by E. D. Walker
Another unwelcome surprise came halfway through dinner. Kathryn sat near the doors but with her back to them. Many of the king’s vassals were late arriving, stomping through the great hall to take their place at table. So when yet another pair of heavy feet came plodding into the grand room, Kathryn thought nothing of it and did not even look back.
One of the men sitting across from her, a distant neighbor of her father’s, suddenly jumped to his feet and waved merrily. “Ho, there, Lord Stephen.”
Kathryn slopped wine down the front of her dress as her father’s low bass boomed out across the hall. “Had a beast of a time getting here. Roads are nigh impassable this time of year.”
Her father, Lord Stephen the Baron of Réméré, had been wiry and spry in his youth, a mass of tight-corded muscle with a hand that could wield a mace like the arm of Doom against his foes. He had done good service for his king and been rewarded for his loyalty. He had married a beautiful woman he loved dearly and had been on such a good road until his beloved wife died.
Now Kathryn’s father indulged himself in wine and food. He rarely left his estate—he rarely left his own chambers. The iron sinews of his youth had melted to corpulence in his age. He had wielded a sword as a master but walked with a cane now.
Kathryn had not expected him tonight. Truly she had half hoped her father would send his apologies and not come at all this year. A vain, foolish hope. She swallowed with difficulty, her stomach sinking into the heels of her soft-toed slippers. Rising from her bench, she shakily turned to make a curtsy to her father as he approached. “Good evening, Father.”
***
Kathryn spent the rest of the dinner in strained silence. She did not believe she could avoid a prolonged talk with her father. She probably would not even be able to put their conversation off until the next day. So she sat and waited with resignation for her father to bolt his meal down so the dreaded tête-à-tête could begin.
Her father cleaned his plate soon enough with little appreciation for the excellent food the king served to his guests. Softly Lord Stephen bid her join him in the garden, and Kathryn went without comment. She held her mouth firmly shut until he led her to a wooden bench in the apple groves.
Lord Stephen sat his daughter down and eagerly stood before her, feet spread and arms akimbo, tapping one leg idly with his cane. “Well, girl, how have you done for yourself? If that fancy bauble is any sign, then none too badly.” He gestured at the ring, giving her a wink and a broad grin.
Kathryn rubbed her temples, aching with tension. “The queen gave me the ring.” She braced herself for his temper.
The anticipated explosion did not disappoint. “The queen? Fool child, I didn’t spend a fortune to rig you out for this damned place to have you here making up to a married woman.” Lord Stephen calmed himself with a long breath, but this did little to ease the angry flush spreading from the neck of his tunic. “Have you had no offers? No one come to pay court to you? No admirers of any kind?”
What did he expect? Kathryn glared at him, teeth gritting together tight enough to hurt her jaw. “None whatsoever, sir. I am too poor, too plain, and too shrewish to attract the men of the court. Things which you knew when you sent me here.” The only offers or interest she’d had from men of the court were of the indecent kind, which had abruptly ceased altogether when she became the wolf’s companion.
Her father tapped his stick against his boot. “True enough. All of it.” His shoulders sagged, and he sniffed with annoyance. “Well, I’m sorry I’m not rich enough to pay a man to take you on. I should have realized my humble barony would fail to tempt these great men here.” He narrowed his eyes at Kathryn. “Might as well take you home with me tomorrow then, after the feast. No point in keeping you here any longer.”
Her mouth fell open. But the queen. The queen and all the ladies were her friends. She would miss them terribly if she left. And Llewellyn. Llewellyn said he would be happy to augment her already respectable knowledge of leechcraft with lessons in his herb-lore. And the wolf…
“Father,” she said in her most carefully measured and reasonable tone of voice, “the queen has taken a liking to me. Let me linger a few weeks more until the court removes to the summer palace. See if I cannot by then firmly cement myself in her good graces.” Her stomach churned at having to say these self-serving falsehoods, but her father did not know her well enough to recognize when she lied. “Having the favor and friendship of royalty is no bad thing, after all. She might even agree to keep me here permanently by then. Which would rid you of responsibility for me for good.” She paused. “Besides, Queen Aliénor would be very angry with me if I were to leave so abruptly.”
