The Silver Wolf Read online

  “A VERY VIVIDLY

  WRITTEN STORY. I REALLY GOT INTO IT.”

  —MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY Author of the New York Times bestseller The Mists of Avalon

  “A writer with the vision and scope to conjure up her own thrilling mythos and the craftsmanship to render it in breathtaking, shimmering prose.… In this hypnotic novel, the decadence and splendor of ancient Rome comes vividly to life through a character as enigmatic as my very own Lestat.… [The Silver Wolf is] peopled with characters that beckon to the deepest reaches of our souls.”

  —ANNE RICE

  “A love story tinged with the supernatural … Borchardt’s sensual prose and period detail provide a lush setting for her tale of a woman struggling to reconcile her human and wolf natures. Fans of Anne Rice and Tanith Lee should enjoy this historic fantasy.”

  —Library Journal

  “Top-flight fantasy … Borchardt reaches descriptive and dramatic peaks with Regeane’s vulpine supersenses as she noses about Rome by night, reading the dead city’s skin and air.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “INTRIGUES AND COUNTERPLOTS ABOUND …

  In Regeane, whose woman and wolf selves often spar contentiously with one another, Borchardt finds the perfect metaphor for the once opulent Roman civilization, now hostage to its bestial appetites … Readers who like their fantasy dusted with gritty realism … will find themselves indulged with more than a few twists to this werewolf tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[A] carefully crafted tale, which brims with unique characters and a mesmerizing plot … [Borchardt] lures readers into a decadent society filled with brutality and ruthless scheming. You become a part of the story due to her incredible ability to re-create a time and place with astounding, vibrant imagery. This is the book Ms. Borchardt was meant to write.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A wonderful setting, rich in irony … Borchardt masterfully places the reader squarely amidst a Rome devastated by invasion, inflation, poverty, decadence, and religio-political squabbling.”

  —Book Page

  “SENSUAL, HAUNTING, VIVID, EROTIC, HYPNOTIC … DARK, LYRICAL, AND PASSIONATE …

  Every single Anne Rice fan in the world is going to want to read this book … A huge novel packed full of decadently intriguing characters, heart-wrenching romance, and sublime sensuality the likes of which I haven’t read since A. N. Roquelaure’s Beauty trilogy. I was crying like a baby when I finished this book. Great ending! I loved it!”

  —Explorations

  “Borchardt has written a winner … This is fantasy at its best … Vivid and engaging … The Silver Wolf is a richly textured, lush epic of history, romance, and fantasy, all interwoven like a beautiful tapestry. This is a novel not to be missed … Like The Vampire Lestat … [The Silver Wolf] is ripe and delicious in its panoramic view of history and the fantastic beings who inhabit it … I loved this book, and for those who relish a swashbuckling story of the supernatural, Alice Borchardt delivers. Her history is colorful and lively, and her supernatural love story is enchanting. Highly recommended.”

  —DOUGLAS CLEGG

  barnesandnoble.com

  PRAISE FOR ALICE BORCHARDT’S PREVIOUS NOVEL DEVOTED

  “A gem! This saga of witches, warriors, romance, and sex will hold you in thrall.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Haunting … A powerful brew of compelling love, chilling evil, wry wit, and mystical promise.”

  —STELLA CAMERON

  “Fabulous! Original and romantic.”

  —LAURA KINSALE

  “Alice Borchardt is a joy to read. Her characters move you to laughter and tears, break your heart, and make you want to hug them.”

  —SUSAN WIGGS

  “Each lyrical word fairly seethes with emotional intensity and sensuality, mysticism and grand heroics.”

  —PENELOPE WILLIAMSON

  “LOVE AND TREACHERY … MARVELOUS …

  Alice leads us into the irresistible atmosphere of the Dark Ages, into a vivid and deliciously violent realm of battles, love, and tragic entanglements.”

  —ANNE RICE

  “A remarkable, compelling novel of medieval France … filled with humor, action, and romance.”

  —Library Journal

  “Captivating … A feisty mix of old-world adventure and charm.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Exciting, vivid, and satisfying.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “An absolutely scrumptious story, the kind that would make any lover of historical fiction purr like a cat.”

  —MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

  Published by Ballantine Books:

  DEVOTED

  BEGUILED

  THE SILVER WOLF*

  NIGHT OF THE WOLF*

  THE WOLF KING*

  THE DRAGON QUEEN*

  THE RAVEN WARRIOR*

  *Published by Ballantine/Del Rey Books

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1998 by Alice Borchardt

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-93999

  eISBN: 978-0-345-45552-9

  v3.1

  TO

  MY BELOVED HUSBAND

  CLIFFORD BORCHARDT

  “See those fireflies dancing? That’s what I want to do: dance in the moonlight, sing

  to the stars, jump straight up at the moon.”

