She looked again. Antonius lay before her in the fullness of his youth and strength. His flesh glowed against the gray ash with the flush of life. As she watched, he shivered in the chill night air, turned on his side, and drew his knees against his chest as he felt the cold.
Regeane took the mantle from her shoulders and dropped it over him. Daedalus walked around the fire and took her still-bleeding hand.
“My garden?” he asked. “Will you come back with me?”
Regeane stood before him, conscious now she stood clothed only in shadow and her own moon-tipped hair.
“No,” she answered. “I will try the world and see what it holds for me before I sleep.”
“Ah.” Daedalus stepped back. “So then it is farewell, lovely lady of moonlight. Looking upon you, I can well see why immortal gods could find surcease from desire in the arms of mortal woman. And what my foolish son so thirsts for that he drinks again and again at the fountain of life.”
Then he was gone, leaving Regeane standing alone with the bitter winter night and the stars. She turned toward the two hierophants waiting at the temple steps. She pointed at Antonius.
“When he wakes,” she said, “return him to his mother.”
A second later, she was wolf. Favoring her still bleeding paw, she limped down the processional way toward Rome.
XXV
WHEN REGEANE CROSSED THE STREAM, HER PAWS shattered a coating of ice at its edges. The night was bitterly cold. She was aware that her energies were seriously depleted. She didn’t know if she could reach Rome and the safety of Lucilla’s villa tonight.
She paused and looked out over the desolate Campagna. The fog that earlier had boiled over the sweeping grasslands had settled on the ground and then frozen into hoarfrost on the tangled grass blades. They cracked under her limping feet. The moon was down and the stars in their myriads blazed a cold light above her.
The woman’s mind was almost as weary as the beast’s. Sooner or later, she thought, death will be upon me. Why not here? Why not now? And then … what? Daedalus’ garden? Who knows?, she thought, looking up at the icy splendor above her. There had been as much ugliness as beauty in the world beyond the temple doorway, but how much of either beauty or ugliness was real? How much illusion? The woman’s mind, imprisoned in the wolf’s narrow skull, faltered before the problem. But no matter.
A jolt of pain traveled up her wounded paw when it struck the ground. That is real enough, she thought. Fatigue dragged at every screaming muscle in her body, tempting her to lie down in the frost-covered grass and sleep. The wolf’s memories were like music, a continuous flow of images that threatened to overwhelm the woman’s mind and will.
The woman was too confused and disheartened to beat them back. She was near the end of her strength. The cold that had never bothered her before, now bit through the heavy guard hairs on her coat, chilling her to the bone.
Rome, she thought, and tried to force herself onward. But the woman knew Rome was very far away. The images shadowing her consciousness told her death was very near. Certain, if she were caught out in the open day, naked and alone. She had spent too much of her strength, her life blood, to save Antonius. Now perhaps, she was doomed.
To the woman’s dismay, the ever-confident wolf accepted this. If it was so, then why struggle to the last? Simply lie down beside the stream. There would be a little pain and then darkness would come. A darkness not much different than sleep, and then might she not be allowed to run forever by her father’s side, across the vast reaches of eternity?
She lowered her muzzle to the stream at her feet. Drink now, and then curl up and rest. Let her blood ooze away slowly into the frozen grass. Numbed, she lapped at the frigid water.
The shock of cold snapped her back to full alertness. To drink too much of the icy water in the condition she was in was hideously dangerous. Her head came up and she staggered back from the water, snarling, ears tight against her skull. No, that water would be a virtual death sentence to her already chilled body.
Fury overwhelmed her. She raised her head and for the first time in her life, she lifted her voice against a monstrously unjust world, a cruel universe, and the distant, indifferent stars.
The sound from her throat began in a roar of rage and ended in a wail of agony. It echoed across the empty night like the clarion call of a trumpet. Then she dropped her head and staggered, realizing to the fullest, both woman and wolf, what her own weary body was telling her. She could go no further.
