Hugo was going to hit him, but his guest stopped him. “He will stay mute when necessary. Let him be. How is this nonsense going to make me a god?”
“Watch and see,” Hugo said truculently.
His guest growled. “You’re upsetting me.”
Hugo stretched out on the bed. “What do you want?” he muttered.
“An explanation.”
“I have no explanation,” Hugo said. “I’m going to have to improvise.”
Just then there was a knock on the door. A servant entered with a tray. It held a silver wine pitcher and a cup, among other things.
“My lord told me to tell you that supper will be late this evening,” the servant said. “So you don’t go hungry, he felt you might need refreshment.”
Hugo wasn’t interested in the other objects on the tray. A few days of sobriety were enough for him. With some alacrity he rose and grabbed the wine pitcher and poured a large cup, while Gimp helped himself to the fruit, bread, and cheese on the tray. Hugo got only one cup down, the second was slapped out of his hand.
“I don’t trust improvisations when you’re sober; how do you think I feel about them when you’re drunk?” his guest said in a thick, grating voice.
But the wine on an empty stomach had done its work and Hugo fell asleep on the bed.
He was awakened much later by a servant. He’d had a nightmare about Gundabald. All Hugo’s nightmares were about Gundabald. He felt as if he hadn’t slept at all, but considering what he was about to do, he felt he’d better look a little haggard. So his appearance was all to the good. He dressed himself with care, choosing his darkest clothing, and went for pale and interesting.
From the hoard amassed by his guest, he chose presents for the girls and an exquisite chain for their father.
Gimp sat on the floor in the corner and stared at him.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked his guest and Gimp.
“You look like you had the squirts for about a week,” Gimp said.
“How the hell should I know?” his guest said. “One human looks almost like another to me. You’re all skinny and ugly. Get downstairs and put this magnificent plan you’re being so secretive about into action. And stop bothering me. If you must know, you look like someone with a wasting disease. There, does that satisfy you?”
Then Hugo was spun around, the door opened, and he was pushed out into the corridor.
Dinner was stately and the food was good. Hugo thought it was as gloomy a meal as he had ever attended. Madonna Helen and her two daughters were in attendance. They all looked rather like prisoners broken on the rack and then allowed to live out their days in the care of their families.
The girls were both blondes and outdid Hugo in paleness, and this wasn’t helped along by the fact that current fashions in Florence called for liberal applications of white lead to protect the complexion from even the slightest ray of sunshine. Considering the way they hung on Hugo’s every word, both were starved for company.
Three boys, younger than their sisters, tried to enliven the proceedings with a food fight and were marched off to bed early in the company of twelve attendants.
To Hugo, not an imaginative man by any means, they looked like prisoners being escorted to the gallows.
Madonna Helen, their mother—a slender blond woman—was in what was politely known as a decline. The physicians had bled her copiously and prescribed all sorts of expensive nostrums containing poisons like mercury, alum, and opium. This was complicated by the fact that she must eat a special diet consisting only of boiled vegetables. This treatment had brought her several times to the edge of death and had reduced her to such a state of wraithlike emaciation that Hugo had trouble believing he was looking at a living woman.
After the boys left, the conversation lagged until the merchant began asking Hugo about his travels.
“How was Rome?”
“I was there for only a few days,” Hugo replied.
“A few hours is more like it,” Hugo’s guest said to him silently.
Hugo plowed on, “The present pope is a foe of the Lombards and, though I tried to enlist his help with my family problems, he threatened he’d have me driven from the city if I did not leave quickly. I am alone now—but for my poor, mute servant—so I fled.”
“How terrible,” the older of Armine’s daughters said. Her name was Chiara; her sister’s, Phyllis.
“My life has been sad since my father was killed,” Hugo said.
“How horrible for you,” Phyllis said, and sighed.
“Terrible in the deed,” Hugo said, “and terrible in the way it was done; but I fear ’tis not a tale for the ears of gentle ladies.”
“Oh, I’m quite liberal with my daughters,” Armine said.
