Three hearts and three lions

13

AFTERNOON FOUND THEM still descending, but at a gentler pace and in milder air than before lunch. The woodland, oak and beech and scattered firs, revealed signs of man: stumps, second growth, underbrush grazed off, razorback shoats, at last a road of sorts twisting toward the village Alianora expected they could reach today. Exhausted by his encounter with Balamorg, Holger drowsed in the saddle. Birdsong lulled him so that hours went by before he noticed that that was the only noise.

They passed a farmstead. The thatched log house and sheep-folds bespoke a well-to-do owner. But no smoke rose; nothing stirred save a crow that hopped in the empty pens and jeered at them. Hugi pointed to the trail. “As I read the marks, he drave his flocks toonward some days agone,” said the dwarf. “Why?”

The sunlight that poured through leafy arches felt less warm to Holger than it had.

At evening they emerged in cleared land. Ripening grainfields stretched ahead, doubtless cultivated by the villagers. The sun had gone down behind the forest, which stood black to the west against a few lingering red gleams. Eastward over the mountains, the first stars blinked forth. There was just enough light for Holger to see a dustcloud a mile or so down the road. He clucked at Papillon and the stallion broke into a weary trot. Alianora, who had amused herself buzzing the bats that emerged with sunset, landed behind the man and resumed her own species. “No sense in alarming yon folk,” she said. “Whate’er’s their trouble, ’twill ha’ made them shy enough.”

Hugi’s big nose snuffed the air. “They’re driving sheep and cattle within the walls,” he said. “Eigh, how rank wi’ sic smell! And yet’s a whiff underneath... sweat smells sharper when a man’s afeared... an’ a ghost o’ summat else, spooky.” He huddled back on the saddlebow, against Holger’s mailed breast.

The flocks were considerable. They spilled off the road and across the grain. The boys and dogs who ran about rounding up strays trampled swathes of their own. Some emergency must have forced this, Holger decided. He drew rein as several spearmen challenged him. Squinting through the dusk, he saw the peasants were a sturdy, fair-complexioned folk, bearded and long-haired, clad in rough wadmal coats and cross-gaitered pants. They were too stolid to be made hysterical, but the voices which asked his name were harsh with unease.

“Sir Holger du Danemark and two friends,” he said. No use explaining the long-winded truth. “We come in peace, and would like to stay the night.”

“’Olger?” A burly middle-aged man who seemed a leader let his spear down and scratched his head. “Have I not heard that name somewhere before, or its like?”

A murmur went among the men, but no one had an immediate answer and the livestock gave no time for reflection. Holger said quickly, “Whoever bears any such name is not me. I’m a stranger from afar, only passing through.”

“Well, sir, welcome to Lourville,” said the chief peasant. “I fear you come at an ill time, but Sir Yve will be glad to see you... You, there, head off that bloody-be-damned-to-hell heifer before she ends up in the next duchy!... My name’s Raoul, Sir ’Olger. Begging your pardon for this hurly-burly.”

“What’s the trouble?” asked Alianora. “I see ye’re housing your beasts within the toon this nicht, which ’twas scarce meant for.”

Holger overheard an older man mumble something about these foreign tourists and their scandalously unclad doxies. Someone else hushed him up: “I’ve heard of her, granther, a swan-may living a bit north and west of Lourville territory. They say she’s a kindly one.” Holger paid more attention to Raoul:

“Yes, m’lady, we’ve been grazing everybody’s stock in one herd, these last several days, and shutting them in the town after dark. This night, even the people must crowd within the walls; none dare be alone any more, on the outlying garths, when night’s fallen. A werewolf goes abroad.”

“Hoy, say ye so?” barked Hugi. “A skin-turner?”

“Aye. Much has gone wrong these past years, misfortune after misfortune in every household. My own ax slipped and laid my leg open this spring, and then did the same to my oldest son. We were three weeks abed, right in sowing time. Not a family but has some such tale. They—do say ’tis because of the marshalling in the Middle World beyond the mountains, sorcery grown so strong that its power reaches this far and turns everything awry. So they say.” Raoul crossed himself. “I don’t know, me. The loup-garou is the worst thing thus far. Christ guard us.”

“Could it not be a natural wolf that raided your folds?” Alianora asked. “Full oft I’ve heard folk say someone must be shape-strong, when in fact ’twas but a beast larger and more cunning than most.”

“That might have been,” said Raoul dourly, “though ’twas hard to see how a natural animal could have broken so many gates or lifted so many latches. Nor do true wolves slay a dozen sheep at a time, for mere sport, like a weasel. But last night the matter was settled. Pier Bigfoot and Bette his wife were in their cottage, three miles within the forest, when the gray one burst through the window and snatched their baby from the cradle. Pier struck with his billhook, and swears the iron passed through the wolf’s ribs without doing harm. Then Berte got wild and foolish, and hit the beast with an old silver spoon she had from her grandmother. He dropped the baby—not too badly hurt, by God’s grace—and fled out the window. I ask you, is that a natural animal?”

