The Silver Wolf (15 page)

Regeane lifted hers to catch the last light. A cameo of white on blue showed a procession of youths and maidens turning garlands to escort the chariot of the bride. “How beautiful,” she whispered.

“And how apropos,” Lucilla said as she raised the silver pitcher to pour the wine. The silver spout was the head of a wolf.

Knowledge fisted Regeane in the belly. She was in a trap.

The cup fell from her hands into a patch of thyme growing at her feet. The wine stained the white flowers like a splash of blood.

She was in a trap, a beautiful, dangerous trap.

Truly, she could abandon herself to the loveliness of this heavenly garden, to the pleasure of Lucilla’s caresses. But this idyll could have but one ending. The mountain lord would come to claim her and one of them would die!

“My God! What’s wrong?” Lucilla exclaimed, setting down her own cup to stretch out her hands to Regeane.

Regeane bent over, clutching her stomach for a moment. She felt again that blurring of the world and the first shadows that took her before she changed.

Desperately, she fought it off. The shadows around her in the evening garden reached toward her, but then drew back as she felt Lucilla’s hands on her arms.

“What is it, girl?” Lucilla asked.

Regeane realized that for a little while she’d allowed herself to think like a normal woman … To look at her approaching marriage and her bridegroom the way any other young girl would. She couldn’t. She didn’t dare.

Regeane reached down, fumbled for the cup lying among the thyme, afraid she’d broken it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Your wonderful cup,”

“The devil with my cup,” Lucilla said, hands gripping Regeane’s arms. “Are you all right? Never have I seen such an expression of terror on a human’s face. What happened? What frightened you so?”

“There,” Regeane lifted the cup out of the bed of thyme. “Thank heaven it’s not broken.”

Lucilla took the cup from her hands, filled it with wine, and held it to Regeane’s lips. “That’s better. The color’s coming back into your cheeks. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

Regeane knew she could not. No one would understand the silver wolf, not even a woman as worldly-wise and clever as Lucilla. Regeane forced her whirling mind into a semblance of coherence. She’d lived with the wolf for most of her life, and deception had become second nature. She parried Lucilla’s question with another. “What would happen if I defied the king and became a courtesan like you?”

Lucilla looked away from her abruptly, out across the dark garden. “I couldn’t be a party to that.”

“Why?” Regeane asked desperately. “Is Charles so powerful?”

“Yes,” Lucilla said, turning to stare back at Regeane. “He is. It would cost my life to cross him.”

Regeane again felt the terror of her flight from Basil and
the despair that filled her heart the night after her talk with Gundabald.

When she first spoke to Lucilla in the square it seemed somehow miraculously a way of escape lay open before her. The demands made on a courtesan, the sale of her body for money, was repulsive. Yet, she could have borne such a life if it offered freedom to the beautiful, silent creature she was by moonlight.

A courtesan lives alone. She could contrive excuses for her lover or lovers on those nights when the mistress of heaven commanded her heart.

But apparently her encounter with Stephen and Antonius had slammed that door in her face. She was again trapped, with Gundabald and Hugo her only refuge. She had no assurance she could trust them once she had become their accomplice. Either one of them might betray her out of greed or simply spite.

Lucilla stared at Regeane’s face, shadowed by the blue dusk that now lay over the garden, her brow furrowed and troubled. “Little one, tell me what it is you fear so terribly. Maybe it’s nothing so awful that it can’t be taken care of. Eh? Tell me. Is it the touch of a man, a man’s love? Believe me, that can be dealt with. I’ll show you what happens. Most women are afraid at first, but that turns quickly to tedium or, if the woman’s blood is warm enough and the man is reasonably skilled, joy.”

She leaned closer to Regeane and placed an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll tell you a secret. Men love to please their wives and the most clumsy and stupid of them can be trained to pleasure even the most difficult women.”

The look of desolation on Regeane’s face didn’t change.

“Is it childbirth, then?”

Regeane shook her head.

Lucilla drew back. “I am at a loss.”

“Suppose there are other women.”

Lucilla laughed, a high silvery sound. “Is that all?” She patted Regeane’s hand, then kissed her cheek. “Oh, my little one, with your assets—beauty, grace, and a great name—it won’t be necessary for you even to acknowledge other women exist.” Lucilla sniggered. “Set out to enslave him and you will. I
guarantee it. If you but learn a little of what I can teach you, he will worship at your feet.”

