started off with Elabonian and the Trokme tongue, and failed with both. Then he used the guttural language of the Gradi, who lived north of the Trokmoi, and after that brought no response he spoke in the hissing tongue used by the nomads of the Shanda plains. Those, at least, Gerin recognized. Van tried what must have been a dozen languages in all, maybe more. The shifting sounds of his words interested the naked man, but not enough to make him say anything past a couple of grunts. After a while, Van spread his hands. 'I give up, Captain,' he said, returning to Elabonian.
'Come to think of it, I have one other tongue,' Gerin said, and addressed the naked stranger in Sithonian, a language he read more fluently than he spoke it. He might as well have saved his breath.
'He can hear,' Rennewart said. 'We saw that.'
'Aye, and he's not altogether mute, anyhow,' the Fox agreed. ' But-' He paused, a suspicion growing in him, then said, 'Maybe what he needs is a jack of ale. Could you bring him one, please?'
Rennewart sent him a first-rate dubious look, but brought the jack as asked. He handed it to Gerin, saying, 'Here, you want him to have this, you give it to him.'
Gerin took the couple of steps that brought him over to the naked man. He held out the leather jack, smiling invitingly. The stranger took it, gaped at it, but did not raise it to his lips. Quietly, Van said, 'It's like he never saw one before.'
'I'm beginning to think that's just what it's like,' Gerin answered. He took back the jack, drank from it to show what it was for, and returned it to the naked man. The fellow drank then, clumsily, so ale trickled through his beard and dripped on the ground. He spent a moment thinking over the taste, then smacked his lips and gulped down the rest of the ale. He held out the jack to Gerin with a hopeful expression.
Gerin pulled him to his feet. 'Here, come along with me,' he said, and eked out his words with gestures. The naked man followed him willingly enough. So did Van and Rennewart, both looking curious.
The naked man jumped when the drawbridge thudded down, but went across it with the Fox. The feasters in the great hall stared at the newcomer; Gerin hoped Van didn't notice Fand's admiring glance. He gave the fellow another jack of ale, then took a pitcherful with him as he led the naked man down to the cellar from which he'd but lately released Widin.
Lured by the prospect of more ale, the stranger again accompanied him without protest. Gerin set the pitcher on the ground. As the stranger made for it, the Fox hurried out of the cellar, shut the door behind him, and dropped the bar. Then he went back up to the great hall, poured a jack of ale for himself, and gulped it down in one long draught.
'All right, Captain, what was that all about?' Van demanded when he thumped the jack down on the table. 'You know something; I can see it in your face.'
Gerin shook his head. 'Come morning, I'll know something. Now I just suspect.'
'Suspect what?' several people answered in the same breath.
'I suspect I just locked a werebeast in the cellar,' Gerin answered.
Again several people spoke at once, Aragis loudest and most to the point: 'But that was no beast-he was a man.'
'And quite a man he was, too,' Fand murmured, which drew her a sharp look from Van.
'When men go were, they take beast shape,' the Fox said, filling his drinking jack again. 'If a beast goes were, though, what would it become? A man, unless all logic lies. And look at this fellow-not just at how hairy he was, either. He had no idea how to be a man. He wore no clothes, he couldn't speak, he didn't know what a cup was for till I showed him… As I say, we'll know for certain come morning, when we open the cellar door after moonset and see who-or what-is down there.'
Aragis shook his head, still doubtful. But Selatre said, 'I like the notion. It might even explain how the monsters came to be: suppose a female beast turned woman long years ago, and a farmer or hunter found her and had his way with her and got her with child. Come morning, she'd be an animal once more, but who knows what litter she would have borne?'
'It could be so,' Gerin said, nodding. 'Or men as werebeasts might have mixed their blood with females of their beast kind. Either way, you're right-the get might be horrific. It's a better guess at how the monsters began than any that's crossed my mind.' He raised his jack in salute to her cleverness.
'If you conceive by me, you'll know what you'll have, lass,' Van said to Fand.
'More trouble than I'd know what to do with, I expect,' she retorted.
'How d'you put a viper's tongue in such a pretty mouth?' he asked, and she looked smug.
The ale ran out not long after that, and no one seemed enthusiastic about going down to the cellar for more, not with the stranger down there. No one seemed enthusiastic about staying in the great hall, either, even if Marlanz had plenty of raw meat by his side as he slept. The kitchen helpers went to their quarters and barred the door. Everyone else went upstairs.
Gerin made sure the sun was well up-which meant full Elleb and Nothos would be well down-before he went downstairs the next morning. Even then, he went not only armed but ready to beat a hasty retreat.
He found Marlanz Raw-Meat back in fully human form, and just sitting up in the rushes, looking mightily confused at how he'd got there and even more confused at the pile of well-gnawed pig bones beside him. 'How strong do you brew your ale, lord prince?' he asked. 'Funny, though-it must have been a mighty carouse, but my head doesn't hurt.'
'It wasn't ale-it was the moons,' Gerin answered, and explained what had happened the night before.
Marlanz stared, then slowly nodded and got to his feet. 'I'm told the same fit came over me, only stronger, at the great werenight five years gone by. I remember nothing of that night, either.'
Van came downstairs then, also armed. He grunted in relief to see Marlanz without visible traces of lycanthropy, then said, 'Shall we go down to the cellar and see what your wereman's become?'
That required more explanations for Marlanz. When they were through, Aragis' vassal pulled out his own sword and said, 'Let's slay the appalling creature.'
'If we can get it out of the keep without fighting, I'll be just as happy to do that,' Gerin answered.
Marlanz stared, then realized he meant what he said. 'You are the lord here,' he said, in tones that implied he was willing to obey even if he wouldn't have gone about things thus himself.
'Take a shield off the wall and carry some of those bones of yours in it,' Gerin told him. 'Maybe they'll make the thing in the cellar as happy as they made you-and you didn't quite get all the meat off them.'
Marlanz's stare turned reproachful, but he did as he was asked. Van said, 'What if it's still a man down there?'
'We'll find him something else for breakfast,' Gerin replied, which had the virtue of making both his companions shut up.
They went down to the cellar together. Gerin unbarred the door and pushed it open. 'Father Dyaus above,' Marlanz said softly-a mediumsized black bear sprawled on the dirt floor. The beast looked up at them in absurd surprise.
It did not growl, nor did the hair on its back rise. It didn't jump up and flee into the dark recesses of the cellar, either. 'What's wrong with it?' Van demanded, as if he assumed Gerin would know.
And, for a wonder, Gerin did. 'It's still got ale coursing through it from last night. That was a good-sized pitcher, and who knows when in man-shape it might have finished?' He paused, then chuckled. 'I'm glad it's a friendly drunk.'
Luring the bear upstairs with bones proved easy, though it wobbled as it walked. 'I still say we ought to kill it,' Marlanz grumbled as the gate crew let down the drawbridge and the bear staggered off toward the forest.
'We didn't try killing you last night,' Gerin reminded him.
'Lucky for you that you didn't,' Marlanz said, drawing himself up with prickly pride. Gerin agreed with him, but wasn't about to admit it.
XI
The next night, only Tiwaz was full, with Elleb and Nothos a day past and Math two. This time, Gerin sent Marlanz Raw-Meat down to the cellar and locked Widin Simrin's son in the shack where he worked on his magics.
