V

Regeane elected not to present herself at what could only have been a council of war.

Charles arrived. He was accompanied by his horsemen companions, the scarae. Today Arbeo was among them, bursting with pride.

The king met Maeniel, would not let him bow or kneel, and clasped his hand. Charles said to Arbeo, “He spoke well of you; that’s why you’re here today.”

“Thank you, sir,” Arbeo stammered.

“How is Otho?” the king asked.

“Doing better. A lady of my household, Matrona, is caring for him. She is a skilled physician. Otho could not be in better hands.”

When it came to sickroom visits, Charles left his escorts outside. Matrona was relaxing in the same camp chair she’d been in the day before. Though she wouldn’t have admitted it, she’d dressed for the king in an impossibly beautiful dalmatic patterned like two bird wings overlapping, with full sleeves, and under it a severe long-sleeved shift of white silk. Her jewelry, a choker with a hundred golden chains dangling from it. When Charles entered, she rose and went to one knee, bowing her head.

The silk clung to every voluptuous curve of her body. Charles was impressed and indicated for her to rise, which she did with an almost inhuman grace.

Otho, lying in bed, was smiling a wicked smile.

“I must thank you for giving my friend such excellent care that he is now recovering from his injuries.”

“I find it pleasurable to exercise my skills for such a good cause. I will, with your permission, now withdraw and allow you to speak privately with your servant.”

He nodded, getting a good eyeful as the patterned silk drifted against her body as she glided away.

She entered the next room where Regeane and the Saxon were standing. The soft murmur of voices drifted through the canvas wall.

The Saxon said nothing because, though he could hear only a muttering sound, Regeane and Matrona were obviously listening. Once or twice their eyes met. Matrona nodded and then so did Regeane. After a time, even the Saxon could hear Otho weep and the king comfort him.

“Genuine tears,” Matrona whispered. “He loves the king.”

Regeane’s eyes filled. “Matrona,” Regeane asked, “what was that thing?” She placed her hand on the Saxon’s shoulder. “We fought it at the monastery, but before, I met it near Rome at a tomb. I fought it then. It tried to take me or Silvie. I think it wanted me most, but I think it would have taken Silvie if it could have gotten her. But she ran. I told her to run. Then I fought it. In the end, after nearly paralyzing me with horror, it fled. That was why Silvie believed me a witch and testified at my trial. She told the truth, but no one thanked her for it, least of all Gundabald and Hugo.”

“Silvie told the truth as she saw it,” Matrona said. “Remember that. Silvie’s mind is limited, at best, and she was never able to comprehend what she encountered in either it or—” She paused and raised a finger. “—you.”

“Yes.” Regeane nodded thoughtfully.

Maeniel entered just then. “My lady.” He extended a hand to Regeane. “Come be presented to your kinsman, the king.”

Regeane was dressed for the occasion also, but not as Matrona was. Magnificently, but with a Byzantine stiffness that concealed as much as it beautified. Shift, fine Egyptian linen; long-sleeved overgown of silk shot with gold thread; and over that a dalmatic of stiff gold brocade. The ensemble was finished with a white lace veil that covered a stiff gold wimple, starched and held in place, covering her hair, by long gold pins.

Maeniel led her forth proudly.

The Saxon turned to Matrona. “She might as well be a nun.”

He’d seen some in Lombardy. They wore long blue or black dresses with white headcloths. Someone told him they were the Christian God’s women, but if they were, the god never seemed interested in them, since they had no children. Another Christian among the slaves said that was as it should be. He’d answered somewhat nastily, asking of what use is a woman if you do not get her with child? But the other slave was apparently not that convinced a Christian, since he had answered, “Don’t know. It puzzles me, too.”

It hadn’t been a long conversation. They were both exhausted, having been condemned to pull a plow that spring. The Saxon had broken the jaw of one of the drivers. He didn’t know what his companion had done, and he never found out because after three days of brutal labor in the hot sun, his companion died.

His owner had considered it a loss and so the Saxon was returned to the work gang. Only this time they never took off the chains.

“That’s the idea. She chose to avoid trouble,” Matrona replied. “The man has an eye for the ladies. A whole procession of women has passed through his bed. Regeane doesn’t want to be among them. It’s a complication we don’t need.”

“Her husband needn’t know.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Matrona replied. “He knows everything. He’d know exactly what happened the moment he drew near her. How long, how often, who the man was, and whether it was voluntary or involuntary on her part. Don’t ever think to hide anything from him. Desire, even thwarted desire, is as plain as Charlemagne’s dragon standard to any of us.”

“Then he knows that I am in love with her,” the Saxon said.

“Yes,” Matrona answered, “and so do I. But so long as she doesn’t respond to you, he won’t care. As far as the king is concerned, we plan a diversion. Otho told the king I was accessible.”

The Saxon’s eyebrows rose.

“I would like that,” Matrona said, with an evil smile, “and so would the king.”

“Where did you get—” The Saxon pointed to the necklace.

“From a man called Priam at a place called Troy.”

The Saxon shook his head. “Never heard of the city or the man,” he said.

 

Regeane returned to the privacy of the bedroom, and Maeniel and Charles went to see Antonius’s model. All the young men crowded around, very interested, though both Maeniel and Antonius had some doubt as to how well they comprehended its meaning. They jostled each other, showing off for the young king. At least they were trying to say intelligent things about it.

“This is meant to be Geneva, where we are camped.” Antonius pointed to a piece of blue cloth at the edge of the table. From here he traced with his finger one of the routes Charles would take over the mountains.

“See,” Charles said to the youngsters of the scarae. “I won’t say it’s easy, but it won’t be impossible either. Not with such friends as these.”

He indicated Maeniel and Antonius with a sweep of his arm. The youngsters cheered. Antonius smiled urbanely, as if the whole thing were a quiet walk through a garden.

There were shouts and screams as a fight broke out in one of the mobile taverns outside.

“How did you manage to end up in this wretched spot?” Charles asked.

“We were conducted here, or at least my wife and friends were, after—not long after—our arrival.”

