The Silver Wolf

by Alice Borchardt

  “No,” Hadrian said implacably. “No, I won’t give the order and neither will you. Not only because I love you both, but because I know myself and I know what I can live with. No. I called him brother for far too long. Besides, even his death might not save me. There already is talk of a synod of bishops being convened—no doubt inspired by my good friends Desiderius and Basil the Lombard—to try me and determine my fitness for the office of supreme pontiff. If I should be judged tainted by Antonius’ disease, well then …”

  He drew Lucilla toward him and she rested her head on his shoulder like a tired child. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “And so,” she asked, “after we’ve come so far, will we fail in the end?”

  “Perhaps,” Hadrian answered, his lips in her hair. “Perhaps, but we’ll fail as we began, honorably, honestly, because I can’t believe however … irregular … our love has been or seemed in the eyes of the world, it has never been less than honest and honorable.”

  Lucilla drew away from him slightly and smiled up at him through her tears. “Yes, that’s true, isn’t it? We’ve both tried to do our best for this beleaguered, war-weary city and its people, haven’t we?”

  Hadrian nodded. “Yes, my friend. We have, and that’s why I won’t yield to your demands or Desiderius’. You spoke a while ago of having the destiny of men and nations in your hands.”

  “And do I find in Antonius’ fate only a rebuke to my pride?” she asked.

  “No,” Hadrian answered, “but of its price, the price of responsibility. If worse comes to worst, I’ll abdicate. And rather than allow harm to come to you or Antonius, I would abdicate. After all, others can pursue my policies as well as—or better than—I can. It doesn’t do for a man in my position to start believing he’s indispensable.”

  He chuckled. “After all, countless men have occupied the see of Peter and doubtless many more will sit where I’m sitting and try to convince themselves they, and they alone, are God’s anointed singulars and cannot be replaced. But I’m not so naive, Lucilla. I understand perfectly that I am but one link in a human chain stretching back through the ages and forward into generations yet unborn. I will not save myself at the price of infamy.”

  “Infamy, no,” Regeane said, “but …”

  Both Hadrian and Lucilla started, and Regeane realized that they’d almost forgotten she was there.

  “I believe,” she continued slowly, “that I can help Antonius, perhaps even save him. Only don’t …” She stuttered the words a little and realized now that she was bargaining for her future. She was terribly afraid. She gathered herself together and pressed on. “Don’t ask me too many questions about how …”

  Hadrian smiled and Regeane saw, even in the half-darkened room, the same glint of authority in his eyes she’d seen when they first met.

  “Don’t ask too many questions, eh?”

  “Please don’t,” she quavered.

  Hadrian grinned. “Never fear,” he said. “As I told you, over the years I’ve learned those who Lucilla calls friend are discreet and reliable. I’ve also learned not to question them too closely about their activities.”

  Regeane breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  “A polite girl,” Hadrian said ironically.

  “An unusual girl,” Lucilla said. “Avery unusual girl.”

  Hadrian turned toward Lucilla and raised one eyebrow.

  “I beg you, my love. Listen carefully to what she has to say,” Lucilla said.

  Regeane took a deep breath. “I will want something for myself.”

  “What?” Hadrian asked.

  “I want you,” Regeane said, “to draw up the marriage contract, not my uncle, Gundabald; and I want the contract to contain a provision allowing me my own domicile, my own servants and men-at-arms.”

  The pope’s eyes narrowed as he studied Regeane. “You really are afraid of this man, aren’t you? So afraid you want to live apart from him.”

  “Yes,” Regeane answered simply. “I do.”

  Hadrian’s brows drew together into a deep frown as he looked from Lucilla to Regeane and back again. “There is no help for Antonius.”

  Lucilla didn’t answer. She stood up. She was as beautifully dressed as the rest of the pope’s guests in a long chemise of green silk, embroidered with white roses that brought out her splendid strawberry blond coloring and fair complexion. She drifted away from Hadrian toward a doorway in the far corner of the room. “I’ve been crying,” she said. “I’ll need to repair my face. I need a mirror.”

