Changeling (31 page)

They cleared the table for the midday meal and the bishop recited a long grace. Ishraq and Isolde were banned from the councils of men and ate dinner in their own room, looking out over the yard. They watched Freize sit on the wall of the bear pit, a wooden platter balanced on his knee, sharing his food with the beast that sat beneath him, glancing up from time to time, watching for scraps, as loyal and as uncomplaining as a dog, but somehow unlike a dog – a sort of independence.

‘It’s a monkey for sure,’ Isolde said. ‘I have seen a picture of one in a book my father had at home.’

‘Can they speak?’ Ishraq asked. ‘Monkeys? Can they speak?’

‘It looked as if it could speak, it had lips and teeth like us, and eyes that looked as if it had thoughts and wanted to tell them.’

‘I don’t think this beast is a monkey,’ Ishraq said, carefully. ‘I think this beast can speak.’

‘Like a parrot?’ Isolde asked.

They both watched Freize lean down and the beast reach up. They saw Freize pass a scrap of bread and apple down to the beast and the beast take it in his paw, not in his mouth – take it in his paw and then sit on his haunches and eat it, holding it to his mouth like a big squirrel.

‘Not like a parrot,’ Ishraq said. ‘I think it can speak like a Christian. We cannot kill it, we cannot stand by and see it killed until we know what it is. Clearly it is not a wolf, but what is it?’

‘It’s not for us to judge.’

‘It is,’ Ishraq said. ‘Not because we are Christians – for I am not. Not because we are men – for we are not. But because we are like the beast: outsiders that other people dread. People don’t understand women who are neither wives nor mothers, daughters nor confined. People fear women of passion, women of education. I am a young woman of education, of colour, of unknown religion and my own faith, and I am as strange to the people of this little village as the beast. Should I stand by and see them kill it because they don’t understand what it is? If I let them kill it without a word of protest, what would stop them coming for me?’

‘Will you tell Luca this?’

Ishraq shrugged. ‘What’s the use? He’s listening to the bishop, he’s not going to listen to me.’

At about two in the afternoon the men agreed on what was to be done and the bishop stepped out to the doorstep of the inn to announce their decision. ‘If the beast transforms into a full wolf at midnight then the heretic woman will shoot it with a silver arrow,’ he ruled. ‘The villagers will bury it in a crate packed with wolfsbane at the crossroads and the blacksmith will hammer a stake through its heart.’

‘My wife will bring the wolfsbane,’ Ralph Fairley volunteered. ‘God knows she grows enough of it.’

‘If the beast does not transform . . .’ The bishop raised his hand, and raised his voice, against the murmur of disbelief. ‘I know, good people, that you are certain that it will . . . but just suppose that it does not . . . then we will release it to the authorities of this village, the lord and yourself, Master Miller, and you may do with it what you will. Man has dominion over the animals, given to him by God. God Himself has decreed that you can do what you want with this beast. It was a beast running wild near your village, you caught it and held it, God has given you all the beasts into your dominion – you may do with it what you wish.’

Mr Miller nodded grimly. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that the beast would not last long after it was handed over to the village.

‘They will hack it to pieces,’ Ishraq muttered to Isolde.

‘Can we stop them?’ she whispered back.

‘No.’

‘And now,’ the bishop ruled, ‘I advise you to go about your business until midnight when we will all see the beast. I myself am going to the church where I will say Vespers and Compline and I suggest that you all make your confessions and make an offering to the church before coming to see this great sight which has been wished upon your village.’ He paused. ‘God will smile on those who donate to the church tonight,’ he said. ‘The angel of the Lord has passed among you, it is meet to offer him thanks and praise.’

‘What does that mean?’ Ishraq asked Isolde.

‘It means: “pay up for the privilege of a visit from a bishop”,’ Isolde translated.

‘You know, I thought it did.’

There was nothing to do but to wait until midnight. Freize fed the beast after dinner and it came and sat at his feet and looked up at him, as if it would speak with him, but it could find no words. In turn Freize wanted to warn the beast, but with its trusting brown eyes peering at him through its matted mane he found he could not explain what was to happen. As the moon rose, man and beast kept a vigil with each other, just as the bishop was keeping vigil in the church. The beast’s leonine head turned up to Freize as he sat, darkly profiled against the starlit sky, murmuring quietly to it, hoping that it would speak again; but it said nothing.

