The Wolf King (37 page)

Lucilla noticed some of the men with Adalgisus simply allowed their mounts to drink without the cool down. “Oh, yes,” Lucilla whispered. “They will soon be afoot.”

“I’m sore,” Stella said. “I used to go hunting with Ansgar and hawking with Gerald almost every week, but I haven’t done so in some time. Son of a bitch, I’ll probably have saddle sores before the day is out.”

Then she called Adalgisus several foul names in Roman street argot. “I’m sorry, Lucilla. I’m really sorry I wrote him about you, but when I saw you, I panicked. You see, when Ansgar plucked me from that brothel in Ravenna, it was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I simply couldn’t believe my good fortune, and I was sure you’d share my past—what are they, misdeeds?—with him.”

“I don’t call them misdeeds,” Lucilla said. “Men act as if women don’t have to eat. What in the hell else do we have to sell, if not our bodies?”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Stella said. “I believe they think we should preserve our chastity at the cost of our lives, but I must say both you and I did a lot better than just find enough to eat. You gained Hadrian’s company and protection, and I was rather comfortably kept by several high church officials.”

“I told you not to trust that bastard Aldric. What happened in Ravenna?” Lucilla asked.

“He sold me into a brothel. His, uh, affairs didn’t prosper as he wanted them to. The archbishop called him a turncoat and told him that a man who betrayed one master would turn on another. This was true, truer than true. Only the one he turned on was me. My sale brought him the passage money to Constantinople. Being sold was the most mortifying and humiliating experience of my entire life.”

“Not to mention inconvenient and damned dangerous,” Lucilla said. “But I suppose a stroke of ill fortune presages a complete reversal of the same bad luck. The wheel turns,” she continued. “
Hecuba regina
. We all ride it.”

“Who’s Hecuba?” Stella grumbled. “I cannot think it was a good thing when Hadrian taught you to read. Ever since, you have been baffling and annoying your friends with odd bits of arcane knowledge and mysterious quotations.”

“Hecuba was a queen who ended her life as a slave,” Lucilla snapped. “I merely meant nothing is permanent except change.”

“See?” Stella was annoyed. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You were telling me about Ansgar? ” Lucilla reminded her.

“Yes, well, no sooner was I down then I was up because Ansgar came to the brothel. We ‘visited’ a few times,” Stella said primly. “And then he told that thick-witted pander Milo, the owner of the brothel, that he didn’t want me taking any other customers. He wanted to be the only man in my life. Of course, that stinking pig Milo wanted me to cheat, but I wouldn’t.”

“That must have been a battle,” Lucilla said.

“It was, but I won. I know that sort of arrangement is usually dishonest, but a wealthy lord like Ansgar—I didn’t want to lose him. Oh, no, I was thinking, no chances on that.”

Lucilla took the reins from Stella’s hand and led the horses to water. Stella knelt on the bank, drank from her cupped hands, and splashed water on her cheeks.

“He was wealthy even then?”

“Yes,” Stella said, straightening up. “He’d tossed that rapacious louse Trudo out of the town and turned the bandit’s ill-gotten gains to his own uses.”

“One of which was freeing you from the brothel.”

“Yes, and it’s a good thing I didn’t cheat because only a month after we met, I found out I was pregnant.”

“Ludolf?”

“Yes. Oh, thank God we got Adalgisus away from the city; I was so afraid for my son! Look at the terribly easy way he stabbed Avernia. Lucilla, do you think she is dead?”

Stella looked up at Lucilla, and Lucilla turned away to fuss with part of the horse’s head stall. The plea in Stella’s eyes was almost unbearable. She and Avernia had been together so long.

“I don’t know,” Lucilla answered. “For all I know, she might have been only slightly injured. Listen to me, Stella. When curd brain and his friend who does his thinking for him come back, do you want me to try to persuade them to leave you here?”

Stella glanced around. They had passed the last human habitation, a ruined farmhouse, some miles back. Both sides of the river were thick, overgrown with brush and small trees.

“Oh, God, no. Not in this horrible wilderness.”

“Your son might be following,” Lucilla said.

“Oh, in heaven’s name, suppose he isn’t? If Adalgisus leaves me here, I will die. Die on the spot. Don’t, please. Don’t make such a ghastly suggestion to him.”

