ELOISE
AND THE WEREWOLVES
A Modern Monster Romance
Mecklenberg Monsters
Jove Chambers
ELOISE AND THE WEREWOLVES
© copyright 2023 by Jove Chambers http://vjchambers.com Punk Rawk Books
“ELOISE,” SAID ELOISE’S best friend Astrid, leaning across the stone table in the garden at the Mecklenberg Inn, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “you dohave orgasms, though.”
Eloise toyed with the straw in her drink, which was a positively horrid experiment in low-sugary-cocktail-ness—vodka and soda water, ugh—and didn’t look at Astrid.
“You do, though,” Astrid’s voice was even softer, now, a whisper.
Eloise lifted her shoulders, a helpless gesture. She still didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how to explain this. It was mortifying.
“Don’t you?” Astrid was a nymph. She was tall and willowy and anxious and the platonic love of Eloise’s life. They’d been roommates in college and imprinted on each other then, like baby ducks finding a soul mate—a non-romantic soul mate, that is—and they told each other everything. Everything.
And Eloise would have told her this. Really. It was just… How?
She couldn’t find the words now, even after she had just tried to broach the subject. Deliberately, Eloise leaned over, sucked the disgusting bitter soda-water-vodka concoction through her straw, and shook her head. “Let’s forget I said anything.”
“No!” Astrid’s eyebrows were comically high on her forehead. She looked shocked and horrified.
Eloise groaned. She was a hedge witch. Well, she was also half cadejo, but her father was a spirit who shouldn’t have been able to take physical form and mate and only had done so because her mother had summoned him.
Eloise’s mother was solitary. It was a hedge witch thing.
Usually hedge witches gave birth to at least one offspring who was a similar sort—good with plants, solitary, magically inclined, etc.
Usually.
Eloise’s mother had given birth to Eloise and Kevin, and neither of them were what might be termed hedge witch material, not exactly. Eloise sure as Hades didn’t want the life her mother had.
But maybe the orgasm thing, maybe it was a sign.
“Eloise, spill it.” Astrid glared at her.
Eloise drank more vodka. Liquid courage. Loosen her tongue. “I just… I realized I never actually had with someone.”
“What do you mean, realized?” Astrid had a beer and she took a long swig of it. “Because you used to tell me about how many orgasms you had with Connor.”
That was Eloise’s asshole ex, who was a gargoyle. “I know I did.”
“So you were faking and lying about it? To me?”
“No!” Eloise spread her hands. “No, not at all.”
“So, you thoughtthey were orgasms,” said Astrid in understanding. “And then… what? You had a really real orgasm and realized…”
“Realized I never actually had one before,” said Eloise miserably.
“Oh, tangles and briars,” said Astrid. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When do we have detailed conversations about masturbation exactly?”
“Well, since our pact, we were both in a long dry spell, so it was the only way we were getting off, right?” said Astrid. The pact had been made after they had both ended up single and decided they made way too many excuses for horrible men.
Connor had refused to commit to Eloise, claiming they were just friends with benefits after three years of acting like boyfriend and girlfriend. And Astrid’s ex-boyfriend Tommy had been insistent that he was polyamorous and neededto have sex with other people, including his roommate with whom he seemed ridiculously close.
“Yeah,” said Eloise. “But still, we don’t discuss, like, technique, you know?”
“Should we have been?” said Astrid. “How were you not coming? You took me to buy my first vibrator.”
“I know.” Eloise hid her face in her hands. “It just…” She cringed and sought out her drink again. “Okay, so it would always feel uncomfortable, okay? So, I’d just move the vibrator away, to another spot, until thatspot felt uncomfortable, and then I’d eventually have, like, a little clench-thing and I figured that was it. And I could do it, the clench-thing, during sex—”
“Yeah, you said you could have orgasms just from penetration!”
“I thought they wereorgasms,” wailed Eloise.
“So, what? One day, you pushed through the discomfort?”
“It felt good is all,” said Eloise. “It was uncomfortable, but it was a gooduncomfortable.”
“Yeah, I get it,” said Astrid.
“And then… you know… it just built and built and built, and then —I didn’t know a person could feelthat good—and then crash.” She threw both her hands up above her head. “And boom, all of the sudden, I realize that was my firstfucking orgasm. At twenty-seven years old.”
“Two years ago? This happened two years ago?”
“Yeah?”
“So, you’ve just been pretending to me—”
“Well, I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“But what did you think I was going to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“I tell you everything. Every single embarrassing thing. And you kept this from me.”
“I know, but…” Eloise didn’t know how to explain. There was a dynamic to their friendship. Astrid was anxious and flighty and
worried, and Eloise was the strong and together one. So, she needed to be strong and together for Astrid. She didn’t know how to lean on her. The thought of exposing this to Astrid, this horrid vulnerability, it made her feel terrified.
She maybe might never have told her.
It was only that… well, everything with her and Astrid was different now. Now, Eloise didn’t feel strong and together. She felt left behind and pathetic. She felt afraid and lonely.
She shouldn’t.
And, well, she felt really happy for her best friend, too.
If anyone deserved happiness, it was Astrid, her platonic life partner, after all. Eloise wanted only the best for the nymph.
So, she shouldn’t feel anything else at all, and she was trying hard not to, trying hard to feel strength.
“There you are.”
Eloise’s head snapped up.
Astrid’s head jerked up, too, and she was smiling. The smile was taking over her whole face, and her body was turning in the direction of the person who’d spoken.
Valdemar Thalt. Her fiancé. The orc. He stopped in front of the table, holding a beer, huge and green and tusked, and he grinned down at Astrid.
She grinned back. Her voice was a little breathy. “I told you I was going to be at the Meck.”
“Did you?” His voice was low and affectionate too.
Eloise got up. “I’ll let you guys whatever.”
“No, we’re in the middle of a conversation!” said Astrid. “Sit back down.”
“I need another drink,” said Eloise.
“You barely drank that one,” said Astrid.
“That’s because it’s disgusting. I need carbs,” said Eloise, and she fled, down the stone walkway between all the growing plants and the other stone tables and the people out here drinking, and all the way inside to the bar area of the Meck, which stretched out in the front room.
She put her drink on the bar and locked eyes with the bartender. “I want something sugary. With, like, five fruit juices in it. And maybe rum. I don’t know. Can you help me?”
The bartender was Lucy, a kelpie. She chuckled. “I can absolutely do that.” She snatched up Eloise’s drink and dumped it. She got a fresh glass and set it down to next her metal shaker glass, which she began to fill with ice and various liqueurs and fruit juices.
Eloise slumped against the bar.
She wished this was a bar like in those old-school movies, where the bartender would say, “Long day? What to tell me about it?” in a smoky voice or something.
But in the Meck, it was best to keep one’s issues to oneself, actually, unless you wanted the whole town talking about it.
She would—of course—not dream of sharing the orgasm information with Lucy. But she wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t Astrid about her weird feelings about Astrid’s impending marriage.
Her, um, her jealousy?
No.
It couldn’t be jealousy.
