Content Harry Potter Miscellaneous
  • Previous
  • Next

The Black Dog and the Grey Wolf

Or, The Further Adventures of Samuel and Alison

By Valentina Jett

x X x X x

Part Six: The Feast Ends

Supper was almost over. People sipped the last of their wine or idly cracked nuts. Gazing about the room, Margaret began to understand why tales of the Wolf’s Den often included wary admissions that even among outlaws, the teller had felt safe.

There is more true gentility in this place than in any Court function I have ever attended.

Talk of the conspiracy headed by the Wolf and the Dog had occupied the first portion of the meal. Now, their hunger sated, the men and women relaxed and spoke of lighter things, of their hopes and dreams for the future, a future suddenly within their grasp. Alison, Morta, Dame Mary, and Lady Anne Portop (who had greeted Margaret with more real warmth than Margaret ever recalled her friend displaying before) had asked Margaret for details of the latest fashions, and were now discussing how their older gowns might be modified, and where appropriate garb for their daughters could be had.

On the other side of the table, Samuel held forth on the subject of the Niger family estate. "It’ll be gone to ruin these eight years, since my mother died," he said bluntly. "She’d never keep on two servants where one would do, especially not when that one was devoted to her."

"But if he was so devoted, surely he’d have turned that into maintaining the house and grounds?" asked Patrick Mustela.

"Ah, no." Samuel let his goblet dangle precariously between two fingers. "Not when he knows who stands heir to that house and those grounds."

"Do you still stand heir?" Sir Boris asked, with the same frank curiosity that characterized his daughter Selene. "I thought you were disowned."

"Disowned, yes, but the estate is entailed, and with the rest of the family either dead, imprisoned, or uninterested in noble foolery, once my name is restored, I doubt I’ll have much trouble reclaiming it. And the caretaker knows that. He won’t have ruined anything, but neither will he have kept it up, or bothered to replace anything falling to pieces other than that which he needs himself to survive. I have a long road ahead of me."

"We have always had long roads ahead," John put in. "Only now, we can see where portions of them lead. I prefer it to the alternative."

A trill of music from the other side of the room, a pipe or flute, caught Margaret’s ear. Two of the small trestle tables were lined with children, of an age with those she taught in Mellis Castle. The girls she had been introduced to already, and the boys she knew either by their resemblance to their families or by reputation. In Henry Lutum’s case, both applied.

His father in miniature, but with his mother’s eyes. One of the most famous children in Britain — and another sits close by his side...

And that other was the piper, Margaret saw. Daniel Niger held a recorder to his lips, his attention focused on his fingers and their movements. Margaret could not name the tune he played; she was sure she had heard it many a time before, but Daniel’s undoubted skill had reshaped it into a new form that she was hard-put to identify.

Movement in the shadows behind the boys caught her eye. Dominic Portop slipped from the shadows, tiny Pearl Niger behind him. Each bore musical instruments, Dominic a lute, Pearl a drum and a larger recorder than the one Daniel played. Richard Mustela rose from his seat quickly to take the drum from Pearl’s hands, dipping a shallow bow of thanks. Lia Amelar-Lobos took the large recorder, and Selene Cuorben accepted the lute from Dominic.

The talking at both tables of children (though the word was misleading, Margaret thought, seeing the poise with which all the younger members of the Wolf’s Pack comported themselves) had died away. The scrape of trestle feet against boards could be heard as the red-haired Mustelas, with the darker heads of their various ladies among them, pulled tables and benches to one side, clearing a space in the middle of the hall.

Selene plucked a string on her lute and listened to its pitch as Daniel played a similar note on his recorder. Lia held her pipe at chest level, dry-fingering what looked like a complicated passage. Richard had drawn two slim sticks from his clothing, and Margaret wondered if he had been carrying them all this time.

Easy enough to conceal, I suppose, and if you could find the right place for them, hardly of a size to be in the way...

Henry emerged from the swirl of young people and approached the adults, whose conversations quickly found places to halt. "My lords, my ladies, if you are minded to dance, we are minded to make music," he announced, with none of the self-consciousness Margaret would have expected from a boy of thirteen. "If not, we pray your indulgence for a few songs for ourselves."

"I think dancing is a fine idea," said John, rising from his seat. "But only a few songs. With your young strength, you may never know weariness, but it is a constant companion to us in our age."

"We shall keep the music slow, then, sir, so as not to overtax your old bones," Henry countered, and turned to Margaret while the table was still laughing. "My lady, will you favor me?" he asked, a slight flush now rising in his cheeks as he held out his hand.

