The Silver Wolf (2 page)

Regeane was alone.

She watched with greedy eyes as the sun became a half circle, faded into a glow silhouetting the tall cypresses of the Appian Way, followed by the deep blue autumn twilight. Then, and only then, did she turn from the window and wrap herself in an old woolen mantle and return to her pallet bed. With the exception of the low bed and a small, covered, brown terra-cotta pot in the corner, the room was bare.

Regeane sat on her bed, her shoulders against the stone wall, her legs dangling, head thrown back, eyes closed. She waited silently for moonrise. The silver disc would be lifting itself above the seven hills now. Soon, very soon, its journey across the sky would bring it to her window where it would throw a pool of silver light on the floor. Ignoring the crosshatched black lines of bars, she could drink at that pool. Allowed once more to breathe, if not to glory, in the air of freedom.

The door to the outer room slammed shut.
Damnation
. The girl on the bed scoured her mind for oaths.
No … curses
. Young girl that she was, she was never allowed to speak them, but she could think the words. And she often did. Oh, how she did when those two were present. There were worse things than loneliness. Overall, Regeane felt she preferred silence and emptiness to the presence of either her Uncle Gundabald or Hugo, his son.

“I pissed blood again this morning,” Hugo whined. “Are all the whores in this city diseased?”

Gundabald laughed uproariously. “All the ones you pick up seem to be. It’s as I told you. Pay a little extra. Get yourself something young and clean. Or at least young, so all the itching
and burning a few days later are worth it. That last you bought was so old, she had to ply her trade by starlight. What you save in cunt rent goes out in medicines for crotch rot.”

“True enough,” Hugo said irritably. “You always seem to do better.”

Gundabald sighed. “I’m sick of trying to instruct you. Next time, retain at least a modicum of sobriety and get a look at her in a good light.”

“Christ, it’s cold in here,” Hugo said angrily. A second later Regeane heard him shouting down the stairs for the landlord to bring a brazier to warm the room.

“It’s no use, my boy,” Gundabald told him. “She’s left the window open again.”

“I can’t see how you stand it,” Hugo grumbled. “She makes my skin crawl.”

Gundabald laughed again. “There’s nothing to worry about. Those planks are an inch thick. She can’t get out.”

“Has she ever … gotten out, I mean?” Hugo asked with fear in his voice.

“Oh, once or twice, I believe, when she was younger. Much younger. Before I took matters in hand. Gisela was too soft. That sister of mine was a fine woman—she always did as she was told—but weak, my boy, weak. Consider the way she wept over that first husband of hers when the marriage was so abruptly … terminated.”

“She divorced him?” Hugo asked.

“Ah, yes,” Gundabald sounded uneasy. “To be sure, she divorced him because we told her to. She had no choice in the matter. Even then, everyone could see Charles’ mother was becoming a power at court. There were many well-endowed suitors for Gisela’s hand. The second was a much better marriage and made us all wealthy.”

“Now all that’s gone,” Hugo said bitterly. “Between you and Gisela, if our coffers have a miserable copper in them we’re lucky. You wanted to rub shoulders with all the great magnates of the Frankish realm. To do that, you found out your shoulders had to be covered with velvet and brocade. And, oh yes, they wanted to be feasted. Worse than a horde of vultures, they swarmed over your household devouring everything in sight.
And like vultures when the carcass was picked clean, they departed in a cloud of stink and were never seen again.

“Whatever they missed, Gisela laid hands on, squandering it on relics, shrines, blessings, and pilgrimages, trying to lift the curse from that wretched brat of hers. You told me to get myself something younger. I’ve a good mind to pay that cousin of mine a visit … by day of course and—” Hugo screamed. “Father, you’re hurting me!”

Gundabald’s reply was a snarl of fury. “You so much as touch that girl and I’ll save us both a lot of trouble and expense. I’ll slice off your prick and balls. You’ll be the smoothest eunuch between here and Constantinople. I swear it. She’s the one and only asset we have left and she—
must
—marry. Hear me!”

Hugo howled again. “Yes, yes, yes. You’re breaking my arm. Oh, God. Stop!”

