The Silver Wolf (12 page)

“I’ll come,” Antonius said diffidently to Regeane, “if my presence doesn’t offend you?”

“Oh, no,” Regeane shook her head. She was still deeply grateful for his rescue.

Then she remembered the few pieces of copper in her scrip. She pulled them out quickly and extended her hand to Antonius with the coins in her palm.

“Here, please take this,” she said. “It’s for your garden, your flowers. I’m so sorry that we broke the pots, but you’ll see. The flowers will grow again.”

Antonius didn’t move or stretch out his hand to take the money. Instead, his eyes sought his brother Stephen. “The widow’s mite,” he said. He turned again to Regeane. “I’m well looked after. My brother sees to all my needs. I, in turn, must apologize for being so childish about a few pots.”

When Regeane looked at Stephen, she realized that the sternness in his expression had softened into a look of kindness.

Regeane glanced anxiously at the soldier. Stephen’s men were dragging him off by the heels.
Rather callous procedure
, Regeane thought. His injured skull bounced along the stones. “Is there any chance I could be called up before the magistrate
and accused of … I’m not so worried about myself, but the child … is … she’s not yet a free person.”

“No,” Stephen snapped. “He shouldn’t be here at all. Were I not in the service of Christ, I would order his summary execution. The present pope Hadrian had ordered the Lombard faction out of Rome and—”

Antonius broke in with a soft chuckle. “It seems Hadrian hasn’t had as much success as he hoped in controlling their activities.”

Stephen looked annoyed. “No,” he growled. “But I think once Hadrian is aware of the problem, he will be able to take measures.”

“Never think it,” Antonius broke in, more seriously this time. “The Roman families are still hedging their bets, and likely so are the clergy. Believe it, brother, and be careful,” he cautioned.

“What’s ‘hedging a bed’?” the child asked.

“Hedging a bet,” Regeane corrected her and, since she didn’t know the answer herself, she shushed the little girl and told her not to ask so many questions.

The child’s lip shot all the way out. The small eyes flashed fire. She and Regeane glared at each other. “I only asked one. And besides, my father says the only way to find out anything is to ask questions. So there!”

“She’s right,” Antonius said. “Questions, answerable or not, are always a necessity. In this instance, ‘hedging a bet’ refers to the last pope who was dominated by the Lombard party in Rome. The present pope, Hadrian, has declared his independence from the Lombard duke Desiderius and expelled his man, Paul Afartha, from the city. Basil was Paul Afartha’s captain. Many of the poor wretches you see here were afflicted by nature, but others suffered at the hands of Paul and Basil. Their sin was belonging to the wrong party. So far as hedging bets is concerned, the Romans are still not sure if Hadrian’s policies will be successful. In other words, they fear the present pope may fall under the influence of the Lombards, also. So they are trying to be very careful not to offend anyone.”

“But what has this to do with me?” Regeane asked, distressed.

“Brother,” Antonius whispered. “If we could go inside and sit down, I would be deeply grateful. These days I find heat and
cold both difficult to bear. And even walking a few steps tires me.” The words were spoken serenely without any touch of whining or self-pity. Regeane realized they were the simple truth.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen said penitently. “And I’m forgetting my duties as a host.”

Regeane would have scorned to beg for herself, but she knew the child must be hungry. The girl looked very much as if the slave dealer probably starved her in an attempt to break the independent little spirit. “Please, sir, if you could find a bit to eat for the child.”

“I think we might find something for both of you,” Stephen said. “Come this way.”

Stephen led the way, Antonius shuffling after them across the piazza.

She followed him into a church, a small place, rather bare like most of the chapels serving the poor people of Rome.

The blank whitewashed stucco walls had only a few narrow windows that let in long shafts of light. Its only adornment was a fresco wrapped around the sanctuary, framing the altar with its worn canopy and bare marble surface.

The painting depicted a meadow at dawn. The green grass was bejeweled with spring flowers. The ruby cups of poppy, bluebells, delicate violet, wild basil, and over them all, glowing amethyst and gold, the first magical light of sunrise.

Illuminated by an opening in the top of the cupola above the altar, the scene filled the simple little church with the fragrance of a spring morning and the freedom of wide vistas under the open sky.

