‘I don’t think this beast is a monkey,’ Ishraq said, carefully. ‘I think this beast can speak.’
‘Like a parrot?’ Isolde asked.
They both watched Freize lean down and the beast reach up. They saw Freize pass a scrap of bread and apple down to the beast and the beast take it in his paw, not in his mouth – take it in his paw and then sit on his haunches and eat it, holding it to his mouth like a big squirrel.
‘Not like a parrot,’ Ishraq said. ‘I think it can speak like a Christian. We cannot kill it, we cannot stand by and see it killed until we know what it is. Clearly it is not a wolf, but what is it?’
‘It’s not for us to judge.’
‘It is,’ Ishraq said. ‘Not because we are Christians – for I am not. Not because we are men – for we are not. But because we are like the beast: outsiders that other people dread. People don’t understand women who are neither wives nor mothers, daughters nor confined. People fear women of passion, women of education. I am a young woman of education, of colour, of unknown religion and my own faith, and I am as strange to the people of this little village as the beast. Should I stand by and see them kill it because they don’t understand what it is? If I let them kill it without a word of protest, what would stop them coming for me?’
Ishraq laughed awkwardly. ‘You might be strange to them; but nobody would think you are a beast.’
‘At the first moment that something went wrong, something that frightened them, something that they could not understand. At that moment, believe me, they would look around for something that was strange to them and they would see me. And in the next moment they would call me a beast. So that they could kill me like a beast.’
‘Will you tell Luca this?’
Ishraq shrugged. ‘What’s the use? He’s listening to the bishop, he’s not going to listen to me.’
At about two in the afternoon the men agreed on what was to be done and the bishop stepped out to the doorstep of the inn to announce their decision. ‘If the beast transforms into a full wolf at midnight then the heretic woman will shoot it with a silver arrow,’ he ruled. ‘The villagers will bury it in a crate packed with wolfsbane at the crossroads and the blacksmith will hammer a stake through its heart.’
‘My wife will bring the wolfsbane,’ Raul Rossi volunteered. ‘God knows she grows enough of it.’
‘If the beast does not transform . . .’ The bishop raised his hand, and raised his voice, against the murmur of disbelief. ‘I know, good people, that you are certain that it will . . . but just suppose that it does not . . . then we will release it to the authorities of this village, the lord and yourself, Master Mugnaio, and you may do with it what you will. Man has dominion over the animals, given to him by God. God Himself has decreed that you can do what you want with this beast. It was a beast running wild near your village, you caught it and held it, God has given you all the beasts into your dominion – you may do with it what you wish.’
Mugnaio nodded grimly. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that the beast would not last long after it was handed over to the village.
‘They will hack it to pieces,’ Ishraq muttered to Isolde.
‘Can we stop them?’ she whispered back.
‘I don’t know.’
‘And now,’ the bishop ruled, ‘I advise you to go about your business until midnight when we will all see the beast. I myself am going to the church where I will say Vespers and Compline and I suggest that you all make your confessions and make an offering to the church before coming to see this great sight which has been wished upon your village.’ He paused. ‘God will smile on those who donate to the church tonight,’ he said. ‘The angel of the Lord has passed among you, it is meet to offer him thanks and praise.’
‘What does that mean?’ Ishraq asked Isolde.
‘It means: “pay up for the privilege of a visit from a bishop”,’ Isolde translated.
‘You know, I thought it did.’
There was nothing to do but to wait until midnight. Freize fed the beast after dinner and it came and sat at his feet and looked up at him, as if it would speak with him, but it could find no words. In turn Freize wanted to warn the beast, but with its trusting brown eyes peering at him through its matted mane he found he could not explain what was to happen. As the moon rose, man and beast kept a vigil with each other, just as the bishop was keeping vigil in the church. The beast’s leonine head turned up to Freize as he sat, darkly profiled against the starlit sky, murmuring quietly to it, hoping that it would speak again; but it said nothing.
‘It would be a good time now for you to say your name, my darling,’ he said quietly. ‘One “God bless” would save your life. Or just “good” again. Speak, beast, before midnight. Or speak at midnight. Speak when everyone is looking at you. But speak. Make sure you speak.’
