To weep was futile. They were pushing their lathered horses to get the last few miles from the weary beasts. The trees beside the rutted trace were only shadows against the stars. Every time her mount so much as slowed, Adalgisus cursed Lucilla and struck her horse with his riding whip. She noticed he didn’t hit her. She’d managed to cripple and possibly kill Eberhardt, and dear Dagobert hadn’t survived long at all when she turned a cold and vengeful gaze on him, so she surmised that Adalgisus might be a bit afraid of her. Besides, the sadness she felt about Stella’s fate struck at a deeper place in her being, a place that was uninterested in tears, seeing them solely as a sign of weakness. No. She promised Stella’s presence that the pig riding ahead of her and his whole family would forever regret what they had done to Stella. Her fragile beauty would not fade into dust unavenged. Stella’s presence made no comment about Lucilla’s resolve, but only seemed to say, Peace be upon you. I have found mine, Lucilla. May God bless you and keep you safe. And then she was gone.
Lucilla rode on through the night. She had left her mantle at the monastery under Stella’s ruined body, but she was warmed by the cold hatred she felt in her heart. She and Adalgisus reached the villa Jovis near daybreak. They found the household up and stirring even at that hour. The superintendent of the villa immediately placed it at Adalgesis’s disposal.
Feeling her age, Lucilla was led to the baths. The water was warm. The bath attendants were two peasant girls who looked capable of bull wrestling. Lucilla didn’t even think about escape. Her clothing was taken away to be laundered, and she was given an embroidered linen shift and a dark woolen overgown. Both garments were ample and the overgown was embroidered with yellow silk in a pattern that made Lucilla squint in surprise. Acanthus? No, artichoke leaves. The two girls then conducted her to a room that faced the inner courtyard of the villa. It was lit by four clerestory windows high in the walls. The windows were barred on the outside, as was the door. But inside, Lucilla found a tray with bread, fresh cheese, wine, raisins, and a bowl of onion soup.
Lucilla felt no appetite, but as soon as she tasted the wine and a bit of bread she found herself absolutely ravenous. She couldn’t bring herself to stop until she’d consumed the last crumb. When she tried to stand, she found herself reeling. She staggered toward the bed and was asleep before her head touched the pillow.
She was awakened by a scream.
Lucilla got to her feet before she was fully awake. She reached the door and opened it without thinking. Why was it not locked?
Adalgisus was standing in the hall, struggling with a girl who had evidently brought his supper tray—it was resting on a table just outside the door to his room.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lucilla thought. Give it a rest. Just then the girl screamed again, then crouched down, her back against the wall, sobbing. The light in the courtyard was blue, and Lucilla surmised she must have slept all day. Adalgisus was standing, examining his hand.
“Cunt,” he screamed. “Your nails are sharp. I’ll have you flogged, you little—” He bit off the word when he saw Lucilla standing there. “She scratched me. All I wanted was a little company.” He winced. “Whore!” he shouted again. “I’ll wager I’m not the first to have my hand up your skirt.”
The girl looked at him, frightened and angry, and answered with a flood of rapid speech in a dialect he obviously couldn’t understand. Lucilla understood her. The girl sounded as if she’d grown up near the mountain town where Lucilla had been born. She was babbling about being sore and bleeding.
“The little twit is so backward she can’t speak proper Latin,” Adalgisus snarled.
“Wait,” Lucilla said calmly. “I can understand her. I’ll ask what’s wrong. What is your name?”
The girl wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. “Lavinia.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He wants me to lie with him, but I can’t . . . I can’t . . . I’m bleeding . . . Two weeks ago my courses didn’t . . . I was late, so I was afraid. I took a potion. My period came down last night with bleeding and cramps. I’m so sore I feel like if he touches me, I’ll die. The cook just sent me to bring him his supper. I’m filthy and dirty. A dozen men had me last week. They use the house slaves here to keep the field hands content. I was in the stable all last week with the other women. I don’t know how many had me . . . when I took the potion . . . I think I was breeding . . . I don’t want to see its skull crushed. That’s what they do here: crush the skull and throw it in the old well.”
