Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

Down rattled the drawbridge. As soon as Aragis' warrior had crossed it, the gate crew hauled it back up again. The fellow came over to Gerin and sketched a salute. "Lord prince, I'm Rennewart Forkbeard, one of Aragis' vassals, as your man said." He was middle-aged, solid-looking, and wore his beard in the old-fashioned style his ekename described.

"What's toward in your camp out there?" Gerin asked. "You've had a man take beast shape, is that it?"

To his surprise, Rennewart shook his head. "No, it's not that. Oh, a couple of the lads are hairier than they have any business being, but they're all still their own selves, if you know what I mean. We aren't worried about 'em. No, the thing of it is, just a little bit ago we had a man walk into camp naked as the day he was born, and a deal bigger. He's not one of ours. We were wondering if he came from the keep here some kind of way, or maybe from your peasant village not far off."

"Why do you need to ask me?" Gerin said. "Why not just ask him?"

"Lord prince, the thing of it is, he won't talk—won't say a word, I mean," Rennewart answered. "Won't or maybe can't—I don't know which. We figured you'd know him if anybody did."

"Yes, I suppose I would," Gerin said, puzzled: his holding had a couple of deaf-mutes, but they lived in distant villages and had no reason to show up at Fox Keep in the middle of the night, especially naked. He plucked at his beard; his curiosity was tickled. "All right, Rennewart, I'll come out and look at him."

The walk from keep to camp was short enough that the ghosts did not much afflict him before he came to the area protected by the sacrifices Aragis' men had made. Most of them were awake, either on watch or aroused by word of the strange newcomer.

"We brought him into my tent, lord prince," Rennewart said, leading Gerin to it and holding the flap wide. "Here he is."

Gerin drew his sword before he went in, wary of a trap. But the inside of the tent was brightly lit by several lamps, and held only some blankets and, as promised, one naked man sprawling on them.

"I've never set eyes on him before," Gerin said positively. "I'd know him, were he from my lands." The fellow was almost Van's size, and just as well-thewed as the enormous outlander. He was swarthy and hairy, with a beard that came up almost to his dark eyes and a hairline that started just above them. "Who are you?" the Fox asked. "Where are you from?"

The naked man listened with every sign of attention—mute he might be, but he wasn't deaf—but didn't answer. Gerin tried again, this time in the Trokmê language. The fellow stirred on the blankets, but again gave no answer and no real sign he understood.

"We tried that, too, lord prince, with no better luck than you just had," Rennewart Forkbeard said.

"Go fetch my companion, Van of the Strong Arm," Gerin said. "He knows more different languages than any other man I've met."

Rennewart hurried away, and soon returned with the outlander. Listening to the drawbridge go down and up, Gerin spared a moment's sympathy for the gate crew. Van stared at the naked man with interest. Like the Fox, he started off with Elabonian and the Trokmê 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.