The Silver Wolf Read online

  She had to find Antonius before Basil did. She lowered her muzzle and began circling. In a few moments she picked up the trail of the horses, including the blood scent of the injured one. It had dropped back, trailing the rest. Crossbow bolts were deadly things. Shock and hemorrhage kill quickly.

  It was not long before she caught up to Antonius. He was on his feet beside the wounded animal. It stood, legs spread, head lowered, breathing in harsh, roaring gasps.

  She knew he’d seen her silver-tinged shadow come up beside him, for he spoke. “What now, my friend?” He stared back the way he had come. The torches of Basil’s men bobbed across the flat countryside toward them.

  She edged her body between him and the horse, pushing him away. As the horse scented her, it stamped its feet. The head came up and she saw the pale gleam of one rolling eye.

  With a roar, she launched herself at the animal, her teeth meeting with a snap just inches from the equine neck.

  With a cry of terror, the horse lurched forward at a staggering run.

  The wolf stood quietly, listening as the drumming of hoofbeats faded into silence.

  “I see,” Antonius said, looking back at the bright knot of torches behind them. “They’ll follow the horse.”

  The wolf whined softly, then made a grunting sound in her throat.

  “Mother of God,” Antonius whispered. “You can think.”

  The wolf didn’t venture any kind of a reply. She was unhappy about what she’d just done. The animal was dying. She felt detached from herself. There had been more compassion in the wolf’s heart for the horse than for the human. “To use” was a purely human concept. The wolf didn’t understand it. The wolf’s actions were dictated by need.

  She turned her face into the clean wind and led Antonius away from the torches. She had to find a place to put him because, in the morning, the wolf would forsake her. Sunrise signaled the end of the silver one’s power. She must find shelter before she became woman again. The thought hung over her head like a sword.

  To the wolf’s ears the night sang with a thousand voices.

  Regeane felt as she had when, as a child at her mother’s knee, she’d first been confronted with a book. The tiny letters fascinated her and she was sure there were wonderful secrets contained within them, if only she knew how to interpret them.

  So were the voices of the night: a book opened before a caged beast’s eyes. A book she couldn’t read. As wolf or woman she had been confined so long.

  She left Antonius behind for a moment and ran in a wide circle, her head up, sniffing the wind. She could smell water far away, and the musky scent of deer.

  She had to keep reminding the beast that when dawn came, the joyous creature would fade and she would be abandoned to God knew what fearful fate, naked on the Campagna alone.

  Besides, Antonius was in pain. He couldn’t walk very well and the rag bindings on his feet were already tattered. She whined softly.

  “Yes, Lupa,” Antonius said, “and I hope you know what to do because I don’t. I don’t have any idea.”

  She ran down the slope of a low hill, then up another to the very top. She stopped, a lean dark shape under the stars.

  The breeze was cool. Even from far away, she could smell the city. A cleaner smell of wood smoke came to her nostrils. The torches of Basil’s men? No, high above the plain she saw the distant light of Monte Casino. Could she find shelter for Antonius there? Reluctantly she decided against it. Basil would look there first. She didn’t know if the monks could prevent him from taking away someone under their protection.

  She realized the scents mapped out the Campagna for her, the city so far away. Casino on the horizon, and a damp, vertiginous odor. What? It was coming from a heap of ruins nearby.

  She returned to Antonius and guided him in that direction.

  Hidden in a fold of ground near a clean stream were a few chimneys almost covered by the lush vegetation that flourished near water on the dry plains.

  The woman’s mind remembered something like them once near Paris on the Seine. A glassworks.

  She dipped her muzzle into a clear pool and lapped. The water was fresh and sweet.

  Antonius hunkered down beside her. “Where have you brought me, Lupa?”

  The wolf made a low sound in her throat.

  Antonius waited. Then she trotted off and began to circle. After a few minutes she found the flue. The glass furnaces had to be vented from below to get the fire hot enough to render the sand molten for the blowers.

  There were two furnaces. The first tunnel was choked with dirt and debris, but the second was open. She led Antonius to the tunnel.

