The Wolf King

by Alice Borchardt

  They had always done so. Time out of mind.

  The guardians slept even when shepherds used the ancient tomb as a refuge in bad weather for themselves and for their sheep. Because the shepherds, no fools, made such offerings as they could, and these spirits understood the eternal needs of those who struggle to gain a living from the dusty, hot soil near the sea. Understood them, in fact, far better than their later counterparts and were both more tolerant and kind.

  But Hugo had awakened them, first with his desecration of the ancient bowl and then by shedding the blood of his companions. They would have done but little to avenge his vandalism—could have done but little, they were now so weak and shadowy—but they sensed both the stronger presence in the road and Gimp’s weakening struggle for life. So they invited it in.

  Antonius was up first. He left his wagon in the campground and picked out a tent, one of those used by Maeniel’s people, and cleared it of furniture. Joseph arrived about then. He’d wanted to take a leak, but after he’d poked his nose out of Maeniel’s tent, he realized doing it against a tree as a wolf might entail complications. There were what seemed to him an uncomfortable number of humans wandering around. He became human, dressed, and was able to find a trench nearby. Then he ambled—Joseph never moved any faster than an amble—back to the tent he shared with Gavin.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Antonius, who was drawing lines and circles in the sandy floor of the tent.

  “Ah, good, someone is up. I need rocks, all sizes, small and large; at least four or five buckets of dirt; and some green branches.”

  Joseph, who had no affection for work, looked at Antonius in disbelief. “Why?”

  “Never mind why. Just get them. I’m busy.”

  Joseph considered asking Maeniel if he should obey Antonius, but was smart enough to know his leader would say yes, and if he was wolf would probably follow the yes with a nip on the shoulder. So he shambled out, followed by Antonius’s order “And be quick about it.”

  An hour later, Antonius had built a pretty good model of the mountains on the floor of Joseph’s tent. He used the dirt for the lower hills, the greenery for forest, and the rocks for the higher peaks. True, it was schematic, not to scale, and ignored a number of features, but it was clear enough to Maeniel, who had lived in the Alpine vastness for a greater number of years than Antonius cared to think about.

  Not long after he and Regeane had joined the others in the mountain fastness, Antonius had plied Gavin with wine one evening and gotten him into a state of deep drunkenness. Gavin babbled about a number of things: Caesar—the first Caesar, the one who gave his name to all the rest; Britain; a powerful sorceress; Romans—imperial Romans who, according to Gavin, Maeniel had known well; and all manner of oddities. Antonius didn’t believe even the half of what Gavin told him, but if any—even a tenth—of it was true, Maeniel was a far stranger and more powerful man than he’d ever imagined.

  In any case, he submitted his model to Maeniel for approval.

  He received it. Maeniel made some changes, not very big ones, and pronounced it true.

  About this time, Arbeo arrived to inform them that the king was breakfasting with his nobles and would arrive shortly. Regeane retired to her room, leaving the rest of the women to greet the king.

  She lay on the bed and closed her eyes.

  Barbara and Matrona entered. “What’s wrong?” Barbara asked.

  “I have a headache,” Regeane answered.

  Barbara placed her hands on her hips. “You never have headaches.”

  Matrona looked at Regeane speculatively.

  “I have one now,” Regeane said shortly.

  Barbara looked at Matrona. She felt at a loss, but Matrona simply studied Regeane, looking at her with opaque, dark eyes. “I think I have something for this headache,” she said, left, and returned with her Etruscan mirror. She handed it to Regeane.

  “Oh, it’s that sort of headache,” Barbara said.

  “Yes,” Matrona answered.

  “I don’t want to look,” Regeane insisted.

  “No?” Matrona asked. “Why not?”

  “I am afraid of what I will see. In Rome I looked before the trial and saw myself burning.”

  “I know,” Matrona said, “and you couldn’t know that a second later they would extinguish the fire. But you went forward courageously, and you will do the same now.”