“I approve,” Hugo said. “For this story is one that should improve the hearts of women, teaching them to respect the greater wisdom of their menfolk, and the folly that can result when their desires of the heart overrule the head. A fine moral lesson.”
“You see,” Armine said to his daughters. “Listen and learn.”
“It began,” Hugo said, “when my aunt Gisela was betrothed to a wild pagan Saxon named Wolfstan. My father—” Hugo raised his eyes to heaven. “—God rest his soul, a saintly man if there ever was one . . . In any case, my father, Gundabald, objected to the match, seeing that this Saxon refused to become a Christian, bow his neck to Christ’s sweet yoke, and be washed in the water of rebirth and eternal life.
“But Gisela would hear none of the warnings given by her brother or any of the objections of the many priests he called to support his position that Christian and pagan flesh should not commingle in the marriage bed. For this Saxon was both handsome and rich, and Gisela was wildly in love with him. The fortunes of our family were in decline then, and Gisela, while not poor, was not nearly as rich as she wished to be, and I think she might possibly have been in love with the fine life he could give her.
“And, indeed, for the first year they seemed to be happy and the match a fortunate one. He allowed her to have her own chaplain and receive the sacraments, but she did say that he would not observe the many occasions during which the church enjoins chastity upon even those joined in wedded bliss.”
Both Armine and his wife seemed a little uncomfortable as Hugo began to recite the list. “All Sundays, all holy days, the entire period of Advent and Lent, and quite a few more.”
“There do seem to be a lot of them,” Armine said, with a side glance at his wife. “Not all churchmen are as strict—”
“But my father felt Gisela should be doing more to advance the cause of Christianity with her husband, rather than allowing herself to be won over to his ways. So he rebuked her strongly, leaving her in tears and angering this Wolfstan greatly.
“A few days later he set out with some of Wolfstan’s Saxons on a hunting party. Somehow they contrived to lead my poor father into the deep woods and abandoned him there. Whereupon he was set on by a gigantic wolf. At this point, he despaired of his life, fell to his knees before the ravening beast, and seized the cross of Christ that he wore always around his neck. To his utter astonishment, the vicious creature recoiled before the sacred object.
“Seizing his opportunity, my father snatched up a crossbow, called down God’s blessing on the bolt, and fired at the wolf. The beast went down, gasping, in its last agony. To my father’s horror, a great wind swept through the forest, and the sky darkened as if it presaged a dreadful storm. This lasted for only a few moments, but . . . but . . .”
They were all openmouthed, hanging on Hugo’s every word.
“But when the wind ceased, the sky cleared, and the birds began to sing again, my father saw—where the wolf had been lying—the body of Wolfstan, his sister’s husband.”
This revelation called for a bracer for the men and honey cakes and sweet wine for the women. Hugo could see he had achieved instant popularity in Armine’s household.
“How dreadful!” Phyllis pressed her hand to her b
reast. “I cannot see how he survived the shock of such an experience.”
“My father was a strong man,” Hugo said. “But alas, that is not all, only the beginning.”
“Really?” Chiara said.
Hugo thought he detected some mockery in her tone, but the rest were staring at him in openmouthed credulity. So he ignored her and pressed on.
“As you so aptly observed, my father’s shock was great. But that did not prevent him from seizing Gisela and returning home with her. Nor did he rest until she was married to a good—Christian—man, named Firminious.
“But he forgot the contumacy and obstinacy of some women. On her return home, shortly after her second marriage, she was found to be pregnant. We urged her to be . . . rid of the child, tainted as it would be by evil, but she refused.”
“She refused to kill her child,” Chiara said.
Armine shot her a reproving look, and her face became expressionless. I am not winning this one over, Hugo thought. But then, it’s the father I want.
“We meant the child no harm,” Hugo said, “but we felt it would be best oblated, that is, sent to an establishment of holy nuns and brought up in, shall we say, seclusion. But Gisela defended her child vigorously and was supported in her stubborn, misplaced affection for Regeane by Firminious.”
