Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (3 page)

Vincente was quite dead. Our job here was done. It was time to leave.

“Oh my God, please forgive me,” I said quietly and stood.

Giancarlo would not meet my gaze; but the man who had checked the body regarded me with sympathy and whispered, “It was an accident. All here saw that.”

I looked around, and found myself regarding Federico, Vincente’s younger brother and the man who would now inherit their father’s fortune. Federico was tractable and manageable in all the ways his brother Vincente had not been. Once their father passed, his power would be in the hands of Federico; and the boy would be in the hands of the individuals who had asked Teresina to task Alonso and myself with this little drama. Federico’s eyes were filled with rage and sorrow. He had been quite fond of his brother, and was not at all aware of the plot he was now in questionable benefit of.

“I am sorry,” I breathed.

“I cannot accept that,” Federico whispered. I wanted to laugh at the irony.

The other man stepped between us. “It was an accident.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “You should leave.”

I nodded mutely, and allowed Alonso to help me retreat. We quickly skirted the building and made the courtyard to retrieve our horses.

Within the hour, we were at the house Teresina had loaned us for the last two years. A surgeon had been summoned to see to my arm; and I had retired to my room to shed clothing and boots and drink in earnest while awaiting his arrival.

Vincente was not the first man I had killed for purposes other than my own. I was relatively sure he would not be the last. Since I had left my father’s house, I had learned to forgive myself a good many things.

Still, the initial guilt was strong, and I wanted nothing more than to drown it before it pulled me into the murky depths of melancholy.

Teresina and Alonso joined me. She was still in her gown and dripping jewels, but he had shed his jerkin. She gave me a deep kiss filled with promise, as all her kisses were. It did not drive the darkness away.

“Alonso said you were magnificent as always.” She smiled beautifically as she sat on the footstool and arranged her skirts.

I had planned and executed the deaths of three men at her request.

I had not done it because of her exquisite bone structure, or the bewitching conformation of the curves of her breast and hip. I did not do it because she occasionally granted me the privilege of her bed, or because she had taught me things I had not dreamed were knowable in the pleasing of myself or others. I did not do it because she provided me with a house, servants, horses, weapons, clothing, and anything else I might fancy in order to live at the level of comfort I was born to.

I did not do it because she was one of the more formidable powers in Florence, and crossing her meant certain death or destruction. No, I did it because I loved her. Even though I well knew that loving her was lunacy of a high order.

Teresina did not love. She doted, nurtured, befriended, and adored on occasion, but she did not love. Yet any man in her presence understood why a man would dash himself against the rocks of her fortitude for even the hope of entrance into her heart – even while any wise man knew that it was probably a barren place to obtain, and the journey was worth far more than the arrival. I am the sort of man who enjoys journeys and romantic notions and idealistic foolishness, and so I loved her.

Gazing upon her now did not make Vincente’s death taste any better, but it did make it easier to swallow.

She leaned forward and took my hand. “Uly, my love.” She paused and sighed. There was such sadness in her eyes.

My breath held in my chest, and fear clutched at my bowels.

“What is wrong?” I whispered.

“You need to leave Florence now. All are saying Vincente’s death was an accident. Yet you are still responsible. If you stay, I will be forced to deliver you up to appease the father’s anger. I would rather miss you than lose you.”

My heart thudded painfully, as it understood her words far more readily than my flailing mind did. I was unable to speak or move, except for my eyes. I looked to Alonso, hoping he would make a lie of her words. I wished to see him grinning as if this were some grand jest they had concocted. Alonso did not appear surprised, and his eyes were sympathetic. He had known.

“Ulysses, you knew this day would come,” Teresina said softly.

This was true. I forced myself to breathe and smile.

“Lady, I know death will come but I avoid it because I can rationally foresee the devastation it will wreak upon my life. Yet after death, I will be beyond this mortal coil, and either in eternal pleasure or damnation.

This thing that you do is worse than death, as it will leave me alive and in a perpetual state of agony. You may as well cast me into Hell.”