Her father thought this over but nodded at last. “You have a point.” He scratched his patchy gray beard. “A month more, then, before I send for you? That’s when the court will remove to the summer palace.” He waggled a fleshy finger in Kathryn’s face. “But no new gowns for summer court, girl. You wear what you have or you go about as Nature made you, so tend well what you have.”
Her father clasped his cloak tightly around him and bustled inside. Kathryn fell submissively in behind him, all the while her head spinning. She had a month, then. A month to order her life and think of something. A month before her father carried her away from the first home she had enjoyed since her uncle’s death.
She would think of something. She had to.
***
The day of the Feast of St. Aaron dawned crisply cool. Garwaf sniffed the air, letting the sweet smells fill his body with cheerfulness. A play was planned on the life of the saint, and a market had come to the castle’s court, to be followed in the evening by a great banquet.
Garwaf waited with Llewellyn, and Kathryn arrived late for their planned rendezvous. Perhaps because she had spent extra time arranging her hair just so in a graceful braid falling over the shoulder of her new gown. The wine-red dress had a low, square neck, a tightly laced waist, and a graceful train at the back she handled very well, only tripping once as she approached him. The rose ring gleamed in the early sunlight on her hand as she reached down to caress his head.
For his part, he simply stared at her in admiration. What a lovely creature my little guardian is. She’s flushed with the pleasure of the day to come, and her eyes are shining. She can’t stop smiling. Ah, if only…
Llewellyn addressed a remark to him, and the wolf shook himself out of his daze. Garwaf yipped noncommittally and turned his thoughts away from the too-wonderful Kathryn.
The day began merrily enough in the great court with the three of them browsing the market.
Llewellyn made a courtly bow. “We will wander where you will, my lady.” He looked to Garwaf for affirmation. Garwaf wagged his fluffy black tail and let his tongue loll out happily. Kathryn grinned in response, all the reward he needed.
Llewellyn halted them and, his face very serious, drew out a small pouch and dropped it into Kathryn’s hands. “By order of the king, I present this to you.”
She tugged the pouch open and stared down at a cluster of silver coins. “I can’t—”
The magician held his hand up. “It is also by order of King Thomas that you are denied the right to refuse this gift.” Llewellyn smirked.
Kathryn snorted. “Well, since by royal decree the money is mine, I suppose I should decide how best to spend it.”
“A new dress?”
“It won’t stretch that far. Maybe boots, though. Or a new girdle.”
Garwaf noticed her hungrily eyeing a monk’s cart laden with books, and he tugged Llewellyn’s sleeve. The magician followed Garwaf’s gaze. With a pleased smile, Llewellyn winked and guided Kathryn by gentle degrees to the book stall.
“Pick any one you like,” he ordered when they arrived. Kathryn dug in heartily, and Llewellyn did likewise. He turned up an interesting volume on the fairies to the north and knelt to look the manuscript over with Garwaf, who scanned the pages with interest.
***
Kathryn narrowed her selections at last down to two volumes. She studied each book carefully, her heart longing for both. Each book was beautifully illustrated by the same supple hand. The drawings made her feel almost as if she could see the sights herself and hear the noises vibrating in her ears, smell the flowers and the chill winter sea. She had selected a slim volume of the lives of many of the more obscure saint-magicians of old and a larger, thicker volume of legends and folktales. The legends were beautiful. Some of them she had never read before, but the volume would cost far too much of the king’s gift, and there were still the boots to buy.
Heart heavy, she set the book down and paid the monk what he asked for the saints. Llewellyn took up the fairy book at once and turned the heavy manuscript in his hands. He smiled and piled the fairy book in with two other volumes on herb lore and a history of the Oracle at Ordinobl.
As they walked away, the books purchased, Kathryn caressed the wolf’s ears and smiled at Llewellyn. “Will you let me borrow the book of legends and folktales sometime?”
