The Frenchman Page 6

  Yet he was not the only one who would have his life upended. Bartholomew now had to seek a new home since the witch hunts had come to Warminster. He said he would travel farther north, perhaps to Scotland where the witch hunts were slowly dying off after decades of ravaging the pocketbooks of the townsfolk. Burning a witch and putting them on trial had become costly when dealt with properly. Now, the children of the generation that condemned witches were more concerned with other things. Scotland would have been a safer place than England, to be sure.

  Bartholomew did not extend the invitation for Darren to join him. Instead, the baker simply turned to the distraught youth glaring into the distance and said, “You can’t stay in Warminster.”

  Darren would not speak to him, would not even look at him. Of course, he couldn’t stay. What a stupid thing to say after what had taken place that day.

  “You need to seek out your father, or perhaps an alpha who can teach you better than I can.”

  For the first time in hours, Darren moved. His muscles tensed and trembled as his hands balled into fists on his thighs. “I don’t even know my father’s name,” he mumbled. “I wouldn’t know where to look for him.”

  Bartholomew took a few steps forward, but Darren stopped him with a single look and something entirely new came over him. From within, a force, as strong as the pull of the ocean and as fierce as the all-consuming flames of a wildfire, seeped from his chest and core. It was as if a bit of his essence, his soul, were reaching out and seizing Bartholomew, though such power was invisible to his eyes.

  Nevertheless, the results were clearly seen. The werewolf stood still and a look of worry and intrigue spread across his face. Darren didn’t know what he was doing, but there was a certain satisfaction in the way he could freeze a man where he stood without speaking a word or assaulting him in the physical.

  Bartholomew lifted his hands, palms facing the earth as if he were trying to pat down the embers of Darren’s rage before they could burst into maturity.

  “If you can’t find your father, you need to find an alpha. I don’t know where one would be in England, since we’re so scattered, but I do know of one in France.”

  France. The place of his ancestry, where his mother’s family came from and where his surname originated. He did not know the nationality of his absent father, but he had taken what pride he could in his French roots, just as his mother did. He might have been born in England, and have the tongue of an Englishman, but France had always been on his mind. On those days when he was a young boy and couldn’t rise from bed because of his sickness, he dedicated himself to learning the French language and their history. He could faithfully recite the names of the kings and monarchs from Charlemagne’s time and forward. Though he never had the chance to step on French soil, it was something Darren had always wanted.

  He had extended family in France, but none that he could visit without an introductory letter from his mother or anyone closer in relation. It would be an expedition purely for his own personal benefit, and to find this alpha of whom Bartholomew spoke.

  “Who?” he asked, feeling the aggressive power return to his body and release Bartholomew from its malicious grip.

  “His name is John Croxen. Don’t forget it. The last I heard, he was going to Albi, but that was nearly seventy years ago. He might have moved since then.”

  “How can I find him if he isn’t in Albi?”

  Bartholomew came closer as the rains continued to moisten the ground beneath them, turning it into a thick, congealing mud. “You’ll have to ask and search out other werewolves. That feeling in the back of your head will guide you. That is how you’ll know that another of our kind is near. Follow that. There are more werewolves in France than there are in England, so you should have a better chance of finding someone who knows of John. He had the makings of an alpha when I last met him, but he was naïve and uneducated in our ways, just as you are now.”

  Darren looked away. From his studies of French maps, he knew that Albi was along the River Tarn in the southern provinces. It would be a longer journey from Wiltshire County, but there was nothing left here worth staying for. His farm had been ransacked, his mother killed, his only friend was missing and considered him a freak of nature, not even his new ally would stay in the country.

  France was the only place left he could go and John Croxen was the only name he had.

  “How do I get to France?” he asked, realizing how bare his pockets were and how disheveled he must have looked. No ship would take him on as a passenger and the channel was too far to swim… Or was it? The water would be cold, to be sure, but would it really be too far for his new strength and stamina? It could be possible.

  Bartholomew reached into his pocket and fished out a few coins, all of which were of smaller value than what would have been sufficient for any passage to France. He sighed and assessed the coins as they became sprinkled with raindrops in his palm.

  After a moment of consideration, he offered them to Darren. “Take this. You may need it more than I.”

  Darren, understanding the kind of trials that awaited Bartholomew, shook his head. He could use the money to start his next bakery. “No. You need it more than I do.”

  The resentment he felt for the baker was strong and seemed to cover his heart like a thick, black sludge, but Darren did not wish him ill. He was not the one who killed his mother. He was the one who tried to look out for Darren’s well-being through detestable means. To blame Bartholomew for his mother’s death would be like blaming the rain for making the mud that the dog rolled in to sully its fur coat. He was faultless in the events that unfolded, though that didn’t make Darren like him.

  Bartholomew stuffed the coins away without protest. “Very well. Night will cover our escape. Stay clear of villages, and if you can avoid farms and cottages, do so. If you absolutely have to, only stay with a family for a night and don’t give them your real name. If you find yourself hungry, don’t put off hunting or foraging. Only eat meat and fruits. Berries will sustain you for a time, but you need meat to survive, so don’t ignore the wolf inside you. He will be your guide through all of this. Don’t resist him.”

