CHAPTER 9: Fear Day And Night

Thou shalt fear day and night.
Deuteronomy 28:66

The lord and lady left early that morning, accompanied by the somber Christian. Basti stood next to Danti, shivering in the cold as the trio rode down the snow-covered trail and out of sight. The storm of the night before had lightened, but heavy flakes still fell, and wind-driven snow had piled against the walls and caked against the shutters.

“Well,” Danti said at last, “I’ve got to get some sleep.” He tucked his hands under his arms and looked down at Basti. “Have you thought at all about what project you’d like to try?”

“I was thinking of a hound. A hunting-dog. I wanted something small and familiar, with a recognizable expression.”

“How will it be posed?” Danti asked, stepping inside and stamping snow from his shoes. Basti pulled off his coat.

“Barking at its cornered prey. Back legs apart, front legs bent, head low to the ground but curved up and to the side, ears back. In the middle of a bark.”

“It’s possible, but mind how much support you have available for the weight of the stone.”

“I –” Basti paused, crestfallen. “Is it going to break?”

Danti gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Depends. Model some bozzetti in clay to get a feel for it.”

Basti grinned, his worries about ghosts and the lady’s health vanishing.

“I’ll get started right now,” he promised, shaking snow from his hair.

“Take a look at the illustrations in the library. I think my lord has a book on the hunt there that might help you.”

Basti’s enthusiasm dimmed somewhat when he entered the library and found Alrune already there. The dwarf was dressed in a white-and-gold fool’s outfit and held a large volume. He looked up with a sharp nod of greeting.

“The lord and lady have set off,” Basti said, with a trace of censure. “You weren’t there to see them leave.”

“I was guarding the tree of knowledge; for when the cat’s away,” Alrune chuckled, “who knows what games the mice will play?”

Basti shrugged, not wanting to get drawn into Alrune’s mockery, and continued past him. When he found the book Danti had mentioned, he sat down and began paging through the painstakingly colored pictures and sketched quickly on a sheet paper, trying to capture the pose he had imagined so clearly in his mind.

“Cave canem,” Alrune said, at last. Basti jumped, looking up. Caterina had walked in.

“Good morning, Alrune.” She gave the scholar a quizzical look and passed him. “Oh, I see. Is this for a sculpture?” she asked, stopping with a rustle of fabric and glancing down at Basti’s sketches. She looked tired, and Basti wondered if he could take her mind off her troubles.

“I hope so. What do you think?” He turned his last sketch toward her. It was a side view of his proposed statue, the hunting hound crouched and barking. Here and there one could see traces of the models in his book of illustrations, but smoothed and fitted to this particular work.

“May I?” she asked, sitting. After a moment’s study she handed it back. “That’s good. I didn’t know you could draw.”

“I’m not very good at it,” he admitted. “I can never seem to capture the feeling of depth you see when you look out a window. One of my teachers had a copy of Alberti’s Della Pittura, but even after studying it, I can’t manage to get perspective right.” He shrugged good-humoredly. “Some artists are good at everything, but I’m just going to be simple sculptor all my life.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this sketch. I’ll wager you could paint a portrait, couldn’t you?”

“Oh, no!” Basti protested. “I wouldn’t dare. I’d paint people so awfully that they’d run me out of town. Maybe I could create a bust of someone, when I get better, but never a painting.”

She smiled slightly, as though uncertain of her own emotions, and stood to browse through the shelves. Basti began working again, trying to sketch hound from its other side and finding that a bit more difficult. He had to sketch the hound from the front, back and bottom, as well.

“Why aren’t there any dogs in the keep?” he asked some time later, after struggling with the wrinkles on the hound’s muzzle and wishing he had a live model.

“They don’t like it here. Father says he tried keeping a few, back before I was born, but they all grew feral and dangerous. One tried to bite Alfons….” her voice caught.

“I’m sorry,” Basti whispered.

She swallowed, hard.

“There are some hounds in Gestern. Maybe if the snows stay light you could ride down and sketch one.”

Basti looked at the windows, which were all shuttered against the wind and cold. “What time of day is it?” he asked.

“After noon. Albrecht was setting out lunch a while ago.”

“Lunch!” Basti stood, hastily rolling up his sketches. “I’m starving. I hope he left something for me.”