  I did with you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  I

  THE SUN WAS GOING DOWN. THE FIERY CIRCLE shone past the acanthus-crowned columns of a ruined temple. They cut the incandescent ball into slices of red radiance. Almost night, the girl thought, then shivered in the chill autumn air blowing through the unglazed casement.

  The window was barred—heavily barred. One set running horizontally, the other vertically. The bars were bolted into the stone walls of the tiny room.

  She knew she could close the window. Reach out through the bars. Pull the heavy shutters shut, and seal them with the iron bolt. But she pushed the idea out of her mind with a sort of blind obstinacy. The sight of freedom, even an unattainable freedom, was too sweet to give up.

  Not yet, she told herself, only a little longer. Not yet.

  The air that raised gooseflesh on her arms was sweet to her nostrils. Oh
no, more than sweet. A speaking thing. Each vagrant increase in flow, each slight change in direction, each passing movement sent images to the deepest part of her mind.

  Somewhere a patch of thyme bloomed. The tiny blue flowers let down their fragrance into the chill evening air. This delicate scent was mixed with the heavy smell of wet marble and granite. These and many others stood out against the tapestry of odors given off by the flowers and greenery that cloaked the ruined palaces and temples of the ancient imperium.

  The vast restless spirit of this, the greatest of all empires, seemed at last brought to rest at the soft hand of the great green mother herself.

  Regeane didn’t know what she’d expected of the once-proud mistress of the world when she’d come to Rome. Certainly not what she found.

  The inhabitants, descendants of a race of conquerors, lived like rats squabbling and polluting the ruins of an abandoned palace. Oblivious to the evidence of grandeur all around them, they fought viciously among themselves for what wealth remained. Indeed, little was left of the once-vast river of gold that flowed into the eternal city. The gold that could be found gilded the palms of papal officials and the altars of the many churches.

  Regeane’s mother, desperate to save—as she saw it—her daughter’s soul, pawned what few jewels she had left. The money was sufficient to pay the bribes necessary to obtain a papal audience and finance the equally expensive papal blessing.

  Regeane had gone into the awesome presence, her body drenched in a sweat of terror. If her ailing mother said the wrong thing to the church’s leading prelate, she might find herself being burned or stoned as a witch. But as she approached the supreme pontiff, she realized just how foolish her fears had been.

  The man before her was a ruin. Ready to be taken by age and sorrow. She doubted if he understood much of anything said to him. Weeping, her mother implored the intercession of God’s chief minister on earth with the Almighty. As the ever-dutiful Regeane knelt, kissed the silken slipper, and felt the withered hands pressed against her hair she caught a whiff of a scent other than the thick smell of incense and Greek perfume that pervaded the room: the musty, dry smell of aging flesh and human decay.

  God, it was powerful. He is ready to die, she thought. He will go speak on Mother’s behalf to God in person very soon. She knew this blessing, as all other blessings her mother, Gisela, had traveled so far and squandered so much of her wealth to gain, would do no good.

  This was the end. Regeane knew it. She was frightened. If the pope himself could not lift this strange gesa from her and let her live as a woman, to what earthly power could she turn? More to the point, to what power could her mother turn?

  Gisela was fading as quickly as the only-too-human man on the chair of Peter. Though a comparatively young woman, she was worn down by the string of fruitless journeys she had taken with Regeane and by some secret sorrow that seemed to fill her mind and heart with a bottomless wellspring of grief.

  Regeane lied. Her mother believed. And for the first time in many years, Regeane felt the tiny woman who had traveled so far and borne so many burdens was at peace. Regeane’s lie carried Gisela through till the end.

  Three days after the papal audience she had gone to awaken her mother and found Gisela would never wake again. Not in this world.

  Regeane was alone.

  She watched with greedy eyes as the sun became a half circle, faded into a glow silhouetting the tall cypresses of the Appian Way, followed by the deep blue autumn twilight. Then, and only then, did she turn from the window and wrap herself in an old woolen mantle and return to her pallet bed. With the exception of the low bed and a small, covered, brown terra-cotta pot in the corner, the room was bare.

  Regeane sat on her bed, her shoulders against the stone wall, her legs dangling, head thrown back, eyes closed. She waited silently for moonrise. The silver disc would be lifting itself above the seven hills now. Soon, very soon, its journey across the sky would bring it to her window where it would throw a pool of silver light on the floor. Ignoring the crosshatched black lines of bars, she could drink at that pool. Allowed once more to breathe, if not to glory, in the air of freedom.

  The door to the outer room slammed shut. Damnation. The girl on the bed scoured her mind for oaths. No … curses. Young girl that she was, she was never allowed to speak them, but she could think the words. And she often did. Oh, how she did when those two were present. There were worse things than loneliness. Overall, Regeane felt she preferred silence and emptiness to the presence of either her Uncle Gundabald or Hugo, his son.

  “I pissed blood again this morning,” Hugo whined. “Are all the whores in this city diseased?”

