The sturdy wooden boat pitched and rolled as they neared the final bend toward the fortress. Cliffs rose high above his right shoulder as they rounded the island, offering no shelter from these currents out of the west that heralded squallish weather. Faced with a rough crossing or several days more sheltering on the mainland, during which the spoils of the hunt would begin to spoil in truth, they’d decided to cross. As it was, two hawks circled high above, no doubt drawn by the dressed deer carcasses. The sooner they docked, the better. Though accustomed to the sea, half the men still had a grimly green cast to their faces. Agravain himself had certainly felt better.
Two members of their party seemed completely unperturbed. His daughter sat in the center of the aft deck, riding the swells as if she’d been born on a ship. He’d have been unconditionally proud of that if the other unbothered party hadn’t been the gods-bedamned wolf.
The miserable beast lay with its head on Lura’s legs like some overgrown lapdog, eyes shut and tongue lolling through the cords of the muzzle Agravain had fashioned from the rabbit snare. With any luck, the creature would expire before they reached the docks, and he could dump it overboard.
But if the past day and night had taught Agravain anything, it was that fortune wasn’t currently favoring him. Its first betrayal had come when the wolf caught the scent of Lura’s roasted rabbit haunch and roused from its stupor long enough to eat half.
Agravain had managed to order her to the fire to sleep, only to wake in the wee hours to find her sitting next to the wolf again, cradling its head and singing softly to it, much as she did now. “He ate everything!” she’d whispered excitedly across the camp.
“It,” he’d corrected her.
“He,” she’d insisted, and then proceeded to meet his logic turn for turn, and step for step, until he’d found himself lifting the limp beast into their boat. His mother would have his head.
But his daughter owned his heart, so here he was.
The fortress came into view, to the relieved groans of several men. They maneuvered the craft to the docks that jutted into the harbor below the gate, and one by one, the men of the party handed each other onto the solid planks and began to unload the venison.
Agravain gave the wolf a narrow eye.
“He’s alive,” Lura said, holding on to its fur protectively.
“So he is,” he muttered, then nodded toward the dock. “Climb out.”
“Wolf first.”
Jorri coughed, then cleared his throat. “Let’s have him, then.”
Avoiding the man’s eyes, Agravain bent and lifted the wolf in his arms. As thin as it was, it still felt substantial, which did not bode well for the peace of his household. With a bit of jostling, he lifted it up to Jorri, who laid it on the dock. Lura clambered out of the boat on her own and knelt next to the wolf, stroking its head.
What were the odds he could get the beast to his chambers without his mother’s notice?
“So you return!”
The odds were nil. Morgawse was striding down the docks toward them, her skirts and cloak whipping about her. She stood shorter than Agravain but was every inch the undisputed ruler of these islands, a position she’d held even before she’d orchestrated her husband’s death. She hadn’t wielded the knife herself—Gawain’s man Palahmed had done the honors, guarding Gawain’s life—but she’d set the game in motion.
Now her keen gaze was trained on the wolf, which didn’t have the good sense to heave itself into the chop. “What have we here?”
Lura stood. “I caught a wolf.”
Morgawse’s eyes widened. “Did you now?”
“Papa said I could keep him.”
His mother’s eyes flashed up to meet his, one dark eyebrow rising in challenge.
“I said,” Agravain growled, “if it survived the crossing, we would discuss it.”
“It looks half dead,” Morgawse murmured.
He grimaced. “Unfortunately, it lives.”
His mother turned back to Lura. “Are you certain it isn’t a pwca, come to steal you away?”
“He hasn’t tried to trick me,” Lura said calmly. “And my name-rune isn’t carved on his teeth.”
Agravain flinched. “When did you determine that?”
“When he was eating,” she said, but in a sidewise tone that told him she’d probably lifted the beast’s lip when Agravain wasn’t looking. “Grandmother?”
“Aye?”
“What is the word for wolf? In Cymrish?”
His mother had taught her birth tongue to all her sons, against Lot’s wishes, and had started formally sharing it with Lura the year before. Lura came back from every afternoon in her grandmother’s chambers with new words.
