Metro Winds (34 page)

What if he had gone there to choose another girl before returning to be chained up again in his yard at dawn? What if the howl I heard earlier was truly a howl signalling the arrival in the Wolfsgate Valley of his chosen, the beginning of a new testing?

Was it possible?

His father had found me there, and perhaps my son retained some dim memory of it, or it might be that my angry words about the worth of mortals tested by the valley had remained even when his human form was lost, to work their way to the surface of his wolf brain. But how could he hunt in the real world where wolves do not routinely run about the streets, and in that city of all cities, where there is no wilderness except the wildness of degeneration? At night he might conceivably pass as a dog, but even if he had managed to find the will to go there and to hunt, what sort of girl would dare accept a battered ring from the neck of a great white wolf? For him to come close enough to bestow it on her, she could not fail to see the savagery in his eyes and know him for a beast. And what of the ring? Certainly I had not taken it from him after what happened to the last candidate, but surely the ribbon had rotted long since, and the ring fallen into a bog or crack. But supposing he still had the ring, and had hunted a girl brave enough to take it from his neck? Would she imagine it could reveal the name of the owner of what she might suppose to be a tame wolf? But what human woman would then obey an eldritch voice issuing from the ring, commanding her to go thence and do this and that in order to free a nobleman's son from a spell?

In the mirror I see that Cloud-Marie's errant eye is turning sideways. My breath catches in my throat as she turns her head so that, for a moment, both eyes regard curtains I have not drawn in two years. I had not thought to ever open them again, for the window behind them looks out on the same mist garden as can be espied from the balcony of the Princess Chamber where, when a hunt begins, white roses bloom in profusion.

I know I must look out, have known it since the howl waked hope in me, yet if no roses have bloomed, my son is lost. But in this moment it is horror that deters me more than the fear of having to abandon hope, for, with all my heart, I do not want to be reminded of what I beheld the last time I entered the mist garden.

Cloud-Marie's good eye turns back and holds my gaze, and I realise that I am not breathing. I release it in a hissing moan as I remember the scarlet beads of blood caught on my son's muzzle. And though my mind shies from it, I remember following the trail of blood to the body of the young woman in the mist garden. She was dead because she had made the mistake of going outside, rather than staying in the Princess Chamber and sleeping as I had bidden her. I suppose my son thought she had failed, or that she meant to leave. Maybe she
had
intended to leave. Whatever the reason, he had torn her throat out.

I shivered, remembering the desolation and anguish and rage of his howls that night and for many terrible long nights to follow. I had wept into my pillow for hours, sick with grief for the girl and despair for my son, who had lost his last chance to save himself. That was when I had given up, for I knew the beast must have gained the ascendant for him to have slain the girl he had hunted for his bride.

Cloud-Marie and I buried her on a grassy knoll just beyond the mist garden, where the sun would fall, and although I told no one but my husband and my mother-in-law what had happened, word of the grisly tragedy got out, and thereafter no one came willingly to the King's Palace. When anyone did come, I would often see them make the sign of horns with their little finger and forefinger, to ward off ill-fortune.

Steadying myself, I drive back horror and gather my courage before signing for Cloud-Marie to take the shawl from my lap. I am chilled to the bone by what I must do and it is not a chill from which any shawl or fire can shield me. She folds it with an oddly graceful and almost ceremonial air, and I feel her uneven eyes on my back as I rise and cross to the curtains. I have to make myself lift my arms, grasp one curtain in each hand and throw them open.

I draw in a breath of chilly wonder, for the garden below glows white with roses that are blooming more thickly than I have ever seen them do before. It might have snowed save for the intoxicating scent the roses give off, even in the clammy air. I draw in a breath and hear the light rasp of the sea in my lungs.

‘It is a miracle,' I say, aloud, to the misty night or maybe to the stars. I feel how strange it is to use such a word here. Turning, I see that Cloud-Marie still stands by my empty chair, the rug cradled in her arms as if it were a babe. Instead of looking frightened or relieved or even happy, there is a listening expression on her loose features, and then I hear it.

A wolf, howling.

It is not my son. I know the timbre of his call, and besides, he is chained up. Nor is it the distinctive call of the leader of the wild pack whose demesne is the Wolfsgate Valley. It must be another wolf from the pack, and a picture forms inexorably in my mind of the black wolf.

Then my blood runs cold and I draw in a horrified breath, for I have forgotten the most important thing! If the candidate is a mortal maid, she has entered the Wolfsgate Valley without any magic to protect her or her prince to watch over her.

I turn and run to my son's yard, heart pounding so hard that my ribs hurt. He is straining at the end of his chain to get as close as he can to the side gate, which opens to the short passage leading to the Endgate. His whole body is trembling with electric tension.

I hurry over and release the catch upon his chain. His fur is white and his eyes have the same gold flecks as his father's, but over the paler grey of my own eyes. I cross to the gate and he watches me, pricking his ears. He knows this is the way to the Wolfsgate Valley, but it is only dusk and I have never let him out save at darkest night before. Nor have I made any attempt to fasten about his neck the magic chain that will limit his roaming. Does he understand what these things mean? Does he understand what he must do now? I pray so, else the blood of another maid will stain his muzzle and my hands. For a moment I hesitate, but love for my son and crippled hope make me unlatch the gate. I do not attempt to give him any instruction. There is only wildness in his eyes now, and the valley will do all the testing that is needed. My son's task is to protect the girl and guide her at the last to the Endgate. Remembering the other howl, I tell myself that though my son might lack a rational mind, he knows in his essence what is unfolding, and I pray that his chosen has not already come to harm.

