The Wolf King (16 page)

The physician had reeked of drink that day and cut her in a half dozen places before he found a vein to his liking. When at last her mother’s arm was extended over the basin, the blood kept clotting, and the physician had to keep reopening the wound until, at last, Chiara drove him from the room in a fury and consoled her mother. While she lay weeping in Chiara’s arms, Chiara promised she would get rid of the man, no matter what her father said.

Chiara was in the garden collecting herbs for her mother’s medicine cabinet and considering how to accomplish this feat. There were, she knew, several things growing right here…

Then Hugo had her in his arms and was breathing in her face. His breath stank like swamp water. Chiara twisted away in pure revulsion and clawed at his eyes and came rather close to blinding him. This roused his guest, who slammed him back, hard, into an iron arbor used to grow table grapes.

“Leave her alone or I’ll knock the shit out of you.”

Chiara backed away from the reeling Hugo, her face perfectly white. Both the guest and Hugo knew she’d heard him speak.

“Idiot,” the guest roared. He clipped Hugo on the ear. Hugo fell to the ground. “You’ll ruin everything, you stupid lecher. In a city full of courtesans, you have to pick on a respectable girl. How big a fool can you manage to be?”

“No,” Chiara said. “Don’t hit him again. You might kill him.”

“Does that worry you?” Hugo’s guest asked.

“Not in the least,” she said, “but I’d never be able to explain it to my father.”

“True.” Hugo’s guest laughed, an unpleasant peal of mirth.

Chiara’s skin crawled. “What are you? A daemon?”

“Probably. I’m surprised.”

“At what?”

“That you can hear me at all. Most can’t.”

“Yes, it’s a gift,” Chiara said. “When Aunt Stella died, I saw her climbing the stair to my mother’s room. I didn’t know she had died. I thought she’d simply come for a visit, but when I asked my mother about it she burst into tears and told me Stella was dead. But don’t worry about me telling. I won’t. I… I… I think I understand better what’s going on— that strange story. Did he sell his soul to you?”

“What would I want with his rotten, filthy little soul? His body is bad enough. No, I just want use of him for a time.”

Hugo was sitting up, holding his head.

“I wonder if you could help me with a problem of my own?” said the guest.

Hugo started to rise.

“Sit,” his guest said. “Stay.”

Hugo sat.

“What would you want?” she asked tremulously.

“Your influence with your father. Has he written the king?”

“Yes. As soon as he heard the story he—” She pointed to Hugo.“—told. But I persuaded him not to be too credulous.”

“Try to get him to write and sing dear Hugo’s praises.”

“Yes,” she said, and nodded as if to reinforce her words. “Yes, I certainly will.”

“Now, what’s
your
problem?”

“I want to get rid of the physician treating Mother. I think he’s killing her.”

“He is,” Hugo’s guest said nastily. “Pour his medicines out and replace them with cordials. They’re poison.” Then he shouted, “And for God’s sake, feed the woman.”

Chiara backed away, blinking. “I will. I will. I was going to take her some capon and soup.”

“That’s good for a start. Now get moving.”

Chiara fled.

Regeane marched back to the tent with her head up and her fists clenched. Once inside, she really broke down and wept. Tears were equally balanced by rage. There wasn’t a lot to smash in the tent—a cooking pot or two, that was all—but she smashed them. And then she attacked the heavy canvas walls with her knife and shredded them.

“I will leave him. I will. He can’t hold me back. At least that’s what Matrona says. I will go. I will stay—stay just to punish him. I’ll never speak to him again.”

The Saxon shrugged and went to shave by the creek, a short walk downhill. When he returned, he sat on a rock and waited. When the noises from the tent ceased, he rose and began to mix bread for breakfast. After a time, Regeane emerged. She was calmer, but her eyes and nose were red. She sat on a log near the fire.

The Saxon made bread on a hot stone, paired it with cheese, and handed it to her.

“He knows me very well,” she said. “I might risk myself, but I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.” She tore savagely into the bread with her teeth.

“A man,” the Saxon said, “any man, finds something he loves to distraction, and he will protect that person or thing. If necessary, protect it to death.”

