‘I don’t understand.’
‘You must have had a woman with you. The Norns have said he will come to find her.’
‘There are many women in the palace.’
‘She will be haunted by dreams. She will have seen him. Seen me. On a path by a river under moonlight, she will have seen us.’
Loys crossed himself.
‘There is such a woman. Why does he seek her?’
‘He comes for her blood too. He is murder, he is massacre and obliteration. He is the slaughter beast.’
‘This is my friend. I know him. He would not kill anyone.’
‘Your friend, what is his name?’
‘Azemar.’
‘This monk tore apart four guards in the tunnel. Explain that.’
‘He was afraid for his life. Men gain great strength in such circumstances.’
‘Some more than others. I stood next to him while he crawled to the corpses, like my brothers the wolves. I saw how the flesh filled him and made him new. He broke his manacles to be free.’
‘This is not true.’
‘How else does a man who has been locked under the earth for a month find the strength to perform such feats? I recognised him.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I have sweated and frozen in dark places. I have walked to the edge of the lands of the gods and looked within, and I have stood while those who know more than me have suffered and screamed for lore.’
‘You are a sorcerer.’
‘No. I am a man, but a man the gods notice and sometimes reward.’
‘What is to happen to the woman, the one who sees the wolf?’
‘She draws him to her, and she is drawn to the god. She finds the god; the wolf finds her.’
‘And then?’
‘The god has his reward. Death in this life so he may live in the realms eternal.’
‘What happens to the woman?’
‘She dies.’
Loys’ silence told the wolfman what he needed to know.
‘She is dear to you?’
‘She is my wife.’
‘Then you have a part in this too.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘The wolf is my brother.’
Loys remembered the story Snake in the Eye had told him — how two brothers were caught in the destiny of the gods, how one would kill the other and take on the power to kill a god. But still he didn’t believe the wolfman.
‘No.’
‘You have your flint?’
‘Yes.’
‘Strike.’
Loys struck, and in the flash he saw the tinderbox and the lamp. A couple more strikes and he had them in his hand. He lit the lamp. The wolfman’s face was haggard, scarred and gaunt, but it was also, unmistakably, that of Azemar. He remembered what his friend had said: I found my double down there in the dark. The lamp shook in his hand.
‘How can I protect my wife?’ said Loys.
‘By helping me,’ said the wolfman. ‘I have no great desire to die by the hand of my brother. I want to thwart the god’s aims.’
‘How can you do that?’
‘I need to go behind the water, to the well of wisdom, where I can drink to discover what needs to be done. I had thought my own death would be enough.’ The wolfman gestured behind him to an expanse of water, glittering golden in the light of the lamp. ‘The well is beyond that.’
Loys looked into the wolfman’s face, the face of his friend Azemar. He was inclined to believe him. The wolfman’s eerie resemblance to Azemar gave credence to the idea that he was his brother. Beatrice, Beatrice. The idea that she was ensnared by these magical afflictions, that she might even be a target of dark powers, made him want to throw off the weight of rock above him and take her in his arms. He’d seen what Azemar had done to those men down there in the dark, his killing and his feeding. He could believe him to be a wolf. And Loys had brought him to the palace, put him next to Beatrice in her own chamber.
‘Can he be saved too?’ said Loys.
‘I don’t know. The answer is at the well.’
Loys felt desperation like a knife in his belly — he would do anything to remove it.
‘I will help you,’ said Loys. A gasp behind him and the white head of Mauger appeared from the water. ‘And so will my men. What is your name?’
‘Call me Elifr,’ said the wolfman
‘I am Loys.’
Mauger hauled himself into the tunnel.
39
The odours that woke him were the odours of death. Corpses lay all around, very near. There was a smell of burning too. Azemar sat up in his bed and touched his chest. It was wet with drool. His sleep had been troubled. She had been in his dreams again, Beatrice, the lady. He had committed two treacheries while he slept — one against the Church and his vows of celibacy and one against his friend.
The dream felt so real. He had been in a forest in autumn, the ground thick with leaves of red, russet and gold. They seemed so brilliant that he imagined some dwarf in his cave cutting each leaf from fine metal before puffing it into the sky to be caught by the wind and blown to the forest floor. The trees were far from bare, though, and the dying sun turned their leaves to cold fire. She was next to him and he was naked on the ground.
‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘I have washed the wolf away.’
Azemar sat up, embraced her and lay with her on the leafy ground.
‘Who are these fellows?’ he asked her. Around him, ragged men lay dead as the leaves.
‘Their light is gone,’ she said. ‘I took it so they would not harm us.’
Awake and in the palace, Azemar told himself he had dreamed, though it did not seem like a dream but a memory — because it didn’t stop when he woke. He remembered the forest, the little house where they had prepared for the winter. He remembered how his appetite had driven him from his bed to go snuffling through the moonlight to the bodies of the ragged men.
Azemar was sure he had been deranged by his stay in the Numera. He had seen demons there — the pale fellow, the wolfman. Had one crawled into his mind to drive him mad?
She came into the room, unchaperoned, not even the servant beside her. Beatrice tried not to stare at him but couldn’t stop herself. There was no friendliness in her eyes.
‘Good morning, lady.’
‘It is afternoon by the bells.’
‘Then good afternoon.’
Her wariness seemed almost enticing, like bread cooking in the monastery’s ovens.
Beatrice stood very still for a while. Then she lowered herself onto a couch and said, ‘Sir, you trouble
