PART ONE



Once upon a time…Is that how all the stories used to start? After all this time, all this loneliness and solitude I’m not sure what I remember anymore…what is real? Well, once upon a time I was a man. I remember that much at least. Not just a man, but a knight. Remember that, wretched creature. Hold to that. A knight you were, cherished by the king himself. Respected. Renowned. The most beloved knight in all the land. A hero. And now….Now I am a beast, trapped forever as a rangy wolf, with only the boundaries of this forest as a buffer from the human world that has cast me off. All that was good, all that was noble and knightly in me is gone now.

No, not all.

A knight is more than his armor. Pennants flying. The banquets. The fine clothes. Honor is not just to be found in the outward signs of it. I have to believe that.
He’d had fine clothes once. A fine home. Accolades. Honor. Respect. He’d had a life. A life and a wife and a place in the world.   

But now I am a beast. What honor I possessed has disappeared along with my fine clothes and gold-etched armor. Along with my titles and honors and lands…Along with her…

His upper lip curled back over fangs dripping saliva.

All lost, all gone, and now…

A low rumble escaped from his throat. Were it still a human throat the growl might have passed for a rueful chuckle. As it was the throat of a wolf, the sound was little better than a deep snarling.

And now?

And now what?!

With a snarl and a spring he leapt from his woodsy alcove. Normally, he hid himself from the light of the day. The sunshine brought back too many memories of what he’d been, hammering home all too forcefully what he was now.

But today he found no rest wherever he went. He was driving himself wilder than he already was with all this soul-searching. When you are a beast, what does it avail you to try to think like a man?   

Echoing growls from his ribcage reminded him of what his human ruminations had distracted him from for too long: Wolf, man or otherwise…he was hungry.

***

Lady Isabeau de Réméré knew where her duty lay. She did- truly! The hitch, though, the tricky part, the really twisty trouble was…well, that she was actually having a bit of a difficult time convincing herself that her duty was to do her duty.
It was the first hunt the royal court had taken part in since the marriage of the Princess Aliénor to their king a month previous. Beau, as she preferred to be called, had only been one of the queen’s ladies since Aliénor’s marriage, but in that short month Beau had grown very fond of her queen. She would do almost anything for her but- well, did it have to be hunting?

Beau could ride skillfully enough, but she had never participated in a hunt. Her father had been unable to afford such extravagance, and her uncle had hated the sport. Beau had thought she might be able to slip away from the hunt today and have some solitude in the lovely walk of trees but, alas, the queen wanted Beau with her at all times, so Aliénor could explain to Beau the finer points of the hunt herself.

“Today we hunt the hart par force,” the queen was saying, pure excitement lighting her pale-lashed, soft-brown eyes. “I know my husband’s huntsman has tracked down a fine specimen of venison for us.”

Beau nodded. She was adverse to the whole ordeal, but too tactful to say so.
The members of the royal court were assembled together on a great field and several local gentry had come out to join them while they breakfasted. The queen had introduced her ladies-in-waiting around to all the eligible sons. The sauciest of the queen’s ladies, Adelaide, was engaged in securing the attention of as many available men as she could hold at one time.

A baron’s young son, heir to a profitable holding, had shown some interest in Beau after the queen introduced them, and Aliénor took her leave and left the young man to take over explaining the niceties of the hunt to Beau.

The boy had pimples on his face and sweated too much, but at least he was not as bad as the ancient worthy the queen had attempted to pawn off on Beau at court the other day. (Queen Aliénor had apologized to Beau afterward and murmured sympathetically that Beau’s situation being what it was, well, she was trying her best but there was a limited selection of men who wanted a girl heavily encumbered in debt with little dowry to speak of. Court was, unsurprisingly, not so different from Beau’s home after all. No man wanted a poor and plain wife like her. Beau had spent much of the past month watching as the handsomest of the knights flirted with Adelaide and the other girls while the other ladies, ever so generously, passed the rejects and rheumy-eyed old men off to Beau).

Beau’s sweating suitor was going over the steps of a par force hunt. “First,” he stammered, spraying Beau with spit, “there is the quest, which is when the huntsman goes into the forest to look for spore and tracks and other traces of our quarry. Then, there is the assembly,” he waved his arms about to indicate the large gathering of nobles on the field. He pointed out where the king, the huntsman and a few others were sitting with their heads bent together in conference, “they are laying out the hunt and strategizing how best to go about tracking the beast,” he pointed and Beau tried not to notice how he used the opportunity to lean in to her, “and see there they must have decided on a course of action for they’re setting up relays of dog teams so the poor beasts don’t wear themselves out trying to bring down our game. We should be mounting up soon; they’re bringing out the lymer dog to track the hart.”

