THE TRIAL OF A
LOUP-GAROU
(Excerpt from novel with working title Shape
Changer)
by
James Lee
Copyright 2010
Empty-handed as usual, Jean stepped inside the squalid cottage. The familiar smell of mildew and dirt floor felt less welcoming each time he returned. His mother said nothing. Her creased face had that pinched look, and her pasty complexion seemed more sickly than ever.
“I tried, Mama.”
“I know you did, child.” Her voice sounded weak.
“I almost got a squirrel.”
Exhausted and old, yet barely more than thirty years of age, she dropped into a rough-hewn chair. Jean wondered if the creaking sound came from the primitive furniture or his mother’s worn joints. He desperately longed to make her life easier, to make her smile, to become worthy of her. But what more could he do?
“Is Papa gathering the snares?”
She nodded wearily.
As though on cue, Jean heard the small wooden traps clatter on the ground near the door. The family patriarch lumbered in. All he had was a few wild berries in one of his big, calloused hands. He handed them to his mate. She just sat there staring at them.
“Forgive me. This is all I could do. It took all my skill and luck to find some the villagers hadn’t got to yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I’m hungry, Papa.”
The big man’s eyes flared like embers at midnight. He backhanded his son and growled, “Look at your mother, lad. She needs something to keep her soul in this world far more than we do. For once, I shall have you show respect in this house, you dolt! Use what wits you have to get some food instead of whining like a mongrel whelp.”
“Henri, he is only fifteen, and with the sense of one half his age.”
“Clauda, the lad is tall as a horse with the strength of two full-grown men. He can do far more than sit about mewing for food.”
“I am cursed,” Jean blurted.
His father raised his hand in anger.
“Cuffing me won’t change it.”
“Where did you hear such a thing?”
“In the village.”
“The what! You know full well we cannot go there!”
“I know we are banned from there since the day I came into this sorry world, Papa, but how could they know who I was? So I asked about me, acting like I was a wandering stranger that never heard of us in his travels.”
“You will bring a pox onto this house!”
Henri advanced on his son to give him a sound thrashing.
“Me? Me, Papa? Did I get with child the girl who was then only my age now?”
Henri stopped and stood as still as an ancient oak. Clauda gave in to quiet sobbing.
“Jean, my son,” he said in a subdued voice while trying to comfort Clauda, “There is no curse. The village cast us out, but curses come only from a higher power.”
“And on my head, as the bastard son of a wayward priest!”
Jean burst out of the shack and into the lush woodland a short sprint away, replacing the staleness and misery of confinement with the smell of earth and greenery. He had no fear of the unknown in front of him. No more cuffing and beatings. No more begging Papa for food. The fresh breeze beckoned him into the womb of adventure. Freedom. He knew the forest belonged to the count. Venturing into it without consent could be considered poaching in itself. Jean didn’t care. Better to risk flogging or the rope than to beg in return for starvation. Risk death one way, or ask for it the other way. Jean had enough sense to figure out that much. And he had to escape the life behind him regardless of risk. Until this moment, the grand escape was nothing but the start of a dream fantasy as he shut his eyes each night. In this one decisive instant, the fantasy flowered into reality. But the price of freedom was mortal risk.
So be it.
He left everything he knew behind him in exchange for this freedom. He had no regrets. Only those who have nothing and no one are truly free. He had nothing but the rags on his body and hollowness in his gut, but freedom got closer with every step. He had nothing but his life, and it belonged to no one else. Who would want it anyway?
After some aimless wandering in the forbidden (making it even more inviting) forest, Jean discovered a clearing with a shelter. The opening in the side of that hill could have been called a large den or a small cave, but it looked like it had been dug out instead of formed by millennia of dissolving stone. It smelled more like dirt than rock or mineral-rich water. He heard no hollow echoing drips like the stone tunnels he used to use for hiding from Papa. Dirty but usable. He wondered how he could get a fire going in his new home, and how to get food.
He entered the enclosure.
Hunger stalked.
Calming down from the excitement of his sudden emancipation, Jean now had to face his biggest liberty: the freedom to starve. He had escaped. He had found shelter. But what about food? That familiar hollow ache in his belly persistently made itself known. Soon the ache would build into pain. Experience had taught him that much. If he let it go on a few more days, he wouldn’t feel hungry, but he would be starving nevertheless.