Regeane pretended to be reassured. She sipped her wine. The light was gone from the sky, but it was not quite dark. The white flowers of the garden still glowed faintly against the darker masses of vegetation. The reflecting pool was beginning to fill with stars.

Behind her in the open rooms of the villa she could hear the clatter of dishes and cutlery. Lights shone through the open doors and the voices of Lucilla’s servants called back and forth as they set the table for supper.

It was beginning to be chilly. Lucilla’s arm embracing Regeane’s shoulders was warm, and somehow, in spite of the fact that Regeane couldn’t fully confess her fears, comforting.

“Now, my dear,” Lucilla said, giving her shoulders a squeeze, “are you feeling better?”

“Yes,” Regeane said softly, lifting the cup to her lips. She added hesitantly, “But there is one more art you could teach me.”

“What’s that?”

“The art to which one appeals when all other arts fail.”

Lucilla looked down at her, puzzled for a moment. Then she understood and stiffened. Her arms dropped from around Regeane’s shoulders and she drew away. “I see,” she said coldly. “You’re not as guileless as you appear. Is this your idea or was it planted in your head by that uncle of yours?”

Regeane set the cup on the bench and rose to her feet. She stood facing Lucilla, a slender figure in the white stola, the older woman’s face just faintly visible in the light of the lamps in the room behind her.

Regeane felt tears running down her cheeks, tears of rage and sorrow. “All right,” she sobbed out. “I am afraid, but not of men or of children or of my future husband’s wandering eye. The truth is … Oh, my God,” she faltered, “the truth is I can’t tell you the truth. How can you know what my life has been? These hours, these few hours I’ve spent with you, are the first happy ones in years. Since I first bled, since my womanhood came upon me, since …” Regeane clenched her fists and stared up at the moonless sky. “Oh, my God, how can I ever explain?” She cried out, covered her face with her hands and tried to run.

But Lucilla stood up and clasped the girl’s trembling body to her, quieting her as she might a panicked child, stroking her hair and patting her back gently.

“There, there. Don’t torment yourself so. I do believe you are as afraid as you say you are. I don’t know why you won’t tell me this dark secret, but I believe that it exists if only in your mind. And yes, if you so desperately wish it, I’ll teach you that final art. God knows it’s not difficult—a half dozen plants grow in this garden alone. Some in moderation help nature. Increase the amount and they harm it. Physicians steep the poppy capsule in wine. The one who drinks it enjoys a better sleep and freedom from pain; but too much of this potion renders that sleep eternal.”

“I don’t want it for him,” Regeane said, “but for myself.”

“What!” Lucilla stepped back. “Yourself?”

“Some kinds of death are better than others,” Regeane said miserably.

Lucilla’s eyes probed Regeane’s tear-stained face relentlessly. Finally she murmured, “I wish you could bring yourself to trust me with this terrible secret. I get the feeling there’s much more wrong here than …” She broke off as one of the maidservants left the lighted triclinium and approached them.

“My lady, we await you at the table. Shall I bring the child?”

“Oh, Elfgifa. I’d forgotten her, but no matter. There’s more than enough. Yes, yes, get her. She must be tired of waiting for us to join her.”

The maid dimpled. “No, my lady. Right after her bath she fell asleep and awakened only a few minutes ago.”

Another one of the maids approached, leading a yawning Elfgifa by the hand.

“Come,” Lucilla spoke quietly, taking a still distraught Regeane by the hand. “I’m forgetting my duties as a hostess. Don’t upset yourself anymore. We’ll talk tomorrow. For tonight, enjoy yourself. Only light conversation at dinner. After all, we met only today. Why should you trust me with the secrets of your heart?”

Regeane was quiet during the meal, her fears pushed into the background by the problems of dealing with the unfamiliar Roman style of dining.

They ate reclining, the food brought to the couches and set before them by the serving girls. There was a separate table for each course. While this might have been a quiet, informal little supper to Lucilla, it was a grand affair to Regeane.

The tables set before her were decked in embroidered white linen. The dishes and cups were of silver. Above her head, lamps in the shape of alabaster doves had flames leaping from their mouths. Painted on the walls of the chamber, songbirds played out their gentle rite of spring lovemaking amidst the flowers of a garden.

