Werelord Thal: A Renaissance Werewolf Tale (5 page)

More people pressed closer. From the back
rows children squealed for information. Men yelled at dogs to be
quiet and pulled them back. More weapons were brandished. Thal
cringed lower.

A man with long hair, a leather hat, and a
cloak embroidered with fish and vines arrived.

“How many are there?” he asked.

The fat man answered, “Just this one. He
appeared like a ghost.”

“Get your pistol,” the long haired man
snapped when he saw it in the dirt.

Reluctantly the fat man stooped in front of
Thal. He snatched the pistol and scurried back.

“He doesn’t seem violent,” the long haired
man observed. He motioned for the others to lower their
weapons.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Thal hung his head in frustrated silence.

The people began asking more questions.

“Where did he come from?”

“What people have hair like that?”

“Do you suppose he’s an escaped
prisoner?”

That suggestion caught the leader’s
attention. “All the more reason that we should show him kindness,”
he said and he received a few agreeable chuckles.

“Yes, be kind to him,” said the woman with
the patchy shawl.

The leader took off his nice cloak and
approached Thal. The fluttering of the voluminous cloak made Thal
nervous. It seemed like a net was about to be thrown over him, but
he sensed no malice in the man.

When the fabric settled over Thal’s back, the
covering was unexpectedly pleasing. A man had so little to separate
him from a harsh world, and clothing was a welcome gift.

The camp leader put his hands on Thal’s
shoulders and drew him to his feet. Strength and confidence were in
the man’s grip, and Thal met his eyes.

“We won’t hurt you,” the leader said, and
Thal did not doubt his sincerely. He tried to respond, but words
still eluded him.

The woman came to Thal.

“I’ll take him to my wagon,” she said. “Poor
creature, whatever could have happened to him? Not in all my days
have I seen one such as you appear in the night.”

She prattled on about her experience with
wanderers and fugitives as she led him away. Her motherliness
comforted Thal. The leader kept a hand on his shoulder probably in
case he became dangerous, but Thal was glad of the contact. With
the swarm of people around him, his sense of humanity was rushing
back.

He was set down by a fire. Its heat was
shocking, but he controlled his initial alarm, and the discomfort
soon passed.

“I suppose he’s hungry. Never met a fugitive
that wasn’t hungry,” the woman said. She turned and barked at a
skinny girl peeking around the wagon to bring bread.

The leader folded his arms and regarded Thal
thoughtfully. Two other men joined him and studied the newcomer.
The rest of the people filled the darkness in every direction and
stared with open curiosity. Dogs circled but did not come
close.

“Andreli, what do you make of him?” one man
asked the leader.

“I’m not making anything of him yet,” Andreli
admitted.

Thal had listened to the short exchange
closely and grasped that he had just heard the man’s name. All men
had names he recalled.

“An…drel…i,” Thal said slowly. He was very
pleased with himself to have formed some coherent syllables.

“Yes, Andreli, that’s me, and who are you?”
the man asked excitedly.

For a moment Thal struggled but then finally
said, “Thal.”

Andreli came back with several more
questions, but Thal was not able to converse. The woman insisted
that Thal should eat. She handed him a chunk of rye bread.

He accepted it gratefully. The texture was
odd and lacking the satisfying carnality of raw meat, but the
graininess was pleasing in a new way.

Happy to see him eating, the woman sat back
on her heels. “Since none of these louts have the manners to
introduce me, I’ll have to do it. I’m Emerald,” she said with an
imperious air.

Thal nodded but did not attempt to say her
name while his mouth was full of bread. Emerald caught the eye of
the scrawny girl and told her to find some clothes and a blanket.
She rummaged through a couple wagons before returning with a
threadbare shirt, holy pants, and a heavy felt blanket. Thal
accepted them happily and after a glance at the men to see how the
clothing went on he gave the cloak back to Andreli and untied his
wolf skin. He set the fur on the ground and stepped into his
pants.

“Oh, he’s not shy,” Emerald remarked as she
covered her eyes while still peeping through parted fingers at his
nakedness. A few female giggles came from the crowd.

