“Loose morals are plenty of sex,” Silvia said self-righteously. In the water, Silvia floated like a small whale.
“We can have all the sex we want,” Joseph shouted indignantly at Silvia. “We’re human, aren’t we? They do it all the time, don’t they?” He appealed to Maeniel. “You tell her!”
Gavin was sidling toward Matrona again.
Maeniel took a deep breath. He was becoming angry. “I had not wished to change,” he said loudly, “because of my wedding finery. But if you irritate me, I will. Then we will see if you are so disrespectful.”
Complete silence fell.
“Very well,” Maeniel said. “Rules to follow: don’t pick your noses or scratch your balls at the dinner table. Both habits are disgusting.”
“Next you will be telling us not to get drunk,” Joseph protested.
“I know better than that,” Maeniel said. “However, no pissing under the table or in the corners of the room. The nights are warm here, go outside. Do the same if you wish to vomit.
“Should you ask someone, and she says ‘yes,’ take her to a bedroom. We have a sufficiency of those here. No rolling on the floor under the tables.”
“What if she says ‘yes’ to more than one,” Matrona purred.
“Then each will wait his turn; no fighting over who goes first,” Maeniel replied sternly. “And,” he continued, “last, but not least, no howling. And absolutely no skin-turning under any circumstances. I believe that covers most of the things that might happen tonight. About the rest, use your common sense.”
MAENIEL WAS RIGHT. THE BIG DINING ROOM WAS much more attractive by lamplight than by daylight. The yellow flames cast a glamour of elegance over the cloth-covered tables, the fraying curtains, and the flaking paintings.
Count Otho arrived first. He was a portly man, solid and rocklike. He had thin, almost invisible lips, and a hooked upper lip and nose. His eyes were hooded and hard. He looked as though he could pronounce a death sentence not only on a man, but throw in his wife and children in the bargain, and never turn a hair.
Maeniel bowed deeply. Count Otho’s eyes swept the room with a glance, then fixed on the thing of most value in it—the heavy, scrolled silver dishes on the tables.
Maeniel’s people reclined on couches at the tables. They were scrubbed, slicked, sober, and on their best behavior.
Count Otho ignored the people, his eyes and mind on the silver. “Yours?” he asked, “or rented for the occasion?”
“The villa?” Maeniel asked innocently.
Count Otho met his eyes. “Please,” he said, “don’t pretend you’re a fool.”
“It’s mine,” Maeniel said. “I’m a wealthy man. My compliments to his majesty, Charles, king of the Franks. I am his most obedient, humble, and loyal servant.”
Count Otho cleared his throat. “Hmmmm.”
Maeniel plucked a heavy silver goblet from the table. The silver was so pure, it dented at the touch of a fingernail. He handed it to Otho.
Otho bit the rim lightly, weighed it in his hand. He gave it a glance of approval. “You’re a generous man.”
“And, if you present my compliments to the king,” Maeniel said, “you’ll find me even more generous in the future.”
Otho tossed the cup into the air, feeling its weight. “I take it loyalty is the quality you want me to stress.”
“Definitely,” Maeniel said deprecatingly. “I have no army and I don’t want to find a Frankish one knocking at my gate.”
“A man after my own heart,” Otho said. “I will be sure to mention you favorably to the king.”
A stirring of servants at the gate interrupted them.
Regeane emerged from her litter. Surrounded by her personal guard, she began walking along the wide flagged path toward the triclinium.
The girl, Maeniel thought, however calculating she is, cannot possibly know the picture she makes.
She was beautiful. The night breeze molded her long silken gown to her virginal body. She walked not with downcast eyes, as perhaps a maiden should, but with head erect. Her young face, fair as a flower on the smooth column of her neck. Her even features softly framed by a fragile lace veil. Her midnight hair crowned with flowers. Youth, perfectly poised on the verge of womanhood. She glided toward him, her face enigmatic in the torchlight. When she reached the door to the triclinium, she extended her hand to him.
Maeniel carried its perfumed softness to his lips and kissed the fingers. “Greetings, my lady. Will you share my couch?”
Something in her eyes changed, showing she caught the double meaning in his words.
