Story for the Day: Faoladh

While Myndil and everyone at the abbey might love Aodhgan, lord protector of Osraige, not everyone is so enamoured with his wolf:

They searched for other lodgings, inspecting all taverneous buildings around the square, but the more they walked about the place, the more awkward looks they incurred. They were an unusual pairing, nobody having seen one wearing robes with GOD LOVES YOU written on them before, but it was soon clear that some had seen one like Aodhgan before. Their stares were growing fearful, some cowering into corners, others huddling away, and though he smiled and nodded and looked civil, his time at the abbey had made him forgetful. He moved near one of the stalls, had accidentally obscured its owner’s view, and turned to excuse himself when the owner looked up, gasped, and hastening away, taking the moveable part of her stall with her. He turned back, and another woman gasped, instantly clutching her children and dragging them away.

                “They might not remember me,” said Myndil, waving to another man who seemed escaping, “but they certainly seem to know you, Aodhgan.”

                The whispers of “Faoladh! Faoladh!” caught his ear, the wide eyes of terror tormented him, and the hurried steps of scattering struck his heart.

                Aodhgan sighed, his broad shoulders sinking. “I had almost forgotten about this,” said he, in a sobering hue.

                He reproached himself for forgetting, that joyous oblivescence which true happiness supplies making him insensible of all the calumny he had been used to suffer. He had forgotten to make himself seem small and insignificant, his old guise of trying to look unimportant always needed in a town; life at the abbey had ruined him for caution, everyone there expecting nothing of him but that he be himself, but being himself in a town in front of others was a crime he would otherwise never commit. Myndil had made him forgetful; being so amiable and affectionate a companion, Myndil made him believe everyone loved him, his powers of friendship making Aodhgan think everyone must be indifferent to his differences by now, but the whispers called back his thoughts, the dispiriting reminiscence of being unwanted and unwelcome sinking his heart. They walked to the other side of the square, Aodhgan stooping his shoulders and bending his knees, drawing his cape around him to cover the fur on his chest—but too late, the exsibilation of “Faoladh! Faoladh!” already in everyone’s mouth. He moved behind Myndil and kept to the shadows, trying to obscure himself and failing, his immense shadow falling everywhere the lights round the square went.

                “This is what travelling by myself was like before I met you,” said Aodhgan, in a solemn voice. “I always had to be cautious when presenting myself. For those like you who didn’t know where I was from, I always introduced myself, to show them there was nothing to fear, but people still ran away.”

                “But you’re so regal,” said Myndil plaintively, “and you’re a master huntsman and a lord protector besides—everyone should feel so safe and snug when you’re around. I know I do.”

                Aodhgan put a hand on Myndil’s shoulder and gave it a gentle press. “Would that everyone were you, Myndil.”

                “But how can anyone not like you? You are so handsome and polite-- everyone should open their doors to you.”

                They passed a small dwelling, and when the person within saw Aodhgan pass by, the door slammed shut.

                “Perhaps I’ll let you find lodgings for the evening,” said Aodhgan.

                “We could always sleep outside.”

                “We could, but it’s quite cold for that, and you need a warm meal.”

                “I am a little cold, but nothing a warm drink and a cuddle won’t cheer right up—oh!” Myndil pointed to one of the stalls. “There are baked apples over there. I wonder if they are done in the same way Sister Iarlaith does them.”

                He was off in an instant, smiling and calling out to the girl behind the stall, and before he could produce a few coins for her in exchange for her goods, the girl spied Aodhgan standing in the shadows and fled, leaving the apples to Myndil’s mercy.   

                “I didn’t think I was rude to her,” Myndil mused, watching her run away. “I didn’t even get to ask her if she should like to know about God.”

                “It’s not you,” Aodhgan explained, coming over to him. “She saw me and was frightened.”

                Myndil blinked. “But how do they know you’re a werewolf?”

                “Myndil,” said Aodhgan, with tender inflection, “at the risk of restating the obvious, I remind you that I am abnormally large.”

                “But mountains are large, and nobody is afraid of them.”

                “Mountains don’t have fur on their chests.”

                “No, but perhaps they look more inviting and comfortable if they did.”

                Aodhgan simpered in spite of himself, and urged Myndil to go on, eventually finding a small tavern at the end of the lane.

                He bid Myndil to go in and secure lodgings alone—and not to speak about god until after he had paid—and once Myndil had secured a room for them with a dinner attached, Aodhgan slipped quietly into the main hall, clinging to the corners, looking at no one and saying nothing. There were few in the main hall at this hour, travelers to the region being still out, but the publican was managing the drink and there was a woman to bring round the dinner, a few fatigued farmers sitting near the fire besides. Myndil was shown in and sat down at the table in the farthest corner of the room, Aodhgan drifting once the woman had gone away. He moved the chair behind him and sat on the floor, his shoulders still high above Myndil’s head even sitting down, but he crouched and made himself seem smaller, enough that the woman asked him whether he would like a dinner without being alarmed by him.

                The dinner came, a steaming lamb and leek stew with buttered trenchers, and as they began to eat, a few men filtered in from the adjoining hall, talking amongst themselves in loud and convivial conversation. Aodhgan was not looking at them, but his consciousness was always listening: in the concentus of conclamant voices, and one stood out among the rest: a young farmer was expressing his concerns about his son, a young boy of ten years old who did not come back from the fields. They had been raking over the cutting clover, and the boy had been sent to fetch turf for the fire. His son had been expected back hours ago, but when the farmer went to their usual cutting place, the slane was lying in the peat and the boy was gone.

                “Worried the wisps or a fetch mighta led him off,” Aodhgan heard the farmer say. “He’s a good lad, always does his work, always comes in when I tell him. I looked and looked, but no matter where I went, I couldn’t find a hair o’ him.”

                The others round him said they would help look for the boy after dinner, but no success was promised: one intimated that the child might have been grabbed by slavers, another assured him it was nothing so bad, ‘probably only went for a gleanin’ o’ somethin’ in the wood’, but when the farmer went to sit by the fire and warm himself with his worries, the men said in a dreadful tone, “Poor lad’s probably floatin’ in the bog by now.” The farmer asked anyone who passed him by whether they had seen his son, his voice fraught with parental unquietness, but no one had seen him, leaving the father to welter in woe, thinking the worst about his son’s fate.