Once he had the shirt on too, he bent to
retrieve his fur. Andreli glimpsed the writing on the inside.

“What’s that?” he asked and reached for the
fur.

Thal snatched it to his chest.

Andreli took back his hand. He gathered that
this single item possessed by the naked stranger was deeply
precious.

“I saw writing on it. Maybe it can tell us
about you,” Andreli tried to explain.

Thal frowned and held his fur tightly.

“It can wait till morning,” Emerald
proposed.

Andreli nodded. The strange young man had
likely experienced some awful trauma. Andreli chose to extend
hospitality and be patient for answers.

When he withdrew, he shooed the rest of the
people back to their respective camps. Thal draped his fur across
his shoulders and settled on the ground with his blanket. He looked
up at Emerald. Her heart melted for him. He was communicating so
much with his eyes, and all of it was so kind and good. She planned
to make him a fine breakfast.

Stooping beside him, she gently ran a hand
over his peculiar hair because she could not resist. The firelight
glinted off every color that hair could be, just like his eyes
seemed to be every color at once. Thal did not mind the hint of
intimacy. Her kindness was easy to trust, and he was relieved to no
longer be alone.

“You’ll remember how to talk. I know it. I’m
good at knowing things, Thal Forest-Born,” Emerald said.

Her choice of words lit up his mind with
comprehension. Thal sat up abruptly and startled her. He grabbed
the edge of her shawl to keep her close. “Forest!” he said, using
the word easily and properly. “I…chose…the…forest,” he said.

Emerald patted his hand. “That’s plain to
see. Rest,” she insisted.

Thal fell back. “Rest,” he agreed.

Emerald watched him drift into sleep. He was
like some demigod in a wicked dream, beautiful and troubled.

The next morning when Thal opened his eyes
four children were leaning over him. They squealed, clutched each
other, and then ran in separate directions. He sat up and scratched
his head. The sun was well up and people were going about their
business throughout the camp. He was quite surprised to have slept
late amid so many people, but his exhaustion was much
alleviated.

Emerald and Andreli were sitting by the
cooking fire. The woman was frying sausages in a pan that looked
like it had survived canon fire. Andreli was fussing over his
mustache while looking in a little metal mirror.

“Good morning,” he said.

The words parted the clouds of Thal’s
mind.

“Good morning, Andreli,” he said slowly.

The man lifted his eyebrows. “Your head is
clear this morning,” he remarked.

“I told you he spoke last night,” Emerald
said. She grinned at Thal. Her teeth were big and broad like her
hips. “He was just waiting for a chance to speak to me alone,” she
added saucily.

Andreli humphed.

Emerald slid the sausages onto a plate
alongside some freshly plucked greens and a dilapidated hunk of rye
bread. “Eat up, Thal,” she said.

He accepted it gratefully. He bit into one
and hissed at the burning juice but kept chewing.

Andreli put away his mirror. “Be grateful,
stranger. Emerald never shares her sausages with anyone,” he
said.

“How would you know?” Emerald said. “Anyway,
the poor lad needs his strength back.”

Andreli glanced at Thal’s physique. Judging
from what the men who had encountered Thal last night had told him,
the young man had no lack of strength.

Thal finished his breakfast while the man and
woman observed him in fascinated silence. He licked the grease off
his fingers.

“I thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome. You needed help,” Emerald
said softly and took his dish.

“Your Czech doesn’t quite sound like people
around here,” Andreli noted, obviously wanting to steer the
conversation to Thal’s origins.

“Czech,” Thal repeated and pondered the word.
It was the language his mother had spoken.

Thinking of her made him tense. Her striking
face flashed through his mind. Shaking off his distracting
feelings, he asked, “Where am I?”

“Up the road from Vyssi Brod Monastery,”
Andreli answered. When he got a blank look from Thal, he added,
“South of Rosenberg Castle. The Rosenbergs rule in the Sumava.”

The Sumava sounded familiar to Thal. “That’s
the forest,” he said.

“Yes, the mountains and forest,” Andreli
said.

“Do you know who we are?” Emerald asked.

