Rowankind

FREDDIE WAS ON trial for his life. Corwen sat beside me, sick with dread. He owed his life and his allegiance to the Lady of the Forests, but he didn’t owe her his brother. And he was sure that she would demand the highest price. It was no secret that Freddie and I were not friends. For Corwen’s sake, however, I hoped that some accom­modation could be found for the troubled wolf and the even more troubled man sharing the same mind. Freddie had killed one of the Lady’s sprites. The mat­ter wasn’t in doubt. We had all heard the death shriek. To hear such a sound from one of the usually silent creatures had brought the whole camp running to its aid, but it was too late. The sprite was a mangled mess on the ground beneath the stark branches of a winter beech tree, and Freddie had sprite blood all over his maw. The Lady of the Forests ruled over Britain’s magical creatures— shapechangers, pixies, sprites, trolls, hobs, and even a kelpie or two. She had deep magic, but though she had acted swiftly, her sprite was beyond help. I knew the Lady felt things deeply, but I’d never seen her weep. Her sprites were perfectly proportioned, humanlike creatures, no more than three feet tall and of no particu­lar gender. They carried out the Lady’s bidding in silence. They were her eyes and ears, agents of healing and nour­ishment, silent helpers, but so much more than servants. I had never seen one injured or ill before, never mind dead. They didn’t age, unless there was a home for retired sprites somewhere deep in the Okewood that none of us knew about. I couldn’t weep for the sprite. I hadn’t known it, but the Lady’s grief caused my own eyes to leak saltwater. The Lady called, and her sprites answered, emerging from between the trees, more of them than I’d ever seen in one place or at one time before. They were almost indistin­guishable from one another, but when you saw them to­gether, you could pick out slight differences. They gathered around the small corpse, covered it in a silken cloth, and four of them carried away their fallen comrade without a second look at the miscreant who had done the deed. Freddie, still in wolf form, lay with his nose between his paws, his ears flattened to his skull. He knew what he’d done. Corwen knelt beside his brother. I wanted to tell him not to, that Freddie was dangerous, even to his own kin. The sprite wasn’t Freddie’s first kill. “What were you thinking, Freddie boy?” Corwen asked softly. Freddie whined in the back of his throat. “I don’t know what’s to be done with you.” “That is for me to decide.” The Lady loomed over both of them. I don’t think I’d ever heard her voice so cold before. Corwen rocked back on his heels. “Change!” the Lady commanded Freddie. “You can do it,” Corwen encouraged him. Freddie’s wolf- change had never been easy. Both Corwen and his sister Lily had changed as children and their changes were fluid and fast, but Freddie’s was a bone- wrenching, gut- churning change. You could hear his joints popping and his tendons twisting. “Change!” This time the Lady wasn’t taking no for an answer. She was going to force him to change, here in full view of everyone. Freddie yowled, possibly in protest— it was hard to tell, but the Lady simply folded her arms across her chest and said once more, “Change!” Freddie’s fur began to shrink back from his front paws and his fingers extended. It was a start. He flung himself sideways, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. As we watched, it began to shrink back, and his snout shortened perceptibly. He whined again, but this time the whine had a more human sound to it, more like a groan. He arched his back, and his whole rib cage began to snap and pop as it changed shape. I couldn’t watch anymore. All I could think of was that I was thankful Corwen’s change wasn’t like that or— if it was— it was all over in an instant. “Does it hurt when you change?” I asked Corwen. “I mean, do you go through all that but faster?” “You’ve never asked me that before.” “Your change seems almost instantaneous. If I thought that was what you went through—” “You’d what? Walk away from me? Smother me with pity?” I shook my head. “There is a moment . . . but the pain is fleeting, and I’ve learned to ignore it, knowing it won’t last.” “You never said.” He shrugged. “It is what it is.” Freddie’s change was advanced now. He was almost human again, though covered in wolf hair which only re­tracted gradually. By the look on Freddie’s face, even that hurt. Charlotte, our rowankind friend, one of the magical refugees under the Lady’s protection, walked forward and dropped a blanket over Freddie to cover his nakedness. He clutched it around himself as he became fully human once more. There was still sprite blood on his chin. He sat on the ground, shivering but not, I thought, from the cold. Everything about the way he held himself, his arms wrapped around his chest defensively, said that he was miserable and ashamed. He knew that the Lady had ordered magicals killed for the kind of transgressions he’d committed at least twice. He looked directly at the floor, not even glancing up when Corwen said, “Welcome back, brother.” The Lady contemplated Freddie. I don’t know exactly what or who the Lady of the For­ests is. She’s not one of the Fae and she’s not a goddess, not quite, though her powers are extensive. She is the con­sort of the Green Man, who may have been worshipped as a god once, long ago, by