Night of the Wolf (51 page)

A surprise. The trip had been filled with surprises. The kindness of the people she’d met was one of them. The love she’d found had been another. She had come here to kill, if possible, and, if necessary, to die. She had done neither. Instead, she found friendship, hope, and, at last, love. Because she was in love and had realized it during their night together.

He had none of the wolf’s innocence or his compelling attraction or even his physical beauty. The slender, scarred Roman knew exactly what he was doing. He’d shown her his expertise, in fact, shown off his expertise, something the wolf would never have done at their first encounter.

He played her body like an exquisite instrument, getting each and every response he wished as often and as intensely as he wished. Yet, all the while, he thought of her. She could tell he was delighted with the return of his own virility and happy he’d waited for such a beautifully responsive partner as herself to share these delicious moments with him.

Their second encounter was a virtuoso performance. She had never considered herself beautiful, but he did and told her so, praising charms usually hidden by her clothing. She had not known there were so many specific terms for the body parts he investigated or that the Latin language contained so many words with double meanings. In fact, he seemed to take delight in shocking her, so that he, as he put it, could see her blush all over.

“My delight,” he whispered, “the flush covers your whole body. Here, there, everywhere. My heart, my soul, my own . . .” At some point, they’d both drifted off to sleep only to be awakened by Philo’s knock when Maeniel arrived.

Philo startled her from this reverie by knocking again. “My lady, Alia has prepared breakfast. I must excuse myself. I have to apply restoratives to Aristo, a chilled towel and ardent spirits. A bride who refuses money and asks to see horses the day after her wedding was almost too much for him. My advice to you is to take the money. It comes in handy. Money always does.”

“Yes,” she replied through the door, “and make sure he purchases the horses—one each for you, Alia, Lucius, me, Maeniel, Cut Ear, and Octus. Don’t forget Octus. Send him on right away, along with Alia, to Ostia to wait for us. Get both of them out of the city now.” Then she came out on the porch to face him.

“You mean that?”

“I certainly do. The only people who should remain here are those who can hold up their end in a fight: me, you, Lucius, Cut Ear, and Maeniel. Nothing says you have to obey my orders.”

Octus arrived just then. “Oh, yes, Lucius told us to do exactly what you said.”

“Yes.” Philo looked uneasy. “He did say—”

“Well then, move!” Dryas said. “And tell this man—Aristo, you called him—to get mounts for every one of us within the hour.”

“Yes, my lady,” Octus said, and hurried away.

Philo looked taken aback.

“You did say there was money?” she asked.

“Ye-yes,” he stammered. “Lucius gave me quite a lot.”

“Good,” Dryas said. “Bring it to Gordus and tell him I want to see him as soon as possible.”

“It was for you . . . just in case he . . .”

“Didn’t come back,” she supplied.

“Yes,” Philo said.

“Gordus can probably lay it around more expertly than we could. Put every cent into his hands and tell him to get together every man he can find. He’ll know enough not to call in fools or blabbermouths. Did you say something about breakfast?”

Philo pointed to a table under an arbor near the door.

She glanced at it. Bread, cheese, fruit, porridge, posca. Always posca. “Fine,” she said.

Philo continued to stand staring at her.

“Well?” she asked. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“N-no.”

“Get moving!”

He did.

XXVII

Maeniel and Lucius walked along together until they were about a hundred yards from Caesar’s house, then Maeniel stepped into an alley.

“You don’t mind taking risks, do you?” Lucius asked. “Suppose two other cutthroats had gotten here first?”

“I’ve decided that if anyone tries to rob me, I’ll eat them. It will delay me, but I’ll do it.”

“Yes,” Lucius said slowly. “Are humans tasty?”

“Can’t say,” Maeniel said. “I’ve never had one, but trust me, tasty doesn’t matter to a wolf. Humans gormandize. Wolves eat. As far as they’re concerned, any dinner is tasty. Take care of my clothes.”

