“Before delivering the note, I sent two chalices to a silversmith, one the pewter one used by my husband in the ritual, and the other made of silver. The smith cut the base of both chalices and attached the silver base to the bottom of the pewter. Then he painted the silver base to match the color of the pewter. I returned the altered chalice to my husband’s library.
“A few nights later, Rigord took a lancet to his arm and drained blood into the pewter chalice with the silver base. While Martin and I watched, he built the pentagram, put on the wolf pelt, drank his own blood, and chanted in Slavonic and vulgar Latin. Suddenly, he screamed. The pelt on his naked shoulders started to smoke. It grew into his skin somehow. Within moments, he was a wolf.”
“My God,” Lorenzo said. “It’s . . . incredible.”
“You believe me, don’t you? I swear it’s the truth.”
“If this were anyone else telling me—if I hadn’t seen Giuseppe with my own eyes . . . yes, I do. Of course I believe you.”
She nodded, relieved. “When he’d changed, I threw open the doors and released the dogs. They attacked.”
Lucrezia closed her eyes, remembering the smell of wolf and dog. The goblet that dropped to the ground, spilling its blood. The way Rigord’s muscles heaved and strained, how he screamed as the wolf pelt merged with his skin, as the bones cracked in his face. His skin, bubbling like pats of butter dropped onto a hot skillet. The way his face lengthened and he howled in anguish.
“The wolf could still speak with a human tongue,” Lucrezia said. “When he saw me with the dogs, he cried out the words to bring him back into human form. Nothing happened. I shouted at him. ‘Go, or they’ll kill you! Run from the city! Join your brothers in the woods. I’ll kill you myself if you ever return.’ And I drew my dagger. He fled for his life. I thought it was over.
“Two weeks later, wolves began to attack travelers on the road to Troyes. Montguillon emerged from his lair at the monastery, hunting for witches. I was terrified my husband’s disappearance would come back to me, tie me to the wolves, so I concocted a story about Rigord drowning in the Seine. But then the wolves returned to Paris and attacked me in my home. The dogs drove them off, but they killed Cicero. Courtaud had become their leader—he spoke to me, threatened me.”
“Why didn’t you leave Paris?” Lorenzo said. “You’d be safe in Italy.”
“I don’t know that. Perhaps they would follow me.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter, because I cannot run. I am responsible.”
“My lady, you are not.”
“Yes, I am, Lorenzo. I knew I had to stop it from spreading. So I returned to my husband’s books and scoured the libraries at the university, and learned how they could spread their numbers through contaminated wounds, and taught myself how to treat them. None of them can change back into human form, praise God. They are not true loup-garou. The silver keeps them all in wolf form forever.”
“One small bit of good news,” Lorenzo said.
“Meanwhile,” Lucrezia continued, “Montguillon somehow tracked down Rigord’s first wife and had her burned at the stake, together with one of her servants. He turned over two men to the city watch, who they gibbeted over the river. I tried to help them. I was convinced they were innocent.”
“The empty gibbets—that was you?”
“I bribed a guard of the watch, yes.”
“That was good of you,” he said.
“No, it was another terrible mistake. One man was already dead, and the other was in the process of changing into a wolf when I set him free. Everything I did made things worse.” She started to say more, then shook her head. “The rest you already know.”
Lorenzo looked thoughtful. To her relief, his features hadn’t hardened into hatred at hearing how she had caused all of this.
“I don’t know all of it,” he said. “How did they infiltrate the city? How did they get into the chatelet walls? You said once they change, they can’t go back. How is it that nobody notices wolves passing through the gates of Paris?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Perhaps they’re in league with some other demonic force.”
“Hmm. Perhaps.”
Lorenzo didn’t sound convinced. She wasn’t either, but she couldn’t think of any other answer. How did they breach the city walls?
“Do you despise me?” she asked.
“No, my lady. But you made a mistake.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You never should have dabbled in witchcraft. I hate to give credit to those villains in the Inquisition, but you should have denounced Lord d’Lisle. With as many non-existent crimes as they pursue with all vigor and holy wrath, this was a real chance to unmask evil. Instead, you’ve unleashed it on the world.”
