The Duke's Decision

“Cousin! What a surprise to see you here so early!” Isolde said, peeking around the door to the stables. Muffled feminine giggles sounding from behind the door betrayed the fact that she was not alone.

Avery rubbed his ear, annoyed by the dissonant echo in his head that let him know that Isolde was not the least bit surprised. He glared, but didn’t open his mouth, addressing his irritation to his cousin directly mind-to-mind. Did Marcus tell you I was skipping breakfast to go off early on a hunt?

Isolde dimpled shamelessly as she walked forward and hugged her cousin. Yes, Metalface. To be fair, I asked him.

“Delightful to see you, Isolde, but I am already late to meet my guests,” Avery said, looking over Isolde’s head and at the trio of young women who had followed Isolde into the stables.

“Nonsense,” Isolde said. “My guests are also your guests, so you’re perfectly on time to meet at least some of your guests this time. We’ll ride with you.”

Avery looked over Isolde’s companions for a moment, fighting off a frown.

The first was a woman who wore baggy robes – wizard robes that could have belonged to a man or woman alike, in a drab shade of gray that suggested she was a journeyman whose master was a traditionalist in the old style, demanding displays of humility by junior wizards. She had red hair braided tightly to her head, and gently-pointed ears that spoke of elven blood, and a flat cap nervously gripped between her hands.

The second was Bella, which implied to Avery that Maude had not yet spoken to Isolde on the topic of what constituted a suitable suitor. Bella was smiling brightly, though blinking in the manner of one not accustomed to being awake at such an hour.

Behind Bella, he could see light brown braids topping the head of a woman shyly staring at her feet. She wore what looked like it had been a practical leather hunting vest before being dyed lavender and festooned with lace over a brown skirt. The loops intended for crossbow bolts were unmistakable.

“I’m afraid I intend to go deep into the woods for a hunt,” Avery said. “We may find dangerous game, and night may fall before we return.”

“All by yourself?” Isolde let out an artful gasp.

Avery flinched involuntarily at the boldly insincere statement that grated in his brain as if accompanied by a pair of recorders out of tune with one another. “No, of course not, I said I was meeting some of my guests. Sir Walter of Leeds – two Sir Walters, actually, an elder and a younger – a Sir Simon who was lately in London, along with the famous Sir Malkin Guy. And Marcus will be riding along with two of his men.”

“Half a dozen blooded knights and two men-at-arms! Why, us ladies will be perfectly safe with your protective escort.” Isolde beamed. Next to her, Bella nodded vigorously, and the red-headed woman fingered the pouches at her belt nervously.

“Very well,” Avery said. “But saddle your horses quickly.”

Not so fast, Isolde’s voice said in Avery’s head, warning him a moment before she spoke. “May I please first introduce Journeyman Fiona, apprentice of Warin? I realize the two of you have not yet met.”

What, that one is new? Avery pasted a smile on his face as he bowed to Fiona. “My apologies for my discourtesy, Fiona. I don’t know what came over me. Thank you, Isolde, for your attention to courtesy in the absence of your mother.”

“You’re welcome!” Isolde smiled. If you’ve forgotten, the loud one is Beatrice Taylor and the quiet one is Johanna de Mathieu.

Avery nodded. Thanks, he sent. Now that all of the introductions are out of the way, let’s get moving. I’m sure the rest of them are waiting impatiently in the courtyard.

“Your Grace, may I introduce my sister, Gelle,” said Sir Simon, waving at a delicate blonde woman in a black dress with yellow ribbons, wearing a sleepy frown as she held the reins of a brown pony.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Gelle,” Avery said, kissing her hand to mask the irritation he felt at the sound of his own lying voice. “Now, shall we mount up and be off?” Not waiting for a reply, he turned to follow his own suggestion, lifting foot to stirrup; behind him, he heard the indiscreet whisper of the blonde woman.

“You didn’t tell me I would be meeting the duke! But why does he smell like fresh-baked bread?”

Simon’s murmured reply was too soft for Avery to hear, especially as he had already kicked his horse into motion and several other members of his hunting party had begun talking to each other at once.

Rude! Isolde’s scolding mental voice reminded him of Aunt Maude. Hoofbeats sounded behind him, a quick trot; then a second set of hoofbeats; Avery smiled, kicking his own mount into a trot.

Eat my dust, he sent back to Isolde, and then turned to tease his cousin for mounting astride in mixed company; then he discovering that it wasn’t Isolde trotting her mare in his wake. It was, instead, the woman with the lavender vest, calmly perched in a properly ladylike sidesaddle in spite of her horse’s bouncing gait.

Behind her on three other trotting horses were Sir Simon, the younger Sir Walter, and the red-haired woman. The elfblood wizard was riding astride like the men, a choice that might have ruined a proper noble lady’s gown if she had been wearing one instead of her drab journeyman’s robes. As he met her eyes, her pale skin flushed a bright pink all the way from her cheeks to the pointed tips of her ears.

Isolde was further back, next to Bella and the older Sir Walter. Isolde’s face was in a furious frown, her roan mare walking quickly but not trotting as she clung to her saddlehorn, head and upper body twisted forward to look at him. Slow down, she sent angrily. Save your horse’s wind for when you’ve actually found something and gone chasing after it.

The stag has stopped to drink. Four hundred yards. Cross-wind, he can’t smell anything. The hound looked up at Avery.

