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

 

Jean bolted into the forest.  Marguerite couldn’t be that far away this quickly.  He panicked with her not in his range of vision.  Even worse, he couldn’t hear her in this sudden and unnatural stillness.  Fortunately, he picked up her scent.  Odd that his sharp hearing eluded him while his sense as smell worked very well… it felt almost like someone or something intentionally left him a method of tracking his newly acquired mate.  Even in his present form, Jean’s sense of smell had become even more hyperacute than his recently augmented aural acuity, but he remembered it as so much keener in the form of the beast.  He cursed himself for not running after the mysterious jar before trying to follow Marguerite and whoever took her away from him.  With the unguent and resulting change of form at sunset, his sensory ability would have been complete and at full strength.

The forest ranged farther and grew denser than he had foreseen, or even thought about.  Soon he noticed a well-marked visual trail.  Small bits of clothing attached to bushes, and snapped lower branches here and there, drove him forward.  The trail gradually became easy to follow.  Too easy.  Aside from the apparent abduction, something began to reveal itself as very, very wrong.  Something alarmingly out of step with experience, intuition, and instinct silently shouted at him as it wafted through the crowded trees and crackling undergrowth.

Before long, Jean realized he had become inexplicably, terrifyingly lost, but locating Marguerite took precedence over his confusion and fear.  He was grimly determined not to lose her, no matter what it took it accomplish the feat.  No one and no thing would take his Marguerite from him.

Thin branches whipped and stung his face.  Tears rolled down his sweaty cheeks.  He tripped over a tree root and twisted his ankle.  Rather than halting or slowing his pursuit, it spurred him forward at a faster pace.  He ran/hobbled till his breath came in ragged gasps.  But he kept on going.  He relentlessly searched for whoever or whatever tried to steal his chance for a life worthy the trouble of living.  As he neared a slope, he could smell the sea, surprised he had come close enough for the coastal breeze to penetrate the forest.  The trees began to thin before him.  Soon Marguerite’s scent floated up to him in delicate tendrils of hope.

Jean parted the bush in front of him.

He gazed down at a small valley he had never known existed.  He thought he heard a crowd of people quite far away.  Could his heightened sense of hearing be returning?  He dismissed the sound.  Until they became closer and more distinct, sounds could trick anyone.  Whatever he may have heard hovered in the distance and probably meant nothing at all.

The dale stretching out below held an imposing sight.  Jean had never imagined anything like this.  A megalithic circle of menhirs standing taller than the height of two big men formed a rough-hewn post-and-lintel structure.  Within this circle he viewed what appeared to serve as an altar of long-forgotten rites.  Made up of a raised horizontal stone slab the size of a large banquet table, it brandished stains of ancient gore.  Outside the ring of massive chiseled rocks stood a small grove of very old elms growing in an odd pattern.  If the meaning remained known to anyone, it most certainly was not Jean Broceliande.

The distant mob noise drew close enough to identify as such, but Jean mentally shrugged it aside.  His had his attention focused on the lush green setting at the foot of the gentle slope.  The possibility of approaching people, regardless of their number or purpose, did not concern him.  What he saw below did concern him.

Marguerite stood there quietly weeping with her back against one those ceremonial elm trees.  A black spear, still quivering from the force of the throw, protruded from the ground at her feet.  Too frightened to move, she just stood there in silent terror.  Jean had never before witnessed such vulnerability and hushed alarm.

Versipellis stood on the altar stone, his heavy boots planted in a wide stance.  He had taken Marguerite’s lute.  He waved the instrument over his head and called out, “At last you join us, Jean, Bastard of the Lusting Priest.  I began to lose hope, that you were too dim-witted to follow that nice trail.  Have you noticed that your hearing skill has returned to rejoin the ability of that marvelous nose I provided you?”  The Lord of the Forest laughed heartily, put down the lute, and sprang from the heavy slab of stone, transforming into an ounce in mid air.  The big cat snarled, making swipes with unsheathed claws and narrowly missing Marguerite.  It circled her as it walked around the tree several times.  Its powerful muscles bunched and rippled with menace.  Marguerite crossed herself.  Then she closed her eyes and winced.

Jean stood and stepped out into the open.

The ounce leapt back onto the prehistoric altar, again changing form as before.  Replacing the sleek and powerful creature with the white fur and black rosettes, the man in black now sat at the edge of the slab casually swinging his feet.  With a yawn of apparent boredom, Versipellis produced a large dagger and tossed it in Marguerite’s general direction.  Its blade slammed into the tree less than a finger’s breadth from her scalp, blowing a wisp of her hair aside.

