“What word?” Barbara asked innocently as she entered the room carrying the roast. When she came close to Regeane, the girl shrank back. “Don’t worry,” Barbara said. “I’m very much alive.”
“No!” Regeane said, gagging and turning her head away. “It’s the roast. Can’t you smell it?” She retched and clutched at her throat. “The thing reeks. The stench is overwhelming.”
Barbara stood for a moment looking nonplussed, then whispered a soft curse under her breath, one at least as bad as anything Regeane had ever heard from Lucilla. “I thought the butcher sold it too cheap.”
She placed it on the table and began to slice it carefully, cutting through the thick crust the open-fire cooking had left on the meat. Deep narrow slits had been cut into the roast and some sort of green leaf had been thrust into the openings.
Barbara removed one with the point of the knife and teased it open. The thing was dark and limp from the heat of the cooking fire, but still recognizable.
“What is it?” Emilia asked, stretching out one hand toward the leaf.
Barbara slapped the back of her hand with the flat part of the knife. “Don’t touch it. People have died of handling the plant and if Basil is behind this, he can afford the best, or should I say, the most deadly quality of goods. If we had eaten this nice pork roast, it could quite conceivably have killed us all.”
Emilia stepped back, making the sign of the cross again. “So Hildegard did have a reason for appearing. What is that leaf?”
“Monkshood,” Barbara said.
Wolfsbane, Regeane thought, and for the first time in her life, she wanted to faint. She found it an unpleasant sensation. First there was nausea, followed by dizziness, and then everything started to go black.
The wolf, as usual, saved her. Wolves don’t faint. She was energized, wanting to take the corridor to the kitchen on all fours, jump the garden wall, and go find Basil. The wolf’s thoughts were very direct and involved tearing flesh, spurting blood, and snapping bone. The fact that the room was lighted and public got her under control very quickly.
“I was the target,” she said.
Barbara looked over at her from the other side of the table. “Maybe you flatter yourself, Regeane.”
“No. Barbara, I have to get out of here.”
Barbara shook her head slightly as if to say, not here, not now.
A loud shriek from the other side of the room interrupted them. “Poisoned!”
“Oh, no,” Emilia sighed.
“Ah, dear Sister Angelica,” Barbara said.
Sister Angelica was having hysterics in earnest.
Barbara rapped the staring Regeane across the knuckles lightly with the knife. “Pay close attention, my dear. Every woman needs to learn the right moves. This is what you want to do anytime you wish to make an already bad situation worse or, better yet, reduce it to complete chaos and drive all the males in the immediate vicinity to drink.”
Sister Angelica shrieked again. “Poisoned!”
The only sound louder than her voice was the clangor of the bell at the gate.
Angelica was on her knees, arms extended toward heaven. Emilia supported her, trying to keep her from falling further.
Barbara spoke to the young nun who was still futilely fanning the air where Sister Angelica’s face had been. “Stop creating a draft, Cornelia, and answer the bell.”
A few seconds later Cornelia ushered in two soldiers attired in the purple and gold arms of the papal guard and two small boys, one blond, the other dark.
The blond one launched himself at Regeane like a projectile.
The child was in her arms before she realized it was Elfgifa. Regeane goggled at her stupidly for a second, then asked, “What happened to your hair?”
“Postumous’ mother cut it off,” Elfgifa explained. “She said I was safer as a boy. That was after the riot started in the street and they sliced the man in half and he bled everywhere and the Lombards came looking for us.”
“Stop,” Regeane said. “What were you doing in Postumous’ street in the first place? I thought you were supposed to be here studying your letters with the other children and …”
“She’s been missing since this morning,” Barbara said.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Regeane asked furiously.
Barbara shrugged. “What could you have done about it besides worry yourself sick? We had the pope’s soldiers out looking for her.”
“And,” Elfgifa said, nodding, “they didn’t find us until a few minutes ago when we started across the bridge and I told them who I was.” She hugged Regeane tightly and spoke in her ear. “I only sneaked out to see Postumous because he’s my friend and my father says friendship is sacred, but that’s not what I want to tell you. Please listen. It’s important. I know it is.”