A second later she was galvanized by terror. She was being answered! The calls were very far away, just the faintest of cries, but clear on the still night air.
Her whole body shook. Her first impulse was to run, but the moment her injured paw struck the ground, the pain paralyzed her. She no longer had the strength to run.
Brief, ironic laughter flickered in the woman’s consciousness. She had cried out against death and succeeded only in calling it to her. Then red rage flooded the wolf’s thoughts, sweeping aside the woman and her civilization. The wolf snarled with contempt at the mewing creature who turned her eyes away from blood and trembled before death.
She was very conscious of her power, one wounded paw didn’t strip it all away from her. She was one hundred and ten pounds of hard muscle and flexible sinew, with fangs that could tear out the throat of a bull and jaws so strong they could snap a man’s thighbone like a twig. More than a match for any natural wolf ever born.
The howls came again, this time closer, and she was briefly shaken as she seemed to discern a plea in the cries. As though they were asking her to reply and tell them where she was.
So be it, she thought. It could go one way or the other. If there were too many of them, she might lose. Well, better a fight than the slow death by night and the cold. The images in the wolf’s brain were of warm blood and hot red meat steaming in the freezing air. If she won, she would feed and regain her strength.
She lifted her head and cried out again, an unearthly yell that was both challenge and invitation. A few moments later she could hear them coming. A soft crackling sounded as they fleeted over grass stems made brittle by ice.
The wolf limped quickly back toward the stream. The water wasn’t much, but it might protect her if they tried to encircle her. A second after she took up her position, they topped the hill in front of her, black yellow-eyed shapes in the gloom. They slowed as they came down the slope toward her and came to a stop at its foot.
They were the same three she’d met in the city. The red, the gray, and the black. Her first reaction was a profound shudder of relief, but her second was bewilderment and fear. They hadn’t been unfriendly before, indeed, the giant gray had been amorous, but what would they do now when they saw she was a cripple? Yet she confronted them proudly, head lifted, ears erect, her wounded paw curled under her breast.
For a long moment, they simply stood looking at each other. Then the big gray turned toward the black, as if making a request. He touched noses with her. Her tail waved once as if in acquiescence. The red wolf, probably remembering Regeane’s hostility, hung back. He sat back on his haunches with a big doglike smile and began to scratch vigorously with his hind paw at his ear.
Fleas, the wolf wondered in revulsion. How could one of her noble kind sink so low as to allow himself to get fleas!
The black wolf approached her slowly, unthreateningly, muzzle extended. The intent was unmistakable. Do you wish to be friends?
The wolf did. She didn’t know if they could help her; she didn’t know if anyone could. But their companionship was infinitely better than being alone with her suffering. So she extended her muzzle toward the other, gently.
Their noses touched. The wolf didn’t know what she expected to smell, but what she did surprised her. There was a hint of red meat, the scent of the cold night air caught in the pelt of the other, and rather sweet breath, a warm bread smell.
The black made a gentle sound in her throat, like a soft whine. It was as though sh
e said “welcome.” Then, oh so gently, her head slid along the silver wolf’s jaw until her muzzle rested on her back at the shoulder.
For a moment, the silver wolf was at a loss how to reply and then she understood. In this position, the other’s throat was bared to her teeth as was her own. It simply said, I trust you.
The silver wolf placed her head on the other’s shoulders. Their bodies were close together, breast to breast, and the warmth of the black wolf’s body was like a conflagration to the silver wolf’s chilled one. She trembled with the cold, with excitement, with fear. She could scent the black wolf’s warm, clean fur, and the gentle tang of the femaleness that hung about her like some exotic perfume.
The other broke the contact first by stepping back. Her tongue washed the silver wolf’s face so quickly she didn’t have time to object to what was, to Regeane, an indignity. Then the black’s muzzle dropped to her injured paw.
The silver wolf’s hackles rose, and she snarled softly, more in fear than in anger. Fear of the pain. The big, black wolf’s eyes looked up into hers. The silver wolf read compassion and some amusement as her long red tongue flicked over the inside of the pad. The touch of the wolf’s tongue eased the spasms of pain that had been a background to the wolf’s thoughts since Cumae.