“Jean!”

“How touching to hear a demoiselle call for help,” announced the dark lord with a mock bow to the maiden in distress.  “You plan to rescue the wench, Sir Dunce?”

“I don’t know why you took her from me, Versipellis.”

“Oh, it is not ‘my lord’ any longer?  I see you have labored to learn how to pronounce my name to show your ignorant disrespect.”  He carefully watched Jean step toward the ring of monumental stones.  “Stop where you are, Jean Broceliande.”

For the moment, Jean obeyed.

Versipellis grabbed the lute and hopped off the altar with surprising agility.  “You swore fealty to me, did you not?  You are my vassal of ineptitude, are you not?”

“I don’t understand those words, but I see what I see.  You have Marguerite.  We love each other.”

“Really?”  Versipellis took the lute to Marguerite and leaned it against the old elm.  “But you miss the point, lad.  Your loyalty belongs to me.  The very life force raging inside your worthless hide is my property.  Do you forget your oath so quickly, Jean Broceliande?”

“I ask you to release me of it.”

“Oh, you do, do you?  Why should I?  What have I to gain from such foolishness?”

“You will have two charges where before you had but one.”

“I already own you, boy.  Your damsel is mine for the taking if I so desire.  Both of you survive at my pleasure as it is.  You must offer me more than I presently possess if I am to give anything up.  Striking a bargain must offer a gain to each side.  At this point the only gain I perceive is yours if I make such a commitment.”

The crowd began to sound much closer.  Whoever approached for whatever purpose didn’t matter to Jean, though.  What did matter to him was the choice looming in front of him.  For the first time in his memory, Jean had to reason out a dilemma for himself.  Had he become capable of the feat?  Had he lived his life as a dolt because he had such limited mental ability, or had he been called dull witted so many times that he believed it himself?  If he rejected Versipellis, at least openly, both he and Marguerite would fall prey to his wrath.  If he professed exclusive loyalty to him, the black lord would have no reason to remain suspicious of Marguerite.  But would Marguerite realize what Jean attempted?  He decided he must risk her misunderstanding his true intentions.

“I have no choice, my lord.  I shall send my woman away, if you pledge never to harm her, and my service to you will then no longer divide itself with two loyalties.  You have my word.”

“Done!”

Jean agonized over Marguerite’s weeping.  All would be well when they returned to their little home in the forest.  For now, though, he had to play this game to protect her, even if she had no idea of what he tried to do.  Yes, he promised to Versipellis that he would send her away.  And send her away he would do—but what he did not tell Versipellis was that his sending her away would be sending her away from the ring of giant stones.  Of course it would not conform to his master’s wish, but it was keeping his word.  If the dark lord also honored his own word, Versipellis could not harm Marguerite.  Jean had to depend on this deception because he had no other acceptable alternative.  Desperate circumstances required desperate acts.  He didn’t consider the simple fact that the trick did nothing to protect himself from the anger of Versipellis, because Jean had concluded that the imposing man in black needed him.  Jean didn’t know specifically why, but he knew he had become the pivotal point in a plan of his master.  Otherwise, the dark lord’s discovery of the infant’s bones would have been Jean’s last day on this earth.  Good reasoning for a dolt, he almost said aloud.

“Stop staring off into the heavens, Jean Broceliande, unless you have learned to change to an eagle instead of an earthbound canine.  I require your attention in whole.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Do you recall your oath to slay my enemy Dagda?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you have more of a brain than I surmised.  You shall shortly have your opportunity to serve.  If your wench is chaste, as she says, she can call Dagda and render him helpless.  If she is not a virgin, he shall gore her womb before your eyes.  Tell me, truthfully for her sake, Jean Broceliande—have you pushed your stout pride inside her?”

Jean felt uncertain of what Versipellis just asked him.  He hadn’t pushed anything inside her.  He didn’t want to injure Marguerite, so why do a terrible thing like that?  “No, I have not.”

“Excellent, my lad, excellent indeed.  You see, only a virgin, pure and free of carnality, can succeed.”

“Succeed?  Succeed at what?”