She hung her head, stung by his words.
“Don’t tell my brother your role in this,” he said.
“You think he’d denounce me?”
“Marco isn’t immune to your charms. Who is?” A wry smile crossed Lorenzo’s face. “But we were raised in a devout home—he doesn’t have my experiences to change his mind.”
“So he would turn me over?”
“I hope not, but I’d rather not find out. It would tear at his conscience, that much I know for certain.”
“I won’t be burned. I’ll take my own life first.”
A noise in the hallway caught her ears—voices raised, the clank of boots. Montguillon’s voice rang out in command. Martin shouted an answering challenge. Lorenzo paled and rose to his feet. He drew his sword. Lucrezia still wore her dagger and drew it. Tullia sprang to her feet and gave a ferocious bark.
The door burst open, with Martin shoved backwards into the room at the point of two pikes. Two of Nemours’s men pushed in at the other end of the weapons. They wore breastplates and helmets. Two more men-at-arms followed, one with a drawn sword, the other with a crossbow. Finally, Montguillon and the younger friar, Simon.
Montguillon’s eyes gleamed with an unnatural light. Blood stained his white scapular and streaked down his robe, already dirty from the ride. The black cloak hung askew. He panted, mouth open and tongue lolling.
“What the devil is this?” Lorenzo demanded.
Montguillon pointed a shaking finger at Lucrezia. Spittle dripped from his lips as he spoke. “Lady Lucrezia d’Lisle of Lucca, I hereby denounce you as a witch. You shall burn at the stake.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lorenzo saw death the moment Montguillon denounced Lucrezia. Four armored men stood in front of him. Martin was disarmed, at the end of two pikes. The crossbowman had his weapon leveled at Lorenzo. One squeeze of the finger and a bolt would sink into Lorenzo’s chest. Lucrezia carried a dagger, but with a full gown-like houppelande that restricted her movement, she was hardly a match for the armored men facing her. That left Tullia, the mastiff, to defend her mistress. She might get one of them. Where in God’s name was Marco?
Lorenzo wouldn’t let Lucrezia fall to the Inquisition. Keep the men at bay for a moment, distract them—that’s all she needed. That dagger would turn to her own breast. She would end her life before they could seize her. She would not burn.
All these thoughts flashed through his mind as he rushed at Montguillon.
“No!” Lucrezia said. She was struggling with Tullia. “Lorenzo! Don’t!”
He hesitated, confused. Marco rushed into the room, crying frantically for him to stop. Lorenzo lowered his sword.
“Listen to me, all of you,” Marco said. “It’s the friar who is in league with Satan, not the lady.”
He forced his way through the men-at-arms and grabbed Montguillon’s cloak and gown at the neck, and pulled it back to reveal the weeping, pus-filled wound that gaped along his neck. Black hair surrounded the wound.
“Look at this,” Marco said. “He’s one of them. A loup-garou.”
The men shrank back with cries of “My God!” and “Sweet virgin!” The man with the sword crossed himself with his free hand.
; The prior snarled and jerked free. He drew up his hood to cover the wound, but this didn’t help matters, concealing his entire face now with only his rather lupine eyes staring out from the shadows.
“The witch did it to me,” he said. “She and her coven. We’ve burned the other two. When this one burns, the evil dies with her.”
“There’s no coven!” Lucrezia cried.
Nemours’s men looked torn. On the one hand, a highborn lady, beautiful, and gentle in appearance. And terrified, beset upon by men-at-arms; their natural inclination would be to defend her. On the other hand, this haughty Dominican and his young friar. Men of God, yes, and backed by the terrifying might of the Inquisition. But the prior was corrupted with something awful and they had seen the wolves inside the chatelet with their own eyes. Would Montguillon soon be at their throats as well?
“Arrest these men,” Montguillon said. “Do it at once.”
“You are a fool, Montguillon,” Lorenzo said, regaining his confidence. He didn’t lower his weapon. “She is no witch. She’s a healer. A woman of God,” he added for the benefit of the men-at-arms.
