Beauty and the Werewolf

by Mercedes Lackey

  He was right about that—even if she had no intention of remaining here for that long.

  “Truce,” she said, still keeping her voice and expression neutral. For now, she added, internally, rather glad that she was not pledging a time period.

  “Good enough.” He studied her a moment and she did not flinch from his stare. “Sebastian says there is no place in the Manor that you can’t go. So it’s just as well that my house is outside the Manor. I’ll ask you to stay out of it as I like my privacy. And pledge you that I’ll stay out of your rooms unless you invite me there. I’ll go further than that—I won’t set foot in the corridor that leads to the guest apartments where you are. That should set your mind at ease about my intentions.”

  “That’s reasonable,” she replied, even though her hand itched to slap him, because there was an undertone in his voice when he had said unless you invite me there that suggested that he fully expected that she would. He really did think his charms could not be resisted!

  “I’ll also warn you about wandering down to the dungeon on nights of the full moon.” He gave her an opaque look. “If you are curious about Sebastian on those nights—stifle it. Though I realize that asking a woman to stifle her curiosity is a little like asking a mule not to be stubborn.”

  He smirked, and she quietly counted to ten, because she was getting close to losing her temper with him. Again. It seemed that was going to happen on a regular basis with this man. It was as if he was going out of his way to say the most provoking things.

  “Seriously, now,” he continued, “I don’t know how he got out two nights ago, but you should have the image of when he savaged your foot branded in your mind. You have seen the wolf. You really do not need to see him any closer or clearer. He nearly killed you. Think of that if you’re tempted. He’s all right alone down there. He just paces and growls and digs at the door, but put prey in front of him? I wouldn’t make a bet on the door holding. I’ve never gone down there once he changes, and I’ve been in charge of him since it started. So don’t be foolish.”

  His expression said the opposite—that he fully expected her to take this as a challenge, or that telling her not to do something was a guarantee that she would do it.

  He really did not have a high opinion of females, at all.

  “I heard him howling last night,” she said, instead of answering him directly. “It was fairly bloodcurdling. It’s not the sort of sound that would tempt me into coming down for a visit.”

  “He doesn’t howl like that, usually,” Eric told her. “But this is the first time he’s gotten out to hunt, and that might have changed something. Must have been because he scented you here in the manor, and you were the prey that escaped him.”

  But…I didn’t, she thought, startled. I didn’t escape. He stopped attacking. Why did he stop?

  She started to tell Eric that, and something made her pause. Instead, she nodded. “Is it just for the three nights of the full moon?” she asked him. “Is that the only time he changes?”

  “That’s what it’s been before. I don’t know why things should be different now.” Now, at last, he moved, pushing himself away from the door frame and taking a step away from her. “Tonight should be the last night for a month that you’ll need to worry about it. If he howls and you can’t get to sleep, stuff wax in your ears. I might see you at supper tomorrow night. It depends on if I have anything I need to discuss with Sebastian.”

  And with that, he just walked away down the corridor into the Manor, without so much as a polite goodbye, leaving her exasperated, a little intrigued and, to tell the truth, a little afraid.

  The other three suites of rooms in her corridor were a great deal like the one she already was in. The only difference was that two of them looked out on the wall, the gates and the front courtyard, the one she had found herself in when she first arrived. That, at least, oriented her. And it looked as if no one had used these rooms in years, of course. There was a slight musty smell, and a hint of damp, exactly as you would expect from rooms that had been closed up, unaired, for all that time.

  Since she saw nothing to recommend them over the ones she was currently using, she just shut the door on them again, and went down to dinner.

  She saw to her pleasure that her orders for the meal had been filled exactly. Sebastian was not there, and neither was Eric, but a few moments after she sat down and the invisible servant filled her plate, the Duke arrived.

  “I hope you slept well,” he said, as he sat down. “The door seems to have held last night.” The servant tended to him, and he began eating hungrily without appearing to notice that there was not the superabundance of food that there had been at the past two meals they had shared. “All I can guess is that for some reason, the latch didn’t set. I wish the servants could talk—they might be able to tell me something.”

  But they can—she thought.

  “Then again, they probably don’t come down there when I change, and I wouldn’t blame them.” He sighed, and reapplied himself to his food. “At any rate, I’m still waiting for word from the Godmother, personally, although I have been sent a message from her people that she does know about the situation, and you are still to be held here for three months until we know for certain that you aren’t going to turn.”

  She opened her mouth in indignation, then closed it again. The Godmother was the highest authority on magic in this and several other Kingdoms. There really was no reasonable objection that she could make.

  “I’ve also gotten word that she is going to send something along so you can at least keep an eye on your family,” he continued. “We should have it in a day or two. That way you’ll know that your father is all right, although the King has promised me to make sure that your family is watched over properly.”