“Of a certainty,” Llewellyn said with his usual grandeur. Then he carelessly handed her the thick tome. “Especially since I bought the book for you.”
The wolf barked mischievously.
“But the silver…” She held up the purse, too stunned to finish her thought.
“Was from the king. I like to give more specific presents.”
“But—”
“All right, my Lady Stubborn, you may have the book on condition, then.” He paused. “And that is that you read to me whenever I ask.” The magician winked.
Kathryn chuckled and scooped the book from his outstretched hand. “We have an accord.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed Llewellyn’s cheek. A pleased flush crept up from his collar to tint his face, and he moved ahead of her to the mercer’s stall. The wolf looked at her reproachfully, and Kathryn giggled. “Great silly beast.” She delivered a sweet kiss on his nose. She hurried away, and the wolf skipped along behind her.
At the mercer, they met Queen Aliénor and several of the visiting noblewomen. The queen was ordering a new belt with the heraldic imagery of her lord’s house, and a buckle in the shape of a wolf.
Kathryn chatted amiably with the other ladies, and the wolf bore the women’s simpering regard with patience. Llewellyn, less stolid in the face of feminine attention, darted an appraising glance at the wolf, then made his excuses. He bowed out of the stall, and Kathryn watched the magician walk off toward another.
Very soon the queen had completed giving the specifications for her belt. She stepped aside so Kathryn could be measured for her new boots.
The mercer was quick and efficient. He was also very shrewd and had apparently noticed on what easy terms the young lady purchasing the boots was with Queen Aliénor. In consequence, Kathryn got a better deal on her footwear than she would have had she come to the mercer’s stall when Aliénor was not by. The mercer, for his part, also admired the wolf, or more particularly, the wolf’s pelt.
As the mercer and Kathryn concluded their business, he said quickly, “I’ll give you the boots for free, throw in a pair of gloves and a new belt if you’ll trade me for that animal.”
The wolf snorted, his lip curling back, and Kathryn hid her smile behind her hand. She managed to compose herself quickly. “I’m sorry, sir, but the wolf is not mine to barter away so easily. He is the king’s man.”
The mercer deflated. “King’s pet then, is it?”
“Why no, sir.” She widened her eyes. “He is the most devoted of the king’s personal retinue of knights.” Kathryn swept from the stall with the wolf on her heels. She looked down at Garwaf. “And don’t you forget that either.”
The beast broke into a grin and playfully nipped her fingers.
“Behave yourself, or when I get my boots tomorrow, I really will trade you to the mercer. I could use a new belt.”
They looked for the magician after that, but Llewellyn had lost himself somewhere in the tangle of stalls, apparently. “I don’t think it’s worth looking for him in this mob, do you?” Kathryn asked.
The wolf growled a cheerful negative. The stalls were a mess in the middle of the court, but the fair was not overly large as these things went. They were bound to run into Llewellyn sometime. Neither Kathryn nor the wolf fretted about the magician’s absence. They were enjoying themselves too much.
***
As it happened, Llewellyn was trying to find them, but a visiting noble had hindered his attempts. The magician had been corralled into conversation and could not get free. Llewellyn disliked the man and was bored to tears by his endless tales of hunting, but the noble was an earl of the highest consequence—even if he was a muttonhead. It would not do for Llewellyn to offend him.
***
The wolf is not the Duke of Dorré. Reynard had to believe that, because if the wolf was the duke, then Reynard was about to find himself inhabiting a world full of woe.
Reynard’s wife had been the strategist in their marriage from the first, but she remained at home. His sister, Beatrice, would have been helpful as well, but the fool girl had gotten herself sent to a convent in disgrace and was of no use to him now. So Reynard had decided—and not just because he liked his flesh intact—to avoid the wolf and to leave as soon as possible after the king’s convocation of his liegemen.
The convocation would take place on the morrow. Reynard intended to make all ready to leave this bloody castle and ride as far away from the wolf as he could as soon as he could. Word of the wolf’s attack had already spread, and the knights from the castle, who knew the wolf, were beginning to whisper to the ones who did not. Reynard fancied he could hear them now, chattering away behind his back as he passed.
