The Beauty's Beast

by E. D. Walker

The duchess turned over, and a collective gasp of horror went round the crowd. Her veil had fallen away, and blood poured from her nose, staining her gown in gore.

  Worse, though, was the wreck of her face. Lesions and old, scaly sores covered her once-lovely face. Her nose had caved in on itself long ago and was all but gone, save for two ghastly slits where her nostrils had been. A chalky pallor hung over her face, and puckered white lines from old sores, long healed, marred the once-perfect creaminess of her skin.

  Worse than all this, however, was the look of pure hatred in her bloodshot, unseeing eyes. “I say, I hope the beast rots.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The king detained Reynard in a sturdy cell in their host’s underground stores with several of the king’s best knights posted as guards.

  The wolf rested in his bedchamber, and the Lady Alisoun had been moved to a private room in the servant’s wing. Meanwhile, Llewellyn and the king conferred.

  King Thomas grimaced. “Her face. Was it—?” He shook himself and looked at Llewellyn. “What was it?”

  Llewellyn chafed at his arms. “Without a closer inspection I can only guess, but I believe she’s leprous, my lord. A well-advanced case. She’s blind already, and her face—” He cleared his throat and scratched at the pale blond stubble on his chin. “I wouldn’t say she was much longer for this world.” He shook his head in disbelief. “The disease is not usually so quick moving. Leprosy should have taken decades to inflict such wreckage on her, but I would say she’s been infected only these past few years. I saw her whole and well not more than two years ago, and I would swear on my life she wasn’t leprous then.”

  “She became leprous only after she betrayed Gabriel?”

  “It would seem so, my lord.” Llewellyn spread his hands in a small, noncommittal gesture. “Fate’s justice can manifest itself in strange ways.”

  “She was always such a ruthless little—” The king broke off, huffing out a breath. “Well, she always enjoyed the pleasures of court, so I had wondered why she suddenly ceased to attend. I believed then that the cause was grief over Gabriel’s disappearance.”

  “When I interviewed him below, Reynard said Alisoun instigated everything.” Llewellyn scrubbed a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “Reynard would never have discovered Gabriel’s condition if Alisoun hadn’t sought him out.”

  King Thomas clenched his fists. “No wonder Gabriel attacked her as he did. I’m surprised he didn’t kill her.”

  “The nobles gave Garwaf quite a crack on the head for his pains. But he should’ve come round by now.”

  A look of concern crossed the king’s face, but Llewellyn waved his fears away. “Not to worry. He’ll be fine. Best he’s out of this now, anyway. The rest of the work is up to us. Come, let’s go see the woman, sire.”

  ***

  Alisoun had been made comfortable in a small, bare cell, and her silk dress had been changed for coarse blue robes scrounged from the rag pile. Without her cleverly concealing garments, her disease made itself plain. She was not recognizable now as the once-beautiful woman who had captivated the court and held a dozen young men in the hollow of her hand.

  Her hair had mostly fallen out. Where strands lingered the sight was all the more grotesque, for the hair was goldenly luxurious even while mingling with the old sores and bald patches now covering her head. Her right hand remained firm and supple, but the bones of her left had all but disappeared, forcing her appendage into a crooked claw composed of festering sores and rotting skin. Not just her nose but also her upper lip had rotted away, revealing yellowing and broken teeth, and her lower lip drooped with unnatural heaviness.

  Her eyes, once so bright and sharp, were now clouded and milky, bitter. She had gone blind from her disease and could no longer blink, as her lower lids were paralyzed. The sight unnerved the king, but Llewellyn had had truck with lepers in his many travels and was not put off. He had only pity for the poor woman.

  She turned her ravaged head toward the sound of their footfalls. “This is a judgment on me for what I did to the beast,” she rasped out in a voice barely recognizable as the bright, clear tones both men remembered from her earlier, unblighted years. “I banished my first husband to inhuman exile, and Fate condemned me to live like this. To live and die a leper and an outcast, so I may know threefold what I have inflicted upon the filthy werewolf. But never, never will I help him back to his human form. If I must die accursed and contemptible, then I will not go alone into the fire.” Her good hand clenched around her covers while her other arm lay limp and nerveless on the sheets.