“Indeed,” Charles said. “No doubt in error.”

Charles turned to the scarae. “Friends, I’m sure there are better campsites. Please see to it that my lord Maeniel finds one. But don’t—” He turned to Antonius’s model. “—don’t disturb this.”

“It’s portable,” Antonius said.

Charles nodded. “I think the two of you are going to be no end of help in my endeavors.

“We will talk of this later. Now, boys,” he spoke to the scarae. “Help our friends break camp and move.”

 

The new campsite was much quieter. On the edge of a forest, it was shaded by trees and cool by day. By night it was even more appealing, at least to them.

Barbara and Matrona combined to make a feast: wild boar with sage, apples, wild onions, beans with sausage, and some of last autumn’s salt-smoked ham. Wild greens that Regeane and Silvia collected near a stream, dressed with oil and wine. Breads, a dozen kinds. Matrona was an expert baker, and what she didn’t get around to, Barbara did.

As usual, people got up from the table, stepped out into the night, and vanished. When dinner was over, Regeane, Maeniel, Antonius, Barbara, and the Saxon sat in the tent around the model, discussing it.

Antonius had formed the landslide, showing how it destroyed the road. “Do you think he understood?” Antonius asked Maeniel.

Maeniel appeared distracted. “Someone is coming,” he said. Of all of them, his senses were the most acute.

The Saxon took the candelabra and lit four more candles. Nobody wanted their eyes to do any shining.

“I think,” Maeniel said, “the king and possibly three others.”

Regeane rose. She’d been seen in cloth of gold, and that was the only way she wanted Charles to see her. But he was in the tent before she could withdraw. His eyes raked over the company.

“I see you are not so formal with your intimates.” He smiled at Regeane.

She was wearing only a long-sleeved linen shift covered by a brown gown embroidered with gold at the neck and hem. She’d put aside her veil and mantle. “With your permission.” She curtseyed and eased toward the door.

“Tell me,” Charles asked, “would you leave if I were not here?”

“No.”

“An honest girl,” the king said.

“Sometimes too honest,” Antonius said with a sigh.

“In this instance, I don’t think so. I wondered if she would be comfortable with this marriage. I knew neither one of you before I approved it. It was, in fact, Otho’s idea.”

“I’m rich; she’s beautiful,” Maeniel said. “How would we not get along well?”

Regeane flushed.

“Now I’m happy,” Maeniel said. “And she’s spoiled.”

Regeane turned redder and began to laugh. “It’s true. He denies me nothing.”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it. “Certainly not my company,” Maeniel said.

“I’m afraid I may do that,” Charles said.

“How so?” Maeniel asked.

“I have several maps of the region we are to cross,” the king said, examining the model again. “But I cannot believe they are very accurate.”

“Maps, yes,” Antonius said. “Maps are a problem. There are few good ones. But my lord Maeniel has lived among these mountains all his life and has pointed out two good routes you may take.”

“As for a safe passage,” Maeniel said, “buy what provender you want and pay for it. The people living in the high valleys aren’t warlike; once maybe, in the time of the Romans, they were, but not now. What they want is to be left alone. Life is not easy there, and they must struggle. The Romans garrisoned the passes and harried them, but I don’t think they were ever really conquered. They have learned the benefits of accommodation with large armed parties; however, I warn you, do not promise what you are not willing to perform.

“There are a great many rabble in your train. Dismiss them before you leave. Take only fighting men.”

Charles nodded as he listened. “Sage advice! Hadrian was not mistaken in you. He sent letters saying you were a man of ability. But my arrival then is predictable in both time and place.”

“Yes,” Maeniel answered.

“Then Desiderius will be waiting for me. If he isn’t, he’s a bigger fool than I think he is. Because if I knew he were coming, I would be waiting for him.”

Antonius walked to the model and pointed out two or three places.

“But I won’t know which one, will I?”

“Not unless someone finds out for you,” Maeniel said.

“Yes,” Charles said.

“Oh,” Regeane said.

“I know the people, I know the route. I have crossed these mountains many times,” Maeniel said. “I will ride tonight. If—if I have your word that my wife and friends will remain under your protection.”

“Yes,” Charles said. “You have my word.”

 

Hugo fled but found he couldn’t run far. The front of the cellar hole was low, but the back was high, and enough of the roof remained to prevent his climbing the wall.

Gimp laughed. Or rather, the thing inhabiting him laughed. “Come,” it said. “Build up the fire. The creature I’m riding is cold. Or would you like to be caught alone in the dark with me?”

No, Hugo thought. That would be impossibly horrible. Almost gibbering with fear, he edged back and set more fuel on the blaze.

“You’re not Gimp,” Hugo whimpered. “You don’t even sound like him.”

“No. I’m a lot smarter than little Gimp here. So don’t try any of your tricks on me.”

“Where are you?” Hugo asked, glancing around wildly.

The thing that had been Gimp bared its teeth at him. “Here. Right here. Inside him. You mightily offended the keepers of the tomb where you left him, so they sent for me. I happened to be nearby.

“I can confer life on the dying. The other of your victims was dead, too dead, for my attentions. But poor little Gimp here was still struggling—paralyzed and dying to be sure, but with the spark of life still in him. He admitted me to his mind without argument when I promised him life. You see, he, like you, enjoys life. And so do I.”

Hugo was sick with fear, but he was not what Gimp had been. Hugo had a lot more intelligence. True, he’d been dominated by Gundabald while he was alive, but since his father died he had had to make his own way and he’d found it by no means easy.

Now this thing, something from darkest nightmares, expressed a desire to possess him. And in a sick, dark way, Hugo found himself attracted by the idea. But he wasn’t going to sell out as cheaply as Gimp. No. He would become this thing’s possession only if it would promise to provide those things he most wanted.

He flashed his teeth at the thing across the fire in nothing like a smile. “I can be bought.”

Gimp’s companion considered the purchase. He had seduced the abbot. Others he terrorized, bullied, as he’d done to Otho. But he’d never outright bought. Now this creature, only marginally more capable than the one he was inhabiting, offered itself for sale.