She uncurled her paw and extended it toward the black wolf to let the gentle caress do its healing work.
Meanwhile, her attention shifted to the big gray. He had been watching closely while she and the black became acquainted. He broke off his scrutiny and was tiptoeing carefully through the long grass and low scrub surrounding the stream bank. His neck was arched, muzzle lowered, ears pricked as he studied the ground below him carefully.
Abruptly, he leaped into the air and came down, forepaws together, pinning something to the earth. The big jaws snapped with an audible click. A second later in a motion so quick even the silver wolf’s eyes could barely follow it, he tossed something small at her. It landed with a soft thump at her feet.
The silver wolf looked down and saw a mouse, its small body, neck broken, still quivering in its death throes. The silver wolf backed up quickly, one hind foot went into the icy stream behind her. She jumped to land with a shrill whine.
The black wolf made a grunting sound and turned her face away. The red wolf didn’t bother to hide his merriment. He bounded into the air and came down hindquarters elevated, forepaws and muzzle against the earth and then rolled over on his back, waving all four paws in the air, managing to give the general impression of a human paralyzed with mirth.
In rapid succession, a second mouse landed next to the first, and then a third. The black wolf stared at the silver wolf patiently, then reached down and pushed one of the mice toward the silver wolf with her nose. Her intent was unmistakable.
The gray looked at the still laughing red wolf and snarled. He turned his eyes to the silver wolf and stared at her imperiously.
Strangely, the woman made the decision, not the wolf. The wolf in her own way was a traditionalist, but the woman knew she was, at least in part, dying of hunger. So if mice it was, then mice it would have to be. Besides they were no stranger than other things she had eaten as a woman.
She gulped the first, barely letting it touch her tongue. The taste wasn’t bad—nutty, crunchy, a bit more mushroom than mammal. She took the second more slowly. The third she savored. Not bad, she thought. A new delicacy. Not bad at all. She wondered what Barbara, the cook at the convent, would think.
Five mice later she was feeling almost like her old self again. When she touched her paw to the ground, she began to wonder what magic the black wolf’s tongue had worked. The pad was still sore, but she could walk—and without being too uncomfortable. She no longer limped.
The big gray gave her a look of approval and began to lead the pack slowly along the stream bank, looking for more mice. He ate the next himself and gave the silver wolf a long, meaningful look.
She was filled with a wild excitement. He wanted to teach her how to hunt. His next stalk was a slow, measured demonstration of how it was done.
One walks slowly, quietly, through the grass, eyes and ears alert for the slightest sound, the quick scurrying, the soft rustling sounds the rodents make while foraging among the grass stems. Then the high leap and the lightning pounce.
The silver wolf began to imitate his movements. Head bent, her eyes and ears probing the thickened brush and dried winterkilled weeds. She froze inadvertently when she saw her first one, a fat brown fellow feeding on the remains of a dried sunflower. She leaped. Her paws came down on nothing.
The mouse darted away, right into the waiting jaws of the red wolf. He crunched happily, then gave her a big, canine grin.
She had no better success with her next. He darted toward the black wolf who made a meal of him.
The silver wolf gritted her teeth and continued grimly to imitate the big gray. The next time she saw movement, she leaped at once and pounced on a hare. He slipped through her front paws and pushed off on her face, then bounded away, leaving her blinking and shaking her head in the aftermath of a hard slap across the muzzle.
The red wolf evidently thought this was hilarious. He leaped into the air and came down rolling. The gray made an eel-like turn and nipped the red wolf sharply on the rump. This time the red wolf’s jump wasn’t one of mirth. He yipped and sat down, licking his backside furiously between glares at the big gray.
The gray turned back to the silver wolf and looked at her as if to say “Shall we continue?” The silver wolf’s next effort met with better success. Something soft and furry wriggled under her paws. Her jaws snapped. Mouse and delicious.