“Yes,” Lucilla said. “Now dry your tears and be quiet and go back to the kitchen. I’ll explain to the gentleman.”
The girl didn’t walk away, she crawled, one shoulder against the wall until she was out of reach of both Lucilla and Adalgisus, then got to her feet and ran off.
“What was she yapping about?” Adalgisus asked.
“Her woman’s courses have come down on her. She’s cramping and bleeding.”
It was almost dark. The last sun blush was fading from the sky. Fireflies danced over the garden beds in the courtyard. A wax light was glowing on the table next to Adalgisus’s tray. He was studying Lucilla intently in its light. The shift she was wearing under the woolen gown was semitransparent. Over it, the thick woolen gown was made for a man much larger than Lucilla, and the neck slit at the front extended down to her waist. On either side her breasts rose, pale cups covered only by the thin linen gauze. He was staring fixedly at them.
“They’re uneven,” he said.
“Yes,” Lucilla answered. “Part of one is gone.” She pushed the woolen gown aside and showed him her scarred breast. The nipple had been destroyed.
“That must have hurt.” He licked his lips.
“It did.”
A second later he was bending over, his lips suckling her scarred breast as his teeth nibbled the scar tissue. When he pulled away, his face was flushed, the veins in his neck and temples raised, standing out like ropes.
“What did they use?”
“Red-hot pincers at the nipple.”
He made a moaning sound.
Lucilla reached down and caught his erection, wrapping her hand around the spike.
“Ohhhh. Don’t.” But he didn’t sound distressed about her action. “You keep that up,” he whispered, “I’m going to come.”
“That would be a shame,” she said. “A tool like yours is to be used, savored, and enjoyed, before it is at last, alas, allowed its rest.”
She backed him into his room and barred the door. The shift and woolen gown landed on the floor a second later. Then she eased him to the bed. Why didn’t he do this before Stella was assaulted by that fool Dagobert? Lucilla thought furiously. Why did this stupid piece of pig shit have to play the man among men? But then, why should she expect him to do otherwise? He had nothing in his character that remotely resembled discretion or good judgment. That a fool should play the fool was hardly surprising.
She maneuvered him onto the bed. She got on top. “Let me control things,” she told him.
“All right, but you have to tell me everything they did to you. Everything. I want to hear it while we . . .”
“Fuck?” Lucilla whispered.
“Yes, yes, while we fuck—that beautiful word, fuck.” He laughed.
Lucilla tightened some very strategic muscles. He cried out, his body arched against hers.
“I’ve finished,” he said, sounding almost astonished.
“Oh, no, my dear, you’ve only just begun.”
He cried out again, sounding surprised as she tightened those well-practiced muscles and he felt his body respond.
“Oh, God,” he gasped. “When we reach Verona, I’ll have to find a place to hide you. If she finds out . . . she’ll kill you.”
Somewhere in her mind Lucilla heard a yell of sheer triumph so loud she was surprised Adalgisus couldn’t hear it, too. She knew. She knew. Now, now to get a message to Hadrian. And she set out to give Adalgisus the time of his life.
When she was finished with him, she rose and went back to her room. She left him sleeping like a corpse. She’d unabashedly plied him with food, drink, and enough sex to leave him limp as a cooked noodle. She didn’t think he would awaken before morning, if then, but she barred the door behind her and found three objects she’d managed to conceal on her person in spite of the observant eyes of the bath attendants.
Now, whom to bribe? She was considering this when there was a timid tap on the door. Lucilla swore under her breath but managed a smile, in case it should be Adalgisus. But it was the serving girl, Lavinia. She entered bringing in a tray of cold chicken, soup, bread, and some cheese.
“The hour is late,” Lucilla said, surprised. “Is the cook still up?”
“No, but I was grateful for what you did and asked if I could bring you something when you and . . . the lord were finished. The cook—she’s nice to me—made this, and when I saw you come from his room . . .”