“Yes, but what do I do?” The tears began to slip down her cheeks again.

“Eat your breakfast,” the Saxon said. “We will think of something.”

They tossed ideas about for several hours but couldn’t come up with anything either one believed would be workable. Then, discouraged, they walked the few miles up to the lake and stood looking out over the water.

“He brought me here yesterday. He behaved as if he knew the spot,” Regeane said, “but it’s far from the fortress.”

The Saxon shivered, and gooseflesh rose on his arms.

“It’s not cold.”

“This place,” he said, rubbing his arms. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I suppose.”

“Near… near the tree it was like this.”

“What tree?” she asked.

“Do you know of the Irmunsul? The sacred tree, the one Charles felled?”

“I don’t know.”

“He came to our land; it wasn’t long ago. When I was captured, we—my family—were keepers of the tree. I rode out and spread the alarm, but this Charles is a very good soldier. He had taken us by surprise, and my mother and I were the only members of our family present.”

The Saxon stood quietly, seemingly lost in his memories. “Charles came to the sanctuary for the gold, booty we buried in the field. But he needn’t have felled the tree for that.

“My mother was in the sanctuary. It was bounded by three rings, berms made of earth, and the tree stood in the center on a mound, all alone. We met there and held our assemblies four times a year. My mother met the Franks alone. They killed her.

“It is said that before she died, she told Charles that everything he did would turn to ashes in the end. She said he would conquer an empire but his sons would not rule long, they would lose it; and the person he most loved would betray him, and others would reap what he had sown.”

“I think,” Regeane said, “that he dreams of remaking the world as the Romans did and extending his rule even farther than theirs, but he thinks that to do so he must receive God’s blessing. It seems as if the great tree was his first offering to the Christian god.

“He accused my husband of burning the monastery. Maeniel said he didn’t seem very concerned about Gundabald, my uncle, but mostly about the insults to the church.”

“Ah, well,” the Saxon said. “We did that. And a good job it was, too.”

“I cannot regret it,” she said. “And neither would Charles, if he knew the full truth.”

“What happened to this Gundabald?”

“He was not a very pleasant individual.”

“No, I gathered that.”

“He murdered my father.”

“Wolfstan?”

“Yes. They called it a hunting accident, but Gundabald murdered him. My father was—”

“Like you. I know. Your father was greatly loved. We are related—distantly, but we are blood kin. That is why it is my honor to serve you.”

“Oh,” Regeane said quietly. “Now I see. I didn’t realize that. But you must know my father’s people?”

“Not so well,” the Saxon said. “Remember, I was sold into slavery to the Lombards. I haven’t been home in a long time. Besides, you have obligations here.”

“Yes, and…” She broke off and pointed to the top of the falls. “He called that place the Lady’s Mirror.”

“Then let us go look into it.”

So they climbed to the top.

Yes, the pool was a still one. It appeared no one went there anymore, not even the wolf pack that frequented the region. Mountain ash, the rowan, grew thickly around the water, and wild rose canes covered with sweet dog rose blossoms dipped down to the pool. The blossoms of this rose were larger than any the Saxon had ever seen, and more brightly colored. A deep pink, almost mauve at the edges, shaded into the white surrounding the bright gold cluster of stamens at the center.

The perfume of the flowers hung heavy in the still air, but the long, thorny rose stems twining around the slender rowan seemed to form an almost impenetrable barrier to anyone wanting to look into the pool.

“I don’t know if we can get by,” the Saxon said. “At least not without cutting our way through.” He started to draw the sword he wore in the old-fashioned way, slung over his back.

“No,” Regeane said. “Not here.” She stretched out her hand, and the Saxon felt gooseflesh rise on his arms as the briar rose stems parted at her touch, opening a way to let them both through.

A second later, they stood at the edge of the pool. The rocks were covered with moss that yielded like a soft carpet under their feet.

“Nothing comes here, not even the animals,” Regeane said.

“You mean nothing is allowed to come here, don’t you?”

Regeane looked into the water; so did the Saxon.

“Only a forest,” he said.

“Yes, but not this forest.”