She shook her head with a sad smile. “Uly, if you feel this is Heaven... well, then, how very little you expect of perfection.”

I chuckled. “I strive to ask little of life in order to avoid disappointment.” I studied her. “There is truly no other way?”

She shook her head again.

“You knew this was the outcome.” I was not asking; I was merely stating what all in the room now knew, now that I had achieved some degree of understanding. I felt betrayed. Yet I wondered what I would have done differently, if I had known; perhaps devised a strategy that would have accomplished the objective without our involvement being known. Why had no one suggested that very thing?

In answer to my statement and the questions she must have guessed at, she squeezed my hand. “Please do not hate me.”

She wanted me to leave. She was through with me. I managed to say, “At the moment I do not feel that is possible. I cannot offer guarantee as to my future feelings, though.”

Now I wanted her to go. I did not want her to witness my pain and anger. She had suddenly and inexplicably become the enemy. I marveled that her eyes still seemed sincere.

“Go home, Uly. Regain your father’s good grace, marry, have children, and then make some courtesan a very happy woman.” Her features settled into resignation, and she stood with a tired sigh. “You are free to do anything your heart desires. Make yourself happy.” She leaned down to kiss my cheek. I did not try to touch her, even though her words had squashed my anger.

“You can leave here,” I said as she walked to the door.

She turned to regard me sadly. “No, I cannot.” She held up a hand to stifle my protest. “I do not wish to leave,” she added.

Without doubt, I knew she lied. I wanted to know who I had to kill to release her, what walls I had to tear down to set her free. There was so much sincerity in her lie, though, that I could not battle it. I was overcome with helplessness, and I did not feel I could battle that, either.

“I will miss you.”

She appeared relieved at my words. “I have brought money to provide for your journey.”

“I do not…”

“I know.”

I sighed. “There is one thing I would have of you.”

“If I am able,” she said.

“That.” I pointed at the portrait of her on the wall. It was one of the last paintings my beloved Joseph had done. It was as tall as I, and I did not know how I would transport it if we were on the road. “Please keep it safe until I can send for it.”

She nodded and smiled. She gave Alonso a parting look, and I realized they had already said their farewells. Then she was gone.

I sat watching the door where she had stood. I did not want to think.

I did not want to converse with Alonso. I did not want to exist in this moment in time. I wanted to be far away, and all of this only a passing memory.

The surgeon arrived. Alonso handed me a goblet as the man examined the wound. After a night of pretending to be intoxicated, I wanted desperately to drink myself blind. I gasped in pain at the man’s prodding, and realized I would not manage to become inebriated enough to dull the wound or my heart before I would be forced to experience their agony. I could still make the attempt, though.

So I drank wine and let Alonso hold my arm, while the surgeon pronounced the wound a clean slice and stitched it closed. I could not look at it myself, as I am quite squeamish when it comes to my own blood. The damned man added that there was always the possibility it might become noxious and feverish, and I could lose the arm in the end.

Finally the surgeon left, and we were alone. Alonso found another bottle on the sideboard and opened it.

“I did not expect it all to end so soon,” he said in Castilian.

At first I thought he meant the bottle in my hand. I was pleased I had already managed such stupefaction. Then I knew what he truly meant, and I felt he was lying. He had obviously thought it would end much sooner than I had. I was not drunk enough to escape just yet.

“I am beginning to feel a trifle bitter,” I said carefully. “I am sure it will become a raging torrent of righteous indignation all too soon. How long have you known?”

“Since she asked us to perform the task,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

I glared at him.

“Uly, you are truly brilliant when it comes to strategy, but you never consider the consequences past the problem at hand. You are always living in the day, and never thinking about the future. I have been thinking about the future a great deal lately.”

There he was, saying it again. And there he was, being ever so correct yet again. He would never understand that tonight’s events were why I do not think about the future. If I did, I would fear things such as had transpired.

“I am proud of you,” I muttered.