The girl’s face was red and swollen in the lamplight. She looked as if she’d been crying for a long time.
“What’s the matter? Are you in so much pain?” The bath attendants hadn’t been able to get Lucilla’s small supply of medicines away from her. In fact, they had refused to touch them, thinking her a witch. She might be able to dose this poor child with something, a little laudanum perhaps, that would give her at least one night’s sleep in comfort.
A kind voice was too much for the child. She burst into tears again. “I hate it. I just hate it here. Last night I tried to hang myself but . . . I can’t bring myself to lean on the rope. I couldn’t. I couldn’t, but Mira says if I drink enough at the barn . . . Some of the girls make them pay so they have a lot of coppers and buy a big jug of wine. But I can’t drink enough to give me the courage to put the rope around my neck and then lean forward.”
Lucilla put her arms around the child, who broke down completely, crying in a way that seemed to rend her whole being. Lucilla knew what the child was talking about. It brought back her own past more vividly than she cared to imagine. She’d seen girls in the stews at Ravenna kill themselves the way that Lavinia was describing, tie a rope or even a length of cloth to something low, even the back of a chair, loop it around their neck and then lean forward. She’d spoken once to a girl who had done it and been revived. The first minute or so takes courage but after that the pressure cuts off the blood to the head and sleep follows. In a little time, death. And just to prove how easy it was, the girl killed herself a few days later in that particular way. This time she wasn’t found until much, much too late.
“They say you are a witch,” the child gasped. “What I saw you do to the lord, I believe you must be. Give me something. Something so I can just go to sleep and never wake up. I was a good girl when I was at home. A good girl. Now I feel filthy. They are always at me. I made a baby. I know I did, but I killed it because I didn’t want to see them kill it. I can’t stand any more of this place. I would rather die.”
Lucilla walked the girl over and seated her on the bed. “Why don’t you run away?” she asked.
“I did. I did.” The girl began to tremble violently. “They caught me. I went home but there was no one there. The house where we lived . . . was empty. Even the villa nearby was gone. Only the wind, the pines, and the silence remained. I didn’t know what to do. I stayed there sleeping by the cold hearth till they came. Look at my back.”
Lucilla did and flinched. Her back was covered with scar tissue. She looked almost as if she’d been burned.
“It marked me. I won’t run away again. I have nowhere to go.”
“I could give you somewhere to go,” Lucilla said.
Once, when she had moved into her villa in Rome, she’d found a half-starved cat living in her garden. When she’d offered the animal food, it had been afraid to approach the dish but when she moved away, it pounced. The expression on the starving animal’s face was very like the one on the girl’s face, frightening in its utter desperation.
“You can—I’ll do anything.” She fell to her knees. “Anything.”
“Take a message to Rome.” Lucilla had a ring, a ring all her intimates knew. It had a cameo of Hadrian. She handed it to the girl with some silver wrapped in cloth. “Listen to me carefully,” she said. “When you come to the city, go in the early morning among the women drawing water at the fountains. Ask for Lucilla’s villa. You may hear slighting remarks about me, you may not. Who knows? But if you do, pay no attention to them. Go to the villa; this ring will guarantee you admission. Speak to Susana, my maid. She is the keeper of the villa and you may trust her absolutely.”
“Yes,” the girl said eagerly.
“Repeat that back to me—”
The child did, word for word.
“The message is only one word. Only one but you must remember it. Perfectly. Understand?”
“Yes. I understand. What is it?”
“Verona.”
“Verona. Is that all?”
“It is sufficient. Just say Verona. If you fail to find Susana, go to Dulcinia.”
“Dulcinia the singer?”
“You have heard of her?”
“Yes. Everyone knows of Dulcinia, but these are famous people, my lady. Will they receive me?”
“Show them the ring and they will. If all else fails, go to Simona, mother of Posthumus. She is not rich or famous, but she will be a friend to you.”
