The Wolf King Read online

  Antonius gave him a hard look.

  Maeniel took a deep breath and began again. “Ask her to call on Count Otho and . . . and . . . ask for his protection and . . . assistance.”

  When the boy was gone, Antonius spoke. “You handled that well. For a moment I had my doubts, but you came through at the end. By the way, who did give you that ring?”

  “Never mind,” Maeniel said. “I paid that snake’s prick, Otho, enough that he should be willing to do me some favors. Quite a few in fact.”

  “Do snakes have pricks?”

  “Assuming they are male, yes.”

  “I have never known anyone who has seen one,” Antonius said.

  “They are retractable.”

  “My,” Antonius said. “I imagine that’s necessary, given their method of locomotion. You watched a pair in the act of sexual congress?”

  “Yes, one long, boring afternoon, I did.”

  “Indeed.” Antonius nodded and stroked his chin. “Indeed.”

  Arbeo delivered the message. “Otho! I should have thought,” she said, and gave the young man some gold. Then she set out, with Arbeo as a guide, in search of Otho’s tent. Barbara, Matrona, and the Saxon accompanied her.

  She did need protection.

  The great king’s army was in a mood for revelry. There were lines in front of the tavern and brothel wagons. Some whores accommodated customers publicly, lying on the baggage in the back of the ox carts while men lined up in front of them. Regeane took in the sights as well as she could with her veil and mantle pulled up over her mouth, but Matrona and Barbara strolled along, looking around insouciantly.

  The higher-paid ladies of the professional friedelehe, those who preferred longer associations—courtesans, in other words—presided over loud and occasionally violent parties. One man, naked, ran past. He was bleeding and being pursued by two others carrying weapons. Screams erupted from another tent, sounds indicative of a battle royal in progress, punctuated by shrill female cries. When Matrona wanted to investigate, she was hustled along by the Saxon and Arbeo. She allowed herself to be urged to greater speed by the men, but bestowed a heavy-lidded look of disgust on them both.

  “It’s not proper for a lady to be exposed to such scenes of debauchery,” Arbeo said.

  “Why? Are you afraid one or more of us just might want to join in the fun?”

  Arbeo looked horrified.

  Regeane sucked in her cheeks to keep from laughing out loud and saw the Saxon was struggling with his own attempts to suppress mirth.

  “Fear not, I’m too old,” Barbara said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Matrona told her. “I’m not, but I am busy right now. Come visit me,” she purred at the young man, “some day when I am at leisure, and I will instruct you in the art of creative and civilized debauchery.”

  Arbeo’s look of absolute, frozen shock nearly destroyed Regeane’s composure completely.

  Just then one of the working girls at the edge of the path spit at a customer. The man pulled a knife. The girl’s pimp tried to intervene and caught a nasty gash across the chest for his trouble.

  Matrona rather casually grabbed the soldier’s wrist, jerked it up between his shoulder blades, and took the knife away from him. Then she kicked the legs out from under him, and when he went down on his face, whacked him hard just behind the ear on the sensitive mastoid process. The soldier lay twitching, semiconscious and paralyzed by pain.

  The girl in the cart sat up. She cursed her pimp for being so inept as to let her trick wound him, then the soldier for being a stinking louse-ridden pervert.

  Matrona asked, “Why?”

  “He wanted a blow job. I don’t suck. I work strictly on my back.”

  “We are looking for one Count Otho,” Matrona said.

  “I am, too,” the girl said. “He set me up with this . . .” She jerked a thumb at the pimp. “I haven’t seen him in four days. This shithead—” She jerked a thumb at the pimp again. “—he takes too big a cut. And as for protection.” The girl rolled her eyes. “Well, you saw—”

  “Otho has women?”

  “A whole string.” The girl shook her head for emphasis. “Plenty of women. The king’s men are hot as a fuck in a haystack. Fatso’s losing money all over the place.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Otho to neglect business,” Regeane said.

  “True,” Barbara said. “I’m not certain that lord has a heart, but if he does, money is the dearest thing to it.”