“You’re late,” the cook pointed out as Basti walked in, his sketches tucked under one arm.

“Sorry; I was busy. I think I know what I’m going to sculpt, though,” Basti said eagerly, unrolling his sketches. Albrecht leaned over the table to examine them.

“That’s good,” he said approvingly. “How long will it take you?”

“I don’t know. Danti wants to see some models, first.”

“Good. I hope you have time, with all these strange goings on.”

Basti nodded, but as he cut a plate of sausage and cheese for himself, the cook’s words nagged him. It was strange how quickly one could shrug away these events; strange figures walking the halls, lurkers in the shadows. Like nightmares that faded when one awoke, fears were set aside in order to deal with the mundanities of day-to-day life.

“How much do you know about the Erl King, Albrecht?”

“Huh.” The thin cook looked up from the pan he was scouring. Whatever he had prepared for the lord and lady to take with them on their journey, it had dirtied nearly every bowl and pan he owned, and had done so in record time. Their saddlebags and packs had been full when they’d left. “Enough.”

“Do you come from around here?”

“A little further north, but I grew up in the area,” the cook admitted. “Decided to do some traveling, but I didn’t get very far, did I?”

“Had you heard the story about the keep before you got here?”

“Of course,” Albrecht muttered sourly, wiping his forehead on the back of his arm. Water splashed onto the stone floor. “Favorite fireside story, the mad old Gesterns.”

“Do you believe it?” Basti asked, curiously. Sometimes Albrecht seemed very superstitious, with his gloomy forecasts and dire predictions, but it seemed strange to him for a superstitious man to take a job in a haunted keep.

“Yes.” The cook scowled at a persistent stain. “No doubt in my mind.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Good job. Place had been exorcised, the new lord and lady know a lot about the stars and herbs and such. Seemed safe.”

“But it’s not.”

“Nope.” The cook lifted thin shoulders, as if resigned to the capriciousness of fate. Basti fell silent, thinking about the story he’d been told. One part of it nagged at his memory.

“Do you think that man, the old Gestern lord, really turned into a wolf?”

“Werwolf. Maybe.”

“Il lupo mannaro?” Basti shivered.

Albrecht stopped scouring the pan. “My grandmother used to tell me all sorts of stories she’d heard when she was a girl.”

“Mine, too. What sort of stories did you hear?”

“Well….” the cook seemed reluctant, “nothing a God-fearing man should be concerned with.”

“Still, I’d like to hear them.” Basti took a big bite of cheese, watching him. The cook seemed embarrassed, as though knowing the old stories were somehow shameful. “Especially about the Erl King,” he said encouragingly, swallowing.

“Well, it’s all nonsense, you know,” Albrecht muttered, giving Basti a warning look. “You shouldn’t go about spreading foolish tales.”

“I won’t.”

With a sigh, Albrecht wiped his hands on his apron and tossed the pan on the cleaned pile.

“Well, most werewolves are evil. They use black magic and a belt of wolfskin to turn themselves into a wolf and terrorize cattle and humans. They say if you hurt a werewolf in its wolf form, the human will have the same injury, and if you throw steel over a werewolf’s head, it’ll make the wolf turn back into a human.”

Basti’s attention was caught by Albrecht’s use of the word “most.”

“There are good werewolves?” he asked. Albrecht rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well,” he began, “my grandmother used to tell me that there are people who are especially blessed by God, and they have the ability to turn their skins and become wolves three nights of the year – the nights of St Lucia, Pentecost, and St John.”

“Miraculous werewolves?” Basti exclaimed. Albrecht morosely nodded.

“My grandmother used to say that on those nights the werewolves would all go down to Hell, where they’d fight the devils and witches with big iron pokers, to get back what the witches had stolen. You see,” Albrecht added, “each year the witches would steal the farmers’ crops, and the shapeshifters went down to Hell to get them back. She called werewolves the Hounds of God.”

“I’ve heard about people who can keep witches away,” Basti admitted, “but not by turning into wolves. My grandmother said that people born with a caul can see witches and do magic.”

“The benandanti,” Dietrich said, from the doorway. “That’s a country belief, Basti.”

“Sir,” Basti turned, startled. “Forgive me, I didn’t see you enter!”

