Regeane paused and looked at this one, thereby earning a disgusted look from Maeniel. Beyond, a peristyle garden looked up into the sky along with a blue pool filled with fish. The real trees and flowers of the garden long extinguished by flooding, their counterfeits shimmered on the drowned paving. Beyond, the rows of a kitchen garden—eggplant, onions, celery, parsley, cabbage, sage, and thyme—spoke of a joyous prosperity lost long ago to the river; fish picked at the tesserae that formed the images.
A few rooms on the second floor, mostly roofless with crumbling walls freestanding to only a few feet, offered the only shelter they had yet encountered. They dove in from the canal bank and swam to where the walls projected only a few feet above the water. Someone else must have taken shelter here long ago, because a substantial mound of dry straw covered the floor.
Regeane became human and a second later Maeniel stood beside her. “I see you met the bear,” Regeane said. “What did he want with you?”
“The same as I think he wanted from you. Control.”
“No,” Regeane said.
“He has some dream of restoring the world to what it was before man, cities, farms, empires, and kingdoms fought among themselves and laid waste the land. To a world where there were only animals.”
Regeane frowned. “Really?”
“Yes. He believes that with our powers combined, he might wipe out humanity. I believe him to be—if not deluded—at least, shall we say, overly ambitious. As far as I’m concerned? Ah, if it were only possible. But I’ve had a rather lengthy association with mankind, and I have found them a lot tougher than he believes.”
“That would be a dreadful thing, to destroy one of the great kingdoms.”
“Great kingdoms?” he asked.
“That’s what Matrona calls them,” she answered. “Birds, the kingdom of the air; fishes, the kingdom of the waters and the sea. Plants, the kingdom of silence.”
He was standing behind her; the late afternoon sun shining down had warmed her, and he had his arms around her and was nuzzling her neck. “Will you stop?” she asked, half laughingly.
“It’s all right. We’re married. Everyone, even the church, approves.”
“I doubt very much if the church would approve of anything about us.”
“Still,” he said. “The bishop shows the inability of even the most nonsensical institutions to silence the good-hearted. You just like him because he took my part about the ransom. But my love, the worst moment in my captivity came when you pushed back your veil and revealed who you were.
“Desiderius tried to drown me, Hugo tricked me into revealing myself before the high altar of the cathedral, and the bear threatened me with death if I didn’t yield myself to him. But none of those ugly experiences frightened me the way the realization of your vulnerability did. I love you. If you met with some mischance, I do believe it would kill me. Yes, it’s true. I underestimated your abilities, but you must remember the feelings of one who loves you to distraction when you take risks.”
“Gundabald wanted to lock me in a cage with a collar and chain,” Regeane shot back. “Is that what your love is, a collar and a chain?”
She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes, giving him the direct stare that he himself used so often on the others. The wolf stare, the evaluation of a creature that doesn’t know how to lie. He found he had to look away, remembering that the mother of the pack is a leader in her own right, and not simply the leader’s consort. Then Regeane was wolf. She leaped from their nest. Nearby, the tops of some columns that had once supported the peristyle porch protruded from the waters, little islands. She chose one and dropped into the stillness of a hunting wolf. Fish, he thought.
From her perch, she silently scanned the waters. The moment, when it came, was lightning fast. The fish flapped little, if at all. She’d snapped its spine with her fangs. She rested the body at her feet on the column’s crest, and her look invited him to join her.
He did.
Later they returned to the nest and made love, man and wife. He told her of the experiences of his captivity; she narrated her journey.
“I met wolves, real wolves,” she said. “But from what Matrona says, they shouldn’t have attacked. I was mystified and angry. I thought there were rules.”
He nodded. “There are, but likely the mother of the pack caught sight of you and sensed a strangeness. She feared you might become a rival. Like all rules, none are hard and fast, and some will break them if it suits their convenience.”
Regeane digested this and said, “Somehow I can’t see myself as the mother of a lowland pack, whelping cubs every year.”
