Taming Red Riding Hood

by Lidiya Foxglove

  “Did Fendor and my grandmother—I mean—how do they know each other?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t think it’s my place to offer details, because she’s not much for giving them, but to be sure, if you ask her about having a relationship with a wolf she has a lot of opinions on the matter, most of them rather feisty. I know that, because I asked her about you. She said you’re likely to be easily distracted, half-wild, and frustrating beyond words—but also, hard to get rid of once your loyalties are set.” He smirked. “I guess that’s why he keeps coming around, eh?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Agnar

  The ride to Mardoon was a long and sobering one. It was difficult to ponder that my life might be, in essence, over, even as I was beside the girl I had hoped to have a future with.

  Fendor drove the cart with Patrick watching over the proceedings—I still wasn’t especially fond of him, but I had to admit he kept the proper distance from Fersa now—while Fersa and I sat on the bench in back. The weather was fine and it took just a few days to reach the castle of Arindora, where King Brennus and Queen Bethany held court. The humans of Pennarick quickly disappeared, replaced by the wood elves who made up most of the population. They dressed simply and were all rather rugged with cheerful country accents, even in the court itself.

  In all my years, I had never gone to the capital, and normally I would have been more interested. It was hard to think of such things now. Absurdly, my telescope stuck out in my mind. I had saved my coins for a long time to buy a telescope of my own. Now I might never look at the sky again.

  “Presenting Fendor, leader of the Endless Firs wolf clan.”

  I wished I could better appreciate this view of the inside of one of the great halls. I had never seen such a place before and I knew the walls, paneled in wood, were covered in centuries-old artwork of flora and fauna and the tapestries and armor on display were all historic. I dared to glance up and saw the scene of a wolf hunt, and decided it was well and good not to pay attention.

  King Brennus sat on his throne, a well-built man with red hair and a restless look about him. Queen Bethany seemed small and patient beside him, but her eyes were appraising. She was rather scandalously known as an author of novels and I wondered if my situation would be immortalized.

  “Greetings,” Brennus said. “I know what you’ve come for, but I don’t see any white haired wolfkin among ye. Please tell me we’re to have an end to all this mess.”

  “Aye, your majesty.” Fendor bowed slightly, doffing a battered straw hat. Fersa’s grandmother had produced clothes for him. “This fellow is the man you seek. Agnar Longtooth, yon white wolf.”

  Bethany leaned forward, squinting at me. “Him?”

  “It’s true,” I said. “But—“

  “You have black hair.”

  “I dyed it.”

  Some courtiers murmured. This seemed to add an extra note of scandal—a disguise.

  “I killed a blue stag when I was fifteen years old,” I said. “I know that is no excuse for the crime. I would give anything to turn the clock back and stop myself from doing it.”

  “You are very well spoken for a wolf,” the queen said. “Come a little closer?”

  “Are y’getting near sighted, my dear?” Brennus said. “I tell you, too much reading will do it.”

  I took a step closer to the queen and Brennus suddenly barked at me, “Your brothers were villains if I’ve ever met one! They killed my man and they were about to do unspeakable things to my wife. What do you say to that?”

  A sense of sudden despair washed over me, paired with a need to know answers to questions I shouldn’t ask. “Tell me—what happened to them.”

  “Brennus and I were…staying in a cabin together, for our honeymoon,” Queen Bethany said, a bit primly. “He had stepped out and your brothers came along. They tied me up with a rope and marched me out to a cabin in the woods. They spoke to me very crudely. I saved myself by promising to make them magic applesauce, but before long they grew impatient and they said they were going to rape me and eat me. I am not convinced they wouldn’t have done it, if Brennus hadn’t come in time. You don’t seem a thing like them, I will say that.”

  “I—I haven’t seen them since they were children.”