It considered the pros and cons. Force and terror were of only limited use in dealing with the best of them. But its practice had always been to overcome with force first, because the mind would then weaken and cave. In Rome he’d seen Regeane as a creature of great power, so he’d tried to take her, but she had fought him off with a resolution and success he had not heretofore encountered, defending not only herself but Silvie also.

And even Otho beat him back when he’d tried to rule Otho’s mind. He was sure he could turn this thing into a puppet if he exerted all his strength, but why exert all his strength in trying to dominate? Like the cringing creature before him, he was also finite. The battle with the wolves had almost drained him into nonexistence. Why work any harder than he had to?

But the price. It all depended on the price.

“What would be asked?”

 

When Regeane walked in, Matrona and the Saxon were washing Gilas, the girl who’d guided them to Otho’s tent. Every so often she let out a soft, high, shrill scream like a bird in deep distress.

Outbursts of emotion did not sit well with the Saxon.

Matrona was washing her body, the Saxon her hair. He’d told Matrona he found this less disturbing.

“Why are you making noises like a sick chicken?” he asked the girl sternly.

“I’m wet all over.”

“That is not a reason for complaint,” he answered rather flatly.

“I’m wet. All over.” She screamed. “The priests say—” That was all she got out. The Saxon, who had hold of her hair, dunked her at the word priests.

She sat up screaming. “At least let me get my mouth closed.”

He seized her hair again. “If you hadn’t opened it in the first place, the water wouldn’t have gotten in,” he said grimly. “One more word about priests and I will drown you.”

Gilas gurgled, then shut up.

“What did she say?” he asked Matrona.

“I don’t know. Something about sin,” Matrona said. “Girl, you sell yourself from the back of a wagon. What do you care for the maunderings of priests?”

“It’s my business, my trade,” Gilas answered in a tone both defiant and aggrieved. “I don’t enjoy it, so it’s no sin.”

“What is sin?” the Saxon asked.

“The concept is unclear to me also,” Matrona said. “Though when the Christian religion began to make noise in the world, I betook myself to a Christian community and studied the philosophy. I was never able to make any headway with certain of their ideas. Sin is one of them.”

The Saxon grunted and hauled Gilas out of the tub. Matrona wrapped her in clean linen sheets.

The Saxon built up the fire in the brazier, and Matrona began combing Gilas’s hair with a fine-tooth comb.

“Do you know,” Gilas said, as if making a remarkable discovery, “I think that feels good. If I become Otho’s maidservant, how often will I have to do it?”

“Only about once a month,” Matrona said. “But you may get to like it. Otho is rich. He has a villa with its own baths, like the Romans had.

“She is rising in the world, as Otho is grateful for her loyalty and wants her to find another profession,” Matrona explained to Regeane. “He feels that without her help, he would soon have died.”

“He’s probably right,” the Saxon said. “Until his eyes moved, I thought he was dead.”

“Gilas?” Regeane asked. “Have you any other name? Besides Gilas, I mean.”

“No,” Gilas answered. “My mother followed the army, and her mother, too. And that’s as far back as anyone can remember. During the campaigning season we usually made enough to keep us for the winter. Sometimes we could find an officer who would pay us to wash his clothes and look after his things, but they all wanted plenty of hard work for a few coppers. She could always do better in the back of a wagon. The same with me. Otho promises good wages. I’ll just see,” she said darkly. “I’ll just see. I’ll just have to see,” she repeated as Matrona led her away.

The Saxon tipped the bathtub, sending the water into the weeds outside. “Did you want me, my lady?” he asked Regeane politely.

“No. I really came to talk to Matrona.”

He nodded while he was swabbing the remaining water out of the bathtub with a sponge and drying it. The thing was leather, boiled leather, and was stored in one of the wagons.

He’d inserted himself expertly into their lives on the way from the mountains. He was quiet, never intrusive, always willing to turn his hand to any task that presented itself. He made himself useful to everyone, and his tremendous strength made him an invaluable presence in any and all difficulties, from facing down Otho’s tormentor to freeing a wagon stuck in the mud.

“Why do you remain with us?” she asked.

“Because of you.”

“There’s no future in that.”

“Are you asking me to leave?”

“No, no. I do love you, but not . . . not in—”

“Yes,” he said. “I know. I feel much the same way as you do. I am possibly more drawn to you in the way of passion than you are to me, but perhaps that’s only the man in me. I equate one with the other.”

“He’s leaving,” Regeane said. She studied the tip of one of her riding boots as if it had suddenly become very important. “I don’t want him to go alone.”

“Then go with him.”

“I don’t know if he will take me.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“I’m his wife.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You are no more a conventional wife than he is a conventional husband.”

“There’s a problem.”

“What?” He lifted the tub from the floor and leaned it against one of the tent poles. Empty, it was very light.

“He is a wolf who is sometimes a man. I’m a woman who is sometimes a wolf. I’m not shape strong by day, not as much as he is.”

The Saxon nodded. “Then I will follow with a sumpter mule and carry clothing for both of you.”

“I don’t like this business of being a wife. The king made me feel unnecessary.”

Matrona entered behind Regeane. “Women are weak,” she intoned in a religious manner.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the Saxon said.

 

“Money,” Hugo said. “What is money? Gold, silver, precious stones, silks, velvet, and other fine clothing. Money.”

The thing withdrew. Gimp sat with his mouth open, a vacant look in his eyes. Finally he blinked and seemed to regain his consciousness, then said, “Let me have some cheese.”

Hugo’s eyes darted around the ruin. Was the thing gone? He handed Gimp the pot and watched as he began eating with his fingers. When he had finished, Gimp gobbled the few remaining bread crusts. Then he sighed, lay down on his side, and began to look as if he were about to go to sleep.

Hugo watched him, wondering if it would do any good to sneak off in the darkness. Suddenly Gimp sat bolt upright and said, “Go to the left-hand corner of this cellar hole and dig in the spot where I tell you.”