“It’s dawn,” Regeane said.

“No,” Antonius said behind her. “Sunset. I know. I painted it. It’s easy to mistake sunset for dawn. The light is almost the same.”

“How wonderful to be able to make something so beautiful,” the little girl said.

“Hush,” Regeane said, remembering the condition of Antonius’ hands, the white stubs of bone protruding from the flesh.

“It’s all right,” Antonius said. “She doesn’t understand.”

Regeane was leading the little girl through the church. The child stopped and pulled back against her.

“What don’t I understand? If I don’t understand something, I want it explained to me so I do understand it.” Her small face had a mulish expression and the lower lip was protruding again.

“Come along,” Regeane said, embarrassed, “and stop being a nuisance.”

The child tested her strength against Regeane’s firm grip on her arm and decided that dignified progress was better than being dragged.

“It is one of those things that I’m supposed to wait till I’m older to know. People are always telling me that! If they’d only explain, I’d understand now!”

Regeane heard a chuckle behind her and realized that Antonius wasn’t offended.

“She can’t be yours,” he said. “You’re too young.”

“Of course I’m not hers,” the little girl said indignantly. “I’m a Saxon. She’s a Frank. Can’t you tell the difference?”

“Whatever you are,” Stephen said, “you’re a handful.”

They were near the altar by now. Stephen pushed open a door in the wall and ushered Regeane into what she knew must be his living quarters.

She was suddenly conscious of her own disheveled state. Her mantle was gone. She remembered with a shiver the cloth seller lay bleeding to death on it. She didn’t think she’d want it back. She’d used the worn veil as a wash rag. She’d dropped her shoes—one pulled off by her pursuer, the other falling as she climbed into the balcony. She looked down and wiggled her toes. The dress she wore, threadbare to begin with, was stained and spattered with the filth of the streets and the slime of the tunnel. Her hair clung to her scalp, matted by sweat and dirt.

The room was immaculately clean, and though sparsely furnished, its appointments might have come from one of the beautiful patrician villas that guarded the city.

An alcove at one end of the room held a curtained bed. It was, as most Frankish beds were, a wooden box that served as container for the feather tick and quilt. But the coverlet had the sheen of silk and the simple design that bordered it was picked out in golden thread. The linen of the bedsheets and curtains
was bleached to snowy whiteness and edged as simply as the coverlet, but with cut lace, the eyelets embroidered in silk.

A table stretched the length of the room. Regeane’s first impression was that it was very old and her second that it must have once graced a palace. Oak and iron-hard with a satiny gleam, the surface inlaid with curving ivory acanthus leaves.

The benches that stretched the length of it were of equal quality, and decorated with ivory in the same pattern.

At one end of the table near a fireplace set into the stone wall stood a high-backed carven chair before a bookstand. The book on it was a big one, and Regeane’s eye caught the gleam of bright gold and blue illumination on the parchment.

One piece of furniture in the room stood out by virtue of the fact that it didn’t match the quality of the rest. A simple wooden bench with a straw cushion at the end of the table opposite the high-backed chair.

Antonius limped into the room behind Regeane and shuffled toward it, explaining, “That’s mine, so that when …” He paused for a poignant second, poignant because Regeane understood what he did not say. “When I no longer need it, it may be burned.”

He moved with difficulty as if in pain. Regeane sensed that the time to burn the bench might come soon.

His Latin speech was clear and beautiful, closer to the language of the Caesars than the argot spoken in the streets of Rome. Clean, precise, the accent that of a wellborn and well-educated man, though strangely slurred. Regeane didn’t like to think of the condition of the lips from which the words issued.

The voice may have been young, but his movements were slow, painful, and unsteady as if he dragged himself along by an effort of will. His brother’s eyes rested on him with so much love and resigned sadness. They spoke more clearly than any words the certainty of Antonius’ doom.

Regeane and the child hesitated in the doorway.

Antonius paused beside the bench. “Please come in. You need not fear any contagion. While in this room I sit only on my bench and handle nothing that is my brother’s. He is not infected and never has been, though I and the other unfortunates who dwell here are in his care.”