The wolf in Maeniel bristled. His hackles came up. She’s dangerous, he told the man as plainly as if he had spoken. Then the wolf was gone, and Maeniel, the human, was telling himself not to be a fool. How could this fragile, flowerlike girl be a danger to him?
Regeane allowed herself to be taken by the arm and led to a place of honor on a high couch. She reclined next to Maeniel.
Their reclining was a signal for the rest to take their places.
Regeane and Maeniel’s couch rested on a dais facing the open folding door and the torchlit garden of the villa. The rest of the guests occupied two large semi-circular couches, one on either side.
As at the Lateran, a small band of musicians trooped quietly into the center between the two tables and began to play quietly. Count Otho was examining his place setting with interest. Like the wine cup, the dishes in front of him were also heavy silver. Maeniel decided Count Otho was probably going to be a very expensive guest.
A wrinkle appeared between Maeniel’s brows. In front of him, on the table gleamed silver cups and plates for each guest, interspersed with platters of late autumn fruit, pitchers of chilled white wine, and unchilled red wine. But no food was forthcoming.
Everyone looked at Maeniel and Regeane expectantly.
“How did you do it?” Regeane asked Maeniel.
“Caterers,” Maeniel whispered. “I hope the waiters aren’t drunk in the kitchen.”
“Clap your hands,” Matrona whispered sotto voce from the table next to Maeniel. Maeniel clapped his hands.
Waiters came marching out the anterooms of the triclinium carrying the gustato. Other waiters appeared to serve the wine.
Regeane looked at the appetizers. They resembled nothing she’d ever seen before, but she decided if she could eat mice, these were not so great a challenge. She found them bland with a hint of liver sausage in their ancestry.
The feast was dull. Maeniel’s people on the right looked scrubbed, sober, and cowed. Lucilla, Antonius, and all the Roman party on the left looked rigid, sober, and disapproving. Only Otho looked relaxed. He appeared to be totaling up the value of Maeniel’s table silver. Maeniel thought he looked like a man who feels he’s on to a good thing.
Maeniel sighed.
Regeane reclined stiffly next to him. She might, as far as propriety was concerned, have been across the room.
The appetizers were cleared away. Otho appeared satisfied in his estimate of the silver’s value. He then began examining Regeane, totaling up her worth.
Lucilla and Antonius reclined beside Otho.
“She’s beautiful,” Otho observed darkly.
A servant began serving an expensive, but almost nauseatingly sweet white wine.
Antonius smiled. “I had noticed she’s easy to look at.”
“I don’t much care for beautiful women,” Otho grumbled. “They’re usually profoundly stupid, self-centered, and unspeakably vain. Someone with those character flaws is a walking recipe for trouble.”
“I don’t believe stupidity, vanity, or selfishness are Regeane’s problems,” Antonius mused. “None of those characteristics are highly developed in her nature.”
“Then what’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing,” Lucilla said indignantly and perhaps a trifle guiltily.
“Nonsense,” Otho snapped. “Something is definitely wrong with her. An attractive girl, descended fr
om the royal house, should have been married years ago.”
“I believe,” Antonius said smoothly, “her family was very poor, and her mother was a devout woman who was unwilling to give up her daughter’s company.”
“Balls!” Otho whispered. “Her beauty will attract lovers the way a flame calls out to moths. This foolish Maeniel is in for a bad time.”
“She will fob them off with sweet smiles and polite refusals. Besides, this Maeniel, as you say, looks as though he can keep order in his own house,” Antonius replied softly.
“Wealthy as he is,” Otho growled, “she will ruin him. Spending his substance on clothes and jewels.”
“Nonsense,” Lucilla snapped. “The dear girl never shows the slightest disposition to be greedy, rather the reverse. She is plain in her tastes and very temperate in her habits.”
“Hmmm,” Otho said. “Virtuous, discreet, temperate. What’s the matter? Is she sterile?”
Lucilla reared up on the banquet couch and stared at Otho indignantly. “What! She is a fair virgin bride and well you know. Such are usually fecund as a well-watered vale in May. It’s a known fact—”
Antonius kicked Lucilla in the ankle. “Shut up, Mother. You are allowing yourself to be drawn in the most outrageous fashion.”