The young noble shrugged.

“I overheard you from the hall. So, what’s your interest in the benandanti?”

“Albrecht was remembering stories his grandmother had told him, sir,” he said awkwardly. “They reminded me of something I’d heard about men and women born with a caul. It’s just peasant lore.”

“I’ve heard of it. The benandanti who defend the harvest from witches. I met a maid a few summers ago who said their spirits leave their bodies and fly to the fields, where they use sorghum and fennel like swords and fight the witches all night.”

“Do you … do you believe that, sir?” Basti asked, glancing up. Dietrich spread his hands, looking just like his father for a moment.

“The idea that someone could leave his body behind and travel in spirit to another place doesn’t seem any stranger to me than the idea that a chick grows in a shell until it summons the will to break out and see the rest of the world.” Dietrich saw Basti’s dubious look. “Araciel said you were a doubter. That’s good. I’d rather be surrounded by level-headed men than dreaming courtiers.”

“Forgive me, sir,” Basti hurried to explain himself, “it’s just that I prefer to believe what I’ve seen myself, or have heard people whose judgment I trust tell me is so. That’s why I asked you if you believed in the benandanti; because if you said it was so, I could only presume it was.”

Dietrich looked at him skeptically.

“You’re beginning to flatter like a courtier. I don’t find it entertaining. As far as what I believe,” Dietrich shrugged. “I’ve never met anybody who was born with a caul.”

“Then you’re a pragmatist, too,” Basti ventured.

“Naturally.” Dietrich nodded and walked out. Basti looked at Albrecht.

“You should ask him about the Hounds of God,” Basti said.

“What’s the use?” the cook asked. “Don’t have any of them around here, either.”

Basti sketched all day, until Araciel found him and reminded him that dinner was ready. The table seemed empty without the lord and lady, and the conversation was sporadic, lapsing into silences that Dietrich and Caterina couldn’t seem to muster the energy to disturb. He was relieved when the meal was over. Feeling tired from his late night and early rising, he decided to go to sleep early.

His sleep didn’t last. He dreamt he was walking down the halls of the keep, and something was following him. All he could hear was the clicking of its footsteps against the floor. Then he realized the clicking matched his own steps, and he looked down at his feet.

He woke to a faint tapping sound and sat up, heart racing. The sound was repeated, and he pulled a blanket around his shoulders. His scarred arm ached.

“Who is it?” he nervously called.

The door softly opened, and he saw Naich standing there with a candle in his hand.

“What do you want?” he asked, alarmed. “Is something wrong?”

The graying musician cocked his head toward the hall, half-turning.

Basti understood what Naich wanted, but he hesitated, loath to walk the cold halls. Then, rubbing his eyes with one hand and pulling the blanket off the bed with the other, he followed the flautist out into the hallway. The hall’s chill air pierced him to the skin, and he wrapped his blanket around his shoulders to stay warm.

“I hope this is important,” he muttered. Naich beckoned to him. Basti followed.

The composer reached the Gryphon Window and stopped, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder and gesturing to him to look through.

Basti pulled his blanket closer around his shoulders, his bare feet freezing on the chilly floor, and leaned forward. A clear glass feather in the gryphon’s multicolored wing afforded him a glance of the storm outside.

Wind whipped snow about the keep’s walls in a semi-opaque curtain, making distances and shapes uncertain. Light from windows downstairs cast a strange glow over the courtyard. As Basti watched, he saw a shape growing, moving closer to the keep. It was large, as large as a grown man, and as it paused on the fringes of the lamplight Basti could see that it walked on all fours. He held his breath, pressing closer to the glass, ignoring the cold that bit into his forehead where it pressed against the window.

The rough creature shuffled back and forth, then stopped and lifted its narrow head. Though the whirling snow obscured its other features, Basti could clearly see the thing’s emotionless, ice-cold eyes as they fastened upon his. A pulse of pain shot through his arm, and with a gasp, Basti jerked back and threw his hands up to cover his face. Condensation from his own breath covered the window, obscuring the beast.

“Herr Naich?” he asked, feeling a flush of anger that surprised him. The pressure from the flautist’s hand was gone, and for some reason he wasn’t surprised to turn and see that the composer had vanished. He hurried back to his room, casting one last glance back at the stained-glass window.