  Darren looked away, hating the way Bartholomew made it seem as if some other entity were living within him. Though that was exactly how it seemed, he didn’t have to like the idea. If any of this was true, Darren would be living with this wolf for many years, perhaps centuries. How could he make peace with something that he couldn’t see, couldn’t speak with, and what might have been the ultimate catalyst for his life torn asunder?

  “Another thing,” Bartholomew continued. “In one month, you’ll begin to feel the way you did last night. It’ll be painful and you won’t remember anything. You’ll wake up just as you did this morning. If you can find John before that time comes, you’ll be much better off. He will help you through the change.”

  The blood beneath his skin chilled at the mention of changing. Out of all the legends and fairytales, the one true claim upon the werewolf was that they turned from man to beast. The wolf, that thing inside of him that he had to contend with and yet somehow trust, would take over his body. To know that it happened the night before was bad enough. Now, he knew it would happen every month from now until death would lift this curse from him.

  Darren did not confirm that he heard anything Bartholomew advised, but he heard everything, whether he wanted to or not. When Bartholomew did not receive an answer, he turned to the north.

  “I wish you luck in your journey, Darren,” he said. “I hope John can help you make sense of this and that you can find peace with yourself.”

  He began to walk away and Darren wasn’t sure if it was the wolf who might have appreciated what little knowledge Bartholomew could impart, or if it was his own guilty conscience for despising a man who only wanted to help him. Either way, he muttered a soft and begrudging, “Thank you.”

  Bartholomew paused in his step, but did not linger long before he ran and disappeared i
nto the woods. Darren sat still, listening to the baker’s hasty footfalls fading into the distance. Once more, the calamity in Warminster came to him, wrapping around his head like a tormenting reminder of what he had lost and what kind of unsure future awaited him.

  Whatever was across the English Channel, whoever this John Croxen would turn out to be, Darren had to face it, no matter how much he dreaded it. To go to France might have been accepting that he was a werewolf, but he needed the help of a werewolf alpha. To go was to leave behind his place of birth and possibly never return. How long would he be under the care of this alpha? A few months? A few years? Centuries? What kind of a life could a monster like him live?

  With stiff movements, Darren pushed himself to his feet, his pants soiled by mud and dirt from the forest that he would never step foot in again. He took one step, then another, headed south. And that’s how he continued, walking until he could no longer hear the screams and smell the rancid stench of death that devoured his former life.

  Southern France, three weeks later

  Darren had long forsaken his constant alertness for the tingling sensation in his skull in favor of another sense. His nose brought him to a village far to the east of Albi.

  The journey had been long, trying, and lonely. Walking through the forest, avoiding the well-worn roads that merchants and other travelers used, Darren was forced to traverse through dense underbrush and weave his way around obstacles, even when the most logical path would have saved him time. Sometimes, days had been wasted skirting around towns and farms teeming with laborers.

  Passing around Paris was especially difficult. The temptation of food, culture, and people was so strong that Darren nearly cried when he had to take a long detour to the east.

  Now, near the River Tarn and so close to his goal, his soul became weary and tired. From what Bartholomew had told him, this country should have been swarming with other werewolves to help guide him on his way. He hadn’t met a single one. Either he wasn’t searching hard enough, or there simply weren’t any.

  He wondered if Bartholomew had been lying. Perhaps, he just wanted Darren to leave Warminster, because he had been the one to bring so much destruction and social dissidence. However, he had come too far to give up on finding John Croxen. In his tired delirium, sometimes he spoke the man’s name, committing it to memory as if to urge him onward, to take one step after another until he had arrived in Albi.

  It had been three weeks since he left his home in Warminster, and two weeks since he dragged himself onto the sandy shores of France after swimming the entire breadth of the frigid English Channel. He hadn’t changed clothes or bathed since he began, and only when the hunger gnawed at his empty belly would he resort to catching small game like birds and rabbits.

  Though his inner wolf was ready to dig into the bleeding carcass of his prey, Darren would not stoop so low and did his best to strike a fire to cook his meat. With nearly no experience in the way of true wilderness living, Darren struggled on a daily basis. When he couldn’t create the fire he needed, he left the food to the scavenging animals of the forest. More than once, a vulture or other feral thief stole his catch right from under his nose.

  Injury was not a concern, as he healed from every twisted ankle that resulted from a fall, and every wound closed up when sliced open by sharp rocks or prickling brambles he traversed through. His body, however, became malnourished and his mind soon followed. He hadn’t had a meal in a day or two, but the incessant ache deep in his belly drove him to madness more than a few times.

  That was where he was now, delirious with hunger and insane from the solitary hours spent going over and over in his head every heart wrenching event that led him to this place. Though his skin could heal, his clothes were torn where he had been cut, revealing the kind of depravity to which he had been subjected. Hardly an inch of him was clean, but, instead, covered in dirt and grime. The same nose that carried him dangerously close to the village had become accustomed to the stink of his own body.