  King Thomas and Llewellyn retired to a far corner of the room and held quiet conference. “Usually the mind remains whole and untouched until the end,” Llewellyn explained. “One of leprosy’s more bitter aspects is that the infected remain in full possession of their wits as they watch their flesh literally rot off their bodies. But I think, in her case, the loss of her former beauty has touched her mind. She is a trifle unstable.”

  “Do you think, oh wise man?”

  “Don’t get testy.” Llewellyn rubbed his cheek with one thumb. “Torture will avail us nothing, my lord. Her nerves are so far gone, she wouldn’t feel a siege engine rolling over her body.”

  “Reynard, then?”

  “That might be the best course, and also—” Llewellyn frowned, darting a cautious look at the king.

  King Thomas folded his arms. “And what?”

  Llewellyn scratched his nose and gave a small shrug. “Might be a good idea to bring Garwaf round to talk to her as well.”

  Naught for nothing was Thomas a king. One does not get to be ruler without considerable amounts of discretion and self-control, even if you are born to the position. It required all of that particular virtue the king possessed to keep quiet until he and Llewellyn had discreetly removed themselves back to Thomas’s own quarters.

  Once there, however, and safely behind closed doors, the king’s voice boomed out across the Baron of Sûr’s estate. “Did you see what she looked like? She’s a wreck. A horror. The sight of her face is going to haunt me for years. If you think I am going to subject him to that, then you’re a bigger fool than I always thought you were. She was his wife—”

  And on and on. Llewellyn bore the harangue with composure and said not a word in retort.

  The king’s tirade went on for some time and might have been enough to wake the dead. His yelling was certainly more than adequate to wake a sleeping werewolf.

  ***

  Garwaf jumped up and turned the door handle with his paws. Groggily he trotted into the king’s bedchamber adjacent to his own and encountered his liege lord still yelling at a resigned Llewellyn.

  The wolf sent Llewellyn a questioning look. The magician winked and waited for King Thomas to draw breath for his next barrage. When the king paused, the magician jerked his chin. “Behind you.”

  The king glared, turned to look, met Garwaf’s gaze, and deflated.

  “Perhaps,” Llewellyn said in a bone-dry voice, “you should ask Garwaf what he wants.”

  Garwaf looked to his uncle expectantly.

  King Thomas frowned. “My lad, do you remember what happened in the great hall just now? Did you see Alisoun?”

  A shudder passed through Garwaf. He had seen.

  “She refuses to tell us where your clothes are,” Llewellyn put in.

  “I want to bring the conspirators together, demonstrate to them the fruitlessness of holding out—”

  “I don’t believe that ploy will work,” Llewellyn said. “I think you, my lord”—this he directed toward Garwaf—“must earn your own humanity back from them.” The king glowered. Llewellyn groaned and threw his hands up. “But we will, of course, yield to your wishes, my king.”

  The king stalked to the window, his shoulders tense as he looked out.

  Llewellyn came to Garwaf and clasped an arm around him. “If that fails, what will you do, my lord?”

  Garwaf looked away. I will go
to her. I think I need to. Somehow.

  As if reading his thoughts, weary Llewellyn creaked to his feet and crossed to King Thomas. “Shall we?”

  The king squared his shoulders. “Fetch Reynard to his wife’s chamber.” A beat passed and the king sighed deeply. “Bring Garwaf as well.” He held up an admonishing finger. “I don’t want him to see her like this if he doesn’t absolutely have to.”

  “Only if there is no other way.” Llewellyn nodded.

  Garwaf growled. He understood what the king was doing, of course, and it infuriated him. I am not a child, Uncle. Garwaf also understood this was his task to do and no one else’s. How to convey this to the king and his magician was a different matter.

  Times like these truly made him miss his power of speech.

  ***

  King, magician, and werewolf padded through the castle to where they had left Alisoun in her solitary sickroom. King Thomas had sent ahead, and Reynard, under heavy guard, awaited them. When they reached the door, the king tried to keep Garwaf out of the cell.

