So at dinnertime, David walked over from the barrack where he was staying with Greg. It used to be the pack’s, but since the other werewolves weren’t coming into camp anymore, David saw no point of sleeping on the floor in Nathan’s tiny room.

George Louis, of course, had been put up in one of the bigger quarters, where usually twelve guards slept on narrow beds. Unlike the soldiers, George Louis had a proper wardrobe, placed so that it divided the room into two halves. On the side furthest from the door stood the bed – David was willing to bet that George Louis did not sleep on straw – and even a vanity with a mirror and a stand for a washing basin on top. The other half of the room had both a desk and a round table with three chairs, an ornate longcase clock, and a bookcase. The furniture had clearly been brought here by train; it was much more polished than the roughly hewn beds and tables in the rest of the barracks that were assembled in camp from the trees the workers felled.

“Please, come in,” George Louis said when David paused in surprise at the door. The duke was seated at the desk, which caught the light from the small window.

“Dinner will be served shortly,” George Louis continued. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

David stepped forward. “Sure,” he said and looked around the room again. The walls had been whitewashed, and a drawing of the proposed bridge hung above the table. It looked a little forlorn.

“It’s not much,” George Louis said, misinterpreting his frown.

“Not much. Right.”

George Louis eyed him quizzically. “Please, have a seat,” he said before the silence could stretch.

David sighed inwardly and took one of the chairs at the table. George Louis rapped at the wall behind the table, before he sat down, too. He hadn’t righted his chair, before the door opened and an elderly man entered, carrying a tray with glasses and a carafe of wine.

“You dragged Wilfred all the way out here?” David asked once the old man had left again. “Isn’t he a little old for such travels?”

“He wanted to come,” George Louis defended himself. “Said he wanted to see if the Rot could really be beaten.”

David picked up his wineglass but didn’t drink. The delicate crystal seemed terribly out of place, just like everything else. As if, by crossing the threshold, he had stepped from the camp straight into some hotel room in Deva.

“What’s the matter?” George Louis asked. “You don’t like the vintage?”

David smiled wryly at that. Why was he even surprised? “The vintage is fine,” he said. “I guess I didn’t consider that this is your own company.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, of course, they know to make arrangements when their boss comes to visit.”

“Oh, you mean the room? I did tell them to put me up just like everyone else.”

David burst out laughing at that. “You’d have just turned around and gone right back to Eoforwic if they had.”

“I have been to war, you know. I can stand a little discomfort.”

“Sure you can. A little.”

“Tell you what: We can switch rooms tonight.”

David raised his eyebrows at that. “You’d sleep right next to a werewolf, would you?”

George Louis looked away. “Gregory, yes?”

David nodded. He could see pride and fear war on the duke’s face. “Greg, yes,” he said aloud and decided not to take this too far. He had no intention to sleep in George Louis’s bed. That would only give him ideas. “And I don’t think he’d appreciate this bet.”

George Louis couldn’t quite hide his relief.

“Speaking of werewolves,” David continued. “You said you wanted my advice?”

As soon as he said that, the door opened again, and Wilfred returned with a younger man, both carrying trays with platters and bowls full of food. They put down their burden and filled plates for them, and then left again.

David could have sworn that Wilfred winked at him.

At least, George Louis didn’t try to tell him that the food was the standard rations the guards and work crews got.

“The werewolves, right,” the duke came back to the pretext for this dinner without David needing to remind him again. “Well, it just seemed like a waste, losing four of them like that. Even if they were only – new. Isn’t there a better way?”

“I’m afraid not,” David said. “They did try, actually,” he added. “Bernadette, the elder werewolf of this camp, hoped she could stop the madness and allowed the situation to get way out of hand in the process. But in the end, the young ones attacked her, too.”

“So we just wait it out?”

David shrugged. “Basically,” he said. “I wouldn’t repeat what happened here, though. You either need to employ more hunters to deal with those going mad, or you keep the convicts at the prison after they got bitten until you know for sure.”

“You don’t think that will affect the outcome?”