Eloise couldn’t be jealous, because that was a dumb thing to be. It meant that she was insecure and that she wasn’t wishing her friend well, and none of that was true.
So, no.
No, no, no.
When she got back to the table with her new drink, Valdemar was still standing over the table. He was laughing. He eyed Eloise. “You know, I’m just going to be all the more curious,” he said in an amused voice.
“No, you’re not,” Astrid said. “You’re going to go find something else with yourself to do, because we’re going to talk about very girly things that you don’t even want to know about anyway.”
“I can handle it,” said Valdemar. “Eloise, you really want me to go away?”
Eloise glared at Astrid.
“Go away,” Astrid said to him, making a shooing motion with one hand.
“Sit down,” said Eloise, shaking her head. “There’s nothing else to talk about anyway.”
“There so is,” said Astrid. “Go away, Valdi.”
“Are you going to tell me later?” he said.
“No,” said Astrid.
“Oh, briars and tangles,” said Eloise, sitting down at the table. “I can’t have orgasms during sex. No one makes me come but me. Okay? There? Happy, Valdemar?”
“That’s really common,” said Valdemar.
“Go away,” said Astrid to him in a tiny voice.
Valdemar sat down at the table. “So, seriously, I went to this seminar once in grad school, and it was fascinating. Did you know that we didn’t map the entire clitoris until 2005? That’s how little we have cared about female satisfaction as a culture. And it’s despicable, in my opinion.”
Astrid turned to him. “Okay, but you’re not like other men, sweetheart.”
“Is that like being not like the other girls?” said Valdemar. “Because I also went to a seminar about that, and the woman had cut together this video of all these movies with all these men telling women that someone being unlike other women was a good thing, like what all men want is a woman who isn’t feminine, which isn’t true, by the way. But it’s a cultural undercurrent because we are still in the vestiges of a patriarchy, and we’re still working through—”
“Valdi,” said Astrid, shaking her head at him.
“What?” said Valdemar. “This is a really real problem in our current society, and Eloise, you shouldn’t be ashamed. It’s not your fault.”
“Right,” said Eloise. “It’s not my fault, it’s their fault, I suppose. It’s the men’s faults.”
“It is,” said Valdemar. “Because men just don’t prioritize female pleasure—”
“I don’t know,” said Eloise. “It’s not like the guys I go to bed with don’t try.”
Valdemar furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s not do this, Valdi,” said Astrid. “You’re making her uncomfortable.”
“The trying makes it, like, worse, though?” said Eloise. “Have you ever tried to have an orgasm while also trying to give directions at the same time? And then, it’s so much pressure, you know? So… whatever.”
“You just need to be comfortable with someone,” said Astrid.
“I don’t think so,” said Valdemar. “I just think it’s about persistence and not giving up on a thing. You just… you try until you figure it out.”
“Okay,” said Eloise with a shrug.
“No?” said Valdemar.
“It’s fine,” said Eloise. “I’m normal. Lots of women don’t come. It’s no big deal.” She shrugged. “Let’s talk about something else. Are you guys setting a date anytime soon for the wedding?”
Neither Valdemar nor Astrid said anything. They just both looked at her.
“It’s not fine,” said Valdemar, slamming a thick, green finger into the middle of the table for emphasis. “This is exactly what’s wrong with our entire culture. Women get pressured into saying it’s fine. It’s not. And when I was a dumb kid, before I met Hiljd, I was with girls who just let me get by with that. But then I met her, and she made it pretty clear that it was important, and I had to step up if I was going to please her, and—”
“Valdi,” Astrid interrupted.
He turned to look at her. “Sorry about bringing up Hiljd if that made you feel—”
“No,” said Astrid. “Eloise doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“But if she doesn’t figure this out,” said Valdemar, “then she’s never going to be able to do it.”
Eloise drank a long, long swig of her fruity drink. “Well, it doesn’t even matter. I’m a hedge witch. I’m probably destined to be alone. So, the fact that I’m the only one that can make the stars align down there? Maybe it’s just the way it’s meant to be.”
ELOISE WAS ACCOSTED coming out of the bathroom at the Meck, a few hours later, by Astrid.
“Hey,” said her best friend, “I’m so sorry about Valdemar. I can’t believe you told him.”
Eloise shrugged. “I just don’t care. I’m glad it’s all out in the open, and now I don’t have to keep pretending to be normal, that’s all.”
“But you arenormal,” said Astrid. “I mean, he’s being ridiculous and male about it, but he’s not wrong. It’s normal.”
“Okay,” said Eloise, with a shrug.
“It’s normal, and you’re not a problem to solve.” Astrid rolled her eyes. “Men always make everything into a problem to solve. That’s not even remotely sexy, though.”
“Exactly,” said Eloise, smiling in relief at her friend. Astrid pushed Eloise back into the bathroom and shut and locked the door. “This way, he can’t interrupt us, right?”
Eloise laughed. “Okay, but seriously, it must be nice to have a guy who’s that devoted to the whole idea of it.”
“He’s…” Astrid shrugged. “He’s gentle.”
“Really?” said Eloise quietly, thinking that through.
“But it’s not about technique, not really, it’s about trust, you know? You need to be able to trust a man to let go of him in front of him like that.”
Eloise furrowed her brow. “Um? That’s how it is for you?”
Astrid nodded. “Yeah.”
“But, like, you and Tommy. You didn’t have problems coming with him. And you never trusted him. Even from the beginning, you were like, ‘He’s fucking his roommate.’ And you were right, by the way, you were totally right, so he wasn’t even remotelytrustworthy—”
“I don’t mean that kind of trust,” said Astrid.
“What kind of trust do you mean?”
“Just… you have to…” Astrid thought about it. “You have to feel like it’ll be okay if he, um, sees you out of control.”
Eloise blinked several times. “Really?”
“Yeah,” said Astrid. “And once you get comfortable owning that aspect of yourself, being out of control in front of him, you can just… do it. You know, you don’t care.”
“So, it’s about you? It’s not about trust?”
“I mean…”
Someone tried the knob of the bathroom door.
“One second!” Astrid called.
Eloise started to go for the door.
Astrid caught her by the arm. “You should have told me.”
Eloise shrugged her off. “Astrid… I feel bad about telling you now.”
“No! You should never feel bad about—”
“I feel like I did it for attention.”
Astrid drew back. “What?”
“Like, I knew you’d respond to it, and I feel like, maybe, I’m acting jealous. Except I’m not jealous. Being jealous is beneath me. And I love Valdi for you. And you’re so happy. And so I couldn’t be —”
“Eloise.” Astrid wrapped her arms around her shorter, fleshier friend and squeezed her against her body. “You’re not jealous.” She whispered in her friend’s ear. “That’s an ugly emotion where you blame me, and you don’t. But it’s an adjustment. Things are not the same anymore. I’m busy now, and you and I aren’t together as much. And I’m getting married. And you must feel really alone.”
Eloise felt tears threatening. She shook herself. No. No crying. Definitely no crying.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Oh, go in the men’s room!” cried Astrid.