The animal looked at him, its eyebrows raised, its head on one side, its eyes bright brown through the tangled hair. ‘Speak, beast,’ Freize urged him again. ‘No point being dumb if you can speak. If you could say “God bless” they would account it a miracle. Can you say it? After me? “God bless”?’
At eleven o’clock the people started to gather outside the stable door, some carrying billhooks and others scythes and axes. It was clear that if the bishop did not order the animal shot with the silver arrow then the men would take the law into their own hands, cleave it apart with their tools or tear it apart with their bare hands. Freize glanced through the door and saw some men at the back of the crowd levering up the cobbles with an axe head, and tucking the stones into their pockets.
Ishraq came out of the inn to find Freize, reaching down into the bear pit to give the beast a morsel of bread and cheese.
‘They are certain to kill it,’ she said. ‘They have not come for a trial; they have come to see it die.’
‘I know,’ he nodded.
‘Whatever sort of beast it is, I doubt that it is a werewolf.’
He shrugged. ‘Not having seen one before, I couldn’t say.
But this is an animal which seeks contact with humans, it’s not a killer like a wolf, it’s more companionable than that. Like a dog in its willingness to come close, like a horse in its shy pride, like a cat in its indifference. I don’t know what sort of beast it is. But I would put my year’s wages on it being an endearing beast, a loving beast, a loyal beast. It’s a beast that can learn, it’s a beast that can change its ways.’
‘They’re not going to spare it on my word or yours,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Not on any word from either of us. Nobody listens to the unimportant. But the little lord might save it.’
‘He’s got the bishop against him, and the bishop’s scholars.’
‘Would your lady speak up for it?’
She shrugged. ‘Who ever listens to a woman?’
‘No man of any sense,’ he replied instantly and was pleased to see the gleam of her smile, at the joke.
She looked down at the beast. It looked up at her and its ugly truncated face seemed almost human. ‘Poor beast,’ she said.
‘If it was a fairytale you could kiss it,’ Freize volunteered. ‘You could bend down and kiss it and it would become a prince. Love can make miracles with beasts, so they say. But no! Forgive me, I remember now, that you don’t kiss. Indeed, you throw a good man down in the mud for even thinking that you might.’
She did not respond to his teasing, but for a moment she looked very thoughtful. ‘You know, you’re right. Only love can save it,’ she said. ‘That is what you have been showing from the moment you first saw it. Love.’
‘I wouldn’t say that I. . .’ Freize started, but in that moment she was gone.
In a very little while, the head of the village, Guglielmo Mugnaio, hammered at the gate of the inn and Freize and the inn servant opened the great double doors to the stable yard. The villagers flooded in and took their places on the tables that surrounded the outer wall of the arena, just as they would for a bear baiting. The
men brought strong ale with them, and their wives sipped from their cups, laughing and smiling. The young men of the village came with their sweethearts, and the cook in the kitchen sold little cakes and pies out of the kitchen door, while the maids ran around the stable yard selling mulled ale and wine. It was an execution and a party: both at once.
Ishraq saw Sara Rossi arrive, a great basket of wolfsbane in her arms, and her husband followed behind, leading their donkey loaded with the herb. They tied the donkey in the archway and came into the yard, their boy with his usual sprig of wolfsbane in his hat.
‘You came,’ Isolde said warmly, stepping forwards. ‘I am glad that you are here. I am glad that you felt you could come.’
‘My husband thought that we should,’ Sara replied, her face very pale. ‘He thought it would satisfy me to see the beast dead at last. And everyone else is here. I could not let the village gather without me, they shared my sorrow. They want to see the end of the story.’
‘I am glad you came,’ Isolde repeated. The woman clambered up on the trestle table beside Ishraq, and Isolde followed her.
‘You have the arrowhead?’ the woman asked Ishraq. ‘You are going to shoot it?’
Without a word, the young woman nodded and showed her the longbow and the silver-tipped arrow.
‘You can hit it from here?’
