Night of the Wolf (35 page)

And in and for a split second, he understood how some men might have considered being allowed to commit suicide, rather than face a punishment devised by this man, a favor.

Caesar’s face was stone, so still that when a muscle jumped in one cheek, Lucius flinched like one struck. He knew he was in mortal danger, and he knew that if the dictator wanted him dead, he would be dead, and in no more than a few seconds.

The dictator’s voice was savage and meant for him and him alone. “And you think you can stand aside? How did you put it—stay on your side of the house and your sister on hers? Well, you can’t. Will or nill, you’re a player in the game and must abide the outcome.” Caesar leaned forward on his desk, looking into Lucius’ eyes. “Do you know when you became one?”

“No.”

“The day your father sent me the money to raise one legion and pay the men for a year. And again when I crossed the Rubicon and received the price of an additional legion and their pay for a year from your sister. They both profited seven-fold from these transactions. Seven-fold is a conservative estimate. Ten- or fifteen-fold is more likely. Gallic gold dropped the price of the aureus by a third. The flower of their youth went to the auction block in Rome or in gangs chained together to work in the fields on the Basilian estates. The Gauls died in your mines, tended your vineyards, and poured a golden flood of oil and wheat into your father’s cash boxes. Horses and a royal purple river of wine went into his ships to sell at a discount to every barbarian between here and the back of the north wind on the White Isle. So know this: both my friendship and respect can be purchased, but they don’t come cheap. And if you want both, and the freedom to live as you please, then cut yourself in on the game, pick up the dice box, lay down your bet, and play!

“I agree those were no compliments your father paid you, but I believe he may have been wrong. Sometimes those who will not deceive others are themselves very difficult to deceive and I think that may be true in your case.”

“Your hand is out.”

“Yes, and it’s not extended in friendship. It’s been out since I made my first speech on the Rostra, more years ago than I care to remember. Now go! I’ve much other business to transact today and I’ve spent enough time with you already. I will pay the compliment of believing the time has not been wasted. Return when you’re ready to talk business.”

Lucius rose, mouth open, head spinning, and left.

They didn’t sit together in the hall. There were three tiers of round tables overlooking the fire pit and then one half moon-shaped high table. The chief, Cynewolf, sat there and, since there was no help for it, Mir, Dryas, and Blaze must sit there also, because they were of the highest rank. But Maeniel, who apparently had no rank, sat on the third row near the door, where it was cold. He didn’t notice the temperature, but he was aware of the slight.

Below the high table, the next highest in rank sat with their retainers. The second held most of the artisans and craft workers who lived in the town and their families, with the exception of young children.

On the third small inner ring, Maeniel sat with the low-ranking warriors attached to the household, and their women. Evars sat next to him. She’d appropriated the seat the night after they’d had their first sexual encounter and he’d stated he was pleased by her performance. She was a servant and, most of the time, servants ate sitting on the floor in the storerooms adjoining the kitchen.

She’d been bought from a tribe much deeper in the wilderness beyond the Rhine and she spoke a Gallic that was heavily accented, far more gutteral than the language he was used to.

Cynewolf freed his slaves, not out of the goodness of his heart, after the Romans burned the town for the first time. Often they had to seek other work because he simply could not feed them all. Those who had places to go left. The rest like Evars, who couldn’t even tell anyone where she’d come from and didn’t remember the names of her parents, remained. The oppidum was their home, the only one they had ever known.

As far as she was concerned, Evars was Maeniel’s woman. She threatened a brunette girl who had also noticed that he was drop-dead handsome, kind, an expert lover, and, though not rich, was generous with what he had. Evars used a long, single-edged knife—one she carried in a sheath made from a bull penis and kept hidden under her skirt—to convince the girl of her determination. The brunette took the hint and ignored him thereafter. It was plain that Evars felt she’d come up in the world through her association with him.