If we could only teach the heedless boys at Mellis your manners, young man... "I will," Margaret answered aloud, placing her hand in Henry’s. "But what of the young lady I saw you enter with? Guinevere, is it not?"

Henry’s flush intensified, but a small smile lit his face as well. "Rich has lured her away to sing for them, Lady Margaret. Besides, I may always dance with her, but you are a guest, and will not always be here." They stepped onto the impromptu dance floor together. "And I had hoped to bribe you with a dance to tell me some of what you recall of my parents."

Margaret smiled. "No bribe is necessary for that. I doubt you could stop me."

Henry took his place opposite her in the line of dancers. He did not speak, but Margaret could see gratitude clear on his face.

The higher of the two recorders played a few measures alone, to tell the dancers of their steps. The beat of the drum began, then the lute, and the recorders rose in harmony above the voice of the girl.

One day as I walked on the banks of a stream,
Sing oh, the sun and the leaves, oh!
A lady I saw, in her eye a tear’s gleam,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees, the trees,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees.

The lady did see me, and to me did cry,
Sing oh, the sun and the leaves, oh!
Have you seen my knight? For his sake I would die,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees, the trees,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees.

Oh, tell me the name of this knight you adore,
Sing oh, the sun and the leaves, oh!
And what he may look like, behind and before,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees, the trees,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees.

Margaret paid more attention to her steps than to the words of the song. It was like any other of its kind, moving its story slowly forward to the inevitable sad ending, as the lady leapt into the stream upon receiving the news that her knight was dead.

I have never understood such foolishness. Love is a fine and a noble thing, but destroying oneself for lack of it? There are always others who care, others who would help if they could. And if every bereaved lover killed herself, or every grieving parent or child, we would have no one left in the world.

Gwen’s voice rose in the final verse, as the recorders twined a descant above her.

Young lovers, be warned, and from wars keep away,
Sing oh, the sun and the leaves, oh!
For a grave is a grave, though your love by it stay,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees, the trees,
As the leaves they fall down from the trees.

x X x X x

In the cellars, Septimus had fallen into a light doze. The red-haired twins had returned some time before with a tray of food and a bundle of blankets, and to his surprise, they had neither spilled the one nor stained the other. The room was comfortably warm, so that he could use all the blankets as padding, and the food (now only a memory) had been excellent. He could almost believe himself home, in his own rooms at Mellis Castle, with a pleasant day of studying and learning ahead...

A distant crash startled him fully awake. He arose and went cautiously to his door — he’d be damned if he’d sit by when danger threatened his family, but if the noise was nothing to do with his uncle or cousin, the arrogant Wolf and his Pack could go hang for all Septimus cared.

The corridor into which he peered was empty, lit by a few flickering lanterns hung on the walls. It connected with another about halfway down its length, Septimus recalled, in a T-junction, this corridor where he was being the upper bar of the T and the other the downstroke. The noise could have come from there. He was about to step out into the hallway when running footsteps warned him instead to retreat.

The door opened away from the junction, so that Septimus could press himself to the inside wall of his room and edge his face around the doorjamb. I feel ridiculous, but it is the safest way to look out of a room without being seen.

And one glimpse of the man who leaned on the corner of the two hallways, breathing hard, made Septimus glad of his caution.

For if I am to believe my uncle — and he speaks falsehoods only in the greatest of extremity — this man betrayed two of his closest friends, then killed twelve innocent people and made sure the blame fell upon another.

Paul Caudalis.

They must have found him somewhere, taken him prisoner, brought him back here with them. He seeks his freedom again.

But Caudalis undoubtedly sought more than that. Septimus’ glance had showed him something roughly triangular in the man’s right hand. Not even John Lobos and Samuel Niger, as careless as they had always been, would have allowed a prisoner to keep a weapon. Caudalis must have fashioned one for himself.

And I am likely the only one who knows of his escape, his sudden freedom within this place they call their own...

It was tempting, so tempting. All that was necessary was for him to return to his soft blankets, his disturbed rest. He had been told not to venture from his room. He had been asleep when the crash — undoubtedly Caudalis breaking free — had sounded. No blame could be placed on him. Niger and Lobos, and all their fine felons with them, would have what they deserved, no less, no more.

And what of the children?

Septimus hissed between his teeth at the thought. True, the Wolf’s Pack, and the crew of the Marauder, held a great many whom he would not have been surprised to see as his own students, or as Margaret’s or their uncle’s.

And my own blood are here as well, my own kin. I cannot desert them. I cannot turn my back.

He risked one more look around the doorpost. Caudalis was gone.

Very well. Though I am sure I shall regret it in the morning.