XI
When she and Chiara both entered the bear’s world, she heard his roar of fury and terror and knew, to her amusement, that their entry into his world brought the same sense of violation that humans felt when he tried to take control of them. And then she was moving very, very fast across a level field, and she was part of it, the sense of dimensionality fading. She was a light twisting in and out of a maze, moving at high speed toward . . . what?
She had no idea, and then she began to be afraid and tried to slow her forward progress, but found she couldn’t. Faster and faster she traveled, away from her own life and world, the images speeding past her in a blur of motion. Her mother’s face, Gundabald flogging her on the floor of her lodgings in Rome, the pope, Lucilla, Maeniel, and then they were gone—those she’d loved, hated, feared—and still she was going—being pulled?—traveling faster. She felt the union woman-wolf-wolf-woman. She tried to scream. Her gorge rose, she vomited, the pain of nausea reuniting her with her body for a second. Then the woman-wolf—she was both, she realized to her surprise, not just one or the other, not either or. Then her muscles locked. She shed her body the way a cicada sheds the shell that has been buried in the earth for many long years, the way a butterfly sheds the chrysalis, the way a bird pecks its way free of an egg.
And she saw the tree. You cannot see the oak in an acorn or the peach in the thick-shelled poisonous seed, not unless you enter its life, its being. Even knowing the shape, the form it takes, is not to know it. Nor is it enough to name and remember its parts. The root, the stem-trunk, the rings, the leaves, the fruit, its body naked in winter, clothed in green in the springtime or even the count of leaves it sheds in the bitter autumn winds. By none of these things will you know the tree, for the universe is a tree, and that’s why the Irmunsul of the Saxons was planted, that we might remember that we are part of the tree of life and it is part of the earth and the earth is part of the universe and unless you comprehend everything else, the tree remains a mystery.
The universe exploded into life around Regeane. She saw it as part of the singularity that is its heart and beginning. It erupted. Not like a volcano but a flower unfurling around her, world upon worlds, lying beside each other like the growth rings of a tree. And the beings belonging to each world knew nothing and could know nothing of one another. But they were all of the tree, the singularity belonging to its roots. Some things moved between the worlds and . . . she . . . was one . . . of them. The bear was another. He could no more possess her than a man could possess the fixed stars. She was his equal and in some ways his superior.
> Unbearable like the flash of orgasm in the flesh, so this was to the mind. Unsustainable, blinding, a light so bright it closes the eye of the mind in its sheer, raw glory.
“I can’t—I can’t,” Regeane screamed.
And she was back in her body—woman—healed whole among the vines, the strange lobe-leafed ivy that covered the tumbled stone of a ruin. She could see, like a double image superimposed on the mass of creepers, what the building had once been to the Romans, and before that the footbridge over a wild river, and yet beyond where no river ran there and the sea lapped a pale sandy shore not far away.
“Stop,” Regeane screamed. “Stop!” And it did, and she sat leaning on a stone block looking at Armine lying on his face beside an archway in the tangled green, and the bear in Chiara’s arms. He was inhabiting Hugo.
The dead, the ones they had killed, were scattered around them.
“What happened?” Chiara asked. “Where did we go?”
“I think,” the bear said, “I just received a lesson in my own inconsequence.”
“I don’t think so,” Regeane said. “No, I don’t think so at all. But I’m—give me something to wear.”
Chiara handed Regeane her mantle.
“What are you doing here?” the bear roared at Chiara.
“Oh, shut up,” she told him, then she glanced at her father, who was sitting up. The blast of energy Regeane had loosed by trying to fuse with the bear had helped him, too. His arms were very sore but no longer broken. Still, he was dizzy and pale with a number of minor injuries.
“And you be quiet, too,” Chiara said. She planted her hands on her hips. “When you were both dead and gone, I’d just have been something to use or sell to those men, and the king’s money would have spoken loudest. So both of you just . . . just . . . be quiet. Besides, I want to know what happened to me.”
“I don’t know,” the bear said. “I think we were granted some sort of a . . . vision. You saw my world in some way.”
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