“I’ll need light.”

Gimp picked up one of the burning branches and walked over to the back corner near the wall. Hugo followed.

Curious in spite of himself, Hugo dug.

He’d made a hole only about six inches deep when he began to tire. He paused, panting.

“Dig,” the thing in Gimp commanded.

“I’m working as fast as I can.”

“I know,” the thing in Gimp said. “You mortal creatures are the worst I’ve seen about abusing yourselves. He is drunken and lazy and stupid, and you are drunken and lazy. But he has more damage than you do, so I prefer you.”

“Damage? You mean sticking my knife in him?”

“No. His mother was sick too long before he was born. Dig,” he roared.

Hugo found the strength to scrape away a few more inches of soil and found himself staring at a small terra-cotta pot. He forgot his fatigue. He scraped away the soil around it; he jerked it out of the hole, breaking it. Gold coins spilled everywhere.

Hands trembling, Hugo began counting them. They were golden aurei, the currency of the ancient empire and a fabled source of wealth—a type of coin uncirculated for hundreds of years.

Hugo knew he was rich when he tried one of the coins with his teeth and it bent. Pure and heavy gold. He had no idea what they were worth, but he needn’t worry about that right away because along with the gold, there was a lot of silver—also in the form of coins and broken jewelry.

“I take it our partnership is worth the price?”

The words brought Hugo down to earth with a thud.

The wind from the sea was beginning to rise. It fanned Hugo’s fire, burning near the ruined forum. It flared, casting yellow flickering light throughout the old cellar hole.

Hugo’s fists clenched and unclenched on the metal in his hands. “I have what I want,” he said, his voice trembling. “But is there more?”

“What do you think I am?” the thing in Gimp asked. “A cheap conjurer? A mountebank, a charlatan who performs for pay? You have seen not a tithe of what I can do.”

Gimp screamed as his clothing caught fire, and he was outlined in flames. Then, as quickly as it had come, the fire was gone. Hugo crouched, quivering, against the earth, the coins scattered unregarded around him. As Gimp knelt with the rags of charred cloth hanging from his body, Hugo quietly sobbed. Then Gimp spoke.

“Speak. I am tired of bargaining with you, fool. Say yea or nay, and be done with it.”

“Yes.” Hugo whimpered, his teeth chattering, his whole body shivering. “Yes, yes.”

Something dark as a storm cloud seemed to hang over Hugo, then fell like drenching rain or a breaking sea. For a second Hugo feared he’d be crushed. But then the weight, the shadow, passed through him, into him, the way water enters dry soil and vanishes.

Hugo rose to his feet, trembling, weak with absolute and uncontrollable physical and emotional exhaustion. His mantle lay beside the fire. He staggered over to it, lay down, and sank at once into deep unconsciousness.

 

In the weeks to come, Hugo showed an energy that anyone who had known him in the past would have found most uncharacteristic. In truth, he was afraid to disobey his “guest.”

He awoke, or rather his brain awoke, staring out at the sun just beginning to rise over the sea. The surf was quiet and the wind in his face cool. “What?”

“Be quiet, fool. I’m watching the sun rise.”

“It does that every day,” Hugo complained.

“Yes, a miracle that you and your kind cannot comprehend.”

Hugo managed to drift off to sleep again while the thing was using his body—somewhat to the amusement, the very secret amusement, of his guest.

When he was awakened again, his guest took him in search of more coin hoards. There were two neither as rich as the first, but enough to give him a good start in the first town he reached after his walk along the coast.

Gimp followed, walking along silently. He could talk, but apparently his voice had been affected by the stabbing, and besides, the spirit ordered him to be silent.

The money enabled Hugo to buy horses and clothes and to sojourn at the best lodgings available for travelers. The best were none too good. On the third night, they were sleeping at an inn in a tiny place called Corvo. For the first time since their agreement, his guest had let him drink himself into a fog, and he and Gimp staggered up to bed. He was awakened in the small hours of the morning by his guest, conscious that he had a dull, throbbing headache and a raging thirst.

Hugo tried to moan, but his guest warned him to be silent. There was a sound and movement in the darkened room. There shouldn’t have been either one. Hugo had not been so drunk that he had left the door unbolted, and the windows were both narrow and covered by iron grills. “Sit up,” his guest commanded him. “Strike a light.”

Hugo did. In the first flare of the wax light, he saw the innkeeper coming across the floor at him, upraised ax in hand. Hugo tried to scream, but couldn’t because his guest gave vent to a roar of laughter.

The chamber pot rose into the air and discharged its rather considerable contents directly into the innkeeper’s face. Piss stings when it lands in eyes, and the man was both blinded and infuriated. He reached forward and swung the ax at Hugo—or rather at the bed where Hugo was sitting.

This time Hugo did scream and he jumped away, swearing frantically. His guest laughed again and threw Gimp’s body at the innkeeper’s knees. The innkeeper toppled over Gimp’s back, but the ax continued its downward progress. Instead of embedding itself in the straw tick, it swept clear and came down to cut off two of the innkeeper’s toes.

The innkeeper gave a scream of agony and fell writhing to the floor.

The wax light flew out of Hugo’s hand and landed on the mattress. It took a few seconds for the cloth covering to scorch through, but then it burst into flames.

“Run,” Hugo’s guest ordered. “He’s bound to have friends. This is his town.”

Hugo gathered up what few possessions weren’t already in his saddle bags and followed Gimp, who had reached the courtyard near the stable. They found the horses saddled and waiting—a fact that gave Hugo pause. He had not known his guest could function so efficiently without him, but he didn’t spend more than a split second considering the matter because the whole town was buzzing like a hornet’s nest. Men were shouting, women screaming; and flames had already spread from the window of his room to the dry, thatched roof. Hugo put spurs to his horse and, headache or not, he fled.

By dawn they were miles away and already turning off the coast, hugging via Aurelia inland toward Florence. Hugo was allowed to pause by a mountain stream to get a drink of water and wash his face.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” his guest said. “Especially the rotgut they serve in taverns like the last. Fool, he was trying to drug you.”