‘It would be a good time now for you to say your name, my darling,’ he said quietly. ‘One “God bless” would save your life. Or just “good” again. Speak, beast, before midnight. Or speak at midnight. Speak when everyone is looking at you. But speak. Make sure you speak.’

The animal looked at him, its eyebrows raised, its head on one side, its eyes bright brown through the tangled hair. ‘Speak, beast,’ Freize urged him again. ‘No point being dumb if you can speak. If you could say “God bless” they would account it a miracle. Can you say it? After me?“God bless”?’

At eleven o’ clock the people started to gather outside the stable door, some carrying billhooks and others scythes and axes. It was clear that if the bishop did not order the animal shot with the silver arrow then the men would take the law into their own hands, cleave it apart with their tools or tear it apart with their bare hands. Freize looked out through the door and saw some men at the back of the crowd levering up the cobbles with an axe head, and tucking the stones into their pockets.

Ishraq came out of the inn to find Freize, reaching down into the bear pit to give the beast a morsel of bread and cheese.

‘They are certain to kill it,’ she said. ‘They have not come for a trial; they have come to see it die.’

‘I know,’ he nodded.

‘Whatever sort of beast it is, I doubt that it is a werewolf.’

He shrugged. ‘Not having seen one before, I couldn’t say. But this is an animal which seeks contact with humans, it’s not a killer like a wolf, it’s more companionable than that. Like a dog in its willingness to come close, like a horse in its shy pride, like a cat in its indifference. I don’t know what sort of beast it is. But I would put my year’s wages on it being an endearing beast, a loving beast, a loyal beast. It’s a beast that can learn, it’s a beast that can change its ways.’

‘They’re not going to spare it on my word or yours,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘Not on any word from either of us. Nobody listens to the unimportant. But the little lord might save it.’

‘He’s got the bishop against him, and the bishop’s scholars.’

‘Would your lady speak up for it?’

She shrugged. ‘Who ever listens to a woman?’

‘No man of any sense,’ he replied instantly and was pleased to see the gleam of her smile.

She looked down at the beast. It looked up at her and its ugly truncated face seemed almost human. ‘Poor beast,’ she said.

‘If it was a fairytale you could kiss it,’ Freize volunteered. ‘You could bend down and kiss it and it would be a prince. Love can make miracles with beasts, so they say. But no! Forgive me, I remember now, that you don’t kiss. Indeed, you throw a good man down in the mud for even thinking that you might.’

She did not respond to his teasing, but for a moment she looked very thoughtful. ‘You know, you’re right. Only love can save it,’ she said. ‘That is what you have been showing from the moment you first saw it. Love.’

‘I wouldn’t say that I. . .’ Freize started, but in that moment she was gone.

In a very little while, the head of the village, Mr Miller, hammered at the gate of the inn and Freize and the inn servant opened the great double doors to the stable yard. The villagers flooded in and took their places on the tables that surrounded the outer wall of the arena, just as they would for a bear baiting. The men brought strong ale with them, and their wives sipped from their cups, laughing and smiling. The young men of the village came with their sweethearts, and the cook in the kitchen sold little cakes and pies out of the kitchen door, while the maids ran around the stable yard selling mulled ale and wine. It was an execution and a party: both at once.

Ishraq saw Sara Fairley arrive, a great basket of wolfsbane in her arms, and her husband followed behind, leading their donkey loaded with the herb. They tied the donkey in the archway and came into the yard, their boy with his usual sprig of wolfsbane in his hat.

‘You came,’ Isolde said warmly, stepping forwards. ‘I am glad that you are here. I am glad that you felt you could come.’

‘My husband thought that we should,’ Sara replied, her face very pale. ‘He thought it would satisfy me to see the beast dead at last. And everyone else is here. I could not let the village gather without me, they shared my sorrow. They want to see the end of the story.’

‘I am glad you came,’ Isolde repeated. The woman clambered up on the trestle table beside Ishraq, and Isolde followed her.

‘You have the arrowhead?’ the woman asked Ishraq. ‘You are going to shoot it?’

Without a word, the young woman nodded and showed her the longbow and the silver-tipped arrow.