Beau and the boy had been sitting together on the meadow grass but at this the boy, Ysidro, leapt to his feet and offered a hand down to Beau. The rest of their gathering was mounting up. “The lymer seems to have found fit prey for us,” Ysidro smiled at Beau, he was missing a front tooth, “and now the best part- the chase!” he declared.

Ysidro helped Beau up into the uncomfortable sidesaddle and ran to get his own mount which was, unfortunately for him, rather far away from Beau’s. With a sigh of relief, Beau gave a tug on the reins of her willful brute of a beast and turned the nag to follow the rest of the court, striving to put as many bodies as possible between herself and her suitor.

Beau. Did. Not. Like. Hunting.

Riding had never been one of her favorite pastimes at home, and when her father had gambled away the funds necessary to keep horses about the place Beau had felt only a little touch of regret at the loss of her late mother’s graceful bay mare. Beau certainly liked horses, and riding could be pleasant in its own way but this! This neck or nothing tear through the woods, the bouncing and jostling and branches hitting her in the face, and all the while the great brute below her ignoring all her most urgent instructions. The horse knew who was master, and it certainly was not the feather weight astride his back pulling ineffectually, and rather irritatingly, at his reins. He had his head now and he would not have slowed for a rider twice as skillful as Beau.

Her horse broke from the group and went careering wildly off into the brush and, a very little time later, it came to pass that Beau had been tossed forwards off her horse’s neck. She lay stunned in the grass as the careless beast gleefully galloped his way back to his home stable for some oats and a good brushing down.
The chase was on, though, and Beau was not going to be missed for some time yet.

She was only slightly dazed and so, when she found her wits had recovered sufficiently, she stood up with the aide of an obliging tree trunk and took in her surroundings. Sounds from the hunt were far distant. Smiling to herself at this sudden, but certainly welcome, moment of peace Beau made her way after the sounds of the hunt in a casual stroll. She could catch up to them in her own time. Meanwhile, she would enjoy to the fullest her pleasant and quiet walk in the forest.

Beau’s solitary walk in the woods provided her ample time for thought and introspection that had been denied her the past month in the bustling court. It was strange to look up after living several weeks of your life and realize that you hadn’t lived them at all. She liked Queen Aliénor, liked their talks, but what she had at court was not a life. The queen liked her, the other handmaids tolerated her, and the hoyden Adelaide made no secret of the fact that she would do Beau harm if she could manage it with impunity. Beau had no friends save for the queen, and the queen was busy and distracted, caught up in her own concerns. Beau did not try to fool herself that the great lady would miss her overmuch if she left.

Empty, empty, empty.

All her days at court had been such, filled with the frivolous follies of the silly wenches that gathered about the queen in the hopes of catching themselves lords. And Beau realized she was the silliest of all to think she could have made it work. Beau had stayed this long because of the queen. Beau knew her liege lady was lonely and sad, but Aliénor would only sigh away her days and confide never a word to Beau about what it was that ailed her.

So, she could not go back now. No, would not go back. Nothing had really changed in Beau’s situation now she was at court, and suddenly Beau realized she needed to leave, and quickly, before court changed her.

Beau would die an old maid if she went back to her father’s holding. The royal court was no help in her father’s quest, after all. She had been sent to court to find a husband; instead all she’d managed to do was lose herself. Beau had never let anyone order her about and she had never been intimidated- not by her Uncle Flavio, not even by her old warhorse of a father- and not by that battleaxe, Adelaide. She was not going to start now. Her father would never understand- much less forgive her- for abandoning a position at court.

Oh well, Beau sighed, there was always a convent. After the hunting trip today she would go to the queen and declare her intention to enter the convent at Sangarde. Beau had heard good things about the Abbess Marie at Sangarde.
It was not that Beau felt a particular vocation for the holy life, but she did think it might make a nice change from the current state of affairs with everyone throwing her all over and casting her in the way of any man with a pulse and a reasonable amount of money. What she longed for most now was peace, and a freedom of thought and movement that was lacking here.   