“No,” said Alianora, low and frightened.

Raoul spat. “So we’ll sleep within the town walls while this danger lasts, and let the wolf prowl untenanted woods. Mayhap we can discover who’s turning shape, and burn him.” In a gentler tone: “A great pity for Sir Yve, this, just when his daughter Raimberge was readying to travel west and wed the Marchgrave’s third son in Vienne. Pray God for a speedy end of our grief.”

“Our lord will not be able to entertain you as well as you deserve, Sir ’Olger,” added a boy. “He means to walk on the walls this whole night, lest the wolf overleap them. And his lady Blancheflor lies sick abed. But his son and daughter will do what they can.”

Holger supposed he should volunteer to help on sentry-go, but he didn’t think that after today he could stay awake. As she rode slowly on ahead of the flock, he asked Alianora to explain the menace.

“There be two ways that men take animal shape,” she answered. “One is by magic on a common human, as my own feather garb does for me whene’er I make the wish. The other is more darksome. Certain folk be born with twin natures. They need no spell to change form, and each nicht the desire to turn bear, or wild boar, or wolf, or whate’er the animal may be for the person... each nicht that desire overwhelms them. And then they run mad. Kind and sensible folk they may be when walking as humans, but as animals they canna cease wreaking harm till thee blood thirst is slaked, or till fear o’ discovery makes them go back into our form. Whilst beasts, they’re nigh impossible to kill, sith wounds knit upon the instant. Only silver pains them, and a silver weapon would slay. But from such they can run swifter nor any true flesh and blood.”

“If the, uh, werewolf can’t help it, then this local one must be a stranger, not so? A native would have been plaguing the district for years.”

“Nay. Methinks as yon crofter said, belike the creature is one o’ theirs. For a thin taint o’ warg blood micht go unnoticed, unknown, through a lifetime, not being strong enough to reveal itself. ’Tis only o’ late, when the witchcraft forces ha’ grown so, that the sleeping demon was wakened. I make no doubt the werewolf himself is horror-struck. God help him if e’er the folk learn who he be.”

“God help any un you fear-haggard yokels may decide on for the warg,” grunted Hugi.

Holger scowled as he rode on to the gate. It made sense, of the weird sort that prevailed in this universe. Werewolfery... what was the word?... oh, yes, lycanthropy was probably inherited as a set of recessive genes. If you had the entire set, you were a lycanthrope always and everywhere—and would most likely be killed the first time your father found a wolf cub in his baby’s cradle. With an incomplete inheritance, the tendency to change was weaker. It must have been entirely latent and unsuspected in the poor devil of a peasant who bore the curse hereabouts: until the redoubled sorcery in the Middle World blew over the mountains and reinforced whatever body chemistry was involved.

He peered through the gloaming. The village was surrounded by a heavy stockade, with a walkway on which Sir Yve would make his rounds tonight. Inside were jammed narrow wooden houses of two or three stories. The streets that wound among there were mere lanes, stinking from the muck of animals packed in each night. The one on which he entered was a little broader and straighter, but not much. A number of women in long dresses and wimples, shock-haired children, and aproned artisans gaped at him as he passed the gate. Most carried torches that flared and sputtered under the deep-purple sky. Their voices chattered respectfully low as they trailed him.

He stopped near a street leading to one side, a tunnel of blackness walled by the surrounding houses and roofed by their overhanging galleries. Silhouetted above the ridge poles, he could just see the top of a square tower which doubtless belonged to Sir Yve’s hall. He leaned toward a husky man, who tugged his forelock and said, “Odo the blacksmith, sir, at your service.”

Holger pointed down the alley. “Is this the way to your lord’s house?”

“Aye, sir. You, Frodoart, is master at home yet?”

A young man in faded scarlet hose, wearing a sword, nodded. “I did but now leave him, armed cap-a-pie, having a stoup of ale ere he mounts the walls. I am his esquire, Sir Knight. I’ll guide you thither. This place is indeed a maze.”

Holger removed his helmet, for his hair was dank with sweat after being iron-clad the whole day and the dusk breeze was cool if smelly. He couldn’t expect anything lavish at the hall, he realized. Sir Yve de Lourville was obviously not rich—a boondocks knight with a handful of retainers, guarding these environs against bandits and administering a rough justice. Raoul had been filled with civic pride at the daughter’s betrothal to a younger son of a minor noble, west in the Empire.

Oh, well , he thought, something to eat and a place to sleep is all I could make use of anyhow.

