The Wolf King (23 page)

“Yes,” Dulcinia sighed. “Again this adventure is made for you. Did you say the lord Rufus is to accompany us?”

“Oh, no, Cecelia wouldn’t let him out of her sight. Do you know he’s made her a mask with a silver nose? And she wears it all the time.

“But he will lend us an escort of twenty-five stalwart soldiers, all tied to him by oath and holding lands in return for service. A bit better quality men than paid mercenaries. I didn’t wish to take any chances with the safety of your person, either on the roads or in the cities.”

Dulcinia nodded. “I’ll go home and speak to my secretary about what invitations I’ve received and what inducements I’ve been offered to travel to the Lombard kingdom.”

Lucilla’s plan was fraught with danger for Lucilla. Dulcinia didn’t like to think about what might happen if she were recognized or caught, but she had seen Lucilla move around Rome incognito and arouse little interest. Women’s dress lent itself to disguise.

A woman wearing silk, gold, and expensive perfume was assumed to be one sort of person, while the same woman wearing a worn dress, a dark veil, and mantle was assumed to be another. People rarely questioned those assumptions.

Clothing was used to indicate social position, degree of wealth, and rank. It would be considered mad for someone not to use it for this purpose.

Women for hire, prostitutes, wore their own distinctive dress and painted their faces. They advertised their profession. As would the tiring women and personal maid to an artist like Dulcinia. She would find herself in almost as great a demand as her mistress, and Lucilla, with her skill and familiarity with all classes of people, would have no difficulty in passing herself off as such a woman.

She was going gray now, and Dulcinia knew if she put aside the vanity of hair coloring, expensive perfume, makeup, and corsets, Lucilla would seem almost another person.

Every city had its court notables and ruling family, and the women among them starved for gossip, fashion advice, news of the barbarian kingdoms and the Greek east; they would talk freely in front of her tiring woman. And they would tell her everything they knew. Oh, God, would they ever.

If her tiring woman couldn’t find out where Gerberga was, no one could. And that was probably why Hadrian had given Lucilla the job of finding her. It wasn’t the first time he was in a pinch and didn’t care to let the right hand know what the left was doing.

Lucilla broke in on her thoughts. “My, what a disappointed face you’re wearing.”

“One thing we haven’t talked about,” Dulcinia said as she rose, “is what we are going to do about the queen of Francia if we do find her.”

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Lucilla commanded. “Charles, as you astutely pointed out, has got to cross the Alps. We will have to make that decision when the time comes.”

Chiara woke with her bed being violently shaken. “Help me, damnation on it. You must help me. They are killing him.”

“Who? What? What him? Who is being killed?”

“The wolf.”

Chiara recognized Hugo’s guest, and she had been in the church with Hugo when Maeniel was tricked into revealing himself. “I’m not sure I want to save that creature,” she began.

That was as far as she got. Hugo’s guest flipped the bed on its side, dumping her on the floor. Chiara stifled a shriek. Her maid, as usual, was sleeping in an alcove nearby and her father was in the next room. She scrambled to her feet and began pulling on her shoes, soft leather things, almost sandals. Something took her by the hair and began to drag her through the door into the darkened corridor.

She got a good grip on the doorpost and spoke through her teeth. “You stop that. Now.”

He did. She knew he had limitations on his strength. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she set her will against his, but she didn’t really want to find out—at least not now.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll help you, only you’ve got to behave decently.”

“I will, but you’d best come quickly because he won’t last much longer.”

Chiara snatched up her mantle and wrapped herself in it. “Where is Hugo?”

“In his bedroom gibbering with fear, a broken man. He is sure the wolf will kill him. That was why he arranged that filthy trick to get the creature to declare himself. I have news for that piece of dung. If the wolf doesn’t kill him, I will,” Hugo’s guest raged.

“You don’t want to do that,” Chiara said as she ran quickly down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as she could. “You must need him for something, as well as the rest of us, otherwise you wouldn’t restrain yourself. Where is Gimp?”

“Drunk in a taverna near the river. Just when I need him most.”

In a few seconds they were out of the building. Chiara paused for a moment. The street was dark and deserted.