“Fine time to tell me,” Hugo muttered.

A powerful kick in the rear sprawled Hugo facedown in the stream. “That will clear your head,” his guest said.

Hugo rose, sputtering. The water was icy.

No one could have kicked him. Gimp was standing near the horses, wide-eyed and ten feet away.

“How do you do things like that?” Hugo asked, bewildered.

“I don’t know. How do you see blue?”

“You mean you can’t?”

“Only when I borrow your eyes.”

Hugo staggered over to the horses and leaned against his saddle. “How do I get some peace?”

“Make me a god, Hugo. Make me a god,” his guest said. “I once was one, you know.”

“A god?” Hugo muttered. “You aren’t a god, you’re a ghost.”

The subsequent kick lifted Hugo an inch off the ground. “Ever met a ghost who could do that?”

“No. Ow.” Hugo crawled into the saddle, where he felt at least his backside would be protected. “If you were a god,” he sniveled, “you’d know how I see blue and you wouldn’t need to kick people.”

“You’re probably right. I hate to admit it, but you are probably right.”

Just then something—his guest, Hugo was sure—slapped the horse’s rump and it took off at a gallop.

 

Regeane sat beside the trail in the misty half-light of dawn when Maeniel passed by. He’d slipped out of his bed before dawn and felt sure he’d left her sleeping.

He had left her beside him.

He stopped and gave her a long, thoughtful look—one she’d seen before. He had directed it at Gavin when his worthy captain was found gnawing a big meaty elk thighbone on one of Maeniel’s fine Persian carpets. It began a chase that had ended when Gavin took refuge behind Regeane and began whimpering piteously.

Regeane, who had been in human form, had said, “Please, my dear—” And Maeniel had turned human.

“Get out,” he had ordered Gavin. “Get out before I fetch my horsewhip.”

“You own a horsewhip?” she had asked.

Gavin took off like a crossbow bolt.

Maeniel had thrown on his robe, grinned, and said, “No, but Gavin doesn’t know that.”

However, Regeane now thought, I am not Gavin. She threw Maeniel a haughty look and continued to sit by the trail, her nose slightly elevated.

The stare between them continued.

Regeane refused to be intimidated.

Finally Maeniel resumed the traveling wolf’s bicycling gait and made no objection when she fell in beside him.

The sun never troubled them, and Regeane was surprised; as a young and inexperienced shape-changer in Rome, she’d believed day and night limited her access to the wolf. Yes, light tugged at the woman, and sometimes she felt dizzy, as if her human half wanted to take charge and made a strong push to do so, but at those times she sought the deep coverts, heavy with thick brush and tall trees, and avoided the open where the sun might catch her; soon the wolf was able to reassert herself strongly.

Maeniel broke trail for both of them, leading her along paths she was sure no human foot had ever trodden. Along Roman roads and outposts, winter was only just losing its grip on the heights, so he kept to the valleys now. They were warmer; flowers had begun to bloom, yellow and white daisies, and the trees were leafing out green-gold and green. Higher, the evergreen spruce, fir, pine, and even the few remaining cedar perfumed the air. The grass, new and emerald green, was filled with violets, purple and white, and even yellow clusters.

They came to the lake in the later afternoon. His first impression was that it was smaller now. Had it really been that long? Reaching back into his memory, he knew it had been.

The rock where she used to rest after her bath was on dry land now, where, long ago, it had projected out into the water. The waterfall remained, but now it appeared that much less water ran down the black basalt steps, and even from where he stood, he could tell the lake above was much smaller, and saplings from the encroaching forest surrounded it.

The lake beneath the falls was silting up. Greenery from the shallow margins extended far out into the water. Hemlock, with its innocent-appearing white flowers; pickerel weed, with its spikes of indigo blue; tall cattails overlooking beds of sweet, sharp, yellow-flowered cress. Beyond the cress some vagrant thing with fuzzy white flowers and long spear-shaped leaves; and toward the center, wild lotus and water lily opened perfect cups of white, yellow, mauve, and pink, and round olive green pads floated on the surface.

Both wolves slipped into the lake; sunlight shimmered on the ripples their bodies made in the still water, sunlight that would have blinded any watcher. Suddenly they were both human.

“It’s beautiful,” Regeane whispered, not wishing to disturb the afternoon’s silence.

“Yes,” he said. “Even after all these years and so much grief.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Oh, yes, many, many times—but that was a long time ago.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“When?”

“On the night we were married. You were making love to me, I think, right here.”

He held quiet, listening.

“Do you hear something? Someone?”

“No. Only wind in the forest, the music of the waterfall, and the sound of your heart beating.”

“You can’t,” she said softly.

“I can. I do.” He embraced her then and kissed her.

When they broke to breathe, he spoke. “Let’s make your prophetic vision come true.”

“Yes.” It was a sigh as much as a word.

 

Hugo was quiet for the next few days. To his guest’s and Gimp’s surprise, he didn’t drink to excess at the taverns and inns where they stopped. He watered his wine and ate well, going to bed replete, his stomach full, and waking without a headache in the morning.

He said little to his guest, only asking one question when he was about to go to bed the second night.

Gimp was gone, relieving himself behind the inn on a brushy hillside.

“How does Gimp fit in with your plans?” Hugo asked rather acidly.

“I promised him life. I keep my promises even when my priests are madmen and my adherents from the gallows.”

Hugo nodded.

“You will not abandon him.”

This Hugo clearly recognized as an order.