“She must lure the wretch with sweet song to capture his great heart and render him defenseless.  Dagda shall be no more.  Once he lies slain, I am free to join my ancestors.  Mark you, Jean Broceliande, it is impossible to remain indentured to one who no longer moves and breathes.  So you also shall be freed by the act I command.  That means that you and that whimpering girl have much to gain by the deed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You shall.  Long ago I unknowingly and secretly sacrificed my own offspring, while yet in the womb of its mother, on this very altar.  The child was the unborn bastard of what I thought a common soubrette I had known only once in the dark.  I did not see her face and had partaken of too many tankards of fine mead.  As I slapped her aside when finished with her, the gods advised that my seed had taken root.  Sending such an unfortunate unborn product of my sport to paradise seemed best for all concerned, especially the child.  How could I know at the time that I had ravaged the daughter of Wotan’s priest, and gutted her on this altar for all the gods to witness?  I, who had charge over all the priests, had much on my soul to amend.

“I attempted appeasement with another sacrifice.  A grand one it was, as none seen before or since, here on this same altar.  This one fared even worse.  I had killed the last female of its kind.  I had no way to know this, but that made no amends.  Sacrifice pleases the gods, particularly those sacrifices magnificent beyond expression, but not when it brings one of their creations to extinction.  Nor did it please the mate of this sacrifice, whom you shall presently meet.

“I have found myself forced to remain on this earthly plane these years beyond counting.  All of my kind have passed on.  This forest will go to dust one day as well.  I have long outlived my place.  I stopped belonging a long time ago.  I exist as one of a kind.  I stay behind in loneliness.  It has made me so painfully weary, Jean.  My existence has granted me only emptiness to fill with nothing.

“Dagda guards my confinement to life.  He gives up his own rest to prevent mine.  His infinite hatred binds me.  Rid me of him, and you rid yourself of me.”

“Why must I kill this Dagda?  You use weapons better than me.”

“Soon you shall see that you have weapons denied to me, boy.  No matter what I do with my own hand, it cannot harm him.”

“I don’t understand what to do, or how to so much as recognize the one you call Dagda.”

“When you see him subdued, you may run him through, but not one blink before.”

“Run him through?  Run him through with what?”

The dark lord continued without responding to Jean’s questions.  As though entranced by the unseen half of a pagan litany, he continued his instructions to his vassal in rags.  “First you must come into this circle of stones.  Until he becomes helpless, he will do his utmost to spear your carcass with his great horn, but he cannot enter this shrine of stones to those beyond recall.  Although you do not know it yet, you can only be killed by a horn such as his, pierced with silver at the hand of a loved one, or be burnt to ashes.”

Even more confused, but realizing the mortal peril outside the stone circle if his master spoke the truth, Jean stepped inside the monolithic ring.

Versipellis drew his big sword from the scabbard at his side and pointed it heavenward.  The shiny black weapon glinted ominously in the waning sunlight.  He tossed it high as though trying to penetrate a cloud.  It arced end over end and landed between Jean’s feet with the blade buried a hand’s breadth into the yielding earth.

“Take it!”

Jean pulled the heavy weapon from the ground and held it with both hands.

“Jean," sobbed Marguerite, "you have a weapon now to help me.  Help me!”

Versipellis turned to face her and said in a nearly gentle tone, “If all goes according to plan, I shall soon vanish from your life forever.  Your young man cannot fight me.  Surely you see that by now.  However, if you both do precisely what I command, you shall soon free yourself of my control.”  The Lord of the Forest looked very tired as he carried a small wooden bench over to Marguerite.  “Sit down, young lady,” he said in a surprisingly gentle voice.  He handed the lute to her.  “Please.”

Marguerite calmly sat on the bench and adjusted the tension of the thirteen strings stretched the length of the sharply-angled neck of the pear-shaped instrument.  A string discordantly snapped and dangled uselessly, but she began to play nevertheless.

“Thank you, young lady.  You did tell the truth of your maidenhead, I trust?”

She nodded innocently.

“You know our visitor will kill you in a most horrible way if you have deceived me or concealed the truth about it?”

Again she nodded.

“Very well, then.  We can proceed.”

“My lord?”

“Yes, Jean?”

“Do you leave us this day?”

“Yes, if all goes well.”

“What of the change, when the unguent is gone and you can no longer replace it?  How can I capture our food when I no longer change to the form of...”