  He stared at the hole in dismay. “Lupa, are you sure?”

  The wolf was growing afraid. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out. It was late. She must return to Rome before morning. She whined urgently.

  Antonius crawled into the hole. The flue led to the bottom of the turnip-shaped oven. When Antonius reached it, he said quietly, “I see.”

  Part of the chimney above had fallen away and thick bushes and small trees had grown up around it. The entrance was overgrown by tall weeds. The only reason the wolf had been able to find it was because at some time in the past, another wolf had used it for a den. She’d picked up the scent.

  She hoped that if Basil’s men searched the area they wouldn’t think to look down into the ruined ovens. They might not even know what they were.

  When Antonius was safely inside, she hurried out and began to run toward the city.

  She was terrified. During her race, her terror grew. She hadn’t realized she’d come this far. When she reached the tombs along the Via Appia, she realized she was caught. She wouldn’t be able to reach Lucilla’s villa before dawn. When the sun topped the horizon and the gray light around her turned to gold, she would be woman again.

  The lodging house where Hugo and Gundabald had their rooms wasn’t far off. She had no choice.

  As she was going up the outside stair to their apartments, she met Hugo coming down. All the desperate, exhausted wolf wanted to do was dodge past him, but Hugo didn’t know that.

  He gaped at her. Despite the faint light of early dawn, she saw his jaw drop and his face turn green with terror. He lunged back up the stair, opening the door, and trying to slam it in her face.

  The silver wolf dropped back on her haunches and sprang for his throat. Her flying body crashed into his chest, and he went down on his back.

  She found herself, paws on his chest, staring down into his horrified face.

  Hugo’s mouth opened. He looked as if he wanted to scream, but was too paralyzed by terror to make a sound.

  He gazed up into a wrinkled muzzle filled with long, white teeth. Her hot breath fanned his cheek. Her snarl was loud as a thunderclap.

  She had Hugo where she’d always wanted him She knew an instant’s regret that she could not prolong the moment. Hugo looked as though, if she were able to remain in her present position, he would shortly die of fright.

  How delightful.

  Too bad she was going to be human in a second. If she bit him, he would leave a very nasty taste in her mouth.

  She felt mildly grateful for at least this momentary satisfaction. She knew Gundabald would make her pay dearly for it.

  Hugo pissed on himself and fainted. Warm light flowed through the doorway. Regeane snatched away his mantle, anything to cover herself. It was dawn outside and she was naked.

  VII

  SHE AWOKE IN HER CELL IN THE AFTERNOON. SHE crouched next to the wall. She had never felt more of the beast. Her body was human female, but the wolf prowled in her brain. The wolf might be the only reason she lived.

  She was naked. The narrow stone room was empty. She was chained to the wall by an iron collar around her neck. Her skin was blue with cold, her fingers and toes numb.

  She was on her knees, one shoulder pressed against the stones. Her hair offered a little warmth, so she kept her head bowed. It hung around her bre
asts and shoulders like a cape.

  In any case, she couldn’t stand. The chain running from the collar around her neck to the staple in the wall was too short, only about three feet long. The iron collar was heavy. The edges were rough. Every so often, when she moved, she saw a rivulet of blood run down her breasts and stomach.

  There were many more blood stains on her skin, some particles dried, dark; others red, only beginning to stiffen. The beast said, Sleep, withdraw from the pain and the cold, but the woman couldn’t. She’d reached the point where cold and pain were so intense, they wouldn’t let her.

  Her stomach cramped viciously. Her back throbbed with a dull ache where Gundabald had flogged her.

  She ended by being almost as terrified of him as Hugo had been of her. Gundabald seemed at first to have lost all control. He grabbed her by the hair, pinned her to the floor facedown with his boot on her shoulder. He flogged her with his belt until Hugo’s mantle was bloody and her screams roused the keeper of the lodging house.

  Gundabald wouldn’t open the door to him. But the man and his wife stood outside and cursed them both so savagely—Regeane for screaming and disturbing the other tenants, Gundabald for causing the screams—that Gundabald finally stopped hitting Regeane.