“You could be, if you wanted to,” he said.
They were lying twined together comfortably. He saw her eyes widen in the reddish glow of the sunset light. “Really?”
“Yes, both lives are open to you, should you choose to exercise your gift in that manner.”
“I simply can’t imagine myself . . . The idea is frightening—yet somehow almost attractive. But I feel the same way about living as a wolf and only a wolf as I did when my mother described sex to me: I was sure I wouldn’t want . . . that! But look at me now, and by the way, why don’t I get pregnant? What is it now, almost eight months and . . . At first I didn’t confide in you—”
“I know,” he said. “But you were worried about it. Matrona told me.”
“Oh . . . ,” Regeane replied. “She simply said we rarely have offspring from love undertaken between ourselves. Most are the product of mixed marriages like I am, but you are a . . . wolf.”
“Yes, and only a wolf.”
She nodded. “So what sort of child might you father?”
“I don’t know. As far as I can tell, I have never had one, and I have known—carnally—many human women.”
She shook her head. Her hair was still wet and showered his face with droplets. “Oh, hell,” she said, “so much damned water . . . and it’s getting cold.”
“Change,” he said, “and let’s sleep.”
“You just don’t like the way the conversation is going.”
“I won’t deny I don’t care for it. It explores areas I’d rather not talk about. At least not now.” He embraced her more tightly, pulling her against his warm body.
She gave a little purring sound, not wolflike at all.
“Ah, that’s my beauty. That’s my honeyed love, sweet as fruit plucked ripe from the tree, or berries in autumn. Stop worrying about what cannot be changed and go to sleep.”
Regeane drifted off, but opened her eyes one more time. “Does no one come here?” she asked.
“No one,” he reassured her. “I would know if they did.”
Then she drifted down peacefully into dark water, the pool of silence.
She changed as the last rays of sunlight became a fan of brightness on the western horizon. Then he, too, sought his patient brother, the wolf, and slept.
Lucilla knew as soon as she saw Stella’s face. Her hand was at her throat and there was horror in her eyes. “I hate being right,” Lucilla whispered to herself. He is here, she thought, and now Stella is frightened of what she has done.
Lucilla tried to remember what she’d heard about Desiderius’s son. Hard, inconsistent, aggressive, and cowardly at the same time. But above all a fool, an egotistical fool, one stricken with the worst disease of power, the belief that his birth alone entitled him to greater privileges than any other man. There he stood.
She bowed gracefully. “My lord.”
He smirked at her. “Ah, at last we meet. You are, I believe, the famous—or is it infamous?—Lucilla.”
Lucilla would have liked to slap the smirk off his face, but she summoned an exquisite smile and replied, “Whichever you like, my lord. I believe both words indicate a career of some distinction.”
The smirk grew broader. “We will have to explore your, I understand, quite amazing talents.”
Lucilla felt a thrill of fear. I’m going to be this man’s hosta
ge, and he isn’t evil. He’s worse than evil, he’s stupid.
“I see you’re dressed for riding,” he observed. “Good. We will need to leave quickly. I have,” he explained to Stella, “only a few men in my entourage, and I think I will not stay until your lord returns.”
Yes, Lucilla thought, because you know he would object to this outrage, the kidnapping of a helpless woman under his protection. Lucilla simpered, “I wouldn’t want to keep your highness. Shall we go?”
He studied her, his eyes opaque, for a moment. Lucilla could feel the perspiration at her armpits and the palms of her hands. Damn, damn, she thought. I caused this idiocy by my own folly.
“It’s too easy,” he said. “You’re planning something or hiding something. What is it?”
Stella whispered, “Why, nothing.”
Damn Stella to hell. She was a lousy liar, but then she always had been.
By day the huge reception hall was dim, the only light coming from heavy glass ports in the Roman concrete barrel vault above, and Lucilla guessed Adalgisus was telling the truth about only ten men accompanying him. But since Ansgar had stripped the town of its defenders, these few were enough, and if they met with any resistance, a massacre might result. They could cut through the unarmed citizenry the way fire roars through dried brush. If Ludolf and Dulcinia had any idea of what was going on, they might both try to stop Adalgisus and be the first to die. That’s why Stella was so frightened.