  Watched over properly. And how is the King going to make sure that the household runs smoothly, that Genevieve doesn’t turn to some quack who will actually harm her, that father doesn’t fret himself to pieces over me? “And what has my father been told?” she asked, subdued, a lump in her throat threatening to choke her. The thought of him being afraid for her, or worse, grieving over her—it was just too hard to bear.

  “I don’t know.” He stopped eating and looked up at her. He had that expression again; the one that looked like a puppy that knows it has done something wrong, but doesn’t quite know what it could be. “That would have been the King’s business, and I don’t know what he decided to do in cases like this. I mean, obviously he has to say something, and it can’t be ‘Oh, I am very sorry, but I’ve had to send your daughter off and she’s never coming back’ because it’s even odds that you are coming back and he wouldn’t want to have to explain how that happened and—”

  Strangely enough, the running stream of words broke the weight of despair that had begun to form. Sebastian was just trying so hard to reassure her, yet tell her the truth at the same time, and failing at both!

  He stopped. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?” he asked, sheepishly.

  “Yes, you are,” she said, dryly.

  “It comes of not having anyone to talk to, I suppose. Eric isn’t exactly a good conversationalist and there’s no one else, really.” Now he looked down at his plate. “It’s rather nice, actually, having someone across the table from me. I mean, I know it’s horrible for you, but it’s nice for me.”

  Her tone became so dry it practically sucked all the moisture out of the air. “I’m glad to hear that I’m being useful.”

  He looked up quickly, blushed and looked down again. “I really am bungling this.”

  She took pity on him; he couldn’t possibly be feeling as awful about all this as she was, but on the other hand, he was doing his best to make the horrible situation as comfortable as it could be. “Oh, I don’t know, I suppose if I were in your place I’d be babbling, too.”

  The face he presented to her was full of such gratitude that she was touched. “You are being incredibly decent about this,” he said warmly. �
�I mean, really, truly decent. Better than I deserve.”

  “I would have to agree with that statement.” But she was smiling as she said that. “On the other hand, you actually are attempting to make things up to me. I know very well that the King could have just ordered me thrown in one of his dungeons for three months. Or you could have sealed me up in one of the cells downstairs for a similar length of time.”

  “I am going to have to do that for the three nights of the full moon next month,” he pointed out. “Or the first one, at least, because you might turn, and we can’t have you loose. But there’s no reason to throw you into a cell now. I mean, you know what’s at risk here, and the very last thing someone like you is going to do would be to try to run off and put people in danger. Right?”

  Numbly, she nodded. It was something that she had avoided thinking about, but he was right. She couldn’t leave, not until they knew for certain that she was safe. She’d heard enough stories; the first thing that a werewolf would seek to kill was the person it loved best.

  He crumpled his napkin. “Look, I don’t know how to entertain young ladies very well. Is there anything, anything at all that I can do to make things better for you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” she replied, feeling a little more mollified. “I don’t know… I think, besides my family, I am going to miss music a lot. I don’t have the usual sort of education—I can’t play or sing worth listening to, but I love listening to it. My stepsisters sing very well, and I go to as many musical gatherings as I can. And there are street musicians, very good ones…I miss that already.”

  “Oh. I was going to point out that we have a music room, but I suppose…” He looked thoughtful. “I don’t see any reason why the servants couldn’t play for you.”

  She blinked. “They can play?”

  “I can arrange it so they can. Or rather, I can summon ones that are musicians if the ones I have can’t. That’s how it works, you see, I summon servants with the skills I need.” He brightened up considerably. “How many do you need? One? Three? A dozen?” A dozen musicians, all at her beck and call? She felt suddenly dazzled by the mere thought. Only the King had that many musicians in his regular retinue. “It’s not easy,” he continued, “but as you pointed out, I really owe it to you. I’ll do what I need to do in order to make you a little happier here.”

  “First find out if any of the ones you have are musicians,” she told him, hastily. “Then we’ll see.”

  “But I—” He paused. “Well, I could assemble them in the music room and tell them all that if any of them can play, they should go to an instrument and do so. I’m not sure how else I could tell. It might just be simpler to summon some, don’t you think?”

  Oh, bother. Not telling him I can communicate with them, not telling him that they are intelligent, makes no sense at all. “They can write, you know,” she told him. “At least two of them can.”

  “They can what?” he demanded, looking at her as if she had grown a second head.

  “They can write. You know, you just aren’t asking the right questions when it comes to your servants. Not all of them are stupid, and not all of them just obey blindly.” She shook her finger at him. “And here you are supposed to be the all-powerful wizard and you don’t even know that about your own creatures!”

  She almost asked him if he had ever considered actually trying to talk to these servants of his, but the answer was obvious; he hadn’t.

  “They aren’t supposed to be intelligent,” he was saying, looking bewildered. “The books all say so. Every single one of the books says that they are completely stupid and that without exact orders they just stand there until you tell them exactly what to do.”