Lord Septimus Vane blew out his candle and started for the stairs on silent feet.

x X x X x

Each person, or set of people, took a turn in entertaining at the Wolf’s Den, Margaret discovered. Several of the younger children had done their part in playing for the dancing, and those who had not played at first — Henry and Gwen, and Dominic and Pearl — took their friends’ places for the last two songs, allowing the original musicians to dance.

The Mustela twins, Warren Fluvis, and the girls who had laid claim to them took the stage next. They sang a comic song about three little robins being chased by two big crows, and how the robins fooled the crows into crashing into one another, while a blue jay nearby laughed and laughed.

The French girl, Lilie, borrowed Selene’s lute to accompany herself as she sang a love song. This, unlike Gwen’s song earlier, had a hopeful tone, a sense that the love might someday be requited, and the look in Alex Mustela’s eyes as he listened hinted that the hope was well justified.

The Wolf himself was next to claim attention. He seemed, once he had risen, to have forgotten what he planned to do, instead tossing a red apple idly from one hand to the other.

"Try this," called Morta, throwing another apple toward him. John looked startled for a moment, but caught it in his free hand, tossing it into the air as well. The apples changed places for a few moments, until Alison rose from her place and threw a third apple towards her friend.

Margaret gasped, but the rest of the room laughed aloud, as the expression of panic on John’s face changed to bewilderment, as his hands, seemingly without his help, caught the third apple and began to juggle the three. And then the four, as Samuel added another — and the five — and the six —

Margaret lost count as the red fruits whirled up and around. Finally, as John began to toss them back to various members of his audience, she thought to count how many he was throwing, and thus realized that he’d been juggling eight apples by the end of his display.

But it was not the end of his display, for Morta rose from her chair and caught the last three apples as John passed them to her, one at a time, and spun them into the air almost as skillfully as he had done. The children clapped and cheered, though they must have seen it many times before.

Margaret frowned a little as she saw Henry stand up and hurry from the hall through one of its many doors. Is he bored with it? He doesn’t seem that type. No, he’s likely going to fetch their juggling balls, or whatever they use...

From beyond that door came a boy’s startled shout, abruptly cut off. Morta whirled, the apples falling unheeded to the ground. Men and women alike started to their feet, hands at their waists or within their jackets.

"Hold!" shouted a man’s voice. A badly frightened man, by the sound of him, but also a man fixed on his purpose.

Paul Caudalis stepped into sight, Henry pinned against him, the sharp edge of a shard of white-painted ceramic pressed against the boy’s throat.

Gwen cried out and swooned.

x X x X x

Not until Septimus heard the cries below him did he realized that he had ventured too far up the stairs. He would have turned to go back down, but the stairway was narrow and not well lit, and he feared missing his step and falling. Once he reached the top, he could turn around more safely and descend once more.

Besides, my errand is moot now. They have obviously discovered Caudalis’ presence for themselves.

He stepped out onto an open expanse, one which he identified after a moment of thought as the palisade wall. It seemed the cellars of this place connected the different buildings one to another, likely for ease of movement during the snowy winter.

He inhaled the fresh air gratefully and turned to survey the land beyond the wall.

His eyes narrowed.

Interesting...

x X x X x

"One wrong move and he dies," Caudalis declared, his voice shaking, his hands white-knuckled as he clutched at Henry. The boy was still, not fighting at all. Fury was in the process of crowding out terror on his face, and his eyes were fixed on the adults at Margaret’s table, flicking from one to another of them, as though expecting them to magically free him.

If only we could!

"Courage," she heard Lord Albert breathe behind her, a whisper almost too soft for her to hear, so how could Henry? Nonetheless, it seeped through her, replacing a little of her own panic fear with anger, with resolve. This sniveling criminal would not kill the son of the Lutums, the child popularly thought to be the reason that Lord Praecad had disappeared. It could not happen.

"Paul, be reasonable," said John mildly from his place in the open space between tables, lifting his hands to show them empty. "You don’t know your way out of here. You have nowhere to go, no money, nothing."

"You’ll give it me, then. From what you’ve stolen." Caudalis’ eyes darted to Samuel, rigid and helpless where he sat, to Alison, her jaw clenched, to Morta, fists tightened by her sides. "You’ll provision me, give me money and a horse. I’ll take them and the boy, and leave him somewhere when I’m safely away. You can come out to get him later."

"You’ll forgive us if we find ourselves less than inclined to take your word," Alison said coldly.

Caudalis sucked air between his teeth. "Have a care, Mistress," he hissed, digging the shard painfully into Henry’s neck. "Perhaps I can’t kill him, but I can hurt."

  • Previous
  • Next
Back to:: Harry Potter » Roman a Clef