  Queen Bethany said, a little more softly, “Your brother, Ergar, said he wanted to attend the academy and have an education. They allowed him in. But he was…teased, by the other children, and he lost control. I think it was a very unfortunate situation. He seemed very angry at the world. And in pain…”

  I believed her. I wished I didn’t.

  I shut my eyes briefly. I was afraid to say anything else. I didn’t want to show emotion here. “Thank you for telling me, your majesty.”

  I tried not to look at Fersa. I was afraid she might blurt out something and make more trouble for me. I could feel her just beside me shifting her weight, trembling with indignation.

  “What are we to do with him?” Brennus asked. “He has admitted his crime.”

  “His crime was wanting to know about the moon and stars,” Fersa said.

  I cringed. It just sounded stupid now. I was cursed with the bad decisions of my fifteen year old self.

  “He’s been an upstanding fellow in our town,” Patrick said. “He’s been working as a tutor and by all accounts, no one’s had the least bit of trouble with him. I’ve heard he is patient and good with the children, even young Robert Powers who’s had consumption and by all reports is a sour little boy. I’ve encountered the man many times and seen him display good manners and friendly conduct.”

  Fendor scoffed. “Some wolf he is. Your majesty, if you please. None of the clans want anything to do with this. Wolves ain’t meant for learning. Does funny things to our heads, as you can see. I’d guess he might be a half-human or elf bastard, in which case you can weigh his human half. We have already decided our punishment: banishment, plain and simple.”

  “Hmm,” Queen Bethany said. “Is that true? Is there any chance your father was a human or elf?”

  “Oh, what does it matter, lass,” Brennus said. “Either way, we’ve just got to address what he did and appease the forest, so we can be done with it.”

  “I would like to talk to him alone. Give the men their gold and send them on their way,” Queen Bethany said.

  Brennus looked bemused by his wife’s order. “She’s probably going to make a book out of you,” he told me.

  While I’m locked up in prison?

  A man ushered Fendor out. “I want to stay! Please!” Fersa cried, but Patrick put an arm around her shoulders and said, “Let them speak.” Damn the man, he was still thinking of swooping in on her.

  “There isn’t much I can say anymore,” I said stiffly. “But I do think it’s bad form to write a book about a man who can’t tell his side of the story.”

  “Mr. Longtooth—“

  “Mr. Arrowen, please,” I said, although I was probably pushing my luck.

  “Do you know a man named Alvo Giardi?” Queen Bethany asked.

  “He was my first teacher,” I said, glancing around. Was he here? And if so, would it be in my defense, or would it be the final blow?

  “After what happened with your brothers, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story Ergar told me. As terrifying as he was, his story haunted me. I wanted to write a happier ending for him, even if only in fiction, but first I’ve been doing some research on the wolvenfolk. I have a book I think you ought to see.” She held out a leather-bound tome.

  Taming the Wolf: An Account of Experiments in Educating and Civilizing the Boy-Child, Agnar of the Wolf Clans, by Alvo Giardi.

  I opened the book with a sense of rising betrayal. I already knew what would be inside.

  “I should have destroyed them,” I said in a whisper.

  He had taken all of the notes and turned them into a narrative, the story of how he, the wise intellectual Alvo Giardi, had attempted to “bestow the benefits of civilization” upon me, a
nd how I had continually failed to truly appreciate them. All of my struggles, my tempers and my stupid questions were written down and twisted so that I seemed like a primitive creature who could never hope to match the wisdom of my munificent benefactor. And yet, the reader would surely cheer when I did finally grasp some new concept, after all the pages detailing Alvo’s hopelessness that I ever would.

  “He’s the wolf child in the book?” Brennus asked.

  “Yes,” Bethany said. “You are, aren’t you?”

  “This—bastard,” I said, leaving out a few words I dared not say in front of royalty. “He’s the one who told me to kill the blue stag in the first place. He seemed like he wanted to help me, and all along he wanted to write a book.”

