The Silver Wolf (40 page)

“Come … do we despise the rose because its beauty is fleeting? Some do, and seek comfort in glass or marble. But true love is close to the divine and, like all of God’s creations, its beauty unfolds from within. Glass shatters, marble is eaten away by the tides of time. But the rose has unfurled its banner every spring to the sun and will do so for God knows how many uncounted ages more.

“Dulcina, you have your Lucilla and your song. Regeane has something which she will not name and I … I have my roses.”

She tapped one gently with her finger. The scarlet petals fell, drifting down to lie like a pool of blood on the table beside her hand.

THE DINNER BELL WAS RINGING AS REGEANE SAW Dulcina to the door.

Dulcina embraced her once again, then drew back, but kept her hands on Regeane’s shoulders. Her thin face was somber, her lips set in a hard line. “Take care of yourself,” she said. “No, don’t worry. Lucilla didn’t tell me anything about you. God knows, she’s close-mouthed about any secrets she has. She has to be. She probably knows enough to ruin half of Rome. But there was much in her manner when she asked me to deliver her message. Don’t fear to take shelter with her if you must.”

“Thank you,” Regeane said.

“No thanks required. An afternoon with Cecelia is more precious than rubies. My fortune is made. No society dinner will be complete without me. My fees will double within a month.” She caught Regeane in a hard, almost crushing embrace, then hurried on her way.

Regeane joined Barbara to help set the table.

“How did you like Cecelia?” Barbara asked slyly.

“Oh, God!” Regeane said, almost dropping a serving platter.

“Don’t waste your sympathy on her, or my dishes,” Barbara snapped. “In her way I think she’s perfectly happy. She brought about her wretched husband’s death, and as for poor Rufus, he, I might add, is one of the few human beings I have met capable of life-long devotion. And she has successfully tormented him for over ten years. Those damned roses don’t arrive alone, you know. Every year he asks, and every year we return the same answer. Tell me, did she give you her famous speech about love?”

“Er, yes,” Regeane answered slowly.

“Humpf,” Barbara said. “If that’s love, I’d rather be an alley cat.”

Regeane had to duck into the corridor near the kitchen since tears of laughter were streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, Barbara, stop,” she pleaded, stifling her mirth with the apron.

“Not at all,” Barbara said. “Just what you need after Cecelia, a dose of sturdy common sense.”

The nuns had begun to file in and sit down. Regeane went to the kitchen and returned with a platter of bread. To her immediate dismay, she realized she hadn’t put enough place settings on the table because as the nuns seated themselves, an old woman limped into the room. She was bent with age, her body supported by a heavy, black thorn staff. She was dressed as the others in the same brown woolen cloth. She walked in the direction of the seat beneath the lectern across from Emilia.

As she passed Regeane, she turned. Regeane saw her face was as wrinkled and lined as a withered leaf, but the smile she gave Regeane was both benign and loving. It was so beautiful it lit up her worn features the way the fire in an alabaster lamp sifts through the translucent stone.

“Oh, dear,” Regeane said. She set the platter on the table and hurried to the sideboard for another set of eating utensils as the old nun seated herself at the table.

Regeane scurried back to set the plate and cup before her and because she was certain the old woman couldn’t be very strong, she poured some wine into the cup and set the jug of water close by her hand.

The old nun acknowledged her courtesy with another beautiful smile and blessed her gently, tracing a cross in the air.

Regeane curtsied politely as one does to a no-doubt-distinguished elder. She was sure the old woman must be someone important to deserve such a high seat at the table.

It wasn’t until she stood upright that she realized complete silence had fallen and that Emilia stared at her in something like horror.

“What’s wrong?” Regeane asked.

Emilia didn’t answer. Instead she jumped to her feet so quickly the bench crashed to the floor behind her and the other
nuns on that side of the table who also rose rapidly only saved themselves from falling by clutching at each other’s gowns. In a moment, every one of the nuns was across the room, their eyes wide with terror and fixed on Regeane’s face.

Regeane looked for the old nun, but there was nothing there, only the plate with the spoon neatly set in the center and a half cup of wine.

“No!” Regeane cried. “No!” She’d backed away from the table, her fists tightly clenched in her apron. “Sometimes I do see them,” she babbled, “but I almost always know. She wasn’t like the rest—so calm, so polite.”