“Yes, attacked him.”
“Right in front of the gates, I heard.”
“I saw the fight. The wolf knocked him into the dust.”
“Would have torn him to pieces if the king hadn’t called him to heel.”
“Yes, but my dear, the wolf has never shown a bit of violence to anyone else before this.”
“Makes me wonder what old Reynard did to the poor wolf to make him attack. Seems to me, the beast must have had a pretty good reason.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past Reynard.”
“The lecher…”
Reynard’s hands were beginning to cramp from being clenched into fists all morning. He wished he could just retire to bed for the day with a good bottle of wine and a kitchen maid, but his wife always hammered home to him the importance of appearances. Not the cleverest of weasels, Reynard still recognized that the antagonism against him would increase tenfold if he suddenly went missing for the day.
So, like a marionette with his strings being plucked, he wandered idly through the market stalls. He picked up a pair of scented, embroidered gloves for his wife, smiling grimly to himself as he tucked them into his pouch and paid the booth keeper.
His wife. Reynard could not think of Lady Alisoun these days without a twist of distaste coiling in his gut. My wife. And what a fine wife she is.
***
The press of bodies in the fair had begun to overwhelm Garwaf. Three people had tripped over him so far, and even Kathryn’s soothing presence could not calm his raw nerves.
She reached down to caress his back. “Perhaps, Sir Garwaf, you would accompany me to the play? They’ve set up a pageant wagon in the gardens.”
Garwaf gratefully led her into the castle. Sitting next to Kathryn in the shade, safe from the crush and stench of so many bodies, seemed a very palatable idea.
Together they stepped outside into the gardens, where the pageant wagon had been set up. It was a tall cart, nearly twice the height of a full-grown man, gaudily painted, and the massive structure rolled along on six huge wheels. Chairs and stands had been set up in the shade of the apple orchard for people to watch the performance.
The play had not started, but seats filled up fast. Two golden, high-backed chairs on a special curtained dai
s were marked out and waiting for the king and queen whenever they should make their appearance.
Kathryn grinned as Garwaf chased his tail for her amusement while they walked toward the wagon. But the smile abruptly fell from her face, and she stopped short before leaning in to tug him away. “I’ve changed my mind. Let’s steal a quiet moment in the rose garden, eh? Away from all this bustle?”
Wolf or no wolf, he was not a fool, and he had already scented the foul odor she meant to distract him from. Reynard.
A clear path lay between Garwaf and his nemesis. One pounce, that’s all. He tensed his muscles to spring, but suddenly arms closed about him. Tiny arms. Arms that had not the strength to stop him if he followed through on his attack. He barked angrily in Kathryn’s face.
A hurt look twisted her features, and guilt stabbed through his gut, clear to his backbone, making him nauseated. He whipped his head away from her. This is revenge. Women have no truck with vengeance. They do not understand.
He writhed against her, trying to break free without hurting her, but she held him fast. Reynard stood so close, half turned away, oblivious to Garwaf’s presence. The wolf wheeled on Kathryn, putting a fierce demand in his gaze. I am just a pet to you, little better than a dumb animal. And this, this grudge is about honor. He braced his muscles to break free of her hold. I can never have Kathryn anyway. Honor is all that is left to me. He growled low in his throat, a warning to her.
Reynard wheeled about and fell back at sight of the wolf. Garwaf twisted and thrashed in Kathryn’s arms, scratching at her and snapping his jaws, snarling red-hot fury at Reynard.
***
Kathryn’s build was slight, but the years of tailing after the servants in her manor and being put to tasks when she got in the way had given her a fair bit of wiry strength. To have such strength was very unmaidenly in her, of course, but her muscles were the only way she managed to hold a struggling wolf trying to free himself.
Reynard swore freely, though he was among ladies, and drew his sword on the wolf. “Fate’s tits, what madness has gripped the king that he keeps such a beast about?”