  “Mm,” Bethany said. “It really isn’t a very nice thing for an author to do. And it was a bestseller back in Lainsland, and on the continent! Clearly people are hungry for this sort of story…”

  “Oh, I don’t know about where this is all going,” Brennus muttered.

  “We could write a rebuttal,” Queen Bethany said, her eyes lighting up.

  “A rebuttal?”

  “The real story. After all, my lord, you said I should stick to writing true stories from now on,” Bethany told the king.

  “The forest wants his head, lass. The trees told me, all the Longtooth brothers must be dead.”

  “Where did the name ‘Arrowen’ come from?” Bethany asked.

  I almost smiled. That was a fond memory. “It came from a woman I taught to read,” I said. “She was my mother’s age, a widow who needed a boarder to pay her rent after her husband and son had been taken by the black fever. She’d always wanted to learn but she came from a farming family and no one taught her, nor would her husband take the time. I was happy to do it. We became friends, I should say, and she knew that I didn’t want to use the name I was given. She told me to take hers, since her son would not have it any longer.”

  “Well, there we have it!” Bethany said. “You must officially give him a new name. He can’t be a Longtooth anymore, he will have to be an Arrowen.”

  “I don’t know, lass…”

  “You tell me that the king of the wood elves can’t give a man a new name and smooth things over with the forest?”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, we’ll write the bestseller, and then…” She patted her stomach. “We’ll need a patient tutor who is good with children. A fair penance, I’d say.”

  “Lass, you get me in more trouble by the day,” King Brennus said.

  “Don’t pretend to be surprised.” The queen smiled at him and then motioned to one of the attendants. “Show Mr. Arrowen to that little upstairs room overlooking the garden.”

  Chapter

  Fersa

  Fendor was still complaining about wolves who “step outside their station” and I finally couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Be quiet or I’ll bite you! You don’t dare bite me back either!”

  Patrick held me back. “Fersa, I know you’re upset—“

  “Upset?”

  “It’ll be all right… Maybe his sentence won’t be forever, and you’ve still got your family.”

  “Don’t try to make things better when you can only make them worse!”

  The door of the great hall flung open, and Agnar walked out. He looked at me. A guard was standing next to him. I couldn’t bear it. “Don’t—“ I wiped away a tear. “What if I’m already pregnant?”

  Agnar flew toward me, pulled me against him, and gave me a stunning kiss. I didn’t respond at first because it was the last thing I expected.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Because…I think everything’s all right.” He cupped my face between his hands and half-kissed, half-nipped my face a few times.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “The queen has offered me a place here. Come on.”

  “Fersa?” I heard Patrick call behind me, as Agnar gripped my hand. “Are you coming back to Pennarick?”

  “I—I don’t know. I’ll be back in a moment!” I had to walk fast to keep up with Agnar.

  “I’m sorry. I’m relieved, that’s all. I’ve been carrying around this terrible thing for so long.” He paused. “And my brothers— Well, I’m just glad I won’t let you down.”

  “We’re living here? What about my family?”

  Some of his excitement slid away. “It’s only a few days’ travel to visit.”

  “Maybe Katherine is better taken in smaller doses anyway.” I brightened. “And elf women don’t wear corsets! But…Father was so excited to have me nearby.”

  “I also didn’t consider that maybe you don’t have the best opinion of elves.”

  “Nah, it’s the high elves I don’t care for,” I said, as we followed the guard up the stairs. I didn’t even know where we were going. “It’s all just very unexpected.”

  The guard showed us into a little room, a sort of drafty attic spot with a bed, a little table with two chairs and a writing desk, and a hearth with a few cooking implements. A window looked out over a beautiful garden.

  “Your room, sir,” the guard said. He bowed a little and left us alone to explore it, what little of it there was.

  Agnar looked at me. “It’s not Meadow Lost Manor.”

  “It’s not even Grandmother’s cabin.”

  “No. It’s not. It’s just…the only place I have now, I think.”