Hugo had spent most of his adult life in an alcoholic fog—adulthood being recognized as occurring at age twelve. But he had a brain, and when dried out it worked fairly well. He remembered Gundabald’s life before their descent into abject poverty: good food; warm, soft, comfortable clothing; the finest wines; servants to pick up after him; and at least passably attractive women at his father’s beck and call. And when Hugo grew old enough, at his also. He and his father had been treated with respect by tradesmen and even the lesser nobility. But Gundabald had courted disaster by trying to buy his way into the inner circle of great magnates surrounding the king. He was overly ambitious. His estates were simply not large enough, and the amount of land and money able to keep all of them in comfort went to gild a rathole created by the promises of the outer fringes, the impecunious hangers-on, at the royal court. But to the end of his life, Gundabald believed the golden prize of royal preferment dangled just out of his reach. The lion’s share of loot from the Frankish king’s conquests went to line the coffers of the greatest of his courtiers. To be among his intimates was to be rich beyond even Gundabald’s dreams of avarice.

Forcibly sobered, then voluntarily sober, Hugo considered all of these things. As a man he’d never liked his father, and thinking over his ambitions, he came to the realization that Gundabald had been a fool. The man had abused and terrorized Regeane by his insistence that she fall in with his plans for murdering her husband. Gundabald had driven her at last to rebellion, all so he could gather more money to further gild the rathole.

No, Hugo thought. That road was not for him. Thanks to his father, he was a hunted man, cut off forever from the world of the Frankish aristocracy he’d been brought up in. But now, now there was a chance to recoup his fortunes. Sober, he began quietly to consider how to do so.

His chance came on the road to Florence.

His guest had directed him to the site of an abandoned villa. Or perhaps it had once been a town; the site was so ruined, it was impossible to tell. This trove was very rich in silver. His guest directed him to pry a brick from one of the walls. The box behind it had been a fine one. The jewelry inside had been carefully wrapped in silk and, though dark, was still in good condition, as were the silver coins—probably hoarded over a lifetime—in the bottom.

On his way back to the road, he saw the brigands. He was looking down on them because they’d hidden themselves in a cut-rock ditch overgrown with wild roses. The hiding place was a good one because the rose canes were so thick it was easy to overlook the fact that the ditch was even there.

“Why?” he asked his guest.

“A caravan of merchants is coming.”

“This is our chance.”

“Chance to do what?”

“Start you on the road to becoming a god,” Hugo said, feeling superior for once. “Tell that fool Gimp to become mute from now on.”

The brigands’ plan was very simple: to burst from the thicket of rose canes, snatch a laden mule from the merchants, escape into the rocky thickets of scrub oak and broom. The caravan was escorted by a party of mercenaries. They and the merchants would be mounted and could not take their horses into the rocks on the hillside, at least not quickly enough to keep the thieves from stripping the laden mule and vanishing without a trace into what was now a wilderness of broken ground, stunted trees, weeds, and thick briars.

The brigands were unarmed or poorly armed. All Hugo had to do when they snatched the mule was ride in front of them and shout. One, more stubborn than the rest, kept hold of the mule’s bridle. The rest scattered.

Hugo drew his sword but a well-thrown rock cracked into the side of the man’s head.

The mule brayed, reared, and kicked. The last holdout panicked and ran off with the rest. Hugo took the mule’s dangling rein and led it back to the road.

At that point the squad of escorting mercenaries rode up. Hugo had a brief, unsettling moment when it looked as if they might mistake him for the thieves. But he was able to put an end to the misunderstanding at once by pointing out the direction in which the brigands fled. They gave chase.

“I’m afraid it’s pointless,” Hugo said to the merchant.

Already the mercenaries had pulled up. The ground was treacherous and no one wanted to lose a valuable animal.

“Yes,” the merchant replied. “But thank you for saving our property. I am Armine Welborn of Florence.”

“Hugo of Bayonne.” Hugo bowed. Hugo had never been near Bayonne, but it had a good sound.

“You don’t know what a great service you’ve done me. Every animal here is precious. We carry nothing but silk this trip. Gauzes, damasks, tapestry, woven hangings from the east, all intended for the king’s court in Pavia. The loss of even one of these mules might have ruined me.”

“Not at all,” Hugo said, bowing again. “Delighted to be of service. If you are a native of the city of flowers, perhaps you might tell me where I can find safe lodging for the night.”

Hugo felt the merchant’s eyes on him, shrewdly assessing his worth. His clothing was wrinkled and travel stained, but he was wearing a heavy silver ring on one hand and gold one on the other. He and the silent Gimp were both riding very good horses.

“Why, at my house, of course,” Armine said. “You have done me a great service. The very best lodgings in the city are, I’m sad to say, squalid, without the amenities a gentleman like yourself takes for granted.”

Hugo managed a sanctimonious smile. “I have indeed endured many hardships on this trip, but if I can accomplish my objectives, I will feel well rewarded.”

“My goodness,” Armine said. “What can those objectives be?”

“I have,” Hugo said, “both sad and unpleasant family business to settle.”

The tip of Armine’s nose twitched. “My,” he exclaimed. “In Florence?”

“No, not at that fair city, but farther on, in Pavia.”

“Armine,” someone shouted. “Come on, we must reach the city before dark unless you really want to lose those precious things of yours. Get moving.”

Hugo and Gimp fell in with the merchant caravan, and they started off. A few hours later, they were crossing the Arno and entering Florence.

 

Hugo found Florence depressing, a place of high walls, narrow streets, and almost constant fear among the powerless. The city was now in the hands of perhaps a dozen powerful families, each with its own fortified residence, each claiming a segment of the populace as adherents.

With the decay of Roman government, the small holder, the independent entrepreneur, disappeared. The only way the small tradesman or farmer survived here was to accept the patronage of these few leading families and pay homage to them. Street violence between these contending families was almost constant and no night passed without a savage brawl between one family’s adherents and another’s.

Armine’s residence was comfortable but frighteningly well fortified with double gates—one of wood, the next of iron—and high walls fronted the street, guarded by iron spikes at the top. Hired mercenaries patrolled the walls both night and day.

Inside, there was an attractive garden surrounded by a colonnade. This, Hugo discovered, was for the ladies, who seldom if ever left the compound. In fact, Armine’s daughters had never been outside of the house, and they were both in their early teens.

On arrival, Hugo made his first visit to the bathhouse and then, clean and fresh-smelling, he was shown to a forbidding suite of rooms. All of the windows were covered by iron gratings; the walls and floor were of stone.

