The Wolf King (20 page)

She alone could hear Hugo’s guest give vent to a roar of salacious merriment. “Serves you right for interfering with my little amusements.”

Chiara fled.

The countryside was reverting to wilderness. Smallholders couldn’t maintain themselves any longer. The Lombards had kept the big Roman estates and ran them as the Romans had with slave gangs. Regeane saw such estates at a distance. Crops were seldom planted close to the river, though it was clear some water was being diverted by means of canals for irrigation, but the sometimes steep, rocky banks and thick growth of trees discouraged any settlement too close to the water. Once she did run into wolves. A small pack of no more than six individuals, they were feeding on the somewhat well-aged carcass of a bullock who looked as if he’d fallen down a bank and broken his neck.

She gave them and the remains of the bullock a wide berth. She still had many human leanings, and to the woman the meat had an appalling stench. When she came into view, they raised their heads and watched her as she passed.

She didn’t think any of the them would pay any more attention to her, but one came after her. She heard the faint sounds of pads in the soft mud.

The woman felt a thrill of pure fear, but the she-wolf was angry. Wolves do have some laws. She was not interfering with them. She had not threatened any of them or killed in their territory. They should have let her pass unmolested, but here was this fool coming up behind her. Matrona had told her what to do. The woman hoped it would work.

At the last second she wheeled and slammed her shoulder into the oncoming wolf. The silver wolf was half again as big as the other. She—it was one of the females—went over, rolling in the shallows.

The silver wolf stood her ground, snarling.

The other jumped to her feet and showed no desire to continue the attack. She stood on the bank and shook herself dry.

It had worked, the silver wolf thought, a little bit triumphantly, so she almost didn’t see the other two screened by the cattails and brush who were moving up alongside her. In fact, she never knew what warned her, but one second they weren’t there, the next they were.

She was standing next to a fallen tree, and they came over it, ready to land on her back or rather, she knew—her memories told her—one of them would land on her back, go for her spine, and the other would try to tear out her throat.

Don’t run,
Matrona had told her.
Don’t even think about running. If you do, they’ll have you
.

She didn’t. She turned and met them in midair. She flanked them. The first one went down on top of number two, and her jaws closed on his throat. The woman willed her to hesitate but the wolf sank her fangs in to the gums.

Her adversary pulled free with as near to a scream as she’d ever heard a wolf give, and when she turned, ready for further battle, she realized they were all in flight. The speed of their disappearance was amazing. They seemed to melt into the brush on the riverbank. All vanishing except for the bullock, flies still buzzing around it, and a pool of blood beside the log half sunken in the mud.

Shaken, Regeane—the woman was now firmly in charge— bolted and didn’t stop running until she was winded and several more miles downstream. She hoped she didn’t meet any more of her brethren. They had, however, exceeded her expectations, being devious, intelligent, and fierce. She understood better now why Maeniel had been reluctant to take her with him. She didn’t possess nearly enough of those qualities herself. Certainly not enough to impress such as he. She was determined to cultivate them in her own personality.

She dove into the river to clean her fur, shook herself, and continued on, realizing she had a dismaying prospect ahead of her. Last night didn’t count. She’d spent it hot on the trail of the men who’d captured Maeniel. She hadn’t had a chance to rest. She must sleep. Now.

How do I find a den ?
she asked herself.
A safe den
?

She had no idea.

Hadrian came to see Lucilla. He, Lucilla, and Dulcinia had supper just before dark. Dulcinia kissed Lucilla good-bye and went home. Hadrian and Lucilla walked in the garden.

“He is coming via Lake Geneva through the Alps,” he told Lucilla. “This is, of course, not for public consumption.

“Desiderius has blockaded some of the passes into Lombardy. Where and what the dispositions of his forces are isn’t known.”

Lucilla nodded. “You want my help in finding out?”

“No,” Hadrian said. “I believe that’s already taken care of. We—Charles and I—have a more pressing problem.”

“What?” Lucilla asked, then she sighed. “My dear, I’m growing old.” She sat down on a bench.