Eloise started snickering.
Astrid let go of her and glared at the door.
Eloise went over and opened the door.
Tommy Boyles was standing there. “Hey, Lucy said you were in the bathroom.”
“I heard your little elf girlfriend left your ass,” said Astrid to him, her voice low and lethal. “But I don’t know whyyou would be looking for me—”
“Eloise. I’m looking for Eloise,” said Tommy, who was a satyr. He gave Eloise a helpless look. “Uh, it’s Kevin.”
“Oh, briars and tangles, what now?” said Eloise.
“WAIT, WHAT?” SAID Valdemar. “That’s the guy? That’s the guy who said that he was born incapable of fidelity to you?”
Astrid was fuming at the bar. “Just, I need another drink now.”
“But I cashed out. We were leaving,” said Valdemar.
Eloise was waiting to cash out herself. Tommy was in front of the bar, outside, smoking. He had recently taken up smoking again, according to Kevin, due to Tommy’s roommate Dahlia moving out and getting into some thing with Niles Chaudhary, who was a naga, and also Valdemar’s best friend.
Eloise was not entirely sure how it was that she could have known Niles but not Valdemar when the two men were best friends? They were a few years older than she was, but that shouldn’t have really made much difference. Maybe it was just that Valdemar was not much for socializing, not until after his divorce, apparently.
Niles, on the other hand? He was allaboutsocializing. Eloise kind of was too. She wouldn’t say she was a partier, not exactly. She just liked noise and crowds and excitement. She liked, well, distraction, maybe.
She’d grown up in Shepherdstown and gone to college here, and spent as much time as possible out and about at bars, at parties, just around people.
Which, she thought, proved she was not a solitary hedge witch, not at all.
It was kind of funny, really, when Eloise thought about it. Last fall, when Astrid turned twenty-nine, Astrid had been the one having some kind of existential crisis about her age and being alone and never having children and blah blah blah.
Eloise, on the other hand, had been blithe and carefree on the subject.
Now, she was going to be thirty, in exactly three weeks, and suddenly it was starting to feel…
Well.
Thirty wasn’t even that old. Eloise had realized this a long time ago. Furthermore, she was notgoing to be one of those women who made a big fuss about aging. Aging was an adventure, and Eloise was going to find the fun and the excitement in it. She couldn’t control it, so there wasn’t any point in dwelling on the bad parts. Instead, she would celebrate the good parts.
And anyway, it was dumb to even think that thirty even was aging.
She was young.
So. Very. Very. Young.
And she had a lot of time, tons of time, ages, decades—well, time, anyway… to find someone.
Unless, of course, she wasn’t going to find someone because she really was solitary in this way, like a hedge witch, and she’d just been fighting destiny for all these years, trying to pretend she wasn’t.
Maybe she needed to take over for her mother and go into a proper apprenticeship and open up her own little herb and medicine shop.
Of course, her mother had gone to pharmacy school, and Eloise hadn’t. Eloise hadn’t actually graduated from college, exactly. Just… not her thing.
Lucy, the bartender, was not at the bar. She was probably doing a walk around, looking for empty glasses and bottles, emptying ashtrays, that sort of thing.
Eloise tapped her fingers on the bar.
“Where are you going?” Astrid’s voice broke through Eloise’s thoughts.
Eloise looked up at her.
Astrid was talking to Valdemar.
Valdemar gestured. “Outside to talk to him.”
“What?” Astrid put her hands on her hips. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know,” said Valdemar. He began ticking things off on his fingers. “Niles told me what he did to Dahlia. Now, you’re telling me that’s the guy, the guy you told me about, the one who made you wary of me, of men in general, and I need to tell him…” Valdemar’s nostrils flared.
“Tell him what?” said Astrid.
“I don’t know exactly,” said Valdemar. “Something.”
Lucy reappeared. “Oh, sorry, guys.” She slid back behind the bar.
“I need to cash out,” said Eloise.
“Right, Tommy looked freaked,” said Lucy. “Is it Kevin again?”
Eloise nodded.
“What happened?” said Lucy.
“I don’t know,” said Eloise, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t even know.”
Astrid was there suddenly, rubbing Eloise’s back. “Briars, Eloise, here I am, all up in my own stuff again.”
Eloise turned on her. “No, it’s fine. This Kevin stuff is to the point where it’s a bad joke. Don’t even worry.”
Astrid squeezed her shoulder. “Hey, it’s going to be all right. It’s always all right. He always is.”
Eloise nodded, biting down on her bottom lip. She sighed.
“What’s up with your brother?” said Valdemar.
Eloise shook her head. “What isn’tup with my brother?”
“Is there something we can do?” said Valdemar.
Lucy put a receipt and a pen in front of Eloise.
“I need a shot,” said Astrid to Lucy.
“A shot?” said Valdemar.
“What?” said Astrid.
“Hey, I’m very secure in our relationship and your commitment to me and everything,” he said. “But you see him for two seconds, and a shot?”
“It’s not about Tommy!” said Astrid. “I’m over Tommy. I’ve been over Tommy.”
“Yeah, ditto,” came Tommy’s voice from outside the front door. “Is this why you’re still in there, Eloise?”
“I’m trying to do math,” said Eloise, glaring at the receipt. What sort of tip should she leave? A percentage? A dollar for every drink? How many drinks had she had?
“Hurry up,” Tommy said, his horned head appearing around the corner.
Eloise flipped him off.
Valdemar looked him over, folding his massive greenish gray arms over his chest.
“What?” said Tommy.
Valdemar sucked in a noisy breath. “Nothing,” he said in a low voice.
Eloise scrawled a five dollar tip on the receipt—too much, but that was a good thing, right?—and then started towards Tommy.
“Call me,” said Astrid.
“I will,” Eloise promised.
She and Tommy left the bar.
He started walking down the sidewalk and she hurried after him. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Tommy. “He didn’t show up for practice, which… whatever.” Tommy and Kevin were in a band called Sour Suckers, which played in town sometimes. Tommy played bass. Kevin was the lead singer and lead guitarist.
“Did you text him?” said Eloise.
“Obviously,” said Tommy. “He texted back that he was hanging out on the farm with werewolves.”
“Okay,” said Eloise.
Tommy gestured up in the sky. “So, then I looked up at the fucking moon.”
Eloise looked up at the moon. “Oh,” she said softly.
“Yeah, it’s a full moon,” said Tommy. “So, I text him back, and I’m like, you know, ‘Hanging with werewolves on a full moon?’ But he doesn’t text back.”
“Oh,” said Eloise, groaning. “Damn it.”
“So, I texted, like, all the werewolves I know, but… they’re all shifted, so none of them are texting or answering phones or any of that shit.”
“Well, he can’t have been with the wolves,” said Eloise. “He must have just said that for some reason. You know how he is.”
“I do know how your fucking brother is, yes,” said Tommy. “He, uh, he might have just gone out there. To the farm. To hang. Not thinking about…” He gestured up at the moon.
“Well… so what? It’s not like werewolves attack people.”