Gimp said only, “Looks like prison.”

“You’re mute,” Hugo reminded him.

“Still looks like prison.”

Hugo was going to hit him, but his guest stopped him. “He will stay mute when necessary. Let him be. How is this nonsense going to make me a god?”

“Watch and see,” Hugo said truculently.

His guest growled. “You’re upsetting me.”

Hugo stretched out on the bed. “What do you want?” he muttered.

“An explanation.”

“I have no explanation,” Hugo said. “I’m going to have to improvise.”

Just then there was a knock on the door. A servant entered with a tray. It held a silver wine pitcher and a cup, among other things.

“My lord told me to tell you that supper will be late this evening,” the servant said. “So you don’t go hungry, he felt you might need refreshment.”

Hugo wasn’t interested in the other objects on the tray. A few days of sobriety were enough for him. With some alacrity he rose and grabbed the wine pitcher and poured a large cup, while Gimp helped himself to the fruit, bread, and cheese on the tray. Hugo got only one cup down, the second was slapped out of his hand.

“I don’t trust improvisations when you’re sober; how do you think I feel about them when you’re drunk?” his guest said in a thick, grating voice.

But the wine on an empty stomach had done its work and Hugo fell asleep on the bed.

He was awakened much later by a servant. He’d had a nightmare about Gundabald. All Hugo’s nightmares were about Gundabald. He felt as if he hadn’t slept at all, but considering what he was about to do, he felt he’d better look a little haggard. So his appearance was all to the good. He dressed himself with care, choosing his darkest clothing, and went for pale and interesting.

From the hoard amassed by his guest, he chose presents for the girls and an exquisite chain for their father.

Gimp sat on the floor in the corner and stared at him.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked his guest and Gimp.

“You look like you had the squirts for about a week,” Gimp said.

“How the hell should I know?” his guest said. “One human looks almost like another to me. You’re all skinny and ugly. Get downstairs and put this magnificent plan you’re being so secretive about into action. And stop bothering me. If you must know, you look like someone with a wasting disease. There, does that satisfy you?”

Then Hugo was spun around, the door opened, and he was pushed out into the corridor.

Dinner was stately and the food was good. Hugo thought it was as gloomy a meal as he had ever attended. Madonna Helen and her two daughters were in attendance. They all looked rather like prisoners broken on the rack and then allowed to live out their days in the care of their families.

The girls were both blondes and outdid Hugo in paleness, and this wasn’t helped along by the fact that current fashions in Florence called for liberal applications of white lead to protect the complexion from even the slightest ray of sunshine. Considering the way they hung on Hugo’s every word, both were starved for company.

Three boys, younger than their sisters, tried to enliven the proceedings with a food fight and were marched off to bed early in the company of twelve attendants.

To Hugo, not an imaginative man by any means, they looked like prisoners being escorted to the gallows.

Madonna Helen, their mother—a slender blond woman—was in what was politely known as a decline. The physicians had bled her copiously and prescribed all sorts of expensive nostrums containing poisons like mercury, alum, and opium. This was complicated by the fact that she must eat a special diet consisting only of boiled vegetables. This treatment had brought her several times to the edge of death and had reduced her to such a state of wraithlike emaciation that Hugo had trouble believing he was looking at a living woman.

After the boys left, the conversation lagged until the merchant began asking Hugo about his travels.

“How was Rome?”

“I was there for only a few days,” Hugo replied.

“A few hours is more like it,” Hugo’s guest said to him silently.

Hugo plowed on, “The present pope is a foe of the Lombards and, though I tried to enlist his help with my family problems, he threatened he’d have me driven from the city if I did not leave quickly. I am alone now—but for my poor, mute servant—so I fled.”

“How terrible,” the older of Armine’s daughters said. Her name was Chiara; her sister’s, Phyllis.

“My life has been sad since my father was killed,” Hugo said.

“How horrible for you,” Phyllis said, and sighed.

“Terrible in the deed,” Hugo said, “and terrible in the way it was done; but I fear ’tis not a tale for the ears of gentle ladies.”

“Oh, I’m quite liberal with my daughters,” Armine said.

“I approve,” Hugo said. “For this story is one that should improve the hearts of women, teaching them to respect the greater wisdom of their menfolk, and the folly that can result when their desires of the heart overrule the head. A fine moral lesson.”

“You see,” Armine said to his daughters. “Listen and learn.”

“It began,” Hugo said, “when my aunt Gisela was betrothed to a wild pagan Saxon named Wolfstan. My father—” Hugo raised his eyes to heaven. “—God rest his soul, a saintly man if there ever was one . . . In any case, my father, Gundabald, objected to the match, seeing that this Saxon refused to become a Christian, bow his neck to Christ’s sweet yoke, and be washed in the water of rebirth and eternal life.

“But Gisela would hear none of the warnings given by her brother or any of the objections of the many priests he called to support his position that Christian and pagan flesh should not commingle in the marriage bed. For this Saxon was both handsome and rich, and Gisela was wildly in love with him. The fortunes of our family were in decline then, and Gisela, while not poor, was not nearly as rich as she wished to be, and I think she might possibly have been in love with the fine life he could give her.

“And, indeed, for the first year they seemed to be happy and the match a fortunate one. He allowed her to have her own chaplain and receive the sacraments, but she did say that he would not observe the many occasions during which the church enjoins chastity upon even those joined in wedded bliss.”

Both Armine and his wife seemed a little uncomfortable as Hugo began to recite the list. “All Sundays, all holy days, the entire period of Advent and Lent, and quite a few more.”

“There do seem to be a lot of them,” Armine said, with a side glance at his wife. “Not all churchmen are as strict—”

“But my father felt Gisela should be doing more to advance the cause of Christianity with her husband, rather than allowing herself to be won over to his ways. So he rebuked her strongly, leaving her in tears and angering this Wolfstan greatly.