Angelica screeched again, interrupting her.
“Why is she hollering?” Elfgifa asked.
Regeane put Elfgifa down, snatched her hand, and led her down the short corridor and into the kitchen. Barbara followed, carrying the roast and setting it down on the table.
“Now, what’s so important?” Regeane asked.
“You know the place where we ran when the soldier was chasing us, the place where we met Antonius? Lucilla told me not to talk about it. It’s secret, but it can’t be a secret from you.”
“It isn’t,” Regeane answered. “What about it?”
“I told Postumous about it,” Elfgifa said breathlessly, “and he wanted to see it. So we went around to the drain where we climbed through it the first time, but something was wrong. The place had blood all over and there were bodies in the courtyard. Then the soldiers saw us. We ran. When we got to Postumous’ house the soldiers tried to take us, but they were Lombards and the people in the street wouldn’t let them. That’s when the fight started and the man got sliced in half and Postumous’ mother cut my hair.” Elfgifa ran out of breath and stopped talking.
Regeane stood up. The kitchen was dark. Regeane looked out the window.
The last rays of the sun were outlining a band of cloud near the horizon with fire. The new moon was an alabaster crescent in an indigo sky spiked with stars. Night was upon her.
What could the Lombards possibly want with the poor people Hadrian had protected along with Antonius, she wondered. Then she remembered with horror that a synod of churchmen was to convene soon here in the city to examine Hadrian’s fitness to be pope. Testimony from them about Antonius might damn him.
“Barbara,” Regeane whispered, “I have to go.”
Barbara rose from the stove with the lamp in her hand. The light was dim and illuminated only their three faces. From the other room, Regeane could still hear the loud sounds of Angelica’s wailing.
“I can’t let you do that, dear,” Barbara said.
“You can’t stop me,” Regeane answered. “No one can.”
A bucket of water stood near the kitchen fire. Regeane snatched it up and hurled the contents into the flames. A noxious mixture of smoke, steam, and ash boiled out of the fire. The stinking cloud filled the room.
The wolf took Regeane. She went flying into the change so quickly she had no time to flee. She heard Barbara gasp and begin coughing. Elfgifa shouted in glee.
Regeane flew out of the kitchen door at a dead run. Taking tremendous bounds, she was across the garden in seconds. She cleared the wall in one gigantic leap. She found herself on the riverbank looking across the Tiber at Rome.
XXII
THE WOLF STOOD FROZEN IN THE DARKNESS, sniffing the wind for a moment. The rank scents of the city and the river disgusted her. She remembered Lucilla’s words and realized the mob must reign there now. Even from across the water she could see the glow of a few fires against the sky and hear the sounds of fighting.
The green open spaces of the Campagna and the mountains beyond it tugged at her soul. A breeze blew from the water and an even more ghastly smell drifted to her nose. Her animal eyes picked out the shapes of bloated cor
pses stranded on mud flats near the shore.
Grim as it was, she knew her duty. Even the wolf bowed to a law so ancient the wolf could not remember its inception—we do not abandon our own. Antonius’ and Lucilla’s struggles were part of her life now. She had so chosen, both as wolf and woman, and must keep faith. She trotted out past the reeking corpses and plunged into the water.
During her swim the current carried her toward the crowded heart of the city near the Corso. She emerged from the water and shook herself dry amidst the rabbit warren of twisting streets near the Tiber. It was an area so subject to floods that only the poorest of the poor lived there.
The narrow cobbled streets were wet and slimy with urine. Household refuse and rotting garbage clogged the gutters. The smells from the tumbledown human dwellings scalded her senses.
The fighting must have been fierce, since she passed a corpse here and there. One, lying in an alley, had an intact lower body, but the face and head were pounded to a bloody pulp. Another dangled by its feet from a balcony, head down, except it didn’t have a head and its entrails bulged out of the split-open belly, gleaming wet and slick in the faint moonlight.