‘Without fail,’ Ishraq said grimly. ‘If he turns into a wolf, then the Inquirer will see him turn, he will tell me to kill him, and I will do so. But I think he is not a wolf, nor anything like a wolf, not a werewolf nor any animal that we know.’
‘If we don’t know what it is, and can’t tell what it is, it’s better dead,’ the man said firmly, but Sara Rossi looked from the beast to the silver arrowhead and gave a little shiver. Ishraq gazed steadily at her and Isolde put her hand over the woman’s trembling fingers. ‘Don’t you want the beast dead?’ Isolde asked her.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know for sure if it took my child, I don’t know for sure if it is the monster that everyone says. And there is something about it that moves me to pity.’ She looked at the two young women. ‘You will think me very weak; but I am sorry for it,’ she said.
She was still speaking as the doors of the inn opened and Luca, Brother Peter and the bishop, the scholars, and the priests came out. Isolde and Ishraq exchanged one urgent glance. ‘I’ll tell him,’ Isolde said swiftly and jumped down from the stand and made her way to the door of the inn, pushing through the crowd to get to Luca.
‘Is it near to midnight?’ the bishop asked.
‘I have ordered the church bell to be tolled on the hour,’ one of the priests replied.
The bishop inclined his head to Luca. ‘How are you going to examine the supposed werewolf?’ he asked.
‘I thought I would wait till midnight, and watch it,’ Luca said. ‘If it changes into a wolf we will clearly be able to see it. Perhaps we should douse the torches so that the beast can feel the full effect of the moon.’
‘I agree. Put out the torches!’ the bishop ordered.
As soon as the darkness drowned the yard, everyone was silent, as if fearful of what they were doing. The women murmured and crossed themselves, and the younger children clung to their mothers’ skirts. One of them whimpered quietly.
‘I can’t even see it,’ someone complained.
‘No, there it is!’
The beast had shrunk back into its usual spot as the yard had filled with noisy people; now, in the darkness it was hard to see, its dark mane against the dark wood of the bear-pit wall, its dark skin concealed against the mud of the earth floor. People blinked and rubbed their eyes, waiting for the dazzle of the torches to wear off, and then Guglielmo Mugnaio said, ‘He’s moving!’
The beast had risen to its four feet and was looking around, swinging his head as if fearful that danger was coming but not knowing what was about to happen. There was a whisper like a cursing wind that ran around the arena as everyone saw him move, and most men swore that he should be killed at once. Freize saw people feeling for the cobbles they had tucked into their pockets, and knew that they would stone the beast to death.
Isolde got to Luca’s side and touched his arm; he leaned his head to listen. ‘Don’t kill the beast,’ she whispered to him.
At the side of the arena, Freize exchanged one apprehensive look with Ishraq, saw the gleam of the silver arrowhead and her steady hand on the bow, and then turned his gaze back to the beast. ‘Now gently,’ he said, but it could not hear his voice above the low curses that rumbled around it, and it pulled back its head and hunched its shoulders as if it was afraid.
Slowly, ominously, as if announcing a death, the church bell started to toll. The beast flinched at the noise, shaking its mane as if the sonorous clang was echoing in its head. Someone laughed abruptly, but the voice was sharp with fear. Someone said: ‘See? He hates the sacred bell. That’s proof!’ Everyone was watching as the final notes of the midnight bell died on the air and the full moon, bright as a cold sun, rose slowly over the roof of the inn and shone down on the beast as it stood at bay, not moving, sweating in its terror.
There was no sign of hair growing, there was no sign of the beast getting bigger. Its teeth did not grow, nor did it sprout a tail. It stayed on four legs, but the watchers, looking intently, could see that it was shivering, like a little deer will shiver when chilled by frost.
‘Is it changing?’ the bishop asked Luca. ‘I can’t see anything. I can’t see that it is doing anything.’
‘It’s just standing, and looking round,’ Luca replied. ‘I can’t see any hair growing, and yet the moon is full on it.’
Somebody in the crowd cruelly howled in a joking impression of a wolf, and the beast turned its head sharply towards the sound as if it hoped it were real, but then shrank back as it realised that it was a harsh jest.