Gundabald must have released him because Hugo’s shouting ceased. When he did speak, he sniveled, “Who would marry that … thing?”

Gundabald laughed. “I can name a dozen right now, who would kill to marry her. The most royal blood of Franca flows through her veins. Her father and mother both were cousins of the great king himself.”

“And those same ones who’d kill to marry her will run a sword through both you and the girl the moment they find out what she is.”

“I cannot think how I got such a son as you as the fruit of my loins,” Gundabald snarled. “But then your mother was a brainless little twit. Perhaps you take after her.”

Despite the sadistic nastiness of Gundabald’s voice, Hugo didn’t rise to the bait. Most of the people around Gundabald quickly learned to fear him. Hugo was no exception.

“You liked the way we lived well enough when we were in funds. Vultures, eh! That’s the pot calling the kettle black. You fucked all night, fed all day, and drank with the best of them. Now, you leave things you don’t understand to your elders and betters. Shut up! And send for some food and wine—a lot of wine. I want my supper, and I want to forget what’s behind that door in the next room.”

“It was a mistake to bring her here,” Hugo said. His voice was high and nervous. “She’s worse than ever.”

“Christ Jesus! God!” Gundabald roared. “Even a dumb animal has the sense to do what it’s told. Dolt with the brains of a cobblestone! Shut up and at least get the wine. My God! I’m dying of thirst.”

Marry
, she thought listlessly. How could she marry? She didn’t believe even a snake like Gundabald would connive at something so dangerous. Or succeed if he tried. Her mother still had a little land left in Franca, a few rundown villas. They generated only just enough money to feed and clothe the three of them. But nothing she was heir to would be enough to attract the attention of any of the great magnates of the Frankish realm.

As for her relationship to Charles—a king beginning already to be called the great—it was a rather distant connection to his mother. The dear lady, Bertrada, had never even for one moment acknowledged Regeane’s existence. In fact, one of the things that endeared Bertrada to King Pepin the Short was that she was followed by a whole tribe of relations. They approached the court ready to swing their swords for church and king, not to mention their odd wagonload of loot that somehow didn’t manage to fall into the king’s treasury.

Regeane was very much lost in the crowd. She had nothing to offer. She was poor, a woman, and not beautiful. She didn’t think there would be many takers for her hand in marriage. Yet if Gundabald could find some poor mope to swindle, she had no doubt he would auction her off without the slightest compunction and then leave her to her fate. She just didn’t think he would find anyone. Besides, Gundabald had, as they said, a hot throat and a cold prick. He wanted to cool the one and heat the other as frequently as possible. To indulge himself he needed what little money came in from her estates. He would certainly sell her, but not cheaply. It remained to be seen if he could get his price. At the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care much one way or the other.

When the papal blessing proved fruitless, the thread of hope that had drawn her across the Alps and sustained her in the difficult journey to Rome … failed.

Gisela’s death had been the final blow. She had been
Regeane’s only protection against a world that would destroy her in an instant if it so much as guessed her secret—and against the worst excesses of Gundabald’s greed. She had been Regeane’s only confidante and companion. Regeane had no other friends, no other loves. She was now abandoned and utterly alone.

Dry-eyed, Regeane followed her mother’s body to the grave. She was overcome by a despair so black, it seemed to turn that bright day into bitter night.

Now a faint silver shadow appeared against the blackness of the floor.

There is nothing left but moonlight
, Regeane thought.
Drink it, drown in it. She will never reproach me. I will never see her tears again or suffer because of them. Whatever may become of me, I am alone
.

She stood, stripped off her dress and shift, and turned toward the silver haze.

The gust from the window was icy, but pleasure wouldn’t exist without the sharp bite of pain. Even the brief flash of orgasm is too intense to be absolutely pleasurable. The cold caress was seduction, the quick cruel touch that precedes pleasure.

Regeane went forward boldly, knowing that in a moment she would be warm. Naked, she stepped into the silver haze.

The wolf stood there.

Regeane was, as wolves go, a large wolf. She had the same weight as the girl, over a hundred pounds. She was much stronger than in her human state—lean, quick, and powerful. Her coat was smooth and thick. The pelt glowed silver as it caught the moonlight on its long guard hairs.