  “Think you’re getting away with something, don’t you?” he’d asked as he stripped off Hugo’s mantle. “That thing from hell will come to you and heal you.”

  Regeane, thinking he meant to rape her, fought desperately with the only weapons she had left—voice, teeth, and nails.

  The landlord began shouting and pounding again.

  Gundabald had Regeane cornered near the fireplace. Regeane appealed for help, screaming Gundabald meant to kill her. Gundabald promised the landlord and his wife a gold piece if they would go away and leave them alone.

  The landlord and his wife left.

  Gundabald clubbed Regeane down with a chunk of firewood. It took three blows. She still wasn’t completely unconscious when he dragged her into the cell and snapped the collar shut on her neck.

  Her head throbbed. The left side of her face was swollen. She moved her neck against the rough edge of the iron collar, this time deliberately.

  Blood flowed—scarlet, warm, even hot, against her blue-tinged skin.

  When Gundabald slammed the door shut, she’d begun to awaken. She’d fought the chain, screaming, pulling at the staple in the wall with more than human strength, thrashing and jerking at the collar. Nothing helped. The iron, forged and hammered, was beyond her strength.

  In her wildest nightmare, she hadn’t believed Gundabald would go this far. After she fought, she begged. Sobbing and pleading for at least some water. Something, even if only rags, to cover herself.

  She received no reply—nothing—and finally realized Hugo and Gundabald had probably gone with the landlord to the nearest taverna. They were likely all drunk by now, sodden and sleeping off the morning’s exertions.

  Her stomach cramped. Her gorge rose. She gagged. Then leaned to one side and vomited a puddle of light green liquid on the floor. It began slowly trickling across the uneven floor toward the wall.

  Another puddle of yellow liquid rested near it. She’d stood the torment of needing to empty her bladder most of the morning. When it became unbearable, she’d let go.

  She closed her eyes. The cell stank to both the wolf and the woman’s nose. But an icy wind blew and the room filled with the clean delicate smell of the Rosa Canina—the dog rose.

  She saw a woman’s face, then a man’s. He wasn’t much. Sandy fair hair, cropped short, wide cheekbones, a wickedly humorous grin. You might pass him in the street and not notice him. The woman was small with the same fragile, pink-and-white beauty as the abundantly blooming rose sheltering their bower.

  They lay naked together, limbs entwined. The velvety rose petals drifting down to rest on skin warmed, blushing with the heat of an inexhaustible erotic fire. He cradled her in his arms. He had loved her. The languorous relaxation of her body was clear evidence. And, if the position of his hands was also evidence, he was gently preparing her to be loved again.

  Until he saw the tears on her cheeks.

  He turned. He was naked. Helpless. His weapons weren’t far. But he would never reach them.

  Regeane and the wolf awoke with a start. The collar bruised her neck. A few drops of blood dripped down her arm.

  The bit of sky she could see through the barred window was dark gray. The wolf, whose internal clock was netted with the wheeling stars, knew afternoon. Another dark rainy day labored toward its close. When night fell, the wolf would come, trying to heal her, to protect her. But how long could that last?

  The wolf looked at Regeane through a scree of blowing snow. Not the southern snow with big, soft flakes melting on the fur or even the nose. But snow like icy sand, blistering exposed skin like a rubbing with pumice stone and then freezing the blood oozing from the raw wound.

  The wolf’s eyes were clouded, her ribs showed. Her spine ridged like a broken stone down her back. She, too, needed food, water, sleep, and warmth. In the end, she would perish as the woman would without them.

  Regeane knew what Gundabald wanted: a pale puppet of a woman. A creature so terrified of his displeasure that she would yield to any command and pretend to be pleased to obey him rather than risk his anger—and his punishment.

  How many times would she have to be dragged to the cell and chained by the neck? How much starvation, thirst? How many beatings—beatings the wolf would heal over and over again—before she became a witless, broken thing? Living like Hugo and Silve between a flagon and a fuck. Willing to do anything she was told rather than risk this horror one more time.