  Barbara walked over to one of the camp chairs and sat. These people were prescient, Barbara knew that much. She did not consider them fortunate. Foreknowledge was a disturbing gift, far more apt to be painful than not.

  For a second, Regeane held the mirror in her hand, pressed flat against her supine body.

  Matrona walked over to the brazier in the corner intended to warm the room on cold winter nights. The coals were almost burned out. Only a small cluster in the center covered with white ash still glowed, the rest were black and dead. Matrona threw something on the coals.

  Regeane found herself sitting in a forest populated with numberless high, tall trees. The trunks rose like the pillars of a great church, limbless until they reached a great height. There they harvested the sunlight, leaving the ground below in deep shadow, thick with the discards of a thousand winters that formed a soft, springy carpet. The forest floor was dappled by sunlight only when the wind moved the giant treetops in a slough of whispers, eternal sound wedded somehow to eternal silence.

  In the bed, Regeane felt a flash of panic. She was here, and yet not here, as she had been in the tent when she faced the dark one. She could see Matrona and Barbara, the room and its furniture, but somehow the incredibly ancient forest seemed more real to her than the shadows of people and things surrounding her, so she sat up and looked into the mirror.

  Wind moved through the forest, a dazzle of sunlight came and went. Then it vanished, fading the way mist does before sunlight.

  “Well?” Matrona asked.

  “That was an anticlimax,” Regeane said.

  “What did you see?”

  Regeane’s lips curled in disgust. “Hugo!”

  Matrona chuckled. “Is that all?”

  “Well,” Regeane said, “he looked frightened.”

  Hugo was frightened.

  Gimp had caught up to him.

  Hugo bought bread and cheese from a farmhouse not far away. He’d seen no men, but the place was fortified and the women suspicious. But when he’d offered silver, they chained their dogs and sold him an onion bread mixed with black olives, and soft, white cheese in a pottery jar. It had the sharp tang of goat cheese. It was heavy, salted, and had a thick, pale crust on it, but the inner part beyond the rind was rich with cream and had a good taste.

  The level countryside here was deserted and the Roman road dwindled to a dust trace, at times only indicated by the cypresses the Roman engineers planted along its borders. Here and there he saw the tumbled stones of a farmhouse long ago abandoned, weeds growing tall in the courtyard.

  Once he saw what had been a big villa and he almost turned to seek hospitality for the night, but he’d gone only a few steps when he realized the still-closed shutters on the windows were fire blackened, the fields and pastures around it were thick with weeds. The empty building, which must have harbored human beings until not too long ago, gave him a particular sense of disquiet. He felt as if eyes watched him through crevices in the charred shutters, and something wandered through the empty roofless rooms behind them.

  He hurried on. These plains, which were subject to raids from the sea and quarrels between the Lombard states and the pope, had been depopulated centuries ago. Only a few strongpoints stood. Now these were falling, as internal and external disorders spread.

  He began to be fearful he could not find a safe place to spend the night when he saw the remains of a village just ahead. Like almost every structure now, it was located on the highest point for miles around.

  Just then the old Roman road vanished, gone, washed away by winter floods that had formed a
shallow ravine reaching down to the sea. At the edge of the road, Hugo saw that if he turned and followed the dry ravine, it would lead him to the town in the distance.

  When he reached it, he realized that, far from being a town, it had been a small city, but most of it was gone, broken up and washed away by the torrents that created the ravine. Whether its abandonment had been caused by the destruction wrought by the flood, or it had been abandoned long ago and then destroyed, was impossible to ascertain.

  So Hugo climbed the slope of the ravine and found himself in the forum. The ruins of a temple loomed over him on one side, and a colonnade on the other that must have held shops now stood looking out on the empty ravine and the beach beyond. The cobbles flooring the ancient town were almost buried by windblown beach sand. There were plenty of tracks in the sand. Birds, mice, rabbits, and, here and there, wild cat prints could be seen, but no human footprints.