  The girl nodded. “We’re talking about the same guy, for sure. When I went to his tent, nothing. Old woman there wouldn’t let me in.”

  “Where is his tent?” Matrona asked.

  “Near the king,” the girl answered.

  The camp was formed roughly like a set of rings, with the king’s pavilion in the center. Around it were grouped those of the great nobles; beyond them, the scarae; and beyond, in outer darkness, the rabble of peasants, foot soldiers, camp followers, whores, tavern carts, and the shadow classes: cutthroats, brigands, beggars, and professional thieves looking for loot in the case of victory. But equally happy with defeat, as they would be able to despoil the wounded and the dead on the battlefield.

  This was where they were now.

  The Saxon offered her some silver, two or three nights’ wages for a prostitute of her class. “Show us to his tent,” he said.

  She snatched the money and jumped off the back of the wagon. “Right away,” she said. “You have to watch for the horsemen. They patrol at night and don’t want any of us to sneak in.”

  It was late, and once away from the revelry among the infantry, the camp grew more quiet. The shelters occupied by the wealthy were larger and farther apart. Servants were quartered there. Most had a rubbish heap and a latrine. The girl pointed to a large tent. Three rooms at least, on the outer edge of the enclave belonging to the highborn. It was set rather far away from the rest. A torch burned in front of the tent closest to it, but otherwise, it was completely dark.

  “Maybe he’s asleep,” Arbeo suggested. “Maybe we should come back in the morning.” He sounded apprehensive.

  “No,” Regeane said. “If he’s asleep, we’re going to wake him up.”

  “He’s not asleep,” Matrona said. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Is it?” the Saxon asked.

  “Yes,” Matrona said. “Regeane, the wind is at our backs. We must circle, but don’t draw any closer.”

  Regeane nodded and the two women began to ease around the tent next to Otho’s.

  “Put out your torch,” Matrona told the Saxon.

  He did, dunking it in a ditch filled with dubious liquid. Some of it rose as steam and there was no further doubt as to its identity.

  “Phueeee,” the girl said.

  The Saxon turned to the girl and Arbeo. “Go.” He pointed back the way they had come.

  They both voiced objections.

  “The ladies may need my protection,” Arbeo said.

  “I’m not a girl, I’m Gilas,” the girl said. “And I need to know about Otho. If something’s happened to him, I must get another protector.”

  “Stop wrangling,” Regeane ordered. “You, Gilas, may stay. Arbeo, escort Barbara back to our camp.”

  Barbara smiled, took a very unhappy-looking Arbeo’s arm, and towed him away.

  “Gilas, you remain here,” Regeane said.

  “No, I want to see,” Gilas insisted stubbornly.

  “All right,” the Saxon said in a dangerous tone of voice. “But be silent. If you make one sound, I will drive you into the ground like a nail.”

  “I promise, I promise. I’ll be silent as a stone.” She jumped up and down.

  “All right, then shut up.”

  Matrona led the party, weaving in and out between the tents until she felt the almost-still air push against her face. “Here,” she said.

  The air was thick with wood smoke, human effluvia, cooking food, and the thick aroma of stagnant water from the lake. The Saxon
declined to sniff. He decided he probably couldn’t smell his upper lip, but Regeane did.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered to Matrona. “I’ve not encountered anything like this since Rome.”

  “You knew him as Otho there?” Matrona asked.

  “Yes. Living or dead, I can’t say, but he is here.”

  Gilas opened her mouth to ask what they were doing, but she caught the Saxon’s eye and closed it immediately. The Saxon lifted the sword quietly from his sheath. Regeane drew her ax, and Matrona pulled a nine-inch knife from her full sleeve.

  “The back!” the Saxon whispered.

  The rest nodded and moved as silently as possible. They approached the rear of the tent.

  Otho was still alive, though he was certain not for long. At this point he was almost beginning to wish the creature who’d captured him would kill him. His whole body was a furnace of pain. Knives driven through his wrists and ankles pinned him to his once spacious and comfortable bed. He’d been given no food in four days, and no water in the last two, but he still clung to life. He was gagged, but the gag was so soaked with blood from his lips and cheeks and occasional bouts of vomit from his belly that it no longer functioned. Still, that didn’t matter, because his mouth and throat were so swollen he could no longer utter a sound. Mercifully, he had begun to drift in and out of consciousness a few days ago.