Tommy eyed her. “Yeah, okay, usually not. But this is Kevin we’re talking about.”
Eloise flinched. “Right,” she said softly. They called her brother emergency prone, not that anyone really knew how to explain what that meant. Her brother was part fae, part puca, to be precise. Even when he was a kid, he seemed a little off.
Fae and elves made up the majority of the population, but puca were not that kind of fae. They were Unseelie. They were shapeshifters. They were untamed and sometimes dangerous. It was the Seelie fae who stood brilliant and gleaming in the temples and streets, the Seelie who owned mansions and ran corporations and headed the top positions of the clergy in the temples. It was the Seelie who had made the treaties with the elves, who had absorbed the teachings of the Greek influence into their religious texts, who had emerged as normal and typical and aspirational.
Now, that didn’t mean there weren’t Seelie fae or Seelie descendants who were offin the same way Kevin was. There were.
But when people talked about the fae, they didn’t talk about the creatures who seemed wrongin that way, the ones who made your hair stand up at the back of your neck, the ones who seemed to look differently when you looked them straight in the face than when you
saw them sidelong, the ones who set off that inner instinct within you that told you—dangerouspredator.
Kevin wasn’t dangerous, though.
He was her brother.
He was just… off.
When Kevin was a kid, one time, he went on a field trip with his class. A whole class of little eight-year-olds at a little zoo. There was a petting zoo that was part of the place, but there were also cages with zebras and lions and a tiger. And while all the other little kids were sticking their tiny fingers through the fences to touch the woolly sheep, Kevin somehow got into the cage with tiger. They found him like that, on his hands and knees, growling at the thing, shaking his head at it, snarling like he was a match for the thing.
And well, the tiger was tired and captive and cowering.
They got Kevin out of the cage, no harm done, but the tiger itself escaped two nights after that, and it went on a rampage where it killed several pet dogs before it was shot to death.
Awful thing, in the end.
How had he gotten in that cage?
When Kevin was thirteen, he took off on a walk in the middle of the night because he couldn’t sleep and he ended up halfway across the county, walking along the road, wearing only tattered pajamas, his feet bare and dirty.
Some woman stopped her car for him and he got in with her and she ended up leaving him on the side of the road because she was terrified of him. She called the police and said he was huge and halfbeast, with pale glowing eyes that seemed to look inside her soul.
But it was just Kevin, thirteen-year-old Kevin, walking too far in the night.
When Kevin had his first girlfriend, she was…
Well, that couldn’t have been Kevin’s fault, could it?
The girl was a gray witch from a coven in a nearby town. She and Kevin met at a social studies fair for the region. She was kind of emo. Okay, really emo. She would look out between the stringy strands of her long black hair with her black-ringed eyes and her
black-rimmed lips and she would say things like, “Sylvia Plath was a visionary.”
It wasn’t Kevin’s fault.
They found the girl in the bathtub, the water murky with blood. She’d cut her wrists in t-shapes, as if she wanted to cover both the across-the-street and down-the-lane bases.
She lived.
Maybeshemetyourdad,whatdoyouthink?Kevin had asked when Eloise had told him. Because Eloise’s mother couldn’t have been bothered. She was too busy doing solitary-hedge-witch things to be comforting and mothering.
No,heworksinElSalvador , Eloise had said. Her father was a sort of grim reaper. He was shaped like a dog, sometimes, but he was pure spirit. Back then, she hadn’t had much of relationship with him. She’d gotten in touch later. But it was possible that her father made contact with spirits as they came unstuck from their bodies, she supposed. Except he wouldn’t talk about that with her, though, saying it was not the purview of the living to understand such things.
Ican’tbelieveshediditwithoutme,said Kevin. Whenwetalked aboutit,Iwassupposedtogettotasteherblood.
But it wasn’t Kevin’s fault, and Kevin hadn’t really encouraged the girl, and… and…
Anyway, the girl went away to a facility and presumably got help and got better, but she never came back, and she never made contact with Kevin again. Kevin’s next girlfriend was a bubbly, giggling, blond pixie cheerleader who was always there at their house in the mornings, brushing her teeth in the bathroom Eloise shared with her brother, and whenever Eloise tried to complain to her mother that Kevin shouldn’t be having sleepovers with his girlfriend when he was sixteen, her mother just said he was going to have sex anyway, and it was surely safer here.
Eloise got out her phone and texted Kevin. Wherethefuckare you?
Tommy folded his arms over his chest. “You think he’s going to respond to you and not me?”
“Maybe,” said Eloise.
Tommy sighed. “Look, when he gets weird, you’re the best one at talking him down, that’s all.”
This was true.
Once, Kevin had a bad dream and he ran out of the house and off to the neighbor’s house. He was hiding in their guest room, crouching in the shadows, and none of them wanted to go into the room. One of the neighbors said it wasn’t a teenage boy in there, but a black furred thing with fangs and claws, something monstrous.
But when Eloise spoke to him, the shadows seemed to retreat, and it was just Kevin, shaking and trembling and worried about his dream. He sobbed into her arms and she held onto him and…
They didn’t really have a mother.
And their mother had made sure to make her children with men who were never going to come looking for their offspring, so they didn’t really have fathers either. Kevin’s father came by sometimes. No real rhyme or reason with that. He brought Kevin things—toys— legos—beef jerky one time—and then he disappeared again.
Kevin’s father always looked as if he was half-ready to bolt. There was something twitchy in his eyes. When he smiled, you didn’t like it.
Eloise was what Kevin had.
And as for what Eloise had, well, Eloise had herself.
“Let’s see where he is, then,” said Eloise. She opened up an app on her phone, one that was set up to track Kevin’s phone. They’d been down this road a few too many times for her not to have a way to digitally stalk him. It was for his own good.
Tommy peered over her shoulder, cocking his head to one side. “That’s the farm, all right.”
“The woods near the farm,” said Eloise.
“It’s their land, pack land.”
“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Let’s go find him.”
“I’ll drive,” said Tommy.
KEVIN’S PHONE WAS sitting on top of a tree trunk.
Eloise picked it up. She hit the on button, and it didn’t unlock, but she could see the notifications for all the missed texts and calls. She groaned.
“He was here,” said Tommy, taking the phone from her. He shoved it into one of his pockets. “He’s probably still here.”
“Should we call for him?”
“Yeah, let’s yell at the top of our lungs in a woods full of shifted werewolves on a full moon,” said Tommy.
“But werewolves don’t attack people,” she said. It was true. The werewolves shifted and hunted—deer mostly, they were instrumental in keeping the population at least somewhat in control. They also killed smaller prey—squirrels and rabbits or wild turkeys.
Werewolves were not, well, tame when shifted. They were wild creatures with wild instincts. But they weren’t animals either. They retained some sense of the self they were when shifted into their other forms. So, they weren’t dangerous.
JustlikeKevinisn’tdangerous,she thought to herself. Everyone was dangerous given the right circumstance, she supposed. She knew some wickedly awful spells. There were some herbs that she could mix together in the right way, using the right
pattern with the mortar and pestle, whispering just the right words over them, and… well, anyway.