They dropped to the ground in front of Lucius and the wolf stepped away. He strolled down the street to Caesar’s door.

The same young legionnaire was on guard. The wolf sat down and gave him a big, curly tongue grin. “Son of a bitch,” the soldier said.

The wolf’s grin grew wider.

“If I don’t, you’ll howl, won’t you?” the legionnaire asked.

Maeniel panted a bit then closed his mouth. He lifted his muzzle toward the stars.

“No, no, no, no, no,” the legionnaire said. He turned and rapped on the door.

It opened a crack.

“That dog’s back.” He sounded unhappy.

“You woke me up to tell me that?” The man inside sounded even more unhappy.

“Yes. He’s going to start howling.”

“You can read his mind?”

“He’s getting himself into position.”

“Well, let him in.”

“We still don’t know if he belongs here,” the legionnaire argued.

“Who cares? He’s a dog. What’s he going to do?”

The young legionnaire stepped aside. Maeniel drifted in, tail elevated, waving gently. He nodded to the sentry inside, lying on a cot near the door, then moved into the atrium, past the death masks, past Lares and Penates. He felt a brief, unhappy frisson of power. They mattered. He sensed something old, but still powerful. The hair on his back lifted in a ridge on his spine. Yes, something was going to happen soon. He went in search of Calpurnia.

She was awake, walking in the garden. When she saw him she said, “He’s not here.” She led him to the baths where clothing was stored on shelves.

In a few moments he returned, dressed in a tunic, mantle, and sandals. He sat down next to her. By the first light of day, he could see how haggard she was. “Another one last night?” he asked.

“Another ones. Every few hours now, they come. I simply take Philo’s medicine. It’s the only thing that helps and it doesn’t help much now.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I want to die, but I waited.”

“Why?” he asked, resting his hand against her cheek.

“Because there’s something I need to do.”

There was movement in the villa. As the light grew, he could hear the slaves in the kitchen lighting the fire and starting breakfast.

One of her maids came out of the round bedroom and looked shocked to see Caesar’s wife in the arms of a man, a young man.

“What do you want her to do?” Maeniel asked.

“Go away!” Calpurnia said.

Maeniel looked up at the woman. “Go away.” The girl went.

“Come with me,” Calpurnia said. Her fingers tightened painfully on his hand.

He helped her to her feet, and she led him out of that garden and down a long colonnade into another garden.

“I’m almost blind in one eye,” she said, “and I can barely walk. But your friends will die unless you have this. So I must give it to you before I depart.”

She walked quickly in spite of her protestations about both pain and blindness. From time to time, she would lurch and stagger against his arm and, once or twice, she might have fallen had he not been there.

“I’m anxious to get it over with. You cannot imagine how tired I am of him, of Rome, the Senate, the whole mess. But for the roses, they might have ruled my life and I would have died much younger, worn out by sorrow.”

As it was, the wolf thought, she was dying of sorrow.

By then, they reached Caesar’s office. There was a lock, but he broke it easily with his fingers. The doors slid back. Caesar’s office was empty, as were the public rooms all around it. The writing table where Caesar worked was bare except for a leather folder. A basket nearby held paper trash. She tipped it over and began to rummage through the contents.

“This is a trick I learned many years ago when I was anxious to learn his mind. He makes more than one draft of everything, usually two or three. Then he removes all extraneous material. This is why some of his toadies praise his style, and he has a good one, very lean, yet graceful. It almost makes you think he’s telling the truth.

“Ah ha!” She rose to her feet with the list in her hand. She passed it to Maeniel. He could not read well, but he could, thanks to Mir’s best efforts, read.

The list named individuals and their possible reasons such as “he’s surely in on intrigue by now,” “wife is tired of his jealousy—besides, he’s one of the richest men in Rome, will split profits with wife sixty-forty,” “would love to stick a knife in me,” and “hates me, curses me every time my back is turned.”