“I have no idea,” David admitted. “Have Prof. Audenne do a study. But here’s the problem: When werewolves fight each other, only strength matters. The mad ones are perfectly capable of killing or permanently crippling an elder werewolf. It was extremely lucky that Greg is big, even for a werewolf, and managed to stop three of them before they got through to Bernadette.”

“I take it you want to stay here?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” David said.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Too bad Bernadette didn’t succeed,” George Louis said. “Do you think there’s any point in having the Morgulon try?”

David shook his head. “I mean, we can ask, since Lane and I are here,” he added. “We’re going to visit the Morgulon anyway. But I don’t think it’ll work. If she could stop it, don’t you think there would be a lot fewer mad werewolves?”

“Only if she knows that she can stop the madness,” George Louis pointed out.

“No, I meant – there were werewolves before the Valoise invaded, right? Probably some elders, too. If it was possible for them to stop the madness, wouldn’t our ancestors have defeated the Valoise and the Rot long ago?”

“Only if the Werewolves fought with the Loegrians,” George Louis disagreed. “Who knows how long they have been hunted?”

“I thought they hardly get hunted, beyond the Church’s reach,” David replied.

It was a rather pointless argument – after all, very little was known about what Loegrion had been like before the Rot. He didn’t try to end the discussion, though. At least this was an innocuous enough topic.

Eventually, though, the duke asked: “How did your family react when they found out about you and deLande?”

“They understand,” David just said. At least, he hoped that his mother would. They hadn’t talked about the matter yet.

“They don’t think it’s an overreaction?”

David sighed. He knew where this was going. George Louis wanted to know if he still didn’t trust him. So, instead of answering the question, he asked: “Did you have Annabelle killed?”

He had expected denial, of course, and outrage, pretended or real. What he hadn’t expected was the look of hurt and defeat on the duke’s face. He caught himself quickly, reaching for his wine glass.

“That’s what you think of me?” George Louis finally asked. When David didn’t say anything, he shook his head and laughed hollowly. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“You did work hard for it.”

“Oh, stop it!” George Louis was glaring at him now. “Clarence and Lester were idiots! It was just a matter of time until the Church found someone to testify against them.”

“But the Inquisition did find you.”

“That’s hardly the same as murder! Of my own wife, too!”

“You didn’t love her.”

“You don’t love Lane, either, and I’d never ask you if you had a hand in it should a werewolf get to her!”

David shrugged and continued eating. “I suppose you and I have very different ideas of what is ‘hardly the same as murder’.”

“You’re one to talk,” George Louis growled. “Do you even know how many you have killed?”

“No,” David admitted. “I have no idea.”

“Then what’s the big difference between us?”

“I’m not saying there is much of a difference,” David said.

“But you don’t trust me.”

David shrugged again. “About as much as a werewolf would trust me, I reckon. Funny, that you even bring that up, considering you don’t think of werewolves as real people. At least I wouldn’t blame a werewolf for hating me.”

“So you do hate me.”

It was a statement, not a question. David thought about it for a moment, anyway. “I used to,” he said.

“And these days?”

David sighed. “Doesn’t matter, one way or the other. You asked what the difference between us is? I’m a hunter. When I’m on a trail, I follow it to the end. You? You’re a collector. You only want me because I’m not available to you right now. As soon as you win me over, you’ll lose interest again.”

George Louis frowned. “Is there someone else?” he wanted to know, almost as if David hadn’t spoken at all.

David considered lying, making up a boyfriend at Courtenay, or something, but then shook his head. “I didn’t take the risk again,” he said.

“So – your plan is to spend the rest of your life alone.”

“I haven’t planned that far ahead,” David gave back. “And there’s no point in making plans now. We haven’t even survived the first attack of the Valoise. Ask me again five years from now, and maybe I’ll have an answer for you. Anyway – your plans have to be far more interesting than mine. How are you going to beat back the Empire?”

“That’s why I’m so interested in seeing if the Morgulon can stop other werewolves from going mad,” George Louis said. “Ideally, we should have one werewolf in every town, village, and garrison along the coast, with elder ones at strategic places. But it’s a very slow process. The scientists who document all the convicts and volunteers who get bitten –“

“Volunteers?” David interrupted him.