  Yet he still clung to life. Otho was corrupt to the marrow of his bones. He had decided as a young man that money was the only thing worth having in life, and he’d sought wealth with a single-minded energy and diligence that totally surpassed the rather feeble and sporadic efforts of those who were drawn by a desire for other, more mundane forms of gratification, such as sex, drink, food, or the more complex considerations of love, family, professional or even artistic endeavor. In a surprisingly short time he’d found himself very, very rich. It wasn’t enough. Too much is not enough for any spirit motivated solely by avarice. In fact, adding to his bodily torments was the knowledge that his own greed had landed him in his present situation.

  When the stranger had come to his tent a few days ago, Otho had initially refused to see him, but the present of a heavy gold bracelet, an almost pure gold bracelet, changed his mind. He had agreed to admit the stranger and made the fatal choice. He took the stranger’s money, a lot of money, making the sums he’d extorted from Maeniel seem paltry by comparison. He had listened to the stranger’s accusations. He went to visit the king, repeating the stranger’s accusations into his ear.

  When he had returned to his tent in the king’s encampment, Otho had tried to dismiss the man, if indeed man it was. When the creature merely laughed and refused to leave, Otho ordered his servants to throw him out . . .

  They had failed; hardened gang of mercenaries that they were, they had failed. Oh, how they had failed. In fact, their remaining intact weapons were what pinned Otho to the bed. The only reason he still lived was that it wanted him to suffer. Otherwise, it was content. Prowling the tent night and day in one horrific form or another, it waited. For what, he couldn’t guess.

  So Otho tried to wait, struggling against death because late in life he had added another passion to the desire for wealth that ruled his life, and this passion was fully as overwhelmingly strong as the first. The second was absolute loyalty to the king. Charles, whom men were already beginning to call the Great, was the central love of his life. And Otho was convinced that in talebearing for this creature, he had somehow betrayed him.

  About the same time, Antonius and Maeniel were led before the king. He was surrounded by a dozen other nobles. The gray wolf had heard that Charles did not wear elaborate or distinctive clothing. In fact, he was often surrounded by men who made a more ostentatious display of wealth than he did, but Maeniel knew him as soon as the man entered the room; knew who and what he was. Only once before had he ever seen an individual with that look in his eyes, and without even asking Antonius to point him out, Maeniel went to one knee.

  Charles was not the best dressed nor the eldest or even the most impressive man present. He was like Maeniel, thickset, muscular, with dark hair, and he wore a short beard—possibly in deference to his wife Hildegarde’s wishes that he not present himself close-shaven to the Langobards who were, after all, famous for their facial hair, being called Long Beards. She wanted him to show he was man enough to cover his chin with hair also.

  He stretched out two strong, callused hands and raised both Maeniel and Antonius to their feet. “Please, no ceremony. If the tales that have been brought to me are found to be false, then I should embrace you both as brothers. If not, then . . . we will have to see what measures must be taken.”

  So saying, he seated himself in a folding camp chair. The nobility of the Frankish court clustered around him. “I will be brief. Information has been brought to me that you and Antonius conspired in the murder of your wife’s uncle Gundabald and his son Hugo. And that, further, you robbed the monastery at the foot of the pass guarded by your stronghold, murdered the inhabitants, and then burned the buildings, including the church.”

  Antonius opened his mouth.

  “No,” the king said. “Let him speak for himself.”

  Maeniel nodded.

  “First Gundabald and Hugo.”

  “They were men of somewhat licentious habits,” Antonius began.

  “Antonius,” Charles said. “Are you having problems with your memory? I told you, let him answer for himself.”

  Antonius raised his arms, and the chains clinked.

