Philippa Gregory - Changeling

Freize’s glance never wavered. ‘Why would you think it could speak?’ he said.

She met his gaze without coquetry. ‘You’re not the only one who takes an interest in it,’ she said.

All day Luca was closeted with the bishop, his priests, and his scholars, the dining table spread with papers which recorded judgements against werewolves and the histories of wolves going back to the very earliest times: records from the Greek philosophers’ accounts, translated by the Arabs into Arabic and then translated back again into Latin. ‘So God knows what they were saying in the first place,’ Luca confided in Brother Peter. ‘There are a dozen prejudices that the words have to get through, there are half a dozen scholars for every single account, and they all have a different opinion.’

‘We have to have a clear ruling for our inquiry,’ Brother Peter said, worried. ‘It’s not enough to have a history of anything that anyone thinks they have seen, going back hundreds of years. We are supposed to examine the facts here, and you are supposed to establish the truth. We don’t want antique gossip – we want evidence, and then a judgement.’

They cleared the table for the midday meal and the bishop recited a long grace. Ishraq and Isolde were banned from the councils of men and ate dinner in their own room, looking out over the yard. They watched Freize sit on the wall of the bear pit, a wooden platter balanced on his knee, sharing his food with the beast that sat beneath him, glancing up from time to time, watching for scraps, as loyal and as uncomplaining as a dog, but somehow unlike a dog – a sort of independence.

‘It’s a monkey for sure,’ Isolde said. ‘I have seen a picture of one in a book my father had at home.’

‘Can they speak?’ Ishraq asked. ‘Monkeys? Can they speak?’

‘It looked as if it could speak, it had lips and teeth like us, and eyes that looked as if it had thoughts and wanted to tell them.’

‘I don’t think this beast is a monkey,’ Ishraq said, carefully. ‘I think this beast can speak.’

‘Like a parrot?’ Isolde asked.

They both watched Freize lean down and the beast reach up. They saw Freize pass a scrap of bread and apple down to the beast and the beast take it in his paw, not in his mouth – take it in his paw and then sit on his haunches and eat it, holding it to his mouth like a big squirrel.

‘Not like a parrot,’ Ishraq said. ‘I think it can speak like a Christian. We cannot kill it, we cannot stand by and see it killed until we know what it is. Clearly it is not a wolf, but what is it?’

‘It’s not for us to judge.’

‘It is,’ Ishraq said. ‘Not because we are Christians – for I am not. Not because we are men – for we are not. But because we are like the beast: outsiders that other people dread. People don’t understand women who are neither wives nor mothers, daughters nor confined. People fear women of passion, women of education. I am a young woman of education, of colour, of unknown religion and my own faith, and I am as strange to the people of this little village as the beast. Should I stand by and see them kill it because they don’t understand what it is? If I let them kill it without a word of protest, what would stop them coming for me?’

‘Will you tell Luca this?’

Ishraq shrugged. ‘What’s the use? He’s listening to the bishop, he’s not going to listen to me.’

At about two in the afternoon the men agreed on what was to be done and the bishop stepped out to the doorstep of the inn to announce their decision. ‘If the beast transforms into a full wolf at midnight then the heretic woman will shoot it with a silver arrow,’ he ruled. ‘The villagers will bury it in a crate packed with wolfsbane at the crossroads and the blacksmith will hammer a stake through its heart.’

‘My wife will bring the wolfsbane,’ Ralph Fairley volunteered. ‘God knows she grows enough of it.’

‘If the beast does not transform . . .’ The bishop raised his hand, and raised his voice, against the murmur of disbelief. ‘I know, good people, that you are certain that it will . . . but just suppose that it does not . . . then we will release it to the authorities of this village, the lord and yourself, Master Miller, and you may do with it what you will. Man has dominion over the animals, given to him by God. God Himself has decreed that you can do what you want with this beast. It was a beast running wild near your village, you caught it and held it, God has given you all the beasts into your dominion – you may do with it what you wish.’

Mr Miller nodded grimly. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that the beast would not last long after it was handed over to the village.

‘They will hack it to pieces,’ Ishraq muttered to Isolde.

‘Can we stop them?’ she whispered back.

‘No.’

‘And now,’ the bishop ruled, ‘I advise you to go about your business until midnight when we will all see the beast. I myself am going to the church where I will say Vespers and Compline and I suggest that you all make your confessions and make an offering to the church before coming to see this great sight which has been wished upon your village.’ He paused. ‘God will smile on those who donate to the church tonight,’ he said. ‘The angel of the Lord has passed among you, it is meet to offer him thanks and praise.’

‘What does that mean?’ Ishraq asked Isolde.

‘It means: “pay up for the privilege of a visit from a bishop”,’ Isolde translated.

‘You know, I thought it did.’

There was nothing to do but to wait until midnight. Freize fed the beast after dinner and it came and sat at his feet and looked up at him, as if it would speak with him, but it could find no words. In turn Freize wanted to warn the beast, but with its trusting brown eyes peering at him through its matted mane he found he could not explain what was to happen. As the moon rose, man and beast kept a vigil with each other, just as the bishop was keeping vigil in the church. The beast’s leonine head turned up to Freize as he sat, darkly profiled against the starlit sky, murmuring quietly to it, hoping that it would speak again; but it said nothing.

‘It would be a good time now for you to say your name, my darling,’ he said quietly. ‘One “God bless” would save your life. Or just “good” again. Speak, beast, before midnight. Or speak at midnight. Speak when everyone is looking at you. But speak. Make sure you speak.’

The animal looked at him, its eyebrows raised, its head on one side, its eyes bright brown through the tangled hair. ‘Speak, beast,’ Freize urged him again. ‘No point being dumb if you can speak. If you could say “God bless” they would account it a miracle. Can you say it? After me?“God bless”?’

At eleven o’ clock the people started to gather outside the stable door, some carrying billhooks and others scythes and axes. It was clear that if the bishop did not order the animal shot with the silver arrow then the men would take the law into their own hands, cleave it apart with their tools or tear it apart with their bare hands. Freize looked out through the door and saw some men at the back of the crowd levering up the cobbles with an axe head, and tucking the stones into their pockets.