“That bear will come back tonight,” thundered a man’s voice.
Jean peeked out. A man in black robes sat astride the most enormous steed he had ever seen. As black as his master’s strange clothing, the huge stallion snorted and pawed at the ground.
“Le Cavalier Noir!”
“Come out of there, boy. Crawl out of your hole. Come out here where I can see you.”
Wondering why he had not heard the hooves approach, Jean emerged from the tiny cave. “What bear?”
Leaning his head back in a boom of laughter, the black horseman replied, “The one who lives there, boy. She is out there hunting meat to build up fat so she can nap through the winter in that hole in the hill you found. Do want to get food, or be food?”
“I did not say I was hungry.”
The large man in black laughed again. “Everybody is hungry, except those fat noblemen living off you people. You are not one of those, are you?”
“One of what?”
“The useless nobility who exploit the people they say they protect.”
“I am not sure of what you ask or how to answer. I have heard of you, though,” stammered Jean, suddenly full of fear instead of surprise and curiosity.
“Yes, I should imagine you have. Hardly a man from here to the great mountains to the east has yet failed to relate a story or two about the Horseman in Black. Each tale dubs me with an additional title or two. What am I called these days? The Black Horseman? The Devil’s Squire? The Black Knight? Eater of Catholic Flesh? Lord of the Forest?”
“Now that I truly see you, I cannot remember.”
“I shall tell you what to keep in your addled brain. Lesson one: Never forget that I can be your best friend or worst enemy.”
“Do you have a name or title?”
“Indeed I do. Who does not? But you could never pronounce it, let alone remember it.”
“What should I call you?”
“Will Pere Henri do?”
Jean’s mouth dropped open.
“Yes, I know who you are, boy: the bastard of a parish priest who yet lives with the formerly enticing source of his undoing and misery. The oaf should have lied like the rest of them instead of leaving his vows to the church to marry the wench. Lesson two, Jean Broceliande: If you act with honor, you live with pain. If you live with principle, you die with shame. Take what you can, and give what you must.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What am I not surprised?”
“Help me make sense of…”
“You shall understand in due course. Sooner than you bargain for, I fear.”
“I still don’t know what to call you.”
Jean saw the man’s leg start to swing over the saddle, but he didn’t see him dismount. One instant his boot raised, the next he stood in front of him, looming over him like the shadow of a bell tower. The glowering, bearded face with the darkest eyes in Christendom appraised him before commanding: “Kneel before Versipellis, the Lord of the Forest.”
Jean dropped to his knees and stared at the ground.
“Behold my power.”
Jean looked up. The man spun with a whirl of his stately, antiquated robe. Before the garment completed an entire revolution, it collapsed to the ground in a heap. Versipellis was gone. Gone. Jean leaped to his feet and searched the immediate vicinity.
A huge, fearsome ounce steeped out from behind a tree. The cat must have weighed more than a stout man. Its white fur and black rosettes eerily contrasted with those yellow eyes full of confident cunning. The horse stood unconcerned in the presence of the predator. How could that be? The ounce rumbled softly from deep in its throat. The horse nickered in response. Baring fangs the size of unsheathed bodkins, the ounce crouched, ready to spring.
It convinced Jean that he sucked in his final breath. Making the sign of the cross, he covered his face as the big carnivore leapt. Nothing happened. He slowly lowered his arms when he heard the man laugh. Versipellis sat astride his horse with robe in place as before. The ounce had vanished.
“Speak up, lad. You must have questions after all that.”
Jean dropped to his knees.
“Rise, Jean Broceliande. Stand like a man until I tell you otherwise.”
“Yes, my lord. Where did the beast go?”
The man all but quaked with laughter.
“I seen pictures of a lion once. It looked like the monster that just disappeared, but different, too.”
“It differs from a lion, boy. Smaller, but quicker. And stronger for its size. Have you heard of a leopard?”
“No, sire.”
“Well, these cats bear many similarities to leopards, except they roam the mountains where it never stops snowing. But, never mind all that for now; you’ll know all you need to know soon enough.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Didn’t it make you the least bit curious how it got here?”
“Yes, sire, if you say it did.”
“Fear me not, my lad. If you do my bidding, you have no cause for terror.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“The ounce came from me. I am a shape changer. Can you understand?”
“I heard the stories.”