She could be dangerous if she needed to be. She didn’t need to, though.
“Okay, sure,” said Tommy. “Still, let’s be quietish?”
“If we’re yelling words, they’re going to know we’re not deer,” she said. “If they just see us fighting through the underbrush—”
“Use the flashlight on your phone, and they’ll know you’re not a deer,” said Tommy. “Let’s split up.”
“No, splitting up is dumb,” she said. “You said that you needed me to calm him down anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” said Tommy, sighing.
They set off together, flashlights on their phones burning into the darkness under the leaves of the trees in the woods, They pushed aside briars and brambles.
Eloise didn’t even know what they were looking for.
“Look,” Tommy said, “I was really up front with Astrid about everything. I never hid anything from her.”
Eloise glanced at him. “Um…? We don’t have to do this.” They had not done this. Tommy was Kevin’s friend, and she and Tommy interacted about Kevin sometimes. They had interacted in that way before Tommy and Astrid had been together and afterwards, and they had never really talked much about anything. Eloise’s and Tommy’s whole relationship was, WeneedtotalkaboutKevin,the end. Nothing else.
“I didn’t,” said Tommy, sulky.
Eloise sighed. “Um, I think she point-blank asked you if you were in a relationship with Dahlia, and you said no.”
“Because Dahlia and I weren’t in a relationship,” said Tommy.
“You’ve been fucking her since you guys were in high school,” said Eloise. “Right? You were a senior and she was a sophomore, and you’ve been fucking her ever since.”
“Well, not anymore,” said Tommy bitterly.
“Okay, you’re not denying it.”
“Fucking someone is not a relationship.”
“If it’s been going on for years, and you live together, I mean?”
“Yeah, but…” Tommy huffed. “Anyway, Dahlia’s gone. Dahlia hates me.”
“Tommy, I couldn’t give a fuck about this,” said Eloise, rolling her eyes. “Seriously.”
“Well, can you just explain to that orc guy that I… that she knew what she was in for.”
“Who did?”
“Astrid.”
“You want to talk to Valdemar, do it yourself,” said Eloise. “Maybe we shouldsplit up.”
“Fine,” said Tommy.
“Fine,” said Eloise. She pointed. “You go that way. I’ll go over here.”
“Just call me if you find him.”
“I will,” said Eloise. “Same with you, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
They parted ways.
Honestly, it was good that Tommy cared about Kevin enough to come looking for him like this. Kevin didn’t have a lot of friends, really. Maybe it was because he was a little off in that way of his. He could be extremely magnetic and engaging, though. That was what made him such a great guitar player and singer. You wanted to watch him sing. He had something going for him in that way.
But then, sometimes, it was like it was just too much.
Eloise didn’t know.
She fought her way through the woods and came into a clearing. There was a small shack there. The door hung open. It looked like some kind of hunting cabin, probably only one room big.
She trudged over to it, and pulled the door open. She peered inside. “Kevin?” she whisper-yelled.
There was no one inside the cabin. It was only one room. Well, maybe two. There was a bathroom, she thought. There was a kitchenette and a bed. The covers were spilling off it.
She shut the door, shaking her head.
And then she felt something, a sort of sense of something, at the back of her neck.
She whirled, her heart thudding in her chest, expecting it to be Kevin. Maybe Kevin in a not-Kevin-way, a black whinnying maned thing or a tall furred barking thing or… whatever puca-like shape he was half shifting into that night.
But it wasn’t Kevin at all.
It was the cerberus werewolf, all three of his heads leveled at her, all four of his front legs on the ground.
She froze.
The cerberus came closer. He was—theywere—they had three heads—huge and threatening. All of their mouths were open, all of them were filled with sharp teeth. The fur on all three of their necks seemed to stand up. Moonlight filtered down through the leaves to gleam against the fur on their body.
She backed up.
It was no good to say things to herself now such as, Werewolves don’tattackpeople.
Because in a situation like this, cornered with a vicious-looking creature, all she felt was a wariness that had become a horror-tinged calm.
She wasn’t actuallycalm.
She was panicking.
But she also knew instinctively that panic would be the wrong thing to do in this situation, that she must remain calm in order to get out of it.
So, she was calm.
She backed up, backed up into the door of the shack, and she kept her eyes on the cerberus as they stalked toward her, sniffing the air, all six eyes glittering. She reached behind her and found the doorknob.
She opened the door.
She fell backwards into the shack and slammed the door closed. Now, her breath started to come in harsh gasps as she stumbled further into the place.
She collided with the bed and went sprawling onto her back, feet in the air.
She let out a cry of surprise.
The door opened.
She shrieked.
The cerberus stood there, on his hind legs, a three-headed wolfman, paws—clawed-hands—perfectly capable of working a doorknob. He wasn’t an animal, after all. Werewolves were savage, but they weren’t mindless.
She swallowed.
The cerberus spoke, all of their mouths moving in unison, a chorus of three male voices that seemed strangely distorted, wild in a way that reminded her of Kevin sometimes, otherworldly, off. “You are frightened.”
“No,” she said, and her voice was too high, and it trembled.
“You smell afraid,” they said, and they were coming closer.
Um? Did the cerberus likethe smell of her fear, because it kind of sounded like they did? Eloise had a strange reaction to that. Well, she first had an appropriate reaction of an explosion, heart pounding wildly, more fear. And then, um, there was the weird way her body seemed to tighten.
It was probably just a regular fear response, she thought. Except, now her nipples seemed hardish and she was a little bit…
I’mnotaroused.She sat up on the bed, slamming her feet on the floor, intent making sure this was true.
The cerberus toppled back down, catching themselves on their four front legs, now wolflike, beastlike, again. They bounded toward her, and now their heads were basically in her lap.
Okay, not her lap.
Her crotch.
More sniffing.
She made a noise.
“You smell good,” said the cerberus voices, all of them together, and there was some thread of longing in that otherworldly chorus that made her shiver. Her whole body was bathed in goosebumps. Her nipples were even harder. Her pelvis contracted. She whimpered again.
The cerberus rubbed one of their muzzles into her crotch, into her pussy, into her clit. She was wearing underwear and jeans, but
the pressure there, it was good.
She flopped back on the bed, whimpering again.
The cerberus’s heads were all nuzzling her now, nuzzling her through her jeans, nuzzling her thighs and her mound and all over her crotch, and it was nice. She liked it.
Okay,thisiscrazy,Eloise,youcan’t…She raised her head and locked gazes with a pair of glittering eyes.
“We will stop if you say so,” said the cerberus, but this was only one head talking to her now, and it sounded less strange and ethereal, maybe because they weren’t talking at once, but maybe because he somehow seemed less beastlike now.
Another head raised from its ministrations against her inner thigh. “We shouldstop.”
The third head lifted. “Are we attacking you?”
She swallowed. “It’s nice.”
“So,” they said together, “yes?”
She carefully lay her head back on the bed and reached down and unbuttoned her jeans.