  Suddenly, she and her nightmare sister were one. The wolf’s eyes looked at her from the land where the sun only rolled on the horizon, casting a purple, scarlet, violet, and gold fire. Its rays painting a dead, white, frozen plain. When the sun was gone, the wolf died. Long ago, and only one of her deaths. She lay down in the snow and there wasn’t enough flesh on her bones to keep her warm through the subzero night. She still lay there entombed in ice forever. Her spirit ranged the stars.

  There was a chance—one chance. Lucilla. Regeane might be rescued, but after having seen Antonius in Basil’s grip, she wasn’t sure if Hadrian was still pope. Or if Lucilla had the power to release her.

  But if Lucilla had no power, Regeane did. Release was within her power. She reached up and touched the jagged edge of the collar and felt how sharp it was. She remembered the wolf’s teaching about rivers of blood, dark and bright, pulsing below the skin.

  Her eyes closed as a sick beast’s will. She waited, at peace, her decision made, resting, conserving her strength for what would come.

  THE SOUND OF LUCILLA’S VOICE IN THE NEXT room woke her.

  “Damnation!” Lucilla shouted. “Build up the fire. I have been in warmer and more cozy catacombs. No! You stingy fool—put on more than that. I want a roaring blaze.”

  Regeane heard the landlord’s voice. An obsequious murmur as he verbally bowed and scraped to a very testy Lucilla.

  “We will want food. No! I do not want your leavings. I saw a taverna down the street. It had a cook shop.”

  The landlord’s voice murmured objections.

  “What!” Lucilla said. “Don’t tell me what they won’t do! You see this? It’s gold. Not copper, not silver, gold. You and Euric go to the cook shop. I want the best they have—wine, food, bread. The best. And I will expect change. A gold piece that size is enough to feed a family for a year.”

  The bolts on the door rattled.

  Regeane tried to call out. All she could manage was a husky whisper. “Lucilla.”

  “Well, I hear her, so she must be all right. They were beating her, you say?”

  “Yes, my gracious lady. The girl screamed pitifully. My wife and I came up to try to help, but her uncle barred the door against us and we couldn’t …”

  The rest of his reply was lost in the rattle and
clash of the sliding bolts.

  Lying pig, Regeane thought. He had been only too happy to be bribed by Gundabald.

  Lucilla stepped into the room. Regeane saw the color drain from Lucilla’s face. She gasped and swayed where she stood.

  “Don’t faint,” Regeane croaked. “Don’t let the men see me like this.”

  The door was slightly ajar. Lucilla pulled it shut, tightly shut. She closed her eyes and turned away from Regeane, her forehead resting on the closed door. “Is your uncle mad?” she asked faintly.

  “No,” Regeane replied. “I don’t think so. He wants to rule my mind. He doesn’t care if there’s anything to rule when he’s finished.”

  “My lady,” Euric asked from outside the door. “Do you need help?”

  “Go away, all of you,” Lucilla screeched.

  “My lady,” Euric queried again. “What’s wrong?” He sounded alarmed.

  “Nothing,” Lucilla stammered. “I mean, nothing I can’t handle. You and the landlord go and purchase the food. I adjure you, go at once and leave two men at the door with orders to admit no one. If her uncle returns unexpectedly, I don’t want to have to fend him off with my dagger. Now, go!” she shouted and stamped her foot.

  A few moments later, Regeane was sitting in a chair in front of the fire, her feet in a bucket of warm water, eating a bowl of chicken and leeks in heavy cream. She wore a threadbare dress intended for a woman far gone in pregnancy. It hung in heavy folds around her body.

  Lucilla stooped over her to examine her face. “God,” she whispered, “I thought that looked worse a few moments ago.”

  Regeane knew the wolf was present.

  “What happened to you last night?” Lucilla asked abruptly. She was rummaging through a chest in the corner. It contained a few of Gisela’s gowns. “My God,” she said, lifting a tattered garment of indeterminate color and holding it up. “Hadn’t your mother any sense of what was due to her from her kin? She was a noblewoman. They should have dressed her better than this even if they had to go hungry.”