Lured by the prospect of more ale, the stranger again accompanied him without protest. Gerin set the pitcher on the ground. As the stranger made for it, the Fox hurried out of the cellar, shut the door behind him, and dropped the bar. Then he went back up to the great hall, poured a jack of ale for himself, and gulped it down in one long draught.
"All right, Captain, what was that all about?" Van demanded when he thumped the jack down on the table. "You know something; I can see it in your face."
Gerin shook his head. "Come morning, I'll know something. Now I just suspect."
"Suspect what?" several people answered in the same breath.
"I suspect I just locked a werebeast in the cellar," Gerin answered.
Again several people spoke at once, Aragis loudest and most to the point: "But that was no beast—he was a man."
"And quite a man he was, too," Fand murmured, which drew her a sharp look from Van.
"When men go were, they take beast shape," the Fox said, filling his drinking jack again. "If a beast goes were, though, what would it become? A man, unless all logic lies. And look at this fellow—not just at how hairy he was, either. He had no idea how to be a man. He wore no clothes, he couldn't speak, he didn't know what a cup was for till I showed him. . . . As I say, we'll know for certain come morning, when we open the cellar door after moonset and see who—or what—is down there."
Aragis shook his head, still doubtful. But Selatre said, "I like the notion. It might even explain how the monsters came to be: suppose a female beast turned woman long years ago, and a farmer or hunter found her and had his way with her and got her with child. Come morning, she'd be an animal once more, but who knows what litter she would have borne?"
"It could be so," Gerin said, nodding. "Or men as werebeasts might have mixed their blood with females of their beast kind. Either way, you're right—the get might be horrific. It's a better guess at how the monsters began than any that's crossed my mind." He raised his jack in salute to her cleverness.
"If you conceive by me, you'll know what you'll have, lass," Van said to Fand.
"More trouble than I'd know what to do with, I expect," she retorted.
"How d'you put a viper's tongue in such a pretty mouth?" he asked, and she looked smug.
The ale ran out not long after that, and no one seemed enthusiastic about going down to the cellar for more, not with the stranger down there. No one seemed enthusiastic about staying in the great hall, either, even if Marlanz had plenty of raw meat by his side as he slept. The kitchen helpers went to their quarters and barred the door. Everyone else went upstairs.
Gerin made sure the sun was well up—which meant full Elleb and Nothos would be well down—before he went downstairs the next morning. Even then, he went not only armed but ready to beat a hasty retreat.
He found Marlanz Raw-Meat back in fully human form, and just sitting up in the rushes, looking mightily confused at how he'd got there and even more confused at the pile of well-gnawed pig bones beside him. "How strong do you brew your ale, lord prince?" he asked. "Funny, though—it must have been a mighty carouse, but my head doesn't hurt."
"It wasn't ale—it was the moons," Gerin answered, and explained what had happened the night before.
Marlanz stared, then slowly nodded and got to his feet. "I'm told the same fit came over me, only stronger, at the great werenight five years gone by. I remember nothing of that night, either."
Van came downstairs then, also armed. He grunted in relief to see Marlanz without visible traces of lycanthropy, then said, "Shall we go down to the cellar and see what your wereman's become?"
That required more explanations for Marlanz. When they were through, Aragis' vassal pulled out his own sword and said, "Let's slay the appalling creature."
"If we can get it out of the keep without fighting, I'll be just as happy to do that," Gerin answered.
Marlanz stared, then realized he meant what he said. "You are the lord here," he said, in tones that implied he was willing to obey even if he wouldn't have gone about things thus himself.
"Take a shield off the wall and carry some of those bones of yours in it," Gerin told him. "Maybe they'll make the thing in the cellar as happy as they made you—and you didn't quite get all the meat off them."
Marlanz's stare turned reproachful, but he did as he was asked. Van said, "What if it's still a man down there?"
"We'll find him something else for breakfast," Gerin replied, which had the virtue of making both his companions shut up.
They went down to the cellar together. Gerin unbarred the door and pushed it open. "Father Dyaus above," Marlanz said softly—a medium-sized black bear sprawled on the dirt floor. The beast looked up at them in absurd surprise.
It did not growl, nor did the hair on its back rise. It didn't jump up and flee into the dark recesses of the cellar, either. "What's wrong with it?" Van demanded, as if he assumed Gerin would know.
And, for a wonder, Gerin did. "It's still got ale coursing through it from last night. That was a good-sized pitcher, and who knows when in man-shape it might have finished?" He paused, then chuckled. "I'm glad it's a friendly drunk."
Luring the bear upstairs with bones proved easy, though it wobbled as it walked. "I still say we ought to kill it," Marlanz grumbled as the gate crew let down the drawbridge and the bear staggered off toward the forest.
"We didn't try killing you last night," Gerin reminded him.
"Lucky for you that you didn't," Marlanz said, drawing himself up with prickly pride. Gerin agreed with him, but wasn't about to admit it.
XI
The next night, only Tiwaz was full, with Elleb and Nothos a day past and Math two. This time, Gerin sent Marlanz Raw-Meat down to the cellar and locked Widin Simrin's son in the shack where he worked on his magics. To his great relief, neither Marlanz nor Widin changed shape, so he released them both when all four moons had risen into the sky.
The bear that walked like a man did not return to the camp of Aragis' warriors, either in man's form or its own. Gerin had wondered if a taste for ale would draw it back.
"Just as well it's staying away," said Drago, a Bear himself, when Gerin remarked on that. "We don't need a thirsty bear when we have a thirsty Fox." He sent Rihwin the Fox a sly look. Rihwin ostentatiously ignored him.
Late the next afternoon, Parol Chickpea came into Fox Keep, riding in the back of a peasant's oxcart. "By the gods, I'm glad to see you," Gerin exclaimed. "When I left you behind there, I feared you'd never come out of that village again."
"I feared it myself, lord, but I went were night before last, and here, look at this." Parol thrust the hand from which he'd lost a couple of fingers under Gerin's nose.
"I see what you mean," Gerin said. The wound, instead of being festering and full of pus, looked as if he'd had it for years. The rapid healing werebeasts enjoyed hadn't been able to restore his missing digits, but had done the next best thing. Somehow, the Fox doubted it would ever become a popular part of medicine all the same.
"The bite on my arse is better, too," Parol said confidentially, "but I don't suppose you want to see that."
"As a matter of fact, you're right," Gerin said. "I wasn't interested in your hairy bum before you had a chunk bitten out of it, and I'm not interested in it now, except to see if it makes you sit at a tilt."
"It doesn't, by Dyaus!" Parol was the picture of indignation till he noticed the smirk Gerin was trying to hide. He laughed sheepishly. "Ah, you're having a joke on me."