The cerberus voices all sucked in a hissing breath as one.
She unzipped her pants.
She started to tug down her jeans, but—
They seized them with three of their clawed hands and tore them off of her.
She gasped.
And then there were tongues.
Three tongues, all applied at the same time, all going at her at once.
She cried out.
Her thighs were pressed wide open, held apart by four clawed hands and the tongues were on her, licking the creases on either side of her pussy, licking her labia, licking her inner thighs, and then —finally—one gentling over her clit.
She moaned.
Another tongue went to her opening, licking her there greedily. Theylikethesmellofme,maybeItastegoodtothem,she thought wildly.
It felt like nothing she’d ever felt on earth. There was so much sensation, tons of it, everywhere, and it was so very, very nice.
She shivered again, shutting her eyes, arching her back, grinding her head into the bed. She entirely surrendered, letting it happen. It was good.
It went on and on, and the tongues were all taking turns lapping at her opening and then going up to tease her clit and licking her all over, and she didn’t think she’d ever felt anything like this in her life.
She sighed, happy, relaxed.
It was hotto think they liked the taste of her. That reallyturned her on.
And she thought, Someoneisgoingtomakemecomeforthe firsttime,andit’ssomehalf-crazedthree-headedsavagebeast. And then she thought, IsthathowIwanttocomeforthefirst time?
And then she thought, IsthiswhatAstridmeantaboutbeing okaywithsomeoneseeingmeoutofcontrol?
Of course, after all that, she was no longer going to come. It was an impossibility, some thread of pleasure long lost because she wasn’t even thinking sexy thoughts anymore.
She tried, for some time, to get the sexy feeling back by sheer force of will.
But that didn’t work either, because sexy feelings weren’t like that. Thatwas what Astrid had meant by being out of control. It wasn’t a willful thing. It was a thing that you sort of couldn’t be concentrating on if you wanted it to happen. You almost had to distract yourself from it somehow. You had to be concentrating but not…
Why was that an easy thing to do alone but impossible to do now?
She lifted her head to glare at the cerberus, feeling frustrated. And that was when she realized Tommy was standing in the doorway to the shack, watching the whole thing, slack-jawed, toying absently with one of the horns sticking out of his head. Also, there was a bulge in the front of his pants—and thank briars themselves
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upon the face of the earth. If I had not had a good mother, and she had not had a good son, I might have unloaded those fish-blooded burgesses so easily as I drink sherris.”
Whereupon Sir Richard Pendragon sighed profoundly.
We made many leagues that first day of our journey, although we rested at noon in a small hamlet from the heat of the sun. It may have been that we had entered upon our adventure not too propitiously, and that the humours of the Englishman made but an odd sort of companionship—notwithstanding a liberal rebate for the qualities of kings’ blood—for one who boasted the sangre azul of a true hidalgo; yet the wisdom and politeness of the humane and everdelightful Count of Nullepart kept us all three to the road, and brought us in a state of toleration one of another to a wayside venta at the end of the long day.
In this rustic place we enjoyed a good supper and a peaceful night’s repose. We had journeyed long that day, and seldom have I known an honest sleep taste more delicious. But by now we were well in the King of Castile’s country, and the next morning, as we took our way, the vigilance of the Englishman grew double. The Count of Nullepart and myself were tolerably easy that none would guess our mission. Not so Sir Richard Pendragon He declared his experience of Castile to be such that walls had ears, blind men saw, and dead men told tales.
Indeed, it was clear from the lively concern that Sir Richard displayed that his former passages with the King of Castile had not been pleasant ones. Precisely what they were we could not learn from him who had suffered them, yet that they had been grievous and considerable we had the authority of his demeanour.
On the second day, as we came into the road to Madrid, we saw high up in the distant hills one of the noblest castles of this infamous king. At the sight of it, with the westering sun touching the embowery of its trees with gold, Sir Richard Pendragon reined in his horse, took off his hat, and spat on the earth; and then, in what must have been the roundest London English, for it sounded very rude and barbarous, he cursed the King of Castile, he cursed his mother and
his female relations, even unto his wet nurse and his most distant kinsfolk.
“The first trick is yours, Spanish John,” he said. “I allow it; I admit it; my early nurture has been too gentle to cope with low deceit. But harkee, John Spaniard, the next trick will go to t’other player, or my gracious sire was not the King of England.”
“Do I gather, most worthy Sir Richard Pendragon,” said the Count of Nullepart in a melodious voice, “that your former passages with King John of Castile have been of a grievous character?”
“Yes, good mounseer,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, giving his tall horse such a kick in the ribs as astonished that extraordinary quadruped; “you may gather it. If my good mind walks not abroad in bad dreams, I have been mishandled, mounseer, I have been mishandled. And let me tell thee, good mounseer, English Dick hath never been mishandled previously, except once at the instance of virtue, which was upon the knee of the sainted lady who is now in heaven.”
As we pursued our way towards the capital of the King’s dominion, a profound silence overtook the Englishman. His dark and lowering looks were the palpable fruit of a former bitterness; and as we came into Madrid at nightfall, the numerous soldiers we passed in the streets wearing the Castilian’s livery seemed to inflame his humour. Indeed, as we entered the first venta we came to within the gates of the city, and as we were disposing of our horses in comfort for the night, he was moved to say that “if his humour did not lift after supper, he was minded to go out in the streets and cut a few throats, as the sight of so many jackbooted rascals twirling their moustachios was as sore to him as the presence of holy water was to the Author of Deceit.”
The stabling of this venta was divided from the great kitchen of the inn by a short arched passage-way. Upon crossing this we found to our good pleasure that the hearth was entirely at our disposal, as there was no other company in the inn. Over the fire was suspended a cauldron, and this we regarded with favour. After we had supped
worthily, we prepared ourselves for the repose we so much desired; but it was written that there should be no sleep for us that night.
Scarce had we disposed ourselves about the chimney-place for the slumber for which we yearned, when the first of the passages that were to ensue came upon us. A number of soldiers wearing the livery of the King came into the inn kitchen, bawling for wine and victual. These men, in their high boots and long cloaks and great hats, and with their long moustachios, were extremely formidable to look upon; and the Count of Nullepart and myself, conscious as we were of the strange mood of our companion, no sooner beheld these fellows than we regretted their intrusion exceedingly.
Sir Richard Pendragon, as became an old campaigner, had his eyes already sealed in slumber, and was beginning to snore loudly as he reclined with his enormous legs stretched out to the hearth, when these soldiers entered so unseasonably. As they came swaggering up to the cooking-pot, abusing the landlord loudly that no food was ready, one of them had the misfortune to trip over the Englishman’s far-extended limbs. As he measured his length he swore a horrid oath in rude Spanish.
The Englishman gave a grunt and opened his eyes sleepily, and seeing the soldier sprawling on all fours, he said to the innkeeper, who was about to add a fowl to the pot, “Landlord, ye should not admit bears and dromedaries and beasts with four feet among the nobility. The nobility do not like it.”