Beau heaved a deep breath, and then pricked her ears up as a strange noise caught her attention.

Barking, horses and- the high-pitched howl of a wolf?

“I thought it was hart we hunted today,” she said to herself. This thought was swiftly chased away by another and, actually, rather more alarming one: “They’re coming this way.” The crashing of hooves through the underbrush filled her ears with the bloodthirsty cries of the hunting dogs and the triumphant shouts of the men.

She was on the edge of a small clearing. A tomboy from her youth, Beau had little difficulty maneuvering even with her hampering skirts. Quickly Beau swung herself up onto the first branch of the nearest tree. The king and his entourage, having trapped their quarry at last, came thundering into the clearing.

The wolf smelled them before he heard the sounds of the hunt echoing in his forest. The hunting dogs scented him before they gave chase, driving him into a headlong run through the forest to escape their yapping jaws and the sharp darts of their masters.

Harts were one thing to the royal greyhounds racing through the King’s Forest, but here was prey that would certainly please their masters more: a wolf, and one with the taint of some strange smell about it as well.

The werewolf knew from rather unfortunate past experience that the scent of him would drive the hunting dogs mad. The stench of magic always did the trick on the poor beasts.

Ah well. The wolf was rather smarter than even the wisest hunting dog, and knew enough tricks to bring himself safely home. He rose from his comfortable bed of moss and stretched.

It was then he caught it- the merest breath to fill his nostrils. But it was enough. A spasm of grief choked him, and a whine broke from the back of his canine throat; he could not have moved if he’d wanted to…and he did not want to.

My king, was all he thought before the hounds caught up to him. He ran, cursing himself as he darted between the trees and underbrush. Fool! Idiot! You let one smell on the air distract you long enough for the bloody hounds to get your smell! And now what’s to do?!

He was befuddled and at war with himself: his baser instincts were pulling with every fiber of muscle for him to slip away and lose himself in the forest, foiling this hunt as he had so many others. His human heart, and what parts of his head it still had sway over, however, were pulling him the other direction- back to the humans…back to the king. It was that hesitation, that dreadful indecision that was giving the hunting dogs the edge, and the wolf was wearing himself out running from them. As he tried to run ahead of the hunting pack his own mind was betraying him- thinking of his king when it should be strategizing a way out for his wolf’s body. If he didn’t focus- and soon- the dogs would get him.

The werewolf found he didn’t care much.      

The swift greyhounds chased him for hours, wearing the werewolf down, tiring him out so he would be too weak to give more than a token fight at the end.

It was a tactic he remembered well from when he had been the hunter on the horse. He winced in memory now at the number of poor beasts his prized hounds had chased down for him, of the terrified, fatigued creatures that he had done to death and then ceremoniously carved up and fed to those same dogs.
Well, he sighed, at least I know what happens next.

The largest of the greyhounds finally caught up with the werewolf. They were of similar height, though the wolf was bulkier. The greyhound, a whipcord of wiry strength with jaws of iron, pounced at the wolf. The werewolf dodged expertly and the death blow meant for his neck fell instead to his shoulder. The greyhound thrashed and bit down with bruising strength. With true remorse as the wolf remembered how fond he had been of his own sport hounds, he turned and savagely locked onto the other beast’s neck. With a bone-snapping crunch the wolf snapped the dog’s neck and ripped its throat open. Gurgling, eyes rolling back, the dog fell dead to the green turf of the forest.  

Even as the wolf mourned the hound, he reveled in the pungent metallic stench of its blood, and swallowed with savor the hot broth. He did not linger long over his kill, though. He could not afford to as the other dogs began to catch up to the leader, and their masters were not far behind. He could still taste its blood in his mouth, however, mingling with some of his own. The wolf was still hungry, and tired…too tired… His wounded shoulder betrayed him and he stumbled. With a true howl of pain and fury, the wolf turned to find his back pressed against a tight knot of trees. He looked up to face a ring of snarling hounds with their masters and their mounts not far behind.

The wolf was cornered now. The hunt ringed him around on all sides, and the hounds had circled him. Slowly they closed in to tear him limb from limb for the delectation of their keepers.

Let them come! He thought. I can no longer lay claim to any of the honor I once possessed, and I am not a knight- but I can still fight.

This I will do- to the end.

To the death.

