At length night fell, and I ceased to worry about burning water or storms or wolves because I could hear something moving in the bog. At first it was no more than a flaccid splash. Then I heard the wet sound of something large. Heart beating very fast, I stood up and searched the water on either side of the path for movement with eyes made keen by terror. I could not see into the water for it shone like a mirror, but when a bubble burst, I flinched. I realised as I stood there peering uneasily about me, that it was not the water that glowed but the mist that had risen from it. The water was merely reflecting the glowing mist.
I heard another splash, closer than before. Whatever was moving was coming towards me and it sounded a lot bigger than a fish. I had seen the wolves as the greatest danger I must face, and I had focused all my fear upon the pack, but now I wondered if there were other dangers. What if one of them was even now approaching me in the bog, readying itself to rear up and take me? If only day would come, but by my calculations, sunrise was hours away. I took out the lighter and flicked it to produce a flame, but it only had the effect of making the mist and the bog shine. Worse, I had the sense that whatever was in the bog had heard the sound, for there was a long, listening silence.
That was when I saw her: the black wolf. She was standing some distance away in the shining mist, visible only because her extreme blackness gave off no reflection, but her eyes seemed to glow silver. She looked at me, then she turned and padded a few steps before stopping and looking back at me again.
Dry-mouthed, I wondered if I was mad to think she was offering to lead me from the bog. She took another step and turned back to look at me again. I took a step towards her, wishing I had kept the branch to use as a staff to test the ground ahead. She took a few more steps, then turned to me again. I took another careful step and then another; now sure she was leading me along the path, I followed more readily, reckoning that anything was better than sitting on the path waiting for whatever was out there to attack.
She brought me to the edge of the bog, but when I found I was treading on a grassy slope of firm ground and turned to see what she would do, she had vanished.
I never spoke to my husband of that second encounter with the black wolf after he mentioned that the bog gave off a vapour that produced hallucinations, remarking how lucky I was to have got through it in my right mind. I asked only where he had been when I was in the bog. He admitted that he had not realised I was trapped there and had been without, waiting impatiently for me to emerge.
I have thought more than once over the years of the black wolf, and not long before my son hunted his ninety-ninth bride, I mentioned her to my mother-in-law. She had given me a swift, dark look, saying there had been a black wolf bitch, but that her hatred of humans was stronger than that of any other wolf in the Wolfsgate Valley because she was the same faerie who had tried to close the gateway between Faerie and the mortal realm, and who had brewed up the very curse that afflicted my husband and my son.
‘She became a wolf?’ I asked my mother-in-law, wondering why my husband had not told me this when I had mentioned the black wolf. But then, as my mother-in-law related her story, I realised Ranulf would have disliked speaking of her because he had only just got free of her curse. Faerie folk do not like to dwell on unpleasant things, as a rule.
‘She was a shape-changer by her mother’s blood,’ my mother-in-law had told me. ‘She had taken that form to kill her lover and her half-sister for their betrayal of her, and she was still in that form when she cursed the king for stopping her closing the gateway to the human realm. So he punished her by trapping her power in that form. For a long time, she killed any human who came to Faerie by way of the Wolfsgate Valley, and the hunting of fully mortal maids became such a deadly business that it went entirely out of favour among princes.
‘But then there were no more sightings of the black wolf and it was thought that she had perished,’ my mother-in-law concluded.
It struck me that if she was right, I had been incredibly lucky to come safe from the bog. It seemed too much to put down to luck, but maybe I had been due a little good fortune by then.
I forgot the black wolf once I came out of the mist that shrouded the bog, for to my surprise it was dusk and the great bronze disc of the setting sun was casting a dull gold light over the façade of a large and imposing building of several levels behind a high stone wall. My heart leapt at the sight of it, and at that moment I heard the howl of a wolf, very close. I knew it was not the black wolf but a summoning to the kill by the pack leader, and I set off at a run towards a gate in the wall, stumbling and slipping on the stony, tussocky ground.