Thal looked around the camp. None of the
people looked very prosperous. They seemed to be living out of
their wagons. He shook his head.

Andreli chuckled. It was pleasantly
surprising not to be recognized and reviled.

“We’re Gypsies. I am Andreli Suprinova, Lord
of my Clan. I guide us as best I can,” he said.

Thal dipped his head to the leader, which
pleased him. “What are Gypsies?” he asked.

Emerald and Andreli burst out laughing. When
Andreli composed himself, he explained that they were descendants
of a people forced into exile. Their ancestors in Egypt had refused
to give shelter to Jesus and his virgin mother, and they were
cursed to wander. Thal found the information quite bewildering
although the name Jesus was familiar.

“Oh, stop giving him those nonsense stories
meant to soften the hearts of Church-going simpletons. We travel.
We have no home,” Emerald said.

“You must’ve had a home,” Thal said with
heavy sympathy.

“We’re driven out over and over, but don’t
trouble yourself about that,” Andreli said. “Where have you been
driven out from?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Thal said.

“Who better to understand than Lord Andreli?”
he countered and touched his chest.

Thal hung his head. Who indeed? “I don’t know
how I got here. I shouldn’t be like this,” he said and looked at
his body.

“That’s right. No one should wander the woods
naked,” Andreli agreed. “So you don’t know how you got here?”

Thal decided that explaining his
transformation would be unwise.

“If you have no home, how do you survive?” he
asked.

Andreli noticed how his guest had flipped the
conversation, but he chose to be indulgent. “We survive as people
wandering the land always have. We have some livestock. We fish. We
trade. And well…not everything men need is available in the
village. We’re flexible in ways that others are not,” he said.

Thal sensed additional meanings behind
Andreli’s words.

More bluntly, Emerald said, “Sometimes we
steal, if we have to.”

“Is stealing bad?” Thal asked.

Again the man and woman laughed. Emerald
sighed and wiped her eye.

Andreli said, “I don’t like having my things
stolen, but sometimes a Gypsy must take something from someone, but
only when it’s better that one of us have it and not so much harm
to the person who lost it.”

Thal tried to wrap his head around the notion
of material possessions. It had been a long time since he had had
anything, except for his fur, but a wolf needed his fur. Thal asked
philosophically, “Does anything really belong to anyone?”

“No!” Andreli declared. He grinned broadly
and decided that he liked the stranger despite his mystery.

“Did someone steal your clothes?” he asked,
growing serious again.

“I had no clothes,” Thal said.

“Were you attacked by men?” Andreli asked,
guessing this was the likeliest explanation. He had noticed some
mercenaries around the castle, and he knew it did not bode
well.

Thal shook his head.

“Oh, you must’ve been hit on the head,”
Emerald insisted. She leaned over to look at the back of his head.
He recoiled a little and insisted he was fine.

Andreli slapped his palms against his thighs.
“So, Thal, you’ve been wandering naked in the Sumava your whole
life,” he concluded sarcastically.

“Not my whole life,” Thal admitted. His gaze
drew inward as he absorbed the onrush of memories released by his
use of human words.

“Where are you from?” Andreli pressed, hoping
he was getting somewhere.

His hosts were patient until finally he
answered, “The word Prague is in my mind. Is Prague a place?”

“Ho ho, it is!” Andreli said. “It’s a great
big city and a lovely fancy place. Puts the Bohemia in Bohemia so
they say. It seems fitting that one as strange as you is from
there.”

Thal was not sure what Andreli meant by
that.

“How long have you been away from Prague?”
Andreli asked.

Thal struggled to answer. “What year is it?”
he said, remembering how people measured time.

“1561,” Andreli said.

The answer did not help Thal. He had no other
date in his head to compare it too. “I’ll try to remember more and
tell you, Lord Andreli. You’ve been kind and I understand you want
to know more about me,” he said.

“I can’t help wanting to know, and it’s my
business to know things, but if you must have your secrets so be
it. I’ll not put you on an Inquisitor’s rack just because you’re a
wild man,” Andreli said.

“A wild man?” Thal said, intrigued.