“A few days later he set out with some of Wolfstan’s Saxons on a hunting party. Somehow they contrived to lead my poor father into the deep woods and abandoned him there. Whereupon he was set on by a gigantic wolf. At this point, he despaired of his life, fell to his knees before the ravening beast, and seized the cross of Christ that he wore always around his neck. To his utter astonishment, the vicious creature recoiled before the sacred object.

“Seizing his opportunity, my father snatched up a crossbow, called down God’s blessing on the bolt, and fired at the wolf. The beast went down, gasping, in its last agony. To my father’s horror, a great wind swept through the forest, and the sky darkened as if it presaged a dreadful storm. This lasted for only a few moments, but . . . but . . .”

They were all openmouthed, hanging on Hugo’s every word.

“But when the wind ceased, the sky cleared, and the birds began to sing again, my father saw—where the wolf had been lying—the body of Wolfstan, his sister’s husband.”

This revelation called for a bracer for the men and honey cakes and sweet wine for the women. Hugo could see he had achieved instant popularity in Armine’s household.

“How dreadful!” Phyllis pressed her hand to her breast. “I cannot see how he survived the shock of such an experience.”

“My father was a strong man,” Hugo said. “But alas, that is not all, only the beginning.”

“Really?” Chiara said.

Hugo thought he detected some mockery in her tone, but the rest were staring at him in openmouthed credulity. So he ignored her and pressed on.

“As you so aptly observed, my father’s shock was great. But that did not prevent him from seizing Gisela and returning home with her. Nor did he rest until she was married to a good—Christian—man, named Firminious.

“But he forgot the contumacy and obstinacy of some women. On her return home, shortly after her second marriage, she was found to be pregnant. We urged her to be . . . rid of the child, tainted as it would be by evil, but she refused.”

“She refused to kill her child,” Chiara said.

Armine shot her a reproving look, and her face became expressionless. I am not winning this one over, Hugo thought. But then, it’s the father I want.

“We meant the child no harm,” Hugo said, “but we felt it would be best oblated, that is, sent to an establishment of holy nuns and brought up in, shall we say, seclusion. But Gisela defended her child vigorously and was supported in her stubborn, misplaced affection for Regeane by Firminious.”

“Regeane was the little one’s name?” Chiara asked.

“Yes. But early, very early in life, Regeane began to display affection for the black arts, as her father had. Alas, Firminious died while Gisela was a young woman, and she would no longer yield to the strong male guidance supplied by my father, Gundabald. In vain she brought the child from shrine to shrine, churches devoted to the worship of Christ, his holy mother, and many saints, trying at all costs to quell Regeane’s turbulent spirit and bring submission to her rebellious soul.

“But she failed, and we were in Rome seeking the blessing of the pope himself when Gisela, worn out by so many sorrows and tribulations, went at last to her eternal rest. Not long after she died, we received news that Charles, king of the Franks, had arranged for a marriage for Regeane.

“Naturally, we were horrified.”

“Naturally.” Chiara lifted one eyebrow and echoed Hugo ironically.

Hugo ignored her. “But the pope, the new pope Hadrian, interfered with our attempts to obstruct the marriage. He removed Regeane from our care and saw to it that she was wed like poor Gisela to an outright barbarian and scoundrel. Needless to say, this scoundrel was delighted with her.”

“I take it his affection for Regeane is in very bad taste?” Chiara asked.

Again Hugo ignored her. “We are a great family, though fallen on evil times, and are related to the house of the Arnulfings, the Frankish kings. A lowborn commoner like this Maeniel would have thought her a great prize, even had she been a hunchback half-wit with only one tooth in her head. But the pope was deaf to my father’s warnings.

“So Gundabald and I contacted the Lombard party in Rome. The pope himself was brought to book, and Regeane was tried as a witch.”

Chiara frowned, but everyone else at the table gasped.

“She determined trial by combat, and this Maeniel championed her. It was a long, bitter battle, but—I can hardly credit it, for the Lombard champion was so puissant, bold, fair, and honest a warrior—but he met defeat at the hands of this Maeniel.

“I believe he and Regeane must have compacted in the black arts to destroy God’s champion.”

“Don’t lay it on too thick,” Hugo’s guest warned him, “but keep going, you’re doing fine so far.”

He was and he knew it. All but Chiara were staring at him in openmouthed admiration. “But that is not the worst.”

“No?” Armine gasped.

“No. My father felt this Maeniel was hopefully not too far under Regeane’s spell as to be immune to all good counsel, so he went to try one more time. He found them at their wedding feast. I know; I followed him. I was deeply worried about his safety, and I had good cause. For when he began to remonstrate with this Maeniel, he and Regeane forsook their borrowed human shapes. In the semblance of a wolf, as her father had been, she fell on my saintly father and—joined by her besotted lover, he also in wolf form—they rent him limb from limb.

“It happened so quickly! I could do nothing. When I saw that if I tried to bring them to book for this ghastly crime, my own life would quickly be ended, I fled away, determined to avenge my father and then retire to a monastery to live out the balance of my life in prayer, self-mortification, good works, and holy penitence. But before I go, I must warn the Lombard duke of this Maeniel and Regeane, who now serve the Frankish king and hope to aid him in his war against the rightful ruler of Lombardy, Duke Desiderius.”

“That’s quite a story,” Chiara said.

“Oh, dreadful day that Christ’s anointed lord, his excellency the ruler of the Lombards, should be attacked by black sorcery,” Armine said. “But what can he do against this pair, pray tell me?”

Hugo smiled. His remaining teeth were impressive, a little scummed by green but still good. “Tell him to include wolfhounds among his war dogs, because, depend on it, Maeniel and Regeane will try to bring intelligence about his movements and plans back to Charles, the Frankish king. If the Lombard can destroy them, he will deprive the Franks of one of their most useful weapons.”

Armine frowned. “I was to send letters to the King Desiderius tonight. This tale is so fantastical . . . I can hardly credit it. But all know the strongholds of paganism constantly threaten those who receive Christ, so I will warn him that this vile pair have bent their malice on him—and to include the finest of his wolfhounds among the dogs of war.”