  “You are as lovely as always,” Hadrian said with sweet gallantry, “but if you don’t believe my assurances, there’s a mirror on the table by the door.” Then he turned and stared at Regeane. “I can see,” he said, “that neither of you intends to tell me anything more about your plans.”

  Regeane’s fists were tightly clenched in her lap. The knuckles were white. She didn’t answer.

  “No,” Lucilla said, standing over the table. It was cluttered with books, loose parchments, wax tablets, pens, ink, and other miscellaneous administrative paraphernalia. “A mirror here?”

  “A great deal of chancery work goes on in this room,” Hadrian said. “All sort of things end up here.”

  “But a mirror,” Lucilla commented, beginning to sort through the objects on the table.

  Outside, Regeane saw the lightning cut a bright jagged path across the sky. She heard in the distance a faint rumble of thunder.

  Another breath, not strong enough to be called a breeze, wafted from the distant rainstorm and freshened the stuffiness of the room. Regeane was conscious of the wolf’s silent, sullen rebellion.

  What had she to do with politics, or feasts, or costly raiment?

  Outside, the rain would be sweeping across the Campagna. The wolf wanted to run with the rain, watch the storm fires sweep across the heavens, and thrill to the thunder rolling through the clouds. Be a part of the storm’s majesty as it moved across the winter countryside.

  But the woman shouldered her aside and realized Hadrian hadn’t given her an answer. “The marriage contract,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he said shrewdly, “the marriage contract. Tell me, how much of this man’s wealth do you plan to take as part of the bargain? A third? A fourth? As much as he will yield for the privilege of being married to a woman of the royal house?”

  Hadrian’s eyes fixed on Regeane, cold and compelling in the candlelight.

  Regeane was surprised at the ferocity in her voice as she answered. “His wealth? I hadn’t given his money—” She spat the word contemptuously. “—one single thought until you brought it up. I only want to assure my own safety. I’m afraid.”

  The word seemed to carry the whole fright of her terror from the black depths of her own soul out into the open. “I’m afraid,” she cried. “Can’t you see how frightened I am?”

  Hadrian drew back. “Yes, I can see. Your fear is immense. I don’t quite comprehend the reason for it, but yes, I can see that it is.”

  “Perhaps,” Lucilla said, “that’s because you’ve never been a woman.”

  “Yes,” Hadrian answered, “and perhaps it’s because you and this girl with the pretty, innocent face are up to some tricks so nefarious you don’t dare acquaint me with the details.”

  Lucilla had found the mirror and was walking back toward Hadrian with the silver circlet held down against her gown.

  “I seem to remember you taking the matter of Paul Afartha on yourself,” Hadrian snapped back at her, “signing his death warrant.”

  “I signed nothing,” Lucilla said. “I only let the Archbishop of Ravenna know that you wouldn’t be prostrate with grief if Paul died suddenly. And he did—die suddenly,” she said with cold satisfaction in her voice.

  “So suddenly,” Hadrian said, “that he had no time for contrition.”

  Lucilla seemed stunned into fury by his words. “In the name of God, Hadrian. How much time did Paul give Sergus for contrition? He w
as blinded, beaten, half strangled, and thrust into his tomb while he was still struggling, to die of suffocation in agony and despair. I’d like to remind you, Sergus was your friend and mine.”

  All at once Hadrian looked old and tired. “Very well,” he said quietly. “The bargain is made. The terms of the marriage contract will be as you wish.”

  Regeane took a deep breath and let out a long, fluttering sigh.

  Lucilla looked into the mirror in her hand. Her shriek echoed through the room. A second later the silver clattered and rang on the stone floor as Lucilla flung it away from her as though it were a living serpent.

  The mirror skittered across the marble and came to rest at Regeane’s feet. She leaned forward in the chair and looked down into the silver reflecting surface.

  The face she saw was not her own. Regeane started back, jerking her eyes away. Lightning flashed, this time close enough to illuminate the room brightly for a second. The curtains belled out in the wind.

  “Adraste’s mirror!” Lucilla screamed. “Adraste’s mirror here!” Her face was the color of ash, blue around the mouth and eyes. Regeane knew she had also felt the presence pass.