Pulling on his long lucco and a pair of stockings, Basti sat on the edge of his bed, considering. The pounding of his heart began to slow as he tried to make sense of what Naich had just shown him. One of the Erl King’s wolves, he had no doubt. It had borne a chilling resemblance to the shadow-wolf of last evening’s strange events.

Finally unable to sit still any longer, he stood and padded softly through the cold hallway to Araciel’s room, tapping at his door until Araciel opened it.

“Basti? What be amiss?” The apprentice stepped aside to let Basti enter. Araciel had doffed his giaquetta and doublet but was otherwise still dressed. A lit lamp and an open copy of On Experimental Science revealed his nocturnal pastime.

“There’s something outside,” Basti began, and got no further when the loud crash of shattering glass echoed down the hall.

Doors flew open throughout the floor, but Araciel and Basti reached his room before anyone else.

The window in his room had shattered into a thousand shards; sharp glass lay scattered over his floor, desk and bed. Snow gusted wildly through the broken window and lay in distanced clumps on the floor.

Araciel crouched to touch one.

“Tracks,” he said succinctly.

Dietrich was the next to appear, wrapped in a floor-length coat and carrying a bared sword. He looked around grimly, seeming to take in the scene at once.

“Alrune, bring wood and tools from the attic to cover this window,” he said quickly, without turning. The dwarf, who’d just arrived, sketched a bow and left again. “What happened?”

“I saw some sort of wolf-creature in the courtyard,” Basti explained. “I was just telling Araciel about it when we heard the window shatter.”

“These tracks could well have been brought in by a wolf,” Araciel said slowly. “A large one.”

“Araciel, clean up this mess and figure out what caused it. If that creature’s inside the keep, I want to know. Sebastiano, go through the keep shuttering any other windows that aren’t already covered. Be careful and shout if you see anything.” Dietrich strode to the window and looked out, as Basti hurried to follow his orders, pausing only long enough to pull shoes over his bare feet.

“What happened?” Caterina asked, appearing in the hall with a long woolen gown pulled over her nightdress. Basti briefly described Naich’s visit and what he’d seen as they went room by room to shutter the windows.

“Why would Naich show it to you?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe because I asked him about it a couple of day ago.”

“And you think it broke your window? Three stories up?”

“I don’t know,” Basti admitted. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

They said little more as they finished closing all the shutters, but Basti noticed that Naich was nowhere to be seen. As they returned, walking through the cold halls, Caterina suddenly stopped, dropping a hand on his arm.

“Basti,” she said, “if that creature leaped into your room … where is it now?”

Basti stared at her.

“Your brother said Araciel should look for it.”

“Did you see it in the hall, when you returned to your room?”

“No.” He frowned. “And my room’s just around the corner from Araciel’s.”

“That’s strange.”

“Maybe not if it was a ghost.”

“No.” She withdrew her hand, lost in thought. “Maybe not.”

When they returned to the north hall, Alrune had already boarded up the window tightly and efficiently. He bowed at Basti’s thanks, flipping a hammer in one hand.

“All of the greatest men have been carpenters,” the scholar remarked, a slightly mocking smile playing on his lips. “And a carpenter can always find a job somewhere.”

“You have shown yourself to be adept at fixing what be broken, Alrune,” Araciel said softly. “Mayhaps you should turn your attention to your own house now.”

“Please, not now,” Caterina sighed. Both Araciel and Alrune bowed, the dwarf with a sidelong, amused glance at the apprentice.

Basti took the spare bedroom next to his, ill at ease when he realized it was the room in which he’d seen the Erl King the first time. Caterina’s questions nagged at him as he tossed and turned, wrapped in blankets and smothering in the musty air. Finally, he dragged himself out of bed and dressed. A light still shined under Araciel’s door. He softly tapped, for a second time that night.

“Enter,” Araciel called softly. Basti looked inside the room. Araciel sat in his chair, reading, as though nothing had happened. His bed was undisturbed, although as Basti stepped in, he could see weariness in the apprentice’s eyes.

“Does sleep evade thee?” the apprentice asked gently, looking up.

“Yes,” Basti admitted. “I keep tossing and turning. I want to know why that thing was in my room.”