But the most striking name on the list was Marc Antony.
Him, too,
the wolf thought. But his name was crossed off, the notation “not yet” and “drunken, pussy-whipped fool.” Next to another one’s name, “I just want to see his face,” and yes, there was Lucius, but the only notation by his name was “father?” The list included Brutes, “oh yes, my son.”

The paper was badly crumpled, dirty and torn. “It’s in his handwriting and they will recognize it,” Calpurnia said.

Maeniel smoothed the paper, folded it, and helped her out of the room. In the short time they’d been in the office, the sky had darkened perceptibly. Though dawn, it was a gray one and the clouds rolled ominously; even as the day brightened, they turned thicker and blacker.

Outside, in the garden, Calpurnia looked up. “Yes,” she said, “presently. Don’t be impatient. Give me but a few moments more.”

Distant thunder rumbled a warning.

“Yes,” she said. “I know, I know.”

Maeniel put his arm around her waist and she hurried, as well as she was able, to the roses. To his surprise, she didn’t use the entrance, but plucked a rose, a single rose, and handed it to Maeniel.

“You don’t want to go in?” he asked.

“It’s not necessary now. Don’t stand near the jars when I begin to die.”

The light was green now. A sprinkling of big drops splashed on the pavement. The fragrance of roses was almost overpowering. The wolf could smell the components of rose, pepper spicing, a cloying sweetness mixed with the smell of rain on the wind, sadness, bitter regret. Do these things have an odor? To him, they did.

They kissed and he was surprised that though the air was thick with rose, she was perfumed by sea breezes and something less enduring like a flower. Not a heavy scent, but a light one touched with sharpness, exquisitely piercing, the most like the fruit of limes. One offering itself to the senses, but never caught in the net of the perfumer’s art, only experienced when the fresh green fruit is bruised.

Yes, she was unique and could only be experienced, but never captured or possessed. But that, Caesar had never known, he could not conceive of anything he could not possess and anything barring him from possession, he would destroy.

The wolf greedily kissed her again, picked her up, and carried her toward the frightened maids.

He barely reached the circular room when the storm struck. He laid her on the bed and backed out of the room. Rain drenched the gardens behind him and, as he turned away, her women began to scream. Her body convulsed as her spirit struggled to break free of the confining, but beloved flesh.

Was that thunder? No, it was deafening. The hooves landed on the cobbles and Maeniel saw the steed clearly for the first time. He was the color of the storm clouds, like old hammered silver, dappled from dark to light, and big, bigger than the largest horse Maeniel had ever seen. This time, he wore a saddle with ivory and gold trappings.

Lightning flashed white, blinding, closely accompanied by a clap of thunder that shook the walls. The wolf heard a cry. The head was beautiful, eyes onyx, nostrils wide and red against the velvety soft muzzle.

He reared, striking the pavement with his forehooves as he dropped back. The long, curling mane and tail seemed somehow made up of, or part of, the storm clouds, sending down rain in gossamer curtains between heaven and earth.

Boom! He struck the earth with one forehoof and the stone where it fell boiled, sending up water in a cloud of steam.

Then she came. The form in the bed surrounded by her hysterical women was still now. Servants and soldiers ran in from everywhere in the house, alarmed by the women’s cries.

She paused next to Maeniel and smiled. “Good-bye. I can’t kiss you because I’m not really here, but live long and be well. Don’t stand near those stone jars when he leaves. The gates are going to close.”

Her steed knelt as he had before and, in a second, she settled herself in the saddle.

The wind roared, but even Maeniel could hear the creature’s cry of joy and triumph above the rage of the elements. Rain slashed at his face.

It leaped, driven upward by its back hooves, high into the air, clear of the villa and its walls, into the roaring wind and wild storm above it. Then, with a snap louder than the thunder, the giant wings opened and it was gone.

He remembered her warning and dashed back to her chamber. A two-forked bolt of lightning struck the jars filled with roses. The plants themselves hissed, steamed, then burst into flame. The jars exploded, showering the courtyard with pottery fragments and dirt, and sending every human being within sight or sound of them diving for cover.