“Regeane was the little one’s name?” Chiara asked.
“Yes. But early, very early in life, Regeane began to display affection for the black arts, as her father had. Alas, Firminious died while Gisela was a young woman, and she would no longer yield to the strong male guidance supplied by my father, Gundabald. In vain she brought the child from shrine to shrine, churches devoted to the worship of Christ, his holy mother, and many saints, trying at all costs to quell Regeane’s turbulent spirit and bring submission to her rebellious soul.
“But she failed, and we were in Rome seeking the blessing of the pope himself when Gisela, worn out by so many sorrows and tribulations, went at last to her eternal rest. Not long after she died, we received news that Charles, king of the Franks, had arranged for a marriage for Regeane.
“Naturally, we were horrified.”
“Naturally.” Chiara lifted one eyebrow and echoed Hugo ironically.
Hugo ignored her. “But the pope, the new pope Hadrian, interfered with our attempts to obstruct the marriage. He removed Regeane from our care and saw to it that she was wed like poor Gisela to an outright barbarian and scoundrel. Needless to say, this scoundrel was delighted with her.”
“I take it his affection for Regeane is in very bad taste?” Chiara asked.
Again Hugo ignored her. “We are a great family, though fallen on evil times, and are related to the house of the Arnulfings, the Frankish kings. A lowborn commoner like this Maeniel would have thought her a great prize, even had she been a hunchback half-wit with only one tooth in her head. But the pope was deaf to my father’s warnings.
“So Gundabald and I contacted the Lombard party in Rome. The pope himself was brought to book, and Regeane was tried as a witch.”
Chiara frowned, but everyone else at the table gasped.
“She determined trial by combat, and this Maeniel championed her. It was a long, bitter battle, but—I can hardly credit it, for the Lombard champion was so puissant, bold, fair, and honest a warrior—but he met defeat at the hands of this Maeniel.
“I believe he and Regeane must have compacted in the black arts to destroy God’s champion.”
“Don’t lay it on too thick,” Hugo’s guest warned him, “but keep going, you’re doing fine so far.”
He was and he knew it. All but Chiara were staring at him in openmouthed admiration. “But that is not the worst.”
“No?” Armine gasped.
“No. My father felt this Maeniel was hopefully not too far under Regeane’s spell as to be immune to all good counsel, so he went to try one more time. He found them at their wedding feast. I know; I followed him. I was deeply worried about his safety, and I had good cause. For when he began to remonstrate with this Maeniel, he and Regeane forsook their borrowed human shapes. In the semblance of a wolf, as her father had been, she fell on my saintly father and—joined by her besotted lover, he also in wolf form—they rent him limb from limb.
“It happened so quickly! I could do nothing. When I saw that if I tried to bring them to book for this ghastly crime, my own life would quickly be ended, I fled away, determined to avenge my father and then retire to a monastery to live out the balance of my life in prayer, self-mortification, good works, and holy penitence. But before I go, I must warn the Lombard duke of this Maeniel and Regeane, who now serve the Frankish king and hope to aid him in his war against the rightful ruler of Lombardy, Duke Desiderius.”
“That’s quite a story,” Chiara said.
“Oh, dreadful day that Christ’s anointed lord, his excellency the ruler of the Lombards, should be attacked by black sorcery,” Armine said. “But what can he do against this pair, pray tell me?”
Hugo smiled. His remaining teeth were impressive, a little scummed by green but still good. “Tell him to include wolfhounds among his war dogs, because, depend on it, Maeniel and Regeane will try to bring intelligence about his movements and plans back to Charles, the Frankish king. If the Lombard can destroy them, he will deprive the Franks of one of their most useful weapons.”
Armine frowned. “I was to send letters to the King Desiderius tonight. This tale is so fantastical . . . I can hardly credit it. But all know the strongholds of paganism constantly threaten those who receive Christ, so I will warn him that this vile pair have bent their malice on him—and to include the finest of his wolfhounds among the dogs of war.”