“Bleidd,” Morgawse said.
Lura knelt next to the wolf. “Bleidd.”
“Well!” Morgawse clapped her hands. “Welcome home, my fierce young hunter. You may keep your wolf. Get along inside. Jorri will carry it in. Jorri?”
“Mistress.” The man carried the wolf down the dock toward the gate, Lura leading the way as if she ruled the place.
“Agravain?”
“Aye, Mother?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
He sighed and hefted his pack. “It’ll die yet.”
“Not if I know my granddaughter, it won’t.”
“I’ll keep it muzzled.”
His mother flicked her fingers, dismissing the subject as if the sea breeze might whisk it away. “How was your hunt?”
“Productive. We brought back a dozen or so.”
“Excellent. And your return is timely. We have visitors.”
Agravain glanced about the docks and then saw it: an unfamiliar boat moored closer to the fortress. “Who?”
“The leader calls himself Hogo.”
“What sort of name is that?”
“Some brand of southern. They bring news of Cymru.”
“At this time of year?” He snorted. “Sounds like a bid to accidentally get socked in here for the winter. Where are Gareth and Gahers?”
“Where are your brothers, ever?” She twirled a finger in the air. “About. Listen.” Threading an arm through his, she pulled them down the docks. “I believe it’s time.”
“For?”
“For Lura to begin her true education. Stories and sums are for babes. It’s time we begin to prepare her for her future.”
A thin sliver of dread slipped under his skin. Her future meant one thing: marriage. “She has but five years.”
“When I had five years—”
“You could bake bread, weave cloth, milk goats, build houses, and forge swords.”
Morgawse chuckled. “Daggers, only. Swords are rather heavy.” She looked at him sidelong. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You’ll still see her all the time. But, in the twixt, she’ll learn constructive skills.”
“She’s learning them now. From me.”
“Oh? You know how to bake bread? Weave cloth?”
“She learned how to dress a deer this trip. And set a snare. She caught two rabbits and cleaned them both. How many of your lasses can do that?” None of them, that was how many. Bake bread.
“Agravain. You must let her go at some point.”
“What I must do is show her how to cure the meat we brought home, for a start. I have another mouth to feed now, and I’ll be drowned if I’m going to care for the creature myself. Lura will learn responsibility there first.” He ground his teeth. “Thanks, by the bye, for preempting my say on the matter of the wolf.” He nodded to the gatekeeper as they passed through.
His mother clucked her tongue. “I only did what you were bound to do. You’ll spoil her.”
“Aye, just what every wee lass dreams of: a half-dead beast to revive.”
“You’d be surprised. What has she named it?”
“Wolf,” he muttered.
Morgawse gave him a pitying glance. “You need a new wife, Agravain. Else your daughter will row you under.”
This again. “What if I want a man, as Gawain did?”
Her eyes went gratifyingly wide, and she halted their steps. “Do you?”
He scoffed. “I already have one stubborn will in my life.”
“And a wolf.”
And a fucking wolf.
She patted his arm. “Go show our Lura how the venison is cured. When you’ve finished, join us. And bring my granddaughter with you; it’s time she learned the ways of negotiation.”
The ways of negotiation. Lura was well ahead on that score.
“Oh, and leave your foundling in your chambers.” His mother shook her head, bemused. “Our guests have brought a wolf of their own.”
Once, long before the wolf was a wolf, he’d crossed the sea.
A narrow channel, it turned out, but it had seemed enormous from the shore, like his grandfather the smith, and as restless as his other grandfather, the old soldier. They were taking him on an adventure, him and his father and mother, and his mother’s parents and his uncle, and Masters Philip and Tiro, across a bit of ocean to another land. The crossing had only taken a day, but he’d stood at the boat’s rail for as much of it as his elders allowed, the wind stealing his whoops for itself, his belly leaping inside him as the craft rode up and down the swells. He’d been a little disappointed that the land on the far side had looked like his own—rocky beaches, tall yellow grass atop high bluffs. He tried to imagine the mountains they would be walking to, some so high they would be wearing caps of snow, Master Tiro said.