  The wolf glanced at him with defiance in his dark blue eyes. I have more of a right to confront these two than anyone.

  Sighing in resignation, the king opened the door to let Garwaf precede him into the sickroom—now makeshift interrogation chamber.

  ***

  Upon beholding the wolf, Reynard flinched and retreated. Alisoun stirred beneath her covers, but she didn’t speak. She certainly knew King Thomas and Llewellyn had returned, but had she also recognized the light padding footfall of the wolf?

  Reynard thought not. He stood silent and fuming by his wife’s sick bed, unable to keep the contempt and disgust from showing on his face when he looked at the ruin his wife had become. “The betrayal was all her idea,” Reynard growled when they questioned him. “Long had I admired Lady Alisoun. Often did I offer her my services. Always before she refused my attentions and sent me on my way. I was never more shocked in my life than when I received the letter from her. She named a time and place. Faithfully did I keep the tryst with her. There she told me of the werewolf and how to trap him so she should be free of him.”

  King Thomas cast a black look at Alisoun. “If you desired your freedom, you could have come to me.” He glared at her, though Reynard knew her sightless eyes could not see the expression. “Gladly would I have parted you from my nephew.” The king’s voice held a note of disgust.

  Reynard laughed. “And give up being the Duchess of Dorré? My king, we all know Alisoun better than that. And you were so angry, so hurt, so drunk once Gabriel disappeared, getting you to sign over all his lands to me was an easy task. I’m not sure you even realized how malleable you were. But Alisoun did.”

  The lady in question said nothing all the while. She remained blank faced throughout, betraying her interest in the discussion only by the restless stirring of her good hand on the sheets.

  Reynard continued his account of his part in events. His sudden burst of chattiness had actually come about after a few not-so-subtle hints from Llewellyn regarding sharp objects and certain soft parts of Reynard’s anatomy. After his colloquy with the king’s magician, Reynard had wisely decided a full confession would be best. After all, persecuting a werewolf, even if in the daylight hours he was the king’s nephew, would hardly be regarded as a crime by the general populace. Reynard had no desire to be tortured into divulging his part in the werewolf’s betrayal. Not when, on closer inspection, it seemed his willing confession could hurt him not a bit.

  King Thomas and his two pets here in the room could actually do very little to Reynard. He had fallen out of favor, he might lose his lands, and banishment was an option. There were, however, other lands and other kings more susceptible to manipulation and flattery. One way or another, Reynard would find his way to power again. And then the wolf and his little girlie would be in a world of pain. Reynard would see to that. Somehow. Someday. He smiled.

  “So,” Reynard continued smoothly, betraying nothing of his thoughts, “Alisoun told me where the werewolf went and by what road. I stole the clothes from the rock and, having faithfully discharged my errand, returned to her to receive my reward.” He wiggled his eyebrows in a smug manner at the wolf. The beast curled his lip to show sharp teeth but did not growl. Reynard ceased his gloat and went on, “I gave the clothes to Alisoun and forgot them. I haven’t seen them since.”

  “You have no idea what she did with them?” Llewellyn asked.

  Reynard grinned. “None whatsoever.”

  “Send him back to his cell.” King Thomas dismissed Reynard with a casual flick of his wrist.

  The guards jostled him toward the door but, before Reynard left, he stopped and leaned down to glare into the wolf’s face. “I got everything I wanted. Your lands, your title, your wife, and I left you worse than dead. Dishonored. Broken. An animal living in the woods. What a delicious day that was when your wife propositioned me.” Reynard snorted. “But you’ve had your revenge full measure now, haven’t you? I and not you have ended up cursed. Cursed with a leper to wife. Oh yes, what a grand deal clever Reynard made that day. You’ve already had your revenge, my lord, on the pair of us, and now you know it.”

  The wolf curled back his lip.

  Reynard leaned in and said, so only the wolf could hear, “Even if I did have your clothes, I wouldn’t help you back to them.”

  ***

  The wolf snapped in Reynard’s face. Before events could further devolve, Llewellyn directed the guards, and they carried Reynard out between them.