Through his haze of fatigue he wondered idly why the dogs had not closed in to kill him, and it was then his human memory cheerfully supplied the answer to the wolf’s addled wits.

In a hunt like this the actual kill was saved for the most high-ranking member. The king. The king was going to kill him…and then the nobles and other worthies would hack him to bits- very ceremoniously and reverently, of course, but all the same there would not be much left of him that was recognizable. Then, of course, in reward for a job well done, the dogs might get to eat some.
Not exactly the noble end one would wish for.

But, oh…he was so tired and if…if he got to see his king again…God, it might almost be worth it.

***

It was a wolf. The largest wolf she had ever seen or heard tell of. It was as large as a man, and there was something impossibly unnerving about the way it suddenly turned to face its attackers before it sat back on its haunches and growled at the group at large. Almost as if the wolf knew what was coming.
Beau had never seen a wolf so closely before, and studied it in fascination from her vantage point. It had a rather luxurious looking black pelt and a long snout, almost regal in repose, even as the wolf was hunched in the center of the clearing, panting, its black coat spotted with raw bleeding wounds and a deep bite mark on its shoulder.

It raised its lupine head and curled back its lips to hurl the defiant snarl of the damned at its tormentors.

Beau’s breath caught in her throat. Those eyes. No wolf’s eyes ever looked like that. She had seen a few from a distance at night near her home. True, wolves did have uncanny eyes. One almost felt they could see to your soul and back again. There was Knowing in a wolf’s eyes but…not like this…

The wolf’s eyes…they- they were human! The dark blue, round-pupiled eyes of a man. She was sure of it.

Beau had not realized this, but the king’s horse was standing under her tree. At her gasp he looked up and caught sight of her.

“What have we here?” the king laughed in a quiet voice that reminded Beau of the wind whispering trough the pines at night. “A tree dryad? A nymph, mayhap?” he chuckled and a merry twinkle came into his benevolent blue eyes as he looked up at her. “The Lady Isabeau, is it not?” he murmured so others would not hear.
Thus far, the king had been an infrequent visitor to his wife’s apartments. It was the closest Beau had been to the king in her time at court and she liked the king immediately. There was a quiet dignity and inborn strength in the man. He was broad-shouldered and vigorous on his feet, despite his undeniably advancing years. He was perhaps in his mid-forties by now, but hardly a line or mark served to darken or mar the handsome visage Beau beheld. His features had a certain leonine, animal cast to them, but had the same graceful appeal and refinement of line as a cat’s. The king’s eyes were kind, though darkened and dimmed from within by some terrible sadness. His smile, though it never lit his eyes the whole time Beau watched him, was charming and easy for all that.

Beau couldn’t help but be pleased by her king now she had met him. Here was the very model of a good man: dependable, dignified, and kingly down to the very mud on his boots. Here was a man to trust, a man to follow; easy to swear and hold fealty to. A man easy to love.

Beau executed the most graceful bow she could manage while clinging to her tree. “The wolf, my lord-” she began.

“Yes, a magnificent beast. Too large and certainly too wily to be anything but magical. His pelt will be a fine prize.”

“No!” The syllable was torn from her throat before she could stop it or think the better of it.

At the blaze of anger in the king’s eyes she lowered her own, and then she felt herself flushing horrendously as the rest of the hunting party realized she was in the tree.

***

“No!”

A voice broke through the weariness pounding at him. He looked into the canopy of trees above them. He could see only a pale oval hanging in the dark cover of a tree. A sweet face and sympathetic, with rosy cheeks and pale, kind green eyes. It was the first human face he had really looked at in two years.

Well, if I am to die today in this accursed form, then at least I have seen the face of human compassion one last time.

The green eyes lowered and his own eyes followed them and fell onto a face as well known to him as his own human face had once been. The face he saw was more beloved than any other he had ever known, save one perhaps.
He was looking into the face of the king, his Lord and his Master.

Not knowing what he did, the werewolf gathered what remained of his strength and leapt over the ring of dogs separating him from the man who was his liege lord.

He landed by the hooves of the king’s horse and before it could shy away from him the wolf had grabbed the stirrup of the king and, as best he could manage it with the snout of a wolf, he humbled himself before his lord and kissed the great man’s boot.

The king stared down at this marvel for a full minute and might have still longer had not the imperative whisper of Beau recalled him to the present. “My lord, the dogs!” she hissed.