I heard another howl ahead and to the left and faltered, but then I began to run harder, remembering I was still following the path and would be safe so long as it was daylight.
The wall was further away than I thought and the sun was setting when the path suddenly forked, one side becoming a white paved way that appeared to lead directly towards the gate in the wall, and the other remaining the same worn and pitted track I had been following since the first day. If my husband had not been there, awaiting me in his golden wolf guise, I would have taken the wide pale path, which would have brought me to a pretty meadow full of wildflowers. Their scent would have put me into a sweet sleep from which I would never have woken.
Somehow of all the tribulations I faced during the three days of testing, that lovely, deadly meadow was the worst of them. The thought of it haunted me for some time after I was wed, and once I went into the Wolfsgate Valley to look at it. Standing a safe distance back, I saw the bodies of a dozen girls who had found a dreadful immortality there, and weeping, begged my husband to use his power to save them. He only kissed me, telling me it was my good heart that had won the aid of his mother by the Wolfsgate, in her crone guise. Then he sobered and added that he would have to touch the sleeping girls in order to wake them, and that none could walk on that meadow and stay awake, not even the king of all Faerie. He kissed me again and bade me pity the sleepers not, for they were said to dream endlessly of their heart’s desire, and perhaps it was a better fate than for them to wake and find their princes had long ago chosen another.
His words did not comfort me, and even now I sometimes think of that field of immortal sleepers with creeping horror, but this day, sitting with the heavy tapestry on my knee and waiting for my son’s chosen to come through the Endgate, it seems to me that it might be a peaceful end to a mortal life, to lie down in a meadow of flowers and dream forever.
Perhaps I will do that when I am old and weary, and see what dreams come to me. Perhaps I will do that if my son fails.
Cloud-Marie gives a soft gurgle, which is her signal that it is time for us to dine. One eye drifts upward and I shake my head, having made up my mind to wait until morning to look at the maid my son has chosen. After all, I must wait two more days before she can come through the Endgate, and better to wait until one of the nights is past. Knowing I cannot sit here for the whole time without eating or sleeping, I rise and Cloud-Marie and I go together to the kitchen to eat the food she has prepared. When the meal is done, I make my way to my chamber, bathe and put on my nightgown. Soon after Cloud-Marie arrives to comb and brush my hair before going yawning to her own little chamber.
I lie wide awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts full of the mortal maid my son has hunted, spending her first night in the Wolfsgate Valley. I pray for her sake that she is strong and clever and lucky, and that my son remembers he summoned her and watches over her well. I refuse to imagine what will happen if the little flame of awareness within him gutters and he becomes wholly wolf. I try to sleep, but I only grow more and more wide awake. Finally, I get out of my bed, dress myself and go up to the tower room.
I kneel beside the scrying bowl and, as usual, struggle with revulsion before I close my eyes and lower my hand into it. The liquid feels icy and my hand aches. It reminds me, for a vivid fleeting moment, of the pain I felt after I untied the rope t
o release myself from the tree where I had taken refuge from the wolves. I push the memory away, stir the dark water and open my eyes.
My son sits on his haunches amidst trees. He is gazing down into a clearing where a campfire flickers. Beside it sits a woman, her long blonde hair bound into a tight plait. She is warmly and practically dressed in jeans and a thick sweater and coat, and she is wearing solid hiking boots. There is a small bulging pack beside her as well as a stout, metal-shod walking staff, and I think wryly of the book bag and light coat and the empty plastic water bottle that were all I brought with me. She takes out a small silver knife and deftly slices an apple. I wish she would turn her head so that I can see her face. I note that she is sitting with her back to a great tumble of moss-covered boulders that curve around either side of her, and I feel sure she has chosen this campsite so that nothing can approach her save from the front.
