Wolf's Cross (42 page)

But she had to be misinterpreting that.

“Before Brother Heinrich and his surviving knights left our lands, he did press his case before the Duke—despite my interventions.”

Maria sucked in a breath. Telek was talking about
her
.

“Still, the man has little head for politics, and is so convinced of his own righteousness …” Telek shook his head, his mouth curving into a tight-lipped smile. “His most damning accusation came down to the nature of the cross you wore.”

“Father’s cross?” Maria’s hand traveled to the empty space between her breasts, as if she could clutch at a memory. Her breath caught in her throat.

“You see, the Duke was familiar with such a token. His father, King Władysław, had commissioned a dozen such silver crosses and matching chains, to give as rewards to some of the men who had served with him when they pushed the Order back to Toru
, over twenty years ago. The fate of one such cross was the subject of much gossip at the court a few years later.”

Telek looked at her, as if she should know of what he spoke. When the silence stretched on for too long, filled only by her beating heart, she quietly asked, “What happened?”

“One of these men, while noble in battle, was less than noble in his own household. It is said that when his wife fell ill after bearing his third son, he took one of his newer serving girls to bed, wearing little but the cross on his neck. When he awoke, both cross and servant were gone, never to be seen again.”

Oh, Mother, was that where you were for so long?
Maria felt the edges of panic creeping in. Telek was going to bring her stepmother to account for a crime she had committed on Maria’s behalf. She couldn’t bear the thought—

“Of course,” Telek said, “that is unlikely to have been the cross you wore.”

Maria’s mouth had already opened to protest her stepmother’s innocence, to offer herself to justice in her stead, but Telek’s words stole her breath.

Josef spoke on her behalf: “Why talk of these tales now? Are you here simply to torment a woman on her sickbed?”

Telek shook his head. “Your concern for her becomes you, but I suspect she can care for herself ably enough.” If anything, his smile broadened. “As I told the Duke, it is surely improbable that your necklace is the one from that old story. For many reasons,
the most important of which is that the servant who stole it was unquestionably German.”

German? It
was
my stepmother
.

“I informed the Duke that what I had seen was most likely a necklace of some base metal, kept at a high polish. And since the object in question was lost during that final battle, Heinrich could not provide any smith’s marks that could have shown your necklace’s provenance.”

Maria’s hand still clutched her chest, where her cross had once rested. Telek placed his hand on top of hers. She felt something in his grasp, cold and metallic. He took his hand away and kept looking at her face. “It is a shame that it was lost.”

Her father’s cross—her
stepmother’s
cross—now rested on the back of her hand. She was speechless, not knowing what to say. Josef placed his own hand over it, squeezing her hand beneath. “Yes, it is,” he told Telek.

“You might be interested to know,” Telek added, “that the Order, as well as the Church, did not always consider these wolf creatures demonic.”

“What do you mean?” Maria asked.

“Brother Heinrich carries an interesting history, which I had a chance to peruse. At one time, in fact, these creatures may have been enlisted in the service of God. Or, at the very least, the Order itself.”

Josef looked shocked. After a moment, he said, “This was the Brother Semyon you spoke of, wasn’t it?”

Telek stood up and placed a hand on Josef’s shoulder as he looked down at Maria. “To your Brother Semyon, these creatures were as much of earthly origin as you or I. But to my thinking, it seems that if the Order’s history of training and using these creatures has borne ill fruit, it may be because they had the bad sense to take a being that thinks as a man and treat it as less than one.”

Maria stared at him with a growing realization.
He knows. He knows what I am
.

“What are you saying?” Josef asked. She could hear the edge of suspicion in his voice.

Telek let go of Josef’s shoulder. “I’m saying nothing of import right now.” He looked at Maria. “I just hope that, despite your obviously imminent betrothal to this young man, Gród Narew will not be completely deprived of your service. I urge you, in the future, to think upon my goodwill and reciprocate it.”

Maria looked up into Telek’s face and nodded.

“I’ll leave you alone for a moment.” He turned to Josef. “Only a moment, though; the Duke’s court should not be kept waiting.”

As Maria watched him leave the cottage, she whispered to Josef, “He knows what I am.”

“He suspects.”

Maria shook her head. “No, he
knows
. He saw me heal as well as Heinrich did. He knows, and he … he …”

Josef bent over and stopped her stutter with a kiss. When he raised his head he told her, “He knows that the black-furred wolf was as much the hero in this as I am, even though Heinrich is blind to it.”

Her breath caught at his touch, at his breath on her face, and she thought of Telek’s other words.

Betrothal
.

She raised her head and kissed him back, lifting her hand to caress the side of his face. Eventually he lifted his head, smiling. “He said only a moment.”

She looked into his eyes. “You will come back to me?”

“Always.”

“But they’ll give you a position, land. I have no dowry; I’m a common woman—”

“You are anything but common, Maria. There is more nobility in you than I’ve seen in anyone born to the role.”

“I am also a monster,” she whispered.

“No, you aren’t.” He said it sharply, as if rebuking her.

She felt her heart thudding again in her chest. Just the possibility that he might really care for her, might really love her …

“When we came out of the woods,” she couldn’t help asking, “what you said before Telek … Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

Maria swallowed. “You said, ‘this woman, whom I love.’ Do you still, even after knowing what I am, what I become—”

He placed his fingers on her lips and said, “Stop fretting over
what
you are. I love you because of
who
you are.”

Relief filled her. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

And when he left to go with Telek, she closed her eyes and imagined that somewhere, Lucina, her mother, had found peace.

According to the author, “I went to college at Cleveland State University to study mechanical engineering, but I dropped out when I sold my first novel. Since then, I’ve had a variety of day jobs, including working as a lab assistant, doing cost accounting, managing health benefits for retired steelworkers, and most recently managing a database at a large child welfare agency. In the same time I’ve written over twenty novels under various names, of which I think
Wolfbreed
is my best work.”

S. A. Swann grew up and still lives in the Northeastern Ohio area, along with three cats, two dogs, a pair of goats, a horse, and one overworked spouse.