“You need it no more, my lad.  As the first shape changer in your line, you shall take on the change each time the sun dips below the horizon, and change back again when the sun returns, with or without the unguent.  The first time you spread it onto your body, you sealed your lot.  You need the substance no more.  Your descendents, if you are foolish enough to breed, shall undergo the change in cycles and shall never have need of the substance in the jar.  Beware, Jean Broceliande.  What you see as a blessing now will become a pox on you and your progeny.  Allow no grapes to grow on your cursed vine, Jean Broceliande.  Allow the shape changing to end with you.”

“But, my lord, how can what feeds me become a curse?”

“You shall soon know your misery, my lad.”

“You granted me the means to get food… only to keep me alive long enough to help you?”

“You have more wits than I thought.”

“For this I have earned misery as your reward?”

“As anyone else, I must use the tools I have at hand.  I waited far longer than you could understand for one such as you to come my way.”

A horrible dread struck Jean.  Which should he fear more: living as the black lord’s vassal, or living without his imperious master?  One scenario he suddenly discovered, though:  His new life required freedom from changing form.  “Marguerite and I can survive without the shape changing.  I know it will stay far from easy, but we can get by without the nightly Change.  I don’t want our babies to share my curse.  What you started, you can end.  Undo the gift that comes with the dark.”

“Today I am quit with it all, young man.”

“Then I will not help you.”

“Then you wish not to be free of me,” thundered Versipellis.  “For I shall destroy your innocent female and live to watch your sorrow as I continue to endure my own.”

Jean gazed at Marguerite and the bewildered fear in her eyes.  No, he could not risk losing her.

Behaving as though she sat there isolated in a world of her own, Marguerite eased her exploratory lute plucking into a painfully beautiful ballad with the instrument and her suddenly melodious voice.  Her song quavered at first, but it soon evened out as she blended her soul with the music.

Jean closed his eyes to listen without distraction.  The sound of pummeling hooves quickly slapped him alert.  The sound did not come from the steed of Versipellis.  He now beheld the most imposing sight of his life.  It surpassed even the menacingly beautiful ounce of the dark lord.  The majestic creature sped across the clearing to the circle of stones, its alabaster mane whipping wildly in the wind of its speed.  With ts tail and goat-like beard, the same color as the mane, it looked very much like a great white stallion galloping on cleft golden hooves.  Strangest of all was the spiraled horn protruding nearly the length of a man’s arm from its forehead.

Absorbed in her otherworldly song, Marguerite alone appeared unaware of the beast’s presence.

The creature cantered the circumference of the stone circle three times, all the while training its eerie blue eyes at Jean.  Then it turned away as though to leave.  Less than halfway across this enchanted glade, it stopped.  The stallion stared at Marguerite and shook its mane as if trying to resist her haunting, beckoning melody.

“You cannot resist, Dagda!” Versipellis shouted in victory.  “The maiden frees me.  I am quit with you at long last!”

Snorting in anger, Dagda lowered his head and pawed the ground, dislodging big chunks of rich green sod.

“Admit defeat!  Submit!”

Dagda again snorted.  He charged as though flung from the count’s old creaking catapult.

“Stay where you are, Jean,” commanded the Lord of the Forest.  “He attempts a ruse to get you out of the circle.”

 The deadly golden horn rapidly approached Marguerite.  Jean raised the sword and ran toward Dagda with a savage yell.  Versipellis managed to yank him back inside the circle of stones as the horn swished past Jean’s chest.  The sword dropped from his grip.

Trembling and intently watching the great beast gently approach Marguerite, Jean stood within the protective ring.  Dagda, his eyes now heavy-lidded and accompanied by a near smile on his equine face, lay beside Marguerite.  He slid his head onto her lap and softly pushed the lute away.  Continuing to sing, she set the instrument aside.  Dagda closed his eyes and gently nuzzled Marguerite’s breasts as she stroked his great horn with a dreamy expression of peace.  Dagda uttered a tremendous sigh and appeared to drift into sleep.

“Pick up the sword, boy.”

“My lord, it fell outside the ring.”

“No matter now.  Take up the sword and slay the beast.  Do it!  Slay him!  Now, Jean, now!”

Jean hesitantly went to the sword.  Dagda did not stir as Jean timidly approached him.

“By all the gods, Jean Broceliande, if you do not carry out the deed, Dagda will surely kill the girl when he wakes.  You wish to see your maiden spill her entrails at your feet?  You wish to hear her shriek in an agony that will ring in your head for as long as you live?”

Using all his considerable strength, Jean drove the blade deeply into the massive chest.  The magnificent beast rose on his rear hooves with a shattering scream and pawed the air.  Marguerite instantly emerged from her trancelike state with her own scream.

