Caleb - chapter 16

Part 5

The rain had driven them into the gardener’s shed. It pattered softly on the roof as he lit the stove. The place was small, smelling of mold, grasses, and stale sweat. It had once been a home, small as it was, in the days when the manor house belonged to a lord and the fields were not owned by the farmers who worked them. It was subtle, but he could smell the remnants of wood smoke and roasted meat that still clung to the walls, as well as the scent of clean air and forest leaves that had buried themselves in the growth of the wood, too deeply entrenched for human senses.

The floor was dirt that had grown uneven and hard over years of wear. He imagined it raked and swept, worked with the same care with which the servants of the manor home now polished and cleaned its wooden floors. He had never known such a time. In the time since his birth the world had been gas-lit, heated by coal, with steam engine powered boats transporting passengers across the sea. He had never known a time when there were not cities, packed full with people, a time when the land was run by lords, not politicians, and success was ruled by strength, not wealth. He had heard of it in the tales his grandfather told and saw it as a time of romance, not so cold and hard as this, the age of reason.

Anna came to stand beside him, her scent as sweet as the air caught in the wood, and his mouth began to water. He would not drink from her, certainly, until he had taken her maidenhood. They were always sweeter than. But he wanted her now. He should have eaten before he arrived at the garden gate, their secret rendezvous’ unbeknownst to her father, but it had been just past sunset then, and hunting during the day was dangerous at best. He tried, instead, to focus on the shape, the texture of the little room, to imagine what it had looked like as a home, rather than the storage shed it now found itself to be. Anything to distract his mind from her scent, from the beating of her heart, while she stood so close in so small a space.

A stone fireplace filled one wall, no longer used for heat, but as the frame for racks of hoes, shears, and tools for tilling. Despoiled as it was by its current usage, it still stood as the primary support for the structure, partnered by the broad wooden beams that stood to the front and the rear of the iron stove. He tired to see in his mind’s eye what the place must have been like, when it had sheltered families over soiled tools. He imagined the roped beds his grandfather had described, set about the room, divided by worn fabric curtains. He could almost see the string of clothes hanging before the fire, smell the stew from an iron pot, boiling over the flame. He was lost in a time he had never known. Then her hand encircled his, and his hunger dragged him back.

Could he convince her to let him take her now, here, in this once peasants’ cottage? He doubted it. He had yet to convince her to welcome him to her bedchamber, though her father had been absent from the house no less than three times in the barely two months since his pursuit began. Nor could he persuade her to join him in his home, as he had already gained quite the reputation for entertaining members of the fairer sex. In this case, his reputation had worked against him. He would overcome it, of course, but not this night. His stomach growled in complaint.

He could drink her now, while she was still a maid. It would not be difficult to disguise it as a kiss. It never was. She may protest against the intimacy, but she would not protest for long. And the warm liquid that flowed through his fangs when he bit her would make the remainder of his task far easier.

Of course, it would also be consider a cheat and that would lose him his house, which he had grown rather fond of in the scant two years that he had held his current identity. He would lose the bet, he would lose his house, and he would lose the sweetness of the victory at the end of the chase.

His hunger could wait.

“Are you alright?” Anna asked him as he bit back his desire with clenched teeth.

She was quite perceptive for a wealthy man’s daughter. Intelligent as well. She was well-read, not in the romantic novels most women of her age indulged in, but in prose and plays and even works of science, that few women knew existed let alone read. She spoke to him of Mary Shelley and Marie Curie, of a time when women would be held as equal to men, where their visions, talents, and expertise could shape the world. She believed Queen Victoria would carry them there, though as aged as the Queen now grew, he doubted greatly Anna’s dream. In all truth, he doubted greatly such a world could ever exist, though not for any lack of strength, any who had witnessed childbirth could not doubt a woman’s strength. But they consistently surrendered this to their husbands or those who would be. They accepted, at times encouraged, a subordinate position out of need for care or fear of reprisal. As may have been justified, for a raged man could be a dangerous thing, frightening to those of lesser strength. And as rage often came to men from fear of loss of position, perhaps there was some degree of logic to a woman’s willing repression.

But Anna seemed to fear nothing. She was not outwardly rebellious, as she believed society could be better changed from within, in a peaceful manner, than from without, which could only be done through arms. She had told him as much in the most descriptive of terms. Yet she never consented to, or condoned, the proper place that a woman of breeding should take. This was unusual, compelling, and it heightened the chase.

Yes, his hunger could wait.

“I am fine,” he replied to her concern. “A bit chilled from the rain is all.”

“Your hands are cold.” She took his in hers, wrapping them in her touch, to hold them above the stove. “Your hands are always cold, as if you lived only in the winter, even when the air is warm.”

“An ailment I inherited,” he was so practiced at the lie, it sounded like truth, even to his ears. “My entire family is so cursed.”

“There are no such thing as curses,” Anna replied, still holding his hands. The fire within the stove was beginning to radiate heat to warm the small room. “There are only the trials of life that either become strengths or weaknesses, depending on how we choose to respond.”