“Oh, no,” Regeane cried. “It’s not that.” She looked down at her tattered dress and the child’s matted hair. “Our own state is …”

“We are dirty,” the little girl said flatly, “and we’re sorry, but we had no time to be particular. We were running for our lives. The slave dealer who had me wouldn’t let me wash. He kept me chained up. He was afraid I’d run away. He was a bad man, though he was right. I would have run away if I’d gotten a chance. And,” she said, looking up at Stephen, her dark blue eyes defiant, “I am not a handful. My father always said I was a good, obedient child. And I am.”

Antonius chuckled again, the sound muffled by the heavy mantle.

Stephen suppressed a smile and showed them to a small scullery where Regeane and the child did their best to repair some of the damage wrought by their flight. They had clean hands and faces when they returned to the other room.

Stephen set wine, bread, and yellow cheese before them, then sat down in his big chair at the head of the table, taking only a little watered wine for himself.

At the sight and smell of the food Regeane realized she was ravenously hungry. It was all she could do to keep from bolting it down. Only when she’d taken the worst edge from her hunger and relaxed, sipping the wine, did Stephen begin to question her.

“Now, why was Basil the Lombard chasing you?” he asked.

“She wouldn’t tell me,” the little girl said. “Maybe she’ll tell you.”

Regeane was annoyed. “I can understand your skepticism, but don’t carry it too far. I am truthful in most matters. We both know what is generally said of liars.”

The child shot her a glance. “I stand corrected,” she said stiffly. She sniffed and applied herself to the food.

“Brother,” Antonius said, “I don’t think you need to look any further than her lovely face. Basil saw her and—”

“No,” Regeane broke in. “He tried to kill me, charged at me sword in hand to strike me down.”

“How did you escape?” Antonius asked.

“That was wonderful,” the little girl said. “She caught the
horse at the bit and pulled him down. I’ve heard of that warrior’s move,” she said enthusiastically, “heard my father’s men talk of such things, but never before seen it done.”

“Who are you?” Stephen asked. “The child said you were a Frank. What is your name?”

Regeane turned toward him. “Regeane, daughter of Gisela and,” she hesitated, then said proudly, “Wolfstan.”

“Gisela the Pepined?” he asked.

“Yes,” Regeane answered.

“You are betrothed to Maeniel, the outlander. No wonder Basil wanted to kill you.” Stephen sat back on the chair. He looked horrified. “What is a lady of
your rank
doing wandering around the streets of Rome unescorted and in the thieves’ market of all places!” He looked outraged.

“I was trying to buy a dress,” Regeane stammered. “You see, we’re very poor and … his name is Maeniel, then? Gundabald didn’t tell me his name. He only said he was a mountain lord.”

“Yes,” Stephen answered. “Something of a man of mystery, this Maeniel, but he holds a fortress that commands a pass through the Alps.”

“A very powerful position,” Antonius said. “The king of the Franks has bestowed an important match on you.”

“I don’t understand,” Regeane said. “What has that to do with Basil?”

Stephen pushed his chair back from the table. “You need not concern yourself with such things, girl. Tell me where your uncle lodges. I’ll call two of my men. They’ll see you return there safely. Don’t stick a hand or foot out of doors until I have a chance to drop a word in the ears of a few of my friends and see to it that Basil is driven out of the city.”

“No!” Regeane shouted, jumping up so quickly she almost overset the bench. “I’m not going home. As for this Maeniel, he can find some other woman to marry. Today in the square I met a woman named Lucilla. She—”

“What is this nonsense!” Stephen shouted, slamming his fist down on the table. “Lucilla! Are you so foolish, so naive as not to know what Lucilla wants of you?”

Regeane faced him, chin lifted defiantly. She groped for the Saxon girl’s hand, caught hold of it, and said, “I’m neither
foolish nor naive. I know exactly what Lucilla wants of me, but it’s better than being sold to some man who’ll hate me. Living my life in fear, afraid to eat and drink …”

Stephen stared up at her in astonishment. “What fancies are these? Who’s been stuffing your heard with foolishness? How can you despise an honorable match and turn to a courtesan like Lucilla?”

“Regeane,” Antonius said, half rising from his bench. “Stop shouting and sit down. No one here will force you to do anything.”