“Who do you see, Regeane?”

The question came from the kitchen door where Barbara stood, a platter of pork roast in her hands.

“The dead,” Regeane answered wildly.

Barbara nodded. “What did this one look like?”

“She was old, dressed as the others here are. She limped and leaned heavily on a black thorn stick.”

“Abbess Hildegard,” Emilia gasped. Her eyes closed and she made the sign of the cross.

“Yes,” Barbara said. “That black thorn stick was seldom very far from her hand for the last ten years of her life. She never had a day’s sickness, but old bones creak and crack. Ah, well, it’s nice to know she still thinks of us and visits us from time to time. A bit unnerving, of course, but nice. Now, let’s sit down and have our supper.”

“Good heavens, Barbara,” Sister Angelica shouted. “How can you be so calm about it? Surely Hildegard didn’t visit us for nothing.”

It was apparent to Regeane that Sister Angelica was working up to a terrific bout of hysterics. She toppled over like a falling tree. Two of the younger nuns tried to catch her while a third fanned her vigorously.

“And what are we to do about this girl?” Angelica screeched, pointing at Regeane. “She can’t embroider and she sets places for the dead!”

“She can hardly be blamed for being polite,” Barbara said with a certain grim relish. “She didn’t know Hildegard was dead.”

“I wish you would stop using that word,” Emilia wailed.

“What word?” Barbara asked innocently as she entered the room carrying the roast. When she came close to Regeane, the girl shrank back. “Don’t worry,” Barbara said. “I’m very much alive.”

“No!” Regeane said, gagging and turning her head away. “It’s the roast. Can’t you smell it?” She retched and clutched at her throat. “The thing reeks. The stench is overwhelming.”

Barbara stood for a moment looking nonplussed, then whispered a soft curse under her breath, one at least as bad as anything Regeane had ever heard from Lucilla. “I thought the butcher sold it too cheap.”

She placed it on the table and began to slice it carefully, cutting through the thick crust the open-fire cooking had left on the meat. Deep narrow slits had been cut into the roast and some sort of green leaf had been thrust into the openings.

Barbara removed one with the point of the knife and teased it open. The thing was dark and limp from the heat of the cooking fire, but still recognizable.

“What is it?” Emilia asked, stretching out one hand toward the leaf.

Barbara slapped the back of her hand with the flat part of the knife. “Don’t touch it. People have died of handling the plant and if Basil is behind this, he can afford the best, or should I say, the most deadly quality of goods. If we had eaten this nice pork roast, it could quite conceivably have killed us all.”

Emilia stepped back, making the sign of the cross again. “So Hildegard did have a reason for appearing. What is that leaf?”

“Monkshood,” Barbara said.

Wolfsbane
, Regeane thought, and for the first time in her life, she wanted to faint. She found it an unpleasant sensation. First there was nausea, followed by dizziness, and then everything started to go black.

The wolf, as usual, saved her. Wolves don’t faint. She was energized, wanting to take the corridor to the kitchen on all fours, jump the garden wall, and go find Basil. The wolf’s thoughts were very direct and involved tearing flesh, spurting blood, and snapping bone. The fact that the room was lighted and public got her under control very quickly.

“I was the target,” she said.

Barbara looked over at her from the other side of the table. “Maybe you flatter yourself, Regeane.”

“No. Barbara, I have to get out of here.”

Barbara shook her head slightly as if to say, not here, not now.

A loud shriek from the other side of the room interrupted them. “Poisoned!”

“Oh, no,” Emilia sighed.

“Ah, dear Sister Angelica,” Barbara said.

Sister Angelica was having hysterics in earnest.

Barbara rapped the staring Regeane across the knuckles lightly with the knife. “Pay close attention, my dear. Every woman needs to learn the right moves. This is what you want to do anytime you wish to make an already bad situation worse or, better yet, reduce it to complete chaos and drive all the males in the immediate vicinity to drink.”

Sister Angelica shrieked again. “Poisoned!”

The only sound louder than her voice was the clangor of the bell at the gate.

Angelica was on her knees, arms extended toward heaven. Emilia supported her, trying to keep her from falling further.