The garden was dark but her servants had set torches on the walls of the triclinium bordering the garden and near the fountain, so there was light. It had rained earlier in the day and the air was cool and moist.

“I’m not sure I want to hear about this,” Lucilla said.

“No?”

Lucilla looked down at her hands. “You are pope. It’s what we both wanted and I am weary.”

He lifted her hand. It was scarred by her torture at the hands of the Lombards, and the nails were thick and crooked. She remembered the pain as they were jerked out one by one. She’d screamed. She remembered how she’d screamed and felt terrible shame that she could be brought so low. The hand clenched into a fist, and she pulled away.

“They jerked out my nails and when that didn’t work… It was working, though they just didn’t know it. I didn’t know if I could bear another one. But they brought out the hot irons.”

“Shush.” He kissed her on the lips, then drew back. “Can’t you forget?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t. I’ll never let you see my body again.”

She hadn’t. Not since she was tortured. Not since he got her back from the Lombards.

“You are avenged,” he said bleakly. “Basil the Lombard agent is dead. Gundabald… I don’t know. But this Maeniel who married Regeane told me before they left Rome that I needn’t concern myself about him.”

“Believe it,” Lucilla whispered. “Regeane told me what happened, and you don’t want to know. I am indeed avenged.”

“But,” he said, “that little turd Hugo somehow has found his way to Pavia and become a respected member of the court there.”

Lucilla gave out a hiss of pure fury. “Tell me what you need done,” she said.

“No,” Hadrian said. “Not tonight. I came,” he said quietly, “to repair this estrangement between us.”

“No,” Lucilla whispered. “Take a younger mistress. Give me a few weeks and I…” She was rising to her feet as she spoke. “I will find you a clean, not too intelligent girl, one so lowborn she will not come burdened with a tribe of relations—”

“Stop it.” He rose also and caught her by the upper arms. Lucilla closed her eyes and in the torchlight he saw two tears trickle from beneath her lids and make their way down her cheeks.

“When I go to my home—the house where I was born—to visit my brothers and sisters, I know the house is old, the frescoes peeling; the very flagstones in the courtyard and on the stair to the roof are worn by the passage of many feet.

“But also I know that there my ancestors sacrificed to the lares and penates belonging to my family and later celebrated the eucharistic sacrifice in the triclinium after they heard Christ’s words and accepted him as the center of their lives. I would not exchange that building for Nero’s famous golden house. I touch my lips to the lintel of the doorway when I enter; and, my very dear, a house is only a thing of stone, brick, and mortar. How much more do I love the one who brought joy to my youth, the mother of my children and my life’s companion.

“There is no other woman in my life and what’s more, my dear, my soul, there never will be. Our love was never about the lust of the flesh. Remember when we met?”

She did, and the sun seemed to shine on her, hot on her neck. She had been pregnant, four months, and had walked a long way from the mountains that ran like a spine down the center of Italy to Rome. Lucilla had gold, but she was afraid to spend it. A gold coin in the hands of a lone woman without kin to protect her was simply an invitation to thieves. The gold was sewn into her shift and in a belt around her waist.

She wore black and had told those she met she was a widow. She had, in fact, dyed the dress and veil with oak galls in the mountains. She paused at a fountain near the entrance to the city. She knew the women would gather there before sunrise to get water for their families to prepare the morning meal before the day’s heat set in.

The women had directed her to a community of women, widows themselves, who kept safe lodgings for the multitude of lone female pilgrims who thronged to the holy city. They rented her a room up a narrow stair on the third floor of a bakery near the ruins of the forum. She couldn’t spend the gold and she had to eat, so they told her to apply to the church at the Lateran Palace where daily bread, wine, and meat were distributed to the poor.

“There is a colonnade,” one of the oldest widows told her, “where you may rest, shaded from the sun, and across the street a stair and a portico surrounded by a painting of Christ and his saints giving alms to the poor. Tell your name to the priest who cares for the needy, and he will help you.”

“Do you know,” Hadrian said, “when I fell in love with you?”

“No.”

“When I saw you standing with the other women who had come to receive alms.”

“How strange. I didn’t know you noticed me that day.”