“My heavens, what is the hour?”

“Late,” came the reply. “Hurry. I cannot comprehend what you silly humans do to time, which is after all more like a river than a segmented—”

“Don’t lecture me. Where? Where do you want me to go?”

“To the forum. Run!”

Chiara ran.

Pavia was not a big city. A few moments later she was approaching the cathedral. “What if we meet the watch?” she gasped out.

“That will be his misfortune,” Hugo’s guest said grimly, “but we won’t. He’s at the same taverna with Gimp, also drunk.”

She flew up the cathedral steps. The big bronze doors were closed and locked. “What now?”

“I go inside, lift the bar, and let you in.” In less than a second he had done so. The bar was on a pivot. Once inside, Chiara let it fall back into the socket. Then she turned and faced the large, dark, empty church. “Oh, oooohhhh,” Chiara said.

“As far as I can tell, we are alone,” Hugo’s guest said.

“Are you sure?”

“No, but if you see something, you will no doubt complain— as is your wont—and whether it be living or dead, I can chase it away. Hurry.”

She was pushed forward. She hurried past the altar. Only one faint light burned there, a flickering sanctuary lamp. Hugo’s guest snatched it up. An impressive feat, since it was suspended by chains from the vaulted ceiling. It seemed to fly down toward where Chiara was standing, then go before her, leading down into the crypt where the Lombard kings were buried.

Various gates and doors barred her way, but they all opened before her. She scurried across the crypt, a fairly dull place. The people of these times didn’t go in for effigies or even exciting sarcophagi, as the Romans had. The Lombard lords and ladies were encased in plain stone boxes, all tastefully engraved with the name and rank of their occupants.

Chiara rolled her eyes a time or two, but the members of the Lombard nobility stayed put. When they reached the back of the crypt, another stair led down deeper into the ground. It was damp here. Damp and cold.

The sanctuary lamp hovered in the air before her, about five feet in front of her face. “Put it lower,” she said. “You’re blinding me. I have to see where to put my feet.”

“Plague take all women,” Hugo’s guest said, but the lamp dropped down a few feet.

The steps were very narrow and seemed to be carved from the high rock that supported the cathedral. Chiara negotiated them cautiously, helped along by the fact that things grew brighter as she neared the bottom.

The gate wasn’t very big, so water didn’t fill the chamber quickly. The river by rights ran through the cell rather than into it; the other grating was connected to a passage that returned the water from whence it came. But Maeniel soon saw the nature of the trap. Because the main hole that sealed the cell shut at the top was open, the swirling water rising moment by moment would bring him to the top, and when the water reached the top it would enter a short wellhead, a tube that led to the basement above, and rise almost but not quite to floor level. It would rise up and out of the cell but he wouldn’t because it was covered at the top with an iron grating. The water would rise past the grating, and he would be trapped beneath it. And he would drown.

He had a few moments yet, riding the swirl of rising water, until he reached the grating. A few moments to contemplate his fate and wonder in passing who constructed this vicious trap. It allowed an observer above to watch the struggles of the individuals below the grating, watch them drown. He was calculating rather coolly that it wouldn’t take long when he found himself looking up at the face of a girl staring down at him.

She was on her knees near the opening of the cistern. She knelt for a second, trying to find a way to release the grating, and quickly realized there was no way. It was latched; the bolt that opened it extended up the wellhead and was secured at ground level with a stout lock and chain. She pulled at it vigorously.

“No,” Hugo’s guest shouted at her. He forcibly turned her head to the right.

The gate that opened and closed the pipe that allowed the river to fill the cistern was raised by a simple pulley arrangement attached to a lever on the wall. Down, it lifted the iron plug that shut the pipe. Up, the heavy plug fell back of its own weight and sealed the pipe.

A simple, elegant arrangement, the fill pipe was high, the drainage pipe was low. Lift the iron plug, the river flowed in. It took two men to lift it. Release the lever from the down position, the iron plug dropped back in place and the chamber drained. Not as quickly as it filled, but it drained. And though it took two men to lift it, a child might drop it back.