And it was true what she said, because the forest was another one and they were looking upslope at a cloud-capped mountain whose sides were high ridges and deep ravines. The trees were giants, bigger around than any tree Regeane and the Saxon had ever seen.

As they watched, the sky blackened and the massive forest filled with greenish light, and a magnificent thunderbolt struck at a tree. It burst into flame and cast a lurid golden light against the low rolling clouds, and the rain hit and the landscape hazed with its sinuous curtains. The pool blurred and the forest vanished in dozens of concentric circles, the way clear glass clouds when rain strikes it.

On impulse, Regeane thrust one hand into the water. It vanished, simply vanished. She should have been able to see her fingers just below the surface, but she didn’t.

The Saxon grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “No,” he shouted.

“It seems,” Regeane said, “there is more than one way for me to travel.”

They were at dinner when Hugo’s guest got rid of the physician.

When the physician came down to dinner, he was unsteady on his legs. Chiara gave him a glance of pure hostility. The man had gone to her father to complain of Chiara’s interference. It had given him a good chance to warn Armine that Madonna Helen, his wife, might not live long.

Armine had been gravely stricken with the news. He had been an up-and-coming merchant when he had married Madonna. He had never seen her before the wedding day, and on that day she’d been a disappointment. Far too thin, quiet, reserved, and shy, her pale blond, almost colorless looks didn’t intrigue him. After the marriage he’d never really gotten to know her. She became pregnant within the first month of marriage, and he left her bed until it was time to lie with her again. Once again she became pregnant at once. After the birth of their second daughter, his wife’s health failed for a time and matters of business required that he travel. When he returned she was in blooming health and they resumed relations. He was somewhat troubled by the fact that his two eldest children were girls.

Though Chiara was learning the business and was a help to him, he’d relied on his wife to help him with things having to do with both keeping accounts and investing the considerable profits of his business. At least in part because of his wife, he was one of the richest and most important men in the city.

He was stricken with fear; he didn’t know what he was going to do without his wife. He was also filled with guilt that he had never even bothered to know someone so important in his life.

The look of sheer, fatuous self-satisfaction on the physician’s face enraged Chiara, who, if she could have found a way, would have murdered him on the spot. She was wondering if Hugo’s friend was going to keep his promise when he did exactly that.

The physician was working on the soup, beans with salt pork and rice in the broth. He was slurping loudly when he broke off to let out a screech and jumped about a foot.

“What ails you, man?” Armine asked.

“No-no-nothing,” the physician stammered.

“Nothing? What is this? Nothing?” Chiara heard Hugo’s guest say. She heard the words so clearly, she was sure everyone at the table heard them, too. She glanced around and saw only blank faces.

This time the unfortunate man made a sound reminiscent of a whole pack of hounds on the scent. It began on a bass note and rose higher and higher until it ended in an almost feminine note. At the same moment, he clutched at his groin and jumped onto the seat of his chair.

“Ah, that’s better,” Hugo’s guest said, and turned over the chair.

The physician gave a terrible scream and landed hard. For the next minute or so, the man engaged in the most extraordinary acrobatics Chiara had ever seen. Rolling over and over around the room as if trying to escape a pair of invisible hands that followed, prodding and punching, poking and, yes, goosing him. At one point he lay on his back kicking, turning around and around in a circle, while letting fly with scream after scream at the top of his lungs.

All this, to Chiara’s ears at least, was accompanied by peal after peal of raucous laughter. Armine leaped to his feet.

“Good God, man. Are you daemon possessed?”

The physician didn’t even slow down. “Oh. Ow. Sno-o-o-o-o, oh-o-o-o-o. No! No! No!” He was on his knees by now, crawling toward the door.

The laughter stopped. Instead she heard the voice shout, “Faster, faster. Faster, mule,” and Chiara realized the unfortunate man was being ridden.

She rose, ran to the door, and pulled it open.

“Thank you,” someone said.

The physician exited the dining room precipitously. There were two brass standing lamps containing oil, one on either side of the doors. Oil fountained from both lamps, leaping into the air, catching fire as it flew. The physician ran screaming.

Chiara followed him to the door. Fire or no fire, she wanted to see him in the street.