The wolf’s heart overflowed with joy and gratitude. Regeane would never have admitted it in her human state, but she loved the wolf and, papal blessing or not, she would never let the wolf go.

From the bottom of her heart, she reveled in the change. Sometimes, while in her human state, she wondered who was wiser, she or the wolf. The wolf knew. Growing more beautiful and stronger year after year, the wolf waited for Regeane to be ready to receive her teaching and understand it.

The silver wolf lifted herself on her hind legs and, placing her forepaws on the window sill, peered out. She saw not just with eyes as these maimed humans did, but with sensitive ears and nose.

The world humans saw was like a fresco—dimensionless as a picture painted on a wall. To be believed in by the wolf, a thing had to have not only image, but smell, texture, and taste.

Ah God … how beautiful. The world was filled with wonder
.

The rain must have come in the evening. The wolf could smell the damp, black earth under the green verdure as well as mud churned up by horses’ hooves in a nearby lane.

The woman hadn’t noticed it. She’d spent the day in grief-stricken reverie. For this she earned a brief flash of contempt from the wolf. But the wolf was too much a creature of the present to dwell on what was past. She was grateful for each moment. And this was a fine one.

Usually in Rome, the scent of man overpowered everything else. That effluvia of stale perspiration, raw sewage floating in the Tiber, the stench of human excrement which, even by comparison to that of other animals, is utterly vile. All these filled the air and pressed in around her. Overlaying them were the musty omnipresent evidence of human dwellings: stale woodsmoke, damp timber, and stone.

But not tonight. The sharp wind blew from the open fields beyond the city, redolent of dry grass and the sweetness of wild herbs growing on the hillsides near the sea.

Sometimes the fragrant breath from the Campagna carried the clean barnyard smells of pig and cattle, and faintly, the enticing musk of deer.

The night below was alive with movement. The cats that made their homes among the ruins sang their ancient songs of anger and passion among forgotten monuments. Here and there the slinking shape of a stray dog met her eye; occasionally, even furtive human movement. Thieves and footpads haunted the district, ready to prey on the unwary.

Her ears pricked forward and netted what her eyes could not see—the suade thump of a barn owl’s wings in flight, the high, thin cries of bats swooping, darting, foraging for insects in the chill night air.

The rush and whisper of the hunters and the hunted, silent until the end. The agonized death cry of a bird, taken in sleep on the nest by a marauding cat, rent the air. The chopped-off shriek of a rabbit dying in the talons of an owl followed.

Those and many others were woven together by her wolf senses into a rich fabric that was unending variety and everlasting delight.

The silver wolf dropped her forepaws to the floor with a soft, nearly inaudible cry of longing. Then her lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl at the sound of voices in the other room.

Hugo and Gundabald were eating. The wolf’s belly rumbled with hunger at the smell of roast meat. She was hungry and thirsty, longing for clean water and food.

The woman warned her night side to rein in her desires. She would get nothing.

The wolf replied. They were both gone—the woman from her prison, the wolf from her cage. The wolf stood beside a clear mountain lake. The full moon glowed silver in the water. All around the lake, black trees were silhouetted against mountains glittering white with unending snow.

The memory faded. The wolf and woman found themselves staring at the locked door.

The wolf and woman both understood imprisonment. Regeane had spent most of her life behind locked doors. She’d long ago learned the punishing futility of assaults on oak and iron. She ignored what she couldn’t change and bided her time.

They were speaking of her.

“Did you hear that?” Hugo asked fearfully. Hugo’s ears were better than Gundabald’s. He must have heard her soft cry of protest.

“No,” Gundabald mumbled through a mouthful of food. “I didn’t and you didn’t either. You only imagined you did. She seldom makes any noise. That’s one thing we can be grateful for. At least she doesn’t spend her nights howling as a real wolf would.”

“We shouldn’t have brought her here,” Hugo moaned.

“Must you start that again?” Gundabald sighed wearily.

“It’s true,” Hugo replied with drunken insistence. “The founders of this city were suckled at the tits of a mother wolf.
Once they called themselves sons of the wolf. Ever since I found out about her I’ve often thought of that story. A real wolf couldn’t raise human children, but a creature like her …”