I open the gate and walk along the short passage to the Endgate, hearing him padding along behind me, panting. When I open the gate in the wall that separates the palace from the Wolfsgate Valley, my son passes through it. For a moment he stops in the clearing and looks back at me, standing in the gateway. I want to see a glimmer of human intelligence in his eyes, of love for me and knowledge of mine for him, but there is only an unfathomable wildness there, and then he turns away from me and looks out into the valley.

At that moment, far away, there is another howl. This time it is the deep throaty howl of the leader of the grey pack, and every hair on my body stands on end as I remember his red maw and ravenous eyes. But my son stretches his neck and gives a long ululating call in reply, then he leaps away and is gone.

Returning to the courtyard, I sign to Cloud-Marie that we must collect the petals for the Princess Chamber. I can see, writ in her body, that she does not want to go into the mist garden, and I do not blame her. It was always a strange and unsettling place, thick with the smell of magic, but I must go there at once, or I may lose the courage I will need to go there at all, and I have my part to play this one last time.

I steel myself as we make our way down to the mist garden, yet my heart pounds and my gorge rises as a vile picture comes unstoppably into my mind of the last candidate: the bloody gash at her throat and the spray of red so bright against her pale cheeks, the way her eyes stared so horribly and absently at the sky as we sewed her into her shroud.

I bite my lip hard and begin to tear handfuls of petals from the clusters of roses on the bushes and from those climbers trained over decorative frames which display the blooms in cascades and sheaves and coiling swathes. We gather petals for more than an hour, feeding them into my hold-all baskets until I decide we have enough. The scent of the petals is very strong because those on the bottom are being crushed by the weight of those on top.

I am about to signal to Cloud-Marie that we have enough when I notice a spray of shadow flowers beneath one of the bushes. On impulse, I bid Cloud-Marie carry the basket to the top of the stairs and wait there for me. She looks anxious but obeys me. As soon as she has gone out of sight, I pick a few of the tiny lavender-grey blossoms, then hurry through the garden to a gap in the surrounding wall and run lightly up the hill beyond. Being outside the garden, I see the sun has set and the moon shines brilliantly in the dusk, and illuminating the grave atop the knoll. I kneel and lay the flowers where I imagine her breast might be.

I swear to her bones that this new candidate will come to no harm at the hands – nay, the teeth and claws – of my son.

Returning to the palace, I take the petal-filled baskets from Cloud-Marie and we return to the Princess Chamber. As we strew the petals, re-lay the fire and renew the bed, which I never thought to do again, I find myself thinking of all of those maidens for whom I have made this same preparation. Five did not accept the invitation, and of those who did, nine turned back at the Threeways Path and seven of those who went forward did not pass through the Wolfsgate. Of the seventy-eight who passed through it, sixty-two failed the tests there in one way or another. Sixteen passed through the wood and came to my door, but three turned away without knocking. Of the thirteen young women who entered my house, two were convinced by trickery or reason to abandon their quest at once, five failed the tasks they were set by me and two refused to undertake them. One tripped down the stairs and broke her neck. That had been near the beginning and my son had been man-shaped and still soft enough to pity the young woman her fatal clumsiness. He had left her at the bottom of some steps in my own world, where it would appear she had stumbled. Only three had been shown to the Princess Chamber. Only two slept in the bed and neither had brought enough for the princess spell to be woven. The thirteenth was the last, she who walked in the mist garden and died in the teeth of the beast, my son.

I frown, realising the final tally is ninety-nine. I count again, certain I must have miscounted, but I did not. I lick my lips. The current hunt is the hundredth, and I have been too long in Faerie not to recognise an omen when I encounter one. Even the fact that I have never thought to add up the number of candidates before is significant. All at once I am utterly exhausted. It seems to me that I have not been so tired since I came to the palace seeking refuge after my own three nightmarish days in a walled garden that had turned into a wild valley full of wolves.

I stumble to my own bed, cast myself down and sleep. But there is no escape for, in my dreams, the memories await me.

There were three passages before me, all narrow, all identical, running away out of sight. With nothing to decide between them, for the handsome Ranulf had not told me the way forked, I chose the middle path, and as I stepped into it, a gritty wind whirled up out of nowhere, dragging at my hair and scouring my cheeks. Instead of coming from one direction it seemed perversely to be coming from all directions at once, though I could not see how that was possible in such a narrow alley.

The grit in the wind got into my eyes and they began to water. I felt my way along, eyes streaming, as I steadily cursed my foolishness for taking directions from a stranger.

A
handsome
stranger, my mother's voice sneered, waspish with disapproval, for she distrusted good looks on principle.

I shook her voice from my head, reasoning that the bullying wind was not the fault of the man, though he might have mentioned the fork in the way. I could have turned back, but I went on, wondering at my ill-luck in choosing the one lane in the whole city that seemed to contain not a single doorway that could provide refuge.

After what seemed a very long time, the lane reached a small square. At once, the wind died. Bemused by the sudden silence, I gazed about the empty square in a sort of battered daze. The sun shone through ragged patches in the billowing banks of black cloud overhead and lit up odd details. Instinctively I moved towards the nearest patch of sunlight, my cheeks stinging as if they had been sandpapered. I touched them gingerly, wishing there was a canal running by so that I could wet them. But the square was closed, save for the lane I had come through. This explained why I had not seen any other tourist since entering it. But where were the people who lived in the buildings around the square? Ordinary citizens here appeared to regard the squares adjacent their apartment buildings as extensions of their living rooms or public meeting halls and they would come out on the slightest pretext, bringing chairs to sit on while they took the sun and gossiped or smoked or played cards. Yet here was a square empty of people.