When they docked, he’d run down the gangway, eager to see the mountains, but then his mother’s belly pains had begun. But she didn’t retch her rations over the side of the boat. Instead she made her way ashore, then lay down near some bleating goats and bore a babe. A wet, bloody, hairy, squalling babe whose new name meant bear.
His own name didn’t mean anything special. He’d asked.
Salt filled his senses again now, and relief washed over him like so many waves. He’d run so far north he’d come to the sea, and then managed to cross some part of that too. If he must continue drawing breath, at least every salt-laced inhalation would remind him how much distance he’d put between himself and… Well. No need to think on it anymore. He seemed to be floating, two planks supporting his body. Then the sounds of wind and slosh changed, giving way to boot scuffs on stone and distant voices. Everything was muted in a way he hadn’t experienced for a long, long while, but there—just there—was a voice that reassured him. Small and low, but strong, like a well-woven cord.
Lura. That was what they called her. That was what she’d said to him as she stroked his ears. Lura. Lura.
“…Lura.”
It came in a deeper voice now, and the girl responded with words he didn’t understand. Then he came to rest on something so soft it didn’t seem real. It smelled like the girl. He opened his eyes to a dark, flickering space and pushed his nose into the softness. Sheep’s wool. Then Lura was there at his head again, stroking his fur, and he closed his eyes. They spoke back and forth, strong girl and gruff man, and he sank into the crackle of the fire and the stillness of his body.
Sometime later he became aware of the voices again, though the deeper voice was different now. Lura’s sounded different as well. Softer, not as certain. Pleading, perhaps. Her hands rested on his head.
Don’t open your eyes.
He wasn’t sure where the thought had come from, or why, but he kept them shut and opened his other senses. The space held the slightly dank scent of stone but also the warm comfort of dry hay and worn leather. The man smelled of sweat and dried piss and unwashed hair, as all men did.
As he had done when he’d been a man.
The wolf wasn’t a man very often now. Hadn’t been for months, maybe longer. The farther north he’d run, the more imperative his fur had become. Bare skin brought quick, violent chills. How had he survived so long as a man? Without his own fur and fangs he’d needed other animals’ pelts, and blades. And boots and trousers and spoons and cups… Being human required too much.
The strange, muted quality of the chamber pressed on his hearing again. Had he made a misstep, approaching the people in the clearing? Surrendering himself to their blades and boats for the sake of a small girl’s gestures of comfort?
“Lura.” Her father, he guessed.
The girl’s fingers tightened in his fur, and she made a sound even he could interpret as mutinous.
“Lura.”
More sounds from the girl, swift as a rill in spring. The man joined in, speaking over her, but Lura was undeterred. Holding the wolf’s scruff in a fierce grip, she argued and argued, though he could hear a faint tone of request. Push, pull, push, pull.
They fell silent. The fire popped and hissed, and the girl’s breath puffed from her nose.
At last, her father grunted. His words were blunt but spoken low, frayed at the edges by fatigue, and Lura’s fingers relaxed their hold in the wolf’s fur. Her response was more subdued too, and seemed thankful. The wolf let himself sink into the sheepskin once more.
Until there came a knock on the door post and a different man spoke. The sounds were as bitten-off as all the rest had been, but then two of them formed Agravain and Morgawse, and the wolf found himself fighting to hold on to his canine form.
He was in the stronghold ruled by Lord Uthyr’s sister, and Lura’s father was her eldest son. The wolf had heard the man’s name a few times over the years, especially since…
Since the time Arthur’d been gone. Since he’d formed a mercenary band around him, one that included a northerner named Gawain. Uthyr’s nephew, and this man’s brother. There were at least two more brothers in this clan, the wolf’s memory offered, and all were allies to Arthur.
The wolf buried his snout in the wool and held on to his fur with all his will. How had he wandered to the farthest reaches of the land, only to find himself amongst friends of the one person he wanted to forget? Should have run south, he thought, all the way to Rome, or whatever was left of it.
Because where he’d washed ashore was the worst possible place for a wolf who wasn’t only a wolf.
But especially for a wolf whose name had once been Cai, brother of Arthur the Bear and traitor to Cymru.