Lucilla managed a smile of gentle resignation. “My lord, you are too suspicious. What could two women, alone, possibly conceal from a man of your excellent strategic intelligence. You arrived, did you not, at the neighboring monastery of Temi and then waited there for Ansgar to ride out. Whereupon you hurried here. Am I correct?”
Adalgisus smiled complacently. “You are a woman of discernment—great discernment.”
Lucilla continued, “Only this morning Stella confided in me that she had written you upon my arrival some weeks ago. Yes, I was planning to flee, alone if necessary, but you forestalled me. So I must yield the field to you and consider myself your prisoner. Simplicity itself, my lord, and no need for suspicion. I am truly at your mercy.”
Flatter them, flatter the bastards. They lap it up, Lucilla thought. If only I can get him out of here before he turns the situation into a bloody mess.
“Still, I think I would prefer that the lady Stella de Imola shares our journey past the borders of Ansgar’s lands. I will take leave of you at the villa Jovis, and your husband can collect you there. I have no wish to find myself either harassed or pursued.”
“Let me call my maid,” Stella said. “I must dress for the journey.”
“No! We will not be on the road that long.”
One of Adalgisus’s men stepped up next to Stella and took her arm. Stella tried to pull away.
“Come, come, my lady,” Adalgisus said. “Eberhardt is an old friend. He tells me you met during your sojourn in Ravenna some time ago.”
This just gets worse and worse, Lucilla thought. She felt her legs shaking under her divided riding skirt. “Very well. Let us go now,” Lucilla said.
Stella looked as frightened as a mouse in the talons of a hawk. Just at that moment, Stella’s maid Avernia hurried down the stair. Adalgisus was hustling Lucilla toward the door, Eberhardt doing the same to Stella.
“My lady, my lady Stella—”
Both men paused, and Avernia caught up with them. Lucilla saw Eberhardt glance up the stair, trying to see if Avernia was alone.
“Avernia, go away,” Stella hissed. “Don’t make a fuss. Hear me? Don’t make a fuss or I’ll take a stick to you.”
“No,” Avernia shouted. “What are you doing?” She was growing progressively louder and louder.
Eberhardt threw Adalgisus a look of angry despair. He pulled Stella toward the door. Avernia snatched Stella’s other arm and forced him to halt.
“No! No!” she shouted. “No! To arms! To arms! My lady is—”
Lucilla felt Adalgisus release her. His sword flashed in the half-light, the way a lightning bolt gleams against an angry sky. He drove it through Avernia’s chest from left to right. Avernia’s next cry ended in a horrible gurgle. She staggered back, the expression of surprise on her face almost comical had it not been for the most ugly and uncomical wound. She sat down on the floor, tried to breathe, and a fine mist of blood droplets sprayed from her mouth, spattering Stella’s skirts. Then she clutched at Stella’s outstretched hand.
Eberhardt pulled Stella away. Stella was a small woman and helpless in the large, powerful man’s grip.
“No,” Stella whispered as she was propelled through the doors and out into the square.
Lucilla saw Avernia fall back, her body writhing as the she tried to breathe with her lungs filling with blood. She watched as blood foamed at Avernia’s lips and poured at last from her mouth.
Adalgisus wiped his sword on Lucilla’s skirts and shoved it back into its scabbard. “Move,” he said, pointing to the door. “Now.”
Lucilla did.
Dulcinia hurried down the corridor toward Ludolf’s room. On her way, she made a decision, an important one. Drug him? Is Lucilla mad? No, she was going to tell her lover the truth. The problem was, she didn’t find him in his bedroom. Dismayed, she began to search and found him a few doors down, in the library.
