Adisla couldn’t bring herself to share in the fun, even though she had the most to celebrate. She felt hollow with misery but knew she had done the right thing. Her thoughts were like trolls, reaching at her from the darkness of her mind. She tried to lose herself in the beauty of the moon, low and huge against the sky of smoky silver. It was nearly full. For a month or more her destiny had been tied to it. Now, in days, she thought, Forkbeard would be home. She thought of the story of how the god of the moon had snatched two children while they drew water at a well, and how those children now rode with him in his chariot in the sky, pursued by a dreadful wolf called hate, who snapped at their heels. She had a wolf following her, one that had been set on her at birth — her station, her rank. She had seen what she wanted as if from across an impassable river.
Suddenly she felt very cold. She was, she noticed, sitting in the shadow of a pale birch tree. The darkness there seemed unnaturally deep and the air around her was very still, as if it had a weight to it, one that she would struggle to push away. And behind her she felt a presence, something quite unlike anything she had felt before, something that seemed born of cold waters and dark, damp spaces.
‘Is there someone there?’ She felt ridiculous saying this.
She stood and looked around. Like an arrow storm, starlings broke across the moon, wheeling in a shifting black cloud that turned and darted as one. The sudden changes in the birds’ direction made Adisla think of a thousand tiny gates opening and closing in the sky and of a story Vali had told her, one he’d got from Arab merchants, of a djinn, a demon of smoke, towering over her.
As quickly as they had come the birds were gone and with them the cold and oppressive feeling in the air. It was then she thought of the wolfman. She looked up past the last of the houses to the single birch where he was tied.
She was curious to see this strange bandit who had been forced to trade his life for hers, so she made her way up the hill. When she got to the birch, Tassi, the fat old man who had been charged with guarding him, was sitting on a low three-legged stool and looking very unhappy. Next to him was the wolfman, seated on the ground, leaning against the tree with his hands tied to it behind his back. He still had the bag on his head. The people of Eikund shared Vali’s superstition about sorcerers and were not about to allow him to enchant them.
‘Hello, Tassi,’ said Adisla.
‘You’re not about to start singing, are you? He might be a wolfman but he doesn’t deserve that. We draw the line at hanging ’em round here.’
‘No,’ said Adisla.
She looked at the wolfman. He was naked apart from a wolf pelt around his back and his body was smeared in a grey substance that she took to be chalk dust. The only places free of the grey were two red sores on his stomach and chest.
His muscles were remarkable, even to a farm girl who lived among people strong through toil. Even the berserks, with their potions and their constant drilling with weapons, their wrestling and their tests of strength, were not made like that. The man’s muscles seemed almost twisted onto his bones, like willow roots around stone.
She was almost inclined to check he was securely tied — she wondered that a normal rope could hold him.
‘Quite a specimen, isn’t he?’ said Tassi. ‘Although I got tired of looking at him after about ten breaths and now I wouldn’t mind just getting slaughtered.’
Adisla didn’t reply. She was scared of the wolfman but intrigued by him. Was it true what people said — that he had the head of a wolf, or that only the best steel could cut him? The man didn’t look dangerous now. He was clearly exhausted and breathing heavily.
‘I said,’ said Tassi, ‘that I wouldn’t mind the chance to take a cup of ale.’
‘So?’
‘Well, if you are going to be here for a while, couldn’t you watch him and if he tries to get away just come and get me?’
‘Couldn’t you have paid one of the children to do that?’ Then she remembered: Tassi was notoriously mean. He didn’t pay for anything if he could help it.
He shrugged as if she had made a ludicrous suggestion.
‘Go and have a drink,’ she said, ‘but don’t be too long, I want to go home to bed soon.’
‘Make sure you don’t take him with you,’ said Tassi, smiling and getting up.
‘What?’
‘I see the way you look at him,’ he said. ‘He’s out of bounds but, should you be in the mood…’
‘Go and have your drink,’ said Adisla.
‘As you like,’ said Tassi. He slouched off towards the hall.
Adisla didn’t like to admit it but Tassi had been right to a point. She did find the wolfman fascinating, but she couldn’t find a man like that attractive. He stank for a start, a musty smell more animal than human. She sat down on the stool. She wanted to say something sympathetic, something to make him feel better, but couldn’t think of anything. Instead, she heard herself ask: ‘Are you sorry for your crimes now?’
The wolfman said nothing. A shadow flitted across her and Adisla looked up to see what it was. There was nothing there, though the speed of its passing made her think of the starlings. She was possessed by a sudden urge to see what he looked like. She thought that if he tried to enchant her then she would just look away.
There was no one about and the riotous sounds from the hall were as loud as ever. She leaned forward and touched his arm. It was just as it looked, hard as a tree. Some of the grey came off on her fingers. She licked at it. As she had thought, it was some sort of chalk. The wolfman had not flinched when she touched him and this made her bolder. She lifted up the hood on his head. Now he did move, his head lolling forward. At first she thought he really did have an animal’s head. Then she realised it was the pelt of a large wolf, which had slipped down to cover his face. He coughed, and stretched his neck. Gingerly she lifted the pelt and was so surprised she sat back down on the stool. Vali was looking straight at her.
‘You are a sorcerer!’ The implications of what she saw began to sink in. If this was a shape-shifter, if he could appear exactly as Vali, then — if he got free — he could take the prince’s place, eat with them, play and who knows what more? Perhaps they would have climbed the hills and lain kissing on the grass together. Perhaps they would have gone out in the little boat, as she and Vali often did. And then what? Murder, as wolves always murdered.
The man blinked at her. He cleared his throat and said slowly, ‘Not a sorcerer.’ His voice was low and cracked, with a strange accent. He produced his words carefully, as if they were fragile things that might break if he let them out too quickly. It was as if he was unused to speaking.
‘Then what are you?’
‘I am a wolf.’
Adisla was careful not to look at him directly for too long, in case he cast a spell on her.
‘You’ve stolen the face of the prince.’
‘This face was given me by a brother. I am proud to wear it. I look through his eyes and he sees again through me. I wear his fur and he runs again, through me.’
Adisla realised he was talking about the wolf pelt.
‘You are a fetch,’ she said, ‘a subtle, scheming shape-changer. Who sent you here?’
‘I stole the food of a black-hued man. He enchanted me and brought me to this place.’
Now Adisla did laugh. Vali, she well knew, was more interested in playing king’s table and mooning about the hills than he was in magic.
‘You’re black-hued yourself, no need for insults.’
‘It is true,’ he said. ‘I am a wolf.’