Barbara spoke to the young nun who was still futilely fanning the air where Sister Angelica’s face had been. “Stop creating a draft, Cornelia, and answer the bell.”

A few seconds later Cornelia ushered in two soldiers attired in the purple and gold arms of the papal guard and two small boys, one blond, the other dark.

The blond one launched himself at Regeane like a projectile.

The child was in her arms before she realized it was Elfgifa. Regeane goggled at her stupidly for a second, then asked, “What happened to your hair?”

“Postumous’ mother cut it off,” Elfgifa explained. “She said I was safer as a boy. That was after the riot started in the street and they sliced the man in half and he bled everywhere and the Lombards came looking for us.”

“Stop,” Regeane said. “What were you doing in Postumous’ street in the first place? I thought you were supposed to be here studying your letters with the other children and …”

“She’s been missing since this morning,” Barbara said.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Regeane asked furiously.

Barbara shrugged. “What could you have done about it besides worry yourself sick? We had the pope’s soldiers out looking for her.”

“And,” Elfgifa said, nodding, “they didn’t find us until a few minutes ago when we started across the bridge and I told them who I was.” She hugged Regeane tightly and spoke in her ear. “I only sneaked out to see Postumous because he’s my friend and my father says friendship is sacred, but that’s not what I want to tell you. Please listen. It’s important. I know it is.”

Angelica screeched again, interrupting her.

“Why is she hollering?” Elfgifa asked.

Regeane put Elfgifa down, snatched her hand, and led her down the short corridor and into the kitchen. Barbara followed, carrying the roast and setting it down on the table.

“Now, what’s so important?” Regeane asked.

“You know the place where we ran when the soldier was chasing us, the place where we met Antonius? Lucilla told me not to talk about it. It’s secret, but it can’t be a secret from you.”

“It isn’t,” Regeane answered. “What about it?”

“I told Postumous about it,” Elfgifa said breathlessly, “and he wanted to see it. So we went around to the drain where we climbed through it the first time, but something was wrong. The place had blood all over and there were bodies in the courtyard. Then the soldiers saw us. We ran. When we got to Postumous’ house the soldiers tried to take us, but they were Lombards and the people in the street wouldn’t let them. That’s when the fight started and the man got sliced in half and Postumous’ mother cut my hair.” Elfgifa ran out of breath and stopped talking.

Regeane stood up. The kitchen was dark. Regeane looked out the window.

The last rays of the sun were outlining a band of cloud near the horizon with fire. The new moon was an alabaster crescent in an indigo sky spiked with stars. Night was upon her.

What could the Lombards possibly want with the poor people Hadrian had protected along with Antonius
, she wondered. Then she remembered with horror that a synod of churchmen was to convene soon here in the city to examine
Hadrian’s fitness to be pope. Testimony from them about Antonius might damn him.

“Barbara,” Regeane whispered, “I have to go.”

Barbara rose from the stove with the lamp in her hand. The light was dim and illuminated only their three faces. From the other room, Regeane could still hear the loud sounds of Angelica’s wailing.

“I can’t let you do that, dear,” Barbara said.

“You can’t stop me,” Regeane answered. “No one can.”

A bucket of water stood near the kitchen fire. Regeane snatched it up and hurled the contents into the flames. A noxious mixture of smoke, steam, and ash boiled out of the fire. The stinking cloud filled the room.

The wolf took Regeane. She went flying into the change so quickly she had no time to flee. She heard Barbara gasp and begin coughing. Elfgifa shouted in glee.

Regeane flew out of the kitchen door at a dead run. Taking tremendous bounds, she was across the garden in seconds. She cleared the wall in one gigantic leap. She found herself on the riverbank looking across the Tiber at Rome.

THE WOLF STOOD FROZEN IN THE DARKNESS, sniffing the wind for a moment. The rank scents of the city and the river disgusted her. She remembered Lucilla’s words and realized the mob must reign there now. Even from across the water she could see the glow of a few fires against the sky and hear the sounds of fighting.

The green open spaces of the Campagna and the mountains beyond it tugged at her soul. A breeze blew from the water and
an even more ghastly smell drifted to her nose. Her animal eyes picked out the shapes of bloated corpses stranded on mud flats near the shore.