Dagda fell.

“Cut off the horn, Jean,” she muttered almost reverently. 

“Why?”

“He needs it no more, and legends say it has powers.  Since the stories claiming he is real are true, so then may be the legends about him.  Being poor and hungry has taught me to shun all chances of waste.”

Dagda yet breathed, but faintly, obviously no longer a threat.

“What powers?” asked Jean as he pulled on the sword embedded in the twitching flesh.

“I do not know, but if we find out, we shall have all we need for as long as we live.”

Jean had to firmly plant his foot on the noble chest to brace himself in freeing the large black blade.  It required several straining tugs.  The unicorn lay on its side, quivering his final throes and moving his legs as though trying to run.  Jean slashed off the horn with one blow, surprised that it came off so easily.

Jean suddenly felt a familiar itch start in.  “Oh no, not now.”

“Jean, what is wrong with you?  You’re frightening me.  You have this hellish look on your face.”

Jean turned and gaped at the stone circle.  Versipellis and his steed had vanished.  The altar had crumbled into a pile of rubble.  The black cape of the Lord of the Forest lay among the shards of broken rock.  A sound demanded Jean’s attention more than this sight, though.  The crowd noises sounded much closer.  And now he began to detect their flurry of scents.

“Marguerite, can you follow the trail you left for me to find you here?”

“I think so.  Why?”

“Can you get back to our home by yourself?”  The itching grew stronger.  He recognized the other internal transformations as they began.  “You must hear that mob getting closer.  We do not have the time now for me to explain it all.  If they follow, they will have an easier time of it to hunt down two fleeing together than to follow two separate trails.  So you are safer if not in my company.  They will arrive here soon, so we must hurry.  I’ll forage for some food along the way.  We will rejoin each other at sunrise or shortly after.”

Without waiting for a reply, Jean gave Marguerite a quick kiss and sprinted for the forest.  The change accelerated inside him as he entered the dark comfort of the trees and brush.  As before, his senses became hyperacute.  He picked up an inviting scent.  Prey hid nearby.

 

 

 

He knew he should stay close enough to protect Marguerite, while staying well out of her sight.  But he also knew they needed food.  Lupine instinct took control.  Raising on his back legs, he slapped his front feet onto the large hare crouched in a small bush.  The big teeth sank into the trembling flesh, snapping tendons and splintering tiny bones.  The hare cried out briefly and quivered to reluctant stillness.  Its scream sounded like the cry of that human infant, but what remained of the memory while in this form confined itself to indefinite sensory impressions.  He hadn’t learned to carry food in his throat like a normal wolf, so he carried it in his jaws, enjoying the rich, salty trickle rolling over his tongue.

He managed to keep the scent of his kill from obliterating that of Marguerite, and followed her at a manageable distance.  Of course he had no human concept of time at the moment, but he eventually sensed he neared the den and that Marguerite had arrived ahead of him.  He poked his snout through the undergrowth to peer into the small clearing.

Shivering in the predawn chill, Marguerite sat in front of the den’s opening.  A small fire crackled in front of her.  To his surprise, she knew how to use the magic stones without his showing her the technique.  Without thinking about her inevitable human reaction to a huge wolf with no tail, he stepped into the clearing with his head lowered in a non-threatening gesture.  He had waited almost all night for the cycle of the Change, and felt his human intellect slowly returning, so impatience overruled concern about his appearance.  It all seemed so natural to him that he didn’t think about her probable reaction.

She froze in silent shock.  He dropped the hare on the ground beside her, raised his head, and happily wagged his hindquarters as though he had a tail.  He backed off a few paces to distance himself from the fire and sat contentedly.

Marguerite screamed.

Jean bounded off.  He lay down in the cover of the thick brush and waited for the sun’s full ascent.  He didn’t have to wait very long.  The warming pricks of light through the treetops signaled the start of the change.  He groaned in anticipation of the pain and temporary disorientation.

“Jean?  Jean, is that you?  It sounds like your voice.  Why are you hiding from me?  Jean, are you hurt?  Where are you?”

He managed to crawl around to keep her from locating him while in this present state and witnessing the metamorphosis.  Aside from a few scratches and shivering from the nip of daybreak, he felt quite well and hearty at the end of his transition.

She found him.