“It shall not return,” Araciel murmured. “Dietrich and I did place symbols of protection over thy window; thou need have no fear on that account.”

Basti sat on the edge of the apprentice’s bed.

“Why do you think Naich showed it to me?”

“I know not, and the question disturbs me also,” Araciel admitted.

“I was just wondering….” Basti flexed his fingers. “Do you – do you think it was the same wolf that attacked me before?”

“Did it seem so?”

“I … I’m not sure. Maybe. I can’t remember.”

“Basti, there be no wolf on earth can track a man through stone walls, nor leap three floors to enter a window.”

“No normal wolf,” Basti agreed, solemnly. “But it did leap three stories, didn’t it? And it vanished right after it jumped into my room, because we didn’t find it when we ran out and we didn’t find it when we went through the keep closing windows.”

“Thou think it be our ghost, then?”

“Maybe. Except….” Basti bit his lip. “Araciel, what do you know about i lupi mannari?”

“Who here do thou believe to be the beast clothed in man’s flesh, Basti?”

“I don’t know! Not you and not Naich, I know that, at least. But that’s the only way I can think of that a wolf could have been in my room and then just vanished — if he turned into a man.”

“Unless it was the Erl King.”

“Right.” Basti glanced at Araciel, relieved to see that the apprentice was taking him seriously. “And maybe it was the Erl King. It’s just that … there was a woman in Gestern who told me about the murders here, a long time ago. She said the lord of Gestern made a pact with the Erl King and went mad. He thought he was a wolf, and killed everyone in the keep, and when they found him he was crawling around on all fours and snarling like an animal.”

“That smacks more of madness than lycanthropy,” Araciel murmured.

“Yes, but … she said the Erl King turns people into wolves. That the old lord of the keep still hunts along the trails in the shape of a wolf. And the Erl King is here now, just like he was then. What if he brought the old lord of Gestern with him?”

Araciel closed his book and set it aside.

“I shall tell thee what I know of werewolves. I know there be stories of wolf-men dating hundreds of years ago; and of wolves who speak as men, and of ancient gods such as Faunus Lupercus who took wolf form. In lands north of us there be tales of men who do raven like wolves in battle and worship another god of wolves. I have also heard stories scattered north and south of witches who turn themselves or others into wolves. And I have heard this same story you have spoken of, about this very keep and the lord who murdered his people in the Erl King’s name. But for all this, I cannot say with assurance that werewolves do really exist.”

“But do you think it’s possible? Can a person actually turn into a wolf? I mean, not just be driven mad so he thinks he’s a wolf, but really turn into a wolf?

“To turn one object into another be an act of transformation, Basti; and to effect a transformation such as that is likely an act of evil. Thy question, then, should truly be, be it in the power of Satan to transform a man into a beast?”

“Albrecht told me that there are holy people who turn into wolves and hunt witches.”

“Of the power of God, there can be no doubt,” Araciel said simply. “But thy fear be of werewolves that hunt and kill innocents, if I be not mistaken, and such wolves must be evil.”

“Oh. Right.” Basti leaned against the headboard and waited, letting Araciel think through the argument.

“Thou hath touched on a question dear to many a sorcerer’s heart, concerning the true alteration of one thing into another. There be no doubt that illusion and glamour may change the seeming of a thing, but to change the matter of the thing be more problematic, though more to be desired. There be no doubt that a man can be deceived into thinking of himself or another as a wolf; this perversion of human sense be a hallmark of the devil’s power. However, thy question did not address glamour, but true change.

“Now, there be examples of such true change in nature; take, for instance, the worm that turns itself into a butterfly, or the egg into a bird, but these changes be wrought by the will of God. The question remains, then, can any being but God effect true change? That is, can man effect such a change aided by powers divine or infernal?

“To the first half of that question, we must answer in the positive. The Bible tells of miracles in which men with divine inspiration do work wondrous miracles of change. To the second half the answer be not so easily determined. If it be within the powers of the devil to change human faculties, so that one man thinks he sees a wolf, and another man thinks he be a wolf, who shall say the wolf does not in fact exist?”