The king looked up and saw that not only the dogs but their keepers were advancing on the wolf with deadly intent.

“My lords,” the king said and raised one leather gloved hand. All action in the clearing was halted at this slight gesture. The dogs were brought to heel and the men waited with bated breath. The ragged rasping of the injured wolf was the loudest noise. Even the accustomed rustlings and murmurs of the wild things in the woods seemed to have stilled themselves to hear the king’s announcement.

“Behold this marvel,” said the king as he signed regally to the wolf on the ground. “A humble beast begs for his king’s mercy. Truly,” he paused and looked more closely at the wolf, at the eerie eyes that the king swore he recognized somehow. “I think he has the mind of a man. Take my dogs away. Let no man or beast of my realm harm the wolf.”

And, because he was The King, the meadow was soon empty of all save the king, a few of his most trusted retainers, including his queen, there was Beau, still in the tree, and the beast.

“Do you require assistance to descend, my lady?” asked the king, an appreciative gleam of mirth in his eye.

A dimple peeped out before Beau composed her face and shook her head. She leapt down from her sanctuary, light as a squirrel, landing but a few feet from the abject creature whose life but a few moments ago had been spared. Her eyes fastened on the disheveled creature, the labored heaving of its sides, the bloody patches on its hide and she felt a stab of pity.

“What will you do with the beast, my lord?” Beau asked.

The king alighted from his great horse, offering her his arm, and as she stepped forward to take it, he briefly covered her hand where it rested on his elbow with his own. The quick flash of a wink came and went so fast she could not be sure she’d seen it at all. After this he addressed himself to his courtiers. “As I am King, hear me and obey. I do, here and now, extend the hand of mercy to this creature. He is rational- he has a mind. No one is to harm him! Ever!” the king sighed then with great weariness. “And now I shall hunt no more today! Let us return!”

One of the knights surrendered his mount to Beau and led the great stallion by the reins as she rode. The king motioned and she was brought to the front of the column to ride beside him. The queen frowned at her lady from the king’s other side. Beau knew not what offense she had committed against her highness, but she would rectify it as soon as she returned. She did not want to leave court on bad terms with the Queen of the Land- even if all that waited in Beau’s future was a nunnery.  

“Well, Lady Isabeau, what think you of this?” the king motioned to the ground on his right side.

Beau had believed the wolf all but dead back in the clearing. Truly, she thought they had left him there. A misapprehension, apparently, as the wolf was marching wearily, but quite determinedly, behind the king’s horse.

“While you were being helped to a mount a few of my men tried to dissuade him from this course of action. They were, shall we say, disabused of the notion that he would be parted from me,” the king scratched the line of his bearded jaw with one thumb and grinned.

Beau grimaced. She hated to think they had been wrong about a noble, knowledgeable beast after all.

“Oh, nothing serious,” the king explained at the look on her face. “Just some light scratches and bruising,” he said cheerfully.

Beau had to laugh that the king seemed to be rather nonplussed at the potential threat of some of his best men being mauled by a mystical mammal.

“What shall I do with the creature, do you think?” the king asked Beau.

The queen opened her mouth. She creased her brows before closing her mouth with a snap, glaring at Beau all the while.

Beau was taken aback and could find nothing to say to either ruler.

A corner of the king’s mouth tipped up, “Perhaps inspiration will strike me when we reach my castle,” he grinned and Beau found herself smiling back, but quickly stopped herself at the look on her queen’s face.

***

My King! The werewolf trotted (well, limped eagerly is more accurate) along at the heels of Samson, the king’s loyal warhorse. The werewolf, blighted though his life still was, basked in the glow of not only his king’s mercy but his lord’s generosity in taking him along. What good have I done in the world to deserve so great a boon from Heaven? Not only to behold the face of my lord but to be with him- ride with him- again! Beast or no beast, what does my form matter if I truly am to be given the chance to serve my lord again?

The maiden, though… he snorted.

She might have saved his life back in the clearing when the dogs would have killed him. Past events had, though, and with good reason, led him to mistrust the feminine sex.

None of this tarnished his joy in rejoining his lord, however. At that moment, nothing on earth could have.

***

The wolf caused much comment among the court when he was presented to the ladies. The beast caused still more when the queen was told she would be forfeiting her carriage to the injured animal. The king then turned to the kennel keepers. The wolf was sorely hurt and the king wished him tended to. The master of the dogs spat and swore he would “never touch the filthy beast an’ the king could do his worst but that wouldn’t change his mind.” The king, recalling with sympathy the death of the kennel keeper’s favorite hound, reconsidered the request.