The esquire lifted a torch ahead of him. He patted Papillon for encouragement and started down the lane.

A woman shrieked.

Holger had slapped his helmet back on and drawn his sword before her cry ended. Papillon whirled about. The people drew close to each other; voices rose. The guttering torchlight threw unrestful shadows on the houses across the main street; their upper stories were lost in blackness. Every window was shuttered and door closed, Holger saw. The woman screamed again, behind one of those walls.

A shutter, fastened with an iron bolt, splintered. The shape that sprang forth was long and shaggy, gray as steel in the thick red-shot gloom. It had butted its way out. As it dropped to the street, the muzzle lifted off the chest. Gripped between the jaws there squirmed a naked infant.

“The wolf!” choked the blacksmith. “Holy Mary, we’ve locked the wolf in with us!”

The child’s mother appeared at the window. “It burst in from the rear,” she howled witlessly. She stretched her arms toward the beast and them all. “It burst in and snatched Lusiane! There she is, there she is, God strike you down, you men, get my Lusiane back!”

Papillon sped forward. The wolf grinned around the baby.

Blood was smeared on her pink skin, but she still cried thinly and struggled. Holger -hewed. The wolf wasn’t there. Uncannily swift, it had darted between Papillon’s legs and was off along the street.

Frodoart the esquire plunged to intercept it. The wolf didn’t even break stride as it sprang over him. Ahead was another alley mouth. Holger whirled Papillon around and galloped in pursuit. Too late, though, he thought, too late. Once into that warren of lightless byways, the wolf could devour its prey and turn human again long before any search could—

White wings whirred. Alianora the swan struck with her beak at the warg’s eyes. It laid its ears back, twisted aside, and streaked toward the next exit. She swooped in front of it. Like a snowstorm full of buffetings, she halted the runner.

Then Holger had arrived. This far from the torches he was nearly blind, but he could see the great shadowy shape. His sword whistled. He felt the edge cleave meat. Lupine eyes flared at him, cold green and hating. He raised his sword, the blade caught what light there was and he saw it unbloodied. Iron had no power to wound.

Papillon struck with his hoofs, knocked the loup-garou to earth and hammered it. The hairy form rolled free, still unhurt. It vanished down the alley. But the child it had dropped lay screaming.

By the time the villagers pounded up, Alianora was human again. She held the girl-baby, smeared with blood and muck, against her. “Och, poor darling, poor lassie, there, there, there. ’Tis over wi’ this now. Ye’re no too mickle hurt, nobbut a wee bit slashed. Och, ’tis scared ye be. Think how ye can tell your ain children, the best knicht in the world saved ye. There, my love, croodle-doo—” A black-bearded man who must be the father snatched the infant from her, stared a moment, and fell to his knees, shaken with unpracticed weeping.

Holger applied the bulk of Papillon and the flat of his sword to drive the crowd back. “Take it easy,” he shouted. “Let’s have some order. The kid’s all right. You, you, you, come here. I want some torchbearers. Don’t stand jabbering. We’ve got to catch that wolf.”

Several men turned green, crossed themselves, and edged away. Odo the blacksmith shook a fist at the alley mouth and said, “How? This mud holds no tracks, nor the paving elsewhere. The fiend will reach his own house unfollowed, and turn back into one of us.”

Frodoart regarded the faces which bobbed in and out of moving shadows. “We know he’s none of us here,” said the esquire above the babble, “nor any of the herders at the gate. That’s some help. Let each man remember who stands nigh him. “

Hugi tugged Holger’s sleeve. “We can track him if ye wish,” he said. “Ma nase hairs be atwitch wi’ his stink.”

Holger wrinkled his own nose. “All I smell is dung and garbage.”

“Ah, but ye’re no a woods dwarf. Quick, lad, set me doon and let me follow the spoor. But mind ye stay close!”

Holger lifted Alianora back onto his saddle—the child’s father kissed her mired feet—and followed Hugi’s brown form. Frodoart and Odo walked on either side, torches aloft. Some score of men pressed behind the boldest villagers, armed with knives and staves and spears. If they caught the lycanthrope, Holger thought, it should be possible to hold him by main strength till ropes could be tied on. Then... but he didn’t like to think of what would follow.

Hugi wound down the lanes for several minutes. He emerged in the marketplace, which was cobbled and showed a little lighter under the stars. “Aye, clear as mustard, the scent,” he called. “Naught i’ the world has a stench like a werebeast in his animal shape.” Holger wondered if glandular secretions were responsible. The stones rang hollow under Papillon’s shoes.

The street they took off the market square was also more or less paved, and comparatively wide. Here and there were lighted houses, but Hugi ignored the people inside. Straight he ran, until a cry went up at Holger’s back.

“No!” groaned Frodoart. “Not my master’s hall!”