“Uly, please, we need to talk now.”

“Alonso, I feel betrayed, and used, and discarded.”

“We are the tools, not the tool users.”

“I do not wish to be either, but I suppose the only other alternative within the human milieu is to become a sheep.”

He raised a curious eyebrow.

“We are wolves,” I said, happy to ramble about something and nothing in an effort to think nothing or something. “We were raised by wolves to be wolves. We are members of the aristocracy, despite whatever condition we may find ourselves in over the course of our lives.

It is in our blood, and etched upon our minds and probably even our souls. We are destined and designed for lives of power and privilege. We rule over sheep.”

“So noblemen are wolves and peasants sheep?” he asked.

I frowned. “No, nobility does not make a wolf, but wolves are most often nobles and peasants are most often sheep. A wolf will seize power if he is not granted it by birth, and fight like a demon to keep it. They can see no other way to live. Sometimes one finds wolves in sheep’s clothing, acting timid and allowing themselves to be herded.

But in their hearts, they are wolves and expect to be allowed to act like sheep. On the other side of the fence, sheep do not believe they have the right to expect any such thing, such as being allowed to act like a wolf. Occasionally you get a very bully sheep who does think like a wolf, in which case a wolf they become; and they are no longer a sheep, no matter what skin they may don.”

He was grinning at me mischievously. “So, a sheep can become a wolf, but a wolf cannot become a sheep.”

“Correct, it would be akin to stuffing the chick back into the egg.”

“So you feel the natural order is for sheep to become wolves.”

“Si, if they are able. Everyone wants to be a wolf, if they are intelligent enough to understand what being a wolf means. Many sheep think the thing that separates them from the wolves is gold, or blood, but they are wrong. Sheep and wolves are different because wolves have big teeth and fangs and eat sheep and they know it. Sheep do not eat wolves. It is a state of mind. It is a thing of assigning primacy to one’s own well-being above all other things, including the lives of others.”

“So you cannot become a sheep by your own admission.”

“True. I am a wolf without a pack.”

“Are you sure you have no pack?” he asked kindly.

“I do not know. It has been ten years now since I departed. Perhaps.”

“I did not mean in England.”

I regarded him with a twinge of guilt as I grasped his meaning. “No, I am not sure I have no pack. Yet, I am not sure I have one, either. One I counted amongst its number walked out that door not long ago.”

He moved closer, and his fingers traced my cheek. “Abandoning you is not my intent.”

“What, then? Where shall we go? If you have known, you, who think about the future, must have some plan in mind. So where? Will Venice or Rome be safe? Genoa? I have only been away from Vienna these three years, and I feel that is not sufficient time for tempers to have cooled there. Paris, perhaps? How is your French?”

His big brown eyes managed to convey both guilt and hope. My gut clenched even tighter.

“What?” I prompted quietly.

“I have been corresponding with my family.”

That was interesting. He had often told me he communicated less with them than I did with mine. And since my communication with my family was limited to an annual set of letters to my Uncle Cedric and my former tutor, Rucker, Alonso’s frequency and depth of discourse should have been very small indeed; but apparently not.

He sighed. “Uly, we are getting too old for this life. I will have thirty years soon, and you have what, twenty-seven?”

“Twenty-six,” I said flatly. I was visited by the impression that he had rehearsed this speech many times.

“You are the eldest son and heir of the Earl of …” he frowned.

“Dorshire.” I did not fault him on not remembering; I spoke little of it and thought on it less. “I am John Williams, Viscount of Marsdale, and heir to the Earl of Dorshire.” I had not felt myself to be my father’s heir since I left his house in the middle of the night; but while I lived, I surely was. Unless I had been disinherited, of course.

Alonso nodded. “Unlike you, I am not the eldest son; yet I believe I have duties to my family, and to myself. I have given it great thought, and recently come to the conclusion that it is time to put aside boyish adventures and return home to the life that is expected of me.”

Oddly, his words came as no surprise. Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps I had known he would say such a thing someday.