“Mon Dieu!  Where are your clothes, Jean?”  She seemed to try to settle on either concern or amusement.  “You must be cold like that.  Until the sun rids us of this morning chill and we find something for you to wear, lie beside me a while.  My body will warm you while we talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“I expect an explanation about your lost clothing.  What else would I want to discuss under these circumstances?  For now though, I need to warm you before you take ill from exposure.”

“I see we have food for supper.”

“I don’t understand.  What food?”

“That hare on the ground.  It looks fresh enough, does it not?”

She dropped a few branches on the fire and went inside the den.  As Jean followed her through the opening of their tiny, primitive shelter, he saw Dagda’s spiraled horn and the black sword of Versipellis on the dirt floor near the back wall.  He felt uneasy with the trophies, but he managed to divert his attention to curling up with Marguerite.  He reached for her breast.  She slapped his hand.  He jerked it back and started to apologize, but she grabbed it and placed it right where he wanted it in the first place.

“Mmm, nice,” she purred sleepily.

When he awoke, Marguerite was just as naked as he, but neither of them noticed a chill.  She mumbled inarticulately in her sleep and snuggled closer to him.  He started to give her a loving kiss, but he heard something outside the den.  Someone or something had found their home.  He gently woke her.  He placed his finger on her lips to tell her to stay quiet.

She nodded gravely and pulled his face to hers for a long kiss.  “I love you, Jean,” she whispered in his ear.  “Never, never forget that, no matter what.”  She shivered against him and clung as though she would soon lose him forever.

He put his finger to her lips again.  “Shhh..”

Once more, she nodded.  By now she looked very worried.  She intuitively knew their world was about to crash around them.  Her eyes glistening with tears, she held back any audible sobs as Jean cautiously poked his head into the opening of their den.  He crawled out into the open.  He didn’t see any people, but they couldn’t be far away.  The scent told him they would soon arrive.  Their advance progressed to where Jean could hear the rustlings in the brush.  They would soon step into his clearing.  No time to run.  He would not abandon Marguerite anyway, and where would he go?

He poked his head inside to again caution Marguerite to remain silent.  She reached for the black sword.  “Take this, Jean.”

“I don’t even know how to hold it the way it’s supposed to...”

“You handled it like a knight of old in that circle of stones.”

“I don’t know what I did, or how I did what.”

Before she had a chance to say anything, the intruders broke through the brush and close-set trees.  A full score, perhaps two or more, of angry and determined villagers carrying whatever they possessed that could be used as weapons, burst from the forest into the edge of the small clearing.  One of them actually brandished a table leg.  How had they found him?  Marguerite’s twice-used trail?  The little fire, that by now had almost died away in front of the den?  How could he allow such carelessness?  Jean the dolt.

Several big men grabbed hold of him.  Another tied his wrists.  The vigilantes pushed a vaguely familiar young woman to the front.  She blushed and averted her eyes from Jean’s exposed body, but the villagers forced her to look at him.

“Did he take your child, Madame Gabouriant?”

She nodded and began weeping.  “Oui.  He stands there the servant of Satan himself.  He eats of human flesh and snarls like the Devil’s cur.”  She pointed at him.  “He killed my precious little son!" she shouted through her sobbing. "The monster tore him from my breast, and drank his innocent blood!”  She dramatically collapsed to the ground.  A cursing young man helped her back to her feet.

Jean had never known such fear and helplessness, not even with Papa.  “You poach in the count’s forest!” he verbally retaliated as two stout men carried a long, sturdy pole in his direction.

“One of the men with the pole laughed and replied, “The only thing we poach is you, devil boy.  We have the count’s leave to enter the forest to bring you to trial.”

“It’s the wheel for you!” somebody shouted from the mob.

“Hang him!” called out somebody else.

“The block!”

“No, that’s too quick, too good for the lout.”

Within a few minutes they had an improvised covering over his midsection and had Jean tied to the pole like a bleeding boar after a successful hunt.  They quickly lashed his wrists and ankles, making his body sag downward.  Excruciating pain invaded his shoulders and lower back, but he gritted his teeth in the firm resolve not to voice his agony for their pleasure or Marguerite’s pity.  As they carried him into the forest, Jean thought he heard Marguerite’s weeping.  He stared upward into the forest canopy, trying to spot a piece of sky.

To say his farewell to the only person who had ever cared about him, Jean unleashed a long, mournful howl.  He hoped it reached her as she wept for him in their den.  And he hoped it reached the clouds he couldn’t see.

 

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