Montguillon hissed at this.
“If you rebuke her, nothing will save you. The moment she burns, you become a wolf man.”
“Liar.”
“And then we will kill you in revenge,” Marco added, his tone grim.
“You’re both liars and heretics. Seduced by this witch. And when we’re done with her, I’ll have some very hard questions to put to you, yes.”
“You won’t do anything of the sort,” Lorenzo said. “Because you’ll be dead.”
“The devil take you.”
Montguillon’s words maintained their hostility, but some of the fire had gone out of his voice. He looked uncertain. His face was pale behind his hood and sweat ran down his cheeks. That he was even on his feet was a surprise. How long until his face stretched, his teeth lengthened? Until his back bent and he let out a cry—half human sob, half wolfish howl—and completed his awful transformation?
Lorenzo softened his voice. “Father, I know what you’re suffering. I was changing too, even dreamt of the wolves, that I was one of them. But the lady’s tincture cured me. She can cure you, too.”
“You have nothing to lose,” Marco put in. “Let her try.”
Montguillon wobbled on his feet. Simon grabbed for his arm, but the prior shrugged it off. For a moment, he looked as though he would faint, then he steadied himself. “And when she fails?”
“If she fails, you can denounce her,” Lorenzo said.
Lucrezia chewed on her lip. He knew she thought it might be too late to save the prior. But the attempt would buy time. To secret Lucrezia from the chatelet. And if Montguillon turned, they could work on Simon, to get him to abandon his master’s accusation.
The soldiers lowered their weapons. Tullia stopped growling and struggling. Martin rubbed at his throat where the pikes had jabbed him backward. Simon looked conciliatory. One word from Montguillon would end it.
At last the prior nodded. “Very well, we shall talk.”
✛
“It’s ready,” Lucrezia said.
She had spent a few minutes preparing her tincture of poppy and monkshood, and a separate balm for the ugly wound itself. The prior sat in the large chair by the fire, his hood pulled back, neck exposed down to his hair shirt. He panted and sweated and looked like he would be sick. He had refused wine. The soldiers had left the room, as had Simon and Martin. The latter two stood in the hallway beyond the open door, studying each other warily.
Lucrezia approached.
Montguillon looked like he was trying to choke down bile. “Witchcraft,” he muttered. “Devilry. May God have mercy on me. But I must stop them. I must accept aid, even from a repellent source.”
Standing with his brother to one side, Lorenzo bit back the angry retort on his lips. The sheer ingratitude of the man. A horrible, seeping wound on his neck, and he had the temerity to continue with the witchcraft nonsense. Did he think she wanted to touch him? They should let him die—it would be justice served.
Lorenzo had conversed in low tones with Marco while Lucrezia made her preparations, and the brothers had concocted a plan. As Lucrezia reached out with the tincture in its vial, Lorenzo told her to wait.
“What for?” she asked, frowning.
“I don’t think this is sufficient,” he said.
“What are you doing?” Montguillon said. “If it must be done then do it.”
“You’re right,” Marco said, not to the prior, but to Lorenzo. “How can we be certain?”
”What is this?” Montguillon snapped. “Certain of what?”
“The lady will heal you,” Lorenzo said. “And what will you do? Denounce her anyway, no doubt. Here she is, trying to save your life—no, your soul—and you won’t cease your insults, not even for a moment.”
“You’re under her spell, both of you. Seduced by lust. Blinded. She’s a witch, she brought these wolves in the first place. Heal me or not, it won’t change that.”
“Then you can suffer in hell,” Marco said.
“I’m a man of God. I won’t go to hell.”
“When you turn into a wolf, you’ll serve the devil,” Lorenzo said. “And when we hunt you down and kill you, you will die as a servant of the enemy. Plead your case before the judgment bar of God. My lady, throw the tincture into the fire.”
Lucrezia moved toward the hearth. The glint in her eye said she knew exactly what the brothers had planned.
“Wait!” the prior cried.
She stopped and turned with a questioning look to Marco and then Lorenzo.