  Gundabald laughed uproariously. “All the ones you pick up seem to be. It’s as I told you. Pay a little extra. Get yourself something young and clean. Or at least young, so all the itching and burning a few days later are worth it. That last you bought was so old, she had to ply her trade by starlight. What you save in cunt rent goes out in medicines for crotch rot.”

  “True enough,” Hugo said irritably. “You always seem to do better.”

  Gundabald sighed. “I’m sick of trying to instruct you. Next time, retain at least a modicum of sobriety and get a look at her in a good light.”

  “Christ, it’s cold in here,” Hugo said angrily. A second later Regeane heard him shouting down the stairs for the landlord to bring a brazier to warm the room.

  “It’s no use, my boy,” Gundabald told him. “She’s left the window open again.”

  “I can’t see how you stand it,” Hugo grumbled. “She makes my skin crawl.”

  Gundabald laughed again. “There’s nothing to worry about. Those planks are an inch thick. She can’t get out.”

  “Has she ever … gotten out, I mean?” Hugo asked with fear in his voice.

  “Oh, once or twice, I believe, when she was younger. Much younger. Before I took matters in hand. Gisela was too soft. That sister of mine was a fine woman—she always did as she was told—but weak, my boy, weak. Consider the way she wept over that first husband of hers when the marriage was so abruptly … terminated.”

  “She divorced him?” Hugo asked.

  “Ah, yes,” Gundabald sounded uneasy. “To be sure, she divorced him because we told her to. She had no choice in the matter. Even then, everyone could see Charles’ mother was becoming a power at court. There were many well-endowed suitors for Gisela’s hand. The second was a much better marriage and made us all wealthy.”

  “Now all that’s gone,” Hugo said bitterly. “Between you and Gisela, if our coffers have a miserable copper in them we’re lucky. You wanted to rub shoulders with all the great magnates of the Frankish realm. To do that, you found out your shoulders had to be covered with velvet and brocade. And, oh yes, they wanted to be feasted. Worse than a horde of vultures, they swarmed over your household devouring everything in sight. And like vultures when the carcass was picked clean, they departed in a cloud of stink and were never seen again.

  “Whatever they missed, Gisela laid hands on, squandering it on relics, shrines, blessings, and pilgrimages, trying to lift the curse from that wretched brat of hers. You told me to get myself something younger. I’ve a good mind to pay that cousin of mine a visit … by day of course and—” Hugo screamed. “Father, you’re hurting me!”

  Gundabald’s reply was a snarl of fury. “You so much as touch that girl and I’ll save us both a lot of trouble and expense. I’ll slice off your prick and balls. You’ll be the smoothest eunuch between here and Constantinople. I swear it. She’s the one and only asset we have left and she—must—marry. Hear me!”

  Hugo howled again. “Yes, yes, yes. You’re breaking my arm. Oh, God. Stop!”

  Gundabald must have released him because Hugo’s shouting ceased. When he did speak, he sniveled, “Who would marry that … thing?”

  Gundabald laughed. “I can name a dozen right now, who would kill to marry her. The most royal blood of Franca flows through her veins. Her fa
ther and mother both were cousins of the great king himself.”

  “And those same ones who’d kill to marry her will run a sword through both you and the girl the moment they find out what she is.”

  “I cannot think how I got such a son as you as the fruit of my loins,” Gundabald snarled. “But then your mother was a brainless little twit. Perhaps you take after her.”

  Despite the sadistic nastiness of Gundabald’s voice, Hugo didn’t rise to the bait. Most of the people around Gundabald quickly learned to fear him. Hugo was no exception.

  “You liked the way we lived well enough when we were in funds. Vultures, eh! That’s the pot calling the kettle black. You fucked all night, fed all day, and drank with the best of them. Now, you leave things you don’t understand to your elders and betters. Shut up! And send for some food and wine—a lot of wine. I want my supper, and I want to forget what’s behind that door in the next room.”

  “It was a mistake to bring her here,” Hugo said. His voice was high and nervous. “She’s worse than ever.”

  “Christ Jesus! God!” Gundabald roared. “Even a dumb animal has the sense to do what it’s told. Dolt with the brains of a cobblestone! Shut up and at least get the wine. My God! I’m dying of thirst.”

  Marry, she thought listlessly. How could she marry? She didn’t believe even a snake like Gundabald would connive at something so dangerous. Or succeed if he tried. Her mother still had a little land left in Franca, a few rundown villas. They generated only just enough money to feed and clothe the three of them. But nothing she was heir to would be enough to attract the attention of any of the great magnates of the Frankish realm.

  As for her relationship to Charles—a king beginning already to be called the great—it was a rather distant connection to his mother. The dear lady, Bertrada, had never even for one moment acknowledged Regeane’s existence. In fact, one of the things that endeared Bertrada to King Pepin the Short was that she was followed by a whole tribe of relations. They approached the court ready to swing their swords for church and king, not to mention their odd wagonload of loot that somehow didn’t manage to fall into the king’s treasury.