VI
When they were finished with their lovemaking, they swam out to the falls in the center of the lake and rested on the black basalt platform carved by the water over the centuries. The nights in the mountains were cold still—sometimes cold even in high summer—but the afternoon sun was warm on their bodies and the water was, to Regeane’s surprise, almost hot.
“There’s a warm spring hereabouts,” Maeniel explained. “It fills the pool above. Once it was called the Lady’s Mirror.”
“The Lady?” Regeane asked.
“Yes,” Maeniel said. “She is only the Lady. Matrona said they called her that in Greece two thousand years ago.”
Regeane smiled. “Matrona remembers?”
“Yes.” Maeniel did not smile. “Matrona remembers.”
Regeane was resting on her back on the stone, her head in his lap, letting the warm water flow over her. It was, with the air around them still bearing a bit of winter chill, a sensuous delight. She reached up and touched his face.
“We have made love as man and woman often, but we have never loved, not in our other form.”
She looked a bit apprehensive.
He bent over and kissed the tip of her nose. “You weren’t old enough. As a woman, you are full-grown, but a she-wolf avoids desire until she is at the height of her powers. You have not reached yours yet, but know, if you are thinking it is like dogs, it is not.”
“No?”
“No. When the time comes and you are ready, I will guide you. Until then, be content.”
She reached up, wound her fingers in his hair, and pulled his face down to hers for a kiss. The sun was warm, his body was warm. The sunlight was a dazzle on the water and the very air around them was redolent of springtime. When they broke off the kiss, she found she was no longer resting against his body. He was on top of her, and she was in his embrace.
“Again?” she asked in mock annoyance.
“Yes.”
“Well,” she said. “I don’t mind if I do. Or rather, I don’t mind if you do.”
“I will,” he said, “do.”
She gave a little start. “I think you have.”
“I’m only just beginning.”
“If that’s the beginning, what is the end like?”
“Concentrate—and I’ll make sure y
ou find out.”
After that, neither of them was interested in words any longer.
When they were finished, she fell asleep in his arms. He was too much the wolf to sleep. He lay there and held her. The sun sank lower in the sky. All he heard was birdsong and the sweet rushing sound of falling water. Sometimes the wind muttered as it ruffled the treetops and changed the aspens bordering the lake from green to silver with its breath. Far away, a wolf howled. And he wondered if the pack still gathered at the pool above before the hunt; but then the wolf cry turned what had been pleasant languor into discomfort.
She awoke, opening her eyes. He slid into the lake near the falls, and she followed.
“There’s a pack hereabouts, and we’d best be going. To them, all we are is other wolves. They won’t want us in their territory.”
She nodded and turned to swim to shore, but he caught her arm. “Quiet.” He put his finger to his lips. The wolf song was beginning again, and he wanted to listen. “They are talking about a human camped not far away.”
They were resting together in the water, their arms on the basalt platform near the falls. He looked at her.
“Oh,” Regeane said. “The Saxon. I forgot to mention him. He came with me, just in case.”
“What is this?” Maeniel said. “A state procession? Who will pop out of the bushes next? Matrona? Gavin? Antonius? Barbara?”
“Gavin,” she said. “He hasn’t really been seen since we made camp with the king.”
“Naturally,” Maeniel replied. “His opportunities for debauchery are limited in the mountains. When he discovered the ‘refreshment’ wagons accompanying the king, he probably went wild.”
Regeane dove, turned, and began to swim toward shore.
Maeniel followed.
A few hours later, they came upon the Saxon’s camp. He was hunched morosely over a fire. The two wolves emerged from the timber, ghosted down silently toward a tent pitched near the forest. When they entered and found it empty, they changed form and dressed in human clothing, then came out to greet the Saxon.
He’d set snares and they all had a fine dinner of rabbit stew, accompanied by bread, a flat bread he had made by simply heating a rock and throwing the dough on it. It had been a long time since Maeniel had seen anyone make bread that way.
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