‘Is it changing now?’ the bishop asked again, urgently.
‘I can’t see,’ Luca said. ‘I don’t think so.’ He looked up. A cloud, no bigger than a clenched fist, was coming up over the full moon, wisps of it already darkening the arena. ‘Maybe we should get the torches lit again,’ Luca said anxiously. ‘We’re losing the light.’
‘Is the beast changing to wolf?’ the bishop demanded even more urgently. ‘We will have to tell the people our decision. Can you order the girl to shoot it?’
‘I can’t,’ Luca said bluntly. ‘In justice, I cannot. It’s not turning to wolf. It’s in full moon, it’s washed in moonlight, and it’s not turning.’
‘Don’t shoot,’ Isolde said urgently to him.
It was getting swiftly darker as the cloud came over the moon. The crowd groaned, a deep, fearful sound. ‘Shoot it! Shoot it quickly!’ someone called.
It was pitch black now. ‘Torches!’ Luca shouted. ‘Get some torches lit!’
Suddenly there was a piercing terrible scream, and the sound of someone falling: a thud as she hit the ground and then a desperate scrabbling noise as she struggled to her feet.
‘What is it?’ Luca fought to the front of the crowd and strained his eyes, peering down into the darkness of the arena. ‘Light the torches! In God’s name what has happened?’
‘Save me!’ Sara Rossi cried out in panic. ‘Dear God, save me!’ She had fallen from the wall into the bear pit and was alone in the arena, her back pressed against the wooden wall, her eyes straining into the darkness as she looked for the beast. The animal was on its feet now, peering towards her with its amber eyes. It could see well in the darkness, though everyone else was blind. It could see the woman, her hands held out before her, as if she thought she could fend off fangs and pouncing claws.
‘Ishraq! Shoot!’ Luca shouted at her.
He could not see her dark hood, her dark eyes, but he could see the glint of the silver of the arrow, he could see the arrow on the string pointed steadily towards the dark shadow, which was the beast scenting the air, taking one hesitant step forwards. And then he heard her voice; but she was no
t calling to him, she was shouting down to Sara Rossi as she froze in terror, pinned against the wall of the arena.
‘Call him!’ Ishraq shouted to Sara. ‘Call the beast.’
The white blur of Sara’s frightened face turned up to Ishraq. ‘What?’ She was deaf with terror: too afraid to understand anything. ‘What?’
‘Don’t you know his name?’ Ishraq demanded gently, the silver arrow pointing unwaveringly at the beast slowly creeping closer.
‘How should I know the name of the beast?’ she whispered up. ‘Get me out! Get me up. For the love of God! Save me!’
‘Look at him. Look at him with your love. Who have you missed for all this time? What was his name?’
Sara stared at Ishraq as if she were speaking Arabic, and then she turned to the beast. It was closer still, head bowed, moving its weight from one side to the other, as if readying for a pounce. It was coming, without a doubt. It snarled, showing yellow teeth. Its head raised up, smelling fear; it was ready to attack. It took three stiff-legged steps forwards; now it would duck its head and run and lunge for her throat.
‘Ishraq! Shoot the beast!’ Luca yelled. ‘That’s an order!’
‘Call him,’ Ishraq urged the woman desperately. ‘Call him by the name you love most in the world.’
Outside the arena, Raul Rossi dashed to the stables shouting for a ladder, leaving his son frozen with horror on the bear-pit fence, watching his mother face the beast.
Everyone was silent. They could just see the beast in the flickering light of the two torches, could see it slowly coming towards the woman, in the classic stalk of a wolf, its head down, level with its hunched shoulders, its eyes on the prey, sinuously moving forwards.
Freize thrust one torch into Luca’s hand and readied himself to jump down into the bear pit with another flaming in his grip as Sara spoke: ‘Stefan?’ she asked in a hushed whisper. ‘Stefan? Is that you?’
The beast stopped, putting its head on one side.
‘Stefan?’ she whispered. ‘Stefan, my son? Stefan – my son?’
Order of Darkness Page 21