The hall was almost beautiful tonight. Weavings were draped from the roof high up over the tables. The banners above were woven and dyed the colors that marked the heritages of the powerful families who supported Cynewolf, each bearing their own particular pattern and color combination. Greens, yellows, all shades from the palest sunlight to orange, summer verdure, delicate fern green, wine, and bloodred flamed and danced in the banners, marked with the symbols each family honored. Serpents, dragons, fantastic birds, even the bear and the wolf, all drifted against the dark oak planks forming the ceiling.

Torches glowed on the wall sections. There were thirteen walls and each held a torch in a bracket canted out over the tables below, but away from the wooden walls. Pale tanned deer hides covered the benches, and tablecloths draped the tables.

Already there was music and song in the hall. The singers strolled up and down the aisle.

The more important people on the top called for songs in praise of this or that person or family. A general joyous party atmosphere filled the air.

Next to Maeniel, Evars seemed caught up in the celebratory mood. She was smiling, laughing, and guzzling the mead most probably intended for the men.

Oddly, Maeniel was more and more bothered as the evening progressed. Shuddering, he remembered the gathering of ghosts that preceded Imona’s death. In spite of the laughter and song, he sank more and more into an atmosphere of foreboding. He ignored the mead and drank only a little wine mixed with water.

One of the distinguished guests pointed to Actus, who sat with the warriors at the second table. Then general laughter followed and Maeniel realized they were speaking of him. Not that they knew it. Someone was recounting how Actus had encountered a dog that had turned into a man, and then punched him in the face.

Actus flushed as laughter swept the small high table. Cynewolf didn’t look amused. Neither did Dryas, Mir, or Blaze. As for Actus, he just glared at the glittering company sitting around his chieftain.

Maeniel added more water to his wine. He found he no longer wanted to challenge anyone for the champion’s portion.

The cooks had begun removing the joints of meat from over the flames. They rested them on a table close to the fire and began passing out platters to the assembled company.

The biggest chunks—whole haunches, saddles, and racks of ribs—went over the heads of Maeniel’s companions to Cynewolf and his guests. He distributed them with a liberal hand.

The people at the table near Maeniel received scraps, small pieces, and gravy. They were very happy sopping the juices with bread or lifting fragments or meat to their lips with their fingers. He relaxed and joined them.

The chopped pork, marinated then cooked in pepper, cinnamon, and wine, was delicious. Soup followed with plenty more bread, bread baked with walnuts, hazelnuts, and pine nuts worked into the dough, to dunk into the broth.

Evars drank more mead. Between the fire’s heat and the strong drink, her skin was developing a nice flush and her flaxen hair, escaping the snood wrapped around it, was hanging in attractive ringlets framing her face.

She kissed him, tasting of honey mead and pork gravy. He didn’t object and thought about meeting her in the barn later. Even though their association was widely recognized, he had no private place to take her and was annoyed by the fact.

He was thinking that he’d need to do something about finding a nice piece of land for next year and getting in a crop when he saw the shadow near the fire pit.

He turned away from Evars for a moment and saw Leon in cape and hood standing between himself and the flames with the mother of the pack at his knee.

A vast silence seemed to fall around Maeniel. Leon was dead, as was the mother of the pack. Her bones lay under a half ton of earth and rock on the mountainside beneath the snow. Leon was a scattering of blackened, gnawed bones resting below a linden tree.

Maeniel looked into Leon’s eyes and saw he was really there. Not a shadow of what once had been or a vagrant memory, but a conscious presence. As Maeniel watched, Leon smiled at him with saturnine amusement. Oh, yes, he was there and enjoying some secret joke.

He couldn’t be as sure about the mother of the pack. She seemed a bit more misty and remote, as if she had come from even farther away than Leon. She glanced at him once, then up. He followed the direction of her gaze to the table where Actus had been sitting, but he was unaccountably absent.

When Maeniel looked back at the flames, Leon still stood there, but she was gone.

“Evars,” he whispered to the woman at his side, “go! Leave now! Hurry!”

“What?” she asked a bit muzzily. Drink fogged her eyes.

He caught her by the arm and tightened his fingers. She gave a yelp and a start. He spoke in her ear. “Go! Now! Leave. Right now! Go!”