Basti smiled, more at Araciel’s pedantic style of argument than at his words. The apprentice argued point by point like some old text of philosophy, and he wasn’t afraid to argue himself into an impasse. Which, it seemed, he’d just done, since he fell silent, eyes distant as he considered the conundrum.

“Maybe someone the devil couldn’t enchant would be able to tell,” Basti suggested, taking up the argument for his friend. “Like a holy man.”

“That be possible,” Araciel admitted, “though in itself not to be counted on as an answer; for all men be fallible, even the saints.” He smiled slightly. “Mayhaps another beast; animals be less susceptible to glamour than humans, for they live closer to their senses than mortal man. Would a horse smell a wolf or a man when a werewolf drew close?”

“What if the devil could change someone’s body? What would that mean?”

“Setting aside the implications of power thy question does raise, it would still leave mind and soul to be considered. It be already clear the devil may affect a man’s mind; but the soul be not so easily twisted. For to change the soul,” Araciel said, his words slowing down as he thought aloud, “be impossible without the will of the individual. No man … no being … becomes evil but he has personally made that choice; choice be the gift that does raise humankind above the beasts of the field.”

“Can someone’s mind and body be changed, and not his soul?”

Araciel was silent a long moment.

“From my reading and experience,” he ventured at last, “I would judge it difficult, if not impossible. Now, Basti, be warned these words be of my own surmise, and perhaps mistaken, but it does seem to me that the mind and soul be closely interwoven. But then the mind could be deceived, and the soul turned to evil on the strength of illusion,” he muttered, as though arguing with himself. “Ah, Basti, thou hath brought up an interesting puzzle. I would argue that the flesh be the least important of the tripartite nature of man, for it be mortal and subject to decay. Most clearly, the body may change without the alteration of mind or soul. But then, be the mind be able to change without the alteration of the soul, and of that, I be not so certain. Though I dread me to think the fate of the soul be dependent on the mind’s ability to resist deception.”

“Do all alchemists think about things like that?” Basti asked, amused. Araciel gave him a grave look.

“Of course, Basti. How else should we know whether our work be good or evil?”

“Oh. I guess I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Not only must we fight the deception of those who would bend our work to evil ends, we must fight our own self-deception as well, for it be all too easy to trust one’s own judgment. Perhaps that be thy answer, Basti. Perhaps there be no alteration of mind or soul unless that alteration be willed by the individual and adopted of free will. One may choose to lie to one’s self, or to believe another’s lies in defiance of one’s own good judgment. Perhaps then one might choose to free one’s bestial nature, and that be how body, mind and soul be all altered alike.”

Basti made a face.

“What about the children who are transformed? That old lady said the Erl King turns children into wolves. Do you think they chose evil?”

“I be not sure. But think, thee, Basti, of thine own childhood. To be offered freedom, power, and escape from all rules and responsibilities. Think thee that offer would not interest a child? Especially a child who cannot but have little understanding of the eternal import of such a decision?”

“Well….” Basti guiltily recalled the many times he’d have happily accepted that offer, just to turn the tables on his bullying older brothers. Maybe Araciel had a point. Freedom and power sounded pretty good, most of the time. “I have another question.”

“Pray, ask.”

“What do we do if one of us is a werewolf?”

“There be none here I can easily picture a ravening beast,” Araciel said gently, “for as we have already maintained, such a change would surely reflect in a man’s words and actions.”

“How about Alrune?” Basti scowled.

“Thou did describe it as a large wolf,” Araciel murmured. Basti looked up, but he couldn’t tell if the apprentice was attempting a joke or not. Another thought occurred to him.

“Do you think Alfons’ death was the one the stars predicted? When you said this winter would bring death?”

“I fear me so.”

“You know, I didn’t get a chance to tell you I was sorry. I know you admired him a lot.” Basti felt awkward, but Araciel nodded.

“I did, and I be deeply grieved for him and his parents.”

“If there’s anything I can do for you….”

“Thank thee, Basti,” Araciel said. “I do appreciate thy concern.”

Basti slid off the bed.

“Well, good night.”

“Good night, my friend. Sleep well, if thou be able.”

“Thanks. I’ll try.”

Basti reluctantly walked back to the spare room, deep in thought. He didn’t really want to believe that someone in Gestern Keep was a werewolf. But the alternative was no less frightening.