The Englishman’s insolent tone was heard by the comrades of the fallen one, who numbered eight or nine. They looked at him as though they could not believe what their ears had told them, and then their hands flew to the hilts of their swords. By this, however, the fallen one had risen to his feet. He pulled his moustachios and rolled his eyes with fury.
“By the devil’s life!” he cried, “you foreign dog, I will cut out your liver!”
And as he spoke he drew his sword with a flourish.
CHAPTER XXIII
OF THE COUNT OF NULLEPART’S EXTREMITY
I was with the deepest concern, for we had both come to love our companion, that Sir Richard Pendragon and I dismounted and lifted up the prostrate form in our arms. In the heavy darkness of the night, which was rendered more extreme by the shadows from the overhanging trees, we were at first at a loss to know what was the cause of this calamity.
Our fear that the Count of Nullepart was dead was dispelled immediately He could be heard to breathe. Passing our hands over him, however, we discovered that his doublet was soaked with blood. Yet for some time we were not able to discover the seat of what was evidently a grievous injury. Indeed it was not until we had revived our senseless comrade by bathing his temples in some stagnant water that we found in a rut in the middle of the road that we were able to learn its position and extent. It was by this providential means that our unlucky friend was himself enabled to inform us.
“It is nothing,” he said. “It is not more than a scratch. I pray you, leave me, my friends, to my own devices, for upon my soul you have not a moment to spare. By now a mounted company is surely upon our heels.”
“Mounseer,” said the Englishman, with a delicacy of address of which I should not have deemed him to be capable, “I care not if all Spain is out and mounted on the strain Bucephalus. Do you suppose that one who hath the blood of kings under his doublet will leave you to the wolves. Where is your hurt, good Mounseer? We will look to it, if it please you.”
In spite of the courage of our friend, who protested that his hurt was nothing and that time was much, we kept to our determination to find his injury He then allowed that he had had several inches of steel in
his ribs “But it is nought, my friends; the merest trifle I assure you,” he said as he staggered towards his horse.
All the same it was clear to us that if the Count of Nullepart was to continue his journey, means must be found to staunch the bleeding of his wound. Unhappily, we were without the implements of surgery; and the wound was so deep that our kerchiefs knotted together and coiled about it could not cope with the flow of blood.
In this pass the Englishman did a strange thing. It furnished a further proof of that genius for contrivance which above all things distinguished this strange individual. Without more ado he proceeded to disrobe himself. Stripping off his shirt, and all naked to the waist as he was, he tore that garment into ribands and wove the pieces tightly round the Count of Nullepart’s body. And so powerful was this ready-witted surgery that the wounded man vowed laughingly that the Englishman had checked not only his bleeding but the source of life itself.
Hardly had this skilful operation been performed, and before Sir Richard Pendragon could reinvest his skin with that doublet which was wont to enclose the blood of kings, when our ears were assailed with the sounds of armed men approaching rapidly in the darkness.
“Here comes John Castilian’s wasp nest about our ears,” said the Englishman grimly.
It was not a season for speech, however. Lifting the Count of Nullepart into his saddle, we tarried not an instant, but led our horses off the track. Rising sheer on either side of the road loomed the face of a steep mountain. It seemed well-nigh impossible to traverse it; and we had gone but a short distance along this difficult ascent when we stayed our progress to listen to our enemies, who passed noisily by us in the road below. To judge by the jingling of swords and bridles and the beating of hoofs against the stones, they formed a considerable mounted company. And I think had they not been riding carelessly they must have seen us, so short a distance were we from them.
When they had passed we continued to ascend the mountain. Yet this adventure was fraught with great peril. There was no road to go upon; trees and rough boulders were strewn everywhere; and the higher we rose the more imminent it became that we should step over some steep precipice that lay concealed in the darkness. Sir Richard Pendragon made use of his scabbard in the same way that a blind man uses his staff. He tried every yard of the ground before his feet passed over it, for, as he said, “he desired not to fall into the Devil’s Kitchen, lest he met man’s Evil Adversary who was bound to perplex a good Catholic.”
The Englishman being spared this calamity, owing to the exercise of much skill, we came at last to a large wood. Very grateful we felt for its promise of protection, yet its precincts looked so black that Sir Richard Pendragon said it would not surprise him at all if a wicked ogre dwelt in it, or a fell magician, or even a wizard or a salamander. In spite of these forebodings which he declared to be the natural fruit of a brain that had been nourished upon the Roman authors in its youth, we felt ourselves to be quite safe from detection among the thick trees and with the dark night also to cover us. We led our weary horses within the wood and tied them up. Then, seeking out a dry and sheltered place, we spread our own weariness upon the green earth and folded our cloaks about us.
All through these long yet sweet hours of utter darkness my two comrades continued to sleep—the Count of Nullepart lightly and fitfully, Sir Richard Pendragon with the perseverance of the fabled ones of Ephesus. And as thus I was stretched upon what I was fain to consider my first battlefield, with this fragrant redress never farther from my eyes, I was minded to resummon the image of the night’s wild business; and with that natural instinct for the foibles of my fellowmen—a habit of philosophy which I can only ascribe to my mother—I proceeded to ruminate on the nature of those who lay by my side.
I think I may say these reflections were not unpleasant. My companions were strange, diverse, and foreign men; and one of them was certainly barbarous in the comparison with the gentlemen of our peninsula, who in matters of high civility are allowed to be the
first in the world. Yet I found that I had already come to entertain towards them a sentiment of liberal fellowship, nay, even of love. The dangers we had already shared together, and perhaps the thought of those which were to come, which made my heart beat high as I lay upon the bare ground, caused me to forget their nation and their idiosyncrasy, and to cherish a feeling towards them which the gentle reader will hardly think consistent in one who boasted the sangre azul of Spain.
At the first sign of dawn Sir Richard Pendragon awoke, rose from his couch, and shook himself like a dog. He then announced that we must get upon our road at once, since our proximity to the King of Castile’s chief city was highly perilous. It was with a tender concern that we awakened the poor Count of Nullepart, who was still dozing fitfully. His face looked ashen pale in the grey morning light, but he gave us his assurance that he was fit to take the saddle.
Whether this was the case or not, and his looks denied him, the Count of Nullepart was a brave man, and he disdained our aid in mounting his horse. But never was a path so difficult and painful as the one we took that day We dared not descend the mountain to the public road, lest we fell in with our foes, but were compelled to move by stealth across an almost insurmountable country, like a company of robbers skulking from lawful men.
In the soreness of our travail, which was such that on many occasions we had to dismount and lead our horses along places they could not take alone, we needed much resolution to support the pains of our journey. I know not what were the sufferings of our stricken companion, yet not a word of complaint escaped from his lips. As for Sir Richard Pendragon, his demeanour had become that of a brave man and a redoubtable leader.
The face of peril had changed him from an insolent trifler who was prone to insult a noble country to one who had a natural love of leadership, and who took cognisance of all the haps to which we were like to be exposed. His prescience was indeed very great. Doubtless it was the fruit of a long acquaintance with the arduous business of war. And although he appeared to have been bred in the
love of danger, and admitted now and again that “he had a passion to cut a throat,” he had also the highest respect for his own person, and further he had a faithful servant’s regard for the errand he had embraced.