The silver wolf trotted on, thankful that these dangerous streets were almost deserted. Ahead she saw the lighted windows of a wineshop near the Corso.
She melted into the shadows at once as she tried to edge quietly past the door … Until she saw him.
At first, she took him for a large dog, perhaps a mastiff. Her hackles rose as she prepared herself to fight, but then she realized she was looking at one of her own kind.
She’d been fooled at first by his color. He was brown, but shading to red. The slenderness of his muzzle, the mask of darker fur at the face, and the slanted eyes all proclaimed wolf to her. He was not interested in her. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t seen her at all.
He sat to one side of the wineshop door. His ears stood erect, eyes eager and expectant. His mouth was open, its red tongue curled in a big doglike grin.
Two drunken men emerged from the wineshop and helped each other down the street. The wolf ignored them.
The next two who came through the door were a young girl with a painted face wearing a tattered silk gown leading a much older soldier—a prostitute and her customer.
The soldier staggered and leaned heavily on the girl’s arm.
The wolf ducked down with an expression of unabashed delight and came up with his head under her skirt.
The silver wolf saw surprise, then consternation chase themselves across the girl’s face as the cold nose and the wet tongue reached their goal. She shrieked and jumped away. While making her escape, she let go of the soldier. He fell heavily to the cobbles.
The girl kicked hard at the wolf. He fled into the darkness of an alleyway next to the wineshop.
Then she turned back to assist her prostrate customer. She bent over, trying to pull him to his feet. A mistake, the silver wolf realized as she soon saw the other wolf’s head appear from around the side of the building.
In that position, she was obviously irresistible. In a second his head was under her skirt again. She gave vent to a scream of outrage and fury as she fell forward over the soldier and they both rocked together on the cobbles.
The soldier lurched to his knees and drew his sword. He swung hard, a mighty and terrible blow had it landed. It didn’t. The edge of the sword struck sparks from the stony street. The wolf was behind him in a flash. Sharp teeth nipped him hard on the backside.
A threatening snarl set every muscle in Regeane’s body quivering for a second until she realized it wasn’t directed at her, but at the red wolf. The soldier gave a soft screech, dropped the sword, and clutched at his backside. The red wolf scurried away from the pair, moving back into the alleyway where he sat down, tried to look innocent, and scratched his ear with his hind leg.
Two other wolves appeared beside him. One was gray, and only a shadow in the gloom, and the other so black it seemed at first only a pair of eyes suddenly catching the light.
The gray snarled at the red wolf again. This time there was less menace and more reproof in the sound.
The soldier and the girl got to their feet. They both looked around wildly for a few seconds, then bolted into the door of a lodging house next to the wineshop.
The three wolves slipped silently into the light streaming from the tavern door. Then, they all froze as they caught sight of her.
The red wolf grinned, his tongue lolling as it had when he was waiting for his victims. He started toward the silver wolf. She brought him up short with a snarl so vicious she surprised even herself. She was going to take that red wolf apart if he came near her.
His mouth snapped shut, and he gave a soft whine that might have represented an apology and stepped back toward the other two.
The gray wolf glided fully into the light from the door. He was to Regeane’s eyes the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. In the absence of mirrors in a wolf’s life or standards for comparison to herself, Regeane had forgotten how magnificent wolves were, and even she herself was.
He was the deep matte-silver-gray of a shadow on snow. His belly and the backs of his legs were as pure a white as a high-piled drift near a glacier. His shoulders and chest were massive and deep. Below them the slender, delicate legs seemed to tread the earth with a touch as light as a dancer’s. The head and soft upright ears were framed by a ruff as thick as the powerful musculature below. The darker markings on his face set off a pair of eyes so beautifully expressive they might have been those of a lover gazing on his beloved.
The silver wolf felt a tremor run through muscles that had unconsciously stiffened for combat. She relaxed her threatening posture and raised her head.