He smiled, and his smile was sincere, from within him, not the forced but handsome smile he used to lure in his prey. She was compelling. This was not the cat and mouse chase for which he had grown accustomed. She was equal to his pursuit. My friend, you have outdone yourself. He would have to remember to thank Antonio, once he had claimed his prize.

He nodded to Anna. “You speak with a philosopher’s tongue, my lady.”

“Does that dissuade you from keeping company with me?” she asked in return, with a smile as cautious as it was inviting.

“Quite the opposite,” he replied honestly. “I find you fascinating.”

This time her smile seemed sincere, lit as it was from somewhere deep within. “May I show you something?”

His mouth watered again, and he could taste the thick, sweet fluid that made the skin of his prey numb, and the bite go unnoticed. My hunger can wait. “Anything you would wish to show me, most lovely lady, I would be delighted to see.”

She smiled again. Twisting around so that the fullness of her skirt rustled against the fabric of his trousers. She slid her hands from around his, taking one hand in hers. Holding his hand, she led him from the shed, back out into the rain.

The downpour that had driven them to find shelter had lessened to a gentle padding of droplets through the trees. Anna kept their path at the edge of the forest, using the broad limbs of the ancient oaks and firs to shield them from the rain. He observed how at home she seemed to be, here at the edge of the wilds, though her skirt was spotted with mud and her shoes sunk to the heals in the moist earth. What an odd contradiction she was, dressed in fine linen and covered in filth. That she seemed to find pleasure in such things over the glamorous balls most women of her station craved only served to encourage the dichotomy, and his fascination.

She led him down a non-existent path to a wooden framed building, over-grown and concealed by the forest surrounding it. Drawing a key from its provocative location beneath her bodice, she unlocked the door. There she hesitated, holding the door closed with her hand.

“Now you must be quiet and calm,” she whispered, instructing him as one instructs a child in their studies. “He can sense your fear.”

He can sense your fear. What, precisely, was she keeping, locked away, in this wooden prison?

He knew instantly, the moment she opened the door. The scent of the wolf flowed out of the enclosed space, into the rain soaked air. The wolf caught his as well, and growled.

“It is alright,” Anna whispered, cooing to the wolf. “You remember me. I will not hurt you.” The wolf continued to growl.

The animal was not bound or held in anyway, save for the closed and locked door. It had backed well away from them, to the farthest corner of the building, its hindquarters backed against the corner wall.

Anna continued to move forward, speaking softly. She lowered her body as close to the ground as the strength of her legs would allow, while still moving closer to the growling wolf.

It senses me. It senses me and knows the threat I pose. Hunters always knew another hunter, whether or not they had met it before. It knows the threat I pose and it will attack. Though the animal showed every sign of doing just that, still, Anna seemed unafraid. He could feel the long, sharp teeth slide from their hiding place, prepared to defend.

Protectively, he moved forward, placing himself between Anna and the wolf. “It is alright,” she protested. “He will not hurt me.”

It will. Because I am here. He stepped slowly towards his fellow hunter. She would see it as caution, but the wolf would know the truth. His eyes met the eyes of the wolf and a low growl escaped his throat that only the wolf’s ears could hear.

The wolf growled again, bearing its teeth. Anna pulled on his arm, but he did not turn. He could not turn now. Pulling back his own lips, he bared his fangs at the wolf, with another growl that was below human hearing. The wolf edged against one side of the wall, moving away from the corner, and he allowed this, letting the animal know he was stronger, but meant not to attack. The wolf tucked under its hunches, lowering its head, and he growled again, though his lips now covered his teeth.

Of course, Anna could neither see nor hear any of this, as he meant it to be. Well away from the corner, no longer trapped, the wolf lowered its head. Whimpering slightly, it rolled onto the straw covered floor, onto its back, exposing its belly in submission.

He knelt, moving closer to the wolf. Moving his hand slowly, he stretched it out toward the furred hunter, laying it in a tender way across the exposed area of weakness. “Good boy,” he said softly, rubbing the wolf’s underside. “It is alright now.”

Anna came to kneel beside him, completely unafraid of the animal that could tear off her hand with one bite of its thick jaw. “He likes you,” she said, as if speaking of a childhood friend. With her hand, dwarfed beneath the wolf’s thick coat, she stroked the animal’s side. “It took months before he would let me so close.”

“Months? You have kept this animal, penned here, for months?” He was uncertain if he felt admiration or offense at her actions. Perhaps both.

“He was hurt,” she replied, almost defensively. It was then that he noticed the short fur on the front left leg, and the scars beneath it. “Caught in a hunter’s trap.”

“And you set it free?” There was only admiration now. “The hunter that would kill the neighboring herd of sheep, and you set it free?”

“It has as much right to these lands as we do,” she replied, with no doubt of defensiveness to her tone this time. “More so for having held right to this place long before any man settled here.”

He stared at her, caught quite off guard, that she would defend a hunter most of her kind would kill on sight. Suddenly she seemed less like the prey he had been stalking only moments before and more like, what, an equal? “You are an amazing woman, lady Anna.” And for a moment, for the briefest of moments, he forgot his hunger entirely. “Most amazing, indeed.”