THE TRIAL OF A LOUP-GAROU
(Excerpt from novel with working title Shape Changer)
by
James Lee
Copyright 2010

 

Jean stared into the forest without moving a single step from where he stood.  He saw no sign of his master, not so much as a hoof impression in the dirt.  The trees didn’t rustle with intrusion.  No sound but the birds and leaves rustling in the gentle breeze.  He sniffed the air.  Again, no indication of the dark lord or his magnificent black stallion.  Satisfied that Versipellis was done with him for now, Jean sighed and redirected his thoughts.  How should he occupy his mind in the hours before the change?  Only one thought entered his mind: the shepherdess.  What else did he have to think about?  The horseman had left, and the she-wolf was dead.  Somehow even her lifeless carcass had vanished.

In preparation for a pleasant stroll, Jean put the jar and magic stones in the den.  He now preferred living out in the open, but the den was a good place to put things.  Before long, he approached the pond overlooking the sheep meadow.  He listened for the maiden’s music.  He sniffed the air for her beckoning scent.  He detected no evidence of her.  Had he forgotten her scent?  He found the tree she had leaned against and once more searched for her scent.  He discovered he had not forgotten anything.  Her fragrance lingered for him to find.  He applied his hypersensitive nose to the air again to detect her proximity.  Nothing.  He listened for a sign of her.  Again nothing.

But Jean would not easily abandon his search.  He felt driven to locate the shepherdess.  She intrigued from the first moment.  Obvious even to him, a hearty young man always liked the company of a willing young woman, even if she did tease him for her own amusement.  But far more than that, he actually needed her.  He had begun to realize this need when the she-wolf let go of her last breath.  Perhaps the wolf’s need had prodded his awareness of his own loneliness.  Sitting by Marguerite’s tree, gazing off into an unusually clear sky full of uncorrupted promises, Jean decided he must have her.  She must whelp his offspring, must be the giver of life to his pack.  No boy of his, born of her, would be the witless son of a priest or the mixed abomination of man and beast, for Marguerite was certainly no she-wolf.  He and Marguerite would bring perfect children into their peaceful forest and raise them with patient understanding.  They would share their lives as a loving pair till their souls flew away entwined forever.  The inconvenient fact that they didn’t even know each other had no relevance in his fantasy.  He had made his decision, and that was that.

A splashing sound in the not-very-far distance interrupted his daydream.  He followed the sound to that little pond.  Why didn’t he think to look here before all that other poking about?  Witless Jean, that was why.  Jean the dolt.

His self-pity vanished at the sound of her voice.  “Bonjour, Monsieur Loup-garou.”  Neck deep in the water, she bathed in the pond and stared at him with eyes twinkling in innocent mischief.

Jean gawked, doing his best to see more than the peach-tinted silhouette rippling its taunt.

“Have you nothing to say, mon loup-garou?”

“My name is Jean.”

“Do you intend to stand there like that, or seat yourself on the grass and talk to me while I do my bath?”

He recovered his composure enough to do more than just stand there, and sitting on the pond’s bank for a casual chat wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.  He began disrobing.

“Monsieur!” she shrieked while averting her eyes.  “This is not proper, not proper at all.”

“If you run away, I shall see you with nothing covering your body, mademoiselle.  I will not cover my eyes as you do.  If you stay where you are, I see nothing but a flesh shadow in the current.  Have it either way; do what you will.”

“But you could take advantage of me, Jean.”

“Only if you want me to.  You have my word on that.”  He stepped into the clean, cool water.  “What I want cannot be taken, only given.”

Apparently thinking he had completely entered the pond, Marguerite turned to face him.  Her face reddened, and she looked a bit frightened.  Fumbling to cover himself, Jean sat down, then clumsily made his way to a depth adequate for preserving modesty.  His short-lived embarrassment surprised him more that it seemed to surprise her.  A concerned look passed over her face momentarily, but she did not move away or rebuke him.  She smiled nervously when Jean placed himself beside her.

“Mon Dieu!” she laughed in that sunny way of hers.  “I cannot believe this.”

“Believe what?”

“Here I am actually bathing with a man as naked as I.”

For the first time, someone called him a man.  It made him speak with some authority.  “I would think it hard to bathe with you without being just as naked.”

She laughed and splashed at him.  Jean joined in the merriment until she cried, “Enough, monsieur, or I shall surely drown!”