I study her and it seems to me that her form is full and rounded and that her movements are too graceful and certain to be those of a young woman. She is older than is traditional for a maid, and yet what age is my son now, given that beasts age faster than humans or faerie folk and he has long worn his wolf shape.
My son stiffens and begins to growl. He is looking in the other direction and, following his gaze, I see with a chill that the wolf pack has gathered in a hollow and are tearing at some beast they have killed with efficient ferocity; a deer, by the look of it. I have the sense that my son is hungry and longs to join the feast.
Perhaps the grey wolves are eating so close in order to tempt him.
He looks back to the woman by the fire, now combing her hair out of its braid, and I see with astonishment that she is not alone. There is a large dog with a soft red coat stretched out beside her. She strokes it and I am so unsettled by the sight that I lose focus and the vision in the scrying bowl fades to blackness again.
There is nothing for it but to return to my room and lie down. I do not know what to think of the air of competence about the girl in the clearing, or of the fact that she has entered Faerie with a dog. Cats and dogs do cross, I know, but seldom, for their instincts tell them there are many things in Faerie that find dog and cat meat as sweet as human flesh.
But this dog did not wander across, I remind myself. The woman is clearly its companion and when I think of the tender way she broke off her grooming to stroke the dog’s head, I find I am glad to think that she has it to defend her, in case my son cannot control himself. Dogs have a loyalty that goes deeper even than the pack instinct of wolves, and I do not know if my son will be able to hold to his hunt. And even if he does, I do not know what will happen when the dog beholds him.
My mind drifts to the slight arrogance in my husband’s handsome face when he told me it was my trust in him that allowed him to prevent me going along the path that would lead me to the meadow of sleep flowers.
I realise I would not have trusted him in his wolf form, after being terrorised for three days by the pack, save for my encounters with the enigmatic black she-wolf. It was that, like her, he had not been grey as the wolves of the pack, which convinced me to go with him, even when he seemed to be leading me away from the safety of the ornate building behind its high wall. I am sobered to realise that, if not for my meeting with the black wolf, I would never have reached the Endgate before the last rays of the sun were extinguished by night. I would have fallen victim to the pack unless Ranulf had pitied me enough to transport me magically back to the mortal world, though I had failed him.
I slipped into a vivid dream of those last moments of my testing in the Wolfsgate Valley.
I was within sight of the gate which, like the Wolfsgate, was actually a solid door set into the wall, when I saw the grey pack leader burst from some bushes a little distance away, followed by several of his outrunners. I looked around for the golden wolf, but it had vanished.
Terror flooded me, and I broke into a headlong run, praying the gate would not be locked. Slamming into it, I grasped the handle, the hair on my neck standing on end as I imagined the pack leader’s fangs sinking into my neck or calf. But the handle turned. I shoved the door open, flung myself through it and slammed it behind me, then I sank to my knees, sobbing and trembling and gasping as the sun set and darkness fell over me like a cloak.
The next morning, when Cloud-Marie brings my tray, she is visibly unsettled to see me dressed and sitting by the fire. She gabbles a little as she dithers over where to set the tray and I sign for her to put it on the table beside me. I have no appetite but I do not want her to be troubled, poor soul. She makes me a coffee and brings it to me and I take it and smile at her. She does not return my smile, and when she gestures at the brush and comb sitting on the dresser, I nod, knowing it will soothe us both. I look into my bloodshot eyes in the mirror hung upon the wall beside my dresser and see how thick the shadows lie under them.
An hour passes and then two and I can restrain myself no longer. I set aside the tapestry I have been working at and rise. Cloud-Marie watches me, and grinds her teeth. Seeing her agitation, I cross to the window and sign her to bring me a hot chocolate, knowing that the making of it is a lengthy process. As soon as she has gone, I hasten across the room and draw aside the curtain that hides the tower-room stair. I make my way swiftly up to the chamber where the scrying bowl awaits me, kneel and plunge my hand in at once, only closing my eyes when I begin to stir.