  His scalp crawled with the presence of bugs that he could not scratch away, so he left them there to perhaps pick his hair clean of the oil and dirt that matted it.

  He looked toward the village street, a dirt path that led between two rows of houses with steep roofs and potted plants in the windows. It was a quaint hamlet, and he could hear the townspeople go about their day, just as he had heard that long ago morning before his world fell to pieces. It was the sound of civilization, of company, of real people. Besides the occasional traveler that he had to hide from, Darren hadn’t seen a soul in what seemed like much longer than three weeks.

  Better yet, the village promised something else. Food.

  He took a few halting steps forward, acting the part of a true penniless beggar. Then he shook out his limbs and walked straight, forcing himself to stand upright. If he drew attention to himself through his stumbling walk, then anyone he passed might have given him a second look, which he couldn’t afford.

  Onward he went, not meeting the eyes of the citizens he passed and ignoring their muttered abhorrence to the way he dressed and smelled. Their words did not matter just then. What mattered was finding the good, hearty meal that he needed, that he deserved.

  A few blocks from the edge of town, he came to the source of the delicious, meaty scent. A butcher shop with his latest cuts displayed in the window, salted and ready for purchase. Darren knew he had no money, but there was one other thing he couldn’t afford besides the prized cut of lamb he salivated over. He couldn’t afford the morals that told him that he shouldn’t steal. He either stole or he died. His muscles could not stand another day without the nutrition they needed to keep going.

  With one last burst of energy, he would take that side of lamb, ribs and all, and flee to the forest. No one would be able to catch him. Then, once he had the lamb, he would come back and perhaps find a lantern or candle that was still lit from the night before and use it to cook the meat with. If he could not find a fire, however, Darren might have to debase himself once more and eat the raw, juicy meat anyway.

  He slipped inside the shop, careful to not make a sound. The butcher was not at his station, but somewhere out back, perhaps cleaning a new batch of cuts for his customers. Darren quietly snatched the rack from the window display and darted out of the shop as quickly as he had come in.

  Darren dashed down the road and pushed pedestrians aside, the lamb clutched tightly to his chest. He wasn’t running nearly as fast as he would have liked. In fact, he sprinted like any normal man. His supernatural speed had failed him when he needed it most, all because he did not have the energy. For the first time since he turned, Darren felt himself inferior, crippled.

  They shouted for him to stop, probably suspecting that he had stolen the meat. Why else would a vagabond be running so quickly with a prime cut such as that? Distracted by the burning in his legs, Darren glanced behind him and didn’t feel the prickling in his skull. He thought it must have been another symptom of his starvation and the exertion of so much energy when he clearly had none to spend.

  He wanted to make sure that no one was in pursuit of him. When he looked back, he collided with a stranger who did not budge against the impact. All the other men and women he shoved out of the way were cast aside easily, but not this man.

  Darren fell flat on his back, sending a plume of dust from under him as he met the ground. The man stood over him, tall and broad in frame. His dark brown eyes looked him over as the wind played in his equally dark, long hair. He wore the clothes of a gentleman of middle class stature and carried a simply crafted cane in his hand.

  It was only then that Darren took the time to realize that the feeling in his head was not what he thought it to be. The man who had stopped him so effectively was no normal man. He was another werewolf, just like Bartholomew.

  Breathless from the collision and stunned to finally meet his second werewolf, Darren didn’t say a word. Neither did the stranger. They both acknowledged one another an
d knew what the other was. There was no need for an introduction yet.

  The stranger tapped his cane on the hard ribs of the lamb that Darren held so tightly. “Did you pay for that?” he asked in fluent French.

  Darren shook his head and the stranger made a rueful face. “Get up,” he commanded as a crowd began to form around them.

  Curious spectators twittered and gossiped in French just as another man burst through the throng. Clad in an apron that was heavily stained with dark splotches of blood, he began to shout at the two werewolves, though Darren was sure if he knew what they were, he wouldn’t have confronted them in such a way.

  Darren scrambled to his feet and hid behind the stranger under provocation by his inner wolf. This man, who appeared older and more assured than even Bartholomew, had to be a prominent werewolf, perhaps even an alpha.

  The stranger put on a smile and stepped forward to ease the concerns of the butcher whose lamb had been filched from his shop.

  “How dare you protect this petty thief, John!” the butcher shouted, pointing his fat finger at the trembling youth.

  “Easy, monsieur. This is my cousin. He’s a little touched in the head,” he said as he tapped his finger against his temple to make a point. “I apologize for his rudeness. Here, let me pay for the meat. It will be a lovely feast for our table tonight.”

  With that, he untied the money purse from his belt and dumped out several gold coins into the palm of the butcher. He took the money gladly, seeing as it was far too much for one side of lamb, and walked away after giving Darren a contemptable sneer.

  The crowd, seeing that the drama was over, turned away to go about their business.

  “John Croxen?” Darren asked, speaking the name for the billionth time since he had first learned it.