Chapter Fifteen
She waits for me in the hidden places of the forest. How could I have forgotten her?
It is good to leave behind the confusion of the man stink, to leave behind the noise that fills my ears but tells me nothing I need to know. I run from the fires that distort the night and stench of smoke to the cool of the dark and a world of scents and senses. I run to her. She has tracked me all day, leaving behind the Old One, becoming a lone wolf for me. The scents of her journey cling to her fur. I drink in the history of her long day. It is in my nose and on my tongue: the battle and the spilled blood, the river and the great cold, the forest, the man-place of cut trees. She has watched and waited. When I thought I was alone, she was always there. I let her guide me, teach me how to listen to the scurrying of small creatures, to track their distinctive smell, follow her lead and make the kill. Blood. Meat. My mouth is full of the taste, my belly is full of the goodness, my nose is full of the she-wolf. She delights in my success as if I were her cub. I’m not her cub. I know what she wants of me and am happy to give it. She is mine to hunt for and to defend, as I am hers.
Then here, where we feast, I catch the pungent female odour of the two-legged female and I remember: I am not whole as the she-wolf but a broken unnatural thing. It hurts to know this, but I can’t ignore it. It is like a thorn in the soft pad of my foot. I am a two-legged creature as well as a four-legged one and my pack is both the she-wolf and the two-legged female. I owe loyalty to the hunter and to the fire-maker. I can taste the two-leg’s smoky, spicy scent in the wind. I should run after her. My she-wolf does not want this. She nips me and growls, but follows anyway, as I knew she would. It is up to me to keep my pack together. I know that finding the two-legged female is important and worth the anger of the she-wolf. She needs me.
She is not hard to find. She travels noisily. She is with a male whose scent I remember from earlier in the day. He smells of the smoke of campfires, of the loamy earth of many places, of the taint of metal, of blood and of ash.
We are not far away when my two-leg, the fire-maker, Trista, screams. The fur on my neck rises and I run as if I flee from fire. My she-wolf is not more than a pace behind. We are fleet of foot and fierce in fighting. The male will not do her harm. He has the sharp tooth that will bite her. No. He has a dagger that might cut her. She is already fighting him, struggling to get at her sword. Kicking out and screaming at him.
‘Cassie’s wrong. You’re not on her side. You’re the midden-born pox-ridden Parisi scum I knew you were!’ Her scent is overlaid with fury. She might beat him on her own, but it isn’t certain.
I growl. I want to tear out his throat and gnaw at his innards. I could snap his neck with my jaws, shred him with my teeth. I want to taste his warm blood. I will not let him get to Trista. He turns to me and I smell his fear. He runs. I start after him but the she-wolf is cautious. We’ve eaten well and she has no interest in a chase without a kill. She doesn’t kill what she can’t eat. She doesn’t think men are ever worth the chase. I can see that in the way she hangs her tail and tilts her ears. We will let him go. For now.
‘Morcant!’ Trista smells of crude perfumes, of oil and the hot tang of the bathhouse. She does not smell of blood. She’s not hurt. I taste the skin of her arm with my tongue. She is salty and sweet at once.
‘I’d like to weave a basket with his guts,’ Trista says. She is rubbing her wrist, where he must have twisted it to wrench her weapon from her hands. I know that she is irritated that he bested her. ‘I didn’t think you’d come back. Thank you.’
Her voice trembles and water comes from her eyes. I remember that this means she is distressed. She is not the only one: my she-wolf retreats.
I am torn between the two of them because they both want me. I hesitate. Trista surprises me by burying her face in the fur of my back. I feel the whole weight of her pressing down on me. She does not usually behave this way. It is as if she is sick or injured and I can’t leave her.
‘It’s all gone wrong, Morcant. I don’t know what I’m doing.’ It’s hard to hear what she is saying as she is mumbling into my back.
I can’t do anything to help her. I have no arms to hold her so I twist my head and manage to lick the bare flesh on her neck to let her know that I am here and listening. It is odd that her skin is so smooth and bald; it tastes of perfume there, sickly and sweet. I do not react.
The man who got away will bring more men. I know this and she must know it too. She needs to keep moving so that they can’t catch her. I make a noise that the wolves know means ‘Danger, keep running.’ She pats my neck as if it were a cry for attention. I nudge her but she sinks to the ground.
‘I can’t go on. I need to sleep.’ She would never make these pitiful sounds of weakness if I looked like a man and the more I am with her the more like a man I feel. My she-wolf has loped away in disgust. Can her keen nose detect from my scent that I am becoming more like the two-legged hunters she despises?
The mule thrashes around in his harness. There is some good eating on him. His frightened noises rouse Trista from her hopeless state. She stands up again and wipes her face on her shawl so that all the paint she is wearing smears across her face. It changes her look but not her smell. She mutters soothingly to the mule and I find myself oddly relaxed by the gentle calm of her tone. Perhaps this too is her gift. She sees what is not there, she lights fires and she gentles restless beasts. She releases the mule from the hard burden of the cart. I don’t like this cart. It is cluttered with the objects of the pedlar’s trade. I can smell old blood on the clothing and the lingering trace of fear that has worked its way into the very weave of the cloth. I wonder where the pedlar acquired these wares. He has spent time in places best avoided. His things leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Trista pulls the cart off the track and under a tree. Her strength surprises me. She is not weak. She tips the cart to make a barrier against the wind and makes a camp for herself a little off the track. She takes little time to gather damp sticks. No sooner than she lays them on the ground, she kindles a flame. I am not afraid of this fire because it is hers. She made it and she can control it. Though the scent of the burning wood makes my eyes water and fills my nose with the heat and a pungent odour of scorching, I am drawn to lie by her side.
She runs her hands through my fur, and I don’t even snarl. She is Trista and she can do whatever she likes.