Chapter Thirty-seven
My skin feels cool and I am shrunken and naked lying on the ground. Trista is bending over me. Have I been sleeping? The sky is bright and the air is warm and smells of spring. What has happened? I smell blood and when I look down I am covered in it, but it is not mine; it belongs to the she-wolf. She is watching me with loss in her eyes, the flavour of sadness in her scent, and I understand. I have been the wolf, haven’t I? But for how long have I been cursed?
Trista is looking at me. She looks terrified. The wind blows her red-gold hair so that she looks like some wild creature of the woods. Her sea-coloured eyes are opened wide with shock and fear and now widen even further with joy. It takes me an instant to understand. She thought me lost to the wolf.
‘Morcant!’ Her cry catches in her throat so that it seems more of a sob. I feel the dampness of her tears on my human cheek, smell her own unique and special scent through the woodsmoke, mud and forest smells that cling to her. My human arms feel stiff and unresponsive but I find the means to embrace her. I work at my unused human voice and call her name; I spit it out like something that was stuck there, the sound is ugly but she cries the more when I manage to get the word out: ‘Trista!’
Her scent floods me with happiness. She hugs me hard and then there are people around her, warriors, and she is taken away from me. I want her to stay.
The old man beside me has his own peculiar smell: not quite man, not quite beast – the strangest stink I have known. I find myself growing wary. Who is he?
‘You’ve been lost, lad.’ Something in his voice is disapproving. I’ve seen him before, haven’t I? And then I recognise him. He’s the old druid we met in Ger’s hall.
‘Have you cured me?’ My body feels odd and I feel . . . strange. As if I’ve left a piece of myself behind. I clasp and unclasp my hand in a kind of wonder.
‘There is no need to cure a blessing.’
I shiver and he hands me a cloak. Something in his eyes compels me.
‘It is a curse. I’ve been lost, stuck – all this time . . .’ I say. How can he know what it feels to wake up in a strange place without clothes, memory, dignity? I last remember the snows of winter and I can see that months have passed and I don’t know where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing. The she-wolf is hurt and I don’t know how.
‘It is a blessing. You could have freed yourself any time.’
That makes me angry. ‘You don’t know anything.’ I growl and the wolf is with me suddenly. I am almost overwhelmed by a flood of wolfish thoughts, of sensory impressions. ‘If I could have freed myself, I would have done!’
‘You are not two but one,’ the druid says mildly. ‘It is easier to live as a beast than a man. You took the easy way.’
‘I am not a wolf!’
‘No.’ The old man’s hand on my arm is as strong as good steel and I am shocked to see the claws beneath his skin. Is he what I am? He holds my arm in a grip so tight it is almost painful. ‘You are a man and a wolf together – the best of both.’ He snarls and I see the golden shadow of a wolf in his face. He commands me: ‘You are the wolf. Remember!’
I do remember then. All of it. All the days when the man in me slept. I remember the night Trista failed in her watch because she was overcome with visions, the days of hunting and the joy of being a creature of instincts and appetites.
‘This must never happen again.’ The druid’s human voice is frail, but the wolf in him is powerful and the wolf in me submits to him.
‘Repeat after me: “I am the wolf.” ’
‘I am the wolf.’ As I say it, I know that it is true, know it deep within me. Something strange happens then. Something shifts and I feel different, as if I’ve been a spear warped out of kilter suddenly straightened, a broken sword made whole.
I look down at my own human hand and there beneath my own skin I see the shadow of a silver paw contained within me.
‘This is the first lesson. You are one being. One. There are more lessons, Morcant. Will you submit to learn them?’ His golden eyes bore into me.
‘I will submit,’ I say. It is the first time that I’ve felt at peace since I can remember. I am a wolf and a man in one flesh.
I turn to the she-wolf. She is suffering silently. I reach out to pat her fur, to remind her that the wolf in me is not dead but always here. She is wiser than I am, perhaps even wiser than Trista: she has always known that. She licks my hand. She makes that sound in her throat I know so well. I make a small human attempt at a response. She has lost a lot of blood, but I am not afraid for her. She is so strong.