The sun was high at noon ere our wanderings brought us to a hamlet in which we were able to find food and rest. It was situated in a remote part, where our enemies were not likely to trouble us. Here it was that the Count of Nullepart had his wound dressed and artfully bandaged, and Sir Richard Pendragon procured a shirt greatly too small for him. In this place we lay in shelter for two hours from the great heat of the day.
When towards evening we resumed our road in some refreshment of mind and body, we knew it better and embraced it with more certainty. Fortune attending on us, we came securely, a little after night had fallen, to a wayside inn. Here a rude but welcome hospitality was offered to us, and thus we lay in succour till the dawn.
During the next day the Count of Nullepart grew wonderfully better. Indeed, so favourable was his state that he celebrated it upon the flageolet as we halted in the shade at noon. Thus far, at the instance of a wonderful vigilance, in which Sir Richard Pendragon was accomplished beyond any person I have ever met, and by the further kind continuance of fortune, we were spared so much as even a trace of our enemies; and although our road was difficult and our progress slow, we began to make a sensible incursion upon the country of the King of Castile.
On the next night of our adventures we lay in a great wood. We kindled a fire of faggots and cooked a turkey which Sir Richard had conveyed from a farmyard. It made excellent eating, for hunger is of all sauces the most delectable; yet I must confess to you, reader, I had at first set my mind against it, being determined not to partake of that which had not been come by in a lawful manner. But my scruples were not proof against a dreadfully sharpened appetite, which was also fortified by the Englishman’s plausibility.
“Why, you poor soul,” said he, “we get nothing in this world save by enforcement. The farmer enforces the good turkey; one who is
virtuous enforces the good farmer; and then comes hunger to enforce the one who is virtuous. And I ask you, my young son of the Spains, who is it, bethink, that enforces this veritable passion of hunger. Why, to be sure, it is the heavenly bodies who enforce the passion of hunger. And who is it that enforces the heavenly bodies? Why, you poor soul, to be sure it is Him who enforces the whole of the world.”
I was fain to admit this was excellent philosophy, and the Count of Nullepart also admired it; and my belly being exceeding empty, and my resolve being weakened by this notorious subtlety, which you will believe had great weight with a natural philosopher such as myself, I was fain to eat of the turkey. And I cannot remember ever having eaten of anything more choice.
It has been my hap since those distant days in my youth to sit with men of all sorts, in many countries, in many varieties of circumstance; but never with two more engaging in their diversity than these with whom my lot was cast upon this enterprise. The Count of Nullepart was so gay and graceful in address, so fortunate in his appearance, so debonair—to use a foreign idiom I have picked up in my travels; while Sir Richard Pendragon was all that his comrade was not, with a humour so sinister that it was hard to know how to receive it, one withal of barbarous ideas and a loose morality according to the tenets of a caballero of Spain. And yet beyond all things, and in whatever his merit might consist, this Englishman had a peculiar genius. He was a natural leader. For in every sort of action he discovered himself to be as wise as he was formidable; as full of knowledge as he was of sagacity; as little in ruth as he was bold in emprise.
Again I must confess to you, reader, that being the son of a Spanish gentleman, it was my nature to despise one such as he; yet I must declare to you, as I cherish an honourable name, that whenever this sinister foreigner threw me a compliment, which he did now and again, I was for all the world like a dog that has received a bone.
I have never been able to account for this behaviour. There can be no doubt about my father’s pedigree, and any Asturian will inform
you that the family of my mother is beyond cavil. Yet in all our subsequent passages with this formidable islander, who in some ways was little better than one of the wicked, as there was too good a reason to know, in whatever path he walked the Count of Nullepart and myself were happy to attend him.
After our meal, as we lay under the trees in the wood, I conversed with the worthy Count of Nullepart upon this subject. Sir Richard Pendragon had already fallen asleep. It was his boast that he could command this solace at any moment of the day or night.
“It is the power of the mind, my dear Don Miguel,” said the Count of Nullepart. “This ingenious and subtle adventurer has a power of mind that a god might envy.”
“But, worshipful Count of Nullepart,” I protested, “his manners are ungentle; he insults a noble country; he traduces an ancient name; he takes life without remorse and with a most practised hand. He reveres not the truth, and he is over-familiar with the All-Wise Creator. Wherefore, Sir Count, if his mind is as you say, doth he not walk abroad with decency?”
“My dear Don Miguel,” said the Count of Nullepart, “it is because of his natural force. Does the wind walk abroad with decency? It can be soft and courteous, yet more often it is rude and violent. But whatever its humour, all of us, Spanish hidalgo or French rapscallion, must obey its whims. It is the same with this Englishman. He knows no law save his natural puissance; and you and I, my dear, have not the power to do other than respect it.”
Upon this the Count of Nullepart drew his cloak about him and went to sleep. I was not satisfied in the least as to the ground on which I went, but being too fatigued to confer further with my thoughts I was fain also to do the same.
In the course of a long week’s journey we had quitted the dominion of the King of Castile, and the perils of the road were diminished sensibly. Thenceforward we took again to the public ways, and were glad indeed of the additional comfort and security.
I was now permitted to observe more clearly the beauties of nature, for all the fair provinces through which we passed were strange to me. And this I did the more particularly, I think, since at the many reflections I was moved to make upon the sweet qualities of the hills and valley and the streams and meadows by which we passed, Sir Richard Pendragon took upon himself to deride continually that which he called “my peninsularity”; and though admitting “that the scene was not amiss, considering that it was set in a dry climate, it compared very poorly with the honest woodland pastures in the vicinity of Wapping, which was near to London City.”
When we drew near to that most noble chain of mountains which in these parts is called the Pyrenees, and whose serious magnificence, which transcended all that my mind had ever conceived of our most wonderful country, was spread before my gaze, I turned to my foreign companion with a sense of triumph that I could not restrain.
“I will allow your country to be a fair place, worshipful Sir Richard Pendragon,” I said, “but if it has aught to compare with these tall mountains, it must be heaven itself, which is the home of the good God.”
“Why, you poor mad soul!” said he contemptuously, “you speak of these as mountains—mountains, you soft goose? Why, they would speak of them as dunghills if they were near to London.”
This insolent disdain of my country—for how else could a true son of Iberia regard such words?—gave me such an anger against the Englishman that I declined to speak with him for some time. No sooner did he discover the cause of my silence than his language grew still more licentious. “Pyrenees forsooth!” he exclaimed. “Mountains, ecod! Does the poor mad soul think I was born at Dublin?”
Thereupon I withdrew my horse fifty paces to the rear, for I was determined that I would not remain in the company of one who wounded my country. Then it was that his demeanour changed. He made quite a handsome apology to Spain, withal accompanied by such a whimsical pleasantness that I was fain to forgive him, although exacting the condition that whatever was the higher merit of