  “One prison for another, and another, and another…” I walked to the window. “But that is a much better garden.”

  “Fersa…if you don’t want—”

  I stopped and put a finger over his lips. “No, my love. I told you I would wear silver bands for you, if that’s what I had to do. I would be human for you. The wolf in me knew from the start that you were mine, but it’s the human in me that will keep you.”

  He crouched on one knee and took my hand. “Then, what human there is in me will ask if you’ll be Mrs. Agnar Arrowen. I shall buy you a ring.”

  “Yes, Agnar. I will! On one condition.”

  “What is that?

  “That Agnar Longtooth will fuck me on that bed right now because it’s been a long ride in that cart.”

  He took my wrist and tugged me close enough that he could sweep an arm around me. “Aye, my love. As rough and hard as you please.”

  Epilogue

  Agnar

  The forest is the place of mystery, the place where mortals vanish. When we die in the forest, our bones are quickly covered by moss and leaves and eaten by those that still live, and soon we are gone. But forests have long memories, too. I didn’t know if I would ever be forgiven. Brennus named me Agnar Arrowen, and he spoke to the forest with his wife’s scheme in mind, and the best he could do was a promise to keep me locked in his castle, never to set a single foot in the forest again.

  It was a bitter sentence for a wolf, even a strange wolf.

  Within a year, Fersa had borne two kits, one black-haired boy and one silver-haired girl, named Ergar—the name of my father as well as my brother—and Remma, after her mother. They both had a tendency to shift into wolves and howl all night long. We had to cuff them much of the time until they were old enough to understand, for the sake of the neighbors and to protect other babies and easily alarmed elves. Fersa sobbed while my heart broke in silence, although she was able to take them into the woods here and there—without me. Queen Bethany had a red-headed boy who was very advanced for his age, but terrified of my babes when they shifted into wolves, and also terrified of most everything else.

  “Forget letters! You’ll have to teach him to be brave!” she said. “He’s going to be king someday.”

  I was looking forward to that. I think wolves have an inherent knack for being brave—to the point of making foolish decisions. But no one had asked me to teach a child to be brave before. All three of them, I thought, my own children and the young prince, were my best chance to make amends for abandoning my own family.

  Despite these
pains, life was happy. Another year went by in a blink. I no longer worried I was one mistake away from prison or death. There were the joys of libraries and long walks in the garden and the relaxed nature of court life in Arindora. Fersa and I played with the babes and put them to bed and then…we played a bit with each other, shall we say. Fersa paid a visit to Pennarick every few months but she was terrible about writing letters, even if I let her dictate to me. My wife still could barely read but she was learning to play the lute by ear.

  “I don’t care what you say, it makes more sense to me,” she said defensively.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  Queen Bethany and I had barely worked on that book yet. I think she was writing another romance although she tried to pretend otherwise.

  I couldn’t help it, though. When the heat came upon me, it wasn’t enough that I had a wife. I wanted to run with her, run as wolves. I was drawn to the forest, to the wild land visible outside the towers of Arindora. A vast forest stretched just outside of the city. The forest where my kin had died. I couldn’t concentrate on anything; I could only stare out at the trees.

  Fersa found me there. “My poor caged wolf.”

  “I want to ask for forgiveness.”

  “You want to go there?”

  I took her hand. “Will you go with me?”

  “And leave the children? What if the forest doesn’t forgive you?”

  “To this day, we have never run together as wolves.”

  Her eyes glinted. She felt it too; she couldn’t resist. We were just as foolish as we ever were. “All right.”

  Fersa

  We shifted back into our naked skin, both at once, while we were locked together. “Agnar, you naughty dog…”

  “Ah, Fersa, my naughty little bitch…”

  My forearms were buried in the snow now, and I shivered but I was also burning with heat as he mounted me from behind, his cock pumping hard into my pussy, his chest against my back, his arms surrounding mine. He nipped at my shoulder. My hair spilled onto the forest floor.