After that, hunting seemed to come easily to her. She had the inborn predator’s skill of absolute concentration. All she needed to do was rely upon her senses. She found, much to the red wolf’s chagrin and the big gray’s approval, that she was one of the best at the game.
When they had all taken their fill of mice, the gray wolf led them out onto the plain. They began to run. Now that she was well fed and rested, the silver wolf could run with them.
The whole world seemed to sleep around the four wolves and they flowed like shadows over the frozen hills. This is, the silver wolf thought, the night of my nights. This must have been what it was like before man with his cities, his cruelty, and his wars … A primal innocence. Only the stars were their companions.
Once they started a sleeping deer from a copse of trees near an abandoned farm house. The wolves gave chase, more in fun than out of any idea of bringing her down. The silver wolf stretched herself, running flat out, and was amazed by her own speed as she paced the terrified creature.
Then she looked up and saw the brown head, the wide staring dark eye, the throat that throbbed with blood and life. She smelled the thick acrid musk of terror, and realized what was fun to her was agony to this creature. She saw the deer was a pregnant doe.
And the woman reined the wolf in sternly.
She broke off the chase and dropped back to join the rest.
At that moment, she smelled the city. Rome, she thought, and Lucilla‘s villa. In her heart, she felt a pang of sorrow as the woman’s mind understood the night had come to an end.
The wolves dropped from a run to a lope. They turned toward an abandoned village hidden in the fold of one of the hills very near the city. The silver wolf followed. Her nose picked up the tang of wood smoke coming from one of the dark tumble-down houses. She assumed this must be one of their dens. That was what she would have done, had she the power. Found a base where clothes and a fire were waiting for her before she returned to the city. A safe way station between the world of men and that of wolves.
The silver wolf paused just before they reached the village. The rest stopped, too. They turned and looked at her. And the silver wolf understood she was being invited to join them. The big gray took a step toward her.
Desire raged through the woman’s mind like a fire through dry twigs. The wolf wasn’t ready for her
initiation into the arts of desire, but the woman was. More than ready.
If she was moonlight, he was starlight. The gray coat spangled like the fiery arch of the heavens above her. She saw the breadth of his shoulders and felt the overpowering presence of his maleness and, at the same time, the vast mystery of the night.
Once inside the hut, the big gray would be a man and she a woman. The other two could dress quickly and go. They would be alone. He would not need to speak to her. She would not speak to him.
They could, as they did now, look at each other’s eyes, tell one another every secret of their private universes without words. He would be strong, very big and strong. She could, in her imagination, feel his caresses.
And she knew that once he held her in his arms, she would refuse him nothing. She would, instead, yield up her innermost being to him, eagerly and without shame.
If only she could blot out the knowledge, the foresight that made her human. These three were safe, careless and carefree in their double state. All the things she could never be. What would happen to their lives if they were suddenly hunted by a king, a pope?
The black wolf glided toward her. She joined in again: the touch on her nose, the head on her shoulder. The sense of love and trust. Ablessing. A farewell.
Then the silver wolf turned and without looking back, ran. As she crossed the first hill and looked down on the city, she saw a strip of light on the eastern horizon; the stars were dying in its glow.
LUCILLA MET THE WOLF AS SHE LEAPED THE WALL into the villa. She was standing near one of the peach trees with a lamp in her hand. She extinguished the flame when she saw the wolf gliding toward her.
“Thank God,” Lucilla breathed.
Regeane stood before her as a woman.
Lucilla wrapped her mantle around Regeane’s shoulders.
Regeane clutched at it tightly as Lucilla helped her back to the villa.
“Antonius?” Lucilla snapped.
“He’s well,” Regeane replied. “You’ll see when he returns. I’m exhausted.” As she said the words, she realized how great that exhaustion was. The fury that had saved her from death at the stream and then the exhilaration that carried her across the Campagna with the other wolves had completely drained away.
The Silver Wolf Page 37