“Oh, yes,” George Louis said. “A werewolf bite cures all other illnesses, didn’t you write that yourself in your little pamphlet?”

“That’s not – we wrote that a werewolf can only be killed by silver, fire, magic, beheading, or another werewolf.” David groaned. “Are people seriously trying to cure themselves by getting bitten?”

“A few, yes,” George Louis said. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Your father insisted that only those who can hope for no cure from a doctor may volunteer. There’s still plenty of people who can’t afford a healer.”

“Does it make a difference?”

George Louis shook his head. “The scientists tell me it’s too early to be sure of the statistics, of course,” he said wryly, “but it seems to be about a fifty-fifty chance whether someone goes mad or not, and they haven’t found anything that affects it. It’s possible that children are less affected, but since their current sample size consists of a grand total of four children, and even I wouldn’t suggest a field study on the matter – well. Hard to tell.”

“We do know of at least one child who was bitten and turned out dangerous,” David said slowly. “Father calls it the worst hunt he ever participated in.”

“I see. Then there probably isn’t anything that affects the outcome. It certainly makes no difference if the biting werewolf is mad or not.”

“Yes, we pretty much knew that,” David pointed out. “Greg was bitten by a mad werewolf, after all, and he turned out fine. Fifty-fifty, huh,” David added, more to himself.

“Those criminals sentenced to die are lining up for it,” George Louis said. “And we did rule out all the murderers, as you suggested.”

“Only the murderers?” David asked.

“Actually, no,” George Louis replied. “I put a Mr. Bell in charge, he’s also from Deva University, a professor of law. He’s got two assistants analyzing the cases and picking people they think will be loyal to Loegrion. Of course, no system is perfect, but that’s what hunters like yourself are there for, right?” George Louis continued.

“Right,” David said dryly. “But let’s try to keep the death toll low, anyway.”

“Of course.”

“How is Little George, anyway?” David asked, mostly to distract from himself. He had never seen George Louis’s only son. “He’d be about eight now, right?”

George Louis nodded slowly, staring into emptiness. “You never did meet him,” he noted. “He’ll likely visit Eoforwic soon,” he added. “His tutor read the pamphlet with him, he’s been asking about you. Werewolves, too, of course. Wants to see one with his own eyes.”

“He hardly has to travel to Eoforwic for that,” David pointed out. “Or have you really rounded up all the werewolves from the north and sent them here?”

“All we could find, yes,” George Louis said. “Oh, I’m sure there are more up in the forests, where we cannot follow. But they don’t seem inclined to come out.”

“Not surprisingly,” David muttered. “How many werewolves do you have, in total?”

“About a hundred,” George Louis said. “But most of them are very newly bitten. The number is certain to go down. Probably by a lot. More are being made, of course,” he added. “We’ll have to see if it’ll be enough.”

“Do you have an elder near the coast?” David asked.

“No. We’ve got scouts – airships and conventional vessels – watching the coast. Telegraph lines are run from every town to Deva as we speak. We should have a warning at least a couple of days before they can land, and then we can have Bernadette down at Deggan within a day via the railway. And you have to keep in mind that they can’t raise the Rot from seawater.”

“That’ll still be cutting it close,” David sighed. “We need more elders.”

“Very much so,” George Louis said.

They’d have to talk to Morgulon as fast as possible.

“In that case,” David said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Maybe it’s time I get back to work.”

The plates had long been empty, taken away by Wilfred and the other servant, and while the wine was good, David had no intention of getting drunk. Especially not when George Louis was the one who kept refilling his glass. As long as he played hard to get, at least he had some form of bargaining chip.

He expected the duke to disagree, to try and draw this out, but George Louis nodded.

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow, but I’m sure we will see each other again soon,” he said, getting up, too. “ As I intend to see the more forward lying camps, too.”

He followed David to the entrance, and for a second, David thought George Louis would hug him. But then the duke straightened up and just held the door open for him.