“I did. The veil fell from your head, back on your shoulders, and your face and golden hair were like a flower blooming against the black of your gown. A flower looking up at me. I wanted to kiss you then, but I was so shy it was all I could do to take your name. But every day I waited in agony for you to appear. I knew you were pregnant.”

“Did you?” She was surprised. “I thought I had everyone fooled.”

“No,” he said. “I may not have known a lot about women, but I certainly had seen enough of them in my work among the poor. I can tell when the lady is breeding. I could tell the lady something else, too. No scar will ever make you ugly to me.”

Lucilla would have argued but she found she was being kissed, and in a few moments she wasn’t disposed to argue any longer.

Later, in her bedroom, she made him look at her breast.

“God,” he whispered. “The pain.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “But I confessed,” she said. “There are certain things—”

“No,” he said. “No more—not tonight.” He took the lamp from her hand and blew out the flame.

“For that, I will see to it Charles wears the iron crown. Wait, my love, wait and see if I don’t.

“You are my only love and when we part, however we part, you may be assured you will be my last—as you were the first. Forever.”

Near dawn she woke him. “I will help you find Gerberga.”

“I had determined not to ask you,” he said.

“No, the late Carolman’s wife and her two sons are the crux of the matter. Those boys are legitimate heirs to the throne of Francia. Even if Charles unseats Desiderius, all his skill in statecraft and his might in battle may well come to nothing. Time is on Gerberga’s side and well she knows it. If she can evade Charles, she will not only keep the Lombard cause alive, but she and her sons will become a focus for every unhappy magnate in Francia. All who hope to unseat Charles or even cause difficulties for him will turn to her. And it doesn’t help matters that she has more claim to be the legitimate ruler of Francia than Charles himself.”

“I don’t know,” Hadrian said. “The boys are children yet, and these barbarian kingdoms won’t accept a child as a ruler.”

“Why not?” Lucilla asked. “They did once. The lady Fregundis got the support of the king’s nobles and brought the sons of Clovis to power in Francia, and they were only children.”

“Gerberga is not another Fregundis,” Hadrian said. “She has neither that redoubtable lady’s intelligence nor, for that matter, the trust of the notables who decide matters for the Frankish realm.”

“No, I quite agree. She can only cause trouble. She will do that. She already has, a lot of trouble. And each day those sons of hers grow older and in no long time will be excellent candidates for kingship. Charles himself was only sixteen when he succeeded Pepin le Bref as king. No, my dear, I have been investigating on my own. She has slipped away from Pavia to… no one knows where. Probably with Desiderius’s son Adalgisus; he is said to be her lover, and certain it is that he hopes to advance her cause.

“Scheming bitch,” Lucilla whispered. “He is blinded by the thought of not only wearing the iron crown of Lombardy but being the de facto king of Francia when she sits on the throne ruling in the name of her two sons. My love, men aren’t the only ones who can whisper false promises to achieve their ends.”

Hadrian chuckled softly. “I won’t deny that. You will be my only love.”

“Forever?” Lucilla asked.

“That is true. And sometimes I wish it were not so, but it is,” he answered sadly.

“Oh, my love, whatever my fate, live your life and love again. You taught me how to love; teach someone else, when I am gone.

“For I will not help you find Gerberga out of devotion to you, but because I have been a player in this game of power for too long to rise and yield up my place at the table to another. It is entirely fitting that a peasant girl would traffic in the sport of kings.”

As evening approached, Regeane found herself in a wilderness. She was becoming very weary. She’d been on her feet for the better part of two days and nights. She had used up a lot of her physical resources: not all by any means, but a lot.

The Po valley was one of the richest parts of Italia. But though productive, much of it had succumbed to the pervasive depopulation and neglect that haunted the remnants of the once-great empire.

What had been wrong with them, this people of gaudy magnificence, that their accomplishments had turned to chaos so quickly? Such an analysis was beyond a hungry, weary wolf.

Because she was hungry now, very hungry, the carrion consumed by her confederates upstream was beginning to seem attractive in hindsight. If not to the fastidious woman, then to her sister of moonlight.