  She had to laugh at that, and did. “Well, I suppose that this comes under that heading of ‘out of the mouths of fools and babes’—I didn’t know, so I didn’t assume anything. I was talking to them, and two of them found a way to talk back to me.”

  He laughed with her, though it sounded rueful. “I hate to ask you this, but—would you find out what they can do? Obviously they aren’t as simple as I thought they were.”

  “Of course, what else have I to do?” she replied. “How many are there?”

  “Only about a hundred and twenty,” he said.

  “A—hundred and twenty?” That was—that was a truly insane number. Why would he need so many? She could only gape at him.

  “More or less. I’m not exactly sure, really. You see, when things needed doing and weren’t getting done, I just rested up for a few days and summoned some more.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, then pushed his glasses back up again with one finger. “It wasn’t all at once. I started doing it just after my father died because the servants kept leaving. Didn’t like Eric being in charge, you see.”

  Oh, hold back my surprise. That was uncharitable, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it.

  He shrugged, clearly unable to understand why he had been deserted. And there was some hurt there; she got the feeling he felt betrayed. “I suppose all they knew was that he had been a servant, and now he’d got above himself. They couldn’t imagine why a fellow servant suddenly got put in charge of everything.”

  I rather doubt that. You can’t hide anything from the servants. Even if no one outside the Manor knew he was your kin, it was certainly old news to them. Still, what he said could have some truth to it. It was entirely possible that the rest of the servants had resented Eric all along. Elevating him to Steward in fact if not in name could have just brought all that to a head.

  Unexpectedly, she found herself pitying the man. No wonder he had an attitude…if he’d been hidden by the Old Duke rather than acknowledged, and was snubbed by those who thought he was only a servant, but resented by those who were below him, well…

  I can’t say my temper would be sweet.

  “Anyway, I’d learned and mastered the spell to summon these creatures. The Godmother approved of my doing so, and supervised me the first six months, so I just started replacing the servants who left. Then the servants that remained got unsettled by the invisible ones, and started leaving, too.” He looked as if his head was paining him, and she could certainly sympathize there. “I can’t really blame them for being unsettled, but I would have thought they would at least give it a trial. It’s not that hard to get used to them, and they can’t hurt you. Well, look at you! You’ve not gotten all upset about being around them! Not even two days here, and you’re already talking with them!”

  She choked down what she was thinking—that he had to be particularly dense when it came to human nature to think that she was going to have a typical reaction to being surrounded by floating objects borne by things unseen. If such a thing had happened in her household, the servants would have left without collecting their possessions. And they were loyal to her!

  “Anyway, I just kept summoning until there seemed to be enough of them to get everything done. So will you talk to them for me?” he repeated, looking at her with big, pleading eyes over the rim of his spectacles. “Please?”

  She sighed. How could she possibly say no?

  Besides, what else have I to do?

  “All right,” she agreed.

  Within an hour, she realized that she had taken on something far more time-consuming than she had thought, as she settled down with Verte and Sapphire to figure out what, exactly, she could do.

  This is going to be a great deal more complicated than I thought possible. In fact…I am beginning to wish Eric was right.

  Just to begin with, Sebastian had underestimated the number of creatures he had summoned.

  Either that, or they are breeding. Or bringing friends and relations.

  There were well over two hundred just associated with the house and grounds. She was ready to pull out every hair on her head in frustration. “How many, exactly?” she asked Verte, aghast.

  “216” came the prompt reply. A headache immediately started just behind
her eyes. How would she ever come up with names for all of them? Not to mention organizing—

  But no—she was making work for herself that she didn’t need to.

  Wait, they are already organized. Sebastian said he just conjured up one when things needed doing. And since the household is running smoothly with minor problems like making too much food, then they must have organized themselves.

  That meant that there might only be a fraction that were more than Sebastian thought them to be. “How many of them are as clever as you and Sapphire and Thyme, Verte?” she asked.

  “43. Most very stupid.”

  The headache started to fade, as she heard that number. That was more manageable. “So, most of you are just what Sebastian thought—very simple creatures that just do a single job. Like, oh, the animated broom in the tale of ‘The Sorcerer’s Lazy Apprentice.’”

  Verte was smart enough to realize that was a question framed as a statement. “Yes.” Or rather “Y,” for Verte had also mastered abbreviations. Their own communication was getting easier with every passing hour.

  “So the smart ones supervise the stupid ones?” she asked. That made sense; presumably they could see each other, and communicate, too.

  “Yes.”

  The headache faded to almost nothing. This was looking more promising. “I would imagine that all of the kitchen staff are smart ones,” she said, thinking out loud, but was pleased with Verte’s confirmation of that. “And most of the household staff. All of Sebastian’s, of course. What about Eric’s staff?”

  “All stupid but one. Smart one hides.”

  Aha. “You mean, ‘hides,’ as in keeps Eric from knowing it is smart?” she asked, thinking that if she were a smart invisible, that was what she would do. If he knew that they were intelligent, he’d begin ordering them to do a lot more.