Avery raised a hand, signaling for silence. He quietly slipped from his saddle, taking an arrow from his quiver. After he stepped past the waiting dog and gave it an affectionate pat to the head, he nocked the arrow to the bow but didn’t yet draw it. The honor of the first shot – of, likely, the first kill – was his; if he merely wounded it, there would be a long chase.

If he missed entirely… Avery shook his head, trying to quell the nervous racing of his heart that had arisen at the thought of embarrassing himself in front of the watching noble ladies. Somehow, the thought of disdainful laughter from them was genuinely frightening. He stepped around an oak tree, and could see the stream – but where was the stag?

Avery’s eyes widened as the stag leapt over his head, its eyes wide with panic as it ran past him. He spun, drawing and loosing, the arrow rasping along his silver skin a moment before it splintered on the trunk of a beech tree. As he jogged back towards his party, in the direction the stag had disappeared, he spared a moment to worry about the folly of loosing an arrow nearly blindly at his own hunting party, and slowed as he burst into a clearing.

The woman in the lavender vest was loading a crossbow; the redhead had fallen off her horse; and Sir Simon was holding his own bow, looking away in the direction marked by the divots left by the stag’s hooves. Avery walked towards the redhead, intending to help her stand. Then he heard the noises – a loud sickening crunching noise ahead of him and the snapping of branches behind him.

“Wolf!” shouted Sir Walter.

Avery spun around, holding up an arm just as a massive gray-furred beast lunged for his throat. Massive jaws clamped around his arm, teeth puncturing the sleeve of his shirt. An arrow flew past Avery’s head, leaving a bloody gash in the wolf’s forehead but failing to pierce its skull.

Then the wolf twitched rapidly, muscles jerking unnaturally as a crackling and sizzling noise sounded. Sparks coursed across the wolf’s fur and into the ground as the beast howled at the redheaded woman boldly grabbing its tail. Electricity continued to course across her hands and through the wolf in a potent display of combat magic that proved that whatever else she was, she had not been prematurely promoted to the status of a journeyman wizard.

Avery silently thanked the woman’s bravery, but had no time to speak his thanks aloud. With his arm momentarily free, he seized the opportunity to shove it underneath the wolf’s jaws and into the beast’s neck, grabbing the wolf before it could finish turning on the journeyman wizard. He pulled the wolf off its feet and rolled, pressing his weight on top of the wolf’s neck. The wolf thrashed underneath him, but Avery didn’t let go. He could hear voices behind him as the wolf slowly stopped twitching; he still didn’t let go.

“Your Grace, it’s dead,” Bella said, putting her small warm hand against his shoulder. “Could I have the hide? It looks like really nice fur, and it’s not ruined with spear-holes.”

“Maybe,” Avery grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, watching the fallen wolf warily. The wolf’s body began to shrink. He took a step forward, but another hand grabbed his shoulder.

It was Sir Simon. “Werewolf,” he said, shaking his head. “Definitely dead, but you shouldn’t touch it more than you have to. Lycanthropy is pretty contagious, there’s been an outbreak in Nottingham lately. Didn’t expect to see them this far north, though. If we hurry up and disinfect the bite on your arm, there’s a chance you can avoid infection.”

Avery frowned, pushing his torn sleeves down over his forearm, revealing an expanse of silver skin. Several pairs of dents marked where the beast’s canines had closed over his arm repeatedly. “Do I need to use alcohol, or some kind of cleansing potion?”

“Oh,” Sir Simon said, staring in wonder. “Didn’t even break the skin. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to clean it with alcohol just in case, and you should take precautions during the next full moon.”

The redhead cleared her throat. “My master will be able to tell if the curse has taken hold before then and take care of it. Divination is his specialty.”

Avery rubbed his forehead. “That’s… we’ll talk about it later, then. The full moon isn’t for three weeks anyway.” He looked at the dead naked man who had once been a wolf lying in the dirt. “Sorry, Bella, guess you won’t want the hide after all.”

“Au contraire. The skin of a lycanthrope is supposed to be pretty useful,” Beatrice said, smiling as she stared down at the corpse. “So I can have it?”

Avery shook his head. “We’ll take him to the morgue. Someone might know who he is. Was.”

“But how did you kill it?” Avery looked at the unmarked stag. There was no blood in evidence, no arrow-holes, no spear-holes. “Did you strangle it?” He tried to picture the lumbering Sir Malkin Guy jumping to catch the deer in both arms and failed.

“It surprised me coming around the boulder, but I got in a good punch,” the knight said. He bent, casually picking the deer up with his left hand; as he did so, the head flopped at an unnaturally boneless angle, pulled by the weight of its antlers. “May I keep the antlers as a trophy, Your Grace?”

Avery paused for a moment. “Yes, Sir Malkin, you may keep the antlers as a trophy. You’ve done well on this hunt.”

The knight nodded somberly. With his right hand, he took hold of one antler by the base; a quick twist of his wrist, and the antler popped off. The knight frowned, shifting his grip to free his thumb and index finger without letting go of the antler, then grasped the base of the second antler in those two fingers, repeating the motion with a grunt of visible effort. Both antlers clutched awkwardly in his massive right hand, the knight held the deer out to Avery with his left, the head flopping back down to the side.

“I am honored to provide for your table, Your Grace,” Sir Malkin said.