Whatever this man might be, Chiara didn’t want him to meet such a horrible end. She began to scramble to her feet.

Hugo’s guest pushed her back down. “No,” he said. To Maeniel, he said, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Maeniel answered. He was floating in the rising water just below the grating. He reached up and clamped his fingers around the bars. He was looking up at Chiara’s face.

“I want,” Hugo’s guest said, “full power over your body including the change from man to wolf. I want to possess you as I do Hugo.”

“You let him trick me.”

“I did. I did,” Hugo’s guest howled. “But I didn’t think they’d kill you this quickly. Now give me what I want, and I’ll get you out—let you live.”

“As your slave—”

“No. No, we will be partners. We will destroy these monkey things, these creatures of folly and cruelty, and the world will be as it was—at peace. Each with his own kind. And my people will return and worship me again.”

“No,” Maeniel said.

“No?” Hugo’s guest sounded unbelieving. “No?” he echoed. “You will drown.”

“Then I will drown,” Maeniel said. “I would rather drown than have my life ruled by another. The life of a slave is to me no life at all.”

“Die,” Hugo’s guest screamed. “Die in your stubborn stupidity. Die like the fool you are, wolf.”

But he wasn’t paying any attention to Chiara. She wrenched free of the grip he had on her shoulder. Hugo’s guest screamed, a bear roar of rage and terrifying fury, but she was at the wall. The lever was secured in the down position by an iron pin set in a hole above the shaft. In one motion, she jerked the pin out and sent it clattering away across the floor.

The lever hung, quivering, as the swift water battered the heavy metal stopper. For a second, it looked like the plug might not fall.

But then it did, jerking the lever into an upright position. Maeniel found himself battering the grating as Chiara began to scream.

The closer Regeane got to the city, the more settlement she found around the riverbank. It seemed plowed land more and more often encroached on the forest and marsh that surrounded the stream. She found herself traveling through the day, listening to her sister of moonlight.
Be cautious, don’t be seen or heard unnecessarily
. So she drifted quietly, easing among the willows and water oak, close to the shore. She avoided soft soil that would take a footprint—or paw print as the case might be. So silent was she that waterfowl feeding close to the banks paddled undisturbed in the shallows. Once, spurred by the woman, she paused to admire a mother wood duck with a flock of ducklings swimming near a deadfall close to shore. When they saw her, the mother’s cry of alarm froze the babies into immobility and near invisibility among the reeds. Regeane moved on. She knew in neither shape would she have been welcome company, but she did feel they were less fearful of her as a wolf than they would have been as a human.
We know too many tricks
, she thought.

The wind was behind her—a thing she knew Maeniel would never allow—so she didn’t sense what lay ahead of her until she blundered into it. The girl lay on the riverbank. She was naked, her body half in and half out of the water. The flies were already at work.

The wolf wanted to bolt. When Regeane questioned her dark companion, the wolf stated on general principles—or as close to a statement as the wordless creature could manage:
Let’s get out of here
!

“No,” the woman replied.

She began to search the riverbank.

The family was just ahead, two men and a boy, near a flat-bottom boat grounded in the shallows. They were all dead; except for knives and staves they all seemed to have been unarmed.

Death has stink. Regeane knew that, and it was polluting the warm spring air. Blood, feces, urine, the miasmic odors of the killers and the slain. Fear, rage, sex, the odors of spilled semen and thick, clotted blood. The wolf didn’t have to be instructed about the motives of murderers.

Farther along the river, she found the second woman, older than the girl but still attractive. The girl’s throat had been slashed, the ground soaked with blood near her head. The one farther along probably had been her mother. She had been surprised while washing clothes on a shallow rocky spot. The daggers that had pinned her still-living body to the riverbank while she was used were gone, and her blood had been washed away by the clear water. She lay in the shallows just below the surface, her face calm and eyes closed, no less than five stab wounds in her chest.

Just beyond where the woman lay, the silver wolf saw a road. The family must have kept the ford here, ferrying travelers across when the water was deep. Soldiers? Yes, there was iron in the complex of odors along the riverbank. Soldiers must have come to cross.