  Hugo shivered. This was the most desolate place he’d ever been in. He climbed the steep steps up to the temple that had been set on a high platform overlooking the sea. He found the temple platform cold; the wind from the ocean, earlier a refreshing breeze, now had a bite to it, and the sun was not far above the horizon’s rim.

  From his perch, he could see the surrounding countryside. There was no sight of any human dwelling anywhere. Night was coming on and Hugo didn’t want to be caught in the open.

  He found shelter in a pit near the temple. It must once have been a shop that looked into the forum, but the floor had rotted or burned when the town was abandoned and it left only this shallow cellar. There were plenty of deadfalls in the ravine leading to the sea, enough to build a fire, and the walls of the cellar were high enough to shield it from any prying eyes.

  By nightfall he had a good blaze, not too high—he didn’t want it to be seen by others adrift in the war-ruined countryside—but sufficient to keep him warm. He had a little wine left. He drank that and ate the bread, but hugely enjoyed the cheese until a voice asked, “I wish you’d save a little of that for me.”

  Hugo looked up and saw Gimp sitting across from him. The hole in his throat was still open but no longer bleeding.

  Hugo began to scream.

  One of the papal guard, a captain, awakened Lucilla the next morning. He looked pleased with himself.

  “I think we found one of the men you’re looking for, my lady.”

  He was carrying a sack. He set it down, picked up the end, and Wedo’s head rolled out.

  “You killed him?” Lucilla said accusingly.

  “No,” the captain said. “We know better than that. He was dead when we found him. Somebody slit his throat. His head kept trying to fall off, so we sawed it off the rest of him and left the carcass for the crows and wild dogs. Seemed a lot simpler that way.”

  Lucilla nodded. “I was hoping to get one or more of them alive.”

  “Wish we could accommodate you, my lady, but this is all we have. Some shepherds found it on the via Aurelia. They were in an old cave or tomb. It’s still cold out. They sheltered there for the night. Found him. Lot of blood on the floor, though. Might have been some wounds. Little falling out among thieves?”

  Lucilla nodded. “On the road to Lombardy.”

  Silvie was fetched. She hung back until the soldiers told her the man was dead. Looking at corpses didn’t bother her.

  “It’s not Hugo,” she said.

  “I know that,” Lucilla said between her teeth. “But is it one of them?”

  “He looks different.” She rolled the head faceup with one foot. “Yes,” she said. “That’s the one Hugo called Wedo. He stole my money.”

  “Yes,” Lucilla said.

  “Did they get it back?” Silvie asked disconsolately.

  “Of course not,” Lucilla answered. “But don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you. Not that I give a rat’s ass one way or the other, but Regeane would want me to.”

  “I’ll need it,” Silvie said. “I’m pregnant.”

  V

  Regeane elected not to present herself at what could only have been a council of war.

  Charles arrived. He was accompanied by his horsemen companions, the scarae. Today Arbeo was among them, bursting with pride.

  The king met Maeniel, would not let him bow or kneel, and clasped his hand. Charles said to Arbeo, “He spoke well of you; that’s why you’re here today.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Arbeo stammered.

  “How is Otho?” the king asked.

  “Doing better. A lady of my household, Matrona, is caring for him. She is a skilled physician. Otho could not be in better hands.”

  When it came to sickroom visits, Charles left his escorts outside. Matrona was relaxing in the same camp chair she’d been in the day before. Though she wouldn’t have admitted it, she’d dressed for the king in an impossibly beautiful dalmatic patterned like two bird wings overlapping, with full sleeves, and under it a severe long-sleeved shift of white silk. Her jewelry, a choker with a hundred golden chains dangling from it. When Charles entered, she rose and went to one knee, bowing her head.

  The silk clung to every voluptuous curve of her body. Charles was impressed and indicated for her to rise, which she did with an almost inhuman grace.

  Otho, lying in bed, was smiling a wicked smile.

  “I must thank you for giving my friend such excellent care that he is now recovering from his injuries.”