She didn’t go. All she did was rub her arm where his fingers closed around it. “What’s the matter? You hurt me.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet.

There was general laughter from everyone at the table and jokes about the impatience of some men, but he had a firm grip on her wrist and her strength was no match for his. He had her through the door and outside in a moment.

From the steps of the hall, he could look down on the whole town. His night vision was better than any human’s. From where he stood, he could see that the gates were open and the shadowy figures of armed men were making their way through the streets.

Unceremoniously, he snatched her up and threw her over the wall. She landed with a scream on the other side. He turned just in time to dodge a spear thrust that would have pinned him to the palisade. He ripped the spear out of its owner’s hand and broke his opponent’s arm in the process. The man screamed, reaching for his sword with his left hand.

Maeniel shoved the arm aside and pulled the weapon from its sheath. He aimed for the man’s stomach, but the blade skidded on the soldier’s cuirass and went up through his throat.

Maeniel managed to get a good look around and saw no one else was near him. He sprinted toward the hall and, at the same time, saw flashes of light against the sky as a dozen flaming arrows arched through the air and embedded themselves in the outer walls of the chieftain’s dwelling.

Maeniel knew he was screaming, but he wasn’t sure what he was screaming as he leaped the steps up into the entryway. He dove through the door and landed rolling, only just able to stop himself before he landed in the fire pit.

On his knees, clutching the dripping sword in one hand, he stared up at the faces surrounding him. For a weighty second that seemed to last for a thousand years, they stared blankly, mouths open, down at him, and then the screaming began in earnest.

There was no escape. In a few seconds, the hall filled with smoke. Its panic-stricken inhabitants trampled and fought each other to get to the door, but once they did, every man or woman who went through was cut down without mercy by the attacking troops outside.

The roof was fully involved. The rafters were covered only by thatch. A dreadful orange light, far brighter than torchlight, pervaded everything. It came from the proud banners hanging from the rafters. They were burning, falling to fragments and dropping strips of flaming cloth on the writhing human mass below.

The damp outer layer of thatch resisted the rivulets of fire for a few seconds and then went up with a roar that was echoed by a dreadful wail of despair from those trapped in the building. The whole roof seemed a seething mass of bright embers.

The wolf saw the chieftain die. One of the banners fell across his shoulders. His clothing caught and he plunged, running down the tiered tables and ended as a blackened writhing shape in the central fire pit.

Dryas followed, trying to help him. She stopped next to Maeniel, then looked away from whatever remained of Cynewolf. Her sword was in her hand. She seemed to carry an air of icy calm with her.

The wolf looked up beyond the smoke hole in the roof and saw stars, their calm beauty a foil to the unspeakable chaos around him. He could hear her voice above the din. “We must break out. We have no choice.”

He ripped a section of the table from its legs on the floor. He didn’t see Dryas pull something from around her neck and throw it into the very center of the fire pit. He balanced the table, holding the curved shape in his hands, and charged the doorway.

Dryas followed. The table slammed into the doorposts and, for a ghastly second, he was afraid they might hold. Then he felt the weight of the mob at his back and, with a rending crash, the doorposts snapped like dry twigs and the whole side of the building fell away.

In the streets, their attackers tried to move forward to close with their victims, but they wrought better than they knew when they fired the hall. A whole side of the roof slid down, like the flaming haystack it was, and landed in the street between the two groups. For a few moments, it held back the attacking force, allowing the fugitives from the ruined hall to make their escape.

The flames leaped up between them, but Maeniel noted Dryas didn’t run. So he stood with her. The survivors from the hall were so demoralized that none of them tried to make a fight of it, though they probably outnumbered the attacking force. Too many of them were women; others were old like Blaze and Mir. They fled over the palisade, into the night. But Dryas faced their enemies, trying to give the oldest and weakest among them time to escape.

Maeniel thought privately she should worry about herself, and he was right because a rider among the raiders shouted, “That’s her! Don’t let her get away. A thousand golden aurei to the man who catches her! Bring her down!”