Elfgifa, wide-eyed and on her best behavior, watched Lucilla’s every movement like a hawk and copied her carefully, as did Regeane herself.

Lucilla treated them both with amused indulgence and, as promised, she kept the conversation light. Still, Regeane felt she was being instructed, since most of Lucilla’s talk concerned the multifold factions of the holy city.

The food was simple, but beautifully prepared. Spiced olives and a white cream cheese covered with pepper were the gustato. The appetizers were followed by roast pork with a stuffing of bread, honey, red wine, and bay, served with a miraculous red wine.

The taste astonished Regeane. “It’s wonderful,” she told Lucilla, awed by its smoothness and silken freshness.

Lucilla laughed. “Oh, you Franks reckon wine ready to drink when enough of it will knock a man down, but we age our best, sealing it in clay jars. It mellows the flavor and softens and smoothes it. This is only ten years old, but I have tasted rare vintages upwards of forty and fifty years.”

“Doesn’t it spoil?” Regeane asked.

“Sometimes,” Lucilla admitted, “but those amphoras that survive make it worth the trouble. The worst that happens is that it becomes vinegar, and that may be used in cooking. This wine is from my own estate. Very few people bother to age wine these days,” she explained. “Fine vintages command a correspondingly high price. It’s much more lucrative simply to sell the young wine as soon as it’s drinkable.” She looked sad. “So these civilized arts vanish, but I set aside a few jars for my own table.”

When the pork was gone, the tables were taken away and they relaxed over a chilled, sweet white wine served with honey cakes. It was late now, and Lucilla’s villa, set away from the bustling heart of Rome, partook of the quiet of a country farm. The only sounds Regeane could hear now were the faint night songs of insects in the garden outside and the whisper of the breeze that drifted cool and refreshing through the open door of the triclinium.

A long day, a full stomach, and the half cup of watered wine Lucilla allowed her were all too much for Elfgifa and she fell asleep on the couch. She awakened only briefly when Lucilla signaled a servant to carry her off to bed. Elfgifa protested, but it transpired that the child only wanted a goodnight kiss from Regeane before she would allow herself to be settled in for the night.

Regeane obliged, and Elfgifa went peaceably. When she was gone, there was a brief, awkward silence between the two women. Then they spoke almost simultaneously.

“I’m sorry,” Regeane started to say.

“I do apologize, Regeane …”

They both laughed.

Then Regeane said, “I’m the one who should apologize. I feel I made a fool of myself. I suppose I’ve allowed my fears to prey too much on my mind.”

“Not at all, my dear. I shouldn’t have pressed you.”

Suddenly one of the maids ran into the room from the garden. “My lady, there’s a party of men at the gates!”

Regeane heard shouts and a crash. A woman screamed.

Lucilla jumped up from her couch and ran past the girl into the garden.

A half-dozen armed men stood in the atrium. The light of their torches reflected in the dark water of the pool. One of them stepped forward, and Regeane saw the face she remembered from the square earlier in the day.

He pointed to her and shouted, “There she is. Take her.”

Regeane cringed and turned, not knowing where to run, but Lucilla strode toward him. “Basil, are you mad?” she shouted. “We are under the protection of the Holy Father himself!”

The men with Basil hesitated.

Lucilla’s tall form, her chin lifted fearlessly, stood between Regeane and Basil. “I’ll have your heads for this! All of you!” she threatened.

The men with Basil drew back, looking at each other.

Seeing she had the upper hand for the moment, Lucilla stepped forward to press her advantage. “Leave my house this instant, and I’ll forget this unsavory incident ever occurred.”

Basil laughed, his white teeth gleaming in his dark, bearded face. “My, what airs we give ourselves now, threatening us with the power of the church and the pope. This from the greatest whore in Rome. Whore and panderer.”

Lucilla stiffened with rage, her face a frozen, beautiful mask of fury. Her reply to Basil was low, hoarse, and deadly. “One more step toward me, Basil. I won’t bother about your head. I’ll see you die in torment.”

Basil returned her stare with a heavy-lidded look of contempt and turned toward his men. “What are you, children, that you fear the anger of a woman? I said, take the girl! And as for you, bitch,” he said to Lucilla, “interfere with me again and I’ll send you to ply your trade in hell.”