  “Nonsense,” Hadrian snapped impatiently. “Calm yourself, Lucilla. How could Adraste’s mirror be here?”

  Lucilla stood still, one hand pressed against her breast for a moment, then regained her composure with an obvious effort of will. In the distance, Regeane heard the music begin.

  In the garden, big, fat drops of rain began to splat against the flagstones and splash in the fishpond.

  Hadrian rose from the bench. “We must go now,” he said. “My guests will be gathering in the triclinium, waiting for me to greet them.”

  Regeane picked up the mirror at her feet. She felt the same as she had at Cumae. The same dazed sense of unreality she had felt when the ghostly procession passed her by. She knew the mirror was there for her, sent to her somehow, but why she couldn’t begin to guess. Still she took it, and dropped it between the silk lining and the heavy brocade outer dress.

  Hadrian paused next to Lucilla and gave her a quick kiss, saying sadly, “Tonight after the feast, we can be alone.”

  Their faces, the way they looked at each other, reminded Regeane very much of an old, married couple who had seen many changes in fortune, many struggles, but who still clung together, and bound by ties shaped over a lifetime, and by love, by laughter, and by tears until they had now reached a kind of peaceful understanding that no worldly crisis could breach.

  “My love,” Lucilla said and touched his face. Then Hadrian was gone and they were alone.

  “Come,” Lucilla said. “Hadrian’s right. We must hurry.” She lifted a lamp from the table and began to guide Regeane through the shadowy maze of rooms back to the triclinium where the feast was being held.

  They had reached a long, covered colonnaded porch when Lucilla stopped, shielding the lamp flame with her hand to wait for the wind to die down. It drove the rain across the porch in wavering curtains and water streamed in silver sheets from the overhang.

  Regeane and Lucilla stood as the wind twisted and turned the bushes and trees in the garden and the rain fell in torrents.

  “I don’t know what you’re planning,” Lucilla said softly, “but I advise you to keep Antonius hidden.” She seized Regeane’s arm and Regeane felt her nails bite into the flesh. “And if you think to terrorize me with your other shape, think again. I’m not afraid of wolves. I saw them often when I tended my father’s flocks in the mountains. They are cowardly beasts that can be driven off by stones and curses.”

  Regeane twisted her arm out of Lucilla’s grip with one, quick movement, saying, “I cannot be driven off by stones and curses.”

  Outside the wind died. The rain poured straight down, a dense, roaring flood. The storm was at its height. A haze of moisture drifted through the portico, settling on Regeane’s hair and face.

  Lucilla stepped forward. “Come away. You’ll ruin your dress.”

  Regeane stayed where she was, feeling the wolf rise strong and uneasy inside her. “Something’s wrong. There is danger. The wolf feels it. I feel it,” she whispered.

  “Of course there’s danger. You’re in danger right now from me, if only you had the wit to see it. I’m not Hadrian. Hadrian is a man. He can afford to be complacent. The mob would weep if he abdicated, but that selfsame mob would blame me, sack my villa, and drag me through the streets to face a Lombard tribunal that would be only too happy to take my life. Any and all of these things might happen if Antonius is found. My life depends on you, and I’m not even sure what you are.”

  “It won’t comfort you to know,” Regeane said, “that I’m not sure either. I’ve never had a chance to learn.”

  Regeane turned to Lucilla and Lucilla took a step backward and gave vent to a hoarse cry. “Don’t … don’t look at me,” she stammered. “Your eyes reflect the lamplight like … an animal’s.”

  “Like a wolf,” Regeane said. She could hear the harsh sound of Lucilla’s breathing. “Lucilla,” she implored. “Please …” She extended her hand into the darkness, but Lucilla only drew a little further away from her. “Lucilla, are you losing your nerve? Tell me what’s wrong? What’s really wrong?”

  “Regeane, why did you take Adraste’s mirror? I know it’s Adraste’s. The pattern is original, her own. She drew it for the silversmith who made it. The same pattern was on all her personal possessions.”

  “Because the mirror was sent to me, meant for me,” Regeane said. She moved toward Lucilla again.