Were they her kind? she wondered. Surely they must be. These weren’t the diminutive, skulking wolves found on the Campagna, but Arctic giants, mountain predators.
The big gray seemed to carry a whiff of the high fastness with him. A memory of meadows awash with flowers, of slopes dotted with the graceful whorled shapes of snow-mantled spruce and fur. Of cold so deep it cleared the air of all other scents and drenched every breath with pure lightness.
On his hind legs, he would top most men by a foot or more. And he’d be a formidable opponent for even a thing so large as a bear.
Yet, the silver wolf knew she need not fear him. The knowledge ran deeper than the wolf’s thought or even her savage memory. Instead, she felt an incredible femaleness for the first time as a wolf. A sheness not in the sense of feeling smaller or weaker, but a sleek awareness of her own wild beauty. Though there was no question of a contest between them, she was more than a match for him in speed and her jaws were just as powerful as his. The silver wolf met him as an equal. She encountering a he, each knowing in their coupling they could ignite a brief, exquisite fire in each other’s flesh.
The silver wolf felt a quick stab of heat in her loins. A tightening that sent a shiver of delight over her skin. Every hair on her body stood erect for a second.
The gray made a soft sound in his throat. It was not a growl, but something akin to the purr of a great cat. The ruff at his neck flared out almost like the folds of a fur cape, as if to say “Look upon me. Am I not everything you could desire?”
The silver wolf was stunned. She was too young to reciprocate this first mating gesture, but was secretly delighted. The woman was horrified. The images flooding the wolf’s mind were so deliciously sensual … The antics of a long tongue in certain places, the fangs in that magnificent muzzle could probably groom the fur in a number of excruciatingly sensitive spots with sweet tenderness, and how comfortable to spend an icy night cuddled in the curve of a big, warm, strong body. The woman wanted to be disgusted with herself, wanted to be angry—and was afraid. If only there hadn’t been that almost anguished delight mingled with the fear in her heart.
Suddenly there was a flash of bright light and a loud babble of voices sounded in her ears as the tavern door swung open. Anoth
er of its customers tumbled into the street.
The silver wolf was in motion almost before she thought, and she found herself dodging into the inky cover of another dark street, her mind a turmoil of warring emotions.
THE THREE WHO HAD BEEN WOLVES DONNED their clothing amidst the charred and blackened timbers of a burned-out house.
“I don’t see what’s so awful about having a little fun,” the one who had been the red wolf said. “What’s the good of being shape strong if you can’t enjoy yourself?”
“Wash your face,” the woman who had been the black wolf said. “You stink of those women.”
“Oooh, I love the musk,” the red wolf moaned delightedly.
“And men talk about bitches,” the black wolf said.
The man who had been the big gray belted on his sword. “Wasn’t she beautiful?” he asked.
“Magnificent,” the red wolf agreed.
“Obviously a lady,” the black said.
“She didn’t like me,” the red wolf said.
“That proves my point,” the black said. “One more step and she’d have torn you limb from limb.”
“She’s certainly one of us,” the gray said in a dreamy tone, “though she doesn’t know how to communicate yet. She didn’t understand.”
“Oh, yes she did,” the black wolf said. “That one little gesture when she seemed to turn her whole body to silver flame says more than whole volumes to an experienced eye.”
“I must have her,” the gray said, looking up through the tracery of broken timbers at the pale wash of moonlight.
“So ardent,” the black wolf said. “I can’t believe it. I’ve never seen you this way before.”
“My blood runs hot by night,” the gray said. “All I remember by night is that I am a leader. The semblance of humanity in me is just that—only a semblance, and I lust after enemies to overawe, to tame and then rule; for a mate before whom I can flaunt my strength and power, one who will match the heat of my passion with her own.”
“Then you likely picked the wrong one,” the black said. “She probably thinks of herself as a human woman at most times. And human women are more abject slaves than our cousins the dogs.” She spat into the thick jumble of wood ashes at her feet. “I’ll wager she’s married to some lout who beats her by day and rapes her every night.”
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