Lucilla sighed. “Stella, I won’t do or say anything that will make things worse for you, but I’d rather take my chances in this wilderness, as you call it, than with Sir Lackwit and his grab-ass friend. By the way, does tall, dark, and stupid really know you from Ravenna? Or can I call his bluff sometime?”

“Oh, God, Lucilla. I don’t know. They… they were all the same to me. They say it’s not a sin if you don’t enjoy it. Well, if that’s true, I didn’t do any sinning at all in Ravenna except with Ansgar.” She smiled a little at the memory, and it transformed her face the way a ray of sunlight brightens a flower.

Lucilla felt her heart ache with sorrow.
Oh, God, I am a terrible woman
, she thought.
A vengeful woman to have begun the whole thing
. And then she decided her own opinion of herself was probably correct and regret was the most futile of all emotions.

Just then Adalgisus and Eberhardt returned and they got under way again. As Lucilla thought, they rode into the streambed. The water was shallow but the footing so rocky that they couldn’t make any speed. Lucilla kept hoping they would continue to follow the river for a few more miles and give Ludolf time to catch them, but they didn’t. Still, one thing heartened her. Two of the horses gave out, and four of Adalgisus’s friends had to be left behind. Not enough, but something. She saw Stella’s face brighten.
I hope
, she thought, when she saw the fear in Adalgisus’s eyes,
I hope he gets what’s coming to him. If I can arrange it, he will
.

Chiara was awakened by being shaken violently. “Yes, stop that,” she told the spirit. “It’s not even dawn yet, and besides,” she continued indignantly as she tried to burrow down more deeply under the covers, “what did you do to Hugo? You had his body in the church last night.”

“Hugo is dead!” the spirit said.

This did bring Chiara’s head out from under the covers. “You killed him,” she said accusingly to the spirit.

“I did not,” was the indignant denial. “The lightning brought about his death. And would have killed you and your father also, if I hadn’t warned you to stay on the porch.”

“I don’t believe you,” Chiara shouted.

There was a sound that began like the hissing, spitting noises a fire makes when rain falls into it, then rose in volume, taking on deeper and deeper tones until it ended with the explosive roar of an angry bear.

Then Chiara found the covers pulled off, and she was unceremoniously yanked to her feet by an iron grip fastened on her upper arm.

“Up—up—up! And get dressed. Now! You and your father must flee the city.”

Chiara replied with a screech of fury. “My modesty, my reputation.”

“Damn your modesty and reputation. Neither will do you any good if you are dead. Up!”

She was on her feet, staggering toward the clothes chest in the corner. “Wp-o-o-o-oth!” Chiara gave another yell.

“Abomination and damnation,” the spirit roared. “I didn’t touch you. What’s the matter now?”

“The floor is cold, my feet are bare. I’ll catch my death.”

“Shut up and stop screeching. Get dressed.”

Chiara was lifted by the scruff of the neck and deposited across the room next to the clothes chest.

“Get dressed now!”

“Will you please leave, and don’t try to cheat. I can tell when you’re in the room, and I won’t pull off my nightgown until you’re out of here,” Chiara shouted.

Just then the door flew open. Armine stood there, candle in hand. It was a fairly bright light, and Armine could see the entire room in the glow. There was a bed, the clothes chest, and nothing else. No one could be concealed here, but undeniably, his daughter was talking to someone—speaking in a loud voice, in fact.

Chiara paused with a gasp, clothes forgotten. “What are you doing here?”

“Nevermind,” Armine said. “To whom are you speaking?”

“Oh,” Chiara said. “N-now see what you’ve done?” She spoke into the empty air.

Armine made the sign of the cross.

“Damn you for a superstitious fool,” the spirit yelled, and boxed his ears violently.

Armine sat down hard on the floor.

“Get up, you idiot,” the spirit shouted. “On your feet, too.” He jerked Armine up into a standing position.

Armine gave a gurgling yell.

“Now, you stop, you just stop. You leave my father alone, you hear me? I can’t think what you hope to accomplish by such high-handed tactics. All you’re doing is frightening him.”

The spirit paused. “Even now the king is deciding your fate, Chiara. He is angry. Hugo had told him how you rescued the wolf. He’s a wild man.”

“Who?” Chiara asked, completely bewildered.

“The king, damn it. The king,” the spirit shouted.

“Who? What? How? Chiara, are you speaking to someone? Someone I cannot see?” Armine demanded.