“I do not know what’s to do for the animal. None of my beast masters will touch him,” the king murmured, more to himself, though Beau and the queen were both still within earshot.

Darting a nervous glance at the queen, Beau looked again to the wounded beast (who had collapsed inside the queen’s ornate carriage). The wolf’s breathing came in ragged gasps and blood spilled down his shoulder to his leg. Whoever it might anger, she knew she had to help him.

“What am I to do with him?” the king said. “My court healer has gone gathering herbs this month since the wedding and will not be back ‘til next week- at the earliest. No one else has much leech craft,” the king ran a weathered hand over an overtired face, pinching his eyes closed and sighing.

Beau stepped forward. “My lord, I kept dogs at home. They would get into mischief all the time. I have never had to deal with anything as severe as this but…” she let the offer hang for a moment before continuing, “and I did learn a little leech craft from my uncle before his death. I might be able to do something for the beast if there truly is no one else.”

The king smiled at Beau. “Is there anyone else?” he asked of the group at large.
Beau could feel the crowd recoil at thought of the wolf.

The king snorted. “Not surprising.” He looked to Beau, “What say you, my lady?” asked the king. “Will you stay with the wolf, help him and care for him in his sickness?”

Beau nodded, “I will heal him as best as I can, and when he is well I shall do whatever else is required of me to aide him.”

“And you, my fine beast,” said the king to his newest vassal.

The wolf gazed up at the king with a look of such naked fidelity and fondness that Beau almost turned away. So raw and wild were the emotions to be seen in the wolf’s eyes, it seemed indecent to her that an outsider should behold them.
The king said, “How will you repay your debt of honor to the lady for this generous service? Wilt thou care for the Lady Isabeau, guard her and care for her? Be her champion should she ever have need of one?”

The wolf sniffed at the carriage carpet as a means to buy time. The maiden had helped save his life, and now she risked much to help him again. He acknowledged that, and he owed her something for it. Protection and defense. Yes, that I shall yield to my liege lord. He looked back up at the king and inclined his head ever so slightly.

The king beamed at this further display of his new protégé’s intelligence, “Remarkable. Truly a remarkable creature.”

“He is at that,” Beau said and bent to caress the wolf’s head.

It had been years since a human had touched the wolf. All in one day he was feeling more human than he had in two years. He looked up at the girl.
She was young, no more than seventeen, with an animated countenance. The girl was tall and thin, with a trim figure that was pleasing in its own way, but not so fine as to make a man’s eyes follow the swish of her skirts as she walked past. She was rather browner, than was the fashion of the times, and that was coupled with, of all the most unfortunate afflictions: freckles on her nose. Her eyes, which he had first noticed, were unarguably her best feature. They were pale green, lushly lashed and lovely beyond compare. They might have made many a man look twice at her had they but noticed them. (Unfortunately, though, most men do not look to a woman’s eyes as a matter of course). The girl’s hair was well-kept and shone becomingly in the morning sun as any maid’s was wont to do who kept her mane well and brushed it often, but her soft thick hair was of that troublesome shade in between brown and blonde. A lovely golden sheen that caught the light charmingly, certainly, but still lacking something of the dash that true bright blond hair has, while at the same time failing to capture any of the mystique or exotic allure that brunettes or maids with long black sheathes of hair seem to possess. The wolf, once such a good judge of these matters, eventually decided the girl was pretty, pert and certainly intriguing in her own way, but she was not the Beauty that his wife was. She continued to stroke his ears and the wolf ducked his head away from the maiden’s hand. This is too much.

He suddenly saw another face, another woman, blonde with brown eyes, and more beautiful than any mortal maid had a right to be. He shivered as he remembered the way her delicate white hands felt running through his hair.
The wolf came to himself and moved away from the handmaiden. He knew he owed the maiden a small scrap of fealty for her actions in the wood and her promise to see to his wounds, but no more than that. Never again. He’d lost too much already.

Beau was helped into the carriage with the wolf, and they set off. The beast suffered Beau’s companionship for the carriage ride but did his best to pretend she was not there at all. Beau obliged him by acting likewise on their rumbling ride together back to the king’s castle.  
For home, thought the wolf longingly.