the number of carvings of foliate heads on many of our ancient churches. The nearest I can reconcile is that they are, between them, the spirit of the land given form. He is the earth and slow- growing things; she is the skittering woodland creature, the half- seen doe in the deep woods, and the lark in the clear sky. He appears in leather, crowned by horns, skin like tree bark, eyes unfathomable. In the spring when the sap rises, he’s the May King and Jack in the Green. In the summer he’s the Oak King, Herne the Hunter, the Green Knight, and Robin Hood. In the autumn he’s John Bar­leycorn, and when the snow falls, he’s the Holly King and the Lord of Misrule. His consort, his queen, however, shuns all names. She simply is. Sometimes she appears as a fresh- faced virgin, at other times she carries her pregnant belly high and with pride. She may also appear as a mature woman, wise and powerful. She is the nameless maiden, the mother, and the crone: three in one. Even the Fae recognize that the couple are to be re­spected in all things. “Frederick Deverell.” The Lady spoke and then left the air empty of sound until, inch by inch, Freddie was compelled to look up and meet her eyes. I don’t know what she saw when she looked at him, and I don’t know what Freddie saw when he looked at her, but their eye contact continued without words until Freddie looked away again. “A sprite lies dead,” the Lady said. “What do you have to say for yourself?” Freddie shook his head. “I killed it.” “That much is obvious. Why?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It . . . annoyed me.” “If I killed every creature that annoyed me, half of England would be covered with graves. I don’t accept your reason.” “It came . . . too close to me.” “That is not normally an excuse to commit murder. Have you anything to say before I pass judgment?” Freddie didn’t answer. I could see where this was go­ing. The wolf wasn’t helping his own case. “May I speak?” Corwen asked. The Lady nodded. “Someone had better speak for him. He’s not speaking well for himself.” “Freddie hates his wolf,” Corwen said. “And that might be my fault. For many years I was the only shapechanger in our family. My father never understood that I had no choice in what I was, and he gave me hell for it. Freddie thought himself safe when time passed and he didn’t change. He spent too many years sneering at me, so his metamorphosis came as a terrible shock. He felt that his own body had betrayed him and was angry and resentful. He tried to hold back the changes, so when they eventually forced themselves on him, they were violent and uncon­trollable. His wolf terrifies him, and he lashes out.” “You make me sound like a coward, brother.” “It’s not cowardice, Freddie. This is not something that most men ever have to face. I left you to face it alone, and for that I’m sorry.” “I wasn’t alone. I was at university. A friend stayed by me, but he’s gone now. I drove him away.” “You try to drive everyone away, but that’s not who you really are, Freddie. You have family. They want you back home. Since Father died, it all belongs to you.” Freddie bared his teeth as if he were still a wolf. “You don’t understand, do you? I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be a country gentleman. I can’t be what Mother wants me to be.” He turned to the Lady. “Pronounce sen­tence. I won’t fight it.” “I’ll fight it.” Charlotte stepped forward. “The Myste­rium took my daughter, Olivia, and imprisoned her at sea on the Guillaume Tell. Freddie was there, in wolf form, tortured every day to make him change to human. They turned him savage, but when they threw my child into his cage, he protected her. The way he behaves is not his fault. I’m sure there’s a good man trapped inside the wolf. My daughter loves him and with good reason. I will always be grateful to him.” It was my turn. I tried to be as concise as I could, though the story could have been much longer if I’d told it all. “I don’t know about the sprite, and I make no excuses for Freddie’s actions today, but the first time he killed, he did it to save my life. He killed the man who’d tortured him for weeks and who would have murdered me with dark magic. If Freddie hadn’t intervened, I wouldn’t be here.” “Two lives saved. Two lives lost,” Corwen said. “Bal­ance of a sort.” The Lady remained silent. Her face gave nothing away. Finally, she nodded. I heard Corwen release a pent‑up breath. “If we take him to our cottage in the Old Maizy Forest, far from where he can hurt anyone, we can let his spirit heal.” The Lady looked around. “Does anyone have any­thing else to say before I pass judgment?” She looked at a group of sprites. “You?” They shook their heads. “All right, Freddie. I will give you one more chance, but you need to learn to control your wolf. To that end you will stay a wolf until you learn. Do you understand?” “I do.” He lifted his head. “I’m truly sorry about the sprite.” “If you are, then you will do everything in your power to make sure it never happens again. If it does, I will end you as I would end a mad dog. You have been warned.” “Thank you, my lady.” “You may change to wolf now and stay that way until I give permission to change back.” Freddie’s change began again. It was no easier than his change from wolf to man. I winced and tried not to feel too much sympathy. We were going into self- imposed ex­ile to keep Freddie safe . . . or to keep the world safe from Freddie.