Maeniel covered his head, the paper, and the rose with his mantle and ran. On his way, he passed the two legionnaires who had been guarding the door. They were sheltered from both storm and confusion near the altar of the household gods.

“I told you,” the young one said, “we shouldn’t have let that dog in here.”

“You really think he had something to do with this? Caused all this commotion?” the other one asked.

“I suppose it sounds silly . . .” his friend replied.

“You planning to make a career of the army?”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, well, I do,” said the older man. “You go telling your commanding officer stories like that, you wind up guarding goats in farther Hispania. There aren’t anything but goats in farther Hispania.”

“I see.”

“I sincerely hope so because I don’t plan on joining you there at any time in the near future. The first thing any soldier should learn is never volunteer. The second is—”

“Don’t tell me,” the youngster said. “When to shut up.”

The older man didn’t answer. He just nodded.

Dryas got her horses; Aristo was efficient. She mounted Alia and Octus on the best ones and sent them on ahead, telling both of them, “Find inconspicuous lodging and don’t tell anyone who you are or why you’re there. If we don’t follow you by tomorrow, don’t try to contact us. If we aren’t there by the following day, we won’t come. Don’t return and look for us. Keep on going.” Since she spoke to Alia in her own language, Alia understood her well enough. “Find a Caledonian ship if you can,” Dryas said, “and go beyond the reach of Roman arms or power.” Then she gave both of them money and sent them on their way.

Then she asked, “Philo?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

“He will worry,” she said.

“I know, but I’ll stay anyhow.”

“Stubborn,” she said.

“We are known for it” was the reply.

“Cut Ear?”

Cut Ear laughed. “You should run first. Little, small, woman. What you do here?”

“Bring him back to my people or die in the attempt,” Dryas flared back at him.

“Ya, die in the attempt, because Caesar is here now with his woman.”

They heard the tramp of booted feet on the street. Dryas hurried back to the old part of the house where Lucius made his home and waited in the garden. Aristo showed Caesar into the garden. He was accompanied by Cleopatra, Fulvia, Firminius, and about a dozen soldiers.

“You see,” Fulvia said, pointing to Dryas. She sounded shrill. “He’s trying to marry her.”

“Well, he can’t,” Caesar said calmly. “It’s against the law.”

Dryas tried to catch Cleopatra’s eye, but the queen avoided her gaze.

“Fulvia,” Caesar said, “a word to the wise. When she has served her purpose or, should I say, my lady’s purposes—” He nodded to Cleopatra. “—let him have his fling. In a month or more, he will likely grow tired of her or, quite possibly, she will weary of him. After all, they can’t have that much in common. Here she can’t claim any rank much higher than a slave or, at best, a freedwoman belonging to your house.”

“What about the . . . other matter?” Fulvia asked. Her lips were a tight white line and her eyes glittered with malice.

Caesar gave Fulvia a glance that still made strong men quail. “I had believed you to be a person of intelligence and well-ordered judgment. Don’t make me change my opinion. Your father made his choice. Had he any doubts about your brother’s paternity, he simply could have ordered the infant exposed. A father’s rights in that respect are absolute. He didn’t, and since he is now beyond all human questioning, his judgment is final. I will not have such a case brought at law. Every legitimate heir in Rome would be howling for my head. I would do a lot for my friends, but this I will not do.”

Yes,
Dryas thought,
keep on, Fulvia, and your name will find its way on to one of his lists. His or hers.

Caesar gazed at Dryas. “My lady—” He indicated Cleopatra. “—believes you have the power to read the future and she wants you to look into ours.”

“Why do you think I can do this?” Dryas asked.

Caesar’s face hardened. “I don’t plan to explain myself to you. Do as my lady asks.”

The command was unmistakable. Dryas tried again to catch Cleopatra’s eye. The beautiful queen wouldn’t look at her; instead she rested her hand on Caesar’s arm and gazed into his eyes. He returned her adoring look with one of his own.