Malcolm scents a wolf

Sir Malcolm’s unease had swelled to the point that he very nearly stumbled into his house after yanking open the door. He did not know what he had expected to see, but his surprise at finding everything in order left him stunned for a moment.

Outside the birds continued chirping their desultory afternoon gossip, and from the depths of the kitchen he could hear Mother Curran chopping vegetables for their supper.

Brother Myrddin sat on the floor, facing the door, with Malcolm’s son before him. Duncan scarcely turned his head when his father came in, and he continued playing a game that apparently consisted of Myrddin hiding blocks in a doll’s bed, and of Duncan surprising himself by finding them under the blankets a moment later.

Duncan observed the bedtime behavior of his blocks with the grave attention he applied to anything he was trying to learn, but to Malcolm it was crushingly ironic. It certainly seemed that Duncan had quite forgotten the purpose of beds in the last week, for he would not sleep except in somebody’s arms. No matter how deep his limp-​limbed slumber, he would wake at the instant any part of his body touched the crib, and then his pretty little mouth transformed itself into the soul-​searing maw of a banshee.

Now that he thought about it, Malcolm supposed that the fear he had felt was probably only the result of too many sleepless nights combined with the strangeness of coming up the path in the middle of the afternoon instead of at suppertime.

It was even possible, he thought guiltily, that some part of him was beginning to dread stepping into the house wherein dwelled this wailing spirit he had begotten. Perhaps it would be best for the sanity of everyone if he took up the King on his offer to pay a well-​timed visit to Raegiming, which could not comfortably be done in one day. An entire night of uninterrupted sleep seemed like some lost bliss of boyhood to him now.

“Good afternoon, sir!” the old monk huffed as he attempted to drag himself to his feet.

“Good afternoon!”

Malcolm put out his hand to help, and Myrddin took it, and in that first instant of contact Malcolm felt himself at the heart of a storm. There was a blast of light and sound, and a blast of air that froze and burned him. After that first instant he was stunned—stunned by the blast, and further stunned to find himself still standing, still holding the monk’s hand. He had momentarily believed himself a pine sheared off at mid-​trunk by a stroke of lightning.

By the time the monk was on his feet and had released his hand, all of Malcolm’s feline instincts had flared into a bright warning. His skin tingled as the fur of his back and tail stood on end, making him appear larger than his size. He could feel his claws ratchet forth and lock into place, and he could feel his ears flattening against his skull to protect their sensitive membranes.

The monk stared up at him, and for once the mildness had drained out of his eyes. Myrddin seemed to be wondering of how much Malcolm was aware.

At that instant, Malcolm was aware of only one thing: his tiny son was sitting on the floor, closer to the monk’s feet than to his own.

A moment later that problem was remedied, and Duncan was safe in his father’s arms.

Now Malcolm could begin to think—or could have, if not for his garrulous servant.

“Fie for shame!” Mother Curran cried. “You’re home too early, sir!”

“For what?” Malcolm croaked.

“For supper!”

“I know that, Mother.”

Malcolm stroked Duncan’s head with a trembling hand. A baby’s skull was truly nothing at all, he thought. It could easily be punctured by fangs of sufficient size—a wolf’s, for example. His cat skin quivered over his cat shoulders.

“You’re too early for that poor lamb, too,” she sighed. “Thinking she could pop out and pop in again before supper and never miss you.”

“Baby’s not here?” Malcolm gasped. The thought of lambs made him think of wolves. “She wasn’t outside.”

“Baba yaya,” Duncan explained.

“I know, I know, Little Turtle,” Malcolm murmured.

It was too much at once. He wanted to ask Myrddin what he was doing in his house, and he wanted to ask Mother Curran what Myrddin was doing in his house, but he could not ask either while the other was near. And there was Duncan, and in addition to keeping up with his nonsensical conversation, there was the nameless fear for his safety that Malcolm had to try to name as quickly as possible. And then there was Iylaine, who was not even near.

Malcolm was only one man. One very tired man. But that had to be it, he thought. He was so tired he was beginning to have nightmares on his feet. There was nothing whatsoever wrong. Duncan was warm and heavy, his head was perfectly intact and silky with the sweetest-​smelling hair ever worn outside of the race of cats, and he was putting his sticky hands all over Malcolm’s neck and babbling the same nonsense as ever.

“She do like to take a walk in the afternoons these days,” Mother Curran shrugged.

“But does she leave the yard?”

“One wouldn’t want to see her walking around and around the house,” Brother Myrddin chuckled.

“I guess she do walk in the woods these days,” Mother Curran said. “This Little Turtle’s getting big enough that Mama Turtle can leave the nest now and then.

Malcolm did not like the thought of Iylaine roaming alone in the woods, but nor did he want to be a husband who would make a prisoner of his wife. He had known she was a wild thing when he married her. But the forest was so full of danger! And elves!

“I suppose I shall leave this one with you,” Malcolm said as he set Duncan on the floor, “and go fetch the Mama home again.”

“It’s not time for supper!” Mother Curran warned.

“I know, Mother. I want her for myself. May I walk with you a ways, Brother?”

Brother Myrddin was silent. Malcolm knew at once that he did not want to leave, and that he was only calculating how he could contrive to stay. Malcolm also knew at once that this was reason enough to banish the old monk from his house forever and aye.

Myrddin seemed to know it, too.

“I don’t go through the woods, but I shall gladly walk as far as the yard with you,” he said with his customary mildness.

Malcolm kept his own customary good humor only until they were outside.

“Do not return to this house again,” Malcolm warned him. “I apologize for the affront, but I trust my instincts, and my instincts tell me to keep you away from my family.”

“I mean your family no harm at all, sir,” the old man said mournfully.

Malcolm was not moved. “If I thought you did, I would slay you here, religious man that you are.”

“You have a fine son.” Myrddin shook his head. “I am sorry I shall not know him better. A fellow Celt…”

“You are a Welshman, and he and I are Gaels. We are not brothers, you and I.”

“Cousins?” Myrddin asked hopefully.

“At best.”

“Hail and farewell, cousin,” Myrddin sighed and shuffled away, appearing from the back as mild as any sheep.