A swift movement of shadows at the outermost rim of the forest, like water over rocks, caught her attention and she poised, motionless, gripping the sill with cramping fingers. She could see no definable figures in the yard, only bands of greater and lesser darkness. She listened for something beyond the gentle rustling of branches above the roof but could hear nothing moving across the damp earth.
A sudden, bleating scream was cut off by a ripping noise, like cloth being torn from a loom. Then, the dull snapping sound of the trap coming down brought an enveloping silence. The scream had come from the lamb, she was certain, and yet an unreasoning, terror-filled image assaulted her that William, restless and curious, had crept out undetected from the house. With a hammering fear she ran to the door and, flinging it open, realized she had left it unbolted. She stumbled off the steps into the yard, not thinking if the trap had been sprung too soon, or too late, leaving the wolves free and blood-lusting, thinking only of what might be trapped inside the pen.
Nearing the barn, she heard a low, throaty growl. The sound was close, but she could see nothing between herself and the woven structure, which in that moment appeared as insubstantial as tatting lace. There were noises of a weakening struggle, a high-pitched whistling squeal which could as easily have come from a small child as from an injured lamb, and then more tearing sounds. The dark was absolute, as though black curtains had been hung within, and she took another two steps forward, straining to see through the slats. She could hear breathing then on the other side of the slender barrier, the cautious, overlengthy intake and exhalation of air, like muffled twin bellows, accompanying the wet and urgent sounds of feeding.
“Move away,” Thomas said tensely, appearing out of the darkness. She heard him curse and call to John for more fire for the firing pan; the fuse on the flint had gone out.
The illumination from John’s open lantern now flooded and filled a good two-thirds of the pen, but she could no longer hear or see the wolves in the shifting wall of shadows that clung to the back of the enclosure. She cautiously pressed herself against one side of the cage, her fingers encircling the coarsely woven slats. As she pressed one eye to an opening, she felt, rather than saw, the rush of heavy form and energy.
In an instant, Martha was eye to eye with the great wolf as it stood on its hind legs, its scabrous, working jaws on a level with her chin, its pelt yellow from the wavering light. The wolf’s hackles were raised in a great bristling collar about its ears, and as the steam from its mouth spackled her face, she could feel the other, smaller wolf catching hold of her skirt, jerking her body hard and holding her against the shattering wall of the pen. She heard sharp, cracking sounds and felt the wood weakening beneath her fingers. The wood cut sharply into one side of her face, drawing blood, but for every effort to free herself, the frenzied surge of teeth at her hands gave her no purchase to push herself away. Her captive eye, pressed against a widening gap in the slats, could not close itself for terror, and she wildly tracked the wolf’s eye within a hand’s breadth of her face, reddish gold and unblinking like a rust-stained moon; and she saw there was no vengeful, manlike designs in its gaze, only the singular will to free itself.
The world narrowed to the closing span between them, and she inhaled sharply, breathing in a fleck of bloody foam from its laboring tongue, and tasted the salt from a still-warm body. Her jaws, unhinged by fear and anger, became an open cavern and she screamed. A sulfurous explosion behind her deadened her hearing to all but her own voice. She felt a forceful ripping away of her hem as the smaller wolf was flung backwards from the bite of the lead shot. Still she screamed into the roaring mouth of the standing wolf, as though she would offer up every part of her frothing innards, liver, spleen, and heart, feeding them to the beast one by one like boiled sweetmeats. The second shot exploded, shattering the wolf’s throat, laying open the tender gray neck. And with a great geyser of blood, it crashed heavily to ground.
As the wolf fell away, she felt hands grabbing her shoulders, encircling her, dragging her away from the pen. She was spun about and shaken, her neck bobbing loosely over her shoulders, spineless and weak with terror. She could see John, ashen and spent, as he stared at her with bulging eyes; and her cousin as well, standing barefoot in the yard, open-mouthed and sobbing over the children, who were safe at her side, hiding their faces within the folds of their mother’s thin night shift.
Thomas bent over her and wiped the blood away from the scratches around one side of her face where the wood had gouged the flesh, looking for and finding an open bite mark at her lip where a wolf’s poisonous spittle could hide, turning her from woman to changeling, to be chained to a post, ranting and howling away the rest of her days. He carried her to the house, where Patience bathed her face and hands and spread a quilt over her quivering form.
Later, she would come to stand in the rim of torchlight, silently watching the men winching up the wolves, one male and one female, side by side in death as in life. With immense skinning knives, the men opened up the carcasses like wings and sluiced buckets of rainwater over the fur, carving out the organs until both were clean of blood. It was only when they began to strip the fur away from the muscles and sinew, revealing the pink and defenseless flesh beneath, did she slip away again.
CHAPTER 6
THE FIGHTING BITCH was short in stature, her forelegs deeply bowed, but with a massive head. They called her Whistler, not for any sound she herself made, but for the sound the opposing dogs often made through their throats after she had buried her teeth deep into their windpipes. This was to be her fifteenth fight, and her owner, Samuel Crouch, had bet heavily on her. She was the odds-on favorite to win, even though the brute in the ring with her was larger and younger as well.
Their two respective handlers held tight to the straining leads, the dogs already lathered in great, glistening mantles of sweat and spittle, their snapping jaws tearing at the air. The crowd standing around the circular walls of the pit pushed aggressively forward, each man eager to see the match. A roaring had begun that was greater than the usual gaming noise. Bettors called encouragement to their fellows standing close by or threw insults, friendly or not, to men on the other side of the ring.
Sam Crouch caught the eye of a gaunt, dour-faced man standing on the far side of the pit and, with the barest possible movement, raised his chin in recognition. The dour-faced man spat and shouted last-minute instructions to his handler to hold more tightly to the brute’s lead.
Crouch laughed and turned to his companion standing nearby. “He’ll look even sourer when my bitch chews his dog’s balls clean off.”
“God, what a stink,” the man said. He smiled approvingly, taking in another deep breath.
Crouch tugged at his sleeve, leading him away from the ring, and signaled for more drink. “Come, Brudloe,” he said loudly over the din. “We have a few moments yet before they let slip the dogs.”
A serving man brought two heated ales and they drank deeply, their eyes like twin beacons searching the room for newcomers. Crouch noted the hulking shape of Brudloe’s bodyguard, Cornwall, at the far side of the room, leaning against the wall as though propping it up. Brudloe himself was a demon in a fight, fast with a knife and tireless. But one look at Cornwall’s bulk gave even the most obstinate aggressor pause for thought. Cornwall’s first loyalty, however, was to the master spy Tiernan Blood, and he would most likely report everyone’s actions directly to him. It was through Blood’s directives that Crouch had called for a meeting with Brudloe and his associates after the match.