I open my eyes and see that my son is moving again. I cannot tell where he is, save that the grass is long and dry and bleached blond, and there are no trees. He is in a part of the valley I have never seen before, which must mean his chosen is there, too. I have no idea what tests await her here but there is nothing gentle in the Wolfsgate Valley. I cannot see the girl, but he is clearly moving stealthily and carefully, stopping often to twitch his ears. I push away the thought that he is stalking her and take comfort in the absence of the grey wolves.
Then I remember the dog and wonder if he is wary of it.
‘Bring her to me, my son,’ I whisper, and the vision dissolves, but not before I see that he has left the high yellow grass for a stony foothill, on which rises what seems to be the ruin of a human dwelling.
Going back down to my chamber, I manage to sit in my chair before Cloud-Marie arrives and sip meekly at the chocolate she has made, though the sweetness makes me feel sick. I have drunk two-thirds before it occurs to me to check the petals carpeting the Princess Chamber. If my son has ceased to hunt, save for prey, they will be dying.
I sign that I want to go to the Princess Chamber, and Cloud-Marie takes the mug. By the time I reach the door with its dove handles I am calmer, but even so, when I open the door and see the floor is white with petals, I feel weak with relief and near to weeping. I close the door and return to my chamber where Cloud-Marie stands, still holding the cup, a bead of chocolate clinging to the down on her upper lip. I laugh aloud at the realisation she has greedily drained my cup and, taking it from her, I set it down and enfold her in a hug. At first she stiffens but then she hugs me back and burbles with laughter. When I release her she all but capers.
I sit down and look into the fire and think of her mother.
Cloud-Marie looks nothing like Yssa, and yet there is something in her mouth that sometimes reminds me of my friend. Yssa as she was in the end, not as she was when first she came to the palace, dressed in drab clothes with limp hair and dull skin, her back bowed under the weight of some sorrow whose cause she would not name. How wearily and resignedly she asked if she might have a place in the palace. How humbly and drearily she said that she did not mind what work she did. Lonely in the absence of my husband, I had impulsively agreed to take her in, making it my own little quest to drive the melancholy out of her. She did not smile, but only looked grim as she curtseyed and thanked me. Then she asked if I meant she was to be my maid.
I answered that she would be my companion and she nodded, half flinching. Her evident lack of delight in her new appointment piqued me and made me even m
ore determined to win a smile from her.
I was thereafter unfailingly sweet to her, even though she would not meet my gaze and took all of my orders with a sullen glower. Once or twice I wondered if she thought I mocked her with my kindness because I surprised a look of real hatred in her eyes, but that seemed so unlikely that I told myself she only brooded on whatever hurt had been done to her. Whatever she had fled from to come to the palace had scarred her, and whenever her hands were not busy, she chewed her nails down to the quick. This human-like flaw endeared her to me, and I had gone from regarding her as a project to really caring for her. I gave her gifts and stroked her hair and kissed her and made her sing with me, refusing to notice her determined lack of response. I could see that her life at the palace agreed with her. Her skin soon glowed like a pearl and her fiery hair shone and rippled as she lost her thin, hollow-eyed look. It gave me pleasure to discover what a beauty she was, or would have been, I amended wryly, if ever she would smile or look anyone in the eye.
Then one day, we were walking in a field and I stopped to offer the stick of celery I had been nibbling to a rabbit. It was very timid and it could not make up its mind whether it wanted the vegetable enough to overcome its fear of me. It crept forward and shrank back and crept forward again many times until at last it came close enough to snatch a bite before bounding away.
I looked up to find Yssa watching me with a queer expression on her face. ‘You are very patient,’ she said. It was the first time she had ever said a word to me that I had not had to drag out of her, and I think she was as startled by it as I. It was on that day that I noticed her eyes, which I had thought grey, were a very clear, pale, turquoise blue, like my husband’s. It made me realise that I had never looked into her eyes before. She had always prevented it by looking down or away or by keeping her lashes lowered.