He stopped laughing and splashing to duck his head beneath the surface.  He stared at Marguerite’s form through the aquatic haziness for as long as his air supply lasted.  He came up gasping for breath and shaking his shaggy mane like a dog coming into a house from a storm.

“You looked at me, Jean!” she protested while trying not to giggle or blush.

“Yes, I did, and with good reason.”

“And what may that be, monsieur?”

“I wanted to see you without your clothes.  You are more pretty that way.  I like to look at pretty things.”

“Oh, is that so?”

He replied by shaking by shaking his head again and pulling his hair back away from his neck.

“What is that, Jean?”

“You mean my hair?”

“That odd birth mark.  On your neck, about this far down from your ear.”

He checked his shimmering reflection.  He didn’t have as clear a view as she, but he could definitely see the mark.  Why hadn’t he noticed it before?  As the water settled to stillness, he saw that about halfway between his ear and his collarbone the tiny image of a crescent moon decorated his neck.  He thought of the change to his fingers.  Now this.  Had the new status of loup-garou marked him in these ways?

“Stand up,” she ordered.  “I want to see if you have any more of those strange body pictures.”

“That’s not what you want to see.”

“Well, I do not wish to dunk my head or hold my breath or squint through water.”

Jean stood.  Marguerite looked up at his face.  He suddenly felt vulnerable, and perhaps a little afraid.  He hoped that the very faint pang of fear didn’t show.  He shivered slightly in the sudden but brief coolness.  Neither of them said anything for a long moment of discovery.

“Jean, are you alone in this world?”  He nodded and battled the escape of tears.  “I tend the flock, but my pay provides so little,” Marguerite continued.  “I sleep where I can, and try to earn enough money for food.  Sometimes I beg in the village.  Sometimes I risk searching for my supper in the count’s forest.  I found the lute and try to make songs with it.  It helps when the loneliness hurts.  I know almost nothing about people because contacts are harsh and sometimes cruel.  The villagers shun me, but I feel safe and wanted with you.  Promise you will not shun me too, Jean.”

“I promise.”

She stared directly into his eyes.  He had never seen such honesty or need to trust.  Tears rolled down her cheeks in contrast to her tentative smile.  “Your hair is such a shiny black.  Your eyes are such a bright green.  Your face shows such kindness.  You are so beautiful, Jean.”

Jean could barely refrain from openly weeping.  Men were not supposed to weep.  She did not call him worthless.  She did not call him dolt or witless.  She called him beautiful.  Did it mean he had hope of becoming a person of worth?

She reached out to be helped up.  He gently pulled her to her feet.  The pond lapped lazily at her waist.  The nudity didn’t matter now.  They had bared themselves to each other in a far more important way.  Squeezing his hand tightly, she led him toward the edge of the pond.  The mildly erotic game, this condensed version of the timeless mating ritual, none of it mattered now.  Matters far more significant seized the moment.

When they stepped out of the water, still holding each other’s hand, Marguerite touched his cheek and again looked straight into his eyes.  “I hope you will still like me, but I must be honest with you, Jean.  I was born a bastard.”

“I don’t care.”

They gaped at each other, neither knowing quite what to do.  Marguerite threw her arms around him.  She shuddered against him and quietly wept.  He stroked her hair.  She did not run away from him.  Hoping it was the right thing to do, Jean closed his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him.  Then his weeping began.  He bent down to lay his face against her shoulder and sobbed away the pain she drew out of him.

For the first time in his memory, Jean Broceliande felt the hug of a human being.

When they got back into their clothing, it didn’t take much convincing to get her agreement to leave with him.  Now that she had something positive to anticipate, what she would leave behind did not seem to be of much value.  The sheep could fend for themselves until someone came looking for her, she decided.  Other than that, what did she leave behind anyway?  Taking her hand, Jean led Marguerite and her lute into the forest of Versipellis and the wonders of the night.

They arrived in Jean’s small clearing, still holding hands.  Although appearing happy to join him and having nowhere else to go anyway, Marguerite did not look totally pleased.  “Can you build a hut, Jean?’ she asked as she seemed to begin organizing their life together in the forest.

He pointed at his den with a broad, proud smile.  He watched her look inside the small opening.  The cramped space would force her to keep her body pressed close to his when they slept.  Although it had become against his nature to stay inside any enclosure, the claustrophobic shelter did have its obvious advantages.

“I made this for us.”