Otho began laughing.
Lucilla closed her mouth with an audible snap.
“Either something is wrong,” Otho muttered, “or she is wasted on this Maeniel.”
“Nothing is wrong,” Antonius said blandly.
Otho chuckled. “Is she stupid?”
Lucilla sipped her wine, her cheeks burning.
Antonius snorted. “Which do you consider most dangerous—stupidity or intelligence?”
Otho sipped some of the thick, sweet wine. “My, this is disgusting.”
“It has a certain snob appeal,” Lucilla said.
“Definitely,” Otho said. “It would be a big hit at the Frankish court. I wonder if Maeniel’s generosity would extend to a couple of amphorae to take home with me to the king?”
“Absolutely,” Antonius said. “If his doesn’t, the fair Lady Regeane’s will.”
“You’re her chamberlain?” Otho asked.
“Yes,” Antonius replied.
“In answer to your question, I believe stupidity is the most dangerous. Stupid people are more apt to refuse to face facts, to barricade themselves behind some obscure point of law or their own silly notions of propriety. Or worse yet, refuse to make a decision until they are facing disaster. Whereas I have found the intelligent can be persuaded to deal with the world as it is on some level of reality.”
“She’s intelligent,” Antonius said.
“Obviously,” Otho said. “She was intelligent enough to pick you as a chamberlain. And you and she obviously know what you get for nothing is …”
“Yes,” Antonius sighed and finished the sentence for him. “Nothing.”
On the high couch, Regeane reclined stiffly next to Maeniel. Her wolf senses were acutely aware of his warm bulk next to her. She felt the healthy heat of his body radiating into the air. She could smell him. Pomade, that would be his hair. Soap and sun-bleached cloth, those would be his wedding garments. A faint tang of wood smoke hung about him. He must have been in the kitchens checking on the food.
They lay parallel to each other, face to face.
“How’s the food?” Regeane asked.
“How did you know?” Maeniel said.
“Charcoal,” she answered.
“Ummm,” Maeniel said. “Revoltingly ostentatious, but the flavor isn’t bad.”
“Nice,” Regeane said.
“I had to restrain the cook,” Maeniel said. “He wanted to pour wine into everything. He used up enough saffron and pepper to dye half of Rome yellow and burn up the stomachs of two-thirds the clergy and people. And you would be able to smell the cinnamon and cloves in Athens if the wind is right. Anything he cooked that had fur, fangs, or feathers on it, he put them back on after he finished cooking it. There’s a really magnificent white peacock back there. I think it’s dead, but I’m not sure. There’s also a wild boar that would be rather frightening if it didn’t have an apple in its mouth, a pheasant made of artichokes, and a large artichoke made of pheasant meat. Nothing looks like what it is or tastes like it’s supposed to. The whole thing cost an arm and a leg, not to mention a foot and hand they had me throw in behind them. I hope your Roman friends will be happy.”
Regeane began giggling helplessly. “Is the cook rented, too, like the villa?”
“Oh, yes,” Maeniel said. “Thank God I don’t have to take him back to the mountains with me. Up there we dine on simpler fare.”
Again, the woodsmoke smell. It seemed part of his skin. She could see him standing beside a small fire at dawn, the rays of light falling through the rising smoky haze. A horse stamped nearby. The air was cool.
In her heart, Regeane knew she was dreaming again. As she had done when Gundabald had her chained by the neck. And as she had done when she handled the cloth and the necklace. The difference was, she didn’t want this dream to end.
He rested one foot on an oaken deadfall. He was wearing a simple green tunic, brown leggings, and boots. He held a leather tankard in his hand. A stirrup cup. He sipped, licked his lips appreciatively, then turned to her. “Will you ride with me, my lady?”
Regeane drifted toward him. “Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered.
Men passed on his other side, only just visible in the smoky haze. They led horses, two magnificent beasts—one a blood bay, the other a steel-gray Barb—along with tall strawberry hounds, straining at their leashes.