“Why should we?” Lorenzo said. “You said you’ll denounce her anyway. And you keep leveling accusations against us as well.”
“If she heals me—” Montguillon began.
“Yes?”
“Then I shall,” he continued, though the words seemed to choke in his throat. He spat them out. “I shall agree to her innocence.”
“Good,” Marco said. “Lorenzo, the contract.”
“Contract?” Montguillon said.
“We are simple traders from Florence. We do no business without written contracts. Otherwise, the florins slip through our fingers and we sink into penury.”
As his brother spoke, Lorenzo hid his smile and hurried from the room. Simon and Martin still waited in the corridor, the two men staring at each other without speaking. When Lorenzo returned moments later with his pens, ink, paper, and wax, he nodded to Simon.
“You need to witness this, friar.”
The young man followed him into the room.
Montguillon had fallen silent in Lorenzo’s absence. He closed his eyes and panted. His hands trembled and he wouldn’t leave his neck alone, scratching and rubbing. Marco stood a pace off with Lucrezia, patting Tullia’s head absently while he spoke in low, intimate tones to the lady. Lorenzo ignored them and went to the writing desk to compose the contract.
He wrote in Latin. This was no purchase order for ten casks of olive oil, so he used his finest, most beautiful letters. When he finished, he blotted the ink and handed the paper to Marco to read, then melted wax for the seal.
Marco read it aloud:
I, Henri Montguillon, Prior of the Dominican priory of Saint-Jacques, and member of the Holy Inquisition, do solemnly swear before God and in the name of the most Holy Roman and Catholic Church, that if Lady Lucrezia d’Lisle of Lucca relieves me of the illness that I suffer from the bite and scratch of the most unholy wolf man that pursued and attacked us on the Rue de Saint-Denis, that she shall be declared innocent of all crimes against the church, God, or my person. She shall not come under condemnation by the Holy Inquisition for any crime secular or ecclesiastical, either in France or abroad. In my duties and jurisdiction I do declare her pure and above reproach. I hereby declare her innocent of witchcraft or any other unholy or impure practice.
That if I do violate the terms of this contract I shall admit my guilt in the
matter of the unholy wolves and their masters without sullying her innocence in any way.
This contract shall be valid upon signature and in perpetuity.
The Very Reverend Henri Montguillon, Prior of Saint-Jacques
Notarized by Lorenzo Boccaccio di Firenze
Witnessed by Marco Boccaccio di Firenze and Brother Simon of Paris, friar of Saint-Jacques.
12 of January, the year of our Lord 1450
When Marco finished reading aloud, he handed it to the prior, who reread it in silence and increasingly visible anger.
“This is an outrage. Simon, burn this.”
Marco snatched away the paper before the friar could take it. “Is the wax melted, Brother?”
“It’s ready,” Lorenzo said.
“I won’t sign it,” Montguillon said.
“A wise decision, Father,” Simon said. “It is an obvious trap.”
“Yes, you see? It is an insult to the church, the Inquisition, and my person.”
“You sign it,” Lorenzo said, “or you’ll turn into a wolf. Lucrezia won’t give you the tincture. I swear it on my life.”
Montguillon hesitated, then gestured for Simon to come to him. The other three moved away while the two Dominicans conversed in low tones. Marco further pulled Lorenzo away from Lucrezia and leaned in to whisper in his ear.
“You wrote a bad contract. There is no conditional after the first sentence.”
Lorenzo let the smile show this time as he whispered back, “Did I?”
“It exonerates her of all culpability, regardless of whether or not she cures him.”
“Indeed.”
“And is she?” he asked in an even lower whisper.
“Is she what?”
“Culpable? Are we sure she’s not involved? This whole thing is making me suspicious.”
Lorenzo met his brother’s gaze. “I cannot believe you would suggest such a thing.”
“I am sorry,” Marco said quickly. “She’s innocent, of course she is.”
“Very well,” Montguillon said. “Make a second copy of your infernal contract. I will sign.”
Lorenzo moved at once to obey.
The Wolves of Paris Page 14