  “Antonius, you can make bad sound like good, day sound like night, morning sound like afternoon, and, in short, by your circumlocutions, thoroughly confuse an army of lawyers, judges, and scribes and bury major crimes in such obfuscating legalese that even a hardworking king and his equally hardworking scholars cannot sort it out. As I said, let him answer for himself.”

  Antonius sighed deeply.

  “Very well,” Maeniel said. “I will be brief. To be blunt, Gundabald was a wastrel and a sot. His son was an apprentice wastrel and sot. So unpleasant a pair were they that his holiness saw fit to remove my wife from their company and place her among holy nuns until we were married.

  “Though they were not the most charming company in the world, I respected them as my wife’s kin. I settled a large sum of money on them at the time of our wedding.

  “The results of my generosity were entirely predictable. Within days after the wedding, they both vanished without a trace and were never seen again. His holiness Pope Hadrian did me the courtesy of looking into the matter himself, but neither one could be found. Antonius here will attest, as he was privy to the matter. Probably their throats were cut and then their purses, or vice versa. Likely their bodies wound up in the Tiber, as it’s done duty as a Roman cemetery since the city was seven hills of farmland.

  “Now as far as the monastery is concerned, it had its own rather considerable demesne, and those lands do not touch mine in any place. While my wife and I journeyed here, an avalanche occurred. It wiped out a long stretch of the road the Romans built over the pass. We were obliged to take a detour and saw smoke. We investigated and—”

  Someone screamed, “Fire! Fire!”

  The king ran to the door and pushed the flap aside. Fire painted the low clouds of the night sky. Antonius turned toward Maeniel. Chains were lying on the floor. The gray wolf was gone.

  The Saxon cut a long slit in the canvas. Fortunately the tent had something of a list to it, and the fabric was loose. The first thing he saw was a cocked and loaded crossbow pointed at the entrance to the tent. The second, third, and fourth things he saw were corpses.

  One looked as if it had been butchered. The second was neatly decapitated. The third was the reason the tent pole was loose: it had been pulled out and driven through the man’s body, back into the ground.

  Then he saw the figure on the bed. It moved. The Saxon stepped through the slit into the tent and looked down at Otho. The open, staring eyes looked up at him and
blinked. The Saxon reached out and jerked the two knives out of Otho’s arms and the two swords out of his legs.

  Somehow Otho managed not to scream. He could have screamed in that extremity, even though his throat and tongue were so swollen they almost blocked his air passages. The pain was so dreadful that he could have screamed. But he managed to supress any sound as he lost consciousness.

  As he was pushing Otho’s legs through the tent slit, the Saxon sensed the thing behind him. He turned, sword upraised. The shape was a bear this time, but no living bear was ever this big.

  It swung one set of hooked claws at the Saxon’s face, and he parried with the sword, chopping deep into a foreleg. The thing gave a scream of sheer fury, but the sword couldn’t stop the forward motion of the blow. The paw caught the Saxon on the side of the head, sending him spinning.

  But Regeane was wolf and into the tent, a streak of dull silver in the half-light. The thing was partially turned, recovering from the blow it struck the Saxon. She slashed at the thigh, going for the deep arteries, but failed, though she inflicted a respectable wound to the muscles of the upper leg. Blood sprayed everywhere.

  It roared again in fury and went after the silver wolf on all fours, crowding her toward one corner of the tent where the powerful clawed forelegs could literally rip her to shreds.

  Matrona, a black wolf, landed on its back. The neck was too thick and powerful for her to bite, so she went for one massive shoulder and felt her canines grate on bone.

  This time the thing screamed in agony. It spun around, trying to reach the black wolf. Failing that, it began twisting from side to side in an attempt to throw her off.

  Whap. The black wolf’s body was snapped almost like a whip. Matrona wondered if her back would break, but hung on, her teeth buried to the gums in the giant bear’s shoulder.

  The silver wolf got her feet under her and charged again, this time going for the lower leg. If she could snap a bone, the battle would be over for good and all—or so she thought.

  Behind the knee. It would take a few seconds for it to get to her. She lunged and connected perfectly. Another scream as her canines severed tendons and sank into the gristle of the knee capsule itself. But both female wolves had forgotten what they were fighting.