  “I find it pleasurable to exercise my skills for such a good cause. I will, with your permission, now withdraw and allow you to speak privately with your servant.”

  He nodded, getting a good eyeful as the patterned silk drifted against her body as she glided away.

  She entered the next room where Regeane and the Saxon were standing. The soft murmur of voices drifted through the canvas wall.

  The Saxon said nothing because, though he could hear only a muttering sound, Regeane and Matrona were obviously listening. Once or twice their eyes met. Matrona nodded and then so did Regeane. After a time, even the Saxon could hear Otho weep and the king comfort him.

  “Genuine tears,” Matrona whispered. “He loves the king.”

  Regeane’s eyes filled. “Matrona,” Regeane asked, “what was that thing?” She placed her hand on the Saxon’s shoulder. “We fought it at the monastery, but before, I met it near Rome at a tomb. I fought it then. It tried to take me or Silvie. I think it wanted me most, but I think it would have taken Silvie if it could have gotten her. But she ran. I told her to run. Then I fought it. In the end, after nearly paralyzing me with horror, it fled. That was why Silvie believed me a witch and testified at my trial. She told the truth, but no one thanked her for it, least of all Gundabald and Hugo.”

  “Silvie told the truth as she saw it,” Matrona said. “Remember that. Silvie’s mind is limited, at best, and she was never able to comprehend what she encountered in either it or—” She paused and raised a finger. “—you.”

  “Yes.” Regeane nodded thoughtfully.

  Maeniel entered just then. “My lady.” He extended a hand to Regeane. “Come be presented to your kinsman, the king.”

  Regeane was dressed for the occasion also, but not as Matrona was. Magnificently, but with a Byzantine stiffness that concealed as much as it beautified. Shift, fine Egyptian linen; long-sleeved overgown of silk shot with gold thread; and over that a dalmatic of stiff gold brocade. The ensemble was finished with a white lace veil that covered a stiff gold wimple, starched and held in place, covering her hair, by long gold pins.

  Maeniel led her forth proudly.

  The Saxon turned to Matrona. “She might as well be a nun.”

  He’d seen some in Lombardy. They wore long blue or black dresses with white headcloths. Someone told him they were the Christian God’s women, but if they were, the god never seemed interested in them, since they had no children. Another Christian among the slaves said that was as it should be. He’d answered somewhat nastily, asking of what use is a woman if you do not get her with child? But
the other slave was apparently not that convinced a Christian, since he had answered, “Don’t know. It puzzles me, too.”

  It hadn’t been a long conversation. They were both exhausted, having been condemned to pull a plow that spring. The Saxon had broken the jaw of one of the drivers. He didn’t know what his companion had done, and he never found out because after three days of brutal labor in the hot sun, his companion died.

  His owner had considered it a loss and so the Saxon was returned to the work gang. Only this time they never took off the chains.

  “That’s the idea. She chose to avoid trouble,” Matrona replied. “The man has an eye for the ladies. A whole procession of women has passed through his bed. Regeane doesn’t want to be among them. It’s a complication we don’t need.”

  “Her husband needn’t know.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Matrona replied. “He knows everything. He’d know exactly what happened the moment he drew near her. How long, how often, who the man was, and whether it was voluntary or involuntary on her part. Don’t ever think to hide anything from him. Desire, even thwarted desire, is as plain as Charlemagne’s dragon standard to any of us.”

  “Then he knows that I am in love with her,” the Saxon said.

  “Yes,” Matrona answered, “and so do I. But so long as she doesn’t respond to you, he won’t care. As far as the king is concerned, we plan a diversion. Otho told the king I was accessible.”

  The Saxon’s eyebrows rose.

  “I would like that,” Matrona said, with an evil smile, “and so would the king.”

  “Where did you get—” The Saxon pointed to the necklace.

  “From a man called Priam at a place called Troy.”

  The Saxon shook his head. “Never heard of the city or the man,” he said.