  “Don’t come any closer. Don’t come near me,” Lucilla whispered. “The last time I saw that mirror was when I placed it in Adraste’s coffin. Then they closed the stone lid of her sarcophagus forever over the mirror, over Adraste’s lovely, evil, greedy face. I know where that mirror came from … because I put it in her hand.”

  XIV

  REGEANE WALKED TO HER COUCH IN THE TRICLINIUM over a carpet of flowers.

  The room was as beautiful as any church Regeane had ever seen. The flower-strewn floor was patterned with green and white marble.

  Couches covered with purple silk velvet were arranged around two enormous half-moon-shaped tables. The pope’s couch occupied the space near the back wall in the opening between two ends of the tables. It was set high on a raised dais.

  Musicians were gathered in the open area between the two semi-circular tables and the soft waterfall of notes from the harp and cythera mingled with the plaintive cry of the flutes.

  On the curved walls, the larger-than-life frescoes of the twelve apostles looked down on the silks and velvets of the glittering guests.

  From a tall mosaic panel in the center of the room behind the pope’s couch, a stiff Byzantine Christ gazed down, his hand raised to bless the pontiff at dinner.

  The apostles in the frescoes weren’t stiff or formal. They strolled together in groups through the lush beauty of a Roman summer. They resembled a crowd of peasants taking their ease at siesta time beneath the trees, heavy with fruit and foliage. Looking out over meadows alight with scarlet poppies and golden wheat ripening in the fields. Mark’s lion played like a kitten in the long, green grass. Matthew’s eagle soared like a falcon on the hunt. Peter lounged under a tree, his keys in his belt, nets folded beside him.

  “Antonius!” Regeane said sadly.

  “Yes,” Lucilla answered. “At first I thought he was mad hanging around those silly painters’ workshops, grinding colors, messing with plaster and stucco when Hadrian could have sponsored him. Assured him of a brilliant career in the church. But then when I saw what he produced … Alas, we poor Romans, floundering in a sea of barbarism, can still comfort ourselves with beauty. As though it were important,” she added bitterly.

  Regeane, still gazing at the magnificent painting, said, “It is.”

  “Yes,” Lucilla said thoughtfully. “Yes, you’re right. Perhaps these things are our immortality. Perhaps it is for them that we will be remembered when all el
se is dust.”

  Elfgifa was standing beside Regeane’s couch. Augusta’s friends were making a big fuss over her. Indeed, dressed in adult clothing, her hair braided with pearls as Regeane’s, she looked a perfect little doll.

  A big woman, dressed in the sober garb of a nun, pushed her way through the crowd around them and introduced herself. “I am the Abbess Emilia, and that, unless I miss my guess,” she pointed to the child, “is Elfgifa.”

  The ladies around the child parted to let Abbess Emilia through. Emilia confronted Elfgifa with hands on her hips, an expression of disapproval on her face.

  “Aunt Emilia,” Elfgifa said.

  “Don’t ‘Aunt Emilia’ me, you naughty child. Your father has been frantic with worry about you.”

  Elfgifa’s lower lip began to slide out and Regeane knew this was a danger sign.

  “It wasn’t my fault I was captured by pirates.”

  “Yes, it was,” Emilia boomed. “You know very well you were told not to run away and play with the fishermen’s sons. Our coast isn’t safe,” she explained to the rest. “The Northmen prowl everywhere, looking for loot, trying to take our people as slaves and sell them to the Greeks. Your father was afraid you were lost forever. In fact,” Emilia shook her finger in Elfgifa’s face, “you’ve grown up so much that even if I had found you, I don’t know if I’d have recognized you.”

  Elfgifa appealed to Regeane. “Why do they always say you’ve grown? What do they expect at my age, for me to get smaller? You’ve grown, too,” she said to Emilia. “This way.” The little girl spread her arms in a measuring gesture. “Stout.”

  A wave of soft titters swept the group of women around Emilia.

  “Outrageous!” Lucilla said. “Young lady, not another word. Greet your aunt properly with a kiss on the cheek. I believe we had a discussion on the way here about the differences between private and public behavior.”

  “I remember,” Elfgifa said, looking chastened and guilty.