“I thank Great Wotan I remain legend. The gods have spared us some difficulties.”
Jean stared at the ground, searching for signs the ounce had been real. The weeds that marked its large tracks, now torn by its claws, gave their silent testimony.
“Do you wish to leave this wood, Jean Broceliande?”
“With your leave, my lord…”
“My leave or the count’s?”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
“Have you considered your need for food?”
“In the village I would also starve, but here I am free.”
“No one has ever been or ever will be free until he earns his shroud.”
“Not even you, sire?”
The incredibly naïve question sent Versipellis into hearty, if cynical, laughter. “No, not even me, boy. Most of all me. I am the lord of this forest, yet cannot leave. Enough digression. Tell me, young man, why should I allow you to live here—or live at all, since you trespass in my domain?”
“So I may serve you, my lord.”
“To serve me? What can you possibly do that I cannot do for myself?”
“Errands beyond the forest. You said you cannot leave this place.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. Could you fetch me a virgin from the village or from the pasture as she tends some sheep?”
“What use would you have for that?”
“I want an answer, not a question.”
“Well, I could try to fetch whatever you want…”
“Good answer. Frank without prevaricating bravado. I like that.”
“Good.”
“How do you propose to survive here? Do you intend to live in that she-bear’s den with your hunger and loneliness?”
“I do not know. I have yet to figure that out. All I done was run away. So far, I can’t think of anything else.”
“Do you have a plan for eating or staying warm on cold nights?” asked the rider in black, placing his massive hands on his hips.
“Not yet, sire. Hunting, I suppose.”
“With what? Your wits? You shall find a shortfall there, I warrant,” laughed the horseman.
“I will manage with what I have, like anyone else.”
“So you think to catch meat with your empty hands, then eat it raw?” Versipellis laughed again.
“I will do what I need to do, and do it as good as I can.”
Versipellis tossed him two small rocks. “These will keep you warm and roast your food, if you manage to get any to cook.”
Jean held a rock in each hand. One didn’t appear all that special, just a common, dull gray stone. The other seemed to have flecks of gold all over it, lashing and winking their promise of riches and acceptance. He gawked at them and looked up at the big man on the horse.
“Before you ask, you do not have gold in your hand, only a plentiful imposter. It has far more value. Gold has no use outside of greed. It simply glitters and urges men to cut each others’ throats. What you possess in your ignorant grip does what gold cannot do. Strike it on the other stone.”
Jean obeyed. A spark flipped up and disintegrated like a miniature shooting star on a cloudless night.
“Ignite dry grass and twigs, then add wood. Then you can stay warm, force unwanted beasts to keep their distance, and cook your food—if you get any.”
In wide-eyed wonder Jean slowly turned the flint and iron pyrite over in his hands. He reverently brushed loose soil from the small rocks. “Magic stones,” he muttered breathlessly.
“Have you never started a fire?”
“Papa always done it. He said showing me the secret would be like giving a crossbow to a heretic.”
“No magic, Jean. Just one of the many mysteries nature gives us to unravel. Men call things magic when they do not know how they work. When a person has more solutions than others, they call that person a wizard—or a demon. Most people embrace their lack of knowledge. They accept the mysteries and tremble at the unknown, rather than search for answers they may not appreciate. So answers become magic. The comfort of ignorance cannot tolerate the threat of knowledge. Do you understand, my lad?”
“No.”
Versipellis sighed, tossed Jean a wooden jar, and asked, “Which animal do you regard the best hunter in this forest?”
“The wolf, sire. Everyone knows that.”
“You are not everyone.”
“All other hunters fall short of the wolf, my lord.”
“A wolf your size would be formidable indeed.”
“But not as hungry.”
“The contents of that jar should end your famine, Jean Broceliande.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but a jar the size of my fist will not hold much food.”
“The jar contains no food. Whatever you do, never eat of it. It is unguent and not meant to be eaten, not under any circumstances. As the sun touches the horizon in its descent, take away your raiment and smear a small stain of the unguent on your forehead and each of your limbs. I wager it will make a grand hunter of you, boy.”
“Magic salve, sire?”
“You may call it that if you so desire.”
“But when I have used it all…”
“Use it sparingly. A very small amount will do as well as a large amount, so waste it not. You will have no more need of it after you use it all.”
“Thank you, my lord. I have no way to repay you, though.”