  Llewellyn, for the past few minutes, had closely watched Alisoun, and he observed a new animation seeping into the rotting husk of her body. Ah, so she did not know her first husband was here. Not until this moment, when Reynard addressed himself to the wolf. Still she said nothing, though.

  “Well?” King Thomas snarled at the lady. “Ungrateful wretch that you are, you might still redeem yourself, gain a modicum of forgiveness in this world and the next, if you will tell us where those clothes are.”

  She laughed. “You do not scare me, my king. What threat could you possibly hold over a leper?” Her voice rasped, faltering to form words difficult to shape with a disfigured face.

  The king glowered.

  Llewellyn laid a hand on his shoulder. “By your leave, my lord?”

  King Thomas, face tense, went to lean against the door.

  Llewellyn knelt by the cripple on the bed and clasped her good hand in his. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the king recoil, but Llewellyn knew this disease and had no fear of contagion. “Lady Alisoun, when did you find out your husband was a werewolf?”

  She frowned, stretching her face into even more grotesque lines. “He always left me at the end of every month with no explanation.” Her enfeebled body stirred to life again under this blazing indignation. “I was his lady wife. I had a right to know where he went.” Her maimed hand convulsively patted the sheets at her side while her still-functioning appendage plucked at her gown. “If he was being unfaithful, I wanted the truth.”

  “Did you love Gabriel?”

  The question seemed to surprise her. Then, oddly, the gruesome lines of her face softened. She was not lovely, but she became less painful to look at. “I thought him everything a knight should be. Everything honorable and good. He was so kind, so gentle. And the way he looked at me. So proud. As if I was the greatest prize in the land, and he had won. I thought I had the best husband Nature could make.”

  ***

  Garwaf sighed. She had been a prize to him, an honor, an ornament, the final trophy with which to decorate his fine castle. The fact she had seen herself as such did not excuse his misconduct. He had regarded her as chattel and treated her accordingly. He had enjoyed admiring her, contemplating his great triumph in winning Alisoun for a bride. He had never actually talked to her. Not at their courtship, which, he remembered, had been all too brief.

  I think the night she confronted me about my absences was the first time I saw she had t
houghts and feelings of her own. And I wanted then, so much, to share all of myself with her. To let just one person in this world really know me. His thirst for acceptance had outweighed his discretion. I saw Alisoun only as my wife. I was naïve. I trusted without understanding her.

  “I badgered him,” Alisoun continued in a lower voice, sinking into her bed now the first blaze of her anger had burned itself out. “I would let him have no peace, and finally he told me.” The stricken lines of her face hardened. “He told me and turned my life into a nightmare. My husband was a monster, I was a fool, and all the power that I had worked so hard to achieve hung on a knife’s point. If he should ever have been discovered, I would have lost everything. The shame was not to be thought of, not to be endured. And the thought that I had let this creature touch me. That I had been longing to bear his brats.” She shuddered. “He had to pay for so defiling me. For so humiliating me.”

  I should have told her from the first. Garwaf hung his head.

  “So I cuckolded him with Reynard, and I stole his vile clothes so the world would forever be able to see what he really was.”

  “Lady, why did you not confront your lord with this when he told you his secret?” Llewellyn asked.

  Alisoun scoffed. “Unfold my mind to an animal? Bad enough I had lain with the creature, been deceived for so long. To what purpose should I have continued the charade and indulged the beast in believing he was human?”

  “He is not a beast!” The king’s face blanched with fury, a vein on his temple throbbing. “Even in the form you have trapped him in, he retains a dignity and understanding you could never aspire to have. He has a compassionate soul, which your curse has done nothing to tarnish. It is your wickedness that is to be condemned. Your betrayal. Your lies. Mayhap he should have told you from the first of his affliction, but you”—his lips curled back in repugnance—“you judged and condemned him at once, and in that same moment when he had most trusted you. You, my lady, took a man’s life away from him with never a thought of the blight you inflicted on his soul. With never a thought to spare for his humanity—humanity, which, I assure you, remains intact, no matter what his shape.”