Ansgar, though uneducated himself, was a supporter of culture and had forty books, a very large number for the time. Ludolf was trying to find a copy of Ovid’s Art of Love for Dulcinia, who had never read it in its entirety. He was sure there was one, but the problem was the books were mixed in with state correspondence and Stella’s household accounts. When Dulcinia entered, he looked up from the stack of scrolls he was sorting and saw at once that she was frightened.
“Something is wrong, but I don’t know what. Lucilla dressed for travel, and she told me to keep you in your room.”
Ludolf’s face hardened. “Is she planning to run away?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think so. Lucilla’s not a fool, and the countryside’s not safe for a woman traveling alone. It’s simply impossible, not even to be thought of. Besides, I know Lucilla. If she wanted to flee, she’d go on foot. She can pass for a peasant woman; I’ve seen her do it. No, no, she looked frightened, not for herself but for me and . . . yes . . . you.”
Ludolf dropped the scroll in his hand. “Quick, help me arm myself.”
It took only a moment for Dulcinia to drop his mail shirt over his head. He was putting on his sword belt and hurrying down the corridor—Dulcinia behind, almost running to keep up—when they heard Avernia’s cries.
Ludolf began to run.
But by the time he reached the stair, Stella and Lucilla were riding hard down the road out of the city. When he and Dulcinia reached the foot of the stair, Dulcinia got a good look at Avernia and screamed. She was a lot better at it than poor Avernia had been.
“She’s dead?” Ludolf sounded stunned. “Why? How? What happened? Dulcinia, if you know anything you’re not telling me—”
“No, oh, God, no, I don’t,” she gasped out, shaking her head.
Just then the blacksmith entered. He ran to Avernia but stopped when he could see clearly that his wife was a corpse. Dulcinia’s scream had roused the servants. They were gathering, some making the sign of the cross, all gaping at the body.
“What—?” the blacksmith asked. “No, not you!” He pointed to Ludolf’s sword.
“No,” Dulcinia said. “We were in the upstairs hallway when we heard her scream. We came quickly, as quickly as we—”
“No,” one of Avernia’s sons said. “We were working at the cathedral across the street. We saw a party of armed men ride in, not many, only—” He shrugged and looked at his brothers. “—maybe eight, ten? I don’t know, not a lot. We spoke of it among ourselves, then decided to call later because they were armed and we didn’t know them. At least we didn’t know all of them. We did recognize one.”
�
��Who?” Ludolf asked.
“He looked, well . . .” The young man seemed uncertain.
“Tell it,” the blacksmith said.
“He looked like Adalgisus, the king’s son, but we couldn’t believe he would be here . . . and with such a small escort. So we doubted our senses, but we did think we should tell our father, so we did.
“Don’t leave her lying there like that.” He pointed to Avernia.
“No, no,” Dulcinia whispered, and pulled off her own mantle.
Avernia was lying on her back, head turned as if looking at the stair, her cheek in a pool of blood. Dulcinia closed her eyes, wiped the blood away from her mouth, and pillowed Avernia’s head on her own folded mantle.
“Where is Lucilla?” she asked fearfully.
There were at least a dozen people crowded around the body, with more and more pushing in from the square every moment.
“Yes,” Ludolf echoed. “Where is Lucilla, and where in God’s name is my mother?”
It took a while to get things sorted out. Avernia’s sons remembered bringing a letter from Stella to Florence but knew nothing else about the matter. Their mother had been closed-mouthed about the contents.
“She must have written him the day Lucilla arrived,” Ludolf said. “He waited until Father left, then came. But in heaven’s name, why did he take Mother? With all due respect to your friend, she is openly the pope’s supporter and serves his interests. But Mother—what could Mother have possibly done that would earn his displeasure?”
“Lucilla knew he was coming, and she knew that if challenged you might not yield her up peaceably,” Dulcinia said. “She, and probably your mother, wanted to protect us. What would your father have done if he’d been here?”
Ludolf snorted. “I don’t think he would have allowed even the son of his liege lord to make light of his hospitality.”
The Wolf King Page 30