“You didn’t build this; you found it.”

“So what?  It’s mine anyway, like the music thing you found is yours.”

“A burrow is hardly a home, my dear Jean.”

“It is if we live in it together.”  He cast his eyes downward and confessed, “I don’t know how to build anything, Marguerite.  And I got no tools anyhow.”

“I don’t mean to criticize.  Forgive me.  You know, if we work together, we can make a home.  Of course we can.  I know how to thatch.  We have all the wood we need right here.  We can make use of your strength.  We have the good sense to figure out lashing saplings together to make four good walls and a roof that will serve us well enough.”

“What use is a cottage?  This den gives us shelter when we need it.”

“What do we do when winter comes?”

“Keep each other nice and warm, I suppose,” he grinned.

She blushed, but smiled.

“Look, the earth and the trees give us all the home we need, plus we have the den.  I have this clearing surrounded by my scent to protect us.  Besides, the villagers don’t poach this far into the forest.  The fear of the count and the dread from their superstitions control them more than their hunger.  They think the deepest parts of this wood full of evil magic, do they not?”

“This is not the deepest part.”

“Not from your sheep meadow, but far from the village where all those people live.  Your master probably has permission to take his flock there because the count gets part of the wool and mutton.”

“How did you know...”

“It just makes sense.”

“Why concern ourselves about villagers anyway, Jean, mon cher?  They care little for outcasts like us.  And we haven’t harmed anyone.”

Jean gazed at her innocent, matter-of-fact expression without saying a word.  He simply did not know what to say.  He cared little, if anything, about moral judgments, but he did care what Marguerite thought of him.  Jean had never intended to harm anybody.  He had not meant to harm that mewling infant.  He did not kill it, at least not on purpose.  It had been a terrible accident.  He had used its carcass in hungry desperation.  What awful deed had he committed, when it was already dead anyway?  He had simply wanted to get away from people and their taunts (and Papa’s beatings, of course).  But he did not want to get away from Marguerite, and certainly did not want to cause her harm.

He felt a sudden dread plummet to the bottom of his gut like a cannon ball.  How much control of himself would he have after the Change tonight?  How could he get food for two people without taking on the Change?  Should he rub the unguent on her too?  But that way the precious ointment would be gone twice as fast.  Then where would they find themselves?  He had no bow, no sword, no traps.  If he could fashion a spear, he would not know how to cast it.  He could easily hunt children without weapons if he could catch them far enough from adults, but how would Marguerite react to...  Would both of them die of hunger because he had no way provide food his new mate would accept?

“Jean?”

He heard her voice but did not know what to say.

“Jean, you look so thoughtful.  What occupies your mind?”

“I am thinking about getting us food.”

“I’ve thinking of that as well.  I’ll gather some herbs, berries...  There must be a bounty among these trees if, as you say, no one else dares to gather this deeply in the count’s forest.”

“We need meat.”

“Nonsense.  We can feast like the nobles on what this rich earth grows for us.”

“I am not a timid wren pecking at seeds.  I want real food.  I want meat.”

Marguerite backed away from him a step or two.  He instantly regretted frightening her and gave her a reassuring smile.  She smiled back at him.

“Do you know how to pick the proper plants, Jean?”

“No.”

“Come along then.  I shall teach you.  What a marvelous supper we’ll have!  Not even King Charles has better!”

Charmingly childlike in her enthusiasm and confidence, Marguerite bade Jean to follow as she stepped out of the small clearing and into the forest, holding her skirt up like an apron to accommodate what she was convinced she would find.  The sight of her bared legs made him decide not to tell her about that wicker basket he had tossed into the bushes by the den.  It also gave him thoughts quite unrelated to picking berries and mushrooms.  He liked these thoughts, liked them quite a lot.

Shortly she found some berries and began plucking them selectively.  “We really must weave a proper basket for this, Jean.  It will be so much easier.”

“I like it better without the basket,” he said leering at her legs.  “The view is much nicer.”

“Silly boy,” she laughed coquettishly, yet innocently.  “Here, take this stick and dig up those roots over there.”

He had no interest in roots, or plants for that matter, but he wanted to keep her happy.  So he busied himself prying the wild tubers from the soft, rich smelling loam.  He listened to her happily singing while loading her improvised apron with berries.

The singing abruptly stopped.  Jean looked up from the task she had assigned him.

Marguerite was gone.

 

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