His eyes rested on her. They possessed her, devoured her. She belonged to him. He would strike at the devil himself if ever the Lord of Hell tried to take her from him.
She paused when she was standing so close to him she could come no nearer. His breath steamed slightly in the cold air. The heat radiating from his body warmed her. She touched his hand, the one that held the cup. “Beer?” she asked.
“No, wine.”
“Give me a sip.”
He lifted the cup to her lips.
She drank. The taste of such a vintage alone was intoxication, slightly warm, sweet, yet with the tart bite and aroma of green apples. “Ahhh,” she sighed.
His free arm stole around her waist. “We will ride higher into the mountains. I know a place just above the clouds, overlooking the whole world. We will stop there and take our ease.” His head bent lower and he began kissing the droplets of wine, one by one, from her lips. Oh, so very gently.
She sighed again and slowly, her eyes closed. On the edge of sleep, one dreams of falling. Regeane plummeted and was jerked awake by the shock of fear.
Maeniel laughed. “Am I so dull that I’m putting you to sleep?”
She blushed violently. “No.”
His brows lifted. “Oh.”
Regeane shifted her weight uneasily on the cushions. The dress strained against her thigh, for a moment pulling the fabric against her breast and stomach.
Maeniel took a deep breath. His nostrils distended like a nervous stallion’s. He looked away abruptly. When he met her eyes again, something new was in his stare. He reached out and lifted the necklace at her throat.
Again, she saw him as he must have been in first youth, sleeping recklessly on the sun-warmed stone, the fair woman at his side combing her long hair. The vision faded and vanished as his hand dropped marginally lower in what was almost, but not quite, a public caress. Regeane remembered Gundabald’s insults. “I am told,” she stammered, “that I am not well endowed.”
“A blatant lie,” he said. “You are superb in every way. Fresh as the first wildflowers blooming through the winter snow; clean as mountain air blowing through the high passes; fragrant and delicious as new-mown hay on a hot autumn evening.”
His touch still looked casual. It wasn’t. His fingers were hot. They moved gently up, crossing her shoulder, then the skin at the nape o
f her neck. She was particularly sensitive there, she didn’t know why, something from the wolf perhaps. At any rate, she quivered slightly at his touch, her knees loosened. She colored, a flush burning in her cheeks. She felt her lips and—yes—another part begin to swell. Not wanting to be embarrassed by showing passion so openly, she bowed her head.
Antonius watched intently. “He looks as though he’s ready to eat her alive,” he said to his mother.
“Yes,” Lucilla replied, “and she looks only too happy to be the main course at his next feast. I hope to God both of them know what they’re doing.”
“Depend on it, Mother, they don’t,” he sighed.
“Beautiful,” Maeniel said. His hand continued up, stroking her hair. “Simply beautiful.”
Regeane realized her forehead was almost resting on his shoulder. He was closer. Trying to break the spell, she said sharply, “You’re a connoisseur.”
His hand stroked her cheek, reached her chin, and lifted her head. Only a few moments ago, they’d been sitting several feet apart. Now, her face was inches from his. “Beautiful maiden, exquisite maiden,” he whispered, “you have absolutely no idea how good my credentials as a connoisseur are.” Then he gave her a chaste, brotherly kiss on the forehead and moved away.
Regeane breathed a sigh of relief.
“Am I so importunate?” Maeniel asked.
“No,” Regeane said softly. “I think my mind is corrupted by a sensual madness I have never felt before. I feel guilty and fear what others might see.”
“Ah,” Maeniel said. He lifted his hand in a wholly artificial gesture of profound grief and pressed the back to his forehead. “What? Is there a stain of shame in your heart?”
“No,” Regeane said. “My heart is fine and so are all my other body parts. It’s gossip among the Roman aristocracy I fear. You wouldn’t believe how fast and far a tale can travel in the mouths of women.” She mimicked, “ ‘Oh, you should have seen them. She couldn’t wait to feel his mouth on hers. And he … he was no better, undressing her with his eyes before the wedding guests … trying to hide his stolen caresses under the guise of politeness … disgusting, my dear … and in a marriage such as theirs where decorum should be the order of the day.’ ”
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