made me sad that these two lovers had ever been parted.

  ‘Fortune has smiled on you,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. It has taken hard work but I have many clients and have been blessed by being called to court on several occasions to attend Her Majesty, and to help her find a kinder paint for her skin. But enough. What of you, my lord?’

  I could think of nothing so I spoke of my sister’s dowry.

  Master Butter said, quietly, ‘We do not need or expect it. I have more than enough.’

  I had received a package from Master Goodwin a few days earlier. In the enclosed letter he explained why he had not felt able to give his consent to my sister’s betrothal and expressed his delight that all obstacles had been overcome. In the parcel were two sketches; one of the tulip, ‘to show you where my money is invested,’ the other a charming portrait of my sister and her little son. I gave it to John Butter. He took it nearer the light and looked at it with such love. I saw him wipe his eyes.

  He turned to me and said, ‘Tell me, my lord, that I am not dreaming, that she will be here soon and we will be married.’

  I nodded.

  He put the sketch safely away.

  ‘Will you sup with us, my lord? There is someone who very much wants to see you.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘You knew her as the Widow Bott.’

  ‘I thought her dead.’

  ‘She lives still.’

  ‘But she vanished and no one ever heard more of her.’

  ‘She came to London to Thomas Finglas’s house. We hid her in the cellar and it was her remedies that saved my master. They married last year.’

  I stared into the fire, ashamed I had not wondered more what had befallen the old widow. Then I remembered the maid, Mary, who had worked for Master Finglas and asked what had become of her.

  ‘She left and I have no idea where she went, nor do I care. It was she who wrote to your stepfather – as you rightly supposed.’

  I had forgotten all of that, of hearing the sorceress name her.

  John Butter was about to say something more when Master Finglas and his wife arrived. In truth I hardly recognised either of them. Both in sombre clothes, and gone was all the wildness from the widow who now could easily be mistaken for a good, wholesome wife. Thomas’s face was scarred, I noticed, but he held his head up and appeared to be much altered for the better since I saw him at the House of the Three Turrets attending my father.

  Mistress Finglas came to me, took both my hands in hers and said, ‘It is gone.’

  ‘The curse?’ I said.

  ‘Not only that. The charm.’ Mistress Finglas laughed. ‘Forgive me, Lord Rodermere, it was such an unnatural thing, that beauty.’

  We sat, ate and Mistress Finglas and I talked as people do when they have not seen each other for a while. We picked up stitches of the past, pulled through threads that had been lost, and all the time I was conscious of words unsaid.

  It was Master Finglas who, looking around the chamber, asked John Butter to make sure no one was listening. He went to the door, closed it, and came back nodding.

  Only then did Master Finglas lean towards me and in a whisper say, ‘Tell me, my lord, do you know what has become of my daughter?’

  ‘I did not know you had a daughter, Master Finglas,’ I said.

  ‘That is because I never had the courage to own her.’

  I was bewildered and seeing all the solemn faces staring at me could only say that I was not acquainted with a young woman bearing the name Finglas.

  ‘I am sorry, I cannot help you.’

  ‘I believe you can, my lord,’ persisted Master Finglas. ‘Her name is Randa.’

  Every sinew in me tenses. Can this man, this learned, paperfaced ghost be Randa’s father? The unbearable cruelty of what he did to her near makes me forget my manners and it takes all my acting skills to keep my composure.

  Any sympathy I had for him, for his scars, is gone. I am shocked again by the mental image of the iron collar that he placed round her neck when he should have embraced the uniqueness of his daughter. But I see in him, in this dull-minded man, a terror of his own creation.

  As much as I am angered by his treatment of her no more can I claim righteousness. What does this secret self of mine fear that makes me deny the only love I have known?

  In the shadowed candlelight, in this chamber too newly built to be infested with lies, I say, ‘No, Master Finglas. I do not know your daughter. I do not know Mistress Randa.’

  And glad I am that it is night for the day would scold me wi
th its light.

  THE SORCERESS

  LXXXVIII

  In my dreams I see her, deep under grey-green water. She opens her mouth, her words float towards me sealed in pearls of air. I try to catch them as they fall heavy into the silt of the river bed. Words I will never hear nor their wisdom ever know.

  I wake, brush away troubled sleep and spring fills ancient bones with life. From a winter’s bed I stir. In the mercurial dew I bathe and a new spirit inhabits this husk of mine. Above me sways the branches of my oaks, their pale, tender leaves translucent; the stained glass of my religion. I ask their roots for all the news these veiny gossips have to tell.

  ‘Is Francis, Lord Rodermere, dead?’

  Their answer as I expect: ‘Dead and buried. The worms have had their fill.’

  Rejoice, the curse is fulfilled. Time no more hangs on my mantle. ‘Tell me, is his son buried beneath the hanging tree?’

  ‘Before May is out he will lie with his new bride in his marriage bed.’

  ‘But did he not murder his father?’

  ‘No, not he, but the spirit of the great wolf long dead who found new strength in borrowed life.’

  And all the softness of this morning’s waking turns hard and brittle in me. It is not over.

  ‘Who dared interfere with my curse?’

  Comes from their tendrils the spindly reply.

  ‘Randa, Randa, Randa.’

  My wits begin to turn.

  What unnatural thing be she and from whence comes her power? Randa, dare you make an enemy of me?

  In due time, the sorceress dresses in May’s sweet glory, holds up nature’s glass and there reflected back is her image. In fine lines she sees upon her face a crack that has let age in. Is this Randa’s doing? Has she challenged the sorceress’s authority? If she finds it to be so, she will have her revenge on Randa, and on Beaumont Thursby, Earl of Rodermere, and let all know that she has willed it so.