Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/29

 acrobat. Seductive she might be, alluring as a houri out of Mahound's Paradise, but alien characteristics marked her; she was Atalanta, champion of the race, and Trojan Helen in one form, a combination of the chaste Diana and the wanton Venus in a single body.

"Thou must e'en be famished after thy long fast, messire," she murmured in her oddly purring voice. "Take, eat; those viands are not such as they serve in Otto's banquet hall." With a gesture of her pink-tipped hand she indicated the small table by the wall.

fell to with a will. Beauty was a thing to fall down before and worship, certainly, but an empty-bellied worshipper was languid in his reverence, and he had not tasted food for thirty hours. He downed a goblet of red Cyprian wine and a glass of golden wine from Sicily to keep it company, wiped his lips upon a wisp of damask and helped himself prodigiously to salmon pasty.

Feet tucked demurely under her, hands demurely folded in her lap, the Lady Basta watched him as he ate. "Dost know the character of thine hosts here?" she asked.

"Aye," he cleared his mouth of salmon with a draft of Magyar wine, "methinks I do, madomna. I have traveled far afield and over the seas, but never have I seen such monsters in the flesh. Yet meseems I recognize them from the talcs I've heard. Are they not of that cursed company of those not yet made fast in hell who slough off human shape at will and run wild-questing through the night in lupine form to kill and eat those so unfortunate as to cross their paths? Are they not members of that crew who dance on Christmas Eve, deriding the nativity of Christ, and sell their sinful souls to gain the power to change their shape to fit their bestial nature? Are they not"

"Yea, they are lobis-homem, known in this land as währwolf. 'Tis said the first von Wolfberg bribed a sorcerer to give him power to take on wolfish shape, for so savage was he that he needs must have the beast his form as well as his base nature. However that may be I do not know, but this I know full well: Count Otto and his company are gifted one and all with this dread power. In all this place we two alone cannot shift shape at will."

"And those poor wights I saw them harry from the base court"

"Were cattle for the slaughter. Their craving and blood-lust runs at spate tide at the full moon, and they scour the countryside between times, bringing in such folk as they can capture and housing them within the donjon till the time appointed. Then they turn them loose and course them, as it were a rabbit drive or deer hunt. A few are liberated every night, and the count and his retainers take turns following and slaying them. The night you found me on the mountainside a pack of them took wind of me and left their kill to follow in my tracks. Had not you met me when you did I had been food for them long since."

"You told me then you sought a flower in the moonlight. Surely you did jest?"

Her red lips writhed back in a soundless snarl, displaying small white teeth. "I jested not, messire, believe me. I sought a flower which should give me power to work my vengeance on these monsters. They took my scent ere I came on it, but haply I shall find it yet." Plainly, she did not wish to talk about her moonlight quest.

He thrust a morsel of stewed lamprey in his mouth and washed it down with wine. "How art thou truly clepèd?" he asked. "Have heard them call thee Basta,