“Yes, you do. In return you shall tender unquestioned loyalty and obedience.”
Jean meekly bowed his head.
“Do you swear fealty to me as your sovereign lord, excluding all others, Jean Broceliande?” he asked, more an imperious demand than a question.
Jean didn’t understand exactly what he was swearing to, but he wanted no more hunger. Whatever the obligation, it couldn’t be worse than the ache in his belly. So he meekly replied, “By all the saints, my lord.”
“Leave the saints out of it,” thundered the dark horseman. “Do you swear!”
“I swear, my lord.”
Versipellis roared with triumphant laughter. The huge black steed reared up with a loud snort. He wheeled his mount into a charging lunge out of the clearing and disappeared in the trees without snapping a branch or kicking up a clod of earth. His voice trailed away saying, “Have no fear of the bear, for it shall not return.”
Alone again and more confused than ever, Jean looked up. The forest canopy extended over the small clearing like a leafy ceiling. Even if it had been an unobstructed view overhead, he would not have been able to see the sun dip to the horizon, but he would have preferred seeing patches of daytime sky. He liked to watch clouds, especially the fluffy ones dancing in the pale blue heavens. Sometimes his imagination allowed him to drift along in their merry company. Watching the clouds could make all dreams seem possible.
He opened the jar. The contents looked like some sort of rendered fat. He dipped his finger into it for a bit of a taste. It reminded him of the last time he experienced the flavor of pork (such a long, hungry time ago to him). It was surprisingly palatable. He had no way of knowing what he just took into his growling gut, but he suddenly felt ravenously hungry for it. He felt hungry anyway, but for the first time in his young life he lusted after a particular kind of meat. And he didn’t even know what it was.
Food. He needed food. Now.
The village. The village always had some sort of food, for one quick enough to pinch it and fleet enough to get away. Hunt. Find. Eat. Yes, he had a chance to find food in the village. Hunger increasingly minimized the risk factor. He could reach the village by nightfall and escape in the darkness. Jean stepped into the trees on his quest.
He didn’t have to go far. Before reaching his destination, Jean encountered an emaciated young woman just inside the edge of the forest, holding a recently born infant at her breast with one arm while picking wild berries with the other.
“Give me the berries.”
“Find your own spot. My child and I shall not go hungry for the likes of you.”
“Then I’ll have to tell the count about you poaching when I get back tonight.”
“The count’s household? You?” She broke into laughter and resumed picking.
Jean backhanded her and snatched the frayed wicker basket. She fell onto her back. The infant flew out of her arms, striking its tiny head on a rock.
Jean wondered why it didn’t scream or at least cry. It just lay there. He picked it up and shook it. No response. The little face had swatches of fresh blood from the ears and nose. The exotic odor assaulted his suddenly heightened senses. Tentatively, he touched the tip of his tongue and…
The young woman sat up and screamed. She stepped toward Jean, weeping hysterically and reaching for her child. He bared his teeth and snarled. She stopped and stood frozen in mid-step. In spite of his mental shortcomings, Jean knew he could not leave the child behind to provide her with the proof of what he did. He had to take it with him. Then the villagers could say she got rid of it because she didn’t want another mouth to feed, or she sold it, or…
“Why do you lick at his innocent blood? Who are you? What are you?” she asked in a dull monotone as Jean Broceliande backed toward the forest. To her, he must have seemed a filthy demon. “My innocent little son can be of no use to you. If you have killed him, he deserves a proper Christian burial.” Again she reached. Again Jean voiced his predatory snarl, this time gnashing his teeth. Crossing herself, the young woman dropped to her knees, a supplicant to one who could grant nothing, not even to himself. “If you are a servant to Lucifer,” she sobbed while extending her arms to her limp and silent child, “his soul has already passed into Paradise and has no use for you.” Again she crossed herself. Jean retreated into the forest depths. He could hear her wailing for a long time.
When he reached his den at the edge of the clearing, he placed the basket and tiny body on the ground and jammed a fistful of the berries in his mouth. The well-worn container’s splintered osier snagged his finger with a nasty scratch, but Jean hardly noticed. The hollow pang of hunger stole attention from anything else. Before this day the berries would have been a delight, even if not very filling. Now, while perhaps very slightly better than nothing, they did little to sate his appetite.
He looked down at his other find… and thought of meat.
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