“Now stop, both of you.” Chiara stamped her bare foot on the cold floor and hurt it. She scooted back to the bed, sat on the edge, folded her arms and closed her eyes, and thrust one small, determined chin forward. “If you both don’t stop badgering me now, I’ll never speak to either of you again.”

Armine edged cautiously into the room, his eyes darting about a bit wildly. “Chiara,” he asked, “is there someone in here I can’t see?”

Chiara’s eyes flew open. “Yes, he’s Hugo’s friend.”

Armine nodded. He moved cautiously over to the clothes chest, candle in hand, and asked, “Is there anyone sitting here?”

“No,” Chiara said. “At least—” She, too was looking around.“—at least I don’t think he sits.”

“I don’t.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Yes, well, I do,” Armine said, and sat down. “Now, Chiara, tell me what’s going on. First, I know that wasn’t Hugo who entered the church last night. I’m not sure who or even—” He glanced around nervously. “—what he was but that wasn’t Hugo. The man was a worm. He could never manage the look of arrogant self-assurance on that creature’s face. And the tender way he assisted me in getting you up to our rooms last night wasn’t in any way characteristic of Hugo. Nor was the fact that he was stone cold sober and, moreover, assisted the bishop and myself with the wounded for most of the evening, and he remained sober, too. He ate a little bread and cheese, refused wine, and went to bed. Hugo? No. That’s incredible.”

The spirit began laughing.

“He’s laughing,” Chiara said morosely. “He laughs a lot, especially at me.”

“Nice that he has a sense of humor,” Armine said. “Now, tell me what’s on his mind.”

“He says the king is going to arrest us… not us—”

“You,” the spirit said.

“Me,” Chiara told her father. Chiara twisted her fingers in her lap. “It seems…”

“There’s no time for explanations,” the spirit said. “We must leave. The king is even now writing out the arrest orders. His counselors are trying to dissuade him from creating a bloodbath, but he won’t listen. The more fool he. The only reason the palace guard isn’t in this room right now is because the soldiers he sent for—they are at Susa—haven’t arrived yet. When they do, he will make a clean sweep of all those he considers his enemies. The bishop is already in chains, poor old man. If you don’t flee now, you both could well find yourselves exploring that bottle in the church basement, the one where the wolf was imprisoned. Now tell him, Chiara; if you love him, warn him now.”

“Father,” Chiara said rather breathlessly, and then repeated the spirit’s statements word for word.

Armine listened. Wax ran down from the candle in his hand and splashed on his fingers. “Ouch,” was all he said, then tilted the candle so the wax went on the floor. He continued listening intently.

When she was finished speaking, Armine hurried to the window. The palace was full of lights, one in almost every window.

When he turned away, he said, “Get dressed. Now. Hurry. Where is Gimp?” he said into the air.

A second later Chiara said, “He’s gone and—” She waved her hands. “—the bear—that’s what I call him, the bear— says he took what’s left of Hugo with him.” She looked up again and listened. “He says they’re probably crossing the river now. He says hurry. He’ll saddle the horses.”

“He can do that?”

“He can throw roses all over my bed, box your ears, sock Bibo, and kick Hugo. I don’t doubt he can saddle horses.”

Ludolf was his father’s son. It annoyed him that he lost Adalgisus’s trail at the river but he understood how to handle the situation. The blacksmith and some of his friends rode downstream, but Ludolf rode upstream with Dulcinia and the rest of the men.

The singer thought her horse stumbled in the shallow streambed until she saw the crossbow bolt protruding from its side. She didn’t scream but gave a gasp, and a second later Ludolf’s arm swept her out of the saddle as he galloped toward cover on the bank. They dismounted in a copse of trees. The trees were scrub oak, thickly twined with briars.

Dulcinia looked back. Her horse was down, kicking, struggling in the shallow water that now ran red.

“I think we’ve found them,” Ludolf said.

Without his order one of the men with him rode back, keeping to cover on the brushy riverbank.

“He will warn the smith,” Ludolf told Dulcinia.

“The horse,” she said.

Ludolf shook his head. “Probably already dead.”

Yes,
Dulcinia thought, peering through a screen of thorny vines. The animal was still now. Suddenly she found she was shaking all over.
That
—
that could have been me
.

Ludolf pulled off his mantle and wrapped it around her.

“I’ll send you back with one of the men. You shouldn’t have come—”